weekend.
In the hope of keeping her mother distracted from thoughts of her father, Rachel ventured that a haunch of lamb or a goose might make a nice change from veal or beef...
'Your papa is not so keen on fatty meats as he was: they're too rich for his digestion now he is grown older. Oh, I must write a note and send it with Ralph straight away to the post carrier. I swear some ill is befallen him...'
'I think, Mama, you ought abandon that idea,' Rachel said with an incipient smite. Spinning away from the window, she sped, dimity skirts in fists, to the door. Having yanked it open she spun about and apprised Ijer startled mother, 'Papa is just appeared at the bend in the road.'
'What on earth can it be?' June whispered, her hazel eyes round with worry in her small, heart-shaped face. 'Why is Mother so distressed, do you think?'
'It is nought... She is probably just chiding him over his tardiness,' Rachel said with an unconvincing little laugh. She slid a look at Sylvie; even their youngest sister, who was wont to let family squabbles fly over her pretty head, looked subdued and a mite anxious as the commotion emanating from the library carried on unabated.
Another shriek, this time of a timbre that could only be described as despair, shivered the house. It had June immediately out of her chair. At the door, she hesitated, wringing her hands together, then looked agitatedly at Rachel.
'Perhaps we should go and see...'
'No...' Rachel said quietly, aware of Sylvie's clinging eyes on her, too.
'Whatever it is we will know soon enough. Let Papa have his say, in private.
We will know soon enough,' she repeated gravely.
Her father had been home not yet an hour. Instead of the smiling dapper Papa she had been expecting to welcome over Windrush's threshold, a man she barely recognised had shuffled wearily in, looking as though he had not enjoyed a wash or a shave for some days. His dishevelled appearance was nothing, though, to the moody cast of his features, or the droop of his posture. He looked as though a burden of cares weighed upon his shoulders.
With barely a coherent greeting for his eldest daughter, he had slowly rid himself of the encumbrances of rumpled cloaks and hat, then cut off her questions with, 'Let me speak to your mother first, my dear. Time enough to deal with you later...'
And so Rachel, out of astonishment, had complied with that. But still the haunting sight of that grey-faced man, bristly of chin, and jaundiced of eye, dragging past her into the bosom of their house, set her stomach in knots.
Something bad had happened and an inherent sense told her that somehow it affected her more than the others. More even than their hysterical mama...
A short while ago she had been reflecting on the last time she had seen her papa drunk. It had been six years ago. The same amount of time since she had listened to her mother's grief-stricken cries resounding through the house when she learned the news of dearest Isabel. Rachel felt lead settle in her stomach. Some tragedy of similar magnitude had occurred to overset her mother to such a degree and put her papa so out of countenance. Part of her wanted to run to her room and put a pillow over her head to shut out the terror as she had done years before. But then she had been but nineteen. Now she was stronger, more mature and hiding would not do. No, hiding would not do, at all. She needed to know what disaster she must now face. On a sigh of capitulation she sombrely left the room with her two younger sisters, pale and silent as spectres, drifting in her wake.
'You do not seem shocked, Rachel. Or not as shocked as I imagined you would be,' Edgar Meredith ventured, shattering the still silence in the room.
'I own I was worried you might scold your old papa.' The notion seemed to leave his humour unimpaired.
Rachel raised her ice-blue eyes to his face. His weak, appealing smile faded and he visibly flinched beneath that fleeting, freezing stare. Then his
In the hope of keeping her mother distracted from thoughts of her father, Rachel ventured that a haunch of lamb or a goose might make a nice change from veal or beef...
'Your papa is not so keen on fatty meats as he was: they're too rich for his digestion now he is grown older. Oh, I must write a note and send it with Ralph straight away to the post carrier. I swear some ill is befallen him...'
'I think, Mama, you ought abandon that idea,' Rachel said with an incipient smite. Spinning away from the window, she sped, dimity skirts in fists, to the door. Having yanked it open she spun about and apprised Ijer startled mother, 'Papa is just appeared at the bend in the road.'
'What on earth can it be?' June whispered, her hazel eyes round with worry in her small, heart-shaped face. 'Why is Mother so distressed, do you think?'
'It is nought... She is probably just chiding him over his tardiness,' Rachel said with an unconvincing little laugh. She slid a look at Sylvie; even their youngest sister, who was wont to let family squabbles fly over her pretty head, looked subdued and a mite anxious as the commotion emanating from the library carried on unabated.
Another shriek, this time of a timbre that could only be described as despair, shivered the house. It had June immediately out of her chair. At the door, she hesitated, wringing her hands together, then looked agitatedly at Rachel.
'Perhaps we should go and see...'
'No...' Rachel said quietly, aware of Sylvie's clinging eyes on her, too.
'Whatever it is we will know soon enough. Let Papa have his say, in private.
We will know soon enough,' she repeated gravely.
Her father had been home not yet an hour. Instead of the smiling dapper Papa she had been expecting to welcome over Windrush's threshold, a man she barely recognised had shuffled wearily in, looking as though he had not enjoyed a wash or a shave for some days. His dishevelled appearance was nothing, though, to the moody cast of his features, or the droop of his posture. He looked as though a burden of cares weighed upon his shoulders.
With barely a coherent greeting for his eldest daughter, he had slowly rid himself of the encumbrances of rumpled cloaks and hat, then cut off her questions with, 'Let me speak to your mother first, my dear. Time enough to deal with you later...'
And so Rachel, out of astonishment, had complied with that. But still the haunting sight of that grey-faced man, bristly of chin, and jaundiced of eye, dragging past her into the bosom of their house, set her stomach in knots.
Something bad had happened and an inherent sense told her that somehow it affected her more than the others. More even than their hysterical mama...
A short while ago she had been reflecting on the last time she had seen her papa drunk. It had been six years ago. The same amount of time since she had listened to her mother's grief-stricken cries resounding through the house when she learned the news of dearest Isabel. Rachel felt lead settle in her stomach. Some tragedy of similar magnitude had occurred to overset her mother to such a degree and put her papa so out of countenance. Part of her wanted to run to her room and put a pillow over her head to shut out the terror as she had done years before. But then she had been but nineteen. Now she was stronger, more mature and hiding would not do. No, hiding would not do, at all. She needed to know what disaster she must now face. On a sigh of capitulation she sombrely left the room with her two younger sisters, pale and silent as spectres, drifting in her wake.
'You do not seem shocked, Rachel. Or not as shocked as I imagined you would be,' Edgar Meredith ventured, shattering the still silence in the room.
'I own I was worried you might scold your old papa.' The notion seemed to leave his humour unimpaired.
Rachel raised her ice-blue eyes to his face. His weak, appealing smile faded and he visibly flinched beneath that fleeting, freezing stare. Then his
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