by Joan Aiken
‘Why does he come here, your Ladyship? To this house? Does he accompany Lord Elstow?’
‘No, no, my husband has no intention of returning to Underwood at present – not while political affairs are in such an uncertain state. He sends du Vallon to make a complete catalogue of the books in the library. He has the intention of selling them, it seems – since they are of no use to anybody here – if they will fetch a sufficient sum to make it worth while—’
Hatty let out a gasp of dismay and protest. ‘Oh, no! But then, what will the girls and I read?’
‘You, Miss Ward? You and the girls? You can have no possible occasion to read the books in Lord Elstow’s library.’
Hatty did not remind the Countess that most of the girls’ lesson hours were now passed in the library. She said mildly, ‘I did ask your Ladyship – if you recall – whether I might supplement the lesson books in the schoolroom, which are extremely old—’
‘What was good enough for my grandfather, the late Lord Aberfoyle, is good enough for these girls.’
‘Certainly, ma’am, but they have outgrown them. A Lytel Pretie Picture Boke is not adequate reading for Lady Barbara. We have found it needful to augment the schoolroom reading-matter with some of his Lordship’s volumes.’
‘You did? And which books have you selected as suitable reading-matter from the library, may I inquire?’
‘Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics.’
‘Indeed? What, pray, can be your object in reading the girls such a work?’
‘I thought it might be useful for the girls to think about the purpose of life.’
‘And they are to learn this from Aristotle?’
‘Why not? He says that to live temperately is not pleasant to most people, especially when they are young. So they must be taught early, in order to grow used to the discomfort.’
Lady Elstow’s large unfocussed grey eyes stared at Hatty in almost vacant astonishment, as if she had suddenly grown wings and a tail.
Barbara, unexpectedly, let out a dry chuckle.
‘So you see, Mama,’ she declared in a loud, flat, triumphant tone, ‘Aristotle is good for us. And so are many of the other books in the library. M du Vallon must not take them away from us.’
‘What else do you read?’
‘Oh, Milton, Cervantes, Dante – you said, Mama, that you wished us to learn Italian.’
‘Not Dante. I wished you to learn Italian in order to be able to converse in that language.’
But already Lady Elstow’s interest in the argument was waning; she yawned and said, ‘Well it is all most unfortunate and, I am sure, not at all what your Papa would wish. But it must wait until he comes to Underwood . . .’ Her eye glazed. She added, ‘Tell Glastonbury that I will take tea in my boudoir.’
‘And we may go on working in the library, ma’am?’
‘Oh . . . I daresay you may as well . . . unless your father tells du Vallon to have all the books packed up and sold.’
The Countess trailed from the room, yawning again.
Barbara said: ‘She will swallow a dram of laudanum with her tea and forget all about the matter, ten to one.’
The glance of complicity that she gave Hatty was almost friendly. What a strange creature she is, thought Hatty. The most trifling occurrences send her spirits shooting up or crashing down.
‘Well, we had best read in the library while we may. Tell me about this du Vallon,’ taking advantage of Barbara’s more approachable humour, ‘is he an old friend of your father?’
‘Oh, well, nine or ten years back. There was some scandal in France – the du Vallons are cousins of my father’s aunt, they have estates near Compiègne – and so Marcel came to England. I was only about six or so then, I never heard what the scandal was about. But Papa quite took to him. He used to come and stay here, he was very amusing and stylish. “Tiré à quatre épingles” – he taught us a bit of French too.’
‘I wondered how you came to have such a good French accent,’ Hatty remarked. ‘I did not think it could have come from Miss Stornoway,’ and then could have bitten out her tongue.
But Barbara gave her no more than an absent-minded scowl, and went on: ‘Yes, he and Papa were quite bosom-bows for three or four years. And he used to come down here for long visits. Mama found him very amusing too, he used to set up charades and impromptu theatricals – this was when my sisters Anne and Mary were still at home.’
‘Have you seen him lately?’
‘It is above a year since he last came down with Papa. But he is grown more serious. They were talking politics a great deal of the time.’
‘Does he never go back to France, to his family?’
‘No, it seems they have quite cast him off.’
Hatty wondered what the un-named scandal could have been that exiled the young man from his connections for such a long period. Something relating to a woman, perhaps . . .
A few days later, returning from a walk with Drusilla, she saw a carriage pulled up in front of the house, and a vast deal of luggage unloading from it.
Drusilla, catching a glimpse of the passenger, darted forward.
‘Mr Abbey! Mr Abbey!’
He caught her up and embraced her.
‘Ma mignonne! Petit choufleur!’
Then he saw Hatty and swept her a low bow. ‘Mademoiselle! A thousand pardons! But your pupil and I are old acquaintances, as you see.’
His English was faintly accented and very rapid; otherwise it might have been that of a native.
‘How do you do, Monsieur,’ Hatty said. ‘Yes, I am Miss Ward, the girls’ governess, as you may have guessed.’
‘Enchanté, Mademoiselle.’ Another bow. ‘I hope that we shall be great friends.’
‘On the contrary, Monsieur. We are already enemies. For you are to arrange for the sale of Lord Elstow’s books. And that is an act of vandalism to which I am most vehemently opposed.’
He gave her a conspiratorial glance. ‘Ah, then! We see what ensues! Perhaps, after all, I find the library is not worth selling! But now – excuse me – I go to pay respects to Madame la Comtesse. We meet again later.’
He darted into the house, after his luggage.
What a strange little character, Hatty thought. He reminded her of an engraving she had found in one of Lord Elstow’s Natural History textbooks – a praying mantis (found, perhaps, in the Americas?) – an attenuated, wispy creature, with a triangular face, topped by two huge dispassionate eyes like marbles. His small wrinkled brow fell away behind them, his mouth was similarly small. His skin, pale and soft, was like that of a larva emerging from a cocoon. Not quite human, Hatty thought. He is like a talking lizard, or an intelligent cricket.
At dinner he reappeared, very handsomely attired – ‘tiré,’ as Barbara had said, ‘à quatre épingles’ in satin knee-breeches, a velvet jacket, and silk stockings. He wore a wig, and exuded a strong odour of orris root. The girls, in their usual evening muslins, took in his appearance with admiring eyes.
The Countess chatted to him in a lofty manner, putting questions about her acquaintance in town, all of which he answered with practised ease and vivacity in a high, clear carrying voice. He seems to know everybody in London, thought Hatty, or else he has excellent sources of information and gossip. Some of his tales caused Lady Elstow to emit a brief, gruff laugh which Hatty had seldom heard before.
‘Well, well, du Vallon, I must say that you are more entertaining by far than my two sulky girls and their preceptress,’ she remarked.
‘Ah, well, Madame,’ he smiled, ‘nobody is to blame for that. After all, my sources of scandal, rumour, and tittle-tattle are so much better than theirs. But I have taken the liberty, Countess, while I am under your roof, of ordering a London newspaper to be sent to me from town – which I hope you will do me the favour of sharing with me.’
‘Oh! Well, I see no harm in that. Much obliged to you, Mossure.’
‘It will be a pleasure, my Lady.’
‘Now, girls and Miss Ward, we will leave M du Vallon to his wine.’
Wine had appeared at table for the first time since Hatty’s arrival at Underwood. Normally, of an evening, the girls and Hatty drank water, or lemonade, while the Countess had a small flask of colourless liquid by her place from which Glastonbury filled her glass every now and then. Often she became extremely drowsy as the evening meal progressed, and would retire to her own chamber directly afterward; but tonight she repaired to the drawing-room which, unusually, was warmed by a small fire – for all the rooms at Underwood were dank and chilly after sunset, even in the middle of summer. All the candles were lit, also.
During the meal Hatty had hardly spoken, except when questioned or directly addressed. The girls had sometimes put questions to the guest, or reminded him of episodes during past visits. It was plain that both of them were eager to reclaim his regard, and jealous of his notice. He divided his conversation equally between them and seemed to take pains not to favour one above the other, for which Hatty mentally commended him; she felt that, while perhaps not naturally kind-hearted, he might be judicious and fair. He has remembered, she thought, what a highly complicated and potentially explosive situation there is between those two girls. Towards Hatty his eye seldom strayed, but just occasionally, if it did, she thought she caught a brief sparkle, what he himself might have described as a ‘clignement d’oeuil’ and, when, after dessert, Lady Elstow left him alone with the half-bottle of wine, she caught the vestige of a brief rueful grin, an infinitesimal shrug. Indeed he appeared in the drawing-room after a minimal interlude; Hatty imagined him swallowing the wine at one gulp and pulling a face over its sourness.
‘Well, sir,’ said Lady Elstow, when du Vallon made his entry, ‘what is your opinion of matters now in France?’
Barbara and Drusilla threw up their eyes and grimaced with boredom. Du Vallon, perhaps observing this, said, ‘Ah, Madame, you ask me that? Me, who have been an exile for so many years?’
‘But you still have friends there – kinsfolk, who write letters to you?’
‘Ah, so seldom! But I read the French press and know there is now a shocking national deficit, which could be remedied most easily by an additional tax of six or seven francs per head, levied on the middle and upper classes – but the nobles, my family among them, cannot be persuaded to pay their share! I hear there is to be an Assembly of Notables – perhaps that will succeed in putting an end to the impasse.’
‘The nobles?’ said the Countess. ‘Why should they pay? I see no need for that.’
‘Well, Madame, as you may have read in the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau – his Discours sur l’origine de l’inégalité and Du Contrat social – he believes that we were all created equal and should perhaps return to that condition.’
‘Disgraceful nonsense,’ said the Countess. ‘No one but a Frenchman would dream of such a perverted theory, let alone writing it down.’ She gave a tremendous yawn and added, ‘I beg you won’t talk of such works to my girls.’
‘No, Madame, I should not dream of it! And I am very sure they would not listen.’ He flashed a smile at Barbara and Drusilla, whose expressions of utter boredom faintly lightened.
‘I am very fatigued and must leave you now,’ said Lady Elstow. ‘Miss Ward, pray do not permit the girls to stay up after ten o’clock.’
‘No, ma’am.’
Trailing her voluminous satin draperies, the Countess made for the door, and du Vallon was agile in leaping to open it for her.
As soon as the door was closed behind her – ‘Monsieur du Vallon!’ cried the girls in one breath, ‘Do you remember the battle game?’
‘Ma foi, how could I forget it? But do you young ladies still take an interest in such masculine, warlike pursuits?’
‘What else is there to do?’ said Barbara with a curling lip, while Drusilla cried, ‘Malbrouk s’en va, Malbrouk s’en va!’
Greatly interested – it was the first time that she had heard the child volunteer any words in French – Hatty inquired, ‘Pray enlighten my ignorance, Monsieur du Vallon, what is the battle game?’
‘Why, it was one summer when Lord Elstow was so unfortunate as to break his ankle – so, for a month, he was confined to the house here. I had been reading a life of Alexander the Great, with very detailed descriptions of his battles and campaigns, so we invented this game, which we used to play on a great table in the room next to the library – even his Lordship was quite amused, faute de mieux. And from Alexander’s battles we progressed to other famous contests – Hastings, Lutzen, the Siege of Troy, Malplaquet, on which field both sides claimed the victory—’
‘Oh, do let us play it again!’ cried Drusilla. ‘We can easily find some plaster – and I daresay the pieces we used are still laid away in the game larder or one of the lamp rooms—’
‘Or we could create some new pieces – that is if Mademoiselle Ward permits?’ Again his strange eyes sought those of Hatty, and this time they flashed a distinct message – We are of one tribe, you and I.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I certainly do not see any objection. It sounds a most educational pastime.’
On another man’s face it would have been a grin.
XV
Hatty feared that the educational routines, such as they were, of Barbara and Drusilla were likely to suffer after the arrival of the Abbé du Vallon; both girls were wild to resume the much-discussed battle game. In some degree, she thought, this was just an excuse to be in the Abbé’s company, but also, she soon discovered, it was a genuine craving to play the game for its own sake.
‘Why did you never mention this pastime before?’ she asked Drusilla, who shrugged.
‘What use? You would not know how to play it.’
An old laundry table, twenty feet long, was fetched from a disused wing of servants’ offices, and set up in an empty pantry near the library. The table had been used for the same purpose on the Abbé’s former visit, and was encrusted with old putty or plaster, dried hard, which one of the footmen was set to scrape off. When he rebelled, which he soon did, saying that builders’ work was no part of his duties, the girls quite willingly applied themselves to the task, and had it complete long before Hatty would have expected, to the fearful detriment of their hands. Fortunately Lady Elstow, soothed and diverted by the Abbé’s company and conversation at meals, took even less than her customary notice of her daughters during this period, and their blisters and broken fingernails escaped comment.
While the table was being prepared, the Abbé set himself to a systematic sorting and re-organization of the books in the library, preparatory to cataloguing them. Hatty, unobtrusively observing him at work, was impressed by his intelligence and method. Misled at first by his eccentric looks, she had wondered if he might be just a parasite, presuming on his friendship with the Earl to supply himself with comfortable board and lodging and a sinecure occupation. (Not that he seemed overjoyed by the accommodation and diet provided at Underwood Priors, but beggars, thought Hatty, cannot be choosers, and she gathered that he had no other means of subsistence.)
‘How were you employed before you came here?’ she asked him once, and he shrugged and replied, ‘Oh, comme çi, comme ça. Sometimes I am engaged to teach French to the young sons of nobility, sometimes I do translation work. I live from hand to mouth.’
When the girls came eagerly to announce that the battle table was now ready for use, du Vallon, who seemed to enjoy his conversations with Hatty, said, ‘Très bien. But where are the pieces? We cannot fight battles without armies.’
After further rummaging in an old game larder, boxes of pebbles were unearthed – the infantry, explained Drusilla – as well as a dusty, musty collection of corks, entangled with moth-eaten cocks’ feathers. Half the pebbles were w
hite, half brown; but they were all so dirty that the Abbé decreed they must be washed and laid out to dry before use.
‘Otherwise Drusilla, who, we know, is colour-blind, will not be able to tell one from the other.’
Hatty was interested to hear the Abbé refer so unconcernedly to Drusilla’s disability, since her affliction was never alluded to in the family. A blanket of silence lay over her difference from other people, as over Barbara’s habit of helping herself to other people’s belongings.
‘These feathers are all moth-eaten and must be burned,’ pronounced the Abbé.
‘Oh yes!’ cried Drusilla, and began piling them eagerly on the fire.
‘Not the corks also, fool-child! The corks are unspoiled and may be used again – du reste, I do not imagine corks are now so plentiful in the house as when his Lordship is at home.’
‘No, that is true,’ said Barbara. ‘We used to get big bags full of corks from Glastonbury when Papa was in the house. But Mama does not provide such a supply. Her tipple is laudanum, not wine.’
‘So: we require a few more corks, a basket of feathers from the hen-wife, some siege weapons – clothes-pins and twigs will serve – and ink to colour the feathers.’
Hatty was much interested and not a little amused to see how readily even Barbara lent herself to this childish game of creating two toy armies. On their own, or in her company only, this would never have been achieved. It was the interest and participation of the Abbé that engendered their enthusiasm; they were prepared to work all the hours of the day under his guidance.
‘Now: what battle shall we re-create? Agincourt? Malplaquet?’ And he hummed, ‘Malbrouk s’en va, s’en va t’en guerre . . .’
‘Oh yes, Malbrouk!’ clamoured Drusilla, excited by the singing. But Barbara said, ‘No, let us have one further back. Alexander and Darius, or the Romans and Hannibal.’
‘The Romans always lacked good cavalry; that is why Hannibal won. It is queer, and interesting, how the Italians have never been very successful on horseback. Who first invented cavalry, can you remember, young ladies?’
