Chapter Five

Once inside Rose Cottage, Sara tossed her coat onto the chair in the hail and ran into the parlor, expecting her father to be at her heels. Slowly, Blair closed the front door behind him. Olivia took his things and then, still flustered, said she was going into the kitchen that very minute to make them all a nice cup of tea. After Olivia had gone, Blair paused, glanced warily up the stairs, then followed Sara into the parlor, the place where every important guest was entertained.

Sara had dreamed often of being reunited with her father Now that she had him on her home ground, she naturally wanted to show him everything. She even went so far as to open the darkly gleaming piano in the corner and pick out a tune.

“This is mama’s piano. Do you remember it, Papa?”

Even to be allowed to touch the piano had been the occasion of a struggle with Hetty. Ruth King had been the musical one of the family, filling Rose Cottage with lilting piano melodies arid bursts of song. After Ruth was gone, Hetty had kept the instrument in the parlor, closed and silent, as a monument to her departed sister. Yet even Hetty was forced to admit that a piano wasn’t much good if nobody played it. Eventually, the combined efforts of Sara and Olivia had broken Hetty down.

Blair Stanley’s face took on a soft, faraway look, as though he remembered the piano very well.

“Yes,” he murmured. “In fact, I think she used to play that same piece.”

“I know,” returned Sara wistfully. “Aunt Olivia told me that this was her music book. Look at this.”

She held out a well-thumbed collection with roses elaborately embossed on its cover. Opening the front, Sara pointed out an inscription written in bold, flowing script. It said, “To Ruth—All my love, Blair.” Blair’s face changed yet again, as though actually seeing Ruth King with the music book open in front of her.

“I gave that book to your mother on her twenty-first birthday.”

Walking over, he picked up the picture of Ruth that stood atop the piano and gazed at the slender young woman in it. Then he smiled at his daughter. Ruth had been high-spirited and full of artistic fancies and there was so much of her in Sara.

While Blair and Sara hovered about the piano, indulging in memories, Hetty had been thrown into utter consternation about what she should do. First she stood rigidly in Sara’s room, clutching the cushion she had been smoothing. Then she dropped the cushion and crushed her handkerchief. Finally, she tiptoed down the stairs and into the front hall, furtively hugging the wall so she couldn’t be seen from the parlor. Brows knotted fiercely, she darted past and into the kitchen.

Hetty entered to find Olivia doing her hurried best to get together some refreshments for their guest. Olivia was still so unsettled by Blair’s arrival that she banged the tea service against the table and came within a hair of dropping the good china teapot with the violets on it. Taking a deep breath, she steadied the cups with shaking hands. All the worse for her nerves, Hetty marched up behind her and whispered violently into her ear.

“Olivia—”

Olivia jumped three inches and nearly lost the whole tea service onto the floor.

“Oh! Oh! Hetty, you startled me!”

Finally managing to slide the tea tray to safety, Olivia ran one hand across her forehead and began to reach for the ginger cookies, which were kept in a jar on the kitchen sideboard. Hetty blocked her path.

“I want that man out. I need time to think what we’re to do!”

Chin quivering, eyes ablaze, Hetty was rapidly working herself up for a full-scale war.

“To do about what?” Olivia asked in wonder, trying to keep hold of the cookie jar and stare at her sister at the same time.

“About Sara, of course. Oh, really, Olivia, sometimes I wonder what’s there between your ears.”

“Hetty, I don’t understand...”

“Shhhh!” Hetty sputtered, with a glance towards the parlor. “Believe me, I will not let go of Sara as easily as I did our Ruth.”

“Let go? Hetty, calm down! He’s not taking her—”

Scornfully, Hetty let out a hiss of breath.

“Don’t be naive, Olivia. Blair knows he’s not welcome. Yet he’s here. Oh, he’ll spirit that child away all right, before we can blink an eye.”

“I believe you’re mistaken.” Unable to imagine such a thing, Olivia rapidly began piling ginger cookies onto a plate. Sara was part of Rose Cottage now. Why would anybody want to take her away?

Hetty grimaced in frustration.

“Olivia...”

Oblivious to the battle raging in the kitchen, Blair and Sara sat together on the big horsehair sofa in the parlor, also rather warmly discussing the immediate future. Sara had tackled her father again about leaving so soon and he was showing no sign whatever of yielding to her arguments.

“I know, Sara,” Blair was saying patiently, “but I’ve already explained...”

Olivia walked in carrying the hastily laden tea tray. The tea service rattled precariously, and a pyramid of cookies threatened to spill over the side.

“Well, here we go,” announced Olivia, as heartily as she could after the scene in the kitchen Sweet and pliant by nature, Olivia felt more shaken up than the teacups by the confrontation with her sister.

“Where’s Aunt Hetty?” Sara asked, peering over Olivia’s shoulder.

Telltale spots of color leaped into Olivia’s cheeks. The tea sloshed inside the pot and the cups jiggled in their saucers before Olivia managed to get the tray down on the side table. One more second and her fluttery hands would have betrayed her altogether.

“Hetty is, uh, I called up to her and she’s, um...”

Olivia was hopeless at lying, and Blair knew very well what her confusion meant. His face darkened.

“Huh—I think it would be better if I were on my way.”

Abandoned by Olivia in the kitchen, Hetty had tiptoed surreptitiously out into the front hail again, where she could hear the conversation. Stealth didn’t suit Hetty one bit. She jammed herself halfway behind the coat rack; her head stuck out, her elbows stuck out, and her mouth grew so tight her lips almost disappeared from her face. She heard Blair rising to his feet.

“If Hetty wanted to see me, she’d be down here by now,” Blair said stiffly.

“Please don’t leave yet, Papa,” Sara begged, seeing the pleasant visit about to collapse in failure.

Blair patted her soothingly.

“Now, young lady, you get a good night’s sleep, ‘cause we’ve got a big day tomorrow, and you’ve got to be packed and ready first thing in the morning.”

Now Olivia’s mouth dropped open. Unbelievably, Hetty had been right!

“First thing? Oh, Blair, no,” she protested.

“You’ll stay here at Rose Cottage for a few days, at least. I’m sure Hetty will agree once I’ve spoken with her.”

Agree! Hetty’s bosom heaved furiously. Gathering up her skirts, she swept into the parlor looking so outraged that Olivia jumped back and Sara gaped.

“Why, Blair Stanley,” Hetty blazed. “Well, you’re the last person I expected to see standing in my parlor this frosty winter afternoon.”

Hetty’s incensed state of mind was clear for all to see. Blair, taken off guard as he was, made a heroic effort to rise to the occasion.

“Hetty. what a pleasure it is to see you again,” he said civilly. “I want you to know how much I appreciate what you’ve done for Sara. I need only look at her to see how well she’s been taken care of.”

“There’s no need to flatter me,” Hetty snapped.

Blair still hung on to his manners.

“I’m not flattering you, Hetty. I am genuinely grateful for what you’ve done for my daughter.” Blair truly was, too. There had been nowhere else he could have sent his daughter when his business troubles began.

Unplacated, Hetty marched up the carpet and back again, looking as though she wanted to toss Blair out the window.

“The truth is, Blair, it was my intention never to speak a word to you again. Unfortunately, uh, circumstance has prevented that.”

Hoping to make his exit before more hot words erupted, Blair edged away from the sofa. He hadn’t forgotten the episode at the funeral and knew what Hetty was capable of when she really got worked up.

“That is unfortunate.. .for both of us.”

Hetty had no intention of letting Blair escape so easily. Drawing herself up, she attacked the main issue head on.

“Am I to assume, then, that you’re here to take Sara?” she demanded with a voice frigid enough to freeze the tea in the pot.

“Yes.”

There was no point in hedging about the matter now. Blair only stated the stark, bald truth.

Something like panic struck Hetty, though she quickly covered it. She had taken in her Sister’s child, been a mother to her and grown deeply attached to her. Now this man expected to waltz into Rose Cottage at will and hustle the child away. Well, now this man had Hetty King to deal with! As always, when pushed into a corner, Hetty came out fighting. She clenched her fists and planted herself firmly in front of Blair.

“How foolish of me to think otherwise, knowing you as I do. True to form, you dropped her on us when it was convenient for you, and now I suppose it’s convenient for you to take her away?”

Blair was not used to being talked to that way, and his craggy face tensed.

“I don’t think this is the kind of conversation we should be having in front of Sara,” he muttered stiffly.

To emphasize the point, he stalked out into the front hall. Olivia, ever the peacemaker, pursued him.

“Blair, please,” she pleaded helplessly.

Peace seemed pretty much a long shot right then Hetty, bent on recriminations, sped in Blair’s wake. She caught him pulling on his boots and closed in for combat.

“Admit it, Blair, Sara stands a better chance of growing up a normal, healthy child in Avonlea than ever she would m that pampered little world of yours in Montreal. Oh, she goes to a proper school here. She’s got color in her cheeks She managed without a nursemaid catering to her every whim.”

This was rapidly becoming a case of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. Blair gritted his teeth, almost yanked a hook off his overshoe, but still clung to his self-control.

“Please, Hetty, I am her father, and you won’t find me as easy to dispatch as Sara’s Nanny Louisa.”

As calmly as he could, Blair was asserting his rights as a parent, rights Hetty had become accustomed to thinking of as her own. Blair might as well have issued a direct challenge with trumpet and gauntlet. Hetty began to quiver all over.

“I want you out of the house immediately.”

Blair nodded. The last place he wanted to be trapped now was in Rose Cottage with Hetty in a rage.

“Gladly. Please have Sara ready to leave tomorrow at nine a.m. sharp.”

He turned to find Olivia and Sara standing horror-stricken in the doorway of the parlor.

“Blair, please,” Olivia tried again.

“I’m truly sorry, Olivia,” Blair said to her, kindly but firmly.

Sara, too, made a beseeching gesture. She had been so sure that a nice cup of tea and a chat at Rose Cottage would change his mind. How could she ever have imagined such a fracas would ensue? Now she saw her father was deadly serious about getting on the train with her tomorrow.

“Papa...”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’ll be all right. I’ll be staying with Janet and Alec, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

With that, Blair kissed Sara goodbye and tramped out the door without so much as a backward glance at Hetty. Olivia remained standing, rigid with shock. Sara burst into tears and rushed as fast as she could up the stairs to her room. Hetty winced at the slam of Sara’s door and turned her ire upon Olivia.

“Olivia, I hold you responsible for all of this. I cannot believe you would be so senseless and—and thoughtless as to allow that man in this house m the first place”

At this totally irrational accusation, Olivia flushed a violent red. She couldn’t see what difference being inside or outside of Rose Cottage would have made to Blair’s decision.

“I was just being courteous, Hetty. Blair is family, after all.”

And with this, Olivia, too, bolted upstairs, leaving Hetty to contemplate the total ruin of the afternoon.