Page 59 of The Sprinter
*
Grace was atonce encouraged that they seemed to make good time, anxious that they did not make good time enough, and terrified at the manner with which the coachman drove the carriage. The turns were especially frightening and she’d already been thrown clear across the compartment twice. The coachman would not drive so recklessly if her mother was not running out of time.
She was grateful though, that the horses had been changed speedily and they had been on their way in short order. They were coming very near the turnoff that led to the lane to her father’s estate. Please God let her mother still be with the world. She would never forgive herself if she came too late.
Now, they were on the lane! Almost there. Just ahead, the circular drive of Barlow House.
She could see the house! The downstairs still had lights burning, but above stairs was dark. What did it mean? Was her mother sleeping, or was she…
The coachman pulled up to the doors and the footman barely had time to help her down as she fairly leapt to the gravel.
Grace raced to the front door and threw it open.
Her heart nearly stopped beating when she saw her. The nurse. Nurse Maddington, who had been driven out. Why was she there? How had she got back in?
The lady had been sleeping in a chair by the fire, her lacy nightcap askew. She was a short and plump individual with fat cheeks and deep-etched lines running from either side of her nose to the corners of her mouth. She’d started at the sound of the door crashing open, rubbed her eyes, and looked about her.
“You!” Grace cried, pointing at her.
“Who are you?” the nurse said, sounding fearful. “Why have you crashed in here uninvited?”
“Who amI?” Grace asked with incredulity. “Iam Lady Barlow’s daughter!”
“Well, goodness, this is a surprise,” the woman said, clutching at her nightcap to right it.
“I am certain it is a surprise. Where is she? What have you done to her? Where is Manfred and why has he let you back in?”
Nurse Maddington appeared stupefied in the face of these questions. Grace did not wait for an answer but instead swept up a candle, picked up her skirts, and raced up the stairs.
Her mother’s bedchamber was dark. She used her candle to light one on the dressing table and the room came into view.
Lady Barlow’s bed was made and quite empty. She was too late. Her mother was gone from the world.
Grace felt a shroud settle over her. She’d failed her own mother. Her poor father looking down from heaven must weep with disappointment over his stupid daughter.
It was the first thing she’d ever done in her life that could not be somehow fixed.
She must see her! But where had they taken her? Why was the nurse here in an empty house?
Grace flew back down the stairs. She was determined to be by her mother’s side, even though it would do Lady Barlow little good now.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw the nurse cowering in the chair she had left her in, staring at the staircase as if it were a goblin. A very sleepy-looking Maggie stumbled out of the servants’ quarters.
“Miss Yardley,” Maggie said. “We did not expect you!”
“Maggie,” Grace said, choking back sobs, “I am too late!”
Maggie scratched her nightcap and said, “Well, it is late, I suppose. But then I also suppose it’s never too late for a daughter to visit her ma.”
Grace could not make heads or tails of Maggie’s answer. “Where is she?” she said. “I demand to know where my mother has been taken.”
“Why, she’s been taken to the Munsons’,” Maggie said, beginning to look worried over Grace’s state of mind.
“The Munsons’? Why would she have been taken there?”
“’Cause they was the ones having the card party,” Maggie said.
“A card party?” Grace repeated. “But why…but then, do you say my mother is not dead?”
