It Began in Vauxhall Gardens - Plaidy Jean - Страница 20

Peg had unpacked the bag and gone for hot water. Caroline had turned to Melisande and said quickly: "My wedding had to be postponed."

"I am sorry. That must make unhappiness for you."

"We are disappointed . . . both of us."

"I understand."

"Mr. Holland has tried to persuade his people and my father that we should not wait. But there is . . . convention, you know. It distresses us both."

"Convention?"

"Yes. The need to behave as people would expect... in a manner which is due to our position."

Melisande had been about to speak but Caroline had gone on quickly: "When my father wrote saying he was bringing you, he seemed to imply that you were quite a different sort of person.'*

"What sort of person?"

"He wrote saying that he had found a poor person who needed a home, and as Mamma had just died and my wedding had been postponed, he knew I must be lonely, so he had engaged her on the spot. He made her appear to be about forty, very poor, grey-haired, very prim and . . . grateful. At least that is the picture I had in my mind."

"I am poor!" Melisande had cried with a smile. "And if I have not yet forty years then I shall one day. Prim I could be; grateful I am. I hope I shall not always disappoint."

"Oh no ... no. I am sure you will quickly understand us . . . and fit in with us. Your English is a little quaint . . . but I'm sure you will soon be as one of us."

Soon after that Peg had come back with the hot water, and telling Melisande that if there was anything she wanted she must pull the bell rope and someone would come and attend to her wants, Caroline said goodnight and left her.

So Melisande had undressed, washed in the hip bath, put on the cotton nightgown which she had brought with her from the Convent and got into bed. And now she found she was too excited for sleep. She could not stop thinking of the people whom she had met, and chiefly she thought of Fermor and Caroline; the one who so clearly wanted to be her friend, the other of whom she was unsure.

But life was exciting. To-morrow she would see the house; she would get to know it and all the people who lived in it.

As the firelight threw a flickering light about the room she thought of the cold bedrooms at the Convent. Even in winter there had been no fires in the bedrooms there.

She was just beginning to doze when there was a knock on her door. She started. The knock was repeated.

"Please come in," she called, and into the room came the woman she had seen when she had arrived at the house—the one whom they had called Wenna.

She stood by the door and for some inexplicable reason she alarmed Melisande. Perhaps it was because she looked fierce, angry. Why should she be angry with Melisande who had only just arrived at the house?

Melisande sat up in bed.

"I just wondered if you had all you needed," said the woman.

"That is so good ... so kind."

Wenna came slowly to the bed and looked down on Melisande. "I shouldn't by rights have disturbed you once you were in bed. I didn't think you'd be there yet though."

"But I am glad you came. It is a kindness."

"Well, you comfortable, eh? This must be a bit strange . . . after the place you come from, I reckon?"

"It is very different."

"Did Peg look after 'ee? She do dream so. I wondered if she'd brought what you wanted. She do seem piskymazed half the time."

Melisande laughed softly. Why had she thought the woman was angry? Clearly she was trying to be kind. "Peg was very good. Everybody is very good."

"Then I didn't have no cause to come bothering."

"It was no bothering. It was a goodness."

"You come from across the water . . . from foreign parts?"

"Yes."

"And lived there all your life?"

"I lived in a convent."

"My dear life! That must have been a queer place to live."

"It did not seem so. It seemed . . . just the place where I lived."

"I suppose you was put there by your father ... or your mother."

"I . . . suppose so."

"Seems a queer way of going on. Is it the foreign way then?"

"Well, they died, you see; and I had a guardian who thought I should be better in the Convent than, anywhere else. I think that was why I went."

"My dear land! Fancy that! And you never saw your father?"

"No."

"Nor your mother?"

"No."

"But this guardian of yours . . . you had him. He was something, wasn't he?"

"Oh yes, he v/as something."

"Poor young lady! Did he come to see you often, this guardian?"

"No. He just arranged things for me."

"And I suppose he was a friend of our master's like?"

"I ... I don't know. I don't know very much."

" 'Twas queer like, to keep you in the dark."

Melisande was uncomfortable. She wanted the woman to go, for now she had an idea that with all her questions she was trying to trap her into betraying her kind benefactor. That was something which Melisande had decided she would never do. All her life she would remain grateful to him.

"I only know that I have been looked after . . . fed and educated; and now that I am old enough this post has been found for me."

"I reckon you must feel pretty curious about all this. I know I would. I reckon I wouldn't leave no stone unturned."

"I lived with children most of whom did not know their parents. Thank you. It was good of you to ask. Peg has been very good and helpful. I am enjoying a comfort here."

Wenna was not going to be dismissed as easily as that.

She said: "Ah, a pity you didn't come earlier than this. This was a happy house not so long ago when my mistress was alive."

"It was a great tragedy. I have heard of it."

"She was an angel. I'd looked after her most of my life."

"I am very sorry for you. It is a tragic."

"And then to die! She was always delicate. I knew she'd catch her death sitting out there in the cold. She ought to have had her wrap. I'll never forget it. She was like an ice-block when I went out to her. It need not have happened. That's the pity of it. I know it need not have happened." Melisande was conscious of the intensity of this woman, of the passionate anger within her. "Then," she went on slowly, "I suppose if it hadn't happened you wouldn't be here . . . would you? You wouldn't be in that nice comfortable bed with a fire in your grate. You'd be in that Convent where you'd been brought up. That's what would have happened if the mistress hadn't died."

Melisande was uncertain what to say. She had a wild fancy that the woman was accusing her of being in some obscure way to blame for the death of her mistress.

She stammered: "I suppose Miss Caroline would not have needed a companion if her mother had lived. She would have married very soon and ..."

"Yes, she would have married, and when she married I should have gone with her. I shall go with her when she marries."

"You are very fond of her," said Melisande.

The woman was silent. After a while she said: "Well, there's nothing you want. Everything's all right?"

"Yes, thank you."

She went out. Melisande lay back staring at the door.

What a strange woman! Melisande could not get rid of the fancy that she had not meant all she had said and that she had had some strange purpose in coming to her room.