Straw in the Wind (20 page)

‘It's complicated, but he's asked me to prepare you.'

Bewildered, she gazed at him. ‘I don't understand; prepare me for what?'

‘Of course you don't understand, since I haven't explained, yet,' he said testily. ‘Don't keep interrupting else I'll be here all day. When Adam Chapman was taken ill he was looking for you.'

‘Me?'

‘He had no intention of approaching you. He just wanted to take a look at you when he got caught in that storm . . . you know what happened next.'

She took a deep breath, exaggerating her sigh as she set it free.

He grinned. ‘He's traced your progress from the day you were born, through an orphanage in Dorset where you were left as a newborn baby. The orphanage was supported by an elderly woman called Constance Serafina Jarvis, who Adam believes was your relative. She made certain arrangements, and when she died you went to the farm in Gloucester with two of her trusted servants and their family.'

She remembered his questions and felt dismay. ‘The Fenns.'

‘Yes. From there you went to the workhouse, then into the Pawley household before coming to work for me.'

Adam had told her about his job . . . but he'd made light of it to put her off guard and trick her into answering questions about herself. Anger trickled through her and she stood. ‘I see, thank you for telling me, sir.'

‘Sit down, Serafina. I haven't finished.'

‘My name isn't Serafina, it's Sara Finn.'

‘Oh, for goodness sake, don't get your hackles up with me. Adam doesn't know if you are Serafina, but the name Sara Finn is so similar and you are familiar with it, so it's not likely to be a coincidence. The alternative is that you're Mary Fenn. You told Adam yourself that you used to swap names and parents.'

She grabbed at the familiar. ‘Yes, that's it, I remember now . . . I'm Mary Fenn. Can I go now?'

There was a short silence then he said. ‘Yes, go.'

‘A pity you're being so stubborn,' he said when she was halfway to the door. ‘If you'd stay you'd discover that Serafina Honeyman has two sisters. There is also a man who thinks he may be her father, and would dearly love to discover his daughter's whereabouts, and find her.'

Dear God, a family
. . . her own family after all this time. Her heart began to ache and her knees weaken. ‘This man who says he might be Serafina's father, tell me about him.'

‘He's a seafaring man who has employed Adam Chapman to find you. One of Serafina's sisters was called Charlotte, the other is Marianne.'

She began to tremble. Could this be true? ‘Why didn't Adam tell me? Why did he pretend to be interested in me for my own sake. He . . .' She pulled herself together. ‘You said Adam doesn't know for certain, and this man only
might
be Serafina's father. That means that he might not be.'

‘It means exactly that. Serafina might share a father with her sisters, she might not.'

‘What of my mother? What type of woman would have both husband and lover . . . then give away her infant?'

‘A woman who married for convention's sake, and who fell in love with someone else, my dear – one who lost her life giving birth to her third beloved daughter.'

She was responsible for her mother's death then. ‘Then how . . .?'

‘Everything pointed to her husband. The sisters were told that Serafina had died with her mother, but recently the younger of the pair got it into her head that you might be alive.'

Everything inside Serafina seemed to collapse and she dropped into the nearest chair. ‘What if I'm Mary Fenn?'

‘And what if you
are
Serafina Honeyman? Adam wants to take you to meet the man who might have fathered you, in case there is a family resemblance.'

‘And if there isn't?'

‘Then no harm is done. I thought you'd be pleased to know that you might be part of a family.'

‘No harm done! For the first time since I can remember I am truly happy. Sara Finn knew her place in life. Now you tell me I'm not her, and I'm probably not Mary Fenn either, but I could be – in all likelihood – a woman called Serafina Honeyman, who was responsible for her mother's death and was cast from the family home because she was born a bastard. And you expect me to feel pleased about it.'

Hadn't she often imagined herself as part of a family, of having siblings and a mother and a father? Though she took a deep breath, the panic rioting inside her didn't subside. Now she was faced with it she didn't think she'd be able to handle it. Illusion was one thing, reality another. They were strangers. What if they didn't like her, or her them? ‘What if Serafina Honeyman had died after all, and this family finds out later and accuses me of being an imposter?' she said.

Mr Leighton snapped, ‘Stop talking about yourself as if you're a third party you invented. If you can't discuss this without getting emotional and feeling sorry for yourself, you can go away until you can.'

The hurt she felt hit her like a blow, so her throat swelled with the ache of unshed tears. ‘Sorry . . . I'm sorry.' But she hated him for wounding her, and rising from the chair she opened the door and went through it, slamming it behind her.

‘Serafina, come back here!' he shouted.

‘Leave me alone. My past is none of your business,' she tossed at him in reply. She left the house at a run and pounded through the garden, going past an astonished Joseph Tunney who was bent to a flower-bed, his fingers gouging into the crumbly earth to loosen the hold of the spring weeds. She headed for the copse as though a hound from hell was after her. Ignoring the small wooden bridge she splashed across the knee-deep stream on the way and tripped up the muddy bank. Her skirt was now slimed with mud and flapped wetly against her legs. Her boots filled up with cold water that slopped over the top with every step she took.

She stopped, gasping when she ran out of breath, and she sank down on a fallen log covered in brightly coloured layers of fungus. It was cool in the shade of the copse and the long bracts of thorny blackberry bushes plucked at her clothes. Underfoot, the layer of compressed leaves oozed water left there from the showers, and the air smelled of mould, mushrooms, bruised pine needles and decay.

The old woman had smelled of mould. She'd been dressed in a nightgown, her hair spread around her.

‘Kiss your aunt goodbye, Serafina.'

Her skin had been grey, and patched with brown liver spots, her lips purple. Close up they were surrounded by downy grey hairs that brushed against Serafina's lips. The long, silver hair that Serafina had been allowed to brush when the woman was feeling old and tired, was fashioned into a severe braid wrapped around her head.

Why won't Aunt Constance talk to me? Where is she going? She's so cold.

‘The dead are always cold because they have no soul to warm them. God has claimed her soul and taken it to heaven. Be glad you don't look like her with that gypsy face and coarse skin. You're coming to live with us now, on a farm far away from here. That's her legacy to you, to all of us. We will be your family. She wanted you taken away where nobody will know about you and the shame you brought down on the family. You're unclean, and from now on you'll be Sara Fenn.'

After that, Serafina had lost herself. She didn't want to be unclean and bring down shame on anyone.

She leaned forward, her breath rattling harshly in her throat. She had never known what unclean meant until now. The Reverend Pawley had told her that cleanliness was next to godliness, and if she worked hard God would take that into account when she died. So she had scrubbed and polished his floors on her hands and knees, and she'd kept herself clean and prayed every day with his family.

But now she'd discovered that she was the result of a sin, and she had killed her own mother and been cast out by her family. What was worse, she'd met Adam Chapman and now knew the control her emotions exerted over her body and her will. Now she understood why her mother had sinned in the first place, and she couldn't blame her for it.

Tears coursed down her face. Mr Leighton was right. She had to face up to this . . . but not yet. She was happy here . . . he would understand that, and he would send Adam Chapman away.

Adam had said her father was a seafarer. Curiosity tickled at her. ‘Damn it, stop thinking about it!' she yelled.

There was a whirring sound as a startled bird exploded out of a bush.

‘Serafina?' It was her employer, with Oscar.

‘Yes . . . I'm here.'

‘Typical of you to have ended up in a patch of brambles,' he grumbled as a thorn caught at his trouser leg.

‘I didn't ask you to come looking for me.'

‘You sound low down.' He stretched his hand out. ‘Where is she, Oscar, in a rabbit hole?'

‘You're treating me like a child,' she said.

‘Because you're acting like one.'

‘It's not very gentlemanly of you to remind me.'

Oscar led him forward. ‘Miss Finn is sitting on a fallen log, sir.'

‘Thank you, Oscar. You may go back to the house.'

‘Yes, sir.' Oscar turned and walked away.

‘There's no need to be so churlish. Aren't you going to invite me to sit down?'

‘It's your log.' She sighed. ‘Two steps forward, turn and sit. Where's your stick?'

‘I forgot it . . . which of us is going to apologize first?'

‘You are.'

‘Because?'

‘You're a man, you were insensitive and I feel betrayed by you . . . and by Adam Chapman, as well.'

‘Ah, you're going to take the gender approach. A good stance, since it's manly to shoulder the blame in such a situation.'

‘Unless you weren't to blame in the first place, then it's stupid.'

‘Men are often stupid, I'm afraid. I'm sorry for being insensitive to your feelings. You're always so sensible, and I forgot that you think and feel like a woman. In no way did I betray you. As for Adam Chapman, he can make his own apology. Now you can apologize to me.'

‘For what?'

‘Slamming the door to start with. A lump of soot fell down the chimney and scattered all over the drawing room.'

‘I just cleaned that room yesterday; now I'll have to clean it all over again,' she wailed.

He chuckled. ‘It serves you right for getting into such a paddy.'

‘Ah . . . but if the soot had stayed in the chimney it might have caught fire and burned the house down.' There was a moment of silence then she sniffed and offered, ‘I'm sorry I was rude to you, even though you deserved it. None of this is your fault.'

‘You don't give much quarter, do you? If it's not my fault then it must be yours.'

‘I can't help what I feel.'

‘Then we'll blame it on Adam, since he's not here to argue with us.' He reached out and his fingertips brushed against her face. ‘You're crying. Did the news that you might not be Sara Nobody from Nowhere upset you that much?'

‘I like my life just as it is. I love it here and I like being Sara Finn and working for you. I don't want it to change, and I'm scared.'

A beam of sunlight shafted down through the tree canopy and fell across his eyes. He flinched and closed his eyelids.

‘Why did you do that?'

‘Do what?'

‘You screwed your eyes up against the sunlight.'

‘Did I? Sometimes I can see light and shadows . . . I told you. It doesn't mean anything.'

‘It must mean something. What did they tell you after the accident?'

‘The doctor said he could see no damage to my eyes and it was possible I could get some vision back in time, but he strongly doubted it.'

‘What would you do if you did get your sight back?'

He sighed. ‘I'm trying to avoid wanting it too much, a concept that you're totally familiar with. Getting my sight back would be a
truly
life-changing event, don't you think, but frightening since I'll be able to look in a mirror and see myself.'

‘Ah . . . you're leading me back to where you want me to go. I can never get the best of you in conversation. Out with it, Mr Leighton.'

‘The point of this conversation is about
your
life changing, and of course it will change. It did for me. I never thought I'd meet another woman I wanted to marry, but in Celia, I have. You will just have to adapt, you know, as I've had to, and will have to again if my condition reverses.' He held out his hands to her. ‘Let's go home, Serafina.'

‘Promise you'll not make me do anything that I don't want to.'

‘Only if you promise that you'll listen to what Adam has to say, and think the situation over carefully, using that good mind of yours. You'd have friends to support you if you decide to go ahead, whatever the outcome.'

Reluctantly, she murmured, ‘I promise to listen,' and she was filled with an odd flutter of excitement at the thought of seeing Adam again.

She led her employer around the bramble patch and they made their way out of the copse. She expected him to place his hand on her shoulder like he did with Oscar, but he took her hand in his instead, turned it palm up and ran his fingers over it. ‘Celia has sent some more salve down for your hands. It seems to be working. They're smoother than they were when you first came here.'

‘That was kind of her. It does help. I'm glad you fell in love with her . . . she's so sweet and calm, and kind.'

‘So am I, and yes, Celia is all of those things, and more besides.'

It began to rain, one of May's soft surprise gifts to the countryside. He laughed and said, ‘I should have brought an umbrella. We'll be soaked.'

‘I'm drenched already. I waded through the stream instead of over the bridge, and it was deeper than I thought.'

‘I used to do that when I was a child and it reached to my chest. It was fun and it used to annoy my governess, because she had to wade in to get me out.'