Hope - Lesley Pearse [266]
She just stared at him, her eyes wide and frightened.
‘Can’t you hear?’ he shouted over the noise of the rain. ‘Where you from?’
He heard the clatter of one of his gentlemen getting out of the carriage behind him. ‘What shall I do, sir?’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘She don’t seem like she’s got her wits about her.’
The coachman heard his gentleman gasp, and suddenly he was standing there beside him. ‘Hope!’ he exclaimed. ‘My God, it is Hope, what are you doing out here?’
‘You know her, sir?’ the coachman asked incredulously.
‘I do, coachman,’ he said, lifting the woman up into his arms. ‘We’ll take her home with us.’
Nell was beside herself with worry, looking at the clock, pulling back the curtains to look out of the window, then looking at the clock again. Hope had been gone for over an hour now, and even a stray dog wouldn’t stay out in rain like this.
She went to the front door and opened it, then shut it again when a gust of wind blew out the candle in the hall. She put on her cloak, then, remembering Betsy, took it off again.
‘Where can she be?’ she asked herself aloud. ‘I don’t like this one bit.’
Hope had been a little odd after Albert’s death; agitated, forgetful and often a bit vacant as if her mind was elsewhere. Yet that was to be expected. She had, after all, killed a man, and that would take some time to get over. But as she was nothing like as bad as she was after hearing about Bennett, Nell had ignored it, and it had passed. It started again after Lady Harvey’s death: there were several times when she began a job, then walked away without finishing it. Yesterday she had left Betsy on the floor in her bedroom wearing only a vest while she went downstairs for something, and forgot to go back and dress her.
But all day today she’d been most peculiar. She’d come down the stairs ready to leave for the funeral without her hat, she didn’t give Dora any instructions about Betsy, and when they’d reached the church she hadn’t kneeled to say a prayer, just stared around her as if she’d never been there before.
On the way back from the funeral she’d hardly said a word, and when she did it was to snap. Later she’d seemed so angry. Nell wished now that she’d taken all these pointers more seriously, for funerals had a way of disturbing folk and bringing back the past.
It was after eight now, but what could she do? She couldn’t leave Betsy alone in the house while she went to get help, but she couldn’t take her with her in rain like this.
‘Please come, Master Rufus,’ she prayed aloud. ‘I’m scared now.’
She put the kettle on to boil and filled up a large pan from the jug in the scullery.
Hearing a noise, she rushed to the front window, and through the rain she could just make out a carriage, and a man getting out.
‘Thank the Lord it’ll be Master Rufus,’ she sighed with relief, and dabbing her tears with her apron she rushed to the front door and flung it open.
She didn’t know the man standing there, but ducking under the big bush by the gate was a figure she knew very well. And he had Hope in his arms.
‘Oh, my Lord!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ve come like an answer to my prayers, Captain Pettigrew! I’ve been that worried. What’s wrong with her? Where did you find her?’
*
Nell’s wits came back sufficiently to direct the Captain to take Hope in by the parlour fire. She was white-faced, her eyes staring sightlessly, and not knowing what else to do, Nell ran upstairs to find towels, blankets and dry clothes. But she was all of a flutter that the Captain had come home to such a thing, with company too, and she hadn’t got anything for their supper.
But as she came back into the parlour the tall, slender, pale-faced man to whom she had opened the door was alone with Hope, kneeling beside her and stripping off her wet clothes.
‘I won’t have a stranger do that to my sister,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m surprised at you, sir.’
‘I’m her