Mistress of Mellyn (12 page)

” May I sit with you and Lady Treslyn, Papa?” she asked.

” You are taking a walk with Miss Leigh,” he said. ” Do you not think that you should continue to do so?”

” Yes,” I answered for her. ” Come along, Alvean.”

Connan had turned to his companion. ” We are very fortunate to have found Miss Leigh. She is … admirable!”

” The perfect governess this time, I hope for your sake, Connan,” said Lady Treslyn.

I felt awkward, as though I were in the position of a horse standing there while they discussed my points. I was sure he was aware of my discomfiture and rather amused by it. There were times when I believed he was a very unpleasant person.

I said, and my voice sounded very chilly : “I think it is time we turned back. We were merely taking an airing before Alvean retires for the night. Come, Alvean,” I added. And I seized her arm so firmly that I drew her away.

” But,” protested Alvean, ” I want to stay. I want to talk to you, Papa.”

” But you can see I am engaged. Some other time, my child.”

” No,” she said. ” It is important … now.”

“It cannot be all that important. Let us discuss it to morrow.”

” No … no … Now!” Alvean’s voice had a hysterical note in it; I had never before known her defy him so utterly.

Lady Treslyn murmured: ” I see Alvean is a very deter mined person.”

Connan TreMellyn said coolly: ” Miss Leigh will deal with this matter.”

” Of course. The perfect governess….” There was a note of mockery in Lady Treslyn’s voice, and it goaded me to such an extent that I seized Alvean’s arm roughly and almost dragged her back the way we had come.

She was half sobbing, but she did not speak until we were in the house.

Then she said: ” I hate her. You know, don’t you. Miss Leigh, that she wants to be my new mamma.”

I said nothing then. I thought it dangerous to do so because I always felt that it was so easy to be overheard. It was only when we reached her room and I had followed her in and shut the door that I said: ” That was an extraordinary remark to make. How could she wish to be your mamma when she has a husband of her own?”

” He will soon die.”

” How can you know that?”

” Everybody says they are only waiting.”

I was shocked that she should have heard such gossip and I thought: I will speak to Mrs. Polgrey about this. They must be careful what they say in front of Alvean. Is it those girls.

Daisy and Kitty . or perhaps Joe Tapperty or his wife?

” She’s always here,” went on Alvean. ” I won’t let her take my mother’s place. I won’t let anybody.”

” You are becoming quite hysterical about improbabilities, and I must insist that you never allow me to hear you say such things again. It is degrading to your papa.”

That made her thoughtful. How she loves him! I thought. Poor little Alvean, poor lonely child!

A little while before, I had been sorry for myself as I stood in that beautiful garden and was forced to be quizzed by the beautiful woman in the arbour. I had said to myself: ” It is not fair. Why should one person have so much, and others nothing? Should I be beautiful in chiffon and diamonds? Perhaps not as Lady Treslyn was, but I am sure they would be more becoming than cotton and merino and a turquoise brooch which had belonged to my grandmother.”

Now I forgot to be sorry for myself, and my pity was all for Alvean.

I had seen Alvean to bed and had returned to my room, conscious of a certain depression. I kept thinking of Connan TreMellyn out there in the arbour with Lady Treslyn, asking myself if he were still there and what they talked about. Each other! I supposed. Of course Alvean and I had interrupted a flirtation. I felt shocked that he should indulge in such an undignified intrigue, for it seemed wholly undignified to me, since the lady had a husband to whom she owed her allegiance.

I went to the window and I was glad that it did not give me a view of the south gardens and the sea. I leaned my elbows on the sill and looked out at the scented evening. It was not quite dark yet but the sun had disappeared and the twilight was on us. My eyes turned to the window where I had seen the shadow on the blind.

The blinds were drawn up and I could see the blue curtains clearly. I stared at them, fixedly. I don’t know what I expected. Was it to see a face appear at the window, a beckoning hand? There were times when I could laugh at myself for my fancies, but the twilight hour was not one of them.

Then I saw the curtains move, and I knew that someone was in that room.

I was in an extraordinary mood that evening. It had some thing to do with meeting Connan TreMellyn and Lady Treslyn together in the arbour, but I had not sufficiently analysed my feelings at this date to understand it. I felt our recent encounter to have been humiliating but I was ready to risk another which might be more so. Alice’s room was not in my part of the house but I was completely at liberty to walk in the gardens if I wished to. If I were caught I should look rather foolish. But I was reckless. I did not care. Thoughts of Alice obsessed me. There were times when I felt such a burning desire to discover what mystery lay behind her death that I was prepared to go to any lengths.

So I slipped out of my room. I left my wing of the house and went along the gallery to Alice’s dressing room. I knocked lightly on the door and, with my heart beating like a sledge hammer, I swiftly opened it.

For a second I saw no one. Then I detected a movement by the curtains.

Someone was hiding behind them.

” Who is it?” I asked, and my voice successfully hid the trepidation I was feeling.

There was no answer, but whoever was behind those curtains was very eager not to be discovered.

I strode across the room, drew aside the curtains and saw Gilly cowering there.

The lids of her blank blue eyes fluttered in a terrified way. I put out a hand to seize her and she shrank from me towards the window.

” It’s all right, Gilly,” I said gently. ” I won’t hurt you.”

She continued to stare at me, and I went on: “Tell me, what are you doing here?”

Still she said nothing. She had begun to stare about the room as though she were asking someone for help and for a moment I had the uncanny feeling that she saw something or someone I could not see.

” Gilly,” I said, ” you know you should not be in this room, do you not?” She drew away from me, and I repeated what I had said.

Then she nodded and immediately afterwards shook her head.

” I am going to take you back to my room, Gilly. Then we’ll have a little talk.”

I put my arm about her; she was trembling. I drew her to the door but she came very reluctantly, and at the threshold of the room she looked back over her shoulder; then she cried out suddenly: “Madam … come back, Madam. Come … now I led her firmly from the room and shut the door behind us, then almost had to drag her along to my bedroom.

Once there I firmly shut my door and stood with my back against it.

Her lips were trembling.

” Gilly,” I said, ” I do want you to understand that I won’t hurt you.

I want to be your friend. ” The blank look persisted and taking a shot in the dark I went on: ” I want to be your friend as Mrs. TreMellyn was. “

That startled her and the blank look disappeared for a moment. I had stumbled on another discovery. Alice had been kind to this poor child.

” You went there to look for Mrs. TreMellyn, did you not?”

She nodded.

She looked so pathetic that I was moved to a demonstration of feeling unusual with me. I knelt down and put my arms about her; now our faces were level.

” You can’t find her, Gilly. She is dead. It is no use looking for her in this house.”

Gilly nodded and I was not sure what she implied whether she agreed with me that it was no use, or whether she believed that she could find Mrs. TreMellyn in the house.

” So,” I went on, ” we must try to forget her, mustn’t we Gilly?”

The pale lids fell over the eyes to hide them from me.

” We’ll be friends,” I said. ” I want us to be. If we were friends, you wouldn’t be lonely, would you?”

She shook her head, and I fancied that the eyes which surveyed me had lost something of their blankness; she was not trembling now, and I was sure that she was no longer afraid of me.

Then suddenly she slipped out of my grasp and ran to the door. I did not pursue her and, as she opened the door and turned to look back at me, there was a faint smile on her lips. Then she was gone.

I believed that I had established a little friendliness between us. I believed that she bad lost her fear of me.

Then I thought of Alice, who had been kind to this child. I was beginning to build up the picture of Alice more dearly in my mind.

I went to the window and looked across the L-shaped building to the window of the room, and I thought of that night when I had seen the shadow on the blind.

My discovery of Gilly did not explain that. It was no child I bad seen silhouetted there. It had been a woman.

Gilly might hide herself in Alice’s room, but the shadow I had seen on the blind that night did not belong to her.

It was the next day when I went to Mrs. Polgrey’s room for a cup of tea. She was delighted to invite me. ” Mrs. Polgrey,” I had said, ” I have a matter which I feel to be of some importance, and I should very much like to discuss this with you.

She was bridled with pride. I could see that the governess who sought her advice must be, in her eyes, the ideal governess.

” I shall be delighted to give you an hour of my company and a cup of my best Earl Grey,” she told me.

Over the teacups she surveyed me with an expression bordering on the affectionate.

” Now, Miss Leigh, pray tell me what it is you would ask of me.”

” I am a little disturbed,” I told her, stirring my tea thoughtfully.

” It is due to a remark of Alvean’s. I am sure that she listens to gossip, and I think it most undesirable in a child of her age.”

” Or in any of us as I am sure a young lady of your good sense would feel,” replied Mrs. Polgrey with what I could not help feeling was a certain amount of hypocrisy.

I told her how we had walked in the cliff gardens and met the master with Lady Treslyn. ” And then,” I went on, ” Alvean made this offensive remark. She said that Lady Treslyn hoped to become her mamma.”

Mrs. Polgrey shook her head. She said: ” What about a spoonful of whisky in your tea, Miss? There’s nothing like it for keeping up the spirits.”

I had no desire for the whisky but I could see that Mrs. Polgrey had, and she would have been disappointed if I had refused to join her in her tea tippling, so I said: ” A small teaspoonful, please, Mrs.

Polgrey. “

She unlocked the cupboard, took out the bottle and measured out the whisky even more meticulously than she measured her tea. I found myself wondering what other stores she kept in that cupboard of hers.

Now we were like a pair of conspirators and Mrs. Polgrey was clearly enjoying herself.

” I fear you will find it somewhat shocking. Miss,” she began.

” I am prepared,” I assured her.

” Well, Sir Thomas Treslyn is a very old man and only a few years ago he married this young lady, a play-actress, some say, from London. Sir Thomas went there on a visit and returned with her. He set the neighbourhood agog, I can tell you, Miss.”

” I can well believe that.”

” There’s some that say she’s one of the handsomest women in the country.”

” I can believe that too.”

” Handsome is as handsome does.”

” But it remains handsome outwardly,” I added.

” And men can be foolish. The Master has his weakness,” admitted Mrs.

Polgrey.

” If there is gossip I am most anxious that it shall not reach Alvean’s ears.”

” Of course you are, Miss. But gossip there is, and that child’s got ears like a hare’s.”

” Do you think Daisy and Kitty chatter?”

Mrs. Polgrey came closer and I smelt the whisky on her breath. I was startled, wondering whether she could smell it on mine. ” Everybody chatters. Miss.”

” I see.”

” There’s some as say that they’m not the sort to wait for blessing of clergy.”

” Well, perhaps they are not.”

I felt wretched. I hate this, I told myself. It’s so sordid. So horrible for a sensitive girl like Alvean.

” The Master is impulsive by nature and in his way he is fond of the women.”

“So you think” -She nodded gravely. ” When Sir Thomas dies there’ll be a new mistress in this house. All they have to wait for now is for him to go. Mrs.

TreMellyn, her . her’s already gone. “

I did not want to ask the question which came to my lips but it seemed as though there were some force within me which would not let me avoid it. ” And was it so … when Mrs. TreMellyn was alive?”

Mrs. Polgrey nodded slowly. ” He visited her often. It started almost as soon as she came. Sometimes he rides out at night and we don’t see him till morning. Well, he’m Master and ‘tis for him to make his own rules.

“Tis for us to cook and dust and house keep or teach the child . whatsoever we’m here for. And there’s an end of it.”

” So you think that Alvean is only repeating what everyone knows? When Sir Thomas dies Lady Treslyn will be her new mamma.”

” There’s some on us that thinks it’s more than likely, and some that wouldn’t be sorry to see it. Her ladyship’s not the kind to interfere much with our side of the house; and ‘tis better to have these things regularised, so I do say.” She went on piously: ” I’d sonner see the Master of the house I serve living in wedlock than in sin, I do assure you. And so would we all.”

” Could we warn the girls not to chatter, before Alvean, of these matters?”

” As well try to keep a cuckoo from singing in the spring. I y could wollop them two till I dropped with exhaustion and still they’d gossip. They can’t help it. It be in their blood. And there’s nothing much to choose between one girl and the other. Nowadays” I nodded sympathetically. I was thinking of Alice, who had watched the relationship between her husband and Lady Treslyn. No wonder she had been prepared to run away with Geoffry Nansellock.