Rose Trelawney Read online

  “They were nearly new, both of them,” Miss Wickey countered “And—and you must not take it amiss, my dear, it is not a dig in the least, but a lady who was in service would make her own bed in the morning. Little things you say and do—well, your hands for one thing, white and unmarked and manicured like a lady’s hands. And the quantity of butter and sugar you use—not that I mean to say you should not, but servants would be more sparing.”

  Here all along I had thought I was being sparing, due to the miniscule quantity of these goods placed on a table for three. I took my meals with Mulliner and Miss Wickey after the second day. Other things unmentioned by Miss Wickey but noticed by myself supported this idea. I found the meals at the rectory inferior almost to the point of inedibility. The wine, too, was scarce, and what there was of it execrable, the service intolerable. A dozen times I had been about to ring a bell to summon a servant, only to look around in impatience and find no bell. But if I were such a grand lady as this would indicate, why did I wear bombazine? Why did I travel alone? Why was not my prestigious family out proclaiming my absence?

  When I was alone, I looked into the little faded mirror over my washstand, to examine this strange body I wore. My hair was an utter mess. I had no one to dress it for me, and wore it pinned in an unbecoming knob at the back, like Miss Wickey. It was chestnut brown, thick and of medium length, with a natural wave. The eyes too were brown, the face pale—an oval face with an ordinary nose and full lips, teeth in good repair. I didn’t even know my age. Not a girl—over twenty, but not old. Between twenty and twenty-five I estimated. I was tall, not ill-formed, but with a little fuller figure than I considered ideal. In a better gown I thought I might possess elegance. I carried myself well, proudly. Even the word arrogant did not seem amiss.

  Over the week, the storm passed, the roads were cleared, my cold healed and I found myself a stranger being billeted on a country rector and his long-suffering housekeeper. Enquiries of the stage driver, whose customary route was now open, revealed that he thought someone, possibly a woman, had been let down around the spot where I was first born into this new life. He didn’t know where I had got on—not later than Shaftesbury, the last stop, possibly before. Due to the lapse of time and the difficulties caused by the storm, he was extremely vague about it all. Newspapers were scanned in vain for a clue as to my identity, but we did no advertising of our own, thinking every day that it would all come rushing back to me. I made no push to institute any advertisements. I wanted to remain hidden away from whoever might be after me. I wanted to discover who I was, but I had a strong compulsion to do it on my own. ‘Fear of the unknown,’ Dr. Fell called it.

  Mulliner must have abandoned the idea I was a woman of any importance. His manner began to change after about four days, after four visits with the McCurdles that would be. He was now merely tolerant, with even that wearing thin. He sat one night with Dr. Fell and myself in the small study of the rectory discussing what was to be done with me. “Thing to do, I think, call Sir Ludwig,” he suggested.

  “He’s gone to London,” Dr. Fell told him.

  “Is he so? Odd he didn’t tell me,” Mulliner answered, miffed. He often mentioned Sir Ludwig, but I had not yet laid eyes on the gentleman.

  “Maybe I could work for someone,” I suggested.

  Mulliner brightened up at this. He had half a dozen boys coming in for lessons in the mornings. If I was to batten myself on him, I could work for my bread, the look said. It was done. For three days the six boys sat under my unwatchful eye in this same study, reading poorly, writing worse, and trying vainly to put together the map of the world. I was amazed at their ignorance of geography. One of them was quite insistent France belonged in Asia, so I described it to him a little, its climate and vegetation.

  “Have you been there, miss?” he asked.

  “I have read about it, as any educated person has,” I answered, frowning. Yet I felt I had done more than read about it. I knew the look and smell of the Seine, knew it in springtime, with the trees in new leaf and the walks crowded with—Englishmen! No, it was a vivid dream, obviously.

  “I still say it’s in Asia,” he insisted. “They moved it at the Congress of Vienna.”

  I had been explaining a little earlier how the map of Europe had been altered a few years previously by the Congress. He apparently took my lessons to mean Russia and Prussia had literally ‘taken’ a piece of this or that country and dragged it off. But France at least had not been so dismembered that it went to England, and those Englishmen I saw jostling along the banks were out of place, a dream. Ah, but they weren’t! The ton of England had gone to France after Waterloo, gone in droves to see it anew after being rid of Bonaparte at last. ‘Now at last we can get to Paris!’ Someone was saying it to me—I could hear his voice. Oh speak louder, louder!

  “So France goes here,” Billie McKay said, shattering the memory, and nearly shattering Mulliner’s cardboard map by trying to push France in where it did not belong.

  “It’s eleven o’clock. Time for ‘rithmetic,” another said.

  Arithmetic! What a loathsome word. Some absolute demon named Wardle had collected a mass of impossible riddles and put them all into a green book to pester us. He added only the meagerest of clues to solve these riddles, too. Three barleycorns make an inch, four inches a hand, twelve inches a foot, and such unhelpful facts. How was one to deduce from that the area of a field shaped like a star? Impossible! No one in all of Great Britain surely possessed such an oddly-shaped field. I doubt one exists in the whole world. We dispensed with Arithmetic that day and read Dr. Johnson instead. Indeed we dispensed with Arithmetic entirely, till Mulliner found out what I was up to.

  Little as I knew about my past history, I knew I was not accustomed to receiving a dressing down from such an upstart as this man. My hot blood boiled. He preached to me of duty, when he was dumping his own duty in my lap, and so I told him. It was clear after I called him Jack Dandy that I must leave the rectory, but where to go? The Misses McCurdle, from nothing other than a vulgar sense of curiosity, offered me sanctuary. They thought I might be useful with a needle! I knew where I would jab any needle I held if I had to remain in the same house as that pair of harpies. They finally got in to see me. Mulliner sneaked them in one day I was at lessons with the boys. They took turns staring at me and asking questions: while one pried, the other scrutinized my gown, shoes, hair. It wouldn’t have greatly surprised me had they lifted my skirt to get a view of the famous petticoats. I would sooner have scrubbed cutlery or served ale at the local tavern than move in with that pair.

  After dinner I went into the saloon to peruse the papers—first for any article relating to myself, then for positions open for women. While at this chore, I heard a caller being announced. Not an unusual occurrence, but when the name Sir Ludwig Kessler was relayed to Mr. Mulliner, my interest perked up. I had heard much of Sir Ludwig during the ten days of my stay here. He was the local god, of more importance to Mulliner than the One above, as he held the living at St. Martin’s. I waited for them to enter, that I might see for myself the proud owner of Granhurst, the giver of a living to that old fake Mulliner, and why not a sinecure to Miss Nobody, as he was so rich? Miss Nobody had been christened temporarily Miss Smith, though was much wider known locally as ‘that woman.’

  Oh yes, I had become the resident freak. Mulliner ought not to have resented my presence. All three hundred and seventy-four of the locals and every farmer’s wife for miles around had come with a fitch of bacon or basket of bread to get a look at me. A pity none of them had brought sugar or butter. Mulliner had lately been hoarding them at his own end of the table, and failing to hear any request to pass them. Sir Ludwig was likely here to have a look at me as well, if the truth were known. I decided the price for a glimpse of Lady Lazarus, risen from her dead past, would be a position in his household. I would ask for it outright. I smoothed my hair and prepared an enticing smile, only to see the back of a shoulder being shown into Mulliner�
��s study. That wretch of a rector wasn’t going to let me meet Sir Ludwig. Not till he had turned him against me at least. The vanishing shoulder wore a drab greatcoat with many collars, denoting a gentleman of fashion. He was tall, dark-haired, and had, mercifully, a nice loud voice. If I sat in the chair next the door, kept my door open and strained my ears, I might be able to overhear their conversation, from which I was being pointedly excluded.

  Sir Ludwig’s half of it at least was perfectly audible. “What’s this I hear about a strange woman having landed herself in your lap?” he asked. ‘Strange’? Here was a new description.

  Mulliner mumbled some reply, lengthy, of which only a few words reached me. “. . . trying to teach . . . wretched muddle of it . . . bossy and overbearing . . .” How I longed to jump up and light into him.

  “What does she look like?”

  More mumbles. “ . . . not old exactly . . . strapping girl no reason she can’t work . . . eats like a horse . . .”

  “How old?”

  Not a sound. I expect he hunched his shoulders. Mulliner was a shoulder-huncher.

  “Who the devil can she be?”

  “Anybody . . . governess’ frock . . . silk petticoats . . . probably lying, if the truth were known.” I was breathing so hard I could hardly keep my seat. In fact, I couldn’t. I jumped up and shook my fist at the door, but the louder voice spoke again.

  “What, in some kind of trouble you mean?” As if losing one’s memory were not trouble enough!

  “Determined she won’t be found . . . no move to find . . . McCurdles offered . . .”

  “Oh Christ, John, that pair of harpies!” I began to like Sir Ludwig.

  “You could always use . . . help you with paperwork . . . maid . . .” But how I loathed Mulliner more with every word he uttered.

  “A governess is what I need.”

  “Oh governess! She can’t add two and two!” That he would say good and loud, pest of a man. “. . . seems well enough read . . .”

  “Speak French?”

  Mumbles that sound negative. ‘Mais oui! Je parle français courramment! Oh, why had no one asked me that? I could speak French. I was hard pressed to keep from bolting into that study.

  “Just the finishing touches. A little French, some drawing lessons, pianoforte. I can get her out of your hair for the time being at least.” Delightful phrase! I sounded like a bat. “Poor Wickey must be sleeping in the cheese room. Bring the girl in.” My beginning to like Sir Ludwig had been premature. Bring her in—for inspection, like a filly or a heifer. Without wasting a second I dashed up the stairs two at a time. If Sir Ludwig wished to inspect me, he would send word to my room, and I would keep him waiting at least five minutes.

  Word was brought on the instant. As the servant girl chose to use the phrase ‘right away,’ Sir Ludwig cooled his heels for ten minutes, not five. When I was good and ready, actually when I could contain my own curiosity no longer, I arose and tripped down the stairs. In his eagerness for a look at me, Sir Ludwig had removed to the hallway, to the very bottom of the staircase, where he stood with one hand on the newel post, the other on his hip, straining his neck up to see me. He had a monocle stuck in one eye, and on his face there rested an expression of the greatest curiosity. It was natural I suppose, yet I had come to resent prying eyes, the curious half smile that accompanied the first examination of me. That look, as though one were for the first time getting a glimpse of a tigress, or an exotic bird from some faraway land.

  “So this is your stranger,” Sir Ludwig said, turning to Mulliner, after he had stared his fill of me. And this was the great Sir Ludwig—a mannerless country squire despite the many-collared coat. A big, bulky man with all the graces of a hound.

  Not even a how do you do, but an offhand comment about me, as if I were not present, or not a creature to be acknowledged as an equal. The frustrations of the past days welled up into one giant explosion inside my chest. “Sorry I couldn’t provide you with two heads, or five or six legs, to have made your trip worthwhile,” I heard myself say.

  I had the pleasure of seeing Sir Ludwig’s monocle drop out of his eye with the shock of my gall. Still it was an evil genie who compelled me to be rude to this man, after tolerating the impertinent questions of so many others. Humankind can bear only so much; my own breaking point is a monocle. A quizzing glass already sets my hackles up, but it at least can be attributed to a love of fashion. There is nothing fashionable about a monocle, and unless a person has impaired vision, in which case he ought to purchase a pair of spectacles, I can see no requirement for a monocle. It is my firm belief it is used for the purpose of intimidation. Very likely some unhappy experience from my forgotten past is responsible for this quirk, but I am stuck with it, and with an utter revulsion for a monocle.

  Our visitor’s astonishment was rapidly giving way to offense. His black slashes of brows rose, his chin went up, as he first glared at me, then turned a demanding eye to Mulliner, who hunched his shoulders. ‘This is what I have had to put up with,’ his wounded face implied. “This is the young lady I spoke of,” is what he actually said. “We are calling her Miss Smith for the moment.”

  “Does your friend also have a name, for the time being, Mr. Mulliner?” I asked, to give Kessler a taste of being talked about in his own presence.

  “Sir Ludwig Kessler,” Mulliner replied, as though he were announcing His Majesty George III, at the very least. Only the blare of trumpets was lacking.

  I curtsied, not low, and said, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir Ludwig. A German name, I take it? You do not look German.” I had pictured him a stout, red-faced, blue-eyed Teuton. He more closely resembled a Spaniard grown tall. But it could be the darker coloring of the Alpine Germans with the taller build of the Teutonic branch. The head was long and flat enough, not the short, broad head of the southern Germans. The cheekbones were high, the long nose large but well-sculpted.

  He did not bow, offer a hand, or smile. He looked, with his black brows raised to an unnaturally high level over dark eyes, whose shade was indistinguishable in the darkish hallway. After a long examination of my face he replied, “Neither do you.”

  The remark baffled me, but eventually I assumed he meant I, too, looked un-German. “There is not the least reason to assume I am of German extraction,” I pointed out.

  “No, she’s English all right,” he said to Mulliner, then turned back to continue his perusal of me. The gown now, or the figure. The figure, in fact. A man’s eyes do not linger so long over navy bombazine of an uninteresting cut. No sign of approval escaped his eyes or lips. Just so would a man assess an animal he was considering purchasing. “Do you speak French?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “Fluently.” I posed him a nice, long, difficult question in French having to do with Goethe. He blinked, without attempting a reply.

  “Play the pianoforte?” he fired off next.

  “I don’t know. There is no instrument here for me to try. Till I try a thing, I don’t seem to know whether I can do it.”

  “Do you sketch, paint?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve tried that, then?”

  “No.” I frowned as the contrariety of this answer struck me. “But I have been missing my brushes,” I said, and it was true. Now I realized what it was that had made the days drag so. I hadn’t painted since coming here, and I missed it. I could almost feel a brush between my fingers, smell the pigments, see the canvas stretched white and pristine on its frame.

  “Never mentioned it,” Mulliner said accusingly.

  “I didn’t realize it till now.”

  “Can’t have been missing it much, then.”

  “I guess she’ll do,” Sir Ludwig said over his shoulder to Mulliner. Another phrase to make the blood boil. Oh I must be better than a governess! I could not become accustomed to this manner of being put down.

  “You’re coming to Granhurst with me,” Sir Ludwig said. “You have no
objection, Miss—ah, Smith?” he asked, as he intercepted a flash of anger from me.

  “I am in no position to object to anything. The house, I take it, is chaperoned? Your wife is there?”

  “Really!” Mulliner exploded in a fine huff. “Upon my word, you must forgive her, Sir Ludwig.”

  “It is a reasonable question. You will be chaperoned,” Sir Ludwig told me.

  “You might take it as understood when I give my agreement to the proposal that there is nothing amiss in it,” Mulliner chided me.

  “Are we going now?” I asked the caller, enjoying the rudeness of ignoring Mulliner.

  “Yes, it will save another trip to town tomorrow.” Sir Ludwig took up his curled beaver from a table in the hall, and his gloves.

  “I’ll say goodbye to Miss Wickey then, and get my wrap.” I whisked upstairs to do this.

  Before saying goodbye to my one friend, I asked her for an assurance as to what sort of a gentleman Sir Ludwig might be. “He’s all right. Don’t be forward with him. Just do as he says and you’ll rub along well enough. He’ll be wanting you to look after his little sister, Abigail, I fancy. Not so little; she’s fifteen, and a minx. Her governess got married last Halloween, and she’s been without anyone to see to her lessons. The McCurdles told me he was looking about for a woman while he was in London, but he must have been out in his luck. In any case, it won’t be for long, Miss Smith. Dr. Fell feels any day . . .”

  “Yes, so he has been saying for ten days. Goodbye, Miss Wickey. I’ll call when I’m in the village, if I can. I’ll miss you.” I gave her a hasty hug, thanked her as she stuffed one of her own little nightgowns and some lingerie into a bag, and I was off, carrying my sole earthly possessions on my back, and my borrowed ones in a brown paper bag that didn’t weigh two pounds. This was traveling light!

  Chapter Three

  Sir Ludwig looked surprised when I handed my bag to him to carry. I had been surprised he hadn’t reached out for it. In any case, he accepted it.