The Green Ribbons

by Clare Flynn

  Before Hephzibah could ask the woman what she meant, a voice boomed out from inside the room, ‘Enter!’ Mrs Andrews nodded then disappeared back into the depths of the house, leaving Hephzibah to push open the door.

  At first she couldn’t see her host. The room was vast, with marbled columns, gilded mirrors and portraits, and tall windows looking out onto rolling rainswept parkland. Then his voice again, impatient, commanding, disembodied. ‘Come over here and let me see you.’

  She looked around the enormous room and realised the squire was concealed from view by the back of the sofa on which he was reclining. She moved forward. Sir Richard Egdon was wearing a silk dressing gown, with a woollen rug over his legs. His naked feet stuck out from under the rug, one of them angrily red and swollen. Hephzibah looked away, embarrassed.

  He winced in pain. ‘Gout. Damned painful. Too much roast beef. Have to stay off the shellfish too. Life’s not worth living if a man can’t eat what he wants. Damned doctors. Come over here and let me look at you.’

  She lowered her eyes and took a tentative step forward.

  ‘Don’t be shy. I don’t bite,’ he said.

  Squire Egdon might possibly have been handsome in his prime but now was puffy and florid in the face. He was almost completely bald and his eyes were large, like black grapes, hooded and with dark circles underneath. His full wet lips would have looked well on a woman but made him appear lascivious. The dark eyes stared at her as if trying to see inside her. She shivered.

  He gestured at a nearby chair and she sat down.

  ‘Tell me your name again. I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Hephzibah Wildman.’

  He snorted in response. ‘Hephzibah! What kind of name is that?’

  She looked down. ‘I was named for my late grandmother. My father’s mother.’

  He frowned. ‘That’s not what I meant. Where does it come from?’

  ‘It is biblical, sir.’

  ‘Biblical? What does it mean?’

  ‘I understand the name appears in both the Book of Kings and in Isaiah.’

  ‘What does it signify? Who was Hephzibah? I am expecting you to know about such things if you are to be trusted with the care and education of my only daughter.’

  She felt a rush of impatience at his rudeness. ‘Hephzibah was the wife of King Hezekiah, and according to Isaiah chapter sixty-two verse four it is also a name given to the promised land. “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.” The name in Hebrew means my delight is in her.’

  ‘Most impressive, Miss Wilding. My delight is in her.’ He looked her up and down, letting his eyes linger over her bosom. ‘Most appropriate. Well then, do you think you can knock some knowledge into my daughter? Not just the Bible, mind. We get enough of that on a Sunday. No need to overdo it. I am sure a woman of your evident talents has a lot more to offer.’ Again, he fixed his eyes on her chest.

  She decided she already loathed the man. ‘I will do my best, as I am sure will she.’

  He snorted again. ‘I want her to play the pianoforte and speak French. If you manage that you’ll be doing well. The child prefers to run around the estate like a wild thing. I’ve a mind to take her pony from her. I’ll never get her married off if she doesn’t learn a few graces.’

  ‘Married? But I thought she was a child?’

  ‘She is a child. Ten years old. But you can’t start thinking about these things soon enough. Sit down. Sit down, Miss Wilding.’

  ‘It’s Wildman,’ she said, conscious that her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  ‘No matter. Whatever. You’ll meet the child shortly. She’s been like an unbridled filly since her poor mother died.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. When did that happen?’

  ‘Four years ago.’

  ‘And has she been without a governess all that time?’

  The squire laughed. ‘She must have got through half a dozen.’

  Hephzibah was alarmed. What kind of wild child could scare away so many governesses in such a short time? ‘Is she very naughty?’

  ‘Naughty? No! Good as gold. Too much so. Needs a bit more spirit. I like a woman to have spirit. Do you have spirit, Miss Wildman?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Hephzibah felt more nervous the longer the interview went on. ‘You implied she was running wild?’

  ‘Spends all her time mooning around the estate with nothing to do. A girl like her should be painting, sewing, singing, doing the things women are supposed to do. The things I hope you are going to teach her.’

  ‘I see... but...’ She took a deep breath. Better to ask questions now than find out later. ‘Why then did so many governesses leave?’

  He leaned over to a side table and poured himself a sherry from a decanter. The top of his head was as pale and shiny as a hard-boiled egg. He didn’t offer a drink to Hephzibah. He sipped the wine slowly, licked his plump lips and said, ‘Because they didn’t give satisfaction, Miss Wildman. I hope you will be different.’ His big blackcurrant eyes bore into her again, until she looked away, uneasy under his gaze, then his eyes settled upon her breasts and stayed there. She shivered again.

  He looked up and fixed her with his stare. ‘I have a feeling you will suit very well. Nightingale tells me you’re an orphan?’

  ‘Yes, sir. My parents died just over two months ago.’

  ‘How did that happen?’

  She swallowed and bit her lip. ‘They were killed in a tram accident.’

  ‘What? Both of them?’

  She nodded.

  ‘How?’ The man had no sensitivity.

  ‘I don’t know exactly as I wasn’t there.’ Her voice was shaky. ‘I understand that they were deep in conversation and probably didn’t see the tram and stepped in front of it.’

  ‘Killed instantly?’ Was he deliberately trying to be cruel?

  ‘My mother was. My stepfather died on the way to the hospital.’

  He grunted. ‘Streets get more dangerous every day. Stepfather? What happened to your own father? He die too?’

  She bit her lip again. ‘When I was four. He was a botanist and died in Africa of cholera, while he was doing research there. My mother married Edwin Prendergast, my stepfather, when I was seven. He was an academic too. Professor of Classics.’ Hephzibah decided it was better to lay it all out rather than allow him to fire questions at her as though it were an interrogation.

  The squire closed his eyes and winced in pain, as he leaned sideways, grasped a bell-pull and rang it vigorously. He turned his attention back to her but said nothing, just stared at her, his focus again on her bosom, his finger rotating inside his ear. Hephzibah resisted the temptation to raise her arms and place them across her chest protectively and tried unsuccessfully to convince herself that it was only her imagination. A few minutes passed until the door opened and Mrs Andrews entered, ushering a young girl into the room.

  Ottilie Egdon was small and pretty, her head crowned with a mass of heavy brown curls. Her features were delicate: a small retroussé nose and bright eyes under silky brows, with a porcelain complexion. It was hard to imagine that the slug laid out on the sofa had fathered this elfin creature. The girl approached Hephzibah and bounced into a curtsey, chanting, ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Wildman. I do hope you will stay.’

  Squire Egdon jerked his head towards his daughter and on cue she skipped over to him, wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his cheek. In return he patted her on the bottom. ‘Right. That’s enough. You can take her away now, Miss Wildman. And remember, I am of the school of thought that children should be seen and not heard.’ He waved a hand in dismissal and Hephzibah left the room, her new charge following close behind.

  Mrs Andrews was waiting for them in the hallway. ‘Sir Richard will be dining alone this evening. A supper will be ready for you and Ottilie in the nursery in h
alf an hour. That leaves a little time for me to show you your room.’

  Ottilie looked as though she was overcome with joy. ‘Can I stay up late afterwards?’

  ‘Calm down, young lady. You certainly can’t stay up. As soon as you’ve finished your supper you’re off to bed.’ Mrs Andrews looked at Hephzibah. ‘Sorry Miss Wildman, I’ve no wish to trespass on your responsibilities, but I’d hate you to get off on the wrong foot with the squire by allowing madam here to take advantage. Not before you’ve had a chance to see how things work.’

  The room to which she had been assigned was on the second floor, opposite Ottilie’s. There was a bathroom next door, which the housekeeper told her was exclusively for her use and Ottilie’s. Hephzibah’s new bedroom was comfortable rather than grand; the rug on the floor looked rather threadbare and the curtains, while made of damask, had linings that had frayed and torn from their exposure to the sunlight. Someone had placed a small pottery jug with a few dahlias on the side table. There was a fire burning in the grate.

  ‘Don’t expect a fire every night, Miss Wildman. But as you got caught in the rain I thought just this once,’ said Mrs Andrews. ‘You’ll be expected to take all your meals with Miss Ottilie. That is unless the squire asks you to dine with him... which he might do from time to time.’ The housekeeper frowned and looked as though she had been about to say something else but had thought better of it. She pulled herself up to her full height and smoothed the surface of her apron. ‘My advice to you, Miss Wildman, is to keep out of Sir Richard’s way as much as possible. You’re here to take care of Ottilie, not to get acquainted with him.’ Seeing Hephzibah’s shocked expression, Mrs Andrews added, ‘Not that I think you’d try to do that, but one or two of your predecessors were a little over-friendly with the squire, if you follow my meaning.’

  Struggling to hide her indignation, Hephzibah said, ‘I am here to teach Ottilie. That is all I will be doing.’

  Over the next few days Hephzibah discovered that Ottilie was as charming as her father was boorish. The child was clearly desperate for affection and attention. Her father saw her just once a day, expecting her to attend him in the drawing room before her supper, where he would ask her what she had done that day, receive a kiss on the cheek then send her on her way.

  Joining her charge for an early supper in the nursery was preferable to being interrogated by her employer and she was relieved that he had not extended an invitation to join him for dinner, as Mrs Andrews had indicated was possible. As a result she had no adult company, apart from the odd brief exchange with Mrs Andrews. She would have liked to join the other staff in the servants’ hall, but it appeared that her status as governess meant she fell into a strange no-man’s land that was neither above nor below stairs.

  Ottilie was shy at first but soon revealed a mischievous spark and an affectionate nature. Ottilie began to confide in her, telling her how much she missed her mama. When she told the little girl that she too had lost her mother, Ottilie flung her arms around Hephzibah’s waist and said, ‘I wish you were my big sister. We can look after each other as we don’t have our mamas.’

  Touched and surprised, Hephzibah stroked the little girl’s hair. ‘I’ve never had any sisters or brothers and now I have no one at all.’

  ‘No cousins?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No aunts or uncles?’

  Hephzibah drew her mouth into a mirthless smile.

  ‘No one at all?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Then you must definitely have me. Even if it’s just pretend.’

  Hephzibah had been at Ingleton Hall for a week when she woke in the middle of the night. Lying motionless in bed, she listened intently, convinced a noise had broken her sleep. The room had been pitch dark when she went to bed but now there was a soft glow. She blinked, trying to adjust her eyes and orientate herself to the still unfamiliar surroundings.

  Overwhelmed by an intense certainty that there was someone in the room, her chest tightened and her heart was hammering so hard she thought it must be audible. Slowly she turned her head on the pillow to face the doorway and saw that it was open and a woman was standing, silhouetted on the threshold. It was too dark to make out more than her shape but Hephzibah was certain it was not Mrs Andrews. She tried to summon up the courage to call out, but there was a click and the door closed behind the intruder. Someone had been watching her as she slept. Who had been in the room?

  Hephzibah’s fear turned to anger. She might only be the governess but she was entitled to an undisturbed night and the privacy of her own bedroom. She slipped out of bed, grabbed her shawl and stepped out of the room. The long corridor was lit only by a couple of night-lights outside Ottilie’s room, opposite her own. Hephzibah listened for a moment at the child’s door but heard only the gentle breathing of her charge. She moved on up the corridor. There was no sign of her mystery visitor and the house was quiet. Through the window at the end of the gallery she heard the screech of an owl.

  She was about to go back to bed, telling herself she must have been dreaming, when she heard the sound of laughter. Shivering from the cold, she clutched her shawl tightly and put her ear against one of the doors. There were two voices: a man’s and a woman’s. It was impossible to make out the words. The speaking stopped, replaced by female laughter and Hephzibah realised that she was eavesdropping at what must be her employer’s door. She felt the blood rushing to her face. Turning to go back to her bedroom, embarrassed and guilty, she bumped into Mrs Andrews. The housekeeper was wearing a woollen dressing gown and a cotton bed-cap, under which curling papers were visible.

  Her face was stony. ‘Those who listen at doors always hear more than they’d like to hear,’ she said.

  The blush on Hephzibah’s face deepened and she started to stammer. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Andrews. I didn’t intend to eavesdrop. It’s just that I’m sure someone came into my bedroom just now. I heard voices. I had no idea. I didn’t realise this was the squire’s bedroom.’

  Mrs Andrews raised her eyebrows and gave a little sniff. ‘The squire? And why on earth would the squire go into your bedroom?’

  ‘Not the squire!’ Hephzibah’s voice was horrified. ‘No. It was a woman. It was dark but I am certain it was a woman.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t me. And I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone would go into your bedroom in the middle of the night. The servants all sleep on the top floor and none of them would venture onto this floor at night time and it certainly wasn’t Ottilie. There’s no one else in the house.’

  ‘But...’ Hephzibah turned to look at the door again, about to point out that there was a man and woman inside, but then thought better of it. Mrs Andrews must know what was going on as well as she did and pointing out the indiscretions of her employer would do her no good at all. Better to stay silent.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Andrews. I must have been dreaming and I was disorientated when I woke up.’

  ‘No harm done. Now go to bed before you wake up Miss Ottilie. Goodnight, Miss Wildman.’

  Hephzibah scuttled back to bed and jumped beneath the covers, rubbing her arms to warm herself. So Squire Egdon had a mistress. Who was she? And why had she come into Hephzibah’s bedroom?

  The following day was Sunday and Hephzibah put on her best clothes and sat down at the dressing table to dress her hair. As she tied a length of grey ribbon around the knot of hair at the back of her head she thought of the new green ribbons her mother had gifted her. She liked to pick them up and hold them to her hair and think about how she might have worn them in Rome and wonder if maybe a day would come when she would at last have reason to wear them. She reached out to the mantelpiece where she had placed them when she had unpacked that first night, but there was nothing there. She hunted round the room but there was no sign of the ribbons. Annoyed, she finished pinning her hair in place. She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Every inch the governess. Perhaps one of the maids had tidied the ribbons away – or maybe
Ottilie had taken them to dress up one of her china dolls.

  On her way down to breakfast she diverted past the stairs and went along the passage to the room where she had heard the laughter the previous night. It was clearly not the squire’s bedroom. He would of course have a room on the first floor. The door was open and all that was inside was an empty bedstead, springs bare and blankets piled untidily on top. A tallboy and linen chest stood against one wall and there was a faded carpet on the floor. Otherwise the room was empty. Mystified, she went downstairs to join Ottilie in the dining room. She asked the girl if she had happened to see her ribbons but was met with a shake of the head.

  She decided to walk into the village for the Sunday service at Nettlestock church, politely refusing the offer to accompany Mrs Andrews and Ottilie in the horse and trap. Sir Richard went on horseback. Presumably his gout was giving him less pain. Hephzibah was a few yards from the end of the long driveway when the squire rode up behind her. He slowed his horse and looked down at her from the saddle.

  ‘You enjoy walking, Miss Wildman?’

  ‘I do, sir. This is my first opportunity to see something of the estate and the village without torrential rain.’

  ‘Nothing worth seeing.’ With a flick of his crop he signalled his mount into action and they trotted off ahead of her. What an odd man he was.

  Although regular attendance at the village church had been impacted by the lure of the new Nonconformist chapel, the little stone church was packed and the only available seat left for Hephzibah was near the back, on the aisle a long way from the contingent of servants from Ingleton Hall, who all sat towards the front of the church. The squire and, presumably, Ottilie, were out of sight, in the enclosed seats reserved for members of the Egdon family.

  There was a cluster of musicians in a cramped wooden gallery at the back of the church: a pair of violins, a bugle, clarinet, bass viol and a serpent. The singing was led by an elderly woman who was seated a few rows in front of Hephzibah and who sang with a lusty contralto but was none too particular about the accuracy of her notes. While Hephzibah waited for the Reverend Nightingale to emerge from the vestry and begin the service, she looked around her. From every corner of the building she was conscious of eyes upon her, studying her, appraising her, unashamed in their curiosity. She felt herself blushing, more from annoyance than embarrassment. She hated being the centre of attention.