Michael Cox (21 page)

13

In the House of Death

I
Waylaid

D
ESPITE THE
impression that Mrs Battersby had contrived to convey, that she wished us to become friends, no further invitations to take tea with her had been made. I had in fact seen little of her, except occasionally at meal-times in the steward’s room – which I often missed, either preferring to take something in my room, or because I was busy attending my Lady – when she would sit at the head of the table saying little, and never remaining longer than was necessary. This suited me very well, as I had a great many other matters to claim my attention. Nevertheless, I remained eager to satisfy my curiosity concerning the housekeeper, being now convinced that there was some deeper reason for her antipathy towards me, skilfully disguised though it was, than mere instinctive dislike, or some imagined threat to her standing with the other servants.
More than two months had passed before she asked me to her room again. She appeared everything amiable and attentive, expressing with a most convincing imitation of regret that her duties had prevented her from ‘enjoying the much anticipated pleasure’ of my company.
Half an hour goes by in general chit-chat; then she asks me whether my present situation is as I had imagined it would be, or whether – being young and well educated, with a deal of life before me – I had perhaps considered giving up domestic service for some other kind of occupation ‘more suited to my talents’, as she smilingly puts it. This strikes me as a very odd thing to ask of someone who has only lately commenced her employment; but I let it pass, saying only that I am very happy serving my Lady, and that I cannot presently foresee any circumstance that might persuade me to seek another situation, or some other way of earning my living, which I must continue to do.
‘I’m so glad to hear it,’ she says, with such warm emphasis that I almost believe her, ‘for I’m sure her Ladyship has no wish to lose you – and of course everyone below stairs would feel it to be a considerable loss if you were to leave us. You’ve made a great impression here, Miss Gorst, a very great impression, as you must, I’m sure, be aware – modest though you are. But then we never know, do we, what Fate has in store? Our situations can change in an instant, for better or worse.’
To this genially expressed platitude I make no answer, having none to give; and so we sip our tea in silence for several moments, each of us understanding that what has been said is not what has been meant.
To my relief, there is a knock at the door and Charlie Skinner’s pink face looks in.
‘Beg pardon, Mrs Battersby,’ he says, ‘Cook wants a word about the meat for tomorrow. It’s Barker again. The order’s short.’
‘Thank you, Skinner,’ says Mrs Battersby. ‘Tell Mrs Mason I’ll be down directly.’
Having delivered himself of his message, Charlie withdraws his great head, with its spiky crown of hair, and closes the door, giving me a surreptitious wink as he does so.
‘You see again how it is, Miss Gorst,’ sighs Mrs Battersby resignedly. ‘Our all too brief hour of precious leisure was interrupted last time by rats in the Dry Store, as I recall. Now it’s the meat for tomorrow’s dinner! It’s most regrettable, for I’m sure we both deserve a little relief from our labours. But there! What help is there? It wouldn’t do for the cream of county society to go hungry – and on such a special occasion.’
Her look seems to express something unsaid, a significance beyond these unexceptional words. It is another instance of that curious ambiguity that characterizes everything about her, and which it vexed me very much to be unable to fathom – as it used to do when I failed to grasp some fine point of philosophy or mathematics that Mr Thornhaugh was trying to get into my head.
The occasion referred to by Mrs Battersby was the grand dinner, to be held the following evening, to mark Mr Randolph Duport’s twentieth birthday. I had first learned of it the previous week, when my Lady happened to mention one afternoon that she would be engaged for the next hour or two with her secretary and would not need me to attend her.
‘The guest-list for Randolph’s dinner must be gone through,’ she said, with a world-weary sigh, ‘and then I must look at the menu card, and approve the wines, and I do not know what else. All this sort of business bores me so; but he is my son – these things are expected, and so I suppose they must be done. Of course, Perseus’s majority in December, falling as it does on Christmas Day, is an altogether different matter.
That
will be an occasion for celebration indeed, and one into which I shall throw myself heart and soul. Oh, by the by, Alice,’ she added, ‘I wish you to attend me at the dinner tomorrow. It will be of great assistance to me, to have you there, and will also be good for you, and stand you in good stead, for you should know that I have plans to bring you out a little. I shall say nothing more about this for the moment, but if you continue to do well, then it is possible that your situation here may change for the better.
‘And so, Alice, you are to attend Randolph’s dinner – although not, of course, as a guest – that must be clearly understood. I would not normally countenance my maid’s joining the company on such an occasion; but I am prepared to make an exception in your case, wishing – as I say – to accustom you to the best society, and being confident that you know how to conduct yourself in the proper manner.’
Mrs Battersby, continuing to speak of the arrangements for the dinner, and of the many distinguished guests, from both Town and country, who had been invited, had now risen from her chair.
‘What a shame it is, Miss Gorst,’ she was saying, ‘that the likes of you and me are excluded from the company tomorrow evening, especially after all the work we shall have been put to, in our respective spheres. Perhaps her Ladyship thinks we would disgrace ourselves.’
Her eyes show resentment, despite the jesting tone, and although she must know the impossibility of a housekeeper – even one with her advantages of upbringing – ever taking her place amongst Lady Tansor’s dinner guests. No doubt she also believes that my Lady’s maid is in the same position; but I have a surprise for her.
‘Oh,’ I say, innocently puzzled, ‘has my Lady not informed you?’
‘Informed me?’
‘That I am to attend her during the dinner. I would not have mentioned it, except that I thought you must already know.’
I saw immediately – with a stab of guilty satisfaction – how my words had hit home. The signs were of the subtlest – only a slight contraction of the eye-brows, a little narrowing of the eyes beneath, and the merest blush of confusion; but they were eloquent of her incredulous displeasure that, yet again, I had been accorded such a conspicuous demonstration of favour.
‘Well, well,’ says she, looking away, and affecting to tidy up the tea-tray, in a hollow show of equanimity, ‘this is a rare honour indeed for my Lady’s maid! I congratulate you again, Miss Gorst, and wonder where it will all end.’
She made no further remark, although it was plain that her mind was still busily turning over what I had told her. Excusing herself, and wishing me a rather curt ‘Good-afternoon, Miss Gorst’, she conducted me to the door, and hurried off – with ill-concealed reluctance – to apply herself to the pressing problem of the meat order.

THE PROSPECT OF Mr Randolph’s birthday dinner had been a most pleasant one, and became the object of many idle imaginings – not with respect to Mr Randolph, but, curiously, to his brother. I immediately began wondering how Mr Perseus would like me in the cast-off gown that his mother had said I might borrow for the evening; where I would be placed at table, and whether it would be near Mr Perseus; what I would say to him – I mean to Mr Perseus; and so on, in ever more fantastically unlikely elaborations.
Yet perhaps it was not so curious that my mind – with delightful frequency – should run on such things. Let me now confess what I have held back from my readers – indeed, what I had hardly begun to admit to myself.
When Madame had enquired, through Mr Thornhaugh, why I had made no mention of the two brothers in my letters, she had unwittingly touched a nerve. The truth was that, although I found his aloofness and displays of prickly pride occasionally distasteful, I had begun to feel myself increasingly attracted to the elder Duport brother. Deeper feelings, of course, were impossible, even if I believed that the regard I thought he had for me could become anything more than simple liking. Yet still I let my fancy roam, seeing no harm in dreaming of what, when morning came, I knew could never be. Being somewhat fearful that Madame would strongly disapprove of any such distraction from the Great Task, I had therefore thought it prudent to keep silent on the matter.
I was unable to give a name to the feelings that I had begun to form for Mr Perseus. They were entirely new to me, my only experience of such things being a brief infatuation with a nephew of Madame’s called Félix. What, I wondered, did it mean that Mr Perseus crept into my thoughts when I least expected it, at all times of the day, and that I looked for every opportunity to meet him, if only for a moment – on the vestibule staircase of a morning, or in the Library, or wherever else I thought he might be? Many were the ploys that I began to contrive, to bring about these apparently chance encounters, even though I would receive only a scant ‘Good-morning, Miss Gorst’, or ‘How do you do, Miss Gorst’ for my troubles. Yet these hard-won morsels were reward enough, and I soon began to feed hungrily on them, and found myself craving for more.
I date a distinct change in my feelings for Mr Perseus to a morning not long after our return from London, following a little adventure, which I shall now relate.
My Lady – having slept badly, and wishing to remain in bed – had sent me to Easton in the fly to collect some trifling items that she had ordered from the milliners, it being a custom with her to patronize local establishments when she could.
It was one of those crisp and invigorating mornings when you smell the approach of autumn in the air, and when the late-summer sun still dazzles and intensifies the colours of Nature, although its warmth has diminished. I decided that I would return to Evenwood on foot, and so, sending back the fly with the various packages and parcels that I had collected, I set off.
I had reached the point where the road divided – one way turning off towards Thorpe Laxton, the other to the hamlet of Duck End and on to Evenwood village – when a rough-looking man suddenly stepped out of the bordering woods and barred my way.
He is short and slightly built, but with a desperate and threatening glint in his eyes. Bare-headed and stubble-chinned, dressed in stained labouring clothes and wearing mud-caked boots, he conveys a strong impression of someone who has passed the night – perhaps several nights – sleeping under the stars.
‘Well, well,’ he growls, in a most menacing way. ‘Wot ’ave we ’ere?’
I cannot turn and run back up the hill behind me, for he would quickly have caught up with me; neither can I easily get past him, the road being narrow, with deep ditches on either side. The only course, I decide, is to confront him directly, which – very much to my surprise – I find myself determined to do, being rather affronted at being accosted in this manner. Assuming as much boldness as I can, although sensible of the danger I am in, I look the fellow in the eye.
‘Excuse me,’ I say, preparing to land him a sharp kick in the shins if he does not move aside; but even as I go to step round him, he seizes me roughly by the wrist.
‘You’re a fine-looking gal, an’ no mistake,’ he says, licking his lips in the most disgusting manner. Then his eye is caught by the sequinned reticule – a gift from Madame – hanging from my other wrist.
‘Oh ho!’ he exclaims, with a vicious leer. ‘’Ere’s somefink better nor a pretty face.’
Releasing my hand, he is reaching to tear the reticule from its strap when he suddenly lets out an oath, turns, and runs back into the woods.
At the same moment, I hear the sound of hooves on the road behind me. Looking round, I see a figure on horseback coming down the hill. As the rider draws closer, I realize – with amazement and relief – that it is Mr Perseus.
It would, I am sure, meet the breathless expectations of every female reader of fiction, or lover of legend, had Mr Perseus – like some knight-errant – galloped down the hill on his grey mare (the penny-plain surrogate for a white charger), whip (substituting for a sword) in hand, and knocked the ruffian to the ground; but it was a most welcome second-best rescue nonetheless, for which I was inexpressibly grateful.
‘Miss Gorst!’ he cries, reining in his horse, and dismounting. ‘I thought it was you. I saw you earlier, outside Kipping’s. I had some business at the auctioneer’s, and when I came out the fly had gone. You were on an errand for Mother, I suppose?’
‘Ribbons, sir,’ I reply.
‘Ah, yes, ribbons. Quite so.’
He looks towards the woods, into which my waylayer had lately disappeared.
‘Did I see you with someone, just now?’
‘No, sir,’ I return, seeing little reason to involve him further, and not wishing to appear like some weak and defenceless maiden in his eyes, ‘only a local man crossing the road on his way to Odstock.’
He gives me a kindly sceptical look.
‘Has anything happened, Miss Gorst?’ he enquires. ‘You are very pale.’
Gratified by his concern, and having assured him that nothing is wrong, we continue on our way, Mr Perseus leading his grey mare by the reins.
I can recollect little of what was said as we walked, side by side, through Evenwood village and into the Park. Mr Perseus tethered his horse by the gates, to be collected by one of the grooms, and we took our leisurely way past the Dower House, up the Rise, and down to the bridge over the Evenbrook. Our conversation was inconsequential enough, I am sure, certainly on my side, and of no importance in itself. Yet by the time I arrived back at the great house, I felt that a change had come upon my life during the previous half an hour.
Half an hour! Such a short time, and yet the world now seemed remade. It puzzled me very much that I should feel this. My little room under the eaves was just as I had left it, with everything in its accustomed place. The view from my windows – the terrace below, the gardens and parkland beyond, the dark outline of distant woods – was exactly as I remembered. My physical senses told me that nothing had changed since I had set out that morning; but my heart knew better.
For an hour or more, until it was time to attend my Lady, I lay on my bed, thinking of Mr Perseus Duport, and happily wandering through the Land of Fancy, where everything is possible.