03 Mary Wakefield (2 page)

Mary’s heart began to thud violently. She let the paper fall to the floor and rose to her feet. Desire for adventure surged up through all her being. No opportunity for adventure had ever come her way. She had scarcely realized that she was capable of desiring it. She had lived enveloped in the dream world of an imaginative child, long after childhood was past. Now that its mists were swept away by the death of her father and the chill necessity of earning her own living revealed she was, for the first time, free to become acquainted with her real self.

“To cross the ocean,” she said out loud. “To be in a new country. Heavens above, what an adventure!”

She snatched up the paper and read the advertisement again. In imagination she felt the pulsing of the engine beneath the deck of the ship, saw herself wrapped in a travelling rug, in a deck chair, while a steward offered her refreshment from a laden tray. Of late she had been so parsimonious that the thought of appetizing food crept more and more often into her thoughts. She was young, and though not robust was healthy.

The second reading of the advertisement only increased her desire to obtain this situation if possible. Indeed it shone out to
her as an answer to a prayer. If she could not persuade this Mr. Whiteoak to engage her, it might well be an end to her hopes of teaching. She would almost certainly have to take any sort of work that offered, no matter how distasteful.

So little was she acquainted with what was looked for as desirable in a governess that she set out to make herself as attractive as possible for the interview. She brought out her best shoes, the ones with the high heels and very pointed toes, and polished them. She put on a petticoat with embroidered flounces and a delicate green and white dress with elbow sleeves. Her father had forbidden her to go into mourning for him. Her wide-brimmed hat was trimmed with pink roses and their glossy green leaves. Her long gloves were of white silk and she wore a wide silver bracelet. She decided she was too pale and put a touch of rouge on lips and cheeks. The effect was good, she decided, and as she descended the stairs her step was lighter than it had been for months.

She and her father had lodged in this old-fashioned semi-detached house in Vincent Square and had made themselves very comfortable. Mary had a talent for making lodgings look homelike and there was nothing drab about these. When she reached the street she looked back at the balcony outside her apartment, remembering how she had stood alone on it, looking at the sky, on the night her father died, and she wondered what would be her feelings when next she stood there. Again her heart began to thud. She was afraid she would not be able to speak calmly and efficiently when she met Mr. Ernest Whiteoak. She thought of him as with large mustachios, waxed and pointed.

She mounted to the top of a bus drawn by sleek bay horses. The streets showed fresh paint and shining brasses and there were flower sellers at the corners. If there were any wretched and ragged human beings among the crowd Mary did not see them. Her eyes were attracted by the women in elegant dresses, with frills and skirts touching the pavements, and elaborately-done hair, by the men in frock-coats and tall hats, by the children carrying brightly painted hoops, being led by nurses toward the Park. Yet all she saw
passed in a moving haze, as she strained toward the interview that was to mean either so much to her or was to be the end of her hope of teaching.

At Brown’s Hotel she was told that Mr. Whiteoak was out but was expected to return shortly and was prepared to interview her in the small sitting-room. Mary walked nervously up and down the room, feeling herself too tall, as she always did when nervous and about to meet strangers. Perhaps she had better sit down, rising when Mr. Whiteoak entered, and then not quite to her full height. She composed herself, arranging her skirt to advantage and folding her hands in her lap. She examined the pictures in the room, listened to the activities of the hotel and tried to recall some lines of poetry with which to steady her nerves, but all had fled from her mind. Fear and depression took hold of her. She began to tremble so that she could see the movement in the flowers of her dress. It was the waiting. If only he would come and have it over with! She could picture him — a short stout man with an intimidating look. By the time she heard his step — for she instinctively knew it was Mr. Ernest Whiteoak — she was ready to sink to the floor in apprehension.

But how different he was from the man she had expected! He was tall, slender, smooth-shaven, of very fair complexion, gentle blue eyes, and a reassuring smile. He carried his top-hat in his hand, his frock-coat was worn with elegance, enhanced by the flower on his lapel. He was a man in his middle forties.

“I hope you have not been waiting too long,” he said. “I had business that must be attended to. Am I to understand that you are —”

He hesitated, brought to a stop by Mary’s charming appearance. Surely this young lady, as attractive as any he had seen in Regent Street this morning, was not an applicant for a position as governess.

“Yes,” she answered in a trembling voice, “I am desirous — I want very much — my name is Mary Wakefield.”

“Ah, yes, Miss Wakefield. Won’t you please be seated?” He hesitated again, then himself sat down on a small red velvet chair
quite near her. His presence was reassuring. She thought, he is kindness personified.

“I suppose you understand you would be asked to go to Canada if engaged,” he went on.

“Oh, yes. I — I want very much to go to Canada.”

“May I ask why?”

“I want to leave England. My father died some months ago. I’m — alone. I’d like to go to a new country.”

“You feel yourself capable of teaching and managing two high-spirited children of seven and nine?”

“Oh, I am sure I could. I love children.”

“Good. These are very lovable children. My brother’s young son and daughter. Their mother died when the boy was only two years old. He’s a lively customer, I may tell you.”

“I’m so glad.”

Ernest Whiteoak looked at her sharply. “You are sure you are capable. What experience have you had?”

Mary produced her reference and he read it through twice.

“Certainly,” he said, returning it to her, while his fair brow wrinkled in thought, “certainly you have not had much experience.” Then he exclaimed, in a frankly confidential tone, “The truth is, Miss Wakefield, we are in a dilemma. My mother — the children’s grandmother — had engaged a very capable, middle-aged governess for the children, one suitable in every way. Her passage was booked and she was to accompany some friends and neighbours of ours who would take her to my brother’s house. My mother then went to Devon to visit my sister, her mind quite at rest. I, myself, and my elder brother are leaving for Paris in three days, so you can imagine the fix we are in.”

“Yes?” Mary felt rather bewildered but forced an expression of eager intelligence into her eyes. “And where is the other governess?”

“She is suffering from broken legs.”

Mary looked so shocked that he wondered if he should have said limbs. He therefore amended, “Yes — both limbs were broken. By a bus.”

“Then I suppose,” faltered Mary, “that, when they mend, she will go to Canada. I mean I’m to be only temporary.”

“Not at all,” he reassured her. “There is considerable doubt of her limbs being really efficient again, and we all feel that she would need two perfectly good ones in this situation.”

If Mary’s written references were meagre, certainly her legs were admirable and she hastened to say, “Mine are.”

He gave her a startled look and then exclaimed: “Splendid.”

For some reason this talk of legs had put them on a new footing. Constraint was gone. Mary’s nerves relaxed and she smiled at him, showing her white even teeth.

By George, thought Ernest Whiteoak, she’s beautiful! He said, in a confidential tone, “The thing is that it would be necessary for you to leave in a few days.”

“As far as I am concerned,” she declared, “I can leave tomorrow.”

“I wish my mother were here to make the decision. It is really very difficult for me.” But, even as he spoke he knew that he was glad his mother was not there. He was sure she would not find this lovely creature suitable as governess to her grandchildren. But the children themselves would be charmed by her. Philip himself would be delighted by her gentleness and good breeding. Then, at that moment, he made up his mind to engage her. He was naturally indolent and the thought of looking further depressed him. He began to talk to her of salary and of the dispositions of the two children, whom he described as lovable, though high-spirited and at present a little out of hand. Without his saying so, Mary knew the matter was settled. His face was bright with the lifting of a load from his mind. Ernest Whiteoak was saying:

“I’m sure you will like Jalna. That is the name of our house. My father was an officer in India and went to Canada some forty years ago, taking my mother and my sister who was a baby then. My elder brother was born in Quebec. My father then bought a thousand acres in Ontario — mostly virgin forest — and built a house there. I was the first child born in it.” He said this with pride and Mary was impressed.

“My younger brother came along eight years later. He is the father of your future pupils and, I may remark, very easy to get on with.”

To be talked to so pleasantly, to be so put at her ease, was balm to Mary, after some of the interviews she had passed through. This was the atmosphere of the New World, she felt, and she yearned toward it. What was he saying?

“We have tried, Miss Wakefield, to preserve the ways of the Old World at Jalna, to keep ourselves free from the narrowness, the conceit, of the New. We have agreeable neighbours. I speak as though I lived at Jalna but, as a matter of fact, I and my elder brother and my sister all live in England. Still, we make long visits there and I hope that, on my next one, I shall find you most happily established with the children.”

No interview of a like nature could have passed off more pleasantly. If only Mr. Whiteoak in Canada were half as nice as the Mr. Whiteoak here she would be happier than ever she had thought possible. As she sat on the top of the bus, on her way back to Vincent Square, the air was full of happy sounds, the horses’ hoofs had a gayer rhythm, there was the distant sound of a military band, and near at hand the knife-sharpener’s tinkling bell. It seemed to Mary that the people in the streets wore brighter expressions and walked with lighter steps. She was, for the time being, too excited to think clearly. At one moment she was living over again the interview with Ernest Whiteoak, seeing his fair aquiline features, his reassuring smile, listening to his pleasant voice; at another her mind flew forward to that distant house where she was to live, and she saw another, somewhat younger edition of Ernest Whiteoak, with two angelic children clinging to his hands, and all about the house a great forest where moose and bear and wolf roamed at will, though never near enough the house to be frightening.

When, at last, she stood in front of the house in Vincent Square, she looked up at it with a strange feeling of unfamiliarity. It was receding from her. She was like a swan, sailing down a smooth stream, away from dangers and fears.

Now, three weeks later, she was lying in this strange bed, in this lilac-decked room. What beautiful wall-paper! she thought, and how well the picture of the Bridge of Sighs looked, hanging against it. As soon as she unpacked she would put up the framed photographs of her father and her mother on the mantelshelf. Already there, stood an oval glass case covering a wax group of flowers and fruit, three red roses, a bunch of grapes, three purple plums, three crabapples and, strewn over the sand on the bottom, some cornucopia-shaped sea shells. This ornament had caught Mary’s eyes the moment she had come into the room last night. Even in her state of fatigue and excitement, even under the pale cold eyes of the housekeeper, her eyes had been held. When she had taken off her long ulster and heavy hat she had gone over to the case and had a good look into it. She had not expected to find anything so aesthetic, so enchanting, far in the heart of Canada.

Mrs. Nettleship, the housekeeper, had been the only person she had met the night before. That had been a relief, for she knew she was looking very fatigued after the long train journey. She always got those violet circles beneath the eyes when she was tired, which made her look fragile. Yet, at the same time, she had a sense of being rebuffed by her reception. She had had such a clear picture of the middle-aged widower standing tall, slender and distinguished, a shy child by either hand, saying, in a voice exactly like Mr. Ernest Whiteoak’s, “Here are my little motherless ones, Miss Wakefield. I give them into your keeping.” But, when the carriage had stopped at the door, and the door been opened, not in a wide welcoming gesture but in a narrow, grudging way, only the thickset figure of Mrs. Nettleship had been revealed. She let Mary inside and closed the door after her, as though the house were a fortress. Inside the hall one oil lamp, in a heavy brass frame, shed a calm light on the rich-coloured rugs, the straight-backed mahogany chairs, the fine staircase. A hat-rack on which hung several hats, a dog’s leash and a mackintosh, had a carved fox’s head inset. Mrs. Nettleship wore a light blue print dress and
a snow-white apron. She had frizzy sandy hair and a smile that had less geniality than most frowns. She said:

“Mr. Whiteoak is not home yet and I guess, if he was, he would not want to be interviewing you at this hour.” She spoke as though it were Mary’s fault that the train was an hour late. She turned to the man who was beginning to introduce Mary’s trunk into the hall.

“Martin,” she said, “take that to the back door.” Her tone intimated that Martin had better have taken Mary to the same entrance. The man, giving a glum look, withdrew.

“Are you hungry?” Mrs. Nettleship asked, as though hunger would be the last straw to what she had endured from Mary.

“No, oh no, indeed, thank you,” Mary answered, though she would have given much for a bowl of soup.

“That’s good,” said Mrs. Nettleship, “for the fire’s out. I s’pose you’d like to go straight up to your room.”