Tomorrow's Treasure (25 page)

Her challenge was clear. If Aunt Grace expected to take Miss Hortense's place easily, there would be resistance.

Mrs. Wetherly made a throaty sound of disapproval, but Aunt Grace remained poised and confident. “I am sure you are right, Arcilla, and I certainly have no intention of taking her place in your heart. I am
here to teach you on certain subjects until your father sends you to a private school in London.”

“I shall
not
go to London. I shall go to
France
, Mrs. Havering.”

“Miss Arcilla, you forget your manners!” Mrs. Wetherly's tone was firm. “Your father has not decided where you should be sent to school, and since that is at least three years away—”

“It is Aunt Camilla who will decide, and she has already promised that I can go to France!”

“Mrs. Havering, I must apologize for—”

Aunt Grace gestured airily with her hand. “No harm is done, Mrs. Wetherly.” She turned and smiled at the girl, whose cheeks now showed two bright spots of temperamental pink. “I am sure Miss Arcilla and I shall come to peaceable terms.”

The housekeeper was clearly flustered. Evy pressed her lips together. Arcilla was apparently quite used to getting the best of the poor woman. Mrs. Wetherly said, “Are you going to show Mrs. Havering and her niece, Evy, around the nursery wing?”

“No. I wish to be excused. I am not feeling well again.” Without waiting for permission from either Mrs. Wetherly or Aunt Grace, Arcilla rose and started to leave. On her way to the door her gaze momentarily fixed on Evy, and she stopped in her tracks. A little smirk touched her rosebud mouth as she brushed past and went out, not even troubling to close the door. Her voice was heard in the hall: “Aunt Camilla! Aunt Camilla!”

Most likely she was running to Lady Camilla with an outburst of dislike for her new governess and the demand that Miss Hortense come back.

Mrs. Wetherly plucked at her crisp white apron. “That girl can be positively horrid at times. She's grown worse since her mother passed away. And Sir Lyle leaving for Capetown so soon afterward worsened matters. She needs a strong hand, and I'm afraid she's not getting it. Lady Camilla means well, but Arcilla is such a strong-willed girl that she dances circles around her aunt.”

“I understand, Mrs. Wetherly. These matters cannot be rushed. I have hopes that in time she and I shall cooperate.”

“Well, I certainly do hope so,” the housekeeper said doubtfully. “The only one she tends to listen to is her brother. The world rises and sets upon him by her estimation.”

“Master Parnell?”

“Oh no. Master Rogan.”

Aunt Grace's brows arched.

Mrs. Wetherly shook her head. “Now that he's leaving next week, there won't be any of us who can calm her down.” She wrung her hands.

It was telling that Rogan could calm his sister's emotions, or would even try. Evy would not have thought it in keeping with his self-indulgent behavior.

“Then I shall have a talk with Master Rogan later, Mrs. Wetherly,” Aunt Grace said. “Perhaps he and I can work out something between us about Arcilla before he leaves for London.”

“Oh, I am sure he would be cooperative.”

Evy held back a snort at that. It wouldn't do well to offend Mrs. Wetherly, who clearly thought well of Rogan. The woman proceeded to show Aunt Grace about the large schoolroom. Evy glanced around, growing more dubious about their new home as the minutes passed.
It will not be easy here.
A sudden longing to be back at the rectory, far away from Arcilla, swept over her.

The room was bright and sunny with many windows and had the smell of books, paper, ink, and blackboard chalk. There were three desks with inkwells, two of which had been pushed aside. They must have once belonged to Parnell and Rogan.

Evy pondered which one she would use. Going to school each day with Arcilla sounded most unpleasant. She did not need to wonder which unused desk had belonged to whom. Both Parnell and Rogan had carved their bold initials into the wood, along with the date when they had left the charge of their tutor. Rogan's was just the month before, when Mr. Whipple had departed from Rookswood. Evidently
carving dates was a family tradition, because there were other initials there too, from earlier generations of Chantry children. Evy found it curiously interesting to see the initials
H. C.
, etched by Henry Chantry, the man who had died violently here at Rookswood.

There were numbers of books stashed neatly in the walled bookcase, and a large world globe stood on a table. A world map was pinned to a wall, along with a smaller one of Africa. Someone had placed colored pins with tiny flags at Capetown and Kimberly. There was a blackboard behind the teachers large desk, and Evy knew her aunt would make good use of it.

Some old toys were grouped on one side of the hardwood floor, apparently from when the Chantry children had been small. Evy looked at the red painted rocking horse and worn teddy bears that must have belonged to Arcilla, and checkers and a card game. The toy wooden soldiers and wooden swords must have belonged to the boys. She could imagine the many bouts and tussles that the two brothers must have gotten into when playing knights, while Arcilla played princess.

The door opened, and Lizzie came in apologizing for the interruption. “Lady Camilla wishes to see Mrs. Havering about the schedule she had in mind for Arcilla.”

Mrs. Wetherly soon left to carry on her own work, and Aunt Grace asked Evy to go to their rooms. “Our trunks should be there by now. You can begin putting your things away.”

Evy entered the sitting room and saw that the two trunks had been brought up by one of the footmen. There were no locks on the trunk lids, and one of them lay wide open. Lizzie Croft must have thought she was to help unpack. Evy saw that it was her own trunk that stood open, her things rifled through. Who would dare!

She closed the door and went to her trunk, looking down. She stooped to her knees to gather a dress and petticoat, when from the corner of her eye she saw someone standing. She turned her head quickly. Arcilla was framed in the doorway of Evy's bedroom, arms folded, a bored look on her pretty face.

“I do not like your dresses.”

Hot words rushed to her lips, but she swallowed them back and managed a stiff reply. “Since you won't be wearing them, you needn't concern yourself.”

“They are very dull. More suited for Meg.”

Meg's mum worked in the Rookswood kitchen, and her pa worked in the stables. Evy struggled to hold her temper.

“Not everyone can have their own dressmaker.” Evy directed a pointed look at Arcilla's satiny frock with its full sleeves, narrow cuffs, and popular braid hem. “But you are a bit young to dress so grown-up.”

“I am
not!
” Arcilla fell onto the divan and drew her legs up beneath the knife-pleated underskirt. “I am quite grown-up for my age. I cannot wait to go to France to school. I shall have a dancing master and new gowns.”

Evy gathered her frocks together. “It was very rude of you to go through my trunk. You had no right.”

Arcilla shrugged. “You have nothing of interest to me.”

“Then perhaps you ought to go to your own room.”

Arcilla stared at her, mouth open, then laughed. “This whole
house
is mine.”

“Not these three rooms. My aunt is awarded them for her work here, which will be quite hard, now that she is
your
governess.”

Arcilla's eyes flashed, and for a moment Evy thought the girl would pounce on her like an angry cat, but though her hands formed fists and her mouth tightened, Arcilla controlled herself. Suddenly she grimaced what Evy could only surmise was meant as a smile or a truce. She scanned her curiously.

“You are not like Alice, are you?”

“I am Evy Varley.”

“I shall overlook your bad manners.” Arcilla sniffed. “I would have expected something much better from the niece of the vicar.”

“And I would have expected much better from the daughter of the squire. Excuse me—I must hang my frocks in my wardrobe.” Evy gathered them up and went into her room. She began hanging them up in the small wardrobe, fully expecting Arcilla to flounce away, but the
irritating girl came into the bedroom and gathered herself onto the middle of the bed, watching Evy, amusement sparkling in her eyes. Evy would have liked to order her out of her room, but she could not do so without Arcilla making a fuss about it to Lady Camilla. And Evy did not want to make trouble for Aunt Grace.

Doing her best to ignore her intruder, Evy came to the bottom of her trunk, to a few games and some books that she loved to read. Arcilla looked at them and wrinkled her nose. “How can you waste time reading?”

“Its not a waste of time. Books teach and broaden your understanding of the world and other people. This one is Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice;
it teaches so much about the life of the upper class and their snobbery.”

“It looks thick and full of words.”

Evy laughed. “It is.”

“You should come to my room. I have so many things to occupy my time, and so many dresses that Aunt Camilla orders Mrs. Wetherly to give my old ones away to the poor each Christmas.”

“Then you have lots of reasons to thank God.”

Arcilla sighed, and her smile turned sour. “That's just what Rogan said you would be like.”

So Rogan had told Arcilla about her? How … interesting. “What did he say?”

Arcilla shrugged and wrapped a curl around her finger. “Oh, that you were disapproving and bossy. Always looking down your religious nose at everyone else.”

Evy stared, surprised that he would have said such a thing. What shocked her even more was how the words stung. Had he actually put it that way? “I do not think I am any of those things.”

“Rogan's right. He is always right. I am disappointed you came.” She leaned back against the pillows. “I hoped you might be fun. Flirt with the boys and things like that. We might have fun together if you were different. But you are boring. An old stick-in-the-mud. But maybe not as trying as Alice Tisdale. That old stuffy sock! She actually
thinks she will end up marrying Rogan, imagine!” She giggled. “He cannot bear the sight of her. Says she practically throws herself at him.”

“He seems to have little good to say about anyone except himself.”

“Well, he did not have anything good to say about
you
or that foolish boy, Derwent Brown.”

“Perhaps your brother has nothing good to say because he feels guilty for locking the vicar's son in the crypt.”

Arcilla shrugged, smoothing her puffed sleeves. “If he got himself locked in, it was his own fault. I hear Derwent is quite gullible.”

“It was
not
his fault. He was deliberately locked in.”

“Rogan is always right.”

“No, he is not.”

“He
is!
I am going to tell my aunt what you said about Rogan.” She climbed from the bed and marched from the room.

So much for not making trouble. Heavy of heart and spirit, Evy finished her unpacking.

The incident did not die there. Evy mentioned the unhappy encounter to Aunt Grace, who in turn spoke of it to Lady Camilla. Soon afterward Arcilla was called downstairs to the library to meet with her aunt, who apparently told her that she did not have rights to the three rooms belonging to the new governess and her niece, and that Arcilla must not forget her upbringing. She must knock before entering, and preferably she was not to go there at all without being invited. There was no reason that Arcilla should feel upset, since she had access by right to the entire mansion belonging to the family.

Evy saw Arcilla again around four o'clock, when Aunt Grace called her into the schoolroom to inform her when classes would begin. “Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock.”

Aunt Grace went to get her teaching desk ready, and Arcilla said to Evy in a low voice, “You can
have
those old rooms. What do I care? The whole mansion still belongs to
me.
”

“No, it does not.”

“It does!”

“It belongs to your father. Your brothers will inherit before you do. I have heard that Rogan will most likely inherit Rookswood.”

“
Master
Rogan to you.”

“No doubt
you
will be married off to someone and sent far away.”

Arcilla glared. “I will not go to that horrid South Africa. I shall stay in England and marry Charles.”

Evy had no idea who Charles was, but she almost felt sorry for Arcilla. The idea that she might be sent to the Cape had brought her genuine consternation.

“Africa is a boring place full of naked savages,” Arcilla said. “Rogan showed me pictures of them. They have nothing on but a loincloth and run around with spears.”

“I am sure you will marry whoever your rather decides is appropriate.”

“Evy.”

She jumped at Aunt Grace's stern voice.

“We will not discuss personal matters concerning Miss Arcilla and her father.”

“Yes, Aunt.”

Arcilla shot her a look of triumph.

Later, Aunt Grace went out of her way to warn her against contesting Arcilla. “You must not expect Miss Arcilla or her brothers, when they are home, to treat you as your village friends do in the rectory. I am employed by their father, Sir Lyle. We must not forget we are considered help.”

“I know that, but she is so
proud.
”

“You must concentrate on your own manners and pride, dear. You are not responsible for Miss Arcilla's behavior, but your own.”

“Am I considered hired help, too?”

Her aunt hesitated, and Evy detected a moment of silence that might have been construed as sadness. “No, not yet.”

Not
yet.

“You are my niece. Nevertheless, you must be respectful to everyone at Rookswood and do as you are told.”