A Lady in Name (34 page)

His frown
now deepened. ‘Exactly so. And since, thanks to Mr Waley’s intelligence, we must journey to Gloucester for a special licence, we cannot afford the time. Can’t it wait?’

‘
No, it can’t, so we must make time,’ Lucy insisted. ‘It is far more important than our wedding.’

‘
After last night? How can you say so?’’

Lucy drew a painful breath.
‘That is just it, Stefan. I cannot be wholly yours until I have done this.’

He looked a little hurt.
‘After you have given yourself to me? You are mine, Lucy.’

She reached out to him across the table, and he gave her his hand.
Lucy brought it to her cheek, and Stefan cupped her face.

‘What is troubling you, my sweet?’

She clasped his hand between her own and then let it go. ‘I only know my heart is not yet free.’

‘This has to do with
Alice?’

She nodded.
‘Don’t ask me how, for I don’t know. But the urge is strong in me to go there.’

A faint smile lit his eyes.
‘Dare you brave your lunatic uncle again?’

Lucy gave a short laugh.
‘I must. There is a wrong which must be righted.’

He had said no more, and Lucy was grateful.
Despite the wonder of love’s awakening in his bed, she was yet hollow in spirit. Could it be the shade of Alice once more, urging her to action? A fanciful thought, but Lucy was nevertheless gripped with the same pressing intensity which had accompanied her visit to the church the day before.

As they neared the vicinity of the Oade farm, she could not withstand a rise of apprehension, remembering the threats of
Alice’s brother and his blunderbuss. Lucy comforted herself with the presence of Stefan at her side. And at need, there was Cobbold, a thickset stolid creature in whose physical power Lucy was persuaded she might repose every confidence.

The place was as quiet as it had been the first time as the curricle turned in and approached the Cullicudden farmhouse.

‘It looks deserted.’

Stefan glanced at her.
‘So it did when we visited before.’

Nevertheless, he sent Cobbold to knock upon the door before taking trouble to alight.
No answer was forthcoming.

‘Give them a shout,’ Stefan recommended.

The groom raised his voice. ‘Ho, there! Anyone home?’

They waited while Lucy’s apprehension grew.
She could not be defeated now.

‘If they’re here, sir, belike they’re out of hearing,’ Cobbold said, coming back towards the curricle.

But at that moment, the young lad who had previously taken charge of the curricle came into sight around the bend of the house. He stopped when he saw the curricle, standing staring at its occupants. The groom accosted him.

‘You, boy
. Where is your master?’

The lad shuffled his feet.
‘Down in the fields.’

Cobbold looked in question to his master in the curricle and Lucy turned quickly to Stefan.
‘Help me down, if you please.’

Stefan called to the groom to go to the horse’s heads.
In a moment, Lucy had been assisted down.

‘Come here, boy,’ Stefan called to the youth, who was still standing there, apparently unable to operate until he was pushed.
He obeyed, taking several steps towards them before he stopped again.

‘I have not come to see Mr Oade, but his mother,’ Lucy told him firmly.
‘She is at home, I trust?’

Reflecting that the crippled lady could hardly be otherwhere, Lucy waited for his response.

The lad jerked his head towards the house. ‘She’s abed. She’s been took ill.’

‘Oh, no,’ Lucy cried.
‘Is it bad?’

The youth nodded.
‘The master don’t reckon she’ll last the week.’

Lucy turned to Stefan, a pang catching in her breast.
‘I might have been too late!’

He put out a hand and brushed her cheek with his finger, a smile in his eyes.
‘Go.’ Then, to the boy. ‘Take her ladyship to Mrs Oade, if you please.’

The boy looked towards the house, doubt in his face.

‘Is the door open?’ Lucy asked.

‘Aye.’

‘Then pray hasten.’

Stefan walked her to the door.
‘I will wait for you here.’

Lucy nodded, drew a breath, and followed the lad inside.

Mrs Oade looked frailer than ever, her complexion pasty, her skin paper-thin.
She was lying in a wooden cot in the corner of a large bedroom, which gave her an even more wasted appearance.

She had not stirred as Lucy approached the bed, and her eyes remained closed.
Lucy spied a straight-backed chair near the window and went to fetch it, setting it down by the bedside. She sat down and reached to capture one of the blue-veined hands and hold it between both her own.

A slight movement of the head showed Mrs Oade had noted the change.
Her eyelids flickered but did not lift. Lucy called her softly.

‘Mrs Oade.’

She had to repeat the name two more times before the woman’s lids lifted, exposing pallid blue eyes. They blinked and turned in the direction of the voice.

‘It is Lucy, Mrs Oade.
Do you remember me?’

There was no immediate recognition in the old woman’s eyes.
Lucy felt compassion stir, and the compulsion throbbed intensely within her.

‘Mrs Oade
—grandmother—I am Alice’s daughter. You remember Alice?’

At that, something changed in the aged eyes, and a rheum glistened at their edges.
The cracked voice came out. Weaker, but just as Lucy remembered it.

‘
Alice. My Alice.’

‘Yes,’ Lucy said eagerly, gripped by the urge that drove her.
‘I am Alice’s daughter. My name is Lucy.’

The old woman’s gaze focused on Lucy’s face.
Her hand wavered and Lucy squeezed it again.

‘
Alice’s girl? Alice’s babe?’

Lucy’s vision blurred.
She clutched the woman’s hand tightly between both her own, and her voice went husky.

‘Yes, grandmother.
Alice’s babe. I am Alice’s girl.’ A sigh left the woman’s lips, and moisture squeezed out at the corners of her eyes. Lucy leaned closer. ‘I have come to tell you something, which I hope will comfort you.’

Mrs Oade’s gaze grew blank.
Had she understood? Lucy tried again. ‘I have news, Mrs Oade. News of Alice.’

The skin about the old woman’s eyes moved and a faint frown appeared.
She focused on Lucy’s face. The compulsion was suddenly very strong. Lucy obeyed it without will.

‘
Alice was married, Mrs Oade. I found the church. It is all in the register. Alice married the man who made her with child. Do you understand me? She was wedded to him.’

At first the creature looked bemused.
But something had gone through. ‘Wed?’

‘Yes, they were wed.
I am not a love child and Alice was not disgraced.’

At last it seemed the news had sunk in.
The hand she held returned a measure of Lucy’s pressure, if weakly. Then a series of gasping little cries came chasing one another from her lips.

Alarmed, Lucy thought for a moment her breathing was in difficulties.
Or she was becoming hysterical. But the woman’s mouth was smiling, and at length Lucy took in that she was laughing.

With surprising strength, Mrs Oade spoke out into the air.
‘Good on you, Alice! Good on you, girl!’

Suddenly, Lucy felt lighter.
The pressure in her chest eased. An immense feeling of peace descended upon her and all desire to weep was washed away.

Her grandmother’s fit of cackling subsided after a while, and she sank back into a semi-stupor, her eyes slowly closing.
But the smile was yet upon her mouth. A wisp of an idea sailed through Lucy’s mind: that Mrs Oade would not wake again.

She rose from the chair and quietly left the old dame in peace.

* * *

Stefan had not many minutes
to wait before the farmer appeared. He exhibited extreme belligerence at seeing Stefan again, asking him in a tone of truculence whether he did not remember the blunderbuss.

‘I remember it very well, I thank you,’ Stefan told him, equally hostile.
‘But I think you may change your tune when you hear what I have to say.’

He then t
ook great pleasure in informing the fellow of his sister’s marriage to the man who had allegedly ruined her. Oade stood dumbstruck, his mouth opening and closing several times before he managed to get the words out.

‘Wed?
He wedded her?’

‘He did.’

Oade blinked, repeating it in disbelieving tones. ‘Wed?’

‘Certainly.
You may visit St Bride’s church at Much Marcle and see it for yourself if you don’t believe me.’

Oade heaved a snorting sigh.
‘Wed! Wed to a lord, and she never said nothing.’

‘No doubt she felt you were unlikely to listen.’

The farmer growled in his throat for a while. Then his bull-like head thrust to and fro. ‘Where’s the girl?’

‘Talking to your mother.’
Stefan signalled Cobbold to stand guard by the door. ‘And if you have any notion of resorting to that damned blunderbuss, let me advise you to steer clear of my groom there. He has a useful right.’

Oade t
ook one look at the groom’s square-jawed and stolid stance and retreated a pace. He glared again at Stefan.

‘
Alice ain’t been treated right. Seems to me as there had ought to be a reckoning.’

Stefan could hardly believe his ears.
He laughed outright. ‘Are you daring to think of demanding compensation? Who is at fault here, I should like to know?’ Disgust overcame him. ‘You are contemptible.’

Oade clenched his fists, but Cobbold marched up to flank his master and he thought better of whatever intention he had in mind, dropping back.

‘There’s much I could say would harm that girl.’

Furious, Stefan strode forward to confront the man.
‘You try it, fellow! I’ll have my lawyer down here so fast you’ll be rotting in gaol within hours of the first sally.’

‘Stefan?’

He turned his head swiftly. Lucy had come through the front door. Stefan instantly crossed over to her. ‘Come, let us leave this place. Cobbold, unhitch the horses.’

The groom went to fetch the curricle from where he had left it, tying the reins to a fence.
Stefan handed Lucy into the vehicle, and jumped up to take his own seat.

‘Let them go.
’

Cobbold released the team and scrambled
for his perch as Stefan whipped the horses up, anxious to be shot of the wretched Oade as quickly as he might.

But the creature bawled after them to the last.
‘You ain’t heard the last of me, not by a long chalk you ain’t! I’ll have my rights!’

Lucy covered her ears as the coarse threats pursued them halfway down the lane.
Stefan glanced across at her.

‘We are out of earshot, never fear.’

Her hands came down. ‘He is a brute and a monster. Did you tell him?’

She listened to a recital of her abominable uncle’s attempts at extortion and blackmail
without comment. At the end, she let out a weary sigh.

‘I think he must be truly mad.
I do hope he will not bully poor Mrs Oade and will let her slip away peacefully.’

Then
she relapsed into thought. Stefan was a trifle concerned, although she did not appear to be despondent.

‘You are very quiet,’
he commented, after he had driven several miles in silence.

Lucy glanced round.
‘I am thinking.’

‘About Oade?’

‘No, I am not thinking of him, but of his sister.’

‘
Alice, you mean.’

Lucy turned to him, and Stefan was struck by a different light in her eyes
, a lessening of the troubled mind she’d exhibited these several days. A stirring of hope rose up in his breast.

‘Stefan, I think she is at peace now, like her mother.
You will laugh at me, but I believe she has been instrumental in almost all I have done.’

Stefan had no belief in the supernatural, but if thinking of the matter in this light was of comfort to Lucy, he was unwilling to dash her down.
‘I dare say it is possible.’

‘Well, only look at how things have turned out,’ Lucy urged.
‘Did I not begin with an undefined desire to seek out the author of my misfortunes, as I thought of your uncle then? And when we returned to Upledon to fetch my things, why did I feel so strongly I must find out something of the woman who had given birth to me? It all fits, Stefan. When you thought to secure my future, it was to your Aunt Dorothea that I went. And only she could have told us the truth and set us on the path to discovery.’