Victoria Holt (13 page)

I said: “Get out of that bed, Patricia.”

She did so at once.

“Put on your slippers and dressing gown.”

She obeyed meekly.

I went with her into the next room. “Now, Eugenie, get out of Patricia’s bed and go back to your own.”

“Mademoiselle,” began Charlotte.

“This is no concern of Mademoiselle’s. She is no longer in charge. I am and I will be obeyed.”

“You are not really grown-up yourself.”

“Don’t be insolent. Did you hear me, Eugenie?”

She looked at Charlotte and without meeting my eyes muttered: “I’m not going.”

I felt inclined to pull her out by force. If Charlotte came to her aid, the two of them might overcome me; and in any case violence was out of the question.

I remembered something Teresa had said. They were crazy about horse riding—and in particular Charlotte.

“I think you are,” I said. “I am going to start from now and the longer you remain in that bed the longer will be your detention. We are studying
Macbeth
this term and for the number of minutes you stay in that bed you will be detained and learn that number of lines from the play. The detention will take place during riding lessons, so that any disobedient girl will not join the others.”

Charlotte shot up in bed.

“You can’t do that,” she said.

“I can assure you I can.”

“Miss Hetherington…”

“Miss Hetherington has given me permission to take what action I consider necessary. We are starting from now. If you do not get out immediately, Eugenie, you and Charlotte will begin your detention during tomorrow’s riding time.”

This was important. I could feel the tension. I had to be firm now or lose the battle. I wondered what Daisy would say about curtailing lessons for which the girl’s parents paid highly.

I stood looking at them.

Charlotte’s love of horses won the day.

She looked sullenly at Eugenie and said: “You’d better go…for now…”

Eugenie got out of bed. The curtailing of riding would be as much a tragedy for her as it was for Charlotte.

As she dashed past me, I said: “For now…and the rest of the term…if you want to enjoy your riding. Now Patricia, get into your bed, and let me hear no more talking. Good night, girls.”

In the next room Eugenie was lying with her face to the wall and Fiona gave me an apologetic look as she returned my good night.

I went back to my bed. Victory. But I was trembling.

I was rather surprised that I had won so easily for when I made my rounds after that there was no more trouble. The girls were in their right beds and although Charlotte ignored me and Eugenie was a trifle sullen, I found the others quite charming; and Teresa made it clear that she was my slave.

I knew that Charlotte taunted her with being a toady and that Eugenie showed her clearly that she despised her, but oddly Teresa—no doubt because she felt she was sure of my support—had developed a little more boldness and seemed to be able to deal with their taunts.

I found lessons stimulating. I had a subject very dear to my heart—English literature—and it was very interesting for me to read my favorite Jane Austen and the Shakespeare plays with closer attention than I had given them before, to read them with the girls, to dissect them, and search for hidden meanings. I had four classes a week on this subject and therefore took all the girls in the school at some time, which meant that Charlotte and Eugenie were in two of the classes. Charlotte refused to work, and Eugenie—who was a year or so younger and very much under her influence—tried not to, but I was amused to discover that she had a genuine love of literature and could not entirely suppress her interest. Teresa was there trying very hard to please me. I was really enjoying it.

The social classes were less successful, I imagined. We discussed all sorts of subjects and the girls had to learn how to walk and act gracefully—just as we had at Schaffenbrucken. It was all rather amusing.

I enjoyed the sessions in the calefactory. Sometimes Daisy joined us there. We were more free and easy when she was not present, of course. I learned that the Hon. Charlotte—as she was ironically referred to—was considered to be a universal bête noire. “Clogs to clogs,” said Miss Parker, who prided herself on her frank speaking. “I should be very pleased to see the Hon. Charlotte in hers.”

Teresa was a mouse, they said. A silly timid little thing.

I defended her and pointed out that it was due to her background.

Eugenie was a terror, was Miss Parker’s comment. “She’s a Verringer and that is about the worst tag you could fit onto anyone. Fiona’s a nice little thing, however.”

Matt Greenway, the riding master, who happened to be present on that occasion, added that it was difficult to believe they both came out of the same stable.

“Quite different in looks and character,” said Eileen Eccles. “It’s amazing. And they talk about heredity. To me, it’s environment that counts.”

“Presumably their environment was the same,” I pointed out. “They were both brought up at the Hall apparently.”

“Well, they say the mother was gentle and meek. Rather like Fiona, I imagine. As for Eugenie, she’s got the Verringer devil in her.”

I enjoyed those gossipy sessions and they helped me a great deal in getting to know the girls and that was a tremendous asset when dealing with them. Eileen Eccles was perhaps more interested in people than the others and she provided a great deal of information.

“We shall be stuck with Teresa again this coming summer, I gather,” she said. “Her relations have written to say they’ll be away for several months.”

“Poor child,” I said. “It must be boring for her being here all alone for the summer.”

“I suppose it’s too much to expect the parents to get her out to Rhodesia. No sooner would she be there than she would have to start back. I’m sorry for the girl. I am really.”

I had Teresa on my mind quite a bit. When I came out of class she would often be hanging about offering to carry my books for me. I had seen the supercilious looks of Charlotte but Teresa did not seem to care, though I gathered that in the past she had been afraid of Charlotte.

Then there was the gossip about the Verringer girls.

“Eugenie,” said Mademoiselle throwing up her hands in horror. “She is one naughty little girl.”

Fräulein Kutcher expressed the opinion that there was too much homage paid to the Verringers. It set them apart.

“I think there is something in that,” said Eileen Eccles.

Matt Greenway said: “Eugenie will be a real horsewoman.” As though that made up for her failings in other directions.

“They’ll be very rich…those two girls,” said Eileen.

“It is not good for them to know this,” put in Mademoiselle.

“But they do know it,” insisted Eileen, “and it seems to have gone to Miss Eugenie’s head.”

“How rich are they?” I asked.

“Infinitely,” replied Eileen with a laugh. “I did hear something about uncle’s liking to get his hands on the money.”

“Uncle? You mean Sir Jason?”

“I do indeed, my dear, if you must give him his rightful title.”

“Is he not rich then?”

“As Midas…or Croesus if you prefer. But do you know money has that effect on some people. The more they have, the more they want. Ever since the King favored them and bestowed on them the Abbey lands, they have been piling it up. So we have our two little heiresses. They divide the brother’s fortune when they come of age or marry, and I believe if Fiona dies it all goes to Eugenie, and if Eugenie should visit that bourn from which no traveler returns, then Fiona takes all.”

“Yes,” I said. “I do agree that it is a mistake for young people to know that they are rich. Though Fiona seems a very pleasant modest young girl.”

“It is because you are making comparisons. Most people compared with Eugenie would seem pleasant and modest.”

We all laughed.

“Oh, I am sure Fiona is,” I said.

Yes, the days were passing pleasantly. I found that I could do what was expected of me and Daisy was pleased with the contribution I made to the school. She was sure my classes were getting more and more like Schaffenbrucken every day.

I very much enjoyed the riding sessions. The enthusiasm of Matt Greenway had communicated itself to the girls and most of them had that natural affinity young girls have for the horse.

Whenever we set out for rides I was always prepared for a pleasant time. Even the Hon. Charlotte seemed tolerable on a horse; it was as though at last she had found something for which she had more consideration than she had for herself. She adored her horse; and Eugenie was almost as fanatical about hers. It was interesting, I pointed out in the calefactory, how much more human Hon. Charlotte became when she was on horseback.

Very often two of us went with the girls. Daisy thought that was better than one so that there was someone in authority at the head and rear of the party.

The exercise was pleasant and I suppose I did this about twice a week, for the girls rode every day. Then Daisy had given me permission to take a horse whenever I wanted one provided it was not during the girls’ riding time. So it was a very happy arrangement.

I wrote to Aunt Patty that I was settling in and enjoying my work. I would tell her everything in detail when I arrived home for the summer holidays.

***

When I had a free hour or so between lessons, I made a habit of taking out the horse which I usually rode and exploring the countryside. I liked walking but naturally one could only go a certain distance on foot and riding gave me far more scope.

When I walked I liked to do so within the Abbey precincts and I could never do this without experiencing that uncanny feeling that I was stepping back into the past. The atmosphere was overwhelming even in the brightest sunlight and I would find myself fancying I heard footsteps following me on the flags. Once I thought I heard chanting. But I convinced myself it was the whistling of the wind. There were times when I was drawn to the ruins by an irresistible urge to be there; at such times I believe I really expected to see some manifestation of the past.

Eileen Eccles, who had made several drawings of parts of the ruins, said she felt the same. In some of her pictures she had sketched in white-clad figures. “I just found myself putting them in,” she said. “It was as though they belonged.”

I thought that rather strange for she was a very prosaic person on the whole.

But it was true that no one, however matter-of-fact, could live close to such antiquity and not be affected by it.

Eileen often took her classes out to parts of the Abbey and it was not unusual to come across them seated at some vantage point, sketch books in hands.

Miss Hetherington wanted the girls to have a real appreciation of their surroundings, for it was just that environment which set the Academy apart from other schools.

On this particular occasion I had no class until three thirty, and as the midday meal was over at two, I had an hour and a half in which to take a ride.

It was a lovely day. We were in the middle of June and I could scarcely believe I had been so long at the school. I really felt as though I had known it for a long time. I could look back on the last weeks with satisfaction. I could do my work adequately. My English classes were as successful as I could hope for; I had one or two girls who showed great interest and to my amazement Eugenie Verringer was one of them. The Hon. Charlotte continued to be troublesome and to annoy me in a hundred ways—whispering during classes, urging others to disobedience, tormenting Teresa Hurst—in fact generally making a nuisance of herself; and she had her cronies besides Eugenie. But these were minor irritations and the inevitable lot of anyone who taught. The teacher must sometimes expect to be a target, especially if she was not very much older than the pupils.

I had evidently found the right way to keep just ahead of Charlotte and I was thankful for her devotion to horses which gave me a weapon to use against her. She would always fall short of doing something which would deprive her of one moment with her beloved horse.

These were my thoughts as I rode out on that June afternoon. I reminded myself—as I often did—of how I had been lost on my first venture and as there must be no repetition of that I always noted well the way I came. There might not be anyone to show me the way this time. Not that Sir Jason had been much help on that other occasion. I had confirmed my suspicions, since I had been riding round a little on my own, and I knew now that he had taken me a very long way round on my way back to the town.

Why, I wondered. He had known I was anxious to get back. Because he was perverse? Because he knew that I was anxious? Because he wanted me to feel lost and dependent on him? He was not really a very pleasant man, and I hoped that I should not have to see him often. It was a pity that the school was so near the Hall.

I turned away from the town taking a road which I had not taken before, making a special note of the landscape as I passed so that I should know my way back. I passed a tree with its bare branches standing out starkly among others which were in full leaf. It must have been struck by lightning or blasted in some way. It was dead. But how beautiful it was! Strange, in a way it looked ghostly, eerie, menacing even with its bare branches lifted to the sky.

It was a good landmark.

I went up a lane and came to a house. I noticed the tall elms about it and looking up I saw the rooks’ nests high in the trees.

Something someone had said flashed into my mind. I had heard of this place.

And there was the house—simple but beautiful—clearly built at the time when architecture was at its most elegant—uncluttered, with long windows symmetrically placed in its brickwork, very plain so that the door with its fluted Doric-type columns and glass fanlight seemed particularly handsome. The house was shut in by intricate ironwork which looked like lace and made a perfect frame for this charming residence.

I couldn’t help pausing to admire and as I was about to ride on, the door opened and a woman came out. She was holding a child by the hand.

“Good afternoon,” she called. “You can’t go any further. It’s a cul-de-sac.”

“Oh thank you,” I replied. “I was exploring and I paused to admire your house.”

“It is rather pleasant, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

She was coming toward the railing.

“You are from the school, aren’t you?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Well, I’ve seen most of them, but you are new.”

“I came at the beginning of the term.”

“Then you must be Miss Grant.”

“Yes, I am.”

“One hears quite a lot in a place like this,” she said. “How are you liking the school?”

She was up to the fence now. She was strikingly handsome in her dress of lilac-colored muslin. Tall, willowy, she carried herself with an almost studied grace. Her abundant reddish brown hair was piled high on her head; her eyes were enormous, light brown, heavily lashed.

The child surveyed me with interest in her bright dark eyes.

“This is Miranda,” said the woman.

“Hello, Miranda,” I said.

Miranda continued to regard me with an unblinking stare.

“Would you like to come in? I’d show you the house. It’s quite interesting.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t time. I have a class at three thirty.”

“Perhaps another time. I’m Marcia Martindale.”

Marcia Martindale! Sir Jason’s mistress. Then the child was his. I felt myself recoil a little. I hoped she did not notice. I felt an immense pity for her. It must be most unpleasant to be a woman in her position. She would have placed herself in it, of course, but in what circumstances? My dislike for Sir Jason Verringer increased in that moment. What sort of man could he be to bring his mistress so near to his home and blatantly set her up in her own establishment with their child?

“Thank you,” I heard myself say. “Another time…”

“I’d be so glad to see you at Rooks’ Rest.”

I looked up at the tall elms. “Do the birds disturb you with their cawing?”

“One gets used to it. It wouldn’t be the same without them.”

“It is a beautiful house. It looks cool…and aloof, as it were…almost modern when compared with the Abbey and the Tudor Hall.”

“It is very comfortable and I am fond of it.”

“You have lived in it for a long time, I suppose?”

“No. I came here just before Miranda was born. We’re on the Verringer estate, you know. Well, most of the land about here is.”

“Yes,” I said coolly.