The Spring of the Tiger Read online

  ''Oh dear, perhaps we are going to be a nuisance.'*

  "We must see that you are not."

  I wanted to hear more of the portraits so I let it go at that.

  I paused before one who turned out to be the aunts' sister, Margaret. She was very different from the aunts and I could not imagine either of them looking in the least as she did—even in their youth. There was a daintiness about her, an air of fragility. She had been painted in an evening dress which looked like blue chiflFon; her skin was very fair and her eyes almost amber color. Her hair was light brown, fine and curly.

  "It was painted soon after her engagement," said Mabel.

  "She looks happy and yet ... as though she is uncertain about something. . . apprehensive. It's a strange picture."

  "Servants are so foolish. They say at night she steps out of the frame and walks along the gallery looking for Edward Sanderton, the man she was going to marry. One girl swore she saw her. All in blue chiffon, she said, and the frame was empty. What nonsense! We told her to pack her bags at once. Nobody has seen Margaret in blue chiffon and the empt' picture frame since. . ."

  "How long ago did she die?"

  "It's twenty-five years."

  "Quite a young ghost. They usually go back a few hundred years."

  "People will have their tales. In my childhood they used to say the tower was haunted. Mysterious lights, chanting voices and a gray-clad nun."

  "And then the blue-chiffon ghost became the favorite?"

  Mabel shrugged her shoulders. "You know what servants are. They like to frighten themselves. I know they clean the gallery in pairs and no one wants to go along it after dark. Martha laughs at them and if anyone was going to be haunted it would be Martha."

  "Oh? Why should she be specially selected?"

  Aunt Mabel looked at me dubiously for a second or so and I could see that she was telling herself that as a member of the family I should be cognizant of its secrets.

  "Well," she continued, "it was Martha who first brought Edward Sanderton to the house. She had met him at a country-house party and they became excellent friends. In fact. . ."

  I stared at her incredulously. The possibility of Martha in love was too much for my imagination.

  Mabel looked a little shamefaced. "He saw Margaret and from that moment he had eyes only for her."

  Poor Martha, I thought. A short-lived romance. No wonder there was a certain asperity in her nature.

  "Of course there had been nothing said between him and Martha, and in a short time he and Margaret were engaged. They were to be engaged for six months and then marry. Martha and I were to be bridesmaids. There was a great deal of excitement getting the dresses made and everything else done. Margaret was so happy. She had always been delicate of course and that was why she had never been to school as we had. She was so pretty. I don't think I ever saw a prettier girl than my sister Margaret."

  "And what happened? Why didn't the marriage take place?"

  "There was a cloud over her happiness. I think she could not forget what she had done."

  "What had she done?"

  "Taken Edward Sanderton from Martha."

  "But he was never really Martha's, was he?"

  "He would have been ... if Margaret hadn't been there. He liked Martha. They could talk about things. Martha always had very definite views on everything . . . even in those days. Our parents used to say that would never get her a husband. Men don't like women who know too much. They want to be the ones to know. But Edward did like her. He was so interested in her views. But then it all changed because he was head over heels in love with Margaret. Margaret suddenly saw what she had done. You see, Margaret had had other admirers. Martha never had anyone but Edward. Edward was just right for Martha . . . and Margaret had come along and taken him."

  "Tell me what happened to her."

  *'She worried. She was afraid she would become Edward's invalid wife. She became ill with worry. She had often been ill but this time she did not get better. She died one week before the day she was to have married Edward. She was buried on the day which should have been her wedding day and it was the tolUng of the bells we heard instead of the joyous peal."

  "What a dreadfully sad story!"

  "It's from stories like that that the legends start. So, Sarah, if you hear the servants talking I hope you will put a stop to such chatter." She changed the subject abruptly. "We shall have to get a picture painted of you, Sarah," she said. "Martha was speaking about it last night."

  "My father had a wife before he married my mother," I said. "I learned not very long ago that I have a half sister."

  Mabel's lips tightened at the corners.

  "You have seen her?" I asked.

  "No," said Mabel, shutting her lips even more tightly as though in no circumstances should anything escape from them.

  "Perhaps you should have a portrait of my sister as well," I ventured.

  "Certainly not," she said and she looked at me with something like dislike. Then she moved closer to me, seeming almost conspiratorial. "Perhaps your mother could be persuaded to rejoin her husband."

  "I hardly think so."

  "It is not too late. They are both young enough. That is what Martha said . . ."

  I wanted to retort hotly that it was too late. It was fifteen years since they had parted. All that time they had lived separately. One could not expect them to be together just because the Ash-ington aunts wanted a male heir.

  I could not keep my eyes from the picture of Margaret. I thought of the servants' fears and the lovely face growing animated and coming to life as she stepped out of the frame to look for Edward Sanderton, whom she had taken from Martha.

  "What happened to him?" I asked abruptly.

  "Happened to whom?" asked Aunt Mabel.

  "To Edward Sanderton."

  "Oh ... he went away. He shot tigers in India. We never heard of him after that. He sent the family a Christmas card at Christmas for a few years. . . then that stopped."

  As we went out of the gallery I looked over my shoulder. There was an eeriness about the place. I could imagine the legend growing.

  My mother and I walked into the forest. It was beautiful for the leaves were turning to bronze and many of them had fallen, making a brown-gold carpet under our feet.

  My mother had never greatly admired the beauties of nature but she seemed happier in the forest than anywhere else. I mentioned this and she said: "It's because I have escaped from the house. I can't see it here . . . and that's something. Oh, Siddons, if you knew how I hate it there."

  ''Perhaps we shan't be there forever.'*

  ''No. Tom will be seeking me out, I know.*'

  "I suppose you'd be ready to take what he offered even if . . ."

  She flinched. "Oh, it will be something good. I wasn't so insignificant that people are going to forget me completely."

  I felt tender towards her. The public had undoubtedly loved her once but the public was fickle. Even I knew that. I knew, too, that the part she was hoping for was never coming.

  "I hate those women," she said. "Particularly Martha. Frankly, Siddons, she frightens me."

  "She's formidable. But what can she do to hurt you?"

  "It's the way she looks at me. I find her watching me when I look up suddenly. It's as though she is plotting something."

  "You're imagining it."

  "I felt like it before . . . when I came here with your father. He used to say, 'Martha's a great planner. She decides what's to be done and won't rest until she gets people doing it.' I said I knew she didn't approve of our marriage so what was she planning about that. I used to think she was making arrangements to murder me."

  "Irene Rushton," I cried, "you are acting again. There is one thing you would always know about Aunt Martha. She would always maintain respectability, and murder is hardly respectable."

  "She gives me the creeps. Oh, how I long to get out of this house. As for you, I believe you are beginning to like it."
<
br />   It was true. I loved the antiquity, the knowledge that my ancestors had lived there for two hundred years. I liked the orderly manner in which the house was run and I was glad to be with servants who served me as though they did not question their duty to do so. I was more tired of Janet's favors than I realized. I liked

  the regularity of meals; I liked morning prayers before breakfast and I admitted to myself—though not to my mother—a grudging admiration for the aunts. I rather enjoyed going to church with them and sitting in the Ashington pew—the two front rows were kept for us as homage to the leading family. I admired the stained-glass windows put in at the time of the Restoration by a jubilant Ashington whose Grange had escaped Cromwell's vandals and who was rejoicing in a return to the good life. I liked the memorials to various members of the family and the elaborate tombs in the graveyard in that section set aside for the Ashing-tons.

  It was a feeling of belonging which I understood my mother could not share. She was not of the family as I was. Moreover she was regarded as an intruder and not a welcome one.

  I was introduced to the family at the vicarage—the Reverend Peter Cannon and his three rather tall, gaunt-looking daughters all in their thirties, spinsters whom marriage had passed by and who now dedicated themselves to the work of the parish. I liked his surprisingly pretty and vivacious wife, who seemed to regard her daughters with faint astonishment as though wondering how she ever produced offspring so unlike herself. They lunched with us every other Sunday. They were interested in me and had plans for drawing me into certain activities. My mother they treated with great politeness but with a certain reserve as though they were expecting her to act in an odd manner. They sensed at once that she was not their type and they gave no hint that they knew about her connection with Everard, but whether this was due to their excessive good manners or ignorance I did not know.

  I was becoming amused by the aunts. Their passion for detail amazed me. I knew that Aunt Martha could not bear anything to be out of place. If she saw that an ornament was not precisely where it should be, she could not rest until she had put it right. Orderliness was the theme of her life. She arranged flowers so that they looked like soldiers on parade. Meals were served at the exact appointed time and to be a minute overdue was to be late. The Grange was kept in meticulous order inside and out and I soon became aware that her greatest concern was that on the death of herself and Mabel it should pass into the right hands.

  It was clear that she wanted my mother to go back to my father and produce a son. That was the only thing which would satisfy her. Divorce was out of the question for she believed in the sanctity of marriage and once a man had married a woman they remained married until death parted them.

  I knew what my mother meant when she said she would look up and find Martha's eyes on her speculatively. I had seen a certain glint in Martha's eyes. It was truly as though she were making plans for my mother.

  What plans could they be but to get her back to my father? Either that or that she died. . . .

  A horrible thought! It was my mother's comment that she gave her "the creeps" that had set that train of thought in motion.

  "Well," I said, answering her, "we're here so we might as well make the best of it."

  "I believe you want to stay here. When Tom comes I shall have to go to town. Perhaps it would be better if you stayed."

  "You know there's all this talk about a governess . . ."

  "Yes. A lot of nonsense."

  "Perhaps not. I don't want to be ignorant. Perhaps if you did get a part I should have to stay here. . . ."

  "I could get a place in London or stay at an hotel."

  "I would visit you there. Come on the first night. . . !"

  "Oh, won't it be wonderful. Perhaps this time next year we shall be looking back on all this as though it was a bad dream."

  We walked together arm in arm crunching the leaves under our feet.

  "It's beautiful in the forest," said my mother. "Wbat's that strange smell?"

  "It's the pines, I think."

  "I like it," said my mother.

  It was wonderful to see her in such good spirits.

  When we returned to the house Aunt Mabel met us in the hall. "We have engaged the governess," she said.

  Her name was Celia Hansen. She had come down for an interview from the Midlands and was to start her duties the following week. There was no point in delay, said Aunt Martha.

  Both she and Mabel were enthusiastic about the governess. That she was a woman of good family was obvious. She had excellent references—one from a titled woman who was, she frankly admitted, a friend for it was impossible to get one from a past employer simply because there was no past employer. Celia Hansen's story was not an unusual one. She had been brought up to presume she would never be called on to earn a living; her parents had died suddenly and she was alone in the world. When the family debts were settled she had only the smallest of incomes and the house in which she had lived had passed to a cousin. She could have stayed on as a kind of poor relation, but being a woman of spirit, she preferred to be independent of others.

  "Very commendable," said Aunt Martha.

  "Showing a strong character," echoed Aunt Mabel.

  They were both pleased with her.

  I was full of curiosity to see her and on the following Monday afternoon watched her arrival from my window. The brougham had been sent to the station to fetch her and the wagonette would collect her luggage later.

  She alighted from the brougham and stood for a moment looking up at the house. I drew back, not wanting to be caught peeping, but not before I had seen a rather long palish face and smooth brown hair drawn down at the sides of her face to finish in a knob at the back. She was dressed in black—neat and without much concession to fashion.

  I knew that very soon the summons would come for me to meet her and it did. ... I went to the drawing room. She was seated on one of the tall-backed chairs—very upright, her gloved hands folded in her lap.

  Aunt Martha was smiling quite pleasantly and so was Mabel.

  "Ah, Sarah, this is Miss Hansen. Miss Hansen, your pupil."

  She stood up and came towards me. She was of average height. The word "average" suited her. I thought in that moment that there must be thousands of impoverished gentlewomen all over England, no longer in their first youth, who looked just like Celia Hansen.

  She held out her hand and I took it.

  "How do you do?" Her voice was low and cultured. I could see

  why she had made such an impression on the aunts. "A lady!" as they said approvingly.

  *"! hope you are going to find me a good pupil and that we shall work well together," I said.

  She smiled—a sort of half smile. It was a lifting of the lips but her eyes did not change. I noticed those eyes then—large, light brown and slightly protruding. There was a fixed look about them. Afterward it occurred to me that they never expressed anything, but they did bring something unusual to her face, which was really the only outstanding thing about her.

  "I am sure we shall," she answered.

  "Jennings will show you to your room," said Aunt Martha, "and when you have rested ... Do you need to rest?"

  Miss Hansen said she did not wish to rest. If she might wash her hands and perhaps change from her traveling clothes. . . .

  Aunt Martha clearly approved, "Then," she said, "Sarah can come to you in . . . shall we say an hour? And she can show you the room where you will work,"

  Jennings was summoned and Miss Hansen followed her out.

  "Which is her room?" I asked when the door closed.

  "It is on the third floor ... at the end of the corridor where your mother has her room. It is next to the schoolroom. I really think we have chosen wisely."

  "She is obviously a girl of breeding," said Mabel. "There are many like her . . . nowadays. They are brought up to expect a life of comfort and then find they have to earn a living. . . ."

  Aunt Martha's expression
was self-congratulatory. I had noticed that look on her face before when something she had planned had been achieved.

  Before going to collect Celia Hansen I went to the schoolroom. A faint smell of polish hung on the air. It looked like a schoolroom. There was a large window at one end and heavy dark-red serge curtains at them; there was a big fireplace with a marble mantelpiece on which stood a plain carriage-type clock. There were pictured around the room scenes from the Bible, Moses in the bullrushes, Moses striking the rock, Rachel at the well, Jacob's dream, and Lot's wife looking back and being turned into a pillar of salt. The Old Testament on one side of the room and the New

  on the other. Cleansing the temple, Jesus at the well. Jesus walking on the water and feeding the five thousand.

  There were-several cupboards and a long table rather scratched and ink-stained with a bench on one side and a high dignified chair at the head of it, presumably for the teacher. And there were several high-backed chairs about the room. A typical schoolroom, I thought. Here, Margaret had taken her lessons while her sisters were at school. I wondered what her governess had been like and whether she had confided in her.

  She must have been rapturously happy when Edward Sanderton came to the house, but of course her happiness would be tinged with sadness for she had achieved it at the expense of her sister's. And what a sister! I was sure Martha had been almost as formidable when a young woman as she was now; she would have been something of a terror to a delicate young girl I was sure.

  I pictured Margaret at the table, her beautiful hair falling about her shoulders, telling her governess that she had fallen in love. I could see her face so clearly, sloping shoulders with blue chiffon slipping from them. I thought of the gallery at dusk with shadows falling through the long windows and Margaret stepping from her frame to search for her lover. A rather charming fantasy. I wondered whether she haunted the schoolroom as well as the gallery.