Mistress of Mellyn

by Victoria Holt

  He called jauntily: “Good morning, Miss Leigh.”

  In that moment I said to myself: So it was his horse I heard. And has he been riding in the early morning, or out all night? I imagined his visiting one of the gay ladies of the neighborhood, if such existed. That was my opinion of him. I was angry that he should be the one to show no embarrassment whatsoever while I was blushing—certainly in every part that was visible.

  “Good morning,” I said, and my voice sounded curt.

  He was coming swiftly across the lawn, hoping, I was sure, to embarrass me further by a closer look at me in my night attire.

  “A beautiful morning,” he cried.

  “Extremely so,” I answered.

  I withdrew into my room as I heard him shout: “Hello, Alvean! So you’re up too.”

  I was standing well back from the window now and I heard Alvean cry: “Hello, Papa!” and her voice was soft and gentle with that wistful note which I had detected when she spoke of him on the previous day. I knew that she was delighted to have seen him, that she had been awake in her room when she had heard his voice, and had dashed to her window, and that it would make her extremely happy if he stopped awhile and chatted with her.

  He did no such thing. He went into the house. Standing before my mirror, I looked at myself. Most unbecoming, I thought. And quite undignified. Myself in a pink flannelette nightdress buttoned high at the throat, with my hair down and my face even now the color of the flannelette!

  I put on my dressing gown and on impulse crossed the schoolroom to Alvean’s room. I opened the door and went in. She was sitting astride a chair and talking to herself.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of really. All you have to do is hold tight and not be afraid … and you won’t fall off.”

  She was so intent on what she was doing that she had not heard the door open, and I stood for a few seconds watching her, for she had her back to the schoolroom door.

  I learned a great deal in that moment. He was a great horseman, this father of hers; he wanted his daughter to be a good horsewoman, but Alvean, who desperately wanted to win his approval, was afraid of horses.

  I started forward, my first impulse to talk to her, to tell her that I would teach her to ride. It was one thing I could do really well because we had always had horses in the country, and at five Phillida and I were competing in local shows.

  But I hesitated because I was beginning to understand Alvean. She was an unhappy child. Tragedy had hit her in more ways than one. She had lost her mother, and that was the biggest tragedy which could befall any child; but when her father did not seem anything but indifferent to her, and she adored him, that was a double tragedy.

  I quietly shut the door and went back to my room. I looked at the sunshine on the carpet and my elation returned. I was going to make a success of this job. I was going to fight Connan TreMellyn, if he wanted it that way. I was going to make him proud of his daughter; I was going to force him to give her that attention which was her right and which none but a brute would deny her.

  Lessons were trying that morning. Alvean was late for them, having breakfasted with her father in accordance with the custom of the family. I pictured them at the big table in the room which I had discovered was used as a dining room when there were no guests. They called it the small dining room, but it was only small by Mount Mellyn standards.

  He would be reading the paper, or looking through his letters, I imagined; Alvean would be at the other end of the table hoping for a word, which of course he would be too selfish to bestow.

  I had to send for her to come to lessons; and that she deeply resented.

  I tried to make lessons as interesting as I could, and I must have succeeded, for in spite of her resentment toward me she could not hide her interest in the history and geography lessons which I set for that morning.

  She took luncheon with her father while I ate alone in the schoolroom, and after that I decided to approach Connan TreMellyn.

  While I was wondering where I could find him I saw him leave the house and go across to the stables. I immediately followed him and, when I arrived at the stables, I heard him giving orders to Billy Trehay to saddle Royal Russet for him.

  He looked surprised to see me; and then he smiled and I was sure that he was remembering the last time he had seen me—in dishabille.

  “Why,” he said, “it is Miss Leigh.”

  “I had hoped to have a few words with you,” I said primly. “Perhaps this is an inconvenient time.”

  “That depends,” he said, “on how many words you wish us to exchange.” He took out his watch and looked at it. “I can give you five minutes, Miss Leigh.”

  I was aware of Billy Trehay, and if Connan TreMellyn was going to snub me I was eager that no servant should overhear.

  Connan TreMellyn said: “Let us walk across the lawn. Ready in five minutes, Billy?”

  “Very good, master,” answered Billy.

  With that, Connan TreMellyn began to walk away from the stables, and I fell into step beside him.

  “In my youth,” I said, “I was constantly in the saddle. I believe Alvean wishes to learn to ride. I am asking your permission to teach her.”

  “You have my permission to try, Miss Leigh,” he said.

  “You sound as though you doubt my ability to succeed.”

  “I fear I do.”

  “I don’t understand why you should doubt my ability to teach when you have not tested my skill.”

  “Oh, Miss Leigh,” he said almost mockingly, “you wrong me. It is not your ability to teach that I doubt; it is Alvean’s to learn.”

  “You mean others have failed to teach her?”

  “I have failed.”

  “But surely …”

  He lifted a hand. “It is strange,” he said, “to find such fear in a child. Most children take to it like breathing.”

  His tone was clipped, his expression hard. I wanted to shout at him: What sort of father are you! I pictured the lessons, the lack of understanding, the expectation of miracles. No wonder the child had been scared.

  He went on: “There are some people who can never learn to ride.”

  Before I could stop myself I had burst out: “There are some people who cannot teach.”

  He stopped to stare at me in astonishment, and I knew that nobody in this house had ever dared to talk to him in such a way.

  I thought: This is it. I shall now be told that my services are no longer required, and at the end of the month I may pack my bags and depart.

  There was a violent temper there, and I could see that he was fighting to control it. He still looked at me but I could not read the expression in those light eyes. I believed it was contemptuous. Then he glanced back at the stables.

  “You must excuse me, Miss Leigh,” he said; and he left me.

  I went straight to Alvean. I found her in the schoolroom. There was the sullen, defiant look in her eyes, and I believed she had seen me talking to her father.

  I came straight to the point. “Your father has said I may give you riding lessons, Alvean. Would you like that?”

  I saw the muscles of her face tighten, and my heart sank. Would it be possible to teach a child who was as scared as that?

  I went on quickly, before she had time to answer: “When we were your age my sister and I were keen riders. She was two years younger than I and we used to compete together in the local shows. The exciting days in our lives were those when there was a horse show in our village.”

  “They have them here,” she said.

  “It’s great fun. And once you’ve really mastered the trick, you feel quite at home in the saddle.”

  She was silent for a moment, then she said: “I can’t do it. I don’t like horses.”

  “You don’t like horses!” My voice was shocked. “Why, they’re the gentlest creatures in the world.”

  “They’re not. They don’t like me. I rode Gray Mare and she ran fast and wouldn’t stop, and if Tapperty
hadn’t caught her rein she would have killed me.”

  “Gray Mare wasn’t the mount for you. You should have a pony to start with.”

  “Then I had Buttercup. She was as bad in a different way. She wouldn’t go when I tried to make her. She took a mouthful of the bushes on the bank and I tugged and tugged and she wouldn’t move for me. When Billy Trehay said ‘Come on, Buttercup,’ she just let go and started walking away as though it were all my fault.”

  I laughed and she threw me a look of hatred. I hastened to assure her that was the way horses behaved until they understood you. When they did understand you they loved you as though you were their very dear friend.

  I saw the wistful look in her eyes then and I exulted because I knew that the reason for aggressiveness was to be found in her intense loneliness and desire for affection.

  I said: “Look here, Alvean, come out with me now. Let’s see what we can do together.”

  She shook her head and looked at me suspiciously. I knew she felt that I might be trying to punish her for her ungraciousness toward me by making her look foolish. I wanted to put my arm about her, but I knew that was no way to approach Alvean.

  “There’s one thing to learn before you can begin to ride,” I said as though I had not noticed her gesture, “and that is to love your horse. Then you won’t be afraid. As soon as you’re not afraid, your horse will begin to love you. He’ll know you’re his master, and he wants a master; but it must be a tender, loving master.”

  She was giving me her attention now.

  “When a horse runs away as Gray Mare did, that means that she is frightened. She’s as frightened as you are, and her way of showing it is to run. Now when you’re frightened you should never let her know it. You just whisper to her, ‘It’s all right, Gray Mare … I’m here.’ As for Buttercup—she’s a mischievous old nag. She’s lazy and she knows that you can’t handle her, so she won’t do as she’s told. But once you let her know you’re the master, she’ll obey. Look how she did with Billy Trehay!”

  “I didn’t know Gray Mare was frightened of me,” she said.

  “Your father wants you to ride,” I told her.

  It was the wrong thing to have said; it reminded her of past fears, past humiliations; I saw the stubborn fear return to her eyes, and felt a new burst of resentment toward that arrogant man who could be so careless of the feelings of a child.

  “Wouldn’t it be fun,” I said, “to surprise him? I mean … suppose you learned and you could jump and gallop, and he didn’t know about it … until he saw you do it.”

  It hurt me to see the joy in her face and I wondered how any man could be so callous as to deny a child the affection she asked.

  “Alvean,” I said, “let’s try.”

  “Yes,” she said, “let’s try. I’ll go and change into my things.”

  I gave a little cry of disappointment, remembering that I had no riding habit with me. During my years with Aunt Adelaide I had had little opportunity for wearing it. Aunt Adelaide was no horsewoman herself and consequently was never invited to the country to hunt. Thus I had had no opportunities for riding. To ride in Rotten Row would have been far beyond my means. When I had last looked at my riding clothes I had seen that the moths had got at them. I had felt resigned. I believed that I should never need them again.

  Alvean was looking at me and I told her: “I have no riding clothes.”

  Her face fell and then lit up. “Come with me,” she said. She was almost conspiratorial, and I enjoyed this new relationship between us which I felt to be a great advance toward friendship.

  We went along the gallery until we were in that part of the house which Mrs. Polgrey had told me was not for me. Alvean paused before a door and I had the impression that she was steeling herself to go in. She at length threw open the door and stood aside for me to enter, and I could not help feeling that she wanted me to go in first.

  It was a small room which I judged to be a dressing room. In it was a long mirror, a tallboy, a chest of drawers, and an oak chest. Like most of the rooms in the house this room had two doors. These rooms in the gallery appeared to lead from one to another, and this other door was slightly opened and, as Alvean went to it and looked round the room beyond, I followed her.

  It was a bedroom, a large room beautifully furnished, the floor carpeted in blue, the curtains of blue velvet; the bed was a four-poster and, although I knew it to be large, it was dwarfed by the size of the room.

  Alvean seemed distressed to see my interest in the bedroom. She went to the communicating door and shut it.

  “There are lots of clothes here,” she said. “In the chests and the tallboy. There’s bound to be riding clothes. There’ll be something you can have.”

  She had thrown up the lid of the chest and it was something new for me to see her so excited. I was so delighted to have discovered a way to her affections that I allowed myself to be carried along.

  In the chest were dresses, petticoats, hats, and boots.

  Alvean said quickly: “There are a lot of clothes in the attics. Great trunks of them. They were Grandmamma’s and Greatgrandmamma’s. When there were parties they used to dress up in them and play charades … .”

  I held up a lady’s black beaver hat—obviously meant to be worn for riding. I put it on my head and Alvean laughed with a little catch in her voice. That laughter moved me more than anything had since I had entered this house. It was the laughter of a child who is unaccustomed to laughter and laughs in a manner which is almost guilty. I determined to have her laughing often and without the slightest feeling of guilt.

  She suddenly controlled herself as though she remembered where she was.

  “You look so funny in it, miss,” she said.

  I got up and stood before the long mirror. I certainly looked unlike myself. My eyes were brilliant, my hair looked quite copper against the black. I decided that I looked slightly less unattractive than usual, and that was what Alvean meant by “funny.”

  “Not the least like a governess,” she explained. She was pulling out a dress, and I saw that it was a riding habit made of black woollen cloth and trimmed with braid and ball fringe. It had a blue collar and blue cuffs and was elegantly cut.

  I held it up against myself. “I think,” I said, “that this would fit.”

  “Try it on,” said Alvean. Then … “No, not here. You take it to your room and put it on.” She suddenly seemed obsessed by the desire to get out of this room. She picked up the hat and ran to the door. I thought that she was eager for us to get started on our lesson, and there was not a great deal of time if we were to be back for tea at four.

  I picked up the dress, took the hat from her, and went back to my room. She hurried through to hers, and I immediately put on the riding habit.

  It was not a perfect fit, but I had never been used to expensive clothes and was prepared to forget that it was a little tight at the waist and that the sleeves were on the short side, for a new woman looked back at me from my mirror, and when I set the beaver hat on my head I was delighted with myself.

  I ran along to Alvean’s room; she was in her habit, and when she saw me her eyes lit up and she seemed to look at me with greater interest than ever before.

  We went down to the stables and I told Billy Trehay to saddle Buttercup for Alvean and another horse for myself, as we were going to have a riding lesson.

  He looked at me with some astonishment, but I told him that we had little time and were impatient to begin.

  When we were ready I put Buttercup on a leading rein and, with Alvean on her, took her back into the paddock.

  For nearly an hour we were there and when we left I knew that Alvean and I had entered into a new relationship. She had not accepted me completely—that would have been asking too much—but I did believe that from that afternoon she knew I was not an enemy.

  I concentrated on giving her confidence. I made her grow accustomed to sitting her horse, to talking to her horse. I made her lean back f
ull length on Buttercup’s back and look up at the sky; then I made her shut her eyes. I gave her lessons in mounting and dismounting. Buttercup did no more than walk round that field, but I do believe that at the end of the hour I had done a great deal toward making Alvean lose her fear; and that was what I had determined should be the first lesson.

  I was astonished to find that it was half past three, and I think Alvean was too.

  “We must return to the house at once,” I said, “if we are to change in time for tea.”

  As we came out of the field a figure rose from the grass and I saw to my surprise that it was Peter Nansellock.

  He clapped his hands as we came along.

  “Here endeth the first lesson,” he cried, “and an excellent one. I did not know,” he went on, turning to me, “that equestrian skill was included in your many accomplishments.”

  “Were you watching us, Uncle Peter?” demanded Alvean.

  “For the last half hour. My admiration for you both is beyond expression.”

  Alvean smiled slowly. “Did you really admire us?”

  “Much as I could be tempted to compliment two beautiful ladies,” he said placing his hand on his heart and bowing elegantly, “I could never tell a lie.”

  “Until this moment,” I said tartly.

  Alvean’s face fell and I added: “There is nothing very admirable in learning to ride. Thousands are doing it every day.”

  “But the art was never so gracefully taught, never so patiently learned.”

  “Your uncle is a joker, Alvean,” I put in.

  “Yes,” said Alvean almost sadly, “I know.”

  “And,” I added, “it is time that we returned for tea.”

  “I wonder if I might be invited to schoolroom tea?”

  “You are calling to see Mr. TreMellyn?” I asked.

  “I am calling to take tea with you two ladies.”

  Alvean laughed suddenly; I could see that she was not unaffected by what I supposed was the charm of this man.