The Sins of the Wolf Page 2

  “Yes, thank you, Mrs. McIvor, it was quite pleasant, and that part of it which was in daylight was most enjoyable.”

  “I am delighted.” Oonagh smiled with sudden warmth, transforming her face. “Train travel can be so weary and so terribly grubby. Now I am sure you would like to meet your patient. I must warn you, Miss Latterly, my mother appears to be in excellent health, but it is largely a charade. She tires more easily than she will admit, and her medicine is really quite vital for her well-being, indeed possibly for her life.” She spoke the words quite calmly, but there was a sense of urgency in her conveying the importance of what she said. “It is not in the least difficult to administer,” she continued. “A simple potion which is unpleasant to the taste, but a small confection after it will more than compensate.” She looked up at Hester standing in front of her. “It is simply that my mother can forget to take it if she is feeling well, and by the time she is ill for its lack, it is too late to make up for the oversight without distress, and possible damage to her permanent well-being. I am sure you understand?” Even though she said she was sure, there was a question in her face.

  “Of course,” Hester said quickly. “A great many people prefer to do without medicine if they can, and misjudge their own capacity. It is easily understood.”

  “Excellent.” Oonagh rose to her feet. She was as tall as Hester, slender without being in any way thin, and she moved with grace despite the awkwardness of wide skirts.

  They crossed the hall, and Hester could not help glancing at the portrait again. The face haunted her, the ambiguities in it remained in her mind. She could not decide whether she liked it or not. Certainly she could not forget it.

  Oonagh smiled and hesitated in her step.

  “My father,” she said, although Hester had known it must be. She heard the catch in Oonagh’s voice and knew there was intense emotion behind it, carefully controlled, as she imagined such a woman would always be in front of strangers—and servants. “Hamish Farraline,” Oonagh went on. “He died eight years ago. My husband has managed the firm since then.”

  Hester opened her mouth in surprise, then realized how inappropriate that was, and closed it.

  But Oonagh had seen. She smiled and her chin lifted a fraction. “My brother Alastair is the Fiscal,” she explained. “He does go to the firm as often as he is able to, but his duties keep him most of the time.” She saw Hester’s confusion. “The Procurator Fiscal.” Her smile broadened, curling her lips. “Something like what you in England would call the Crown Prosecutor.”

  “Oh!” Hester was impressed in spite of herself. Her acquaintance with the law involved only Oliver Rathbone, the brilliant barrister she had met through Callandra and Monk, and about whom her feelings were so painfully mixed. But that was personal. Professionally she had for him only the profoundest admiration. “I see. You must be very proud of him.”

  “Yes indeed.” Oonagh continued on her way to the stairs and hesitated till Hester was beside her, then began to climb them. “My younger sister’s husband also works in the company. He is very skilled in all matters to do with printing. We were very fortunate that he chose to become one of us. It is always better when an old company like Farralines can remain within the family.”

  “What do you print?” Hester inquired.

  “Books. All kinds of books.”

  At the top of the stairs Oonagh turned along the landing, carpeted in Turkish red, and stopped at one of the many doors. After a brief knock she opened it and entered. This was entirely different from the blue room downstairs. The colors were all warm yellows and bronzes, as if it were filled with sunlight, although in fact the sky beyond the flowered curtains was actually quite a threatening gray. There were small, gilt-framed landscape paintings on the walls, and a gold-fringed lamp, but Hester barely had time to notice them. Her attention was taken by the woman who sat facing them in one of the three large floral armchairs. She seemed tall, possibly even taller than Oonagh, and she sat with a stiff back and erect head. Her hair was almost white and her long face had an expression of intelligence and humor which was arresting. She was not especially handsome, and even in youth she could not have been a beauty—her nose was too long, her chin far too short—but her expression obliterated all such awareness.

  “You must be Miss Latterly,” she said with a firm, clear voice, and before Oonagh could effect any introduction. “I am Mary Farraline. Please come in and sit down. I understand you are to accompany me to London and make sure that I behave myself as my family would wish?”

  A shadow crossed Oonagh’s face. “Mother, we are only concerned for your welfare,” she said quickly. “You do sometimes forget to take your medicine….”

  “Nonsense!” Mary dismissed it. “I don’t forget. I simply don’t always need it.” She smiled at Hester. “My family fusses,” she explained with humor. “Unfortunately, when you begin to lose your physical strength, people tend to think you have lost your wits as well.”

  Oonagh looked over at Hester and her expression was patient and conspiratorial.

  “I daresay I shall be quite unnecessary,” Hester said with an answering smile. “But I hope I shall at least be able to make the journey a little easier for you, even if it is only to fetch and carry, and to see that you have all you wish.”

  Oonagh relaxed a little, her shoulders easing as though she had been standing unconsciously at attention.

  “I hardly need a Florence Nightingale nurse for that.” Mary shook her head. “But I daresay you will be a great deal better company than most. Oonagh says you were in the Crimea. Is that right?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Farraline.”

  “Well sit down. There is no need to stand there like a maidservant.” She pointed to the chair opposite her and continued talking while Hester obeyed. “So you went out to nurse with the army? Why?”

  Hester was too taken aback to think of an immediate reply. It was a question she had not been asked since her elder brother Charles had first demanded of her why she wanted to do such a dangerous and totally unsuitable thing. That, of course, had been before Florence Nightingale’s fame had made it almost respectable. Now, eighteen months into the peace, Florence Nightingale was second only to the Queen herself in the respect and admiration of the country.

  “Come now,” Mary said with amusement. “You must have had a reason. Young ladies do not pack their bags and abandon all their families and friends and depart for foreign lands, and disastrous ones at that, without a very pressing reason.”

  “Mother, it may have been something quite personal,” Oonagh protested.

  Hester laughed aloud. “Oh no!” she answered them both. “It was not a love affair, or being jilted. I wished to do something more useful than sit at home sewing and painting, neither of which I do well, and I had heard of the terrible conditions from my younger brother, who served in the army there. I—I suppose it suited my nature.”

  “That is what I imagined.” Mary nodded very slightly. “There are not many ambitions for women. Most of us sit at home and keep the lamps burning, literally and metaphorically.” She looked around at Oonagh. “Thank you, my dear. It was most thoughtful of you to have found a companion for me who has a sense of passion and adventure, and has had the courage to follow it. I am sure I shall enjoy my trip to London.”

  “I hope so,” Oonagh said quietly. “I have no doubt Miss Latterly will look after you very well and prove interesting company. Now I think I had better have Nora show her your medicine case and how the dose is prepared.”

  “If you really feel it is necessary….” Mary shrugged. “Thank you for coming, Miss Latterly. I look forward to seeing you at luncheon, and then at dinner of course, which will have to be early. I believe our train leaves at a quarter past nine, so we shall board it at least half an hour before that. We shall have to leave here at a quarter past eight. That usually is too early to dine in any comfort, but there is no help for it tonight.”

  They excused themselves, and Oonagh too
k Hester to Mrs. Farraline’s dressing room and introduced her to the lady’s maid Nora, a thin, dark woman with a grave manner.

  “How do you do, miss,” she said, regarding Hester politely, and apparently without the slightest envy or resentment.

  Oonagh left them, and for the next half hour Nora showed Hester the medicine case, which was as simple as Mary had indicated, merely a matter of a dozen small glass vials filled with liquid, one for each night and morning until she should return again. The dose was already prepared; there was no measuring to be done. All that was necessary was to pour it into a glass already provided and see that Mrs. Farraline did not accidentally spill it, or far more seriously, that she did not forget that she had taken it and repeat the dose. That, as Oonagh had pointed out, could be extremely serious, possibly even fatal.

  “You are to keep the key.” Nora locked the case and passed the key, tied to a small red ribbon, to Hester. “Please put it around your neck, then it cannot be lost.”

  “Of course.” Hester obeyed, and slipped the key inside her bodice. “An excellent idea.”

  Hester was sitting sideways on the dressing room’s single chair; Nora stood next to the wardrobes. Mary’s cases were spread out where the maid had packed them. With the wealth of fabric in every single skirt, half a dozen dresses took up an enormous space. A lady who expected to change at least three times a day—from morning dress to something suitable to go out for luncheon, and then to afternoon dress, tea gown and dinner gown—could hardly travel with less than at least three large cases, if not more. Petticoats, chemises, corsetry, stockings and shoes would require one alone.

  “You won’t need to tend to any clothes,” Nora said with proprietary pride. “I’ll take care of all of that. There’s a list written out of everything, and there’ll be someone at Miss Griselda’s to unpack. All you might have to do is dress Mrs. Farraline’s hair for her in the morning. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “Good. Then that’s all I can show you.” A slight frown shadowed her face.

  “Is there something else?” Hester asked.

  “No, no, there’s nothing.” Nora shook her head. “I just wish she wasn’t going. I don’t hold wi’ travel. There’s no need. I know Miss Griselda’s newly wed, and expecting her first child, and the poor soul worries something wretched, from all the letters she’s been sending. But that’s the way some folk are. She’ll be all right, like as not; and either way, there’s nothing the mistress can do.”

  “Is Miss Griselda delicate?”

  “Lord no, just took it into her head to worry herself. She was all right till she married that Mr. Murdoch with his airs and graces.” She bit her lip. “Oh, I shouldn’t’ve said that. I’m sure he’s a very nice man.”

  “Yes, I expect so,” Hester said without belief.

  Nora looked at her with a faint smile.

  “I daresay you’d like a cup o’ tea,” she offered. “It’s near eleven. There’ll be something in the dining room, if you want.”

  “Thank you. I think I will.”

  The only person sitting at the long oak table was a small woman Hester judged to be in her twenties. She had very dark hair, thick and shining, and a dusky complexion full of the most attractive color, as if she had just come in from an invigorating walk. It was not in the least fashionable, not in London anyway, but Hester found it a pleasant change from the much admired pallor she was accustomed to. The woman’s features were neat, and at first seemed merely pretty, but on closer examination there was an intelligence and a determination which was far more individual. And perhaps she was not twenty, but in her early thirties.

  “Good morning,” Hester said tentatively. “Mrs. Farraline?”

  The woman looked up at her as if startled by her intrusion, then she smiled and her entire bearing changed.

  “Yes. Who are you?” It was not a challenge but curiosity, as if Hester’s appearance were miraculous, and a delightful surprise. “Please do sit down.”

  “Hester Latterly. I am the nurse to accompany Mrs. Mary Farraline to London.”

  “Oh—I see. Would you like some tea? Or do you prefer cocoa? And oatcakes, or shortbread?”

  “Tea, if you please, and the shortbread looks excellent,” Hester accepted, taking a seat opposite.

  The woman poured tea and passed it to Hester, then proffered the plate with the shortbread. “Mother-in-law has hers upstairs,” she went on. “And of course all the men have gone to work, and Eilish is not up yet. She never is at this hour.”

  “Is she … poorly?” As soon as Hester spoke she knew she should not have. If a member of the household chose not to rise until nearly lunchtime, it was not her business to inquire the reason.

  “Good gracious no! Oh dear, I did not introduce myself. How remiss of me. I am Deirdra Farraline—Alastair’s wife.” She looked inquiringly at Hester to see if her explanation meant anything, and saw from her face that she already knew who he was. “Then there is Oonagh,” she continued. “Mrs. McIvor, who wrote to you, and then Kenneth, and Eilish—who is Mrs. Fyffe, although I never think of her like that, I don’t know why—and lastly Griselda, who now lives in London.”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  Hester sipped her tea and bit into the shortbread. It tasted even better than it looked, rich and crumbly, melting on the tongue.

  “Don’t worry about Eilish,” Deirdra went on conversationally. “She never gets up at a decent hour, but she’s perfectly well. One has only to look at her to see that. A charming creature, and the loveliest woman in Edinburgh, I shouldn’t wonder—but also the laziest. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m very fond of her,” she added quickly. “But not to deny her faults.”

  Hester smiled. “If we cared only for perfection, we should be very lonely.”

  “I quite agree. Have you been to Edinburgh before?”

  “No. No, I have never even been to Scotland.”

  “Ah! Have you always lived in London?”

  “No, I spent some time in the Crimea.”

  “Good gracious!” Deirdra’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Oh, of course. The war. Yes, Oonagh said something about getting one of Miss Nightingale’s nurses for Mother-in-law. I can’t see why. She only wants a little dose of medicine, hardly an army nurse! Did you sail out there? It must have taken ages.” She screwed up her face earnestly and took another piece of shortbread. “If only man could fly. Then one would not have to go ’round Africa at all, one could simply go straight across Europe and Asia.”

  “One doesn’t have to go ’round Africa to the Crimea,” Hester pointed out gently. “It is on the Black Sea. One goes through the Mediterranean and up the Bosphorus.”

  Deirdra waved away the irrelevance with a small, strong hand. “But one has to go ’round Africa to get to India, or China. It is the same principle.”

  Hester could think of no suitable reply, and returned to her tea.

  “Don’t you find this terribly … tame … after the Crimea?” Deirdra asked curiously.

  Hester might have assumed that the remark was idle conversation, had she not seen the intensity in Deirdra’s face and the obvious intelligence in her eyes. She wondered how to answer her. The chores of nursing were frequently tedious, although patients seldom were. Certainly the danger and the challenge of the Crimea were gone, as was the comradeship. But then the hunger, the cold, the fear and the terrible rage and pity were gone also. In its place had been the emotional tumult of working with Monk. She had met William Monk when he had been a police inspector investigating the Grey case, and then, through Callandra, she had assisted him with the Moidore case so shortly afterwards. But he had stormed out of the police force and been consequently forced to practice as a private agent of inquiry. She had again found herself calling for his help for Edith Sobel when General Carlyon had been murdered. And she had been the ideal person to take a position in the hospital when Nurse Barrymore’s body had been found.

  But the relationship with Monk
was far too complicated to try to explain, and certainly not something likely to recommend her to a highly respectable family like the Farralines as a suitable companion for their mother.

  Deirdra was still waiting, her eyes on Hester’s face.

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, “I am delighted to miss the conditions, but I miss the companionship also, and that is hard.”

  “And the challenge?” Deirdra pressed, leaning forward over the table. “Is it not a wonderful thing to try to accomplish something immensely difficult?”

  “Not when you have no chance of success, and the pain of failure is other people’s suffering.”

  Deirdra’s face fell. “No, of course not. I’m sorry, that was heartless of me. I did not mean it quite as it sounded. I was thinking of the challenge to the mind, to the inventiveness, to one’s own aspirations—I …” She stopped as the door opened and Oonagh came in. Oonagh glanced from one to the other of them, then her face softened in a smile.

  “I hope you are comfortable, Miss Latterly, and being well looked after?”

  “Oh yes, indeed, thank you,” Hester answered.

  “I have been asking Miss Latterly about her experiences, or at least some of them,” Deirdra said enthusiastically. “It sounds most stimulating.”

  Oonagh sat down and helped herself to tea. She looked across at Hester doubtfully.

  “I imagine there are times when you must find England very restricting after the freedom of the Crimea?”

  It was a curious remark, one that betrayed a far more intelligent consideration than was usual. It was no idle piece of conversation made merely for something to say.

  Hester did not reply immediately, and Oonagh sought to explain herself. “I mean the weight of responsibility you must have had there, if what I have read is anywhere near the truth. You must have seen a great deal of suffering, much of it quite avoidable, had more sense been exercised. And I imagine you did not always have a senior officer to hand, either medical or military, every time some judgment had to be made.”