Master of Melincourt

by Susan Barrie

  Edwina stopped, called sharply: “Strawberry, Strawberry!” in the hopes that the dog, at least, would hear and return to her. But nothing moved in the hazy distance ahead of her, the church clock chimed three, and after that there was a curious, spreading silence.

  Edwina started to move forward hurriedly, and finally she broke into a run. Someone giggled hard on her heels, a conker that had lain buried in leaves since the previous autumn hit her a light, glancing blow on the side of her head, and she wheeled pantingly to find herself confronted by Tina, who promptly started to laugh uproariously, and to bound up and down like a delighted sprite.

  “I fooled you, I fooled you!” she cried. “I was right behind you all the time, and you didn’t know! Part of the time I was hiding behind a tree.”

  She was hugging Strawberry up in her arms, and staggering slightly under the weight of the distinctly plump animal.

  Edwina was about to admonish her with severity—or as much severity as she could manage after running at top speed for a hundred yards or so—but then she remembered the resolution she had formed so very recently.

  Very much to Tina’s surprise—and possibly, also, to her disappointment—the new governess closed her lips, shrugged her shoulders and turned.

  “Oh, well,” she said, “it just shows how clever you are, doesn’t it? You and a tree are capable of looking very much alike!”

  Tina gazed at her curiously. She fell into step beside her, and they made for home.

  “I don’t like that old suede jacket you’re wearing,” the child remarked, when the silence between them had lasted that much too long for her. “For one thing it isn’t real suede, is it? Sort of imitation.”

  Edwina glanced down at the front of her jacket, and grimaced slightly.

  “I don’t like it myself very much,” she confessed. “But I can’t afford to throw it away and buy another one.

  “Why? Haven’t you got much money?”

  “Not much.”

  “Doesn’t my uncle pay you a lot of money to look after me?”

  “He’s very generous,” Edwina admitted. She decided to elaborate: “As a matter of fact, he’s far more generous than any other employer I’ve ever had.”

  “Then why don’t you smarten yourself up a bit?” With the cruelty of eight years of age, and the knowledge that her own pale blue nether garments and her canary yellow sweater had been created in Switzerland, and bought there when she and her Uncle Jervis had decided to do a little shopping in Zurich’s Rue de la Paix during their most recent visit to the Continent, Tina’s bright eyes narrowed and she pressed home her point. “It’s important to look smart, you know. My Uncle Jervis simply can’t stand women who look dowdy! The other night when you wore that black lace thing at dinner he said afterwards that he expected you picked it up in a jumble sale.” She giggled. “I don’t really think you did, because it fitted you quite well, I thought, but it was an amusing thing to say, wasn’t it? Uncle Jervis is terribly amusing when he feels like it.”

  “I think it was a hilarious thing to say,” Edwina commented with heightened colour.

  Tina glanced at her under her tight little black brows.

  “You don’t mind being made fun of? Uncle Jervis makes fun of nearly everybody except Marsha Fleming ... and she’s so beautiful, and her clothes are so gorgeous, that he couldn’t possibly do anything but adore her. Which he does!” with emphasis.

  “Highly satisfactory, I’m sure,” Edwina murmured, “if he’s going to marry her.”

  Tina kicked the ground with the toe of a badly scuffed shoe.

  “Of course he’s going to marry her,” she said a trifle shrilly. “And he’s going to marry her very soon. He must, he must, because I want him to!” kicking up part of a dandelion root and scattering it to the four winds. “He promised me when we were in Paris that he would, and I’m going to see that he does!” She looked more slyly up at Edwina. “When Marsha comes here she’ll make fun of you, too. She’ll probably make you feel hideously uncomfortable,” making use of a word that she had only recently acquired. “Don’t you think it would be better for you if you went home now, and then you could escape it and someone else mightn’t mind your old suede jacket and that black lace dress? They might even think you look all right in them!”

  “No,” Edwina answered quietly, “I have no intention of leaving if your uncle wishes me to remain.”

  Tina made a petulant movement, aimed a kick at a bronze nymph in the rose-garden, they having by this time emerged from the park on the west side of the house, and as the stables were not very far distant went racing off to them to inspect her uncle’s most recent present to her, a chestnut pony.

  Edwina followed in a more decorous manner, and when she entered the stable yard she saw that Bimbo—the dog who had on more than one occasion prevented the postman from delivering his letters—was on guard in the middle of it, and Jervis Errol was leaning against one of the half doors and having a few words with a groom about his own rangy grey, that was being led up and down for exercise and displaying a distinctly skittish tendency to prance about the yard.

  Now Edwina was very fond of animals—most animals. But she had been bred in a town, and horses and large dogs still made her feel nervous ... particularly horses.

  In endeavouring to give the grey as wide a berth as possible she unwittingly came closer to Bimbo than anyone who knew Bimbo at all well would have considered wise, and the dog showed its teeth. It growled, and its hackles rose. It was of uncertain ancestry, and it looked very fierce.

  Edwina unwisely turned her back on it, and it leapt at her.

  “Down!” It was Jervis Errol who came to her rescue and shouted at the dog. “Down, Bimbo! Blast the dog, hasn’t anyone succeeded in training it yet?” But although he glanced in a mildly vexed fashion at the groom and the stable lad it was at Edwina that he looked in surprise, and to emphasise his astonishment his shapely black eyebrows rose, and his deep blue eyes narrowed, and looked for a moment almost sinister. “Don’t you know better than to turn your back on a dog when it looks like threatening you?” he demanded. “It’s the very way to be savaged if you want to be savaged!”

  Edwina, who had turned very white, stammered something that sounded like:

  “I’m—I’m not very used to dogs. I’ve only seen it once or twice...”

  He glanced at her contemptuously, short, cheap suede jacket, home-washed hairstyle and all. She was quite certain that for once he really took her all in.

  “Then in future I’d either make overtures of friendship, or keep away from the stable yard,” he recommended. He looked as if he simply couldn’t understand a young woman like her. “Don’t you know anything at all about the country?”

  “She’s terrified of horses,” Tina shrilled at him triumphantly.

  He frowned.

  “Didn’t you ever keep pets? You must have, at some time or other in your life.”

  “Cats,” Edwina answered. “I—I like cats.”

  The expression of contempt on his face grew. “That all?”

  “I once had a couple of budgerigars in a cage ... and a pet mongoose.”

  “Well, that could have bitten you. At least it can be said that you risked life and limb.” But Edwina understood perfectly that his opinion of her was not appreciably increased. “It’s a pity you don’t ride, because I like the infant here to have a daily canter, and she has to be accompanied. It’s not always convenient for me to accompany her, and Richards hasn’t got the time.” Richards was the groom. “Do you think you might possibly be induced to overcome your nervousness and take riding lessons while you’re here? It would be an additional accomplishment when you go looking for another job.”

  But Edwina hesitated.

  “I’ll—I’ll think about it, if you don’t mind.”

  He turned away with a shrug of his shoulders, and—although she couldn’t really see his face—a slight curl of the lip, she was sure.

  “Well, chicken,
I’ll ride with you to-morrow morning,” he promised his niece, “so make sure you’re up early and ready when I throw a handful of gravel up at your window. I don’t like to be kept waiting, as you know ... not even by a charmer like you, my sweet,” with such ironical emphasis that Edwina wondered whether he really did consider his niece the complete infantile charmer.

  She and Tina went up to their rooms and for the remainder of that evening there were no violent clashes, although when Edwina was supervising her bathing arrangements Tina deliberately emptied the contents of a large jar of bath salts into the water. Without correcting her or making any complaint Edwina ran away the water and filled the bath afresh, and as the small attempt to create a diversion had misfired Tina more or less meekly submitted to the process of being cleansed under the eyes of her governess, and afterwards drank her milk and went to bed without fuss ... although as usual she took her transistor radio to bed with her, and there was the usual short argument about the cat sleeping on the bed—which always meant in the bed—and how many of its kittens when they finally arrived would be allowed to survive.

  “I shall keep them all,” Tina insisted sleepily, “and they’ll all stay up here!”

  Edwina carried off the cat to her own sitting-room, and somewhat wearily because her days with Tina had so far proved extraordinarily exhausting—perhaps because she had had a serious illness not many weeks before and she wasn’t entirely fit yet—she sat in one of her comfortable chairs near the window and nursed the cat, and wished the echo of that small, spiteful voice that kept ringing in her ears could either be smothered, or she could forget that she only had one dress to wear when her employer insisted that she and his niece should dine with him, and it was the unfortunate black lace that had been so adversely criticised.

  For of course she knew that it was out of date, and it didn’t really suit her because she was too pale at the moment to wear black at all, and although as Tina had been kind enough to point out it fitted her very well it was not the kind of dress any young woman who took even the most modest amount of pride in her own appearance would wish to appear in night after night.

  And in view of the fact that her position at Melincourt was so insecure, and she might be presented with one month’s wages and her ticket back to London at almost any moment, she didn’t really feel justified in buying herself another.

  Of course, she thought, as she sat there hugging the cat, and unconsciously appreciating the warm feel of the expectant animal’s fur, and its constant purring sounded pleasantly and rather homely in her ears, she could buy another. She could be rash and take the risk that very soon she would be once more out of a job, and get time off to go to the local market town and have a look at the shops.

  But to what end? And with what purpose in mind?

  In order that she should be spared further unflattering comments when she donned the black lace dress, or because she hated to think that Jervis Errol might seriously think she picked her clothes up at jumble sales and she wanted to correct the impression?

  But whatever she bought as a replacement for the black dress he would probably think it so very ordinary that he would dismiss it as a joke ... and if she and her clothes were a joke it didn’t really matter.

  For to Jervis Errol, after all, she was of no more importance than the parlourmaid, and he almost certainly valued his cook more than he valued her.

  She went across to her mirror before she got into bed, and she looked at herself long and critically in the flattering, soft light of the silk-shaded bulb that hung above it. With a background of flowery chintz and soft, pale carpet, high, old-fashioned bed already turned down for the night, her nightdress draped across the top of the sheet and fat pillows encased in hem-stitched pillow-cases, she should have provided an interesting focal point in the oval mirror. But in her own eyes the focal point was marred by too long hair and a lack of distinction in the features.

  They were just—features. Anyone might have possessed them and felt mildly gratified because they were not terribly irregular, and at least they were not marred by any blotches or collections of freckles or unsightly skin eruptions. Her skin, indeed, was her most prized possession. She never needed to do much about it, and even under trying climatic conditions it remained matt and smooth, somewhat suggestive of pale Devonshire cream with an occasional overlay of wild-rose pink. When she was embarrassed the wild-rose pink spread in all directions and deepened perceptibly, but even at its worst it was not a painful blush.

  She could, in short, blush attractively, just as she could cry attractively. Her big brown eyes always appeared to glimmer through sparkling mist after an emotional upset, and they never became red-rimmed. She supposed she should consider herself highly fortunate because this important blessing was hers ... but to counteract it there were other disadvantages that worried her when she paused to dwell on them.

  The shape of her nose, for instance, was very far from being classical, and her cheekbones were rather high. But she had a prettily rounded chin and a shapely throat and an attractive mouth. As she gazed at herself, and the soft light fell across her, she recognised for the first time that her eyelashes were quite luxuriant, and although fair at the tips they were very dark where they became attached to her white lids.

  But the overall effect did nothing to please her, and she wondered why she felt depressed by her own defects as she crept into bed at last and sat hugging her knees for some time. Never before had she felt quite so depressed because she was not a great beauty, and never before had the fact that her wardrobe was so limited really worried her.

  So Marsha Fleming was a beauty ... and her clothes were gorgeous. Well, what did it matter? What was it to do with her, anyway, who would probably never meet her?

  But the next morning, when she returned from her ride with her Uncle Jervis, Tina burst into Edwina’s room triumphantly and announced that it was now reasonably certain that Miss Fleming—and her mother—would be arriving to stay with them very soon.

  “Uncle Jervis is going to London in a few days’ time, and he’s going to see them and ask them to come and stay,” Tina said as she picked up Edwina’s hairbrushes and her silver-backed comb and examined them critically. “These are pretty. You do have a few pretty things,” she commented. She reached for a flagon of perfume that was a present from Edwina’s last employer when she returned from a visit to Paris, and although Edwina cautioned her to be careful how she handled it she removed the stopper and sniffed at the open neck of the bottle appreciatively. Then she sprinkled some of the perfume over herself and the carpet—quite a lot of it was wasted on the carpet—and when the governess advanced to remove it from her hands flung it down carelessly so that it was smashed by contact with the glass tray on the dressing-table, and that was the last of Edwina’s carefully hoarded French perfume.

  “Oh, really, that was very careless of you,” Edwina exclaimed, biting her lip ... and then Tina, who hated to be accused of doing something that she knew she had done, tore away out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

  When Edwina joined her in the breakfast-room ten minutes or so later she was already eating her breakfast, and brandishing her knife and fork in a way that she knew to be unladylike she spoke scoffingly, and with her mouth full, to the older girl.

  “You and your silly old bottle of scent! It was probably horrid cheap stuff, anyway, and not at all like the bottles of scent my Uncle Jervis brought home for Miss Fleming and her mother. They were great big cut-glass bottles and frightfully expensive ... I know because my Uncle Jervis never buys anything that isn’t expensive. He just wouldn’t!”

  Edwina decided to say nothing, and helped herself to kidneys from the dish in front of her.

  CHAPTER III

  THIS unfortunate brush at the commencement of the day set the tone for the remainder of the day, and Tina was more than usually difficult to handle during the hours before lunch.

  She refused to concentrate on lessons, and declined to sit sti
ll for longer than a few minutes at a time. The schoolroom—which had been the schoolroom at Melincourt for many years—was a very pleasant and comfortably furnished room, but Tina complained that the chairs were hard, her books were dull, and in any case Miss Sands was no good at all as a teacher, because she didn’t make the lessons interesting enough. She didn’t read aloud to her, as a former governess had done, and she didn’t go down to join the cook in the kitchen for her elevenses—as yet another former governess had done—in order that she could have her fortune read in the tea-leaves, and therefore lessons were not half the fun they had once been, and Tina wished more than ever that her uncle would try to find someone else to supervise her daily life.

  At lunch time she behaved badly in the dining room—and one of the snags attached to her present situation, looked at from Edwina’s own point of view, was the fact that almost all meals had to be taken in the presence of her employer, and unless he stated that he wished them to have their meals upstairs there was no escape from having to cope with Tina right under the eyes of her doting but occasionally critical uncle. Dinner was the one meal from which they were excused, but by that time Tina was in bed in any case, and Edwina would have simply hated to dine downstairs alone with her employer.

  On this particular day Jervis Errol did not appear to be in a particularly good humour, and Edwina gathered that he had been having an argument with his agent which had ruffled him because it transpired he had not emerged the complete victor from the argument. It was scarcely to be wondered at that Tina liked her own way, for Jervis Errol most certainly enjoyed having his. When nothing occurred to upset him, and life flowed along more or less tranquilly, he could be exceedingly amiable, and he had a sense of humour which made him a pleasant companion ... if one was fortunate enough to enjoy the same status as his own, and therefore was looked upon as an equal and a friend.