Inherit the Skies (16 page)

Life now was Blanche who had imposed herself on Chewton Leigh House like the cloying heat of a summer's day when a thunderstorm is brewing and that repulsive Leo, intruding into the nursery which had belonged to her and James, taking up her father's precious time.

And now there was also Sarah. Another intruder, another call on her father's attention. And he had actually given her Alicia's doll, her lovely Sleeping Beauty, and not content with that lectured Alicia on being nice to the wretched Sarah.

Why, she doesn't even
speak
properly! Alicia thought in fury. Her accent is even worse than Leo's horrid American drawl. It sounds so common!

The thought gave her a little comfort for it made her feel superior but it did nothing to lessen the hatred bubbling inside her.

The door of the inner nursery opened and she turned to see James standing there, his thumb hovering uncertainly in his mouth.

‘Is something the matter, Alicia?' he asked, speaking with a slight lisp.

Alicia spun round. ‘James! What are you doing here?'

‘I came up for my ball and then I heard shouting so I … I hid,' he admitted. He looked frightened, his face pale and drawn above the collar of his little sailor suit.

She crossed to him, kneeling down in front of him and gently taking his thumb out of his mouth. Sometimes Alicia thought James was the one person in the world she loved. He had never known the warmth and happiness that made up the lovely dream world she sometimes allowed herself to remember. In the six years that they had been motherless Alicia sometimes felt that she had almost become his mother and he her child.

‘It's all right, James,' she said. ‘That stupid Sarah was prying and Father was angry. That's all.'

‘He wasn't angry with me?'

‘No, James, he wasn't angry with you.'

He nodded but the shadows did not quite leave his eyes and she stood up.

‘Did you find your ball? If you get it I'll come down and play with you for a while if you like.'

‘Leo said he'd play with me.'

‘Leo!' she returned scornfully. ‘ Who cares about
Leo
? Listen James, it's you and me, remember? Leo's not your brother so you can stop hanging around him. And that stupid Sarah … Forget about them, James.
I'll
look after you. And then when we are old enough we'll show them all. We're the Morses. We can do anything, James, you and I.'

She took his hand and in giving him comfort felt her own strength grow.

‘One day we'll show them, James,' she said. ‘One day we'll show the world!'

As autumn drew on and the leaves on the trees in the park turned scarlet, russet and gold against an intensely blue sky Sarah continued to take her lessons in the schoolroom at Chewton Leigh House with Alicia Morse and Leo de Vere. The hunting season began and sometimes the sound of the horn and the baying of the hounds would carry in through the schoolroom window; if they looked up and craned their necks a little the children could see the huntsmen in their scarlet and black streaming across the hillside. Gilbert hunted when he could spare the time as did Lawrence and Hugh when they were home from boarding school and Alicia and Leo continually tried to catch a glimpse of them.

‘When I'm just a little older I'll be able to hunt too,' Alicia would say with a sidelong glance at Sarah, whom she knew could not ride. But Sarah refused to take the bait or even to take the slightest notice of the hunt. She was too interested in her books, too determined to make progress in her efforts to compare with the others, to be distracted by such silly ploys and besides her sympathy was fairly and squarely with the fox.

Soon her diligence was paying off and Richard Hartley was delighted with her progress. He was less pleased, however, with Leo and Alicia and he reported as much to Gilbert one crisp day in October.

‘Alicia is a clever girl and Leo, though more of a plodder, is no fool. If they spent as much time and effort on their work as they do on sniping at one another they would do very well indeed. As it is Leo is causing me some concern and I have to say that unless he is prepared to knuckle down he may flunk the entrance exam for his prep school.'

Gilbert's face darkened. ‘Bad as that? Very well, Hartley, I'll have a word with him.'

He strode out of the schoolroom and down the stairs. Blanche was in the drawing-room arranging a vase of chrysanthemums which Dent the head gardener had cut for her and he determined to tell her of the tutor's concern for her son's progress. As he talked she continued to arrange her flowers and only the slow tightening of her features revealed her displeasure.

‘I see,' she said when he had at last finished. ‘ Well, to be honest with you Gilbert I am hardly surprised.'

He looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean by that?'

Blanche stripped a last untidy leaf from a chrysanthemum stalk, dropped it into the wastepaper basket and poked the flower into its place. Then she turned slowly, folding her hands on the skirt of her russet brown velvet dress.

‘I dare say he is being distracted by Sarah Thomas,' she said coolly.

‘Surely not!' Gilbert scoffed. ‘Hartley is very pleased with her.'

‘That is as may be,' Blanche said darkly. ‘I don't think either Leo or Alicia can be being helped by her company.'

Gilbert thrust his hands into the pockets of his grey stripe trousers.

‘I don't understand what you are trying to say, Blanche.'

She paused, choosing her words carefully. Since she had come to see Sarah as a threat to her son Blanche had been busy. For some weeks now she had been nursing the nugget of information she had unearthed, waiting for the right moment to bring it into the open. Now that moment had come and she intended to make the most of it.

‘I am sorry to have to tell you this, Gilbert, but I have been making a few enquiries about Sarah. Perhaps you will disapprove but since she is being educated alongside my son I decided to make it my business. And what I discovered has disturbed me greatly.'

His eyes narrowed. He stood very still, the stillness from which his strength generally emanated, but now strangely it was as if even that strength was a carefully created illusion. Blanche was overcome with the ridiculous notion that she held in her hands the power to hurt him, to hurt the great Gilbert Morse. Only in the bedroom did she experience this sensation of ascendancy, when he wanted her and she with-held her favours or afterwards when he lay sleeping, his handsome face boyish in repose. But now instead of exhilarating her as it did then the knowledge of her power frightened her a little and made her hesitate, aware she was treading a fine line across a potential minefield.

‘I am afraid I have discovered that Sarah Thomas is illegitimate,' she said meeting his eyes squarely. ‘I always had my suspicions about her mother. It seemed to me a little too convenient the way her husband was supposed to have died in India and yet nobody ever admitted to having set eyes on him. I decided to do a little investigation.'

He drew a silver cigarette case out of his pocket but did not open it.

‘And what did you discover?' His voice was taut. The tone of it made her quake inwardly but she had gone too far to draw back now.

‘Rachel Thomas was never married,' she said coolly. ‘She came back here under false pretences and set herself up as a respectable married woman. That she never was.'

‘And Sarah's father?' Gilbert asked. ‘ Who was her father?'

Blanche hesitated, wondering whether she dared confront him with the suspicion which nagged at her. She decided against it. ‘Maybe he
was
a soldier – goodness knows there are always young women ready to throw themselves at men in uniform without a thought to their reputation – or the consequences,' she said shortly. ‘In any case it makes little difference. Sarah Thomas is a bastard – and this is the child you see fit to educate alongside our own.'

‘And why not?' Gilbert snapped the cigarette case open.

Blanche glared. ‘She is hardly the company I would choose for Leo. And I would have thought you would have been more concerned with Alicia's moral welfare than to allow her to associate with a child like that. She could contaminate them both – if she has not already done so.'

‘Good heavens, Blanche, don't you think you are making a little too much of this?' Gilbert said. His tone was as level as ever, yet she was aware that he was angry.

She held her ground. ‘I don't think so.'

‘Well I most certainly do! Sarah –
contaminate
Alicia and Leo? I never heard such nonsense. This is a child you are talking about.'

‘A child whose mother was no better than she should be.'

‘That,' said Gilbert angrily, ‘is scarcely the child's fault. Surely she has as much right to life as any born in wedlock? No!' He raised his hand imperiously as Blanche opened her mouth to speak again. ‘I won't hear another word on the subject. Sarah is a very nice child and it would do Leo no harm to emulate her in many ways. As for this visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children I find it singularly lacking in charity. If you wish Leo to be educated away from what you call Sarah's contaminating influence then that is your prerogative. I shall not interfere with any arrangements you may wish to make concerning him. But Sarah stays here.' He paused. ‘As a matter of fact I have been considering integrating her into the family a little more. She has precious little fun with those Pughs. You have just made up my mind for me. I shall see that Sarah is taught to ride and next time we have a family outing I shall arrange for her to come along. Understand me, Blanche, I will not tolerate this sort of prejudice under my roof and the sooner you realise it the better!'

He strode to the door and threw it open to reveal James crouching there listening. He grabbed him by the collar and hauled him into the room.

‘And what do you think you are doing skulking there? How dare you listen at keyholes?' He administered a quick cuff to James' ear, then turned and stalked out.

‘How dare you, James!' Blanche echoed him. ‘ Go to the nursery at once!'

He scuttled away and left alone Blanche pressed a lace handkerchief to her cold lips to stop them trembling. She had never seen Gilbert so furious before and she realised she had made a bad mistake in attacking his patronage of Sarah. Clearly for the moment she was going to have to suffer the child. But Gilbert's very stubbornness in the matter served only to heighten her suspicions and his anger was yet another factor. Altruistic Gilbert might be, in this case Blanche was beginning to be convinced there was more to it than that.

As a young girl Rachel Thomas had often stayed in this very house. From what Blanche had heard Rose, Gilbert's first wife, had been a dull soul and remembering Rachel's obvious charms Blanche thought it was quite conceivable that even a man as honourable as Gilbert might have been tempted to stray.

If her suspicions were correct then it would be that much more difficult to get rid of Sarah. But Blanche had never been one to give up without a fight. When the opportunity arose she would grasp it with both hands. She crossed to the window and the sky, grey and leaden now above the thinning leaves of the still brilliant-hued trees, seemed to reflect the steely determination in her heart.

‘I don't believe you,' Sarah said. ‘I don't believe you!'

She stood in the centre of the schoolroom, her hands clutching the folds of her skirt, her eyes huge in her small face.

Alicia glared at her maliciously. ‘ It's true. James was outside the door. He heard every word. You're a bastard!'

Sarah almost sobbed aloud. ‘ Don't say that word! It's bad!'

‘But it's what you are. That makes you bad too.'

‘It's not true! My dad was a soldier. He died in India …'

‘Ha-ha!' Alicia said scornfully. ‘That's what your mother told you because she was ashamed. He never married her, whoever he was. She was a fallen woman.'

‘She wasn't. She wasn't!'

‘Yes she was. I expect that's why she died. It was a judgement.'

‘What about your mother?' Sarah sobbed. ‘ She died too. Was
she
a fallen woman?'

‘No she was not!' Alicia's hands screwed into fists. ‘Don't dare to say such a thing! She was married to my father.'

‘I'll say if it I like. You said it. You said it about my mother!'

‘Because it's true.'

‘It's not. It's not!'

‘You're a bastard.'

‘I'm not! You are. You're the bastard!' She flew at Alicia, grabbing a handful of the thick dark hair and pulling and suddenly they were scrapping like a pair of young puppies, kicking, biting, tearing at one another's hair and clothing. For long seconds they fought, their hatred of one another finding expression in violence, and it was only when a voice from the doorway thundered: ‘ Girls! What are you doing?' that they parted, shame-faced yet still glowering at one another.

‘It was her – she started it! She called me a terrible name!' Sarah sobbed.

‘What name?'

‘Bastard.'

His eyes behind his thick spectacles expressed his shock.

‘Sarah! Where did you learn such a word?'

‘She said it. She said I was … and my mother was …' Her eyes were wild, her blouse torn, her ribbon dangling loose.

Alicia drew herself to her full height. ‘I never said any such thing!'

In spite of the scrap she looked miraculously cool, with only her slightly tumbled hair evidence of Sarah's attack. Richard Hartley looked from one to the other of them.

‘I think we had better begin on our lessons,' he suggested, turning as always in moments of crisis to what he knew best. ‘Sarah, go and make yourself look respectable. Alicia, tidy your hair and take your place. And both of you try to behave like young ladies.'