Orphan Bride

by Sara Seale

  “Luke Fenton? How is he?”

  “Very well. Still pursuing the latest lovely and being caught by none. We’ll keep him away from our orphan when she’s a little older—not that I think he’d be a serious menace—he likes his ladies to be glamorous.”

  Emily said thoughtfully:

  “That’s always struck me as an odd friendship. You and Luke are so entirely different.”

  “Perhaps that accounts for the friendship,” said Julian lightly, then his dark eyes were serious. “He’s been a good friend, has old Luke. I’m very fond of him, though he does use all his friends as copy for his perishing novels. Well, I think I’ll turn in.”

  She watched hint feel for his stick and drag himself with difficulty from his chair. He had been rather worse, she thought, since that last operation, and she wondered vaguely what he would do in the future. It was true, thought Emily, that there was no need for Julian to work at all, but it was better that he should. A job, and eventually a wife, and he would forget the blow which Kitty and the injury had so disastrously dealt to his pride.

  “There’s a little whisky left over from when you were last here,” she said, getting up. “Have a peg before you go up, it’ll do you good. Good night.”

  Upstairs in her unfamiliar room, Jennet lay in the tester bed, wide awake in the darkness. She missed the heavy breathing of her twenty-one companions in the dormitory and the friendly noise of traffic in the street. She missed the harsh orphanage sheets, and she was afraid the tester would fall down on her head in the night and suffocate her.

  She heard Emily go up to bed, and later, Julian, his steps dragging along the passage, and she lay rigid in the big bed and wept.

  “Oh, why did he have to pick me?” she demanded of the darkness. “Why did he have to pick me?”

  Outside, the wind howled across the moor, and one of the dogs moaned as if it, too, could not sleep. Jennet counted sheep until they faded and she slept.

  The orphans rose winter and summer at six o’clock, so Jennet woke automatically. Then she remembered she was no longer in the dormitory at Blacker’s, but many miles away in a place called Dartmoor where the convicts lived.

  She sat listening for any sounds of others awake in the house. A heavy silence lay over everything. It never occurred to Jennet not to get up. At the orphanage no one called you, they just rang a bell. No bells seemed to ring in this house, so it must be difficult to know what you were supposed to be doing at different hours. She washed in the cold water she found in the jug on the old-fashioned wash-stand, dressed, carefully, and made her way quietly downstairs.

  The clock in the hall told her it was half-past six, but not a soul was about. The orphanage was already a hive of industry at this hour, but here there wasn’t even any sign of breakfast being prepared. Jennet found her way to the kitchen but it was as deserted as the rest of the rooms. Whoever worked here had left it in a disorderly state, with dirty dishes piled in the sink and cupboard doors left open. Perhaps Mrs. Dingle had overslept, thought Jennet, and then considered it might be a good thing if she washed the dishes and was some help.

  The stove was out and so was the boiler, and there seemed to be no other means for heating water, so she had to manage as best she could with cold, and she had just finished drying the last plate when the door was pushed open and a woman came into the kitchen, stifling a yawn with the back of her plump hand.

  She paused, her mouth still open, gazing at Jennet, then she said: “Beggar me!”

  “Good morning,” said Jennet politely. “Are you Mrs. Dingle? I’m Jennet Brown. I’ve washed your dishes for you, only I’m afraid I haven’t done them very well as the water was cold.”

  Mrs. Dingle flushed and placed her hands firmly on her broad hips.

  “And who asked you to wash my dirty old trade—miss?” she demanded truculently. “Why aren’t you in bed, where you belong?”

  Jennet looked taken aback. Mrs. Dingle was not pleased.

  “No one told me—I didn’t know—” she stammered. “You see, in the orphanage we always got up at six, so I thought, as I was down first, I’d help you. You see, I thought you had overslept.”

  The woman wheeled round on her.

  “And if I had, Miss Nosey, ’tes none of your business,” she snapped. “The missus, she tells me Mr. Julian is bringing down some orphan, and I’m to wait on her same as if she was any other little maid. But you mind your business other mornings and stay in bed till you’re called. Running to the missus I with tales of a dirty kitchen and such-like!”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t,” said Jennet hastily, quite overcome by Mrs. Dingle’s wrath, and appreciating without rancor her indignation at having to wait on an orphan. “It was just that I’d nothing to do, and—and it’s natural to me to—to clean up, you see,” she added shyly.

  Mrs. Dingle relented enough to say that since Jennet was here she’d better make her a cup of tea, for breakfast was not until eight-thirty. She made the tea and gave Jennet her cup, remarking:

  “Get that inside you. You look a proper little mommet and no mistake.”

  Jennet didn’t know what a mommet was, but she was used to strangers thinking she looked hungry.

  “How old are you?” asked Mrs. Dingle, and when she was told, opened her little eyes. “My dear soul! I took you for fourteen! They institutions! Stunted your growth, I suppose.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Jennet, startled. “We had some quite big girls. I’ve always been small.”

  It was lighter now, and Jennet went to the window and looked out with curious eyes at her first glimpse of Dartmoor. What she saw was not reassuring. A vast expanse of brown, rough country stretched as far as the eye could see under a grey, threatening sky.

  “Is that Dartmoor?” she asked.

  “Aye—that’s t’moor,” Mrs. Dingle replied carelessly.

  “What are those brown lumps in the distance?”

  “They be tors. They each have names same as mountains.”

  Jennet shivered. “It looks depressing—and a little frightening.”

  Mrs. Dingle laughed.

  “You wait till spring, my dear, then you’ll know the nature of the moor,” she said. She raised her eyes to the ceiling at faint sounds from above. “Mr. Davey is moving—he’s always first down. Goes out first thing to tend his bees and talk to Them.” She chuckled.

  “What is Them?” Jennet asked ungrammatically.

  Mrs. Dingle chuckled again.

  “They and Them?” she said. “Oh, just people out of his head. He talks out loud to ’em.”

  Jennet’s eyes grew enormous.

  “Do you mean he invents them?” she asked. “Do you mean he’s mad—talking aloud and inventing things, I mean?”

  Mrs. Dingle considered.

  “Not mad exactly—a little mazed maybe. You’ll get used to ’e directly,” she said.

  Jennet said nothing, but she thought it was unlikely that she would get used to her new Uncle Homer in a hurry.

  “That fire’s burning up proper now,” Mrs. Dingle remarked with satisfaction. “You stay here if you’ve a mind to, while I give the downstairs rooms a bit of a lick round. Here, you can make the toast, if you like.”

  She thrust a toasting-fork into Jennet’s hands, pushed a pile of cut bread towards her and went out of the kitchen armed with a broom and a duster.

  Jennet made the toast, and was sitting on the rug waiting for Mrs. Dingle when Homer Davey came in.

  “Hullo, my dear!” he exclaimed, looking a little startled at discovering Jennet in the kitchen. “You are down very early. I thought I was always the first.”

  Jennet looked at him nervously. He certainly did not look mad, only rather vague and kindly as he stood peering at her over his spectacles. The best thing was, possibly, to take no notice.

  “Good morning, Mr.—Uncle Homer,” she said. “I got up at six. We always do in the orphanage.”

  “You’ve been up since six?” he exclaimed wonderin
gly. “Dear me! What have you been doing with yourself all this time?”

  “Well,” said Jennet, “I did wash up for Mrs. Dingle, but I don’t think she was very pleased. Then I had some tea, and then I made the toast.

  “Dear me!” he said again, and shaking his head sadly, went off and into the other part of the house.

  Jennet had decided to say nothing about getting up so early, but Homer informed them all of the fact at breakfast.

  “And do you know, my dear Emily, she even washed the dishes and had small thanks from Mrs. D.”

  “What dishes?” asked Emily vaguely.

  “The dishes of the night before, probably. Your Mrs. Dingle’s a slummick, and so I’ve always told you,” said Julian. He looked better after his night’s rest and seemed to have lost much of his irritability.

  “She may be a slummick, but she suits us,” Emily replied blandly. “Jennet, my dear, you must not upset the arrangements of the house. It is quite unnecessary to get up at six o’clock and wash dishes. You will be called at seven-thirty.”

  “Yes, Miss Dane,” said Jennet.

  “Jeannette—I mean Jennet!”

  “Aunt Emily!” Jennet amended hastily.

  “I still think you should speak to Mrs. D., Emily,” continued Homer. “It is most ungrateful of her.”

  “That’s enough, Homer,” Emily said placidly. “We all quite understand. Jennet, dear, if you have finished, you may leave the table.”

  Jennet went into the living room, where a fire burned fitfully, and sat down. She supposed that sooner or later someone would come and tell her what her duties were to be. Her eyes wandered round the room and she noticed the long shelves of books which flanked one wall. She left her chair and knelt down by the books, scrutinizing them anxiously. Dickens ... Dickens ... everybody had Dickens ... Ah, here he was. She extracted Oliver Twist and sat back on her heels, reading with avidity.

  Julian found her there nearly an hour later, and watched her in silence for a moment before he asked: “What are you reading?”

  She started guiltily.

  “I—I was only waiting to be told what I should do,” she stammered.

  He leant on his stick, looking down at her with an amused expression.

  “You’re supposed to do what you like,” he said. “What were you reading?”

  She held up the book, and he raised his eyebrows. “Dickens—at this hour of the morning!” he remarked.

  “We were reading it aloud in the orphanage,” she explained. “We had just got to the part where Oliver asks for more, and I wanted to find out what happened.”

  “Painfully suitable reading for an orphanage,” remarked Julian dryly.

  She did not understand him and put the volume back with its fellows, feeling she should not have touched it.

  “So you read the classics at Blacker’s,” Julian said, dropping into a chair and filling his pipe.

  “We’ve read most of Dickens and Scott, and some Jane Austen,” she told him dryly. “But on Sundays we have the lives of the martyrs. I don’t like them much.”

  “You don’t approve of dying for your faith and wearing a martyr’s crown?”

  She looked distressed.

  “I don’t know. I think I’m not very brave, and a martyr’s crown seems awfully little compensation.”

  He laughed.

  “You and I should get on,” he said dryly. “I also think it’s awfully little compensation.”

  Jennet was dimly aware that he was thinking of his shattered leg, but she did not understand him and wished he would get up and go away.

  He looked at her hands and said, as if it were an accusation:

  “You have chilblains.”

  She sat on them hurriedly.

  “You must take care of your hands,” he told her. “They are the first things a man usually looks at.”

  She said nothing, thinking that the hands of the average orphan with her way to make in the world were of little consequence to a prospective employer.

  “You’d better get out on the moor,” he said abruptly. “Fresh air is what you need, and plenty of good food.”

  She looked out of the window to the expanse of lonely moor beyond.

  “Now?” she asked, the habit of obedience too strong to query any order, however strange it might seem.

  “Yes, now,” he replied, seeming to lose interest. “I'm leaving immediately after lunch, but I shall see you again before I go.”

  She had got to her feet and stood looking at him with her solemn stare. She had not felt at ease with him since he had first taken her out of the orphanage, but he was more familiar than the others, and he was going back to streets, and lights and people.

  “I suppose,” she began with great courage, “you wouldn’t take me with you ”

  “What!” he exclaimed.

  “—and change me for one of the other orphans, I mean,” she finished earnestly. “Katy Green, perhaps.”

  He looked at her with sardonic amusement.

  “Don’t you like it here?” he enquired.

  She was silent, not wishing to be rude.

  “I’m afraid,” said Julian with a wry smile, “I don’t want to change you for another orphan. I think you will suit my purpose admirably. Now, fetch your coat and go for a walk.”

  She hesitated for one moment more, then she murmured: “Yes—Cousin Julian,” and ran out of the room.

  CHAPTER T H R E E

  It seemed to Jennet during her first weeks at Pennycross that people were always saying to her: “Fetch your coat and go for a walk.” There seemed little else that she was required to do.

  Jennet, left much to herself, read with avidity, but even here, sooner or later, someone would discover her and say brightly:

  “Now, fetch your coat and go for a nice walk.”

  It was a long time before she got used to the loneliness. Tears were infrequent at the orphanage, for hard facts were learnt and faced early, but Jennet lay and wept in her big tester bed and longed for the bustle and noise of Blacker s.

  She still woke at six every morning, but now; she stayed in bed until she was called, reading by the light of her candle until Emily discovered her and forbade it.

  Emily was kind in her way, but her affections were given to her dogs. Jennet could have grown fond of Homer, for he was gentle and scholarly, and liked to talk to her in his vague fashion, and she soon discovered that his eccentricities were very harmless, but he had lived for so long in a world of his own that it was difficult to interest him in current matters for very long.

  Of Julian, she saw nothing for several weeks after he had first brought her to Pennycross, but to her surprise Emily made her write to him at regular intervals, short, colorless little letters which were an agony to compose and which he never acknowledged.

  At the beginning of December, Emily told her that the adoption papers were now completed and Jennet must realize that the Danes were now legally responsible for her. Jennet’s face lit up and she looked a little awed. “You mean I really belong—like any other girl with a family?” she asked.

  Emily nodded kindly.

  “Yes. Blacker’s no longer has any claim on you. Until you are of age you can look to us for support and a home.”

  “Cousin Julian and myself. Mine is the legal responsibility of course, but Julian’s is the financial. He will pay all your expenses for the next few years, so you must try and do him credit.”

  Jennet’s eyes grew wide.

  “But why—why Cousin Julian?” she asked.

  “That’s very simple,” said Emily briskly. “Cousin Julian can afford it and I cannot. It was his idea that you should come here, you know.”

  “Didn’t you want a companion then?”

  “Well, of course, dear. I was very pleased to have you.”

  “I’ve often wondered—” Jennet said slowly. “I mean I don’t seem to be any real help to anybody.”

  Emily patted her thin cheek.

  �
�Cousin Julian has plans for you,” was all she said.

  Things were not much clearer for Jennet after this conversation, but at least it had brought Julian into a different perspective. Cousin Julian’s plans might still be nebulous and unpredictable, but she supposed it was kind of him to be interested.

  Soon after this he informed Emily that he was coming for the weekend, and Jennet was told to wash her hair and wear her, new blue angora dress.

  She did not particularly want Julian to come. Her only acquaintance with him had given her a sense of discomfort. He treated her like a child, and at sixteen one was not a child, one was not anything.

  But Jennet sang as she changed into her new frock and combed out her freshly washed hair. It was a nice dress and so soft, she thought, turning and twisting in front of the mirror. She thought her hair looked lighter now that she no longer wore it strained back.

  Julian was there when she went into the living room. He stood with his back to the fire, resting his weight on his stick with one hand, while with the other he held a glass of sherry up to, the light, slowly turning the stem to catch the color.

  “Good evening, Cousin Julian,” said Jennet.

  He lowered his glass and surveyed her in silence for a moment.

  “Well!” he said. “Come here and let’s have a look at you.”

  She advanced slowly, wishing that Emily or Homer would come in.

  “Turn round—right round. H’m ... yes, that’s very much better.”

  He began to sip his sherry, still watching her.

  “Do you like being here?” he asked, but she felt he was not really very concerned with her reactions.

  “Yes, thank you,” she replied politely.

  “Well, sit down, or something,” he said impatiently.

  She sat in a deep chair and gazed at her shoes. Then she looked up suddenly, aware of the long silence, and caught his amused glance.

  “Did you get my letters?” she asked for want of something to say.

  “Yes, thank you,” he replied. “And I may tell you that your handwriting is shocking, Miss Jennet Brown, and your spelling little better. Didn’t they teach you the three R’s in the orphanage?”