St James' Fair

by St James Fair (retail) (epub)

  Grace’s position in the Elliot household was that of an unpaid servant. The only other domestic kept was a kitchen maid called Kelly who was half-witted and unable to tackle any task other than the simplest. It was impossible to entrust Kelly with a message or to tell her to do anything that required moving from one simple thought to another. She scrubbed floors and swept the step, carried coal and riddled the ashes but that was all. Everything else was done by Grace.

  Walking slowly, the girl lifted a wooden bucket from behind the door and went out to fill it from the well at the basement area. When she stepped outside, the brilliance of the afternoon surprised her because the kitchen in which she spent much of her life was always dim and hardly any light came through its sunken little windows. She blinked in the sunlight and wiped her sweating brow with the back of her wrist as she stared over the garden wall to the meadows by the river where people were strolling or playing with their children.

  Her heart was heavy as she lugged the bucket back into the stifling kitchen. Lifting a ladle, she scooped some water on to a wide deal table that stood in the middle of the floor. She had done this job hundreds of times before and as she worked she asked herself, ‘Am I going to live like this forever? Oh, I’ll be lonely without Odilie.’ She took a cake of coarse yellow soap out of a drawer at the end of the table and rubbed it on to the wet wood before she began scrubbing, holding a stiff bristled brush in both hands and pushing it rhythmically to and fro, using the weight of her body to propel it over the table top.

  The work was almost hypnotic and she became lost in it so did not hear steps on the stairs behind her or know anyone was there until the voice of her step-mother cut into her reverie, making her jump. ‘Look, you’ve missed out that corner! See that you scrub it clean.’

  Hester, sweating and dishevelled in a cotton gown that was crumpled because she’d been sleeping on the sofa while wearing it, stood behind Grace pointing at the far side of the table. There was an ill-natured scowl on her face as she began prowling the kitchen like a tigress looking for trouble.

  ‘That grate needs blackleading,’ she scolded, pausing beside the enormous open fireplace. Then she ran her finger along a stone shelf beside the sink. ‘And this shelf’s sticky. Scrub it too when you’re at it. I don’t know what you do down here. Idle your time away, I expect…’

  Grace went on scrubbing without speaking, for long ago she had learned that it was safer to ignore Hester’s bouts of bile and not answer back because that only brought worse trouble on her head. Although her face was impassive, however, her thoughts were chaotic. ‘I hate you, Hester, how I hate you! Oh, what’s going to happen to me? Will I have to live with this terrible woman forever?’ she silently mourned to herself.

  The sight of her submissively lowered head made a tide of cruelty rise in her tormentor. Hester had never liked her husband’s daughter, although she had no reason for jealousy because Andrew Elliot was quite indifferent to the plight of the only child of his first marriage.

  ‘You’ve missed out a bit,’ she jeered again, pointing at another corner which was difficult for Grace to reach from where she was standing. Without protest the girl limped around the table with the scrubbing brush in her hand and cleaned the offending place. Goaded beyond endurance now, Hester looked around and then reached up for a bag of flour that stood on a shelf beside her. With her eyes fixed on Grace’s face and wearing a teasing smile, she pulled open the neck of the bag and poured most of its contents into the middle of the table. Rubbing it in with her hand she said, ‘Oh dear me, look what’s happened! The bag must have burst.’

  Grace stared bleakly at the grey mess in the middle of the table but still said nothing. Then Hester turned around and grabbed a jar of jam from another shelf. Like a woman possessed she emptied its contents too into the floury paste and stirred it around with her fingers. ‘I’m so careless,’ she exulted. ‘Look what I’ve done. Clean it up, cripple.’

  With difficulty Grace fought against an impulse to burst into tears but when she blinked her eyes the tearfulness passed and instead of feeling ill-done by, she was suddenly filled with anger and burned to scream in fury, to sweep all the china off the shelves and stamp the pieces into the stone flags of the floor before attacking Hester with a carving knife. She tightened her fists into knuckles and had to fight to retain her composure, knowing that if she did let her temper loose, it would only end with a beating for her because Hester was bigger and stronger than the girl. When her step-mother finally flounced away, Grace scrubbed the table clean again and swept the debris from the floor. Then she heard her father come back. The front door banged, and his footsteps crossed the floor’of the room above her head where she knew Hester was sitting. A few minutes later she heard him calling her name. ‘Grace! Where are you, Grace?’

  She stopped working and stared apprehensively at the kitchen doorway. What did he want? Had Hester been complaining about her again? She was even more afraid of her father’s wrath than of Hester’s and she stiffened as she listened to his footsteps in the passage. The kitchen door swung open and to her relief he sounded almost friendly when he said, ‘Oh, there you are. Go upstairs and tidy yourself. I want you to go down to Havanah Court and have a word with Rutherford’s daughter. Go and talk some sense into the silly girl.’

  Grace was genuinely astonished at being given a commission by her usually indifferent father. ‘Hester told me to do this before I went out,’ she protested.

  ‘Don’t worry about that just now. Kelly can do it. Go to Havanah Court straight away. The girl’s more likely to listen to someone of her own age. Tell her how fortunate she is to have such a good marriage arranged for her.’

  It was news to Grace that Odilie might object to any alliance and her head was in a whirl. ‘Why should she listen to me? Who’s she going to marry?’ she asked in a bemused way.

  Her father frowned as if she was being completely stupid. ‘The Duke’s made an offer for her and her father’s as good as accepted. Now the stupid girl’s sticking her toes in. When she sees you, she’ll realise how lucky she is.’ He waved a hand at his daughter and she flushed scarlet because she knew what he meant. She was to be used as an object lesson for rebellious Odilie who needed reminding of her blessings.

  Half an hour later Grace was shown into Havanah Court by a solemn-looking Joe Cannonball. She found her friend walking up and down the boudoir carpet with Scamp clasped in her arms. The dog’s brown and white fur was wet where she had laid her face. When Grace appeared Odilie cried out, ‘Have you heard the news? Have they told you?’

  ‘My father said something about you getting married to the Duke,’ gasped Grace, half in disbelief.

  Her dark-haired friend groaned, ‘What’s the honour in being a Duchess when the Duke looks like a fat warthog?’

  Remembering her father’s instructions, Grace demurred, ‘He’s not as bad as that.’

  Odilie grimaced furiously. ‘Not you too, Grace! He is as bad as that. In fact he’s worse, everyone says he’s horrible. But in spite of that, they don’t think I’ve any grounds for objecting. All they consider is rank. It wouldn’t matter to them if he had a tail with a fork at the end as long as he was a Duke. It makes me so angry. If he told the people in this stupid town to lie down in a line so that he could walk on top of them, they’d do it.’

  ‘Lauriston people aren’t the only ones like that,’ said Grace.

  ‘I don’t suppose they are, but it’s idiotic. Because he comes from the right family he can do no wrong. Even my father’s impressed because he’s offered for me, and I thought he had more sense. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe this is happening to me, Grace.’

  ‘But you’re really very lucky. Your father only wants the best for you. He’s so kind to you. You’ll be a Duchess, imagine that! You’ll go to Court and have a house in London…’ protested Grace.

  ‘Surely you wouldn’t want to marry him, Grade?’ asked Odilie.

  ‘No Duke’s ever going to offer for
me. Nobody is,’ sighed the other girl.

  ‘My dear, I’m sorry. I’m being selfish thinking about myself all the time.’ Odilie grasped her friend’s hand. ‘It’s just that I can’t think of anything except how terrible this all is. The idea of marrying him makes me go as cold as ice, and yet everybody – even you – is saying that I should. I’m so angry at my father that I simply will not speak to him. He’s running around frantic.’ A faint smile appeared on her face as she said this.

  Grace sat down on the day bed and said softly, ‘I was sent down here to persuade you to do what they want but I wouldn’t if I didn’t think that you’re really very lucky. When you’re a Duchess you’ll be able to do what you like. You’ll be rich and you’ll be free. High society marriages aren’t like ordinary ones. Dukes and Duchesses can go their own way. If you want, you’ll be able to take a lover. No one’ll worry about it.’

  Odilie stared at her friend with amusement glimmering in her eyes. ‘Listen to you advising me to take a lover before I’m even married! For shame, Miss Elliot!’

  Grace smiled too, happy that Odilie was beginning to brighten. ‘Make a bargain with the Duke – I’ve read of such things in stories,’ she suggested but Odilie was solemn again.

  ‘I don’t want a marriage like that, Grace. I’d want to love my husband, really love him – but perhaps that only happens in books as well.’

  The girls were interrupted at this point by the arrival of the tea tray, followed by Martha who surveyed her niece with a critical but loving eye and asked, ‘Are you feeling calmer? Your father’s up to high doh about you.’

  ‘I hope it’s his conscience that’s bothering him,’ said Odilie smartly.

  ‘That’s not fair. You ken fine he dotes on you.’ Martha might be hard on Canny when they were together but she brooked no criticism of him from anyone else, not even from her dear niece who became contrite at once.

  ‘Sorry, Aunt Martha. It’s just that I’m so upset. I’ve been telling Grace about it.’

  Martha looked at the other girl and asked, ‘And what do you think about all this, Grace?’

  The blonde girl looked down at her feet. ‘I think Odilie’s been offered a great opportunity, but I understand how she feels. It’s not very romantic, is it?’

  Martha bustled over to the tray and poured tea from a silver pot into fragile cups, handing one to each girl before she said, ‘What’s romantic got to do with it? You girls read too many books. She’ll have to marry somebody some day and her father thinks it might as well be a Duke.’

  Her niece stared at her in disappointment. ‘Oh, Aunt Martha, I thought you’d be on my side in this. You don’t like the Duke much, do you?’

  ‘I’ve nothing against him,’ said the older woman in a neutral tone.

  Odilie gasped, ‘That’s strange. Only last week you were telling me about how he chased all the maids in Sloebank Castle. And you always say how ugly he is. When I think about having children by a man like that I feel sick!’

  Martha sipped her tea. ‘Huh, the idea of having anybody’s children makes some women feel sick. Anyway, you mightn’t have to put up with him for long. He’s a Fox and they’re not a long-lived family.’

  ‘He’s only forty. He could live for years and years,’ said Odilie hopelessly.

  ‘Oh, not all that long. What you should do is have a son as soon as possible. Then you’ll know you won’t have to put up with him forever. There’ll be a time limit on it,’ said Martha mysteriously.

  Both girls stared at her and it was Grace who asked, ‘What do you mean, Miss Rutherford?’

  ‘Don’t you know the story, Grace? I thought everybody knew it. There’s a curse on the Fox family. If Odilie has a son within a year of marriage, she’ll be a widow well before she’s forty.’

  ‘Why?’ the girls chorused together.

  ‘Because none of the heads of that family have ever lived to see their sons reach the age of twenty-one. In fact, most of them die when the laddies are still bairns. It’s because of the curse.’

  Odilie’s eyes snapped with interest. She had been brought up by black servants who practised voodoo and had knowledge of curses and magic, so belief in the black arts had been instilled in her early. ‘What curse?’ she asked her aunt. ‘Tell me.’

  Martha folded her hands in her pinafored lap and said, ‘I’ll tell you if you don’t go talking about it outside. None of the Foxes like it to be discussed and little wonder! It must be hard living with a curse like that on you.’

  ‘We won’t. Go on,’ cried the girls.

  ‘Well, when the monks were being driven out of the abbey over there, it was a Fox who led the attackers and an old woman living in the town cursed him for sacrilege. She said he and his descendants would never see their sons reach majority – and none of them has. Not one of them!’

  The girls stared at each other and Grace gave a superstitious shiver but Odilie was quite brisk as she said, ‘Even if it’s true, twenty years is a long time. Too long, I think. I still don’t want to marry him.’

  Odilie had a resilient nature however and could never remain melancholy for long. After they had taken tea, she rose and told her friend, ‘It’s a beautiful evening and it’s not going to do any good sitting here worrying about this marriage business. Come with me for a walk in the gardens.’ It was obvious that she wanted a heart to heart chat with her friend, away from Martha’s ears and taking Grace by the elbow, she guided her out of the room and downstairs to the stone terrace which was glowing and still warm in the radiance of the setting sun.

  When they were seated side by side on a bench gazing over the river towards the road on its south bank, Odilie sighed, ‘Isn’t life strange? This morning I was so carefree. I’d no idea what was going to happen to me.’

  Grace smiled. ‘Some people might think what’s happened is wonderful. You’ll be envied by every unmarried woman in the countryside. Aren’t you ambitious, Odilie?’

  The other girl shook her dark head. ‘I can’t be, can I? I just keep imagining that man as my husband. He’s not what I dreamed of at all.’

  ‘But you’ve not met him yet and you don’t love anyone else, do you?’ asked Grace.

  Odilie shook her head. ‘Oh no, nothing like that. If I did I’d be fighting even harder than I am. It’s just that I’ve dreams – you must have dreams too, Grace.’ She turned towards her friend and saw with a pang of remorse how Grace’s face changed again. Care seemed to cloak her once more.

  ‘I’m too plain to be married,’ said Grace.

  ‘That’s nonsense. You’re a very pretty girl,’ protested Odilie with a rush of sympathy.

  Grace shook her head silently and Odilie studied her, seeing a tall girl, five foot six at least, and thin – too thin, she thought as she saw how starkly her friend’s collarbone showed inside the scooped neck of her cheap cotton dress. Grace’s skin was palely translucent and her fine boned face was dominated by large, well-shaped eyes of a striking shade of blue enhanced by fringes of long lashes. It was her hair however that was her greatest glory – a mass of palest gold which she wore knotted tightly at the nape of her neck without artifice or conceit. The trouble was that her delicacy and style were not immediately noticed because of her timidity and acute awareness of being crippled.

  ‘You shouldn’t be so sad and retiring. You’re really very pretty,’ Odilie told her friend again in a firm voice but Grace only flushed.

  ‘Don’t tease me,’ she said shortly.

  ‘I’m not teasing. I wouldn’t be so stupid. Your hair’s beautiful. It’s such a wonderful colour and your skin’s like cream. You should stop worrying about your limp. It’s not nearly as bad as you imagine and when you’re nervous you make it worse. Besides, everybody has something about themselves that they want to change. Did I ever tell you how the girls at that awful school called me names and said I was dirty because of my colour?’

  Grace stared at her friend in genuine surprise for she thought of Odilie with the same aw
e and admiration that she would have given to a princess in a fairy tale. The idea that anyone could find fault with such a paragon was unthinkable. ‘But your colour’s glorious. You look as if you’ve been dusted with gold,’ she protested.

  It was true. The rays of the setting sun made Odilie glow as if she was burnished.

  ‘I’ve been called a negro, a black, a half-caste and worse. It hurts. When they meet me for the first time some people either look embarrassed or laugh – as if I’m a joke. I hate that most of all,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Oh, Odilie, I’m sorry. I know how you feel. When I see people looking at my leg, I burn up inside. It doesn’t matter if they’re sorry for me or if they only dismiss me as a cripple, the hurt’s the same. Isn’t life cruel? Sometimes I wish I was dead,’ Grace said in a rush. It was the first time she had felt able to unburden herself of her feelings about her lameness to another person.

  Tremendous sympathy engulfed Odilie, who realised with a chastening shock that even in the midst of her own troubles, there was always a little inner island of hope and happiness in her heart to console her. Even if she had to marry the Duke, she’d still be Odilie Rutherford who’d been surrounded with love from her earliest day and it would never occur to her to wish herself dead. Hurriedly she took Grace’s hand and whispered, ‘Oh, no, my dear, not that. You don’t mean that.’

  Tears glittered in Grace’s eyes as she nodded and said firmly, ‘I do, Odilie. I’ve thought about it often. What is there for me to look forward to? I’m crippled and I’m poor. I’m alone in this world, quite alone, for no one loves me and no one ever will – except you, that is. I’ve no dowry so I won’t get married and I’ll have to stay in that dark house with Hester who hates me until one or other of us dies. It might as well be me and as soon as possible.’

  ‘Hester’s cruel to you, isn’t she?’ asked Odilie, who had always suspected that Grace’s life at home was miserable although this was the first time the other girl had actually talked about it.