High Garth

by Mira Stables

  There came a night when Philip was sent early to bed in punishment for having left the yard gate open when he went to visit Jigs. As a result the calves had got out, and Will, had been obliged to spend the better part of an hour in rounding up the frolicsome youngsters. Carelessness, on a farm, pronounced Patrick firmly, was criminal; especially where the safety of young stock was in question. The sinner could count himself lucky that he was not sent supperless to bed.

  Ann felt quite lost without her small familiar. Philip was used to pull up his creepie beside her, lean his arms on her lap and fix her with an unwinking stare as he listened and questioned. Without that confiding warmth across her knees she felt positively bereft. Tonight even Patrick was busy, working on a model schooner that was destined for Philip’s birthday gift. Opportunities for working on this masterpiece were rare, since it must be kept secret, but not even Philip would dare to creep downstairs again after being so sternly dismissed. Ann watched the strong brown fingers carefully shaping the tiny hull, their owner wholly concentrated on his task. The light was not good enough for sewing. It was almost a relief when Jenny said tentatively, “Please, Miss Ann, won’t you tell us some more about Papa Fortune’s town house? How many servants he keeps, indoors and out, and suchlike. Master Philip don’t care for things like that, but Meg and me would fairly like to take service in London when we’re old enough.”

  It was as well for the speaker that Janet was slightly deaf, so that the low-voiced plea did not penetrate the whirr of the spinning wheel, else it had undoubtedly brought down sharp rebuke on the girl’s curly head. As it was, Ann was very willing to comply. Patiently she detailed the domestic hierarchy, beginning with the housekeeper and descending, since in a widower’s household there was no lady’s maid to rank second, through the lower ranks of chambermaids, housemaids, laundrymaids and scullerymaids.

  Jenny and Meg listened agape. And the cook was a man? Just fancy that, now! And a confectioner and a baker as well? Ann explained that though Mr. Fortune abhorred waste, he liked to live well. He did not employ a bailiff, since his estate was small, but there was a butler, of course, a very lofty personage, and a coachman, two footmen, a porter, a postilion and a yard boy as well as sundry grooms and two gardeners.

  The girls could not imagine how so many servants could be usefully employed in securing the comfort of just one gentleman, be he never so wealthy or important, so Ann told them a little about the duties of the various maids and explained that there were a great many rooms to be kept clean, no easy task amid the smoke and dust of London.

  “And parties?” queried Meg eagerly. “Does he give grand parties with all the ladies in silks and jewels?”

  Ann smiled rather wryly. “He certainly entertains a good deal,” she said. “But not what you would call parties. No ladies in fine dresses. Just gentlemen with whom he has business dealings.”

  Meg looked disappointed. Jenny said hopefully, “Did not you go to dress parties, Miss Ann, when you lived in Town?”

  Ann laughed outright. “No, indeed! My step-papa was of the opinion that parties were a waste of time and money. The marriage market he was used to call them. And invariably added that if a female was dutiful, domesticated and well-dowered she would find a husband without having recourse to extravagant display.”

  “And a deal of sense in that,” put in Janet dourly, for though she had not heard Jenny open the subject, she had followed Ann’s clear voice easily enough, if with growing concern. “I’ll thank you, Miss Ann, not to go putting any fancy ideas into these silly goosecaps’ heads. London, indeed! They’d be sorry enough before the month was out. Trouble with this pair, they don’t know which side their bread’s buttered.”

  Meg hung her head, abashed, but Jenny looked mulish. Ann said, “I shouldn’t think they would like it at all.” And to the girls, “You’ve no notion how horrid the older servants can be to anyone young and newcome to Town. They grumble and scold because you’re clumsy, or they tease you and play tricks on you because you’re green. You would get the worst of everything—the last to be served at table—an attic to sleep in—icy cold in winter, sweltering in summer. Or maybe a basement, with rats and cockroaches. Believe me, you are much more comfortably placed here.”

  Janet looked pleased, the girls thoughtful if not convinced. Patrick’s fingers were quiet on the model boat. There was an oddly intent expression on his face, but he said nothing beyond the usual details regarding the next day’s work and a courteous goodnight.

  Chapter Seven

  Next morning, however, breakfast over and morning lessons about to begin, he begged the courtesy of a few minutes private speech with Miss Beverley. Philip was bidden to study his primer by the kitchen fire and to be diligent, while his elders repaired to the sunny parlour which now was also a schoolroom.

  Ann was a little surprised but in no way alarmed. After three months at High Garth she no longer feared summary dismissal. True, she still made mistakes, had occasional culinary disasters. But people were no longer kind and long-suffering about them. They laughed or grumbled, as the mood took them, and teased her unmercifully, which was infinitely preferable. As far as one faulty human being could do it, she filled her place at High Garth to a nicety, knew it, and rejoiced in her new-found confidence.

  Having seated her in one of the comfortable chairs before the empty hearth, Patrick paced up and down the room a time or two before eventually coming to a halt facing her, his elbows braced upon the mantel shelf behind him his expression so stern that, for the first time, she began to feel some nervous qualms. But his voice, when at last he spoke was gentle enough, almost impersonal.

  “I have to ask you one or two questions that may seem unwarrantably impertinent,” he said quietly. “Will you please try to believe that only my concern for your welfare drives me to this unpleasant necessity?”

  She nodded, the brown eyes fixed on him now in anxious enquiry, but he seemed indisposed to meet her gaze, turning a little aside to look out into the sunny garden which already displayed its gratitude for recent cherishing. “When you were talking to the girls last night,” he began abruptly, “it was plain that you were describing the establishment of a man of wealth and position. It is scarcely within my province to enquire why, if your step-father is so well able to support you, you choose rather to earn your bread in a menial capacity with strangers. But I must know whether the gentleman is acquainted with your present whereabouts, and the conditions in which you are living.”

  The last words seemed to be wrung out of him almost against his will. Ann took her time over answering, since it seemed that the disclosure of her background of affluence had touched her employer on the raw. To a certain extent she could understand his point of view, though it was not as if he had been tricked into sheltering some runaway heiress. Or as if she, Ann Beverley, was not old enough to know her own mind.

  Presently she said temperately, “Your questions are easily answered, sir. Certainly my stepfather knows my present address. I wrote to inform him of it before I left Bath. And if by any chance the letter had been mislaid or gone astray, he has only to enquire of my sister. But we are not upon terms and do not correspond except upon such necessary matters, so he knows nothing of conditions here, since I myself was not fully informed when I wrote to him.”

  Before she could enlarge on this head, he swung round to face her, black anger in his scowl this time. “And do you imagine that he would suffer you to remain here a moment longer if he realized the truth? That you are working like some peasant in house and barn and fields? With no one to wait on you, without even the normal comforts that any gentlewoman has the right to expect?”

  She waited patiently for him to finish, rather pleased than otherwise that she had understood his resentment and its cause so well, even smiling a little, despite his thunderous expression, for he had let his annoyance run away with him when he spoke of ‘fields’. To be sure she had worked pretty hard in the garden, but her activities had not yet been e
xtended to the fields, though she had high hopes of being permitted to help with the haymaking.

  “If my stepfather was fully acquainted with my situation,” she said calmly, “he would say that I was vastly overpaid for my services and probably read you a lecture on extravagance. Certainly he would not concern himself because I lacked a few luxuries.”

  Having long ago learned to accept her stepfather’s peculiarities, her remarks were quite dispassionate. To Patrick, bitterly aware of the deficiencies of High Garth and now convinced that she regarded her present position merely as an amusing escapade with which to regale her intimates when she chose to return to her own world, the words sounded wholly flippant. He forgot the weeks of shared work and growing comradeship, the insensible lightening of his heavy burden of responsibility. He knew only that he had taken Ann Beverley at face value. He had offered her work and shelter and hospitality—simple, perhaps, but the best that he had—and all the time she had been laughing at him up her sleeve. He had even recognized the strong attraction that she could hold for him if he permitted his feelings to have their way, and had been at some pains to set a strong guard on those feelings, knowing that there could be no honourable way of pursuing intimacy with Miss Beverley. Now he wanted nothing so much as to grasp those slim shoulders hard enough to hurt, and to shake her until she was breathless and giddy, because her pretty ways had made a fool of him.

  With a strong effort he controlled this desire. He said icily, “This we shall discover. If you will be so good as to furnish me with Mr. Fortune’s address, I will myself write to describe to him the conditions in which you are living. I make no doubt we shall have him here to the rescue as soon as the Mail can bring him. But no! Of course not! He would scarcely condescend so far. It will be his own chaise, naturally. You will not have to endure rustic privation much longer, Miss Beverley.”

  At least he had had the satisfaction of startling her, even, perhaps, of frightening her a little, he thought savagely. The delicate colour was gone. The great eyes looked almost black against her pallor and her lips were trembling. He turned away abruptly, opened the bureau and drew pen and paper towards him.

  “His initials?” he enquired, still icily patient. “Plain esquire? Or does he have a title to add glamour to wealth and consequence?”

  The ice was melting. That last remark was a good deal less than dignified.

  She said quietly, “I shall not tell you.”

  He swung round furiously. “You will what?”

  “Not tell you,” she nodded composedly. “It is no business of yours. You don’t understand at all. And you are anxious only to make mischief.”

  There came a dangerous glint in the tawny eyes. “What you do while you are in my employment is very much my business, my good girl,” he reminded her grimly. “Either you obey me or you go. Now—do you furnish me with that address—or does Will take you to catch next Wednesday’s south-bound Mail?”

  She stared at the harsh-set visage, utterly bewildered by this glimpse of a man who seemed a stranger. Then she shrugged. “I suppose it was too good to last,” she said wearily. “I was too happy. Very well. I’ll start packing.” She rose and moved slowly towards the door, all the buoyancy, the gay vitality, quenched. And then, ridiculously, childishly, her hand already on the latch, turned and flung at him, “And hay time starting next week and all my plans made. You’re unfair! Cruel! I hate you!”

  It was so blatantly honest that it penetrated Patrick’s mantle of insulted pride. Without even thinking, he crossed the floor between them in two swift strides and caught her wrist, drawing her back to the window and staring down curiously into the face that she made no attempt to hide from him, though now, after that last outburst, the tears were sliding down her cheeks.

  “Here,” he said curtly, thrusting his handkerchief at her. “Mop your eyes. Now. What is all this? Are you really so sorry to be leaving?”

  The answer, rather naturally, was another burst of tears. But very soon, furiously despising her own weakness, she scrubbed her eyes, blew her nose, and said with dignity, if rather croakily, “I have been very happy here. Naturally I am sorry to go.”

  His touchy pride so fully assuaged, Patrick’s world swung back into its normal orbit. He began to remember all the hard work that this slim girl had done. No spoilt society doll, playing at farming, could have gone so quietly and competently about the job.

  “Yet you were prepared to do so rather than give me your stepfather’s address,” he pointed out.

  She stared. “But naturally. That would have been to yield to blackmail.” And then, since he still seemed dissatisfied, “Besides, I expect you would have painted everything in the worst possible light. And that would have given Papa Fortune a chance to crow over me. You’ve no idea how detestable he can be. He would dearly love to point out just where my fine high-nosed notions had got me to.”

  Patrick suppressed a grin at the odd mixture of high principle and childish defiance. He said gently, “I think I owe you an apology for jumping to mistaken conclusions. Perhaps if you were to tell me a little more about the gentleman—no, no, not his address,” as she glanced up in swift suspicion—“I might be able to understand. Will you not sit down again?”

  The story came out rather haltingly at first. The brief emotional storm had taken its toll and it was not easy to be detached about such personal matters. Moreover, having spoken so disparagingly about Papa Fortune, she was now determined to do him justice. Because he had his good points and she must emphasize them. He had positively doted on Mama. Nothing was too good for her. He had showered her with every luxury. It was a pity that he did not care for parties, while Mama adored them, but he had squired her about without a word of complaint and set no limit to the hospitality that she might offer in return. He had paid for the education of her daughters at a very select academy with no more demur than a query as to what females needed with all this higher education and fancy accomplishments. In his own way he had been good to them. They had resented his insistence that they should have a thorough and practical acquaintance with all the domestic arts because it took up most of their holidays and left them very little time to spend with Mama. But it had certainly stood her in good stead, as she did not fail to point out. And there was almost a hint of a smile with that remark. Miss Beverley was recovering her poise.

  The real trouble had begun after Mama’s death. Papa Fortune had always been inclined towards jealousy of the twins who, in his opinion, took up far too much of their Mama’s time and affection. He had been sadly disappointed that no child had been born of his own union with Mary Beverley. Not that he had ever reproached Mama for her failure in this direction, added her daughter hurriedly.

  The girls had been ten when their own father died, thirteen when Mama had re-married.

  “I am bound to confess that I think she married him because of us,” said Ann honestly. “For what his money could do for us. She was never very good at dealing with bills and practicalities. Neither was Papa, if it comes to that. I suppose they just muddled along contentedly together, never wondering what the future might hold, living each day as it came. And we had the happiest childhood. But after Papa died, Mama seemed only half a person. She was sweet and gentle as ever—but all the fun and sparkle was gone. And she got into dreadful muddles over money, just through not really caring. Papa Fortune is some kind of a banker, and very wealthy, I believe. But I am taking up too much of your time with my rambling tale.”

  He shook his head. “No. If we are to work in harmony—if you will consent to stay on after my unkindness—it is best that I should understand, so far as an outsider can.”

  This time it was a real smile that she gave him, and a tiny sigh of content. She had guessed herself reprieved, but it was comfortable to have the guess confirmed. She went on more easily, “We were nineteen when Mama died. It was very sudden, quite unexpected. Poor Papa Fortune was utterly stricken and dazed by his loss.”

  She did not speak of he
r own grief, but Patrick, who could remember the loss of his own much-loved mother, could well imagine the bitter desolation that she had known.

  “When he began to emerge from his first shock,” she went on, “it gradually became apparent that the possessive tendency he had always displayed towards Mama was being turned upon me. Barbara was newly betrothed, a very suitable match which had his full approval. Moreover she was creditably employed as a junior governess in the school where we had been educated. But I was ‘just hanging about at home’. Such a gawky piece as myself, he told me, was unlikely to ‘take’, so I had best look to my future. He was under no legal obligation to support me, but if I would abjure the thought of matrimony, consent to take his name and to assume the charge of his household, he would see to it that as his adopted daughter I should inherit a reasonable competence at his death.”

  Her glance fell to his handkerchief which she was still absently pleating on her lap. “My temper is inclined to be hasty, as you are probably aware. You will readily appreciate that the discussion then became a trifle heated,” she ended carefully.

  He maintained a grave front in the face of a strong desire to laugh at this prim description of what he rightly guessed to have been a shattering scene. The facts, in themselves, were not amusing. For himself, he thought Mr. Fortune’s suggestion iniquitous. There was a little silence, as though the girl was looking back five years and trying to recall her feelings during that momentous interview.