Читать книгу Married For His Convenience - Eleanor Webster, Eleanor Webster - Страница 16

Chapter Seven

Sarah went to Miss Simpson. She chose the cloth for her wedding gown and requested that the dress be ready within four days.

Miss Simpson agreed, but paused, fingering the grey material, as though uncertain. ‘This is for your wedding?’

Sarah nodded.

‘I know it is serviceable and of excellent quality, but wouldn’t you care for something brighter for a wedding?’

Sarah looked about the tiny shop at the bolts of multicoloured cloth haphazardly stacked. Her mother had worn such clothes.

‘Bright colours do not suit me,’ she said.

Her mother had told her that often enough, frowning with displeasure at Sarah’s pale skin and unruly, mouse-brown hair.

‘I am not suggesting you wear a rainbow, but what about this lilac?’ Miss Simpson pulled down a bolt. ‘The colour would work well on you. It would brighten your skin and bring out the chestnut in your hair.

Sarah hesitated. Violet would so help her feel like Petunia. And Petunia would cope so much better with a wedding than Miss Martin.

But this was a business arrangement. Her primary role was that of governess and she refused to entertain notions which might suggest otherwise.

She was not Petunia.

‘The grey is more serviceable,’ she stated resolutely.

* * *

Sebastian, or rather his man of business, found a companion for Mrs Crawford with remarkable dispatch.

The individual, a Miss Sharples, was delivered by his lordship’s groom the day before the wedding. She was a short, pleasantly dressed individual with a plump face and determined chin at odds with the general roundness of her physique.

‘Did his lordship explain the matter to you?’ Sarah asked after leading Miss Sharples through the drab hallway and settling her into a chair within the equally drab drawing room. If she ever had the chance to decorate a home she would colour it butter yellow, like sunshine.

‘Indeed, and I am used to invalids.’

Sarah frowned. ‘Mrs Crawford is not infirm, at least not physically. She gets confused and is determined that we must save money for the church.’

‘Do not worry, miss. My last employer was interested in the paranormal and felt he had been a Roman emperor in a past life. He’d hide in his bed on the Ides of March. He did not, however, escape death, dying in his sleep in August. Though, despite his oddities, he was easier than his predecessor, who was forever catching the bed curtains alight. Eventually, I had to hide the matches.’

At that moment, Mrs Crawford’s brisk footsteps could be heard down the hallway. By common accord, Sarah and Miss Sharples stood as Mrs Crawford stepped into the room.

‘Mrs Crawford, this is Miss Sharples. She is to stay with you when I leave.’

‘So I hear. A totally unnecessary expense. I hope you knit.’

‘Very well,’ Miss Sharples said.

‘We knit for the heathen.’

Miss Sharples nodded. ‘I always say many hands make light work.’

‘Hardly original, but appropriate, I suppose.’ Mrs Crawford grunted in what might have been approbation.

‘This is a beautiful room,’ Miss Sharples ventured. ‘With excellent proportions.’

‘The house has been in my husband’s family for many years.’

Miss Sharples nodded. ‘But it needs furniture.’

Sarah quaked at this bald statement.

‘I sold it to send money for the heathens,’ Mrs Crawford explained fitfully.

‘But one cannot have the vicar to tea without proper furnishings and one needs to do so, that way one can properly direct him in the guidance of his flock.’

Sarah felt her lips twitch. Miss Sharples might just suit after all.

* * *

On her last evening, Sarah walked to the barn to bid her creatures farewell. She would miss them, particularly Portia and Cleopatra. She’d miss their animal smell, the warmth and understanding in their bovine eyes, the fact they did not know about mousey hair.

Or bastard daughters.

‘I’m sure I won’t find cows half as nice as you in London.’ She stroked the scratchiness of their rounded sides. ‘I’ve arranged for the boy next door to milk you and I am certain he will do a good job.’

On her return to the house, she had anticipated going straight to bed, but light shone from under the crack of the drawing-room door.

Pushing it open, she found Mrs Crawford sitting in an uncomfortably upright chair by the hearth. A small fire flickered, casting weird, elongated shadows.

‘I am glad you’ve come in,’ her guardian said. ‘I suppose you were talking to those animals. One of these days you’ll be saying they talk back.’

Sarah smiled. ‘They do, after a fashion. Did you need something?’

‘To talk to you,’ Mrs Crawford said, her back more ramrod straight than usual and her hands for once unoccupied, tightly clasped.

‘I would like that,’ Sarah said, sitting on the seat opposite.

‘I realised that I’m the closest thing you have to a mother now.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

‘And I recognise that somebody must speak to you and, given the situation, that person must be me.’ Mrs Crawford’s thin fingers unclasped to pick at a loose thread within her knitted shawl.

‘You need to speak to me?’

‘To warn you.’

‘About?’

‘A man’s needs.’

‘Oh.’ Sarah’s face flushed, as she suppressed a giggle. What a delightful scene this would make. But rather nicer to write than to live through.

‘You don’t need to—I mean, I understand a little. From the animals, of course.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s just it.’ Mrs Crawford’s hands worked at the wool with almost frenzied speed. ‘It is a system of procreation meant for animals.’

Sarah had never heard it referred to as a ‘system’ before. Not, she thought wryly, that it was a topic discussed at her limited social engagements.

‘Mrs Crawford, please do not upset yourself. Truly, I understand the basic concept and it appears most women survive. It will be no worse and no better with Lord Langford than with any other man, I suppose,’ she said, with determined practicality.

‘You mustn’t enjoy it.’ Her guardian spoke more strongly now as though, with the first awkwardness over, she had warmed to her task. ‘Only women like your mother enjoy it and they lead good men astray. Promise me that you will not enjoy it.’

‘I will do my—um—best not to enjoy it.’ Sarah touched the agitated fingers, stilling their movement.

‘It is a duty, that is all. A duty.’

‘A duty,’ Sarah repeated. ‘And if it gets me a child, it will be worth it.’

A mix of emotions flickered across the older woman’s face. ‘I used to think that. I used to hope, you know. I let him do it when I thought it might result in a child. I wanted a child.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah said, seeing, with sudden sympathy, the barrenness of this woman’s life.

As though exhausted by the conversation, Mrs Crawford allowed her spine to bend. ‘Yes, I hope...I hope you are luckier,’ she said.

‘Thank you. You are... You have been kind.’

‘Well, I’ve done my Christian duty by you. I have never shirked my duty.’