A Song Twice Over by Brenda Jagger Page A

four dozen petticoats, nightgowns, chemises and ‘everything’ – Amabel knowing no word she cared for to describe that other undergarment – she had ordered as a trial from a girl Linnet had instinctively mistrusted because she was beautiful and because Gemma, rather than Linnet herself, had recommended her.
    But, leaving the cloistered manor garden and hurrying back through the rows of brewery houses and foundry houses to the street called St Jude’s, her carpet-bag and her hat-box feeling light with triumph in her hands, Cara remained untroubled by Miss Linnet Gage’s hostility. She had sensed it, certainly, for it was her business to be aware of such things, forewarned and then forearmed, always careful, always guarding her back, which had been aching rather more than she liked these last few days. Nor did she underestimate the influence a penniless, clever woman like Linnet might come to have in a rich household, particularly over a woman such as Mrs Dallam who could surely be influenced by anybody. But, miraculously and for reasons she had no time to question, Miss Gemma Dallam, the young bride soon to be a young matron with her own household staff to clothe, her own money to spend, had taken a fancy to her. And what mattered was that after these three weary months of finding nothing but a bonnet here and there to be cheaply remodelled, an old evening gown to be laboriously unpicked and made over in the latest fashion, she was going home with some real work to do.
    Not by her own hands alone, of course. In fact, thinking of the quality of the needlework which would be required to impress Mrs Dallam and pass the scrutiny of Miss Linnet Gage, perhaps not by her hands at all. But by Odette’s, her mother’s; a far finer craftswoman than Cara herself ever hoped to be. Although she had taken good care at the Dallams’, not to mention that.
    For if Odette had grown stronger – looked stronger, at any rate – since the night of Cara’s arrival in Frizingley, she was still far too quiet, too reticent, too ‘dreamy’to make the right impression of flair and self-assurance on a customer.
    Cara had found her mother soon after leaving Daniel that night in a state very much as she had expected, grieving inwardly and hopelessly, without tears, as Cara had seen the widow-woman grieving in Liverpool, sitting down on the ground to wait, with blank despair, to be comforted or condemned, to be locked up in official custody or left at liberty to starve; not much caring about either.
    So too had been the face of Odette Adeane: beyond anxiety, quite ready to place her patient neck into the noose with dignity – the only coin she had left – and even a certain measure of relief, until Cara had hugged her and shaken her, reminded her of Liam, of how her grandson – and her daughter – loved her and needed her.
    â€˜Mother, I love you. Maman, je t’aime. J’ai besoin de toi. So does Liam.’
    Smiling wanly Odette had acknowledged her daughter’s words to be true. And even then she had been reluctant to push aside the veil of damp air in which she seemed to have been moving since her husband’s departure, a veil so heavy that although its dragging pressure had wearied her and slowed her down, it had also prevented her – as she stood very quiet and cold on its other side – from seeing anything too clearly, from feeling anything too sharp.
    â€˜He has gone such a long way, Cara – this time.’
    â€˜Yes, mother.’ And Cara’s hot words of blame and accusation had faded on her tongue, not worth the dissipation of her energy. He would not come back. Her mother knew that. Nor, while he remained dependent on his sister, would he be likely to send for her. She knew that too. And if Miss Teresa Adeane of New York made life sufficiently agreeable then he might, in his middle years entirely lose his appetite for chasing rainbows. In