The Elsingham Portrait - By Elizabeth Chater Page 0,32
further challenge. Kathryn was met at the door of the inn by a large female with a very hard eye.
“Yus, Missus, what can we do for you?” she said, glowering suspiciously at Kathryn’s plain dark cloak and veil, and the single satchel she had just set down.
But Kathryn had had it.
“I want,” she said in a voice made harsh by pain, “a private room—the best you have—and dinner later, when I ring. You will also have this letter delivered to Farmer Bennet, if you please. You may give the boy a shilling and put it on my account. And now you may bring my satchel and show me the way to my room.”
The landlord’s wife knew when she had met her match. Quality! Didn’t she know the haughty sound of them, riding roughshod over everybody! But no matter how odd they looked or acted, they paid their shot. She had not failed to notice the bulging reticule, and if the plain traveling cloak was not an expensive one, the lady’s elegant shining boots more than made up for it. She therefore took the satchel and led the way to a clean, airy room on the second floor. It was her finest room, and she started to say something about its excellences as she ushered Kathryn into it, but again the guest forestalled her.
“This will do,” Kathryn said. “I’ll ring when I’m ready for dinner.”
Whether it was the voice, or Kathryn’s air of authority, or the formidable veil which did the trick, Kathryn never knew. But the landlord’s wife left the room at once and closed the door quietly behind her.
Pausing only long enough to lock it, and to throw off the bonnet and veil and the heavy cape, Kathryn staggered over to the bed with her last ounce of energy, sank down into its feather-softness, and lost consciousness.
It was full dark when she opened her eyes. The leaded windows were open. Kathryn drew a deep breath. Delicious! London air had never smelled—abruptly she oriented herself. New York, she reminded herself grimly. New York’s your home, not London. Don’t let it get you, Kathryn, this flower-sweet air and the quiet peace, and the people. Bennet, yes—but there’s Lord John and Donner, too. There’s love here, but there’s danger and hate. Don’t you ever forget that! Your business is to lie low until you can get to that portrait. It’s your one link with home—with reality. Now, pull yourself together, Kathryn Hendrix, librarian, of New York, U.S.A.
She found and lit a candle on the bureau, and was trying to wash her face, one-handed, in a china bowl, when she heard a light tapping on the door, and a cautious voice calling, “Missus Radcliffe! Are you awake, ma’am?”
‘Radcliffe?’ Just for a split second, Kathryn’s mind lurched. Then she recalled that Bennet had written her brother to ask for Kathryn by the name of Radcliffe. What a sensible idea that had been! Her own name would have provided a clear lead to anyone searching for her near the Manor. She went over to the door, but didn’t open it.
“I am awake,” she called out. “Who is it? What do you want?”
“Ma’am, it’s the chambermaid. Farmer Bennet is here to see you.”
“Good,” said Kathryn. “Ask him to await me in the parlor—you do have a private room downstairs?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” the maid answered proudly.
“Very well. I shall be down shortly. Please instruct the cook to serve a plain, hot meal, and to set the table for two. Mr. Bennet will be my guest.”
The maid clattered away down the stairs, and Kathryn began the awkward process of making herself presentable with the use of only one arm. Her hair was a tangled mass. Opening the satchel, Kathryn found a comb and brush and tried to tidy it. Hopeless. She searched for and discovered a pair of scissors in the satchel. Evidently Bennet had accepted the necessity of removing the glorious mane even if she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.
Now Kathryn cut and snipped away until the shining red-gold mass lay all around her feet, and the pale face of Nadine, framed in a boyish bob, stared out at her from the speckled mirror. The pale green eyes looked even larger under the halo of curls; the piquant nose and sensuous lips seemed even lovelier in the youthful frame. Hastily sweeping up all of the tresses she could discover in the inadequate light of the single candle, Kathryn wrapped them in an undergarment