An Impossible Confession by Sandra Heath Page B

taken by the considerable gathering of ladies and gentlemen who’d sallied forth on this beautiful late May afternoon. Along the water’s edge there was a path, and several nurses were there with their small charges, who were feeding the ducks with crumbs purchased from the boathouse.
    The barouche drew to a standstill behind the building, joining the line of waiting vehicles that had collected there. Ralph alighted, assisting Margaret and Helen down. An orchestra was playing somewhere in the gardens, the sound of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ drifting in the air to join the murmur of light conversation and laughter from the fashionable crowds. Spying a free table on the jetty, Ralph swiftly escorted his two ladies toward it, and as they sat down he beckoned to a waiter, ordering a bottle of champagne and extremely large helpings of strawberries and cream.
    Margaret was as delighted to be at Hagman’s as she was to be in Ralph’s company, which she made no secret of finding very agreeable indeed. Helen tried not to be drawn into conversation very much, for she wished to keep Ralph as much at arm’s lengthas possible. He was behaving with all outward politeness and gallantry, but there was something about his constant glances that she found disturbing. She avoided looking at him, turning her attention to the arrivals and departures on the road. A young gentleman tooled an alarmingly high phaeton away at speed, the lady beside him clinging on fearfully. A group of army officers, home on leave from Brussels, rode toward the boathouse, looking very splendid in full uniform as they paused to converse with some ladies in an open landau. Two carriages drew up one behind the other, disgorging a number of children and their nurses and nannies. Forming into a neat crocodile, they entered the boathouse to purchase bags of crumbs, emerging in line to walk sedately down to the lakeside to the waiting ducks. A large pleasure barge glided to the jetty, its cargo of elegant passengers disembarking so noisily that for a while their chatter completely drowned the sound of the music, which had now changed from Vivaldi to Haydn.
    Helen felt Ralph looking at her again, and suddenly it was too much. She had to escape for a while, and feeding the ducks provided the perfect excuse.
    Putting down her glass, she rose determinedly to her feet. ‘I fear I cannot resist a moment longer, I simply have to revert to childhood and feed the ducks. I hope you won’t mind if I desert you both for a while?’
    Ralph got up immediately. ‘I’ll escort you, Miss Fairmead.’
    ‘There’s no need, Mr St John,’ she said quickly.
    ‘But….’ 
    ‘Mr St John, you can’t possibly leave poor Margaret to devour all those strawberries on her own, people will talk about her.’
    Margaret gave her an indignant look. ‘You beast, Helen Fairmead!’
    Ralph still wanted to accompany her, however. ‘Miss Fairmead, it would ill become me to allow you to walk alone, even at Hagman’s.’
    ‘Nonsense, Mr St John, I’m perfectly capable of feeding the ducks without assistance.’ Not permitting him another chance to protest, she gathered her silk skirts and hurried away along the jetty toward the boathouse.
    A minute or so later she emerged again with some crumbs, walking along the lakeside path in the wake of the crocodile of nurses, nannies, and children, who were now to be seen some distance away, still walking in an orderly line. Helen kept walking too, intending to place some bushes between herself and the jetty, for she knew Ralph could still observe her, and the last thing she wanted was to be constantly under his surveillance.
    Some rhododendrons tumbled down to the water’s edge in a riot of crimson, mauve, and white, and the path curved between them, sheering from the water for a moment as the land rose slightly. Helen followed the path and glanced back, seeing to her satisfaction that the view from the jetty was cut off by the rhododendrons .