The Road to Paradise Island Page 5

  My father asked her to take a glass of sherry with him yesterday.

  "He wants to hear of your progress," Miss Gilmour told me. "What am I going to say?" She looked at me rather archly. It did not fit her very well and I felt another of those odd twinges of uneasiness.

  I said: "You must say what you think."

  "I shall tell him what a wonderful pupil you are and that you make my task easy and me happy. How is that?"

  "I don't believe it is true," I said.

  "I want to make him happy. I want to make you happy. You wouldn't want me to say you were an idle pupil, would you?"

  "No, because that wouldn't be true. But I do not believe for one moment that you think I am wonderful."

  "You really are quite a clever little thing," she said. "There is no mistake about that."

  Her face hardened a little. She was always a trifle cross when I did not respond to her offers of friendship.

  October 14th What is making me write in my journal tonight is something that happened this afternoon.

  I am supposed to take someone with me when I go riding, but it is a rule which I am beginning to ignore more and more. Really! I am past

  sixteen. I shall be seventeen soon, well, in about seven months' time, and I really do think that a girl of my age should have a little freedom.

  The stable people never mention it when I go alone and I always saddle my own horse in case there should be a fuss; so they are not involved.

  Miss Gilmour rides with me now and then, but she is not one of those people who ride for pleasure. When she rides it is to get somewhere. She never notices the scenery as Miss Bray used to; and Miss Bray had a lot of funny stories to tell about animals and plants and people. Miss Gilmour has none of those. She is never interested in travelling—only in arriving. She is no fun to be with.

  This afternoon I rode out alone and I had gone rather farther than usual, and as I came past the Royal Oak I saw one of our horses—the one Miss Gilmour usually rides—close to the block outside the inn.

  There was another horse there. I wondered if I had been mistaken and was overcome with curiosity and eager to prove whether or not I had been.

  I alighted and tethered my horse with the others and went into the inn.

  No, I had not been mistaken. There was Miss Gilmour, sitting at one of the tables, a tankard before her, talking to a man. He was rather good-looking and his dark eyes were very noticeable because of his white wig—well powdered and fashionable. His long-tailed coat and broad hat were equally stylish.

  Miss Gilmour looked strikingly handsome, wearing a dress which could be suitable either for riding or walking. It was very full skirted with a plain tightly fitted bodice and a frothy white cravat. On her head was a black top hat with a feather in it of the same shade of dark blue as her dress. I had never seen anyone look less like a governess. Nor had I seen anyone so overcome by surprise as when she lifted her eyes and saw me.

  In fact I would say it was a great shock to her.

  She half rose and said in a voice I have never heard her use before: "Ann Alice."

  "Hello," I replied. "I was passing and I saw your horse outside. I thought I recognized him, and I came to see if I was right."

  She recovered her calm very quickly. "Well, what a pleasant surprise! I came into the inn for refreshment and who should I find but an old friend of my family."

  The man had risen. He was about Miss Gilmour's age—late twenties, I imagined. He bowed low.

  "Oh yes," said Miss Gilmour. "I'm forgetting my manners. This is

  Mr. Desmond Featherstone. Mr. Featherstone, Miss Ann Alice Mallory, my dear little pupil." She turned to me. "Are you alone?" she asked

  quickly.

  "Yes." I replied rather defiantly. "I saw no reason why I

  shouldn't ..."

  "No reason at all," she said in a most ungoverness-like manner.

  It was as though we were all conspirators.

  "Now Miss Mallory is here she might like a little refreshment." suggested Mr. Featherstone.

  'Would you?" asked Miss Gilmour.

  "Cider would be very welcome."

  Mr. Featherstone called to one of the serving maids, a rather pretty girl in a cross-over laced bodice and a white mob cap.

  Mr. Featherstone said. "Cider for the young lady, please."

  The girl smiled at Mr. Featherstone in a rather special way as though she was delighted to serve him. I was beginning to notice those little signs which passed between members of opposite sexes.

  Mr. Featherstone turned his attention to me. His glittering dark eyes seemed to be trying to penetrate my thoughts.

  After the first few seconds Miss Gilmour had recovered her equilibrium. She said again: "This is a surprise. First Mr. Featherstone, and then Ann Alice . .. quite a little party."

  She seemed so strongly to be stressing the fact that she had met Mr. Featherstone by chance that I wondered whether it was not so, and they had met by arrangement. She made the mistake a lot of people make of regarding me as a simple child when I was fast growing up and thinking like an adult quite often. And something was telling me that the attraction which I sometimes noticed between men and women was present between Mr. Featherstone and Miss Gilmour.

  The cider came.

  "I trust it is to your liking. Miss Mallory." said Mr. Featherstone.

  "It is very good." I replied. "And I really was thirsty."

  He leaned towards me. "I am so glad you decided to come in," he said. "I should have been quite desolate if you had not done so."

  "If I had not done so you would not have known that the possibility of my coming in had arisen so how could you have been desolate'.'" I asked.

  Miss Gilmour laughed. "M pupil is not a simple little girl," she said. "You will find it hard to fault her reasoning. I can assure you. Remember, she is taught by me."

  "1 must remember that." he said with mock seriousness.

  He asked about the map-making shop and I told him that one of

  my ancestors had sailed with Drake and that ever since those days there had been great interest in maps in our family.

  "Map making is not only interesting, it is profitable," added Miss Gilmour.

  He asked me about the country and the Manor which had been my home since my birth. I told him that my mother was dead and that I still missed her very much.

  He patted my hand in sympathy. He said: "But you have your father. I'll swear you are the apple of his eye."

  "He is hardly aware of me."

  "Oh come," protested Miss Gilmour, "he is the best of fathers. He talks a great deal about you to me."

  "He did not talk much to Miss Bray."

  Miss Gilmour smiled secretly.

  "I think he is very eager that you should be well cared for," she said.

  Mr. Featherstone had moved his chair nearer to mine. Every now and then he would reach out and touch my arm as though to emphasize a point. It made me feel uneasy and I wished he would not do it. Miss Gilmour did not seem to like his doing it either.

  I said: "Are you staying in the neighbourhood, Mr. Featherstone?"

  His eyes smiled into mine and he tried to hold my gaze but I looked away.

  "I should like to think that was a matter of concern to you, Miss Ann Alice," he said.

  "I should hope, of course, that you had comfortable lodgings."

  "/ hope I may meet you again when you take one of your country rides."

  "Ann Alice is always breaking rules," said Miss Gilmour. "She is not supposed to ride alone. It is a good thing that we met. We can go back together and then it will be thought that we set out in each other's company."

  "Do you often break the rules, Miss Ann Alice?" he asked.

  "Some rules are really meant to be broken ... if they don't make much sense. I shall soon be seventeen. That is quite old enough to ride alone."

  "Indeed it is. Seventeen! A delectable age. I fancy you are something of a rebel."

  "And I fancy,
" said Miss Gilmour, "that we should be returning to the Manor."

  I rose. I felt that I wanted to get away from them both. I wanted to be in my room and write down every detail of that encounter in my journal before I forgot.

  We came out of the inn and mounted our horses. Mr. Featherstone rode with us a little way and then with one of his exaggerated bows, he left us.

  "What an extraordinary thing," said Miss Gilmour. "To run across an old friend of my family like that... quite by chance."

  Yes, I thought, you are stressing that fact just a little too much, Miss Gilmour.

  I do not trust Miss Gilmour.

  I have come straight to my room to write it all down in my journal.

  January 1st 1791 The first day of the New Year.

  What a long time since I have last written in my journal. I seem to have developed a distaste for writing in it and I have only just thought of it because this is the first day of the year and of course because of Papa.

  The journal has been lying at the back of the drawer where I keep it so that it is out of sight. I would not want anyone to read my innermost thoughts, which is how I like to think of what I write in my journal.

  I have seen Mr. Featherstone on one or two occasions. He seems to make a habit of coming... "On business" he says. I wonder what his business is and where. If it is in London—as I suppose it is—he is rather far away. I know one can get there in not too long a time, but why not lodge up there?

  Sometimes I wonder whether he is—as they say in the kitchen— "sweet on" Miss Gilmour. She is the sort of person men do seem to get "sweet on" rather easily.

  I hope he is. Then perhaps he will marry her and carry her off as the Reverend James Eggerton did Miss Bray. Then I should be rid of them both and surely my father would say there is no need of another governess for such a mature person as his daughter has become.

  It is Mr. Featherstone's attitude towards me that I find a little worrying. He always seems to try to get close to me; and his hands stray. That is the only way I can think of describing them. He gesticulates when he talks and his hands shoot out to rest on my shoulder, on my arm or sometimes on my hair. And they linger. His eyes glitter and they stare at me. I feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

  I think he is a little sinister.

  But I suppose as he is a friend of Miss Gilmour's family he would want to see her now and then. It is really quite natural and I suppose, as Miss Bray used to say, I am too imaginative.

  Christmas was unlike last Christmas ... or any other Christmas.

  We had a few guests as we always do, and my father suggested that Miss Gilmour join the party.

  "Christmas is Christmas," he said to me—unusually communicative. "And Miss Gilmour is here now. We can't leave her out. Perhaps you should suggest, Ann Alice, that she joins us like a member of the family. Coming from you that would show thoughtfulness and fine feeling."

  Miss Gilmour started having her meals with us some time ago. My father had said it was time I gave up eating in the nursery. I was coming up to seventeen. So, with Miss Gilmour, I should join him. Miss Gilmour said she thought it was an excellent idea. In her opinion young people should not be kept too long in the nursery.

  So now we sit at the table together. My father has changed quite a lot and this is due to the company of Miss Gilmour. She sparkles and he laughs a good deal at what she has to say. She displays a rather wonderful mixture of decorum and sophistication. She is modest yet bold. What is it? I cannot say except that it is Miss Gilmour and people of the opposite sex seem to find it very attractive.

  Miss Gilmour looked embarrassed when the question of Christmas was raised. She was dubious when I asked her to join us and I did not press the point. She brought up the subject at dinner.

  "I was so touched," she said. "But I thought it better not. You will have your friends... your special friends."

  "But Ann Alice would very much like you to join us. Would you not, my dear?"

  Why is it when people want something they like others to pretend they are really the ones who want it?

  I hesitated for a moment and as I saw the look of horror begin to dawn in my father's face I said: "Oh.. .of course." And despised myself for lying. Why didn't I tell the truth and say, No, I don't want Miss Gilmour to be there at Christmas. Christmas will be quite different with her.

  And I was right about that. Miss Gilmour took over Christmas.

  One day, she said to my father: "I have a friend ... a friend of my family ... he is staying at an inn and can't get to his home for Christmas. I feel quite wretched thinking of him all alone for Christmas."

  My father immediately said that she must invite him to the house.

  I was not really surprised when the guest turned out to be Mr. Featherstone.

  So he was there with her and if she had not spoilt our Christmas he would have done so.

  He danced with me. His hands, his straying hands... how 1

  loathed them! They came to me in vague dreams from which I always awoke in a state of apprehension, though I was never quite sure why.

  January 3rd I am finding it very difficult to write this down because I really can't believe that it has happened. I want to write about other things because I know that when I see it written down in my journal I shall have to accept it. But what is the use of pretending.

  My father called me into his study and said: "I want you to be the first to know."

  I must have guessed for the impulse came to me to shout: "No. Don't say it. It can't be."

  But I just stood there looking at him steadily and he had no notion of my longing to hear him say something other than what I feared he would.

  "It has been a long time since your mother died, Ann Alice. A man gets lonely. You understand that?"

  "Of course I understand," I said. "I wish people wouldn't keep hinting that I don't."

  He looked surprised at my peevish retort but he went on: "I am going to be married again. Lois and I decided that you should be told right away ... before we make a formal announcement."

  "Lois! Miss Gilmour."

  "It has all worked out very happily. I was surprised when Lois agreed. She is considerably younger than I and very attractive."

  I was staring at him wretchedly, trying to beg him to say it was all a joke.

  "Tell me," he said, "isn't it a happy solution to everything?"

  I stammered: "I... don't know."

  "It's a surprise to you. Ever since Lois came here as your governess the house has changed."

  Yes, it has changed for me as well as for him.

  "It seems brighter just as it used to when—"

  "You mean when my mother was here."

  "These tragedies come to us, Ann Alice. We have to accept them. They are God's will. But we should not nurse our grief. That is not what God intends. We should put sorrow behind us. We should try to reach for happiness."

  I nodded and turned away.

  "I am so pleased that you understand," he said. "I am doing this for you as well as for myself."

  I wanted to shout at him: Don't think of me. It is not what I want. I want her to go right away ... and take Mr. Featherstone with her.

  i

  "We shall give a dinner party on Twelfth Night," he was saying, "and then we shall announce it."

  There was nothing I could say without betraying my feelings. I just nodded and escaped as soon as I could.

  And now I sit here staring at the words in my journal. My father is going to marry Miss Gilmour.

  Somewhere at the back of my mind I know that this is what I have been fearing for a long time.

  March 1st They were married today. The house is quiet now. It reminds me of a tiger... sleeping. But it will awaken and then it will pounce. It will destroy everything that was and make a new house of this.

  I love my little room. I pull the blue curtains about my bed and shut myself in. This is my little sanctum. Here I can be private ... all alone.

  They lef
t this afternoon for their honeymoon. They have gone to Italy.

  "I always wanted to go," said Miss Gilmour.

  They will do a grand tour. They can't go to France because of the troubles there. Terrible things are happening in France now. They say that the King and Queen are in great danger. Nobody in their right senses would want to visit France now, said Papa. So it is to be Italy— land of lakes, mountains and the finest art treasures in the world. Papa is very interested in these and Miss Gilmour—only she is not Miss Gilmour any more; she is my stepmother—is interested in everything that Papa is interested in.

  She is the perfect companion.

  It is such a short time ago that I was saying goodbye to dear Miss Bray. Oh, why did she have to go? She is now expecting a baby and she writes that she is the happiest woman in the world. It is selfish to wish that she had never gone to her Reverend James.

  But how can I help it?

  Just think, I say to myself, if Miss Bray had not left I should not now have a stepmother. Everything would be as it used to be. Dull perhaps, but cosy.

  And now... it is so different. A new atmosphere is permeating the house. I wonder if anyone else feels it besides myself. I don't really think they do, so perhaps I am imagining it.

  It is as though something evil has come into the house ... silent, watchful, waiting to pounce.

  March 2nd I rode out alone today and I had not gone far when I met Mr. Featherstone.

  It was quite a shock. A shiver went through me as he came up beside me. We were close to the woods and it was rather lonely. I could not help wondering whether he had followed me and waited for this moment to catch me up.

  "What a delightful surprise!"

  "Oh ... good afternoon, Mr. Featherstone."