Nina Coombs Pykare (6 page)

Once - her conscience advising her that it was almost criminal to allow her employer to send out such parodies of the epistolary form - she ventured to suggest a very minor change but was abruptly brought back to reality when her employer replied, “Nonsense, my dear. I admit you are well schooled enough to teach the children, but no one writes letters to rival mine. They are famous over the whole countryside.”

Infamous was more likely the appropriate word, thought Jennifer. Certainly no one who had ever received one of Mrs. Parthemer’s compositions would be likely to forget it. “Of course, ma’am,” she mur-mured and continued to faithfully record every ridiculous word. She had, she told herself, done her best. And if Mrs. Par-themer chose to make herself the talk of the neighborhood that was not Jennifer’s concern.

Mrs. Parthemer’s letters being given to some length, Jennifer soon realized that the pleasure of riding the little mare must be foregone for that evening.

It was already dusk and the candles had finally been lighted. What a relief, since it was quite difficult to write when she could not make out what she had just written. Mrs. Parthemer sighed, “That will do. I’ll send them out by the footmen immed-iately. Call Gibbons.” She pressed a languid hand to her forehead. “If I am to stay up until Monsieur Dupin arrives, I shall need my vinaigrette.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Thankfully Jennifer rose from the writing desk and went in search of the faithful Gibbons to inform her of the mistress’s wishes. Gibbons’s only answer was a decided sniff, but Jennifer bore the slight with equanimity. She had dealt with Gibbons’s kind before. The best defense was a pleasant inability to recognize the nasty looks and insults as such.

  Jennifer turned toward the staircase and the nursery. She believed she would just check on her charges. But she had only just reached the second landing when a great knocking resounded on the front door. She moved to the banister to peer down.

Monsieur Dupin, it appeared, was quite a personable young man. His curly locks were dark as midnight as he handed Phillips his hat, cane, and gloves. There was grace to his movements and, recog-nized Jennifer, a certain power.

She made her way back down the stairs. Perhaps it would be as well to meet the mesmerist this evening. After she got a close look at his face she would be better able to form a judgment as to his character.

She reached the front hall just as Phillips returned to usher the guest into the draw-ing room. “Madame wishes your presence,” he informed Jennifer and so she trailed along behind the guest.

She had had one glimpse of the strang-er’s dark face and she was struck by one thing -a pair of shining black eyes that seemed to bore into her own, seeking her secret thoughts and dreams.

  Jennifer shivered. Those eyes were uncanny. And then suddenly into her mind flashed the vision of a pair of laughing grey eyes flecked with brown and she felt suddenly comforted. She was a match for anything Monsieur Dupon could try, she told herself. But it was with some consternation that she recalled that Mrs. Par-themer trusted this man to restore her to health.

“Ah, Monsieur Dupin, you have at last arrived.”

The Frenchman bent low over Madame’s hand. “I have hastened to your side, fair lady, in order to drive out the evil that afflicts you.”

If there were any evil here, thought Jennifer grimly, it was in this charlatan. Mrs. Parthemer passed the monkey to Jennifer. The little creature immediately buried his head in her shoulder.

“You must meet the others,” trilled Mrs. Parthemer, obviously invigorated by the great man’s mere presence. “Here is my nephew, Thomas Ingleton.”

The Frenchman inclined his head grave-ly. “Perhaps there is something with which I can help Monsieur.”

How strange, thought Jennifer, that Ingleton’s face should pale at such an ordinary remark. But there was no predicting how the man would react; he seemed to be a bundle of frayed nerves.

“And this is our governess, Miss Whitcomb,” continued Mrs. Parthemer.

“Enchanté,
I am sure,” purred Monsieur Dupin, those black eyes boring into hers. Jennifer felt herself sinking into their depths. Abruptly she wrenched her eyes away and looked at the monkey in her arms.

The Frenchman merely bowed.
“Made-moiselle
has not always been a governess,” he remarked pleasantly under his breath. Jennifer’s heart leaped. How could he know that?

Monsieur Dupin turned back to his hostess. “And where is the Mr. Par-themer?”

Mrs. Parthemer looked a little flustered, but finally appeared to decide on the truth. “I’m afraid Mr. Parthemer is not a spiritual sort of man,” she remarked sadly. “But he is quite willing to have you here - for my sake. And I have invited some house-guests. I know you will find them very extraordinary people.”

  Particularly the heiress, thought Jennifer. How very unkind of Mrs. Parthemer to expose these people to the machinations of such a man. She cast about in her mind for a way to warn them, but no way presented itself. She had no evidence with which to back up her convictions. And Mrs. Parthemer was obviously enamored of the whole wonderful science of animal magnetism. Words of sound advice direct-ed to her would fall on deaf ears.
Or, even worse, might earn Jennifer her employer’s dislike, a situation devoutly to be avoided.

And so she kept her peace and watched as the handsome Monsieur Dupin flattered and cajoled the fluttering Mrs. Parthemer, who was behaving, thought Jennifer, with a bitterness quite unlike her usual self, like a schoolroom miss who had just been admitted to society. The whole display struck her as rather nauseating, but since her presence had been requested she dared not withdraw.

She seated herself quietly, the monkey still in her arms, to wait for an opportunity to seek instructions from Mrs. Parthemer. As she did so she cast a curious glance at Ingleton. He was regarding the stranger as though he might at any moment grow horns and a tail and breathe fire and brimstone. That was odd, thought Jennifer, but then Ingleton was an odd man. Still, it was strange that he should be so upset. Had he perhaps had a bad experience with mesmerism, she wonder-ed. Yet at the dinner table he had not been at all disturbed by the news of Monsieur Dupin’s coming. No, it must be something about the Frenchman himself.

  Certainly his was a person not to be for-gotten. His entirely black outfit, even to his cravat, gave him a dark sinister look. But, Jennifer was well aware, such a look was very attractive to certain women. Witness the inane way that Mrs. Parthemer was behaving, simpering and fluttering like a girl newly out. It was quite obvious that what-ever Monsieur Dupin asked for, Mrs. Parthemer was going to provide.

Jennifer let her thoughts meander to the coming houseguests. Lady Carolyn would probably cut her as someone quite beneath her notice.
Mrs. Parsons, apparently an old tabitha, would surely have bushels of gossip to pour into any available ears. Lord Proctor, who sounded like an elegant exquisite, might in other situations have given Jennifer cause for concern, but with Lady Carolyn in the house and Ingleton vying for her hand, Proctor would be far too busy to go chasing after the governess.

She comforted herself with this thought through the subsequent delineation of Mrs. Parthemer’s myriad symptoms. At best she should have some peace, she thought hopefully. She could very easily enjoy a pleasant country life: mornings given over to lessons in the schoolroom and afternoons spent riding or walking in the open air with the children.

  Again a picture of Haverford’s fair open face flashed into her mind. Well, she thought, if they happened to run into the Viscount on one or another of their excur-sions, it would certainly not be
her
fault. She was attempting to convince herself of this when Mrs. Parthemer called to her. “Jennifer, my dear. Monsieur Dupin is going to have a good session with us. I shall be a great deal better after it.”

“Madame must not expect miracles,” said the Frenchman. “The forces must be in alignment. The magnetic energy must be flowing.
Or nothing can be accomplished.”

Leaving himself a way to crawl out, thought Jennifer with contempt.

But Mrs. Parthemer trilled. “Nonsense, I have absolute faith in your ability. And that’s the thing, isn’t it, my dear Monsieur Dupin? One must have faith.”

The   Frenchman   bowed   gallantly. “Madame knows much about the science.”

“Of course I do,” Mrs. Parthemer chattered. “I have read a great deal about the master. And the
Societé de l’Harmonic Universelle.”

Jennifer barely refrained from wincing at Mrs. Parthemer’s garbled pronunciation of the French, but she was quick to note that the dark Frenchman’s face did not betray any emotion at all.

  “Indeed,” said he, with a suavity that Jennifer much mistrusted. “Madame will be very well pleased. I assure her of that.”

“I have allotted to you the Red Room and the little sitting room next it,” said Mrs. Parthemer. “I’m sure there will be room there for your
baquets.”
She raised a trembling hand to her forehead. “Now I find myself feeling rather feeble and shall have to ask Gibbons to put me to bed directly. We have houseguests coming in tomorrow, too. I must be up and about. Miss Whitcomb will show you the Red Room. And Jennifer, when you have done that, Betty can show Monsieur to his room.”

“Yes, Madame,” replied Jennifer, careful to keep her aversion to this task off her face.

Mrs. Parthemer was soon supported out of the room by Gibbons on one side and, strange to say, Ingleton on the other. Jennifer found herself alone with Dupin. The Frenchman’s dark eyes probed hers. “Mademoiselle wonders how I knew she was not always a governess,” he said, smiling briefly.

Jennifer did not reply, but this did not seem to bother him in the least. The monkey, who had looked up and met the Frenchman’s eyes, shivered suddenly and buried his face in her shoulder. She could feel his whole tiny body trembling with fear.

“I am not a magician,” said Dupin. “Nor yet a charlatan, as your so beautiful eyes tell me you believe.”

With difficulty Jennifer kept an expressionless face. Admitting to anything might damage her in Madame’s eyes.

“I am a scientist,” declared Dupin. “I harness the Life Force of the world and use it to cure.”

Jennifer did not think it politic to let this man know how much she disliked him. “If you will follow me, I will show you the Red Room.”

“Pardon,”
said the Frenchman. “I see that I am keeping Mademoiselle, perhaps from a rendezvous with her
bien aime, n'est-ce pas?”

“Indeed not,” replied Jennifer, startled into saying more than she meant to. “I have no
bien aime.”

Dupin shook his head. “Are the men in this place gone blind? Mademoiselle has a classic beauty. It is to be regretted that she hides it under such dark drab clothes.”

“I am a governess,” replied Jennifer evenly. “For a governess beauty is at best a liability.”

  “As I remarked before. Mademoiselle has not always been a governess. I believe she was once surrounded by handsome young courtiers, as her beauty so richly de-serves.”

Jennifer flushed and was annoyed with herself for doing so. This man’s words were bringing back memories that were better kept buried. “I wish only to do as Madame commanded me,” she said. “And then I must check on my charges.”

“Of course,” replied Dupin. “Show to me this Red Room. My
baquets
will arrive tomorrow and I will wish to install them
immediatement.”

“This way,” said Jennifer, and led him down the hall.

Dupin’s black eyes surveyed the room. It was indeed red, thought Jennifer. Except for the lack of a bed it might have been Madame’s bedchamber. Why no one had told the woman that this violent scarlet made her appear completely colorless, Jennifer did not know. But on reflection, she decided that perhaps such information had already been given to her employer and promptly discarded. It would certainly be no easy matter to tell Mrs. Parthemer something she did not wish to hear.

“This room will do nicely,” observed Dupin. “And the sitting room Madame mentioned?”

  Jennifer opened the door to the adjoining room. By the standards of Seven Elms it was small, but to her it seemed rather cavernous.

“Excellent,”
cried Monsieur. “Here we shall have the footmen remove the furniture and line the floor with the pads I have brought.”

Jennifer’s face reflected her bewilder-ment.

“This will be my crisis room,” Dupin informed her. “I see that you have not the knowledge of the master’s work. Into this room will be brought those patients who are having the convulsions.”

“Convulsions?”

Dupin nodded. “It is so. Sometimes one must get worse before she gets better. But it will be all apparent when we have the demonstration.”

“I do not believe that I shall be present for the demonstration,” she replied. “I have my duties to the children.”

“I shall see that you are free to come,” Dupin said and Jennifer, heart dropping, knew that further protest would be useless.

It was not until later, when Betty took Monsieur Dupin off to his room and relieved her of Peterkins, and Jennifer was thoughtfully preparing for bed, that she found herself wondering about Monsieur Dupin’s interest in her.

  It might be attributed to the same motive as that which had animated the Earl of Linden, but somehow Jennifer doubted that. For all his dark good looks Monsieur Dupin was a practical man. And lust would never be allowed to interfere with his more profitable activities.

No, she thought as she tied her nightcap, blew out her lone candle, and crawled shivering under the featherbed, there was some other reason for the Frenchman’s interest in her. And whatever it was she did not like it.

Well, there was little point in trying to figure it out at that moment. It had been a long and somewhat difficult day, and with a sigh she closed her eyes and settled down to sleep, the last thing in her consciousness the vision of the friendly face of the Viscount Haverford.

Chapter Five

The morning air was quite invigorating and Jennifer drank it to its fullest. Out here, away from the constant strain of being always at Mrs. Parthemer’s beck and call, she could feel almost free.