Sarah sat with the children on a bench in the gathering dusk and counted the money in her purse. So little! A knot of fear twisted in her stomach. These few coins were all that stood between them and hunger. Hannah’s money, spent on the children, had long since run out, and the fruitless journey to the settlement with a night spent in the hotel had been a costly affair. Since they had arrived back in York that afternoon she had applied to no less than ten different places for work, and been turned down at each. Not because she was not suitable, but because she had insisted that Jenny and Robbie must be with her, and that had changed everything. Nobody had wanted the children getting in the way, and some employers had narrowed their eyes suspiciously at her ringless left hand. Two doors had been shut in her face.
Tomorrow she would try again. In the meantime she must find somewhere for them to sleep. No more hotels or boardinghouses, but a sheltered spot under a rock by the lake, or in a derelict hut. The money that was left must be saved for food.
The heavy baggage dragged at her arms as they set off once more, matching the pace to Robbie’s tired little legs. They were in a long street with few houses, each surrounded by gardens and orchards and backed by woodland, which stretched away into the distance. On a spacious corner site stood the largest house of all, a gracious-looking building covered with clapboarding painted primrose yellow, its shutters and porch white, with a veranda at the side.
But it was not the house’s pleasing appearance that attracted Sarah’s attention, or its lush setting of lawns and flowerbeds, but the commotion that was coming from it. Lights were pouring through the open front door, and voices were raised in an ugly shouting match. She would have hurried the children past the gates, but a tiny kitten was mewing piteously in the drive, and they both spotted it at once.
“Pussy!” Robbie chortled, all weariness forgotten as he darted through one of the gates that stood wide, Jenny dashing after him.
“Come back! At once!” Sarah cried. But they were deaf to her, pursuing the kitten that had taken fright.
With a sigh she humped her baggage through the gate and hastened up the drive after them. But before she could reach the children a strange exodus of servants started from the house, causing her to slow her pace in some amazement. All four were weighed down by bulging carpetbags, which appeared to have been hurriedly packed, the women still with their aprons on under their cloaks, and the portly manservant at the head of the straggling little procession had an extra coat thrown over one shoulder.
Without a glance at Sarah or the children they swarmed out of the gate to vanish into the darkness. Then, from the house, a young maid came running to catch up, her possessions tied up in a bundle under her arm. Quickly Sarah stepped into her path, causing her to come to a standstill.
“Everybody appears to have left,” Sarah said to the girl. “Is there any chance of work for me in the house, do you think?”
The girl stared at her incredulously for a second, and then gave a raucous guffaw. “If you want to work for the devil himself, then you’re welcome! But don’t say you haven’t been warned!”
Having uttered that cryptic remark she dodged round Sarah and raced off into the street, yelling to the others to wait for her.
Sarah stood looking at the house. It was completely silent now, but the lights still shone. The children came up to her with the kitten, chattering about it, delighted with its noisy purr. But she gazed ahead toward the open door, and spoke more to herself than to them.
“Well, what shall we do? Come back tomorrow—when all the vacancies might be filled up again—or take the chance of proving ourselves useful and indispensable in a servantless house where someone has probably been left supperless?”
The thought of supper decided her. She was hungry, having eaten nothing the last time she had bought food for the children, which had become a regular little economy that she had practiced since leaving the Griffin. Surely if she could step in with a helping hand now, the least she could receive was a plate of food for each of them.
With slow and cautious steps she entered the porch, the children with the kitten close beside her, all their shadows falling long behind them in the golden mat of light. Within lay a large hall, elegantly furnished, with candles in a crystal chandelier flickering in the draft. There was neither sight nor sound of anyone.
She steeled herself to pulling the doorbell. Nobody came, and she knew there was no one left in the kitchen to answer it. Quietly, gathering the little ones with her, she stepped into the house, put down the baggage, and closed the door behind her.
“Is anyone at home?” she called in a loud voice. She thought she heard a whisper of movement somewhere, but could not be sure. To the left double doors stood open to a dining room, but the long mahogany table was thick with dust, and the silver candelabra was tarnished and hung with old wax drippings. The drawing room on her right hand showed similar signs of neglect in the disorder of the curtains and the ashes left in the grate. It was the house of someone with money and taste, and from what she could see he had had every right to banish his servants in a hurry.
“I’m Sarah Kingsley,” she announced loudly, going slowly forward to the end of the hall where a charming double flight of stairs curved delicately up to the floor above. “If the householder is here to listen to me, I’m looking for work!”
Somewhere a board creaked. Sarah caught her breath, looking about fearfully. There was someone here! Listening! Waiting! She recalled what the maid had said. The devil himself! Was this the home of some madman?
With a gulp she swung round, sweeping the children with her, and sought to reopen the front door that she had closed so carefully, but it seemed to have locked itself in some way. She shook it frantically in a swiftly rising panic, but it did not budge.
“Dey broke dat lock one day,” said a soft young voice from the stairs. “It don’ always work, Missie.”
Sarah whirled about, heart thumping, instinctively thrusting the children behind her protectively, and saw to her amazement a black girl of about ten years old stooping down and peering at her through the banisters. A sensation of relief very close to tears swept through Sarah, and she went forward to look up at the girl, whose round, pert face was framed by a mop of black frizzy curls.
“Where is everybody?” she asked, eager for information.
“Dey’s gone,” the child answered phlegmatically, “ev’ry doggone one of dem.” She sat down on the top stair, and smoothed her long print skirt over her knees. “Dere’s only me. I’se Flora. De Boss never tells me to go—I’se a slave.”
A slave! Did the owner of this magnificent house flaunt the new freedoms of this land by clinging to the traditions of the past? Perhaps he was very old and cantankerous. He was certainly hot-tempered, for the child had implied that the recent hurried exodus of the servants was not a first occurrence.
“What is your—your boss’s name, Flora?” Sarah inquired. “And when will he be back again?”
“He’s Mass’r Bryne Garrett, and I dunno when he’ll come in again. He told dem”—here she jerked a thumb to indicate the departed servants—“to be de hell outta here ’fore he changed his mind and had the lot of dem thrown into jail.”
“Whatever had they done?” Sarah wanted to know.
The child shrugged her shoulders. “Lazy, dat’s what he said. Drunk up all his good liquor.” She inclined her head wisely. “I guess it was dat that made him madder than a scalded cat. He likes his liquor.” Then she lost interest in the subject, her eyes settling on Jenny and Robbie as they stood clutching the kitten between them. “Dey sho’ have pretty hair. It’s de color of de sun.”
Jenny, who had been staring wide-eyed at Flora all the time, relinquished the kitten and came to stand at the foot of the stairs. “Yours is real nice,” she said on a note of awed wonder, “and your teeth is beautiful.”
Flora reacted with a screech of delight, and became convulsed with giggles, but obviously much flattered by the compliment. Her merriment was infectious. Sarah was delighted to see Jenny clap small hands with fingers widespread over her mouth, eyes sparkling, overwhelmed by the glorious effect of her words as the laughter bubbled out of her. It was the first time the child had laughed since first parted from her mother, and Robbie, always quick to respond to a convivial atmosphere, although having no idea why everybody, including Sarah, was laughing, jumped up and down in delight, jogging the kitten until it mewed with protest and sought to struggle free.
At the sound of the mewing, Flora lifted her head, her face alive with excitement. “Dat kitten’s only one of a litter in de stable. Yo’ want to see all de rest?”
“Yes!” Jenny squealed happily, but Sarah intervened quickly.
“Jenny and Robbie mustn’t go outside,” she said to Flora, nervous about letting them out of her sight in a strange place.
Flora sprang to her feet. “I’ll bring dem kittens into de kitchen! Yo’ all come wid me!” She bounded down the stairs, caught Jenny’s hand as she passed, and the two of them ran ahead to vanish through a baize door.
Sarah and Robbie followed down a long passageway into the kitchen, and by the time they reached it the back door stood open, and Jenny was peering out on tiptoe with excitement. Flora had already disappeared in the direction of the stables, which lay to the rear of the house, where servants’ quarters, a coach house, and some other buildings made up the other three sides of the square service courtyard.
The black child came bounding back a few minutes later with the basket of kittens, the mother cat running behind, her tail rigid in agitation. But as Jenny and Robbie fell on the kittens with breathless delight, Sarah continued to stare round at the filthy state of the kitchen, for here everything was much worse than that resulting from a mere sluttish neglect, such as she had glimpsed in the other part of the house. The white wood was stained and unscrubbed, the copper pans dull with dried grease, and the stone floor showed old trails of mud and trodden-in muck from the stables.
“Why on earth did Mr. Garrett wait until his house reached this state before dismissing his servants?” she asked Flora, sinking down onto a chair. “Hasn’t he a wife to keep things in order?”
Flora, pouring milk from a jug into a saucer for the mother cat, shook her head. “He don’ care long enough for any of de ladies to marry dem. Dey come and dey go.” She set the saucer down on the floor. “He come home today after spending a long time in de United States, and dey”—here she again jerked her thumb to indicate the banished servants—“hadn’t been expecting him for another month or more. Whew!” She blew through her teeth and rolled her enormous eyes to express the traumatic impact of his totally unexpected arrival: “I hid in de cupboard!”
“Would he have struck you?” Sarah questioned indignantly.
Flora looked surprised. “No, Missie. He never done lay a hand on me, but dat dratted cook and butler were mighty free wid handing out kicks and cuffs.” She scowled as she rubbed a tender arm and shoulder reminiscently. Then her face brightened again. “I’ll make a pot of tea. Would yo’ like a cup? De Boss likes tea better dan anything next to liquor.”
“I’d like a cup of tea very much, Flora,” Sarah said gratefully. An idea had formed in her mind, and she was anxious to give it a little thought. To her delight, Flora not only made an excellent pot of tea, strong and dark, but went down to the cellar to return with a joint of cold beef, which she set on the table, adding pickles, and a loaf of new bread, as well as some bright yellow butter. She would have hacked at the joint with a dangerous-looking knife, but Sarah took over and sliced thin slices, pink in the middle, for them all. She expressed the idea that had come to her as she sat sipping a final cup of tea.
“Do you think, Flora,” she said thoughtfully, “that if I set to and cleaned up this house to make it shine like a new pin, Mr. Garrett could be persuaded to let me stay here with the children, and take charge of everything for him? In any case, I’m already in debt for our supper, and must do something in return for that.”
Flora paused in wiping her plate with a piece of bread, and gave the matter some consideration. “I dunno. Dere’s never no reckoning what de Boss’ll say. But yo’ can try.” Then her eyes took on a crafty look. “But I can’t help yo’. I’se awful tired.”
Sarah smiled to herself, guessing that Flora had been forced to perform many chores not to her liking when the servants had been there. “I’ll teach you to read if I’m able to stay. But that will only come about if you buckle to and get brooms and brushes, and fill buckets with hot soapy water for me. I really need a helping hand.”
“Do yo’ mean I’ll be able to read a whole book? And de newspaper? And de time de ships go across the lake to Oswego?”
“That’s right,” Sarah said. Flora sprang up and began stacking the plates. “Let’s get started on de house. If de Boss is gaming at Jordon’s Hotel, or drinking at de old Toronto Coffee House, we’ve till dawn to get dis place cleaned up real pretty!”
At this point Robbie slid from his chair and came to lay his head in Sarah’s lap, putting his thumb in his mouth. She rested her hand on his curls. “Robbie is very tired,” she said to Flora. “Is there anywhere he and Jenny can sleep out of the way?”
There was the housekeeper’s room off the hall. Sarah settled the children head to feet on the sofa, covering them with a shawl and her cloak. Then she returned to the kitchen, rolling up her sleeves as she went. She was full of hope.
“This house has some very fine furniture in it,” she said, pulling on the mobcap that Flora had taken with a couple of aprons from a drawer. “Mr. Garrett must be very comfortably off.”
“He’s rich all right,” Flora said with a nod.
“What business is he in?”
“Trading,” Flora answered simply. “Making money out of it. Dat’s all I know.”
Together they attacked the house with all the domestic weapons that came to hand, whacking carpets out in the courtyard, and tubbing drapes and hanging them up to dry. But the black girl, although she worked strongly and well for over three hours, began to flag at last, and Sarah sent her off to bed. Downstairs and upstairs Sarah worked, possessed by a kind of frenzied strength born of desperation, knowing that here in this house alone in the whole of York lay her first real chance, perhaps even her only chance, to make a home for herself and the children.
At intervals a clock chimed to remind her of the passing of time, spurring her on to renewed efforts as she banished dust and dirt, restored polish, set silver shining, and glass gleaming. The old stale smell was swept from the house, and the dry night wind enabled her to make the last task of all the ironing of the drapes and the hanging up again.
With a great sigh she turned and looked at the clock in the hall. It was nearly six o’clock. Now she would treat herself to the luxury of a bath, and change her clothes.
It needed several trips up the stairs with jugs of boiling water to fill the rose-patterned hip bath she had discovered in a small dressing room, and another two runs with jugs of cold to cool it down slightly, but not too much. Finally, having unpacked and put out all clean undergarments and a fresh cotton gown, she undressed, pinned up her hair, and lowered herself into the luxurious, steaming depths.
She sang softly as she covered herself with suds from a piece of scented soap that she found on the washstand, and did not hear the step on the stair. Suddenly the door, which she had left ajar in case the children called, was kicked open with a crash.
She gasped, her head jerking round, and through billows of steam she saw Bryne Garrett settle his shoulder against the doorjamb, cross one booted foot over the other, and loop his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. She had a lightning impression of the height, breadth, and strength of him, the black hair tousled over the high forehead, dark glittering eyes narrowed against the smoke of the cigar tilted in the corner of his handsome mouth, and a chin cleft like a rock.
Lazily he removed the cigar from his lips, staring hard at her. “Where the hell did you spring from?”
She hugged her arms tighter about her in an agony of embarrassment that she felt destined to remember all her life. “From England,” she whispered.
“Did you indeed?” He saw how desperately she glanced toward the towel that was out of reach, and took a few leisurely steps across to catch it up. “Here,” he said, tossing it to her. “Come down to the drawing room—when you’re dressed. You owe me an explanation.”
He left the room, and with a flash of fury she heard him laughing as he went downstairs. It seemed to her to be the last straw.
Ten minutes later, wearing a neat gray gown, her damp hair tied back by a ribbon, resentment against him still churning within her, she entered the drawing room.
Dawn was lifting the darkness from the windows, but the candles glowed, and a newly kindled fire cracked on the clean hearth. He had half-filled two crystal goblets from a squat, dusty bottle, and he held one out to her, an amused look still dancing in his eyes. “Your name, ma’am?”
She told him, taking the goblet, but did not put it to her lips. Suddenly the long hours of toil and stress were starting to take their toll, her limbs were shaking with exhaustion, and her head throbbed. With relief she sat down on the sofa, feeling that the strength to stand had gone from her.
“That drink will do you good, Miss Kingsley,” he assured her. “It’s French brandy. The very best is hard to come by in these days with Napoleon running berserk over Europe.” He tapped the bottle with his finger. “This is the only survivor from three dozen bottles that my wretched servants left for my enjoyment. The rest they had topped up with water. God knows how long they thought it would be before I discovered what they had done.”
She tasted the brandy, and its golden warmth ran through her. Bryne settled himself comfortably in a wing chair by the fire, his long legs stretched out before him, glass in hand. “Now tell me how you came to be in my house—and in my bath,” he said laconically.
Her face flared up once more, and she spoke on a crushing note. “It would be gentle-mannered of you to ignore our first encounter completely!”
His gaze mocked her. “A thousand pardons. You must make allowances for my rough American tongue. The ways of the Old World are alien to me, although my great-grandmother was English, and some wild Scottish blood from my paternal grandparents runs in my veins. But—as my father before me—I was born on this side of the water and in the United States. In Massachusetts. I consider myself first and foremost a citizen of this continent, and I no more hanker to play the bagpipes than I do to raise a quizzing glass at the court of King George.”
“What about raising a flag with fifteen stars and stripes over the soil of Upper and Lower Canada?” she challenged fiercely, stung by the underlying insolence of his reply.
“There are those,” he stated calmly, his eyes very hard and bright on her, “who say that it is not far distant.”
She took a gulp of her brandy, her hand trembling with anger. It was not enough that the American colonists had established their own independence, but now they were turning greedy eyes toward the Crown lands of British North America. And Bryne Garrett was standing with one foot on each side of the boundary. He was an opportunist and a speculator. No wonder his house was so richly furnished, his clothes so well cut, his linen so fine. He was everything she abhorred, and a slave-owner into the bargain!
“Flora was alone here when I arrived on your doorstep,” she said, sitting very stiffly. She was vaguely aware that the interview was not going as she had planned but had bolted away from her, completely out of control.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve made little Flora’s acquaintance, have you? Usually she falls asleep in the cupboard and doesn’t emerge until morning.”
“It’s outrageous to keep her as a slave!” Sarah accused hotly.
Bryne frowned thoughtfully before he replied, seeing that the brandy was firing her to a certain recklessness, which he found interesting. “I’ve never mentioned the word slave to Flora, but it seems as though the servants have. I bought her last year in South Carolina for less than the price of a barrel of ale, and saved her from a mighty miserable fate. As the laws of British North America allow the child of a slave to remain in bondage until the age of twenty-five, Flora will stay as my property until I consider that she is good and ready to take care of herself. Young girls, whatever the color of their skin, are all as addleheaded as hens running under carriage wheels if they’re let out of the gate too soon. I have one white ward, who’s away at boarding school in Kingston, and one black slave here in York—I intend to see that they both have an equal chance in life.”
“That’s not possible,” Sarah retorted swiftly, “unless you change Flora’s status to that of your ward too!”
His eyes snapped at her as if he was totally unused to anyone telling him what to do, but before he spoke again he reached for the neck of the bottle, and leaned forward to add some more brandy to her glass, and then added to his own. “I think it’s time for you to stop haranguing me on every touchily controversial subject that you can think of,” he stated dryly, “and explain how you came to be uninvited in my house, and—of all things!—decided to spring-clean in the middle of the night!”
She realized then that she had said too much to him, and that little chance remained of employment under his roof, but she was also surprised to find how little she cared. She emptied the glass, and set it aside, feeling deliciously lightheaded and quite unafraid, although so incredibly tired that she could have curled up on the floor.
“I need work,” she said, blinking a little, for her lids were becoming unbelievably heavy. His piercing eyes were blurring into the shadow of his thick lashes, his bony, forceful nose persisted in being out of focus, and a strangely ghostlike impression of that dangerous, experienced mouth hovered hazily above another. “I thought that if I proved to you in your absence that I could keep a house in order, you would be persuaded to employ me.” She felt she was talking slowly, but she plunged on. “I had hoped to teach when I came to this country, and make full use of the education that my father gave me, but that is something that can’t be achieved yet. There are barriers here as high as in England between the righteous folk and the sinners.”
“True indeed,” he remarked with quiet amusement. “Don’t tell me that we’re on the same side of the fence!”
She nodded solemnly. “I have two small children with me. They’re not mine, but nobody seems to believe me. And you won’t either.”
“On the contrary.”
She stared at him in bewilderment. “Why should you believe me when you haven’t even heard yet how I acquired them?”
“I usually recognize the truth when I hear it. Now tell me the rest of it.”
She told him everything. It flowed from her. About Giles. The anguish of being powerless to save Hannah. Of Philip Manning, her voice softening as she remembered all those quiet hours they had spent together. And of how desperate had been her disappointment at failing to find Will Nightingale, rounding it all up with an account of the way doors had been shut against her. When at last she fell silent, her head was lolling, and she felt herself being helped to her feet.
“You must go to bed,” he said.
“Does that mean that I can stay here with the children?” she asked him on a rush of hope.
“On certain conditions,” he answered, “but we’ll discuss those tomorrow.”
Relief that she was not to be turned away took the last strength from her. Her head drooped and she swayed against him.
Effortlessly he swept her up in his arms, and instantly her lids became locked in sleep. He carried her up the curving staircase, wondering in which room she had left the children. Deciding that it was not important, he bore her through into the bedchamber that overlooked the orchard. He laid her on the bed and removed her shoes before pulling the covers over her. Turning, he went across to release the silken cords that held back the drapes, letting the velvet folds fall into place across the windows.
He glanced back at her once before the door clicked shut behind him.