by Joan Aiken
Lady Hariot, I could see, was trying to be as cheerful as she could in order to distract Triz who seemed utterly shocked; white, trembling and tearful.
I, too, was inexpressibly outraged that after somebody had taken such pains to make a home and run it justly as Lady Hariot had, they could, all in a day, be dispossessed. Lady Hariot was a fair, thoughtful mistress, I knew; she was well-liked in the village.
Triz finally found her voice. ‘Can’t – can’t Alize come with us? To Portugal?’
‘No, my dearie.’ Lady Hariot’s tone was very gentle, but the message in her eye to me was unmistakable. A faint hope crumbled away within me. ‘You and I have so very little money between us that it will only just suffice to take us overseas. We could not ask Aunt Anna to accept another guest. And Liza has her own friends who might not wish her to go gadding abroad with such a ramshackle pair as we shall be. Liza – if she will follow my advice –’ Lady Hariot briskly folded a shawl and tucked it into a basket trunk – ‘Liza will take her own way now, to her own friends, and not remain here any longer at Nether Othery.’
Tears began coursing silently down Triz’s cheeks. I put my arms round her and held her close.
‘Don’t leave me, Alize – pray, pray don’t!’ she whispered in a choked voice.
‘My dearie – I must; don’t you see? We are children, we have no choice. But I will write to you – long letters – as soon as you send me your direction in Portugal – I will write you often. And you will be happy there – the sun will be so warm, and you will catch no more nasty coughs or colds – And when we are both grown I shall travel out and find you – ’
Lady Hariot’s eye, meeting mine steadily over her daughter’s head, sent me a message of approval.
‘And now,’ she said briskly, ‘Liza must go back and tell Dr Moultrie that his lessons are to terminate. Give the good doctor this, my dear’ – she handed me a guinea – ‘that will sweeten the blow. And you, my dear child, take this’ – another guinea – ‘go into Ashett and reserve yourself a place on tomorrow’s stage-coach to Dorchester. And put these letters in your pocket, and give them to Colonel Brandon’s lawyers. Tell them that you should go to your connections at Delaford.’
‘But Lady Hariot – can you spare –’
‘My dear girl – you have done so much for and with Thérèse that I only wish it could be twenty times more! And I hope, like you, that some day – when it is possible – we shall all meet again. But now I urge you – most sincerely – to lose no time in doing what I suggest. Lacking our company – lacking the influence of this household – I must impress upon you that Othery is no fit place for you. And, for her sake’ – she placed a gentle hand on her daughter’s head – ‘I think we should make our goodbyes speedy.’
I could see that this was wise advice. Triz was nearly dying of woe. I gave her a last hug, gulped out a ‘Goodbye’ and ran down the stairs even faster than I had come up them.
When I gave Lady Hariot’s message to Dr Moultrie, and told him that I was about to leave the village, he fell down in some kind of fit. It was no great surprise – he had been red-faced, short of breath and dropsical in his constitution for a long time. But it was dismaying to see him writhe snoring and gasping on the floor. I cried out for his housekeeper, blind old Mother Fothergill, and ran for Dr Parracombe, who bled him and purged him and leeched him.
Disobeying Lady Hariot’s instructions, I waited until Thursday to take the Dorchester coach. Meantime I wandered the country, saying goodbye, in my own fashion, to all the places that I had visited with Mr Sam and Mr Bill. Hoby was gone off to Eton already; there was nobody else that I minded leaving. I washed and darned my clothes to the best of my ability, and tried to neaten my appearance. I retrieved my fan from the oak tree and tucked it at the bottom of my small bundle, wondering again about the lady who had left it.
I had never mentioned her to Lady Hariot.
‘I suppose you know what you’re a-doing of?’ Hannah Wellcome said sourly, in one of her sober intervals. ‘Sposin’ they won’t have ye at Delaford? What then? Sposin’ they cast ye off? I won’t have ye back, don’t think it.’
‘Then I’ll have to find some sailors and ask how they do for soap.’
On Thursday morning I rose long before it was light and walked in to Ashett. There, hidden behind a great pile of fishermen’s nets, I secretly watched the sad little procession of Lady Hariot, Triz and Prue, with their bags, clambering aboard the Spanish vessel.
I do not choose to tell whether I wept or not; that is of no importance.
As I said earlier, there may be incidents or matters which I am not prepared to discuss; they are my own affair, and nobody else’s.
When the Spanish ship – her name was Santa Maria – had weighed anchor and made sail, I walked away from the quayside and took my place on the coach to Dorchester. With a tolerably heavy heart.
Chapter 3
The coach set me down in Dorchester and I inquired my way to Colonel Brandon’s lawyers, Messrs Melplash, Melplash and Grisewood, in South Street. They, needless to say, were aghast at the arrival of a rumpled girl with a soiled bundle proffering a letter To Whom It May Concern from Lady Hariot Vexford.
There were two partners in the office, an old one and a younger one. Mr Melplash and Mr Grisewood.
They deliberated over Lady Hariot’s letter.
‘Lady Hariot – who, I must say, indites a very proper and conformable missive – seems to suggest here, that Othery is no longer a fit domicile for you.’ Mr Melplash peered at me over the tops of his spectacles. ‘I gather that you have spent much time in Lady Hariot’s house, with her daughter.’
‘Lady Hariot has been so good to me!’ I declared fervently. ‘But now she is obliged to go abroad to Portugal. Squire Vexford died and his brother inherits the house.’
‘Hmn. Hmn. Yes. I have heard of Vexford of Othery.’ Nothing to his advantage, suggested the tone. ‘But now, child, what in the world is to be done with you?’
‘Why, sir?’
‘Why, you see, we have learned lately that Colonel Brandon intended to return from India to England with his regiment; but it may be many months yet before he arrives in this country.’
‘Oh, I see.’ My heart sank. ‘Perhaps – until then – could I go to school?’
This had been one of Lady Hariot’s suggestions. It sounded respectable.
The two partners looked at one another. Mr Melplash, the elder, had a neat little flaxen wig above his glasses, and a grey worsted suit with a flapped waistcoat. Mr Grisewood, the younger, wore so very tiny a wig that it seemed more like an odd snippet of cotton material that had fallen from above and lodged on the top of his head. Beneath it his brown hair could be seen, tied back with a bit of ribbon.
‘Girl wishes to go to school,’ said Mr Grisewood. ‘Not unreasonable, hmn?’
‘Lady Hariot here says that the girl has been well taught already and can also sing and play. Pity to waste that, hmn, hmn?’
‘And she ain’t old enough to earn her living.’
‘She is certainly not old enough for that.’
I thought of Fanny Huskisson. I thought of sailors and soap.
‘Thing is,’ said Mr Grisewood, tilting back his head so that, if he had worn glasses, he would have been looking at me over the tops of them, ‘thing is, no funds authorized for sending you to school.’
‘And we shall be unable to communicate with the Colonel, now, until his arrival in this country.’
I said timidly, ‘Is there no one who could act for him in the meantime?’
The two men looked at one another thoughtfully.
‘Girl speaks well for her age,’ said Mr Grisewood.
‘Sensibly, too,’ said Mr Melplash.
‘Perhaps we should communicate with Mr and Mrs Ferrars?’
At this I pricked up my ears, for w
ho were Mr and Mrs Ferrars? Could Mrs Ferrars be the lady who left the fan?
Grisewood explained: ‘Mrs Ferrars is the sister of Mrs Brandon.’
Melplash amplified: ‘Mr Ferrars is the vicar of Delaford. In Colonel Brandon’s absence, matters of business are referred to him.’
‘In that case,’ I said hopefully, ‘perhaps he would agree to my being sent to school?’
The two men communicated non-verbally. Melplash consulted his turnip-watch.
‘Too late to ride out to Delaford this evening,’ said Grisewood.
‘Indeed yes. Far too late,’ said Melplash. They peered at me again, with disapproval this time, for I was presenting them with a tiresome problem. At last Melplash said, ‘I suppose she may as well lodge overnight in my house. Mrs Tasker can look after her, I daresay.’
‘That would resolve the difficulty,’ said Grisewood in a tone of relief.
So when the two men left their office, as they shortly did, I was instructed to follow Mr Melplash to his house in Durngate Street, where his elderly housekeeper, not unkindly but very much astonished, gave me a meal of cold beef and bread-and-butter and tea, exclaiming in a loud whisper to herself all the while, ‘Dear, dear! What are things coming to, I should like to know?’ and then led me off to a little narrow attic bedroom where, all night, I could hear the church clocks of the town chiming the quarters. Never to my knowledge having passed a night away from Othery before, I slept very ill; the parting from Triz and Lady Hariot, from Hoby, from all the places I knew, from the last reminders of Mr Bill and Mr Sam, created an ache in my heart and made me feel like a snail that has had its shell stripped away.
In the morning Mrs Tasker, who had taken away my tucker overnight, presented it to me, washed, starched and ironed; she also combed and plaited my hair with such ferocious tightness that my eyes felt pulled to the edges of my face.
After breakfast Mr Melplash informed me that he had ordered a chaise, and that Mr Grisewood was going to escort me to the village of Delaford which, I learned, was about twelve miles to the southwest.
‘And it’s to be hoped that Mr and Mrs Ferrars will have some idea what to do with you,’ he said in a gloomy tone. Evidently during the night he had been afflicted with severe doubts as to the wisdom of having taken me in hand.
Mr Grisewood, on the other hand, seemed quite cheerful today; perhaps at the prospect of a pleasant ride on a warm autumn morning.
‘Delaford House is a grand, old-fashioned manor house,’ he told me, as we jogged along. ‘Pity ’tis all shut up at present, the Colonel being abroad. It has the best fruit trees in the country, a fine old mulberry and a handsome dovecote. But the parsonage ain’t bad either; it is by the canal, and there is some very fair fishing in the river also. Were you never out of Othery?’
‘Never, sir, I reckon.’
‘Ay; well, I’ve heard of Othery.’ Nothing that was suitable to be passed on to me, his silence indicated. But after a few minutes’ rumination, he resumed, ‘And do you know anything about your parents, child?’
‘No, sir; only that my mother r-ran away from her friends; and that she died when I was born.’
‘And you know nothing about your father?’
‘Nothing at all, sir.’ After a pause, I said timidly, ‘It was not – my father is not Colonel Brandon?’
‘Oh, good gracious me, no!’ cried Mr Grisewood, greatly shocked and most emphatic. He repeated, ‘Good gracious, no! I should think not! The idea! Colonel Brandon is a man of – of the most unblemished probity. The very thought of – Mercy on us, what a notion!’
‘I am very sorry, sir. I did not mean – The thing is, you see, I have never met Colonel Brandon – so far as I know. He never came to Othery.’
‘Ah, no. So I understand.’
There followed a pause. The horses trotted on, through Toller Valence and Winterbourne Cheney. It was a pleasant country, with low green hills, narrow valleys and little fast-running rivers. Very different from ours around Othery. Milder. Tamer.
‘I wondered why Colonel Brandon never came,’ I said in a low voice. ‘To see me, you know.’
At length Mr Grisewood answered me. ‘You must understand, there were difficulties. There were objections. That is to say – a close connection of Colonel Brandon had – ah – very strong reasons for wishing to avoid any – any re-opening of former – ah – connections.’
I found it almost impossible to make head or tail of this.
‘Colonel Brandon did not want to come to Othery? Was that it?’
‘No. Not that precisely.’
‘Somebody else didn’t want him to come?’
‘Ah. In a manner of speaking,’ Mr Grisewood allowed cautiously.
‘I see.’
I did not see, really. But it was quite plain that no further explanations were going to be given by Mr Grisewood, so I concluded there would be no sense in putting any more questions. Besides – having turned off the turnpike road – we seemed to have reached our destination. We had entered a small pretty village, not so large as Othery but a great deal neater, of grey thatched cottages set comfortably – if rather low-lying – among handsome trees, with a river and a canal twining between them, and a larger house perched a short distance away upon a slight eminence. The church was by the canal, and the parsonage was by the church: a modest-sized brick gentleman’s residence.
‘Perhaps it would be best if, for the moment, you remain in the carriage,’ reflected Mr Grisewood. ‘Just in case – well, perhaps it will be best.’
So I remained in the chaise, while the driver walked his horses back and forth.
In about ten minutes Mr Grisewood reappeared at a white gate, and called, ‘Ah – Miss! Miss Eliza! Will you come in, if you please?’
So I went into the house, which was small and cold and smelt of pot-pourri made of roses and lavender. The front door opened directly into a little parlour, square and panelled. I could see immediately that this was not the abode of rich people: the curtains and furnishings were tasteful, but extremely worn, and of Spartan simplicity.
In this room two people were waiting nervously to receive me: a man and a woman. They were, I suppose, in their early thirties; the man stocky, fair-haired but already turning grey, with a long, careworn, weather-beaten countenance – the face of a country clergyman who spends most of his time on horseback; the woman had once been handsome and still possessed good features, but also had a worn, spiritless air. Her hair, too, was streaked with grey. Her clothes were shabby and she looked haggard and anxious. When she saw me, a curious quiver passed over her colourless countenance, like a squall of wind over a calm sea. I noticed that she plaited her fingers together and drew a deep breath.
The husband and wife had stood up defensively as I entered. There was a round table in the room and some upright chairs. On the table stood three tiny glasses, empty.
‘Mr and Mrs Ferrars,’ said Mr Grisewood formally, ‘this is the young person I spoke of; this is Miss Eliza.’
Mrs Ferrars spoke, clearing her throat a trifle. ‘Have you no other name, child?’
‘I am called Eliza Williams, ma’am; but I am not quite sure if I have any right to that name.’
Mr Ferrars said, quite kindly, ‘And how old are you, my child?’
‘I am not quite sure of that either, sir; but about thirteen years, I believe.’
‘And you wish to go to school?’
‘Yes, if you please, sir, I should like to be put in the way of earning my living. I believe I could pay back the fees by and by. I can play and sing quite well, sir, if you please.’
Without thinking, I spread out my hands, and heard Mrs Ferrars give a little hiss of distress. Quickly I put my hands behind my back again; but I noticed the lady became somewhat more friendly from that moment, as if she were sorry for my affliction. Before, I had felt as if the mere sight of me made
her angry.
I wondered why.
Mr Ferrars said gravely, ‘Why don’t you go and play to us, child, while we consider this matter. You will find a pianoforte in the next room, and some music on it.’
I noticed that his wife gave him a quick glance, not wholly agreeing with his suggestion, but, as she did not raise any objection, I curtseyed politely and walked into the next room, which was even smaller and contained little more than bookshelves round the walls, a desk and the instrument. Needless to say, I would far rather have studied the contents of the shelves, and did in fact eagerly run my eyes over their titles as I crossed the room. They were essays and theology. On the music stand by the piano I found a sonata by Paradisi which I had practised with Mr Godfinch, so I played that, softly, meanwhile stretching my ears (but to no avail) to try and catch anything said by the quiet voices in the next room.
After ten minutes or so Mr Ferrars walked through to summon me back.
‘You seem to play well, my child,’ he told me calmly. ‘I wish my sister-in-law might hear you – she is a great proficient herself –’ then he cut himself short with an odd, wry expression on his face, and said no more.
In the parlour, Mr Grisewood was standing as if about to take his leave.
‘Well, Miss Eliza,’ he told me with an air of relief, ‘I leave you here in excellent hands. Mr and Mrs Ferrars have very kindly agreed that you may be sent to Mrs Haslam’s school in Bath, which – but they themselves will tell you all about that. Mr Ferrars authorizes that the fees may be paid from a fund left by Colonel Brandon for – ah – unexpected contingencies. And Mrs Ferrars will see that you are properly fitted out and – ah – made pre – ah – prepared in every way for your new life.’
I was profuse in more curtseys and thanks.
My face had begun to grow tired and stiff from so much politeness, and because of the hair dragged so tightly behind my ears.
Mr Grisewood bowed, shook hands and left, adjuring me to be a good girl and do credit to my benefactors. I promised him that I would do so.
