The Changeling (9 page)

Still, I did like Manorleigh. So did Miss Brown.

We were still working on the Prime Ministers and were now concerned with Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone.

“Of course,” said Miss Brown, “it is not easy to discover little facts about our contemporaries. It is only when people are dead that their little secrets come out.”

We used to ride together and sometimes I went out with my mother and her husband. He liked that. It gave a good impression. I imagine he liked people to think that we were a happy family and in spite of his insouciance he must have realized he had something to live down on that score.

I grew to like my room. It had leaded windows, a great beam across the ceiling and the floor sloped a little. But what I liked best was that it looked down on the garden to an ancient oak tree under which was a sundial and a wooden seat. It was very picturesque and I felt a sense of peace when I looked out on it, past the pond on which floated water lilies and over which the figure of Hermes—winged sandals, staff wreathed with serpents, broad hat, sporting wings and all—was poised.

I found a great pleasure in making my way through the overgrown rosetrees and sitting for a while on that seat. It seemed so peaceful there.

As soon as we were settled in, the round of visits began. There were dinner parties and what were called
soirées
when perhaps some well-known musician would come and play the piano or violin. There were always important people to entertain. Fortunately I did not have to be present on these occasions. My mother seemed to enjoy them.

She said to me one day: “Do you know, Rebecca, I think I am turning into a good politician’s wife.”

“You mean, Mama,” I replied, “the good wife of a politician. The way you say it makes it sound as if it is the politician who is good.”

“Well, he is, isn’t he?”

“I don’t think that was what you meant to say.”

“I am glad to see Miss Brown is keeping you well versed in your grammar.” She looked faintly disturbed as she always did when Benedict—though not mentioned by name—crept into the conversation.

But it was true that she was enjoying her new way of life.

“I love meeting all those people,” she said. “Some of them are a trifle pompous. We have a good laugh over them afterwards.”

Yes. She shared things with him from which I was shut out.

I knew in my heart that I was being foolish and unfair. It was I who was deliberately shutting myself out. Sometimes I tried to accept the situation, and I would for a while. Then all the old resentments would flare up.

Mrs. Emery said she was unable to do justice to her new position as she was expected to do so much cooking.

“But, of course,” replied my mother. “How thoughtless of me. We must get someone to cook.”

Mrs. Emery was secretly delighted.

“I suppose,” I said to my mother, “a housekeeper is of higher rank than a cook … hence her delight.”

“Mrs. Emery will, of course, be in charge of the household.”

“As we have become grander, so has she,” I commented.

“Well, naturally so,” retorted my mother.

The news quickly circulated that the new member needed a cook at Manorleigh and Mrs. Grant appeared.

My mother liked her from the first and when she heard that her mother had been cook at Manorleigh and before that her grandmother, she knew that Mrs. Grant was the one for us.

She was a fat jolly woman with rosy cheeks and sparkling blue eyes. She had masses of rather untidy fair hair and her ample figure suggested that she liked eating food as well as cooking it.

“All to the good,” said my mother. “You have to feel enthusiastic about something to do it well.”

Mrs. Grant took charge of the kitchen and it soon became clear that we had a treasure in her. She and I took a fancy to each other from the start and she soon discovered my fondness for the garden.

She was a great talker and liked me to go into the kitchen when she was, as she said, pampering herself with a nice cup of tea and giving her feet a treat at the same time.

“It’s my time of life,” she said. “I don’t like to stand more than I can help and a little sit-me-down in the afternoon … that’s a bit of heaven to me.”

One day she said to me: “You like the garden, don’t you?” She filled up her cup and poured one out for me. “Did you feel there was something special about it?”

“Yes,” I replied. “There is something about it. I think it is because of those overgrown trees. I hope no one touches them.”

“So do I. They wouldn’t like that.”

“Who?”

She grimaced and pointed upwards. I looked astonished and she drew her chair closer to mine.

“You’ve heard of houses being haunted, have you?”

I nodded.

“This is a bit different. This is a garden that’s haunted.”

“Is it really? I’ve never heard of a haunted garden.”

“Any place can be haunted. Doesn’t have to be within walls. I just had the feeling you’d found out something out there. You’re always sitting under that old oak. Why?”

“Well, it’s shut away. It’s peaceful there. When I’m sitting there I feel … apart.”

She nodded. “Well, that’s it. That’s the spirit. That’s where the ghost used to come.”

“Used to?”

“Well, there’d be no call for it now … not after Miss Martha went.”

“Tell me the story.”

“It was in my grandma’s day. She was the cook here. Lady Flamstead came … a lovely lady, my grandma said. She came here as a bride. He was a lot older than she was, Sir … what was his name? Ronald, I think.”

“What happened?”

“It was a happy marriage. Like two lovebirds, they were, my gran said. They all loved her. She was so young … so excited by it all. She hadn’t been used to a grand way of living … till he married her. She just enjoyed everything. Then came the day when she was going to have a baby. My gran said you should have seen the fuss. Sir Ronald … well, he wasn’t all that old, I suppose, but he was beside himself with joy … and as for Lady Flamstead, she was in heaven.”

“And …?” I prompted.

“Well, everyone was so pleased. They were making such plans. My gran said you’d have thought nobody had ever had a baby before. Nursery done up … little toys everywhere … and then … Lady Flamstead … she didn’t come through it. There was the baby they’d longed for … a little girl … but she was the end of her mother.”

“How terribly sad!”

“Yes, wasn’t it? The change in that house! They were all going to be so happy … You see, she was the one who had made it all like that. Without her … it was all changed. My gran said Sir Ronald … well, he was a good enough master, but he didn’t have much to do with any of them. She’d changed all that. They’d all loved her … and now she was gone.”

“They had the baby,” I said.

“Oh, poor Miss Martha. You see, he didn’t want her. I reckon he thought that but for her his little ladyship would still be there. And all he’d got was Miss Martha … a squalling red-faced little bit of nothing, in place of his lovely wife. He didn’t want to look at the child. It turns out like that sometimes. Oh, there was all the best for her … nurses, and later on governesses. She was a nice little thing, my gran said. She’d come to the kitchen like you are now. But there was no laughter in that house and a house without laughter is not much of a place … not if there’s a whole houseful of servants and all you get is the food to eat and fires in every room to keep you warm … if you know what I mean.”

“I do know what you mean, Mrs. Grant. Where does the haunting come in?”

“Well … Miss Martha was about ten years old … your age, I reckon, when they started to notice. She’d go out there and sit under that tree on that seat you like so much. She’d be talking … we thought to herself. She changed at that time. She was a bit difficult to manage before. Into mischief rather. My gran said she was trying to remind people she was there because she thought her father had forgotten all about her.”

“It was very wrong of Sir Ronald to blame the child for her mother’s death.”

“Oh, he didn’t do that, exactly. He just couldn’t bear to be with her. I suppose he was reminded of what he had lost.”

“So she changed, you were saying.”

“She was more satisfied … peaceful like, so my gran said. And every day she’d be out there, talking away. They thought she was getting a little bit … peculiar.”

“What happened then to change her?”

“One of the maids thought she saw a figure in white there. It was dusk. It might have been the shadows. But she came running into the house, scared out of her wits. Miss Martha was there. She said, ‘It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s my mother. She comes here to talk to me.’ That explained a lot …the change in her … why she was always at that spot in the garden. Why she seemed to be talking to herself. She wasn’t talking to herself. She was talking to her mother.”

“So her mother came back …”

“Like as not she couldn’t rest … because she knew her daughter was unhappy. Miss Martha … she was apart from the rest of us like. A strange young lady. She never married. In time she inherited the house. They used to say she was a bit of a recluse. She wouldn’t have the garden changed. The gardeners used to get wild saying that this ought to come down and this and that be cut back. But she wouldn’t have it. She was quite old when she died. My mother was in the kitchen then.”

“Do you believe Lady Flamstead really came back?”

“My gran said she did and anyone who’d been there would have said it.”

“It does seem the sort of garden where anything could happen.”

Mrs. Grant nodded and went on sipping her tea.

After that I visited the seat often. I would sit there and think about Miss Martha. I felt a sympathy with her, though our situation was by no means similar. I had my mother, even though she had partially been withdrawn from our close relationship. But I did understand Martha’s feelings. She was unwanted because her coming had resulted in the departure of one who had been greatly loved; she was a poor consolation for what her father had lost.

One day my mother came out and found me sitting there.

“You’re often here,” she said. “You like it, don’t you? I think you are beginning to love this house.”

“It’s a very interesting house … particularly the garden … It’s haunted.”

She laughed. “Who told you that?”

“Mrs. Grant.”

“Of course … a descendant of the old retainers. My dear Rebecca, every self-respecting house over the age of a hundred years must have its ghost.”

“I know. But this is a rather unusual ghost. It’s in the garden.”

“Good Heavens! Where?” My mother looked round with an air of mock expectancy.

“In this very place. Please don’t mock. I have a feeling that ghosts don’t like to be laughed at. They are very seriously dedicated to their purpose in returning.”

“How knowledgeable you’ve become! You haven’t learned that from Miss Brown, I’m sure. Is it Mrs. Grant whom you have to thank?”

“Let me tell you about the ghost. Lady Flamstead was the young wife of Sir Ronald. He doted on her and she died when her baby was born. Sir Ronald couldn’t like the child because through her his wife had died. Poor little thing, she was very unhappy. Then one day she came out to the garden … she was about my age … and she sat in this seat and Lady Flamstead came back.”

“I thought you said she had died.”

“I mean she came back to Earth.”

“Oh … so she is the ghost.”

“She’s not a mischievous one or anything like that. She was kind and gentle and much loved in her life and she came back because her child was unhappy. Mrs. Grant said her grandmother believed it and so did those who had been there at the time. You don’t believe it, do you?”

“Well, these stories grow, you know. Someone imagines they see something … and someone else adds a bit … and there you have your ghost.”

“This was different. Miss Martha changed when her mother came back. She wouldn’t have the garden altered.”

“Is that why you’re here so often … hoping to see this ghost?”

“I don’t think she would come to me. She doesn’t know me. But I do feel there is something special about this spot, and when I heard the story it made it even more interesting. Mama, do you think it possible?”

She was silent for a few seconds. Then she said: “There are those who say all things are possible. There is a special tie between a mother and her child. It is thought the child is part of oneself …”

“Is that how you feel about me?”

She turned to me and nodded.

I felt very happy.

“I always shall, my darling,” she said. “Nothing will alter that.”

She was telling me that it was just the same as it ever was, and I felt happier than I had for a long time. I began to believe that eventually I might even accept Benedict Lansdon’s intrusion into our lives. I was not like poor Martha. My mother was with me. It was really the same as it had ever been. Nothing could alter that.

The next few months flew past. We had now fully settled into Manor Grange and the days had taken on a routine. My mother was deeply interested in my stepfather’s life; she clearly enjoyed it. Now and then they went to London. I was always asked if I would like to accompany them but sometimes I preferred to stay in the country. Miss Brown said it was better to. She did not like lessons to be interrupted and travelling to and forth must necessarily do that.

I often thought of Cornwall … so different from Manorleigh country, where the fields were like carefully fitted patches into a quilt; and even the trees looked as though they had been pruned. I rarely saw the strange, twisted and often grotesque shapes I encountered frequently in Cornwall … those trees which had been victim to the southwest gales. Here in the Manorleigh constituency the little country towns clustered round the greens, with the church spires rising among the trees. It all seemed comfortable, orderly, completely lacking that fey quality which one took for granted in Cornwall.

I often thought of Cador—and not without nostalgia. There were letters from the grandparents. They were constantly asking when we were going down.

That seemed a remote possibility now. Constituencies had to be nursed and Benedict Lansdon, his eyes on far-off goals, was assiduous in his treatment. And my mother was committed to help him. So it was a question of leaving my mother for my grandparents, or vice versa. At this time I wanted to be with my mother, for since our conversation in the garden I was reaching out for an understanding, and trying hard to cast off my prejudices against my stepfather—which in my heart I was not sure that I wanted to do.