Orphan Bride (4 page)

“You wait till spring, my dear, then you
’ll
know the nature of the moor,” she said. She raised her eyes to the ceiling at faint sounds from above. “Mr. Davey is moving—he’s always first down. Goes out first thing to tend his bees and talk to Them.” She chuckled.

“What is Them?” Jennet asked ungrammatically.

Mrs. Dingle chuckled again.

“They and Them?”
she said. “Oh, just people out of his head. He talks out loud to ’em.”

Jennet’s eyes grew enormous.

“Do you mean he invents them?” she asked. “Do you mean he’s mad—talking aloud and inventing things, I mean?”

Mrs. Dingle considered.

“Not mad exactly—a little mazed maybe. You
’ll
get used to
’e
directly,” she said.

Jennet said nothing, but she thought it was unlikely that she would get used to her new Uncle Homer in a hurry.

“That fire’s burning up proper now,” Mrs. Dingle remarked with satisfaction. “You stay here if you’ve a mind to, while I
give the downstairs rooms a bit of a lick round. Here, you can make the toast, if you like.”

She thrust a toasting-fork into Jennet’s hands, pushed a pile of cut bread towards her and went out of the kitchen armed with a broom and a duster.

Jennet made the toast, and was sitting on the rug waiting for Mrs. Dingle when Homer Davey came in.

“Hullo,
my dear!” he exclaimed, looking a little startled at discovering Jennet in the kitchen. “You are down very early. I thought I was always the first.”

Jennet looked at him nervously. He certainly did not look mad, only rather vague and kindly as he stood peering at her over his spectacles. The best thing was, possibly, to take no notice.

“Good morning, Mr.—Uncle Homer,” she said. “I got up at six. We always do in the orphanage.”

“You’ve been up since six?” he exclaimed wonderingly. “Dear me! What have you been doing with yourself all this time?”

“Well,” said Jennet, “I did wash up for Mrs. Dingle, but I don’t think she was very pleased. Then I had some tea, and then I made the toast.

“Dear me!” he said again, and shaking his head sadly, went off and into the other part of the house.

Jennet had decided to say nothing about getting up so early, but Homer informed them all of the fact at breakfast.

“And do you know, my dear Emily, she even washed the dishes and had small thanks from Mrs. D.”

“What dishes?” asked Em
i
ly vaguely.

“The dishes of the night before, probably. Your Mrs. Dingle’s a slummick, and so I’ve always told you,” said Julian. He looked better after his night’s res
t
and seemed to have lost much of his irritability.

“
She may be a slummick, but she suits us,” Emily replied blandly. “Jennet, my dear, you must not upset the arrangements of the house. It is quite unnecessary to get up at six o’clock and wash dishes. You will be called at seven-thirty.”

“Yes, Miss Dane,” said Jennet.

“Jeannette—I mean Jennet!”

“Aunt Emily!” Jennet amended hastily.

“I still think you should speak to Mrs. D., Emily,” continued Homer. “It is most ungrateful of her.”

“That’s enough, Homer,” Emily said placidly. “We all quite
understand. Jennet, dear, if you have finished, you may leave the table.”

Jennet went into the living room, where a fire burned fitfully, and sat down. She supposed that sooner or later someone would come and tell her what her duties were to be. Her eyes wandered round the room and she noticed the long shelves of books which flanked one wall. She left her
chair
and knelt down by the books, scrut
i
nizing them anxiously. Dickens
...
Dickens
...
everybody had Dickens
...
A
h, here he was. She extracted
Oliver Twist
and sat back on her heels, reading with avidity.

Julian found her there nearly an hour later, and watched her in silence for a moment before he asked: “What are you reading?”

She started guiltily.

“I—I was only waiting to be told what I should do,” she stammered.

He leant on his stick, looking down at her with an
amused
expression.

“You’re supposed to do what you like,” he said. “What were you reading?”

She held up the book, and
he raised his eyebrows. “Dickens—at this hour of the morning!” he remarked.

“We were reading it aloud in the orphanage,” she explained. “We had just got to the part where Oliver asks for more, and I wanted to find out what happened.”

“Painfully suitable reading for an orphanage,” remarked Julian dryly.

She did not understand him and put the volume back with its fellows, feeling she should not have touched it.

“So you read the classics at Blacker’s,” Julian said, dropping into a chair and filling his pipe.

“We’ve read most of Dickens and Scott, and some Jane Austen,” she told him dryly. “But on Sundays we have the lives of the martyrs. I don’t like them much
.
”

“You don’t approve of dying for your faith and wearing a martyr’s crown?”

She looked distressed.

“I don’t know. I think I’m not very brave, and a martyr’s crown seems awfully little compensation.”

He laughed.

“You and I should get on,” he said dryly.
“I
also think it’s awfully little compensation.”

Jennet was dimly aware that he was thinking of his shattered leg, but she did not understand him and wished he would get up and go away.

He looked at her hands and said, as if it were an accusation:

“You have chilblains.”

She sat on them hurriedly.

“You must take care of your hands,” he told her. “They are the first things a man usually looks at.”

She said nothing, thinking that the hands of the average orphan with her way to make in the world were of little consequence to a prospective employer.

“You’d better get out on the moor,” he said abruptly. “Fresh air is what you need, and plenty of good food.”

She looked out of the window to the expanse of lonely moor beyond.

“
Now?” she asked, the habit of obedience too strong to query any order, however strange it might seem.

“Yes, now,” he replied, seeming to lose interest. “I'm leaving immediately after lunch, but I shall see you again before I go.”

She had got to her feet and stood looking at him with her solemn stare. She had not felt at ease with him since he had first taken her out of the orphanage, but he was more familiar than the others, and he was going back to streets, and lights and people.

“I suppose,” she began with great courage, “you
wouldn
’
t take me with you ”

“What!” he exclaimed.

“—and change me for one of the other orphans, I mean,” she finished earnestly. “Katy Green, perhaps.”

He looked at her with sardonic amusement.

“Don’t you like it here?” he enquired.

She was silent, not wishing to be rude.

“I’m afraid,” said Julian with a wry smile, “I don’t w
a
nt to change you for another orphan. I think you will suit my purpose admirably. Now, fetch your coat and go for a walk.”

She hesitated for one moment more, then she murmured: “Yes
—C
ousin Julian,” and ran out of the room.

CHAPTER
T
H
R
E
E

It seemed to Jennet during her first weeks at Pennycross that people were always saying to her: “Fetch your coat and go for a walk.” There seemed little else that she was required to do.

Jennet, left much to herself, read with avidity, but even here, sooner or later, someone would discover her and say brightly:

“Now, fetch your coat and go for a nice walk.
”

It was a long time before she got used to the loneliness. Tears were infrequent at the orphanage, for hard facts were learnt and faced early, but Jennet lay and wept in her big tester bed and longed for the bustle and noise of Blacker s.

She still woke at six every morning, but now; she stayed in bed until she was called, reading by the light of her candle until Emily discovered her and forbade it.

Emily was kind in her way, but her affections were given to her dogs. Jennet could have grown fond of Homer, for he was gentle and scholarly, and liked to talk to her in his vague fashion, and she soon discovered that his eccentricities were very harmless, but he had lived for so long in a world of his own that it was difficult to interest
him
in current matters for very long.

Of Julian, she saw nothing for several weeks after he had first brought her to Pennycross, but to her surprise Emily made her write to him at regular intervals, short, colorless little letters which were an agony to compose and which he never acknowledged.

At the beginning of December, Emily told her that the adoption papers were now completed and Jennet must realize that the Danes were now legally responsible for her. Jennet’s face lit up and she looked a little awed.
“You mean I really belong—like any other girl with a family?” she asked.

Emily nodded kindly.

“Yes. Blacker’s no longer has
any claim
on you.
Until y
ou
are of
age
you can
look to
us
for support
and a home.”

“
Cousin Julian and myself. Mine is the legal responsibility of course, but Julian’s is the financial. He will pay all your expenses for the next few years, so you must try and do him credit.
”

Jennet’s eyes grew wide.

“But why—why Cousin Julian?” she asked.

“
That’s very simple,” said Emily briskly. “Cousin Julian can afford it and I cannot. It was his idea that you should come here, you know.”

“
Didn’t you want a companion then?”

“
Well, of
c
ourse, dear. I was very pleased to have you.”

“
I
’
ve often wondered—” Jennet said slowly. “I mean I don’t seem to be any real help to anybody.”

Emily patted her thin cheek
.

“
Cousin
Julia
n
has plans for you,” was all she said.

T
hings were not much clearer for Jennet after this conversation, but at least it had brought Julian into a different perspective. Cousin Julian’s plans might still be nebulous
and unpredictable, but she supposed it was kind of him to be interested.

Soon after this he informed Emily that he was coming for the weekend, and Jennet was told to wash
h
er hair and wear her, new blue angora dress.

She did not particularly want Julian to come. Her only acquaintance with him had given her a sense of discomfort. He treated her like a child, and at sixteen one was not a child, one was not anything.

But Jennet sang as she changed into her new frock and combed out her freshly washed hair. It was a nice dress and so soft, she thought, turning and twisting in front of the mirror. She thought her hair looked lighter now that she no longer wore it strained back.

Julian was there when she went into the living room. He stood with his back to the fire, resting his weight on his stick with
one hand, while with the other he held a glass of sherry up to, the light, slowly turning the stem to catch the color.

“Good evening, Cousin Julian,” said Jennet.

He lowered his glass and surveyed her in silence for a moment.

“Well!” he said. “Come here and let’s have a look at you.
”

She advanced slowly, wishing that Emily or Homer would come in.

“Turn round—right round. H’m
... y
es, that
’
s very much better.”

He began to sip his sherry, still watching her.

“Do you like being here?” he asked, but she felt he was not really very concerned with her reactions.

“Yes, thank you,” she replied politely.

“Well, sit down, or something,” he said impatiently.

She sat in a deep chair and gazed at her shoes. Then she looked up suddenly, aware of the long silence, and caught his amused glance.

“Did you get my letters?” she asked for want
of something to say.

“
Yes, thank you,” he replied. “An
d
I may tell you that your handwriting is shocking, Miss Jennet Brown, and your spelling little better. Didn’t they teach you the three R’s in the orphanage?”

“Oh, yes, they taught us those, but you see, letter-writing—well, we none of us had anyone to write to.”

“I see,” said Julian gently. “Well, you can go on writing to me. That’ll keep your hand in.”

“Yes, Cousin Julian,” said Jennet, and was thankful when Emily bustled in saying supper was ready
.

The week end wore slowly away. For the first
twenty-four hours, Julian seemed moody and irritable, but on Sunday he was pleasant enough, refraining from those remarks which caused Jennet such discomfort. When she knew him better she was to realize that it was always the same. The long journey upset him and he found it difficult to throw off the effects quickly, but for the present she only felt that for some reason she must irritate him.

On Sunday morning it was Julian who said to Jennet: “Fetch a coat and go for a walk,” then he added: “I’ll come with you, but you’ll have to walk slowly.”

They set out together towards the village, Jennet matching her step to his and wondering what on earth they should talk about. He did his best to draw her out, if she had only realized it, but he put his questions in such a way that she felt unable to do more than give him the bare answers.

“Do you walk every day?” he enquired.

“Oh, yes.”

“Where do you usually go?”

“
This way to the village, or the other way, up the road.”

“But don’t you ever go on the moor?”

“Not very often.”

“Why on earth not?” He sounded impatient.

“I’m afraid of the moor,” she said shyly.

He laughed, not unkindly, but without understanding. “Good heavens above, why? Once you know where the bogs are and don’t lose yourself, it’s perfectly safe. What a lot you miss, sticking to the roads!”

She looked at him helplessly, and said a little apologetically:

“I’ll try the moor next time, if you want me to.”

He laughed.

“My dear child, it makes no odds to me where you take your walks. I shall have to turn back now. Go on if you want to.” But she turned with him.

They did not talk much on the return journey, and when they got home he flung himself irritably into a chair. Even a mile had tired him, and he wondered if for the rest of his life his body was to be a perpetual burden to him.

That evening, after the others had gone to bed, he sat discussing Jennet with his aunt.

“I don’t know that my experiment is going to work out,” he told her a little wryly. “I haven’t made much headway this week end.”

Emily looked up from her knitting and smiled placidly.

“You must give her time, Julian,” she said. “She’s very shy, you know.”

He laughed and pulled at his pipe.

“She must be. I could hardly get a word out of her, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard her laugh. Do you suppose she thinks and reasons like other people?”

“I don’t know, dear. One doesn’t reason very much at that age, anyway.”

“I suppose not, and life in an orphanage would scarcely tend to give one a flair for conversation.”

“Oh, I’ve heard her talking to Homer. She’s a good little thing, I will say, and no trouble in the house.”

Julian grinned.

“The perfect qualifications for a wife, you think—a good little thing and no trouble in the house.”

“
Well,” reported Emily, “it’s more than you can say of a good many wives.”

“
True,” said Julian, and knocked out his pipe. “Well, if things don’t work out there’s no harm done. We’ll give her a decent start in life, which is more than she would have got from Blacker’s.”

Emily was silent, then she said with slight reproof: “We
’
ve made ourselves responsible for the child now. She has a right to look to us for a home.”

“But not a right to demand marriage, I hope,
”
he said teasingly, and added with a perfectly grave face:
“
I s
h
all go back and pick another orphan if I’m not satisfied.
”

“You like to pull my leg, don’t you, Julian?
”
she said. “And I like to see you do it. You’ve nearly lost your sense of fun, you know.
”

“Have I, Aunt Emily?” he said gently. “Yes, perhaps I have—perhaps that’s what’s wrong with us both. There can’t be much sense of fun in an orphanage. I don
’
t think I’ll come down again for a bit, anyway.”

But Julian was wrong, as Jennet herself could have tol
d
him. There had been a sense of fun in the orphanage, and it was the fun and companions of her own age that Jennet was missing now. It was odd that neither Julian nor Emily had thought of that, and a little sad that Jennet could accept it.

She accepted most things, they discovered. Perhaps, after all, Emily thought, as she took the girl gently to task the day after Julian had left, an institution taught you
that.

“Jennet, dear, you must try and be a little nicer to Julian,” she said.

“Nicer?” said Jennet, startled.

“Well, perhaps that’s the wrong word,” said Emily. “You must try to please
him
more. Remember that if it wasn’t for him you’d still be in the orphanage.”

“I’m sorry,
”
Jennet said. “I—I don’t know how to talk to him.”

“Well, talk about the weather if you can’t think of anything e
l
se,” said Emily impatiently. “Men like to have attention, you know, and you owe him a little attention,
don’t you think?”

“
I don’t,” said Jennet simply, “know anything at all
about men. They alarm me.”

But Homer did not alarm her. There were times when she could talk to Homer quite naturally fo
r
as much as twenty minutes on end before he retired into the world
of
his invention. Then he was often wise and always kindly, and Jennet would feel that if only he could remain long enough in the same dimension, he would offer valuable counsel.

She found him, after her talk with Emily, in the wash, house soaking puppy biscuit for his sister-in-law.

“Why d
o
you do it, Uncle Homer?” Jennet asked affectionately. It was a cold day, and she knew he would much prefer to be sitting over the fire with a treati
s
e on bees.

“Well, someone has to,” he replied mildly.

“But Mrs. Dingle could. She’s very strong.”