by Joan Aiken
* * *
A few days later, Ellen, taking one of her first cautious walks, was somewhat taken aback to encounter Mrs. Pike herself. She had assumed that the housekeeper would have moved away, perhaps back to Chichester, where there would be more opportunities of employment; she could not avoid a feeling of dismay at sight of the familiar massively built white-haired figure, in opulent bonnet and fringed mantle, approaching majestically along Angel Street. However, there was no way to avoid the meeting, so she braced herself to speak and be civil.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pike. How do you do?”
“Not as well as I could wish, Miss Paget—thanks to your meddling, jealous, mean-minded sisters,” replied Mrs. Pike glacially. “There’s some folk who are never happy save when snatching the bread from others’ mouths. And, as I remarked to your sister Mrs. Bracegirdle, you may come to rue the day when she turned me off—like a scullery maid—who had looked after him as if he was an Emperor of China—and all for a pack of idle, nasty rumor.”
Ellen thought of Mrs. Pike’s own talebearing. But she said merely, “I am sorry. It was a very unfortunate business.”
“Mind! I wouldn’t come back now! Not if Mrs. Bracegirdle was to kneel on the cobbles before me with her mouth full of diamonds!”
“Well, then, perhaps matters are best as they are.”
Ellen would have liked to inquire after Mrs. Pike’s son, whether he had been recaptured, or perhaps escaped to the Americas, but realized that this would not be tactful.
“Best as they are? Humph! That’s as may be. You don’t look so peart!”
Mrs. Pike coldly surveyed Ellen up and down, then swept on her way. Sue told Ellen later that the housekeeper was lodging with a woman in Byworth, across the valley. “Though I don’t know, for sure, what keeps her here, where nobody can stand her!”
Perhaps, thought Ellen, she expects her son to come here (for Sue said there had been no news of his recapture). The thought was a somewhat uneasy one.
* * *
Housekeeping for such a reduced household was no difficult matter, for the maids went out of their way to make matters simple for Ellen. When in doubt she had recourse to a manual of her mother’s entitled The Family Economist, which offered practical advice on everything from cleaning decanters to preserving rhubarb. And the rector’s wife kindly lent her half a dozen issues of The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, which contained many instructive articles by Isabella Beeton.
“I see no occasion to hire another housekeeper when Papa returns,” Ellen said to Gerard. “We go on well enough. And Papa will be glad of the reduced expenditure.”
“Not a doubt of that,” he replied, shrugging.
Just now, the ménage was decidedly pressed for ready cash. Kitty, when she swept her father away, had not thought to make provision for his dependents beyond a couple of weeks; nor, it seemed, had Mr. Paget himself. Ellen wrote him, requesting a sum to pay the servants’ wages, but, receiving no reply, sent a note to Mr. Wheelbird asking if, in the meantime, sums could be advanced from her father’s bankers. Mr. Wheelbird came round to wait upon her and explain that this could not be done without her father’s written authority.
“I am sorry about it, Miss Ellen, but such is the case. It is not in my power to assist you.”
He did not seem particularly sorry; in fact she had the impression that he was quite pleased to be able to thwart her; perhaps he still remembered the undignified plight in which she had seen him last. He did, however, seem shocked at her appearance; he had gone quite pale as he came in, and she noticed that he seemed to dislike looking at her, keeping his gaze on the floor to one side of her, except when absolutely required to meet her eyes.
“Oh well, it can’t be helped,” said Ellen. “I will just have to write Papa again, and, in the meantime, meet the household expenses out of my own funds.”
These were dwindling fast; she resolved to write again without delay.
“Ah—Miss P-Paget,” said Mr. Wheelbird; his stammer, which had been in abeyance, suddenly returned. “You h-have been ill since I saw you last, and s-suffered m-misfortune—which I much regret; I d-don’t suppose you have had occasion to consider the matter which I m-mentioned to you?”
“I have thought about it, Mr. Wheelbird,” Ellen said gravely, “but I am afraid my answer is still in the negative. Indeed I doubt if I shall ever enter the matrimonial state. I shall care for Papa while—while he needs me; and then I plan to return to teaching.”
A sudden intense nostalgia suffused her, for the streets, the sounds, of Paris; the silence of the Hermitage seemed to imprison her like a bell jar.
Mr. Wheelbird’s pallor had changed to a dusky red; he said, with what seemed an overpowering impulse of fury and frustration, “You’ll not have me, eh? I reckon as how your papa has never seen fit to inform you about his will?”
“No. Why should he?” Ellen was startled. “Naturally he does not talk to me of such things.”
“Naturally! Well, it might interest you to know, Miss Paget, that he made a will leaving his fortune—apart from what is entailed upon your brother—all to Mrs. Pike. He said she was the only one as had shown disinterested kindness to him; you were capable of earning your own living, and your sisters had been given all they’d a right to expect. So, if you are planning to stay here in the expectation of a fortune, you had best set yourself to the task of persuading him to change his testamentary dispositions—if it ain’t already too late!”
“What can you mean?” she asked, quite shocked by the sudden unconcealed malice in his tone. “Papa is not likely to die—he is not ill?”
“No; but what if he ain’t in his right wits? A man can’t change his will if he is of unsound mind!”
With which parting broadside, Mr. Wheelbird walked out and slammed the door.
Ellen began mechanically rearranging the contents of her father’s desk—she had conducted the interview in his business room. She recalled that on her first arrival home, the papers had seemed in even greater disorder than usual; was the disorder such as might have been left by a deranged man, or merely that contingent upon a hasty departure?
Having set matters straight and paid the bills, Ellen wrote some letters of her own. There had been a note from Aunt Fanny: “Dearest child, I have been so Anxious about you & long to see you, but think I had best not at present, for I have a little head cold which you, in your Reduc’d state, might easily take, and then I wd never forgive myself! But I have a surprise which I shl take Pleasure in showing you, & shl beg your company as soon as we are both on the Mend.” Ellen wrote a loving note in reply, wishing her great-aunt a speedy recovery, and gave it to the garden boy to deliver. Then she answered kindly, solicitous inquiries from Lady Morningquest and Mrs. Clarke in Paris. Still no word from Germaine! But no doubt, thought Ellen with a sore heart, she is so busy and successful that she has scant time for correspondence.
There was a one-line note from Benedict. “Deeply regret to hear of your misfortune. If I can be of any assistance, pray command me. B.M.”
The note was from Matlock Chase, Derbyshire; had Benedict gone to his family seat to introduce Charlotte Morningquest to his brother? Ellen did not immediately answer it; she put it thoughtfully on one side.
* * *
Some weeks passed, during which Ellen slowly regained her strength. She remained pale and thin, but each day she could walk a little farther and take more interest in what was happening outside Petworth. She read in the paper that peace was almost concluded in Peking, that the French Empress had been visiting London incognito as Miss Montigo, shopping, and staying with the Duke of Hamilton; that meanwhile her husband, the Emperor, had actually assembled a real French Parliament with a right to talk and vote; the era of imperial despotism was coming to an end, it seemed. The intellect of France was at last to be set free. How happy they will all be—Germaine, Madame Sand, Gauti
er, Gavarni; perhaps Victor Hugo will now be allowed home from exile, thought Ellen. How I wish I could be there to see!
She expressed something of this to Gerard one night at supper, and he remarked, “Well, why don’t you go over to Paris for a holiday? You could stay with Aunt Morningquest—it would do you good. You still look as pale as a leek!”
Ellen was greatly tempted, but: “For one thing, I have hardly any money. And for another, I am anxious about Papa. I wish he would answer those letters I wrote him! And why do we not hear from Kitty?”
“Oh, Kitty never has time for anything but her own concerns,” growled Gerard. “Listen, Ellen—I believe we are on the track of the Doom Stone at last!”
“The Doom Stone?”
Ellen had almost forgotten her father’s obsession, which she had never taken very seriously. Now, it seemed, Gerard had caught the infection too.
“One of the stonemasons working in Chichester Cathedral is a friend of—a friend of Matt Bilbo. And he sent me word that they have found a corner of a carving protruding from the wall in a kind of undercroft below the nave, which they excavated while attempting to shore up the central piers of the tower. Exposing it further is a difficult and delicate business—in fact the architect is against attempting to do so—but only think if it were the stone! How delighted Father would be!”
“Are you going to write him about it?”
“Oh no. That might be to excite false hopes.”
Ellen felt touched that Gerard should display such consideration.
Next day she had a letter from Luke. She had not recognized the superscription when it arrived, for it was enclosed in another cover, written in a round, uneducated hand.
“Dear Miss Paget: I make Bold to write on behalf of your Papa & to send you this Paper. Miss what is being done is not Right & you shd know it. I ask you to Come and fetch your Pa away. Well you shd do This. It is not Christian what your Sister is doing. Please not to mention that I writ this or I shd be Turned off without a Character. Yrs respeckfully, Martha Alsop.”
Aghast, Ellen unfolded the dirty scrap of paper that was enclosed in Martha’s letter.
“Dear Ellen, pray come take me home from here. I do not like it here. Pray Mattie come take me home. If not I’ll have to run for it. Luke Paget.”
“Good God!” said Gerard when Ellen showed him the two letters. “What can have happened to him?”
“I shall have to go there and see. I plan to start tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll come too. You are hardly fit to travel alone—and the weather is vile; I read that in London the ice is ten inches thick on the Serpentine.”
“No, Gerard, I think you had best remain here. If we both arrive at Maple Grove, Kitty will be suspicious, and the fact that this Martha wrote might come out; but if I arrive and say I have come to take Papa home it will seem natural enough. And if he should run off—as he suggests—someone should be here to receive him.”
Also, she thought, we hardly have money for two railway fares.
“That’s true,” Gerard said thoughtfully. “The deuce! What can be going on?”
Ellen thought of the will, leaving Luke’s fortune to Mrs. Pike. Had Kitty discovered about that?
Next day—again bitterly cold and frosty—she traveled up to London. She would dearly have liked to spend some time there and visit a few bookstores, but thought it best to go straight on, in order to arrive at Kitty’s home by daylight. She sent a telegram from a London telegraph office (so that it would not be possible for Kitty to put her off), and then caught a train from St. Pancras station. Her spirits became lower and lower as it carried her through the flat, dismal Midlands, set in the iron grip of frost.
Fifteen
There was no one to meet Ellen when the small local train arrived at Coldmarsh, which was the nearest station to the village of Burley. This did not much surprise Ellen. She hired a fly, reflecting ruefully that she had now almost exhausted her small supply of cash; she would need to borrow from Kitty for the fare home.
A sudden fear assailed her: suppose Kitty and her husband were away, had decided to take Papa with them to some health resort? But the doubt was quashed almost as soon as it had arisen; after all, Martha Alsop had written from Burley; somebody must be there. She asked the driver of the fly if he knew whether the Bracegirdles were at home, but his reply came in so thick a Derbyshire accent that she could not understand him.
Dusk was falling when she reached Maple Grove. It was a large, new, ugly house, on the outskirts of a straggling semi-industrial village which contained a cloth mill, a small foundry, and a printing works; the prospect from the house was of factory chimneys and roofs set against a rough, shapeless hillside. None of the maples suggested by the name were to be seen, but a number of young coniferous trees had been planted around the house, intended presumably to exclude the dismal view; at present they were only ten feet high, and the house, made of liver-colored stone, stood awkwardly in the midst of them like an oversized, self-conscious child. Its garden, now caught in the grip of winter, was laid out with rigid formality, the beds railed off by iron hoops. Poor Kitty, thought Ellen, so fond of comfort and elegance; how can she endure to live here?
Having paid the jarvey with the last of her money, she rang the bell. The door was answered by a plain strong-faced woman in apron and cap; an instant flash of comprehension crossed her face when she heard Ellen’s name, but all she said was “Please to step this way, miss, and I’ll see if Missis is at home.”
Ellen was ushered into a gloomy little closet of a room while the maid went up a broad flight of stairs to the floor above. Ellen glanced about her curiously. All the furnishings—carpet, curtains, tables, chairs—were new, solid, of good quality, and hideous; Kitty must have absorbed her husband’s taste completely, for none of them were things she would ever have chosen when she was single.
Now Kitty herself came down the stairs, rustling importantly in a heavy flounced pink satin evening dress with a long frilled and beribboned train; she wore elbow-length white gloves and her hair was elaborately dressed and frizzed in front. Her cheeks were flushed with annoyance.
“Ellen! We received your telegram only an hour since! What in the world brings you here? There was no occasion for you to come! We did not send for you. And your arrival is not at all convenient; Samuel and I are on the point of going out to dine with Sir Marcus Bagnall at Draycott Hall.”
“Well, never mind!” said Ellen. “I daresay your housekeeper can find me a bit of bread and cheese? I have come to take Papa home; but if you are just going out, we can talk about it tomorrow.”
“Take Papa home? There can be no question of that! Sam cannot think what caused you to come here—it is most vexatious!”
“Well, I suppose,” said Ellen temperately, “that you can at least give me a bed for the night? I am rather tired! And perhaps I can talk to Papa and see how he feels about it?”
“Talk to—well, I don’t know about—it is not at all—oh, good gracious, as if I had not enough to plague me—” Then, seeming to observe her younger sister’s appearance for the first time: “Tired? Yes, I should think you are! It was most imprudent of you to make such a journey, in your present state of health. How came you to do such a thing?”
“Oh, I am really much better—indeed, quite recovered. And now all at home is running smoothly since Mrs. Pike departed—”
“Mrs. Pike!” Kitty almost spat out the name. “That woman! But we can’t go into all that now… Alsop, make up a bed for my sister in the Pink Room. Light a fire and take her some supper there. You look like a wrung-out clout, Ellen, you had best go to bed directly.” Kitty had fallen back automatically into the half good-natured, half bullying manner of the past.
“Well, I would be glad to; and thank you,” said Ellen. “But may I not first see Papa? Does he accompany you to dinner with Sir Marcus?”
&nb
sp; “Good God, no! Certainly not. No, you cannot see him tonight—he has already retired.”
Sam Bracegirdle came stumping down the stairs at this moment, settling a black evening jacket more comfortably on his thickset frame.
“Now then, what’s all this caper?” Without the least pretense at any kind of welcome, he eyed Ellen disapprovingly, and added, “Infirmary ward’s the place for you, my girl, by the look of you—not gadding about the countryside! Well, there’s no time for argufication now; come on, Kitty, the carriage is waiting. We’ll talk to you in the morning, miss; meantime, as Kitty says, best gan off to bed.”
And he hustled Kitty away down the stairs, grabbed a fur wrap from a maid, and, bundling it round his wife, thrust her out of the front door.
Ellen was left to wait in a large drawing room filled with opulent stuffed and fringed upholstery while her bedroom was prepared; then the maid, Alsop, reappeared, said, “Will you please to step this way, miss?” and led her up to the next story.
In the bedroom, with door closed: “It was you who wrote me?” said Ellen.
“Yes, miss—but for anything’s sake, don’t let that out! I’d have my notice in an hour! And then there’d be no one to take the poor old gentleman’s part!”
“But what is happening? What are they doing to him? Can I not see him—where is he?”
“His room’s on this floor, miss—the door across the landing from yours—but you can’t go in. Master’s man keeps the key.”
“You mean that my father is locked in?”
“Ay, indeed, miss, he is, and niver allowed out. And the food he gets not enough to feed a bare golly!”
“But why? I can hardly believe it!”
“Something about a will, miss; that’s all I know.”
Ellen felt a cold chill of foreknowledge; in a flash she saw what must have occurred. Kitty had somehow learned about the legacy to Mrs. Pike; perhaps Mrs. Pike herself, in her rage, had made the disclosure; or Mr. Wheelbird had told Kitty, as he had later told Ellen. And of course, if Kitty had begun to storm and demand of her father that the will be changed, matters would swiftly have reached a crisis; Luke’s obstinacy would have met head on with his daughter’s and deadlock would soon have been reached.