by Sara Seale
She awoke from a troubled sleep to find Smithers drawing back the curtains. A breakfast tray had been set beside the bed. Lucy struggled up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and the man turned and regarded her curiously.
“Can I fetch you your bed-jacket, madam?” he asked.
“I—I haven’t got one,” Lucy replied, aware of failing, at least in the servant’s eyes. There had been no use or occasion for such frivolities as bed jackets in her life with old Miss Heap.
“I’ll make do with that cardigan, please,” she said with sudden firmness. She was not going to be despised or pitied by Smithers for her very evident lack of a trousseau.
He helped her on with the cardigan and she buttoned it high with clumsy fingers, wishing he would go away.
“Shall I pour your coffee, madam?” he asked with such an exaggerated imitation of the perfect manservant that she was sure he was putting on an act for her benefit.
“No, thank you,” she said, and wondered if he made the beds and did the rooms, since no women were employed in the house.
She saw his eyes roving round the room and he suddenly advanced upon the dressing-table and ran a finger over its polished surface, making fussy little clicking noises with his tongue.
“Tck, tck, did you let the lamp smitch?” he said.
“Smitch?” The word was new to Lucy. “It—it flared last night. I don’t understand oil lamps very well. Has it done any damage?”
“Smuts!” Smithers pronounced severely. “Smuts all over my dressing-table. An hour’s work it will mean, an hour’s work.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I—I’ll clear them up “ said Lucy, feeling like a chidden child.
“Certainly not, that is my province,” he replied haughtily, then proceeded to explain in the earnest tones of a governess exactly how an oil lamp should be adjusted.
He was a strange creature, Lucy thought uneasily, sparse and lugubrious, with an over-developed Adam’s apple and a habit of cracking his finger-joints which might become as nerve-racking as the sound of breakers. She wondered idly where Bart had found him and what particular virtue he possessed to remain so long in one employment.
“I see,” she said meekly when he had finished his homily, then asked if Bart was down, and almost at once wished she had not. Bart might already have gone into St. Minver to his consulting-rooms, or the hospital and it would seem strange that she was not acquainted with her husband’s movements.
Smithers’ gloomy features took on the semblance of a smile.
“The master is with Master Pierre,” he said, and for a moment he was human. Pierre, the little boy for whose sake she had consented to marry and come here to this isolated house, was loved by Smithers, and by Gaston, too.
“How is he—the little boy?” she asked eagerly, and saw the manservant’s face crumple into unfamiliar lines. It was an odd face, she thought, lined and sallow, with sparse hair plastered carefully over a bald patch. Last night he had seemed resentful, insolent almost, but this morning there was a certain forced humanity in him.
“Master Pierre is well, provided he is not excited,” he said repressively, and Lucy knew that she had presumed. “We hope—the chef and I—that you will not spoil him—madam.”
“Spoil him?” The deliberation over the last word had not been lost on Lucy, and the warmth which she had hoped to convey to Bart’s servant was quenched.
“Master Pierre has not been very much spoilt in the sense you mean,” she said shortly, and saw the man’s eyebrows lift in surprise.
“Will that be all, madam?” he enquired, back in his role of the perfect manservant.
“Yes, thank you.”
It was ludicrous, Lucy thought when he had gone. They were resentful, clearly, he and Gaston, at her invasion of their masculine household, and after last night they must know that Bart had not married her because he loved her, for had he not left her on the wedding day to dine alone, to go to bed alone in a strange house which held no welcome?
She ate breakfast, listening to the rain which still beat upon the windows, wondering about the future, already regretting the impulse which had committed her to so much sad uncertainty. Would it not have been better, she thought forlornly, to stay with the Miss Heaps of this world until that mythical insecure little clerk of whom Bart had spoken so disparagingly had, perhaps, turned up to claim her?
Presently there was a knock on her door and she called “Come in,” with no great enthusiasm for the reappearance of Smithers, but when the door opened it was Bart who stood there, and, beside him, the hesitant, mystified figure of a small boy.
“You see, Pierre—I really did have a surprise for you,” Bart said, and Pierre, his great black eyes glowing rounder and rounder with wonder, flung himself with a shout on to Lucy’s bed.
“Baba!“ he cried. “Baba—my Baba—you’re really here!” Lucy caught him in her arms, and for the moment it was a perfect reunion. She felt the boy’s arms cling about her neck and remembered those days in the hospital when only she could pacify him, and her eyes were wet as she rested her cheek against his round black head. She was aware that Bart still stood in the doorway, watching them both with a faintly wry expression, then he abruptly closed the door behind him and came and stood at the foot of the bed.
The boy was nuzzling into her shoulder, proclaiming his delight in an excited mixture of French, and English. She saw the curious look of sadness on Bart’s face and gently pushed the child away.
“Don’t you say thank you for your surprise?” she said.
“Is she to stay for always, Papa?” the boy asked, his gaze returning to his father.
“Yes, Pierre,” he returned gravely. “She is now my wife and your stepmother. Will you like that?”
“Stepmother?” Pierre repeated, frowning, “I do not know what that means. She is my Baba. It is for always?”
“Yes, for always,” Bart said. “And you must be good and do what she tells you and have no more little scenes and tantrums—understand?”
“Yes, Papa,” the child answered dutifully, but he did not understand, Lucy saw, and saw, too, that for him she had no significance as his father’s wife. She was the fairy off the Christmas tree, the only toy he had been denied in all his life until now.
“I hope,” she said softly over his head to Bart, “you will think the sacrifice worth while.”
“Sacrifice?” he repeated with raised eyebrow. “Isn’t that a question I should be asking you?”
“I hadn’t much to lose,” she said shyly.
“Nor I, for that matter,” he retorted with a sudden brittle dryness. “Did you sleep well, Lucy?”
“Y-yes. I can’t get used to the breakers.”
“You will. Do you realize it was along this bit of coast I pulled you out of the sea? Just below Polvane, in fact.”
“Was it?” She frowned, trying to remember. She had been sent to some holiday camp near St. Minver, but she had not then known of the existence of Polvane.
“Fate, would you think?” he asked a little mockingly. For some reason her disclosure of that forgotten rescue seemed to amuse him.
“Perhaps,” she said gravely. “You shouldn’t mock at fate, Bart.”
“No? Sometimes, my dear, it’s the only sane tiling to do.”
He had answered her sombrely and she guessed he was thinking of the turn of fortune which had ended his first marriage and left him with only one small child on which to build the future.
“There’s always another day,” Lucy said gently, and Pierre suddenly strangled her with a fierce embrace.
“Another day, another day ... but you’ll be here always, Baba!” he cried, and she replied,
“Yes, I’ll be here always, darling.”
“Run away now, Pierre,” Bart said brusquely.
“No.”
“I want to get dressed. Later, you shall show me the house and all your favorite toys,” Lucy said, and the boy obediently slipped off the bed and ran out of the room.
<
br /> “Pierre’s toys are his own affair, but the house, I think, should be mine,” Bart said as the door closed with a triumphant bang.
Lucy looked at him uncertainly.
“Of course,” she said, “only—”
“Only what?”
“Well, last night you rather dumped me here, and I thought—”
“You thought you were being neglected a little early in the day, is that it?”
He moved suddenly and came to sit on the side of the bed. She was very conscious of his unfamiliar presence in her bedroom, and of the fact that she had been married to him for nearly twenty-four hours and knew next to nothing about him.
“Of course not,” she replied uneasily. “I—I didn’t expect anything.”
“Yet you were disappointed in me when I left you to go to the hospital.”
“I suppose I hadn’t realized ... well, it was my wedding day ... even a make-believe wedding has some importance.”
“Yes, indeed. Poor Lucy—it was a bad start, wasn’t it?” His face softened into unexpected tenderness as he regarded her. She looked so young and defenceless sitting up in the big, old-fashioned bed, her wide-set eyes meeting his with apology while she clutched the rather shapeless cardigan tightly round her thin body.
“Have you no bed-jacket?” he asked abruptly.
“No. It shocked Smithers, I’m afraid.”
“Smithers?” He frowned.
“Well, you see,” said Lucy apologetically, “it must be quite obvious to him that I have no trousseau. He unpacked my things last night.”
Bart’s frown deepened.
“Why didn’t you tell me you needed clothes?” he asked, and she replied simply: “I never thought.”
There was the familiar hint of impatience in his eyes.
“That must be remedied,” he said. “I shall, of course, make you an allowance. You will, please, at the first opportunity, fit yourself out with anything you may need.”
“It—it isn’t necessary,” she stammered, and watched the coldness return to his eyes.
“Certainly it’s necessary,” he retorted, getting to his feet. “Do you think I want my servants to think I picked you up at random?”
The color mounted in her thin cheeks and she sat suddenly stiff and straight against the heaped pillows.
“But that’s what you did do, isn’t it?” she said very clearly, and for an instant the unwonted tenderness was back in his face.
“Not quite, Lucy Baa-lamb,” he replied with sudden gentleness. “You’re rather like a lost lamb, now I come to think of it.”
“Very likely,” she retorted with spirit “But lambs grow into sheep and sheep have no sense when it comes to protecting themselves. They just run round and round in circles.”
“Really? And is that what you propose to do?” His voice held amusement and he stood there looking down at her, his hands thrust into the pockets of an ancient pair of flannel slacks. He was unfamiliar again, she thought uneasily. She had seen him only in the uniform of his profession, black coat, striped trousers, cloaked in that polished air of clinical efficiency. He still seemed hard and unpredictable, but there was a certain comfort in the old slacks and the tweed jacket patched with leather at the elbows.
“No,” she said inattentively, “I won’t run round in circles.”
He glanced at her with amusement.
“What were you thinking of?”
“Your old clothes. They make you seem more human.”
“I’m sorry if my inhuman qualities have been uppermost during our brief acquaintance,” he observed dryly. “Well, I’ll leave you to get up now. When you’re dressed I’ll be happy to take you round the house, no doubt escorted by my son.”
He left the room as abruptly as he had entered it, and she could hear his brisk step growing fainter and fainter on the polished boards of the corridor outside.
II
When she was dressed Lucy went downstairs. Smithers was in the hall, polishing the floor. He had exchanged his more formal attire for dungarees and an open-necked shirt and seemed also to have changed his personality. He dabbed and rubbed with fussy, feminine gestures and made little clicking sounds of annoyance at each fresh mark he found.
“Wet weather makes a lot of extra work, doesn’t it?” Lucy said, trying to think of some pleasantry.
“I’m most put out—my beautiful floor that I spent ever so long on yesterday! I’m most put out,” he replied.
Rather at a loss, she began to make some suitable reply when Pierre came running out of the library and seized her by the hand.
“In here, in here!” he shouted. “We start with the lib’ry because it’s Papa’s room.”
“Pierre has a tour of the house all mapped out,” Bart said, rising from the big desk where he had been checking through a pile of papers. As he did so he removed a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from his nose and Lucy discovered that she had learnt one more small thing about him. She had not known that he wore glasses for close work.
By daylight the room revealed a shabbiness which had not been apparent in the soft light of the lamps, but it was a comfortable shabbiness which spoke of use and familiarity. The many books which lined the walls had been much read, the deep chairs well used, but the three or four fine Persian carpets which covered the floor had the distinction of the wear of centuries, the colors muted but glowing with the delicate silken sheen of the threads which had been woven into such intricate patterns.
“You know something about Persian carpets?” Bart said, observing her interest.
“Not really, but Miss Heap had a rather beautiful one and she taught me how to tell a Bokhara from a Kashan. The cats had ruined hers, of course.”
“How unfortunate. And who is Miss Heap?”
“My last employer. But you knew.”
“Of course. How stupid of me.” His lips twitched a little at the corners. “Well, your present employer has no cats. Shall we move on to the next exhibit?”
They walked from room to room, drawing-room, dining-room and small breakfast-room, Pierre running ahead. There was a flower-room opening on to the garden, gaily painted, with frivolous, flouncy curtains draping the windows, and shelves stacked high with bowls and vases and tall pottery urns of strange color and design. It was a charming little room, Lucy thought, and remembered with disappointment that Bart had said there were few flowers in the garden. She saw him watching her with a curious expression, and at once she knew this had been Marcelle’s special pleasure. She had stood here among her pretty fripperies, arranging flowers, sure of her beauty in such gracious occupation, sure, too, of her husband’s love and admiration as he leaned, perhaps, in the doorway, watching her.
Lucy closed the door softly. There had been flowers in the gardens at Polvane then, she thought, well-tended borders, color and scent, and the house had been full of them where now bowls and vases were stacked on their shelves and shut away, forgotten.
“Now,” said Pierre, pulling at her hand, “we go to see Gaston, yes?”
The kitchen was vast, with a floor of flagstones and a range so big that it seemed to have been designed for the needs of a regiment rather than those of a family. Was it Marcelle or Gaston. Lucy wondered, who had introduced such a Gallic flavor to this part of the house? Strings of onions and drying herbs hung in the cavernous alcove which housed the range, saucepans, skillets, bains marie were all of polished copper and presented a formidable array, and a smell of garlic hung on the air. Gaston himself was beating some concoction in a huge china bowl and he dropped his wooden spoon as Pierre ran to him, and swung the boy high into the air.
“And how are you today, my little cabbage?” he demanded in French. “The migraine has gone, hein?”
“I did not have a migraine. I wished to be free of lessons. It was you who sent me to bed,” said Pierre. “Look, Gaston—this is my Baba—she of whom I have spoken so much. Papa has brought her home as a surprise for me and she will live with us always. Is that not won
derful?”
“Speak in English, Pierre,” Bart interrupted sharply, and the boy looked stubborn. The cook’s little eyes darted to Lucy and then to Bart; standing behind her. It was impossible to read anything into his expression.
“Vraiment?” he replied briefly, and reached for his wooden spoon. “Madame enjoyed a good night?” he enquired politely and resumed his beating.
“Thank you, yes,” Lucy answered, and added, wishing to find some way to his good graces, “I’ve never seen cooking utensils all made of copper before, and how beautifully you keep them polished.”
His shoulders, reached his ears in a shrug as he went on vigorously beating.
“The English have forgotten the accompaniments of good cooking. Aluminum, plastic—pouff! You are a chef, ma’moiselle—pardon—madame?”
“No, oh, no,” said Lucy quickly, thinking of the meagre contents of tins hotted up on the gas rings of bedsitters,
“Bien,” he said with satisfaction, and she knew it was his way of warning her to keep out of his kitchen and not to imagine that she could give him culinary orders of her own.
“Come,” Bart said, “we are keeping Gaston from his chores.”
“What is for lunch?” asked Pierre, still lingering. “I am to have lunch in the dining-room today, Gaston, because Mr. Bond is not here and it is Baba’s first day.”
“You will see,” Gaston replied, and gave vent to some Gallic imprecation as something boiled over on the stove.
“He doesn’t like me,” Lucy said as she was taken up the staircase to see the’ other rooms.
“Nonsense!” Bart replied brusquely. “You seem too concerned as to how the servants may think of you, my dear.”