by Joan Aiken
“Yes,” grumbled the father. “As to that, Newman tells me he is quite up to standard. I don’t doubt of his securing a place in my own college, Worcester. But, meanwhile, what to do with him? He is lonely, too; he has no companionship of his own kind. And that means that he is always making undesirable acquaintances—farmers’ boys, gypsy lads even!”
“If only Benedict had not gone out of reach.”
“Benedict!” snorted Mr. Paget, who had no affection for his second wife’s younger son.
“Benedict is a clever young man,” said his aunt firmly. “I have a great opinion of his capacity. If only he had been the elder son! Poor Easingwold never had two ideas in his head. But, as I recall, Gerard used to have quite an admiration for his stepbrother.”
“Benedict—that puppy! From what I hear he spends his time flitting from one card house to another all over Europe.”
“Nevertheless,” said Lady Blanche calmly, “I have it on good authority that Benedict is expected to take a double First at Oxford and will certainly be offered a fellowship. He has excellent prospects for a career in the Diplomatic Service.”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Paget peevishly. “Benedict is not here, so none of this is at all to the purpose.” He felt it unfair that, because he had seen fit to confide in his sister-in-law, the excellences of Adelaide’s son should be dinned into his ears. However, at that moment decanters were brought to the table and the Bishop broke into their conversation.
“Come, Paget! I know you’ll not refuse a glass of the ’41. A capital year! That should help your fractured leg to mend, better than doctor’s medicine.”
“Thank you, Bishop,” said Luke with a wintry smile.
Lady Blanche seized the chance to retire to her own parlor. There, presently, she was joined by Luke Paget’s eldest daughter and her husband, Sir Eustace Valdoe, whose heavily mortgaged manor lay not four miles from Chichester. Having come from a political meeting (Sir Eustace was the Member for Chichester), they had seized the opportunity to call and inquire after Eugenia’s father.
“Here comes Mr. Paget now,” Lady Blanche presently remarked, hoping that the ’41 port would have put her guest in a better frame of mind.
“Dear Papa!” And Eugenia hurried to greet her parent with much affectionate fluttering of laces and cap strings. Eugenia, thin and anxious-looking, might have been ten years older than her actual age of thirty-one. Her pale hair dangled in unbecoming bands on either side of her long, chalky face; she was dressed in a faded silk gown whose fussiness only drew attention to the angularity of her figure. For some years she had been her father’s despair; he had feared she would never be off his hands. And now that she was married to Sir Eustace, Luke was in constant apprehension that his son-in-law would try to borrow money from him, or that Eugenia would appeal to him for assistance. He fended off her embrace now with a wary arm.
“No need to unbalance me, Eugenia—fetch me a chair, that would be more to the purpose! Good heavens—you look more like a wisp of hay than ever. The air this side of the Downs has finished off what complexion you ever had. Well, Valdoe! I wonder that you should be taking out your horses at this hour of the evening; young folk never consider economy; but I should have thought that you, placed as you are, would do so.”
Despite this snubbing, Luke’s daughter and son-in-law hung around him solicitously, bringing his cup of coffee and offering him a muffin, which he rejected with scorn.
“Maudling one’s insides with such stuff at this hour. Do stop hopping round me like a wagtail, Eugenia, and sit down, for the Lord’s sake.”
“Dearest Papa! So stoical!” said Eugenia with a wan smile.
Valdoe, seeing that this did not please, made inquiries as to the condition of his father-in-law’s horses.
“One of them had to be destroyed. And I gave instructions for the other to be sold. Wretched, unsound pair. If Adelaide had not been so bent on purchasing them, the accident need never have occurred.”
Adelaide’s sister pressed her lips tight together. But Valdoe said tentatively, “Should you be requiring another pair, sir, when you return home? If so, I think I might be able to put you in the way of—”
“No, Valdoe, no—none of your choosing, thank’ee! I’ll look about and suit myself in my own time. I have two steady carriage horses, that is sufficient.”
Luke despised his thin, nervous, congenitally debt-ridden son-in-law. It was no mitigation that the debts had been incurred by Valdoe’s father. And the fact that, through family and influence, the unimpressive Eustace had achieved the position as Member of Parliament which had been Luke’s consuming hope and dream for so long, did nothing to sweeten the relationship. Valdoe was at least a Tory; so much could be said for him; but almost certainly, thought Luke, his agents had resorted to bribery of the electors; and he was a beggarly, whining sort of fellow, always on the scrounge; the match had been of Lady Adelaide’s making but if the pair thought they were entitled to any expectations or assistance from Eugenia’s father, they were mistaken indeed!
“What was your estimate of the new housekeeper, Luke?” inquired Lady Blanche, carrying her coffee cup to sit by her brother-in-law. She had observed that the Valdoes’ efforts to conciliate Luke were having an adverse effect. Eugenia was a fool to hang around her father’s neck so, Blanche privately considered. She went on, “Does Mrs. Pike seem satisfactory? I understand the Fothergills were quite delighted with her. Did I make a wise choice?”
At another time, in another situation, Luke might have said roundly that the woman seemed a deal too complacent and self-confident, odiously pleased with herself indeed, one of the forward kind whose pretensions must be continually depressed, that she was officious, encroaching, and a tattletale, but as Eugenia, lingering near, needed putting in her place, he replied, “Why, yes, Blanche, I am very much obliged to you. I think you have made a capital choice. Mrs. Pike seems thoroughly capable and amiable; a most ladylike person as well; and, what is more,” he added, noting with relish the looks of dismay at this unexpected peril that passed between Eugenia and her husband, “what is more, far from disagreeable in her appearance; in fact, a fine figure of a woman!”
In the silence that ensued—even Lady Blanche appearing a little startled at such a tribute—Luke’s words, spoken with no intent but to annoy his daughter, somehow sank back into his own mind and remained there like a pungent phrase which, once heard, passes into the language.
* * *
The trio driving back over the Downs in the Paget family carriage were silent also. Gerard’s silence was that of rage. The looks he was directing at Mrs. Pike should have shriveled her where she sat, but, regrettably, she hardly noticed them; they did not scratch the surface of her complacency. If I play my cards carefully, she was reflecting, I’ve a snug billet for life. Paget’s a touchy, difficult man, anyone can see that, but I’ve handled worse than him before. If I can keep the daughters from meddling while I make my position secure…
Vicky glanced sideways at her half brother with a mixture of pity and contempt. Gerard was always running into trouble! And that in spite of the fact that he was really quite timid. He had shuffled onto his little sister the business of speaking out about Mrs. Pike. Yet this timidity was not enough to make him consider in advance the consequences of his actions. Time after time he came into conflict with his father over his passion for music. Vicky, quite as self-willed, would have pursued her ends in a devious, undercover manner. It was true, however, she did not want to play the piano! She could not imagine why Gerard should wish to sit pounding away at the keys as he did, hour after hour.
Beginning to feel sick—she hated riding backwards—Vicky raised her eyes appealingly to Mrs. Pike, and said, “May I come and sit by you, ma’am?”
“Very well, child. But don’t fidget.”
Mrs. Pike’s voice was absent. Six months, she was thinking. He looks like a man wh
o thinks he has a right to his comforts. I know that big, bony kind. They get hungry. And there’s nowhere he could go in a small town…
“Why,” said Vicky, looking ahead out of the window—they were on top of the Downs now—“there’s Dr. Bendigo in his dogcart. He’s stopping at Dogkennel Cottages; someone must be sick there.”
Gerard glanced round, brought from his gloomy meditations by the doctor’s name. No allowance for a month, and forbidden to touch the piano! It was too hard! But maybe he could enlist the doctor on his side.
“Pull up, John,” he called to the coachman. “I want a word with Dr. Bendigo.”
Mrs. Pike bridled. “You should have asked leave of me, young man!” she said.
Gerard gave her a stare of contemptuous dislike. “I wish to ask the doctor about my cough,” he said, and jumped from the carriage before she could raise any objections.
After a few moments Dr. Bendigo—a weather-beaten, white-bearded man, very active in spite of his seventy-odd years—put his head in at the carriage window. “I’ll drive young Gerard home, Mrs. Peak, Puke, whatsyername, Pike—I’m going round by Barlton and Crouch, the second hour in the fresh air will do him nothing but good. He needs to get out more.”
“I don’t know—I’m sure—” began Mrs. Pike, displeased.
“Pshaw, ma’am, I’ve known the boy since he was born, brought him into the world! I’ll engage he comes to no harm. Why, I was used to drive his sister Ellen all over the country, week in, week out, when her poor mother was ailing. Well, Vicky, my dear, no more trouble from those chilblains now, eh?” And the doctor bustled away to his dogcart without waiting for an answer.
Four
Ellen and her godmother did not arrive in Paris until after dark. The journey from Lille onwards had been made by train. It was the first time that Ellen had traveled in this manner, for on her trips to England she had used the cheaper diligence and stagecoach; so all should have been absorbingly novel and interesting. Lady Morningquest had bespoken a private compartment, supplied with every luxury—foot warmers, eyeshades, traveling rugs, and reading matter; her maid and footman were next door, ready to provide luncheon baskets and tea baskets as required; Lady Morningquest herself carried a sherry flask in her dressing bag, and a supply of biscuits; yet in spite of these amenities Ellen found it a miserable journey. She still felt bruised and shocked to the core of her being.
That morning she had risen early and packed her possessions. They were not many, so the task did not occupy her for long. What proved more difficult was accommodating the dozens of last-minute gifts pressed on her by two-thirds of the school—by the cook, the gardener, the portress, the maids, the window cleaner, the other teachers, and her tearful pupils. Fruit, nosegays, handkerchiefs, bead purses, geraniums in pots, homemade cakes, lavender water, scented soap, jasmine essence—several of these offerings were so bulky they had to be left behind; others were packed into a large rush basket, since there was no room for them in her portmanteau.
Even harder were the explanations.
“You are going to Paris? But, Mam’selle Elène, why? And why so suddenly? Yesterday we knew nothing of this—and I do not believe you did either?”
“Somebody needs my services very badly,” Ellen had to keep repeating. “My godmother, Lady Morningquest, made a special application to Madame to allow me to go. And Madame very kindly permitted it. So now I must say good-bye to you, my dear, dear friends. But I will never forget you, and how happy I was here.”
Strangely enough, though she had hardly realized it before, she found this to be the simple truth. She had been happy in the rue St. Pierre; she loved this big, clean, lively school with its trampled fragrant garden, its not too intelligent pupils, its atmosphere of tolerant mediocrity. Though at first it had seemed terrifying and hostile, in six years it had become a haven. She grieved to go from it—and not only because of Monsieur Patrice. I shall remember those years for the rest of my life, she thought mournfully as she waited in the lobby for Lady Morningquest’s carriage. She looked through the glass doors at the bright classrooms, restored to everyday order, with children scurrying to lessons that she would not be teaching. While this place was my home, she thought, I still believed that life could be regulated by will; that, so long as one worked hard and behaved with prudence, it should be possible to attain one’s hoped-for ends—if they were within the bounds of reason and decorum. But I am not certain that I believe that any more.
All morning she had hoped for a glimpse of Monsieur Patrice—that he might return to say he had argued Madame out of her decision, that Ellen was not, after all, to go, that all might be as before. Or, at least, that he would come to say good-bye, and promise to write to her in Paris, say that he would be in touch, would not forget her! But he had not come.
“No one has left a note for me?” she inquired of Mathilde the portress, and hastily added, “My stepbrother is staying in Brussels.”
But there had been no note. Could she herself leave one? She could not possibly entrust it to Mathilde—the portress’s office was the main source of school gossip. Slip one in a book he had lent her, which she had entrusted to Charlotte Morningquest to return? Far too risky; Charlotte meant no harm, but her tongue ran like a mill clapper. Besides, even if she wrote a note, what could she say in it? Merely good-bye. She could express no hopes, no regrets; convention held her tongue-tied. Perhaps—her heart rose momentarily at the thought—perhaps she could write him from Paris. Merely a short descriptive letter—just to remind him of her new milieu. He went, she knew, sometimes to visit friends, colleagues at the Sorbonne; was it not conceivable that he might come to call at the Hôtel Caudebec? But that impulse died also; she could not address a letter to him at the school, where her handwriting was so well known and would cause instant comment; and she did not know his address at the Seminary where he was a Fellow.
I must put him out of my mind, Ellen resolved; and so, for an hour or two, she did, as first the carriage and then the train carried her farther and farther away from Brussels, across the flat willow-and-poplar-studded levels of Belgium and northern France. Instead she thought of her home. How inferior were these monotonous plains—even when, as now, stippled by pink-and-white blossoming orchards—to the infinite beauty and variety of Sussex, where she had been born and brought up. Wistfully she remembered the high grassy Downs, nibbled smooth by innumerable generations of sheep, crisscrossed by ancient trackways, Saxon, Roman, earlier still. On the lower slopes, now, the beech trees would be unfurling their silky light-green leaves; primroses would breathe fragrance in shady corners of hedge and woodland. The clear brooks running down from the chalk slopes would be flanked by watercress and celandine and glossy kingcups. Cuckoos would be calling…
When Ellen’s mother became bedridden, Dr. Bendigo had acquired the habit of taking the little girl out with him, sometimes for whole days at a time, as he drove about in his dogcart, visiting patients all over the countryside.
“Pshaw, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Paget, “she’s no trouble, not the least in the world. Indeed the lass is a decided help to me—her learned and elevating conversation keeps me from falling asleep at the reins. You are doing me a favor in allowing me her company, I promise you!”
And to Mrs. Paget’s day nurse, he had commented, “A house of sickness is no place for a growing bairn. It would be wrong for the child, at her age, to be a witness, day in, day out, of so much suffering. Hard for the mother too—there’s a strong attachment there. When the child’s out of the way she need not make so much effort to conceal her pain. Besides, the child’s of use to me with my more superstitious patients.”
Here he spoke no more than the truth. The fact that Ellen was the survivor of a pair of twins was, of course, well known in the district—her infant brother’s grave was there in Petworth churchyard as evidence—and, in consequence, quite a number of Dr. Bendigo’s rustic patients attributed supernatura
l curative powers to her, calling her a token maidy, or healer. Over and over again little Ellen, aged six, seven, and eight, had been invited into damp cottages, had stood by coughing children or rheumatic old men, or had sat gravely in the dogcart while more able-bodied sufferers limped out to touch her small grubby hand.
“For I wd not wish to expose her to Unnecessary Infection,” Dr. Bendigo confided to his medical journal. “Tho’ I congratulate myself on the Improvement of her own health, and her increased robustness since she has been receiving the benefit of so much time spent in the Fresh Air. And there can be no doubt as to her healing effect on some of my patients—Faith is a wonderful restorative! Old Ruffle has greater remission from pain after she’s been by him, than from any of my boluses or eclectics.”
Subsequently Dr. Bendigo earned a certain quiet renown from his paper published by the British Medical Association on “Faith-healing and Homeopathic Cures in a Rural Area of Southern England”—which success increased his fondness for Ellen. He was indeed greatly attached to the child and she to him; they conducted endless conversations as they rode about; she asked him all the questions she would never have dared put to her own father (who, absorbed at that time in his political aspirations, was hardly aware that his youngest daughter was spending thirty or forty hours a week with the doctor). Indeed, Ellen later felt that she owed the whole groundwork of her education to Dr. Bendigo, who was never too busy, tired, or preoccupied to answer her questions as fully and honestly as possible, whether they concerned plants, birds, and country lore—on which he was an authority—medical or legal matters, or more complicated moral problems. To these rides with the doctor Ellen also owed her extensive knowledge of every road and track for twenty miles around Petworth, and her friendship with a range and number of country people—farmers, laborers, woodsmen, gypsies—that would have startled even her mother and shocked her father to death.