I sat down with a show of dignity.
“I suspect that this talk about guiding Fiona’s future is nonsense.”
“I’ll confess I don’t find it a very interesting subject.”
“Then why did you ask me to come here?”
“Because I wanted to talk to you.”
“Then why didn’t you state your real purpose?”
“If I had, my wish would not have been granted.”
“So you lied.”
“Only white lies, really. Who in a lifetime has not had to resort to those at some time? Even you perhaps.”
“Tell me what your purpose is?”
“To be with you.”
“But why?”
“You must know that I find you irresistibly attractive.”
“Is that the way a prospective bridegroom should talk to another woman? I feel sorry for Mrs. Martindale.”
“You need not. There is a woman who is infinitely capable of taking care of herself. You are thinking that she and I are going to marry. Is that it? The hot news from the indefatigable Mrs. B. of the post office. Cordelia, I am not, and never was, going to marry Mrs. Martindale…”
“But what of the child…”
“You mean her daughter. Oh, is that child said to be mine? Mrs. B. again. She should be writing fiction.”
“So…Well, it is no concern of mine. In fact, you must think me rather impertinent to talk as I have. Please forgive me.”
“Most willingly.”
“Do you have nothing to say about Fiona, and are you satisfied with the tuition she is receiving at this moment?”
“She does seem a little colorless, but that is not the fault of the school. She is naturally so. And Eugenie is inclined to be aggressive. There is a lack of charm in both of them—but perhaps I am comparing them with…others. I really wanted to talk about the Abbey and the coming celebrations. It is not so much the costumes, but I thought you would be interested in some old accounts of the Abbey and that you might care to teach the girls something about it. I was appalled by the ignorance of both Fiona and Eugenie on the subject. And there is to be this pageant. I have delved into the archives and found these. We have many accounts of the early days here and apparently when my ancestors acquired it there was much of it intact, including lots of records which were not destroyed, and they were placed in our library. I thought you might be interested to see them.”
“I should be most interested.”
“Come to the table then and I will show you some of the old plans of the place. There are some very good drawings done by the monks about a hundred years before the Dissolution.”
He drew two chairs up to the table. I sat down and he pulled a great tome toward us.
“What do you know about the monks of Colby?” he asked.
“That they were Cistercians…little else.”
“Then I’ll tell you a little. They came into existence round about the twelfth century and our abbey was built in the eleven nineties. Do you know where their name came from?”
“No.”
“From Cîteaux, which was a desolate and almost inaccessible forest bordering on Champagne and Burgundy. Here is an old map. I’ll show you. St. Bernard, the founder, was the Abbot of Clairvaux, the first of the monasteries.”
I turned to look at him. He had indeed changed. That he was immensely interested in the Abbey was obvious, for he had thrown off that blasé worldly manner. He looked younger, almost boyish in his enthusiasm.
“They were a noble band of men,” he said. “Their aim was to devote themselves entirely to their religion. Perhaps it is nobler to go into the world and try to improve it than to shut oneself away in meditation and prayer. What do you think?”
“Yes, I think the braver course is to go out into the world. But so few people improve it when they do and a love of power gets between them and their ambitions.”
“Ambition,” he said. “By that sin fell the angels. Lucifer was proud and ambitious, and as I have told you he is believed to have been a member of our family. Ask Mrs. Baddicombe.”
I laughed. “Please go on. It’s fascinating.”
“The aim of the Cistercians was to live as simply as possible. Everything was to be plain. They always built in remote places, far from the towns. This must have been isolated once. Can you imagine it? The precincts were surrounded by a strong wall and always near water. Some were built on either side of a stream. We have the river nearby and that gives us our important fish ponds. The monks had to have a supply of fresh food. In the walls were watch-towers. I suppose they had to keep a lookout for despoilers. Look. Here is a map. You’ll recognize much of it. Here are the barns, the granaries, shambles, workshops. This is the inner ward and this the outer.”
“Oh yes,” I said. “It is indeed recognizable.”
“Here’s the Abbot’s House; the guest-house is next to it. People were always calling at the Abbey and no one who needed food and shelter was ever turned away. Look at the nave. There were eleven bays. You can see it clearly in this map. You see, you enter by the narthex. And here is the transept. Look at the stall divided by a wall once…the monks one side and the fratres conversi on the other. They were the novices…Some of their quarters help to make up the Academy. They were not so badly damaged as the rest of the Abbey.”
“What a wonderful map!”
“As it was in those days. And I have another as it appeared after the Dissolution. My family had that one done. Look, here is the calefactory, the day-room.”
“Our common room today.”
He turned to me and said: “I am glad you are so interested.”
“I find it so fascinating.”
“So many people are enamored of the present and never want to look back to the past. Yet it is by studying what happened then that we are often better able to deal with the events of today.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Thank heaven they won’t come along now and demolish our school.”
“I should like to see anyone try with Miss Daisy Hetherington in command.”
I laughed. “She is a very fine woman.”
“We’ll put our heads together over this pageant and get some really authentic touches.”
“I think you should consult Miss Hetherington.”
He looked at me in dismay and we both started to laugh again.
“It has been very illuminating,” I said.
“And you are surprised that I should be interested in such a serious subject.”
“I am sure you can be very serious. There must be a great deal of work on the estate.”
“It needs constant attention.”
“Yet you were able to leave for long stretches at a time.”
“I did, didn’t I. I don’t often do that. I have good people…one very good man, Gerald Coverdale. You should meet him.”
“I doubt he would have much to talk about with me.”
“You would be interested to hear about the estate. It is a little community of its own, like a town…more than that, like a kingdom.”
“And you are the king.”
“‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’”
“I am sure you would never be uneasy.”
“You mistake me. There is so much about me that you have to learn. You have dismissed me as frivolous, immoral, bent on pleasure. That is only a part of me. When I come to think of it, I have some very good points.”
“It is said that good points should be discovered by others, not by ourselves.”
“Who said so? Miss Cordelia Grant, I’ll wager. It sounds like one of the homilies you declaim to your classes.”
“They do say that schoolteachers are recognizable wherever they go.”
“Perhaps there is something in that.”
“We are inclined to be tutorial and give the impression of knowing all.”
“Sometimes that can be charming.”
“I can see you are determined to flatter me this afternoon.
Tell me about the estate, this little kingdom with the uneasy-headed king.”
“We have to keep it in working order. There are the farms and the factory.”
“The factory? What factory is that?”
“The cider factory. We employ most of the people round here in some capacity or other.”
“So they are dependent on you for their livelihood?”
“On the estate rather than on me. I just happen to have inherited it. The Verringers have always taken their duties to the estate seriously, and although I say it of my own family, we have been good landlords. We have made it a duty to care for our people. That is why the cider factory was started about a hundred years ago. We’d had several bad harvests and lots of the farms were not paying their way. It looked as though there would not be enough work for a number of people. The cider factory seemed a good idea. Most of them were making it in their own homes, so we started it and we employ about a hundred people in the neighborhood.”
“You are in a way the benefactors.”
“We always liked to think of ourselves as such.”
“The people should be grateful.”
“Grateful. Only fools expect gratitude.”
“I see the cynic has reappeared.”
“If truth is cynicism then he is never far away. I always like to face the facts. It is a peculiar trait of human nature that people dislike those who help them.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes, my dear Cordelia. Just consider it. Who have always been the Verringers’ bitterest enemies? Our own people on the estate. Who have endowed us with satanic qualities? The very same. Mind you, I am not saying that we do not possess those devilish habits, but it is our own people who are our own most vicious critics and when our exploits are not startling enough, magnify them. The fact is, people hate feeling they owe anything to anyone, and although they take help, they hate themselves for being in a position to have to take it. As it is the hardest thing on earth to hate oneself, that hatred is transferred to the helper.”
I was silent. I thought of Mrs. Baddicombe, who owed her living to the fact that she had been appointed postmistress by the Verringer estate and could not hide the venom in her voice when she discussed them.
“Perhaps you are right…in some cases,” I said. “But not all.”
“No one is ever right in all cases. There must be exceptions.”
We smiled at each other and I felt a glow of happiness. I was glad that the girls had gone off to try the horses and I was hoping that they would not return just yet.
“It is a pleasure to be able to talk to you reasonably…seriously. In the past our encounters have been verbal battles. Amusing, stimulating, but this is a great pleasure to me. I want to talk to you about the estate. How I want to improve it. What plans I have for it.”
“I doubt I should understand them.”
“That’s why I want to talk to you…to make you understand…and to tell you about my life and myself. Do you know, this has been one of the happiest afternoons I have ever known.”
I laughed. He had broken the spell. “That is going too far,” I said.
“You laugh. But it is not so. I have had moments in the past when I was happy. But happiness is just moments, isn’t it? From the time I came into this room and found you here, I have been happy. That must have been for twenty minutes. That’s quite a stretch.”
“It seems a very short time to me.”
“I knew it would be good to talk to you. I knew you would understand. You make me see life differently. I wish we could meet often.”
“That would not be easy. Miss Hetherington would be most disapproving.”
“For heaven’s sake why?”
“I am employed by her and it would not be seemly for one of her mistresses to be too friendly with someone of the opposite sex living in the neighborhood, particularly…”
“A man of my reputation. I doubt Mrs. Baddicombe would approve either. But then what a scoop for her!”
We were laughing again.
“Cordelia,” he said seriously, “you know I am falling in love with you.”
I stood up, but he was beside me. He put his arms round me and kissed me. I was trying to force myself to struggle free and not to accept the fact that I wanted to stay close to him.
“This must not be,” I began.
“Why not?”
“Because I am not…”
“I love you, Cordelia. It started the moment I saw you in the driving seat with Emmet.”
“I must go. Oh, where are those girls?”
As though in answer to my question I heard their voices. I withdrew myself and went to the window. I said: “They are coming.”
“We’ll talk more of this,” he said.
I shook my head.
“Think about me,” he said.
“I can scarcely avoid doing that.”
“Try to understand. I want a happy family life. I have never had one. My frustrations, my disappointments have made me what I am. I want to be different.” He was speaking earnestly now. “I want to live my life here, with my wife and the children we shall have. I want to make the estate the best in the country and above all I want to live at peace.”
“I think your desires for these things are very natural but…”
“Then help me to achieve them. Marry me.”
“Marry you! But a short while ago you were about to marry Marcia Martindale.”
“No. That was the Baddicombe version.”
“You can’t be serious. You are amusing yourself at my expense.”
“I am serious.”
“No…not with Mrs. Martindale living so close…I know very well that you and she…”
The girls burst into the room.
Eugenie looked radiant. “They are superb, Uncle Jason,” she cried. “I tried them both.”
“Have we been too long?” asked Fiona.
“No. You could have stayed longer,” he said ironically.
“I’m gasping for tea,” said Eugenie.
“Then ring for it,” he said.
She did and it came; and Fiona poured out. Eugenie talked all the time about the horses, but I was not listening and I was sure he was not either.
I was wildly exhilarated and horribly skeptical as we rode back to school. Eugenie was still talking about the horses and said she was going to take Charlotte Mackay over to see them.
In the Devil’s Den
I spent a sleepless night trying to remember everything he had said. Had he really been serious? I kept seeing his face alight with enthusiasm. I thought of the way in which his eyebrows turned up slightly at the ends; the way his dark hair sprang from his rather high forehead; the brilliance of his eyes when he talked of love.
How did I feel? I could not exactly say. I was too bewildered. All I knew was that I wanted to be with him, that I had never felt so excited in my life as I had been sitting close to him, listening to his enthusiasm for the Abbey; and then when he had kissed me I had been quite unprepared.
He was very experienced; he would know what effect he had on me. Whereas I had never known anything like this before.
I was able to stand up to him in our verbal battles and that was because I had always found it easy to express myself lucidly. After all, wasn’t I teaching English? It was when it came to understanding my emotions that I was a novice.
I must curb my elation. I must remind myself that he probably talked to every woman he was trying to seduce as he had to me. I was very well aware of his intentions and I must be careful.
The next day Daisy called me to her room to ask how the meeting went.
“I didn’t get a chance to talk to you last night,” she said, “but I gathered all went well.”
“Oh yes, very well. He really wants to help with the Abbey pageant. He showed me some interesting maps and he is certainly knowledgeable about the history of the Abbey. I really think he wants to make sure we don’t commit any anachronisms.”
“Did he say anything about the costumes?”
“He may have mentioned them. I think he will be very happy to lend them.”
“So we misjudged him really.”
“Well, the girls did go off to look at horses.”
“So you were alone with him?”
“Not for long. That was when he showed me the maps and books.”
She nodded. “By the way,” she said, “something rather interesting has turned up. You know I was looking for a maid since Lizzie Garnett left last term.”
“Oh yes. Have you got someone?”
“Yes, and the strange thing is that she was at Schaffenbrucken.”
“Oh!”
“That was why I selected her. I had one or two to choose from. You know I put an advertisement in the Lady’s Companion. I didn’t have many letters. Most of them couldn’t put pen to paper if they tried. It may be that those who can write wouldn’t make the best maids. However, I liked the sound of this letter and the fact that she had worked at Schaffenbrucken I must admit interested me and decided me in her favor. I wonder if you knew her.”
“What is her name?”
“Elsa something. Yes…Elsa Kracken.”
“Elsa,” I said. “There was a maid called Elsa. But then it is a fairly common name. I don’t think I ever heard her surname.”
“It will be amusing if you knew her from Schaffenbrucken.”
“Is she English?”
“She wrote in English. The name doesn’t sound quite…”
“Elsa,” I said. “Yes…she was rather a talkative girl…not much of a servant but everybody liked her.”
“I thought she wrote a good letter.”
“When does she arrive?”
“At the end of the week.”
I was thoughtful. The conversation had brought back memories of Schaffenbrucken. It was Elsa who had told us about the legend of Pilcher’s Peak and that if we went out at the time of the Hunter’s Moon we should meet our future husbands.
It would be quite a coincidence if she should be the one. But it might well be another Elsa.
***
It was not long before I met her. I was coming upstairs and there she was coming down.
“Elsa!” I cried. “It is you then.”
The Time of the Hunter's Moon Page 23