Michael Cox (9 page)

II
Penance and Punishment

AT A LITTLE before four o’clock, I settled down in my bed again and drew the coverlet over my head. Within minutes I was sound asleep, and remained so, untroubled by dreams, until I was roused by someone knocking at my door.
When I opened it, there stood Mrs Battersby.
‘Miss Gorst,’ she said, with apparent relief. ‘Here you are. You’ll excuse me, I hope, but you’re wanted by Lady Tansor. I believe you’re late in attending her this morning. I happened to have been called up to her Ladyship on some small household matter, and so offered to come and find you.’
I turned to look at the clock. It was almost half an hour past my time.
‘I shall go immediately,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Mrs Battersby.’
‘It’s no trouble, Miss Gorst,’ she replied. ‘You’ll know, I’m sure, that her Ladyship puts great store on punctuality.’
The remark seemed intended as a friendly reminder, but I could not help feeling, once again, that I was being gently put in my place, even though the housekeeper had no authority over me.
‘Oh, Miss Gorst,’ she said, as she was turning to go. ‘I thought perhaps you might care to take tea with me, if your duties permit of course. Come down to the servants’ hall and ask anyone to show you to the housekeeper’s room. Shall we say four o’clock?’

WHEN I ENTERED my Lady’s sitting-room, I found her, dressed in her red-and-green silk robe, seated at her escritoire writing a letter.
‘You will make and light the dressing-room fire, Alice,’ she said without looking up, ‘lay out and air my linen, and then draw my bath.’
‘Yes, my Lady. I’m sorry—’
‘Say nothing,’ she broke in, continuing to write.
These duties concluded, I returned to the sitting-room.
‘I shall bathe now,’ she said, sealing the envelope of the letter she had been writing and laying it down. Without even once looking at me, she rustled past in her trailing gown and went into the dressing-room, where I had prepared her bath.
No words were spoken during my Lady’s ablutions. It was not until she had finished bathing, and I was lacing up her stays, that she finally looked me in the eye.
‘You have disappointed me, Alice,’ she said, holding me fast with her unyielding gaze. ‘Did I not distinctly say that I would need you at seven o’clock?’
‘Yes, my Lady.’
‘And what is your excuse?’
I told her straight out that I had none.
‘Good. To have prevaricated would have done you no service. You took the honest course, as I hoped you would. But it must not happen again, Alice, no matter what the circumstances are, or there will be consequences. When I name a time, I expect it to be kept. I hope that is clear?’
‘Perfectly clear, my Lady.’
‘I am displeased with you, of course,’ she continued, walking over to the dressing-glass, ‘for I expected better from you, and I distinctly told you that certain standards must be observed. I shall not punish you this time, however, but you must do a little penance.’
Moving away from the glass, she seated herself at her dressing-table and began fingering through a box of jewellery.
‘Penance, my Lady?’ I asked.
‘Oh, it is nothing,’ came the consciously careless reply. ‘A walk, on this fine September morning, that’s all. To Easton, to take a letter. That will not be too arduous, I suppose?’
‘Not at all, my Lady.’
‘You may go after my toilet is completed – I think I shall wear the blue taffeta today.’
I dressed her hair in the way she liked, and helped her into the day-gown she had indicated, which, following Mrs Beeton’s instructions, I brushed and gently smoothed with a silk handkerchief as my mistress stood observing herself in the glass. When she was satisfied, she went back to her dressing-table and opened the box containing the tear-shaped locket on its black velvet band, which she then placed round her neck.
‘You are curious, are you not, Alice,’ she asked, ‘about this locket of mine, and why it is so precious to me?’
‘A little, my Lady,’ I confessed.
‘Well, I shall tell you about it, but not at present, for you have your penance to perform, and I have more letters to write. The one I wish you to take is on the escritoire. You are to go to the Duport Arms, in the Market Square, and leave it at the desk for collection – for collection, mind. Do not, under any circumstance, give it to the recipient yourself. Then you must come back directly. Of course there is no need to mention this little penance of yours to anyone – for your own sake.’
Then, to my surprise, she announced, almost as an afterthought, that she must take the express-train to London, on an urgent matter of business.
‘It is so tedious,’ she sighed, ‘and I do so hate London these days. But it cannnot be helped. I shall return this evening. While I am gone, after you have delivered the letter, there are a few small tasks I wish you to carry out.’
Here are the ‘few small tasks’, additional to my ‘penance’, to which I had to look forward to on my return from Easton.
The gown she had worn the previous day had sustained a small tear in the hem that required mending; her chaussure had been left in the most disgraceful state by Miss Plumptre, and every pair of shoes required a thorough clean; her hats were in the same deplorable condition (‘I adore hats,’ she said, turning to me with a smile, ‘and have a great many’), and each one would need brushing, the decorations renovated where necessary (‘Although I cannot now remember where the flower-pliers are. Ask Mrs Battersby’), and putting away afresh.
‘The bed-chamber, of course,’ she went on, ‘will need a good sweeping, which I really should insist that you do now; but you may do it when you return from Easton. There! I think that’s all. Now, run along and make the bed, whilst I put on a little scent and finish my letters. Be as quick as you can, so that you can get off to Easton. And remember – for collection, and come straight back. No need to wait for a reply.’

III
The Old Woman

MY WAY TO Easton took me over the Evenbrook, and through the South Gates into the village of Evenwood. As I approached the gate-house – fashioned like a little Scottish castle, gaunt and black, with the rusty spikes of a pretend portcullis poking down into the dark archway – a pretty little house could be glimpsed through a thick plantation of trees to my right. This, I thought, must be my Lady’s former home, the Dower House, where Madame had told me my mistress had lived with her widowed father, Mr Paul Carteret, until his untimely death.
I stopped for a moment to take in the scene.
The house reminded me of nothing so much as the doll’s-house that Mr Thornhaugh had caused to be made for my eighth birthday. It was a gift of such size and magnificence that it had astonished even Madame; but he said that every little girl should have a doll’s-house, even clever ones who loved their books almost more than their dolls, and had smilingly shrugged off Madame’s protestations that it must have cost a great deal of money, which he might not have been able to afford.
It entranced me from the moment Mr Thornhaugh removed the canvas cover in which it had been wrapped, and told me that I could open my eyes – which I had closed as tightly as I could at his request, to heighten the anticipation.
How I had longed to become small enough, by some temporary act of sorcery (for I had always been accounted tall for my age), to push open the tiny front door and go exploring through all the rooms! I particularly wished to be able to look out of its windows, with their curtains of sprigged muslin, at the Brobdingnagian world outside, and then scamper up the beautiful curving staircase, to skip and dance through the upper rooms, and curl up at last in one of the miniature beds.
The Dower House had the same delicious perfection of form as my doll’s-house; and I found myself experiencing something of the same childhood desire to peep inside it. But, mindful of Lady Tansor’s strict instructions, I proceeded instead through the archway of the gloomy gate-house, and out into the road.
As I entered the village, the church clock began to strike half past nine. At the corner of the lane that led down to the church and its adjoining Rectory, I noticed a familiar figure come out of one of the cottages and begin scurrying, like a little mouse, down the lane.
‘Sukie!’ I cried out.
She stopped, turned, and began running back towards me.
‘Miss Alice! What are you doing here?’
I explained that I was on my way to Easton, to take a letter from Lady Tansor to a person staying at the Duport Arms.
‘Who can that be, I wonder?’ she said. ‘And why would they be staying in Easton, and not in the great house?’
‘Is that where you live?’ I asked, looking towards the cottage from which she had just emerged.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘The doctor has been to see Mother, and Mrs Battersby allowed me half an hour to come down while he was here.’
I said I hoped her mother’s condition was not serious.
‘No – thank you – not serious, as far as we know. She’ll be seventy-two soon, which is a grand age, I think, though of course it brings its troubles.’
At the mention of Mrs Battersby, I was about to ask Sukie whether she could tell me a little more concerning the housekeeper, in whom I had begun to take a decided interest; but I knew that I must get to Easton as soon as I could, before beginning the various tasks my mistress had set me. Sukie, too, was anxious to return to the great house, in order not to risk Mrs Battersby’s displeasure. So we parted, and I watched Sukie’s little figure run back down the lane, her curls flopping and bouncing as she went.

ONCE OUT OF the village, and having passed through the hamlets of Upper Thornbrook and Duck End, I took the road that climbed the gentle wooded escarpment on which the town of Easton stands, the trees on either side forming a most pleasant canopy of branches, through which the early-autumn sunlight was now streaming.
The Market Square was already crowded when I reached the town, for it was market day, and there was a great press of people outside the Duport Arms, and in the public rooms.
As there was no one at the desk, I rang the bell several times until a sour-faced old man, bent of back, and with a greasy black patch over one eye, appeared from behind a curtain.
‘I wish to leave this for collection.’
He took the letter and examined the inscription by holding it up close to his remaining eye.
‘“B.K.”,’ he muttered to himself, and then said the initials over again, more slowly this time, rolling his eye upwards to the ceiling, as if the information he was seeking might be written there. Then he began to nod his head.
‘Do you know the gentleman?’ I asked.
‘Genlemun? Bless you, no. No genlemun.’
‘Not a gentleman? A tradesman, perhaps?’
‘Hah! Not ’er.’
‘Ah, I see. It’s a lady.’
I turned to go, but he called me back. Lowering his voice, and leaning his whiskery face towards me, so close that I could smell his beery breath, he said:
‘No lady neither. Initials of old ’ooman. Over there.’
He nodded towards the tap-room door, through the glass of which, in a settle by the fire-place, I could see a woman of about sixty years in the act of draining a glass.
‘Gin-an’-water,’ the man informed me, with a rasping chuckle. ‘Third or fourth.’ Still chuckling, he laid the letter face up on the desk, next to the bell, and disappeared back behind the curtain.
I should have immediately left the Duport Arms to return to Evenwood, as Lady Tansor had instructed; but then, remembering that Madame had encouraged me to use my initiative in the pursuit of my great task, I decided to remain a few moments longer, in order to make some observations concerning the mysterious old woman.
These were my impressions of her person, jotted down in my note-book, and later transferred
verbatim
to my Book of Secrets:
OLD WOMAN (’B.K.’) AT DUPORT ARMS
Age:
sixty, or thereabouts. Grey hair, and a pinched, mean face, much lined about the eyes, and red about the nose. Short. Bent back. Dirty finger-nails. Wearing a dress that might have been in fashion twenty years since, but now faded, and darned in several places. Scuffed and dusty boots, the heel of the left worn almost to nothing. Hole in right stocking just above the ankle.
I stood, watching the woman call for another glass of gin-and-water, and wondering what had brought her here, to receive a letter, delivered by hand, from Lady Tansor. What could my Lady have to do with such a person?
Having drained her glass to the very bottom, the old woman was now wiping her mouth with the dirty sleeve of her dress. There was an intimidating look of seasoned cunning about her. Even in her present half-inebriated condition, her eyes were alert, darting here and there, as if on the watch for some danger. Gripping the table for support, she now pulled herself to her feet, and began to walk unsteadily towards the tap-room door.
I moved away as she approached; but my further progress was prevented by a group of farmers, who were just then coming in from the Square. Being obliged to step back to let them pass, I soon felt the old woman’s presence close behind me.
When the last of the farmers had gone by, I began to make my way as quickly as I could towards the front door; but then the one-eyed hall-porter appeared from behind his curtain once more and called to the woman.
‘Ma’am! Ma’am! Letter for you.’
Half walking, half stumbling, the old woman went over to the desk and took the letter from the porter.
‘Who brought it?’ she snapped.
‘Young lady over there,’ replied the one-eyed man, directing her to where I was standing.
‘And who might you be, miss?’ she asked, putting on a quickly assumed, but wholly unconvincing, smile as she drew near. ‘I don’t believe as I’ve had the pleasure of your acquaintance, my dear.’
I had no wish to tell this unpleasant person my name, and so said simply that I was Lady Tansor’s maid. Then, quickly excusing myself, I began to head for the front door again.
‘No, no, stay a while, my dear,’ she said, placing a grubby claw-like hand on mine. I felt her fingers tighten, and instantly began to pull away; but there was uncommon strength in that grip, which held me back.
For a brief moment I was afraid, and angry at myself for not returning to Evenwood when I should have done.
‘Lady Tansor’s maid, you say?’ the old woman was saying. ‘And a pretty maid you are, my dear. Won’t you come and talk for a while to a poor old woman with no friends in the world?’
Before I could reply, and with my hand still held fast, my attention was suddenly caught by the silhouette of a well-built man appearing in the doorway.
‘Hullo, who’s here?’ said the man on seeing me. ‘Why, it’s Miss Gorst, ain’t it?’