Garth of Tregillis

by Henrietta Reid

  She went on and on about the work that had been put in hand in preparation for Armanell’s arrival.

  What had she been about to say concerning Giles Seaton, I wondered, when she had stopped abruptly? Then my thoughts turned to her reference to Diana’s mother, the last mistress of Tregillis, who loved gaiety and a happy informal crowd around her.

  This was where Diana should have been, I was thinking resentfully. If Garth had treated Diana with consideration, would she not have been glad to return to Tregillis after her mother’s death? Had she been on the boat that fatal day would she have been able to save her father’s life? Perhaps Giles and his daughter should have been living at Tregillis at that moment—instead of the usurper, Garth. More and more I was beginning to believe what Diana had hinted in her diary—that Garth Seaton had no right to the life he enjoyed at Tregillis.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A FEW mornings later as I made my way to the schoolroom, I was reminded by the sounds of activity that came to me from lower in the house that Armanell was expected on the following day.

  Earlier that morning, as I returned from a walk after breakfast, I had passed big conservatories full of exotic, unseasonable blooms; huge carnations, freesia and orchids. It was clear that there would be no lack of flowers for the house when Armanell made her appearance at the entertainment in her honour.

  As I drew near to the schoolroom, the busy noises of the big house fell away behind me and when I went in and closed the door I found myself alone in the dreary, silent room: there were no curtains on the windows and a slight film of dust lay over the scarred table and uncomfortable wooden chairs. The black iron grate behind the brass fireguard looked ugly and bleak and the map of the world that hung on the wall had its glaze yellowed and cracked. The maids had neglected to dust this room during the previous few days: all their attention was being given to those parts of the house that Armanell would see.

  I opened the door of one of the wide, green-painted cupboards.

  Inside were the piles of ancient schoolbooks I had glimpsed on my last visit to the room. I took them out and placed them on the table and the first thing I came across was an arithmetic book with the name ‘Diana Seaton’ scrawled in childish writing. On the pages were drawings of matchstick men and inside the back cover a picture in crayon of a very green tree against a blue background.

  At the bottom of the pile I came on a tattered atlas, the map of Europe showing the form of countries before the great wars had changed the outlines of national territories. The name on this was

  ‘Giles Seaton’. There were other names there too; a Beatrice, an Emily, an Edwin! How many generations were represented by that pile of dusty textbooks, I wondered, as I saw a reading book illustrated with drawings of little girls in pigtails bowling hoops.

  In such an old house life was continuous from generation to generation : it was as though one could hear whispers and sighs and the faint laughter of those who had long departed.

  I laid aside the last of the old textbooks and surveyed the dingy, forbidding room. This was where I should have to spend much of my time; also Emile, who was a fastidious little boy who loved cleanliness and order; and Melinda—because I had secretly decided to have her present at the lessons. If the room could be made attractive it might have a civilizing influence on that turbulent soul.

  Suddenly my mind was made up. If, as it seemed, the schoolroom was to be neglected in the general furnishing of Tregillis, because Armanell’s eyes would never see it, then it behooved me to make it as attractive as possible— for my own sake and for the sake of the two children.

  The first thing was to get rid of every particle of dust and grime, and with this in mind I set to with a will with sweeping brush and duster, and when I had finished, already the room was wearing a more cheerful air. Now if only I had pretty curtains to hang at the windows, how much more welcoming the room would appear! And if I could beg, borrow or steal an attractive carpet to cover the worn dark-green linoleum on the floor!

  I set off in search of Mrs. Kinnefer and found her in the drawing-room in the midst of an argument with a very persuasive young man who was displaying a selection of delicately coloured silk rugs. I looked at them covetously. If I could only have a few of those to bear away with me to the desolate region of the schoolroom! However, I dismissed the idea as altogether too fanciful and as soon as Mrs. Kinnefer had a free minute put my request to her.

  ‘Curtains—for the schoolroom?’ She sounded incredulous.

  ‘But there’s never been curtains on the windows there—not as long as I’ve been at Tregillis! After all, why should there be? No one ever sees it.’

  Except me, I thought resentfully—and the children, of course!

  ‘None of the other governesses ever suggested such a thing, and I’m sure when you think about it you’ll see it would never do!’

  ‘But why?’ I inquired. ‘The children would be the better for some brightness and colour in the room where they spend so much of their time—and certainly I should appreciate it.’

  At my insistence her mouth folded angrily. ‘And pray who is to make curtains for the schoolroom windows— at this time of all times when we’re in the midst of preparations for the Comtesse’s arrival?’

  ‘I shall make them,’ I said, firmly. ‘All I ask is some pretty material.’

  ‘Oh, in that case you may do as you please. I wash my hands of the whole business. And as to curtain material—I’m sure I don’t know where you’re to find it. At the moment everything is out of its usual place. However, if you care to look in the attics you may come across something, for I know several bolts of brown tapestry material were put away when the study was refurnished.’

  Brown tapestry material was certainly not what I had had in mind when I thought of making the schoolroom more attractive.

  However, I did not dare to try her patience any further and was about to ask her how I should find my way to the attics when she said dismissingly, ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me. They expect me to be in forty places at once.’ And she hurried off leaving me staring after her broad back.

  For a moment I was tempted to abandon the whole project.

  Then I thought of Eunice. She would surely be able to direct me to the attics Mrs. Kinnefer had spoken of.

  I mounted to the upper storey in which she had her ‘study’ and knocked on the door.

  There came the sound of a small tinny crash, a muttered exclamation and Eunice threw open the door and for a moment stood regarding me without recognition.

  She blinked and seemed to ‘come to.’ ‘Ah, Judith, how nice of you to call,’ she greeted me formally. ‘Do come in.’ She gestured me into the room with a hand which held a small, very battered, blue-enamelled teapot. ‘I was just making myself a cup of tea.’

  Hospitably she found a seat for me by clearing a chair of a pile of books with a single sweep of her arm.

  Into the blue teapot she put three heaped spoonfuls of tea from a tin labelled, ‘Stomach mixture; instant relief from over-acidity’, then poured in boiling water from a kettle that bubbled over a small spirit stove. ‘You couldn’t have timed your visit better, Judith. I think I told you the last time you were here that I’d just finished my chapter on the Civil War years—which left me, naturally, slap up against the Restoration. And would you believe it, I simply couldn’t make up my mind how to tackle it. I was stuck, as it were.’

  She wrenched the lid from a square box labelled, ‘Genuine Highland Fling Shortbread’ took out a large wedge of chocolate cake and cut it into two equal portions with a black-handled bread-saw.

  ‘Suddenly in the middle of the night it came to me how the chapter should go. I got up at three o’clock in the morning and wrote and wrote until it was finished. I’m just dying to have someone read it and tell me whether it’s come off or not.’

  She thrust into my hand a small pile of handwritten sheets and held out a thick green mug of steaming tea. Her own tea was taken from a fragile
china cup ornamented with pink roses, but lacking a handle. However, she did not seem to be at all put out by the heat of the tea which to me seemed to be near boiling point.

  ‘Only condensed milk, I’m sorry to say,’ she said, puncturing a small tin and pouring a generous portion into my mug. ‘But it’s too much to expect the maids to bring fresh milk up here to the top of the house each day, and milk gets sour so quickly in hot weather, doesn’t it?’

  She watched my expression with eager attention while I read her account of the adventures of Bevil Seaton who had joined Charles the Second in exile and the happy ending of his adventures when his lands were restored to him when the king returned to England triumphant. Bevil lived to enjoy the fruits of his loyalty to his sovereign, for he died at the age of ninety.

  When I had read the chapter and we had discussed it from every angle and I had given her work the praise she so obviously expected, I was able at long last to introduce the object of my visit.

  ‘Pretty curtains for the schoolroom,’ she murmured thoughtfully, when I had told her of my plans. ‘Not a bad idea.

  Dingy old places, schoolrooms—and I should know, having been a governess myself. It’s hard to tell which is the worse—the old-fashioned type of classroom where you have to teach forty or fifty children at a time or the lonely life of the little well-to-do children in their dreary schoolrooms set away at the top of old houses and forgotten. You know, I tried to escape school teaching by taking on a job as a governess, and really it was out of the frying-pan into the fire. And it was while I was acting as governess that I wrote to Giles at last. I was at the end of my tether, you see. And wonderfully he came to my rescue, brought me here to Tregillis and gave me a home. That’s why I can never be grateful enough to him—or loyal enough. No matter what anyone may say of him, you’ll never hear a word of criticism from me, I can tell you that.’

  I looked at her in surprise, What was it others could say about Giles? I wondered. I remembered Mrs. Kinnefer’s sudden reserve concerning him. ‘He was so easy-going, at least he was until—’

  Until what? Verity too had spoken ambiguously of Paul’s attitude towards his former employer.

  But before I could hit on a tactful way of trying to find out what she was hinting at she changed the subject abruptly by saying,

  ‘You know, of course, that Armanell is coming to stay? The whole house is ringing with it.’

  I nodded and glanced at her curiously. Her mood was very different from what it had been on the night of Garth’s return when she had been confident that he didn’t intend to marry Armanell.

  As if in answer to my unspoken query she went on, ‘I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter how things are between Garth and Armanell as far as I’m concerned. Not even for Armanell would Garth dare to put me out—I know too much.’

  I must have looked the question I felt, and she got to her feet and beckoned me over to one of the small dormer windows. On the window-ledge lay a pair of binoculars. She handed them to me. ‘Look through the window.’

  Obediently I put the glasses to my eyes, adjusted the focus and immediately the whole cove came before me in amazingly clear detail. ‘Well, what do you see?’ she asked impatiently.

  ‘The cove, of course.’

  She nodded secretively. ‘And I was looking through those the day Giles was drowned,’ she said significantly.

  ‘But what did you see?’ I burst out eagerly.

  Immediately I knew I had made a mistake. Her expression became closed and suspicious. ‘What is it to you?’ she said rudely.

  ‘All this has nothing to do with you, anyway. Why are you so interested?’

  ‘I—I—I’m afraid I was just curious,’ I faltered. This was no time to tell her of my friendship with Diana and of the errand I had come upon when I had come to Tregillis.

  ‘Whatever I saw I’ve written down,’ Eunice went on with an air of fierce satisfaction, ‘and if anything happens to me the evidence will all be there after my death. No, I don’t think Garth will dare to get rid of me when I tell him what I’ve done, no matter what Armanell wants, so I’m not really worrying about the future. Let them get married if they like, it’s nothing to me. It won’t make a jot of difference to my life. And I wish them well of each other, I’m sure, because they’re birds of a feather, I can tell you.’

  ‘You haven’t heard whether they’re engaged?’ I ventured.

  ‘No, and it’s none of our business, neither yours nor mine,’ she returned. ‘And now you were saying that you wanted to look in the attics.’

  It was clear that my hasty question had dried up her confidences. We made our way up to the attics and began looking through old boxes and trunks. We found old ball-dresses and a trunk full of Victorian clothes; discarded furniture, and all the odds and ends gathered by a large and prosperous household during generations.

  Eunice opened a square iron-bound case and found it full of yellowed papers. While I prowled around she scanned them, and grew quite excited as she exclaimed that they were deeds and various legal papers belonging to the family and dated from the middle of the nineteenth century. She turned to me gratefully.

  ‘But for you, Judith, I shouldn’t have come upon this. These papers will be of immense help in my history of the family—a positive mine of information.’

  From that moment I lost Eunice’s help in my quest. She pulled forward an antique four-legged stool, seated herself upon it and was soon immersed.

  I wandered off and was soon as busy myself in what was to me a treasure-trove. I came upon an eighteenth- century patch box, an ebony and mother-o’-pearl snuffbox and an old wooden wig-stand, used by the ladies of the reign of George the Third for their curled and bejewelled wigs. There were many relics of Victorian times: great crinoline dresses of muslin with skirts garlanded with roses. Bolts of cloth and many pieces of different fabrics, some of them obviously had been used in the making of ball-dresses. I picked out a piece several yards long of muslin, embroidered with tiny pink and yellow flowers in silk, and from the many carpets and rugs lying heaped in a corner I selected a carpet in pale pinks and creams and blues. Pretty as it was, it was sturdy enough to withstand the rough treatment it would receive in the schoolroom.

  Eunice, seeing me struggling with it, good-naturedly interrupted her studies to help me carry it down the steep steps from the attic.

  When we had spread it on the schoolroom floor we returned to the attic and while I moved around, assembling my loot, as I thought of it, Eunice returned to her treasure-trove of papers, picked out those she was most interested in and placed them in a pile on the floor beside her.

  She came forward to help me carry down my next load, but as I saw the glance she cast at her find I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be able to manage this little lot myself. I know you’re just dying to carry off those papers to your room and settle down to work on them.’

  ‘Well, actually I am,’ Eunice admitted frankly. ‘They’re going to be of absolutely inestimable value in my work on the Seaton family. I can see they’re going to fill in all sorts of gaps in my knowledge and in fact, when I’ve extracted the meat out of them, they’re going to give a very exact picture of how a house like this was run in Victorian days.’

  As she bustled off bearing her precious hoard, I followed more leisurely with my roll of muslin. I was just about to leave the attic when I saw, stacked against one of the walls, a pile of framed and glazed Victorian samplers. Curiously I turned them towards me and examined them, marvelling at the work that had gone into the making of each embroidery. ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth,’

  was embroidered in gothic lettering, and beside it an intricately worked figure of a cook in a chef’s hat. ‘Home Sweet Home’ was another effort, in this case illustrated by a cottage with blue smoke zigzagging from its chimneys and a profusion of forget-me-nots and daisies bespattering a tiny garden. What child had laboured over these efforts, I wondered, and
what had become of her? Had she dreamed as she worked her embroidery silks of the man whom she might one day marry? And had she in days later on fallen in love and left Tregillis—or had her prince not come riding by and had she too, like Eunice, been left old and alone haunting the upper rooms of this great old house?

  But I was too pleased with the results of my forays to allow myself any further melancholy speculations and I set off in good spirits with my arms filled.

  It was as I was approaching the schoolroom that Garth turned into the corridor. For a moment he stared at me blankly and I wondered a little acidly if he had difficulty in remembering who I was. I saw his eyes go to my laden arms and his growing look of surprise made me realize rather uncomfortably that this must be the first time he had ever come upon a governess whose arms were filled with his household possessions.

  He raised his brows sardonically. ‘Can I help you, Miss Westall? You seem to be a bit over-burdened.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I stammered, mortified. ‘They’re really nothing—

  just a few things I found in the attic.’

  ‘You do get around, Miss Westall, don’t you? If I recollect correctly we first met in the library at midnight where you were perusing one of my letters. Now I discover that you’ve been raiding the attics.’

  ‘I—I just wanted a few things to brighten up the schoolroom,’ I stammered hurriedly. ‘It seemed so—so—’ I had been about to say ‘dingy’, then changed this to ‘unattractive to a child.’

  ‘I hardly think that to a child like Melinda her surroundings would mean much, and as for Emile—he has obviously been spoiled: a little roughing it wouldn’t do him any harm.’