Brides of Aberdar

by Christianna Brand

  ‘Hil doesn’t deal in facts,’ said Christine, evidently quoting. ‘Hil is different.’

  To Miss Tetterman also, he had seemed indeed a little ‘different’. Thirty perhaps?—difficult to guess his age exactly. A red-gold blond with deep blue eyes and an odd air of remoteness, almost of disdain. His name she was to learn later, was James Hill, but he was known universally by his surname only and then without the second T. He appeared to be, under the Squire and without any particular title, in overall charge of the estates, gardens, fisheries and, beyond those, the home farm and the affairs of the tenant farmers. He lived alone in a house on the brow of the hill and mixed only as a superior with the indoor staff. The little girls adored him in their confiding way; he spoke to them always as if they were grown-up—though so far uninformed—young women. It was typical of Hil, she was to discover, that he should confide to the children that their mother had died of no illness but the wish to go to the other world where she ‘belonged’.

  But…‘Why should he not like me? He hardly knows me. Why should he be afraid of me?’

  ‘Hil knows things: he sees things that haven’t happened yet,’ the child had said.

  Meanwhile…

  Meanwhile, in the parlour below, Tante Louise was saying, with one of her deprecating Gallic shrugs,’ Alors—she will do, I suppose. We have heard from this Sir Charles at Greatoaks Park—a Park, that is a good address, yes?’

  ‘Everything about her former post seems to have been unexceptionable. And I think she is the same.’

  ‘—that she knows the work of institutrice. She is dressed comme il faut—indeed, she has quite good taste, this black ribbon together with the brown on her bonnet, that is assez chic—but I daresay passed down from some other hand. A little quick to rise up the temper and speak-back, but that can be cured—’

  ‘She refused, perfectly properly, to be treated as a servant. I must ask you, Louise, not to behave to her as if she were one, nor to speak to her as one. The servants are well-treated here and happy and they know their place. I hope she will be the same: but she also knows hers.’

  ‘You make them too much favours, mon cher. Well, n’importe. She is sufficiently presentable; now that she is here, she may take the girls to meeting other children of the environs. For me, this is effrayant, le afternoon tea with these English women, so—borreeng. But the children must meet others—they see now none but this boy, Lawrence, from Plas Dar, and now and again their cousin, Arthur Hilbourne.’

  ‘Well, in fact, those acquaintances soon must cease. They are too old to have boys for friends.’

  ‘My dear Edouard! You English, positively you make me the shock! Such thoughts are not decent; the little girls are not yet six, the boys perhaps eight or nine years old.’

  ‘I am thinking of the future, Louise.’

  ‘But here is what I say. They must in the future know young people, they must meet young men, how else must we find for them good marriages?’

  His pale face grew grey, he sat up very straight, angry, resolute, almost—frightening. He said: ‘I have spoken to you about this, Louise, already. The children are not to be taken about to other houses.’

  ‘They must meet young people.’

  ‘And I have said that they must not.’

  She was horrified; on behalf of these two pretty little girls, genuinely indignant. They must go out, she thought, they can’t be kept in solitude. But she had already found him on this subject, obdurately unreasonable. She played her trump card. ‘If I am to remain here—’

  ‘I hope you will remain here. I pray that you will and especially now that we have found this excellent young woman to be a friend and companion to them, under your charge. But in all matters of importance regarding my children, I will have my own way.’

  ‘Your own way is ridiculous, Edouard. It is wrong; absolutely, it is wrong. And while I am the mistress of this house—’

  ‘I still remain its master,’ he said, and rose and, walking stiffly, almost blindly, went out of the room, and left her there.

  She sat for a long time, alone, staring into the empty grate. For this! she thought. For this—to be once again a sort of femme de charge, a sort of upper servant, no trust, no responsibility—for this have I come so far, made so great a sacrifice? For this?

  Not so very great, in fact. Unregretfully widowed, she had found herself on the death of a profligate husband, decidedly less well-off than she might have hoped to be and, childless and with no one to care very much about her, it had suited her well enough to accept the financially generous offer of a distant relative, similarly at a loss. But it had all turned out not so well as she had expected, the place was gloomy and depressing to the Parisian habituée and her heart pined for the broad boulevards, for gravelled paths with orderly beds of small, sappy pink begonias, hedged in with box; for the pavement cafés and the marble-topped tables, the bitter black coffee dripping through into thick white china cups. Ah well, she thought—it is my duty! And… To be needed, though she might not consciously recognise the fact, was a necessity to all but the most self-centred of women; and she was needed here. And the little girls with their unquestioning out-pouring of affection were something of a revelation to her: so pretty, such charm, such—possibilities—of growing up to be trained and groomed and tricked-out with pretty clothes, to become the belles of the neighbourhood, make the right marriages, her creations and her pride. Meanwhile—so sweet with their pretty little caresses, their confidential ways. But again, as to that…

  As to that, how very indiscriminately they bestowed their devotion! She had not quite cared for the way they had hung upon the new arrival, holding her hands as though they had known her for years, been blessed by her kindness and bounty. As they’d left the room with her, Christine had properly enough taken the governess’s hand; but how Lyneth had clung, skipping along beside her, looking up into her face! She did not recognise within herself a pang of something very much like jealousy, but… I shall have to instruct Mees to be less—demonstrative—with the child, she thought.

  Even in the chilly heart of Tante Louise, Lyneth’s innocent wiles were having their accustomed way.

  And evening came and in the night-nursery the two little girls lay curled up close together in the big four-poster double bed. ‘Isn’t she nice, Christine?’

  ‘Oh, she is, she’s nice, much nicer than Nurse.’

  ‘Nurse was nice too.’

  ‘She spoilt you, that’s why you liked her such a lot. Even Mama used to say that Nurse spoilt you.’

  ‘She liked me better than you.’

  ‘Everyone does,’ said Christine. ‘You’re more—sort of light than I am. Tante Louise says I am such a dull child. Tro serriurse, she says. That means I’m dull.’

  ‘You’re not dull, Christine, you’re lovely and nice, everyone loves you.’

  ‘Well, we’re the children so of course everyone has to love us. But everyone loves me a little bit less than you. You’re prettier than me.’

  ‘How can I be?—we’re ezackly the same.’

  ‘My hair isn’t so curly.’

  ‘That’s only because Nurse used to curl mine up more than yours.’

  ‘Because she liked you more than me.’

  ‘How can anybody like me more than you?’ said Lyn. ‘We’re idenkital, they can’t tell the difference. “Ezactymom la mame, c’est formidable,” Tante Louise keeps saying; but that only means that we look ezackly the same.’

  ‘It’s the espression,’ said Christine, quoting. “Zee uzzer child have more life in ze face, boco ploo despree.” ’ She spoke without a trace of resentment, it was a fact of life. ‘You’ll always be a little bit better than me, Lyn, Miss Tetterman thinks you are already.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Lyneth, ‘how can she possibly? She hasn’t had time to get to like me best.’

  ‘But you’re the one that got the pink ribbon,’ said Christine. ‘Aren’t you?’

  You said you didn’t mind
, you said you’d just as soon have the blue.’

  ‘Yes, but she knew I wouldn’t just as soon. She likes you best. I don’t mind, Lyn, I think you are the best.’ She said after a pause: ‘Lyneth, did you—feel that the hands were here today?’

  ‘A little bit. Just a brush of them, like grown-ups pass their hands over your hair. When Hil helped Miss Tetterman down from the pony-carriage. It was only because Hil was there.’

  ‘Hil says there are no hands. He says we imagine them touching us, sometimes. But they do: it’s like soft feathers—’

  ‘Yes, soft. But cold—a little bit frightening. Other people don’t know about the hands brushing against us out of the darkness—’

  ‘Not only in the darkness.’

  ‘No, I mean out of the darkness—out of a darkness: somewhere we don’t know about. But Hil says—’

  ‘I don’t see how we can just imagine them, when we both feel them at the same time, without saying anything to each other. And I don’t think Hil does believe that we imagine them. I think he sometimes feels them too.’

  ‘Not the hands. Only the cold, sometimes when he’s here, at Aberdar. We never seem to feel the cold outside. But I think in the porch today, he felt the coldness. And—I think Miss Tetterman a tiny weeny bit felt it too.’

  ‘I do think she’s nice. I love her.’

  ‘So do I. And I love Hil too. Do we still love Tante Louise?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Christine. ‘We have to. I think she’s sad, really, and lonely. We have to love her. I don’t think we need like her, if we can’t manage that. But that’s different.’

  ‘I love Miss Tetterman and I like her. And I love Papa and I love Hil: and the other people I love too, Tomos and Menna and all the servants; but not like Miss Tetterman and Papa and Hil.’

  ‘I love Hil,’ said Lyneth. The drowsy voice faded away into murmuring. ‘And I love Miss Tetterman…’

  ‘But do you think Hil likes her?’ said the other drowsy voice. There came no reply out of the darkness. The children slept.

  CHAPTER 3

  WELL, YES, THE INVALUABLE Miss Tetterman knew how to ride a horse and despite the injury inflicted by her accident some months earlier, seemed content to try again. So a search was made for suitable mounts and on the children’s joint birthday, a day when the summer greens were making way for the greys and sepias, the umber and gold of autumn, two fine little ponies were led out into the stable yard, Hil walking between them. Shrill cries of excitement and joy, and immediately: ‘I want the white one!’ ‘No! I want the white one!’

  ‘Now, now, children, you can’t both have the white one! And look how pretty the other is, as black as jet with his lovely black mane and tail!’

  ‘Oh, yes, he’s sweet, he’s lovely. Only, Tetty, I like the white one best. Christine can have the beautiful black one.’

  ‘We had better toss up, which shall have which,’ said Miss Tetterman, ready to resort as ever to a small trickery which she hardly acknowledged even to herself. Lyneth wanted what she wanted with so much greater an urgency than her sister ever showed; and even now Christine was saying, automatically, ‘All right, Lyn, you can have the white one. I love the black one too.’

  ‘No, no, that’s wrong, Christine. We will toss up for it. Lyneth, you must learn not to be selfish, my dear.’

  ‘Oh, Tetty, please, please, I do want the white one more than she does! She says she doesn’t mind.’

  ‘Of course she minds, Lyn,’ said Hil. ‘She’s a foolish child, because the black is a much better pony, look how proudly he holds his head and lifts his pretty little hooves. But the silly girl doesn’t want him.’ He said off-handedly, ‘His name is Ebony.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he is pretty, he is sweet, and Ebony, what a lovely name! All right, Christine, you can have the white one if you really want to…’

  ‘The white one is called Ivory,’ said Hil.

  Christine looked on in an agony of indecision. ‘I’d sort of… When I said I’d have the black one, I felt he—belonged to me. So, now…’

  ‘He couldn’t belong to you all in a quarter of a minute.’

  ‘He did,’ said Christine. Blue eyes filled with tears. The sacrifice made—what had been second-best had become immediately her own, to the depths of her faithful heart.

  ‘This is spoiling the day,’ said Miss Tetterman over their heads, to Hil. ‘Before it’s even begun, they’re spoiling their day.’

  ‘It’s you who are spoiling it,’ he said, low-voiced. ‘You want your favourite to have what she wants—like all the rest of them. Lyneth, it’s always Lyneth, with everyone.’ He put out his hand to Christine. ‘Come here, my flower! Lyneth, stay back with Miss Tetterman. Christine, come and pat the ponies, stroke their noses—aren’t they soft and pink? Now, which do you really want for your own? Never mind for the moment which Lyneth wants—whisper to me which you’d really like if Lyneth wasn’t here.’

  Christine stood with one hand in his, the other slightly, nervously caressing the two pretty creatures. She reached up at last and he bent so that she could whisper into his ear. He straightened himself. ‘Well, there we are, then. You both get your way. Because from the beginning Lyneth wanted Ivory and now she can have him; and Christine loves Ebony and she can have him. What a good thing it’s all turned out exactly right.’ He called Lyneth over—‘Come, sweetheart!’ and took her little hands and put one close to the bit and the other on the rein of the white pony and with Christine did the same for the black. ‘Now, lead them about and get to know them. Just walk them round, you’ll be perfectly safe with them, they’re beginning to love you already. Make friends with them and then they won’t mind letting you ride them.’ He jerked his head towards a rough bench between two stable doors. Miss Tetterman, a little bemused, went obediently and sat down there beside him. ‘We’ll leave them to it,’ he said.

  ‘Hil, truly you managed that marvellously.’ She found herself saying, half apologetically, ‘You don’t have favourites.’

  ‘Oh, but I do,’ said Hil. ‘Only I choose with a little more percipience than most. And I try to show no difference. A pity others don’t.’

  You are a strange man, she thought, to be no more than a factotem here. And he was so—well, really, it seemed an odd thing to say about a man but was he not almost—beautiful? Slender, but straight and well-built and with that challenging deep blue glance of his. She turned away her eyes, almost embarrassed as she saw how the autumn sun lighted the golden hairs on his strong brown fore-arms. And a strange conversation to be having with a mere—servant, only that he seemed entirely unaware of any difference in station.

  She felt herself in some doubt. Was it right that he should be so speaking of them, these two little girls, petting them, calling them by sweet names, practically taking their charge out of her hands? She had often wondered whether she would not speak a quiet word to their father about it. Not to Tante Louise; in her difficulties, she never if she could help it had recourse to The Walloon. Meanwhile…‘You really love them, don’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘Everybody loves them. Everybody must—they’re so trusting and confiding, so absolutely sweet. But it’s true that I love them more deeply than that; in a different sort of way.’

  She said: ‘Differently?’

  ‘I am so desperately afraid for them,’ he said.

  Afraid for them. It was strange that she should not feel more astonished, be more taken aback. Have I too felt, unrecognised, some same glimmering of this? she thought. From that first moment that I entered the house with them? And she recalled the faint stirrings of their flossy golden curls as though a breeze had blown them, though there had been no breeze a-blow. And she, herself…

  He said: ‘Why do you touch your face like that?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘A—memory. As though a little breeze, a chill breeze, blew against my cheek. I have felt that sensation once before. And felt the cold.’

  ‘When you first
set eyes upon these children. And upon this old house. I think that at that moment you felt some kind of fear?’

  She recollected. ‘And you too?’ she said. ‘The children say—they say that you were afraid. Afraid of me?’

  He turned away his head and made no reply.

  CHAPTER 4

  TO ARRANGE A WORD of private consultation with the Squire was no easy matter. Madame watched like a hawk over the comings and goings of Mees. That, having given his undertaking, Sir Edward would ever dislodge Tante Louise from the home he had offered her, should have been to her unthinkable; but life had taught the poor woman some bitter lessons and there was little room in her heart for simple trust. In any event, she had no wish to remain there as second fiddle to a new wife, and he seemed less repelled than she herself was, or at any rate professed to be, by the terrible scar. Moreover, all her life unloved and unloving, she was too realistic not to recognise herself as also unlovable. She knew that, dazed by the imminent death of his wife after years of whatever strange difficulties there had been, he had reached out blindly for succour and lit upon herself, perhaps faute de mieux, but at any rate without very much investigation; and had found his choice to have been an unhappy one. But by then, the poor Anne had died and it had been too late.

  An odd business: it had all been a very odd business, thought Tante Louise. No diagnosis of the poor young woman’s malady had ever been advanced, she had been nursed by two old and devoted servants who had proved remarkably tight-lipped as to all that concerned their charge and, the moment it was over, disappeared into retirement. Other servants meanwhile had supplanted the old and by the time she, Madame Devalle, had appeared upon the scene, almost all the staff were new, the sickroom closed to all but immediate attendants, no information whatsoever forthcoming. That the lady of the house had been—well, funny like—had for some years kept largely to her own apartments and there at last had languished into premature death, was as much as her most searching enquiries could elicit. Always sweet and kind—and so pretty, the children just like her, but she’d been odd, not a doubt of it, shut away more and more in her own rooms and talking to herself—you could hear her now and again through the door, not raving or any of that, just chatting away, laughing sometimes, as you might to anyone. But there had been no one in there.