Mistress of Mellyn Read online

  Forget the man, I admonished myself. Avoid him when possible. You can do no more than that.

  It was all very well but, even when he was not present, he intruded into my thoughts.

  I stayed in the woods until it was almost dusk. Then I made for the house, and I had not been in my room more than a few minutes when Kitty knocked.

  “I thought I ‘eard ’ee come in, miss,” she said. “Master be asking for ’ee. He be in his library.”

  “Then you had better take me there,” I said, “for it is a room I have never visited.”

  I should have liked to comb my hair and tidy myself a little, but I had a notion that Kitty was constantly looking for one aspect of the relationship between any man or woman and I was not going to have her thinking that I was preening myself before appearing before the master.

  She led me to a wing of the house which I had as yet not visited, and the vastness of Mount Mellyn was brought home to me afresh. These, I gathered, were the apartments which were set aside for his special use, for they seemed more luxurious than any other part of the house which I had so far seen.

  Kitty opened a door, and with that vacuous smile on her face announced: “Miss be here, master.”

  “Thank you, Kitty,” he said. And then, “Oh, come along in, Miss Leigh.”

  He was sitting at a table on which were leatherbound books and papers. The only light came from a rose quartz lamp on the table.

  He said: “Do sit down, Miss Leigh.”

  I thought: He has discovered that I wore Alice’s riding habit. He is shocked. He is going to tell me that my services are no longer required.

  I held my head high, even haughtily, waiting.

  “I was interested to learn this afternoon,” he began, “that you had already made the acquaintance of Mr. Nansellock.”

  “Really?” The surprise in my voice was not assumed.

  “Of course,” he went on, “it was inevitable that you would meet him sooner or later. He and his sister are constant visitors at the house, but …”

  “But you feel that it is unnecessary that he should make the acquaintance of your daughter’s governess,” I said quickly.

  “That necessity, Miss Leigh,” he replied reprovingly, “is surely for you or him to decide.”

  I felt embarrassed and I stumbled on: “I imagine you feel that, as a governess, it is unbecoming of me to be … on terms of apparently equal footing with a friend of your family.”

  “I beg you, Miss Leigh, do not put words into my mouth which I had no intention of uttering. What friends you make, I do assure you, must be entirely your own concern. But your aunt, in a manner of speaking, put you under my care when she put you under my roof, and I have asked you to come here that I may offer you a word of advice on a subject which, I fear, you may think a little indelicate.”

  I was flushing scarlet and my embarrassment was not helped by the fact that this, I was sure, secretly amused him.

  “Mr. Nansellock has a reputation for being … how shall I put it … susceptible to young ladies.”

  “Oh!” I cried, unable to suppress the exclamation, so great was my discomfort.

  “Miss Leigh.” He smiled, and for a moment his face looked almost tender. “This is in the nature of a warning.”

  “Mr. TreMellyn,” I cried, recovering myself with an effort, “I do not think I am in need of such a warning.”

  “He is very handsome,” he went on, and the mocking note had come back to his voice. “He has a reputation for being a charming fellow. There was a young lady here before you, a Miss Jansen. He often called to see her. Miss Leigh, I do beg of you not to misunderstand me. And there is another thing I would also ask: Please do not take all that Mr. Nansellock says too seriously.”

  I heard myself say in a high-pitched voice unlike my habitual tone: “It is extremely kind of you, Mr. TreMellyn, to concern yourself with my welfare.”

  “But of course I concern myself with your welfare. You are here to look after my daughter. Therefore it is of the utmost importance to me.”

  He rose and I did the same. I saw that this was dismissal.

  He came swiftly to my side and placed his hand on my shoulder.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m a blunt man, lacking in those graces which are so evident in Mr. Nansellock. I merely wish to offer you a friendly warning.”

  For a few seconds I looked into those cool light eyes and I thought I had a fleeting glimpse of the man behind the mask. I was sobered suddenly and, in a moment of bewildering emotion, I was deeply conscious of my loneliness, of the tragedy of those who are alone in the world with no one who really cares for them. Perhaps it was self-pity. I do not know. My feelings in that moment were so mixed that I cannot even at this day define them.

  “Thank you,” I said; and I escaped from the library back to my room.

  Each day Alvean and I went to the field and had an hour’s riding. As I watched the little girl on Buttercup I knew that her father must have been extremely impatient with her, for the child, though not a born rider perhaps, would soon be giving a good account of herself.

  I had discovered that every November a horse show was held in Mellyn village, and I had told Alvean that she should certainly enter for one of the events.

  It was enjoyable planning this, because Connan TreMellyn would be one of the judges and we both imagined his astonishment when a certain rider, who came romping home with first prize, was his daughter who he had sworn would never learn to ride.

  The triumph in that dream was something Alvean and I could both share. Hers was of course the more admirable emotion. She wanted to succeed for the sake of the love she bore her father; for myself I wanted to imply: See, you arrogant man, I have succeeded where you failed!

  So every afternoon, I would put on Alice’s riding habit (I had ceased to care to whom it had previously belonged, for it had become mine now) and we would go to the field and there I would put Alvean through her paces.

  On the day we tried her first gallop we were elated.

  Afterward we returned to the house together and because I was with her I went in by way of the front entrance, as I had when I had first arrived at the house.

  No sooner were we in the hall than Alvean ran from me and left by that door through which Mrs. Polgrey had taken me. I followed her and as I passed out of the hall I noticed a damp, musty smell and saw that the door leading to the chapel was slightly ajar. Thinking that Alvean had gone in there, I went in. It was cold in the place, and I shivered as I stood on the blue flagstones and gazed at the altar and the pews.

  I had taken a few steps inside the room and was standing with my back to the door when I heard a gasp behind me and a quick intake of breath.

  “No!” said a voice, so horrified that I did not recognize it.

  For some unaccountable reason my whole body seemed to freeze. I turned sharply, but it was only Celestine Nansellock who stood looking at me.

  She was so white that I thought she was going to faint—or perhaps it was the dimness of the chapel which made her appear so. I thought I understood. She had seen me in Alice’s riding habit and she had believed in that second that I was Alice.

  “Miss Nansellock,” I said quickly to reassure her, “Alvean and I have been having a riding lesson.”

  She swayed a little; her face was now a grayish color.

  “I’m sorry I startled you,” I went on.

  “I wondered who was here,” she said almost sharply. “Whatever made you come into the chapel?”

  “I came in this way with Alvean. She ran off and I thought she might be in here.”

  “Alvean! Oh no … no one ever comes in here. It’s a gloomy place, don’t you think? Let’s go.”

  “You look … unwell, Miss Nansellock. Would you like me to ring for some brandy?”

  “Oh, no … no. I’m perfectly well.”

  I said boldly: “You’re looking at my clothes. They’re … borrowed. I have to give Alvean riding lessons and I
lacked the suitable clothes. These were … her mother’s.”

  “I see.”

  “I did explain to Mrs. Polgrey, who thought it was quite in order for me to use them.”

  “Of course. Why not?”

  “I’m afraid I startled you.”

  “Oh no, you musn’t say that. I’m quite all right. It’s the light in the chapel. It makes us all look so ghastly. You yourself look a little pale, Miss Leigh. It’s those windows … that particular type of stained glass. It plays havoc with our complexions.” She laughed. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We went down the few steps and back to the hall, and then out of the house. I noticed that she had regained her normal color.

  She had been shocked to see me. I told myself I knew why. She had seen the back of me in Alice’s riding clothes and she had thought for the moment that it was Alice standing there.

  “Does Alvean enjoy her riding lessons?” she asked. “Tell me, are you getting along with her better now? I fancied when you arrived there was a little antagonism on her part.”

  “She is the kind of child who would automatically be antagonistic to authority. Yes, I think we are becoming friends. These riding lessons have helped considerably. By the way, they are a secret from her father.”

  Celestine Nansellock looked a little shocked, and I hurried on: “Oh, it is only her good progress which is a secret. He knows about the lessons. Naturally I asked his permission first. But he does not realize how well she is coming along. It is to be a surprise.”

  “I see. Miss Leigh, I do hope she is not overstrained by these lessons.”

  “Overstrained? But why? She is a normal, healthy child.”

  “She is highly strung. I wonder whether she is of the temperament to make a rider.”

  “She is so young that we have a chance of forming her character which will have its effect on her temperament. She is enjoying her lessons and is very eager to surprise her father.”

  “So she is becoming your friend, Miss Leigh. I am glad of that. Now I must go. I was just on my way out when I passed the chapel and saw the door open.”

  I said good-by to her and went up to my room by the usual way. I went to a mirror and looked at myself. I’m afraid this was becoming a habit since I had come here. I murmured: “That might be Alice … apart from the face.” Then I half-closed my eyes and let the face become blurred while I imagined a different face there.

  Oh yes, it must have been a shock for Celestine.

  I wondered then what Connan TreMellyn would say if he knew that I was going about in his wife’s clothes and had frightened practical people like Celestine Nansellock when they saw me in dim places.

  I felt he would not wish me to continue to look like Alice.

  But since I needed Alice’s clothes for my riding lessons with Alvean, and since I was determined that those lessons should continue—that I might have the pleasure of saying: “I told you so!” to Alvean’s father—I was as anxious, as I was sure Celestine Nansellock was, that nothing should be said about our encounter in the chapel.

  A week passed and I felt I was slipping into a routine. Lessons in the schoolroom and the riding field progressed favorably. Peter Nansellock came over to the house on two occasions, but I managed to elude him. I was deeply conscious of Connan TreMellyn’s warning and I knew it to be reasonable. I faced the fact that I was stimulated by Peter Nansellock and that I could very easily find myself in a state of mind when I was looking forward to his visits. I had no intention of placing myself in that position, for I did not need Connan TreMellyn to tell me that Peter Nansellock was a philanderer.

  I thought now and then of his brother Geoffry, and I concluded that Peter must be very like him; and when I thought of Geoffry I thought also of Mrs. Polgrey’s daughter of whom she had never spoken: Jennifer with “the littlest waist you ever saw,” and a way of keeping herself to herself until she had lain in the hay or the gillyflowers with the fascinating Geoffry—the outcome of which had been that one day she walked into the sea.

  I shivered to contemplate the terrible pitfalls which lay in wait for unwary women. There were unattractive ones like myself who depended on the whims of others for a living; but there were those even more unfortunate creatures who attracted the roving eyes of philanderers and found one day that the only bearable prospect life had to offer was its end.

  My interest in Alvean’s riding lessons and her father’s personality had made me forget little Gillyflower temporarily. The child was so quiet that she was easily forgotten. Occasionally I heard her thin reedy voice, in that peculiar off key, singing out of doors or in the house. The Polgreys’ room was immediately below my own, and Gillyflower’s was next to theirs, so that when she sang in her own room her voice would float up to me.

  I used to say to myself when I heard it: If she can learn songs she can learn other things.

  I must have been given to daydreams, for side by side with that picture of Connan TreMellyn, handing his daughter the first prize for horse-jumping at the November horse show and giving me an apologetic and immensely admiring and appreciative glance at the same time, there was another picture. This was of Gilly sitting at the schoolroom table side by side with Alvean, while I listened to whispering in the background: “This could never have happened but for Miss Martha Leigh. You see she is a wonder with the children. Look what she has done for Alvean … and now for Gilly.”

  But at this time Alvean was still a stubborn child and Gillyflower, elusive and, as the Tapperty girls said: “With a tile loose in the upper story.”

  Then into those more or less peaceful days came two events to disturb me.

  The first was of small moment, but it haunted me and I could not get it out of my mind.

  I was going through one of Alvean’s exercise books, marking her sums, while she was sitting at the table writing an essay; and as I turned the pages of the exercise book a piece of paper fell out.

  It was covered with drawings. I had already discovered that Alvean had a distinct talent for drawing, and one day, when the opportunity offered itself, I intended to approach Connan TreMellyn about this, for I felt she should be encouraged. I myself could teach her only the rudiments of the art, but I believed she was worth a qualified drawing teacher.

  The drawings were of faces. I recognized one of myself. It was not bad. Did I really look as prim as that? Not always, I hoped. But perhaps that was how she saw me. There was her father … several of him. He was quite recognizable too. I turned the page and this was covered with girls’ faces. I was not sure who they were meant to be. Herself? No … that was Gilly, surely. And yet it had a look of herself.

  I stared at the page. I was so intent that I did not realize she had leaned across the table until she snatched it away.

  “That’s mine,” she said.

  “And that,” I retaliated, “is extremely bad manners.”

  “You have no right to pry.”

  “My dear child, that paper was in your arithmetic book.”

  “Then it had no right to be there.”

  “You must take your revenge on the paper,” I said lightly. And then more seriously: “I do beg of you not to snatch things in that ill-mannered way.”

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured still defiantly.

  I turned back to the sums, to most of which she had given inaccurate answers. Arithmetic was not one of her best subjects. Perhaps that was why she spent so much of her time drawing faces instead of getting on with her work. Why had she been so annoyed? Why had she drawn those faces which were part Gilly’s, part her own?

  I said: “Alvean, you will have to work harder at your sums.”

  She grunted sullenly.

  “You don’t seem to have mastered the rules of practice nor even simple multiplication. Now if your arithmetic were half as good as your drawing I should be very pleased.”

  Still she did not answer.

  “Why did you not wish me to see the faces you had drawn? I thought some of them qu
ite good.”

  Still no answer.

  “Particularly,” I went on, “that one of your father.”

  Even at such a time the mention of his name could bring that tender, wistful curve to her lips.

  “And those girls’ faces. Do tell me who they were supposed to be—you or Gilly?”

  The smile froze on her lips. Then she said almost breathlessly: “Who did you take them for, miss?”

  “Whom,” I corrected gently.

  “Whom did you take them for then?”

  “Well, let me look at them again.”

  She hesitated, then she brought out the paper, and handed it to me; her eyes were eager.

  I studied the faces. I said: “This one could be either you or Gilly.”

  “You think we’re alike then?”

  “No-no. I hadn’t thought so until this moment.”

  “And now you do,” she said.

  “You are of an age, and there often seems to be a resemblance between young people.”

  “I’m not like her!” she cried passionately. “I’m not like that … idiot.”

  “Alvean, you must not use such a word. Don’t you realize that it is extremely unkind?”

  “It’s true. But I’m not like her. I won’t have you say it. If you say it again I’ll ask my father to send you away. He will … if I ask him. I only have to ask and you’ll go.”

  She was shouting, trying to convince herself of two things, I realized. One that there was not the slightest resemblance between herself and Gilly, and the other that she only had to ask her father for something and her wishes would be granted.

  Why? I asked myself. What was the reason for this vehemence?

  There was a shut-in expression on her face.

  I said, calmly looking at the watch pinned to my gray cotton bodice: “You have exactly ten minutes in which to finish your essay.”

  I drew the arithmetic book toward me and pretended to give it my attention.

  The second incident was even more upsetting.

  It had been a moderately peaceful day, which meant that lessons had gone well. I had taken my late evening stroll in the woods and when I returned I saw two carriages drawn up in front of the house. One I recognized as from Mount Widden, so I guessed that either Peter or Celestine was visiting. The other carriage I did not know, but I noticed the crest on it, and it was a very fine carriage. I wondered to whom it belonged before I told myself that it was no concern of mine.