Garth of Tregillis (16 page)

Melinda was making a daisy chain, her long hair falling over her face in a pale silken curtain, while Emile was trotting about fetching them for her. For the moment they seemed to be on good terms,

‘Two more daisies and then I’ll be finished,’ she was instructing Emile as I came upon them. She caught sight of me. ‘When I grow up I shall be a queen and wear a necklace of real diamonds and Emile shall be my slave and fetch and carry for me.’

‘You’re to come indoors, children,’ I said, too annoyed with Garth to break the news gently.

‘But it’s a beautiful morning—and besides, Melinda hasn’t finished her necklace,’ Emile said reasonably.

‘You can finish it indoors,’ I said. ‘Now come along.’

‘I shan’t budge until my chain is finished,’ Melinda said, her small pinched face instantly assuming its habitual scowling expression.

‘Your uncle says you’re to come indoors,’ I insisted. ‘Do as you’re told, Melinda. Come along at once.’ Eventually I got the two children into the house and marched them up to the schoolroom to the accompaniment of Emile’s anxious inquiries,

‘But why? We weren’t doing any harm, were we?’

‘It’s an order,’ I snapped unsympathetically as we entered the schoolroom and I closed the door behind us with a crash.

Instantly I relented as I saw the children’s puzzled and unhappy faces. It wasn’t their fault if I was furiously angry with Garth. I mustn’t let my feelings take themselves out on the children.

‘Anyway, it’s nearly time for your English lesson, Emile. You can play afterwards.’

‘But the daisies will be withered by then,’ he said reproachfully, showing me a couple of daisies already rather crushed where they had been held too tightly in his small hands on the journey upstairs.

‘In that case, you’d better finish the daisy chain first,’ I relented.

‘Shan’t,’ Melinda announced at her most unmanageable. ‘I hate the rotten old thing. I wouldn’t wear it if you gave me a million pounds!’ She threw the daisy chain down on the floor and crushed some of the daisies under the heel of her shoe.

After this my attempts to conduct a lesson for Emile were doomed to failure. Emile himself was upset and inattentive, while Melinda was at her most naughty and would neither learn herself nor permit Emile to settle down. At last I gave up and cast around in my mind for some way of amusing them. My efforts to interest them in toys they usually played with were a failure, and eventually I remembered a big box of coloured crayons I had come across while tidying up the schoolroom and had put on top of one of the cupboards for safety.

In desperation I fetched it down, rolled back my precious carpet, gave each child a thick sheet of rough paper, and told them to set to work drawing and colouring.

With memories of the many happy hours I myself had spent painting as a child I hoped that this would keep them absorbed for the morning. If only I had known then the disastrous results of this simple decision!

As I chanced to pass one of the windows I glimpsed Garth’s big car sweep down the avenue. It was too far away for me to be sure, but the figure seemed to me to be Garth’s. So he himself was driving and would personally bring Armanell back to Tregillis. I stood watching until the car was lost to sight when it reached the road.

As I turned I felt Emile pluck at my dress. ‘What am I to paint?’

he asked anxiously.

‘Oh, use your imagination,’ I replied, a little impatiently. Then as the look of anxiety on his small face increased, I said, ‘Do a picture of a tree, Emile, with flowers and the sky.’

Very reluctantly he wandered over to his sheet of paper, and I realized that for him, at any rate, this was not going to be the happy artistic release I had hoped for.

As I turned my attention to Melinda, she met me with a sullen look. ‘When am I going to put on my blue dress and get ready to meet the Comtesse?’ she asked. ‘Besides, I haven’t time to draw. I must practise my curtsey.’ As she spoke she began to rehearse an awkward attempt at a curtsey.

It was then it struck me that I had still to face the ordeal of informing Melinda that she was to remain in the schoolroom in disgrace while Emile went down to meet his mother. But I put off telling her the direful news, knowing that once she knew I should have lost the last possibility of a peaceful moment.

‘Not yet,’ I said, evading the issue. ‘You’ve plenty of time to make the picture first.’

Very reluctantly she trailed across the floor and picking up a bright red crayon began to scrawl it across the sheet in wide, whirling strokes.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked in alarm. It was obvious that Melinda’s drawing was going to be a wild and uninhibited affair.

She didn’t answer, and as she appeared absorbed for the moment I questioned her no further and sank into a chair with a magazine, with a grateful sigh. It was the first moment’s peace I had had during the morning and I turned the pages slowly, grateful for the quietness of the room and then became absorbed in a story.

I don’t know how much longer it was before Melinda threw down her crayon and called out, ‘I’ve finished. Isn’t it nice? Do come and look.’

I crossed the floor to look down upon her work and as I did so I gave a gasp of pleased surprise. The picture she had produced was full of energy and revealed a wonderful sense of colour. A bright blue tree against a sunset, the colours were glowing and clear and Melinda, a smear of green across her cheeks, had every reason to be proud of her effort. As I looked from the small girl before me, her hands smeared with colour it struck me that perhaps this was the answer to Melinda’s naughtiness. In art she might find an outlet that would absorb her fiery energies—and bring peace to her stormy soul. But I gave a sigh of relief as I remembered that she was not to be permitted to go down to greet Armanell on her arrival. I had felt bitter against Garth at the order, but now I had to admit that he was more experienced in Melinda’s ways than I was.

Eagerly I praised her handiwork. It was so seldom that one had the opportunity that I went on at length, until it dawned on me that she had lost interest. ‘I’d better wash my hands,’ she broke in during a pause in my praise, ‘so that I’ll be ready when the Comtesse comes.’

‘Just a moment,’ I told her, putting off the fateful moment. ‘I haven’t seen Emile’s picture yet.’

I crossed to where he was crouched on the floor working painstakingly over his sheet of drawing paper, a worried frown creasing his childish forehead. His eyes were troubled as he looked up at me and said, ‘I can’t get the tree to look right.’

Emile of course had not thought of anything so imaginative as a blue tree. His was a fuzzy ball of mixed greens that mysteriously looked less like a tree than Melinda’s. The colours were muddy and he had attempted to put a road into his picture which ran straight upwards into the air and disappeared off the edge of the sheet. ‘The road doesn’t look right,’ he muttered, looking down at his handiwork with dismay.

‘Don’t worry, Emile,’ I told him. ‘You’ll improve as time goes on.’ But would he? I doubted it very much. Emile, as far as I could see, had no artistic ability whatsoever.

Meanwhile Melinda had been happily practising her curtsies.

She bobbed and came up again in a distinctly ungraceful and very wobbly manner. She had been gazing down at Emile’s picture.

‘Your road goes straight up and up, instead of on and on and on and on,’ she told him, beginning to chant the words. ‘On and on and on and—’

‘That will do, Melinda,’ I interrupted. It was clear that, now that her momentary interest in painting was over, Melinda was determined to return to her usual activities.

She ignored me. ‘Your road should go on and on and on and—’

Her voice grew louder and louder and she attempted to combine this with a practice curtsey, staggered and fell over on top of Emile’s picture.

Emile gave a cry of protest and I raised Melinda, only to find that the front of her pale pink dress was covered with a reproduction of his drawing.

‘The Comtesse will be here soon,’ she said. ‘I must wash my hands and put on my blue dress.’

I pulled her back from the door and shut it firmly. ‘You’re not to go down to see the Comtesse,’ I told her bluntly.

‘But why?’ she demanded shrilly.

‘Because you’re too naughty,’ I told her.

‘I’m not!’ she cried.

‘Yes, you are,’ Emile said censoriously. ‘You spoiled my picture and I was going to show it to Mummy,’ and he broke into loud wails.

While I was trying to console Emile, Melinda was engaged in making herself up as a witch doctor, standing in front of the mirror and applying crayons to her features with devastating effect. When she had finished to her satisfaction, she turned on Emile, a fearsome sight, brandishing a poker in the manner of a spear and emitting blood-curdling war cries.

Emile’s tears dried up and his eyes opened wide in alarm.

I had visions of Garth and the Comtesse arriving to find Emile in hysterics and Melinda wildly prancing in her war-paint. Weakly I tried to compromise. I promised her, if she would be quiet, that she could peep down at the Comtesse from the gallery.

So it was that as Armanell made her appearance in the great hall Melinda, Emile and I were ensconced behind the balustrade of the gallery and I was conscious that, further up, the watching figure of Eunice was established, peering through the railings in her particular part of the house. Hovering in the shadows towards the back of the hall I could discern the figure of Mrs. Kinnefer in a new black dress.

Then through the door came Garth looking even taller than usual, accompanied by a tiny figure all in white except for the scarlet swathing of floating material that bound her white picture hat and hung down on her shoulders. She had an oval face with tiny Dresden china features that were perfectly chiselled: a wealth of nut-brown hair hung in waves on her shoulders and she had a faint golden tan that gave her a slightly oriental look. From all I had heard of her extraordinary beauty I wasn’t surprised at how lovely she looked, but I was astonished to see how petite she was.

Somehow or other I had expected a Juno, someone whose presence would command attention! This tiny exquisite figure was not how I had imagined Armanell.

‘Isn’t she lovely!’ Melinda exclaimed. ‘I’m going to make my deepest curtsey.’

Quickly I hushed her—but too late. Already the damage was done.

Garth glanced up and as our eyes met it struck me that I hadn’t quite realized how handsome he was—and this in spite of the fact that he was clearly very angry.

Armanell’s eyes had followed his. ‘Emile darling,’ she called out in French, as she caught sight of her son, ‘come and give Mummy a kiss.’

I glanced at him quickly, but, miraculously, he seemed quite free of crayon and as I nodded, he began slowly and composedly to descend the stairs.

Melinda had risen, to her feet at the same moment.

‘You’re not to go down,’ I reminded her urgently.

She was plainly of two minds whether to rush after Emile, but hesitated, and I felt it was the expression of annoyance that had crossed Garth’s face as he caught sight of us that prevented her, rather than my orders.

Meanwhile Garth was introducing Mrs. Kinnefer who came forward almost trembling with self-importance.

Armanell greeted her graciously and I could clearly hear her say,

‘It’s wonderful to be back at Tregillis again after all these years.

Somehow I hadn’t realized how much I missed Cornwall until I saw it again.’

She spoke, I realized, with a slight and charming French intonation, bringing to my mind that, since her marriage, French must have been her everyday language.

It was clear from Mrs. Kinnefer’s attitude that her allegiance had been instantly won. She would be the Comtesse’s devoted slave from that moment, I realized. But to me, Armanell’s whole attitude was artificial and insincere.

Then I dismissed the thought with self-disgust. I was antagonistic towards her because of all I had heard about her—and perhaps because I was unconsciously jealous of that elegant figure in white with the charming French accent. Mrs. Kinnefer had certainly never treated me with such deference—nor had Garth ever shown me such regard. Suddenly Eunice’s description of Armanell came into my mind. ‘She must have everyone her slave.’ Now seeing her for the first time it seemed only natural that they should worship her—even Garth, so independent, so unapproachable, where other people were concerned. Now he was witnessing the meeting between mother and son with an air of benevolence. He was pleased, happy. He looked as I had never seen him look, not since I had arrived.

‘And who is the other child?’ asked Armanell when she had permitted Emile to kiss her upon both cheeks. ‘I can just see her quaint, strange hair over the top of the gallery.’

I could see Garth’s lips tighten. ‘My niece, Melinda Markham, I’m afraid,’ he said tightly.

‘And am I not to meet the dear child?’ Armanell persisted.

Whatever answer Garth made to this was drowned out as far as I was concerned by Melinda’s triumphant, ‘She wants to meet me!

I’ll go down and you shan’t stop me.’

Too late, I grabbed for her dress, but she was already running downstairs.