by Joan Smith
On Friday, we continued with our usual lessons. It was a welcome breathing space, but the day seemed long and tedious, with no expectation of a visitor at our nursery door. As evening drew to a close and still Mr. Palin had not returned, I was more disappointed than the son, who asked only, “Where is Papa?” as I tucked him into his bed.
“He is not home yet, Bobby. He’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight, Bingie,” he said, reaching out his hands to pull my head down for a goodnight kiss, which had been instituted as part of the evening ritual a few days earlier. The poor child craved human affection. I think he often crawled onto my knee for a story as an excuse to feel warm arms around him. Knowing how dear this luxury had been to myself in my childhood, I could not deny him it.
“Can three play this game?” a voice asked from the doorway. Turning in surprise, I saw Mr. Palin framed there in the opening, the light from the hall and the darkness of the bedroom turning him into a black silhouette.
“It’s Papa!” Bobby shouted, scrambling out from under the blankets.
“You’ll make Miss Bingie angry with me, undoing her work in this way,” he said, but he was not hesitant to take the boy into his arms for a hug.
“Good evening, Mr. Palin. I’ll leave you two to say goodnight,” I said, and turned to leave the room. I was happy for the darkness, which hid my joy at his arrival.
As I walked past, his hand reached out in the shadows and held my arm. “Don’t rush off on me, Bingie. I want to speak to you too. Will you come to my study in, say, ten minutes?”
“Yes, certainly,” I replied in my most businesslike tone.
I went to my room to wait, my mind alive with conjectures as to what he wanted to say. It would be some business connected with his son, or perhaps he got my spectacles repaired. It was foolish to sit with my heart racing at so ordinary a meeting. Glancing across the room to my mirror, I noticed my fingers were caressing the spot on my arm where he had touched me. There is nothing so foolish, so ridiculous, as a spinster with a girlish crush on her married employer. I would not let myself become an object of such scorn. I assured myself there was nothing wrong in tidying my hair before going for the visit. It was only natural to want to appear neat and tidy. So why was I pulling that curl out in front of my ear? It looked tidier tucked up behind, but not nearly so attractive. Why was I wondering whether he would serve wine again, to make it seem a social occasion? Why was I on thorns for ten minutes to be up, so I could go to him?
While these thoughts were still flitting through my head, there was a tap at my door. I opened it to see Mr. Palin standing in the hallway. “Are you free now? We might as well go down to the study together. Otherwise you might take a tumble on that dark back staircase. I don’t see any reason why a gaslight bracket can’t be installed there. I’ll see to it.”
I stepped into the hall, feeling awkwardly shy, as though he were a suitor calling on me. I think some sense of strangeness was in him as well. He reached out a hand, as though offering his arm to a lady, then quickly pulled it back, with a conscious look at me, not quite a smile. I could not think of a thing to say as we walked down the hall and around the corner to the main wing.
At the fop of the stairs, the elegant foyer below incited me to remark, “This is a beautiful view from here, is it not?”
“I like it. It is loaded with memories for me, every step. I remember hanging over the upper railing as a child when my parents were having a party, to get a glimpse of the ladies in their silks and jewels. I used to slide down the banister when no one was around—when I was a child, I mean. Haven’t done it in two or three years,” he added with an easy laugh. “And on Christmas mornings, the excitement was so strong it used to rush up these stairs and hit me in the face. We used to have such a good time here.”
The beautiful, lifeless foyer showed no signs of such good times now. “The paneling gives a warm feeling,” I mentioned.
“Yes. Mrs. Palin took the notion we would be more fashionable if we had the woodwork painted white with gilt trim, but I am talking her out of it. Paint can be easily applied, but if one is unhappy with it, removing it is more difficult.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t!” I said impulsively, then added, “Though the white paint is brighter than oak, of course.”
“The wood comes from trees in our own forest. We had a lumber mill at the Park at one time, I believe.”
The butler nodded at us as we crossed the foyer to approach the study. “Bring us some wine, please, Dufford,” Mr. Palin said. “Or would you prefer coffee, Miss Bingham?”
“Coffee takes a while to prepare,” I pointed out.
“We’ll have tea then, if that’s all right with you?” I nodded.
There was a fire glowing in the study grate. The lamps were lit, making the room cozy and inviting, in the somewhat formal grandeur of the rest of the house. “How did it go in the nursery today?” he asked, indicating a chair for me, and taking up one himself. He did not sit behind the desk, as he usually did, but on another chair in front of it, beside me.
“Very well. We spent some time making Christmas decorations for the room. Bobby is so talented in art.”
“It would be his lack of ears that has developed his sight to such an extent. Really, when I consider some of those horses and carriages he drew, so well detailed, I wonder I did not realize earlier that he is actually quite bright. He would have got his artistic talent from his mother. My wife used to sketch very well. That was done by her,” he said, turning around to point out the country scene done in watercolors that hung above our heads. It was so situated in the room that he had a view of it from his desk, where he spent so much time.
By the time we had examined it, and I had praised its execution, for it was well done, and Mr. Palin had explained to me what part of the countryside the picture showed, the tea had arrived. When he told the servant to put the tray on his desk, I assumed I was to pour. There is some intimacy in a private tea party. It was difficult to remember, as we sat alone in his room, that I was a servant in the house, and no more. The talk was, as usual, about Bobby.
“I drove over to Exeter today to speak to a doctor there about Bobby. I decided not to wait till I can get to London. I am to take Bobby over to see the doctor on Monday. He sent back these aids to hearing for me to try with him. The unusual surroundings at his place, especially with a child, make it difficult to test with precision in his office, so we are to try them out tomorrow in the nursery.”
He arose and brought a brown box from the desk to the chair. Opening it, he drew forth two metal ear trumpets, very similar in appearance, but apparently of different construction.
“One of these is an air conductor, and the other a bone conductor. Depending on the nature of Bobby’s ailment, one ought to work better than the other. He’ll look a sight, won’t he?” he asked, shaking his head with a rueful smile, by no means despondent. “As to this contraption,” he went on, lifting out another piece of equipment, “I think the inventor must be mad, but it is the latest thing. It is called an audiphone, or dentiphone.”
“How does it work? It looks like a lady’s fan,” I said, staring at a celluloid thing, tannish-brown, roughly the size and shape of a fan.
“It is held by the edge between the teeth. The idea is that the air vibrates, and the phone sets the teeth to vibrating with it, carrying the motion through the jaw to the ear. An unlikely-looking thing. I cannot imagine anyone would want to use it in public, but if it works well in private, there is no reason it could not be used in the nursery. We want to give him every advantage. I have left tomorrow morning free to try out all these devices. Mrs. Palin will not be arriving home till late afternoon.”
“Oh, does Mrs. Palin return tomorrow? She will be surprised, delighted to learn of Bobby’s improvement.”
“Yes, she will be happy,” he said, but with no particular conviction.
I knew she took a minimum of interest in the child, but now that he was proved to be normal
, and not retarded, it must surely make a difference. Whether it would make Bobby any fonder of her was less certain, for he disliked her quite cordially. “They don’t get along very well, do they?” I asked.
“They have not in the past. Mrs. Palin thought it too great a strain on me, having him here, a constant reminder.... She is of the opinion he ought to be put in some private sanatorium for abnormal children.”
“Surely not!” I exclaimed, an involuntary reaction to the suggestion.
“We considered it quite seriously at one time. I mentioned to you he took a violent spell of tantrums. She will no longer push for that. Since your coming, he has been much better.”
I remembered his cautioning me against violence on the child’s part, but this was so ludicrous as to be incomprehensible. I wondered if the child had ever struck out at Mrs. Palin, for there had to be something to account for the dislike between them. “I find Bobby a docile child. Oh, high-spirited, and angry from frustration at times, but never violent or destructive.”
“He likes you very much. That must account for it.”
“Has he been violent toward anyone else?”
“There was a little trouble with the last girl.”
“But he liked Miss Thompson too. What did he do to her?”
“It is nothing serious. Pray don’t fret over it.”
I took the idea all the same that Mr. Palin was fretting considerably. A deep frown was on his forehead, and his eyes were troubled. I felt an urge to smooth that frown away with my fingers, to comfort him. “I hope you are no longer considering putting him away. It would be the worst thing for him.”
“There is no question of it now, obviously.”
The subject was dropped rather quickly. With the ear trumpets and fanlike thing still out on display, we spent a few moments trying their efficacy. “Wouldn’t you know this fan is the most useful of the lot,” Mr. Palin said, after trying the dentiphone. “Don’t tell me the poor boy must go through life with this stuck in his teeth.”
“One cannot but wonder who ever thought of it.” The visit was pleasant, but eventually I had to draw myself away.
“There is still more tea left,” he pointed out. I think he too was not eager for it to end. It was rather pitiful that a man should be sunk to seeking company from his servants. If I had such a husband, I would not have gone and left him alone for long. He arose to hold the door for me.
“Did you happen to remember my spectacles, Mr. Palin?” I asked before leaving.
“Yes, they are with the optician in the village. They should be ready Saturday, he tells me. Are you quite sure you need them, Miss Bingie? They are not very strong, and it does seem a shame to hide those lovely eyes behind glass.”
It was only a playful compliment, but the glance that accompanied it was admiring. He looked into my eyes for a moment there, at the doorway. I felt the strongest urge to go back in and sit down in his warm, friendly study, and have another cup of tea. “Quite sure,” I answered primly. “Bobby needs his ear trumpet, and I my spectacles. You are fortunate not to be handicapped in any way, Mr. Palin.”
“Not all handicaps are visible to the human eye, Miss Bingie. I too have my weakness. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mr. Palin was in the nursery early in the morning, right after breakfast. He wanted to try the new equipment out while Bobby was fresh, he said. The boy took the ear trumpet like a duck to water. He would not give the dentiphone a fair trial, but insisted on playing with it. It was the bone-conductor trumpet that gave the best results, we agreed.
“I’ll tell the doctor the conclusion we have come to. He wants to give Bobby a thorough examination. We shall be gone all day Monday, Miss Bingie. A holiday for you.”
There was no suggestion that I should accompany them. I had mixed feelings about this. I would have enjoyed the trip, but there would be embarrassments along the way too, for a servant to be traveling with her employer. The really uncomfortable sensation first experienced when I had shared his carriage to church had passed long since. It occurred to me that Mrs. Palin might be accompanying them, as she always enjoyed a trip.
“Perhaps you will want to drive out with your young man on your day off?” he asked, in a nonchalant manner, but he looked to see my reaction, which was to blush, hard as I tried to suppress it.
“Or has our local beau, Mr. Rupert, switched his affections to another so soon?” he asked.
“I see very little of him,” I answered noncommittally. My greater interest in his question was that he was even aware I had seen Mr. Rupert. Who could have told him?
“I am happy to hear it. He is a fly-by-night sort of a fellow, not worth your while.”
In the afternoon I went to the village with Molly and Bobby, as we usually did. I mailed my letter off to Aunt Harriet, bought a pretty red velvet ribbon for my hair, and did not see Mr. Rupert, always an item of interest on the village jaunts. Mrs. Palin returned to the Park while we were away. That evening, her husband did not come to the nursery between our dinner hour and his own, as he usually did. I read Bobby a story and put him to bed at his regular hour, then went to the kitchen, feeling lonely, and strangely abused. We would be seeing less of Mr. Palin now that his wife was back. When she was at home, the servants spoke a good deal about her.
“She will be surprised at the change in Bobby,” I mentioned.
“It won’t make no impression on her,” Molly told me. “It was the first thing master told her when she came in. Eddie, the footman that took her trunks abovestairs, told me so. ‘How nice for you, Robert’ was all she said, then she went on to ask him if Monsieur Arouet had writ to her about the portrait that’s being framed up in London. She never said so much as a word about going to see Bobby for herself. She’s cold as a window pane in winter, that one.”
“He’ll warm her up,” Bess said, then laughed in an insinuating way.
When the dessert dishes and coffee cups were brought down to the kitchen a short while later, the servant told me Mr, Palin would like to see me in his study, if I was free. “My spectacles must be repaired,” I said.
Bess cast a bold, knowing eye on me. “Lucky you put your new ribbon in your hair, Jane. He’ll like that. I wonder why you didn’t pick up your spectacles yourself, while you were in the village this afternoon?”
“Mr. Palin was to pay for them, as Bobby broke them,” I explained.
It was only Bess who found the summons strange, Bess and myself. I was elated to receive that polite order. I had to make an effort to keep my pace decorous, for the impulse was all to run as fast as I could up the stairs.
It was possible to reach the study by two different routes. I could have taken the right turn at the top of the stairs and gone directly to it, or I could go straight ahead, passing into the foyer, with a view of the saloon. Curious to see if madame was in the saloon awaiting her husband, I chose the latter. The room was empty. One lone lamp was turned down low. It was strange she should spend her first night at home alone in her luxurious bedchamber, or with Martin.
But I was becoming obsessed with the relationship between the man and his wife, grabbing quickly at any hint of coolness between them. What was it to me? Nothing, and it must remain that way, I thought. He is only going to give you your spectacles, then go upstairs to her, as he should. I shook away the image that popped into my head, of Mr. Palin in that sybaritic room, with her, Regina. It refused to leave. She would be wearing a seductive peignoir, her beautiful white shoulders peeping out from the low-cut gown. She would have her copper curls brushed out loosely, with his fingers entwined in them. His warm fingers...
I tapped sharply at the door, not without a thought that he could have sent the spectacles down. He did not have to ask me to come and get them. The door flew open instantly, as though he stood inside, just waiting for me. “Miss Bingie, how prompt you are. I thought I might have time for half a pipe of tobacco before you came.” He held a pipe in his
left hand. “Come in.”
“If you want to smoke, Mr. Palin, go right ahead. I don’t mind the smell of tobacco. My father used to smoke a pipe.”
“The vice of us aging widowers,” he said, without even noticing what had slipped out. A strange way for a husband of recent vintage to describe himself, a widower! “Sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
“Good, then I shall light up and be quite comfortable. You will join me in a glass of wine?” His fingers were already on the decanter, beside which two glasses waited in readiness, the gaslight twinkling in prisms from their cut surface. It was to be more than a handing over of the spectacles then.
“I expect you would prefer tea, Miss Bingie, but unless Cook has changed her stripes, you have been deluged with tea this half hour. I noticed the other day when she made us cocoa that she continues her habit of keeping the pot on the back ring.”
“Thank you.” I accepted the glass and sat down in what I was coming to consider “my” chair.
“I have your spectacles for you,” he said, handing me a little leather case. “Mr. Davis in the village provided the container. He says it will lessen the scratching if you use it regularly. In fact, he replaced the unbroken lens as well as the other, as it was badly scratched. You are either hard on your glasses, or they are very old. Have you worn them a long time?”
“For several years, yes.”
“Better try them on, to see that the lenses are properly ground.”
“They’re fine, thank you,” I said, adjusting them on my nose.
“Good, then you can take them off now. You won’t have any long-range seeing to do tonight. You are a little short-sighted he tells me, from your prescription.”
“A little.”
“How is my other handicapped friend adjusting to his trumpet?”
“Fine. It makes a useful horn for him to play with when he is not using it as he should. Of course, I am very firm with him.”
“Of course you are,” he answered, with an amused smile. “Don’t try to persuade me you have turned dragon. Dragons do not wear such pretty ribbons. Very nice,” he complimented, looking at not only the ribbons, but my chestnut hair, which I had rearranged into a more youthful style, pulled back with the ribbon, and hanging in loose curls behind.
