Текст книги "It Began in Vauxhall Gardens"

Автор книги: Jean Plaidy

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walnut banisters. "They represent members of the family. But you need daylight to see them."

"I look forward to to-morrow. I am sorry that I arrive in darkness. I shall sleep to-night in a house I do not see. It will be a strangeness."

Caroline had been silent. She had been aware that Peg, who must be listening, was with them. She had been thankful for Peg's stupidity, for one did not want such conversation repeated in the servants' hall. She had been glad when they were in the bedroom and Peg had set down her candle and lighted those in the sconces.

"Go and fetch hot water for Mademoiselle St. Martin," had said Caroline. "Or would you like her to help you unpack first, Mademoiselle?"

"There is so little to unpack."

"Peg," Caroline had commanded, "unpack the bag, please."

"Yes, Miss Caroline."

While she had been doing this, Caroline had gone to the window and Melisande followed.

Caroline had said: "You can't see a thing. It's as dark as a shaft, as the mining people say." She drew the curtains then. "There, that's better. I hope you will be happy here. We are a sombre household just at this time. My mother*. . ."

"Yes, I hear . . . from your father. I am so sorry. It is a very great sadness. I know how sad. My own mother I never knew, but that does not mean I cannot have the sympathy. When your father told me . . ."

Caroline had cut her short. "It was so unexpected. She was not strong but when it came ... we were unprepared."

Tears had filled Melisande's eyes. She who had never known a mother, who saw all mothers as idealized saints—a mixture of the Mother Superior and Madame Lefevre—believed the loss of a mother to be the greatest tragedy in the world.

Caroline had said almost angrily: "But if she had not died . . . I suppose you would not be here."

A short silence had followed during which Melisande had thought: She is angry with me. This is a sadness. She has taken a dislike to me.

Peg had unpacked the bag and gone for hot water. Caroline had turned to Melisande and said quickly: "My wedding had to be postponed."

"I am sorry. That must make unhappiness for you."

"We are disappointed . . . both of us."

"I understand."

"Mr. Holland has tried to persuade his people and my father that we should not wait. But there is . . . convention, you know. It distresses us both."

"Convention?"

"Yes. The need to behave as people would expect... in a manner which is due to our position."

Melisande had been about to speak but Caroline had gone on quickly: "When my father wrote saying he was bringing you, he seemed to imply that you were quite a different sort of person.'*

"What sort of person?"

"He wrote saying that he had found a poor person who needed a home, and as Mamma had just died and my wedding had been postponed, he knew I must be lonely, so he had engaged her on the spot. He made her appear to be about forty, very poor, grey-haired, very prim and . . . grateful. At least that is the picture I had in my mind."

"I am poor!" Melisande had cried with a smile. "And if I have not yet forty years then I shall one day. Prim I could be; grateful I am. I hope I shall not always disappoint."

"Oh no ... no. I am sure you will quickly understand us . . . and fit in with us. Your English is a little quaint . . . but I'm sure you will soon be as one of us."

Soon after that Peg had come back with the hot water, and telling Melisande that if there was anything she wanted she must pull the bell rope and someone would come and attend to her wants, Caroline said goodnight and left her.

So Melisande had undressed, washed in the hip bath, put on the cotton nightgown which she had brought with her from the Convent and got into bed. And now she found she was too excited for sleep. She could not stop thinking of the people whom she had met, and chiefly she thought of Fermor and Caroline; the one who so clearly wanted to be her friend, the other of whom she was unsure.

But life was exciting. To-morrow she would see the house; she would get to know it and all the people who lived in it.

As the firelight threw a flickering light about the room she thought of the cold bedrooms at the Convent. Even in winter there had been no fires in the bedrooms there.

She was just beginning to doze when there was a knock on her door. She started. The knock was repeated.

"Please come in," she called, and into the room came the woman she had seen when she had arrived at the house—the one whom they had called Wenna.

She stood by the door and for some inexplicable reason she alarmed Melisande. Perhaps it was because she looked fierce, angry. Why should she be angry with Melisande who had only just arrived at the house?

Melisande sat up in bed.

"I just wondered if you had all you needed," said the woman.

"That is so good ... so kind."

Wenna came slowly to the bed and looked down on Melisande. "I shouldn't by rights have disturbed you once you were in bed. I didn't think you'd be there yet though."

"But I am glad you came. It is a kindness."

"Well, you comfortable, eh? This must be a bit strange . . . after the place you come from, I reckon?"

"It is very different."

"Did Peg look after 'ee? She do dream so. I wondered if she'd brought what you wanted. She do seem piskymazed half the time."

Melisande laughed softly. Why had she thought the woman was angry? Clearly she was trying to be kind. "Peg was very good. Everybody is very good."

"Then I didn't have no cause to come bothering."

"It was no bothering. It was a goodness."

"You come from across the water . . . from foreign parts?"

"Yes."

"And lived there all your life?"

"I lived in a convent."

"My dear life! That must have been a queer place to live."

"It did not seem so. It seemed . . . just the place where I lived."

"I suppose you was put there by your father ... or your mother."

"I . . . suppose so."

"Seems a queer way of going on. Is it the foreign way then?"

"Well, they died, you see; and I had a guardian who thought I should be better in the Convent than, anywhere else. I think that was why I went."

"My dear land! Fancy that! And you never saw your father?"

"No."

"Nor your mother?"

"No."

"But this guardian of yours . . . you had him. He was something, wasn't he?"

"Oh yes, he v/as something."

"Poor young lady! Did he come to see you often, this guardian?"

"No. He just arranged things for me."

"And I suppose he was a friend of our master's like?"

"I ... I don't know. I don't know very much."

" 'Twas queer like, to keep you in the dark."

Melisande was uncomfortable. She wanted the woman to go, for now she had an idea that with all her questions she was trying to trap her into betraying her kind benefactor. That was something which Melisande had decided she would never do. All her life she would remain grateful to him.

"I only know that I have been looked after . . . fed and educated; and now that I am old enough this post has been found for me."

"I reckon you must feel pretty curious about all this. I know I would. I reckon I wouldn't leave no stone unturned."

"I lived with children most of whom did not know their parents. Thank you. It was good of you to ask. Peg has been very good and helpful. I am enjoying a comfort here."

Wenna was not going to be dismissed as easily as that.

She said: "Ah, a pity you didn't come earlier than this. This was a happy house not so long ago when my mistress was alive."

"It was a great tragedy. I have heard of it."

"She was an angel. I'd looked after her most of my life."

"I am very sorry for you. It is a tragic."

"And then to die! She was always delicate. I knew she'd catch her death sitting out there in the cold. She ought to have had her wrap. I'll never forget it. She was like an ice-block when I went out to her. It need not have happened. That's the pity of it. I know it need not have happened." Melisande was conscious of the intensity of this woman, of the passionate anger within her. "Then," she went on slowly, "I suppose if it hadn't happened you wouldn't be here . . . would you? You wouldn't be in that nice comfortable bed with a fire in your grate. You'd be in that Convent where you'd been brought up. That's what would have happened if the mistress hadn't died."

Melisande was uncertain what to say. She had a wild fancy that the woman was accusing her of being in some obscure way to blame for the death of her mistress.

She stammered: "I suppose Miss Caroline would not have needed a companion if her mother had lived. She would have married very soon and ..."

"Yes, she would have married, and when she married I should have gone with her. I shall go with her when she marries."

"You are very fond of her," said Melisande.

The woman was silent. After a while she said: "Well, there's nothing you want. Everything's all right?"

"Yes, thank you."

She went out. Melisande lay back staring at the door.

What a strange woman! Melisande could not get rid of the fancy that she had not meant all she had said and that she had had some strange purpose in coming to her room.

She could not sleep for a long time, and then she would doze and awake startled to find herself looking towards the door. It was almost as though she expected it to open and Wenna to come in– for what purpose she did not know; she only knew that it made her uneasy.

The weeks began to pass—exciting, wonderful weeks for Melisande, filled with a hundred new experiences.

There was a new world to be explored.

It had been an exciting discovery to look from her windows and see the sea not more than a mile away. She had stood delightedly at her window on that first morning and looked out across the bay to the great strip of land which was like a battering ram flung out into the water; she saw the clouds gathered over the headland and because it was early morning and the sun was beginning to rise, those pink-tinted clouds made a coral-coloured sea.

She was then to live in a beautiful place, in a large luxurious house; she had to make the acquaintance of so many people. The house seemed full of servants and it needed all her gay carelessness of English convention to make their acquaintance. They were inclined to be aloof at first. They were deeply conscious of social layers. It was true she was not on the same shelf as the master and mistress, but neither did she belong on theirs. But Melisande inconsequentially did not see these differences. The servants were people; they lived in the same house as she did; she was eager to know them. First she charmed Mr. Meaker and the footman; and her delighted wonder in the pies and pasties of Mrs. Soady's making soon won her the regard of that excellent cook. The maids were amused and delighted with her; she was never haughty and she could be relied upon to give them her considerate help. The menservants thought her a real charmer and no mistake. She was undoubtedly a great success.

Her foreign ways delighted everyone. Her quaint speech amused while it gave listeners a sense of superiority which was pleasant. She would laugh with them. "Oh, I have said a funniness. Do tell me what you would have said." She would listen gravely and thank them charmingly. Oh, she was a caution all right, they all agreed; a charming caution. She must know this and that. She was full of energy and no matter was too insignificant for her attention.

If only she could have been so sure of her success in the drawing-room as in the servants' hall, Melisande would have been contented. But the family embarrassed her in some way or another.

Sir Charles had so many engagements that she saw very little of him. Caroline never seemed at ease in her presence. Caroline was the mistress and wished that to be clearly understood; but Melisande felt that the one thing Caroline would really have liked to ask her to do she could not, and that was to leave the house.

At the beginning Caroline said to Melisande: "I have never had a companion before. I have had governesses. I suppose a companion would be in the same class. My governesses always had their meals in the little room which adjoins the schoolroom. I think that is

where you had better have yours. You wouldn't wish to have them with the family, would you? Except perhaps on special occasions. I remember my governesses had luncheon with us once a week. That was so that Papa and Mamma could ask questions about my progress. Sometimes they wanted an extra woman for a dinner party. Then one of the governesses would be asked. But on all other occasions they had their meals in this little room. It's difficult. You see, you couldn't be expected to eat with the servants."

Melisande laughed aloud. "No? I would not mind. They are my very good friends. Mrs. Soady and Mr. Meaker ..."

Caroline's mouth tightened a little as it did when she found it necessary to repress the new companion.

"Most governesses would have been offended if they were asked to eat with the lower servants. And of course it would have been quite wrong. So I think it would be a good plan if you had your meals in that room. ..."

So Melisande ate her meals alone in the room. It was of no importance although she would have liked the company of Sir Charles and Mr. Holland or the servants. She was fond of company and it was good fun to laugh and chatter.

Caroline said on that first morning: "I don't know what Papa expected you to do. Lady Gover has a companion. She reads to Lady Gover every afternoon; but then Lady Gover is almost blind, and in any case I shouldn't want to be read to. She makes Lady Gover's clothes too. Of course, there's Pennifield . . . and Wenna does a lot of sewing for me."

"That makes me very happy. I do not like to sew."

Caroline's smile was icy. "There will be sewing for the poor each day. My mother used to read aloud from a good book while I worked. Perhaps we may take it in turns to sew and read." She was implying that it was not for Melisande to say what she liked to do; if it was part of her duty to do such a thing she should do it.

Melisande looked at her pleadingly and pressed her lips tightly together to prevent her indiscreet comment. She wanted to say: "Please like me, because I cannot bear to be disliked. Please tell me what it is you do not like, and I will try to change it."

But she merely looked prettier than ever and that was exactly what irritated Caroline. If she had been ugly—forty, prim and grateful—Caroline would have thought of ways to be kind to her. Caroline did not want to be unkind; she was only unkind to those she feared; and she feared this girl for all her poverty and dependence.

She had spoken to her father that very morning, going to his study even though she knew he did not like to be disturbed there.

"Papa," she had said, "I cannot understand why you have

brought this girl here. I do not want a companion. I have plenty to do preparing for my wedding."

"I think you should have a companion for a year or so—until you are married,'* he had answered. "I wish you to perfect your knowledge of the French language. You need a young lady companion when you go visiting."

"People will not receive her."

''They will receive her as your companion. She is a gentlewoman and well educated—better educated, I fear, than you are. She is quiet and modest and would, I am sure, be received anywhere."

"Quiet! Modest! I would not describe her so!"

"You are extremely selfish, Caroline. This girl needs a post. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"I am sorry for anyone who has to work, but that does not mean I want a companion. Why not find someone who does . . . someone like Lady Gover?"

"Lady Gover is very well satisfied with the companion she has. When you no longer have need of Miss St. Martin's services, I shall be obliged to find her another situation. In the meantime I should be glad if you would accept her as your companion and act as a well-bred young lady is expected to act—thinking a little of others less fortunate than herself."

Fermor was equally unsympathetic. When he said that it was a shame the poor girl had to eat alone, Caroline had retorted sharply: "You seem very interested in her."

"Interested! Well, she's a bit of a character. It's the way she talks. I find that amusing."

"She would find it uncomfortable if she were expected to have her meals with us, and I have no doubt that she thinks herself too good for the servants' hall. They always do. I remember there was always embarrassment about the governesses. One is always in danger of offending their susceptibilities. I suppose companions are the same. Genteel poverty is such a bore."

"Why not ask her which she prefers?" suggested Fermor. "I'm sure her ideas on the matter would be original."

"You forget that she is only a servant—although she's supposed to be a superior one."

He shrugged his shoulders; she sensed that he would have pursued the matter, but he was aware that she had noticed his interest in the girl.

Caroline had said that there should be an hour in the morning which they would devote to conversation in French,

During the first hour when this was in progress Fermor came into the library.

"You wanted me?" asked Caroline.

"No. I thought Pd take advantage of a little instruction myself. That is if Mademoiselle has no objection."

Melisande smiled warmly. Very ready, thought Caroline, to accept admiration. "There is no objection!" she cried. "There is only great welcome."

"Sit down then," said Caroline. "But do remember that nothing but French is to be spoken during this hour."

"Mon Dieu!" cried Fermor, lifting his shoulders in an attempt at suitable gesticulation.

Melisande laughed in great amusement, and there followed a torrent of French asking him if he had been in France, if so in what part, and if he had found any difficulty in making himself understood.

"Have pity!" he cried. "Have pity on a poor Englishman."

Caroline said sharply: "Really, Fermor, this is not what Papa intended."

"A thousand apologies." He began to answer Melisande's questions in French, so slowly and laboriously and with such an appalling accent—which Caroline was sure was greatly exaggerated—that Melisande could not understand until he had repeated some words several times. Then she would teach him how to say those words, and they would both laugh outrageously at his efforts.

Caroline watching them was tense with jealousy. She thought: It will always be like that. I shall never be able to trust him with an attractive woman. He'll never be different. He would not have thought of me if our parents had not arranged the marriage. He would have preferred someone like this girl—as he is preferring her now.

"Monsieur speaks very bad French," Melisande was saying with mock severity.

"It is time you took me in hand," he said in English. "Mademoiselle, it must not be only for an hour a day. You must talk to me often, for clearly I cannot go about the world in such ignorance."

How dare he! thought Caroline. He knows that I am watching, but he does not care!

"But French, Monsieur!" cried Melisande. "You have forgotten."

"Monsieur is very bad scholar, yes?" he said in broken English. "He deserves much punishment?"

"Fermor," said Caroline sharply, "Papa would say you are wasting time. He is most anxious for me to have French lessons. That is why Mademoiselle was engaged."

"I'll be good," he said, smiling from Melisande to Caroline. "I'll

sit, meek and mild, and speak only when spoken to . . . and then it shall be in French ... if I can manage it."

"It is only by speaking that you can improve," said Melisande. "You are very very bad, it is true, but I think you are eager to learn, and that is a very good thing."

"I am very eager," he said, putting his hand on his heart. "I am very eager to please you."

The hour progressed—for Caroline most unhappily. She was glad when she could stop the lesson.

"Shall we go for a ride?" she asked Fermor.

"The very thing! After all that brain work I need a little exercise."

"Come on then."

"What about Mademoiselle St. Martin?"

Caroline was aghast. How could he suggest such a thing! He was not treating her as a servant; he was behaving as though she were a guest in the house.

Melisande said: "Alas, I do not ride a horse. It was not taught me in the Convent."

He laughed. "I suppose not. I can't help laughing. I just had a picture of nuns on horseback ... in full gallop, black wings flapping. They'd look like prehistoric animals, wouldn't they? But I say, Mademoiselle Melisande, we can't allow this, you know. You can't ride! That's impossible! I mean of course, that we must put that right. Hunting is the noblest sport. Didn't you know that? You must ride. I'll teach you. You are teaching me to speak French. I'll teach you how to manage a horse."

"But that would be wonderful. I should like to be a rider. You are very good. I am filled with happiness."

"Then it's a bargain. Shake hands on it. When will you be ready for the first lesson?"

Caroline said quickly: "You forget, Fermor, you're going back to London next week."

"I'll stay a little longer. There's nothing I have to go back for. I'll wait until Mademoiselle Melisande is cantering round the paddock before I leave."

"I think," said Caroline, "that as Mademoiselle St. Martin is employed by my father, and you propose teaching her to ride on my father's horse, it might be advisable to ask his permission first."

"You are right, of course," said Fermor.

Caroline smiled faintly. "I'll ask him if he approves."

"I'll do the asking," said Fermor. "Perhaps to-morrow, Mademoiselle Melisande, you shall have your first lesson."

"Thank you, but I should not wish to if it were not the desire of Sir Charles and Miss Caroline."

"Leave it to me," he said. "I'll see to it."

Then smiling, he went out with Caroline, leaving her alone in the library caught up by her intermingling emotions, deciding that life in the outside world was more complicated than life in a convent.

As they rode out of the stable Fermor said: "What a bad temper you are in this morning!"

"I?"

"Certainly you. Weren't you rather rude to that poor girl?"

"I thought what I said was necessary.*'

"Necessary to hurt her feelings!"

"I wonder whether you would have been so solicitous of her feelings if she had had a squint and a hare lip."

"Would you have been so anxious to hurt her feelings if she had?"

"That is not the point."

"My dear Caroline, it is the point."

"You can't teach her to ride."

"Why not? I'm sure she'll make an excellent horsewoman."

"You forget she is only employed here."

"I may have forgotten, but you reminded me . . . remember . . . right there before her."

The tears filled her eyes. She said: "I can't help it. It makes me so unhappy to be . . . slighted . . . like that ... to be humiliated before a servant."

He could be very cold sometimes; he was cold now. He said: "It was you who humiliated yourself, treating her as you did."

He rode on in advance of her; she stared at his straight back and blinked away the tears. She thought: I am so unhappy. He does not love me. He never did. He will marry me because-, the marriage has been arranged. I would marry him if the whole world were against us.

They had reached the cliff path and she was glad that they had to pick their way carefully.

"We'll get down on to the beach," he said. "We'll have a gallop over the sand."

"All right," she answered.

She was thinking: Perhaps she'll be no good on a horse. Perhaps she'll have a violent fall . . . spoil her looks. She might even break her neck. That was a terrible thought and she was sorry she had had it. She did not mean to be unkind. If only her father had brought

her a poor middle-aged woman who needed kindness, how kind she would have been!

She was more composed when they were on the beach, and she came level with him. He turned his head and seeing her thus was greatly relieved.

"Come on," he said; and they were off, past the great rocks in which were streaks of pink quartz and amethyst, sending the seagulls squawking out of their path.

He began to sing for very enjoyment.

"On Richmond Hill there lives a lass ..."

She heard his voice mingling with the drumming of hoofs on the sand.

Melisande had been in the house six weeks when the thought came to her: I must not stay here. I must go away.

She was panic-stricken at the thought, for where should she go? How could she be happy away from here ? If Caroline had wanted her she could have been happy; but Caroline showed her so clearly that she had no right to be here. The French lessons continued– they were more or less a command from Sir Charles—and they played duets on the piano, but this Caroline could do as well as she could and so, as far as music was concerned, Melisande could teach her nothing. They did a little embroidery together, but here again Caroline was so much more efficient with the needle. Sometimes in the evenings she would join in a game of whist, taking Miss Holland's place if that lady was too tired to play or was suffering from one of her frequent headaches. But even that had to be taught her, for she had never played the game before. She and Sir Charles would be partners on these occasions; she wished that Fermor would partner her. Sir Charles would admonish her gently: "Oh, Mademoiselle, that was rather impetuous playing. You see, had you waited I could have taken that trick ..." She had the impression that he wished to be indulgent but that he was afraid of seeming too eager to excuse her; whereas Fermor would come boldly in to her defence. Whist did not therefore ease the tension; and she often wondered what she had to offer for her board and lodging, for a place in this lovely mansion.

To her it seemed such an exciting place with its great hall which, she had heard, had done service as a ballroom, and in which, in the old days, the whole family including the servants had taken their

meals; she could have spent many interested hours in the galleries with the portraits of long dead Trevennings; there were parts of the house which had not changed since the days of Henry VIII; there was the magnificent carved staircase, and the large lofty rooms with their latticed windows and diamond-shaped panes, and those fascinating deep window seats. The servants* quarters were the most ancient; to descend to the great stone-floored kitchen with its huge fireplace and cloam oven, to see the cellars, the pantries, the butteries, was indeed to step back into the past.

There was so much that she had grown to love. She enjoyed rising early, leaping out of bed to stand at her window and watch the sun rise over the sea which seemed different every day. Sometimes it sparkled as though an extravagant god had scattered diamonds on its surface; sometimes it was overshadowed by mist, a creeping thing that seemed to be coming slowly onwards, but never came; she was excited to see it angry, lashing the rocks, contemptuously throwing up a broken spar, a mane of seaweed; to see it in a merry mood, tossing up the spume on the summit of its wave, catching it as a child catches a ball. She would look out across the sea to the Eddy-stone Lighthouse, like a slim pencil in the clear morning light, away towards Plymouth in the east and Looe Island in the west. It was a joy to ramble over the rocks, to stand alone watching the effortless flight of seagulls, to wander in the fields and lanes; she found great pleasure in walking down into the town and along by the quay, calling a greeting to the fishermen sitting at their cottage doors mending their nets, to walk out on the jetty and feel the salt sea air in her face; she liked to look back at the grey houses of the towns, the cottages on both sides of the river, some little more than huts, some much grander with their ornamental ridged tiles which she had learned were called the pisky-pows because they had been made so that the piskies might dance there during the night; and the piskies were friendly to those who gave them an alfresco ballroom.

There was so much to know, so much to learn; she was the friend of them all because they knew how anxious she was to be their friend. They would call her in to drink a little metheglin or mead, blackberry or gilliflower wine, to taste a piece of raisin cake, which they called fuggan—but that was for special occasions; there was always a piece of heavy cake or saffron cake for the young foreign lady at any time.

She had as many friends in West Looe as in East Looe. People were always glad to see her whom they called the little Mamazel. And although there were some in West Looe who would resent her friendship with the people who lived on the other side of the river, and some in East Looe who thought she owed allegiance to them– for the two towns liked to keep themselves apart—they forgave

in Mamazel that which would have seemed duplicity in others.

Melisande knew of these resentments but she pretended not to. She was not, for the sake of East Looe, going to cut from her list of friends that wonderful old woman, Grandmother Tremorney, any more than she would, for the sake of the West, give up her friendship with old Knacker Poldown. Old Knacker—and he was so small and wizened that it was easy to understand why he had been so named– with his talk of the mines and the adventures he had there until he retired and came to live on the east side in a grand house with a pisky-pow on the roof, was too good to miss; but so w r as old Lil Tremorney sitting outside her cottage, purring at her pipe, with her tales of the lovers she had had.

Melisande had so many friends and she could not bear to leave them. Only yesterday she had been called in to Mrs. Pengelly's to see the new baby and taste a bit of the kimbly which had been saved for friends. It was a delicious cake made especially for the child's christening and she was honoured to receive her share.

How could she give up such things ?

There was something else which she had to give up, and she had to admit to herself that it was what she would miss more than anything.

Fermor had been teaching her to ride for some weeks. Sir Charles had given his permission. He seemed secretly pleased and said he thought it was an excellent idea, and it was a good thing to let Fermor pay for his lessons in French. Fermor had declared that there must be a lesson every day, and he said he would not return to London until he had made Melisande into a proficient horsewoman.