Prudence (3 page)

A candelabrum rubbed elbows with a collection of books, several random papers, and a few ornaments. Near the stair stood a hat-and-coat rack, almost overwhelmed with various items of clothing. The place struck Prue as indefinably masculine.

‘Pray come with me, miss. You may leave the portmanteau.’

Hastily, Prue deposited her burden to one side, and followed the butler—who did indeed totter just a little, so she was not so very much at fault!—past the stairway and down a corridor to one side, with a scattering of landscapes on the walls.

A door was flung open, and Prue heard her name announced. She stepped into a large airy apartment, bright with huge windows to one side, and full of long bookcases. From behind a central desk a gentleman emerged. He took a few paces towards Prue, and halted abruptly.

He was tall and rangy, dressed country fashion in plain-coloured clothes. Dark hair fell raggedly to his shoulders about a strong countenance with a jutting nose. He was, as Prue instantly realised, none other than the gentleman of this morning’s adventure with the carriage.

Shock frayed at Prue’s senses. Was it a trick of her mind? Surely it was impossible that coincidence should throw her in the way of her employer in so unfortunate a fashion? But there was no mistaking those dominating features, or the expression within them. He knew her for the same foolish female who had—literally!—run across his path this morning.

‘This is terrible!’ she blurted out. ‘Are you Mr Rookham? Yes, of course you are. You must be.’

To Prue’s relief, the severity in his face relaxed a trifle. ‘Yes, I’m Rookham. The shock, I dare say, is mutual.’

A choked giggle escaped Prue, born of embarrassment. ‘I could wish the floor would open and swallow me up!’

‘But it won’t,’ he pointed out. ‘There is little you can do except face up to the difficulty, Miss Hursley. It is Miss Hursley, is it not?’

Prue nodded eagerly. ‘I am Prudence Hursley.’

‘Prudence?’ The steel eyes raked her. ‘A misnomer, if ever I heard one.’

Heat rose into Prue’s cheeks, and she burned. Must he taunt her? She would dearly like to have repudiated the implication with a good deal of heat. But Mr Rookham was her employer—that is, if he did not instantly send her packing! She could think of nothing inoffensive to say in reply.

His lip quivered, and Prue recalled the look. He sounded amused. ‘You were not so backward this morning, Miss Hursley. But I perceive your difficulty. You would like to reply in kind, but you find yourself restricted by the peculiar circumstances of our proposed relationship.’

‘Well, yes,’ agreed Prue, surprised into forgetting the proprieties. ‘I should dearly love to retaliate. Though how you observed it has me in a puzzle.’

Mr Rookham regarded her enigmatically. ‘I observe something more, Miss Hursley. Your cloak appears to have a life of its own.’

Prue became aware that the kitten, trapped in her cloak pocket, had begun to wriggle about. Abruptly the realisation hit her that her ready excuse for its presence was about to fall upon deaf ears.

She looked up again at Mr Rookham’s face, just in time to see his brows snap together.

‘Oh, dear God! You’ve brought the wretched thing with you!’

‘I’m afraid I have,’ confessed Prue guiltily, probing within the folds of her cloak in an effort to extract the prisoner. ‘I had thought to give it to the Misses Chillingham for a gift.’

‘Had you, indeed?’ came grimly from the irate Mr Rookham. He shifted back towards his desk. ‘I have a good mind to order it drowned this instant!’

‘Oh, no! Pray, sir, don’t,’ begged Prue, clutching to her that portion of her cloak which contained the now vocal kitten. ‘I only brought it because the chambermaid told me that the landlady intended to be rid of it in that cruel fashion. I promise it will be no trouble to you.’

‘On the contrary. It has already caused me a good
deal of trouble. And while you are pleading for its worthless life, you might spare a thought for your own future.’

But Prue was not to be deterred by her own probable misfortune. ‘By all means punish me, if you will, for I know I deserve it. Indeed, I had already guessed that you meant to send me back to the Seminary in disgrace. I will bear that, Mr Rookham, but pray,
pray
don’t visit your wrath upon this innocent little creature.’

Mr Rookham watched in reluctant fascination as Miss Hursley fumbled in a most ungainly fashion—necessitated, he dared say, by the difficulty of operating in those absurd mittens—to release the animal from its improvised cage. At last she succeeded in producing the object, and held it up, squirming and squeaking, for his inspection.

He perched upon his desk and regarded it with disfavour. Exasperation warred in his breast with amusement. Miss Hursley was awaiting his response, looking at him with just that disarming expression that had struck him that morning when circumstance had thrown her in his way.

Under a neat round bonnet, black and unadorned except for ribbon ties below the chin, in features unremarkable save for their youth, a pair of soft grey eyes gazed at him in mute appeal. From beneath the bonnet, a stray curl or two peeped out, dusky against a pale forehead.

She was obviously going to be an infernal nuisance. Totally unfitted, if he was any judge, for the task for which he had engaged her. Yet here she stood. A dumpy little thing in a costume more suited to a housewife than a governess, ready to accept her instant dismissal if she might only solicit his mercy for the sake
of the mongrel kitten she was now cradling to her bosom. How in Hades could he repudiate her?

He rose. ‘Very well, Miss Prudence Hursley. Since you are determined to make a sacrifice of yourself one way or another, you may as well do it here.’

Like a straying moonbeam, her face lit. The oddest sensation came over Rookham, like the daze that accompanied a blow to the head when he had engaged in fisticuffs. He stared at the girl, bemused.

‘Do you mean that I may stay?’

With an effort, Rookham wrenched his mind alert. ‘Subject to my approval you may.’

‘Thank you.’ She took a step towards him. ‘I will do my best to give satisfaction, and I hope that you will be disposed to approve me in the end.’

‘That is debatable,’ he said. Her eyes clouded over and he was almost moved to apologise. But her gaze did not falter from his face.

‘And the kitten too? May I keep it?’

‘As a constant reminder of your folly?’

‘I am not like to forget that!’ The brief flash of fire in her eyes disappeared as she cradled the animal against her chest. ‘But it was not the kitten’s fault, sir. And it would have been lost if I had not brought it with me. People are so cruel! Even the guard, you know, would not let me bring it in the coach without a bribe.’

Rookham eyed her with misgiving. ‘You bribed the guard? And may I ask how much you gave him for the privilege of transporting that revolting object?’

By the hanging of her head, he saw that his instinct had not misled him. She cuddled the thing closer, and raising her eyes, subjected him once more to that daunting look of contrition.

‘You see, I had no time to think. The coach was
ready to leave, and the guard so impatient. I had only just decided to bring the poor little thing with me, and so I—’

He cut her short. ‘How much?’

‘Well, it—it was a whole crown piece.’

She looked so absurdly guilty that Rookham was hard put to it not to laugh. But he was conscious of a slight feeling of compassion. No doubt five shillings was a great deal of money to this scrap of a girl. He must remember to reimburse it.

‘Since you have expended so much coin and energy upon the wretched animal, I suppose you had better keep the thing. I should hate to think I had been obliged to put my horses through that nightmare experience for nothing.’

Her face—really, a veritable mirror for her thoughts!—abruptly filled with consternation. Now what?

‘You are not going to spring something else on me, I trust.’

She shook her head, the grey eyes filling with concern. ‘No, but your horses. I had forgot. I should have asked you before. I do hope they have taken no sort of hurt.’

‘Do you imagine you would be standing there unmolested if they had?’ He watched in growing amusement as the indignation bubbled up, making her eyes sparkle. He held up a hand. ‘No, don’t rip up at me. Remember that I am your employer and you cannot afford to anger me.’

It was deliberately provocative, and he knew it. To her credit, she contained her spleen. Her words, however, were unexpected.

‘Then it is too bad of you to taunt me, sir, when you
know that I cannot with propriety make any attempt to correct you.’

‘As we see,’ he said drily.

Her face fell visibly. ‘I should not have said that, should I?’

Rookham bit back a laugh. ‘Have no fear. You have convinced me that perhaps there is steel enough in you to manage your duties.’

She blinked. ‘Steel? Oh, dear. Shall I need it?’

Rookham bethought him of the two little minxes who would undoubtedly run rings around this tender-hearted girl.

‘You may judge for yourself presently.’

Hardly had the words left his mouth than the door burst open behind Miss Hursley, and his unruly nieces hurtled into the room.

T
he cacophony was instant and deafening.

‘Uncle Julius, Creggan said she was here.’

‘Is this her, Uncle Julius?’

Prue had jumped in shock at their entrance, dislodging the kitten from her grasp. She uttered a cry of warning, but it came too late. Shrieks of delight smote her ears, and she received a whirlwind impression of two bright faces, swinging plaits, and a collection of grasping hands as a streak of motley fur flew round the room.

Seconds later, the kitten had gone to roost under a tall bookcase at one end, and Mr Rookham emerged from the fray with one long plait entwined around each hand.

Under Prue’s amazed glance, two identical faces screwed up in protest, and two pairs of hands reached up to grasp at the fingers imprisoning their hair.

‘Ouch! Let go, Uncle Julius!’

‘You’re hurting, Uncle Julius!’

‘I shall hurt you more, if you don’t be quiet,’ threatened Mr Rookham. ‘Stand still, the pair of you!’

Thus adjured, the girls froze in attitudes so comical
that Prue must have laughed had she not felt so acutely for their discomfort.

‘Let it be a lesson to you to wear your caps.’

But to Prue’s relief—as great, she must suppose, as that of the girls—Mr Rookham released their plaits, instead laying a restraining hand upon each child’s shoulder.

‘As you have no doubt guessed, Miss Hursley, these are your charges.’

Two pairs of appraising brown eyes regarded Prue.

She blinked. ‘You are twins.’

The Misses Chillingham looked scorn upon her.

‘’Course we are!’

‘Didn’t you know?’

‘Silence!’

This last from Mr Rookham made Prue bite back the automatic apology that hovered on her lips. After all, how should she have known, if she had not been told? She looked the twins over with growing interest. They stared back at her with a disconcerting lack of self-consciousness in features of angelic innocence.

They were possessed of neat little noses, pert red lips, and dark brown orbs in complexions faintly olive in colour. They were dressed the same, in long-sleeved blue schoolgirl frocks, covered over with aprons, and they looked to be eight or nine years of age.

Prue smiled at them. ‘I am so pleased to meet you. How do you do?’

Mr Rookham pushed the one on his right so that she stepped forward a pace. ‘This is Charlotte—I think.’

‘Uncle Julius, you have it wrong again!’ piped up the girl, her tone disparaging.

‘I’m Charlotte,’ said the other, disengaging herself
from his restraining hand. ‘In any event, you shouldn’t introduce me as Charlotte. No one calls me that.’

‘She’s Lotty,’ said the first, also squirming out of her uncle’s hold. ‘And I’m Dodo.’

‘Dorothy,’ explained Mr Rookham. ‘And I wish you well of them! If you can find a satisfactory way to tell the difference, pray inform me of it. I am sure the girls will be delighted to show you around, Miss Hursley. Now, for heaven’s sake, take them away!’

Feeling a trifle overwhelmed, Prue yet stood her ground. ‘Yes, but the kitten, sir. Pray let me coax it out.’

Instant shrieks smote at her ears.

‘The kitten!’

‘Let’s get it!’

Mr Rookham seized the girls, much to Prue’s relief.

‘No, you don’t. You’ll only frighten the thing. Let Miss Hursley do it.’

‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Prue anxiously. She moved to the twins. ‘I have only had it with me for a short time, you see, and it is very nervous. Then, if you will help me, I think we must find the poor little thing something to eat. It must be starving by now.’

Two vociferous high-pitched voices reassured her, suggesting an immediate raid upon the kitchen, to which Mr Rookham not unnaturally took exception.

‘You may ask Mrs Polmont to speak to Wincle.’

‘But Uncle Julius—’

‘
We
want to speak to Wincle.’

Leaving them to argue it out, Prue quietly slipped away to the bookcase and knelt down. Sure enough, there was the kitten, cowering away in a far corner.

It took several moments of gentle persuasion, but at last the kitten consented to venture close enough for
Prue to be able to recapture it. Only then did she realise that silence pervaded the room, and she rose to find herself alone with Mr Rookham.

‘I ejected them,’ he explained, gesturing towards the door. ‘I doubt if they will be patient for long, so perhaps it will be as well if we postpone any further discussion.’

‘Discussion?’

Prue’s heart dropped a little. What was to be discussed? She eyed him with no small degree of trepidation.

That flicker at his lips came again. ‘Don’t look at me as if you suspected I meant to throw you out after all! I had intended to have gone over the circumstances which have led to my hiring you to deal with those dreadful nieces of mine, that is all. But we can reserve all that. Go and see to that wretched animal of yours, and we will talk later.’

Ignoring their uncle’s prohibition, the twins had dragged Prue back to the hall and crashed through the green baize door at the back. Her attention on the frightened kitten, Prue had been powerless to prevent this invasion of the domestic quarters. She had entered a feeble protest.

‘Did not your uncle say—’

Her new charges had cut her off without apology, pursuing their way down the corridor.

‘Uncle said we should talk to Poll Parrot.’

‘But she don’t like us.’

‘And Wincle does! Wincle will do anything we ask.’

If this was an exaggeration, the bulky individual who presided over the kitchens was at least sympathetic. Keeping tight hold of the squirming kitten, Prue re
mained by the door. She was fearful of its escaping to run amok among the shiny pots and pans, and the piles of food in preparation down a long wooden table in the middle.

A stout woman with a large red face and a fringed mob cap had been at work on a quantity of pastry. She stood poised with a rolling pin at the ready, and a couple of minions, chopping away to one side, ceased their labours to stare as the twins raced up to the table.

‘What are you making, Wincle?’ demanded one, diverted from her mission. ‘Is it tarts?’

The cook laid down her rolling pin and slapped at the finger which was about to poke at her pastry. ‘Get away, do, Miss Dodo! Folks have to eat that, I’ll have you know.’

‘Wincle, you’ve got to give us milk for the kitten,’ chimed in the other.

‘Kitten, Miss Lotty? We don’t have no kitten here.’

‘Will they be jam?’

‘The kitten our new governess brought. See?’

As Lotty pointed—it must be Lotty, for the cook appeared to know one from the other—Prue came under immediate notice from the assembled company of servants. Wincle paused to slap Dodo’s hand away from the pastry again, and nodded towards the newcomer.

‘Didn’t see you there, miss. A kitten, is it?’

‘Yes, and you must give us some food for it, Wincle,’ persisted Lotty, before Prue could answer.

‘And milk,’ added Dodo. ‘It hasn’t eaten for hours, and it’s starving.’ She eyed the pastry with yearning. ‘So am I! And if you are making tarts, Wincle—’

‘Greedy-guts!’

‘Yes, and I suppose you wouldn’t eat any jam tarts, would you, Lotty?’

The cook intervened. ‘Oy! Enough of it! That there pastry, Miss Dodo, happens to be for a raised pie for the master’s dinner.’

‘Well, but you might have some pastry left,’ Dodo pointed out, ‘and if you
happened
to make some jam tarts—’

‘We’ll see,’ said Wincle. ‘Meantime—’

‘That means she will make them. Dodo, you’re a disgusting pig!’

Incensed, Dodo seized Lotty’s plait and pulled it sharply. The other shrieked, and instantly retaliated. Prue watched in dumbstruck horror as the two girls closed with each other. But in seconds they were separated, each held in one floury hand, Wincle’s bulk between them, her red face bent towards Dodo.

‘Nary a tart will you get from me, young saucebox, if that’s how you’re bent on conducting yourself!’ She turned on the other. ‘And as for you, Miss Lotty, I thought you come for that there kitten, not to attack your sister. I ought to bang your heads together! Where’s that Frenchie when she’s needed?’

Both girls instantly stopped glaring at each other, instead seizing the floury hands that held them.

‘Please don’t tell Yvette!’

‘We’ll be good, Wincle, honest!’

‘We promise!’

The cook released them. ‘Well, see you are, or it’ll be the worse for you both.’

Prue was left wondering who Yvette might be, to have such an effect upon them. However, she felt it to be high time that she took a hand, or word of her use
lessness would spread through the household in no time. She pushed forward.

‘I do beg your pardon. I should not have let them come in here, but I have only just made their acquaintance, you see, and—’

‘Never you worrit yourself, miss,’ said the cook, pushing the girls aside and bobbing a curtsy. ‘It’s Miss Hursley, I take it?’

Prue assented. ‘How do you do? I am so sorry to trouble you, but it was indeed I who brought the kitten, and I fear it is very hungry indeed.’

Favouring the animal with a croon or two, Wincle visibly succumbed. ‘Ah, the poor little thing. Hungry, are you, mite? Well, if these young imps will be quiet for a moment, we’ll see what we can do.’

She might have been only a short time in this house, but it came as no surprise to Prue that the twins wholly ignored the cook’s request for their silence. Her concern for the kitten was too acute to allow more than a passing fright at the horrid problem of how she was ever to learn to control them.

The kitten’s need for food outweighed its natural fear, and it attacked with gusto a saucer of milk placed under the kitchen table. While it took the first edge off its hunger, Wincle found some broken meats and chopped them into morsels small enough for consumption. She then placed them in a dish and presented it to the twins, bidding them take themselves off to their nursery where they might give the kitten the remainder of its feed.

They had perforce to wait while the kitten finished lapping its milk, which gave Prue an opportunity to air a further need.

‘Do you think a box might be found, with a little
earth placed in it? I don’t know where it should best be situated, but I feel sure it will be safest to have it, if we are to avoid accidents.’

‘I know just what you mean, ma’am,’ said the cook reassuringly. ‘There’s no call to look so troubled. I’ll see to it. And I’ll send up something for the poor mite along o’ the meals for the young ladies. If you ask me, you’d best fret more about what that Frenchie will say to it.’

These ominous words caused Prue to wonder uneasily about the identity of the ‘Frenchie’ as she was led up the stairs by the girls, and along a lengthy corridor. She had looked for her portmanteau in the hall, but it had apparently been spirited away. Prue supposed she must at length be reunited with it, wondering briefly what sort of accommodation had been allocated for her use. The Duck had warned her to expect no undue favours, and to be grateful if she was fortunate enough not to be housed in the attics with the servants.

Since Lotty—or so Prue believed—had charge of the kitten, while Dodo carried the dish of meat, she had leisure to look about her as they went.

The same muted colouring had been washed throughout the house, giving a warm glow to the walls. Portraits and yet more landscapes were interspersed with wall sconces, each fitted with fresh candles, giving evidence that Mr Rookham preferred his house well lit during the night. But presently the way led out into a short vestibule, with corridors leading off both left and right. Straight ahead, the twins took a stairway that turned a corner and led down into a narrower corridor, where there was little light and no visible sign of wall sconces to improve matters when it should get dark.

‘This is our part of the house,’ announced Lotty,
glancing back over her shoulder. ‘Uncle Julius gived it over to us
entirely
. So we can do whatever we like here.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Dodo, adding with a mischievous giggle, ‘as long as, he says, we keep out of the rest of the place.’

‘Except the gardens.’

‘
Some
of the gardens,’ amended Dodo. ‘You know Uncle Julius won’t let us in his precious tillage garden.’

‘Treillage, you noodle, not tillage,’ corrected Lotty scornfully. ‘And that’s only because it ain’t finished.’

‘No, and we ain’t allowed in the rose garden neither.’

‘But why do you need so many rooms?’ interrupted Prue, more to divert them from argument than anything else. For she had lost count of the doors already.

The girls halted and turned. Hefting the kitten into the crook of one arm, Lotty proceeded to count on her fingers.

‘One for us to sleep in, and one for Yvette.’

‘Then there’s Freddy,’ added Dodo, ‘though he ain’t here just now.’

‘Who is Freddy?’

‘Our brother,’ explained Lotty. ‘He’s older, and Uncle sent him off to school.’

‘Only three years older. And we’re nearly nine.’

‘There’s a schoolroom for us, and a chamber for you,’ went on Lotty, ignoring her sister’s interruption. ‘And then there’s Mama’s room.’

‘Only she ain’t here.’

‘And Mama’s maid, and she ain’t here neither.’

Remembering that she had been told by the Duck that the girls’ mother was not with them, Prue was instantly struck by compassion.

‘Where is your mama?’

Lotty took on an air of importance. ‘She’s gone to London for the Season.’

‘She’s going to get us a new papa.’

‘Be quiet, Dodo!’

Prue regarded her with sympathy. ‘Yes, I gathered that your papa has died. I am so sorry.’

‘Yes, it’s horrid,’ agreed Dodo, ‘for if he had not died, we would’ve stayed in Italy.’

Startled, Prue blinked. ‘Italy?’

She was disregarded. ‘I hate England!’ pursued Dodo. ‘It’s so cold and everyone is miserable.’

‘Dodo, that’s disgusting!’ complained her sister. ‘How can you be so selfish, speaking of Papa like that, as if you didn’t care that he died?’

‘Well, I know, but—’