Hope - Lesley Pearse [247]
Nell was just behind them. As always, she wore a snowy-white apron over her dark dress and a lace-trimmed mob cap.
Rufus jumped down from the buggy and took Betsy from Hope’s arms, pretending to nearly drop her. ‘My goodness, you’re getting heavy. I don’t know if Flash will want to pull you all that way!’
‘She’s a greedy girl and no mistake,’ Nell said fondly. ‘And you take good care of them, Rufus, and get them back before dark.’
‘It’s so good to see the sun again, even if it is very cold,’ Hope said. She sprang up into the buggy and held out her arms for the baby. ‘All that rain we’ve had! I haven’t set foot outside for the past four days.’
‘This might be the last good day before winter comes upon us,’ Rufus said. ‘The animals’ drinking troughs were iced over this morning, and all the leaves have come down now.’
He got up into the buggy beside Hope, tucked a rug over her knees and pulled her cloak a little closer over the baby. Then, lifting his cap to Nell, he clicked at the horse and they set off down the road.
Hope leaned out beyond the buggy’s hood and waved goodbye to Nell. ‘She isn’t entirely happy about me going to Briargate. There’s something between her and your mother; do you know what it is?’
Rufus glanced sideways at her and grinned. ‘Reckon it’s just that business of Mother not supporting her when you disappeared.’
‘I don’t think it’s that,’ Hope said thoughtfully. ‘She isn’t one to bear a grudge, and besides, she’s far happier now as Angus’s housekeeper. It’s more to do with me. She doesn’t seem to like the idea of me seeing your mother.’
‘Nell’s just stuck in the old ways,’ Rufus said lightly as the horse broke into a trot. ‘She can’t quite deal with the idea of her young sister taking tea with her ladyship.’
‘Then I must be very careful not to offend her ladyship with unseemly behaviour, and you must report back that I struck just the right note of gentility and respect,’ Hope replied with laughter in her voice. ‘Oh, Rufus, it’s so good to be out in the fresh air. I am well again, but Nell is not entirely convinced of that.’
Hope’s memory of what Nell tactfully referred to as ‘when she wasn’t quite herself’ was very hazy. She had been told bluntly by Dora that she was completely mad, that she refused to feed or even hold Betsy, and that Nell had been in despair. Looking down at Betsy swaddled in shawls in her arms, Hope found it difficult to believe that she could have done such a thing. But she could recall a feeling that she was drowning in some kind of all-enveloping black swamp.
Strangely, she was aware that it was Rufus who pulled her from that swamp with his confidences about his childhood, for she could recall most of what he had said that day. She had always perceived him as being so fortunate that it was something of a shock to discover he had felt unloved and cast off, and that his years at school had been so miserable. Later, when she came to think about how hard he’d had to work to make a new life for himself and his mother since his father’s death, she felt very ashamed of herself.
Her fears for Bennett hadn’t diminished; if anything, they’d grown stronger each day without word from him or about him. But when she felt most wretched she would think about all the soldiers who were killed in action, buried up by the river Alma and at Balaclava in unmarked graves.
She knew none of their widows would have the comforts she had, but she was quite sure that however desperate their circumstances they would not abandon their children. She could count herself fortunate to have so many friends and family around her to support her, and for Betsy’s sake she must keep up a brave front.
Yet even with the best will in the world it wasn’t possible to be brave at night when the fear that she might have to live without Bennett washed over her like a scalding flood. Often it was so bad she would stuff the sheet into her mouth to stop herself crying out. She might have the security of knowing Nell and Uncle