foolishness.
Calming herself by degrees, Sarah sat down on the hard narrow bunk and pulled
her traveling-case to her. Lining out the topmost tray, she withdrew the stiff packet
of folded vellum sheets and opened them to read them again. As she did so, the faint
sunny odor of orange blossom that still clung to the pages wafted up from them, and
Sarah was borne back through the weeks to the first time she had smelled that
particular fragrance.
The early-morning sun warmed Sarah’s back through the thin calico muslin of her
dress as she stepped carefully across the cobbled Baltimore street, avoiding the
inevitable refuse. The large willow marketing-basket she carried was empty save for a
lengthy list in Cousin Masham’s spidery scrawl of items Sarah was to procure in the
shops. Tedious as the task was, Sarah welcomed it, as the alternative was more of
the endless round of drudgery that had fallen to her lot since she had become – as
she was frequently told – a pensioner upon her cousin Masham’s charity. She had
come to realize that me Mashams held their blood relationship at naught and looked
upon her as just another servant – one whom, due to that same blood tie of kinship,
they fortunately did not have to pay. Sarah was quite without talent for sewing or
spinning, and thus her days were an endless round of kitchen and laundry. There
was little prospect of anything better, the only possible alternative was to hire herself
out as servant in truth. And marriage was even less of a possible escape than it had
been eight years before, for now that her parents’ estate had been settled Sarah’s
entire fortune consisted of a single small trunk of clothes and the few dollars she had
been able to save from the sale of her father’s property.
And the ring.
The ring had belonged to her father, but even when it had come to him it was not
new. Stopping in the doorway of a not-yet-open shop, Sarah had pulled upon the
blue ribbon that held the ring concealed safely beneath her bodice and inspected her
dearest treasure.
It was of massy gold, set with a smooth rectangular black stone, but it was more
as well With practiced fingers, Sarah rotated the stone with the ball of her thumb.
The black stone rose up and out on an armature that had seemed, moments before,
to be the rim of the bezel, and, under Sarah’s control, spun to reveal its obverse. In
precise, exquisite enamerwork, an oak tree in summer foliage glowed against a
silvery field. At the oak’s foot a unicorn slept with head upon the ground, and in the
tree’s branches, a crown in glory burned. Boscobel – the King’s Oak. Sarah did not
know what this ring had meant to her father, only that it had been his greatest
treasure, and so now it was hers.
The clatter of an arriving coach roused Sarah from her contemplation. Hastily
dropping the jewel back into concealment beneath her bodice, she crossed the street
to see who might be arriving.
She reached the post-house in time to see a woman dressed in the first stare of
London elegance descend from the carriage. Though quite as old as Cousin
Masham, there was an air of vitality about the newcomer – with her silvered once-red
hair tucked demurely beneath both elegant traveling cap and a dashing bonnet of
deep green lutestring trimmed with egret plumes – that marked her to be as different
from Sarah’s pallid cousin Masham as night from day.
The newcomer found her footing with the aid of an elegant ebony walking stick
and gazed about herself, though if the stylish stranger held any opinion whatsoever
on the street upon which she found herself, she presented only the blandest of
countenances to the world. Behind her, the coachman scurried to unload her trunks,
and the proprietor of the post-house, sensing custom, came out into the street to
welcome this new guest.
„I am Madame Alecto Kennet of London,“ the woman announced, much
Calming herself by degrees, Sarah sat down on the hard narrow bunk and pulled
her traveling-case to her. Lining out the topmost tray, she withdrew the stiff packet
of folded vellum sheets and opened them to read them again. As she did so, the faint
sunny odor of orange blossom that still clung to the pages wafted up from them, and
Sarah was borne back through the weeks to the first time she had smelled that
particular fragrance.
The early-morning sun warmed Sarah’s back through the thin calico muslin of her
dress as she stepped carefully across the cobbled Baltimore street, avoiding the
inevitable refuse. The large willow marketing-basket she carried was empty save for a
lengthy list in Cousin Masham’s spidery scrawl of items Sarah was to procure in the
shops. Tedious as the task was, Sarah welcomed it, as the alternative was more of
the endless round of drudgery that had fallen to her lot since she had become – as
she was frequently told – a pensioner upon her cousin Masham’s charity. She had
come to realize that me Mashams held their blood relationship at naught and looked
upon her as just another servant – one whom, due to that same blood tie of kinship,
they fortunately did not have to pay. Sarah was quite without talent for sewing or
spinning, and thus her days were an endless round of kitchen and laundry. There
was little prospect of anything better, the only possible alternative was to hire herself
out as servant in truth. And marriage was even less of a possible escape than it had
been eight years before, for now that her parents’ estate had been settled Sarah’s
entire fortune consisted of a single small trunk of clothes and the few dollars she had
been able to save from the sale of her father’s property.
And the ring.
The ring had belonged to her father, but even when it had come to him it was not
new. Stopping in the doorway of a not-yet-open shop, Sarah had pulled upon the
blue ribbon that held the ring concealed safely beneath her bodice and inspected her
dearest treasure.
It was of massy gold, set with a smooth rectangular black stone, but it was more
as well With practiced fingers, Sarah rotated the stone with the ball of her thumb.
The black stone rose up and out on an armature that had seemed, moments before,
to be the rim of the bezel, and, under Sarah’s control, spun to reveal its obverse. In
precise, exquisite enamerwork, an oak tree in summer foliage glowed against a
silvery field. At the oak’s foot a unicorn slept with head upon the ground, and in the
tree’s branches, a crown in glory burned. Boscobel – the King’s Oak. Sarah did not
know what this ring had meant to her father, only that it had been his greatest
treasure, and so now it was hers.
The clatter of an arriving coach roused Sarah from her contemplation. Hastily
dropping the jewel back into concealment beneath her bodice, she crossed the street
to see who might be arriving.
She reached the post-house in time to see a woman dressed in the first stare of
London elegance descend from the carriage. Though quite as old as Cousin
Masham, there was an air of vitality about the newcomer – with her silvered once-red
hair tucked demurely beneath both elegant traveling cap and a dashing bonnet of
deep green lutestring trimmed with egret plumes – that marked her to be as different
from Sarah’s pallid cousin Masham as night from day.
The newcomer found her footing with the aid of an elegant ebony walking stick
and gazed about herself, though if the stylish stranger held any opinion whatsoever
on the street upon which she found herself, she presented only the blandest of
countenances to the world. Behind her, the coachman scurried to unload her trunks,
and the proprietor of the post-house, sensing custom, came out into the street to
welcome this new guest.
„I am Madame Alecto Kennet of London,“ the woman announced, much
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