‘I know that you are a woman,’ he said softly. ‘I have never had any doubt about that.’
She glanced up at the house. ‘Mama is looking at us.’
He turned and looked up. ‘We’d better go in, she will start to worry.’
‘You are so considerate, Jack.’ Phoebe gazed at him. ‘You deserve someone so much better than me.’
Can his father be so very bad? Amelia deliberated as Ralph issued the statement so harshly. Is it possible to hate or love a blood relation on such a short acquaintanceship?
Her mother came into the Fieldings’ parlour. ‘Amelia dear, I think I will take Miss Fielding home with us until she is feeling better. Harriet too if she wishes.’
‘Harriet has to work Mama,’ Amelia reminded her. ‘But I could stay here with her as I did before, if Elizabeth goes home with you.’
‘What are your intentions, Ralph?’ her mother asked. ‘Will you stay to renew your relationship with your father?’
Ralph’s mouth tightened. ‘I will stay a little longer, Aunt Emily. I need to find out the truth.’
His aunt nodded. ‘Then I will return home with Miss Fielding.’ She added, ‘I think that I have almost convinced her that as we are practically related, she need not feel obliged towards us in any way. She is so bowed down with guilt.’
‘Yes,’ Ralph agreed grimly. ‘And it is because of Scott!’
When her mother had gone from the room, Amelia rationalized, ‘There is nothing you can do about what has gone before, Ralph. All those circumstances are in the past. You may feel hatred towards your father because of what he did, but you can’t undo it.’
‘You don’t understand,’ he burst out passionately. ‘I need to pay him back!’
‘Please! Don’t keep saying that I don’t understand!’ Amelia jumped to her feet. ‘Of course I understand! Scott hurt your mother and your sisters and by doing so, you too have been hurt. But you are a different man from the one you would have been! You too might have been downtrodden and under Scott’s influence if your mother hadn’t taken that knife in her hand.’
Her voice had risen in anger and she didn’t hear the door open or see Elizabeth Fielding standing there. ‘You wouldn’t have been as self-opinionated and arrogant as you are.’
Amelia swept towards the door and gasped as she saw Elizabeth standing there. ‘Excuse me,’ she muttered. ‘I do beg your pardon,’ and hurried out of the room.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ralph began, but Elizabeth put up her hand as if she was listening or thinking of something.
‘That’s what it was,’ she breathed, her eyes vacant. ‘It was a knife! It was lying on his desk.’
‘Yes, I’ve seen it. He still has it.’ He was
bewildered and annoyed. What did Amelia mean? How was he arrogant?
Elizabeth looked at him; it was as if she was awakening from a deep sleep. ‘It was because of me that Mama picked up the knife! That is why I have felt so guilty all these years.’
Ralph remained silent. Something momentous was about to be said.
‘He was going to strap me,’ she whispered. ‘Because of something I had forgotten to do. I can’t remember now what it was, something trivial – children do forget to do what adults tell them. He kept the strap beneath his desk. I had had a taste of it before, only Mama didn’t know. But this time he told me that when he had strapped me, he would strap Harriet as well, and that would make me always remember to do what he told me.
‘Mama came into the room as I stood with my hands out and she started to scream at him; she said she wouldn’t allow him to start on us children no matter how he treated her.’
Ralph gently eased her down into a chair. ‘He lashed out at her then,’ Elizabeth continued in a low voice. ‘I remember that his face was scarlet with fury because she had defied him, and he was hitting out wildly with the strap, knocking over ornaments and the papers off his desk and chasing her around the room, and I ran behind a chair. It was then that Mama picked up the paperknife from the desk and struck out at him.’
She shook her head. ‘It was only a glancing
blow, a mere scratch and there wasn’t any blood, but he made a terrible fuss about it. Mama and I went upstairs to our room, and later in the evening he called a doctor and a constable and showed them the wound. It was just below the collar bone and much deeper and bloodier than it had been before.’
She gazed at Ralph and her eyes were large and luminous. ‘I don’t know what happened next as Mama was taken away and we never saw her again. We were not allowed. We were sent to stay with Dolly. She was a friend of Scott’s,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But not of Mama’s.’
‘I have met her,’ Ralph responded. ‘She was visiting Scott.’
‘She’s always there,’ she muttered. ‘Even after he married again. Dolly was always there.’
‘It’s finished, Elizabeth,’ he insisted. ‘You need fear him no longer. Go to Holderness with Aunt Emily and rest. I’ll make sure that Scott doesn’t ever bother you again.’
She looked up at him and said in a hesitant voice, ‘You will make it up with Miss Linton – Amelia, won’t you? I should hate to think it was because of us that you quarrelled.’
‘Because of you? Why should you think that?’ She seemed to take the troubles of the whole world on her shoulders.
‘I couldn’t help overhearing,’ she confessed. ‘Amelia said—’
He took her hand in his. ‘Our difference of opinion is not because of you or Harriet, but
because of me. I believe that Amelia thinks that I shall seek vengeance with Scott over this. But she is quite wrong,’ he lied. ‘So you are not to worry about it.’ But Amelia is quite right, he deliberated as Elizabeth left the room, for that is exactly what I intend to do.
He left shortly afterwards, bidding Aunt Emily and Elizabeth a cordial goodbye, but giving Amelia only a polite bow, saying that he would call on her and Harriet the following day.
After Amelia closed the door behind her mother and Elizabeth, she burst into floods of tears. Her emotions, kept pent up inside her since her argument with Ralph, erupted.
Whatever was I thinking of? she wept. I was so rude! How could I say such things? He will never forgive me and rightly so. His father
has
been wicked in keeping secret the news of their mother’s death from Elizabeth and Harriet. Elizabeth, especially, has lived in hope since childhood that her mother would come back. It is natural that Ralph would feel anger against him.
She wiped her eyes. I will apologize tomorrow when he calls. He is not arrogant. Certainly not. How could I think it when he has behaved so well towards his newly discovered sisters?
Moira knocked and came into the room. ‘Would I go and do some shopping, Miss Linton?’ she started to say, then stopped when she saw Amelia’s tear-stained face. ‘Or maybe I’ll make you a nice cup of tea?’
‘Please,’ Amelia said, and blew her nose. ‘And then we’ll think about what to get for supper.’
‘I hope everything’s all right, Miss Linton?’ Moira hesitated, not yet knowing how she should behave in her new position.
‘I’m sure it will be, Moira,’ Amelia gave her a weak smile. ‘It has been quite an eventful day, but things can only improve.’
That evening Ralph ate supper at the inn, though his appetite was listless as his thoughts returned time and again to Amelia’s opinion of him. Why does she think such things? I speak my mind and do not pander to convention, it is true, but does that make me opinionated or arrogant? I’m honest in my beliefs and surely that is worth more than spouting trivial platitudes? Or is that what young women expect?
After a disturbed night’s sleep in which he had heated imaginary conversations with Amelia, he awoke, irritated and restless, and decided that he would call again on Scott that morning and confront him about misleading him over his half-sisters.
Dolly opened the door to him and haltingly excused the lack of a maid. ‘So difficult to keep them, you know,’ she whined. ‘They want so much these days.’
‘I am sure you are managing perfectly, Mrs West,’ he said with a cynicism he didn’t bother to hide, and followed her into Scott’s study.
‘Please stay,’ he said, as Scott indicated that
Dolly should leave the room. ‘Perhaps you can help me with my dilemma. Your friendship with my father must have been a great comfort to him throughout his unfortunate misadventures in life. You have been unstinting in your endeavours to help him through the sorrowful times he has encountered over the years.’
She looked at him in confusion and then glanced at Scott, who growled at Ralph, ‘What do you mean – misadventures?’
‘Why surely, sir, there cannot be many men who have been unfortunate enough to lose three wives! The first – my mother. I accept that you said that she was a bad woman and therefore probably deserved to be punished and sent away, but your second wife, so sad, she died after a short illness I believe? And the third Mrs Scott – so dreadful for her to feel the waters of the river closing over her head and no-one able to help her!’
It was with some satisfaction that he noticed Dolly West’s face losing colour as he spoke, and that she was biting hard on her forefinger. He addressed her. ‘It would be tempting fate to become the fourth Mrs Scott, would it not, Mrs West?’
He uttered this in a part serious, part jovial manner and Scott with narrowed eyes said harshly, ‘It is not a joking matter. Is this how you discuss death in Australia?’
‘Yes, indeed it is. Our forebears have all faced death in one form or another, by treadmill or
the rope, by flogging or hard labour and the only way they could confront or cheat it was to take it firmly by the throat and laugh in its face.’
Scott stared at him. ‘I was going to send for you to come,’ he said coldly. ‘I want you to sign some papers.’
‘What sort of papers?’ Ralph was immediately on guard.
‘I’ve seen my lawyer. He needs you to sign a statement confirming that you are my son.’ Then he added in a lighter tone, ‘And I need to change my will. I was going to leave what I had to various charities, but now – ’
‘I don’t understand the legalities,’ Ralph said in a light-hearted manner. ‘I suppose it’s a kind of affidavit? Will the estate not come to me automatically?’
‘No! We both have to sign papers.’
‘I suppose I shall have to change my will too as I have no other living relative?’
He thought he detected a glimmer of a smile in Scott’s eyes, but he was distracted as Mrs West got up from her chair and started to pace the room.
‘Sit down, Dolly,’ Scott barked, ‘or else go and make some coffee.’
She started towards the door. ‘Before you go,’ Ralph detained her. ‘As I was saying, I have a dilemma. I had almost forgotten, but some months ago when I was searching through reports to look for relatives, I came across my mother’s name in an Admiralty medical journal
which the surgeon superintendents are required to keep on board ship. A sort of log book,’ he explained. ‘In it, it was stated that I was not my mother’s first child, that she had borne other children.’
He waited for this to sink in. Dolly West stood motionless by the door and Scott continued to stare at him. ‘I just wondered if you could throw light on the matter,’ he continued. ‘Had she lost children at birth? So many women do. Or, as you say that she was a bad woman, and although I find this totally abhorrent and I hate to offend you by what I am about to say, did she, sir, give birth to children before you married her?’
Scott was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Let’s get these papers signed and out of the way, and then I’ll tell you what happened.’
Ralph shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t possibly do that. There might be other children to consider, brothers or sisters. They would have a claim on my estate, which I must tell you is quite substantial. I must consider them. They may be in dire circumstances and glad of a helping hand.’
Scott’s face grew red. ‘There are no other children! She had had two stillbirths before I met her. Now can we get on with this paperwork!’
‘Of course,’ Ralph nodded. ‘I’ll arrange for a lawyer to act for me and for Mr Mungo to act as witness. Will Thursday be convenient? I can’t get hold of Jack before then.’
‘You’d have an Abo as a witness?’ Scott queried harshly. ‘Can he sign his name?’
‘Well enough,’ Ralph said smoothly, though he was seething with anger. ‘And Mrs West will sign for you, I expect?’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘Such a pity. I had hoped that I might have had siblings. It would have been such a pleasure, would it not, to meet a brother or sister face to face? Still,’ he said, with regret in his voice. ‘If it is not to be.’
‘No,’ said Scott. ‘It is not to be.’
‘
HE COULD FIND
out!’ Dolly West’s voice was even shriller than normal and Scott cringed. ‘He could find out,’ she repeated querulously. ‘If he starts poking about in the record books he might find out about them two.’
‘Shut up, will you! He can’t possibly find out. There’s no reason why he should start searching the records again. They’ve got a different name, haven’t they? He doesn’t know his mother was widowed before I married her.’
A thought struck him. Except that I sent him to see Henderson. Would he have told him? No, he decided. That fawning spaniel is frightened of his own shadow, let alone of risking my anger.
But as the day wore on into evening, his thoughts continued to draw back to his stepdaughters. If Hawkins should discover them, then he wouldn’t sign the papers. He thought of Ralph Hawkins quite dispassionately. There was no warm or tender emotion at the discovery of a long-lost child, born of his own flesh and blood.
But he did feel a profound, inspired intoxication when he thought of Ralph’s estate. There’s money in sheep, he debated. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t gold. He hedged when I asked him about that, didn’t give a proper answer.
‘Dolly!’ he yelled out of the study door. ‘Get ready. We’re going to visit those Fielding ladies.’
Ralph raised his hand to knock on the door, then lowered it again. It was early, only just after four o’clock, and Harriet wouldn’t be home yet. Can I face Amelia alone? he deliberated. If Harriet is late for any reason, Amelia and I will be forced into an embarrassing situation. What will we talk about? The English, I believe, discuss the weather, but I am not stamped in that mould.