The Loving Spirit Page 4

  ‘Do I understand that you refuse?’ Justin demanded with a hint of contempt.

  ‘No, I...Amelia.’ She dropped down close to her dying friend, ‘I will do anything you wish...but are you sure?’

  ‘This is the only thing I want. Look after my family, Kate...all of them. Do you understand? All of them.’

  Kate met her eyes, and suddenly a great calmness fell over her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You have my solemn word.’

  Amelia was almost at the last of her strength. She reached out a hand to the husband she loved.

  ‘Your marriage must take place within a few hours,’ she murmured. ‘No delay...swear it.’

  ‘I swear it,’ he said.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘I swear it.’

  ‘Mr. Morton.’

  ‘Your Ladyship’s wishes shall be respected,’ the clergyman said gravely.

  ‘Then I can die in peace. Let me say goodbye to my children.’

  Kate went swiftly to open the door, and the children crept in, their faces full of fear. Feebly, Amelia held out her arms to them, and they ran to the bed, weeping and burying their faces against her.

  ‘Goodbye, my darlings,’ she murmured. ‘God bless and keep you. Kate is your mother now.’

  Kate moved back into the shadows, glad to be forgotten. Her heart was pounding with the terrifying thing that had just happened. She was losing her only friend in the world, and for Amelia’s sake she had sworn to marry a man she disliked.

  As if from a great distance she saw the sobbing children crowded around the bed, and Lord Farringdon standing close by, his head bent in agony. Slowly he dropped to his knees. Amelia reached for him, drew his head against her breast.

  ‘Goodbye, my love,’ she murmured. ‘Remember your promise.’

  Then she was gone.

  ‘Amelia...Amelia...NO!’

  That was her husband’s cry as he clasped her lifeless body in his arms. Over the children’s weeping the vicar’s voice rose in prayer.

  Silently, Kate glided forward, and began to gather the children in her arms. They clung to her, bewildered, unable to take in the enormity of what had happened.

  ‘Come,’ she said gently. ‘We must leave your father alone with your mother.’

  She shepherded them out of the room, Jack and Charlie with their arms about each other, little Grace clinging to her skirts. Philip walked ahead in proud independence, fighting back tears. The vicar followed them.

  Outside, were Millicent and Charmaine. For once the petulant look was missing from the girl’s face and she looked nervous and upset.

  ‘When can I see my aunt?’ she faltered.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s too late,’ Kate told her. ‘She died a few minutes ago.’

  Lady Thorpe’s reaction was typical of her. ‘I should have been there,’ she snapped. ‘But it’s always the way in this house. Persons of quality are pushed aside by nobodies. Not for much longer however.’

  To Kate’s relief Charmaine silenced her aunt’s spiteful temper by bursting into noisy tears. She hadn’t been fond of Amelia, but this was her first deathbed, and it frightened her. Millicent became absorbed in soothing her, and Kate was able to slip away with the children.

  She took them to the nursery and sent down for hot milk and biscuits. She was speaking and acting from the top of her mind, while underneath it seethed with turmoil. It had been a dream, of course. Amelia couldn’t have made such an incredible request. Or if she had, she hadn’t been in her right mind, and Lord Farringdon would know it.

  She had lost her dearest friend. She would be dismissed, unable to fulfil her promise to care for the children. Tom would join the army, and she would be cast upon the world to fend for herself as best she might.

  A step outside, the door opened and a young footman stood there. He looked upset. Amelia’s servants had been devoted to her.

  ‘If you please, miss, His Lordship would like you to attend him in the library.’

  Her dismissal. She would be required to leave at once to silence gossip. Her heart was heavy as she made her way through the hushed house to the library.

  Lord Farringdon was standing with his back to the door, looking out at the window at the first light of dawn. He turned at her entrance and she drew a sharp breath at the sight of him. Amelia’s face was not more dead than the one that confronted her: parchment white, the eyes dark and sunken, and behind them...nothing.

  Then Kate saw that there was somebody else in the room. The short, spare figure of the vicar advanced towards her.

  ‘Mrs Hendricks,’ he said, ‘I do not know if you fully comprehend the promise that you just gave.’

  ‘I understood,’ Kate said in a low voice. ‘Lady Farringdon’s last thoughts were for her children. She wanted to be sure that I would never leave them.’

  ‘And do you intend to keep your word?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You gave your word, too,’ Justin reminded him in a harsh voice. ‘To perform the ceremony...as soon as possible.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. You’ll need a special licence from the bishop.’

  ‘I’ve already written to him, and you’ll marry us as soon as the licence arrives.’

  He walked out of the room without another word.

  Kate sank slowly on to a chair, feeling the strength drain out of her. The vicar briefly touched her shoulder. Over the years she had come to know him well as a stern but kind man.

  ‘What am I to do?’ she whispered. ‘Lord Farringdon doesn’t like me; I don’t like him. How will either of us endure it?’

  ‘If you are reluctant for this marriage,’ the vicar said gravely, ‘you cannot be compelled.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘I gave my word. She was my friend. This is the only thing she ever asked of me, and I won’t play her false. I loved her so...’

  At last her grief overcame her, and she laid her head down on the table and sobbed. After a while she felt a gentle touch on her arm and looked up to find a glass of wine that Mr Morton had poured for her.

  ‘You must keep up your strength,’ he said gently. ‘There are going to be many calls on it.’

  He walked quietly out of the room.

  *

  Kate tried to take the vicar’s advice to heart, and eat to stay strong. Some food arrived for her on a tray. She hadn’t ordered it, but guessed from the maid’s awed look that the news had gone through the house like wildfire, and the servants wanted to take a fresh look at her. She decided to take the bull by the horns.

  ‘What you have heard is true, Mary Ann,’ she said to the maid. ‘It is for the sake of the children, and for no other reason.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, Mr Morton said...’ the girl stopped awkwardly.

  So the vicar had been doing his work, telling the story of the deathbed promise, scotching scandal. Kate was grateful.

  She spent the day with the children. Little Grace sobbed in her arms. Charlie and Jack tried to fight back their tears, but at last they too succumbed. Philip set his chin and stared unseeingly into space. But when Kate next glanced at him his eyes were wet, and the look he gave her was naked in its grief.

  It was he who said, ‘You won’t leave us, will you, Kate?’

  ‘No, my dear. I will stay with you always, as your mama wished.’

  She knew that Millicent must have heard the news by now, and all day she waited for her to burst in and deliver a furious tirade. But there was only a strange silence. She was to discover soon that Millicent had far subtler methods.

  Evening came. There was the sound of carriage wheels, and a few minutes later Kate was summoned to the library. Justin was there, so was the vicar, and a man she had never seen before. He was very tall, with a grave face. And he wore bishop’s gaiters.

  ‘My Lord, allow me to introduce Mrs Kate Hendricks,’ Justin said. ‘Mrs Hendricks, this is the Bishop of Ellcaster.’

  She said what was proper, aware that the bishop’s shrewd eyes were on her. His next words cam
e like a thunderclap.

  ‘Rather than send a special licence I chose to bring it myself, for the son of my old friend,’ he declared. ‘I should like to perform the ceremony myself, if we can clear up one small point: the question of your husband.’

  Only then did Kate become aware of Millicent. She had been standing in the shadows, but now she stepped forward, barely able to conceal an air of spiteful triumph.

  ‘My...husband, My Lord?’ Kate stammered, horrified. She should never have agreed. Now everything would come out.

  ‘You are, I believe, a widow?’

  ‘Yes, My Lord.’

  ‘And your husband died...how long ago?’

  ‘Nearly fifteen years.’ It felt shocking to be deceiving a bishop, but she had no choice.

  ‘And you have some proof of his death?’

  ‘I...no, I...’ She pulled herself together. ‘It was so long ago, and I moved around several times in the next few years.’

  ‘Of course, of course. But you see, Lady Thorpe has raised the question of whether we can be quite certain that you are free to marry.’

  ‘But My Lord, I know that he...is not alive.’

  ‘Please, I am not doubting you. We could write to the military authorities but that would take time.’

  ‘I promised my wife no delay,’ Justin said harshly.

  ‘But dearest Amelia could not have thought of this,’ Millicent said with a cold smile.

  ‘Lady Farringdon knew me better than anyone in the world,’ Kate said, her anger rising. ‘She would never have made such a suggestion had she not known that I was free.’

  ‘Of course not,’ the bishop said in a calming voice. ‘Now Mrs Hendricks, Mr Morton here says he is well acquainted with you, and knows you to be a young woman of impeccable honesty. Will you swear to me, on this Bible, that your husband is dead?’

  The air sang in her ears. She had spoken the lie of necessity, but to swear it on the Bible was different, terrifying. But then she seemed to hear Amelia’s voice, faint with the approach of death, imploring her, ‘Do this for me...the only thing I ever asked of you.’

  Kate’s next action was as swift and decisive as a gambler staking everything on one throw. She took the Bible from the bishop and said in a firm, clear voice,

  ‘I swear on this Bible that I have no living husband. As God is my witness, I am free to marry. No man will ever create a scandal by returning to claim me as his wife.’

  The bishop’s face relaxed, and he held up a hand to Millicent, silently indicating that the matter was now closed. None of them seemed to notice how she’d changed the words. To say she had no living husband was the truth, and she could swear a Bible oath with a clear conscience.

  ‘Then I can make out the licence, and the marriage can take place whenever you wish,’ the bishop said.

  ‘In half an hour,’ Justin announced, ‘in the chapel.’

  Kate went to her wedding in a black silk dress that she always kept for Sunday best. A black silk bonnet and black wool cloak completed her bridal ensemble.

  Justin also was in black, his face a mask of stone. There was no best man. The butler gave the bride away, and he and the housekeeper were witnesses. Toni stood at the back, watching the proceedings with a bewildered look. Millicent attended, swathed in ostentatious black veils. None of the household was present.

  The bishop cleared his throat, and began, ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered ... to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony....’

  The words washed over Kate. Weariness was catching up with her. She felt swept up by a tidal wave, clinging to a small raft, carried by the winds to some unknown destination. Whatever happened now was beyond her control.

  ‘...ordained for the mutual society, help and comfort that the one ought to have of the other... ’

  But there was no help and comfort for either of the two anguished people before the altar waiting to join their lives forever. Certainly they would find no consolation in each other.

  ‘...therefore, if any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak .’

  She wanted to cry out that they couldn’t be lawfully joined together, for he was Amelia’s husband. Then she remembered that Amelia was dead, although not in his heart, or her own.

  ‘Justin, will thou have this woman...?’

  His answering ‘I will’, was almost inaudible. Kate listened as the question was repeated to her.

  ‘Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honour and keep him...?’

  ‘I will,’ she said in a small voice. She would obey, serve and honour him. But how could she ever love him? Her heart answered that she couldn’t.

  Then the moment she dreaded, although she guessed that he dreaded it more. He took her hand, his own so icy that she could feel the chill even through her gloves.

  ‘I, Justin, take thee, Katherine, to my wedded wife...’

  His toneless voice told her that he had blocked out all meaning from the words. But when he came to, ‘in sickness and in health’, he slowed, then stopped altogether, his head bowed. In the agonized silence that followed nobody dared to speak. The bishop did not prompt him, as though understanding how the next words would tear the heart out of him. Kate looked away. She would not let him see her face, so different from Amelia’s.

  At last a shudder went through Justin. Sounding as though the words were

  wrenched from his heart, he managed to say, ‘til death...us do part...’

  Kate made her own promises in a quiet, firm voice, anxious only to get through to the end for his sake. Then, somehow it was over, and they were leaving the chapel side by side.

  As soon as they were outside Kate spoke in a deliberately matter-of-fact tone.

  ‘I’ll return to my duties now, My Lord. I have told the servants that I will take my breakfast in the nursery tomorrow morning, as usual, and informed them that nothing has changed. I bid you goodnight.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said abruptly. ‘Goodnight.’

  He was relieved by her prosaic manner, which carried them over an awkward moment. He inclined his head slightly, and watched as she walked away.

  Chapter Three

  Silence and darkness.

  Farringdon Manor lay like a mausoleum. The grave had closed over Amelia, and her husband’s heart was with her. Everyone knew that he had no feelings for the impostor who bore his wife’s title. Even those who liked Kate regarded her with unease.

  What were they to make of it when a man attended his wife’s funeral accompanied by his new wife? How could it not be a scandal, even though she stayed in the background, comforting the children and making no attempt to walk by her husband’s side?

  They said she was afraid of him, fearful to let his eyes fall on her, lest he be overcome with rage at what he’d been tricked into doing, and kill her on the spot. They were wrong: Kate wasn’t afraid of Justin, but she was appalled at the misery that was gnawing him away. She would gladly have helped him, but she knew that she had no power to comfort his grief, any more than he could comfort hers.

  The children clung to her. With them she could do all that Amelia had hoped, and she silently offered her efforts to the friend who would never see them, and whose loss had devastated her almost as much as it had devastated Justin.

  She yearned over the baby, so soon deprived of its mother. Little Amelia thrived and gave no cause for concern, but Kate would visit her constantly, sometimes passing as much as half the night in the nursery, talking softly to whichever maid was on duty. In this way she confirmed her suspicion that Justin never came here, by night or day. In his mind the child seemed to have no more existence than her dead mother.

  ‘Poor soul, he can’t bear to look at her,’ Sarah, the eldest nursery maid confided softly one evening. ‘They say his heart’s broken and he locks himself in the library with a bottle of brandy...’ She checked herself, horrified as she realized who she was talking to.

  ‘It’s all right,
’ Kate said gently. ‘It’s true. His heart is broken, and I don’t think it will ever heal.’

  ‘Not even for the dear little baby, ma’am...I mean, Your Ladyship?’

  ‘I think she brings him pain,’ Kate said sadly. ‘Only a few weeks old and so like her mother.’

  The little girl’s hair was like Amelia’s, black and with a touch of curl. And in the flatness of her baby nose the pretty little ripple could already be seen. Some people might have expected her to be a comfort to her bereaved father, but Kate guessed the likeness would lash his grief to madness.

  Knowing this, she flinched from mentioning the little girl, yet there was one thing that had to be discussed, and Kate waylaid him next day.

  ‘Mr Morton was here this morning,’ she said, talking almost to his back, for he had stopped only with reluctance. ‘He was asking about the child’s baptism...what plans were being made?’

  He half turned. ‘Arrange it. This is your business now.’

  ‘And we shall call her Amelia?’

  ‘Do as you wish,’ he said violently, and strode on.

  The baptisms of Lord Farringdon’s other children had been great occasions, family gatherings. This one took place in the private chapel, attended only by those who had been present at the incredible wedding. Kate held the child tenderly in her arms as she was named Amelia Catherine Harriet Sophia. The baby’s father did what was required of him and departed as soon as possible.

  As if in mockery of mourning the summer grew daily more glorious, the roses blooming in ever greater beauty. Kate spent at least an hour a day in the rose arbour, tending them, and sometimes just sitting, thinking. Here, in this place that Amelia had loved, she could feel close to her as nowhere else. Here she could talk to her.

  ‘I wish I could feel that I was doing as you wished,’ she told her silently. ‘I try my best, but we’re all crushed by the loss of you. Help me, Amelia.’

  There was no answering voice, but, sitting in the silence, she could conjure up the sweet face of her friend. They had always understood one another by instinct, and now when she thought of Amelia’s loving spirit she knew it was troubled. She had wanted Kate to do more than this for those she loved, but once past the barrier of death she could no longer reach her to explain, or help. Kate must find her own way, guided by the memory of a love and friendship that had never failed her.