An Unconventional Heiress Page 16

  Alan watched them go. There was no doubt that Sarah’s brother suspected the truth of what had recently passed between them. It had been a moment of madness in which the iron control which he usually kept over himself had slipped completely.

  Useless to grasp that John’s arrival had been fortunate for both of them. He knew how badly he wanted his tempestuous Sarah—and now he also knew that her feelings for him were equally strong.

  No! He was wrong. It was not fortunate! However the scene had ended, one thing was for sure: he would have declared himself and won her without a doubt. Now he must wait to see to see her again and hope to win John Langley over to the idea of having the renegade Dr Kerr as a brother-in-law.

  Sarah woke up the next morning to a whole new world, a world in which she knew that Alan felt for her as she felt for him: that, to put it plainly, her love was returned. It would surely not be long now before he declared himself. John would not be pleased if she accepted his proposal, but it was her decision to make, not his.

  The Governor, by inviting them to sing together, had, wittingly or unwittingly, removed the last barrier between them. Her only regret was that others must have witnessed their joy, but that was no matter, either. What did matter was what had happened afterwards. If anything further had been needed to convince her how wrong she had been to lament the loss of Charles Villiers for so long, those few rapturous moments in the moon-drowned garden had finally supplied it.

  Her cheeks burned at the memory of how abandoned she had been and how little she regretted it. Did Alan feel the same? She was sure that he did. He was due to visit her little school that afternoon, and she could scarcely wait to see him again. Would he propose then?

  Alan’s thoughts mirrored Sarah’s. What he had dared to hope had come true: she loved him. All that remained was for him to ask for her hand in marriage, and he set out on his weekly visit to examine her pupils with every intention of doing so. Alas, when he arrived there he found John Langley was present!

  He had accompanied Sarah after saying that he wished to see what in the world she was doing with the colony’s brats. He had brought his sketchbook with him and was entertaining the children by drawing them.

  Sarah looked ruefully at Alan. She had spent the morning eagerly looking forward to his visit when they would be alone together again, but it was soon apparent that John would not leave before Alan did.

  Indeed, when Alan departed, John made some excuse to leave with him, and this watchdog activity persisted over the next few days, helped by the fact that Alan’s medical duties were such that they kept him away. The inevitable gossip about them both after the musical evening made John even more determined to guard Sarah by ensuring that she rarely met Alan.

  Fortunately for him, the next social evening, two days later, was one to which Alan was not invited. John and Sarah were guests at a ball given by the officers of the 73rd Highlanders solely for those considered to be part of Sydney’s elite. Colonel O’Connell had once boasted, ‘No damned Emancipist will ever set foot in any activity which I arrange.’

  For Sarah, lacking Alan’s presence, the only thing that interested her in it was that Frank Wright proposed to Lucy between the cotillion and the quadrille.

  The following day Lucy flew round to the Langleys as soon as she decently could to show Sarah the seal ring that Frank had given her in lieu of a lady’s half-hoop.

  ‘Frank says,’ she told Sarah breathlessly, ‘that Tom Dilhorne has promised to order a diamond one from Macao by the next boat.’

  Sarah’s pleasure was genuine. She admired the ring and said everything that was proper about Frank. She told Lucy, quite truthfully, that, except for a few disappointed young ladies, the entire Exclusive tribe would rejoice with the happy lovers. She could not help contrasting the approval that Lucy had received with the reception which awaited her when Alan declared himself, as she felt he surely would, the moment that he could get past John!

  John came in while they were celebrating Lucy’s news. He opened a bottle of wine that the three of them drank, with John and Sarah toasting the happy couple. The wedding would take place in three months’ time to allow Mrs Middleton to provide as grand a send-off as possible.

  ‘So that’s Lucy settled,’ said John when she had finally departed after a flurry of kisses from Sarah. ‘I thought at one time that young Wright had a tendre for you.’

  ‘No such thing,’ said Sarah, ‘it’s always been Lucy for Frank. I think that he was a little fearful of her mother.’ She did not want John spreading the notion that Lucy had been taken as second-best.

  Later she walked round Sydney, dreaming of her own future with Alan, an expression of beatitude on her face that was not lost on Tom Dilhorne when she patronised his store. She had gone there the day after the news of Lucy’s engagement to look at dress materials and wonder what Mrs Middleton had in mind for her chief bridesmaid—for so Lucy had asked her to be.

  ‘Happen it won’t be the only big wedding this year,’ remarked Tom slyly.

  Sarah blushed a delicate pink and shook her head at him. The idiot’s not asked her yet then, thought Tom.

  He made a point of being present at Dempster’s Mill—as it was still called—when Alan paid his weekly visit there.

  He walked in just as Alan was packing his bag to leave and regarded his friend with a certain amount of worldly cynicism.

  ‘I hear that you and Miss Sarah entertained the Governor’s Soirée no end t’other night.’

  ‘You might say that.’ Alan was short.

  ‘Oh, I don’t say it. It’s the only topic of conversation in Sydney these days. I sometimes think that the officers of the garrison are bigger gossips than their wives. Comes of not having enough to do.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Alan thought that this was one of the few occasions when he was shorter than Tom.

  ‘I shouldn’t like to see Miss Sarah hurt. That brother of hers has no more sense than a koala.’

  Alan was amused. Tom’s conversation was even more cryptic than usual. Did he mean that he approved of his involvement with Sarah? Or did it mean that he was aware of John Langley’s opposition to any marriage between himself and Sarah, and disapproved of that?

  He threw out a feeler. ‘I think that John Langley wants the best for Sarah, although I am not sure that he knows what the best is.’

  ‘True.’ Tom made his shoulder more comfortable against the wall. ‘The Governor seems to know his mind, though.’

  Alan’s laugh at that was genuine and hearty. ‘It’s not only the officers who are gossips, Tom. You do surprise me.’

  Tom uncoiled himself lazily. ‘I doubt me that I do, Kerr. Now, you surprise me. I thought that you were a deal more determined than you have turned out to be. Sarah Langleys don’t grow on trees.’

  This speech told Alan more about Tom himself than he thought that he wanted to know. He wondered how many scruples about John Langley or, for that matter, anyone else, Tom would show if he were in Alan’s shoes. The word scruple probably didn’t exist in Tom’s vocabulary. But he was right. He, Alan, should have found some means of approaching Sarah before now.

  His friend’s parting shot was the information that ships from England had been sighted out at sea, ‘And some of us are as slow in our ways as the letters coming from there!’

  Tom’s right, was Alan’s inward response. I must not let fear of what John Langley might say stop me from proposing to Sarah. The Governor is giving a little dinner on Friday to which we have both been invited, and if I know Lachlan Macquarie he’ll be matchmaking as hard as Tom. John Langley can’t stop me from talking to her there!

  The ships from England arrived the next day. They carried not only reinforcements for the 73rd’s garrison in the shape of a Captain Jack Cameron, a couple of lieutenants and a large number of private soldiers, but also supplies of all kinds and letters.

  Like the rest of Sydney John and Sarah were, for quite different reasons, excited by the prospect of letters from home
—Sarah because she missed news from her many women friends, and John because the advent of the ships raised the prospect of his own return home.

  It was not that he was disappointed by the Antipodes, but that they had not had quite the profound effect on him that he had expected. England, which had seemed tedious while he was there, was infinitely more attractive now that he had left it.

  There were times when Sarah would have agreed with Tom’s scathing verdict on John, if only she could have heard it. She often thought that all his brains were in his paintbrush, and, looking at his conventional oils, which showed the wild landscape of New South Wales as a tame version of the country back in England, she sometimes wondered how much of a brain he had there.

  Her own paintings, by contrast, were becoming more and more untamed, as wild as the bush, the distant mountains and the sea. She occasionally found John staring at them with disapproval written all over his face, whereas Alan, visiting them one day before the Governor’s Soirée, finding her at her easel, had again commended her for her truthfulness.

  ‘But I haven’t John’s technique,’ she had said.

  ‘There’s more to painting than technique,’ he had replied, and had asked her to allow him to buy this latest study—she had refused and given it to him, instead.

  Her wish for letters was to be granted. After the ship had docked the postman, who was on his rounds from the Post Office in George Street, delivered a small pile of mail to them. Some of them were business letters and some were personal. Among hers were two in hands that she immediately recognised—one, indeed, which she would, eighteen months ago, have longed to see. Now Charles Villiers’s handwriting seemed to come from another world. He was a man whom she now understood she had never really known and had certainly never really loved.

  She set it down by one from her old friend and John’s long-term sweetheart, Emily Hazeldean.

  John, who had been eagerly ripping his letters open, looked up in surprise.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open yours?’

  ‘Later. I mean to save them until this afternoon when I shall have time to enjoy them. The pleasure will be longer-lasting,’ Sarah replied, well knowing that she was not telling John the entire truth.

  She was, in fact, surprised to discover how often she was shading the truth for him. She had not told him that, for the first time since the soirée, she had seen Alan alone in the street.

  He was on his rounds and had only had time to take her by the hand, to tell her that he, too, was engaged to be part of the Governor’s dinner party and that he hoped to speak to her at length then. His manner had been so ardent that she could only conclude, dizzily, that he was about to propose there. At such a moment Charles’s letter seemed an intrusion, and even Emily’s no longer appeared as desirable as it would once have done.

  They could all wait until after nuncheon when she could spare a minute from her thoughts of Alan, her involvement with her little school, the sewing lesson which she was due to give Sukie and the expedition to the cliffs that evening when she was expected to chaperon Frank and Lucy. Her life had never seemed so full or so interesting. All this activity was in addition to the problems to be worked out in her latest oil painting. She had decided that she wished to paint some of the aborigines and was considering enlisting Tom Dilhorne’s help.

  Despite having wished for them, it was almost with reluctance that Sarah finally began to open her letters. John was preparing to visit Government House; Lachlan Macquarie had sent for him, asking him to bring along his sketchbooks and watercolours for inspection. The Governor was a patron of the arts and had already commissioned, and paid for, a series of oils by John. He had not yet seen Sarah’s work, although Alan Kerr had told him that he considered it to be impressive.

  While Sarah was beginning to read Charles’s letter, John was assembling his portfolios. He was far more interested in what Charles had to say than Sarah was. He wrongly assumed, knowing how distressed Sarah had originally been over the breach with Charles, that she would be hoping for some kind words from her former fiancé, and was ready to tell her so. She had, however, refused to discuss with him what might be in the letter, contenting herself with eating her nuncheon in silence.

  Sarah read the letter in a condition of total disbelief. She had to go over it twice before its impact struck home.

  ‘Dear Sarah,’ he wrote, ‘at least I hope that I may still address you as Sarah. After all that there has been between us, I fear that Miss Langley would be far too cold. I am writing to tell you that I now know that I have made a truly dreadful mistake. Barely a day goes by without my reproaching myself for the wrong which I did you, and without my regretting your absence and the reason for it.

  ‘Sarah, my own dear girl, when I think of the happiness which we enjoyed together I wonder at myself for ever letting you go. You had scarcely left England before I realised that my involvement with Caroline Wharton had been a gross error of judgement. I will say nothing against her. Suffice it that every time that we met I found myself recalling you and understanding that I had thrown away a pearl of great price.

  ‘My circumstances have changed. It is enough to say that Caroline and I are no longer betrothed. We have mutually agreed that our marriage would have been a mistake and we have parted without rancour in the hope that we might find happiness elsewhere.

  ‘Sarah, I know that I did you a great wrong. Will you allow me to repair that wrong? It is my dearest wish that you should return to these shores and consent to be my wife. I repeat, nothing could give me greater happiness than to be reunited with you. I know that your brother was saddened by our parting and would rejoice in our coming together again.

  ‘I know, too, how long it will be before I can see your dear handwriting again, and that we must lose even more precious time before you return. When that happy day arrives, know that you have no more devoted servant than your misguided Charles. My love flies to you across the vastness of the seas between us. Would that I had never given you occasion to go!

  ‘Farewell, my dearest love. I trust that your generous heart will forgive me.

  ‘I remain, ever your willing slave, Charles Villiers.’

  Sarah put the letter down on the polished cedar of the table and looked at it with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. Of all the tricks and turns of fortune she might have foreseen, this was the last that would have sprung to her mind.

  She could not but think with what joy she might have received this letter once. Now, reading it, Charles, who had become a shadowy figure, was suddenly before her, and she did not like what she saw. How ill he contrasted with Alan! His letter was full of himself, for all his protestations, whereas Alan, Alan always cared for others before himself—one of the reasons why he had ended up in a penal colony at all. His scruples in holding back from declaring his love for her for so long were plain to see.

  How could she ever have cared for such a shallow pleasure-seeker as Charles Villiers? She wondered why, and how, his engagement to Caroline had ended. She could not believe a word he had written. He had tricked her once, and he would trick her again if he could.

  She picked up the crumpled letter and was reexamining it when John entered, having discovered an errant portfolio of his among her possessions in the room which did duty as a studio.

  ‘I must go, Sarah. Tell me, quickly, what Charles has to say.’

  Sarah broke into incredulous laughter. ‘It’s the strangest thing. He has broken with Caroline Wharton and has asked me to return and marry him as soon as possible.’

  John paused with his hand on the doorknob. ‘Good, excellent. I always knew that the silly quarrel which threw you apart would somehow right itself. I am so glad for your second chance at happiness. Congratulations, Lady Amborough.’

  He held up a hand as she began to speak, to tell him that she would as soon marry a kangaroo as Charles Villiers.

  ‘No, no, my dear, leave it for now. I am already late,’ and she heard him whistling merrily as he
dashed through the door and made for the stables.

  Sarah sank back into her chair. Time enough to tell him the truth when he returned. Through the window she watched Carter carrying John’s impedimenta for his visit to the Governor, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

  John hurried to Government House. He urged Carter on: his journey could not be made quickly enough. Pleasure at Sarah’s news had driven everything else from his mind. He had liked Charles Villiers, had been sorry when Charles and Sarah had parted and Charles had gone off with Caroline Wharton. He had always wrongly assumed that the rupture was much more Sarah’s fault than Charles’s. After all, he knew what a firebrand Sarah was and had once thought of warning Charles that he must not allow her too loose a rein after they had married.

  Now that was all over. Sarah could go back home again with him as soon as he could arrange a passage, and she could become Lady Amborough, as she should always have been.

  Prominent among his thoughts was that this timely offer would prevent Sarah from making a fool of herself over someone unsuitable like Alan Kerr! New South Wales had done strange things to her, and the sooner she was homeward bound, the better. It might be some little time before they could leave, but the knowledge that she was going to marry Charles and take her proper place in society was surely bound to make her distance herself from unworthy suitors.

  He was on time for his appointment, but the Governor’s secretary, a young lieutenant, told him that Lachlan Macquarie was engaged with Dr Kerr, and that it might be a little time before he could see Mr Langley. The Governor sent his apologies for the delay. John sat in the anteroom, too happy at Sarah’s news to feel piqued at being kept waiting while the Governor talked with an Emancipist.

  It seemed that he was going to have the opportunity to tell Alan Kerr of Sarah’s news sooner than he might have hoped. Despite his criminal record, Kerr was still enough of a gentleman to leave Sarah alone, once he realised that she was promised to another.