Chapter 4
The Sudden Arrival
“Only give me a hearing. You will soon be able to judge of the general credit due, by listening to some particulars which you can yourself immediately contradict or confirm.”
Jane Austen, Persuasion
It was easy to see what attracted Adam’s attention.
Across the street, in the narrow alley between the park and her opposite neighbor’s garden wall, stood a furtive young woman.
She wore a white day dress and an enormous straw bonnet and clutched her reticule in both hands as she stared fixedly at their house.
As Rosalind and Adam watched, she peered in both directions, cautious as a mouse who fears the cat is lurking around the corner.
Then, just like the mouse, she scurried across the street.
Rosalind did not bother to ring for Mortimer. She ran to the front door herself and pulled it open. The young woman threw herself across the threshold.
Rosalind closed the door and the young woman turned to face her.
This unexpected guest was small and slender.
Her pink and white skin had the pallor that came when one has been strictly scolded about the dangers of allowing the sun to fall on her face.
Her eyes were wide and brown, and her hair, where it showed under her bonnet, was a gleaming chestnut color.
“Are you Miss Thorne?” Her voice quavered.
“I am,” replied Rosalind.
“I’m so sorry for making such a … a strange scene, only I must speak with you immediately.”
“It’s quite all right. You are entirely welcome here.”
“Thank you, oh, thank you!”
Adam must have rung for Claire. The maid strode into the foyer, ready to take the young woman’s things, but their visitor clutched her pelisse and shook her head so hard she nearly dislodged her poorly pinned bonnet. “No, no, I mustn’t stay. I can’t.”
“But you will come and sit down?” said Rosalind. “We cannot talk standing here.”
“Oh, I can’t, I mustn’t, I mustn’t be seen here. …”
“There is no one to see except myself and Mr. Harkness. Please.” Rosalind stepped aside with a gesture of invitation.
The young woman bit her lip, practically vibrating in her distress.
“Yes, all right,” she said at last. Rosalind gave Claire a glance and mouthed “a fresh cup.” Claire nodded and moved smoothly to deliver the request to the kitchen while Rosalind led the young woman into the parlor.
“May I present Mr. Adam Harkness?” said Rosalind to their visitor.
Adam stood beside the hearth. He bowed to their visitor but did not move forward.
He had, of course, sized up the situation and understood that the close proximity of a strange man might further upset their skittish visitor.
He had also drawn the drapes, which left the room dim, and a little stuffy, but the young woman saw this, and she wilted a little with evident relief.
“Mr. Harkness, this is Miss …” Rosalind hesitated.
“I … my name is Mary Smith,” their visitor said.
It almost certainly was not, but Rosalind decided now was not the time to point this out.
“Please, won’t you sit down?”
Miss Smith sat gingerly in the proffered chair. Rosalind then took her usual place on the settee. Adam kept to his corner, but she saw his eyes narrow, watching Miss Smith carefully.
“How can we help you, Miss Smith?” Rosalind asked.
“Oh, it’s not me. That is—I mean, have, has, have you, you did, I saw—but …” Miss Smith blushed furiously and dropped her gaze to her gloved hands. “You have spoken with Clara Kinsdale today, haven’t you? Just now, I mean.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Smith,” said Rosalind. “I cannot possibly discuss who has visited me.”
“But I saw her, and him and …” Miss Smith gulped air. Rosalind glanced at Adam. He arched one brow.
Claire entered bringing a small tray bearing a new teapot and fresh cups. All discussion paused until Rosalind poured out a cup for Miss Smith and held it out for her. Miss Smith took the cup into her gloved hands and drank a huge gulp with all appearance of gratitude.
Rosalind watched her visitor. She noted the other woman’s arms and her throat and the shape of her face as she lowered the cup and visibly struggled to compose herself.
There was something in her appearance and her soft, girlish voice that was not right.
Adam had seen it. Now Rosalind found herself cataloguing its details.
“I’m sorry,” Miss Smith said again. “I’m better now.
Truly. Of course you can’t say who you’ve seen.
It’s only that if Miss Kinsdale was here to see you about Sylvia Westerford—Sylvia Lynn, I mean.
Mrs. Lynn—” She broke off again and leaned anxiously forward, clutching her cup so hard that for a moment Rosalind was afraid she might break it.
“Did Miss Kinsdale ask you to find out about her?” she blurted out. “Because you mustn’t, Miss Thorne! You must let her be!”
“Is she in danger?” Adam spoke quietly, but Miss Smith jumped. Her tea sloshed. She had probably forgotten he was there. Adam had a particular skill of fading into the shadows when he wished.
“She is,” declared Miss Smith. “Not anything bad, I mean, anything that might involve the law, but she’s in danger of being exposed, and well, that would be disastrous.”
“Exposed?” Rosalind asked gently. “Is she accused of something?”
Miss Smith swallowed. She took another drink of tea. This time she set the cup down on its saucer and stared at it for a long moment.
When she did speak, it wasn’t an answer.
“She just wants to live quietly, you see. To have a home and some stability. But she, well, she does have secrets in her past, but they’re not bad, not really.
But the daughters—the Kinsdale daughters I mean—they think she must have done something bad.
They think she must be a fraud or a fortune hunter, and she isn’t. Not really. You must believe me!”
Rosalind sat back and let the jumble of words settle into silence. Miss Smith ducked her head. The wide bonnet helped hide her expression.
“How is it you know Mrs. Lynn?” asked Rosalind.
“I’m her secret.” Miss Smith turned her face a little further away, as if to hide shame or tears. “I’m her daughter.”
Rosalind straightened, just a little. Adam folded his hands behind his back. Miss Smith looked toward the door, and then the curtained windows, as if she was afraid someone might leap out from behind the drapes and shout, “I knew it!”
“I see,” said Rosalind. “In that case, perhaps we should begin again. Will you tell me your name?”
Their visitor blushed and twisted her fingers. “My name really is Smith,” she said. “Sophia Smith.”
“And where do you live, Miss Smith?” Rosalind asked.
“I’m at school,” she said, but then stopped.
“But you cannot possibly need to know that. Or anything about me. I only came to beg you to leave my mother alone. Please. You are supposed to be such a clever woman. You must see that I’m telling you the truth.
Mama only wants to make a home, so that I can come live with her.
If the Kinsdales find out about me before she tells them properly, she’ll have to run away again and then I’ll never …
” She stopped and took deep, shuddering breath.
Rosalind nodded and exchanged a solemn glance with Adam.
They both understood the problem. Not every gentlewoman who found herself in financial straits was as fortunate as Rosalind and Alice had been.
Only a very few could find a way to make any sort of living, let alone a good one.
Without family to take them in, most ladies’ hopes depended entirely on finding a husband.
Such women were decried as fortune hunters by those very same forces and persons who made it impossible for them to take up any occupation or profession of their own.
But if a woman had a child out of wedlock, her chance of finding a husband of any standing at all was reduced to almost nothing. The most common answer to this dilemma was to hide the child.
Miss Smith’s story was very old, and very familiar. It was also neatly calculated to engage Rosalind’s sympathy.
“But you are in touch with your mother?” Rosalind asked.
“She sends letters sometimes,” said Miss Smith.
“Through a friend. He’s Mama’s man of business, but I think he’s also my uncle.
He makes sure my expenses are taken care of and brings me letters from Mama sometimes.
It was he who warned me that someone might come looking for me, and I mustn’t talk to them because they were trying to find Mama. ”
“Did the letter tell you to come here?” asked Adam.
“No,” replied Miss Smith. “But after that letter, I had one directly from Mama. She told me Miss Kinsdale and her fiancé were coming to London, and that they’d been growing suspicious of her. And, well, I’d made up my mind to go and speak to her myself.”
“So it was coincidence that you arrived here just after Miss Kinsdale and his grace?” said Adam.
Fear flickered behind Miss Smith’s eyes, and Rosalind could have sworn it was genuine.
“No, it wasn’t, not really. I’d … found out that Miss Kinsdale was staying with friends, you see.
But when I got there, she was out. I spoke with one of the maids, and she told me Miss Kinsdale was coming here.
Everyone knows that one goes to Miss Thorne to find things out.
So it wasn’t difficult to guess that Miss Kinsdale was going to ask you about Mama.
So, I thought I would come here and talk to you instead. ”
“How did you come?” asked Adam. “There was no carriage in the street.”
Miss Smith took up her teacup again, took a swallow and stared into the dregs, clearly trying to decide how much to say.
“Before I … before now, I traveled a great deal with Mama. Hiring a cab is not beyond me. And I have a little pin money.”
“I see,” murmured Rosalind.
Miss Smith glanced toward the door. “I should go. I’ll be missed.
” Miss Smith blinked rapidly, her eyes wide and shining.
“Please, Miss Thorne, Mr. Harkness. Just let Miss Kinsdale know there’s nothing to worry about.
Beg her to give Mama a chance to tell the family about me in her own time. That cannot be so much to ask, can it?”
Before Rosalind could answer this, she heard the sound of the front door banging open.
“Hullo!” came a cheery call from the foyer. It was Alice returning from her own luncheon with Mr. Colburn. “Oh, Mortimer, thank you, you can take those to my writing room. …”
Miss Smith shot to her feet, her cup still in her hand. “I’ve stayed too long.”
“Please, sit down,” said Rosalind. “It’s only—”
But Miss Smith didn’t let Rosalind finish. She rushed out of the room, pushing right past Alice, pressing her teacup into the other woman’s hands as she did, and barging out the front door straight past a very startled Mortimer.
“I’ll go,” said Adam at once, and he took off after her, not even pausing to collect his hat.
Alice stared after Adam even though the door had shut. She looked at the cup in her hands, and then at Rosalind.
“Well,” she said. “Did anything happen while I was away?”