CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mrs Oade looked frailer than ever, her complexion pasty, her skin paper-thin. She was lying in a wooden cot in the corner of a large bedroom, which gave her an even more wasted appearance.
She had not stirred as Lucy approached the bed, and her eyes remained closed. Lucy spied a straight-backed chair near the window and went to fetch it, setting it down by the bedside. She sat down, and reached to capture one of the blue-veined hands and hold it between both her own.
A slight movement of the head showed Mrs Oade had noted the change. Her eyelids flickered but did not lift. Lucy called her softly. “Mrs Oade.”
She had to repeat the name two more times before the woman’s lids lifted, exposing pallid blue eyes. They blinked and turned in the direction of the voice.
“It is Lucy, Mrs Oade. Do you remember me?”
There was no immediate recognition in the old woman’s eyes. Lucy felt compassion stir, and the compulsion throbbed intensely within her.
“Mrs Oade — Grandmother — I am Alice’s daughter. You remember Alice?”
At that, something changed in the aged eyes, and a rheum glistened at their edges. The cracked voice came out. Weaker, but just as Lucy remembered it.
“Alice. My Alice.”
“Yes,” Lucy said eagerly, gripped by the urge that drove her. “I am Alice’s daughter. My name is Lucy.”
The old woman’s gaze focused on Lucy’s face. Her hand wavered and Lucy squeezed it again.
“Alice’s girl? Alice’s babe?”
Lucy’s vision blurred. She clutched the woman’s hand tightly between both her own, and her voice went husky.
“Yes, Grandmother. Alice’s babe. I am Alice’s girl.” A sigh left the woman’s lips, and moisture squeezed out at the corners of her eyes. Lucy leaned closer. “I have come to tell you something, which I hope will comfort you.”
Mrs Oade’s gaze grew blank. Had she understood?
Lucy tried again. “I have news, Mrs Oade. News of Alice.”
The skin about the old woman’s eyes moved and a faint frown appeared. She focused on Lucy’s face. The compulsion was suddenly very strong. Lucy obeyed it without will.
“Alice was married, Mrs Oade. I found the church. It is all in the register. Alice married the man who made her with child. Do you understand me? She was wedded to him.”
At first the creature looked bemused. But something had gone through. “Wed?”
“Yes, they were wed. I am not a love child, and Alice was not disgraced.”
At last it seemed the news had sunk in. The hand she held returned a measure of Lucy’s pressure, if weakly. Then a series of gasping little cries came chasing one another from her lips.
Alarmed, Lucy thought for a moment her breathing was in difficulties. Or she was becoming hysterical. But the woman’s mouth was smiling, and at length Lucy took in that she was laughing.
With surprising strength, Mrs Oade spoke out into the air. “Good on you, Alice! Good on you, girl!”
Suddenly, Lucy felt lighter. The pressure in her chest eased. An immense feeling of peace descended upon her and all desire to weep was washed away.
Her grandmother’s fit of cackling subsided after a while, and she sank back into a semi-stupor, her eyes slowly closing. But the smile was yet upon her mouth. A wisp of an idea sailed through Lucy’s mind: that Mrs Oade would not wake again.
She rose from the chair and quietly left the old dame in peace.
Stefan had not many minutes to wait before the farmer appeared. He exhibited extreme belligerence at seeing Stefan again, asking him in a tone of truculence whether he did not remember the blunderbuss.
“I remember it very well, I thank you,” Stefan told him, equally hostile. “But I think you may change your tune when you hear what I have to say.”
He then took great pleasure in informing the fellow of his sister’s marriage to the man who had allegedly ruined her. Oade stood dumbstruck, his mouth opening and closing several times before he managed to get the words out.
“Wed? He wedded her?”
“He did.”
Oade blinked, repeating it in disbelieving tones. “Wed?”
“Certainly. You may visit St Bride’s church at Much Marcle and see it for yourself, if you don’t believe me.”
Oade heaved a snorting sigh. “Wed! Wed to a lord, and she never said nothing.”
“No doubt she felt you were unlikely to listen.”
The farmer growled in his throat for a while. Then his bull-like head thrust to and fro. “Where’s the girl?”
“Talking to your mother.” Stefan signalled Cobbold to stand guard by the door. “And if you have any notion of resorting to that damned blunderbuss, let me advise you to steer clear of my groom there. He has a useful right.”
Oade took one look at the groom’s square-jawed and stolid stance and retreated a pace. He glared again at Stefan. “Alice ain’t been treated right. Seems to me as there had ought to be a reckoning.”
Stefan could hardly believe his ears. He laughed outright. “Are you daring to think of demanding compensation? Who is at fault here, I should like to know?” Disgust overcame him. “You are contemptible.”
Oade clenched his fists, but Cobbold marched up to flank his master and he thought better of whatever intention he had in mind, dropping back.
“There’s much I could say would harm that girl.”
Furious, Stefan strode forward to confront the man. “You try it, fellow! I’ll have my lawyer down here so fast you’ll be rotting in gaol within hours of the first sally.”
“Stefan?”
He turned his head swiftly. Lucy had come through the front door. Stefan instantly crossed over to her. “Come, let us leave this place. Cobbold, unhitch the horses.”
The groom went to fetch the curricle from where he had left it, tying the reins to a fence. Stefan handed Lucy into the vehicle, and jumped up to take his own seat.
“Let them go.”
Cobbold released the team and scrambled for his perch as Stefan whipped the horses up, anxious to be shot of the wretched Oade as quickly as he might.
But the creature bawled after them to the last. “You ain’t heard the last of me, not by a long chalk you ain’t! I’ll have my rights!”
Lucy covered her ears as the coarse threats pursued them halfway down the lane. Stefan glanced across at her.
“We are out of earshot, never fear.”
Her hands came down. “He is a brute and a monster. Did you tell him?”
She listened to a recital of her abominable uncle’s attempts at extortion and blackmail without comment. At the end, she let out a weary sigh.
“I think he must be truly mad. I do hope he will not bully poor Mrs Oade, and will let her slip away peacefully.”
Then she relapsed into thought. Stefan was a trifle concerned, although she did not appear to be despondent.
“You are very quiet,” he commented, after he had driven several miles in silence.
Lucy glanced round. “I am thinking.”
“About Oade?”
“No, I am not thinking of him, but of his sister.”
“Alice, you mean.”
Lucy turned to him, and Stefan was struck by a different light in her eyes, a lessening of the troubled mind she’d exhibited these several days. A stirring of hope rose up in his breast.
“Stefan, I think she is at peace now, like her mother. You will laugh at me, but I believe she has been instrumental in almost all I have done.”
Stefan had no belief in the supernatural, but if thinking of the matter in this light was of comfort to Lucy, he was unwilling to dash her down. “I dare say it is possible.”
“Well, only look at how things have turned out,” Lucy urged.
“Did I not begin with an undefined desire to seek out the author of my misfortunes, as I thought of your uncle then? And when we returned to Upledon to fetch my things, why did I feel so strongly I must find out something of the woman who had given birth to me? It all fits, Stefan. When you thought to secure my future, it was to your Aunt Dorothea that I went. And only she could have told us the truth and set us on the path to discovery.”
Despite himself, Stefan caught a little of her enthusiasm. “It was at St Bride’s, where she was wed, you felt her so strongly.”
“You see! It is not coincidence, I am sure it is not.”
He smiled across at her. “My love, if you choose to believe it was Alice working from beyond the veil, who am I to gainsay you? For all I know, it may well be so.”
To his intense satisfaction, she heaved a great sigh and shifted closer to him on the seat, tucking one hand under his rein arm. “Can you drive if I hold you?”
“Without the least difficulty,” he told her, and was gratified when she leaned in and kissed his cheek.
“Cobbold, turn your eyes elsewhere,” Stefan ordered, and pulled up his team.
When he set his horses in motion a few moments later, he felt deliciously refreshed. “We really must get married,” he murmured for Lucy’s ears alone. “And that right speedily.”
Lucy blushed and allowed one of her hands to settle cosily upon his thigh. “Do you suppose I might purchase a suitable gown in Gloucester?”
“You may buy all the gowns you wish, my darling.”
“But not with your money,” Lucy protested at once. “You must allow me a trifle of independence. I come to you without dowry or any other advantage.”
“What do you suppose I care for that? Besides, I don’t think I could cope with the complications of supplying you with a dowry out of my own coffers and then paying it back to myself.”
Lucy had to laugh. “That is all very well, but pray indulge me in this one thing, Stefan. At heart, I am only the vicar’s daughter. Let Papa be the one to supply my wants on this occasion.”
“Very well.” Stefan flicked a glance at her, in which she recognised the teasing gleam she was coming to know. “On one condition.”
“Oh? And what condition might that be, sir?”
“That you indulge me in your turn and agree to honeymoon in Much Marcle.”
“Much Marcle?” Lucy exclaimed. “Why in the world should you wish to remain there?”
“I have conceived a liking for the place,” Stefan said at his blandest.
Lucy eyed him with puzzlement. “But should we not go back to Pennington as soon as may be? Dion will be anxious to know how we have fared.”
“You may write to tell her, and we will send Cobbold back with the news. Indeed, I must send you back, anyway, Cobbold,” he said, throwing the words over his shoulder.
“For what purpose?”
“I need Barnsley to arrange for my lawyer to come and witness your legitimacy in the register here.”
“But the lawyer can come here without you, can he not?”
“Ah, but I must guard the evidence, in case your mad uncle should take it into his head to meddle.”
Lucy eyed his profile with growing suspicion, half convinced he was joking.
“And then there is Paulina,” he added coolly. “She is bound to kick up the devil of a dust. Do you truly wish to face that?”
“Not in the least. But we cannot hide away forever, Stefan. We will have to brave it out at some time. And I cannot imagine why in the world you are so set upon Much Marcle.”
He turned his head and the gleam in his eye spoke volumes. “Can you not? Then your memory is regrettably short, my love.”
“Are you thinking of my mother’s having been married there?”
“I was not, but what a romantic notion you have given me,” Stefan declared. “Shall we be married at St Bride’s too?”
Lucy caught her breath on a sudden pang and her eyes pricked. “Yes! Oh, yes, Stefan, if you please.”
Transferring the reins to one hand, he reached to catch her close against him for a moment. Lucy sniffed away the threatening tears and smiled at him as he released her.
“That was charming of you, Stefan. Thank you.”
A short laugh escaped him. “It was a last resort rather, but I am glad it makes you happy.”
Lucy eyed him in puzzlement. “But if that was not your reason for wishing to stay in Much Marcle, then — oh!”
Warmth swept through her as she suddenly recalled the wild entanglement in his bed last night.
“The penny drops at last,” he teased.
Lucy lowered her tone to an admonishing hiss. “Stefan, you are outrageous!”
“But not, you will agree, high-handed and autocratic.”
“Worse,” Lucy told him, trying not to laugh. “You are horridly devious and will do anything to get your own way.”
“Well, if you truly do not wish for it, you have time enough to argue the point until we have secured this special licence.”
But Lucy, discovering in herself a partiality for Much Marcle and all it had to offer which more than matched that of her prospective spouse, abandoned any attempt to avail herself of the opportunity.
***