Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(33)

A little more than a week after her departure a letter finally did arrive from Hinsford, addressed to both Camille and Abigail. It was beside Camille’s plate in the breakfast parlor when they arrived there together, having come directly from the nursery. It was not from their mother, however, but from Mrs. Sullivan, the housekeeper, who explained that she had got in a whole pile of provisions in expectation of her ladyship’s return home—she had flatly refused to stop addressing Viola thus even after the title was no longer hers. She had given most of the food away after a couple of days before it could go bad, as she was sure her ladyship would have wished her to do. It was unusual for her ladyship not to let her know she had changed her mind about coming, but Mrs. Sullivan had not been too concerned until a number of letters started arriving for her, all from Bath. Her question for Mrs. Cunningham and Miss Westcott, then, if she might make so bold, was this: If her ladyship was not either in Bath or at Hinsford, where was she?

The realization that their mother had neither arrived home nor written to explain why was alarming indeed to the sisters. Joel Cunningham found them severely agitated when he strolled into the breakfast parlor five minutes after them with a cheerful smile on his face and good morning greetings on his lips.

“Mama has disappeared,” Camille told him without preamble, the letter open in her hand, her face ashen. “She has not arrived home yet, and she has not written either to us or to Mrs. Sullivan.”

“I knew I ought to have gone with her,” Abigail wailed. “She was behaving very strangely—we all noticed it. How could we not? She was abrupt and even rude with a few of us, and she is never either of those things. It was selfish of me to remain here and let her go alone.”

“It was no such thing,” Joel assured her. “I think she actually wanted to be alone for a while, Abby. Now where would she have gone if not home? To stay with some relative?”

Both ladies gazed at him in incomprehension. “But everyone is here in Bath,” Camille said.

“Right.” He rubbed his hands together. “Some particular friend, then?”

“There is no one who does not live within a couple of miles of Hinsford,” Abigail said. “There is nowhere she could have gone.”

“Well clearly,” he said, “there is somewhere. She cannot just have disappeared off the face of the globe.”

“But she has not even written.” Abigail covered her mouth with one hand while tears welled in her eyes and threatened to spill over.

“Perhaps she has arrived by now,” Camille said, handing the letter to her husband and making a visible effort to pull herself together. “Perhaps there was carriage trouble and she was delayed. I daresay she is home by now.”

“But for a whole week? And if it was that, why did she not write?” Abigail asked.

No one could think of an explanation. Camille set an arm about her sister’s shoulders while Joel read the letter, a frown on his face. There was no further enlightenment to be found from that single page, however.

“I tell you what I will do,” he said, folding it as he spoke. “I will go down into Bath and see if the hired carriage that took her has returned. If it has, I will talk to the man who drove it. He is bound to know where she went.”

“Oh yes,” Camille said with visible relief while Abigail gazed hopefully at her brother-in-law. “Of course he will. Let us go and find him.”

An argument ensued about whether he would go alone, as he wished to do for the sake of speed, or if his wife and sister-in-law would accompany him. As he pointed out, if Camille went, she would have to take Jacob with her, since it was impossible to predict how long they would be, and if Jacob was going, it would be difficult to leave Sarah and Winifred behind. In the end, they all had their way. Joel went ahead on horseback, and the rest of the family followed in the carriage, for, as Abigail pointed out, their grandmother would want to know about their letter and about what Joel discovered, as would the rest of the family, who were staying at the Royal York.

Joel rode down the long hill into Bath and left his horse at a livery stable before striding off on foot. He passed Bath Abbey on the way and was hailed by someone in a group of people standing and conversing outside the Pump Room. He recognized Anna, his dearest friend when they were growing up together at the orphanage and for a number of years afterward. She was now the Duchess of Netherby. The duke was with her, as were Camille’s aunt Louise, the Dowager Duchess of Netherby, and Elizabeth, the widowed Lady Overfield. He hesitated for a moment, but then turned in their direction and returned Anna’s hug when she stepped forward to greet him.

“You look as if you are in a vast hurry over something,” she said.

“Is anything amiss, Joel?” Elizabeth asked, a frown of concern on her face. “One of the children?”

“Camille and Abby are worried sick,” he said. “There was a letter this morning from the housekeeper at Hinsford. She wants to know where my mother-in-law is. She still had not arrived there.”

“Hired carriages are an abomination,” the Dowager Duchess of Netherby said. “You may depend upon it that it broke down somewhere. She should have accepted the loan of my carriage. I have no use for it while I am here, as I was at pains to explain to her. But dearly as I love Viola, I have to say she is one of the most stubborn women of my acquaintance. She was bound and determined to do it her way.”