On the way back to York, Sarah started to look forward eagerly to seeing Jenny and Robbie again. At the house she found them waiting for her in her room under Mary Anne’s watchful eye.
“Hallo, my darlings!” she cried, throwing out her arms to them. They rushed to her and she bent down to hug them close. Robbie was so full of news that it came spilling from him in a stutter, but Jenny was silent, her face buried against Sarah, arms clutching as if never to let her go again.
“They’ve been real good, Mrs. Garrett,” Mary Anne said happily. “No trouble at all.” She went from the room, leaving the three of them together.
“Let’s see what I’ve brought you,” Sarah said when Joe Tupper had carried up her trunk and set it down. There was a wooden doll for Jenny and a brightly painted horse and cart for Robbie. They were excited with their gifts and went running off to show them to Mary Anne. Sarah saw that Flora had come to hover enviously in the doorway, and she held out a third gift that she had bought. “This is for you, Flora,” she said, smiling. It was a fan of beaded lace.
Flora’s eyes lit up with delight, and she took it from Sarah to whirl it awkwardly before the mirror. “I have never seen a fan so pretty!”
“Not like that,” Sarah said patiently, taking up one of her own fans, “but like this.” She demonstrated, and Flora quickly mastered the action with a natural grace. “Well done!”
The black child let out an exuberant sigh. “I guess I’m not so dumb after all!” She went darting off triumphantly.
Sarah turned to the rest of the unpacking.
When Sarah went downstairs again Beth came to her with a letter. “This was collected from the post office soon after you’d left for Niagara, ma’am.”
A tremendous wave of excitement swept through Sarah as she broke the seal. It must be from Will Nightingale! But disappointment when she glanced at the signature was overlaid immediately by mingled surprise and pleasure. It was from Dr. Philip Manning.
Dear Sarah,
No doubt you will be much surprised to hear that soon I shall be in York. Quebec, although a very fine city, has not offered me the opportunities for which I had hoped, the conditions of partnership offered to me proving to be far from satisfactory, and not at all what I had been led to expect. I have no address yet, but intend buying a house that will be large enough for me to have both a surgery and a small operating theatre. When I arrive in York I hope to find a reply to this letter at the post office telling me where I might call on you without delay. I trust that the children were joyfully united with their father. The task you took upon yourself was no easy one, and Mr. Nightingale must be ever in your debt. You have been constantly in my thoughts since we parted. Indeed, I stood on the Rock and watched the Griffin sail out of sight, never dreaming that the chance to meet again would come so soon. I am sure you have found the employment that you desired and I look forward to hearing all your news before long. It is my cherished hope that the good memories of the friendships you made on board have remained with you; I refer, of course, to those of Hannah and myself.
Your servant,
Philip Manning
Sarah folded the letter. The date showed that it was already a month old. He could be in York already. There had been an unwritten message in the last sentence, which she understood only too well. He had been asking her to overlook the little contretemps that had ruined their moment of parting. It was obvious he wanted to make a fresh start, although it would not be as he expected.
She realized she was fighting down an absurd desire to go flying off to the post office with a reply at once. Tomorrow was soon enough. Nevertheless it was extraordinarily comforting to think that soon she would have a true friend near at hand again, even though as a married woman she would not be able to turn to him as she had done in the past.
She might have told Bryne about the letter if Lucy had not chosen that moment to arrive at the house. Hearing the clatter of hooves in the drive, Sarah thrust the letter into her pocket and went to see who the visitor might be. But as she reached the hall the door burst open, and a girl, coppery hair aglow around her lovely high-boned face, rushed into the house, scattering gloves, reticule, scarf, and tossing aside her bonnet.
“Bryne! Bryne! Bryne!” the girl called exultantly. “I’m here! I’m home!”
Oblivious to Sarah’s presence, she whirled about with a toss of petticoats as Bryne appeared at the head of the stairs and shrieked out his name again. “Bryne!”
“Welcome home, Lucy,” he said, grinning at her as he held out his hands, coming down to meet her.
She hurled herself up the stairs into his arms, clutching at him as he held her, her eyes closed, her face ecstatic. “I thought you were never going to let me come home,” she gasped in a choked voice.
“You know me better than that,” he replied.
She raised an adoring face to him. “I could scarcely believe it when the Principal sent for me and said I was to pack and be ready to leave. It’s three whole months since you came to the school. I was afraid you’d forgotten all about me!”
He raised an amused eyebrow and held her back from him. “You knew full well that I was going to be in the United States for most of that time, so don’t play the neglected waif with me.”
She made a delicious little face at him, cuddling up within the circle of his arm as they came down the flight together. “Never mind. I’m here now. How do you think I look?”
She broke away to pirouette before him in the hall, her abundant red curls swinging out, her arms and hands extended, taking a wanton pleasure in the beauty of her own face, figure, and ankles. As she swirled the girl spotted Sarah and halted abruptly, her skirt still whipping on to entwine about her legs before dropping into its folds again. “Who’s this?” she asked in a flat, dry, suddenly frightened voice.
“Sarah—my wife.” He turned to hold out a hand to Sarah and bring her forward, addressing her, his eyes twinkling: “Allow me to present Lucy, my ward—and yours too, now, my dear.”
It seemed to Sarah that the girl’s eyes had grown twice the size, the pupils dilated with shock, and all color drained from her face. A shuddering gasp escaped her, and she half-crouched in frenzied, desperate horror as she stared at Bryne. “I don’t believe you! You’re lying! Lying!” Her voice rose on a note of hysteria.
He frowned with wearied patience. “No more tantrums, Lucy. We’ve been through all this before. You know I said long ago that you couldn’t come here until I had a wife.”
She lifted clenched fists together on taut arms in furious despair as she stormed her answer at him. “I didn’t realize you ever meant to marry anyone else but me! I believed you were telling me to wait until I was old enough! I love you! You know I’ve loved you since that very first day! You don’t belong to any other woman! You don’t belong to her!”
She flung a look of such venom at Sarah that Bryne stepped forward hurriedly as if fearing that she might fly for his wife’s throat, but at his restraining touch on her shoulder she reared up and struck him across the mouth with all her force.
In the silence that followed all anger appeared to go from her, and she put fluttering, birdlike fingertips to hover about his lips in regret at any physical pain she might have caused him. But a new and terrible resolution showed in her face. “I’ll make you see that there’s no one else for you but me! However long it takes I’ll make you come to me in the end. You’re mine, Bryne Garrett, and you always will be.” Then with an awful dignity she swung round to Sarah, her head high. “Perhaps you’ll be good enough to show me which bedchamber has been prepared for me.”
Sarah, who had remained silent throughout the whole tempestuous scene, struck by the poignant irony of this extraordinary triangle, turned, still without a word, to lead the way upstairs. In Lucy’s agony she had seen her own on the day she had learned that Giles was lost to her, and compassion had flowed out from her to the girl. So much torment and sorrow had to be endured before the young heart healed. As her own had healed. When that had happened she was not sure, but it must have come about unnoticed during the many traumatic events that had taken place since she had left England. She could think of Giles now without the old ache and longing, seeing that it had been an infatuation as blind and obsessive and unquestioning as Lucy’s for Bryne. Yet, unlike Lucy, she had accepted that love was at an end, making the break clean, but here was a case that could fester and destroy, causing endless trouble for them all. Lucy’s behavior had been very revealing. Her whole greedy, calculating, and selfish nature had shown through. When thwarted, all her lively, dancing allure had changed into the ferocious savagery of a spitting cat.
“I’ll want a maid to wait on me,” Lucy said, stalking into the blue bedchamber and glaring round it. “Flora will do.”
“Beth will help you unpack,” Sarah answered, “but after that you must look after yourself. Flora is neither a slave nor a servant, but Bryne’s ward, as you are. She enjoys the same rights and the same privileges.”
Lucy’s face had become twisted into an expression of intense incredulity. “What’s happening in this house? Bryne bought Flora in a slave auction.”
“Maybe he did. But this is Upper Canada—not the American South.” Sarah made a move to leave. “I think there’s everything in this room that you could need. Joe will bring your baggage up. Dinner will be in an hour.”
Lucy moved swiftly to come between Sarah and the door. “Where did you meet Bryne?”
“In this house. I came here for work.” Sarah went on to explain briefly about Hannah’s death and the children.
When she had finished speaking Lucy leaned back against the wall and folded her arms, a glint of ferocious amusement in her eyes. “So Bryne married you for the same reason that he made me his ward and purchased Flora in a market—he pitied you, Sarah!” Her head fell back in a little shout of laughter, and she hugged her arms, whirling back into the center of the room. But seeing that her barbed words had not had the effect on Sarah that she had expected, her gaze hardened shrewdly. “You don’t care, do you? You don’t love him!”
Sarah, taken aback by the girl’s perceptiveness, saw that she must assert herself quickly. Instinctively she drew her ringed left hand from her skirt pocket and clasped it into her right, stepping forward at the same time. “I’m his wife. Nothing can change that.”
Lucy laughed again, catching hold of the bedpost to swing on it and come round to face Sarah again. She wrapped her arms about it, resting her cheek against the carved wood. “I’ll do everything in my power to get him away from you!”
Sarah left the room. Lucy’s laughter followed her.
Lucy appeared for dinner in high good spirits, looking astonishingly pretty in a simple muslin gown. She prattled away throughout the meal, and Sarah saw that Bryne was bewildered by this abrupt change of mood, but relieved at the same time.
“Whatever did you say to Lucy when you were upstairs with her?” he asked Sarah afterward.
“Very little,” Sarah answered evasively.
“Well, you sure talked some sense into her,” he observed with a sigh of satisfaction. Then he returned to the parlor, where Lucy was opening the backgammon table in readiness for a game with him. Sarah fetched some sewing, and sat stitching by the lamp as they played. Lucy flirted with him outrageously, but he merely responded with amusement, although obviously much entertained by it. There was a lot of talk between them about her being presented to the families of York.
“There’s the ball at Government House tomorrow evening,” he said, throwing the dice. “Six Ace!” He moved one of his men to an unoccupied point. “It will be Sarah’s first appearance with me at a public function, too.”
Lucy’s smile faded a little as if she resented sharing the glory of the occasion, but she recovered herself and swept her eyelashes at him. “You must give a party for me soon. When shall it be?”
He glanced at her, his face very serious. “If it’s possible, you’ll have as many parties as you wish, but war can break out at any time. That will change everything.”
She pouted sulkily. “I’ve been shut up in that prison of a school for so long! Am I to be deprived of my social pleasures by a silly old war? Perhaps it won’t happen. I refuse to be pessimistic.” She brightened considerably. “You did say I could have some new gowns, didn’t you, Bryne?” She sat back in the chair, giving her mind to the matter. “I’ll get an emerald gauze tomorrow for the ball. Or should it be blue shot with silver?”
Bryne rapped the backgammon board. “Pay attention to the game,” he said, with a laugh. “It’s your move.”
She responded with an enchanting giggle, and the game continued.
They were still playing when Sarah went up to bed. She felt intensely weary. The scenes earlier in the day had upset her more than she had realized, and after getting into bed she found it difficult to concentrate on the book that had held her interest on previous nights during the voyage home to York. She managed to finish it, but still felt wide awake. Should she go downstairs and find something else to read? Suddenly she remembered Philip’s letter.
Throwing back the bedclothes, she thrust her feet into slippers and went across to the closet. She felt in the pocket of her dress, but it was not there. Hastily she looked on the floor, wondering if it had fallen out somewhere, but she could not see it. She must have dropped it downstairs.
Taking a candle, she set off in search of it. Bryne and Lucy had gone to their respective bedchambers long since, and the house was in darkness. She searched thoroughly, retracing all her steps of the day, but in vain.
Returning to her own room, she gave an involuntary start as she entered. Lucy was sitting on the end of the four-poster bed, facing her. Philip’s letter was in her hand.
“Who,” Lucy inquired in dulcet tones, waving the letter airily, “is Philip Manning?”
“There’s no reason why I should answer your impertinent question,” Sarah said angrily, going forward to take it quickly from her, “especially when you have been reading my correspondence behind my back!”
Lucy grimaced. “How starchy you sound! You dropped it in my room, and I hoped it was a passionate love letter or an assignation note. You can’t blame me for reading it. I told you I should use whatever weapons came to hand.”
“Please go back to your own room,” Sarah insisted, kicking off her slippers and getting into bed to show that the interview was at an end.
Lucy did not move. “Are you in love with Philip Manning? Is that why you care nothing for Bryne?”
“I’m not in love with Philip,” Sarah said, punching up the pillows. “He was the doctor on board ship who looked after Hannah Nightingale before she died. We became friends.”
Lucy rose and ambled across to the door, the frills of her robe aflutter. In the open doorway she turned, her expressionsly. “Don’t you think it strange that he should be coming to York when he could have gone to any other place?”
There was nothing strange about it, Sarah thought. Philip wanted to be near her again. If she had been at Hudson Bay he would have gone there. It would be a blow to him to learn that she was married. There was no doubt in her mind about that.
“Good night, Lucy,” she said firmly, determined not to continue the discussion.
Alone again, Sarah lay staring up at the candle-lit canopy above her. She must tell Bryne that Philip was to be in York. She would tell him tomorrow.
But that was not to be. Bryne was gone from the house when she went in search of him next morning, leaving a message that he would be at the warehouse all day, and late that afternoon something happened that drove all thought of the letter from her mind. Jenny and Robbie disappeared.
“They were here ten minutes ago,” Mary Anne protested, frantic with worry, throwing out her hands toward the lawn where the toys they had been playing with lay strewn in the sun. “I only left them to tidy the nursery.”
“Have you looked out in the street?” Sarah’s thoughts had sprung to the danger of carriage wheels and galloping horses.
“The gates are still shut—and they’re too high for Jenny to have closed behind them. In any case, Flora would have seen them go. She’s lying with a book in the hammock.”
“Perhaps they’re in the orchard on the swing. I’ll go and search there. Tell Beth and Agnes to look all over the house. They’re not with Miss Lucy by any chance?” She thought it highly unlikely, Lucy having made it very obvious that she had no time to spare for them, but no possibility must be overlooked.
Mary Anne shook her head. “Miss Lucy has gone to the dressmaker’s. That new gown she bought for the ball this evening had to be altered, and she said she’d wait until it was done.”
Sarah was already starting off in the direction of the orchard, and she spoke over her shoulder. “Get Joe Tupper to search the stables …” Her voice trailed away and she turned very white. “Oh, God! The well!”
Together she and Mary Anne went bounding along the path that led round the house to the courtyard, but when they reached the well the lid was securely in position. Joe Tupper came out from grooming one of the horses in the stables with a curry comb in his hand to see what was the matter.
“They haven’t been around here,” he said with certainty. “Robbie always wants to see the horses—he’d never go past them. But I’ll check anyway,” he added hastily, seeing how anxious Sarah was and that Mary Anne was near to tears.
Sarah ran all the way to the orchard, but although she called their names over and over again as she darted between the trees, no small figures came rushing to her. Afterward she called the surprised and quickly alarmed Flora into the search, and double-checked that no other gates had been left open before joining Joe and Mary Anne as they hunted through all the outbuildings. When the root house, the summer house, and even the chimney in the wash house had been explored in vain, Sarah stood in the center of the courtyard and flung out her hands in an agony of frustration. “Where can they be?”
“There’s no break in the fence that they could have crawled through,” Joe insisted, thumping his fist into his palm, “but I’ll scout around the streets jes’ to settle your fears on that score, Mrs. Garrett.”
Sarah nodded, her throat so tight that she felt choked. Beth and Agnes, having gone through the house a second time, came out shaking their heads, at a loss where to look next.
“I’se afraid,” Flora whimpered, clutching at Sarah’s hand. “S’pose we don’t never find them?”
“They can’t be far away,” Sarah said automatically, wondering how many times she had said those words aloud and to herself. She bent down to take Flora by the shoulders, looking into her face. “Is there any place you can think of where they might be hiding for a game? Have you made a playhouse anywhere, or found a hollow tree, or anything like that? Do think. Please!”
“There ain’t no place,” Flora’s tone was emphatic. “We’ve looked in dem all.”
When Lucy returned from the dressmaker’s, a large striped box under her arm, the search was still in progress. Joe had ridden off to the warehouse to fetch Bryne home, and Beth and Agnes were making inquiries at the neighboring houses. Flora, sitting on the porch steps, gave her the information.
“Mr. Bryne is goin’ to be real mad when he discovers dem children is missin’,” the black girl added fearfully.
Lucy frowned, uncertain whether the situation could be as serious as Flora had made out, but when she saw Sarah coming ashen-faced toward her all doubt fled.
“I’ve heard the news!” Lucy went to meet her. “Where on earth have they gone?”
Sarah lifted her hands and let them fall again to her sides helplessly. “I don’t—”
She was interrupted by a cry from Flora, who had leaped to her feet on the porch. “Here comes Mr. Bryne!”
Sarah gave a sob of thankfulness at the sight of him riding swiftly up the street, Joe on another horse behind him. But on the porch Flora’s reaction followed its usual pattern in the face of any possible unpleasantness. “I’se off to de cupboard!”
She bolted. Sarah, halfway to the gate, stopped in her tracks and swung around. The cupboard! They had looked in every cupboard in the house, but was there still a niche that they had overlooked? “Wait!” Sarah cried. But Flora had already vanished into the house.
Sarah, running in after her, heard the cellar door in the hall creak to a close. But when she stood on the steps down into the darkness Flora did not answer her when she called. Impatiently she rushed to get a candle. Returning again to the cellar, she opened the door of every cupboard and storeroom, but in vain.
“Flora! Where are you? Answer me!”
Her voice echoed back at her. The candlelight danced over the stacked casks, the rows of preserves, the hanging hams, and the sacks of flour, reaching to the far end where the wineracks reached to the ceiling in a deep alcove. Where had Flora gone?
Above her Bryne had entered the house, and Sarah ran to the foot of the cellar steps. “I’m down here! Where is Flora’s cupboard?”
He came hastening down. Mary Anne, her cheeks tear-streaked, came after him, followed by Beth and Agnes. He shook his head with a grin at Sarah, and to her astonishment he went straight to a cupboard where the garden brooms and tools were stored, but of Flora there was no sign. He dropped down onto one knee, reaching out to swing aside two loose panels at the back of it. A glimmer of greenish daylight showed through. Flora’s face, torn between fear and relief, peered out at him.
“Dey’s in here,” she told him warily, “but don’t yo’ let nobody whack me, Mr. Bryne. I showed dem dis place, but never thought dey’d go in it without me.”
“Nobody is going to beat you,” he said calmly. “You left those days behind you when I took you away from that auction. Now get out of the way and let Jenny and Robbie come through.”
Sarah, overwhelmed by relief, had already dropped to her knees at his side, and she helped him draw Jenny out first, and then Robbie. She gathered them tightly into her arms.
“Didn’t you hear me call, my darlings?” she implored shakily.
“We was playing hide-and-seek with Flora,” Jenny explained with unconcern.
Flora’s eyes were round with indignation. “I didn’t know dat!”
Jenny looked at her with impatience. “We played it ’fore!” she said with a stamp of her foot.
Sarah put her forehead against Jenny’s and spoke slowly and carefully. “But you must always tell when you’re going to hide, otherwise nobody knows when to start looking for you. Will you remember that?”
“Yes,” Jenny answered, losing interest.
Sarah released the children, and they ran with Flora up to the kitchen to be fed on cakes and milk, Mary Anne and the other two women all fussing over them.
“I must get back to the warehouse,” Bryne said, dusting off his knees.
“I’m so grateful to you for coming home,” Sarah said. “Goodness knows how long it would have taken Flora to summon up the courage to let me know they were there.” She looked toward the panels that he had moved. “Why does that cupboard have a false back?”
“That part of the cellar is an awkward shape, and some previous owner cut off the angle of it when he had these store cupboards installed. The panels should be nailed up. I’ll do it one day when Flora no longer needs a refuge.”
She did not follow Bryne back upstairs, but returned to the cupboards and pushed aside the panels. A small window, thickly covered by the shrubbery outside, gave the faint light, and Flora had made the wedge-shaped space into a playroom. Crawling through the aperture, Sarah rose to her feet again, and stood looking round. There was an old footstool, some ancient fashion plates pinned to the walls, and all Flora’s small treasures arranged in rows of boxes. The children had disturbed some of the contents, and several chess pieces, a collection of vivid glass buttons, and some playing cards were spread about the floor.
There was no doubt it was the perfect hiding place. Sarah took a last glance before leaving it again. She had the feeling that one day it would prove useful, but she could not think how that might be.