by Joan Aiken
“There’s not a scrap of his mother in that boy,” Lady Blanche remarked once; but the Bishop, who had been fond of Luke’s first wife, said, “Yes there is; just a scrap; only, will he ever let it out?”
Vicky had brought a bunch of clove pinks, tightly clenched in her hand; she laid these on the cane footrest of Luke’s chaise longue and announced politely, in a flat little voice, “How do you do, Papa? I hope you are better. I have brought you these flowers.”
“Mind my hurt leg,” he replied. “There was no occasion to bring flowers; do you not see that I have a whole gardenful around me? I hope you had Moon’s permission to pick them.”
“He picked them himself and sends his respects,” she said tonelessly. “Papa, how long must Mrs. Pike stay at the Hermitage?”
“Forever, I imagine,” he answered. “Somebody has to see after the house. Well, Gerard—have you no greeting for me?”
Luke had never pretended the slightest interest in his daughters. To him, Vicky, the fourth, was simply an additional encumbrance, another useless girl for whom, in due course, a dowry and husband must be found. All his feelings, hopes, and ambitions had, for years, been centered in his son, the long-awaited heir. Yet a stranger, observing his manner toward the pair, would have detected little difference in his tone. Indeed his cold neutrality toward Vicky appeared to harden into downright disgust as he studied her elder brother.
“Your hair needs trimming, sir; you resemble a savage! And why, pray, is your cravat so untidy? May I inquire whether your tutor gave permission for this day of exeat from your studies?”
“Gerard had cramps in his chest on Tuesday,” piped up Vicky. “So Mr. Newman said he had been working too hard and had best play for a change.”
“Speak when you are spoken too, miss, and not before! Well, Gerard—I am waiting for your answer?”
“How do you do, Father? It is as Vicky says,” Gerard replied laconically. “I took one of my breathless spells; and Mr. Newman permitted me a day’s half holiday. How do you go on, sir? Does your leg pain you a great deal?”
“No—no; it is no great matter. I shall soon be walking on crutches, and hope to be at home within the week.” Neither of the children appeared particularly gladdened by this information. “But as to your chest, Gerard—did not Mr. Newman think it necessary to send for Dr. Bendigo? Was it a sharp attack? Were you feverish?”
Gerard’s bronchial and asthmatic afflictions when he was younger had been a cause of much anxiety to his family; especially to his father, who had thought it best to keep him at home with a tutor, rather than send him to Eton or Harrow. For some years a consumption had been apprehended, since the least chill or exposure was likely to bring on a severe spasm, sometimes leading to inflammation of the lungs. During the past two or three years, however, the frequency and acuteness of these attacks had greatly diminished.
“What had you been doing to bring this on?” Luke demanded sharply. “Had you ridden farther than you ought? Or been playing cricket in the park?”
“No, Father.” Gerard looked mildly amused at the latter suggestion. Then he gave a sudden glare at his little sister, who had opened her mouth to speak. He went on quickly. “It was a trifling indisposition, and has quite passed off. But Mr. Newman thought a drive over the Downs in the fresh air would do me good.”
“If only the scent of the hawthorn flower does not start you wheezing,” Luke muttered disapprovingly. “You had better by far have remained at home in the summerhouse studying your Aristotle and your law books.”
Gerard’s expression did not change, but an infinitesimal shrug indicated what he thought of his father’s alternative. After a slight pause he remarked, “Here comes Mrs. Pike,” and, to Vicky, in a low tone, “If you wish to say your say, you had best make haste.” He glanced at his young half sister with dislike and respect.
“Papa,” said Vicky shrilly and breathlessly, “we don’t like Mrs. Pike, not at all! Nobody does! Not Jenny, nor Agnes, nor Eliza, nor Moon, nor Tom horse boy, nor John coachman, nor anybody. Nobody likes her! She is very unjust and unkind and interferes where she has no occasion, Jenny says, and she had poor Tray whipped, and said he must not come in the house any more, and she gives me horrid medicine when I am not sick. So, please, Papa, may she not go, and sister Ellen come home from Belgium to look after us? I am sure she could do it as well—much better, Sue says.”
Luke Pager’s silence, as he listened to this request from his youngest child, was one of total astonishment; he was quite dumfounded; but when he did speak, his reaction was unequivocal.
“Hold your tongue, miss! And never let me hear you speak in such a way again! A fine thing—for a child of your age to be setting up in judgment against decisions made by your elders. Think yourself fortunate that I do not instruct Mrs. Pike to give you a sound whipping! Go back, now, to your aunt Blanche. If that is all you came to say to me, I am sorry that you did not remain at home!”
Vicky gasped, turned scarlet, and retreated in disorder. Gerard made an awkward move to follow her, when his father stopped him.
“Halt, sir! I did not order you to leave. I trust that you had no hand in that disgraceful demonstration—that you are properly civil to Mrs. Pike, and mind what she tells you?”
It was fortunate for Gerard that he might reply to both questions together. He said, “Yes, sir,” in a tone wholly lacking conviction, as the housekeeper approached.
“And your studies go on well? Mr. Newman is satisfied with your progress?”
“Yes, sir,” Gerard replied with more confidence. By now the housekeeper was too close to be ignored. Luke Paget said, “Well, well”—sighing—“run along then, boy; no doubt your aunt Blanche has a nuncheon for you.” Lady Blanche was not Gerard’s aunt, but Luke ignored such niceties. He added, “Mind you do not take a chill on the ride home; these May evenings can be sharp. Have you a comforter for your chest?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Very well, then.”
Gerard walked warily away, and Mrs. Pike sent an indulgent smile after him, sharing it with her employer. She had already learned, from the servants at the Hermitage, and from Lady Blanche Pomfret, how much of the father’s care and ambition centered in the son.
“How do you do, Mr. Paget? I am happy to see you looking better.”
Mrs. Pike’s slight, formal curtsey was indicative of the careful consideration she had given to their relative status; she might be Paget’s paid employee, but she considered herself quite his social equal; an unfortunate widow, undeservedly obliged to support herself by her own exertions, but nevertheless maintaining a very proper self-respect.
Unaware of these shades, Luke Paget surveyed her impatiently. There had not been the least occasion, in his view, for her to present herself today—or, indeed, to have brought the children; the whole visit was needless and irksome. However, since she was here it behooved him to be civil to her. And she was, he grudgingly acknowledged to himself after a minute or two, a handsome figure of a woman; in her mid-forties, perhaps, amply built, quite as stately, in her own way, as Lady Blanche, though she saw fit to acknowledge her professional role as housekeeper by wearing a less voluminous crinoline than the Bishop’s lady. Her taste in dress was discreetly impressive, however; the colors of lavender and gray-blue, which predominated, served to remind of her widowed condition, but were also admirably suited to her pink-and-white complexion, large blue eyes, and abundant hair, prematurely whitened, but elaborately dressed under a lace cap with very becoming streamers and side lappets. Other laces, ribbons, and trimmings adorned her dress; too many for her situation, Mr. Paget considered.
“Good day to you, Mrs. Pike,” he said rather shortly. “Why, pray, has the child Victoria not been put into black for her mother? That tartan is highly unsuitable.”
Mrs. Pike took this facer without flinching. “I considered her too young for blacks, Mr. Paget. If I
committed an error, I must apologize.”
“Certainly she is not too young. See to it, if you please, ma’am. I trust that all goes on well at the Hermitage? Are the servants minding you as they should?”
Here she was able to re-establish herself. “Thank you, Mr. Paget. There was a little difficulty at first, with the cook and the maids. I took the liberty of giving her notice to Jenny Gladwyn, your wife’s ladies’ maid, since she had no duties to perform; I hope I did right?”
“Certainly.”
“Otherwise, matters are going on quite satisfactorily now, I am glad to say.”
Her tone suggested that Lady Adelaide had allowed the household to lapse into a shocking condition of neglect and anarchy; but, since the latter was tragically dead, convention forbade any aspersion on her shortcomings.
Looking down, as she stood by him, Mrs. Pike surveyed Luke with her indulgent smile. This was, indeed, the prevailing expression on her countenance, as if she saw much to regret and censure in the world about her, but was kindly prepared to make allowances for everybody less capable than herself.
She was too much of a lady to put her hands on her hips, but her posture suggested this attitude.
“And when shall we be seeing you back under your own roof, Mr. Paget? That day will not be too far removed, I hope?”
Her look, her tone were almost coy. He stared back at her bleakly from under his jutting brows.
“Humph!” was all the answer she received to her question; and then, abruptly, “Are those letters you have for me there, ma’am? May I see them, if you please?”
A little reluctantly she handed over his post At the sight of the letters his shaggy white brows shot up again.
“Who took it upon themselves to open these, may I ask?”
“I did,” said Mrs. Pike blandly. “I saw from the superscriptions that they were letters of business, and thought they might be bills, or matters of some urgency. I consulted with the boy’s tutor, Mr. Newman, and with your attorney, Mr. Wheelbird, who was visiting the house in connection with the late Lady Adelaide’s jewelry and personal belongings. Mr. Wheelbird and his partner Mr. Longmore gave me permission. You will see the bills have already been paid. Mr. Wheelbird advanced me money from the housekeeping for the purpose.”
She brought out the lawyers’ names with a look of considerable satisfaction, not to say triumph, but her tone remained calmly businesslike.
“Oh! Ahem! Very well. There will be no occasion to do that again, ma’am. I shall be back at the Hermitage before any other accounts fall due, and other letters you may send to me here—unopened, if you please. Is that all, Mrs.—ah—Pike? Have you any inquiries or requests?”
“No, I thank you, Mr. Paget. All is running smoothly at home.”
Already, he noticed, she spoke of home with a decidedly proprietorial air. It annoyed him, but he could find no valid reason to find fault.
“There is nothing else then, I believe. Ah—the children—behaving themselves, I trust?”
“The little girl misses her mama—naturally. And it is plain that she has been greatly indulged; but she will soon be in a better way of behavior. You need have no anxiety about her. Your son…” Here Mrs. Pike paused. Her complacent look was replaced by an air of sour disapproval, turning down the corners of her thin mouth. “It is playing the pianoforte so much caused that nasty turn he had, any person of sense could tell,” she rapped out sharply. An attentive listener might have noticed that, when she said this, her vowels and turns of speech betrayed hints of a lower-class origin, which, previously, she had been at pains to conceal.
“Playing the piano? But he had been forbidden to touch it. I had it removed to the garden room expressly.”
“I don’t know about that, I’m sure. But he has been playing as many hours as possible, when his studies were done. And it is a shocking extravagance with candles as well.”
“Has he, indeed? You had better have him sent out to me again, Mrs. Pike, before you start back, and I will have a word with him.”
“Certainly, Mr. Paget. And what would you wish done about the dog?”
“Dog?”
“The animal, Tray. It was Lady Adelaide’s pet, I understand. It has been in a shocking way since—since the unfortunate occurrence; crying and whining and—and behaving itself very nasty in the house; I had to give orders for it to be kept outside in a kennel, for the maids were complaining. What would you wish to be done about it?”
Luke Paget had never cared for his second wife’s toy spaniel. He said briefly, “You had best tell Moon to have the animal destroyed. But do not let Victoria know beforehand—I believe she felt an attachment to it. That will be all, then, Mrs. Pike.”
“Yes, Mr. Paget.” Her complacency had returned. She bestowed another graciously condescending smile on him and walked away at a deliberate pace, allowing her lavender cambric draperies to sweep behind her along the turf. Against Luke’s will, his eyes were drawn after her, and he observed how her upright and buxom figure obscured, for a moment or two, the frail tapering pinnacle of the cathedral spire. It did not occur to him at once that she was hardly the comfortable, motherly body of Blanche’s original description.
As for Mrs. Pike, she was saying to herself: I shall soon have him round my thumb. And he need never hear about Simon.
* * *
When the Bishop, his wife, his chaplain, and his wife’s brother-in-law assembled for dinner, there was a slight air of gloom over the company, and a general disinclination for light chat.
The Bishop and his chaplain, Mr. Slopesby, were continuing a conversation about the Cathedral which had been occupying them before the meal.
“This bequest of the late dean—very commendable in the dear fellow, no doubt, but why couldn’t he have directed it to be used for new church plate, or vestments for the choir? Two thousand pounds will go nowhere toward structural repair—nowhere; there is so much that needs doing.”
“We can raise an equal sum, Your Grace, very readily, I am positive, by public subscription.”
“Yes—yes; I daresay; but once we begin to meddle with the fabric, I am very much afraid we shall discover more amiss than we have the means of setting right. Take away the prebendal stalls and the Arundel shrine and I fear—I greatly fear—that we shall discover those piers supporting the tower to be in a shocking state. Those Normans, you know—courageous fighters, but not much up here!” The Bishop tapped his round bullet head; since the aforesaid Normans had been his ancestors, it was evident he felt he had a perfect right to disparage them if he chose. “Never considered that, on a quaking salt marsh where the Romans had erected a few single-story huts, it was hardly the part of sense to throw up a hundred-and-seventy-foot stone tower weighing eighty thousand tons. No wonder there are fissures in the stonework!”
Here the chaplain, with painstaking accuracy, pointed out that the Norman work in the Cathedral accounted only for the piers and the arches over them; the vaulting above, and the tower above that, belonged respectively to the Pointed and the Geometrical periods.
“Oh, very likely—no doubt,” responded the Bishop rapidly—he was a little, round, rubicund man, a head shorter than his wife, with, in general, a benign and untroubled aspect—“but those Normans must have known what would come of their activities. Build four great piers and clap round arches from one to t’other, what can you expect but that somebody will fling up a spire on top of that? Eh, Paget? What do you say?”
In his usual good-natured way he hoped to draw his wife’s brother-in-law into the talk; give the lanky, lantern-jawed fellow something to think about besides his own troubles; but Paget only glowered and glared, and said, “I am ill-informed regarding church architecture, Bishop. Doubtless it is as you say,” and then went back to his low-voiced conference with the Bishop’s wife: “The very instant I turn my back—and with his mother not cold in her grave—”
“His stepmother,” gently put in the Bishop’s wife.
“Well: his stepmother; what’s the difference? There he goes, flat contrary to my orders, idling away his time at the instrument—playing tunes. On the pianoforte! I ask you, is that the occupation of a gentleman? I had the garden room locked up; he must have procured a key from somewhere but he would not tell me how he came by it. Disobedient young dog! Wasting his time! And making himself ill into the bargain. His allowance is cut off for a month; he’ll pay more heed to my orders in future. But tell me, Blanche; advise me; do you think it would be best to send him away to school?”
The Bishop’s lady reflected. She did not dislike her sister’s moody, inarticulate stepson; indeed she probably had a better idea of his character than either his stepmother or his own father had ever achieved; in many ways she thought it might be better for Gerard to go to boarding school. But then what would happen to little Vicky? Poor Adelaide’s child, left alone with such a father?
The Bishop had suggested Vicky be invited to come and live at the Palace. But the generosity of Lady Blanche had strict bounds. A slight weakness of the heart had rendered it impossible for her to bear children and made even the exertion of looking after a five-year-old niece, she thought, ineligible. A comfortable selfishness protected the Bishop’s lady from all major inconveniences or sacrifices.
“No; I do not think you should send Gerard to school,” she said at length. “It is too late, now, for that course; he would be shockingly out of place, the other boys might ridicule him, and the whole experience bring on just such a physical setback as you wish to avoid. No: best wait until it is time for him to go to university. He is well advanced in his studies, is he not?”