The Shadow of the Lynx (5 page)

“It’s less shocking for me to climb trees than girls, you know.”

“So you were spying on them.”

“No. Like you I was merely taking a polite look.”

“You were interested enough to climb a tree and look over the wall!”

“Let’s say my motives were similar to yours. But we have to retrieve the scarf. Come on. I’ll go with you. As your deputy-guardian I can’t allow you to enter a strange house alone.”

“How can we go in there?”

“Simple. You ask to see Lady Cardew and tell her that your scarf is lying on her beautiful lawn.”

“Do you think we should ask to see her? Perhaps we could tell one of the servants.”

“You are too retiring. No. We’ll go in boldly and ask for Lady Cardew.”

We had reached the gates. Stirling opened them and we went into a cobbled courtyard at the end of which was an archway. Stirling went through this; I followed. We were on the lawn.

I felt uneasy. This was most unconventional, but Stirling was unconventional and unused to our formal manners; and as we crossed the grass towards the party at the tea table and they looked up in blank astonishment, I realized how very extraordinary our intrusion must seem.

“Good afternoon,” said tuning.

“I hope we don’t disturb you. We have come to retrieve my ward’s scarf.”

The girl looked bewildered.

“Scarf?” she repeated.

“Oddly enough,” I said, trying to bring some normality into the scene, ‘it blew from my neck over your wall. “

They still looked startled but they couldn’t deny it because there was the scarf. Stirling picked it up and gave it to me; and as he did so he said: “What have you done to your hand?”

“Oh dear,” said the girl, ‘it’s bleeding. “

“I grazed it against a tree when I was trying to catch my scarf,” I stammered. Stirling was looking at me with amusement and I thought for a moment that he was going to tell them I had climbed a tree to look at them.

The girl appeared concerned. She had a sweet expression.

“Are you staying here?” asked the one named Lucie.

“I feel sure you don’t live here or we should know.”

“We’re at the Falcon Inn,” I said.

“Nora,” cut in Stirling quickly, ‘you are feeling faint. ” He turned to the girl.

“Perhaps she should sit down for a moment.”

“Certainly,” said the girl.

“Certainly. Your hand should be attended to. Lucie could bandage it for you, couldn’t you, Lucie?”

“But of course,” said Lucie meekly.

“You should take her into the house and bathe it. Take her to Mrs. Glee’s room. She is certain to have water on the boil, and I do think it should be washed.”

“Come with me,” said Lucie. I wanted to protest because I was interested in the girl and would have preferred to stay and talk with her.

Stirling had sat down and was being offered a cup of tea.

I followed Lucie across the lawn towards the house. We went through a heavy iron studded door and were in a stone walled corridor. Facing us was a flight of stairs.

Lucie led the way up these stairs to a landing.

“The housekeeper’s room is along here. This corridor leads to the servants’ hall.”

We went up a spiral staircase to a landing on which there were several doors. Lucie knocked at one of them and we were told to enter. On a spirit stove was a kettle of hot water, and a middleaged woman in a black bombazine dress with a white cap on her thick greying hair was sitting in an armchair dozing. I guessed this to be Mrs. Glee and I was right. Lucie explained about the scarf and I showed my hand.

“It’s notmng but a light graze,” said Mrs. Uiee.

“Miss Minta thinks it should be washed and dressed.”

Mrs. Glee grunted.

“Miss Minta and her bandages! There’s always something. Last week it was that bird. Couldn’t fly so Miss Minta took charge. Then there was that dog which was caught in a trap.”

I didn’t much care to be compared with a bird and a dog, so I said:

“Really there’s no need.” But Mrs. Glee ignored me and poured some water from the kettle into a basin. My hand was deftly washed and bandaged while I told them we were staying at the Falcon Inn and shortly leaving for Australia. When this was done I thanked Mrs. Glee and Lucie conducted me back to the lawn. I apologized as we went. I was afraid I was being rather a trouble, I said. It was no trouble, she informed me in such a way as to suggest in fact it was; but perhaps that was her manner.

“Miss Minta is very kindhearted,” I said.

“Very,” she agreed.

There were many questions I should have liked to ask but that would have been difficult even if she were communicative which she decidedly was not.

On the lawn Stirling was talking to Minta, and Lady Cardew was looking on languidly. I felt irritated by his complacent manner. It was due to me that we were here and he was getting the best of the adventure. I wondered what they had been talking about while I was away.

“You must have a cup of tea before you go,” said Minta, and as she poured the tea and brought it to me I was again struck by her grace—and kindness too. She really did seem concerned.

“Miss Cardew was telling me about the house,” said Stirling.

“It’s the finest I ever saw.”

“And the most ancient,” laughed Minta.

“He tells me he has recently come from Australia and that he is taking you back with him because his father has become your guardian. Sugar?”

The egg-shell china cup was handed to me. I noticed her long white delicate fingers and the opal ring which she was wearing.

“How exciting it must be to be going to Australia,” she said.

“It must be exciting to live in a house like this,” I replied.

“Having lived all my life in it I think I have become

somewhat blase. It would only be if we lost it that we should realize what it means to us. “

“But you will never lose it,” I replied.

“Who could possibly part with such a place?”

“Oh never, of course,” she answered lightly.

Lucie was busy at the table. Lady Cardew’s eyes were fixed on me but she did not appear to see me; she had scarcely spoken and seemed half asleep. I wondered if she were ill; she did not seem very old, but she certainly behaved like an old woman.

I asked Minta about the house, telling her that the cab driver had pointed it out to me. Yes, she said, it was true that it had been built on the site of the old nunnery. In fact quite a lot of the original building remained.

“Some of the rooms really are like cells, aren’t they, Lucie?”

Lucie agreed that they were.

“It’s been in the family for years now and of course I’ve disappointed them because I’m a girl. There are often girls in this family. But we’ve been here … how long is it, Lucie? 1550? Yes that’s right.

Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and Whiteladies was partially destroyed then. My ancestor did something to please him and was given the place to build on, which he did in due course. There were lots of the stones left, so they were used; and, as I said, a good deal of the place remained. “

“Mr. Wakefield is here,” said Lucie. A man was coming across the lawn—the most exquisite man I had ever seen. His clothes were impeccably tailored and I discovered that his manners matched them.

Minta jumped up and ran towards him. He took her hand and kissed it.

Charming! I thought. I knew Stirling would be amused. Then he went to Lady Cardew and did the same. He bowed to Lucie. Oh yes, Lucie was not quite one of the family.

Minta had turned to us.

“I’m afraid I don’t know your names. You see, Franklyn, a scarf blew over and it belongs to Miss …”

“Tamasin,” I said.

“Nora Tamasin.” He bowed beautifully. I added: “And this is Mr. Stirling Herrick.”

“From Australia,” added Minta.

“How interesting 1’ Mr. Franklyn Wakefield’s face expressed polite interest in my scarf and us and I liked him for it.

“You’re just in time for a cup of tea,” said Minta.

I realized of course that there was no reason why we should stay and unless we took our departure immediately we should become ungracious intruders. Stirling however made no attempt to move. He had settled back in his chair and was watching the scene and in particular Minta with an intentness which could only be described as eager.

I said, rising: “You have been most kind. We must go. It only remains to say thank you for being so good to strangers.”

I sensed Stirling’s annoyance with me. He wanted to stay;

he seemed to have no idea that we were intruding on their privacy, or if he had he did not care. But I was determined.

Minta smiled at Lucie who immediately rose to conduct us to the gates.

“I do apologize for intruding on your tea-party,” I said.

“It was quite a diversion,” replied Lucie. There was that in her manner which I found disconcerting. She was aloof, yet somehow vulnerable. She seemed over-anxious to maintain a dignity which was perhaps due to the fact that she was a poor relation.

“Miss Minta is charming,” I said.

“I’ll endorse that,” added Stirling.

“She is a delightful person,” agreed Lucie.

“And I am grateful to you for bandaging my hand, Miss …”

“Maryan,” she supplied.

“Lucie Maryan.”

“A poor relation certainly,” I thought.

Stirling, who, I was to discover, snapped his fingers at the conventional rules of polite society, asked bluntly, “Are you a relation of the Cardews?”

She hesitated and for a moment I thought she was going to reprove him for his inquisitiveness. Then she said: “I am nurse-companion to Lady Cardew.”

And then we had reached the gate.

“I trust,” she said coldly, ‘that the hand soon heals. Goodbye. “

When we had passed through the iron gates Lucie shut them firmly behind us. We walked in silence for a few moments then Stirling laughed.

“Quite an adventure,” I said.

“Well, you certainly wanted to know what was going on behind that wall.”

“And so it seems did you.”

“It’s a pretty scarf. We should both be grateful to it. It was our ticket of entrance, you might say.”

“It’s an odd household.”

“Odd! How do you mean … odd?”

“On the surface there are the mother and daughter and nurse-companion.

Very ordinary probably. But I felt there was something different there. The mother was quiet. I believe she was half asleep most of the time. “

“Well, she’s an invalid.”

We were both silent after that. I glanced sideways at him and I knew he shared my mood. We were both bemused in some strange way.

I said, “Do you know, when I stepped through that gate I felt as though I had walked into a new world … something quite different from anything I had known before. I felt that something tremendously dramatic was happening and because it was all so quiet and in a way ordinary that made it rather sinister.”

Stirling laughed. He was definitely not the fanciful type. It was no use trying to explain my feelings to him. Yet I did feel that I knew him better since this adventure in Whiteladies. I had forgotten that this time yesterday I was not aware of his existence. And for the first time since my father had died I felt excited—it was all the more intriguing because I was not quite sure why.

The next morning we left the Falcon Inn for London and the day after that we boarded the Carron Star at Tilbury.

My journey to the other side of the world had begun.

Two

I quickly realized that life on the Carron Star was going to be a little spartan, even though we travelled first class. I shared a cabin with a young clergyman’s daughter who was going to Melbourne to be married. She was both elated and apprehensive; her fiance had left England two years before to make a home for her in the New World and now had a small property there. She was worried about her trunks of clothes and the linen she was taking out.

“One has to be prepared,” she told me. Fortunately she wanted to talk about herself so much that she did not ask questions about me, for which I was glad.

She told me that the fare was 50 and I felt a glow of satisfaction because my new guardian was paying so much to have me conveyed to him.

We were lucky, she explained, in the first class, because passengers in the other two classes must bring their own cutlery, drinking mugs, cups and saucers, besides a water bottle. Her fiance had been most insistent that she travel first class. It was really a great adventure for a young girl to travel across the world by herself; but her aunt had seen her safely aboard and her fiance would be waiting to greet her. She wanted me to know that she was a very cherished young lady with her trunks of clothes and fine linen.

She did ask if I were travelling alone, so I told her I was with my guardian. She opened her eyes very wide when she saw Stirling who, she commented, seemed somewhat young for the role of guardian; and I am sure she thought there was something very odd about me from that moment.

In the dining-room I sat with Stirling. At first most people thought we were brother and sister, and when it became known that I was his ward there was some raising of eyebrows, but the wonder of this soon passed. The weather was rough to begin with and that meant that many were confined to their cabins; and when they emerged the un conventionality of our position seemed to have been accepted by most.

During the gale Stirling and I sat on deck and he talked to me about Australia. Lynx was never long out of the conversation and I was more impatient to see him than I was to see the new country. Every day seemed to bring me closer to Stirling. I began to understand him. His manner could be brusque, but this did not mean that he was angry or indifferent; he prided himself on his frankness and if he was blunt with me he expected me to be the same with him. He despised artificiality in any form. I learned this through his attitude to our fellow passengers. I thought often of those people whom we had met at Whiteladies and it seemed to me that Stirling was the complete antithesis of Franklyn Wakefield as I was to Minta. It was strange that these people whom I had seen so briefly should have impressed themselves so much on my mind that I compared them with everyone I met.