by Joan Smith
After dinner, Lady Jane said she would bring Roberta down, but Delsie asked if she might go up to her instead. She wished the first meeting with the girl to be informal, in private, that she would not feel constrained to be stiff because of the onlookers. Her experience of children told her this was the better way to start off the friendship.
“A good idea,” Max agreed. “As I have already spoken to her of you, I shall make the introduction, if you have no objection?” He was overly careful, she thought, of consulting her on these matters since she had given him the hint.
“None in the world,” she replied, and they went together to the room Roberta was using as hers during the stay at the Dower House. She was a very ordinary-looking child. Mousy brown hair in pigtails, eyes distressingly like her father’s, but she had a winning smile, the absence of front teeth emphasizing the childish, vulnerable air.
“This is the lady I told you about, Bobbie,” he said. “Your new mother, Mrs. Grayshott.”
Delsie watched with amusement and a pang of sympathy as the child clung to deVigne’s fingers, jiggling back and forth shyly, while casting little peeps at herself.
“We’re going to be good friends,” Delsie said encouragingly, and put out her hand.
A little set of pink fingers reached out to take it. “Are you a wicked stepmother?” the girl asked, not in a condemning way at all, but in a spirit of curiosity.
“I hope not indeed!”
“I believe I may have inadvertently used the term stepmother,” deVigne explained.
“The ‘wicked,’ I trust, was her own invention?”
“All stepmothers are wicked,” Bobbie told her conclusively. “They step on you. I hope you’re not a hard stepper.”
“I shall try not to be as wicked as most,” Delsie assured her, then led her to the edge of the bed to sit down, to remove the obstacle of height. “I never beat little girls, or starve them, or hardly ever lock them in a dungeon, if they behave well.”
“Max has a dungeon,” she was told. “He’ll never lock me in it.”
“You must show it to me one day. I’ve never seen a dungeon,” Delsie answered.
“I will. It’s got big thick doors and no windows. It’s black as coal.”
“It sounds lovely.”
“It is. I wouldn’t care if you locked me up in it forever. And you can’t turn my papa against me, because he’s dead,” Bobbie added, knowing the role of stepmothers very well.
“I think I may safely leave you two adversaries to discover each other’s evil propensities,” Max said with a smile, and left. He returned below to announce that the two were in a fair way to becoming acquainted.
“She will know how to handle the child,” Jane informed him with satisfaction.
* * * *
As Roberta did not dwell on the subject of her father’s death, Delsie was happy to avoid it, and spoke bracingly of future projects they would undertake together. She was promised a view of not only a dungeon, but a walking doll and a dog who had fleas. While the last-named did not sound very exciting, she was eager to see the dungeon and the walking doll.
When the governess came to prepare Bobbie for bed, Delsie told her that for this one occasion she would like to perform this chore, to prolong the meeting. She saw that the child was in sore need of mothering, for her garments, outside of her dress, were small for her, and in poor repair. The two got on well together, the older sensing in her new charge that same unsettled quality she had experienced herself, and an eagerness to attach herself to someone.
It was close to an hour before she returned below-stairs to find deVigne just leaving. “I shall spend the night at the Cottage,” he told her.
“The Cottage? What in the world for?” Lady Jane inquired. “The Bristcombes are there.”
“They are old-fashioned,” Max replied. “Mrs. Bristcombe, I noticed, was putting a dish of salt on the coffin to keep the corpse from rising, and as she follows the old customs, she will likely light a candle to propitiate Satan as well. We do not want Mrs. Grayshott’s house to be burned to the ground before ever she moves in.”
These old folkways were well known to Delsie, but for herself, she would not much have cared if the house did burn down. She did not in the least look forward to removing to it.
After deVigne had left, Sir Harold asked her for a game of chess. This sounded preferable to further lessons on Milton, and she was happy to oblige him, for it always fagged her brain to the point where sleep came easily.
Chapter Six
The next few days passed with a mixture of joy, embarrassment, and serene contentment. They were never boring. The meetings with the funeral callers were a strain. There was no denying that fact; even with the family at her back she felt foolish to be presented as the bride of a dead man nearly old enough to be her father, one, besides, whom she scarcely knew. But as wise old Lady Jane had predicted, prying questions were kept to a minimum.
Delsie smiled to herself to see deVigne poker up, pinch in his nostrils and say “Indeed?” when a neighbor from the far side of the hill began a discussion on her shock at reading of the affair in the papers. She knew Jane was also busy visualizing dead rats, for she would hear all about it after the company had left.
Few questions were directed to herself, and those that were, she fielded easily enough, for she wore a downcast, bewildered face, and the quizzing was not severe.
The periods with Bobbie were joyful. Such a blessed relief to have the throng of children to which she was accustomed, mostly rowdy boys too, reduced to one fairly well behaved girl, who already looked to her as a surrogate mother, and was beginning to run to her with her secrets and problems. Time was found for a few walks in the afternoon with her stepdaughter, to further the acquaintance.
When the callers were done with, the family would gather back at the Dower House to sit and gossip and even—it seemed incredible—to laugh occasionally. This, in her private thoughts, Delsie considered the happy hour. With the day’s duties done, she could relax. She had quickly come to the stage where she was perfectly at ease with Lady Jane, and no longer on tenterhooks with deVigne, though they still addressed each other formally, with always that “Mrs. Grayshott” irking her. Then there was dinner, a formal meal, whose elegancies she was able to appreciate now as she had not on that first, dreadful day of her wedding.
She had been married on Sunday. The funeral was Thursday. On Friday the idyll was over. DeVigne came over after breakfast to take her to the Cottage, her new home. “I’ll tell Miss Milne to prepare Bobbie’s things,” she said, and excused herself.
“I’m sorry to see them go,” Lady Jane said to her nephew. “It was good to have a spot of company. Harold is as dumb as a dog, unless I let him talk my ear off about Rome or Greece. It was a wise move, Max, to push this marriage.”
“It seems to be working out very well for us. I can’t imagine Mrs. Grayshott will be as happy at the Cottage as she has been here with you.”
“How happy can she have been in Questnow? What a strange, lonely life the girl has led. Little things she says betray her, you know, like how pleasant it is to have company for her meals. She must have eaten all alone, I suppose, since her mama’s passing. Imagine that ninny of a Harold having known Strothingham all along and not telling us. We might have made her acquaintance years ago.”
“She was living in a very mean sort of an apartment. Remarkable she is so refined.”
“I was happily surprised with her liveliness. I had not suspected vivacity from her, for she was such a dowdy little dresser, but she is very conversable. I like her excessively.”
The widow soon returned below with Bobbie and Miss Milne, the three of them to be taken in deVigne’s carriage to the Cottage. Once there, he did no more than make her acquainted with her housekeeper before leaving, saying he would return later in the day.
“You will find plenty to keep you busy,” he said, glancing around at the somber surroundings. “But I shan’t volunteer an
y suggestions, knowing you like to make your own decisions.” This was said in a rallying tone, but it did not rally her. She felt utterly depressed, and the large beef-faced woman standing before her in a soiled apron did nothing to cheer her up.
“I’ll take my leave now, Mrs. Grayshott,” deVigne bowed, and went to the door. Delsie looked helplessly to the governess and Bobbie, fast disappearing up the stairs, then after deVigne. She took a step after him, wishing she could run right out the door and go back to the Dower House. As she realized what she had done, she continued after him, as though, it had been her intention to accompany him to the front door.
“Don’t despair,” he said in a kindly tone. “This was used to be a fine and attractive home a few years ago, when my sister was alive. You will make it so again in a very short time, I am convinced. Be firm with the Bristcombes. They have fallen into slovenly habits with Andrew not watching them as he ought.” Mrs. Bristcombe stood with her arms crossed, staring at them suspiciously, beyond earshot. Then deVigne was gone, and Delsie turned back to face her future.
Be firm, he had said, and firmness was clearly needed here. “Have you any orders, miss?” Mrs. Bristcombe asked, an insolent expression settling on her coarse features as soon as deVigne was gone.
“Yes, the title is ma’am, not miss,” Delsie said in her firmest teacher’s voice, “and I shall have a great many orders. The first is that you put on a clean apron, and not wear a soiled one in my house again.”
“They don’t stay clean long in the kitchen,” the woman replied tartly, scanning her new mistress from head to toe in a very bold fashion. She had not behaved so when deVigne was with them.
“Then you must have several, to provide yourself a change, must you not?”
“Muslin costs money.”
“All of three shillings a yard, for that quality. I shall buy some, and you will have it made into aprons.”
Mrs. Bristcombe’s steely eyes narrowed, but she pulled in her horns. “What’ll you have for lunch?” she asked.
“What have you got in the house?”
“There’s cold mutton, and a long bill overdue at the grocer’s, while we’re on the subject.”
“Why has it not been paid?”
“The master’s been sick, as you might have heard,” she replied with a heavy sarcasm, to reveal her opinion of the marriage.
“Prepare your accounts and present them to me in the study this afternoon, if you please. The mutton will do for luncheon, with an omelette. You know how to prepare an omelette?” Delsie asked, to retaliate for the former insult.
The woman sniffed, and Mrs. Grayshott continued asserting her authority. “I am going to make a tour of the house. There is no need for you to accompany me. Miss Roberta will come with me.”
“You won’t find it in very good shape.”
“So I assumed,” Delsie replied, looking around her. “I understood girls were sent down from the Hall to tidy the place up.”
“They’ve changed the linen upstairs and cleaned up the yellow guest room for you.”
“Thank you, but I am not a guest in this house, Mrs. Bristcombe. I shall notify you what chamber I wish cleaned for me. Good day.” She turned and swept up the stairs, resolved not to let that Tartar get the upper hand of her, though she was weak from nervousness after the encounter.
She walked along the upstairs hall till she heard voices. Bobbie and Miss Milne were putting off their pelisses, and she requested Bobbie to show her around the house. “I’ll show you my room first,” Bobbie said proudly. “This is it.”
“I thought you would still be in the nursery,” Delsie answered. The room was not unpleasant, but it was not a child’s room. The furnishings were of dark oak, the window hangings and canopy of a somber, dusky blue. The paintings on the walls were also dark and not likely to appeal to a child.
“I wondered when I came that she was not in the nursery,” Miss Milne mentioned, “but I was told this is her room.”
“Mrs. Bristcombe told you?” Mrs. Grayshott inquired, in a voice a little taut.
“Yes, ma’am. I took my directions from her. I seldom spoke to Mr. Grayshott.”
“I had to leave the nursery last year, ‘cause I couldn’t sleep with all the noise,” Bobbie told them. Delsie thought this referred to noises made by a drunken father, and asked no more questions, but the child spoke on. “Mrs. Bristcombe said it was the pixies in the orchard,” she said, her eyes big. “Daddy said it was the pixies too, so I got this nice room, like a grown-up.”
“In the orchard?” Delsie asked, surprised that Mr. Grayshott would be allowed out of the house drunk. One would have thought his valet or Bristcombe would have kept him in. She must ask Lady Jane about this.
“I have thought I heard noises outside myself, from time to time,” Miss Milne said, rather hesitantly, as though she were unsure whether she should speak. “If you won’t be needing me right away, ma’am, I’ll go to my room and unpack.”
“Go ahead.” The girl left, with a rather shy smile. She would make a friend. It was a good feeling, to have one person of her own age and sex in the house, one not too far removed from her in breeding as well. The girl seemed polite and well behaved. Her chief interest, however, was in her new stepdaughter, and she turned to her with a determined smile. “How about showing me that walking doll you spoke of? I never heard of a doll who can walk. Do we have to hold her hands and pull her along?”
“Oh, no, she walks all by herself,” Bobbie boasted. “Daddy made her for me. Well, he didn’t ‘zactly make her. He bought a plain doll, and Mommy cut her stomach open, and Daddy put in some little wheels, and now she can walk.” As she spoke she went to a shelf where a considerable quantity of stuffed toys were set out, the only concession to the room’s being inhabited by a child. “Daddy was very smart, before Mommy died. He made a secret drawer in Mommy’s dresser that opens with a hidden button.”
She selected a doll dressed in a sailor’s uniform, reached under the jacket to wind a key, and, when the doll was set on the floor, it took half a dozen jerky steps before toppling over. “He doesn’t walk too good,” Bobbie said, setting it back up for another dozen steps.
“How ingenious! Your daddy made this?” Delsie asked, sure the child was inventing this story. But when she took the doll up, she saw that the stuffed body had indeed been slit open and sewed up.
“He made me a cat that shook her head too, but I broke her,” Bobbie said, then took the doll to throw it on the bed. “Next I’ll show you Mama’s room. It’s the nicest one. I think you should use it, only it’s quite far away from mine.”
They walked half the length of the hall, then Bobbie opened a door into a lady’s chamber of considerable elegance, though the elegance had begun to fade. It was done in rose velvet, the window and bed hangings still in good repair, but very likely full of dust. The furniture was dainty French in design, white-painted, with gilt trim. There was a makeup table with lamps, an escritoire—such a room as Delsie had only dreamed of. The late Mrs. Grayshott’s belongings were still laid out—chased-silver brushes, cut-glass perfume bottles, and a whole battery of pots and trays holding creams, powders, and the accessories to a lady’s toilette. “Let us see the yellow room Mrs. Bristcombe made up for me,” Delsie said, with a last, longing look at this room.
“It’s this way, next to mine,” Bobbie told her, and led her to a good room, square, but with none of the finery of the lady’s chamber. Like Bobbie’s, it faced the west side of the house, away from the orchard. “You won’t be bothered by the pixies either,” Bobbie told her.
“Likely that’s why she put you here. Miss Milne sleeps right next door.”
They did not disturb Miss Milne, but went along to look into other chambers, the master bedroom (which opened through an adjoining door into the late Mrs. Grayshott’s suite) being the end of the tour.
“Since you’re my mama now, I think you should sleep in here,” Bobbie said firmly.
It was all the induc
ement Delsie needed to make the charming chamber her own, and she said, “I think so too, but then I shall be away from you and Miss Milne. Let us look again at the room next to your mama’s.”
“It’s the primrose suite,” Bobbie said, and entered again, enjoying very much playing the guide.
“This is one of my favorites,” Delsie said involuntarily, looking at the spring-like walls, sprigged with flowers. The curtains were done in apple green with white tassels, and the furniture light and graceful. “I wonder you were not moved into this room,” Delsie mentioned.
“It’s on the wrong side. The pixies,” Bobbie answered.
“I have a feeling the pixies won’t bother us any longer,” she answered with a smile. “Stepmothers, you know, are very powerful creatures, and the pixies never bother us. Miss Milne could use the room next door to yours, and we three would all be close together for company.” This seemed important to the widow, to be not too far removed from other life in the house.
“Let’s move my stuff, then,” Bobbie suggested at once.
“We’ll speak to Miss Milne first, shall we?” This was done, with the practical suggestion coming from Miss Milne that the chambers be cleaned and aired first. When Miss Milne went for dustcloths and brooms, Delsie found herself at loose ends, and to get in the morning, she took to herself the chore of doing up her own room. It was a pleasure to restore the lovely furnishings to their proper state of gloss, to clean the mirror and polish those cut-glass bottles, to arrange her few gowns in the clothes press. She would have the hangings taken down and the carpet raised for beating before the snow began to fly. The hours till luncheon flew past happily.
“Can I eat with you, Mama?” Bobbie asked when the job was done.
“I hope you don’t plan to make me eat alone!” Delsie exclaimed. No other course had occurred to her. “Miss Milne, you will join us as well, I hope?”
Miss Milne seemed pleased at the invitation, and the three went down together to wash up. When Bobbie twice addressed her new stepmother as Mama, Delsie smiled in contentment and said nothing. To put the matter on a settled basis, Bobbie herself brought up the point. “Since you’re in Mama’s room now, I must call you Mama.” So she explained her action,