Whisper Of Darkness

by Anne Mather

  ‘You’re supposed to run down the shale,’ said a clear scornful voice behind them, that completely dissipated the humour of the situation. ‘That’s how you keep your balance. Only dogs and babies slide on their bottoms!’

  ‘Thank you, Anya, that will do.’

  Jake’s curt remonstrance was immediate, and Joanna wondered why the girl had so quickly forgotten the role she had intended to play. If she imagined she could delude her father into thinking she was a reformed character one minute, and then revert to her objectionable self the next, she was very much mistaken.

  However, Anya was already restoring her image. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy,’ she was saying, adopting a wounded tone. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. But it’s true, isn’t it? You are supposed to run down the shale. It’s not half as dangerous as it sounds.’

  ‘Experts run down the shale, Anya, inexperienced climbers don’t,’ Jake retorted, pulling up at the gate that gave on to the copse and pushing open his door. ‘No one could call Miss Seton an experienced climber, and I expect you to show a little more respect.’

  He went to open the gate, and Joanna waited resignedly for the retaliation she was sure would come. She wasn’t disappointed. Anya only waited until the door had closed behind her father before saying in a low, venomous voice:

  ‘Don’t think I’m going to let you stay here, just because you think you’ve won the first round! I can get rid of you any time I like, and I will!’

  Joanna listened, but as she did so her own anger flared, and she turned on the child without consideration for her age or her inexperience. ‘Now you listen to me, you little hellcat,’ she spat furiously, ‘no one, but no one, speaks to me like that! Just who do you think you are? Dressed like a scarecrow, with brains to match! Do you think I want to teach you? Do you think I want to stay here in this hole, living in a house that pigs would find offensive? You’re a joke, do you know that? A living, breathing joke, and if it was up to me, you wouldn’t be able to slide down shale on your bottom! You wouldn’t even be able to sit on it!’

  Anya shrank back in her seat as she spoke, and if Joanna had been less incensed, she would have seen much sooner how her outburst was draining all the colour out of the child’s cheeks. As it was, she had barely registered the fact before another angry voice broke into her tirade.

  ‘What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?’ Jake had jerked open his door and was climbing savagely back into the Rover. He glared incredulously at Joanna before turning to look at his daughter, and then shook his head disbelievingly as she took advantage of the situation and burst instantly into tears. ‘Heavens above, I get out of the car for two minutes to open the gate, and you take leave of your senses! If this is your idea of gaining a child’s confidence, I suggest you pack your bags right away. This isn’t Dothegirls Hall, Miss Seton, and I do not condone adults acting like children, whatever the provocation!’

  Joanna pressed her lips mutinously together, hunching her shoulders against the acidity of his stare. What was the point of staying here, as he said? Anya didn’t want to learn; she didn’t even want to behave civilly. They were all just wasting their time trying to change her. What she needed was a keeper, not a governess, and Joanna simply hadn’t the patience to humour her.

  ‘She said our house was a pigsty,’ Anya sniffed indignantly, and Joanna was forced to defend herself when Jake demanded if this was so.

  ‘It’s true,’ she declared, holding up her head. ‘Your—your housekeeper doesn’t know how to keep house, and the food she serves is appalling. I don’t know what you pay her, but whatever it is, it’s too much!’

  Jake was gazing at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and Joanna acknowledged to herself that the situation was unique. He had obviously never had to rebuke the governess before, but if he expected her to apologise and beg to be kept on, he was very much mistaken. It might be pigheaded, it might be a case of cutting off her nose to spite her face; but she was not some mealy-mouthed spinster, willing to suffer any kind of humiliation in order to keep her position. No eleven-year-old was going to make a fool of her, and if it meant her having to take a job in a shop or a factory, then so be it. Anything was better than struggling to save her self-respect with this little savage. In consequence, she was able to meet Jake’s steel-hard eyes with almost insolent indifference, and sensed that he had never been so near to striking a woman before.

  Without another word he swung round in his seat, slammed his door, and drove through the gateway. Then, standing on his brakes so that she was almost projected through the windscreen, he got out to close the gate again, leaving his door open this time so that he could hear any exchange there might be. But Anya was either too clever, or too distressed, to be caught that way. She continued to sniff rather plaintively in the back of the vehicle, not responding to Binzer’s mournful whining, or blowing her nose as Joanna could have wished.

  When Jake climbed in again, Joanna avoided his gaze, staring rather disconsolately out of the window. She remembered the anticipation she had felt on the outward journey, and her mouth turned down rather cynically at the corners. There should be a union for governesses, she decided, pursing her lips half indignantly. Unfair dismissal, that was what she was being given, and just because she had no desire to stay, was no reason to force her to leave. All right, so she had spoken her mind—wasn’t that better than pretending a liking for the girl she didn’t feel? At least she and Anya understood one another now, even if the next female to be employed was bound to suffer the consequences of her outburst.

  She sighed, casting a surreptitious look in her employer’s direction. His profile, set against the shadows of the copse, was hard and unyielding, yet she suddenly knew an illogical feeling of sympathy for him. It couldn’t be easy, trying to bring up a rebellious child like Anya single-handed, particularly in his personal circumstances. Losing his wife like that, losing his career; she and her mother had thought the world had come to an end when her father had died and left them without any money. Money! Money couldn’t solve Jake Sheldon’s problems. They were much more complex than that, and her conscience pricked her at the suspicion that she had perhaps added to them.

  Jake parked the Range Rover in the yard and climbed out rather aggressively, Joanna thought. ‘Indoors, bath, and hair washed,’ he ordered the still sniffing Anya, and after she had departed trailing the confused Binzer, he turned back to Joanna.

  ‘I want to see you in the library in five minutes,’ he told her curtly, before striding away towards the stables. ‘Please don’t keep me waiting.’

  Joanna stared after him in some amazement, and then with a helpless shrug she thrust open her door. She almost stood on a chicken as she put her foot to the ground, and it ran squawking away as she drew a steadying breath. Well, he wanted to give her her notice, didn’t he? she argued with herself, as she picked her way towards the house, and then felt a wave of weariness sweep over her as she saw Mrs Harris waiting at the door. She could tell from the housekeeper’s face that Anya had not wasted any time in relating her comments, and she squared her shoulders a little defiantly to bolster her fast-fading confidence.

  ‘I want a word with you—miss!’ Mrs Harris declared, as she approached, and for a minute Joanna thought she wasn’t going to let her into the house. But although she was slim, she was quite strong, and evidently the housekeeper decided her grievances fell short of physical violence.

  Joanna brushed past her into the hall of the house, her upbringing deterring her from conducting any kind of argument outdoors, and Mrs Harris had no choice but to follow her into the library.

  ‘What’s all this you’ve been saying about my housekeeping?’ she demanded, as soon as Joanna had crossed the threshold. ‘What right have you to make remarks about how I looks after this place? I’ll have you know, I’ve been here nigh on thirty years, and no one’s ever complained before.’

  ‘Really?’ Joanna didn’t want to get involved in this. It was no business of
hers if she was leaving. But she could hardly believe that she was the first to notice the deplorable state of the place.

  ‘Yes, really,’ Mrs Harris continued aggressively. ‘There was no complaints when Mr Fawcett was alive, and since he’s gone and Mr Sheldon’s took over, he’s never said he wasn’t satisfied with my work.’

  ‘Perhaps Mr Sheldon, being a man, doesn’t care about such things,’ put in Joanna carefully, and Mrs Harris let out an indignant howl.

  ‘You cheeky young madam, coming here with your hoity-toity ways, putting on airs and graces, pretending you’re something you’re not! Why, Mrs Hunter herself told us you and your mother was practically penniless since that father of yours gambled all his money away, and you were forced to look for work to support the two of you!’ Joanna’s cheeks burned. What had Aunt Lydia told Jake Sheldon’s sister? How had she phrased the offer of her goddaughter’s services to educate her niece? And how had Marcia Hunter described her to her brother, that his housekeeper should speak so disparagingly of it?

  ‘My personal affairs are no concern of yours, Mrs Harris,’ she said now, trying desperately to maintain her detachment. If she once resorted to a slanging match with the woman, she would lose all semblance of self-respect, and that was something she must retain at all costs.

  ‘Personal affairs!’ sneered Mrs Harris scornfully. ‘Your affairs aren’t personal. It was in all the papers—how your father broke his neck trying to jump a fence when he was drunk——’

  ‘He wasn’t drunk,’ denied Joanna hotly, unable to stay silent on that score. ‘The horse bolted——’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘It’s the truth!’

  Mrs Harris obviously didn’t believe her, but she changed her tactics. ‘You soon found out who your friends was, though, didn’t you?’ she taunted. ‘All them posh ways of yours count for nothing when you’ve got no money, do they? And you come here, criticising me! I don’t know how you have the nerve! Saying I keep a dirty house—complaining about my cooking—telling Mr Sheldon that the food is appalling——’

  ‘It is,’ asserted a hard masculine voice behind them, and their employer came impatiently into the room, applying the flame of the slim gold lighter in his hand to the narrow cigar between his teeth. ‘You’re fired, Mrs Harris. I should have done it long ago, but I’m afraid I’ve allowed everything to slide since—since coming here. I intend to rectify that. And your dismissal is long overdue.’

  Joanna didn’t know which one of them was the most astounded, herself or Mrs Harris. The last thing she had expected was that he might actually act on what she had said, and in spite of her aversion for the housekeeper’s slovenly ways, she couldn’t help but sympathise with such an abrupt expulsion.

  Mrs Harris’s mouth was opening and shutting like a goldfish, and for a couple of minutes she could say nothing at all. But then she found her tongue, and recriminations spilled from it with vituperative force.

  ‘You can’t do this, Mr Sheldon!’ she cried, at first appealing to his better nature. ‘I’ve been here at Ravengarth since I was a girl. Why, I came here just after the war, when Mrs Fawcett had her first baby, and I’ve been here ever since.’

  ‘Perhaps you should retire, Mrs Harris.’ Jake’s voice was flat as he strode round the desk and stood with arms folded, waiting for her to leave. With the cigar between his teeth, a strand of the straight dark hair lying smoothly across his forehead, his scarred face possessed a harsh and brooding fascination, and Joanna had to drag her shocked gaze away before he noticed her involuntary appraisal.

  The housekeeper spent a few more minutes extolling the way she had struggled to care for Ravengarth single-handed, how she was not as young as she used to be, and that she had never complained, but when she saw she was making no headway she resorted to cruder methods.

  ‘Don’t think I can’t see what’s going on here,’ she declared, nodding unpleasantly. ‘I can see the way the wind’s blowing. You want me out of the way, so’s you and ‘er,’ she flicked a thumb in Joanna’s direction, ‘won’t have no supervision. That’s it, isn’t it? As soon as I saw her I knew. You think with me out of the way you’ll have a clear field. No one to spy on you, only a child, and ‘er half wild as it is.’ She sniffed expressively. ‘Well, I’d not stand for that, if I was you, Miss Seton!’ What had happend to improve her opinion of her suddenly? Joanna wondered in amazement. ‘He’s got a foul temper, he has. Specially when the weather’s cold, and them scars start playing him up——’

  ‘Mrs Harris——’

  ‘Get out, Mrs Harris!’

  Joanna’s horrified exclamation was overidden by Jake’s angry response. As he came round the desk, his manner was almost threatening and the housekeeper took a nervous backward step as she made her final attempt to dissuade him.

  ‘You’ll not get anyone else to come here and work for you,’ she warned shrilly. ‘And you needn’t expect that young madam to help you. She’s leaving, she is—Anya told me. And in any case, you wouldn’t expect the likes of ‘er to go dirtying ‘er hands in honest labour. Too stuck-up for that, she is, let me tell you!’

  ‘Out,’ said Jake uncompromisingly. ‘Pack your belongings at once, and I’ll drive you to your sister’s at Lancaster. And if I hear that you’ve been spreading any gossip about me or Miss Seton, I’ll make sure the authorities hear about it. A case for slander is not that difficult to prove, not when there are plenty of people hereabouts who remember the old days. Do I make myself understood?’

  Mrs Harris stared at him a little apprehensively now, but she was not completely convinced. ‘What do you mean—the old days?’ she protested indignantly. ‘I’ve always done my work to the best of my ability, and you can’t prove otherwise. Why, Mrs Fawcett depended on me, she did——’

  ‘That’s not what I’ve heard,’ Jake informed her coldly. ‘In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Mrs Fawcett would have liked to get rid of you herself, only she was too ill at the time.’

  ‘That’s—that’s libel——’

  ‘If it wasn’t true, the word is slander, as I’ve just explained,’ Jake retorted bleakly. ‘However, as I have every reason to believe it is true, and as I’m not likely to repeat it beyond these walls, I don’t see what you can do about it.’

  Mrs Harris’s mouth pursed. ‘Who’s been saying such things? It’s that Matt Coulston, isn’t it?’

  Jake sighed then, and shook his head. ‘You know Matt, Mrs Harris,’ he replied wearily. ‘He’s not the type to gossip about anyone.’

  ‘I should think not! Not when he’s little more than a——’

  ‘That will do, Mrs Harris. I should go before you say something you regret.’

  Her lip jutted. ‘You’re not frightening me!’

  ‘Am I not?’

  The woman’s thin face suffused with colour. ‘You’ll regret this, just see if you don’t. There’s no decent person would put up with that besom upstairs——’

  But this time she had gone too far, and she scuttled quickly out of the door as he approached her with clenched fists.

  It took Jake a few minutes to recover his composure after this exchange, and Joanna turned awkwardly away, shifting from one foot to the other. She didn’t honestly know what to expect after his unexpected dismissal of the housekeeper, and she wondered if he intended to drop her at Penrith station on his way to Lancaster. It would certainly be a clean sweep if he did, but what would happen to Anya then? Curiously enough, the thought disturbed her, and she squashed the awareness that it was Anya’s father who aroused these feelings of responsibility inside her.

  Presently he came back to the desk again, and she chanced a brief glance up at his bleak face as he positioned himself behind it. She didn’t know why the weariness of his expression disturbed her, but it did, and she wished she had not spoken so recklessly earlier.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, and in some relief she did as he asked. At least she was being offered the chance to take her punishment sitting down, sh
e thought dejectedly, wondering what had happened to the anger that had given her such confidence in the car.

  Jake took a long pull at his cigar, and then seated himself in the worn chair opposite, thick black lashes veiling the expression in his eyes as he shifted the papers on the desk, as if like herself he was searching for a suitable opening. Then, as if coming to a decision, he lifted his head and said:

  ‘I have to ask you if you’ll do something for me.’

  His words were so unlike anything she had anticipated that for a moment she didn’t make any response, but when his mouth assumed a downward slant, she licked her lips and asked: ‘What is it?’ in faintly apprehensive tones.

  He lay back in his chair then, surveying her through the haze of cigar smoke he had emitted. Like that, relaxed, his expression vaguely speculative, Joanna could quite see why women had found him so attractive, and Mrs Harris’s accusations did not seem quite so outrageous suddenly.

  But his next words dispelled any illusions she might have entertained. ‘As you heard, I have to take Mrs Harris to Lancaster. I’m asking you to remain at Ravengarth and take charge of Anya until I return.’

  Joanna suppressed the disappointment his words engendered. ‘Why can’t you take her with you?’ she exclaimed, in the heat of the implied rejection, and immediately he came upright in his chair.

  ‘Because I would prefer Anya not to have to listen to any more of the woman’s lies,’ he retorted coldly. ‘I realise I’m asking this favour from a position of weakness, but if you could oblige me in this way, I’m quite prepared to see you don’t suffer by it.’

  Joanna’s lips pursed. ‘You’ll pay me, you mean?’

  ‘I’ll pay you,’ he agreed dourly. ‘Is it a deal?’

  Joanna sighed. ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Oh, not more indecision, Miss Seton! Either you will or you won’t. It’s as simple as that. I promise you, whatever Mrs Harris says, I have no ulterior designs on your virtue.’