A FEATHER IN THE STREAM

By Dakota Balmore

 THIRD PLACE WINNER 

Of the Florida Writers Association's 2005
Royal Palm Literary Awards for unpublished novels.

Being published as an Ebook in March, 2011 through Scriptor Publishing Co., Inc.

In 1806 Surrey, England, it's "The Fugitive meets Roots" as adopted Lady Laura Sommers staves off romance from multiple suitors to seek the haunting mysteries of her past.

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CHAPTER ONE

The Reply

"Papa! Mama!" Lady Laura yelled, dashing down the hall toward the back parlor of her parent's mansion. "It came! It came! I received a reply!"

     Turning the corner of the archway entrance, all the training in proper etiquette and behavior of the twenty-year-old daughter of a Lord and Lady reinstated itself, quelling her overwhelming elation. Sucking in her excitement, Laura strutted with the grace of a Princess into the room.

     Her father and mother, Lord and Lady Sommers, sat on an elaborate French Louis XVI sofa edged in gilt trim engaged in afternoon tea. On a separate Louis XVI chair adjacent to them, perched Laura's fifteen-year-old sister.

     "Papa. Mama," she said with a great deal more restraint. Holding up the letter, she could not resist a traitorous grin. "It came. The reply to my inquiry."

     On a squelched laugh, Laura's sister spit tea back into her cup.

     "Opal," Lady Sommers snapped, "you must learn to control your childish impulses. After all, in two more years you will be coming out."

     Lord Sommers eased his tea onto the silver serving tray planted in the middle of a mahogany table. "What is this about a reply, my little angel?"

     Laura gathered in all her loose emotions, stuffed them back inside herself, and continued. "The inquiry concerning my real parents. Pray, you remember I sent posts to several London churches asking if there was anything in their records about a green-eyed, redheaded girl having come into their jurisdiction fifteen or so years ago?" She thrust the letter toward her parents, her eyes wide open and the corners of her mouth stretching upwards into a smile of girlish ecstasy. "Well, here it is. Saint Giles-in-the-Fields in Soho has responded."

     "Cherub," her father said, "how do you know the response is favorable? Perhaps they have written to tell you they found no such record."

     Unable to keep her excitement contained, Laura darted to the table and broke the seal on the letter. "Because they were the only church to respond. I asked every inquiry to only correspond in kind if they possessed such a record. Pray, let me read it to you:

"Dear Lady Sommers, In reply to your brief request for information on our congregation, please be advised we have record of but one such child ever coming to the attention of this parish. Seventeen years ago, in 1789, a child fitting the description and age of your mention indeed did come to us. Upon recent revelation, it has been determined she is the illegitimate daughter of King George III."

     Lowering the letter, Laura's heart shriveled down to the size of a prune and hardened into a cold, dark mass. She eyed her family offering them a sour face.

     Opal spit out a brief laugh, which ended after being slapped by her mother's scowl.

     Her father coughed. "The illegitimate daughter of George III? It does seem a bit peculiar."

     Reviving her finest etiquette and upbringing, Opal lowered her teacup to the silver tray. "It is no wonder my sister behaves in a daft manner a majority of the time." After two reprimanding glares, one each from a disturbed parent, Opal continued in a civil tone. "Well, read on."

     Her nerve endings frozen numb, Laura drew her attention to the letter with the demeanor of a person forced into a trance by a magician.

"We hope the above news does not dishearten nor discourage you, but it is our recommendation, since coming from such a disgraceful background, you keep it hushed up; if not for the protection of your reputation, then for the reputation of our beloved King George, fine fellow that he is. Good luck, Princess."

     Laura choked on the last word as her heart flew into her throat demanding to stand on the edge of her teeth and leap to its suicide. Her breathing strained like a bellows in a smithy's shop. She gazed at her father, her face screwed up in confusion. "I do not understand. Something is wrong."

     Lord Sommers stretched out a hand. "Pray, allow me to examine it."

     Opal reached for a cake. "You may examine to your heart's content, Papa, but scandalous it will remain. You should have had two natural daughters instead of just one. I am glad I do not have to go searching about into sordid backgrounds of questionable heritage. I know mine."

     "Opal," Lady Sommers scolded. "Mind your manners. Laura is just as much a Sommers as you or I. And you know you are under strict orders not to talk about Laura's background. Not even to us. I rue the day your father ever told her about it. If word ever escaped, well, think of how it would affect your father's reputation in Parliament."

     Lord Sommers swished a hand through the air. "Oh, my dear, not to worry. Our secret at least gave benefit to a poor abandoned orphan. There was no hanky-panky about it, as there is with some of my peers in Parliament, the possessors of shadier secrets."

     "But what of our status in this community?" Lady Sommers asked, easing a hand over her heart.

     "Again, not to worry. We are the rock of our community. I dare say the secret may escape someday, but these things have a way of staying under wraps. Anyone finding out would keep it within a small circle, for the truth of it is, to damage our house would be to damage all of Weybridge. Now, I ask you, who could do such a thing?"

     Lady Sommers fanned herself and glanced around at each. "I certainly hope you are right, my dear."

     Lord Sommers again turned his attention to the letter by flipping it to the addressed side. "There you are, my cherub, you are the victim of a hoax. This letter is not posted in London, but right here in Weybridge."

     "What?" Laura snatched the letter away in an unladylike fashion, which her father ignored. As she gawked at it, she could not keep her tears from welling up. "I do not understand, Papa. Who would perform such a cruel gesture?"

     Opal burst into laughter with a cake half in her mouth, which produced half gaiety and half choking. Recovering from the gagging, she laughed so hard it seemed her corset would split open.

     Laura glowered through her tears at her sister and tossed the letter on the table. "You, you beast! You persuaded another to write it so I would not recognize your hand."

     Slapping one hand over her mouth, Opal choked the laughter off and wiped a tear from her left eye. "No, I wrote it with my left hand."

     Laura's eyes opened wide. Having never spawned a violent thought in her life, she found herself amongst one then, hands wrapped around her sister's throat, holding her out from a window on the second floor. "How could you?"

     Opal pretended to write on imaginary paper with an imaginary pen in her left hand spelling out her second word. "Very c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y." She fell into fits of laughter as Laura spun and dashed through the archway.

     Lord and Lady Sommers sipped their brew in simultaneous choreography. On setting their cups down in unison, they turned to Opal who had just shed the last of her laughter.

     "My dearest," Lady Sommers began, "do you think it an amiable gesture to perform for your sister?"

     "Yes, Pippin, Apple of my Eye," Lord Sommers added, picking up his cup and sipping from it. "You know how important it is to Laura to search for her roots."

     Opal stretched her face into a scowl. "You, at least, do not have to hear it day in and day out as I do. She is twenty years old and should show more concern for a suitor." Pointing to the letter on the table before her, she continued with emphatic persuasion. "I say if she discovers her real past it may very well be something unpleasant. Who is to say she is not the illegitimate daughter of King George? Answer me that."

     "You must put yourself in her place," Lady Sommers purred. "Your father and I knew when we found her a stray in London one day her curiosity would get the better of her. This is just a temporary obsession. It is for us to sit back and allow her to act upon it in the manner of her choosing. You know very well Arthur Hailey of Brookshire House is seeking her hand."

     Opal let out a childish sigh. "Well, the Baron's son can seek all he likes, because that sister of mine, with no history at all, has not a hand available. Her hands are too busy searching for something else."

     Lord Sommers laid his cup down a little too hard on its saucer causing an inadvertent libation to spill from its rim. He leapt up and scowled down at his daughter. "By order of this house, Opal, you are commanded to go to your sister and apologize. And nevermore will you write such a letter of deception. Then I want you to go back to Miss Talbot and continue your afternoon lessons."

     Knowing better than to defy a patriarch, Opal rose. "Yes, Papa." She strolled with royal poise to the archway, stopped, and twirled around. "It is just too bad you thought you could not have children, Mama. Just think; had you waited another few years you never would have had the need to clandestinely adopt. And I would not have a sister, which would have suited me just fine."

     Her parents shook their heads with synchronized scowls on the faces. "Opal!"

     The youngest Lady plunged her head down to hide a smile and waltzed childlike out of the room. In the faint distance of the hall, Lord and Lady Sommers heard a laugh; but each thought it so faint they guessed it to be their imagination.

Pattering up the stairs to the bedchambers, Opal knocked on Laura's door. When no response issued from behind it, she listened and detected sobbing.

     Opal knocked again. "Laura, please let me in. Father said I must apologize. Let me do it and return to the governess for my lessons." Opal listened, and after several seconds, she heard her sister's footsteps approach the door. When it opened, Opal offered a nearly authentic smile.

     "Come in," Laura murmured, returning a frown. She spun around and meandered back to her vanity. Sitting down in front of it, Laura snatched up a kerchief and wiped her eyes.

     Opal stepped in and twirled a ringlet on the right side of her head. "I am sorry, Laura."

     Laura blew into the kerchief, wiped her nose, and swung her head around. "That was the most horrible and wicked thing anyone has ever done to me."

     "You do not know that for certain," Opal offered, walking toward her. "What of the three years you wandered the streets of London as an infant. Someone may have done many despicable things to you, and many more had not papa pulled you from the gutter."

     Sniffing once more and returning the kerchief to the vanity top, Laura sneered through the mirror. "Thank you, dear sister. I always have you to remind me of my nebulous origins."

     "I think it would have been better if father had never told you about your circumstance."

     "Well, he did, and now I am curious." Laura licked her lips to the taste of salt. "Oh, I know the last thing you want to do is apologize, so I suppose you should go on to Miss Talbot. I shall recover in due time."

     "Well, confound it all," Opal exploded, stomping a foot on the floor. "Mother and father live in a dream. You do not suppose your secret is only confined to our family, do you? I feel many people have guessed it."

     Opal closed her half-open mouth in interruption of herself and spun around. On reaching the door, she twirled back toward her sister. "Why must you persist? Your history is lost. You were three years old then, and tomorrow you are one-and-twenty. Why not leave it alone and move on?"

     For Laura, uncharacteristic bitterness usurped remorse. "Opal, tomorrow is the celebration of my birthday, which of course father incorporates into his Summer Gala Ball. We will celebrate the summer with the townspeople. My birthday is an insignificant lost fact no one cares anything about, and least of all I."

     "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Your self-pity borders on groveling, and a fine Lady never grovels. I am Lady Opal, and you Lady Laura. Though I deserve it more and am a true Lady, you are at least permitted to wear the title, so do it justice."

     Opal whirled around, thought for a moment, and then turned back. "You ought to desist this exploration of your past. Let it lie before you dig up something really dirty. My letter should serve as a lesson, not as a prank. The people of Weybridge already judge you with a critical eye. Though we have told no one of your past, your very features betray your origins. We all have black hair and brown eyes. How could my parents produce a bright redhead with green-eyes? The conclusion is you are adopted … or illegitimate."

     After the sting reached Laura's heart and broke it into enough pieces for a good-sized jigsaw puzzle, she threw her head down and sobbed as Opal reached for the door. Closing it behind her, she reopened it again. "I am sorry, Laura."

     Judging the sincerity of her sister's voice to be genuine, Laura threw her a smile. "I know you are."

     In another second, the door closed, and Opal strutted on to her governess.

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