Читать книгу Green Willows - V. J. Banis - Страница 9

CHAPTER FIVE

I stole a sideways glance at him, but I do not think he noticed me in more than a superficial manner, any more than he really noticed the task of driving the rig. His attention was turned elsewhere, inward, and I could only puzzle at what vistas he contemplated there. What passions, what furies, had driven him within himself, hiding behind the rough wall of his seemingly unfriendly personality, just as he hid his physical self within the walls of Green Willows.

He said, quite unexpectedly, “You are a remarkable young woman, Miss Kirkpatrick.”

I was completely flustered by the remark and could have given no answer to it. Fortunately, none was necessary, as we seemed to have arrived at our destination. The road had taken us directly into the village and along its one street, with cottages and shops lining either side. Halfway through the town the road separated, one branch leading down to the sea, where I could see a cluster of boats bobbing on the water’s surface, and the other road leading slightly uphill.

We had taken the uphill road, which now ended at a cottage. Mr. Tremayne stopped before it and, alighting, came around to hand me down.

The cottage was a charming one, with a lovely view of the sea, although I could well believe there was not enough room for me to live there. It was a tiny, white clapboard structure with a thatched roof and blue shutters. I thought a curtain fluttered at one of the windows as I climbed down from the rig, but when I glanced again the curtain was still and I could not say for certain whether or not someone was watching.

He used the knocker rather forcefully, and almost at once, the door was opened by a pretty little girl of about ten, who looked altogether awed by our visit. Her eyes, like miniature delft saucers, went from him to me and back again with an air both of fear and barely repressed excitement.

“Good morning. My grandfather is not here,” she said, stepping back so that we might enter. “He has gone down to the harbor but he shall be back in a few minutes. Would you like me to fetch him?”

“That’s won’t be necessary. We’ll wait in the parlor,” Mr. Tremayne said, leading the way into a diminutive room off the hall. It was blue and white, with dark wooden beams on the ceiling and a great deal of brass everywhere, which gave it a nautical flavor. On the mantle over the fireplace was a large bottle containing a complete model of a ship, and several seafaring prints adorned the walls.

In short, it was a man’s room, but it was bright and sunny and the windows looked down upon the harbor with its brightly colored boats. I hoped we could have our lessons here.

That this girl was Elizabeth, I felt certain, but I was struck by the restraint between father and daughter. Hardly a word had been spoken beyond that first, cold exchange. We had seated ourselves, Mr. Tremayne and I, in two chairs near the window, and the girl had taken a stiff-looking wooden chair facing us. She sat with her feet properly together, her hands folded neatly in her lap, but I could still see the air of barely contained excitement, and her eyes, which were the only part of her moving just now, went continually from her father to me.

The silence grew oppressive. I could hear the steady tick-tock of a grandfather’s clock in the hall, and a fly buzzed impudently about my head. The scent of old spices perfumed the room, along with a tang of sea air, and something that at first I could not identify but finally recognized as gardenia. I decided that the girl was wearing a scent, and wondered if her father approved at her young age. Scents would have been forbidden to the young ladies at Mrs. White’s.

The door opened suddenly, breaking the stillness so abruptly that I started. Neither father nor daughter noticed me, however, for their eyes had gone at once to the archway that led to the hall. I looked too, just as a tall, weather-beaten man appeared in it, stooping his head slightly because he was tall and the archway was not. He had pewter colored hair and eyes not much darker, which now swept the room coldly, settling on me.

Mr. Tremayne had risen as the commander entered, and in way of introduction, he said, “This is the new governess.”

“Damn fool nonsense,” was the disdainful reply.

I had started to rise, but at this, I thought better of it and settled stiffly back into my chair, my face coloring slightly.

“We’d better talk in here,” Mr. Tremayne said, leading the way out of the room. With another icy scowl about the parlor, as if he suspected I had been purloining his ships’ fittings, the commander followed him.

Elizabeth and I were left alone, and again the silence descended, although I could hear the men’s voices faintly in the distance, the commander’s occasionally rising sharply on some obscenity.

“I’m Mary Kirkpatrick,” I said, addressing the girl for the first time. “I’m to be your new governess.”

“I know.” She smiled, bringing her face to such life that at last she looked like the girl she was and not the little old woman she had been imitating. “If Grandfather allows it,” she added.

“I can’t see why he would not,” I said, more sharply than I intended.

She bit her lip and I could see she was torn between making some reply to this or keeping silent. I was about to say that, of course, she knew the situation better than I did, when she spoke again.

“He wants me sent away to school,” she said. “Somewhere far away. He speaks often of France.”

I thought it peculiar that nothing of this had been said to me and that I had been hired and brought into the middle of this conflict before it was properly settled, as if Mr. Tremayne had been trying to produce a fait accompli.

Aloud, I said diplomatically, “Perhaps he has reasons for thinking that best.”

She suddenly jumped up from her chair and crossed the room to me, dropping to one knee so that she could look me straight in the face. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Oh, he has his reasons, all right. He wants to keep me away from Green Willows. He would do anything to keep me from there.”

The remark, so unlike anything I had been prepared for, struck a responsive chord in my own disquiet, which I quickly tried to quell.

“Don’t you like Green Willows?” I asked.

“Like it?” She looked aghast at the suggestion, as if I had wounded her to the quick. “Oh, Miss Kirkpatrick, if you only knew. I love Green Willows. I want to go back. You’ve got to help me, help me persuade them to let me come home to Green Willows.”

“Why, I...,” I stammered, nonplussed. “Surely if your father and your grandfather both want you here, why...but there must be a reason.”

“They’re trying to keep me from my mother.”

At that moment we heard their steps in the hall. In a twinkling she had leaped up and regained her chair, and when the two men came into the room, they found us as before, I with my face somewhat reddened, her expression one of innocent—although hesitant—expectancy.

I could not but wonder what exactly she was expecting of me.

* * * * * * *

I do not know what conversation had passed between Mr. Tremayne and Commander Whittsett while they were out of the room, but the result of it was that it was agreed I would begin lessons with Elizabeth the following morning, which seemed to please Elizabeth greatly, although she was careful to remain restrained.

I was properly introduced to her and to the commander, who acknowledged me grudgingly. “I think it only fair to tell you,” he said, “that I was and am opposed to bringing a governess in here for my granddaughter. I believe she should be sent away to a proper school. But I have agreed to go along with this arrangement for the time being. Later, we shall see.”

“I shall do my best to produce the results you desire,” I said, “but that shall be easier if I know exactly what they are.”

He looked a bit taken aback by my boldness, as he no doubt had a right to be. I thought I saw a fleeting smile on Mr. Tremayne’s face, although I could not imagine what he found amusing. His daughter looked quite surprised. I suppose no one ever spoke up to the commander. Indeed, I was not a little frightened of him myself, but I believe in facing up to things. If I were to please him, and I thought that I would have to do that to retain my position, I must know what he had in mind.

“Why, what I desire,” he said, “is to see my granddaughter properly educated and to see her kept from any unhealthy influences.”

This reply was so plainly rude that I forgot altogether my promise to myself to keep my Irish temper on the shelf. “Well, sir,” I said, “as to her education, I have come from a school that has a fine reputation and teaches the latest methods, and I shall endeavor to give your granddaughter as good an education as she would get there, which is to say as good an education as she could get anywhere. And as for the other, I truly hope that neither she nor you will find me an unhealthy influence.”

I do not know what I expected in the way of a response to this, but now that I had spoken, my temper had cooled somewhat, so that I would not have considered it surprising or inappropriate if he had struck me with a bolt of lightning.

He did not answer for a long moment, and this time the room’s silence was quite ominous. I supposed that I would be dismissed on the spot and was already thinking ahead to my ignominious return to Mrs. White’s.

“I did not mean to imply that you were an unhealthy influence,” he said, speaking coolly. “And as to your credentials, I have no doubt they are impeccable, else my son-in-law would not have hired you for the job. I believe I can trust him in that.”

I think he might have said something more, probably about my manners, but Mr. Tremayne intervened, stepping quickly to my side and taking my arm.

“Then if everything’s settled, we’ll go now,” he said. “Miss Kirkpatrick will take up her duties in the morning, as we’ve agreed.”

He propelled me in the direction of the door, himself lingering behind to say something to his father-in-law. I heard the commander say, “She’s spunky,” but whether he added that this pleased or displeased him, I could not hear. I suspected the latter.

My employer was no more talkative on the way home than he had been coming in, although I was aware that once or twice he turned to study my profile. If my position in the household had been tentative before, I could not help but admit it was more so now, and I wondered if he were regretting his impulsiveness in hiring me just as I was regretting my impulsiveness in speaking my mind so frankly.

I was not sorry, though, for a free day to unwind a bit and settle into my new—if perhaps temporary—home. I sought out Mrs. Duffy in the kitchen, where she was supervising the planning of the meals for the next few days. The stout cook, who seemed happy enough to meet me, was the only other full-time servant, and she returned to her own home at sundown each night, so that meals at Green Willows had to be taken early or served cold.

“You get used to it, though,” Mrs. Duffy said cheerfully. “It’s quiet here in the evenings and you’ll be glad enough to go to bed early.”

I inquired about my meals, thinking I was to take them in the kitchen, but she informed me that I would eat in the dining room with the master and mistress. I was rather of two minds about this. It was flattering to discover that my station was somewhat above that of a common servant. On the other hand, I was inclined to think I would rather prefer a meal in the kitchen with the friendly cook.

As it turned out, I had lunch alone that day in the dining room. Mr. Tremayne was out somewhere, Mrs. Duffy did not say where, and Miss Tremayne, suffering a headache, had chosen to stay in her room.

I had some soup and a bit of trifle, served by Daisy, the same timorous girl who had come to my room that morning. She was no more receptive to my overtures of friendship than she had been before, and I began to think life at Green Willows was perhaps going to be as lonely as everyone said.

I could only wonder why young Elizabeth, who, I thought, away from her grandfather’s rather frightening presence, would no doubt be as gay and frolicsome as any young girl, should want to live here rather than in that sunny, bright cottage in the village.

I climbed the stairs to my room, pausing at the landing to again stare at the portrait of the dead Mrs. Tremayne. I found my eyes going to those in the portrait and for a moment it seemed as if those painted eyes were looking into mine, as if they had come to life and were trying to tell me something, some message that I could not grasp.

I had never been a particularly imaginative person, though, and now I mentally shook myself, making myself move up the stairs and away from that painted gaze.

As I did so, I heard a sound, faintly at first and then more distinctly—the sound of someone humming. I did not know the song but it had a catchy, easy to remember melody. A folk song of some sort, I thought. It was coming from the hall above, and when I reached there, I heard it coming quite clearly from one of the rooms past mine.

My first thought was that it was one of the maids, but when I thought of Daisy, I could not imagine her humming this happy tune. Perhaps Eleanor Tremayne, recovered from her headache? Then I caught the scent of gardenias and realized with pleasure that Elizabeth must have come to Green Willows on some errand. Maybe her father and grandfather had, after all, decreed that she could stay here now that she had a governess.

I was quite delighted by that prospect. Although her behavior had been a little odd this morning, I had an impression that she was a thoroughly likeable young lady and I was looking forward to our lessons.

I followed the humming—it was strange how clearly it carried along the hall—and came to the last room of this corridor. The sound was clearly coming from just inside the room, and I knocked lightly before reaching to open the door.

The door was locked. The humming had stopped when I knocked and from within I had the impression of someone waiting, holding her breath, listening. It gave me an uncomfortable chill so that I tapped again, a trifle impatiently.

“What are you doing there?” someone demanded sharply.

I whirled about, feeling guilty for no reason I could have explained, and saw Eleanor Tremayne in her chair just down the hall. A door was open on what I took to be her bedroom.

“Why, I...I heard something,” I said, stumbling over my own tongue.

She gave a sharp intake of breath and wheeled her chair toward me. “What are you saying? Do you mean you heard something in there?”

“Someone humming. I thought it was Elizabeth and—”

“Humming? From in there?”

“I thought so, but it’s stopped. Maybe it was one of the maids.”

She reached for the knob and gave it a good yank. “It’s locked,” she said, as if accusing me of locking it.

“I know. I must have been mistaken. I am sorry.”

“There’s no one in there. There never is. We don’t use that room.”

“Of course.”

She wheeled her chair about to return down the hall, but she paused and turned back to me. “Never go to that room,” she said.

“Very well,” I said, since it seemed I must say something.

She went quickly back to her room, but when she reached the open door, she again looked back at me.

“You must have been mistaken,” she said in a less hostile voice. “You must have heard the wind.”

To this I did not reply and she did not wait for one, but went inside, closing her door firmly, leaving me to walk slowly, thoughtfully, back to my own room.