‘But Emile’s not really a namby-pamby,’ I began eagerly. ‘It’s simply that he has always been taught by tutors and governesses and had grown up with adults instead of mixing with children of his own age.’
He regarded me in silence for a few moments. ‘Perhaps you’re right there,’ he said. ‘The Chateau de Chalandon is in rather a remote part of the country and there are not many children who, from his mother’s point of view, would be suitable playmates.’
From his mother’s point of view! So Armanell was a snob!
Perhaps Garth shared her convictions about the exclusiveness of the Lelant family, I thought resentfully.
‘As for Melinda,’ I went on eagerly as I saw him regard me with what I took to be a certain dawning respect for my psychological penetration, ‘she’s very fond of you and I’m sure it would mean everything in the world to her if—’ I stopped. It was difficult to put into words exactly what I had in mind. ‘If you’d take just a little interest in her,’ I ended lamely as I saw from the change in his expression that whatever momentary esteem I had gained had now been lost by this impulsive statement.
‘You are not, by any chance, instructing me how I should treat my niece, Miss Westall?’
‘Oh no, of course not,’ I said hurriedly. ‘It’s just that it struck me that a great deal of her naughtiness springs from the feeling that no one really cares a great deal about her activities.’
‘Indeed!’ His tone was quelling. ‘But it so happens that I don’t share your views concerning Melinda. To me she appears to be an undisciplined child, and the sooner someone takes her in hand the better. I certainly have neither the inclination nor the time to devote myself to studying her peculiar behaviour, so I’d be glad, Miss Westall, if you’d keep a firm hand over her, especially now when the Comtesse is coming. I don’t want Melinda to make a nuisance of herself.’
I bit back the angry retort that rose to my lips, but he seemed to be completely indifferent to my reaction.
He reached out his hand and relieved me of one of the samplers that I had tucked under my arm. ‘Hmmm! How very appropriate.’ I glanced at it quickly and saw that the moral he saw said ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ with a representation of a large grinning Cheshire cat’s face. ‘I hope you’re going to take this warning to yourself and to remember the fate of the over-inquisitive. It may be an excellent quality in a sleuth, but is hardly appropriate for private life.’
I could feel myself grow pale and heard my gasp of dismay and found that he was regarding me steadily. How much had he grasped of my intense interest in all that concerned Tregillis—and particularly in all that had to do with him? Had he realized that there was more to it than mere vulgar curiosity? Was he actually warning me that if I persisted I should myself be in danger? If, in fact, he had been responsible for Giles’s death an inquisitive snooper would be the last person he would be likely to tolerate around the house.
But when I had recovered myself somewhat and looked at him again I saw that he was smiling faintly and realized that he was in fact in excellent humour.
To cover my confusion I reached out my hand and took the sampler from him, and as I did so he startled me by stretching out his hand and touching my hair. ‘Do you realize that you have a cobweb in your hair? See!’ He held up a finger upon which a dark trailing cobweb wound. ‘Also you’re almost as grubby as Melinda at the moment. You have a smut on your nose.’
‘Oh!’ Automatically I raised my free hand to my face and attempted to wipe it.
'Now you’ve added to the damage.’ He was actually grinning, and I wished fervently that I had not had the misfortune to meet him just at this stage in my activities. Another moment or two and I should have been safely inside the schoolroom and would have been able to present myself next time to him well groomed and poised. It seemed to be my fate always to come upon him when I was looking dishevelled and least self-possessed, and I feared that my attempt to present myself as a severe and self-contained sort of person was failing dismally.
His next words bore this out. ‘Do you know, at the moment you look hardly more than about sixteen years of age. If you present yourself before the Comtesse looking as you do now she’ll think I’ve engaged a mere child to tutor her son.’
His manner was almost bantering. He was in high good humour—and I realized the reason why. On the following day Armanell was to arrive. Everything was nearly ready and it was clear that every loose end would be neatly tucked away out of sight before her arrival. Tregillis would present its most orderly and sophisticated face. Everything would be like pins on paper.
And I would fit into the picture, I promised myself. There would be no informality in my appearance when I presented myself before the Comtesse—which, as Emile’s governess, I was almost certain to do at some time or other during her stay.
‘I shall certainly not appear before the Comtesse like this,’ I told him coldly, drawing myself up. ‘I shall be dressed in—’
‘In character,’ he finished as I hesitated for a word.
‘What do you mean?’ I demanded.
‘I mean that that was quite a performance you put on at our last meeting; your betraying red hair all primly scraped back and some sort of greyish dress— or should I say gown—with a demure collar. I can’t remember what colour it was, but I gathered it was a studied effect and I must say you succeeded. You were the epitome of correctness. The prim, efficient governess interviews her employer! Wasn’t that the scene as you envisaged it? I ought to have been deeply impressed! However, I am not easily intimidated, Miss Westall—a fact you would do well to keep in mind.’
To my relief I spied Melinda appear around the bend in the corridor. She had been dawdling, but as she caught sight of him she hastened her steps, her face brightened and began to run towards him.
I saw his expression change and harden as he saw her approach.
He turned on his heel and strode away.
Melinda drew to a halt uncertainly, her face falling.
Poor child, I thought with compassion. What a pity her uncle disliked her so intensely—but then he disliked all children, I recollected. He was as impatient of Emile as he was of Melinda.
‘Come and help me tidy up the classroom and make it pretty,’ I offered in the hope of distracting her attention from the rebuff.
But immediately she was at her most wilful. ‘No, I shan’t! I hate the stupid old schoolroom!’ she called out as she ran off along the corridor.
With a sigh I went in and deposited my load. The first thing to do would be to vacuum the carpet, I supposed. I went off in search of a vacuum cleaner and was lucky enough to be able to use one Bessie was in charge of in a room nearby. When she had finished using it I commandeered it and with Emile’s help bore it off to the schoolroom. Immediately he set to work on the carpet while I fetched a ladder and began to hang the samplers.
Glancing down from the ladder I caught a glimpse of Melinda peeping through the doorway. When she saw that I had caught sight of her she ran off again, but eventually came back and hesitantly asked for a job. I set her to polishing the great old-fashioned fireguard until it shone like gold.
I had just hit my nail with the hammer when Melinda announced from her task of polishing, ‘I’ve been very good today.
I’ve done all the polishing here and besides that I watered the flowers in the conservatory.’
‘You’ve been a good girl, Melinda,’ I praised her, sucking my injured thumb.
Then as the pain subsided the significance of what she had said struck me. ‘Just a minute, Melinda, did you say you watered the flowers in the conservatory? Did McGregor tell you to do that?’
‘No, I thought of it myself,’ she told me proudly.
‘They’re a bit small and I want them to be big and full of perfume when I’m dancing around the ballroom with Uncle Garth.’
I looked down from the ladder at her in dismay. She had definitely done the wrong thing, I knew. But for once the expression she t
urned up to me was full of a childlike trust and I could not bring myself to scold her. The conservatories were sacred spots where McGregor, the head gardener, ruled despotically. Melinda had had no right to be there. However, just watering the flowers could hardly do them any harm, I reassured myself, little guessing the dire repercussions that would follow.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ON the morning of the day Armanell was to arrive I woke up early and was already dressed when Hilda came in with my breakfast.
She dumped the tray on the small round table near the window with a very portentous face. ‘Mr. Seaton wishes to see you in the study immediately,’ was her morning greeting. She made a great play of arranging the tiny silver sugar bowl and cream jug on the table. ‘I wonder why Mr. Garth wants to see you at this time in the morning. He’s in a tearing rage, I can tell you that.’
‘Did he say “immediately”?’ I demanded, annoyed.
Hilda nodded with an air of commiseration.
I could feel my face flush. ‘You can tell Mr. Seaton I’ll see him after breakfast,’ I said firmly, as I flicked out my napkin and sat down at the table.
‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that, miss—not in the mood he’s in this morning,’ Hilda said, alarmed, as she departed.
I resumed my breakfast in as leisurely a manner as I could. Not that I was really able to enjoy it! The thought of an interview with an angry Garth Seaton was sufficient to destroy the appetite of the most hungry. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rushing down immediately. I pushed away my plate and drank a cup of tea with a morsel of toast. Then I decided that my hair needed re-brushing and that an extra touch of make-up would give me greater confidence for the coming ordeal.
By the time I had done all this I knew sufficient time had passed to make it quite clear to him that I had no intention of springing to attention at his slightest beck. But what on earth could I have done that had made him angry with me? I wondered, as slowly I went downstairs. He had been in such good humour when we had met outside the schoolroom on the previous day. But by this time I knew Garth Seaton well enough to know that his approval was a transitory thing and that very quickly he could revert like a jungle animal to a snarling and dangerous mood.
I drew a deep breath, pushed open the door and found myself in the small study which Garth used when attending to business matters. It was strictly utilitarian in character. The walls were lined with shelves crammed with papers and on one wall hung a giant clock which had a slow ominous tick.
As I entered he glanced at the clock. ‘You seem to have been delayed, Miss Westall. I apologize for disturbing your leisure, but although your time and mine are perhaps not very precious, McGregor’s here is very valuable.’
As I caught sight of McGregor, the head gardener, my heart sank. He was a born troublemaker, forever grumbling about something or other. But I could not imagine what he could possibly have to complain about that would involve me.
‘To make no bones about it,’ McGregor began in a strong Scottish accent, ‘yon wee besom Melinda has been up to mischief again. She crept into the big conservatory when our backs were turned.’
So the watering of the plants had been harmful, as I had feared!
However, the least I could do was to come to her defence on this occasion when, for once, Melinda had intended to do good instead of evil.
‘Yes, she told me about it, Mr. McGregor,’ I began in as placatory a manner as possible, ‘and I’m sorry if she has done any harm.’
‘Harm!’ McGregor threw his arms out in a theatrical gesture that I found irritating. Must he always dramatise everything? I wondered. Weren’t things hard enough for Melinda without the grown-ups around her taking the strictest possible view of every little fault?
‘So you knew about this!’ Garth’s voice broke in, and I was dismayed to see the icy hardness of his eyes. His manner boded ill for Melinda when punishment was meted out—as clearly it would be. ‘Yes, she told me about it,’ I answered with matching coldness.
‘And you didn’t consider it important enough to mention?’
‘I don’t prattle about every misdemeanour the child commits,’ I replied, feeling myself grow angry in spite of my determination to remain cool.
‘Misdemeanour!’ McGregor’s strong accent broke in. ‘You call killing off hundreds of prize blooms with weedkiller a misdemeanour! You have your impudence, miss, and I don’t mind saying so to your face.’
‘Weed-killer?’ I gasped, ‘But she told me—’
‘She told you she merely watered the plants, isn’t that so?’
Garth’s voice put in. ‘The child is beginning to add lying to her other accomplishments. And I must say, up till now, whatever devilment she got up to she has always been absolutely straightforward about it.’
I gazed at him in alarm. I too found Melinda truthful. Why should she have deceived me about this latest escapade? I was on the point of defending her by saying that if Melinda had lied on this occasion it was because she had found that she was unable to win his approval no matter what she did. Then I remembered her expression as she had looked up at me on the previous evening when she had told me what she had done.
‘No, she was telling the truth. I’m absolutely positive of that,’ I told him. ‘She genuinely believed that she was merely watering the plants. She meant no harm, I’m positive of that.’
‘Nothing of the kind,’ McGregor broke in again. ‘The child’s a limb of mischief, if ever there was one. She did it deliberately, that’s clear—like the time she shut off the heating in the conservatory on the coldest night in the year.’
I could feel my heart sink. Melinda’s past misdemeanours were telling against her now. Give a dog a bad name, I was thinking.
‘Whatever she has done in the past, she meant well this time,’ I asserted, but I could feel my voice falter at the hopelessness of persuading these two angry men.
‘The point is, as McGregor says, that this is not the first time Melinda’s tricks have caused the destruction of valuable plants. She has been forbidden to enter the conservatories.’
‘Yes, forbidden. And if I ever catch her there again, I’ll not answer for what I’ll do to that little varmint,’ McGregor threatened.
‘I’ll see she is curbed in future,’ Garth told him as he dismissed the man, who went away muttering to the effect that nothing could bring back hundreds of beautiful blooms.
When the door had closed behind him Garth turned to me. ‘I’d like to accept your kindly defence of Melinda,’ he said coldly, ‘but, as McGregor said, this is not the first time that Melinda has been the cause of such destruction. Young as she is, she has a genius for creating chaos that many an adult might envy.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I protested. ‘I’ve told you she meant no harm.’
‘Then what excuse has she for being in the conservatory?’
I gulped. I could not betray Melinda’s childish fantasies; could not bring myself to tell him that Melinda had disobeyed because she dreamed of herself, beautiful in a lovely frock, dancing in a flower-bedecked ballroom with the uncle she adored. ‘I think she wanted the flowers to be very splendid for the ball during the Comtesse’s visit,’ I said.
His expression softened very slightly. ‘I don’t pretend to understand the child. The fact remains that, whatever her intentions, she is consistently a nuisance and incorrigibly disobedient.’ He was silent for a moment, then added very deliberately, ‘I had hoped that with your arrival there might have been an improvement, but unfortunately my expectations have not been realized.’
‘You’re not blaming me for what has happened?’ I demanded.
‘And why not?’ he asked sharply. ‘You’re supposed to be in charge of the children, aren’t you? How is it that Melinda is able to get up to such depredations?’
For a moment I was silenced. The truth was, of course, that Melinda had been able to achieve this particular bit of wrongdoing because I had been absorbed in making the schoolroom as attra
ctive as possible. ‘I can’t keep the children prisoners in the schoolroom,’ I stated.
‘Why not?’ he asked coldly. ‘If no other treatment has any effect on Melinda, then I see nothing else for it. In fact that is exactly what I’m going to ask you to do for the rest of the day.’
‘But the Comtesse is arriving today,’ I protested. ‘Melinda has been talking of nothing else for the past few days. She’s been practising curtsies and—do you mean she is to stay in the schoolroom all day and not meet the Comtesse?’
‘Melinda’s head is full of nonsense,’ he said irritably. ‘I can imagine what a fandango of confusion she would land us in were she to appear before the Comtesse in such a state of excitement.
No, better keep her away until we can introduce her quietly at a later date—and let us pray that she may refrain from some of her wilder excesses while our guest is here.’
‘What about Emile?’ I asked dryly. ‘He is to meet his mother, I presume.’
‘Oh, Emile’s all right. He’s always so well behaved,’ he returned. ‘He can greet his mother when she comes and then perhaps you’d keep the children out of the way for the rest of the day. You know, Miss Westall, it strikes me that of you three children, you are the most disobedient of all.’
‘How dare you?’ I protested angrily. ‘Don’t talk to me as if I were a child, I simply won’t put up with it!’
He raised his eyebrows and somehow I knew, although his expression didn’t change, that he was taking a pleasure in my annoyance. This was his revenge.
‘The fact is that you are a child,’ he said, ‘an annoying, bad-tempered, red-headed, disobedient child, and anyone else but myself would send you straight back to school where you belong and get some responsible, elderly, straight-laced person to be in charge of the children. However, even an ogre like myself couldn’t be so hard-hearted, and I shall leave you three children to play together to your hearts’ content—provided that you take the children indoors and keep them there for the rest of the day.’
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