Mistress of Mellyn (8 page)

” Grey Mare wasn’t the mount for you. You should have a pony to start with.”

” Then I had Buttercup. She was as bad in a different way. She wouldn’t go when I tried to make her. She took a mouthful of the bushes on the bank and I tugged and tugged and she wouldn’t move for me. When Billy Trehay said Come on, Buttercup,” she just let go and started walking away as though it were all my fault. “

I laughed and she threw me a look of hatred. I hastened to assure her that was the way horses behaved until they under stood you. When they did understand you they loved you as though you were their very dear friend.

I saw the wistful look in her eyes then and I exulted because I knew that the reason for aggressiveness was to be found in her intense loneliness and desire for affection.

I said: ” Look here, Alvean, come out with me now. Let’s see what we can do together.”

She shook her head and looked at me suspiciously. I knew she felt that I might be trying to punish her for her ungraciousness towards me by making her look foolish. I wanted to put my arm about her, but I knew that was no way to approach Alvean.

” There’s one thing to learn before you can begin to ride,” I said as though I had not noticed her gesture, ” and that is to love your horse. Then you won’t be afraid. As soon as you’re not afraid, your horse will begin to love you. He’ll know you’re his master, and he wants a master; but it must be a tender, loving master.”

She was giving me her attention now.

” When a horse runs away as Grey Mare did, that means that she is frightened. She’s as frightened as you are, and her way of showing it is to run. Now when you’re frightened you should never let her know it. You just whisper to her, it’s all right. Grey Mare … I’m here.” As for Buttercup she’s a mischievous old nag. She’s lazy and she knows that you can’t handle her, so she won’t do as she’s told.

But once you let her know you’re the master she’ll obey. Look how she did with Billy Trehay! “

” I didn’t know Grey Mare was frightened of me,” she said.

” Your father wants you to ride,” I told her.

It was the wrong thing to have said; it reminded her of past fears, past humiliations; I saw the stubborn fear return to her eyes, and felt a new burst of resentment towards that arrogant man who could be so careless of the feelings of a child.

” Wouldn’t it be fun,” I said, ” to surprise him. I mean … suppose you learned and you could jump and gallop, and he didn’t know about it until he saw you do it.”

It hurt me to see the joy in her face and I wondered how any man could be so callous as to deny a child the affection she asked.

” Alvean,” I said. ” Let’s try.”

” Yes,” she said, ” let’s try. I’ll go and change into my things.”

I gave a little cry of disappointment, remembering that I had no riding habit with me. During my years with Aunt Adelaide I had had little opportunity for wearing it. Aunt Adelaide was no horsewoman herself and consequently was never invited to the country to hunt.

Thus I had no opportunity for riding. To ride in Rotten Row would have been far beyond my means. When I had last looked at my riding clothes I had seen that the moth had got at them. I had felt resigned. I believed that I should never need them again.

Alvean was looking at me and I told her: ” I have no riding clothes.”

Her face fell and then lit up. ” Come with me,” she said. She was almost conspiratorial and I enjoyed this new relation ship between us which I felt to be a great advance towards friendship.

We went along the gallery until we were in that part of the house which Mrs. Polgrey had told me was not for me. Alvean paused before a door and I had the impression that she was steeling herself to go in.

She at length threw open the door and stood aside for me to enter, and I could not help feeling that she wanted me to go in first.

It was a small room which I judged to be a dressing room. In it was a long mirror, a tallboy, a chest of drawers and an oak chest. Like most

of the rooms in the house this room had j two doors. These rooms in the gallery appeared to lead from one to another, and this other door was slightly opened and, as Alvean went to it and looked round the room beyond, I followed her.

It was a bedroom in there. A large room beautifully furnished, the floor carpeted in blue, the curtains of blue velvet;

the bed was a fourposter and, although I knew it to be large, it was dwarfed by the size of the room.

Alvean seemed distressed to see my interest in the bedroom. She went to the communicating door and shut it.

” There are lots of clothes here,” she said. ” In the chests and the tallboy. There’s bound to be riding clothes. There’ll be something you can have.”

She had thrown up the lid of the chest and it was something new for me to see her so excited. I was delighted to have discovered a way to her affections that I allowed myself to be carried along.

In the chest were dresses, petticoats, hats and boots.

Alvean said quickly: ” There are a lot of clothes in the attics. Great trunks of them. They were grand mamma and great grand mamma When there were parties they used to dress up in them and play charades ” I held up a lady’s black beaver hat obviously meant to be worn for riding. I put it on my head and Alvean laughed with a little catch in her voice. That laughter moved me more than anything had done since I had entered this house. It was the laughter of a child who is unaccustomed to laughter and laughs in a manner which is almost guilty. I determined to have her laughing often and without the slightest feeling of guilt.

She suddenly controlled herself as though she remembered where she was.

” You look so funny in it. Miss,” she said.

I got up and stood before the long mirror. I certainly looked unlike myself. My eyes were brilliant, my hair looked quite copper against the black. I decided that I looked slightly less unattractive than usual, and that was what Alvean meant by ” funny.”

” Not in the least like a governess,” she explained. She was pulling out a dress, and I saw that it was a riding habit made of black woollen cloth and trimmed with braid and ball fringe. It had a blue collar and blue cuffs and it was elegantly cut.

I held it up against myself. ” I think,” I said, ” that this would fit.”

” Try it on,” said Alvean. Then . ” No, not here. You take it to your room and put it on.” She suddenly seemed obsessed by the desire to get out of this room. She picked up the hat and ran to the door. I thought that she was eager for us to get started on our lesson, and there was not a great deal of time if we were to be back for tea at four.

I picked up the dress, took the hat from her and went back to my room.

She hurried through to hers, and I immediately put on the riding habit.

It was not a perfect fit, but I had never been used to expensive clothes and was prepared to forget it was a little tight at the waist, and that the sleeves were on the short side, for a new woman looked back at me from my mirror, and when I set the beaver hat on my head I was delighted with myself.

I ran along to Alvean’s room; she was in her habit, and when she saw me her eyes lit up and she seemed to look at me with greater interest than ever before.

We went down to the stables and I told Billy Trehay to saddle Buttercup for Alvean and another horse for myself as we were going to have a riding lesson.

He looked at me with some astonishment, but I told him that we had little time and were impatient to begin.

When we were ready I put Buttercup on a leading rein and took her with Alvean on her back into the paddock.

For nearly an hour we were there and when we left it I knew that Alvean and I had entered into a new relationship. She had not accepted me completely that would have been asking too much but I did believe that from that afternoon she knew that I was not an enemy.

I concentrated on giving her confidence. I made her grow accustomed to sitting her horse, to talking to her horse. I made her lean back full length on Buttercup’s back and look up at the sky; then I made her shut her eyes. I gave her lessons in mounting and dismounting.

Buttercup did no more than walk round that field, but I do believe that at the end of the hour I had done a great deal towards making Alvean lose her fear;

and that was what I had determined should be the first lesson. I was astonished to find that it was half past three, and I think Alvean was too.

” We must return to the house at once,” I said, ” if we are to change in time for tea.” As we came out of the field a figure rose from the grass and I saw to my surprise that it was Peter Nansellock. He clapped his hands as we came along. ” Here endeth the first lesson,” he cried, ” and an excellent one. I did not know,” he went on, turning to me, ” that equestrian skill was included in your many accomplishments.”

” Were you watching us, Unde Peter?” demanded Alvean. ” For the last half hour. My admiration for you both is beyond expression.”

Alvean smiled slowly. ” Did you really admire us?”

” Much as I could be tempted to compliment two beautiful ladies,” he said placing his hand on his heart and bowing elegantly, ” I could never tell a lie.”

” Until this moment,” I said tartly. Alvean’s face fell and I added: ” There is nothing very admirable in learning to ride. Thousands are doing it every day.”

” But the art was never so gracefully taught, never so patiently learned.”

” Your unde is a Joker, Alvean,” I put in.

” Yes,” said Alvean almost sadly, ” I know.”

” And,” I added, ” it is time that we returned for tea.”

” I wonder if I might be invited to schoolroom tea?”

” You are calling to see Mr. TreMellyn?” I asked.

” I am calling to take tea with you two ladies.”

Alvean laughed suddenly; I could see that she was not unaffected by what I supposed was the charm of this man. ” Mr.

Tremellyn left Mount Mellyn early this afternoon,” I said. ” I have no idea whether or not he has returned. “

” And while the cat’s away …” he murmured, and his eyes swept over my costume in a manner which I could only describe as insolent.

I said coolly: ” Come along, Alvean, we must go at once if we are to be in time for tea.”

I let the horse break into a trot, and holding Buttercup’s leading rein, started towards the house.

Peter Nansellock walked behind us, and when we reached the stables I saw him making for the house.

Alvean and I dismounted, handed our horses to two of the stable boys, and hurried up to our rooms.

I got out of the riding habit and into my dress and, glancing at myself, I thought how drab I looked in my grey cotton. I made a gesture of impatience at my folly and picked up the riding habit to hang in my cupboard, deciding that I would take the first opportunity of asking Mrs. Polgrey if it was in order for me to use it. I was afraid I had acted on impulse by doing so this afternoon, but I had been stung into prompt action, I realised, by the attitude of Connan TreMellyn.

As I lifted the habit I saw the name on the waist band. It gave me a little start, as I suppose everything in that connection would do for some time. ” Alice TreMellyn ” was embossed in neat and tiny letters on the black satin facings.

Then I understood. That room had been her dressing room;

the bedroom I had glimpsed, her bedroom. I wondered that Alvean had taken me there and given me her mother’s clothes.

My heart felt as though it were leaping into my throat. This, I said to myself, is absurd. Where else could we have found a modern riding habit? Not in those chests in the attics she had spoken of; the clothes in those were used for charades.

I was being ridiculous. Why should I not wear Alice’s riding habit?

She had no need for it now. And was I not accustomed to wearing cast-off clothes?

Boldly I picked up the riding dress and hung it in my cupboard.

I was impelled to go to my window and looked along the line of windows, trying to place that one which would have been that of her bedroom. I thought I placed it.

In spite of myself I shivered. Then I shook myself. She would be glad I used her habit, I told myself. Of course she would be glad. Am I not trying to help her daughter?

I realised that I was reassuring myself—which was ridiculous.

What had happened to my commonsense? Whatever I told myself I could not hide the fact that I wished the dress had belonged to anyone but Alice.

When I had changed there was a knock on my door and I was relieved to see Mrs. Polgrey standing there.

” Do come in,” I said. ” You are just the lady I wished to see.”

She came into my room, and I was very fond of her in that moment.

There was an air of normality about her such as must inevitably put fancy to flight.

” I have been giving Miss Alvean a riding lesson,” I said quickly, for I was anxious to have this matter of the dress settled before she could tell me why she had come. ” And as I had no riding habit with me she found one for me. I believe it to have been her mother’s.” I went to my wardrobe and produced it.

Mrs. Polgrey nodded.

” I wore it this once. Perhaps it was wrong of me.”

” Did you have the Master’s permission to give her this riding lesson?”

” Oh yes, indeed. I made sure of that.”

” Then there is nothing to worry about. He would have no objection to your wearing the dress. I can see no reason why you should not keep it in your room, providing of course you only wear it when giving Miss Alvean her riding lesson.”

” Thank you,” I said. ” You have set my mind at rest.”

Mrs. Polgrey bowed her head in approval. I could see that she was rather pleased that I had brought my little problem to her.

” Mr. Peter Nansellock is downstairs,” she said.

” Yes, we saw him as we came in.”

” The Master is not at home. And Mr. Peter has asked that you entertain him for tea—you and Miss Alvean.”

” Oh, but should we…. I mean should I?”

” Well, yes. Miss, I think it would be in order. I think that is what the Master would wish, particularly as Mr. Peter suggests it.