Mina (9 page)

That night,
he lay beside her, holding her lightly in his arms as they planned to move her
belongings to Exeter. They talked for an

hour, but when he rolled her
sideways and began to stroke the side of her face, he felt her stiffen.
"Mina, it's over," he said.

"I don't feel the same as I did before he came to me,"
she confessed, shuddering as if the revelation gave her pain. Neither do I, Jonathan
thought. Everything might have been different had he only said the words aloud,
but he could not. The admission would have wounded her too terribly.
"We'll give it time," he said.

Just after
he and Mina left England, Jonathan's aunt Millicent Harker-maiden aunt, as she
was fond of calling herself-had moved

into the house Jonathan had
inherited in Exeter.

"The
mysterious honeymoon", as she referred to their journey, had taken place
so suddenly that Jonathan's last, indeed only,

request
before leaving was that Millicent travel from Reading to Exeter and take up
residence there. Otherwise, he wrote, he would be leaving the house and
belongings in the care of servants who might have been loyal to Mr. Hawkins but
had no reason to be the same to him. There had been no time to catalog the
possessions, and while he would not refuse a servant some cherished memento of
his former employer, he made it clear to Millicent that he had no desire to
allow a dishonest few to steal him blind.

Certain that a surprise assault was
in order, Millicent did not post Jonathan's letter authorizing her to act in
his behalf. Instead, she arrived unannounced at the spacious Tudor-style home
near the cathedral. Having dismissed the hired cab with a two-penny tip, she
knocked on the front door with all the force of someone bearing a proclamation
from the Queen herself.

James Chapel, Mr. Hawkins's personal
servant for the last sixteen years, opened the front door. In his early sixties
with a sizable inheritance from Mr. Hawkins, he could have moved in with his
daughter in Cornwall. However, he was a trim man whose hair was still a rich
brown. He looked and felt a decade younger than his actual age and was hardly
ready to retire. Jonathan Harker had suggested that he live in the house until
they returned from their trip on the Continent. Chapel had done so in the hope
of reaching some arrangement with the Harkers. He had met Jonathan and Mina a
number of times before his employer's death. In the few days the couple had
spent there, he had helped Madam Mina adjust to managing a household staff.
Both of them, particularly the wife, were charming, unassuming people. He
suspected that they would get along well.

Millicent, with a drab olive-green
cloak covering her stout body and the black hat perched on her dull gray hair,
was a different story. She waved her nephew's authorization in Chapel's face
and pointed to her bags. Chapel looked from the parcels to the woman. She was
short, with the look of one prematurely old, her round face permanently lined
and tanned by sun and wind. "You weren't expected so soon. If you had
wired, we would have had porters meet you at the train," he said.

Millicent
snorted as if he had suggested something unseemly. "Perhaps another
servant can help," she said sharply.

"I am the only one here, madam. A maid was hardly needed in
the Harkers' absence, so I thought to save them the expense." "Well
then . . ." She hoisted the largest two parcels and swept past Chapel into
the foyer. "Show me to my room, please."

"The guest room? There are three on the second floor and
another plus sitting room on the third. If you will leave your bags here, I
can show the rooms to you." As he spoke the last, he moved past her and
out the door, hesitating just outside to debate whether to get the rest of her
things or such a deliciously wicked thought!-simply leave her to fend for
herself.

Duty and habit won. When her five
bags were safely on the inlaid wood floor of the foyer, he took her on a tour.
She hid her amazement at the magnificent dining room-at its red brick
fireplace, oak wainscotting and windows overlooking a small rear yard enclosed
by a stone wall and iron gate. She seemed more at home in the parlor, where
Chapel himself spent most of his idle hours in the empty house, and warmed her
hands against the small gas heater. Later, in the kitchen, as she examined the
cupboards and stove and, with great curiosity, the water heater, Chapel
finally understood her behavior. She was not wealthy, nor even exposed to wealth,
and now that her nephew had acquired it, she was convinced it could be as
easily taken away as it had been given.

Chapel took
her through the second floor. She noted that the main bedroom with its
east-facing windows and the smaller

attached room that Mr. Hawkins had used for a private study would
be perfect for Jonathan and Mina. "The little room will make a fine
nursery," she said in a conspiratorial tone, as if children were the
furthest thing from Mina Harker's mind.

"Mrs.
Harker said the same," Chapel noted dryly. "We've already moved the
couple's clothes in here, Madam Millicent."

She was
looking away from him, so he sensed rather than saw her approval when he called
her that. When she turned to face

him, her eyes were softer,
her mouth less rigid. "Miss Millicent," she said.

The other
bedrooms-two across the hall from the main one and a third at the top of the
servants' stairs above the kitchen-were

not private enough for her
taste, so he took her upstairs.

The third floor had a wall dividing
the two large rooms and a water closet in the front from the three small
servant's rooms in the rear. Once, the front quarters had been used as the
children's room and sleeping space for nurse, nanny or, when the children were
older, tutor. The rooms still had their original mauve walls and whitewashed
floors. Just before Mr. Hawkins died, he had ordered them to be washed and the
old velvet curtains replaced with white Irish lace. The iron bed had a lace
coverlet and there was a large oak armoire and dresser along one wall. The
room had most recently been occupied by Jonathan and Mina. After Mr. Hawkins died,
Chapel had ordered the master bedroom painted and had the Harkers' clothes
moved into it. Now these were the best empty rooms in the house.

"I'll
move in here," Millicent declared.

"They
suit you, Miss Millicent," Chapel said. "Before you settle in, shall
we have some tea?"

They sat together in the parlor,
where, in the next few hours, Chapel learned a great deal about the new owner
of what he privately considered "his house." With an affection for
her nephew that bordered on adoration, Millicent told him of Jonathan's history.
"His grandparents had been dairy farmers, his father a shopkeeper in
Reading. When Jonathan was a baby, they would take him to work with them. His
first year was spent surrounded by bolts of linen and lace, spools of thread
and notions. When the store grew prosperous enough, my brother opened a
second. Jonathan's mother managed it, and until Jonathan was old enough for school,
he lived with me."

"He was
their only child?"

She nodded. "My brother's wife was not a strong woman.
Jonathan was her one blessing." "And yours as well." Seeing her
frown, he quickly added, "Considering how much you love him."

"I raised him," she
responded. "Even though I did not learn to read until I was nearly an
adult, I knew the value of an education, Mr. Chapel. I taught Jonathan his
alphabet, his numbers and his prayers. When he started school, his progress ...
well, if I'm biased, so were his teachers.

"His
father taught him to keep the business ledgers, and he did so meticulously. His
mother used to comment that he worked too

hard and that he should spend more time doing things he liked such
as sketching and writing. Jonathan ignored her-not disrespectfully, of course.
Jonathan was never disrespectful. He was serious, though, far more than his
mother."

"I
wouldn't doubt it, Miss Millicent," Chapel responded. "And it was the
frivolous attitude of hers that caused my brother to lose

the second shop."

Chapel did
not approve of gossip, especially not of the dead. He poured more tea from the
delicate blue-and-white porcelain pot

then carefully changed the
subject. "And how did you get by?" he asked.

Millicent's smile was tight-lipped,
filled with satisfaction. "With great care. The terms of our parents' will
gave me their house and my brother nearly all the land. He sold his acres
while I used mine. Every square meter of that soil produced, Mr. Chapel, and every
milk stall in the barn was occupied. In the early years, I did the milking and
delivered the calves myself. Six years later, I bought my brother's land back
from the new owners. Once I was too old to run the dairy, I sold off the stock
and rented the land.

Now I live off that."

Hard work
was admirable, Chapel knew that lesson well, but something in her tone made him
uneasy-as if she judged the world

entirely by her ethics.
"And you never married?" he asked.

The relaxed
intimacy Chapel had created vanished, and he was certain that the question
concealed some terrible secret. "No,"

she said curtly.

"Then
Jonathan and Mina are your only family?"

"Jonathan.
Mina . . ." Her voice trailed off. "Mina is the woman Jonathan loves,
and he has always been so sensible, so of course

I care for her because she is
his choice. But my loyalty is to my own, Mr. Chapel, as I am sure your loyalty
is to your own."

Chapel had
been most loyal to Mr. Hawkins, who had treated him less like a servant than a
brother. Nonetheless, he nodded.

"Now I
should like to move in," she said. "After, I think I would like to
cook us dinner."

Before Chapel had a chance to clear
the tea service, Millicent had carried the tray downstairs to the kitchen.
There, she rinsed the cups and pot and placed them in the cupboard, running a
finger over the shelf and
tsk
ing in disapproval when it came away dusty.

They carried her bags to her room.
This time she took the lighter ones and paused at the first landing to catch
her breath until Chapel, concerned for her health, told her to put them down
and made an extra trip. While she unpacked, Chapel found fresh blankets and
sheets, then took her list and went shopping. As he picked out the ham and the
vegetables she had asked him to get, he thought again of how difficult it
would be to live with the woman.

A dairy
maid, in the third-floor guest rooms. "Miss Millicent," he said aloud
as he lifted the grocery bag and started out the door.

A challenge, he thought, as he stopped at the end of the street
and, with his own money, purchased a bouquet of bright pink chrysanthemums
from a florist stall.

Millicent
had said she intended to rest, but when Chapel returned to the house, he
discovered that she had put on a work dress.

In his absence, she had
scrubbed the china cupboards and was now on hands and knees using the soapy
water to wash the floor.

Chapel stopped in the doorway and stared at the scene a moment.
Acting solely on instinct, he crouched beside her and held out the flowers. As
she took them with hands reddened by the harsh lye soap and scrubbing, he shook
his head sadly. "My dear Miss Millicent. Hard work is admirable, but if
you care for your nephew, there are some things you must no longer do."

He saw her
anger rise then dissipate, to be replaced by doubt. "What do you
mean?" she asked.

"In
your nephew's house, you can be one of the family. If you wish to work, perhaps
you could run the household, though, in one

as small as this, that is usually the wife's duty. If you have a
special talent for cooking, you could do that on a daily basis and oversee the
planning of special dinners. But under no circumstances can you act as the
scullery maid. Never! Now, come." He pulled her upright and pointed to
the sink. "Wash your hands. We'll make dinner together and then we will
talk."

In the hours that followed, Chapel
told her about Mr. Hawkins's early life, the struggle that, only in the last
decade, had finally brought him wealth. "He acquired a very important
client, a nobleman, who paid him well. The money was valuable but even more so
were the people his client knew. Mr. Hawkins was suddenly being received in
society, and he was perceptive enough to know that he was unskilled. He found
the means to educate himself and he prospered."

"What
did he do?"

"He hired me. No, don't frown. I am telling no more than the
truth. He hired me because I have worked all my life in the houses of the very
wealthy and, more importantly, in the houses of the nouveau riche. I know
manners, Miss Millicent. I know what must and must not be done if one is to
prosper in society, and I would consider it a great privilege to teach someone
as well intentioned as you."

"To
teach?" Millicent said. Had Chapel known her better, he would have
understood that the vague tone of her voice was

disapproval.

"Yes,"
he replied.

"And I
could be cook?"

Chapel looked at the remains of the
meal-the ham with its rich honey basting, the turnips and carrots baked with
it, the biscuits as perfect as any he had ever tasted. What could the woman do
with desserts, he wondered, or with stocks? "Without a doubt," he replied.
"I think the Queen herself might hire you."