Prudence (9 page)

Folly’s unabated complaints grew louder as he neared the surface, and Prue’s heart twisted. It felt an age that she turned and turned upon the handle, but at last the wooden bucket hove into sight. It was then borne in upon Prue that she could not let go of the handle to lift the kitten out, for it would instantly hurtle back down. She looked over to where the two girls stood aloof.

‘Come and hold this!’

Once more, neither moved. Prue stared at the identical faces. Abruptly, she noted in them an odd mixture of eager anticipation and fear. In a sudden flash of recognition, the whole hideous proceeding fell into place in her mind.

This was no accident. Folly had not fallen into the
well. He had been placed there—and left for Prue to find!

Shock froze her for an instant of disbelief, to be swiftly succeeded by a sensation of intense horror. It must have showed in her face, for their expressions altered and they glanced at each other, question in each countenance.

Folly mewed, and Prue brushed aside her distress for the moment. But her voice sharpened.

‘One of you come and hold this handle.
Now
!’

Galvanised, both twins leaped forward. Waiting only until one of them had taken her place, Prue reached out and seized the bucket, bringing it carefully to rest on the edge of the well. From the periphery of her vision, she saw two small hands reach out.

Blind fury took Prue, and she slapped them violently away. ‘Don’t dare touch him!’

Seconds later, the kitten was safe, cradled close to her bosom. Prue crooned at him, and he shifted about in her embrace, clawing at her and purring madly.

Only then did the enormity of what had been done to the kitten truly come home to Prue. She had no need to make enquiries, nor had she to look far for the reason. There could be no doubt that the twins had deliberately put the animal through this horrifying ordeal only to cut at their governess.

Prue’s gaze came up, and found them staring at her, eyes wide in their pretty little faces. So innocent! So sweetly angelic. Yet they had done everything in their power to alienate their governess. Even unto this!

Bitter hurt rose up to choke her, and her erstwhile resolve crumbled, loosening her tongue. Her throat ached, and her words came out in little above a whisper.

‘How could you do this? How could you use poor Folly so?’ Tears blinded her, blurring their faces, but she could not stop. ‘It is one thing to engage in m-mischief. The frogs—the worms—those I might endure. But
this
—’ Sobs choked her, and she could barely get out the words. ‘To visit your tricks upon a poor defenceless c-creature, to put him through so horrid an experience—and only to t-tease me! How could you be so unfeeling, so downright
cruel
?’

Her voice failed, and she was unable to prevent the tears that chased one another down her cheeks, or to stifle the rising sobs, although she tried to spare the kitten, cradling him gently, and doing her best to prevent the movement at her chest from disturbing his ease.

So intent was Prue on this task that she had no room to spare for the distraught looks upon the faces of the twins. Vaguely she took in that her outburst had shocked them, but she was past caring. Unknowingly, she uttered words that completed their discomfiture.

‘Pray go away, the two of you. I cannot bear to look upon you at this present!’

Then she turned from them, and walked away into the garden’s wilderness, her distress augmented by a corroding sense of failure.

Julius Rookham eyed his nieces with a good deal of misgiving. It must be a matter of moment to induce them to disturb him at his luncheon. But having barged their way in, brushing past Creggan—who was properly scandalised, by the expression of hauteur upon his features—they were now standing before him, both shamefaced and mute.

‘What have you done now?’ Julius asked in a resigned tone.

The last time he had been subjected to this sort of thing, a confession had at last emerged of the girls having trodden down one of his beds of replanted seedlings.

He pushed his chair back from the table and threw aside his napkin. ‘Out with it! I have no desire to wait here all day. What is it?’

One of them—was it Lotty?—raised solemn eyes to his face. ‘It’s Miss Hursley.’

A sharp sensation jabbed at his stomach. ‘What has happened? Speak out, girl!’

‘She’s crying and crying and
crying
,’ volunteered the other twin, suddenly throwing up her head. ‘She won’t stop!’

Julius stared at her, conscious both of bewilderment and dismay. ‘Why is she crying? Where is she?’

The first twin lifted her chin with a touch of defiance. Instantly, Julius realised it was Lotty.

‘We made her cry.’

‘That does not altogether surprise me,’ he said drily. ‘What have you been doing?’

Dodo spoke up again, faintly whining. ‘It was Lotty’s notion, not mine.’

Her sister dug her in the ribs. ‘You helped, you sneak!’

Julius nipped this in the bud. ‘That will do. I don’t wish to listen to you squabbling. Explain yourselves at once!’

‘Well, it was Folly, you see,’ came grudgingly from Dodo. ‘Lotty put him down the well in the bucket.’

‘We
both
put him down the well,’ corrected her sister.

‘And then we fetched Miss Hursley to find him there,’ added Dodo. ‘And then she cried and cried.’

‘But Folly was perfickly fine,’ Lotty averred. ‘Only Miss Hursley said it was cruel.’

A vision of Prudence’s face crept into Julius’s mind from that first day, when she had begged him for the kitten’s life. He could well imagine how this petty act of unkindness might have struck her. Without bothering to enquire into their reasons, Julius rose abruptly.

‘You wait here, both of you.’

But as he made for the door, and swept through into the hall, he found the twins at his heels. Turning on them, he threw out a hand.

‘I said, stay here!’

‘But we want to come,’ protested one.

‘After all, we made her cry,’ said the other importantly.

‘Which is why you will remain out of Miss Hursley’s sight. But you will certainly be seeing me again, and in the not too distant future. An interview that you may be sure will be excessively unpleasant—and very likely painful! Now go to the nursery until I send for you.’

He did not wait to see the effect upon them of this ominous threat, but headed directly for the front door.

It did not take him many minutes to reach the garden he had dubbed his Wilderness. But by the time he got there, he was so incensed with his nieces that his mind dwelled with some degree of vengeance upon them. What their motive had been in this he was unable to fathom. But it was a trick which cast into the shade the episode of the frogs in Miss Hursley’s bedchamber.

He spied the governess the instant he entered the garden. She was sitting on the ground, her back resting
against the oak on the far side. Julius paused briefly, beset by a confusing sensation of warmth that overlaid his anger.

She did not stir as he started towards her, and Julius trod softly, not wishing to startle her. Within a few feet of where she sat, he halted, abruptly becoming aware that she was asleep. So too was the kitten, a curled ball of patchwork lying in her lap.

Julius felt something give in his chest as his eyes went back to her face. Upon the girl’s cheeks were traces of her tears.

J
ulius regarded the picture for a few moments, beset by the oddest desire to gather Miss Hursley up into his arms for the purpose of administering precisely the comfort that she had evidently given to the kitten.

Folly woke first, lifting his head to blink green eyes upon the intruder. Rising, he stretched and yawned, and then sat upon his haunches, contemplating the master of the house with splendid indifference.

His movement disturbed Prue, and she opened her eyes. The sight of Mr Rookham startled her into sitting bolt upright. A protesting mewl from her lap alerted her to Folly, and sudden remembrance. The girls! She had sent them away.

Julius threw out a hand. ‘Don’t be alarmed. The twins told me what happened, and I came to see that you were none the worse for their mischief.’

‘Oh,’ Prue uttered lamely. ‘They told you?’

He smiled. ‘I think your distress frightened them a little. I cannot think they would have confessed otherwise.’

A sigh escaped Prue. ‘I am afraid I did not spare them, but it was a horrid thing to do.’

‘I quite agree. Nor should you have spared them.’

The kitten jumped from her lap and Julius came up to her, holding out a hand. ‘Let me help you up. You will take cold if you remain there. The ground is a trifle damp.’

Prue allowed him to pull her to her feet, conscious of the warmth of his hand and the strength of his grip, which made her retreat a little the instant he released her.

‘Thank you, sir.’

That enigmatic expression had settled upon his strong features. ‘Now tell me, what possessed my nieces to put your protégé through this ordeal?’

Prue looked away. Evidently the twins had refrained from informing him. She would prefer not to explain it, for fear that it might involve her in revealing the whole catalogue of their activities. Mr Rookham appeared to read her mind.

‘Come, Miss Hursley. You had much better tell me the whole, or you are unlikely to procure the slightest relief for them—as I anticipate you will wish to do.’

She glanced quickly at him, consternation in her face. ‘You are going to punish them?’

‘Don’t you think they deserve it?’

Prue wrung her hands. ‘I don’t know! Had you asked me just when I discovered poor Folly at the bottom of the well, and had recognised their hand in the act, perhaps I should have answered yes.’

‘But now that you have calmed down, your common sense has deserted you,’ he offered grimly.

‘That is unfair.’ She regarded him with challenge in her eyes. ‘Is it lack of common sense to dislike to see pain inflicted? If I had agreed to it on the spot, it would have been revenge—and that cannot be right.’

Julius frustratedly shook his head. ‘Can’t you see a difference between revenge and a just chastisement? How are they to learn?’

He was treated to that look of hers, half a plea and half something else that he could not identify. But its effect was instantaneous. His resolve melted even as she spoke.

‘I do not know, Mr Rookham. But I had as lief they had not an instance of a painful interlude at your hands which they are able to set at my door!’

Julius was moved to give her a rueful smile. ‘I am loath to admit it, but there is something in that. Judging by their demeanour when they came looking for me, I suspect they may already have learned a lesson.’

But Prue was beset by a resurgence of that hideous sense of failure. She watched Folly pounce on an insect that had dared to move in his sight. A sigh escaped her, and she spoke her thought aloud.

‘It is all of a piece. I am a poor creature in their eyes, and they can only think the less of me for this episode. Nell—or even Kitty, I dare say—would never have succumbed to tears in the presence of their charges.’

‘Since I don’t know either Nell or Kitty, I cannot comment,’ came from Mr Rookham.

Prue started, her eyes flying to his face. ‘Oh, dear. I had forgotten you were there, Mr Rookham! Nell and Kitty are my very dearest friends. From the Seminary, you know.’

‘Ah, I see. And you would have me believe that either one of them would have handled the situation better than yourself?’

‘Oh, without doubt. You had better have asked for Nell in the first place—her name is Helen Faraday, but
we always call her Nell. Indeed, I suspect she would have been suggested, only that she had been put up for another post and the gentleman had written the very day your engagement was given to me that he thought her too young. Besides, she was the best of us, and no one could expect her to take up a temporary position.’

That giveaway quiver at his lips came. ‘Unlike you.’

‘No,’ agreed Prue seriously. ‘For one could scarcely blame anyone for taking me only on trial. Or Kitty, if it came to that, but not for the same reasons. Though I feel sure Kitty would have refused you.’

Mr Rookham looked amused. ‘Should I feel insulted?’

Prue unsuccessfully smothered a gurgle. ‘By no means! You see, Kitty—Katherine Merrick, that is—is a sad case, for she has impossible ambitions. You needed to have been a lord before she would consider coming here.’

‘I see. And why is Kitty so high in the instep?’

Upon the point of blurting out the unfortunate nature of her friend’s dubious background, Prue caught herself up, and hurriedly waived the matter aside.

‘That is neither here nor there. But you may be sure she would have managed better than I have.’ She drew a breath. ‘I am afraid you were right at the start, sir. I am totally unfitted for this position.’

Mr Rookham regarded her with one of his enigmatic expressions. ‘Did I say that?’

‘No, but you thought it. I am certain that your opinion of me marched with Lotty’s. And the melancholy truth is that I cannot blame either of you.’

Julius could not refrain from laughter. An indignant look was cast upon him, and he threw up a hand. ‘If you will speak so absurdly, what do you expect?
Whatever I may have thought of you at the outset, do give me credit for being able to recognise your good qualities. As for Lotty, what makes you suppose she holds a poor opinion of you?’

Prue quickly looked away, embarrassed. She could not tell him how she had foolishly invited that opinion—in written form, too! He would undoubtedly laugh at her again. She evaded the question.

‘She has made it obvious.’

‘And does Dodo also hold this opinion?’

‘Oh, no. She has not Lotty’s perception. But Dodo is unfortunately a little jealous of Folly’s preference for my company. I have tried to ignore it—as I have done all their attempts to rattle me, but—’

Julius interrupted her without ceremony. ‘All? How many attempts have there been? I witnessed the episode of the frogs, of course, but there have been other instances?’

Regretting her words, Prue tried to retract. ‘It was nothing much, I assure you. At least, nothing that could succeed in unsettling me.’

‘Until they hit upon this method.’

His voice was flat and unemotional, but Prue was not deceived. She gazed up at him in a good deal of dismay.

‘I did not mean to tell you any of this. It was not my intention to complain of the girls. It is far more my fault than theirs, Mr Rookham!’

At this, a little of his rising anger veered irrationally towards the girl herself. ‘Indeed? Did you encourage them in any way?’

‘It is of no use to speak in that sarcastic way, sir, for you know it to be the truth.’

‘I know nothing of the kind!’

‘You do, Mr Rookham, for you said it yourself.’

‘Don’t be so absurd!’

‘You did,’ insisted Prue. ‘That night when you helped to rid me of those horrid frogs, you said that I had no authority over the girls, and you were right.’

Julius threw up his eyes. ‘For God’s sake, girl, I was teasing you!’

‘Well, whether you meant to tease or not, it is perfectly true. I have no authority over them, and it is therefore unfair to punish them when I have failed to curb them. I should have put a stop to it immediately.’

‘Then why didn’t you?’ he demanded wrathfully.

Prue flung frustrated hands in the air. ‘Because I am quite useless, Mr Rookham! Have I not been telling you so?’

Julius regarded her in silence. What was he to do with the wench? Were there no limits to which she would go to save those wretched children from their just desserts? He felt the anger dissipating, and shook his head.

‘You are impossible, Prudence, do you know that? And don’t dare to agree with me!’

To his intense delight, a smile dawned, lighting her face. Without thinking, he reached out and brushed her cheek with one finger. The expression in her eyes altered, and Julius drew back. He made his tone deliberately impersonal.

‘I don’t suppose you had luncheon in all this fracas? The girls disturbed mine.’

‘No—we were just about to take it, when they came rushing in to say that Folly had become lost.’

She sounded breathless. Julius glanced at her, but she was not looking at him.

‘You had best come to the dining parlour and partake
of something there. Meanwhile, I shall see the girls in the library. They should have eaten by this time, but I don’t want you to see them again until I have spoken with them.’

Prue kept her eyes firmly lowered, but the flurry of her pulses quickened. And not entirely due to what he had said. She tried to keep her attention on his words rather than on that brief but tender gesture at her cheek.

Spoken to the girls, he had said. Did that mean that her pleas had succeeded? He had made no promises, and she dared not re-introduce the subject. She had made enough of a fool of herself for one morning. The wonder was that Mr Rookham did not immediately send her packing!

She collected Folly, and followed her employer out of the gardens, prey to the most unruly sensations at her bosom.

The twins were unusually subdued as they stood side by side before their uncle’s desk, where he perched, regarding them with unrelieved severity. Julius wondered how much of their demeanour was owed to fear of what he might do, and how much to the dismay that had brought them to him in the first place.

They had obeyed his summons to the library, but accompanied by their nurse, who had been brandishing a hairbrush. From her voluble remarks, Julius had gathered that the twins had not only given her an account of their activities, but had begged off punishment by telling her that their uncle had already promised to deal it out.

Julius had cut the woman short, expressing himself in rusty French. ‘Thank you, Yvette. You may safely leave the matter in my hands.’

The nurse had curtsied to him, and cast a glare upon her two erring charges, before taking herself off. Julius noted that his nieces were visibly relieved. It was evident that their fear of the fierce little Frenchwoman surpassed their apprehension of the unknown. For their uncle had never before been called upon to correct them. Perhaps they hoped that he would not carry out his threat.

He had a good mind to disabuse them instantly, but with the image of those pleading grey eyes in the back of his mind, he contented himself with looking them over in silence until they began to fidget.

‘Stand still!’

They froze at once, and two pairs of apprehensive brown eyes peeped up at him. Julius folded his arms.

‘Would you agree that what I should do is take a stick to you both?’ Both sets of eyes widened, and two dark heads were vigorously shaken. ‘Can either of you tell me why not?’

They looked at each other. Then back to his face.

‘Because it would hurt?’ ventured one of them.

‘Dodo, you stupid!’ uttered the other. ‘It’s meant to hurt.’

‘Quite right, Lotty, it is,’ agreed Julius, relieved of the necessity to enquire which twin was which. ‘And since you hurt Folly, not to mention Miss Hursley, don’t you think you deserve to be hurt back?’

‘But we never hurt her!’ protested Dodo. ‘And Folly didn’t get hurt neither. He was perfickly all right.’

‘Oh, was he? How would you like it if someone were to put you in a great big box on a rope, and drop you down the side of a mountain?’

Dodo made a face. ‘But it was a well, Uncle Julius, not a mountain.’

‘Noodle! He means it was like a mountain to Folly.’

‘Oh.’

Julius looked at Lotty. ‘So you at least understand that it hurt the kitten?’

Lotty lifted her chin. ‘Maybe.’

He narrowed his eyes, his tone icy. ‘I beg your pardon?’

The child flushed and hung her head. Dodo, noted Julius, merely looked puzzled. Prudence had judged aright. Dodo had not her sister’s intellect. He addressed himself to Lotty.

‘Let’s try again. Do you understand that the kitten was hurt by what you did?’

It was a struggle, he guessed, but Lotty looked up at last, her gaze direct. ‘Yes.’

‘Thank you. And do you further understand that you hurt Miss Hursley even more?’

There was defiance in the brown gaze, but it wavered a little. Julius waited, glancing once at Dodo, whose puzzled eyes went from her sister to her uncle and back again. When it came, the admission was sudden, and irate.

‘I never meant to make her cry! Why did she cry so? I thought she would just be cross and shout at us. She’s just a dowd and not like a governess at all. Why don’t she just shout at us? Yvette shouts at us all the time.’

‘Yes, and we don’t mind it,’ agreed Dodo, adding her mite. ‘Lotty said if only Miss Hursley would shout at us, we wouldn’t do nothing bad no more.’

Julius got up abruptly from the desk, causing the girls to start back. He ignored them, walking hastily away to one of the windows and staring out. He saw nothing of the woody trees that lined the route to the
stables and the domestic quarters set at a distance behind the house. In his inner eye, all he could see was the expressive features of Miss Prudence Hursley.

Oh, she had her phases! He had seen her indignant, with even a spark of anger in those tender eyes. She was frequently forward, wholly outside her role, expressing herself in terms totally unsuited in a governess to her employer. But in a million years, she would never resemble the nurse Yvette!

Without thought, he turned upon the girls, unaware of the hasty manner of his speech, of the biting tone with which he berated them.