The Silent Companions

Elsie passed over the package. ‘Take care, or we’ll need to go back and have them cleaned all over again.’

‘I will not get my bandage near the gems. See, I only need that hand to unwrap them.’ Sarah smoothed out the material and sighed like a girl in love. ‘I never knew we had diamonds in the family.’

After a clean and polish at the jeweller’s in Torbury St Jude, the diamond necklace shone brighter than ever. The pear drops flashed cinnamon, then white, then blue, as light streaked through the carriage window.

Elsie turned her face away. Whenever she looked at the necklace she thought of Rupert’s letter, his dear voice coming to her from beyond the grave. Rest assured I will not permit you to set a foot inside the house until it is quite worthy of you. If only he had known.

‘Rupert wrote that they were locked in a bank vault until he arrived at The Bridge.’

‘I do not wonder at it.’ Sarah wet her lips. ‘When I think of my ancestors wearing this necklace . . . Perhaps even Anne Bainbridge, whose diary I’m reading! These diamonds might have touched her skin, moved with her. It is almost too wonderful to comprehend.’

The ancestors again. Every time Sarah mentioned them, Elsie felt another stitch of guilt. The girl had lost her family and now here was her cousin’s widow, snatching her inheritance away. If Elsie had found the diamonds by accident, perhaps she would have let Sarah take them. But Rupert’s letter made it clear what he wanted. She could never give away his last gift to her.

‘But Mrs Bainbridge, you will not be able to wear diamonds until your year of mourning is over! What a shame. I should so like to see them every day.’

‘I am only grateful that you can see them. After that episode with Mrs Holt, I was beginning to fear I had run mad.’

‘You are not going mad.’ Sarah rewrapped the package. ‘Did any of the shopkeepers treat you like a madwoman today?’

‘Thankfully, no.’ Elsie had to admit that the trip had brightened her spirits. Amidst the bustle of Torbury St Jude, the market stalls, knife-grinders and cabs hurrying to and from the station, it was difficult to think of sombre matters. She had visited a carpenter, a builder and a draper to discuss her plans for the house. Then, with Sarah’s period of half-mourning fast approaching, they went to order new gowns for her in lavender and grey. Elsie would remain in black – but that did not stop her from commissioning some new dresses to fit her growing belly.

‘I have spent my life with an elderly person,’ Sarah went on. ‘Believe me, I know the signs of a mind beginning to wander.’

‘Do they include placing reckless orders for home improvements and spending a fortune on new dresses?’

‘No, indeed! If you are going mad,’ said Sarah, checking her injured hand, ‘then so am I.’

Unable to stop herself, Elsie reached out and seized Sarah’s wrist. ‘You did see them? You saw the dolls and the animals in the nursery?’

‘Yes. They were beautiful! There is no possible way that . . .’ Trouble puckered her brow. ‘I cannot understand. It all seems like some monstrous joke. But Mrs Holt is not the sort of woman to amuse herself in that way. Maybe there was a misunderstanding? She led you to some other room?’

‘That’s hardly likely. Why would there be two nurseries, one a hideous mirror of the other?’

‘We have mirror suites,’ Sarah pointed out. Absent-mindedly, she chewed on the lock of hair hanging down beside her mouth.

Fayford looked better in the sun. The mud road had dried to a rutted track. Some of the villagers had ventured outside their cottages. Elsie waved to them. They pulled their forelocks in acknowledgement, but she noticed them hustle their scrawny children back inside, as if it were unlucky to have her eye fall upon them. With all their superstitions, they probably thought widows spread bad fortune.

‘Sarah, what about the second companion? Did you see him also?’

‘The gypsy boy. Yes, I told you.’

‘You are sure?’

‘Of course. There are two.’

But how?

They were on the bridge now, flanked by stone lions. Elsie gave an involuntary shudder as they crossed the water. ‘I shall have to speak to Helen. But I presumed she would tell me if she’d found another one. I have never known such slipshod maids.’

The gatehouse flitted past them and they started to roll down the hills towards The Bridge. Above, the clouds swept along at speed, casting shadows over the turf. The gardeners she had hired were out. Some pruned bushes while others knelt in the parterres, uprooting dead flowers.

The horses drew to a halt before the house. Through the window, she saw the silhouettes of the companions waiting in the Great Hall. Two companions.

The butler who never smiled, Mr Stilford, opened the carriage door and let down the steps with an efficient clunk, clunk. As soon as they touched the gravel, he turned and spoke to Peters. ‘You will find a new charge when you take the horses round, Mr Peters. It seems they have a companion.’

Carefully negotiating the passage of her crinoline, Elsie stumbled down beside him onto the gravel. ‘A companion?’

‘Your cow has arrived, madam.’

She had almost forgotten. Dancing back towards the carriage, she gave Sarah her hand and pulled her out. ‘It’s the cow, Sarah. My little adopted cow. We will have a merry afternoon settling her in.’ She was glad not to be forced back into the house. ‘Take the boxes inside, would you?’ she asked Stilford. ‘We are going to see her.’

With one hand grasping Sarah and the other clamping down her skirts, she made her way past the scattered dirt and tools left by the gardeners to the stable block behind the house. It was a horseshoe of decrepit brick buildings. Paint peeled in curls from the hunter-green doors. A clock was mounted on the roof, but its hands hung still at a quarter to ten. Even the weathervane beside it had rusted to a halt in the east.

The cow did not look out of place beside these derelict objects. She stood next to the man who held her rope, her large black head hanging in dejection.

‘Oh!’ Sarah’s voice shot up a pitch. ‘Mr Underwood has brought her.’

It was indeed Mr Underwood: Elsie did not recognise him at first. He was dressed differently: a tweed trouser and jacket combination, clearly second-hand, hung from his tall frame. A low-crowned, wide-brimmed hat squashed his fringe over his forehead.

‘Mrs Bainbridge. Miss Bainbridge.’ He shook their hands. ‘A pleasure. I trust Miss Bainbridge is recovered from her faintness since we last met?’

Sarah’s cheeks glowed. ‘Oh yes. Much, much recovered.’ When he smiled, she released an absurd little giggle.

So that’s how it was.

‘But it appears that you have hurt your hand?’

Sarah touched the bandage. ‘Yes. Just a scratch. How kind, how very kind of you to notice!’

‘I must thank you for escorting my ward to The Bridge,’ Elsie cut in. ‘Dear thing. She has not even raised her head to look at us.’ The poor animal seemed to expect nothing more than future misery. ‘We will feed her up and get her healthy in no time. And she will need a name.’

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