Around the River's Bend (6 page)

The words struck Sabrina like a sharp blow. She realized that all of her life she had been protected from the harsh realities of life, but now there was no more hiding.

“Very well,” she said wearily. “This week, did you say?”

“As soon as possible, I'm afraid.”

****

Sabrina spent five days frantically trying to get ready to move. Aunt Elberta had been there to help but had warned Sabrina, “I have a very small house, you realize. You can't bring much.”

“You don't have to worry. None of the furnishings are ours. They all go to the bank.”

Sabrina had been told that her jewelry would have to be turned over to the court, but she had taken two pieces. One was a diamond necklace that had belonged to Sir Roger's mother, who had given it to Sabrina on her sixteenth birthday. She knew it was valuable and wondered if she would be prosecuted for keeping it. As far as she knew, there was no written record of the necklace. She also kept a large ruby ring that her own mother had given her when she was fourteen. It was a family heirloom that had belonged to Sabrina's great-great-grandmother. She kept these two pieces but nothing else.

The biggest problem, of course, was taking care of her father. There was only one bedroom in Elberta's house, but Elberta had offered to give up the room and sleep in the main room with Sabrina. Sabrina had spent the better part of a day helping Cecily and Randell move a washstand and a chifforobe to her aunt's cottage. Defying the mandate that all the furnishings belonged to the creditors, she had taken these two furnishings.

The question of how to care for her father was always present. She could not afford to pay the wages of any of the servants, so she and her aunt would have to do everything for the sick man.

Sabrina was physically tired and emotionally drained. More than once at night she had given way to tears but had managed to keep such scenes from her aunt and from everyone else.

Wearily she left her aunt's house and went back home to try to cheer her father up. Elberta had been taking care of her brother while Sabrina worked at the cottage, and now Elberta met Sabrina at the door. She knew at once that something terrible had happened.

“Sabrina—” Elberta was rarely at a loss for words, but now she struggled to get them out as tears formed in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “He's gone, Sabrina! It happened no more than thirty minutes ago.”

Sabrina Fairfax knew then the depths of despair. She was now not only poor but alone, as well! Except for this gloomy woman who stood before her, she had not a relative in the world. She silently followed her aunt to her father's bedroom and looked down at his peaceful face.
He looks so rested now
, she thought.
He's better off out of all this. He could never have borne it!

Chapter Four

The Necklace

Sabrina straightened her back and groaned. She looked at the wood she had split and stacked and said, “Well, there, it's done. If Father saw me splitting wood, he would turn over in his grave.” Moving slowly, she walked around the back of the cottage and leaned the ax against the step. She looked down the row of houses all so close together, marveling once again that there was barely room for a person to pass between them. Each yard had a line for hanging clothes, and the cold breeze filled the various sheets, dresses, shirts, and unmentionables, making them dance together.
They look like a line of ghosts
, she thought.

A group of young children were playing a game of ring around the rosie in the next yard, and she leaned against the tiny porch and watched them. A tinge of envy came to her as she realized that she had not known such happiness since her father had died. She had been thrust into adulthood, poverty, and hard labor all at the same time.

She could not stop thinking about the funeral and how few of her father's old “friends” had attended. The church had been less than a quarter full, and the funeral service had been a perfunctory affair, bringing no comfort at all to Sabrina. She thought of the grave, where there had barely been enough money for a small stone, nothing like the magnificent statuary that adorned the graves of Sir Roger Fairfax's ancestors. Her aunt, Elberta, had wanted to put no stone at all there, for there was so little money, and the two had argued over this. Sabrina had won that argument, but it had been practically the last one.

A sound overhead caught her attention, and she looked up into the cold sky. A flock of geese were winging their way toward the west, and she watched their flight until they disappeared. “I wish I could fly away like you,” she muttered. Then she shook her head in disgust.
I've got to stop talking to myself. It's getting to be a bad habit
. It was, as a matter of fact, a long-standing habit, but it had never bothered Sabrina until recently.

Sabrina was finding life with her aunt nearly intolerable, for Elberta was not an easy woman to live with—and that was putting it mildly. She was a miserly woman, and although Sabrina realized this was a necessity, she could not help resenting it. She had managed to come out of the wreckage of the financial morass her father had left with less than a hundred pounds, and she had given a quarter of this to her aunt. Sabrina hoarded the rest, not telling Elberta of it, and every night before she went to bed she took out the diamond necklace and the ruby ring and held them in her hands for a long time. At least here was something more than abject poverty.

Now Sabrina turned back wearily into the house and began to gather the ingredients for a simple stew. Her aunt had gone down the street to visit a sick neighbor and had charged Sabrina with going to the greengrocer and the butcher to get a few groceries. She had given her a few coins, and Sabrina had spent them all. But now as she stood looking at the tiny morsel of meat she had been able to buy, the memory of the hams and legs of mutton and sides of bacon that used to adorn the kitchen in her old home came to her. The small bit she had brought home today would have gotten lost or thrown away as excess in that kitchen!

The afternoon sun was sinking toward the horizon, and Sabrina knew that if she did not start the meal that her Aunt Elberta would not let her forget it. She had already received many lectures on how she was not a lady of property now and would have to learn to work along with the rest of them!

A touch on her calf startled her, and she looked down to see Ulysses staring up at her. “Hungry, are you? Well, here's a bit because you're such a good boy!” Ulysses took the bit of meat from her hand. She stroked his fur, thinking of the argument she'd had with her aunt over the cat. Elberta had insisted she get rid of Ulysses, that it would be an extra expense, but Sabrina had won the argument. She stooped to pick up the cat. “You're my best friend, aren't you?” She felt him purr and held him tightly until he protested, then put him down and turned her attention to the meal.

Sabrina had never learned how to cook and had made several mistakes that wasted food, burning a steak beyond the state of edibility, for one, and now as she sat at the table cutting up vegetables for the stew, she suddenly felt the enormity of her downfall. For short periods of time she was able to forget it, but then the thought of where she had been and where she now was would come on her and almost crush her with an intolerable weight.

Suddenly she heard a knock and with a start realized she had been sitting there bitterly thinking of her life and making no progress on the stew for some time. She got to her feet and wiped her hands on her apron. She wore a scarf around her hair, for bathing was a luxury she had learned to live without. Elberta had no tub, and the only bathing possible was with a basin.

Sabrina strode to the door and opened it to see Sir Charles Stratton standing there.

“Hello, Sabrina.”

“Hello, Charles.” Sabrina was suddenly aware of the difference in Stratton's attitude. He had taken his hat off, but he was studying her with distaste.
No wonder
, she thought.
I look like a charwoman
. “Come in, Charles.”

“I can't stay but a moment,” Stratton said as he stepped inside.

“Won't you have a seat?”

“No, thank you, I just came by to see if there was anything I could do for you. How are you getting on?”

“Very well.”

“I know it's been very hard on you.”

Sabrina shrugged her shoulders. “It hasn't been easy.”

“I thought I had better come by and see what I could do in the way of finances.”

Sabrina's head lifted. “What do you mean ‘in the way of finances'?”

“Well, let's be honest with each other, Sabrina,” Stratton said. He moved his hat around in his hands nervously. “I know your father made some unwise decisions.”

“It seems everyone knows that.”

“Well, it's common talk.”

“I'm sure it is. Now, what is the intent of your visit?”

“Well, you must need money, my dear.” Stratton reached into his inner pocket and came out with an envelope. “I've thought a great deal about it, and I want you to have this.” He extended the envelope and stood waiting expectantly.

For one moment Sabrina almost reached out and took the envelope. She certainly needed money badly enough. And she was not really angry with Charles Stratton. Sabrina was not naïve where people were concerned. She might not know how to cook, but she had been born with a sense of what people were like. Ever since she was a young girl she had found this talent to be very useful.

“What you're saying is good-bye, isn't it, Charles?”

“Why, of course not!”

But Sabrina knew better. Charles Stratton would never marry a penniless woman. Sabrina Fairfax, the daughter of a wealthy man, was one thing, but Sabrina Fairfax, a penniless woman, was another. Sabrina was well aware that Charles had wrestled with trying to find a way to say good-bye to her gracefully. She understood instantly that his offer of money seemed to him the easiest way of doing it. This did not surprise her. Charles was no different from most men, she had long ago decided. A woman to him was an ornament, and if the ornament came with a fortune, why, so much the better. But as much as Sabrina needed the money, she would not accept it.

“Thank you, Charles. It was kind of you to offer, but I can't accept it.”

Stratton's jaw dropped. “Don't be foolish, Sabrina!” he said sharply. “You need the money. Take it.”

“Thank you, Charles. I think you'd better go now.”

A flush suffused his cheeks. Angrily he stuffed the envelope back into his pocket and said stiffly, “Well, I trust you'll have a good day.”

“Thank you for coming by, Charles.”

Stratton whirled and jammed his hat down over his head. He jerked the door open and let it slam behind him with a resounding bang.

“Well, good-bye to you, Sir Charles,” Sabrina said aloud. She went back to the table and resumed cutting vegetables. She was surprised to find herself singularly undisturbed by the conversation. She had already said good-bye in her mind to Charles Stratton, knowing that he would never pursue her now that she had lost her fortune.

She had finished chopping the vegetables and put the stew on the fire when she heard the door closing. Aunt Elberta came in and said, “I'm worried about Mrs. Peterson. That's a bad sickness she's got. We'll have to take her some of the stew.” She lifted the lid on the pot. “You've got too many carrots in there.”

“I'm sorry, Aunt Elberta.”

Elberta stared with dismay into the pot. “And you cut them up too small. You have to leave them larger than that or they'll just dissolve.”

“I'll learn how, I suppose, in time.”

Elberta shook her head with disapproval. “Did you finish splitting and stacking the wood as I asked you to do?”

“Yes, it's all done.” Sabrina was careful to always answer Elberta in an even tone. The woman was extremely hard to live with, but no one else had volunteered to take her in.

“Did anyone call?”

“Charles Stratton.”

“Sir Charles! He came here?”

“Yes, he did.”

“What did he want? Did he ask you out?”

“He came to say good-bye.”

“What do you mean good-bye?”

Sabrina was tired. She had worked hard all morning at menial tasks. She was a strong young woman, but housework was not something she could do with much cheer. It always discouraged her and reminded her that she no longer had servants. She said coolly, “That was what he really came for. He offered to buy me off.”

“Buy you off! What are you talking about?”

“He offered to give me money so that he would have a clear conscience for not having anything else to do with me, Aunt Elberta.”

“He didn't say anything like that. He couldn't! He's too much of a gentleman.”

“He didn't say it out loud, but that's what it was for.”

“How much did he give you?”

The avarice in her aunt's voice was obvious. “I don't know. I wouldn't take it.”

Anger danced in Elberta's eyes. “Didn't take it! Why not? Have you lost your mind? You need all the money you can get.”

“I don't need his money.”

“You're not too proud to come and live off
my
charity! I can't see why you're too proud to take money from him.”

The barbed remark stirred Sabrina's anger. She started to answer but then realized that if she answered as she was tempted to there would be an unpleasant period lasting for several days. Elberta could not take being crossed, and she knew how to make life totally unbearable. “I just couldn't take it,” Sabrina said quietly, then got up and went outside. She buried her head in her hands and struggled against the tears that threatened to come. “I've got to stay here,” she said. “There's no place else for me to go.”

****

For the next few weeks Sabrina managed to endure her aunt Elberta's endless criticism. Sabrina was a determined young woman and always thought she could do anything she set her mind to. She got up each morning mentally prepared for her aunt's cutting remarks and constant criticism. She had long ago given up hope of doing anything that pleased the woman. The only thing she could do now was try to keep as much peace as possible between them.