The Changeling (24 page)

“We usually do very well and the proceeds are for the church. Reverend Whyte is very concerned at the moment about the roof. He said if we can get it done now it will save pounds later.”

“Was the bazaar a success?”

“An immense success.”

“I am sure Mrs. Lansdon is very sorry she was not here to help you.”

Mrs. Carston-Browne gave Celeste a cool nod in acknowledgment of her regret.

“It was
nécessaire
to be in London,” said Celeste. “Did you know that Rebecca was having a season?”

“Yes, we do read the papers.”

“Oh, was it mentioned there?” I asked.

“The local paper. As the Member’s stepdaughter …”

“Oh, of course.”

“I am sure, Miss Mandeville, that you will be able to dress the children.”

“Mrs. Lansdon will,
I
am sure. And perhaps help you with the costumes. She is very clever at that sort of thing.”

“Oh?” said Mrs. Carston-Browne, almost disbelievingly.

“Yes, she has a special eye for what is right for all occasions.”

“I am sure that will be most useful. Could I expect you at The Firs tomorrow morning at ten thirty for discussions?”

I looked at Celeste who seemed bewildered. “I am sure that will be all right,” I said.

Mrs. Carston-Browne rose, her feather in her hat quivering as she leaned forward on her parasol and surveyed us—me with approval but Celeste with a certain suspicion.

I walked with her to the front door where her carriage was waiting.

“It was such a pleasure to find
you
in, Miss Mandeville,” she said.

I stood for a few seconds, listening to the clip-clop of her horses’ hoofs on the gravel.

I thought: What is happening to me? I am being drawn in to help
him.
I shall go down to Cornwall as soon as I can. I wanted no change in our relationship. I still felt my mother’s death bitterly and resentfully. I really did not
want
anything to change. On the other hand I was sorry for Celeste. She was trying to take my mother’s place and that was something she could never do.

She was beside me and she slipped her arm through mine.

“Thank you, Rebecca,” she said.

And then I felt a little better.

The pageant occupied us for the next two weeks. It was to be held on the first of September. Lucie was delighted to be taking part. So was Belinda but she pretended that it meant little to her.

Celeste looked through her store of materials. Leah was an expert with her needle and with Celeste’s designs and Leah’s ability to make up the materials, the children were going to make very attractive attendants of the Queen.

Celeste would have made a good Queen; she was petite but perhaps too slim and elegant to play the plump little Queen. Moreover the spectators would have been shocked to see a foreigner in the part.

Benedict was to open the pageant and the
tableaux vivants
would be shown with intervals of half an hour between each—it was taking all that time to prepare for the next. There were stalls where all sorts of produce could be bought—cakes, homemade jam and all sorts of farm produce as well as flowers. The usual sideshows were in evidence—wishing wells with fishing rods and if these could be hooked on to the toy fishes this entitled the successful to a prize. It was the usual fun of the fair, the highlight being the
tableaux vivants
which had never been attempted before.

Celeste and I were behind the scenes most of the time, helping to fix up the
tableaux.
Belinda was running round in a state of excitement. Lucie was equally thrilled. Their dresses were identical. They wore white satin trimmed with lace and round their heads were mauve anemones. They looked very attractive.

The first scene, with the Queen in her dressing gown receiving the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain to be told she was Queen, was a great success. It was really quite effective with the Lord Chamberlain kissing her hand and the Archbishop standing by preparing to do the same. The coronation was even more grand but the scene which won the most applause was the royal wedding—the Queen, her husband beside her and her attendants … among them Belinda and Lucie, who, because of their connection with the Member, were placed in prominent positions.

The applause rang out. The curtain was lowered and the
tableau
came to life with the participants coming forward to take their bows.

Belinda’s eyes sparkled. I knew how hard she found it to stand still and I thought she was going to leap in the air at any moment.

She smiled and bowed and waved to the audience which delighted them.

All that evening she could talk of nothing but the part she had played on the stage. She made us all laugh when she said: “I was afraid my enemies were going to fall off my head. Lucie’s nearly did, too.”

“They are anemones,” Lucie corrected her.

Belinda could never accept that she was wrong. “Mine were enemies,” she said.

They were starry-eyed when I said goodnight to them.

“Actresses are on the stage,” said Belinda. “When I grow up I am going to be one of them.”

Belinda’s desire to be an actress lasted for some weeks. It was dressing up which appealed to her. One day I found her in my room trying on a hat of mine and a short coat. I couldn’t help being amused. She wanted to go down to the kitchen and show them and I allowed her to do this.

“I am Miss Rebecca Mandeville,” she announced in haughty tones which were unlike any I was likely to use. “I have just had my London season.”

They were all highly amused.

Mrs. Emery, seated at the head of the table, for they were all having tea, said she was a real caution. Jane, the parlormaid, clapped her hands and soon they were all doing the same. Belinda stood in the middle of the kitchen bowing and kissing her hands to them. Then she flounced off.

“A regular little Madam, that one,” said Mrs. Emery. “You have to watch her though. She’s up to tricks … and she drags that Miss Lucie with her.”

Leah, who had watched the little show, tried to suppress the pride she felt in her charge. I had long ago guessed that Belinda was her favorite. I supposed her exuberant personality was certain to make her outstanding; and then there was the fact that Belinda was the daughter of the house whereas Lucie was a foundling whom, in a rather eccentric manner, I had been allowed to adopt by my rather unconventional grandparents.

I suppose Lucie was aware of this too. I must make her understand that she was as important to me at any rate as my half-sister Belinda.

Her successful impersonation of me must have aroused the desire in Belinda to attempt further success and she announced that she and Lucie were going to do a
tableau
for us but there would be talking in this one. We must all go to the kitchen and wait there.

I was very glad afterwards that Celeste was unable to come. She was visiting the agent’s wife which was a duty she had rather reluctantly to perform.

However it worked out for the best on this occasion.

The servants were all laughing together as we arranged ourselves in the chairs, Mrs. Emery, hands folded in bombazine lap next to me with Leah and Miss Stringer on the other side.

I felt a twinge of alarm when the children burst in, for Belinda was wearing a top hat and a morning coat which had obviously been taken from Benedict’s wardrobe. She really did look incongruous. I was wondering what was coming next and whether we should have to put a stop to this intrusion into people’s rooms.

And there was Lucie, her hair pinned up on top of her head, strangely unlike herself in one of Celeste’s elegant gowns which trailed along the floor and hung on her like a sack.

There was silence.

“I am your Member of Parliament,” announced Belinda. “And you have to do what I say … I have a big house in London which would be too good for any of
you,
because I have grand servants there … and we have important people coming. The Prime Minister and the Queen sometimes … when I ask her.” Lucie came forward. “Go away,” went on Belinda. “I don’t want you. I don’t like you very much. I like Belinda’s mother. I go to see her in the locked room. That’s why I don’t want
you
.”

Miss Stringer half rose in her seat. Leah had turned pale. Mrs. Emery was staring open-mouthed and I heard Jane mutter something under her breath.

I was terrified of what Belinda would say next.

I stood up and went to her.

“Take those things off at once,” I said. “Both of you. Go and put them back where you took them from. You are never … never to take clothes from other people’s wardrobes. You have some things which you have had given you for dressing up. You may use those … and those only.”

Belinda looked at me defiantly.

“It was a good play,” she cried. “It was a true play … like the Queen at her wedding.”

“It was not true,” I said. “It was very silly. Now take them off at once. Leah …”

Leah hurried forward. So did Miss Stringer Leah took Belinda by the hand. Miss Stringer took Lucie’s and they were gone.

There was silence in the kitchen. I turned and followed them upstairs.

I went to see Mrs. Emery in her private sitting room.

“It’s that Miss Belinda,” she said. “There’s no knowing what she’ll do next. She’s got to be watched. She’s got her nose into everything.”

“How does she know about that room?”

“Well, how do they know anything? Little pitchers have long ears and that Miss Belinda’s are ten times as long as normal. Eyes on everything. What’s this? What’s that? And she talked to the maids. I can’t stop the gossiping. They don’t dare do it in front of me but I reckon it’s chitter chatter all the time behind my back.”

“I’m only thankful that Mrs. Lansdon was not here.”

“Yes. That would not have been very nice.”

“Mrs. Emery, how could she have
known
?”

Mrs. Emery shook her head. “There’s not much that goes on in a house that the maids don’t know about. They see little things … we know how different it is with the French lady than it was with your mother. He worshipped her. They was like one … the two of them. The whole house knew it and when she went it broke him. Then he kept that room.”

“I don’t like it, Mrs. Emery.”

“You’re not the only one, Miss Rebecca. There’s bound to be talk. They’re already saying her ghost is in that room. Orders is that I’m the only one that’s to go in. That’s all very well, but to tell you frank like, I’d never be able to get any of the others
to
go in … not alone by any road. I reckon if we had that door open and things moved out and changed round a bit … it would be a lot better. It’s like a shrine, Miss Rebecca … and people gets ideas when there’s that sort of thing in a house.”

“You’re right, Mrs. Emery, but what can we do about it?”

“Well, it’s up to him. If only he’d try to forget her … make a normal life for the present Mrs. Lansdon … you see what I mean.”

“I do see what you mean.”

“If someone could tell him …”

She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. “You’d be the only one who could, I suppose. But I know how it is between you. You’re not what you might call loving father and daughter.”

I thought: Our lives are exposed to our servants. They are aware of everything that is going on. They know in this house that Celeste is passionately in love with a husband who rejects her because he is still so deeply in love with his dead wife that he makes a shrine to her and spends nights in that room from which the present Mrs. Lansdon is shut out.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” I said. “Perhaps if the right moment comes it might be possible to say something.”

She nodded.

“While that room stays locked it’s unhealthy. That’s what I’ve always said and I’ll go on saying it. I don’t like it, Miss Rebecca, I don’t like it at all.”

I agreed with her. I did not like it either.

Belinda was very sullen after that. She hardly spoke to me and Miss Stringer said she was more difficult than usual.

Lucie was also in disgrace. She was a sensitive child and what upset her most was that she thought I was angry with her.

I explained to her: “I am not angry. I just want you to understand that it is not polite to imitate people. It is all right to play the Queen or the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain because they are far away and it is a long time ago when the Queen was called from her bed to be told she was Queen and had her coronation and marriage, but to pretend to be people around you could be hurtful to them … and so it is different.”

She saw the point and was contrite.

It took several days for Belinda’s sullen mood to pass but finally she reverted to her old exuberant self. I remarked to Miss Stringer that she appeared to have given up her theatrical ambitions.

Miss Stringer said: “It was a passing fancy … all due to Mrs. Carston-Browne and her
tableaux vivants
.”

I agreed.

The children were in the garden with Leah one day when I joined them. We had not been there long when one of the maids came running out. She was breathless. “It’s that new gardener’s boy, Miss Rebecca. He’s cutting down the oak tree.”

“He can’t be,” I cried. “It’s far too big.”

I went across the lawn to that spot past the pond below my window onto which I looked down so often. All the boy was doing was trimming the branches.

“Who told you to do that?” I asked.

“Nobody, Miss. I just thought it needed a trim like.”

“We don’t like the oak tree being touched.”

The maid who had told us what was happening said: “The ghosts wouldn’t like it.”

The boy stared open-mouthed at the tree.

“It’s an old legend attached to the house,” I said. “I don’t think we want it trimmed. Of course, if Mr. Camps thinks it should be done, he should speak to someone about it. But for the time being leave it.”

“Well, I never,” said the maid. “It was a good thing, Miss Rebecca, that I saw him in time. Cutting up that tree. Goodness knows what would happen.”

“Why is it haunted?” asked Lucie.

“Oh, that’s just a story.”