Free Sarah's Baby by Margaret Way Page B

I don’t know. Was he your lover?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter now,” she said.
    â€œI’m dying, Sarah, so your secret is safe with me. I’ll file it away and take it to the grave. Somewhere inside me, I feel a terrible guilt, as if I failed you and your mother.”
    â€œNo, my dear friend.” Tears sprang to Sarah’s eyes. “Don’t punish yourself, because there’s nothing for you to punish yourself about. Ruth McQueen persuaded me that I had to be brave and give Kyall up.”
    â€œSo she made you leave Koomera Crossing. I know you wouldn’t have gone easily.”
    â€œShe was afraid we would become lovers.”
    â€œAre you telling me the truth? I won’t let Ruth hurt you.”
    Sarah looked at him levelly. “What would you do, Joe? Kill her?”
    Joe answered in a shaking voice. “Ruth doesn’t entirely have the whip hand. I’ve long suspected she was somehow involved in Molly Fairweather’s death. I’ve never told anyone. There was nothing substantial to go on. Just a feeling.”
    â€œGood God!” Sarah revealed her shock. “Who’s Molly Fairweather, anyway?”
    â€œOh, I remember. You wouldn’t have met her. She came to town a year or so after you left. Big woman. Very gruff. People used to think she was crazy. Sure acted like it from time to time. ‘Mad Molly’ the kids called her.”
    â€œMum never, ever mentioned her.”
    â€œNo reason to, I suppose. She kept to herself. Had everything delivered to her door. She bought the Sinclair family home from Ruth, I believe, so I suppose she had private money. She was a trained nurse, but apparently she’d injured her back.”
    â€œWhat has this got to do with Ruth McQueen?”
    â€œI might go straight to hell for suggesting such a thing, but Mad Molly died of snakebite. Somehow a desert taipan got into her house.”
    â€œHow did it get there? They don’t usually choose someone’s doorstep.
    Joe shrugged. “It was a bad year for snakes, but no one else in town spotted one in their garden. By the time I got out there—the postie raised the alarm—Molly Fairweather was dead, lying facedown in the hallway with the front door open. Later when I spoke to Ruth about it, I knew in the blink of an eye—or thought I knew—that she’d had something to do with it. Molly Fairweather’s will handed the house back to Ruth, which I thought decidedly odd.”
    There was something else, Sarah felt, about that terrible story. In a sudden flashback, she remembered the midwife who’d brought her little Rose into the world. A big womanwith an aura of competence, but taciturn with rigid dark eyebrows. A woman who had appeared consumed with the desire to serve Ruth McQueen any way she could. Why am I thinking of her? she wondered in dull surprise. All these years, she’d never been able to rid herself of the sight of Ruth McQueen’s face, yet she’d all but forgotten the midwife. Mad Molly couldn’t be the same woman, could she? Still, Joe’s story was disturbing. She stared at him.
    â€œHow could you use a mere feeling against someone like Ruth McQueen? There must’ve been some inquiry.”
    â€œThere was an autopsy. I performed it myself. The verdict was bloody bad luck. But the whole business got to Ruth in some way. Don’t forget, I knew her very, very well. Or as well as anyone could know her. For all her fine family name, her power and influence, Ruth McQueen wouldn’t hesitate to walk on the wild side.”
    â€œKyall and Christine are nothing like her. And they only resemble Enid a little.”
    â€œEnid’s just a shadow of her mother.”
    â€œShe certainly knows how to be cruel,” Sarah offered, feeling as though she had a splinter in her throat.
    Joe nodded and put a trembling hand to his chest.
    â€œAre you all right, Joe?” Sarah stood