The Adultress by Philippa Carr Page B

firmly. His eyes glistened a little. Here at least was a welcome. I could tell that he was very glad I had come.
    “She came because you asked her, pet,” said Jessie. “And didn’t let me know. Not very nice of you, was it, lovey? Arrived last night in the dark … and having no welcome ready. If you’d told me I’d have set the bells ringing for her.”
    He smiled at me almost deprecatingly. “Jessie takes good care of me,” he said.
    “I should think she does!” said Jessie. “Though sometimes you don’t always deserve it, eh, naughty Lordy?”
    He smiled at me. Was he trying to tell me something? If he was it was obvious that he wouldn’t do so while Jessie was present.
    “I am so pleased to see you,” I said.
    “And your husband?”
    “He hasn’t come with me. There was a fire in a barn nearby and he broke his leg attempting to put it out.”
    “So you came alone?”
    “Accompanied by seven grooms.”
    He nodded. “Good of you. Good of you.”
    His dark eyes were expressive, luminous.
    “Tell me,” he went on. “Tell me, how is your mother? A dear girl … always. And your father … that was a tragedy. I knew him. One of the finest gentlemen that ever lived. And Sabrina … eh …”
    “They are all well.”
    “Pity Sabrina married that damned Jacobite. We … we put paid to them, eh? Traitors all of them.”
    Jessie had sat by the bed. There was a bowl of sweetmeats on a nearby table. She took one and began sucking it. I guessed they had been put there for her benefit and the fact was borne home to me that she shared this bedchamber with that poor skeleton of a man in the bed. The idea of them together would have been comical if it hadn’t seemed so tragic. She sat in a chair smiling at us benignly; yet behind that bland smile was the look of a watchdog. She was suspicious and angry that I had been sent for without her knowledge. I wondered how far he was under her control. Not completely, I suppose; but she was clearly a power in the house.
    “Lordy can still get wild over the Jacobites,” commented Jessie.
    I raised my eyebrows a little and looked at him. Why didn’t he send this insolent woman away?
    He caught my expression and returned it with an almost apologetic smile and yet there was a message there. He wanted to talk to me in private I knew. Why did he not tell her to leave us!
    Could it possibly be that he was afraid of her? A brazen forceful woman; a houseful of servants selected by her and an old man possessed of wealth, enfeebled, spending a great deal of time in his bed.
    The situation was becoming clear, but I could not understand his docility.
    I said: “I hear that Mistress Jessie is a good housekeeper.”
    She gave rather a raucous laugh. “More than that, eh, pet?”
    He laughed with her and by the expression on his face I thought: He really cares for her. He likes her.
    “Do you ever go out?” I asked.
    “No, I haven’t been out … for how long, Jessie? Months?” She nodded. “The trouble is I can’t manage the stairs. A pity. I always liked the fresh air.”
    “He rests in the afternoon, don’t you, pet? I tuck him up after dinner. That’s round about one and then after a nice nap … he’s rested.”
    Jessie had the sweetmeat bowl beside her. “There’s no marzipan here,” she commented. “I told them girls to keep it filled.”
    Her face was momentarily distorted with anger. Gone in that instant was the bland expression; but it was almost immediately replaced by the smile. If she could be like that over a sweetmeat, I thought, how would she be about something which affected her really deeply? That I had stumbled into a very strange and dangerous situation was becoming increasingly clear.
    She went to the door and shouted “Moll.” It gave us our opportunity. The thin old hand had seized mine urgently. “See Jethro,” he whispered. “He will tell you what to do.”
    That was all. She had returned to the room. Only her desire for a sweetmeat had