Виктория Холт - Beyond the blue Mountains

Then Margery was angry with her, for she reasoned, had not Madam Carolan seen what interfering could do, and yet she wanted to interfere with them two lovely young things, wanted to tear them apart when they were yearning for one another, wanted to thrust the little dear into a pair of blue satin arms just because there was a grand tide and money there!

"I believe in helping young lovers!" said Margery boldly.

"And Madam, I'll tell you here and now, it ain't for you to go criticizing what I might do.”

That started Carolan: her lips quivered with anger.

"You are insolent," she said.

"Oh, Madam," said Margery, seeing herself safe in that station with her two young lovers, 'have you forgotten what it's like to be in love? It ain't so long ago since...”

Insolence!" cried Carolan, her eyes flashing with rage.

"Ah! Now you're like the poor shivering mite you was when you first came into my kitchen. Head full of plans, that was you. And the way you treated that poor boy's father, and the way you went to the master, and then ... and then ..." Margery could not say it. But she lifted her eyes upwards to the first floor, and there was terror in Margery's eyes, and the terror communicated itself to Carolan. for her pride collapsed before her fear. She was as superstitious as Margery.

Margery thought afterwards that something icy touched her. and even when she found that Henry had left the door open she still thought it must have been that poor sickly lady's ghost.

Carolan recovered herself.

That will do!" she cried, and she turned and walked slowly back to her guests. Yes, there were ghosts in the house. Whatever your idea of ghosts, they were there.

Margery came up the stairs and knocked at the bedroom door. If the master was there she would make some excuse. He was not there. Carolan was in front of her, mirror fixing a lace collar on her gown; Audrey was hanging clothes in a cupboard.

Carolan looked up: her eyes smouldered as she was remembering last night's scene with Margery.

"Yes?" she said coldly.

Margery sidled over and turned her back to Audrey. She said in a soft voice: "It is a letter that was brought for you.”

She held out an envelope across which was scrawled "Mrs. Masterman.

Carolan took it.

"It was brought to me kitchen this morning.”

How long ago? wondered Carolan. Had Margery found some means of opening it and read it?

The kitchen?" said Carolan casually. That's an odd place to deliver a letter. All right. Margery. Thank you.”

As soon as Margery had gone. Carolan tore open the letter.

Dear Mrs. Masterman, she read. Would you be so good as to grant me an interview? I think there is much to be discussed concerning out children. Perhaps Katharine would tell you where she was once lost and where Henry found her. These two young people have made that spot their meeting place; could we make it ours? I shall be there this afternoon at four o'clock. If you are not there this afternoon, I will be there tomorrow, because I hope so much that I shall see you. William Henry Jedborough.

She crumpled the letter. How like him. What insolence! She had determined that Katharine should not marry Henry Jed-borough; what good did Marcus think he could do by this meeting? Did he think he could be so persuasive? He was ever one to over-rate his powers.

She had not seen him since that day he had ridden in with Katharine.

She had said she hoped she would never see him again. This marriage was impossible. How could the two families unite! Esther and Marcus!

What memories! At all costs Katharine must not be allowed to marry Henry.

She shivered, thinking of last night's scene in the kitchen, with that insolent Margery almost blackmailing her, and Katharine going back to the guests and acting as though she were a being from another world, until one wanted to slap her. But Anthony Greymore seemed to have found that will-o'-the-wisp mood attractive. Oh, Katharine, you little fool with your romantic ideas of love and life! Here is position, wealth, security... and you would throw all that away for a station in a wild country where bushrangers might deal death to you and your family one dark night. You want love, you say; Sir Anthony loves you, and you, foolish child, ought to know that it is wiser to accept love than to give it. And your Henry, what of him? He is his father all over again. How long will his love stay warm for you, my dear?

Oh no, this folly must be stopped; because I love you, Katharine, better than I love anyone else in the world. It is not because I cannot bear to meet Marcus that I want to stop this marriage; it is not because I hate Henry's mother for taking Marcus from me; it is for your sake, my dear... for your sake only.

She tore the note into many pieces. I wonder what he is like now. He will be over forty, past his prime. I am thirty-six. What years and years ago since I first saw him, and he stole my handkerchief! Thief I Rogue! Philanderer!

She thought of him in his room at Newgate, she standing at his shoulder while he fed her with pieces of chicken. She remembered the proposal he had made then. She thought of Lucy's looking in at the door, and Clementine Smith on the boat, and she was as angry with these two as she had been when she had discovered his relationship to them.

In the glass Mrs. Masterman looked back at her, smooth-faced, well-preserved, a lady of dignity; behind the mask of Mrs. Masterman, Carolan Haredon peeped out. Carolan Haredon was still there in spite of Mrs. Masterman.

She saw Audrey's reflection in the glass.

The girl's face was placid, a mask as concealing as the mask she herself wore.

"Audrey," she said on impulse, and the girl came swiftly to her.

"Audrey, I have often wondered what brought you here. Forgive me, Audrey, and do not answer if you prefer not to. It may be that you do not wish to speak of terrible things.”

Audrey's grey eyes filled with tears.

"You are so kind. Madam.”

"Kind!" Carolan laughed at herself in the glass. Not kind, not Selfish, and sometimes cruel and scheming and... "I wouldn't have believed anyone could be kind like you are," said Audrey.

"Not if it hadn't been for her. She talked to me ... she talked to me special, she did. She said, "Never despair, Audrey ... Life can't be all cruel," she said.

"That wouldn't be human nature. There's good and bad, bad and good.

Look for the good, Audrey!" She spoke to me special.”

"Audrey, you were at Newgate?”

Audrey nodded. She began to shiver. Carolan shivered too. The memory was such as to make one shiver after nearly twenty years.

"Tell me, Audrey... Tell me...”

The story came out by degrees. It was an ordinary enough story; Carolan had heard many like it in Newgate, and on the convict ship. The daughter of unknown parents, left on the doorstep of a lodging-house, where she was taken in because she might be useful; five years old. scrubbing floors, seven years old a fully fledged drudge; blows and curses; learning to steal, food first, then other things; then running away and eventually ending up in Mother Somebody-or-other's kitchen. The usual story of crime and violence. An innocent child turned into a criminal by a brutal system. She had been in the bridewell; she met people in the bridewell who said they would help her when she came out.

They did help her to go lower.

Carolan was fascinated by the expressions which crept over the girl's face as she talked. Depravity, cunning, lewdness... another Audrey posed before her. Her placidity was a veil which she lifted, and something horrible peeped out.

"And finally Newgate?" said Carolan, for she wished she had not started this.

Carolan had a picture of the girl's facing that crowd of wild beasts.

She thought of Esther, naked before them, of Kitty's going down, of herself and poor Millie bloody with battle. But this girl would have been prepared; she would have been one of them. She would be no innocent when she went to Newgate.