Dorothy Eden (7 page)

‘But Lady Wright-Davis is not unkind or exacting.’

‘No, but she’s feeble. She says yes to everybody and everything. She lets her horrid daughter walk over her. I could shake her myself. And I never—literally never—see a man!’

‘Nor me,’ echoed Amelia sadly.

‘Neither shall I,’ Sarah said tardy.

‘But there’s Lord Mallow himself. They say he’s very handsome.’

‘So is his wife.’

‘Oh, well, of course. We weren’t suggesting anything romantic, Sarah. But at least you’ll have masculine conversation. And who knows who will come to the house.’

‘A governess isn’t encouraged to make friends with guests.’

Amelia sighed again.

‘Really, how
does
one get married? I can see myself growing just like Mrs Throckmorten, wrapped up in shawls, and constantly expecting draughts to pounce on me, as if they have personal designs on my life. You will do the same, Charlotte.’

‘And be pitied all the time by that abominable daughter because I have no husband!’

Sarah looked from one to the other of her sisters. They were both dowdily dressed, as befitted their situations, and both wore lugubrious expressions that she suspected had now become familiar to them. Supposing Ambrose did not come back, supposing they could not succeed in their plan to unmask the false Blane Mallow, supposing indeed he were genuinely Blane, in spite of all the strange discrepancies, then she, too, would be in a similar case to Amelia and Charlotte.

Her back stiffened. She would go through any kind of dubious and rash adventure rather than grow into a dowdy and complaining nonentity. Her last lingering doubts were dispelled. Now she was impatient to begin her task.

It was obvious that Amalie had been compelled to make the best of an infuriating situation.

She welcomed Sarah with chilly courtesy.

‘I’m afraid, Miss Mildmay, that until we get to Mallow Hall you will have to take charge of Titus completely. We’ve had to give Annie notice.’

‘I’m sorry about that, Lady Mallow.’

‘Servants, I am told, are becoming far too independent. Annie had some idea that her rights were put upon, as she expressed it.’

The implication of Amalie’s words were unmistakable. Sarah met her cool gaze steadily.

‘I shall be happy to do all I can, Lady Mallow.’

‘My husband insists that you know how to manage children. I warn you that Titus isn’t easy. This sudden change in surroundings and climate has been too much for his delicate constitution. And then there’s my mother-in-law. I had no idea—But at that Amalie must have felt she was being too indiscreet, especially to a woman to whom she was already hostile, and stopping speaking rang the bell for a maid to come and show Sarah to her room.

‘It is essential that Titus be in bed early,’ she said, ‘since we begin a long journey in the morning. Don’t let him eat anything but bread and milk for his supper, and I’d suggest no noisy games.’

Sarah looked surprised, until she realised that Lady Malvina was the difficulty. No doubt Amalie, in spite of her airs and graces, was already a little afraid of her.

‘One more thing, Miss Mildmay. Since this is your first night here perhaps you’d prefer supper on a tray in your room.’

This gesture, Sarah knew, was no mark of thoughtfulness for her comfort. It was merely postponing the time when Sarah would share their table. But she welcomed it with inner excitement. While the family was at dinner she could do a little quiet investigating. It would be her only opportunity in this house.

She bowed her head.

‘Thank you, Lady Mallow.’

The maid appeared and the cool unfriendly interview was over. She was in the house, but on sufferance only. Blane was the dominating partner in this marriage and exercised his will, from whim or perhaps genuine concern for his son’s welfare. But one must not make the mistake of underestimating Amalie. She would have weapons of her own. She could attempt to make Sarah’s position as intolerable as Ambrose had feared it might be.

The little boy stood in the middle of the large nursery in his flannel nightshirt. He looked small and clean and troubled. His grandmother, obviously exhausted from some recent activity, was sunk back in a chair fanning her flushed face. When Sarah came in she said wheezily,

‘Ah, here you are at last, Miss Mildmay. I have had the boy on my hands since that stupid Annie departed in a huff. But we’ve had a tremendous romp. Haven’t we, my little love?’

Sarah went to take the child’s hand. He didn’t resist, but the hot little palm lay limply within her own.

‘You remember me, don’t you, Titus?’

He nodded. His sober face gave no sign of pleasure, but neither did it show dislike nor distress. It seemed that he had already learnt to accept what was in any way acceptable. Only the worse shocks, such as growing used to his alarming grandmother, or tolerating the unkind Annie who had secretly pinched him, had badly shaken his self-control. He was already deciding, as his instinct had told him when he had clung to her, that this young woman with the gentle eyes would not pinch or bully him.

‘We’re going to be good friends,’ said Sarah quietly. ‘I’m to teach you a great many things, like reading and drawing pictures, and where all the countries in the world are. We shall get an atlas and follow your journey in the ship from Trinidad to England. And we’ll have walks in the woods, and you’ll have a pony ride.’

‘That’s right,’ said Lady Malvina approvingly. ‘Teach the lad some spunk. He’s the living image of my own son at that age, but he’s got no spunk. Do you think you can give it to him, Miss Mildmay? Is the material there? It had better be.’

Sarah looked down at the silent little figure. The boy was so small and frail, and as tense as a wild kitten. All his fears, whatever they were, were knotted up inside him. Loneliness was one of them. Probably he had been left too much in the care of indifferent servants, while his restless mother pursued her own life. Maternity was clearly not one of Amalie’s gifts.

‘He’s scared of his own shadow,’ Lady Malvina went on. ‘And a boy should make more noise. He’s too quiet. What makes him so quiet?’ she finished peevishly.

‘Some children are naturally shy and quiet,’ Sarah said, thinking that neither of these characteristics would have belonged to Lady Malvina’s own son. ‘But give Titus time. He’s still adapting himself to a new environment. Wait until he’s used to the country, and rides his own horse.’

‘You seem a sensible young woman, I must say. You’ve no doubt had a good deal of experience with children?’

‘Yes, Lady Malvina,’ Sarah lied.

‘H’mm. Well, my son saw your points before I did, I admit that I thought you were a most pushing and impertinent young woman. So did my daughter-in-law. She was not at all pleased, I must say.’ The old lady paused to give a rich chuckle. ‘Not at all pleased. She suspected Blane had spied a new pretty face. He’s a great one, my son, for pretty faces. There was that dairymaid Maria when he was only a schoolboy. He’s conveniently forgotten that. His amnesia serves him well. But all the same I like a man to be a man, vigorous, lusty if you like. Better than that cold-blooded correct cousin of his.’

Sarah lifted her eyes innocently.

‘Is that the person who would have inherited if your son hadn’t returned, Lady Malvina?’

‘Ambrose? Yes.’ Lady Malvina’s lips were turned down in eloquent distaste. ‘Oh, he’s well enough, perhaps. Industrious, righteous, doesn’t gamble, has excellent taste. But he’s a type I thoroughly dislike. Do you think he’d have paid my debts, taken me into his family, let me enjoy his children—if he ever begets any!’ Lady Malvina began to chuckle again at her obviously bawdy thoughts. Some of the thick white powder on her face had sprinkled on to the shoulders of her dress. Her cap was crooked. She was too fat, was no doubt greedy at the table, and on her own admission she was extravagant and foolish with money. She also was indiscreet with servants, as she was being indiscreet now with Sarah, a virtual stranger. The primness and prudishness of the times seemed to have passed her by. But already Sarah was conscious of an untidy warm-heartedness about her that was difficult to dislike. And there was no doubt that, with her careless talk, she was going to be of enormous help.

Privately, Sarah was already resolving to keep a diary, to note down jottings of conversation that her memory might not otherwise retain. Snatches such as ‘Do you think he’d have paid my debts?’ She burned with indignation, for Lady Malvina’s assessment of Ambrose was so mistaken. But she must listen to this, also, without defence.

‘How very fortunate for you, Lady Malvina, that your son did come home. It was like a miracle, wasn’t it?’

‘In a way it was. Though there was no miracle about all those advertisements in papers all over the world. They cost a pretty penny, I can tell you.’

‘And was your son the only applicant?’

She must attend to Titus, get him to bed, but this conversation was too valuable to miss.

Lady Malvina’s heavy eyelids lifted. She gave Sarah a curious veiled stare that told nothing.

‘What exactly do you mean by that, Miss Mildmay?’

‘Only that the advertisement might have lured adventurers to try their luck for such an attractive inheritance.’

Lady Malvina stood up, arranging her rustling skirts, haughtily.

‘And did you think, if that had happened, I wouldn’t have recognised them for what they were? I’m not a fool, Miss Mildmay.’

She sailed out of the room. Sarah was fearful that already she had gone too far. She didn’t think so, however. Lady Malvina was garrulous and lonely. She couldn’t have much in common with her daughter-in-law. Because of Titus, she would be in the nursery constantly. She would talk again. There would be ample time in which to decide whether her first impression that the old lady was on the defensive and secretly a little nervous was true.

Her spirits lifted. Already this adventure was full of interest and spiced with danger that made it intensely stimulating.

Titus meekly ate his bread and milk, and allowed himself to be put to bed in the firelit nursery. It was a large comfortable room, too ornately decorated for a nursery, for the late elderly Lord Mallow could not have envisaged it would have such a use so soon.

‘Have you travelled in a train before?’ Sarah asked. She discovered that Titus spoke only when spoken to, and then in shy monosyllables.

‘No.’

‘Then that’s very exciting, isn’t it? Have you any toys you want to take?’

‘No.’

‘But don’t you have toys you like best? Didn’t you have any in Trinidad?’

‘I had José then.’

‘Who was José?’

‘He was a black boy.’

The sparse information showed Sarah another side to Titus’s quietness. Had his father, in his ambitious gamble, stopped to give one thought to this minor tragedy it entailed? His son had lost a favourite playmate. He had not yet learned to play with an English child’s toys. Well, there could be the rocking horse and the toy soldiers, and the pony. At least this part of her job, Sarah promised herself fiercely, she would do honestly.

‘Good night, Titus. Sleep well. Shall I leave the candle for a little while?’

The large dark eyes looked up at her beseechingly. She realised that neither Annie nor anyone else had pampered this weakness. The nervous little stranger to English nurseries had been left to go to sleep in the dark.

‘All right. I won’t blow it out,’ she promised. ‘Are we going to be friends, Titus?’

‘Why don’t you call me Georgie?’

Sarah’s heart missed a beat.

‘Why should I do that? Is that what’—she made a guess—‘José used to call you?’

‘Yes. And Mamma, too. When I was a baby.’

‘But when you came to England she called you Titus?’

‘She said Georgie was a baby name.’

‘And Papa used to call you Georgie, too?’

The little boy looked puzzled. ‘I think he called me Titus. When he came back from the sea.’

‘Was he away at the sea a long time?’

‘Ever so long. But Mamma says he won’t go to sea again. And I have to be called Titus because that was my grandpapa’s name.’

‘It’s a good name,’ Sarah said. (It was the family name that she would inevitably call her own son. In the meantime, she must not grudge it to this innocent little usurper.)

But already she had significant entries to make in her diary.

It seemed that she was not to see Blane Mallow that night. A very young maid brought her her supper tray.

‘Thank you,’ said Sarah pleasantly. ‘Are you to travel with us tomorrow?’

‘No, ma’am. I’m to stay here with Mrs Robbins.’

‘Who’s Mrs Robbins?’

‘The housekeeper, ma’am.’

‘Oh. And what’s your name?’

‘Lucy, ma’am.’

‘You’re very young. Is this your first position ?’

‘Yes, ma’am. I’m just fourteen.’

‘I hope Mrs Robbins is kind to you.’

‘Oh, yes, she’s all right. And when the master and mistress isn’t here—’ Lucy clapped her hand to her mouth, aghast at what she had been going to blurt out to a stranger.

‘You can tell me, Lucy. I don’t mind what Mrs Robbins does when she’s alone. After all, she’s left in complete charge of the house so she’s her own mistress, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, I suppose she is. Well, it’s just that she’s easy-going, ma’am. Ever so kind, but’ll turn a blind eye if it suits her.’

Lucy was blushing deeply, and Sarah was left to guess what Mrs Robbins’s particular easy-going habit was, men or the gin bottle. Like a magpie gathering treasure, she tucked the piece of information away in her mind.

‘What time is dinner downstairs, Lucy?’

‘Eight o’clock, ma’am.’

‘Thank you, Lucy. You may go.’

Lucy, who was too young and inexperienced to be disdainful about having to wait on a mere governess, departed. Sarah set her supper tray on one side and tiptoed to the door of her room to open it a crack and listen. Almost at once she heard the dinner gong, and a few minutes later the heavy tread of Lady Malvina, followed by the lighter footsteps of Amalie, on the stairs. Blane must have been downstairs already, for although she waited, scarcely breathing, at the door for another ten minutes there was no more sound.