108. An Archangel Called Ivan (11 page)

She sent for these to Mr. Moss and they consisted of small boats with sails that could either stand on a table or be floated on a lake or pond.

There were also prizes that would interest boys like a folding pen and other small inexpensive gifts that they could take home proudly.

When the bill arrived from Mr. Moss, it seemed enormous to Aliva and she thought perhaps that she had better pay for it herself.

Then she remembered that Lord Wilson was a rich man.

He did not appear to have spent very much money on himself, his house or his estate in the last few years.

This, she knew, was due to the fact that his son had died.

She noticed now that there were more gardeners working in the grounds than there had been before and, without making any fuss about it, Evans had engaged two new footmen who he was training and who were dressed in the Wilson livery.

She therefore took the bill herself to Lord Wilson.

“Well then, what have you been up to today, Miss Parker?” he asked when she went into the room.

“We have had forty-two visitors to the wood, my Lord,” she informed him, “and twenty friends to tea with the children by the lake.”

The old man chuckled.

“Things have certainly changed since you arrived.”

“I am afraid that, although we have collected over sixty-five pounds for the Vicar’s fund, my Lord, we have another large bill here for the fairies and the decorations we have used in the wood.”

She held it out to him, but his hand did not move.

“Give it to my secretary,” he said. “He pays the bills and does not worry me with them.”

“You mean that you are not interested in what we spend, my Lord?” Arliva asked incredulously.

“Not really,” he replied. “What you have done has made my grandchildren very happy and believe it or not I myself have had two or three visitors every day. They left their children with you and then popped in to see me. And very pleased I was to see them.”

He paused for a moment before he went on,

“I have been wondering how you have such clever and imaginative ideas. It must be in your blood.”

Arliva wanted to say that it was because she was her father’s daughter.

As he had spoken so well of her father, she was sure that he would be able to recognise the connection.

Then she knew that if she told him who she was, it would undoubtedly be talked about in the neighbourhood.

There was sure to be a servant who had relations in London who had heard about the rich Miss Ashdown and he or she might then convey to her aunt the fact that she was living in the country and making everything different from what it had been before.

She therefore smiled at the old man’s compliments, thanked him again and picked up the bill that she had made Johnnie read and add up to make certain that it was correct.

She thought now that while he had done arithmetic there were many other things she ought to be teaching him as well as making him happy by giving him companions and a chance of competing with them.

‘I suppose really,’ Arliva thought, ‘we should have a cricket match. That is what Johnnie will play at school.’

He was not likely to go for some years, yet at the same time there was nothing that men admired or enjoyed more than a cricket match.

‘I must think about it,’ she told herself. ‘But for the moment everything is going so well that I don’t want to interrupt anything.’

The next day, however, she thought it only right that she should give the children at least one serious lesson, which she had not attempted to do since she arrived.

During the night she had found herself composing a poem about what was happening outside.

When the children had finished breakfast, she said,

“Before we go out on our usual ride, I want you to do a little serious school work we have not done before.”

She saw their faces drop.

“If I don’t teach you some of the subjects I ought to teach you,” she continued, “your grandfather might send me away. That is why I want you to show that you are learning new ideas and new subjects as well as enjoying yourself.”

Rather reluctantly they went up to the schoolroom.

“Now pick up your pencils and paper,” she said, “as I want you to write a poem about what we are doing. I have written one myself to show you what I feel about the fairies.”

“A poem!” Johnnie exclaimed. “That’s something new.”

“We are trying out new ideas every day,” Arliva replied. “And this is my poem.”

“
There are fairies in the woods and in the flowers
,

And I could watch them flying round and round for hours
.

I see them in the rustle of the trees
.

I see them riding on the bumble bees
.

They will float on petals drifting on the stream
.

They enter all my thoughts like a dream
.

They sit amongst the clouds up in the sky
.

They hover near me when in bed I lie
.

Fairies bring happiness and love
,

A blessing from the angels up above
.

All of us must pray they will come to us and stay

To bring much love and joy for every girl and boy
.”

As Arliva read her poem, she could see that they were listening intently.

Then Daisy said excitedly,

“I’m sure I can write a poem.”

“Well, don’t make it too long,” Arliva told her. “Then we can go up to the swimming pool, which I know you are longing to do.”

She watched the clock and ten minutes later she asked,

“Have you now finished your poems? I am ready to hear them.”

“I think so,” Daisy answered. “Rosie and I have done it together.”

“That was very sensible of you. Now read it.”

“I will read it,” Daisy insisted, as she picked up the piece of paper and read,

“
We love the fairies and the fairies love we
.

We saw a fairy riding on a bee
.

If Rosie and I catch a big bee
,

We will fly to the top of the big oak tree
.”

The spelling was appalling, but at least the girls had tried and Arliva could only say,

“I think that is very very good. You have tried hard and have written it down well, now Johnnie what about yours?”

Johnnie, who had been sitting with his back to her, had been drawing, so she was not surprised that his poem was very short.

He picked up his piece of paper and read,

“
Fairies are for girls
,

Goblins are for me
.

If I find a goblin
,

I’ll ask him home for tea
.”

The children all laughed.

“I suppose I will have to call that a poem,” Arliva said, “but I suspect you have drawn a very pretty fairy sitting on a bee.”

“How did you guess?” Johnnie asked. “But it’s not as good as I would like it to be. Anyway men don’t write poems.”

“There you are quite wrong. Some of the very best poems we have were written by men like Wordsworth’s beautiful
Daffodils
and
The Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But lessons are over for today and you can all run to the lake.”

They had gone almost before she finished speaking and she laughed as she followed them.

That evening after she had dined alone, she went to the library and found two male poets whose words she wanted Johnnie to read.

She also found a book of drawings that she thought would help him.

Then she put them on one side and started to find the books she wanted to read herself.

It was two o’clock before she finally left, having found in the library some magnificent old volumes that she had never thought she would hold in her hands.

She left the three books beside Johnnie’s bed as he was fast asleep when she tiptoed into the room.

As she went to her room, she thought how lucky the children were to have such a magnificent library, which they would undoubtedly enjoy when they were older.

‘At the moment they are living in an exciting and thrilling world, which is different from anything they have known before,’ she thought. ‘When they are older, it will be something to look back on and remember.’

As she snuffed out the candle and turned over on her pillow, she knew it was something she would always remember too.

*

The following week even more people came to The Hall.

They drove in from all parts of the country and now it was not only the mothers and children who arrived but the fathers came too.

Arliva could not help being aware that they looked at her in a very different way and they made every possible excuse to talk to her.

‘I must be very careful,’ she thought. ‘If anyone who has been in London recognises me, I might have to leave here and that would break my heart.’

Relations, who had never bothered in the past about Lord Wilson, turned up and wanted to stay, not for one night but for several.

There were young cousins with their husbands and young men who were distant relations and Lord Wilson had not seen them for years.

Mrs. Lewis had to take on four more housemaids as the relations expected to stay the night.

And Mrs. Briggs had three more helpers in the kitchen than when Arliva first arrived.

‘I am a success, a real success,’ she told herself one evening when they had had a record number of visitors to the wood and there were as many as nine relations staying in the house.

One of them had a son who was the same age as Johnnie.

‘I am clever, very clever,’ she told herself proudly.

At the same time, if there were too many visitors who were not near neighbours, it could be dangerous for her.

Therefore when it was sunny and there were a lot of strangers around she took to wearing her dark glasses.

“You look like a boogly-woogly,” one of the twins said and Johnnie remarked,

“When we were out swimming yesterday, two men asked where you came from as you are so pretty and when I told them I did not know, they went off to ask someone else.”

‘I must be careful,’ Arliva thought. ‘If anyone in London has the slightest suspicion of where I am, I will have those fortune-hunters descending on me and I will have to run away again.’

The mere idea made her shiver and yet she could not help but know that it was a distinct possibility.

That night, when the dinner she had eaten all alone was finished, she decided to go into the garden.

The house party was still in the dining room and, even with the door of the schoolroom shut, she could hear their voices and laughter.

Lord Wilson’s cousin had arrived during the day with her little girl of seven years of age. She also had a son of twelve who was rather overwhelming to Johnnie.

Besides he and his sister there were two middle-aged male relations staying in the house who had turned up out of curiosity bringing with them a girl of eighteen.

There was also another child who was nearly ten.

They all ate in the dining room, but Arliva had been wise enough to insist on having her meals alone in the schoolroom.

‘If I have meals with them,’ she thought, ‘they will think I am pushy, besides they might become curious about me which would be a disaster.’

She then went down the backstairs and let herself out into the garden through a side door.

The moon was coming up over the trees, the stars were shining in the sky and there was the scent of flowers.

As soon as she had arrived at Wilson Hall, she had asked if the fountain could be repaired.

Now it was throwing its water high into the air from a cupid holding a tall cornucopia and the water was glittering with a thousand colours as it fell back into the curved basin.

‘How beautiful it is,’ Arliva sighed to herself as she moved forward.

As she did so, a man came out of the shadows and joined her.

He was one of the guests staying in the house from whom she had kept a distance because she was afraid that he might recognise her.

He was in fact very smart and she had heard from Evans that he was in the Grenadier Guards.

Now, as he joined her, he said,

“I expected to see you at dinner. Do you dine alone because you find our company so distasteful?”

“Of course not,” Arliva replied. “But you must not forget that I am the Governess and Governesses might join the family at luncheon but never at dinner.”

The man laughed.

“What an absurd rule, especially when a Governess looks like you.”

She knew she was beginning to hear compliments that she had heard so often before.

But now surprisingly they were being paid to her as a nonentity and not as a rich heiress.

“I hope you are enjoying yourself, sir,” she said. “It’s good for the household to have visitors after it has all been so silent and empty for so long.”

“I heard my relatives saying that you had made all the changes,” the man said. “And I think it is very clever of you. My great-uncle was very lucky to find you.”

He looked at her as he spoke with an expression in his eyes that she knew only too well.

“I am sorry to seem rude,” she said, “but I have to go and see if the girls need anything. They were just going to bed before I came outside and they will now want to say goodnight to me.”

“But I want to do the same thing,” he persisted, “and, as I am a guest, I think I can claim first place to your attentions.”

He put his arms out as he spoke and Arliva knew only too well what he intended.

With a swiftness that was unexpected she slipped away from him and, running across the lawn, she reached the side door that let into the house.

Only as she pulled it open, did she look back and realise that he was not far behind her.

She hurried inside and ran up the stairs reaching the West wing without looking back.

Only as she paused to tidy her hair before she went into the girl’s room did she reflect that while she had been able to escape from London, London had come to her.