Page 106 of A Much Maligned Miss

Caroline looked up quickly. “But that’s not why I was in a quake at all! I don’t care two straws about my reputation, for no one there believed any good of me anyway! I’m sure Lady Sharpe’s opinion of me was as low as anyone else’s in Penarth, though I don’t believe she thought very highly of Mama.” She gave him a wry look. “I once heard her describe Mama as ‘that Needham woman,’ saying she was a ‘pretty ninny’ and she had no patience with her.”

“Then why? Why were you reduced to such a state by it?” Gervaise asked forthrightly.

“It’s hard to explain,” she said, averting her eyes.

“Try.”

“Not now, Gervaise,” she said, covering her eyes with her hand. “I will…formulate an answer for you. Only…can we not discuss it now? Please?”

Biting back his instinctive reply, he gave a short nod. “Very well,” he said curtly. “I will see you tonight.”

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?”