The Elsingham Portrait - By Elizabeth Chater Page 0,55
master.
“Who can this be?” she whispered. “I know no Mrs. Bart.”
“Oh, miss,” quavered Newton. “It’s the young man that’s named Bart. Your husband, he claims. The old lady is called Mistress Donner.”
Kathryn rose from her chair in a single convulsive movement.
“Donner! That’s the woman who was drugging Nadine,” she whispered in a panic. “She mustn’t get in—I can’t see her—”
The Vicar rose and moved to her side.
“Kathryn, my dear child, compose yourself! We’ll confront her together. You are safe here under my roof. She cannot harm you unless you give her the power to do so by showing fear and weakness. Be calm.”
Kathryn clung to his outstretched hand. “You don’t know her! She is evil.”
The Vicar took this calmly. “I have been aware of the existence of evil for many years. In fact you might say it has been my chief business to cope with it.” He patted her hand. “Newton, you may show Mrs. Donner and Mr. Bart in.”
“No!” protested Kathryn, and looked around her for a way of escape. How could this gentle, unworldly little man foresee the lengths to which a creature like Donner might go? “I won’t see her—”
“Now is that any way to greet your own dear Ma, childeen?” Donner’s voice came from the doorway. “¼Tis my heart you’ll be breakin’ entirely.” She came forward, her black dress and cape rustling. Kathryn had the image of a great bird of prey swooping. Donner hesitated, assessing the little white-haired man standing so quietly beside the girl. She seemed to dismiss the idea that he could be a threat to her, and advanced again toward Kathryn. Adrian Bart, all smiles, followed her into the room.
Kathryn caught at her courage with both hands. “Donner, you are not my mother. You know very well that I am not married to this artist—”
“Poor girleen!” sighed Donner, dabbing at her dry eyes with a grimy handkerchief. “Quite out of her mind again! It’s not the first time,” she confided to the Vicar. “She’s had delusions and run away before. Sometimes she claims to be the Lady Nadine Elsingham, and other times she says she’s a lost soul come here from the future. I hope I don’t have to put the poor troubled creature into Bedlam!” She gave Kathryn a threatening glance.
Kathryn shrank back, white-faced.
Donner was quick to follow up this advantage. “Of course, if she’s ready to come quietly with us who know and love her, we’ll see she comes to no harm. Her poor husband, a saint if ever there was one,” with a quick, admonitory glance at Bart, who was staring at Kathryn with a remarkably foolish expression on his face, “is more than willing to take her back and let me care for her quietly in our own home. Much pleasanter for the poor childeen than Bedlam, wouldn’t you say, Your Reverence?”
The Vicar spoke at last. There was no shock or protest in his tone, merely an acceptance of human frailty.
“You are an evil woman, Mistress Donner. Kathryn told me about you. I had thought that perhaps she exaggerated, but you really are utterly without conscience. I have never met a human being without compunction before.”
Donner stared at him, nonplussed. Her first quick scrutiny had classified him as a harmless old fool, frail and ineffectual, whom she could wheedle or bully as she pleased. Yet the words he had just spoken made her uneasy. He hadn’t raised his namby-pamby, finicking old voice, with the cultured accent she envied while she scorned it, but he’d managed to frighten her more than many a younger man had been able to do. Still, she assured herself, he was nothing but a doddering old nincompoop. Surely she could bamboozle him easily enough! She adopted the tone of wheedling truculence she had used successfully to get her way with the Irish gentry.
“Now, then, Your Reverence, there’s no need to be angry with old Donner! I’m sure we all want what’s best for this poor, disturbed girleen—”
“Silence, woman!” commanded the Vicar, without heat but firmly. “I know what you are. You want nothing good for anyone. I warn you to cease your persecution of this woman. The soul you sought to entrap and degrade has escaped you by the Grace of God, and this soul has resources you cannot comprehend. For your own sake, woman, I charge you: leave us; return to your own place. In Jesus’ name.”
He merely stretched out his arm, pointing to the door, but there was something in his voice