A Song Twice Over by Brenda Jagger Read Free Book Online

knowledge of their implications.
    â€˜I see,’ repeated Cara, closing her eyes again, seeing inwardly, as clearly as Odette and Sairellen had seen, in their different fashions, how adroitly her father, in the very act of grasping his own opportunity, had still managed to save his conscience. For who could really accuse him of abandoning his wife in a strange city when he had first taken the precaution of summoning their daughter to look after her?
    â€˜I’ll send for you, my darling. I’ll make you a queen in America.’
    Not even his loving, trusting Odette had believed him. She had not blamed him either. And Sairellen had marvelled, not for the first time, at the depth of devotion that could be aroused in a good woman by a feckless man.
    â€˜God keep him,’ Kieron Adeane’s abandoned wife had said, with sorrowful, selfless tears which meant ‘He couldn’t help himself. It was his last chance. How could I stand in his way?’ pouring beneath her closed eyelids. ‘God keep him.’
    â€˜If I ever see him again,’ said Kieron Adeane’s daughter, her blue-green eyes snapping open once more, ‘I’ll more than likely strangle him.’
    â€˜Aye.’ Sairellen Thackray answered her and then, without speaking another word, got up and set a mug of hot tea in front of her and relieved her of her child, putting him down on the hearth-rug beside a basket overflowing with kittens of which, in the complex depths of his misery – his contemplation of yet another strange new world without Odette – he took no notice.
    â€˜So you’ll strangle him, will you?’
    Cara’s hands, clenching themselves into fists and then uncurling to show their long fingers, their square, serviceable palms, looked quite capable of it.
    â€˜That I will.’
    â€˜ If you see him again. How do you rate your chance of that, young lady?’
    â€˜Unlikely.’
    Sairellen nodded, made the brief, sardonic grimace that was her smile and sat down at the other side of the table as grudging in her respect as she had been in her initial welcome – or lack of it. And, once again, it was not unkindness, just the simple good sense of survival. She had no place, in her home or in her heart, for Cara. And it would be as well – in fact it would be kinder – to say so now, and have done.
    â€˜That’s right, lass. Unlikely. Happen your mother thinks the same, although she’s not saying. So I’ll tell you the rest now, while your temper’s high and you’re better able to stand it. According to his lights he left your mother provided for.’
    â€˜Yes. That he did. He provided her with me. And what I want to know is why he didn’t just send her back to Dublin?’
    â€˜There is a reason, lass, if you’ll let me come to it.’ Sairellen, who was not of a talkative disposition, who used speech to convey orders or information rather than engage in conversation, did not like to be interrupted. ‘He waited until he had your letter, saying you were coming over. Then he left your mother with a decent roof over her head – mine – and in decent employment, so she could keep it there. He left her some money too, as much as he had, I reckon. Told her to buy a new bonnet. That was ten days ago. The money went first. Then the job. That’s where she is now, unless I’m much mistaken – pleading to be taken back again. And unless she is – or finds something else … I expect you’ll know where I’m leading.’
    Too well. In meticulous, miserable detail. But first, before getting down to that, there must be other avenues to explore?
    â€˜There was a milliner,’ said Cara sharply. ‘A Miss Baker? My father wrote to me about her – said she had given my mother a job and was – a friend?’
    â€˜Aye. There’s a Miss Baker.’ Sairellen sounded unimpressed. ‘She turned your