A Woman's Estate by Roberta Gellis Read Free Book Online Page A

assaulted her ears.
    “And you have given us reason enough to be nervous,” Hilda
complained. “How could you be so cruel as not to notify us of Francis’
death? I understand it was a full year ago. Surely no matter how distraught you
were, you could have managed to scrawl a few words or have a friend write for you. And how could you be so mad as to come from America in the
middle of a war? Don’t you realize that until your son has issue, he is
especially precious? He is the heir .”
    Since this was the third time of hearing, Hilda’s strident,
peevish tones were less of a shock, and Abigail was better able to absorb the
sense of what had been said. She began to wonder if the voice and appearance
had given her a wrong impression. Hilda seemed concerned both about Francis and
Victor, which was generous, considering that Eustace would have been the heir
if neither Francis nor Victor had survived. There were some people who meant
well but had a most unfortunate pattern of expression.
    Under the circumstances, Abigail decided it would be cruel
to tell Hilda that Francis had never mentioned the existence of his father’s
second wife or her children, and she replied, “I am very sorry that you should
have suffered, but I did write. The ship carrying my letters to you and Mr.
Deedes and Mr. Baring must have been taken by the French or gone down. And
there was very little danger in bringing Victor to England. Admiral Warren
provided passports for us, and we transferred to a British ship well within
safe waters.”
    “I told you, Mama,” Eustace said, smiling. “When we received
Mr. Deedes’ note, I said that Abigail must have written and some accident
occurred to prevent our receiving her letter.”
    Deprived of one cause for complaint, Hilda found another. “I
suppose we must wait dinner for you—or did you have sense enough to eat on the
road?”
    It was then that Abigail realized that everyone was attired
in evening dress. That made the jewelry Hilda was wearing more reasonable if
not more appealing. “I did not realize that you dined so early,” Abigail said
with poisonous sweetness, “or I would have sent one of the outriders ahead with
a note. But we had no more than a bite of luncheon on the road, so dinner will
most certainly have to wait for us. If you will ring the bell for me, please,
Eustace, I will ask Empson to send my apologies to Cook and tell her to hold
back dinner for half an hour.”
    “Oh, you don’t have to bother with that,” Hilda said,
plumping herself ill naturedly down on the chair again. “Griselda will take
care of it. She’s not good for anything besides running errands.”
    As ungracious as the tone and remark were, they at least
seemed to prove that Hilda was no pleasanter to her own daughter than she was
to anyone else. The only one who seemed to be spared her tongue was Eustace.
Still, Abigail had a feeling that the remark was intended to embarrass her so
that she would say a tray in her room would be sufficient. Another time,
Abigail might have agreed, to save the servants trouble, but she did not plan
to set any precedent of meek acquiescence. Nor did she wish to permit any
member of the family to intrude between her and the servants until she had
established firmly in their minds to whom power now belonged.
    Thus, Abigail insisted she preferred to deal with Empson
personally, and before any further argument could be raised, she rang the bell
herself. In the few minutes it took for the butler to come from the servants’
quarters, she introduced her children, who had been listening in wide-eyed
astonishment tinged, Abigail was afraid, with alarm. They had no experience at
all of being unwelcome and were uncertain of how to react to a grandmother who
did not greet them with open arms and cries of joy.
    When Empson answered the bell, Abigail simply nodded to
Hilda, smiled generally at Eustace and Griselda, and said she would like to be
shown to Lord Lydden’s suite. She braced