“Abby,” he said, his head to one side.
She looked up at him, her jaw set, her face pale. “Can you tell me honestly,” she said, “that it would not have done? Had I told you everything on that first morning, what would you have done? Given me a letter of recommendation? I think not. Sent me on my way with a few coins? Probably. Married me? Never. And do you think I have not had that fact on my conscience?”
“And is that what the six thousand pounds was for?”he asked. “And the fifteen hundred more that you tried to borrow?”
She looked down sharply at her hands. “I thought he was a gentleman,” she said.
“He is,” he said. “He was concerned about you, Abby. First asking for the money and then rushing away without waiting for an answer. He thought I was the best person to help you. Is your stepmother blackmailing you, threatening to come to me with all these facts?”#p#分页标题#e#
He watched her hands twisting tightly in her lap. “She threatened to take Bea and Clara,” she said. “She said she would go away to the Continent if she had five thousand pounds. I love them, Miles. They are just little children and have already been forced to live through disturbing upheavals. It killed me—I know you will think I am dramatizing, but it is true that it killed something inside me—when I lost them the first time. But there was no possible way I could keep them with me. Then, after two whole years, hope was rekindled and she tried to dash it again in the most cruel of ways. She would have taken those little girls into that house.”
“No, she would not have.” He stooped down on his haunches and took her cold hands in his. They were rigid with tension. “She would have to spend time and money on them if she had them here with her, Abby. But she knew that you love them. She knew that you were a mother to them between the time of her leaving and your father’s death. And she knew that you do not always think with your head but with your heart. She saw a sure way to a never-ending supply of money. How much have you given her?”
“Five thousand,” she said, her eyes on their clasped hands.
“And she wants fifteen hundred more?”
“Two thousand,” she said. “That will be all, Miles. She will leave as soon as she has that.”
“You do not believe that any more than I do,” he said.
There was a blank look in her eyes, and one of her fingernails dug painfully into his palm.
“But let me give it to her anyway,” she said. “Just this once, Miles, to avoid unpleasantness. I shall tell her that it will be the last. I shall tell her that you know everything and that you will see to it that Bea and Clara come to me. She will understand that there cannot possibly be more. I know it is a dreadful lot of money to ask of you, but you can take it off my allowance for next year. And indeed six thousand pounds is far too much to give me. I would not have dreamed of asking for so much if I had not needed it so desperately. I’ll go tomorrow—”
“Abby,” he said, easing the cut on his palm away from her nail. “Hush, dear. You don’t have to be so agitated. I shall call on Mrs. Harper myself and tell her—”
“No!” she said sharply. “No, Miles. It will be better if I go. We know each other and understand each other.”
“We will go together if you insist,” he said. “But you are not to go alone, Abby. I expressly forbid it.”
“Oh,” she said. “But, Miles, we will give her the money? Please? I promised, you see, and I cannot feel good about going back on a promise.”
There was a look of something in her eyes—terror, desperation, he was not quite sure what. He rubbed his thumbs over the backs of her hands.
“There is really no need to do so,” he said. “Indeed, we should not do so, Abby. No one should be allowed to get away with blackmail or extortion.” He watched her face closely. “But if it will make you feel better, then perhaps we will make an exception in this case. There will be not one penny more, though.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I am costing you a prodigious amount of money, am I not, what with my own debts and Boris’s?”
He got to his feet and drew her up with him and into his arms. “I think you are probably worth ten times more, Abby,” he said. “In fact, I think perhaps you are priceless.”
“Not plain and dull and likely to fade into the background?”she asked. “Not someone to be got with child and taken to Severn Park and left there forever after?”
He searched her eyes, a mere few inches from his own.