Winterwood

by Dorothy Eden

  She sincerely hoped she wouldn’t encounter Flora or her father. That would only involve awkward explanations, and another farewell. If she hadn’t forgotten Daniel Meryon’s face, he was one person about whom she was determined to have good sense. Further acquaintance with him could bring nothing but disaster.

  “Miss Hurst! Miss Hurst!”

  She hadn’t walked a dozen yards from the hotel before the imperious voice reached her ears.

  She looked back to see Flora being pushed by an elderly woman in a servant’s cap and apron.

  “Miss Hurst, what do you think? Papa has said Edward must be kept in his room this morning as a punishment for leaving me yesterday. Did you get into trouble, too, for stealing the earrings?”

  Lavinia had to laugh. For no reason at all, this abominable child had made her spirits rise.

  “I told you a dozen times I didn’t steal them.”

  “Well, Papa and I were not so sure. We decided it would be only what your detestable cousin deserved.”

  “Miss Flora!” The elderly maid was scandalized. She didn’t look as if she approved of Lavinia, either, staring at her suspiciously.

  “It’s all right, Eliza. I was only joking. Miss Hurst, is your cousin letting you free this morning? If she is, would you take me to feed the pigeons? Edward isn’t allowed out, and poor Eliza isn’t entirely recovered from her sick stomach.”

  “Miss Flora, there’s a forward minx! I beg her pardon, miss. She’s got above herself lately. As if this lady has time to spare pushing you about.”

  Lavinia had been about to agree with Eliza, and walk on. But just for a moment there was something unbearably forlorn in Flora’s face. It was an unguarded and unintended expression, for in a moment Flora was saying with her usual acerbity, “Let Miss Hurst answer for herself, Eliza. You have got time, haven’t you, Miss Hurst?”

  “I daresay I could spare you an hour,” she heard herself saying carelessly, thinking of the ghost beneath that small aggressive face. They were alike, she and Flora. They both concealed ghosts.

  “Well, I must say I would be thankful,” Eliza said. “I’m still feeling peaky, to tell the truth. And we must be well for when we begin traveling with your great-aunt, mustn’t we, Miss Flora?”

  “If she doesn’t die first,” Flora said heartlessly. “There was one funeral, Miss Hurst. The remains were put on a gondola, and it was draped with black velvet, and the gondoliers were dressed in black from head to foot. And they glided away over the blue sea and just seemed to be swallowed up. Mama and Papa and Great-aunt Tameson followed in another gondola, and they said the grave was under cypress trees. And it was terribly hot, and there were crickets making an awful racket all the time. But I believe the blue sea swallowed her up,” she said dreamily. “That’s the nicest thing to believe.”

  “Who?” asked Lavinia, with the strangest stirring of eeriness. “Who was it that died?”

  “Oh, just one of Great-aunt Tameson’s old servants. I don’t know what the fuss was about. Except I promise I’ll be just as upset for you when you die, Eliza.”

  “Bless you, I’m sure, Miss Flora. Then, if it’s really all right with you, miss, I’ll go in out of this murdering sun. How Miss Flora enjoys it, I don’t know, her being so delicate and all. Likely the master will come out to fetch her in. He usually does.”

  You’re crazy, Lavinia said to herself. You’ll see his face again, and it will be harder than ever to forget.

  “You’re very quiet, Miss Hurst. Are you angry with me?”

  “Shouldn’t I be? I don’t enjoy being buccaneered into doing things.”

  Flora twisted around in the chair. “Don’t you like me?”

  “I think you’re a very willful little girl.”

  “Mamma doesn’t like me, either. I’m not pretty, like her, and I can’t walk. She only loves Edward.”

  “I know. You told me that yesterday. Perhaps it’s because you aren’t easy to love.”

  “But I am, I am,” Flora said passionately.

  Lavinia found her both unlikable and comic. She had the pathos of the very young and intense. She was going to be hurt too often if she lived with such intensity. The sneaking thought came that that was something Lavinia could help her avoid. I could speak from experience, she thought wryly.

  “I think your Papa loves you very much.”

  “Yes, now he does because he feels he was partly to blame for my accident. He wasn’t to blame, of course. I was showing off. I always have had to, because Papa loved Simon and Mamma loved Edward. I was just in the middle, and only a girl.”

  Lavinia willed herself not to have her sympathies touched. What was the use? She would never see Flora again.

  “Who is Simon?”

  “My elder brother. He’s thirteen, and he’s at school. He’s Papa’s favorite.”

  “I think you talk too much about favorites,” Lavinia said. “Well, what are we going to do this morning? Feed the pigeons, then have an ice, then walk all the way down the Merceria to the Rialto bridge and come back by gondola? That way, we’ll pass those wonderful old palaces.”

  “Great-aunt Tameson lives in one of them,” Flora said. “She’s a contessa.” The information was flung out before she added, her face sparkling, “That sounds like a wonderful morning, Miss Hurst. Much much better than Eliza would have given me. I wish you could be with me always.”

  “That’s nonsense. You didn’t set eyes on me until yesterday and then you despised me for being a servant.”

  “No, no, I didn’t despise you. I only thought it a pity. So did Papa.”

  Lavinia’s voice was careful. “Did he say so?”

  “He said you looked much more suitable to be sitting listening to the opera than looking after a detestable cousin.”

  Cousin Marion was right again. She must subdue her looks and her high spirits.

  “Then perhaps I’m not suitable to be pushing one young woman about Venice in a wheelchair.”

  “Oh, you are, Miss Hurst, you silly. Look, I have some money to buy grain for the pigeons.”

  Flora was too observant. She noticed Lavinia’s silences, and the way her eyes dwelt lovingly on the dazzling scene. Later, as they walked slowly down the narrow winding street that led to the Rialto, she kept pausing to look at unexpected views, the little humped bridges over sluggish backwaters, the flowers—morning glory and geraniums and nasturtiums—cascading from window boxes, lacy iron balconies, dark windows from which who knew what face peered, patches of sunlight as yellow as mimosa.

  “Why are you sad, Miss Hurst?” she asked.

  “Do I seem sad?”

  “You look as if you’re seeing all this for the last time—as if you might be going to die.”

  In a strange way the beauty here was mixed with death. There was a chilly smell of decay in the old walls and the dark green water of the canals. Flora was too perceptive.

  “Well, one can’t stay here forever,” she said cheerfully. England, without Robin, without a reputation, without money, would be a kind of death—how did Flora know?

  Flora, indeed, had divined something else. She was gazing at Lavinia with her intense tawny eyes.

  “Your cousin found out about the earrings!”

  “Yes, I’m afraid she did. I wasn’t going to tell you.”

  “Did she scold you dreadfully?”

  “She wasn’t pleased. As a matter of fact, we have decided to part. I am going back to England, perhaps tomorrow.”

  “Miss Hurst, you can’t!”

  Lavinia laughed a little at Flora’s dismay.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m enjoying your friendship. You can’t leave until we do, and that won’t be for at least another week. Miss Hurst, do stay.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible, you silly child.”

  “Aren’t you enjoying being with me?”

  “A certain amount, yes.”

  “You don’t want to go, do you? It’s not as though you have
Winterwood to go back to. What do you have to go back to?”

  “Frankly, not very much. But that isn’t your business. Now let us find a trattoria where we can have an ice before we go any further.”

  “The doctors say I’m to be humored,” Flora burst out.

  “And as far as I can see, you make sure that you are. What am I doing at this moment but humoring you? I didn’t plan to spend my last day in Venice pushing you about. But here I am.”

  “Papa will be upset.”

  Lavinia’s heart jumped. “What can it possibly mean to him?”

  “He likes me to be kept happy and amused.”

  Lavinia stopped dead. “Really, Flora, you are the most presumptuous child. Why should I, a stranger, be ordered to keep you happy and amused? You’re behaving like a duchess, and a very spoiled one, at that.”

  Flora gave only the ghost of her usual uninhibited giggle. She had become very pale. Lavinia was a little alarmed.

  “I think all you need is some refreshment. We’ll have our ice at that little place ahead, see? We can sit at the edge of the canal and watch the gondolas going by. The next time you come to Venice you’ll no doubt be old enough to be serenaded in a gondola.”

  Flora shrugged her narrow shoulders. She had sunk into a gloomy silence, and when it came, merely toyed with her ice. She remained entirely silent during the somewhat nerve-racking business of lifting her chair into a gondola, and only spoke once all the way down the Grand Canal. That was to point out a small elegant palazzo in terra cotta stone, with a very handsome wrought-iron gate at the top of its water steps.

  “That’s where Great-aunt Tameson lives,” she said. “They carried the coffin down those steps. It’s a good thing they didn’t slip and let it fall in the water.”

  “You’re very morbid about that funeral,” Lavinia said.

  “I found it interesting,” Flora said with dignity. “But Great-aunt Tameson doesn’t want a funeral like that. She wants to be buried with her little boy Tom. His grave is in our churchyard at home. Great-aunt Tameson used to live at Croft House, not far from Winterwood. That’s when she was married to her first husband. He died on the field of Waterloo. Then little Tom died of diphtheria, so her heart was broken and she came to Italy and married an Italian count. He died, too, and left her all his money. Isn’t life sad?”

  “The poor Contessa seems to have had her share of misfortune. What a curious name, Tameson.”

  “It’s only the female for Thomas. I expect her parents wanted her to be a boy.”

  Lavinia laughed.

  “You’re determined to be gloomy, darling.”

  Flora’s head shot up. Her tragic eyes besought Lavinia. “I hadn’t made a friend for simply ages, until I met you.”

  Lavinia made her voice flippant, touched against her will by Flora’s melancholy.

  “As you say—life is sad.”

  Flora shrugged away the arm Lavinia had laid on her small bony shoulder. “And don’t call me ‘darling’ if you’re going to desert me. That is simply the height of treachery.”

  When they got back to the hotel she refused to say goodbye. Although Lavinia looked about, and lingered longer than necessary, there was no sign of Daniel Meryon. Only Eliza was there to receive the child, and take her away.

  Flora sat with her chin sunk, her shoulders hunched, and ignored both Lavinia’s farewells and Eliza’s scolding about her bad manners. Finally Eliza made a resigned gesture to Lavinia, and wheeled Flora away.

  So that was the end of that strange, diverting and really quite enjoyable encounter. Now one must get down to facing reality.

  Cousin Marion was grimly pleased. She had already found some people who would undertake to see Lavinia safely home in return for some small services from her on the way. They were a Mr. and Mrs. Monk, who had formerly traveled without a maid, but Mrs. Monk had been ill in Italy, and felt she could not set out on such a long arduous journey without some female assistance.

  “Naturally I’ve not told them the truth about you,” Cousin Marion said virtuously. “I’ve merely said family reasons are taking you home.”

  “Family!” Lavinia said bitterly. Could Cousin Marion be so stupid as not to realize that her only family, darling Robin, was in prison for seven years?

  “You will have to invent an elderly aunt,” Cousin Marion said briskly. “The Monks are leaving first thing in the morning. Mrs. Monk will be sending for you sometime this afternoon, when she feels able to interview you.”

  Another one of those enjoyed imaginary illness, Lavinia thought drearily. She supposed she must do her best. And to give Cousin Marion her due, she seemed a little sorry that she was going.

  “Why did you have to be so foolish?” she asked. “Perhaps you didn’t mean to be dishonest, but you will ruin your life if you go on doing these impetuous things. I suppose it’s your nature. Frankly, I believe you attract trouble.”

  Lavinia nodded, too dispirited to reply or defend herself. And anyway, what Cousin Marion said was true. Trouble did pursue her.

  Soon after lunch the summons came. The small page, who could speak only a few English words, managed to indicate that the Signorina was wanted in the suite on the ground floor.

  “Now look modest,” Cousin Marion called after her. “Mrs. Monk particularly wanted to know if you were a quiet modest person. I told a lie. I felt that under the special circumstances the Almighty would forgive me.”

  She supposed she could keep her eyes downcast, but she couldn’t keep the distressed color out of her cheeks. Lavinia followed the agile page boy down the stairs and along a corridor until he stopped and tapped at one of the handsome carved doors. The Monks were obviously affluent people. This looked like the entrance to a palatial suite.

  A woman’s voice called faintly but imperiously, “Come in,” and the boy stood aside to allow Lavinia to enter.

  The first person she saw was Flora in her wheelchair, her little old woman face wearing a triumphant expression. A boy with a mop of black curls was trailing a kite about the room, intent on his game and ignoring everyone else. Behind Flora stood Eliza, the elderly maid, her mouth tucked in disapprovingly. Almost reluctantly Lavinia looked for the other occupants of the room. The woman with the imperious voice lay on a couch, her head with its mass of night-black hair resting on a fragile white hand, a tea gown with frothing lace ruffles draped becomingly about her. Flora’s father stood at one of the windows with its opaque circled Venetian glass. He was framed by the deep embrasure, looking, in that setting, with his faint melancholy, like a portrait of a Venetian nobleman.

  “Miss Hurst—” Flora began, and was instantly silenced by her mother in that weary but supremely arrogant voice.

  “You look surprised, Miss Hurst. Didn’t the boy explain that my husband and I wanted to see you?”

  “No, he didn’t. That is—” Lavinia was vividly aware of Daniel Meryon’s eyes on her. He thought she was occupied only in looking at his wife, and was giving her an amused yet curiously tender and disarming look.

  “He couldn’t speak English, Mamma,” Flora pointed out “No wonder Miss Hurst is confused.”

  “Silence, miss. The first thing Miss Hurst will have to do—that is, if I decide to engage her—is to teach you manners.”

  The little boy with the kite raced around the room again, then stopped in front of Lavinia and regarded her critically.

  “You’re to be Flora’s companion, but you won’t like it. She’s a tyrant. Isn’t she, Eliza?”

  “Now, Master Edward—”

  “Teddy, come here, and be quiet!” said his mother, in her dying-away voice. “You know my poor head can’t stand noise, darling.”

  “I think it’s time Miss Hurst was told what we want of her before we scare her away completely,” Daniel put in. He had seemed so detached from the scene that his sudden voice startled even Edward into momentary stillness. “My daughter, Miss Hurst, as you have probably guessed, has set her heart on having you with her when we
go back to Winterwood. I gather that you are contemplating leaving Venice almost immediately, so that’s why we sent for you at once. Naturally my wife would like to ask you some questions about your background and so on.”

  “I shall want to know a great deal,” said Charlotte Meryon with only slightly concealed suspicion and hostility.

  “Then ask her, Mamma, and she’ll tell you,” Flora said. She was very pert and confident now. Those desolate airs this morning had been merely an act. “I couldn’t eat any luncheon, Miss Hurst, and I cried for two hours. Then I had a fainting turn, so Mamma agreed to send for you. Didn’t you, Mamma? I explained how awful your cousin had been to you,” she added. “And it isn’t true that I’m a tyrant. Edward is speaking lies.”

  “Flora! As you can see, Miss Hurst, this child is completely out of hand. The doctors said she was not to be thwarted, so this is what happens.” Charlotte was pretending, not successfully, to be tolerant toward her crippled daughter. Lavinia could feel the dislike. For the first time she felt a little sympathy toward Flora’s extravagances about not being loved. They seemed to have a basis of truth.

  All the same, interest in the Meryon family couldn’t quell her indignation about the high-handed manner in which they seemed to be arranging her own future. It wasn’t only indignation she felt. Apprehension, too. Good sense told her to turn and walk out of this room immediately. She knew by the pull of her eyes to that watchful face by the window that if she allowed herself to be cajoled or bribed into working for these people she would spend too much time listening for his voice or his footsteps. She knew the impetuousness of her nature all too well. Indulging in a strong attraction for a married man was no way to start a new life. She must travel back to England with the elderly Monks and forget this brief madness.

  In any case, why should Charlotte Meryon assume, as she was doing, that everyone was so willing to obey her commands?

  “I will be frank with you, Miss Hurst, and tell you that only dire circumstances would bring me to engage a complete stranger like yourself even if you can produce all the necessary references. But we have had one calamity after another. Haven’t we, Daniel?” Her large eyes, curiously pale, like lakes of shining colorless water, sought her husband’s. “I have an invalid aunt to be got to England. There is my daughter, a helpless cripple, and I myself am far from strong.” Her hand fluttered over the table beside the couch on which there was an array of bottles. “I am subject, on the least exertion, to prostrating headaches. So we are a melancholy lot of invalids and in urgent need of help. It seems that Flora—”