Menfreya in the Morning (6 page)

I was too astonished to speak. I was suddenly torn from the contemplation of hell’s torments to consider an entirely new life. School!

“Yes,” he went on, “you are in desperate need of discipline.

Victoria Holt

39

If at school you are disobedient, you will be severely punished. Miss James was too lenient with you, I fear. She will be leaving us now, of course.”

I thought of Miss James packing her bag and crying discreetly because she was frightened of the future. Poor Miss James! She would haunt me for weeks to come in spite of the alarming prospect before me.

“So she is to be dismissed …”

“You see bow your thoughtless actions affect others.”

A frightening thought occurred to me. Fanny! What of Fanny?

I whispered her name under my breath, but he heard me.

“She remains. She will be employed hi another capacity. And when you are on holiday you will need a maid.”

Waves of thankfulness! Fanny was safe. Why had I not thought of what the consequences might have been to her before I ran away. My father was right I must think before I acted.

He continued: “It is my earnest wish that you should learn a little selflessness. This wantonly thoughtless action of yours has caused me great trouble. Remember it; and should you ever feel tempted to be so wicked again, pray consider, for you will not find me as indulgent next time.”

“You are going away, Papa,” I said.

**I. am going to get on with the work which you interrupted.”

He looked at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to take me in his arms and kiss me. To my amazement I realized that I wanted him to.

If he had, I should have cried; I should have told him how unhappy I was, how sorry that I had had to be born, how I would willingly go back into that limbo where unborn babies were and stay there, if by doing so I could bring my mother back to him.

That was one part of me; the other part hated him.

And the part that hated was uppermost; it showed itself in my sullen expression.

He turned and left me.

The atmosphere in the house was considerably lifted when he went

Within almost an hour A’I_ee was unlocking my door. He was carrying a tray which was covered by a cloth and as he

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Menfreya in the Morning

came in he said: “Well, Miss Harriet, the master be gone back to London and us be alone again.”

He set down the tray, winked at me and whipped off the cloth to disclose a Cornish pasty, golden brown, hot and savory, fresh from the oven, and a glass of cider; and with it was a large slice of raisin cake.

“It was all Mrs. A’Lee could lay her hands on at a minute’s notice.”

“It looks delicious.” “And tastes so, if I know Mrs. A’Lee.” “But I am supposed to be on bread and milk.” “Me and Mrs. A’Lee, we never did like the sound of that.”

I sat down at the table and cut the pasty. The savory steam made my mouth water, and A’Lee looked on with satisfaction.

“Well now that be an end to that bread and milk nonsense.”

“My father would be furious if he knew. You’d be dismissed .. . both you and Mrs. A’Lee.”

“Not we two. We go with the house, don’t ‘ee forget. He never did like us. We ain’t like his London butler, I reckon.” A’Lee took the cloth which covered the tray, folded it over his arm and minced round the room. His attempts to mimic the overrefined accents of Polden, whom he had seen once or twice when Polden had come to Chough Towers to superintend some special occasion, were so wide of the mark that they made me laugh, as A’Lee had intended they should.

“No,” he said, “we be good enough for Mr. Leveret and we be good enough for ‘ee.”

“Don’t you wish that Mr. Leveret had continued to live here?”

“Oh, them was the days. Mr. Harry may come back. But he be so busy now down to St. Austell and in other parts, they do say. Reckon we belong to be working for the Leverets rather than fine, fancy gentlemen from London, like …”

“Like my father? You don’t want to work for him, do you, A’Lee?”

“Well he do have a nice little maid for a daughter.”

“And she at least likes you better than that stupid Polden.”

“Well she be a real right lady, she be.”

We laughed together.

“That be my own brew of dder. Fd make ft for Mr, L*v-

Victoria Holt

41

eret. Mr. Harry, he got drunk on it one day. Not much more than eight he were. He come sniffing round the barrel and I didn’t know that he’d been helping himself. That were a time, that were. Don’t *ee get too much of a taste for it. Miss Harriet. It be real beady stuff.”

“Not much chance. I’m going away to school.”

“Yes, so we be hearing. Well, you’ll be back, I reckon. And her*s to go with ‘ee, so there’ll be fireworks, like as not”

“Who?”

“Miss Gwennan up at Menfreya.”

“Oh … A’Lee! Is it true?”

“You be real proper pleased.”

“It makes all the difference.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Them Menfreys …”

**You don’t like them much, do you, A’Lee.”

“Oh, ‘tain’t rightly a matter of liking or not liking. They’m wild. And they’m made for trouble. Twas due to Menfrey trouble that you be here … sitting on that chair enjoying Mrs. A’Lee’s pasty like it be a nectar of the gods—which it might be, for that there couldn’t have tasted much better, I’ll be bound.”

“Due to Menfrey trouble? But why?”

“Well, why be you here? Because your father, Sir Edward Delvaney, he be the Member. For nigh on seven years he’s been the Member. But before that it was always a Menfrey who went to Parliament in London for us. There was never no foreigner here till these last seven years.”

“Sir Endelion was the Member for Lansella then?”

“Of course, he were. And his father before him. Ever since there was Members it’s been the Menfreys for Lansella.”

“And why did Sir Endelion give up?**

“Why, bless you, my dear, he didn’t so much give it up as it gave him up. The Queen, they do say, be terrible strict, and her wouldn’t have any of her ministers with a bad name, you see. And Sir Endelion, he were something big up there in London. Might have been one of the real heads but for this. Prime Minister, say … or some such thing.”

“What was the scandal?”

“The usual. You never have to ask what, when it’s Menfreys, my dear. It’s who?”

“A woman?”

A’Lee nodded. “Regular scandal Up in London too.

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Down here we be used to *em. The Menfreys was always good to the girls who got into trouble through them. Find them husbands most likely or homes for the babies. But this were in London. Some very high-born lady, and her husband divorced her because of Sir Endelion.”

“Poor Lady Menfrey!”

“Oh, she be a gentle lady, she be. She forgive him like; and he come back to her. But that didn’t suit the Queen. Nothing would suit ber but that Sir Endelion resign, so resign he did; and for the first time any of us remember, we didn’t have a Menfrey up in Parliament for us. That’s how your father came.”

‘They don’t seem to mind.”

‘There’s some that say he be nursing the seat for Mr. Bevil.”

“So … he will go into politics.”

“Well, Menfreys always has. Must have a say in the Government, says they. They’re regular ones for having their say. Mr. Bevil, hell come back, I reckon. All in time. And then there’ll be a Menfrey up hi London for Lansella.”

I finished the cider and swallowed the last of the raisin cake.

That was good, A’Lee,” I said; and I was thinking of poor Lady Menfrey and how angry she must have been—or sorry. Unhappy, in any case. I could imagine Sir Endelion coming back to Menfreya, turned out of Parliament because of scandal.

No wonder they were called the wild Menfreys.

Later that day Gwennan came to see me.

“As soon as I heard your father had gone I came over,** she said. “We’re to go to school … together. We’re undisciplined, and they can’t control us. What fun! They would never have thought of sending us if you hadn’t run away. This is the end of all that”

“It’s not the end,” I contradicted. “How could going away and starting a new life be the end of anything?”

2

Three years had passed since I had run away, and

they had been happier years than I had known up to

that time, although I was not as popular at school

as Gwennan was. I was more studious, and although not

brilliantly clever, my desire to shine at something helped me

considerably. My diligence pleased my teachers, and because

of this I was moderately happy.

Friendship between my family and the Menfreys had grown. My father was particularly interested in Bevil, for A’Lee had been right when he said that the Menfreys always went into politics. Bevil had decided to do just that, and I supposed that one day he hoped to bring back the family tradition of representing Lansella. In the meantime he had come down from the university, had traveled through Europe on a sort of Grand Tour, and was helping my father in his work with a prospect of gaining an opportunity of standing for Parliament when it arose.

When I had seen them together I was astonished, for my father was quite charming with Bevil, who, I was sure, had no idea how different he could be with his own daughter.

Summer holidays were spent at Chough Towers, and that was as good as staying at Menfreya. My father had decided that London air was not good for me, so I was not an encumbrance there, but put into the care of the A’Lees, which suited me, particularly as I spent the greater part of my time at Menfreya, where I was regarded as one of the fam-fly.

I was growing more restrained; I was still resentful against the world but able to control my feelings more easily. Sometimes I dreamed that my father was trying to throw me out of the house or was chasing me with a whip. I recall vividly the cold terror in which I always awoke from these nightmares.

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Menfreya in the Morning

I told no one of these dreams—certainly not Gwennan. But Fanny knew. Often I would wake up and find her at my bedside, because I had shouted in my sleep. Sometimes she would just get into my bed and hold me in her arms until I slipped into peaceful sleep; at other times she would talk to me about the orphanage. I rarely had these dreams when I was away at school.

Because for a short time I had feared I might lose Fanny, I realized how important she was to me. She it was who sewed the name tabs on my school garments, who insisted that I change my clothes if I were caught in the rain. Gwennan envied me Fanny.

“You’re lucky to have a maid of your own,** she told me. “She’H be with you to the death.”

I enjoyed being envied by Gwennan, so that was some* thing else for which I had to be grateful to Fanny.

Gwennan was the most attractive girl in the school and the most outrageously outspoken. She charmed her way out of trouble, and I believe that had she not been able to do so, she might well have been expelled. She had been right when she said the the Menfreys were fatally attractive to the opposite sex. There were one or two affairs when we were at school which were undetected, but of which she liked to boast. How far they went I was not sure; I could not always believe what she told me. I was constantly afraid of what she would do next, but what I was most afraid of was being left out of her confidence.

It was she who told me that Bevil was going into Parliament and that my father was helping him. He was waiting until there was a constituency for him, and then he would nurse it and hope for a seat at a by-election or the next General Election.

“Your father can do so much for him, so Papa and Mamma are anxious that we shall all be friends. That, my dear Harriet, is why we go to school together and you*re so welcome at Menfreya. ** “It seems a horrid reason.” “Reasons often are.” “So that’s why you’re my friend?** “No. / could not be bribed.’* “I don’t see how / could bribe you.”

“Not you. But all that money could. Mamma and Papa want us to be friends, you know, because of Bev. But I have my own reasons.”

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“What?”

“You’re such a foil to my beauty.” She laughed. “Ha! Now you look sick. Silly. As if I need a foil. I never did believe in them anyway. No, I like you because you’re so angry about everything, and ran away and all that. You stayed that night, too, on No Man’s and didn’t bring me in. I’m glad you’re going to marry Bevil.”

“Marry Bevil!”

“Well, you are in love with him, aren’t you? ‘My dear and precious life!’ as Mrs. Pengelly would say. You are blushing. You look better red than sallow. So it’s not a bad idea. I should cultivate that, Harriet”

“I don’t know what you mean about … marrying.”

“Then you’re blinder than a dozen bats. You know how they work things in families like ours. They choose our husbands for us … like royalty. Bevil is for you, and Harry Leveret for me. Poor Harry has red hair and you can’t see his eyelashes. I don’t believe he’s got many; but ni tell you what he has a lot of, and that is pounds, shillings and pence; and my family happen to think that is a great deal more important than eyelashes. And you have the same. That is why we are so happy to invite the Leverets and the Delvaneys to Menfreya Manor. It stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

‘They are very .. . mercenary.”

“Have a heart, Harriet. They’re poor. They have the grandest house in South Cornwall, and it’s an old monster that eats up the pounds, shillings and pence. You’ve no idea, We’re feckless. We always have been. Monsters demand the blood of rich, young virgins like you and Harry—for you are, I know, and I’m sure Harry is. So we need you.”

“Does Bevil know this?”

“Of course, he knows it.”

“And he doesn’t mind?”

“Mind? Why should he? He’s delighted.”

“You mean he likes me a little?”

“Don’t be silly, Harriet. You’re an heiress. Your father’s got all that money, and who else has he got to leave it to?**

“I don’t think he’ll leave anything to me.”

“Of course, he will. People always leave their money to then* heirs … however much they hate them. It’s pride or something.”