AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It is only ten minutes before eight,” Oonagh put in. “Perhaps it is a theater close by.”
“Alone?” Alastair said doubtfully.
“He may be meeting people there. Really, does it matter so much?” Eilish asked. “If he is courting someone, he’d have told us—if he is having any success.”
“I want to know who it is before there is any ‘success’!” Alastair glared at her. “By that time it would be too late!”
“Stop making yourself angry over something that has not happened yet,” Mary said briskly. “Now—McTeer, bring in the dessert and let us have a pleasant end to the meal, before you take Miss Latterly and me to the station. It is a fine night, and we shall have an agreeable journey. Hector, my dear, would you be good enough to pass me the cream. I am sure I should like cream on it, whatever it is.”
With a smile Hector obliged, and the rest of the meal was spent in inconsequential chatter, until it was eventually time to rise, bid farewell, and gather coats, baggage, and make their way out to the waiting carriage.
2
“COME ON, Mother.” Alastair took Mary by the arm and guided her through the throng towards the London train, huge and gleaming beside its platform, the brass-knobbed doors open, the carriages with polished sides seeming to tower over them as they approached it. The engine let out another billow of steam. “Don’t worry, we’ve half an hour yet,” Alastair said quickly. “Where’s Oonagh?”
“Gone to see if it is leaving on time, I think,” Deirdra replied, moving a little closer to him as a porter with five cases on a trolley pushed past her.
“Evenin’, miss.” He made a gesture to tip his cap. “Evenin’, sir, ma’am.”
“Evening,” they replied absently. They expected the courtesy, and yet it was an intrusion into their party. Hector stood with his coat collar turned up, as if he felt the cold, his eyes on Mary’s face, even though she was half turned away from him. Eilish was walking towards the open carriage door, full of curiosity. Baird stood guarding Mary’s three cases, and Quinlan was shifting from foot to foot, as if impatient to have the matter over with.
Oonagh returned, stood undecided for an instant, looking at Alastair, then at her mother, then, as if reaching some resolve, she took Mary’s arm and together they moved along the platform until they reached the carriage where Mary had a reservation. Hester followed a couple of yards behind. Mary was going to be absent only a week, but even so this was not a time when a stranger, and an employee, should allow her presence to be felt. Her duties had not yet begun.
Inside, the coach was utterly different from the second-class carriage in which Hester had ridden up. It was not a large open space with hard upright seats, but a series of separate compartments, each with two single upholstered seats facing each other, either of which would quite comfortably have allowed three people to sit side by side, or, wonderful thought, one person to curl up and tuck her feet under her skirts and go to sleep in something like comfort. It would be quite private enough to feel safe from intrusion, since a glance told that it was reserved for Mrs. Mary Farraline and companion. Hester’s spirits were lifted already. It would be so different from the long, exhausting journey up, during which she had managed only brief and disturbed catnaps. She found herself smiling in anticipation.
Mary merely glanced around her as she stepped in. Presumably she had been in first-class carriages before, and this one held no interest for her.
“The luggage is in the guard’s van,” Baird said from the doorway, his eyes on Mary’s face with a directness which did not seem to be there when he spoke to anyone else. “They will unload it for you in London. You may forget about it until then.” He lifted the small overnight case with toiletries and the medicine chest onto the luggage rack for her.
Alastair glanced at him irritably, then did not bother to say anything, as though it all had been said before, and had been no use then, or now, or perhaps in these circumstances was too trivial to bother with. His attention was on his mother. He looked troubled and short-tempered.
“I think you have everything you need, Mother. I hope your journey will be uneventful.” He did not look at Hester, but his meaning was obvious. He bent as if to kiss Mary on the cheek, then apparently changed his mind and straightened up again. “Griselda will meet you, of course.”
“We’ll be here to meet you on your return, Mother,” Eilish said with a quick smile.
“Hardly, my dear.” Quinlan’s expression indicated his feelings profoundly. “It will be half past eight in the morning. When were you ever up at that hour?”
“I can be—if someone wakes me,” Eilish said defensively.
Baird opened his mouth, and closed it again without speaking.
Oonagh frowned. “Of course you can, if you wish to enough.” She turned back to Mary. “Now, Mother, do you have everything you need? Are there any footwarmers here?” She looked down at the floor, and Hester’s eyes followed hers. Footwarmers. What a blessed thought. On the journey up her feet had been so cold she had almost lost all sensation in them.
“Send for some,” Quinlan said with raised eyebrows. “There ought to be.”
“There are,” Oonagh answered him, bending down to pull one of the large stone bottles forward. It was filled with hot water, and also with a chemical which was supposed, when shaken vigorously, to restore some of the heat naturally lost towards morning. “There you are, Mother, it’s lovely and hot. Rest your feet on that. Where’s the traveling rug, Baird?”
He handed it to her obediently, and she took it and made Mary comfortable, wrapping it around her, and folded the spare one on the other seat. No one was taking much notice of Hester, who was apparently not expected to begin her duties until they had actually departed. She arranged her valise where it was out of the way, then sat down on the seat opposite and waited.
Gradually all the good-byes were said and each of them moved back into the corridor until only Oonagh was left.
“Good-bye, Mother,” she said quietly. “I shall look after everything while you are gone—and do it as you would have.”
“What an odd thing to say, my dear.
” Mary smiled in amusement. “You look after most of the household now. And when I come to think of it, I believe you have done for some considerable time. And I assure you, it had never crossed my mind to worry.”
Oonagh kissed her very lightly, then turned to Hester, her eyes direct and very clear. “Good-bye, Miss Latterly.” And the next moment she was gone.
