Miss Sophie's Secret (16 page)

“Aye?” she said. “Ye lost yer way?”

“No,” Jonathan said. “We’re looking for Agnes Baxter. Would this be her home, perhaps?”

The woman raised her eyebrows, and her face took on a sly expression. “Perhaps,” she repeated. “Why would ye be wanting to know?”

Jonathan fished into his purse and pulled out a pound note, which he pushed toward her. “We would like to speak with her, if that’s possible.”

The woman appeared to be appraising their clothing and doing some calculations in her head. Then she snatched the note and nodded. Still without speaking, she turned around and beckoned them to follow her.

Jonathan signaled the guards to step inside the door and wait, as the woman led the way down a narrow hallway that was piled on both sides with small shabby boxes and bundles of rags. Sophie stumbled twice as she attempted to follow closely behind their guide.

“Come along,” the woman scolded, turning back to scowl at them. “Don’t dawdle.”

“What relation are you to Agnes?” Jonathan asked her.

“’Er daughter.”

At the end of the hallway a door stood ajar. Beyond it a small candle was flickering. The woman pushed open the door and stepped inside. “She be in here.”

The room was almost entirely filled by a sagging bed, which was covered with bundles of rags. The air hung heavy with odors—smoke, urine, mildew, and another oddly sweet smell. At the head of the bed a small shriveled face peered out from under a gray lace cap.

“Lovey?” the old woman mewled.

“Look who I brought ye, mum,” Lovey said in a voice that rang with false cheer. “Do ye know these fine people?”

Sophie discovered that her hands were trembling as she fumbled with the strings of her bonnet and pulled it off. She leaned over the foot of the bed.

“Do you recognize me?” she asked the old woman in a quavering voice.

The ancient gasped and opened a cavernous mouth that was totally devoid of teeth. “Miss Pamela!” she cried. “Darlin’ girl! Ye’ve come back to Agnes. Come let me hold ye, dearest child. I knew ye’d come back someday. My own beautiful darlin’.”

Sophie cast a quizzical glance at Agnes’s daughter.

She shrugged indifferently. “She be out of her head.”

Sophie put out a groping hand to steady herself. Jonathan slid a welcome arm around her waist.

“It isn’t Pamela,” Sophie said, when she had recovered her voice. “It’s Sophie.”

Agnes chuckled. “O’ course, love. I’ll not tell. Not ever!  ’Is lordship an’ all his cronies can do as they like . . . torture me, even . . .”

“His cronies?” Jonathan glanced at Lovey.

She sealed her lips into a tight white line.

The old woman made an angry gesture toward Jonathan with a shriveled claw. “Agnes’ll be here when ye need ’er!”

Jonathan cleared his throat. “Agnes—”

“Don’t speak to me, sir!” she spat. “I’ll never forgive ye!”

“But don’t you see?” Sophie said. “I’m not Pamela. I’m Sophie—Sophie Althorpe. And I want you to tell me who I am. Who is my mother, and who is my father?”

Agnes poked her head forward, looking for all the world like a vulture inspecting its dinner. “Eh?” she chirped. “What’s that ye say? Come closer, lady. Let me look at ye.”

With some difficulty Sophie picked her way around one side of the bed, over some piles of rags and several pieces of broken crockery, until she was close to the old woman. She bent down to allow the light from the one smoking candle to fall on her face.

“Ye ain’t my Pamela!” the old woman screeched.

Lovey waved a hand at her impatiently. “She never said she were. She said she were Sophie.”

The bedridden woman shook her head angrily. “Sophie were only a baby. My own darlin’ Sophie.”

“But who is Sophie?” Sophie persisted. “Who is her mother? And who is her father?”

The old woman let out a piercing howl. “I’ll never tell! Get away from me!”

Lovey stumbled over the rubbish on the other side of the bed and, grasping her mother by the shoulders, gave her a savage shake. “Shut up, ye daft old witch! Tell the young lady what she be wantin’ to know. She’ll pay handsome if ye do.”

“Stop!” Sophie cried, putting a restraining hand on her arm. “You’ll hurt her.”

Lovey stepped away, snorting disdainfully. “’Urt ’er, eh? What were she good for, I ask ye? She be better orf dead.”

“She’s your mother and she relies on you for kindness,” Sophie said. “It’s cowardly in the extreme to take advantage of her illness.”

“Ye givin’ me lessons how to behave? Is that what ye come ’ere for?”

“No, I—”

“Ye wipe ’er mouth an’ ’er bottom day after day an’ then ye can lecture me.”

Sophie looked down and saw that Agnes had closed her eyes and was fast asleep, her mouth hanging open and a thick pink tongue gliding slowly in and out. She realized she wouldn’t have a chance now to show her the earring and maybe spark a memory that would help in her search.

Sighing, she turned to Jonathan and said in a desolate voice, “There is nothing more for us here.”

Lovey led them back along the musty hall. Halfway to the door, she turned and confronted them. “So what’s it yer wanting’ to know? And ’ow much ye be willin’ to pay for it?”

Jonathan fished a five pound note from his purse but kept it in hand. “Who was Miss Sophie’s mother?”

Lovey tore her avaricious gaze away from the note he held. “I can tell ye ’er mum were that Pamela me mum be bawlin’ about—I ’eard ’er say it often enough.”

“And who was her father?”

“Me mum never said.”

Jonathan handed her the five pound note, promising there was more where that came from if she could find out Sophie’s father’s name. “Any information you discover should be delivered to Vaile House,” he told her. “It’s on Berkeley Square at—”

“I knows Vaile ’ouse,” she interrupted. “I were kitchen maid there when I were a girl.”

“Indeed?” he said. “Perhaps you’d like to come back?”

She scowled and shook her head. “No thankee. I be marryin’ soon . . . a innkeeper across th’ river.”

“Well!” Jonathan said. “Please accept my congratulations.”

She shrugged. “What else ye be wantin’ t’ know?”

“Who is my father?” Sophie asked.

“I’ll send ye word.” Lovey tucked the bill into the bodice of her dress, then turned and led them to the door. While one of the guards opened it, the other went outside to hail Johnnie Aysgarth, who was passing by in the curricle. Aysgarth reined his team and backed to the gate.

The storm was deepening. A heavy fog had enveloped the city and the wind was beginning to throw drifts of snow against the side of the curricle. The guards quickly helped Sophie and Jonathan into the vehicle, Johnnie arranged the fur robes over their laps and then they all sprang onto their places at the back.

Jonathan urged the team down the street and around the corner. Once one of the horses stumbled and slid, scrambling with its hooves to keep from falling. Jonathan reined them to a snail’s pace. Gas lamps flickered no brighter than candle stubs. The few pedestrians who had ventured out carried dim lanterns to light their way.

“Are you cold?” he asked Sophie once they reached the high road..

“No,” she said. “It’s enjoyable to be out in the open air. I only wish we had learned something more.”

“We learned quite a bit,” he pointed out. “I think we can accept as fact that someone named Pamela was your mother—whoever she might have been.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I shall confront Aunt Ruth with this information as soon as we are home. Perhaps she’ll relent and tell me the rest.”

When they arrived at Vaile House, two footmen scrambled up out of the servants’ quarters and were in place to assist Sophie to the ground the moment the curricle had come to a full stop. Jonathan tossed the reins to Johnnie Aysgarth and then walked with Sophie up the front steps and into the vestibule.

“I’ll meet you in the yellow salon in fifteen minutes,” he told her. “Will that give you enough time for your talk with Aunt Ruth?”

She nodded and scampered up the staircase to search for Lady Biskup. But after she had changed her boots for dry ones, returned the earring to her jewel box, and warmed her hands, she hurried to her aunt’s room only to discover that she was fast asleep. While she was tempted to awaken her, she decided against it and dashed off a quick note to Jonathan, postponing their meeting an hour. Pressing it into Anna’s hands, she instructed her to give it to Johnnie Aysgarth to deliver.

An hour later Anna had not returned, and when Sophie went to peek at Lady Biskup again, she found her still sleeping. From that time on she checked her aunt every fifteen minutes. It was necessary for her to send three more notes to Jonathan by various messengers before Lady Biskup roused and Sophie was able to sit down with her for a quiet conference.

“I have been to visit my old nurse,” she told her. “Agnes Baxter.”

Lady Biskup started in surprise. Then she primmed her mouth and frowned thoughtfully. “Agnes Baxter . . .” she mused. “Let me see . . . Where did you receive the information that she was your nurse, my dear?”

Sophie reached out a hand. “Aunt Ruth, please don’t dissemble. It’s common knowledge that Agnes Baxter lived at Vaile Priory until 1799. Jonathan sought her out and we have been to visit her. She said that my mother’s name was . . . that is,
Sophie’s
mother’s name was Pamela. Now, what I would like to know is: Who was—or is—this Pamela, and who is my father?”

Lady Biskup took her hand and, drawing her down beside her on a small settee, kissed her gently on the cheek. “My dearest child,” she said. “I, too, have been to visit this Baxter woman. Poor creature, she is quite beyond the pale. Babbled to me of someone named Ophelia and then fell asleep and could not be roused. She is dreaming of the children she cared for long ago. But as for her giving me any useful information about you . . . Well, alas, I fear her case is hopeless.”

Sophie stared unhappily at her aunt’s face. “Ophelia? Are you telling me that this was my mother’s name?”

“It is possible,” Lady Biskup said.

Sophie lowered her gaze and began to pleat a length of her skirt between her fingers. She bit her lips. When she looked up a moment later, she found Lady Biskup watching her intently.

“I must know the circumstances of my birth, Aunt Ruth,” she said. “I’ve fallen in love with Jonathan, you see, and I cannot—”

“Love him!” Lady Biskup scoffed. “It’s quite impossible. You’ve mistaken loyalty and sisterly affection for love.”

“No, I haven’t. I love him. And he loves me. He even swears that he’ll go off to the New World if we don’t marry.”

“Good God!” Lady Biskup exclaimed. “This is my fault, keeping you together in this house.” She cupped a hand under the girl’s chin and drew her face toward her. “Sophie, listen to me! A match between you and Jonathan may be quite impossible. I wish it were otherwise, but it is quite probable that”—she inhaled deeply—that you are brother and sister.”

Sophie’s mouth fell open, and she stammered out a breathless, “What!”

“I fear you have the same father,” Lady Biskup told her flabbergasted niece.

“Are you saying that I am Matthew Gray’s daughter?”

“No, I’m—”

“Then who?” Sophie tried to sort through the upheaval in her heart. “Lady Camden assured me that there has never been such a person as Timothy Althorpe.”

Lady Biskup ground her teeth. “Meddling fool!”

Coming to her feet, the older woman began to pace restlessly up and down the room. “Now, listen to me, my child, I do not wish to impart this information to Jonathan, though he is pressing me relentlessly. As a matter of fact, I may be mistaken, but I do not believe that Jonathan is Matthew Gray’s son. I believe that he is the blow-by of another, much greater man.”

Something churned in Sophie’s mind, something that whirled and danced just out of her reach. “Are you saying—”

“At this time I don’t have the proof for either of you in my possession,” her aunt continued. “But I have hired a new solicitor, a Mr. Moneypenny. And if you’ll trust me for two more days—only two, I assure you—I shall reveal everything: your mother’s name, your father’s, and your relationship, if any, to Jonathan. Only trust me, my love, can you? Two more days.”

Sophie hesitated and then sighed. “Very well, Aunt Ruth. I have no choice.”

When Sophie finally hurried downstairs to keep her rendezvous with Jonathan, she found him in the library, impatiently thumbing through an atlas of the world.

“Well?” he said, leaving the book and coming rapidly toward her. “Did she confide in you?”

“No,” Sophie said, hanging her head. “I don’t understand her reticence, but she promised to divulge everything in two days’ time, if we can be patient while she investigates a certain connection.”

“What of Pamela? Was she your mother?”

“She says not. She says that she visited Agnes Baxter herself, and Agnes spoke of a certain Ophelia, who might have been my mother, instead.”

“Nonsense!” He bunched his fists and, turning angrily away, said, “I’ve lost all patience with this subterfuge. Why is Aunt Ruth prevaricating in this matter? What is she hiding? Certainly it’s easy enough to tell us the facts as she knows them. Why is it necessary to be surrounded by all this secrecy?”

Swallowing hard, Sophie turned her gaze away from him. Jonathan went over to her and cupped a hand under her chin.

“Why are you accepting this, Sophie? Aren’t you angry to be treated in such a cavalier manner? It’s quite unfair of Aunt Ruth to keep you in the dark. She’s wrong to do so, I swear. I’ll go to her right now and demand the truth.”

“But she’ll lie to you,” she said, turning away. “And if we can summon up the patience to wait for two days, perhaps she really will tell us everything.”

He frowned at her thoughtfully for a time and then shrugged. “All right,” he said. “If you wish. But I’m going to have a talk with her right now, and see if there aren’t a few facts I can pry out of her.”

He departed abruptly, and Sophie could hear his footsteps as he bounded up the central staircase. Still in a state of shock over her aunt’s news, she sat in silence, reviewing her conversation with Agnes Baxter. She realized that Agnes had never stated precisely that Sophie was Pamela’s child. She had mistaken Sophie for Pamela and had said that Sophie was only a baby, but she had never directly linked the two, except by implication.