Page 141 of The King's Man
Stebbings looked embarrassed. ‘Well, ever since … ’ He coughed. ‘After Colonel Morton’s unfortunate accident, he had her sent back to Beverstock. She’s been there ever since.’
‘Well, she’s supposed to have been there but she’s been coming around, looking for you,’ the housekeeper put in. ‘We keep sending her back. They promise to keep her under lock and key but she keeps escaping.’
‘Look at the state she’s in,’ Thamsine said.
She tilted Annie’s face towards the light, showing up scabs and sores, the pitiful thinness and the dirt. No one had cared for the girl, least of all her mother.
‘She looks like a ragamuffin from the poorest streets of London, not a gentleman’s daughter. Stebbings,’ she addressed the steward, ‘send someone to Beverstock to let them know she is here.’
Stebbings nodded.
‘Annie, you can only stay here a little while,’ Thamsine said. ‘Then you must go home.’
Annie shook her head. ‘No,’ she moaned. ‘Not there … ’
‘Go with Mistress White.’ Thamsine pointed out the housekeeper. ‘And you are to have a bath. Mistress White will give you some clean clothes.’
‘Poor girl,’ Mistress White said with a sniff of disapproval as she took Annie’s arm. ‘’Tis shameful the way you’ve been treated.Come with me and I am sure Cook will find some dainties for you.’
But Annie wasn’t listening. She reached out and fingered the black stuff of Thamsine’s gown. ‘Tham, are you sad … ?’ she said.
Thamsine drew the girl to her and stroked the dark head. How could it be possible to feel so much affection for this girl and yet hate her brother so very much?
‘Yes, I am sad,’ she said, disengaging Annie. ‘Someone I loved very much has died.’
‘Is ’Brose dead too?’ Annie’s large, grey eyes filled with tears.
Thamsine felt a cold prickle at the back of her neck. Did Annie think Ambrose had died that night she shot him?
‘No, Annie. Ambrose isn’t dead.’
Tears trickled from Annie’s eyes. ‘Mama is dead. Are you sad because Mama is dead?’
Thamsine swallowed and lied, ‘Yes, I am sad your mother is dead.’
Annie had loved her mother and her brother. She had to respect that.
‘Now, Annie, go with Mistress White.’
Mistress White straightened and held out a hand. ‘Come on, then. Don’t waste Mistress Lovell’s time. I’ll make a lady of you yet!’
As the evening drew on, Thamsine stood beside Roger Knott at the wide bay window looking out onto the terrace, where Roger’s daughters and Annie were locked in rapt concentration in a game involving dolls. Two young girls and one grown, but with the mental age of a three-year-old. She thought she had never seen Annie looking so happy.
‘She’s Morton’s sister,’ Roger said as if reading Thamsine’s thoughts. ‘She can’t stay here. If he has word that she’s with you, there’ll be nothing more guaranteed to bring him running than his sister.’
Thamsine shook her head. ‘What can I do, Roger? Stebbings says Beverstock is deserted. There is no one to care for her. In the name of Christian compassion I have to keep her.’
‘She’s addled,’ Roger said. ‘Perhaps an institution where she will be cared for?’
Thamsine looked at him with loathing.
‘You forget, Roger. I spent three days in Bedlam. She’s not mad, or bad, just different. She didn’t ask to be dropped by her nursemaid. If God was merciful she should be a beautiful young woman, maybe married with a family of her own. I’ll not turn her away. She’s welcome to stay.’
‘She’ll bring you trouble, Thamsine,’ Roger said.
‘Well, that is my concern, not yours, Roger,’ she said and turned away.
Chapter 50
