“I’ll explain everything later. Just come in and sit down. Oh, darling, you look awful! You must be exhausted! There’s a nice fire in the study,” she added, taking me firmly by the arm.
There was a blazing fire in the study and the gate-legged table was placed near it, ready set for a meal.
“I didn’t think anyone would be here,” I murmured vaguely.
“Nobody was,” replied Freddie. “I had to climb in through the bathroom window. I’ve been busy making up the beds, putting in the electric blankets and doing the fire. I got a cauliflower from the garden. You like choufleur au gratin, don’t you? I’ve made coffee and——”
“But Freddie, how did you——”
“Don’t fuss, darling. I stopped on the way and got bread and butter and milk and eggs. Everything is under control. Just sit down and rest.”
“There’s a smell of burning!”
She gave a cry of dismay and fled.
I took off my hat and tossed it on to a chair and sat down by the fire. My head was aching. I had been frozen like an iceberg, but now I began to melt . . . and the melting was painful. Sobs shook me and tears ran down my cheeks.
Presently I felt a gentle touch on my arm and found Freddie beside me, kneeling on the floor.
“I can’t help it,” I said. “Grandmama has gone . . .”
“I can’t help it either,” sobbed Freddie. “I loved her terribly much. She was so—so understanding and—and she was always here. The house seems so—so awfully queer and—and empty.”
I took her hand and we stayed there together for a little while.
“Could you eat some supper?” asked Freddie at last. “Don’t bother if you’d rather go to bed. I just thought perhaps it would do you good to have something to eat.”
“Yes, it would do me good,” I told her. The child had prepared the meal and, somehow or other, I should have to eat it.
“I’ll get it!” she said and ran to fetch the tray.
*
Freddie had learnt cooking from Mrs White so the cauliflower was delicious and the coffee was good too. She had bought a Vienna loaf and had heated it in the oven to make it crisp. When I began to eat I discovered to my surprise that I was hungry.
For a few minutes we ate in silence, then Freddie began to talk.
“You asked me how I got here,” she said. “Yesterday was the end of term; Brookes fetched me from St Elizabeth’s and when I got home I found the telegram. It had been there for several days and Mrs White said I had better open it . . . so I opened it and came. That’s all.”
“The telegram?” I asked stupidly. “Why hadn’t your parents opened it?”
“They weren’t there. Mrs White was worried; she didn’t know whether to send it to Daddy’s office or not. When I opened it and saw—and saw the news about Grandmama I decided to come at once. Mrs White was a bit fussed about my coming alone—driving so far by myself—but Brookes was on my side. He taught me to drive so he knew I could manage it quite easily. You’re glad I came, aren’t you?”
“It’s wonderful,” I told her. “I thought the house would be empty, so it was a lovely surprise. What a kind child you are!”
She smiled at me happily. “You’re looking better now.”
I was feeling much better, more like myself, and my head had stopped aching.
“Aunt Sarah, do you remember Shane?” asked Freddie suddenly.
“Yes, of course! You haven’t seen him, have you?”
“He came to Brailsford.”
“Shane came to Brailsford?” I asked in dismay.
Freddie nodded. “Somehow or other he got to know Mummie and when I went home for the Christmas holidays I found that he and Mummie were friends. She likes having a young man to go about with her, especially a man like Shane—tall and dark and good-looking. I must say they were very striking when you saw them together.”
“Did you see much of Shane?”
“Oh, he didn’t bother about me! He was Mummie’s ‘escort.’ They went to parties together and when Mummie had a party Shane was always there, making himself useful. It was rather disgusting to see him playing up to Mummie . . . but if it hadn’t been Shane it would have been someone else, of course.”
I tried to find something to say, but failed.
“That was the Christmas holidays,” continued Freddie. “When I went home at Easter it was all over. I don’t know what happened—not really—but I rather think he borrowed money from her and didn’t pay it back. I’m sorry for Shane,” she added. “He could have been awfully nice, but there was something—something horrid about him, you know.”
“He wasn’t straight,” I said.
“He told lies,” agreed Freddie, with a sigh.
For a few moments we were silent. I realised, in surprise, that we had been talking of Shane in the past tense—as if he were dead! I understood exactly what Freddie meant in her summing up of his character: he could have been “awfully nice” but something had twisted him. I, too, felt sorry for Shane; it was easy to pity him now that there was no need to be frightened of him.
“Do your parents know that you’ve come to Craignethan?” I asked. “If not we had better——”
“Oh, they don’t bother about me! I rang up Mrs White when I arrived—I knew she would be worrying—and, anyhow, Mummie is in the south of France.”
“Yes, of course! She wrote and told me she was going. I had forgotten. I’m rather muddle-headed just now.”
“You’re tired,” said Freddie, nodding wisely. “If you’ve had enough supper you had better go to bed. I’ll wash up the dishes and leave everything tidy. There’s something I want to tell you—something rather important—but it will do in the morning.”
“Something important?” I asked anxiously.
“Yes, but you’re tired. We had better wait until the morning; you’ll feel ever so much better after a good night’s sleep.”
I looked at Freddie: she was smiling to herself, as if possessed of a delightful secret; a fact which added to my alarm.
“Give me another cup of coffee and a cigarette and tell me now,” I said firmly.
“A cigarette? I didn’t know you smoked!”
“I don’t, really—just sometimes, if I feel like it. You’ll find the tin in the left-hand drawer of the desk.”
Freddie gave me a cigarette and lighted it, poured out another cup of coffee, moved the table, put a couple of logs on the fire and, sitting down on the hearthrug in her favourite position, leant against my knee.
“You like me, don’t you?” she said comfortably.
“I dislike you intensely.”
She giggled. “That’s a pity because I’m coming to live with you and Uncle Charles.”
“What!”
“You heard,” said Freddie, cheekily.
“You mean you’re going to stay with us for your summer holidays?”
“No.”
“But you’re going to Girton, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Freddie, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about my life. I’m tired of being pushed about and told to do this, and that, and the other. I’m eighteen so I’m old enough to decide for myself.” The child was sitting up and looking at me; her face was flushed and her eyes were shining.
“Girton would be——” I began.
“No,” said Freddie, shaking her head. “Girton was Mummie’s idea. I’m not going to Girton.”
“She’ll be very disappointed.”
“Oh, she’ll be furious! It would be so nice for her to be able to talk about ‘my daughter who is at Girton, reading languages’.”
“You’re interested in languages, aren’t you?”
“I can ‘read languages’ here, with you and Uncle Charles; we can go abroad together now and then, can’t we? What fun it will be!”
“Freddie, darling, your mother won’t let you; so it’s no good thinking about it.”
“Won’t she?�
� cried Freddie excitedly. “Has Mummie got the right of life and death over me?”
“She’s your mother.”
“She never wanted me. She would have liked a son. Oh yes, I knew I was a disappointment as soon as I was old enough to understand anything. I knew I wasn’t wanted! If I had been like her, with blue eyes and pretty curls, it wouldn’t have been so bad; she could have dressed me up and shown me off at tea-parties. Her friends would have said, ‘What a sweetly pretty child! Just like you, Lottie, darling’.”
“Oh Freddie!” I exclaimed in dismay.
“It’s true,” said Freddie bitterly. “You don’t know Mummie as I do. You don’t know what she’s like. Unfortunately I didn’t ‘dress up’ well. In frills and furbelows I looked like a circus monkey . . . so I was no good to her and she got rid of me as soon as she could. She sent me to school when I was five. I was the youngest girl at Gates Head. Miss Gates only took me because Mummie paid extra. Mummie didn’t care how much she paid! Once she had got rid of me she didn’t bother about me any more. She never came and saw me and took me out to lunch, like other girls’ mothers. Sometimes everyone else was out—everyone except me.”
“We used to come,” I murmured.
“Oh, darling—yes!” cried Freddie. “You were wonderful! You’ve always been wonderful! I don’t know what I should have done without you and Uncle Charles. Perhaps I might have gone mad. I think I did go a little mad, now and then.”
I was so horrified that I could find nothing to say.
“Sometimes Mummie said she was coming and didn’t come,” continued Freddie in a low shaky voice. “I waited and waited—all dressed and ready—and she didn’t come. It was awful, because one of the mistresses had to stay in and look after me. I was a nuisance. I’ve always been a nuisance to everyone all my life.”
“Never to us, darling!”
Freddie didn’t seem to hear. She continued miserably, “Mummie came once to Gates Head—just once—for the school play. It was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I was Oberon. She came once to St Elizabeth’s when I was playing in a tennis match against Wycombe Abbey. She looked beautiful. She was sweet and charming to everyone. All the girls wanted to know why she had never come before. I said she lived in the south of France so it was too far for her to come. (I had to make some excuse. I couldn’t tell them the truth, could I? I couldn’t tell them that my mother didn’t love me.) Everyone thought she was simply marvellous. I was proud of her that day and I wanted her to be proud of me—I wanted it terribly much—and I won my match! I thought she would be pleased, but all she said was ‘I don’t know why your hair is so awful; I’ve always had such pretty hair’.”
“Darling, she didn’t mean——”
“Oh, it was true, of course! I knew my hair was awful, but—but I thought she would be pleased with me. That was why I was disappointed. I can’t help my hair; it has always been a worry. The only time my hair looked nice was when you washed it and set it with combs for the dance at Dunnian House. I looked—quite nice—didn’t I?”
“You looked lovely,” I told her. “It’s nice hair, beautifully thick and soft . . . and beautifully shiny,” I added, running my fingers through the thick soft mop which was leaning against my knee.
She turned her head and looked at me; there were tears in her eyes.
“Don’t be bitter about Mummie,” I said gently. “She can’t help being a little self-centred. Now that you’re grown-up we can have your hair properly cut and shaped.”
“Oh, it isn’t just my hair—that’s a detail! I only told you because of what she said at the tennis match. It used to make me unhappy when she neglected me; I used to wish I had a mother who loved me, but now I don’t care. I don’t want her to love me.”
“Oh Freddie, she does love you! I know she seems neglectful, but that’s just her way. She cares for you, darling.”
“I’ll tell you how she cares for me!” cried Freddie passionately. “She cares for me as a sort of—a sort of belonging. I belong to her like a diamond ring, but I’m not so ornamental, of course. I’m a status symbol, like a big car, but not nearly so useful. That kind of ‘caring’ is no good.”
It was dreadful, but I didn’t try to stop her; it was better that all the bitterness and misery should come out.
She continued wildly. “They’re both ‘too busy’ to bother about me. Daddy is working himself to death, piling up the shekels; Mummie is wearing herself to death ‘having fun.’ Having fun! What’s the good of ‘fun’ if you don’t enjoy it?”
“Perhaps she does enjoy it,” I said feebly. “She has gone to the Riviera with some friends.”
“They’ve all gone! All the gang! They’ve gone to ‘Staggie’s place’! Staggie is Mummie’s latest.”
“Staggie?”
“Yes, Staggie,” said Freddie, laughing hysterically. “You ought to see Staggie; he’s marvellous! Staggie has curly grey hair and whiskers; Staggie is the owner of a gorgeous villa near Monte Carlo, with a ballroom, sun-parlour and a swimming-pool with artificial waves. ‘So peaceful, my dear’.” drawled Freddie in languid tones. “Well, perhaps it would be peaceful if Staggie didn’t fill the place with hordes of his dearest friends, ‘having fun’ and turning night into day.”
“How do you know?” I asked in alarm.
“Vera told me. Vera always goes with Mummie to do her hair . . . and you needn’t look at me like that! Of course I ‘gossip with the servants.’ I have to talk to someone! Besides I love them. I love Vera and I love Mrs White—and they love me. When I had ’flu, at St Elizabeth’s, dear old Mrs White came to see me and brought me fruit and flowers. Mummie never came near me; she might have got ’flu, of course! Brookes helped me to buy my car and taught me to drive. We’re friends. Mrs Brookes is nice too. Sometimes I go and have tea with them. I would have been happier and better looked after if they had been my father and mother. But all that . . . doesn’t matter,” declared Freddie with a little catch in her breath. “I don’t know why I’ve bothered you with all that nonsense. The point is I’ve been at school since I was five years old and I’m sick and tired of schools. I don’t want to go to Girton—I want a home. I want home life. I want to live in a house with people who love me because I’m me.” She sat up and looked at me and added, “You understand, don’t you? Please understand, darling Aunt Sarah!”
“Yes,” I said shakily. “Yes, I understand.”
“If you and Uncle Charles don’t want me I’m done for! I’ve got nobody, nobody in all the world!”
“Oh Freddie, of course we want you!”
“That’s settled then. I shall write to Mummie tonight, before I go to bed—and to Daddy, too. I shall tell them that I’m not going to live with them any more. I shall tell them that I’ve always wanted to belong to you and now I’m old enough to choose for myself. I shall tell them——”
“No, no!” I exclaimed. “No, darling you mustn’t do that! We must wait until Uncle Charles comes home and talk it over with him. It would be wrong to take you away from your parents.”
“You wouldn’t be ‘taking me away.’ I’m doing it myself. I shall tell them——”
“Hush, Freddie! Listen to me. We must wait until Uncle Charles comes home and ask his advice. Your parents will be terribly angry——”
“What can they do?” she interrupted excitedly. “I’m independent—I’ve got money of my own! Mr Crossman is sensible and kind—he’s sure to understand. I shall write to him, too, and explain everything.”
“No,” I said firmly. “No, Freddie, you mustn’t write to anyone. You must wait and ask Uncle Charles.”
“I can’t wait! I want to make a clean break. I want to do it now—this minute. I don’t want to belong to them—I can’t bear it! Mummie has always—always disliked me. She disliked me when I was a child—which was bad enough—but now—now it’s worse. Now it’s simply unbearable.”
“What do you mean?” I asked in alarm.
“I’ll tell you,” said Freddie
. “I’ll tell you what’s ‘unbearable’: when Mummie is at home she has parties. People drink a lot and—and there’s gambling and—and that sort of thing. She used to send me to bed, but now she has begun to use me as a—as a sort of bait. It’s frightening, Aunt Sarah! I don’t know why it’s so frightening . . . but it is. She introduced me to some of her young men as ‘my rich little daughter’.”
“Freddie!”
“It’s because she hates me having Grandmother Hudson’s money. She resents me having money; she’s horrid to me about it. She says I’m a fool not to ask Mr Crossman for a rocket to fly to the moon. Oh, I know it sounds funny,” declared Freddie, with a strangled sob. “But it isn’t funny when it goes on—and on—all the time.”
Then she pulled herself together. “But that’s all over. I’ve escaped—and I’m never going back. I’m never going to let her push me about any more. I’m never going to be ‘used’ or neglected. I’m old enough now to live my own life. I want a home, that’s all. I just want a home and—and someone to be kind to me—someone to—to love me.”
She was crying now, sobbing as if her heart would break, so I put my arms round her and kissed her and held her close.
After a little while she said brokenly, “I’m sorry, darling! We’ll have to . . . to wait for Uncle Charles . . . to come home. I was . . . silly.”
Chapter Forty
It was late when Freddie and I went to bed. I was too tired to sleep—and too worried. I had known before that Lottie was fond of gadding about and “having fun,” Lewis had told me years ago that she was “riding for a fall” . . . but Freddie’s account of her sayings and doings was horrifying. It was all the more horrifying because it had poured out of Freddie so naturally. “Staggie is Mummie’s latest.” And she had laughed! Staggie’s “gorgeous villa” . . . and his “hordes of friends” who turned night into day! Mummie’s parties! Worst of all: Lottie had not only got mixed up with these ghastly people herself, she was actually using her eighteen-year-old daughter “as a sort of bait,” producing her at gambling orgies and introducing her to young men as an heiress.
It was frightful—it was simply monstrous—Freddie must be rescued and given a home. How was it to be done?
Sarah's Cottage (Sarah Morris Book 2) Page 31