Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
“He is
so
snoring,” declared Renny.
“He is not. If you call that snoring you ought to hear old Nettle.” (Their name for Mrs. Nettleship.)
“When did you hear her?”
“Having her afternoon nap. It was like this.” Meg gave a raucous imitation. This startled the fox terrier, who set up a frantic barking. The children, followed by him, still barking, flew down the main stairway, ran down the hall and clattered down the uncarpeted stairs to the basement. At a small table Mrs. Nettleship and Eliza were eating their breakfast. There was an immaculate air about them as about the room. The morning sunlight seeking every corner, lying across the scrubbed wood of the long table, shining on the polished coal range and rows of utensils, could discover no dirt or dust. The air was filled by the pleasant smell of bacon and toast. The little dog ran at once to the side of the table and sat up.
On an ordinary occasion Mrs. Nettleship would have sent the children flying, but this morning she felt a mournful pity for them which she expressed by shaking her head every time she looked at them.
“Poor little things,” she muttered to Eliza. “No mother and another one of them governesses.”
“Dear, oh dear,” mourned Eliza, surreptitiously putting a rind of bacon into the terrier’s mouth.
The children stood together at the foot of the stairs.
“What is she like?” Renny demanded.
“Wait till you see her,” replied Mrs. Nettleship with a sneer. “Dolled up in a flagrant way, like no teacher I’ve ever been used to.”
“What’s flagrant?”
“Scandalous, that’s what flagrant is.”
“Oh. Was her face painted?”
“I’d not be surprised. She’d fancy clothes.”
“She sounds nice,” said Meg. “Better than the other two.”
“Don’t you be deceived. She’s the designing sort. Nice to your face and tattle behind your back.”
“Do you mean tell tales to Papa?” asked Meg.
Renny went to Mrs. Nettleship. He was conscious of her weakness for him. He smiled ingratiatingly. “I want strawberry jam on my toast this morning and bacon and a fried egg. No porridge.” Her arms went round him. He saw her blue-lipped puckered mouth reaching toward his face and bent his wiry body backward to avoid the contact. With deliberate fingers he tickled the back of her neck. “Come on, Nettle,” he urged. “Strawberry jam. A fried egg.
Two
fried eggs. And
no
porridge.”
She closed her eyes, succumbing. Meg looked on dispassionately. Then the housekeeper asked:
“Did you wash last night? Your feet and legs was all sandy, you remember.”
“Yes,” he answered, meaning yes he remembered.
“Good boy.” She looked across at Eliza, her look saying, “See how he loves me.”
There was something in that look which made Eliza uncomfortable. She got up and began to clear the table. Mrs. Nettleship had come from a town sixty miles away. No one knew anything of her past, whether her husband were living or dead. Before she came to Jalna she had been housekeeper for eight years to an invalid, an old lady who had at last died. Now, for six years, she had unflinchingly fought dirt and disorder in Philip Whiteoak’s house, and also trained Eliza to her ways. As he often said, a man could scarcely have two better servants but, he would add with a shrug, “They’re not what you’d call comfortable women.”
“Would you like your breakfast in the kitchen?” she asked Renny, ignoring Meg. “It’ll likely be your last chance for a long while.”
For answer he drew a chair up to the table, rattling it over the floor. Meg at once drew a chair for herself. Mrs. Nettleship said to Eliza:
“You go on with your beds. I’ll look after him.”
Placing his palms against the edge of the table to steady himself, Renny tilted back his chair and watched preparations for his breakfast with an appraising eye.
“It’ll be far worse for you having that Englishwoman here than it will for your sister.”
“I shall be going to school.”
“Not for over a year!” she scoffed. “She can do a lot to you in that time.”
“I’d like to see her try.”
There was silence while Mrs. Nettleship concentrated her attention on the frying pan. She set his plate sizzling before him.
“Ladies should be served first,” said Meg.
Renny at once pushed the plate towards her. “Take this then,” he said.
Mrs. Nettleship angrily grasped his wrist. “None of that,” she said. “I don’t like being interfered with.”
“If he says I can have it I can,” said Meg stubbornly.
“Not in this kitchen. If you don’t do what I want you’ll go have breakfast upstairs — with
her
.”
She looked on approvingly while Renny attacked his bacon. She passed a hand over his hair. “Sakes alive, what hair! I guess you never put a brush on it this morning.” She placed Meg’s plate in front of her with what seemed almost calculated indifference. When she brought out the pot of strawberry jam it was set convenient to his hand.
“Now,” she said, when they had finished, “I’m going to get a brush and tidy your hair, mister. Use your napkins, both of you.” She disappeared into the passage which led to the maids’ bedrooms.
In an instant the children were silently scrambling up the stairs. The fox terrier, in his eagerness, nipped first one of their legs, then another, as they ascended. At the top all three cast restraint away and scampered through the hall, laughing and barking. The front door stood open. The outdoors, piercingly green in its freshness, invited them. They tore through the porch.
“I’ll beat you to the gate!” shouted Renny.
A
N HOUR LATER
Philip opened the door of his bedroom, came out and shut it stealthily behind him. He cast one apprehensive look up the stairway to the top floor where the new governess slept. He was not shy but he dreaded the complications she would almost certainly bring into his life. He would never forget the trouble caused by Miss Turnbull, the last governess. She had been the hoity-toity priggish type, disagreeable to the servants, unreasonable (to his mind) with the children, complaining to him. Sights and sounds of the farm were always shocking her. He hoped this new one would be a country woman. Ernest had told him singularly little of her in his letter — just that she seemed nice and quite sensible and that her references were good. Philip heaved a sigh at the thought of being obliged to have three strange women in his house, but what could he do? Mrs. Nettleship was certainly not capable of giving the proper care to a little girl. Well, this was the sort of thing that happened to a man when he was a widower. He’d got used to being a widower but he never ceased to miss Margaret’s taking the difficult end of domestic complications. She’d had a strong nature — always thought she was right — and a temper. She’d been only twenty-five when she died; perhaps by this time
she’d have toned down a bit. It was wonderful how she’d stood up to his mother’s tempers, and rather terrible too. Yet his mother had known Margaret all her life — dandled her when she was a baby. He himself felt that, when you’d known a person all your life you ought to understand them. But women were different.
He took his gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. He pushed out his full lips in a pout. No time to go to the stables before breakfast, as he had wanted to. He might as well face the music now, have breakfast with the children and this Miss Wakefield and get it over with. Wearing the expression of a spoilt boy he descended the stairs and looked into the dining room. It was set for two.
His expression changed to one of dismay. Where were the children? Surely he was not going to be forced to eat breakfast alone with that woman on her first morning! He couldn’t. We wouldn’t. He strode to where the bell-cord hung and pulled it. In a moment Eliza appeared.
“Breakfast, sir?” she asked.
“Eliza, where are the children?”
“They had their breakfast early and ran off, sir.”
“Go and find them, please. No — I’ll call them myself.” He gave Eliza a pathetic look. “Eliza, where is that governess?”
“In the library. I think she’s waiting for you, sir.” Eliza could not help smiling at the dismay in his eyes as he heard this. “She’s brought books with her and pencils and paper.”
“In there!” he repeated, staring at the double doors which separated the two rooms. The library, more truly a sitting-room, was particularly his own and the thought of the strange woman in possession of it was more than he would stand. She must be told to keep out of there.
He went to a side door that opened from the hall and now stood wide. He stepped out into the morning air and took a satisfying breath of it before feeling in his pocket for a dog whistle he always carried there and which his children answered almost as well as his spaniels. It was carved from bone and had a stout silver chain to it. He blew a shrill ear-piercing blast on it, then waited. He
blew another. Still there was no response. Frowning a little he drew a deep breath and emitted an even more peremptory call. Out from the orchard at the back of the house, where on the ground the petals of the apple-blossoms still lay white, two little figures appeared.
“Renny!” shouted Philip. “Meggie!”
Renny hid his fishing rod in the long orchard grass.
“I see you,” shouted Philip. “Bring it along.”
The two trotted toward him, Renny carrying the rod, the line dangling free, the hook nearer, at each step, to his sister’s face.
“Look out what you’re doing, you young idiot! Mind that hook!” Philip was at the end of his patience.
Now his children were before him, gazing up into his face. He took the rod and wound the line on the reel. The feel of it in his hand brought fishing to his mind. He thought he would go off for a few days’ fishing while the governess got settled in. “There,” he stood the rod against the wall. “Now we’ll go in and meet Miss Wakefield. There’ll be lessons, you know.”
Meg’s blue eyes were large and mournful, Renny’s narrowed in misery. Each slipped a hand into his. Thus fortified he felt stronger to face the ordeal. He bent and kissed each in turn. Then he noticed their hair. “Wait a jiffy,” he said.
He took a small comb in a leather case from his pocket. He ran it through Renny’s dense, dark red hair, exclaiming, “By George, you have a tangled mop! I must get it cut. Now you, Meg.” Hers he found impossible except for tidying it a bit round her face. She looked up trustfully just like his Clumber spaniels when he combed them. She and the boy were good-looking children and fairly intelligent. No one could deny that. “Come along, I guess you’ll do.” He led them to the door of the library and they went in.
Mary was standing by the window. She turned and faced them with a startled air. She felt herself growing pale from excitement. The moment was upon her — the moment of meeting her new employer and her future pupils. In a flash she was conscious of her inadequacy, her unfitness for the situation. She had never been a teacher, she didn’t know anything about children. She did not
even know how to live with other people. She had to brace herself against panic, and, after the first glance, against bewilderment. She had expected to see a middle-aged man, probably looking older than Mr. Ernest Whiteoak. She thought of widowers as middle-aged, just as she thought of children as little darlings. Yet now she stood facing a young man just past thirty, with the finest blue eyes she had ever seen, smiling at her, and two children who did not look like little darlings. Philip said:
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Wakefield. I am Philip Whiteoak and these are Meg and Renny.” He held out his hand, took hers, and feeling the warm clasp of his fingers, she felt a lessening of her panic.
She shook hands with the children. Meg’s round face was turned up to hers, with no more expression than an egg, yet somehow conveying hostility in its very lack of expression. Renny’s brilliant brown eyes met hers with a wary look. He gave a rigid little smile, as though his lips felt stiff. Then closed his mouth firmly. Philip asked her about her journey, then they all moved into the dining-room and took their places at the table, Mary between the two children, Philip at the head of the table.
“We’ve had our breakfast,” exclaimed Meg. “I forgot.”
“Why, yes, we’ve had our breakfast. We don’t want two breakfasts, Papa.” He gave a sudden small boy’s explosion of treble laughter. He jumped down from his chair and ran to his father’s side and threw an arm around his neck.
“I could eat a little more,” said Meg. “Nettle gave me scarcely anything.”
Philip looked at Mary, his eyes laughing. “I suppose,” he said, “that all those English children you taught had perfect manners.”
“Oh, no.” What if he should ask her how many she had taught? She grew hot all over. Eliza was offering her porridge and a jug of the richest-looking milk she had ever seen. “Thank you,” she said and began to force it down.
It was from Meg the dreaded question came. “How many children were you the governess of?” she asked.
“Not many. Really — just one — for any length of time.”
“Was it a girl?”
“Yes.”
“How long did you stay with her?”
Mary felt sure the child knew she was hedging. Her colour heightened but she turned with what dignity she could gather and said to Philip, “I hope that Mr. Ernest Whiteoak did not tell you that I have a lot of experience. I didn’t intend to give him that impression, because I haven’t.”
He smiled good-humouredly. “You couldn’t very well. Not at your age.”
“As a matter of fact,” she got out, “I have only one reference.”
“Only
one
!” exclaimed Meg, though her expression never changed.
“Sh,” said Philip. “Eat your porridge.”
“I don’t want it. I said I could eat a little more. Not porridge.”
“I think,” said Mary, “that your brother must have been almost desperate when he engaged me. You see the other one had broken her legs.”
Philip nodded in sympathy for the absent governess but the children broke into derisive laughter. “Broke her legs!” shouted Renny. “Broke
both
her legs! She’d be no use after that. Did they shoot her?”