‘No, let them stay.’ Sophy still didn’t move. ‘Is it true? What she said?’
Jeremiah cleared his throat. Patience had gone to stand with Sophy and had put her arm round her cousin, her face as shocked and horrified as David’s. ‘Your mother was always determined to follow her own star, Sophy,’ he said, struggling for words. ‘Even as a child she wasn’t happy in the village, she wanted more, but it led to her being taken advantage of.’
‘So she was an actress in the music halls?’
He nodded. ‘She ran away from here when she was fifteen years old.’
‘And my father? Did – did she know who my father was?’
‘Like I said, your mother was taken advantage of. It happens to the best of women when they are in a vulnerable situation.’
‘So I am a—’
‘You are my niece.’ For the first time in sixteen years Jeremiah went some way in redeeming himself. ‘And part of this family.’
‘No, I have never been part of this family, Uncle.’ Sophy glanced from Jeremiah to Patience, whose eyes were swimming in tears, and then David. When her cousin couldn’t meet her gaze, it brought home to her what she could expect if anyone found out the truth about her.
She bent, picking up her fur bonnet which had loosened and fallen to the floor at some point in the proceedings, and then straightened. Quietly turning away, and ignoring Patience’s anguished, ‘Sophy, wait,’ she walked out of the room, shutting the door carefully behind her.
Chapter 8
Sophy left in the middle of the night. She would have gone without saying goodbye to anyone, but after she had packed her clothes in her valise and stuffed Maisie and a few other personal items she possessed into an old carpet bag, Patience stirred on the other side of the room. Sophy was halfway to the door when Patience sat up in bed. ‘Sophy? What are you doing?’
‘Ssh.’ She walked quickly over to Patience’s bed. ‘Keep your voice down.’
‘What’s happening?’ Patience peered at her in the dim light from the window, the white world outside reflecting the moonlight. It had snowed a little that afternoon but the evening had turned clear and a heavy sparkling frost had fallen which sat on the snow like diamond dust. ‘What have you got your coat on for? You’re not— No, you’re not thinking of leaving!’
‘I have to.’ Sophy sat down on the end of the bed. ‘I can’t stay, not after today. You must see that.’
‘No, I don’t. I don’t, Sophy, and Father wouldn’t want you to go like this.’
‘I don’t think that’s quite true. One way or another, I think I’ve caused quite a bit of trouble for him over the years. Anyway, I want to go. I’ve wanted to for ages.’
‘But you can’t.’ Patience reached out and grabbed her cousin’s hand, her lank brown hair which was drawn with excruciating tightness each night into curling papers bobbing as she knelt up. ‘I won’t let you. We’re friends now, aren’t we? And I’ve been longing for you to come home. It’s so awful here with just Mother and Father all day, and the boys are hardly home at all in the evenings. I don’t blame them, I wish I could escape too.’
Sophy smiled sadly to herself. Since the revelation about her mother, Patience had been as nice as pie to her, which was kind of her, it really was, but she couldn’t help feeling that now she was no longer a perceived threat where Mr Travis was concerned – for no respectable curate would dream of declaring an interest in a girl with her background – it had coloured Patience’s attitude somewhat. The thought of her mother weakened Sophy; she had deliberately put everything out of her head but packing and escaping the confines of the house while she had been getting ready to leave. She would think about her mother when she could bear to, but not now.
‘I can’t stay,’ she said again, extricating her fingers from Patience’s hand. ‘I have to go.’
‘But how will you manage? Where will you go? And it’s the middle of the night. At least wait till morning and let Father take you somewhere.’