Читать книгу Women Have Hearts - Barbara Cartland - Страница 2

Walking along the corridor, Kelda heard the sound of someone crying.

She paused, listened and realised that it came from the room of Yvette de Villon.

She stood still, controlling an impulse to knock on the door and ask what the matter was.

She well knew that it was not her job to interfere in any way with the older girls. Mrs. Gladwin had made that very clear when she had promoted her from being little more than servant doing all the odd jobs that nobody else would do to the position of Assistant Mistress.

“As you play the piano so well,” she had said in the hard voice in which she spoke to her inferiors, “you will supervise the practising of the younger girls and you will also sit in the classroom when they are doing their homework. That will relieve the proper Mistresses.”

She paused as if she was thinking what else she could pile on Kelda’s shoulders and then added,

“Of course, your duties as regards the laundry, the sewing and mending will continue as before but you can look on this as a promotion and you should be suitably grateful.”

“Thank you, madam,” Kelda said automatically.

Mrs. Gladwin’s eyes rested on her critically.

“I consider that gown to be too tight in the bodice. It is almost indecent.”

“I am afraid I have grown out of it,” Kelda replied apologetically.

“Then let it out!”

“I have done that already, madam.”

“Excuses, always excuses to spend money,” Mrs. Gladwin exclaimed. “You may go.”

Kelda had left the Headmistress’s study feeling vibrations of disapproval following her and it was with a sigh of relief that she reached the passage outside.

She realised that Mrs. Gladwin disliked her, although she found her useful and she had wondered why until one of the older girls enlightened her,

“Keep out of the dragon’s way, Kelda.” she had warned. “She is on the warpath and you know that she takes it out on you because you are so pretty.”

Kelda had been too surprised to reply, but that evening when she had at last been able to retire to the garret bedroom where she slept, she had looked into the small discoloured mirror that hung on the wall over the ancient chest of drawers.

‘Am I really pretty?’ she asked herself and knew that it really was the truth.

She had come to Mrs. Gladwin’s Seminary for Young Ladies when she was fifteen from the orphanage where she had lived for three years after her father and mother had been killed in an earthquake in Turkey.

Philip Lawrence had been an archaeologist and the National Geographical Society had sent him on a journey of exploration to Turkey. It was a considerable concession that they had allowed him because he had insisted on taking his wife with him.

There had been no question of the Society paying for anyone else, but somehow Philip Lawrence had scraped together the money to take his only child along as well.

It was nothing new for Kelda to accompany her father and mother on their travels and she had loved every moment of it.

When her father and mother had been killed, she had always bitterly regretted that on that particular day she had not been with them.

She had been very tired after a long expedition that they had just taken and they had left her behind in the cheap boarding house where they had stayed the night since she was still asleep when they departed they had not woken her.

Often she would cry not only because she had lost them but also because she had not said ‘goodbye’ to the two people she loved most and who comprised her whole world.

After that she had never really been able to find out who had decided that she should go to an orphanage on the outskirts of London.

She supposed that it was one of the Missionaries who had taken charge of her, but she had been suffering from shock and nothing had seemed real until she found herself a ‘charity child’ with some fifty orphans of varying ages, many of them having been in the orphanage since the moment they were born.

They had accepted it philosophically because they had never known anything else, but to Kelda who had been brought up with love and understanding, knowing the companionship of her dear father and the gentle sweetness of her mother and it had been like being plunged into the deepest hell with no chance of escape.

For three years she had suffered the almost intolerable humiliation of finding herself a nonentity, of being ordered about as if she had no feelings, of enduring bad food and little of it and having to sleep with a dozen other children in a ward where they shivered miserably in the winter and panted with heat in the summer.

It had been an inexpressible relief when at fifteen she was told that she must start to earn her own living and was sent to Mrs. Gladwin’s Seminary.

Here at least she heard cultured voices and ate what seemed good food even though the pupils often complained about it.

What was more important to Kelda than anything else was that she was now able to pick up her education once again from where, on entering the orphanage, she had been obliged to relinquish it.

Most of the children in the orphanage could neither read nor write and, while a voluntary teacher came in for three hours a day to teach them, there was no provision made for those who were more advanced or, like Kelda, extremely intelligent.

At the Seminary it was easy for her to take a lesson book up to her bedroom at night and, although she was often too tired to absorb all she wished, over the years she had gradually become almost as knowledgeable as her father would have wanted her to be.

The Mistresses were constantly changing, but one or two were kind enough to lend her books of their own and sometimes even to explain to her problems she did not understand.

There was a French mistress, an elderly woman who she carried secret cups of coffee to after she had retired to bed, until she reciprocated by talking to her in French.

“You have a natural Parisian accent, my child,” she said, “but you must practise your verbs. The English are always very lazy over their verbs.”

Kelda already spoke a certain amount of French, but she had been determined that she would be as fluent as her mother had been.

She therefore waited on the Mademoiselle assiduously and was rewarded eventually by being told,

“Anyone who did not look at you would think that you were French. If they heard you speaking in the dark, they might easily be deceived.”

It was a nice compliment that Kelda, who had never received any before, treasured in her heart.

It had been a special delight to her when two years ago Yvette de Villon had come to the school.

She was French and she came, Kelda discovered, from a family that was well-known and respected in France.

Kelda was not supposed to make friends with any of the girls, but only to wait on them by pressing their gowns and mending anything that was beyond their own capabilities.

Kelda had managed by sheer persistence to ingratiate herself with the pretty French girl until Yvette confided in her and talked to her as an equal.

Even so she was afraid to presume too much on their association and she thought now that Yvette, who was often unpredictable, might resent it if she intruded on her grief.

What, Kelda asked herself, could have made Yvette cry?

She was not like some of the other girls who wept if one of the Teachers was angry with them or who when they first arrived were desperately homesick.

Yvette was proud and in consequence had no particular ‘bosom friend’ in the school to whom she could turn in times of trouble, real or imaginary.

Her weeping, however, sounded so desperate that Kelda could bear it no longer.

She knocked gently on the door and after a moment’s silence Yvette’s voice, quavering and hesitating, asked,

“W-who – is it?”

Kelda then turned the handle and, because she did not wish to be overheard, replied in a whisper,

“It is me, Kelda.”

“Come in.”

Kelda slipped into the room.

It was very small, as were all the rooms in the Seminary, but it had a personal look about it because Yvette had so many pretty things of her own in it.

There was an expensive lace cover in the narrow bedstead and a frilly satin cushion on the only chair. The wardrobe door was open and Kelda could see a good profusion of gowns in bright colours all of which had come from expensive Paris dressmakers.

But the face that was turned up towards Kelda was very different from Yvette’s usually attractive one.

Her eyes were swollen, her small nose was red and tears were running down her cheeks.

“What is the matter?”

Kelda saw as she spoke that Yvette held a crumpled letter in one hand and the other one clutched a handkerchief sodden with tears.

“Has something happened to someone you love,” Kelda asked.

It was what she always suspected whenever she found that anybody was deeply unhappy, remembering how she had felt herself when her father and mother had died so suddenly and there had been nobody she could turn to for comfort.

“No – it is not – that,” Yvette stammered.

Kelda knelt down beside her.

“Tell me what has upset you,” she said. “Perhaps I can be of help.”

“Nobody can – help,” Yvette replied, her voice breaking.

“Please, tell me,” Kelda begged.

“I have had a letter, a letter ‒ from my uncle.”

“And it has upset you?”

“I hate him! I have always hated him and now I have to go and live with him.”

Kelda remembered that like herself Yvette was an orphan. Nevertheless she had a great number of relations in France. Every holiday when she returned to Paris she had stayed with aunts and uncles who had impressive-sounding titles and romantic Châteaux on the Loire and Villas in the South.

Yvette returned to the school with stories of the exciting times she had had, how many parties she had attended and it seemed very strange now that she should be thrown into such despondency.

Aloud Kelda said,

“I did not know that you hated any of your relatives. Which uncle are you to stay with?”

“My English uncle,” Yvette answered. “He is horrible and if I live with him I shall never see France again – and all my friends.”

She burst into tears once again and Kelda rose to fetch her a fresh handkerchief from the chest of drawers.

She put it into Yvette’s hand and then, as the French girl mopped her eyes, she said,

“I had no idea that you had an English uncle. You have never spoken about him.”

“Why should I – tell you? I hate him, but my aunt married him.”

“And he lives in England?” Kelda asked. “Well, that will not be too bad. After all you have many friends who are English here at the school.”

“He does not live in England,” Yvette replied, “but in Senegal.”

It took Kelda a second or two to remember where Senegal was and then she thought that she must be mistaken.

“You cannot mean Senegal in West Africa?”

Yvette nodded.

“My uncle lives there because he dislikes Society. He is a recluse – an eccentric. Why should I have to live with someone like that?”

Her voice sounded desperate.

“Is there any – reason why you should – obey him?” Kelda asked her hesitatingly.

“Mama and Papa made him my Guardian a long time before they died,” Yvette replied.

She paused for a moment to mop her eyes before she went on,

“Aunt Ginette was alive then and, as she was Mama’s younger sister, I suppose that they thought that, if anything should happen to them, Aunt Ginette would take Mama’s place. But she is dead and that leaves Uncle Maximus whom I have always hated and who I am sure hates me.”

“If that is true, why would he want you to go and live with him?” Kelda then asked her practically.

“I expect he wants to imprison me in Africa where I can never see anybody I am fond of and have no parties or enjoy anything that will amuse me and I will then just become old and embittered as he is.”

“How do you know he is like that?” Kelda asked.

“I saw him five years ago,” Yvette answered, “and some of my other relatives have seen him since and they say that he has grown even worse than he was then.”

Kelda could think of no reply to this and after a moment Yvette went on,

“There is some mystery about him which makes them always stop talking when I come into the room, but I have often heard my cousins say laughingly that I have too much money and might become cynical like Uncle Maximus.”

“He is rich then,” Kelda said. “Perhaps he wants to leave you all his money.”

“I don’t want his money,” Yvette retorted. “I have plenty of my own. Papa and Mama left me everything they had. I may not spend it until I am twenty-one and that is more than three years ahead! Three years when I shall have to live with Uncle Maximus and ask him for every penny I require.”

She burst into such a huge flood of tears that Kelda could only put her arms round her and hold her close.

“It may not be as bad as you think,” she said soothingly, “and it will be interesting for you to see Senegal.”

She remembered her father talking to her about West Africa and claiming that he would like to go there for a visit.

Kelda had been with him once to Algeria, but that had been a long time ago and it was difficult to remember very much about it except that it had been full of sunshine and she and her father and mother had found a great deal that amused them.

They had stayed for a short time in Algiers and found the City fascinating.

“I will look up the geography books about Senegal,” she said, “and tell you all about it. Where does your uncle live?”

“I don’t care where he lives,” Yvette said petulantly. “It will be beastly, like him, and I shall loathe every moment of it!”

“It might be better than you think,” Kelda suggested. “Tell me where he lives.”

“You can see the address for yourself,” Yvette replied and flung the letter she held in her hand onto the floor.

Kelda bent down and picked it up.

She realised that both the envelope and the writing paper were of the thickest and most expensive quality and both bore an impressive crest.

She did not like to make Yvette think that she was prying by reading the letter, but as she looked at the address, noting that it was in Dakar, her eye also caught the first line on the writing paper written in a strong upright hand.

“My dear niece – ” she read.

It struck her as being an unnecessarily formal manner of addressing Yvette, but aloud she said,

“I am sure there will be much in the books about Dakar and I am certain that it is under French administration. So there will be French people living there and you will not feel as lonely as you anticipate.”

“I want to stay in France,” Yvette insisted. “I want to be in Paris where I can dance and go to all the lovely balls that are to be given for me when I leave the school at Christmas.”

Kelda had thought it likely that, as Yvette would be eighteen at the beginning of next year, she would leave Miss Gladwin’s either at Christmas or at Easter.

Because she was fond of the French girl, she had known that she would miss her and at the moment there was no other pupil to take her place in her affections.

“I just don’t know what I shall do without you,” she observed with a deep sigh.

“If I asked if I could stay here for another six months,” Yvette said suddenly, “do you think they would let me?”

Kelda looked down at the letter she still held in her hand.

Somehow she did not know exactly why, but she felt as if there were vibrations of power coming from it and an unmistakable aura of authority.

“I think, if your Guardian says you are to leave, then you will have to do so,” she said quietly.

Yvette sprang to her feet.

“Why should I live with someone I hate? Why should he order me about, not even asking me if there is anything else I would prefer to do?”

She paused for a moment before she added angrily,

“I presume you know the answer to that. I would rather live in a garret in Paris than in a Palace in Dakar!”

“Is that what he owns?” Kelda asked curiously.

“I imagine that is what it will be,” Yvette replied. “As he is so rich and so pompous, he obviously lords it over the wretched natives.”

Kelda put the letter down on the table, resisting an impulse to ask Yvette if she could read it.

‘There is really nothing I can do to help her,’ she thought sadly.

She was just about to say how sorry she was when there was a knock on the door which made both the girls start.

“Who is it?” Yvette enquired.

“Madam wants to see you in her study, m’mselle,” one of the maids replied.

She went away without waiting for an answer and they heard her heavy footsteps going down the passage.

Yvette looked at Kelda.

“The dragon will have received a letter as well and I bet she is drooling over it because Uncle Maximus has a title!”

Mrs. Gladwin was a snob who fawned on the parents whose names appeared in Debrett’s Peerage and it was a joke that never ceased to amuse her pupils.

Yvette was not smiling now.

Instead she carried on,

“You can be sure that the dragon will make me do exactly what Uncle Maximus wants.”

“You had better go down the stairs and find out what she has to say,” Kelda said, “but you should wash your face first.”

“Let her see it as it is,” Yvette replied. “I shall try and persuade her to write to my French relatives and protest at my being sent off to some outlandish place, although I doubt if she will do so.”

“I think it very unlikely,” Kelda agreed, “and even if they do protest, they will not have any authority under the Law.”

“Uncle Maximus has not taken any interest in me until now,” Yvette wailed. “He has not written to me at Christmas or even sent me a card. Why should he want me to live with him? Why this sudden interest?”

“It does seem strange,” Kelda agreed. “Perhaps he feels lonely.”

“Lonely? Uncle Maximus? According to Cousin Jacques, recluse though he may be, he always has a mistress.”

Kelda looked shocked.

“I cannot believe your cousin told you that!”

“Not exactly,” Yvette admitted, “but he visited Uncle Maximus when he was on his way to Cape Town and he told his brother when he did not know that I was listening, that when he called on him, he had a glimpse of a beautiful woman.

“‘Mind you.’ he added, ‘I have a suspicion that she was a métise.”

Yvette wrinkled her brow.

“What is a métise? I asked Aunt Jeanne-Marie, but she would not tell me.”

Kelda knew it meant the offspring of a white Company employee and a local woman, but she was not going to explain that to Yvette.

Instead she replied,

“I will look it up in the dictionary and let you know.”

“I have done that already, but it was not there, unless I had the spelling wrong.”

“You must hurry to Madam,” Kelda insisted. “You know how cross she gets if one keeps her waiting.”

“Why should I care if I am leaving?” Yvette retorted.

Kelda was tidying her hair and then she found her another handkerchief.

“I will wash these,” she said, picking up the two tearstained ones. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Nothing, nothing unless you can cast a spell on Uncle Maximus so he will fall dead!”

She walked across the room and, as she reached the door, she stopped.

“That is quite an idea. I believe there is lots of Black Magic in Africa. I shall try to find a witch doctor as soon as I get there and see if he can dispose of my uncle for me!”

Kelda gave a little cry of horror.

“That is a wicked thing to say! I know you will do nothing of the sort.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Yvette answered sharply and flounced down the passage.

Kelda sighed and began automatically to tidy the room. She was sorry for Yvette. At the same time she wished that she had the opportunity of travelling to Senegal or anywhere else in the world as she had done so often when her father had been alive.

She knew now that the one thing that had been harder to bear than anything else was the feeling of being so restricted and restrained first by the drab dark walls of the orphanage and then by the Seminary.

When her father and mother were alive, they had never stayed for long in any one place.

Even if her father had not been sent on an important expedition, he had travelled about England giving lectures at Universities and Kelda could remember twice going to Edinburgh.

Their journeys had seldom been very comfortable, but it had been an excitement to be on the move.

More than anything else it had been a thrill to be in a foreign country, to ride on the back of a camel or a stubborn mule or to sail in a small boat with a large sail up a river to places that could not be reached by any other means.

‘Oh, Papa, I miss you,’ Kelda said beneath her breath.

She knew that the eight years since he had died had been a nightmare from which she half-believed she might still awake.

To look back made her remember that, while Yvette was not yet eighteen and was going out into the world for the first time, she would be twenty-one in July.

And Kelda supposed that her life would never alter from what it was at the moment.

She often wondered to herself, if she left the Seminary, if she would be able to find other employment of a more congenial nature.

Although she had often considered it, she thought it was unlikely and in a way she clung to Mrs. Gladwin because with her she was with girls who came from cultured families.

It was not that they or Mrs. Gladwin considered her to be their equal. She continually reminded her that she came from an orphanage and was nothing but a ‘charity child’.

At first Kelda had resented it, feeling that she must reply that her father was a gentleman and her mother a lady, even if they had very little money.

Then she decided that such retorts only made the situation more difficult than it was at the moment.

Mrs. Gladwin liked humiliating her because unlike the servants she could not leave nor would she answer back as the Governesses could do.

She therefore taught herself to always control her feelings, to try not to listen when Mrs. Gladwin found fault incessantly and expected her to be eternally grateful for having a roof over her head and food to eat.

She was certainly paid little enough for her services a quarter of what any of the servants received but she knew that if she was dissatisfied there was nothing she could do about it.

Even these meagre wages were overdue and, because Kelda loathed having to ask for what she was owed and being told once again how grateful she should be for being where she was, she had not even mentioned the fact to her employer.

She crossed the room to shut the wardrobe door and, as she did so, looking at the gowns hanging inside it, many of which Yvette had only worn two or three times.

Kelda remembered how pretty her mother had always looked, despite the fact that she could never afford anything expensive.

“It is not only what you spend,” she had said once, “it is having good taste and knowing what suits one’s real self.”

‘Perhaps if I had the chance,’ Kelda thought, ‘I too would have good taste.’

She had only to look in the mirror to realise that the grey gown that she wore, which was made of coarse cotton, was unbecoming and appeared, as indeed she was, poverty-stricken.

It was, of course, chosen by Mrs. Gladwin, who ever since she had come to the Seminary had insisted on repeating the same grey garments she had worn in the orphanage rather than buying her dresses of a brighter and more cheerful colour.

“Please, Madam,” she had asked a year ago, “as I am having a new gown, could it be in blue or green?”

“I consider both those colours quite unsuitable for your position,” Mrs. Gladwin replied acidly. “What is more, they would show the dirt.”

“I wash my gowns every week,” Kelda countered quickly.

“I should have thought that was unnecessarily often,” Mrs. Gladwin replied, determined to find fault. “And the uniform I choose for you is what I permit you to wear and there will be no arguments about it.”

She was dismissed and as she left the study Kelda knew that it had been a forlorn hope anyway that she might be allowed to look more attractive.

Now, as she closed the wardrobe door, she thought of what she would buy if she could afford it. She was sure that blue and pale green would be becoming to her, as they had been to her mother.

She had the same fair golden hair, the same large blue-grey eyes that were the colour of the morning mist and her skin was transparently clear, although she was pale and far too thin from overwork.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and turned away from it.

What was the point of pretending? She would wear grey and the years ahead would be grey too.

If Yvette only knew it, she was very lucky to be able to escape to Senegal or anywhere else in the world.

There were innumerable duties that kept Kelda busy until supper time.

One of the jobs that had been thought up for her by Mrs. Gladwin was that she should wait on the Mistresses who had supper in their own rooms.

They took it in turns to supervise the pupils in the large dining room where everybody had to eat at luncheontime.

The Mistresses insisted that in the evening those who were not on duty should be served in their own sitting room, where they could add to the school fare delicacies that had been purchased either by themselves or sent to them by relatives.

At first Mrs. Gladwin had resisted such an innovation. Then when she found that there were no reasonable arguments she could use against it, she assuaged her pride by saying that the servants were too busy, but that Kelda could wait on the Mistresses, bringing their meals in from the kitchen and washing up afterwards.

Kelda had not really minded for as a result she often enjoyed titbits that the Mistresses left, which was a change from the school meals that were repeated in monotonous rotation from week to week with no variations.

Tonight, when she entered the staff room. it was to find an animated conversation taking place.

“I said to her,” Miss Dawson, one of the older Mistresses, was declaiming, “‘I have no intention, Madam, of spending my holiday by travelling to some outlandish part of the world. I dislike the sea and always have and I have no plans for ever leaving these shores again’.”

There was a burst of laughter as Kelda put the heavy tray down on a side table.

“What did she say to that?”

“She merely dismissed me and sent for Miss Jenkins.”

“Did you accept her proposition?” someone asked. “Tell us, Jenky. We are all ears.”

“Of course I did not,” Miss Jenkins, who was the sporty Games Mistress, replied. “I am spending all my holiday with my fiancé at his home. I would not give that up for a trip to Heaven and back again!”

Again there was laughter as Kelda ladled out the soup and set it down on the table in front of each of the Mistresses.

“Who did she try next?” someone questioned.

“I think she has been through the lot of us,” Miss Dawson said. “I know Ashton told me before she went out this evening that she had refused and I think Miss Hart has said ‘no’.”

“Madam is so keen on pleasing this Nobleman,” Miss Jenkins said, “that I cannot think why she does not go herself or alternatively she could send Kelda.”

Kelda started at the sound of her own name and they all laughed.

“As a matter of fact,” Miss Jenkins said, “I actually did.”

“You didn’t!” Miss Dawson exclaimed. “You must have been feeling cheeky. We all know what she thinks of Kelda.”

“She was furious. That is why I said it,” Miss Jenkins laughed. “She knows we are all aware that Kelda is the only one in this place whom she can treat in that highhanded manner, as if she was the great Penjandrum himself. None of us would stick it.”

“That is true,” Miss Jenkins said. “I have often wondered, Kelda, why you don’t leave.”

Kelda was bringing the last bowl of soup to the table and she smiled.

“The answer to that is simple,” she said. “It is because I have nowhere else to go.”

“And no money either, I suppose,” Miss Jenkins sniggered.

“I have not been paid for six months,” Kelda replied, “and if I was I doubt if it would get me further than Piccadilly Circus.”

They all laughed as if she had said something very funny.

“I think it’s a crying shame,” Miss Jenkins said. “But never mind perhaps one day a rich uncle you’ve forgotten about will turn up and carry you off to Timbuktu. One never knows one’s luck.”

“I can always go on hoping,” Kelda answered.

She picked up the tray and went out of the room. As she closed the door behind her, she heard Miss Dawson saying,

“It’s a disgrace the way Madam treats that nice girl.”

“That is what I think,” Miss Ashton said, “but there is nothing we can do about it and I suppose as a ‘charity child’ she is lucky to be here.”

Kelda did not wait to hear any more. She hurried down towards the kitchen, feeling as if her feet echoed the same words,

‘Charity child! Charity child!’

She felt as if they were branded on her and she would never be anything else however hard she tried. A ‘charity child’ everyone could trample over and for whom there was little hope now or in the future.

*

When she had finished washing up the Mistresses’ supper Kelda made a cup of cocoa and carried it upstairs to Yvette.

It was strictly against the rules, but she thought that it might help the French girl to sleep, knowing that her unhappiness would doubtless keep her tossing and turning all through the night.

She opened the door to find that Yvette was already undressed and sitting in front of the mirror with a sulky expression on her face.

“I have brought you some cocoa,” Kelda said.

“That is kind of you, Kelda,” Yvette tried to smile. “I could not eat any supper, I was too unhappy.”

“Are you hungry? Shall I go downstairs and make you a sandwich?”

“No, I don’t want anything to eat, but I will enjoy the cocoa. Did you put plenty of sugar in it?”

“Three teaspoonfuls,” Kelda answered. “‘Hot and sweet’ was what my mother always prescribed when somebody has had a shock.”

“It is certainly what I have had.”

“What did Madam say to you?”

“Only what you know already that I have to go and live with Uncle Maximus. He has instructed her to send me to him, as if I was a parcel, accompanied by one of the Mistresses from the school to see that I reach him without mishap.”

“The Mistresses have all refused to go.”

“I know that,” Yvette said. “Madam called me into the study after prayers to ask, ‘have you any relations in England who would accompany you to Dakar?’”

“‘No, Madam,’ I replied, ‘and if I had, they would not take me. They all dislike my uncle as much as I do.’”

Kelda gave a little laugh.

“I am sure that Madam was shocked at your speaking like that.”

“Horrified!” Yvette agreed. “She looked down that long nose of hers and said,

“‘That is not the way to speak of your uncle, Yvette. I am sure that what he is doing is in your best interests.’

“‘My best interests, Madam,’ I replied, ‘would be to live in France with the relations I love and who love me. I have no wish to go to Senegal and I have a very good mind to run away!’”

Kelda laughed and it was a sound of pure enjoyment.

“How brave of you! I don’t know how you dared to speak to her like that.”

Yvette shrugged her shoulders in a typically French gesture.

“She can do nothing to me now that is any worse than what Uncle Maximus is doing.”

“What did she say?”

“She gave me a long lecture on propriety and how I should not only damage myself but also the reputation of the school by speaking in such a ‘pert and unladylike fashion’.”

Yvette deliberately imitated Mrs. Gladwin’s voice as she said the last phrase and both she and Kelda laughed again.

“What did she say after that?” Kelda asked.

“She went on until she ran out of breath. Then I said, ‘I am not surprised that none of the Mistresses will accompany me to Senegal and I most certainly have no wish to be buried alive there myself. If it is impossible for you to find anybody to accompany me, perhaps you could tell my uncle it would be best for me to stay here. Or, alternatively, let Kelda come with me. She, at least, as an explorer’s daughter, will not object to travelling into darkest Africa’.”

Kelda gave a gasp.

“That is what Miss Jenkins suggested. What did Madam reply?”

“I did not wait to hear,” Yvette answered. “I went out of the room while she was still gasping for breath like a goldfish that has been left out of the water.”

“She must have been furious!” Kelda said.

There was a note in her voice that made Yvette say quickly,

“Oh, Kelda, I hope I did not make her so angry that she takes it out on you.”

“So do I,” Kelda nodded.

She felt apprehensive, thinking that if two people had made the same suggestion it would infuriate Madam to the point where she would think of some unpleasant punishment for her.

She changed the subject as it made her feel rather nervous and asked,

“When do you go?”

“Two days before the end of term. Madam would not let me leave if Uncle Maximus had not insisted that I should travel in some specific ship which stops at Dakar on its way to the Cape.”

“It sounds very exciting!” Kelda exclaimed.

“You know how I feel about it,” Yvette said in a forlorn voice. “I do wish that you could come with me. At least there would be someone human to talk to. If old Dawson had taken up Madam’s proposal, I think I should have died! You know what a bore she is at any time.”

“I would love to come with you,” Kelda admitted, “but you know as well as I do that it would be like asking for the moon.”

“I suppose so,” Yvette said despairingly. “But you say all the Mistresses have refused.”

“They all said they had at supper,” Kelda replied, “including Miss Ashton, who is not in tonight.”

“Then who will the dragon send with me?” Yvette asked.

“I have no idea. Perhaps she has a friend who would like to journey to Africa or perhaps she will go herself.”

“Then I shall definitely jump overboard,” Yvette said firmly. “I am not travelling with old Gladwin and that’s a fact!”

Even as she spoke, the door opened and then to Yvette’s and Kelda’s astonishment Mrs. Gladwin came into the room.

It was unusual for her to leave her own quarters once supper was over and she seldom visited the girls’ bedrooms except for her inspection which took place weekly in the morning.

Then she would walk around deliberately to find fault and it was Kelda’s self-appointed task to hide away anything that the girls had forgotten that she thought might evoke Mrs. Gladwin's disapproval before she appeared.

Food, fruit and sweets were totally forbidden and anything decorative and in any way ostentatious was always in danger of being confiscated.

As Mrs. Gladwin stepped into the room, it was so unexpected and in a way so unusual that for several perceptible seconds Yvette forgot to rise from her chair.

Mrs. Gladwin was, however, glaring at Kelda.

“I had a suspicion I might find you here, Kelda,” she began. “As I have told you before, I will not have you gossiping in the young ladies’ rooms, which is neither proper nor in the sphere of your duties. If you have nothing better to do, I will certainly find you something.”

“As Mademoiselle was so very upset today,” Kelda said in her soft voice, “I brought her something warm to drink, knowing that it was in a way a medication.”

“If Yvette needs one, I will send for the physician,” Mrs. Gladwin said automatically.

She then looked sharply at Yvette.

“I presume,’ she said, “you have been crying again and making a quite unnecessary fuss about your uncle’s plans for your future.”

As she was already so overwrought, the tears gathered again in Yvette’s eyes and Mrs. Gladwin rattled on,

“You must learn to control yourself. As I have told you so often, self-control comes from being civilised and properly educated.”

Yvette did not reply and, as she was searching for her handkerchief in the belt of her gown, two tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I have been thinking over the difficulties of your reaching Dakar,” Mrs. Gladwin said. “That is why I have come to ask you once again if there is anyone you know in England who would be prepared to accompany you on this journey.”

“I have already told you, Madam, I know of no one,” Yvette responded.

“There is no Governess you have had in the past who would for a remuneration, a small one, of course, act as your chaperone?”

“The Governess I had before I came here,” Yvette replied, “has a good position in Paris teaching the children of the Duc de Beauclaire. So I am quite certain she would be unable to come with me, even if she wanted to, which I very much doubt.”

Mrs. Gladwin ignored the last words, which were obviously rude and stood in the centre of the small bedroom thinking.

Kelda would have so liked to inch past her and reach the door, but she had a feeling it would only bring more wrath down upon her head.

She therefore stood where she was, hoping that she could fade into the background and not draw any unnecessary attention to herself.

“Very well,” Mrs. Gladwin said, at last as if she had finally made up her mind, “if that is actually the position, the only thing I can do is to send Kelda with you.”

She paused for a moment, ignoring the startled expressions on both Yvette’s and Kelda’s faces and went on,

“Of course being a ‘charity child’ she is nothing more than a servant and she can act in the capacity of your lady’s maid as well as keeping you constantly in her sight.”

There was still no response from either of the two girls and she went on as if to herself,

“I shall send a letter at once to the Steamship Company explaining your circumstances and I am quite certain that your uncle’s name will carry great weight with them so there will be no difficulty about your having the best possible attention.”

She paused before she continued,

“I shall also ask if there are any respectable English people on board. The Steamship authorities will, I believe, as they do in the case of ladies travelling to India, invite one of the lady passengers to keep an eye on you and act as your official chaperone until you do reach Dakar.”

Yvette found her voice eventually.

“I shall be – all right with – Kelda.”

“That is what I hope, although I am none too confident of her capabilities in looking after herself, let alone you,” Mrs. Gladwin retorted. “But I am certain, yes, I am quite certain that there will be someone on board you can be entrusted to once the ship has left Southampton. I shall take you on board myself so that your uncle will have no reason to worry about you.”

Mrs. Gladwin stopped speaking to look at Kelda’s wide eyes and pale face.

“As for you, Kelda,” she insisted, “if you fail the charge I have put upon you, if you are unworthy of my trust, I can assure you that you will never darken the doors of this house ever again!”

Mrs. Gladwin did not wait for any reply, but she merely turned with a rustling of her silk petticoats.

“Go to bed, Yvette and say a prayer of gratitude to God that you have somebody like myself to take care of you, who has your best interests at heart.”

Mrs. Gladwin left the room.

For a moment neither Yvette nor Kelda moved.

It was almost as if they had been turned into stone.

Then Kelda, beneath her breath and in a voice that was barely above a whisper, said,

“It is not – true. I could not have – heard what she said. I must be – dreaming.”

“It is true,” Yvette answered, “although I can hardly believe it! And, Kelda, if anything could make the journey to my uncle bearable, it is knowing that you are coming with me. I shall say a prayer of gratitude all right, but only because without you I know that I should die of misery on the voyage.”