by Joan Smith
“I never saw a crow with such a colorful crown, ma’am,” I said.
“That is odd you should say so. Henri was telling me yesterday how well my hair matched my name, for it gives me a crown, he said.”
At that time, I did not know Madame’s first name. Seeing my little confusion, she enlightened me. “Regina is my name. It means ‘Queen.’ My mama must have had royal aspirations for me. She was a dreamer. She always wanted the best for me. She died when I was young,” she said, with a sad, wistful look on her little white face. “How happy she would be to see me now, all dressed up so fine, and having my portrait taken. We were not very well off. I always longed for a life like this,” she said. “We had wealthy family connections, you know, but we were the poor-relations.”
She spoke very frankly about her past, admitted to a girlish glee in all her new finery. It was rather difficult to dislike her in this intimate mood. “I only stopped in for a moment to check up on the nursery during Robert’s absence. Is everything all right?”
“Yes, we are making excellent progress.”
“Bobby,” she called looking toward him.
She used a loud voice. I was sure he must have heard, and expected to see him look about to locate her. There was some stiffening of his shoulders that betrayed his having heard, but he did not turn around. The shoulders stiffened, then with slow deliberation he kneeled down and began to push a wagon along the floor. Madame rolled up her eyes to express her commiseration with my difficult task.
I demanded in a loud, firm voice that he come forward and say good day to Mrs. Palin. He came slowly, resentfully. She put out a hand to him. He glared at it, almost frightened. I noticed then that she was wearing the mourning ring.
“Say hello, Bobby,” I ordered.
“Don’t bother, Jane. It is no matter,” she said, but she was unhappy with the child, offended, hurt perhaps, at his obvious dislike.
I sought to detain her a little longer, hoping to advance the friendship. “I notice you are not wearing the Palin diamond necklace,” I mentioned.
“Henri says emeralds match my eyes better. Robert will agree, I think.” I could hardly fail to notice she was already on a first-name basis with the handsome young artist. The remark too indicated he had been showering her with exaggerated compliments. The inferior and lighter stone peridot was closer to the quality of madame’s eyes.
“Oh, and you are wearing the mourning ring!” I exclaimed, as though just noticing it. We both looked at it. The black diamond tablet caught the light but held it, rather than reflecting it like a white, faceted diamond. The setting was silver or white gold, antique, elaborate.
“I had to make some token obeisance to family tradition,” she replied, “and you know I do not believe in the superstitious drivel surrounding it. I shall also carry on in the manner of the Palin ladies by including some treasured object. I wish it could be my mare, but Henri says absolument non, he does not do horses. He has decreed a Meissen statuette of a tiger instead, to show my connection with the wilds of Africa. I informed him they do not have tigers in Africa, but only in Asia. No matter, he declares I am part savage, and as we have no statue of a lion, he will use a tiger. He is quite a dictator, but vastly amusing. Also impatient. I must dash off. Take care, Jane.”
She was gone, with only a whiff of her scent left behind to remind me of the visit. I turned to Bobby. He had returned to his toys, but looked to see if I was alone. “Bad girl,” he said, arising and coming toward me, with his sulky expression firmly in place.
I had found her more likable, more natural than usual. She had a great deal of charm, really. There was a kind of glamour, excitement, hanging about her, with her foreign travel, her beautiful clothing and jewelry, and even her possible flirtations with other gentlemen. I could not seem to rid my mind of her.
“Naughty boy too,” I told him. “You should have said good morning to your ...” I stopped, not knowing what term was used between them. I did not think it was “mama.”
“Bad girl,” he repeated. I felt sure he referred to Mrs. Palin, because he was inching closer to me, with a tentative look he wore when he wished to make up after some little infraction of my rules. He had not yet progressed to the state where I could expect an explanation of his cryptic remark.
“Miss Bingie read now,” he decided, dragging me toward the padded chair.
He sat on my knee, his fingers clutching at my skirts, as though for comfort. It was a few moments before he was calm enough to show any interest in our story. The visit had upset him, but after a while, we were able to resume our progress of the day before.
It was heartening to see the intelligent look of concentration on his face as he tried to remember the names of the objects learned the day before. Heartening too that he had such good recall. Without a good memory, the learning process would be slow indeed. When the lunch tray came, he took up his fork with no more than a mutinous glance at me for insisting on this foolishness.
I looked forward to my break that afternoon with a good deal of interest. I had arranged to go to the attics with Molly to examine madame’s African artifacts. They, would have been interesting enough in themselves, but she had told me Rosalie was interested in them, which made them more intriguing still, raised their importance for me. It was possible to feel close to her at such times, to know I stood or sat where she had stood or sat, that I did the same things, shared certainly to some extent her sensations.
To hurry up her break, I took up a dishcloth and helped to wipe the dishes, leading Cook to scold me roundly, though she was actually pleased that I was a willing worker, “unlike some people,” she added loudly after Bess’s retreating form. Bess, an upstairs maid, was quite unhappy at being hinted into doing the dishes.
“I don’t know why you young girls are so keen on looking at them heathen relics,” she nagged cozily. “I saw them once. Wild animals with bits of bone sticking out a foot before their noses, and statues a decent Christian wouldn’t give space in his cellar. It’s a caution. The master knew what to do with them—put them straight out of sight. Look your fill, girls, but don’t damage her foreign bits and pieces, or she’ll have your heads served up on plates like a pair of martyrs. She’s very fond of them things, the mistress. I know I don’t have to tell you not to take anything, for you’re both good girls.”
I remembered that Rosalie had been interested in the African things, and had been accused of stealing. I had to ask the question, though I disliked revealing too keen an interest in my predecessor. “Did someone take something, Cook?” I asked, skirting the main issue.
“I don’t know that anything was actually missing, but madame raised a great hue and cry when Miss Thompson got into her boxes of books and papers from Africa. She don’t like tampering with those, but they’d be of no interest to you in any case. She says she’s going to give them to some scholar or other she knows that’s writing up a book on Africa. She’s had a couple of years to do it in, but in any case, there’s nothing of the least interest to you in the lot, Miss Bingham. Just maps and notes her father made.”
“It’s really the lion’s head I want to see,” I replied, while my blood coursed a little faster through my veins at learning of this altercation between maid and mistress.
“If you figure they’re worth two flights of stairs, you’re welcome to them. A lion and another wild beast she toted all the way home from Africa, what for I’ll never know. Don’t forget to be back here in time to peel the vegetables, Molly,” she added, as we put away the last of the dishes and hung up our towels.
“I’ll be here,” Molly promised.
We went upstairs by the servants’ route till we reached the next level, then along the hallway to the main part of the building.
“This is it,” Molly told me, stopping at a doorway just at the corner, the first door in the family wing. There was a sliding bolt locking the door. The attics were large, bright due to the row of gabled windows, and very cold indeed. The space w
as partitioned by thin walls into three large rooms containing archways, but no doors had been hung.
“It’s only this main part of the house’s attics that are used for storage. On the wings, us servants sleep on the top floor,” my companion told me.
“Are your rooms as cold as this?” I asked, shivering.
“Some of us have got grates. I came down with a wicked cough when I first came here, and Mrs. Palin moved me into a room with a grate. That was the first Mrs. Palin,” she added, with a meaningful dart from her brown eyes.
I looked around at the accumulated castoffs of the past few hundred years. Madame’s African acquisitions were nowhere in sight. “They’re in the last room,” Molly said, walking through the open archway into another long, cold chamber, this one holding trunks and racks of clothing, all covered with dust sheets. “There’s not room to swing a cat up here,” she scolded. “I don’t know why folks go on saving up such a lot of rubbish. I looked under them sheets once and there’s gowns under there must be a hundred years old. They belong in a museum.”
We entered the last room, only partially filled as yet. In one corner, mounted on the wall, hung a pair of wild animals that might have frightened a dragoon. One was the lion’s head, a male lion, with a dusty mane and a fierce snarl, showing his pointed teeth. His eyes were made of an amberlike material, black at the center. The other was, I believe, a wild boar. It was a dark gray in color, smaller than a lion, but sporting a formidable pair of tusks. I hesitated to go a step closer to them, for they were very lifelike. Molly, emboldened by former visits, danced forward and patted the lion on the nose. “Rosalie called them Darby and Joan,” she said, “because they’re fated to hang here forever, side by side. Old Darby won’t hurt you, Jane. Look, I can put my fingers right in his mouth, and he won’t bite, but Joan might be jealous.”
I joined her in front of these two specimens, feeling no admiration for them, or for the hunter who had killed them either. “Mrs. Palin’s father killed them in Africa,” she told me.
“I suppose they are valuable. They should be covered, don’t you think, instead of allowed to gather dust here? They are becoming quite decrepit-looking. It must be the dust that accounts for it.”
“The sooner they fall apart, the better,” was her opinion, one in which I concurred. “Look, the lion is losing his hair, becoming mangy.”
“Yes, these must have been killed a long time ago. I wonder how long they were in Africa. What else is in the collection?”
“Some awful-looking statues and masks in that box,” she said, pointing to a tall carton. “We’re allowed to look at them,” she added.
We were soon doing so. I expect it was their nakedness that gave them such a bad character in Cook’s view. There was no sparing of the sexual characteristics in either the male or female reproductions. They were done in some dark wood, crudely done, and not at all beautiful in my opinion, though with of course some interest due to their origin. It was strange to think of some primitive tribe sitting down to create a statue, with what tools I could not even imagine. The masks were quite simply frightening. They had not been made to be worn; they were too large and heavy for that, carved out of wood. They must have served some ceremonial or religious function in the tribe.
“Is this all there is?” I asked.
“This is the lot. The cartons of books and papers she doesn’t want us tampering with, but me and Rosalie took a peek once, and it isn’t at all interesting.”
I was much inclined to disagree with her, but I would return alone to discover the secret of the more interesting cartons. I knew where to find them now. We put the statuettes back, each carefully wrapped in its old newspapers for protection, and returned belowstairs. Bess was just passing the attic door as we came down. She walked toward the family bedrooms, stopping at madame’s doorway.
“She’ll run right in and tell madame we were up there,” Molly prophecied. “I don’t trust that Bess. You shouldn’t either, Jane.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t say nothing, but she goes in your room. I caught her coming out of it once, the night you got here. I don’t mean to say she’d steal, but what was she in there for? Prying and poking around.”
“Just curious, as I am new here, I suppose,” I answered, satisfied to know at least who had made that visit.
“She’s in madame’s pocket,” Molly said, casting a resentful glance down the empty hall.
Chapter Nine
The visit upstairs had not taken more than half an hour. “Why don’t you come into my room for a chat?” Molly offered. Determined to befriend her, I accepted eagerly. Her room did indeed boast a grate, but there was no fire lit in it during the day, when she was usually in the kitchen. We sat huddled on the bed with a comforter around our shoulders. Before long, she was opening drawers to show me her treasures, in the customary way of a couple of girls who are bent on becoming close friends. I dutifully admired an abridged version of the Bible, given her last Christmas by Cook, noting with amusement that it was still wrapped in its silver paper, unthumbed and unread. “It’s too good to read,” she said simply. “I don’t want to get it dirty.” She showed me a small pearl ring given her by an aunt once in a will, which she wore for special occasions. A few other such items were presented, then she drew out a small cardboard box that rattled as she approached the bed.
“Mrs. Steyne gave me these,” she said. “They’re genuine silver.”
I had an eerie premonition what would be in the box, even before she handed it to me. There, jiggling loose in the bottom, were the six sterling-silver memorial buttons that had once decorated Rosalie’s tweed suit. “How pretty. Where did Mrs. Steyne get them?” I asked, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.
“She found them in the wastebasket in Martin’s room. They must have come off some of madame’s gowns that was being altered or repaired. Imagine throwing them out! Genuine silver. Every one is stamped, you see?”
I lifted one, turning it over to read the words I knew would be there. “They must be valuable. I wonder why she didn’t keep them for another outfit?”
“She’s wickedly extravagant, that madame. She wouldn’t want to use old buttons, but I’m surprised Martin didn’t get a hand on them for herself. I don’t suppose she’d know genuine silver to see it, or she’d have held onto them. Mrs. Steyne, she could tell by the weight they were real silver. She gave them to me for my birthday.”
This led naturally to the question I was burning to ask. “When is your birthday, Molly?”
“The end of September. When’s yours, Jane?”
“August. It was lucky Martin threw out the buttons just in time for your birthday.”
“Mrs. Steyne got them a week earlier, and saved them for me. She gave me a pretty set of ribbons too, for my hair.” She was off to show me these treasures, leaving me free to observe that the buttons had turned up very shortly after Rosalie’s departure. It was entirely unlikely she had cut the buttons from her suit before leaving. If she had done so, it would be for the purpose of putting them on some other outfit. She would never have discarded them. Besides, they were found in Martin’s wastebasket. What could have happened to the suit itself? And if something had happened to that one gown, what of the others?
“Was there anything else of value in Martin’s wastebasket?” I asked.
“Not of real value, according to Mrs. Steyne. Martin had been doing some cleaning out of madame’s wardrobe that day. There were other things, she said, but only ordinary cheap white bone buttons and that sort of thing. She kept them in her button bottle. She doesn’t waste a thing, horn and hoof, that’s what she says about housekeeping. If you’re needing aught in the way of buttons or hooks or elastic, Jane, don’t waste your money to buy it. Mrs. Steyne has her sewing box full of such items. Even the odd bit of lace. A dab of lace would look well on your blue suit for a Sunday.”
“I’ll speak to Mrs. Steyne about it. These are really lovely,
Molly. You should put them on your best gown. You don’t want to lose them.”
“I have nothing fine enough to suit them. Genuine silver,” she said, casting a fond glance at them. “I might get a new outfit made up for Christmas. Can you sew, Jane?” she asked hopefully. I felt the next question would be a request for help.
“Yes, I make my own gowns. I would be happy to help you, if you like.”
“That would be grand. We’ll have a look at the drapers on Saturday when we go into Widecombe, shall we?”
“That sounds fine.”
“Let’s go and have a cup of tea before Bobby comes back.”
“Yes, let’s. I am becoming an addict to Cook’s potent brew.”
“You sure talk funny, Jane,” she said, shaking her head. “Such a lot of words as you know. Rosalie talked like that too. More like a lady than a servant. Of course, she had a rich aunt, and your pa was a minister. It’s the education that does it. I wish I knew all those words.”
“You can pick up a lot of words by just listening,” I said, but I disliked these repeated mentions of my reminding her of Rosalie. If the simple Molly noticed it, how long would it be before the others too picked up some resemblance? I must remember to erase any resemblance from my sister in my mannerisms, my speech. We went together to the kitchen. Mrs. Steyne was already there, chatting with Cook. It was Monsieur Arouet and the portrait that were under discussion.
“He’s painting her in the drawing room. Martin is with them the whole time, so Mr. Palin won’t have any cause for complaint,” Mrs. Steyne was explaining to the eager Cook.
“She didn’t hint for you to put him up here?” Cook asked.
“Oh no, he stays at Widecombe, at the inn. He’ll be having his lunch here on some days, madame tells me. On the fine days she means to turn him off at noon, and go for her ride. Madame wouldn’t want to miss her rides. She is an excellent horsewoman.”
“If the Frenchie does a hallways decent job at all, Mr. Palin ought to get himself painted while he is here,” was Cook’s next idea.