long, Miss Boyce. Since I first hurt my ankle.’
Letitia closed her eyes, seeing the occasion in one quick blink. They had left Sapphire behind in Miss Gaddestone’s care to finish off her watercolour in the summerhouse while the rest of them went to the Royal Academy. Gaddy would have dozed off. The gardener’s son would have beckoned, offering Sapphire an irresistible alternative. She was not a girl to refuse that kind of adventure, as she herself had done. She would have pushed aside any reservations and taken whatever experience was waiting for her, and she would emerge at the tender age of seventeen knowing far more about a man than Letitia knew at twenty-four, a novelist who wrote about such relationships as if she knew what she was talking about. Sapphire’s behaviour could not be excused or condoned, but neither could she be condemned out of hand for wanting to know exactly what would be expected of her in marriage, before committing herself to it.
‘With the gardener’s son, Sapphire? Is that the best you could do? Could you not have waited for marriage?’
Sapphire hung her head as if in shame, but there was no trace of shame when she lifted it again to look Letitia full in the face. ‘I could, Miss Boyce,’ she said through swollen lips, ‘but Ted’s not like the men my parents approve of. He’ll keep it to himself, not prattle and boast as others do, swapping details, comparing, laughing about it, giving one a reputation and a silly nickname to match. I wanted to find out what I need to know without everyone hearing about it. He’s had lots of girls. He knows what he’s doing. Not like some of them. And now I know what it’s like. It was not what Mrs Quayle says, rolling about like pups. It was good, or I’d not have returned.’
‘Have you no shame, Miss Melborough?’ Mrs Quayle snapped.
Sapphire did not look her way. ‘My body is my own to do with as I please. Yes, I know about bloodlines and all that, but experience with men has not stopped some women from making good marriages, and it won’t stop me. The difference is that I shall be going into it with my eyes open. As men do.’
‘And have you given any thought to the consequences, young lady?’ said Mrs Quayle, unconvinced by the argument. ‘Do you want to bear the gardener’s brat? Will your own father recognise it, if you do?’
‘There won’t be any consequences of the kind you mean.’
‘How can you be sure, Sapphire?’ said Letitia. ‘You run a very serious risk.’
‘My father tells me one must be prepared to take risks in life.’
‘I don’t doubt he did, but I don’t suppose he had this kind of thing in mind when he said it. Turn round and let me fasten you up.’
As Letitia might have expected, Sapphire’s back was covered by tiny pink scratches that rough sacking would make upon delicate skin. But she was not prepared for the pale grey-blue rows of fingertip marks on the upper arms, shoulders and back as if some violence had been used. Finishing the fastenings, she turned Sapphire to face her. ‘Tell me the truth, if you please. Did the gardener’s son force himself on you?’
The blue eyes opened wider, astonished and innocent, and Letitia knew she did not lie. ‘No, he didn’t, Miss Boyce. Ted’s not like that. I know it might be best for me to say that he did, but that wouldn’t explain why I came down here on a Sunday morning when I told the housekeeper and Mama I’d be going to church, would it? I’d have gone straight there, not to your potting shed. I won’t get Ted into any more trouble than he is already. Someone’s already beaten him up.’
It would have been so easy for Letitia to tell her, but she held her tongue. This was not the time. ‘Do you love him, then?’ she said.
‘No, Miss Boyce, of course I don’t. It’s not love we were after.’
‘What was it, then?’ said Mrs Quayle, sharply.
Letitia thought the question unnecessary, quelling Mrs Quayle’s curiosity with a frown. ‘My concern,’ she said, ‘is for your personal safety, which has been put at risk. And what on earth am I to tell your parents, when you choose to use my property to misbehave on while you were not supposed to be here? I shall have to insist that they find another seminary for you, Sapphire. Just when it was all going so well.’
‘Do you have to tell them?’
Letitia recognised the plea for privacy, and there was a moment of hesitation before she replied, ‘Yes, they must know. Certainly they must. They are responsible for you still, and I cannot pretend not to know what’s been happening. That would make me as irresponsible as you. You must see that. I can only be thankful that it’s been stopped before it gets any worse, though it will be bad enough if that young man has fathered a child on you. I pray it has not happened.’
‘He must be got rid of immediately,’ said Mrs Quayle.
‘He will be. I should have done it sooner.’
‘Why?’
‘Well…er…because it’s his father who’s employed here, not Ted. He only helps out when he’s needed.’ She recalled Rayne’s caustic and rather indelicate words about who else Ted had ‘helped out’. ‘Has he been associating with any of the other girls, Sapphire?’
‘No, Miss Boyce.’
‘Are you quite sure?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Quite sure.’
Letitia sighed with relief. ‘Stand up. I’ll tidy your hair before I take you home. Turn round.’
‘I’d rather stay here with you, ma’am, if I may. My parents won’t be home until this evening.’
‘Very well, but you must stay upstairs out of the way. I’ll have your lunch sent up on a—’ Her words were cut off by the insistent clang of the front doorbell, followed quickly by a loud commanding voice. ‘Oh, no! That’s Mama!’ she whispered to Mrs Quayle. ‘Quick! Take Sapphire upstairs.’
But it was too late to take Miss Melborough anywhere before the footman opened the door, his announcement obliterated by the loud greeting of Lady Boyce who had come on a mission of some urgency. ‘Letitia!’she bawled, then stopped abruptly to take in the unusual scene of her eldest daughter dressing the hair of a dishevelled young beauty, while her plump brown neighbour looked on with alarm written clearly on her face. With eyes sharpened by years of training, Lady Boyce saw that something was seriously amiss—a minor tragedy that demanded her personal investigation.
The hour that followed was one of the most difficult Letitia ever had to endure while defending Sapphire Melborough against Lady Boyce’s embarrassing inquisition, far worse than Mrs Quayle’s barbed enquiries. After ignoring repeated invitations to visit Paradise Road, she had chosen that Sunday morning to descend upon her daughter at last, not with smiles of appreciation, but solely to find out more about the relationship with the man she had earmarked for one of her younger daughters. Hoping to arrive before Letitia’s return from church, she had intended to do at least half an hour of snooping. She did not enjoy having her plans dislodged, but she did enjoy demanding answers to searching questions, regardless of the fact that Miss Melborough’s plight was no concern of hers. This kind of detail had never stopped her in the past, and nor did it now.
Usually able to hold her own in an argument, Letitia was this time no match for her mother, particularly on an issue that needed handling with great sensitivity.
