Chapter 42
To her own embarrassment, Caroline indulged in a little cry after Gervaise left. She felt drained and disinclined to crane her eyes over the tiny dress fastenings she still had left to attach to the doll’s gown. Instead, she changed out of her new gown and into her old blue one.
Removing her ankle boots and pulling on Gervaise’s thick woolen socks, she settled before the fire with a blanket over her legs. The cats joined her there and they spent a couple of hours dozing before the fire.
If a log slipped or sent a shower of sparks, she gave a start which irritated the cats, but she could not help it.
She still felt terribly uneasy, though she was not sure she could explain it even to herself, let alone Gervaise.
Thank God she had not seen Lady Sharpe with her own eyes!
She might have embarrassed them both by turning tail and fleeing the spot! What a little idiot she was.
It seemed the mere idea of Penarth now drove all rational thoughts from her head.
Over and again she told herself not to be a fool, that she had allowed something innocuous to grow out of all proportion in her mind.
That vision she had suffered of the dead body in the pergola.
But it had not been real! At the time her nerves had been overset. She had not been in her right mind.
Gervaise maintained she had been drugged, but if so, she was sure she never had been before.
Why would Mama have slipped some of her own tonic into Caroline’s breakfast tea?
It made no sense. She was being stupid. She needed to pull herself together.
A wet log in the fire spat and Caroline jumped.
Remus cast a reproachful look over his shoulder at her, and she reached out a placating hand to stroke his shoulders.
His soft fur helped soothe her a little, and Romulus rolled over to show his gray belly, which she dutifully petted awhile, but it was no good. She was still on edge. Telling herself it was all nonsense did not dispel her fears one bit.
For some reason, every fiber of her being told her that danger lurked in Penarth. Yes, danger. That was what she felt deep down in her soul. That if she were ever to return to Benham Hall she would end up like Sophy. She gave a gasp as she realized her thoughts. Like Sophy?
But no, she thought with a frown, she was being stupid again, for it had not been Sophy when she had first had the vision.
Originally, she had seen herself lying there in the pergola, dead.
It was only later that her dreams had distorted the memory to show Sophy lying there cold and still. She stifled a sob.
But now she had thought it, she could not unthink it. It did not matter how much she tried to put it out of her mind, she could not. And even worse, the other dream kept intruding on her thoughts until it now seemed almost worse than the first one. The one where she remembered that white hand.
That delicate white hand which had snatched the letter from her breakfast plate that morning. Mama’s hand. She caught her breath. There was absolutely no reason for the accompanying terror that crept over her when she remembered it, but she could feel the hairs on her neck standing up.
Giving her head a little shake, she told herself she needed to separate the dream from reality.
She concentrated on Mama’s elegant, tapering fingers, the frilled lace of her cuff.
Were they genuine memory or dream? She could not now be sure but one thing was certain.
On the morning it actually occurred she had not been so perturbed.
No, she decided. It had all seemed perfectly normal.
The only unusual factor had been that Mama had lost her temper with poor Sophy and turned on her in anger.
Usually, Mama kept her tone sweet and her words syrupy.
That morning though, her pretty face had contorted with fury and Sophy had shrunk away from her.
Then, it occurred to Caroline that something else unusual had happened, for she had received a letter.
Caroline never received letters, not since her school days.
When Edgar wrote from Exeter, he would write to Mama and sometimes include a postscript for Caroline, but never a separate letter of her very own.
Then she remembered that the letter had not been for her after all.
Mama had said so. And yet… She screwed up her eyes with the effort of recollection.
And yet…she could have sworn from the brief glimpse she had of it that it had been addressed to her.
That it had been addressed to someone with the name of Halperston and not Needham.
She was the only person who bore that name in their household.
But who on earth would be writing to her?
A solicitor, her thoughts whispered back to her.
But where had that come from? Then she remembered that she had told Gervaise it had been a solicitor’s letter once before but had then been unable to tell him why she had gained that impression.
Why had she decided it was a solicitor’s letter?
She did not think she had thought so initially, no, that had come to her later, rather like Sophy’s face on that…
corpse. Forcing down a shudder, she tried to remember when she had first decided the letter was from a law firm.
It had been after that breakfast Gervaise had taken her to in The Temple, when he had met with his man of business.
Slowly, she felt the cogs in her mind turning.
The Temple was the business quarter, full of law firms. But why would that make her think…
? Suddenly the image of an oval street sign flashed into her mind’s eye.
It was green with gold lettering. Something, something, and something.
Their names had jogged something in her memory.
She gasped. The letter! The letter had borne the very same names in an oval stamp.
If she had not had two cats draped over her, she would have shot out of her chair at the revelation.
Some solicitors in The Temple had sent a letter to Benham Hall that she was now sure had been addressed to a Halperston, if not to herself.
But then, Sophy had presumably read the envelope and directed it to her plate.
Therefore, some law firm was attempting to contact her.
A knock sounded on the door, and Violet’s blonde head popped around it. “Can I come in?”
“Please do.” Caroline sat up and the cats twitched with annoyance.
“Brought you up a nice tea tray,” she said, advancing into the room with it. “Effie said I was to have half an hour to take a cup wiv’ you. She’d have come herself only she’s that busy with the new recruits.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly. Please sit down, Vi.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” She glanced around the refurbished sitting room admiringly. “Got it set up proper cozy in here, haven’t you?”
“Yes, it’s lovely, isn’t it?” Caroline said, leaning forward so she could reach the teapot.
Romulus made a disgruntled noise in his throat and jumped down, stalking over to the fire, where he plopped himself down and started washing himself, though Remus remained where he was.
“You will take a cup with me, won’t you? ”
Violet nodded, then her eyes narrowed as she took in Caroline’s appearance. “But what’s up with you?” she demanded. “Where’s all your pretty color gone? And your new dress? A proper picture you looked before you went out and now look at you!”
To Caroline’s embarrassment her eyes welled up with tears. “Well…”
“’E’s never trying to give you the brush-off, is he?
” Vi gasped indignantly. “Not after you had him moaning and groaning for you last night, fit to raise the roof! I said to the girls, well it’s plain to see she knows what she’s doing.
No wonder you had all them soldiers after you back home.
I wouldn’t have settled for a captain neither if I had your skills. ”
Caroline felt herself turn very red. Perhaps living in the attics next the barmaids was not such a good idea after all. “Oh, well…” she said weakly.
“That ungrateful bastard!” Vi seethed. “Took you somewhere nice so’s you couldn’t make a scene! I know the scheme!”
“No, no,” Caroline protested. “It’s not that at all. He’s not done with me. Not yet anyway.”
Vi looked frankly unconvinced. “What you crying for then?”
“Well, it’s just…when we were out, I happened to see someone I know from back home.”
A look of comprehension dawned in Vi’s eye.
“Oh, I see,” she said, reaching for the teapot.
“I’ll pour. They gave you short shrift, I expect,” she carried on breezily.
“Well, when you deviates from the righteous path, that’s what happens, luv.
No point crying over spilt milk, now, is there, not a practical creature like yourself. ”
Caroline hesitated. “Yes, I suppose that is true,” she agreed.
“First Effie, then you,” Violet sighed.
“Has Effie been crying?”
“She was this morning. Tried to hide it but not a lot gets past me.”
“It’s not the burdens of the new job, is it?”
“Lord bless you! No, it ain’t,” Vi snorted, passing Caroline a cup and saucer. “Enjoying herself vastly Effie is, ordering all of us around and showing us what’s what. Nah, it’s Jeb,” she said. “She swore she was done with him, but he pulled out a ring last night and asked her to marry ’im.”
Caroline took a gulp of tea. “Did she—?”
“Told him where to stick it,” Vi answered with grim satisfaction. “Told ’im it was five years too late, but then afterward she cried herself to sleep.”
“Poor Effie.”
“Jeb looked a little red around the eyes this morning too, but he’s been like that ever since she walked out on ’im.”
“Do you think—?” Caroline hesitated. “I mean, do you think she’s doing the right thing in refusing him?”
“Course I bleedin’ don’t! That Cherry’s been fawning over him all morning, not that he noticed, but someone’s sure to snap him up if she don’t.
He’s a fine figure of a man, if nothing else.
A bit surly like”—Vi shrugged—“but they can’t all be rays of sunshine.
” She directed a frank look at Caroline.
“I expect some days even you regrets leaving that captain of yours behind. The love of an honest man and all that.”
Caroline shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “Well…”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sittin’ in judgment over you,” Vi hurried to explain. “You’re living in high style here, but well…” She shrugged. “I’m sure you know it can’t last. If nothing else, he’ll have to marry for duty someday.”
Caroline stiffened for a moment before she could stop herself. “Oh, well, as to that, I don’t think Gervaise has a particularly strong sense of duty,” she said slowly. “He pretty much seems to please himself.”
“Must be nice,” Vi sniffed.
“Yes.” Caroline leaned forward. “Vi…”
“Yes? What is it?” The other woman tipped her head to one side. “Want to ask me a favor?” she asked shrewdly.
Caroline took a deep breath. “Do you know of anyone who would be willing to wander around The Temple region of London with me tomorrow morning while his lordship and Mr. Carstairs are out?”
Vi’s eyes opened wide. “It’s opening day tomorrow, Caroline,” she reminded her. “Had you forgotten? We’ll be all hands on deck.”