It Began in Vauxhall Gardens - Plaidy Jean - Страница 24

They walked their horses soberly back to the stables. He helped her to dismount and as he did so held her while he gazed steadily into her eyes.

Then he bent his head and kissed her cheek lingeringly. He said: "You will ride to-morrow." It was a statement, not a question. "You're scared, Melisande," he went on. "You're very scared. When you're scared of something, face it, look it straight in the eyes. Don't run away from it. If you do, you'll remain scared all your life. Whereas if you look it straight in the eyes, you may find it is something you have been a fool to miss."

She knew that he was not referring to riding only.

She was certain now that she ought to go away.

"I must go at once," she said. "I have things to do." He did not seek to detain her and she hurried into the house.

She met Miss Pennifield on her way to the sewing-room. Miss Pennifield's face was flushed a patchy red, her lips were quivering, and in her hand she carried a dress.

"Is anything wrong, Miss Pennifield?" asked Melisande.

Miss Pennifield was obviously near tears. She held up the dress and shook her head wearily; she could not trust herself with words. Melisande followed her into the sewing-room; it was a relief to divert her attention to someone else's problems.

"This is the second time I've unpicked it," said Miss Pennifield. "There's no pleasing her."

"Can I help you?"

"'Tis kind of you, Mamazel. I'm at my wit's end, I do declare."

She sat down and spread the dress on the table. "It's the sleeve. She says it don't fit. She do always say the sleeves don't fit. She's in one of her moods this morning. I do declare they get worse and worse. If only it was a flaring temper I could stand it, but it's a quiet sort of rage . . . brooding like and cruel."

"Poor Miss Pennifield! What's wrong with the sleeves?"

"First it be too bunchy here . . . then it be too bunchy there. There be no pleasing her. I don't know when I'll get through."

"I could finish off the skirt hem while you do the sleeves."

"Will you then? 'Tis good of you, and a relief to talk to someone. Sometimes I say to myself I'll be glad when Miss Caroline do marry and go to London, though I'll have one the less to work for. She wasn't always like this . . . come to think of it. I don't know. I think she's fretting for marriage like. There's some as is like that. Why it should be so, a maiden like myself can't say."

"Are these stitches all right? I was never very good with the needle."

"Keep them a bit smaller, my dear, and just a mite more even. We can't have her complaining about the stitches as well as the set. 'Tis Mrs. Soady's belief that Miss Caroline should be married quick. But I reckon she won't be no better then, for he ain't the sort that's going to grow more loving after marriage ... as Mrs. Soady says. I couldn't say . . . being a maiden like."

"You have always earned your living at sewing, Miss Pennifield?"

"Why yes, my dear . . . sewing of a sort. . . . Lace-making too. Me and my sister Jane."

"You like it?"

"Oh, 'tis a hard life. Though better here in the country among the gentry than in the towns, I do hear. There was a time when me and Jane was both put to the lace-making to Plymouth. Travelled there we did through Crafthole and Millbrook and Cremyll Passage on the coach, then over the Tamar. My dear life! What a journey! And we was put with a lady to Plymouth. There was eight or nine of us . . . all little things—some not more than five years old. Whenever I be a bit upset about bunchy sleeves and the like, I think of lace-making to Plymouth. Then I be satisfied with my lot. That's why I be thinking of it now, I daresay. Sitting there in a sort of cupboard it were . . . wasn't much more ... a cupboard of a room . . . nine of us and the bobbins working all the time . . . and we dursen't look up for fear of wasting a second. So much we had to do or go without supper—and that weren't much; but it seemed a terrible lot to go without."

"Poor Miss Pennifield!" Melisande saw herself stitching shirts in the Convent needlework room. How she had hated it! And yet how fortunate she had been!

Her eyes were filled with sympathy and Miss Pennifield said: "Why, what a dear good little soul you be!"

"I wish I could sew better. I wish I could sew as quickly and neatly as you do."

"You come to it in time."

"Do you think I could? Do you think I could be a dressmaker? Perhaps I could. You see, Miss Pennifield, I cannot sew, but I know how to set a bow on a dress, or a flower ... or how a skirt should hang . . . even though I cannot do the sewing. Perhaps I could be that sort of dressmaker."

"My dear life, who knows? But you wouldn't wish for to be a dressmaker, my dear. A young lady as speaks French so well, and English not bad . . . why, you be an educated young lady. You be a companion. That's like a governess. 'Tis a cut above a dressmaker."

"Miss Pennifield, tell me about you and your sister . . ." Melisande paused to consider herself. She had changed since she had been in the Convent and had chattered ceaselessly; she had wanted to talk

about herself, her dreams and desires; she had not been eager to listen to others. She said quickly: "Don't tell me about the woman in Plymouth. That makes me sad. I want to laugh. Tell me about the happy times. There must have been happy times."

"Oh yes," said Miss Pennifield, "there was happy times. Christmas time was the best. Decorating the church. Mr. Danesborough, he was a merry sort of gentleman. But we moved away from his church when I was little, and we lived near St. Martin's then. Mr. Forord Michell ... he were the vicar then. We'd decorate the church with holly and bay, and we'd go round a-gooding, which I'll tell 'ee, as you'd not know being not of these parts, was going round begging for sixpence towards our Christmas dinner. We'd go to all the big houses both sides of the river . . . this house and Leigh, Keverel, Morval and Bray . . . then we'd go to Trenant Park, Treworgey and West North. Then we'd go wassailing. We'd get one of the men to carve us a bowl and we'd decorate it with furze flowers, and we'd go begging a coin that we could fill the bowl and drink to the wassail."

Miss Pennifield began to sing in a small reedy voice:

"The mistress and master our wassail begin Pray open your door and let us come in With our wassail . . . wassail . . . wassail . . . And joy come to our jolly wassail.

"Ah, there was a merry frolic, I can tell 'ee. We'd black our faces. We'd dress up and dance in the fields and some of us would be so far gone in merriment—and like as not with too much methe-glin and cider—that we'd call on the piskies to come and join us. Oh, they was jolly frolicking times! Then there was Good Friday. I remember when we did all go down to the beaches, with knives to get the horned cattle off the rocks, and we'd have sacks to put 'em in and we'd bring them back for a real feast. But May Day was the best day ... if 'twas not Midsummer's Eve when we'd go out on the moors for the bonfires. Yes, May Day was best. Then we'd get together and wait till midnight, and there'd be fiddlers there too, and we'd all go to the farms nearby and they'd give us junket and cream or heavy cake and saffron or even fuggan. They dursen't refuse for, you do see, 'twas an old custom. The Little People don't like them that is too mean or too busy for old customs. Then we'd dance in the fields. We'd do the old cushion dances that was beautiful to watch. But it wasn't all feasting and dancing and games—oh, dear me no. Bringing home the may was a solemn thing. They'd been doing it for years—so I be told—before there was Christians in these parts, so said Mr. Danesborough, and he was terrible clever