and stretched stiffly. Amy and Toby were sitting together now, their heads bent across a book. Amy was reading to him and Molly’s heart swelled with pride. Many of the young people from the town could neither read nor write. Instead they would sign their name with a cross, but Amy could read and write as good as the next. Molly knew that a lot of that was due to Toby. Amy had also attended Sunday school for years as a child. That was the only form of education that was open to the children hereabouts unless they were lucky enough to have parents who could afford to pay for a tutor or for them to attend the tiny village school for a paltry few hours a week. That, plus Toby’s many patient hours of coaxing, had made Amy into the learned young lady she was today.
‘I’m off to me bed, it’s callin’ me.’ Molly yawned as Amy hurried over to plant a kiss on her cheek.
‘Night, Gran,’ she smiled, and Toby yawned and rose too.
‘Happen it’s time I should be away as well,’ he grinned, but Amy made to stop him.
‘Oh, don’t go yet, Toby, stay a while longer. I’m so excited about tomorrow; I’ll never sleep if I go to bed just yet. Let’s just read a bit more, eh?’ she implored.
Willingly, Toby sank back into his seat and as Molly slowly climbed the stairs she sighed. Why couldn’t Amy see that he loved her? And the answer came. There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see.
Chapter Nine
Samuel Forrester swirled the brandy in his glass. He was sitting to one side of a roaring fire in the sumptuous drawing room of Forrester’s Folly. His mother, who sat to the other side of the hearth, sipped at her nightcap and watched him from hooded eyes. Josephine, as was her custom lately, had retired to her room following dinner, and the old woman’s eyes crinkled in concern. Her son was obviously very worried about his wife, as indeed was she.
‘She’ll come out of it, Sammy,’ she tried to comfort him. ‘She can’t go on grieving forever.’
Samuel wasn’t so sure. ‘But she’s not getting any better, Mother, and well you know it. If anything, she’s getting worse. Why, only last night she was wandering about the grounds in her nightshirt like a waif. All these years and yet still she expects Jessica to walk in through the door at any minute.’ His chin sank to his chest. ‘If I hadn’t found her last night, it would be the talk of the servants’ quarters by now – that is, of course, if it isn’t already. They don’t miss much, as you know. I really thought that our time in London would do her good, but it doesn’t seem to have helped at all.’
The old woman chewed on her lip. Beneath her crusty exterior beat a heart that was as soft as butter and she hated to see her only son so distressed. Josephine had been the love of his life since the moment he had clapped eyes on her, and his adoration had not diminished with the years.
He looked up at her from tortured eyes. ‘I’ll never forgive myself if I live to be a hundred. A thousand times I’ve gone over in my mind the day I ordered Jessica from the house. How could I have been so cruel?’ His voice held such anguish that the old woman’s heart went out to him.
Reaching over, she gently squeezed his hand with her ring-bedecked bony claw. ‘There’s no sense in whipping yerself, son. We none of us can turn back the clock.’ Slamming his cut-glass brandy schooner on to the polished table at the side of his chair, Samuel put his head into his hands.
‘I’ve no need for you to tell me that, Mother. I live with the consequences of my foolish actions every waking moment, and I can only pray that God will forgive me. For there’s nothing so sure that, as long as I live, I shall never forgive myself.’
And as the old woman looked on helplessly, tears of regret began to course down his cheeks.
The four of them had been closeted in Samuel’s study for almost two hours, when suddenly rapping her silver-capped cane on the floor, the old woman stretched her neck stiffly.
‘Samuel, ring the bell an’ order some tea, would you, dear? I’m as dry as a bone.’