Free The Whispering Rocks by Sandra Heath Page A

front of Melissa who was so distant toward her.
    The silence in the room was oppressive; she must say something to break it. She turned to Melissa. “Miss Ransome, my gown is so wet, perhaps you could find one of yours for me to wear until my own clothing arrives.” She smiled in as friendly a way as she could, but her efforts met with a blank, stony wall of coolness.
    Without even a nod of her head Melissa left the room, her skirts hissing like so many snakes. Sarah sighed and turned back to the fire. The maids and the butler had gone and she was alone. She stared around her at the hangings and ornaments.
    It was a gentle room, the choice of a gentle woman, she decided, and thought for the first time how quickly she could become at ease in surroundings such as these. Everything about the room was in tune with Sarah’s own taste and character. How strange, she thought suddenly, that she, a stranger, could be so at home, when the daughter of the woman whose room it had been was so obviously ill at ease.
    Upon the mantelpiece a small clock ticked quietly in its glass case on which was painted an ornate and incredible dragon. The dragon crept round and round the base of the glass case until its open jaws threatened to devour its own tail. It was a fearsome beast and yet in this room, it was merely decorative. Another Buddha stood on the table by the bed—a small Buddha this time without the shining emerald eyes of the other one, but it too had a head which wobbled when Sarah reached out to touch it.
    She jumped as there came a tap on the door and the maid called Janie returned. Janie was a buxom country girl with wide blue eyes and neatly plaited, straw-colored hair.
    “Please, miss, I’ve been sent to tell you there’s hot water for a bath if you want one.”
    “Oh, yes, please.”
    “Very well, miss. I’ll tell the men to bring everything.”
    “Thank you, Janie.”
    The girl dimpled with pleasure that Sarah had remembered her name. “The master said that I was to attend you, miss, if that’s all right. He said that your maid had ... had—”
    Sarah nodded quickly. “Yes, Janie, I’d very much like you to attend me. I’m sure we’ll get on well together.”
    The door closed, but soon the men were carrying a hip-bath into the room and a chain of maids came and went with steaming kettles of hot water. Janie stood importantly supervising it all and then shooed them out, closing the door. She dragged a lacquered blue screen around the bath and then helped Sarah to take off her cold, wet clothes.
    “Oh, miss, what a mess you’re in. I’m sorry your introduction to Mannerby has been so awful.”
    The maid carefully laid the spoiled clothes over the back of a chair, unpinning the little amber brooch on the shoulder of the woolen gown. “What a pretty thing, miss.”
    Sarah nodded, taking it from the maid. “It was my mother’s. It’s all I have to remember her by now.”
    ‘Shall I put it safe, miss?”
    “Yes, please.”
    “Here, in this little porcelain dish. That’s where old Mrs. Ransome liked to keep her most precious things.”
    “Thank you, Janie.”
    Sarah sank into the warm, steaming water, closing her eyes with pleasure. How good it felt. She took the soap and cloth which Janie held out to her and washed her arms and legs.
    “Are you courting, Janie?” She tried hard to be friendly because she felt so lonely, and missed Betty’s chatter so very much.
    “Oh yes, miss. I’m Martin’s girl.”
    “Martin? Oh yes, I recall. He’s the one who lives in the gatehouse.”
    “Yes, and he looks after the courtyard and outside of the house, tends to the garden, prunes the trees, and so on.” Janie was obviously very proud of her young man.
    Sarah smiled. “I wish you happiness then, Janie.”
    The maid bobbed a curtsy and went, pulling the screen around again to keep out the drafts which seemed able to creep in anywhere at will.
    Sarah set down the soap at last and lay back in the bath, soaking