The Diary Of Pamela D. (2 page)

‘Well,’ the woman said, and
chuckled, a good-natured, throaty sound, ‘if it happens that you
end up working for
me
, we’ll soon put
that
to rights. And by the way, our little abode is
in
Yorkshire
, as
in
Yorkshire pudding
.’

‘Where is Yorkshire?’ Pamela asked, never
having heard of Yorkshire pudding, either. ‘Is that in Europe or
something?’

Again that throaty chuckle.
‘My dear, you
are
a
delight! You North Americans are so brave about admitting
ignorance. My late husband would have died rather than admit to the
fact that he didn’t know everything and anything. Now, when and
where can I meet you? Is tomorrow evening convenient? I’ve other
interviews before then, but . . . don’t be discouraged, my dear. I
find I like the sound of your voice.’

Pamela fidgeted a moment, reluctant yet
timidly hopeful. ‘Tomorrow’s fine . . . but . . . there’s no place
around here to meet, exactly, except for a doughnut-shop near where
I live.’

‘I take it you haven’t transportation, then?’
The woman made it more a statement than a question.

‘I don’t have a car or anything, no,’ Pamela
muttered, feeling ashamed.

‘Well, give me your address,
and I’ll meet you at . . . say . . . eight-thirty? You live
where
? Oh, my! Well . . .
but never mind! Just be ready and watch for me.
Goodbye.’

Pamela hung up the phone feeling bewildered.
‘Huh. She didn’t even tell me her name, or ask for mine.’ With a
shrug and an indefinable emptiness dogging her steps as she
listlessly went to the closet, she began picking through her things
as if something half-decent, forgotten and unnoticed, was waiting
there to be found.

There was no mistaking the woman’s car when
it arrived. Pamela didn’t know what kind it was, except that it had
a distinctive-looking hood-ornament which looked sort of like a
swimmer crouched on the edge of a pool with arms extended
backwards, ready to dive in. The car was big and high and
old-fashioned-looking, and bore the unmistakeable patina of wealth.
She didn’t realize she was standing immobile, gaping, until the
woman leaned across and opened the door for her.

‘It’s all right. You can get in. I don’t
bite.’

Swallowing, Pamela approached the car, and
for a moment was reluctant to touch the seat with her clothes. She
felt that at any moment the woman would fully register Pamela’s
appearance, slam the door on her in disgust and drive off.

‘My dear, is something the matter?’

‘No! No. It’s just . . . ’ she got in and
closed the door, feeling as out of place, awkward and shabby as a
street person at a grand ball.

‘Well, then,’ the woman said as she started
driving, ‘I think introductions are in order, don’t you? I’m Mrs.
Amanda Hill Dewhurst. Or at least I was until my husband died. And
how are you called?’

Pamela couldn’t help but like the woman,
instantly. ‘I’m just plain, old Pamela Dee,’ she said, feeling shy
rather than ashamed. ‘I haven’t even got a middle name.’

‘Plain is best,’ the woman said with a
dismissing gesture and a grimace. ‘Believe you me, when I was your
age, flowery superfluous names were all the rage and most of the
girls who bore those names were pretentious, inconsequential
ninnies-’

‘Wha- where are you taking me?’

Mrs. Dewhurst was driving towards a very
expensive, very exclusive part of town. Pamela had been humiliated
a couple of times when living on the streets simply by coming into
contact with people that had nice clothes and nice things. She felt
as though she didn’t belong, as though she had no right to be here,
to breathe the same air these people breathed.

‘To my flat, if you
must
know,’ Mrs. Dewhurst
said, feigning indignance. ‘Well, it’s not
my
flat, really (or
apartment
as you North
Americans call them). It’s just a rental, while I’m here.’ In a
conspiratorial
sotto
voce
, she added, ‘I’m here on
business.’

‘What . . . what
sort
of business?’ Pamela
ventured, just to make conversation, hoping she wasn’t being rude
by asking.

Amanda Dewhurst flashed her
a broad smile. ‘Why,
your
sort of business, not to put too fine a point on
it. I came all the way here from Yorkshire just for the pleasure of
finding
you
, Miss
Pamela Dee.’

Though the apartment was
small and conservative-looking, there was nevertheless a man at the
front entrance wearing a smart uniform who came and opened the door
for Mrs. Dewhurst. He was about to approach the passenger door but
Pamela, without thinking, had got out already, and now stood under
the awning feeling like a fool. The man didn’t blink an eye at
her
faux pas
,
however, and merely got into the car after being handed the keys
and drove away.

The look on Pamela’s face
prompted a smile from Mrs. Dewhurst as she made her way brusquely
towards the entrance. ‘He’s merely parking it, my dear, not
stealing
it. Come along,
come along.’

Pamela followed, feeling
both a little breathless at the woman’s vigour, and as though she
were a little bit of flotsam or jetsam that had been caught in the
woman’s wake. The building was very plain and unadorned, but she
could tell by the smell alone that it was very expensive.
Everything had a patina of age, but of
immaculate
age, carefully preserved,
perfectly maintained, and there was something extra, something
indefinable, that spoke of an habitual
control
. No one would
let
this place go to rack
and ruin.

She had rarely ridden on
lifts. Those few she was familiar with lurched and bounced
alarmingly. This one was smooth and unbelievably fast, shooting so
quickly up to the fifth floor that for a moment she felt an
alarming tingle in her vitals and the press of gravity. She almost
commented on this as they stepped off the lift but bit her tongue,
not wanting to appear foolish or ignorant. Mrs. Dewhurst was
watching her with a small smile that was disturbingly knowing,
however, that didn’t leave her face as she led Pamela to her flat.
Once inside Mrs. Dewhurst removed her coat, took Pamela’s as well,
and hung them in the closet. ‘Now, my dear, just have a seat in the
. . . oh, dear, I’ve forgotten what it’s called. Not the
parlour
. That was
Victorian. We call it the
sitting
room
-’

‘You mean, the living room?’ Pamela
ventured.

‘
That’s
it. The living room. Just sit
yourself down, and I’ll bring you some refreshment. Would you like
a drink?’

‘Um . . . tea, if you’ve got it.’

‘Tea? Wouldn’t you prefer a glass of wine, or
sherry-?

‘
No
! I . . .’ Pamela instantly
regretting blurting out her protest before she could think. How
could she explain? For people like Mrs. Dewhurst, drinking was a
casual, social thing. For people like herself it was drunkenness,
escape, a way of life.

‘It’s all right if you’d
prefer tea or something else,’ Mrs. Dewhurst said with that same
small smile as she made her way to the small kitchen. ‘But tell
me,’ she said through the portal between the kitchen and sitting
room, ‘do you drink at
all
?’

Pamela reddened, looked down and shook her
head.

Within a few minutes the woman brought a tray
of small triangular sandwiches, a pot of tea and a plate of
cookies. Her look became serious, however, when she saw Pamela’s
expression.

‘Help yourself, dear. Don’t mind me. I’ll
just help myself to one or two. You’re still a young, growing
girl.’

Pamela couldn’t stop her hands from trembling
slightly from hunger. There were so many sandwiches that she could
eat a fair number without looking like a complete pig, weren’t
there?

‘My dear, we shall have to do something about
your clothing. Have you anything more . . . formal?’ At the look on
Pamela’s face, she shook her head and said, ‘Of course you don’t.
Not to worry, though. We’ll get you fixed up when we arrive at your
new home.’

‘What’s it like?’ Pamela asked her suddenly.
‘I mean, the place you live? I mean, well, what’s the house like?
And the area?’

‘The
house
,’ Mrs. Dewhurst said with an
irony that was lost on Pamela, her smile returning. ‘Well, it’s a
fairly
big
house,
as houses go, and there are lots of people living in it, and there
are lots of domestic workers . . .
servants
is too archaic a word.
Real
servants, back in the
bad old days, used to work long hours for their room and board
only. A modern domestic is paid a wage, and is often supplied with
room and board as well, as in our case, when the location of the .
. .
house
. . . is
fairly remote.

‘There is a small town about six miles away,
where we buy anything we need, and where we all go to church on
Sunday. By the way, church is a household event, which we all
attend. Do you attend church?’

Pamela’s eyes fell. ‘Sort of. There’s a
Catholic Mission I work at on the weekends. We have a service,
which Father Mugford gives-’

‘You’re Catholic?’

Pamela swallowed, feeling at
once false and shabby once more. ‘No,’ she muttered in a small
voice, ‘I’m not
anything
. I work there mostly because . . . well . . . it’s a few
dollars... and a meal-’ She couldn’t speak any more. To her own
surprise and utter humiliation, she found she was
crying.

Mrs. Dewhurst didn’t seem
the least bit embarrassed or put out, however. She left her chair
and sat beside the girl. ‘That’s all right. A few tears are good
for the soul.’ She sighed, and to Pamela’s surprise, put her arm
around the girl, let her cry her heart out on the woman’s shoulder.
‘Cry all you like, dear. It strikes me that, so far, you don’t have
much to thank the good Lord
for
. But maybe we can change that.
Hm?’

After she had regained her composure, wiping
her eyes, Pamela ventured a question.

‘How come you’re being so nice to me? How
could you possibly want someone like me to . . . to work for you?
To live at your house?’

Mrs. Dewhurst gave her a
humorously evasive look as she resumed her seat. ‘Ah, that
would
be telling. You
know, I don’t believe I’m going to tell you. I’ll leave you to
figure that one out for yourself. My reasons for
not
telling you, and the
reasons I want
you
,
and you specifically, will become clear to you in time. If I were
to make my thoughts plain to you . . . well! That would rather
spoil things. And, yes, you heard me correctly. There’s no need to
look so shocked! The job is yours if you want it. Now come, you’ve
hardly made a dent in those wonderful sandwiches I made, and
there’s a plateful of cookies that need to be eaten lest they go to
waste. You stay here and fill yourself up, and I’ll call my son and
tell him we’ll be catching the first plane in the
morning.’

‘Your son?’

Mrs. Dewhurst rolled her
eyes in what may have been mock exasperation. ‘Yes, my son, Theo,
short for “Theodore.” Some of his friends used to call him “Ted.”
He’s partly the reason I came here looking for someone like you.
Only I did one better. Instead of getting someone
like
you, I got
you
. Never mind my rather
oblique sense of humour, my dear. Indulge me. Now, Theo is an
active man; too active for my ageing domestic staff, most of whom
have been with us forever, so that the place more resembles a
retirement home full of doddering old fuddy-duddies. But Theo . . .
he manages my estates and my business affairs . . . I’m sure I
don’t know
what
I’d
do without him. But he needs some . . .
assistance
, and some
distraction
as well. By
the by, do you type?’

‘Just a little,’ Pamela admitted, able for
the first time to manage some confidence. ‘I helped out a lot with
the Mission’s correspondence. But I can only do about forty-five
words a minute. Mrs. Gilroy- she showed me how to type. She’s a
real secretary. I’ve been told she can type about seventy-two words
a minute.’

‘Well, it seems you have
some genuine talent after all!’ Mrs. Dewhurst smiled. ‘Forty-five
words is about
twice
as fast as Theo can manage. He uses the “hunt-and-peck”
method. That clinches it! You’re coming with me, and that’s all
there is to it. I’ll have someone collect your things-’

‘I . . . I’d better go along,’ Pamela
muttered, uncomfortable with the thought of someone going through
her belongings, most of which weren’t worth keeping. ‘But- didn’t
you say something about leaving in the morning? If I get my things,
where will I stay?’

Mrs. Dewhurst made a face.
‘Why,
here
, of
course. As though you’d be staying any place else!’