Free A Song Twice Over by Brenda Jagger Page B

brilliance of the blue-green eyes as even hard-hearted Mrs Drubb had been.
    â€˜How long have you been in Frizingley?’
    â€˜Three months, madam.’
    Three hard months, perhaps, thought Gemma, toiling on foot from one cold door to another, dragging the weight of that carpet-bag and the cumbersome wooden hat-box with its worn leather strap and its newly painted lettering ‘Miss Cara Adeane. Dressmaker and Milliner.’ Months without much profit either, for Gemma had detected no anxiety as to falling trade in Miss Ernestine Baker, no hint of any unwelcome competition, when she had called, only a few days ago, with suggested patterns for Mrs Dallam’s winter wardrobe.
    And somehow, without knowing how she knew it, she realized that behind her sparkle the girl was tired, weary to the bone in a way Gemma’s over-protected body had never been weary. Was she hungry too? Or thirsty? Very probably. But there were inflexible rules about the offering of refreshments, all-powerful decrees of Etiquette from which she had been trained never to deviate. One served tea to one’s social equals in the drawing-room. One might offer a charitable loaf of bread to a beggar at one’s gate. One took soup to the ‘deserving poor’in their cottages or, in her mother’s case, waited in one’s carriage looking apprehensive while one’s coachman carried in the lukewarm nourishment packed in hay. One knew that the servants sometimes gave a jug of ale to a tradesman on a hot afternoon at the kitchen door, and not even Gemma’s mother made a fuss about it. But one gave nothing to visitors such as this but ten minutes of one’s time, at the most, and a pleasant dismissal. One simply did not encourage them. Her mother’s policy on the matter was clear enough, and it was certainly not the business of an unmarried ‘daughter at home’to change it.
    How it would horrify her mother, and Mrs Drubb, should she lose her head sufficiently to offer the girl a chair, and a drink. But then, since she had already decided to accept the proposal Tristan Gage had made her, in his diffident, charming manner, two days ago – ‘You know, my dear, that I’ll just be holding my breath, don’t you, until I have your reply’ – why not use her own judgement again, in this.
    How irksome – truly – that she even felt the need to hesitate.
    â€˜Perhaps you would care to wait a while, Miss Adeane,’ she said calmly, ‘while I go and tell my mother what you have to offer? Do sit down. Those bags must be so heavy. And I will have them bring you some tea.’
    She had broken a social commandment. She waited a moment, listening as if for the shattering of glass, and when none occurred went off with a quiet smile to find first Tristan Gage and then her mother.
    Amabel Dallam, much-loved wife of the industrialist John-William Dallam, had been aware all morning that something exciting was about to take place. She had sensed it at once on waking, something which happened to her fairly often, for she was highly sensitive, even ‘fey’she liked to think, and when something was in the air it had small chance of escaping her notice. So she had been telling everyone who would listen ever since breakfast-time, her maid, her housekeeper Mrs Drubb, Tristan Gage himself and his sister, Linnet, both of them her godchildren, who had been guests in her house for so long that she could hardly bear to part with them. And if her dear daughter, Gemma, should decide to accept Tristan’s very obliging proposal then perhaps she wouldn’t have to.
    Amabel Dallam was a woman of a ‘certain’age – a little over forty – with the kind of porcelain prettiness – pale, delicately-chiselled features, fine, fair hair, a frail breathlessness of figure which had survived the passing of girlishness to give her an air of endearing fragility.
    She was also a happy woman