Master of Melincourt

by Susan Barrie

  MASTER OF MELINCOURT

  Susan Barrie

  Edwina Sands had her work cut out trying to cope with her rebellious small charge, Tina Errol—especially as Tina’s guardian did little to support her governess.

  But Edwina’s biggest problem was to come from quite another quarter.

  CHAPTER I

  THE whole atmosphere of the drawing-room was relaxed and informal despite the magnificence of the furnishings and the opulence of the flower arrangements, and Edwina would have said it was an atmosphere that had been grafted on to it rather than one that had been bred in the bone, as it were. No doubt in Mr. Errol’s mother’s day the sight of a pair of muddied riding-boots sprawled across the Chinese rug in front of the fireplace would have sent Mrs. Errol’s aristocratic eyebrows flying upwards in horror and reproof; and the housekeeper of the day would almost certainly have protested if a pipe-rack had been allowed to disfigure the mantelpiece and a child’s toys to litter the pale, flowered carpet.

  Tina Errol, bouncing up and down on a satin-damask-covered settee, protested petulantly.

  “I don’t like her! You said I should have someone young and good fun to play games with me as well as take charge of me, but Miss Sands doesn’t play proper games at all.” She glared at Edwina. “And I don’t think she’s really very young!”

  “Dear me.”

  A muscle at the corner of Jervis Errol’s mouth twitched, and he made no attempt to disguise the amusement in his eyes. He looked upwards at Edwina, standing on the edge of the Chinese mg, and while still sprawled in his chair and tapping with his finger at the bowl of a pipe that he had only just lighted asked her quite affably whether she personally considered she was young enough to come to terms with a child, and if not why had she ever seriously contemplated devoting herself to children.

  Edwina stood very stiffly, as if at attention, and answered him without hesitation.

  “Of course I’m young enough. I’m twenty-two ... and Tina will be nine next birthday. She isn’t exactly a babe in arms.”

  “And you like children?”

  “I like some children.”

  “Ah!” His voice was drawling and indolent. “There, almost certainly, is the answer! You do not like my monkey-faced niece ... and I’ll admit she does look rather like a monkey at times.” He held out his hand to his niece, and she rushed at him immediately and started to climb on to his knee. “Are you a monkey, kitten? Or are you a very feminine little pussy-cat?”

  “I don’t like Miss Sands! I don’t like her!” the child chanted. She tugged at his tie and attempted to throttle him. “

  “You don’t like her, either, Uncle Jervis ... You said so!”

  “Sh!” He held up a warning finger. “One doesn’t discuss a lady when the lady herself is present!”

  “But Miss Sands isn’t a lady ... she’s a governess!” He put her from him very deliberately, and for the moment, at least, he was annoyed.

  “You’re a crude child as well as a rude one, and I ought to give you a slap! Nowadays all sorts of people become governesses ... and all sorts of people employ them!” He looked up frowningly at Edwina. “What is it that you’ve done to her to set her so much against you? Normally she’s not a difficult child ... most people consider she’s slightly precocious but perfectly manageable. You have, apparently, looked after other children, and you should know what is required of you. Why, after less than a fortnight, have you failed in this particular case?”

  Miss Sands looked as if she could hardly believe it was only a fortnight since she arrived at Melincourt. She drew a deep breath, and her rather pale face flushed. She pushed back the warm brown hair from her forehead, and metaphorically squared her shoulders.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  “You don’t know?”

  She decided to be honest. After all, the very worst thing he could do to her would be to send her packing. Her large brown eyes met his brilliant, slightly irritated blue ones.

  “Yes, I do know,” she told him quietly. “Your niece is an exceptionally spoilt child ... a very, very badly spoilt child! It’s quite understandable that this should be so, since her mother was an invalid for such a long time, and she cannot remember her father ... and the fact that you took her abroad with you on your travels has not given her an opportunity to develop as other children develop. But apart from all that she has a tendency to take violent likes and dislikes—”

  “There is a lot of Spanish blood in our family,” he recollected, amiably. “My mother was three-quarters Spanish—” she could well believe it with his night-dark hair and arrogant profile—“and before that my great-grandmother was completely Spanish. It tends to upset the balance sometimes, makes it impossible for us to be impartial.”

  “Well, Tina finds it impossible to be impartial about me. She just doesn’t like me.”

  He regarded the child quizzically.

  “What is it about Miss Sands that you don’t like?”

  Tina, who had lank black hair and black boot-button eyes, and a slightly pallid skin because she ate far too many sweets and no one had ever told her that they were bad for her teeth if not her digestion, and her passion for rich gateaux was certainly not good for one with a strong tendency to an oily skin, fastened up her small mouth primly and took a good look at Edwina Sands. After a minute or so she shook her head.

  “It’s just everything about her.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything!”

  Her uncle merely looked intrigued.

  “But you can’t possibly dislike everything about one particular person,” he objected, with that note of indulgence in his voice that from the very outset had warned Edwina that she was up against quite a problem in this unusually devoted uncle and niece. If she had criticised the uncle to the niece the latter would probably have flown at her and scratched her eyes out ... if her small claws could have managed it. And instead of taking seriously any criticism of his dependant that was made to him the uncle merely adopted the attitude that it was slightly amusing, and of-course the small determined monkey was a bit of a pest sometimes, but it was quite beyond him to understand that anyone could seriously look upon her as a problem child.

  Spoilt? Well, all little girls were spoiled ... or should be! What was it that was said about them in that rhyme? ... ‘What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice, and all things nice!’

  He gazed at Miss Sands for a few seconds as if he quite failed to understand her, shook his head in slight bewilderment because she actually struck him as quite inoffensive, and said as much to Tina.

  “But Miss Sands is a pretty normal type of young woman. She doesn’t beat you, does she?”

  Tina’s black eyes flashed.

  “I’d bite her if she did!”

  He shrugged his shoulders rather helplessly.

  “Then what does she do?”

  “She doesn’t play with me ... or at least, she won’t always play when I want her to. And she makes me brush my teeth three times a day, and she won’t let the cat sleep in my bed, or have her kittens in my bedroom cupboard where she had the last lot, before Miss Sands got here. And she makes me tidy up everything, and she doesn’t think I ought to bring toys down here...” She kicked a doll across the room, and then pounced on a pile of books and deliberately flung them to all corners of the room. “I hate being tidy, and I hate being made to do things!”

  “Dear me,” her uncle said again, mildly. “But if you smash an ornament or overturn a vase you’ll have the housekeeper breathing down your neck. I believe she takes a kind of delight in doing the flowers.”

  “I hate the housekeeper ... she’s a stuffy old thing! And I hate the cook, because she won’t let me into the ki
tchen.”

  “Anybody else you hate?” Jervis Errol looked very much amused and plainly diverted, and he glanced across at Edwina with a hint of kingfisher brightness in his brilliantly blue eyes. And as he had almost feminine eyelashes the effect was a little disturbing. “Let’s have the complete list!”

  “I hate the gardener because he shoos me off the borders, and I hate the postman because he takes a stick to Bimbo when he brings the letters, and Bimbo doesn’t like postmen ... He bit him once! And I hate the woman in the general shop in the village because she stares, and I hate the vicar’s wife because she told Miss Sands I was undersized—”

  Her uncle shouted with laughter.

  “What a list, and what conceit! Do you dislike so much being undersized?”

  “It was the way she said it. I don’t think she likes me.”

  “Possibly not. Anyone you like? ... apart from me, of course!” with a complacent, white-toothed smile.

  “Marsha ... Marsha Fleming. I think she’s the most beautiful person in the world, and I wish she’d come here and marry you and then you could send Miss Sands away and Marsha would be like my mother... and it would be fun! I do wish you’d marry Marsha, Uncle Jervis!”

  The amusement faded from her uncle’s eyes, and for a second or so he looked thoughtful, as if he was giving the plea a certain amount of serious consideration, although he was by no means yet entirely convinced that it was the answer to all his problems—if he had any real ones, which Edwina doubted, since he always struck her as very well content with life as it was. And having recently inherited an estate and an outsize income he couldn’t possibly have any financial worries.

  So, in a way, he was a very fortunate individual.

  “I daresay you do, you precocious child,” he said at last, tugging at a lank end of Tina’s hair. “But when I marry I shall not consult you about the lady beforehand. You can take my word for that!”

  He cast aside his pipe—-which he never succeeded in keeping alight for longer than a few seconds at a time—and lighted himself a cigarette instead. The brilliant blue eyes beneath his shapely black brows gazed dismissingly at the governess, and he advised her to take her charge away and make some effort to get to know her and understand her. If she made a really determined effort the results might be quite remarkable.

  “Try and remember that she’s just a child,” he said. “I don’t want to have to get rid of you because your replacement might be even less promising, and it would involve a lot of wasted time and trouble in any case. I loathe dealing with employment agencies, and interviewing young women. Most of them look alike to me. The great advantage you had was that you were recommended for the job.”

  “Thank you,” Edwina said primly.

  He waved a hand dismissingly.

  “I like to think you won’t fail in the end. Your last employer said you had a lot of common sense ... and all you have to do is bear with the child sometimes. Don’t be so keen to needle her.”

  “I don’t needle her,” Edwina protested, and saw a frankly bored look clamp down over his face. “It’s just that she’s very obstinate, and I’m obstinate, too, sometimes. With your permission I’d like to insist that she tidies this room before we go upstairs.”

  “For heaven’s sake, leave it to one of the maids.” He was plainly anxious to be rid of them. “Please go! I’ve someone coming for lunch, and I thought I heard a car on the drive just now.”

  Grinning triumphantly, Tina skipped over to the door.

  “You see,” she said to Edwina, “I don’t have to be tidy if I don’t want to ... and I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to!”

  Edwina caught at her hand and resisted the temptation to drag her towards the staircase when they reached the hall. She merely gave her a little tug and pulled her along behind her.

  “We’ll see about that,” she said quietly. “So long as I remain here you will most certainly not do everything you want! But when we get upstairs and Bessie brings the lunch menu you can choose what you want for lunch, if you like.”

  Tina gazed at her with a touch of surprise.

  “Including ice-cream?” she demanded.

  “If there’s ice-cream.”

  “Goody!” Tina exclaimed. “Then I’ll have lots of ice-cream and skip the fish. I know it’s fish to-day because Cook’s a Roman Catholic. Every Friday we have fish.”

  Edwina watched her, having wrenched away her hand, flying up the stairs ahead of her. She felt slightly deflated, and incapable of issuing a reprimand even if Tina decided to slide down the gleaming balustrade and defy her from the hall.

  CHAPTER II

  BUT Tina remained in a fairly amenable mood throughout lunch, and afterwards, as it was a fine afternoon, they went for a walk in the park.

  Melincourt was a fine old house, dating back to Jacobean times, and unspoilt by recent development. The park was as extensive as it had ever been, and the surrounding country was a joy to Edwina, who had spent years of her life in towns. She disliked towns, because they both oppressed and depressed her, and in the country, even while working for a not entirely appreciative employer, and with her authority flouted at regular intervals throughout the day—and with the knowledge that she was likely to be sacked at any moment hanging over her—she could feel free to enjoy it, and it didn’t cost her anything, and she wasn’t envious because none of this beauty was her rightful background, and life for her was rather like living on a mess of quicksand.

  She had had one other job as a governess, and one as a secretary-companion. It was the lady for whom she had worked as a secretary-companion who had recommended her to Jervis Errol, and she did hope she would not be dismissed with ignominy, if only because it would reflect badly on her one really nice and considerate employer.

  She could have been with her still if she hadn’t felt the urge to try something new. But having tried something new she hoped she could keep the newness ... at any rate, until it wasn’t quite so new.

  Jervis Errol was paying her a good salary, and she had very comfortable quarters at Melincourt. The only fly in the ointment was Tina, her eight-year-old charge.

  Tina had a corgi called Strawberry, and the two of them went flying across the park ahead of Edwina as she walked more sedately behind them. It was a warm May afternoon, and the blue of the sky was dappled with little lazily drifting clouds. The trees of the park were mostly giants, towering into the blue above her head, and all around her. There were green rides where the turf was soft as velvet, and in the hazy distance the square tower of the Norman church indicated the location of the village. Otherwise there was not a dwelling in sight, and no other human being apart from the childish shape of Tina. The hedges were white with hawthorn and pink with may, and from the distant rose-garden of Melincourt came the scent of early roses.

  It was almost too much, Edwina thought, to be a part of her everyday life. It was like something she wanted so desperately to hang on to, but which she feared might be snatched away from her at any moment ... and then there would be nothing but the return journey to London, possibly a month’s salary in lieu of notice since she was to be paid by the month, and a dreary settling back into the room she had occupied in Kensington—if it was still vacant.

  It would mean employment agencies—and she disliked them as much as Jervis Errol did—and a careful hoarding of her limited amount of money. She had no longer any close relatives, and few friends, and the smart of being dismissed would make looking for a fresh job seem all the harder.

  After all, if she could be dismissed from one job, she might be dismissed from another. It was just possible there really was something about her that caused a childlike Tina to rebel. Perhaps she really was prim, and demanding, and not particularly lovable. She had been brought up primly by a very prim aunt, and that kind of upbringing made it difficult to adjust, to understand the whims of a wild waif like Tina.

  She wanted to understand her, and she didn’t enjoy lecturing her, and constantl
y finding fault with her. But when you’d never been allowed to leave anything at all lying in your own room, let alone the other rooms in the house, and you never spoke out of turn because you were frowned at if you did so, and it was dinned into you that your school work was important, and all set tasks had to be accomplished however difficult they were, or distasteful, it was extraordinarily difficult—not to say almost impossible—to feel entirely sympathetic towards someone like Tina, who, although she was an orphan, had been thoroughly spoilt by a devoted uncle, had everything she wanted apparently right from her cradle, and had never been ordered to do anything at all that she did not like doing.

  Edwina, as she followed her across the park, attempted the well-nigh impossible task of keeping up with her, and resolved at the same time to be a little more patient, a little more perceptive, perhaps, of what made a small thing like Tina react as she did ... not at all unlike, at times, a filly with the bit between its teeth.

  Unfortunately Edwina knew next to nothing about horses, so likening her to an unmanageable filly did not simplify her problem in any way, or enable her to see it from a different aspect. But she made up her mind—in her own interests, and possibly also Tina’s—that she would take the uncle’s advice and try, at least, to understand her. She would try a little more psychology than she had so far done, and perhaps it might yield results.

  Having arrived at this decision, and feeling a little breathless because she had quickened her steps considerably for the last quarter of a mile or so, she suddenly realised that Tina in her light blue slacks and yellow cardigan had vanished from the scene. She had vanished as completely as if she had never been ... she and Strawberry, who was never more than a foot or so behind her.

  Edwina frowned as she surveyed the landscape. Although there were a lot of trees it was fairly open, and it shouldn’t have been possible for anyone to disappear unless they were some distance away. Tina had been increasing the distance between them during the last few minutes, but one minute she stood out against the skyline like a gaily coloured elf with lank locks and a curious, tireless, skipping gait, and the next she had gone to ground.