Читать книгу Green Willows - V. J. Banis - Страница 6

CHAPTER TWO

I came that first time with trepidation. I was nineteen and this was my first job. I had to succeed. I had nowhere else to go. I could not return to Mrs. White’s school for girls. Although she had let me stay on for a while after commencement, until I found a position, I knew it had been an act of kindness that she could ill afford.

I had no home. There was an aunt who lived in Brighton. It was she who had paid my tuition and had placed me in the school when my parents died, but I had not seen her in two years and she had made her position clear enough on her last visit.

“You needn’t think you’ll be coming to live with me when you finish here,” she had said sternly. “I’ve done my duty by you, seen that you got your education and your room and board, and it’s been all I can do to afford it, too. When you get out of here, you must look out for yourself and relieve me of the burden.”

“Yes, Aunt,” I said dutifully, feeling hollow inside. At that moment I had no idea how a woman fared for herself in nineteenth-century England.

Later, Mrs. White reassured me. “There are ways,” she said. “You’ve had a good training here, if I may say so myself, and you’re not lacking in deportment. There’s always someone looking for a competent governess, I think.”

When the time came, Mrs. White was right. Someone was looking for a governess, someone from a lovely-sounding place called Green Willows.

I said goodbye to the girls at the school and Mrs. White gave me a tearful kiss.

“God bless you, child,” she said.

“I shall write,” I promised, and then I was gone, to what fate I could not imagine. I was filled with all sorts of fears, mingled with a certain sense of excitement and, of course, a bit of curiosity. I wondered what Green Willows would be like, and about the child, a girl of ten, who was to be my student.

I wondered, too, about Mr. Tremayne, my employer. Our correspondence had been brief and to the point. He had offered me no commentary on the nature of the country to which I was going, what I might expect in the way of social life, or weather. Nothing except that he had a child who needed tutoring, such and such was the salary he was willing to pay and, of course, food and lodging would be provided.

Well, I told myself, settling back into the coach, you aren’t going for the social life or the weather, and the pay is much better than you had ever expected it to be.

We reached Truro after dusk. The evening had turned cold and wet, and a chilly draft blew through the coach as we went. I shared the coach with two other travelers, an old gentleman who complained constantly of the dampness and the driver’s speed, and a plump, jolly farm woman who’d had occasion to visit her sister for some days and was now returning home.

They both got out at a crossroads just before Truro and I shrank back into my corner of the coach, frightened anew now that my destination was near.

The window was splashed with mud and rain so that my vision was greatly obscured. What I did glimpse were patches of an alien countryside, a different landscape from the one I had known at Mrs. White’s. I realized that I had been sheltered at the school. Now I would be on my own, out in the world. I had never before considered what an awesome thing that was.

At Truro, the driver stuck his head in at the window and spoke to me. “It’s a bad night out, Miss,” he said. “If you’d rather, you could put up at the inn here and go on to Helford in the morning.”

“Thank you, but I am expected tonight, so I believe I should go on,” I said. “And I am not going to Helford. Would you put me down, please, at Green Willows?”

He gave me a curious look and said, “Green Willows? What would you be going there for? That’s no place for a sweet young thing like you, Miss, if you don’t mind my saying so. You sure you haven’t made some mistake?”

“I do not believe so,” I said, his words adding to my nervousness. “No, I am sure. Is it so lonely, then, at Green Willows?”

“Lonely? Oh, aye, it’s that too,” he said. “Wait a minute.”

He said something to a woman on the porch of the inn and she walked over to the coach. “Here, Ruthie,” he said, “I was told this young miss is for Helford, and now she says she wants to be put down at Green Willows.”

The woman also stared at me strangely and said, “I think you’re making a mistake, Miss. If it’s work you’re looking for, you won’t find it there. They don’t take kindly to strangers, and more likely than not you’ll find yourself out in the rain with nothing to do but walk back here.”

“But I’ve already got work there,” I said. “I’ve been hired as a governess.”

The man and the woman exchanged glances, and the manner in which they had spoken and the way they looked at each other made me still more anxious. I watched their faces, hoping for some reassurance or explanation, but none was given.

“Well, it’s none of my business, I’m sure,” she said, and backed away from the coach.

The driver took his cue from her and nodded. “I’ll drop you off along the road, Miss,” he said in a businesslike tone, “but I can’t take you up the drive to the house. We coachmen don’t go up the lane there, and we wouldn’t be welcome if we did. Like Ruthie said, they don’t take kindly to strangers there.”

I would have questioned him further but he was quickly in the seat now. He cracked his whip over the horses and the coach started up so suddenly that I banged my head on the window frame. There was nothing for me to do but sit back down again, my eyes glued to the window, and wait until we reached Green Willows.

As the coach rushed down the street, I could see lights in the windows of the houses we passed, and glimpses of people living their daily lives, doing their homely routines. All of a sudden I had a lump in my throat, for I had no home, and no matter how vile things might be at Green Willows, I had no place to go back to and nothing in the world but the clothes in my portmanteau and two guineas that had been a gift from Mrs. White to tide me over until I received my pay.

We left the town and I pressed my face to the window to watch the lights fade in the distance until there was nothing but darkness beyond the glass.

I huddled in my corner, thoroughly miserable now, and swayed as the coach rocked and banged over the road. Each creak and groan seemed to be a whispered warning of some impending evil. The wind tore at the coach. The rain lashed at the windows with renewed fury.

We came over a hill. It seemed to me that the driver was whipping up his horses to an incredible speed, as if he wanted to be through this stretch of lonely countryside as hastily as possible.

Then we were slowing and, rather abruptly, the coach halted and the driver appeared at the window.

“Here you are, Miss,” he said, opening the door and offering a hand to help me down, “Green Willows.”

I got out, pulling my cloak close to protect me from the rain, and stared about. I could see nothing but blackness around us.

“But where is the house?” I cried, fear making me almost hysterical.

“It’s over the hill there,” he said, pointing. “You follow that path. It’s closer that way than by the drive, you see. Once you come over the hill, you’ll see it. Watch you don’t walk into the lake.”

He did not wait for me to question him further, but tipped his hat at me and leaped up into his seat. He cracked his whip again and he was gone, rushing away into the darkness as if the demons of hell were in pursuit.

I stood staring after him anxiously. The wind caught my cloak and sent it swirling in the air about me. The rain dashed my face. I was alone on a deserted road, in the dark of night.

Shivering and not from the cold alone, I lifted my portmanteau and began to walk along the path he had indicated. It led up a gentle rise and around a stand of birch trees. It seemed to me that there were voices whispering in the birches, but common sense told me it was only the wind rustling the leaves.

There was another sound, however, that was not just the wind, a steady clip-clop coming rapidly nearer. Someone was riding a horse this way, riding him hard, I judged from the sound of it. In my present state of mind I would hardly have been surprised to see the devil himself.

I would have stepped off the path, but the growth here was thick and dark and pressed close, so that I could not see where I might be stepping.

The horse came swiftly around the bend in the path and into view. I turned, meaning to call out, forgetting that in the dark, in my black cloak, I would be hard to see.

My movement, with my cloak suddenly billowing again in the wind, startled the horse. He gave a frightened snort and reared on his hind legs, flailing the air with his forefeet.

I screamed at the sight of those hooves cutting the air so close to me, and someone swore. I saw a man fall from the horse to the ground. At the same time I stepped aside, heedless of the brush that tore at my skirt, and the horse ran by me, neighing. He stopped a few yards along the path, apparently deciding the danger was past.

Having vented some of my anxiety in screaming, and having seen that this was only a man and his horse and not some demon, I too felt that the danger was past, but I could see that for the fallen rider it might not be. He lay on the ground in a crumpled heap. Alarmed, I lifted my skirts and ran toward him.

It seemed he had only had the wind knocked out of him, for as I approached, he stirred, groaned, and sat up. Shaking his head, he turned to see me. I had stopped a few feet away.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing,” he demanded in a loud, angry voice, “scaring my horse like that? I might have been killed.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said, and indeed I was. “Can I help you?”

“Thank you, no,” he said shortly, and proceeded to get up. For a moment he looked himself over carefully, feeling here and there, trying first one arm and then the other to see if anything was broken. Except for a slight limp when he took a step, there did not seem to be any great injuries.

At last he returned his attention to me. I had remained where I was, not knowing what to say or do. I could not just turn and walk away and he surely did not want my assistance.

“Who in blazes are you?” he demanded, angry again now that his inspection was completed. “And what are you doing traipsing along this path in the middle of the night?”

“I am Mary Kirkpatrick and I am on my way to Green Willows. When the coachman put me down by the road, he told me that this path would lead me there.”

“Aye, that it does,” he said, studying me in a less heated manner. After a pause, he said, “You are awfully brave now, it seems, when only a moment ago you were as skittish as my horse.”

It was true. Since my near mishap with his frightened horse, I had quite gotten over my previous fear. I could not explain to him all the circumstances that had led up to my skittishness, as he called it—the nervousness of approaching a new, and first, job, the strange dark countryside, the attitudes of the coachman and the woman at the last station. All of these, as much as the horse’s hooves, had made me scream, but now I was not afraid.

“I thought you were hurt,” I said.

“And that calmed you?”

I felt a little silly. I might almost have thought he was making fun of me. A ghost of a smile played at the corners of his mouth and his eyes had an amused glint. I could only nod in affirmation.

“Well,” he said, “as we’re both going to Green Willows and as it is getting wet standing here, we might as well go along together. Can you ride?”

“A little,” I said hesitantly, glancing around at the horse, who was now waiting placidly just along the path.

“Meaning badly,” he said with a sigh. “Well, come on then, we’ll all walk.”

“It isn’t—” I started to say it was not necessary for him to accompany me, but he interrupted.

“It isn’t far anyway.” He found his hat where it had fallen and slapped it once or twice on his thigh. Then he nodded at me and we began to walk. When we got to the waiting horse, he took the reins and led the animal along with us.

For a while we walked in silence. The gentleman had not introduced himself or explained why he was going to Green Willows. From time to time I stole little glances at him, motivated by nothing more than curiosity. He was the first person connected with Green Willows whom I had met.

His clothes led me to wonder if he were a servant. He wore a riding cloak, a nice enough one, although I could see even in the dark that it was threadbare. Beneath the cloak I glimpsed coarse trousers and a dirty shirt. I also glimpsed a considerable breadth of chest, though he was not much over middle height.

He was neither young nor handsome. I should have guessed his age at about thirty-five. He had dark hair, quite unruly, and indeed a dark face, with his deep complexion, his stern features, and his heavy brow. Before, his eyes had looked wrathful but now that he was no longer angry, they did not look so fierce.

We rounded the stand of trees and suddenly below us was the pond and the willows drooping their branches in mournful elegance, and beyond them, the house. Two of the windows were lighted, which seemed few for so big a house.

“It’s a lovely house, isn’t it?” I said, relieved, for I had half expected some crumbling ruin straight out of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels.

“I suppose it is,” he said offhandedly, and quite unexpectedly, “Irish, eh? You’ve got no brogue.”

“I was raised in London and in Devon.”

We came down the slope, around the lake. It was lovely, even in the rain and darkness, and I felt a desire to play in that gazebo on the island.

As we neared the front entrance of the house, I paused. My companion stopped too, giving me a quizzical look.

“Are...are you expected?” I asked. I was a bit embarrassed by what I should do next. If this man were coming here for a visit, I thought he would be irritated if I came in with him and he later learned I was only a servant.

He shrugged and said, “More or less.”

I did not know what to do. Finally, I said, “I am the new governess here.”

“Yes. I know.”

My discomfiture increased, but as it seemed he intended to do nothing to alleviate it, I said, “I shall go in now, then. Thank you for your company and I am sorry about your fall.”

He made a gesture with his hand that said the incident was nothing and gave a slight bow. “I shall be on my way to the stables.”

I gave a sigh of relief. “Oh, you are a servant here, then.”

“No,” he said soberly, “I am Mr. Tremayne.”

I could feel my face burning crimson. In my confusion, I could think of nothing to say. This, then, was my new employer, and I had not only caused him to fall from his horse and spoken familiarly with him, but had insulted him by calling him a servant in his own home.

“Oh,” I cried and, turning from him, ran up the steps and banged on the front door.