Here Comes a Candle by Jane Aiken Hodge Page B

you left, sa h . ” He spoke, Kate thought, the most beautiful English she had heard since she crossed the border. Could he be a slave? Surely there were none in Boston?
    “ This is Mrs. Croston, who has agreed to take charge of Sarah. ” Jonathan guided her across the threshold into a wide, well-lighted hall. “ Mrs. Penrose? ”
    “ In the drawing room, sah. ”
    “ Good. ” He moved toward one of the closed doors that opened off the big hall. “ We ’ re famished, Job, and tired. Food—and warming-pans. ”
    “ Yes, sah. I ’ ll see to it at once, Mr. Jonathan. ”
    “ Thank you. ” Jonathan threw open the door and ushered Kate into a room whose elegance amazed her. So far, her experience of American living had been limited to the Masons ’ house in the wilderness, Pride ’ s Hotel, and the makeshift discomfort of the other inns they had stayed at. But here was a room that might have graced the most luxurious English country house she knew. She had seen furniture like this in many a lady ’ s drawing room when paying calls with her father, and thought he had told her it was made by a Mr. Chippendale in the previous century. Each detail of the elaborately carved chairs, cabinets, and sofas shone with polish, as did the floor, where it showed around the expanse of c rims on carpet. Crimson damask covers on the chairs and sofas echoed the carpet ’ s sumptuous color and formed a striking contrast with white curtains and the white dress of the tall woman who had risen to greet them. The whole room served as a foil for her blond, full-blown beauty, and might have been designed to do so.
    Following Jonathan across the desert of carpet, Kate felt horribly at a disadvantage in this glowing room, conscious of her drab bonnet and sober pelisse and of the long day ’ s heat and dust And still the beauty stood silent watching them from amber-colored eyes under heavy brows, while Kate wished passionately that she could have a voided being the unwanted third at this meeting.
    “ How are you, Bella? ” Jonathan ’ s question seemed oddly inadequate.
    Now, at last, Arabella took a step forward to greet them. “ About as you ’ d expect ” Her voice was deep, beautifully pitched, and angry. “ I was beginning to despair of you, Jonathan. ” And the n , to Kate: “ Were you so hard to persuade, Miss McGowan? ”
    The dislike in her voice was worse than anything Kate had imagined: “I’m not ... ” Impossible to go on in face of that coldly hostile gaze. She stammered to a halt and listened wretchedly while Jonathan explained about Liz McGowan.
    “ Not Miss McGowan? ” Arabella summed it up, eyebrows arched over those extraordinary amber eyes. “ How do you do, Mrs. Croston? I hope, as an Eng l ishwoman, you will not find us quite barbarous here. As to your work: you have experience, I take it, in dealing with children? ”
    “ A little— ”
    Once again Jonathan cut short Kate ’ s stumbling approach to explaining herself. “ She has what I hope will prove more valuable—sympathy. ” They were discussing, Kate thought a great deal more than the mere words suggested. “ Job says Sarah is just the same, ” he went on.
    “ Job would. ” Weary impatience in the beauty ’ s voice. “ He ’ s like the rest of you; won ’ t see what ’ s before his eyes. She ’ s worse, of course: it ’ s been intolerable: screaming fits night after night. I thought I ’ d go mad. If I ’ d known you ’ d be gone so long, I ’ d never have agreed. ” And then, turning to Kate, “ I wonder if my husband has warned you just what you are in for, ” she said. “ Has he convinced you that a little ‘ sympathy ’ is all that the child needs? I don ’ t suppose he told you that the doctors find her case hopeless. ”
    “ Yes, he did. ” Kate was surprised to hear herself speak so firmly. “ But he said he didn ’ t believe it. ”
    Dark eyebrows rose over scornful .eyes. “ So you can speak up for