Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed as he registered the start the little maid gave when she saw him, and as she scurried to his side he could see something was amiss.
‘Oh, sir, we didn’t know you were back,’ she said in a loud whisper. ‘The mistress asked me to keep an eye open for you, but then she wanted some more hot water for the pot and—’
‘What is it?’ He had no patience with Bridget’s gabbling; the girl was a constant irritation to him, but thankfully it was Mary who mostly dealt with the servants.
‘It’s her, sir. The – the lady who’s in with the mistress. She says . . .’ Here Bridget’s speech seemed to fail her and she gaped at him for a moment, before continuing, ‘She says she’s your sister, come to visit, sir.’
Jeremiah’s sharp ears didn’t miss the infinitesimal pause. He stared into the earnest rosy-cheeked face, his mind racing. Esther? Esther had come home? But it had been fifteen years and no word. Not that he, or his parents before they had passed away, had wanted one, not after the note she had left saying she intended to go on the stage. They had told no one of that, of course. His father had let it be known that his daughter had gone abroad for her health, and after a suitable time had intimated that she had decided to live permanently in warmer climes.
Becoming aware that Bridget was waiting for him to speak, he pulled himself together. ‘I see.’ He glanced at the silver hot-water jug which had been part of the fine tea set the bishop had bought the happy couple as a wedding gift. ‘Take that into your mistress and tell her I’ll be along shortly.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Bridget seemed glad her duty was done, whirling round
and scampering across the polished tiles to the drawing room even before he had finished speaking.
The drawing room and morning room were on the ground floor of the vicarage. The first floor was taken up with the dining room, Jeremiah’s study and the children’s schoolroom. The top floor consisted of six bedrooms, with a less grand and space-consuming staircase than that which connected the ground and first floor.
Jeremiah had visited more lavish premises when calling on clergy friends, but also many less spacious, and overall he was pleased at the accident of birth which had destined him to live in the vicarage after his parents had died. When they had been alive the morning room had been the dining room, and his mother’s sewing room had occupied the present dining room on the first floor. On entering the house, Mary had immediately declared that an informal sitting room on the ground floor was essential. His position dictated a morning room where Jeremiah could see parishioners in private, or she could receive women friends who called for morning refreshments. He hadn’t argued. And so their meals had to come up one flight of stairs and be kept hot, which involved placing serving dishes in scalding water and perfect timing when a dinner party was in progress. But that was Kitty and Bridget’s problem. Servants were readily available, and could usually be replaced without difficulty if they failed to meet the required standards.
Jeremiah eased his starched clerical collar and smoothed the strands of sparse ginger hair either side of his head before looking towards the drawing-room door. He felt no excitement at the prospect of his sister’s return, merely anxiety. Esther had been a wayward child, given to flights of fancy and extreme precociousness, and as she had grown, so had her brashness. She had run rings round their mother, and her boldness with his friends had caused him much embarrassment. She had possessed none of the modest virtues appropriate for the daughter of a well-to-do vicar, and had stated quite emphatically that she had no intention of becoming the decorative wife of a boring provincial husband but would follow her own star. He had put much of her prattle down to her youth, but when she had skedaddled at the tender age of fifteen
it hadn’t come as much of a surprise to him, although their parents had been mortified.
His brows drew together. And now the black sheep of the family was sitting in the drawing room with his wife, who knew nothing of the true circumstances surrounding Esther. He had been too ashamed to tell Mary the truth. The door to the drawing room opened and Bridget re-emerged, the girl’s expression changing to one of wariness as she saw him still standing there. He beckoned her over with a crooked finger and when she was standing in front of him, said tersely, ‘The children? Where are they?’
‘Me da’s lookin’ after ’em in the schoolroom for the present, sir. The mistress said for me to go and take over once I’d served tea.’
‘And have you served tea?’
‘Aye. I mean yes, sir. I have.’
‘Then go and do what your mistress told you.’
Jeremiah waited until Bridget had disappeared upstairs before walking across the hall. He opened the drawing-room door with a flourish and stepped inside.
Esther had scarcely been able to believe it when after knocking on the door of the vicarage and demanding to see Mrs Hutton, a stranger had come into the morning room where the maid had shown her. She had stared at the thin, colourless woman in front of her and the woman had stared back, before taking a deep breath and saying, ‘You wish to see me?’ her tone making it quite clear she did not expect the meeting to last long.
The woman’s barely concealed distaste had the effect of straightening Esther’s backbone and lifting her chin, but behind her cool facade her mind was racing. Where was her mother? Had her father married again? He must have. But to this frump? And if her father had taken a second wife, that must mean her mother had died.
The woman hadn’t asked her to sit down and Esther’s swollen feet were aching and her back breaking, but she gave no sign of her physical discomfort when she answered the usurper in an equally cold tone, ‘I was expecting to see my mother. I am Esther. Perhaps my father has spoken of me?’
‘Your father?’ For a moment the steely poise faltered but imm ediately the woman collected herself, gesturing at one of the small armchairs in the room as she said, ‘Please be seated. Am I to understand you are Jeremiah’s sister?’
Esther continued to stand straight and still as she inclined her head. Jeremiah. Of course. This pikestaff of a woman must be Jeremiah’s wife. ‘Where are my mother and father?’ she asked quietly but fearing the answer.
Mary was at a loss for perhaps the first time in her life. When Bridget had knocked on the door of the schoolroom where she was listening to John and Matthew’s tutor, Mr Maxwell, take the boys through the alphabet after she had settled the twins for their afternoon nap, and told her they had a visitor, she had excused herself forthwith and followed the maid on to the landing. There she had been slightly nonplussed when Bridget had practically barred her way, whispering, ‘Ma’am, it’s a – a lady – an’ she’s expectin’ a bairn. I thought you ought to know.’
Something in the way the maid had spoken had caused her to lower her own voice. ‘A lady from hereabouts?’
‘I don’t think so, ma’am. At least I’ve never seen her afore an’ she’s dressed . . .’ Here Bridget seemed to be searching for the right words. ‘She’s not dressed like folk round here, ma’am. And she wouldn’t say her name. Just repeated all haughty-like for me to fetch you.’
‘All right, Bridget.’ Mary had thought quickly. ‘I will see this lady but come immediately I ring for you.’
And now it appeared that their visitor was none other than Jeremiah’s sister who, she understood, was living somewhere on the continent having made an impetuous marriage to a Frenchman without asking her parents’ permission and thus incurring their wrath. When Mary had ventured a suggestion, shortly before they had wed, that Jeremiah might like to extend an olive branch to his sister now his parents had gone, and invite her and her husband to the wedding, he had not welcomed the idea, and the subject was never discussed again.
Making a swift decision, Mary forced a smile. ‘Shall we go through to the drawing room where it’s more comfortable?’ she said graciously. ‘And I’m sure it’s time for afternoon tea. We can talk in front of the fire.’
She only noticed the large carpet bag when Esther bent to
pick it up, and said immediately, ‘Leave that. Bridget will see to it shortly.’
All that had been over two hours ago. Now, as Mary glanced at her husband as he entered the drawing room, her hazel eyes were chips of flecked ice and her lips a thin line across her face. She was angry, more angry than she had ever been in the whole of her life.
Jeremiah had lied to her. Not only that, this sister of his was an actress in the music halls in the city of London. Everyone knew what
that
meant. Actresses were scarlet women soliciting from the stage rather than the streets, and the music halls were beds of iniquity. She had known there was no husband once Esther had begun to divulge her story, and it had only taken a few searching questions to persuade Jeremiah’s sister to admit it. And this – this
woman
was her children’s aunt, related to them by blood. The whole situation was quite intolerable.
After one look at his wife, Jeremiah didn’t glance her way again as he walked across the room, his eyes on the sister he hadn’t seen for fifteen years. In truth, he wouldn’t have recognised her if he had passed her in the street. The Esther who had run away that far-off day with the money from his mother’s cash-box and several pieces of jewellery which had been passed down to his mother from her mother, bore no resemblance to the plump, brightly dressed woman sitting on the sofa next to Mary. If he had had to describe the girl Esther he would have said she was pert and saucy, but with a fresh innocence that reflected a sheltered upbringing. The woman in front of him, her gown cut to show the curve of her breasts and her golden hair carefully styled in elaborate waves and curls, was neither innocent nor fresh. Her worldliness was apparent in every inch of her, but especially in the expression of her violet-blue eyes.
He swallowed against the shock and outrage and did not return her smile, nor did he address her as he would any other person who was a guest in his home. Looking down at her, he said tightly, ‘Why have you come here, Esther?’
She didn’t seem at all taken aback by his attitude, and as her
smile died she answered him as directly as he’d spoken to her. ‘I am going to have a baby and I am temporarily without funds. I had nowhere else to go.’
Her voice was still the same, clear and beautifully modulated with a hint of the soft breathlessness which had captivated all his friends when they were young. His mother had insisted Esther attend elocution lessons when they were children, worried that her daughter would pick up the north-east dialect. The result had been very successful, the child’s distinct pronunciation and articulation devoid of any idiom or accent. After Esther had run away, their father had accused his wife of planting the idea of becoming an actress – albeit unwittingly – by her actions, something Jeremiah knew his mother had never forgiven his father for until her dying day.
Remembering the turmoil of that time, his voice was a hiss when he said, ‘And the father? Your husband?’
Afterwards he thought he might have believed there was some hope for her if she had lowered her head in shame or wept, but when she stared him straight in the face and said evenly, ‘The two are not synonymous,’ it was all he could do not to take her by the throat and throttle the wickedness out of her.
‘Esther is not married, Jeremiah.’ Mary spoke for the first time since he had entered the room, each word a snap. ‘And we have ascertained that paternity is not possible to pin down.’
He would never have imagined Mary would speak so bluntly about such matters. The fact that she had done so shocked him nearly as much as the inference her words held. ‘You mean . . .’ He cleared his throat, unable to go on.
‘It’s normal for the girls to have several admirers.’ Esther’s tone was not defensive, more matter-of-fact. ‘No one thinks anything of it. Everything’s different in London.’
Jeremiah felt a heat rising up in him made up of fury, em barrassment and shame. And yet he had known, hadn’t he? The minute he’d set eyes on her he had known what she’d become. The seed of it had always been there, it had merely needed the watering of it to make it grow, and from what he had heard about
the music halls and theatres in the capital, it was Sodom and Gomorrah. There were words bubbling in his head, profane, coarse, foul words that he wanted to spit into her face, but by an effort of will he had not known he was capable of, he subdued what he perceived as the flesh and the devil. ‘There is no place for you here,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘You broke our mother’s heart and sent her and Father to an early grave. As far as I am concerned, I have no sister.’
‘I understand from your wife that Mother and Father died of the cholera.’ Esther’s voice was low now and weighted with scorn. ‘Even
you
cannot imagine I had a hand in that. And I am not so naive to believe that my leaving home affected Mother’s heart one way or the other. We never liked each other, as you well know. I am sure that once you had all covered my tracks with the story of a trip abroad and my subsequent marriage to this Frenchman, there was a sigh of relief all round that I was gone.’
There was an element of truth in what she said but Jeremiah would have sooner walked on hot coals than admit it. He stared into the face which was still lovely in spite of the life of debauchery, and he had the urge, almost overpowering, as it had been once before, to strangle the life out of her. Clearly, Mary had told his sister the explanation they had put about regarding her sudden departure, but that did not trouble him. It was the fact that his wife was fully aware of this shameful and humiliating part of his life that had his stomach in knots. After Esther had left he had prayed daily for years that she was dead and burning in hell, and eventually he had persuaded himself that the Almighty had answered his pleadings.
‘You’re a common slut, worse than the dockside whores. At least they are driven to do what they do in the main just to survive. But you, you were a gentlewoman of good birth and breeding, the daughter of a minister with fine connections.’