by Joan Aiken
“I do not quite see why you are so apprehensive?” Delphie said. “Since you have always been accepted as Miss Carteret, surely you will continue to be so? I am making no claim for myself; all I have done is stipulate that an annuity should be paid to my mother.”
She noticed Durnett, the maid, again favor Mrs. Carteret with a very searching glance. The latter, who had been following this conversation in a vague and troubled manner, gazed at the two younger ladies, wide-eyed.
“Delphie?” she said in a puzzled and perturbed voice. “What is all this about? What uncle does this young lady refer to? And why should you both assert that you are the same person? I do not perfectly comprehend what you are saying.”
“Do not trouble your head about it, Mamma; I am sure it will all be straightened out,” Delphie said gently.
“But,” burst out Elaine, without taking the least notice of Mrs. Carteret, “how can I be accepted as the true Miss Carteret, if you are married to Gareth Penistone?”
Plainly this was her chief and keenly felt cause of grievance; when she pronounced the words Gareth Penistone her voice took on a covetous, admiring note, as if she had said the crown jewels.
“Married to Gareth Penistone?” said Mrs. Carteret perplexedly. “Delphie, do you think the young lady is a little feverish? Much of what she says appears to be nonsense. Perhaps she ought to be laid down with some hartshorn or spirits of ammonia?”
Delphie said with composure, “Do not let it distress you, Mamma, it is all a kind of silly tangle, which will be unraveled in time, I am certain.” And to Miss Elaine, she said, “If only you will be a little patient, ma’am, I believe it will help matters! I have not the least wish in the world to be married to Mr. Gareth Penistone, I assure you. But I am persuaded that nothing can be done at the moment, the more particularly since my uncle is in town—”
“What?” exclaimed Elaine, bounding out of her chair. “Great-uncle Mark is here? In Hanover Square? Is Mordred here too? Why did not he tell me?”
“Lord Bollington arrived only this morning,” Delphie said.
“You seem to know a great deal about it. Pray, how comes it that you are so well informed?”
Delphie noticed that the hard-featured maid had abandoned all pretense of tidying the desk and had moved a little nearer, listening intently.
“I happened—quite by chance—to observe Lord Bollington in his coach in the Strand this morning,” Delphie replied.
“Then—then there is no time to be lost! Will you write the declaration I require? Renouncing any claim to the Penistone money?”
“No. I certainly shall not,” said Delphie. “I do not see that I am under any such obligation to you to do so. For my part, matters may take their course.”
“Then—I consider that you are the most odious, detestable, disobliging—”
“Quiet, now, Miss!” said the maid, Durnett, sharply. “There’s no sense flying up into the boughs like that. Besides, you’re frightening Madam, there.”
“Oh—!” Elaine stamped her foot furiously upon the floor. “If you will not accede to my request, I wonder that you stay here where you are not wanted! Why do you not begone!”
“Miss, miss!” remonstrated the maid, and then, in a sharper tone, “For shame, Miss Elaine! Hold your tongue and try for a bit of conduct!”
It was true that at Elaine’s outburst, Mrs. Carteret had made a sharp little movement of distress, half rising to her feet, and upsetting her glass of ratafia, which spilt down her skirts. Then she sank back again weakly, crying in a plaintive tone,
“Delphie, I don’t like it here. I don’t like these angry voices and all this talk of Bollington and Penistone! I do not like it at all. Let us go! Take me away!”
“Very well, Mamma; we will go directly,” said Delphie. And she added, to Miss Carteret, “I am only sorry we came. This discussion has done no good. And it has distressed my mother very much.”
“Go as soon as you please!”
Delphie carefully assisted Mrs. Carteret to her feet.
“Madam’s weak yet,” said the maid, watching with a vigilant gray eye. “Best let her have a sniff of this,” and she proffered a vinaigrette.
“Thank you, but I believe she will do,” said Delphie, accepting it, however.
“Best keep it for the moment, Miss. You never know but she might come over faint outside. Miss Elaine can send around to Greek Street for it tomorrow.”
Delphie thanked her again, somewhat surprised by this unexpected solicitude, and then added,
“But we are not in Greek Street any more. We have removed to Curzon Street.”
Busy guiding her mother to the door, she did not see the look of consternation which appeared on Elaine’s face at this news. Elaine opened her mouth to make some protest or ejaculation; as Delphie turned in the doorway to say farewell, she was astonished to see the maid, Durnett, sharply box her mistress’s ears, as if this were the only way to bring her to reasonable behavior. Delphie could hardly believe her eyes. But she thought it best not to become embroiled any further, and busied herself with helping her trembling mother down the stairs.
“Can you call my mother a chair?” she civilly asked the manservant when they were down in the hall. “She has come over a little faint.”
“Certainly, miss.”
He stepped outside and returned in a moment to say that a chair was waiting.
Mrs. Carteret seemed relieved by the fresh air.
“I don’t need that thing!” she said impatiently, pushing away the vinaigrette, which Delphie was offering. “I don’t want it! Put it in your reticule.”
“Very well,” Delphie said, and helped her mother into the chair.
“Can you tell me, my man,” Mrs. Carteret inquired of the manservant, “what was the name of the gray-haired lady who came down the steps just as we arrived?”
“In a violet silk pelisse, ma’am?” he said, looking a little surprised. “Why, that was the mistress. That was Lady Bablock-Hythe!”
Mrs. Carteret was unusually quiet and subdued all the way to Curzon Street. Delphie blamed herself bitterly for having allowed the visit to Miss Carteret. When they arrived at the new rooms, she could see that all these novelties together in one day were too much for her mother; Mrs. Carteret suffered herself to be shown around in silence, with a stunned, almost stupefied air which troubled her daughter very much.
“Very handsome!” she murmured, absently, hardly appearing to take in what she saw. “Am I dreaming, Delphie, or are we really here? And did I dream that I saw Maria Gosport and those others—or did that really happen? I feel very much confused—too many things have been happening to me. After such a handsome nuncheon too—cold chicken and cake and fruit in wine! Far more than I am accustomed to take at midday. It has been too much for me, Delphie; I think that I had better lie down on my bed.”
Delphie, with feelings of guilt that all these things should have occurred also on the day of her impulsive change of their abode, carefully assisted her mother to bed, helping her to undress and drawing the curtains.
“Pray give me my handkerchief, dear,” feebly said Mrs. Carteret when she was upon the bed, and a mild breeze from the half-open window blowing upon her.
Delphie pulled out the handkerchief, and a biscuit fell out of the reticule.
“I slipped it into my bag—for later on,” confessed Mrs. Carteret. “When they offered—so full of Mr. Browty’s delicious—but did not like to refuse altogether—”
“It looks rather dusty now,” Delphie said.
The biscuit was covered with fluff and hairs from the bottom of the bag, and looked very uninviting. Delphie dropped it out of the window onto the paving outside, where a covey of hungry sparrows immediately pounced upon it.
“I will bring you a few of Madame Lumiere’s cakes, Mamma, when you are feeling a little better. Now, try to sleep a little.”
“Very well, child ... Who was that young lady?” Mrs. Carteret said fretfully. “And why was s
he saying such very strange things—that you are married to Gareth Penistone—that she and you are the same person? Is she deranged?”
“I do not think so, but I believe she may have a very turbulent temper. But do not fret about it, Mamma; it is all a stupid mistake which will be cleared up in time.”
“Well, I do not like it at all. It is very uncomfortable. And I do not wish to see that disagreeable girl again. Can you shut the window, child, the wind is blowing a draught.”
“Very well, Mamma.” Stepping back to do so, Delphie paused, frozen to the spot with horror. For where the ring of greedy energetic sparrows had been pecking away at the biscuit, five little dead birds now lay on the flagstones.
“Mamma!” she said hoarsely after a moment.
“Yes, dear? What is it? Why do you sound so strange?”
“Those biscuits that they served us—that Miss Carteret gave us. Did you eat any of yours?”
“No child—did I not just tell you? I put it in my bag.”
“The ratafia? Did you drink any of it?”
“Hardly a sip,” said Mrs. Carteret regretfully. “It was spilt, unfortunately. Why? Why do you ask?”
Miss Carteret had sipped at her own ratafia, though, Delphie recollected. It must have been innocuous. But the vinaigrette! Where was that? What a merciful dispensation that her mother had not sniffed at it. She found the thing in her own reticule and walked with it toward the door—looked back, searchingly, at her mother, who now seemed more peaceful, drowsily settling toward sleep.
“You know that girl—that disagreeable girl,” Mrs. Carteret murmured. “In the strangest way she reminds me of some occasion connected with your early life, Delphie. But I cannot call to mind what.”
“Try to sleep, Mamma!” whispered Delphie. “I will come back presently to see how you do.”
And, holding the vinaigrette somewhat at arm’s length, she passed out of the door and climbed up the stairs toward the first floor, calling softly,
“Cousin Gareth? Are you at home?”
11
Gareth’s part of the house seemed to be empty. But Delphie encountered three of the children (Percy, the responsible Helen, and the stout Gawaine) at the foot of the top flight of stairs, and they shyly asked if she would be good enough to step up and pass a few moments with their mother, who was lonely for company.
“For company? With all of you?” asked Delphie, amused.
“Ah, but that’s not the same as grown-up company,” said Percy wisely. He was a small dark replica of his uncle Gareth, and Delphie’s heart warmed to him.
Today Una was not even trying to pursue any occupation, but was lying quite flat and looking very dejected.
“Are you in pain?” Delphie asked compassionately. “Did the noise we made downstairs disturb you?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know! It comes and goes. Some days I am better—I can get up and go out. But I have the wretchedest feeling of affliction at all times! I feel so mortified when I think of you—healthy—active—doing all the things that you do—the children say that already you have moved your furniture into the house, and that your rooms downstairs look as if you had always lived there.”
“I can claim no great merit for that—I had the carters and Mrs. Andrews to help,” Delphie said with a curiously uneasy feeling, as if Una’s persistent envious harping on her strength, health, and talents might presently cast an evil spell which would suddenly deprive her of these gifts of fortune. But she tried to dismiss such a superstitious notion, and said, smiling,
“I am very sorry if thinking about me makes you worse! What can I do to atone? Shall I read to you?”
She glanced with envy at some new books and periodicals which lay in a shuffle, as if irritably pushed aside by the invalid.
“No—no—thank you! Just talk! Tell me what you have been doing?”
Delphie had not the least intention of telling Una about the interview with the other Miss Carteret. She therefore described the removal, and her farewell to the Baggott sisters, and her ride down from Soho on the movers’ cart, at which Una shut her eyes as if in pained deprecation of such behavior, but the boys clapped their hands.
“Uncle Gareth would laugh at that,” said Percy.
Una’s eyes opened again. “Oh, are you children still there? I wish you will go away—this room is not big enough for so many people. In about half an hour from now you can bring me some tea and bread-and-butter—cut nice and thin, mind!”
“Very well, Mama.” They went out obediently, and Delphie wondered how it could be that two such limp, ineffectual people as Thomas Palgrave and Una could have produced ten such cheerful, obliging, and capable children.
When they had gone—
“Is Gareth in the house?” Una asked, reopening her eyes, which she had closed while the footsteps pattered away.
“No; I think not,” Delphie replied.
“Is it true—this extraordinary tale he tells me that you and he are married?” Una demanded.
“Yes—in a way; but it was all a mistake,” Delphie said apologetically. “It makes me very uncomfortable, I can tell you. To be married by accident to a complete stranger is so ridiculous! I wish it might be dissolved immediately, but—but Gareth seems to think it will be wiser to wait.”
But, she thought, how long shall we have to wait? One can hardly wish for Great-uncle Mark to die; but supposing he should live on for years and years. And then it occurred to Delphie—for the first time—that perhaps it had not been a very wise act to come and set up house in the same building as Gareth; might that, perhaps, make the marriage less easy to set aside?
But I have Mamma as a chaperone, she thought; after all, our living quarters are quite separate. I must not stay up here too long; I must go down again in a moment and see how Mamma does. Could they really have meant to poison her?
“You know that in reality Gareth is very well suited by this marriage?” suddenly pronounced his sister, opening her eyes very wide and giving Delphie a surprisingly sharp look.
“Indeed?” said Delphie with caution. “What makes you say that?”
Her hand found the sinister little vinaigrette, which she had tucked into her pocket. Hastily she let go of it again.
“Oh, Gareth hates all women. He has quite set his face against marriage. He swore some oath about it, I believe. He—he despises the female sex. And in particular he always thought Cousin Elaine the most odious self-willed creature, so it must give him great pleasure to have you as a defense against her. So as long as he has this mock marriage to you—he is quite safe! You do not love each other—and yet he is under no compulsion to marry anyone else. I should not wonder but that he would be quite content for the arrangement to stand forever.”
“Oh? Do you think so?” Delphie added firmly, suppressing the somewhat hollow sensation Una’s words had given her. “I do not at all think that would suit me.”
“You will be lucky if you can persuade him to see that! Gareth has the most amazing knack of having his own way.”
“But might he not, in the end, wish for an heir? I believe it is a thing that men do wish for?”
“Gareth will not,” Una replied carelessly. “There are my children, after all. He can leave his money to them.”
If he has any left after bringing them all up—and supporting you, Delphie thought.
“Why does Gareth hate women so?” she asked. Not that she expected to believe what Una told her, but she could not help asking.
“Oh—he was jilted long ago,” said Una impatiently. “He was affianced to a girl once—Uncle Mark did not know about it, fortunately, or there would have been terrible trouble—her name was Lady Laura Trevelyan—but then when she discovered that he would have less money than she expected—she cast him off and married Teasdale, a much older man with more money. Such a common tale! It happens all the time. And Gareth, like the burnt child, dreads that it will happen again. He has grown so hard and unfeeling! He cannot believe in a marriage li
ke mine—in a union of two souls that love one another, that cling together, despite poverty, despite separation, despite hardship and misfortune! I fear that Gareth is hard through and through—hard, and cold, and materialistic. I am persuaded, Cousin Delphie, that if you do not make a push to have your marriage dissolved, he never will! Unless, of course,” Una added reflectively, “he should come across Lady Laura again. I believe her husband was very sickly—not expected to live long; perhaps he may have died already. Gareth is so uncommunicative about his own affairs!”
“Indeed?” said Delphie politely. She was beginning to conceive a strong dislike for Gareth’s sister. “Now, if you will excuse me, Mrs. Palgrave, I believe I should go down again and see how my mother does; she was not feeling quite the thing when we came in.”
“Oh?” said Una, disappointed. “I was in hopes that you would sing to me. Gareth says that you have a very pretty voice.”
“Some other time,” Delphie said, and made her escape. Her thoughts flew back to the house in Brook Street. What, she wondered, was the relationship between Miss Carteret and her maid? It had seemed a very strange one—the maid appeared to have dominion over the mistress. And yet not wholly—
As she was descending the stairs to the main hall of the house, the door opened from the street, and two men came in: Gareth, and Mr. Fitzjohn. They appeared to be engaged in a heated argument.
“I am beginning to feel certain that Elaine is the imposter,” Gareth was saying. “Why, you have only to see this girl’s mother—”
“What is that to the purpose? I never heard such a crackbrained scheme!” Fitzjohn burst out. His pale, freckled face wore a harassed frown, his hands were trembling; Delphie had not imagined that he could look so discomposed. “It will not answer, Gar, it really will not! What can have led you into such a piece of folly?”
Then both men looked up and saw Delphie coming down.
“Ah, Miss Carteret—” said Fitzjohn. “I am just saying to my cousin that I cannot approve of your coming to live in this house.”
“Stuff!” said Gareth, walking upstairs. “It was the only possible answer. Nothing will happen, unless Elaine cries rope on us. You go and see her, Mordred—she will listen to you—persuade her that she will only cut off her own expectations if she does so.”
