Delsie Read online

  “In what way can I be of help? I don’t see what all this has to do with me.”

  As she was always rushing him on to the facts, he decided to blurt it out, and have it over with. “You could marry Andrew Grayshott. He still wants to marry you. If you did so, you, as her stepmother, would be appointed guardian. You would not be left alone in charge of her. I—the family—would give you every help. We would be most eager to help you in every way. You would live at the Cottage—you know, I expect, where Grayshott lives?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes, a charming place. But I must tell you before you say any more, milord, that I am not at all in favor of this plan. Twice I have refused Mr. Grayshott in person, and I am not at all interested in marrying him.”

  “He is very ill, dying.”

  “Yes, but he’s not dead yet, and who is to say he won’t recuperate?” she asked frankly.

  The possibility of this could not be totally ignored. He was rapidly drinking himself to his grave, but if he did actually engage in the life of sobriety he had mentioned to Jane, he might pull through. “I cannot guarantee his death,” deVigne admitted.

  “I didn’t mean that! Indeed, I hope he does not die at all, but I cannot marry him.”

  “He likes you very much. Loves you, he says.” This was a mistake. She drew back involuntarily, and he diluted the claim of passion as much as he could. “He is impressionable. When he cares for someone, he is eager to please her. He made my sister Louise a good husband; his drinking did not set in till after her death. If you married him, he might very well settle down and make you a good husband.”

  “No, he would not be a good husband for me. I dislike him intensely.”

  “Only think of the advantages. You would be freed from this life you lead. You say you enjoy the work, but you must confess it is hard on you, working every day from dawn till dark, with very little pay, and living in straitened circumstances. As Grayshott’s wife you would live a life of ease, in a fine home that you could soon set to rights. You would be a respected member of society, with a carriage of your own, good company to visit, a completely different life from what you have now.”

  She brushed all this aside immediately and firmly. “The perquisites of the position are clear to me, clearer than they could possibly be to you who are not really aware of the alternative, but I do not wish to marry Mr. Grayshott. My present life is not that distasteful to me. If it were a job you were offering, your niece’s governess I had thought, then I would happily accept. I cannot enter into marriage with a man I actively dislike, do not respect at all. My past dealings with him were of a sort to make me very decided in this matter.”

  “The marriage would be only a formality, in his condition. The doctor feels he—”

  “Yes, we have been through that, but still, he might live for years, and I do not wish to marry him.”

  “We had planned to make a settlement on you.”

  Her back stiffened at this. “Thank you very much, milord, but I am not for sale,” she said, and arose from her seat to accompany Lord deVigne to the door. Perforce, he too arose and walked reluctantly behind her. It irked him to be the receiver of the last word instead of the giver. He was not accustomed to being balked, but in this affair he had not much hoped for success. He could have accepted failure if it had been more kindly worded, or more meekly.

  “If you change your mind...” he said at the doorway, but she immediately overrode this suggestion.

  “My decision is final,” she said, with a certain set to her square chin that informed him to retire, before further angering her.

  “Good day, ma’am. I am happy to have made your acquaintance,” he said, and bowed and left to enter his carriage and return home, while the teacher stood at the door, smiling ironically at all his entourage, the footmen hauled out on this foolish errand. She must think him a coxcomb of the first water.

  Delsie had been tired when he arrived, after her day; his short visit exhausted her utterly. She hardly had the strength to crawl home. If she had accepted, she supposed he would have offered to drive her. She climbed the stairs to Miss Frisk’s attic apartment and threw herself on the bed. This is a new twist, she thought, sending his relatives to propose for him. What next, a minister with a ring, a choir hired, and a white veil? She shook her head and smiled, but in annoyance at their presumption, to think they could buy a person.

  It was the first time she had spoken to Lord deVigne. He was not as she had expected. But, really, she had never satisfied him to look before. She made a habit of looking another way when he rode past, to show her disinterest. She found she had missed a good many interesting details.

  His hair, for instance; she had not noticed that it was worn brushed forward. The Brutus do, it was called. And the outfit—with a little gold watch fob shaped like a wishbone. Who would have thought deVigne was superstitious? His eyes, too, were darker than she had thought, almost navy blue. He had a commanding aspect which suggested to her he was not Grayshott’s tool in the affair. Had the idea possibly originated this time from the baron himself? Was he that aware, then, of her existence, as to have known it was herself Grayshott would accept as a wife in this peculiar circumstance?

  And he never so much as glanced at her, or pretended to know she was alive, when they met in the street. To think that she, Delsie Sommers, was a subject of conversation at the Hall! It amused her to think of it. She accepted, after half an hour’s musing, that there had been no trickery in it. DeVigne had come in good faith for the reason stated. It was plausible, if peculiar. And she had it in her power to thwart the wishes of Baron deVigne. She must be the only person in the village who had ever said no to him. This too amused, delighted her, to have the upper hand over those who rode past in their fine carriages with two footmen, ignoring her.

  She hugged to herself the conquest. Those on the hill whom she had so long secretly envied now wanted her, and she would not go to them. It was impossible not to consider how life would have changed if she had agreed to marry Grayshott. No more teaching recalcitrant, ill-behaved youngsters, who wore one to a bone with their disinterest in learning. No more toadying to Mr. Umpton, no more rising at seven. But better than that, to live on the fabulous hill, to walk up the aisle to church on Sunday with that august party. To drive into Questnow with them, and be bowed to in the shops, to be on the inside of all that life, it was hard to say no. She almost regretted her decision, till the image of Mr. Grayshott darted into her head—drunken, dissolute, old, and with eyes that devoured her. She was quite sure he was mad. No, she had made the right decision, but it was the hardest one she had ever made.

  * * * *

  DeVigne had his carriage and men sent on to the Hall and stopped at the Dower House to see Jane. The dame was waiting for him, peering through the lancet windows of her drawing room. “Well, what did she say?” she asked, before he had off his hat.

  “No. She would not hear of it. Wouldn’t consider it at all. She was paralyzed with shock, and so was I. Do you realize she only met Andrew two times in her life?” he asked.

  “I knew he had not been courting her in the regular way. You didn’t smile, or butter her up, I suppose?”

  “She is not the butterable sort. Too stiff for that stunt. She has developed a schoolteacher’s eye that made me feel ten years old and very gauche. She certainly knows her own mind, and doesn’t hesitate to speak it, either.”

  “One cannot but wonder what set Andrew off on this passion for her.”

  “She’s mighty attractive at close range,” he went on, as they entered the drawing room and took up a seat. “The eyes, you recall, did the trick. Very fine eyes too, but hardly soulful. They were sparkling with anger throughout my visit. Andrew always had good taste in ladies. Louise was considered a bit of a beauty in her youth as well.”

  “What’s to do, then? We must have Andrew committed and see a solicitor about getting Roberta without delay.”

  “Pity. She would have made such a good guardian for Bobbi
e. Very ladylike, and a firm hand on her.”

  “Too firm a hand is not what the child is used to. I wouldn’t like that.”

  “I don’t think she’d be too firm. There was some softer quality in her when she smiled.”

  Jane regarded him closely. “She had the wits to throw her cap at you, I see.”

  “Not in the least. It wasn’t that sort of a smile. She thought we wanted a governess, and would have leapt at it. She’d be happy enough to get out of that school, I think. We’ll wait a little, Jane, and see what develops, shall we?”

  “What will develop is that Andrew will very soon die.”

  * * * *

  Over the next three weeks, Miss Sommers debated on and off with herself whether she had done right. Every morning at seven when she arose, with the day hardly bright, and put on her kettle to boil, she regretted that she was not between the linens at the mansion on the hill, having her breakfast in bed, but not for several hours yet. Cocoa she would have, not tea.

  As she walked briskly along the road, she would think, If I had accepted the offer, I would be in a carriage, not walking. And when she received her twenty-five pounds on quarter day, she thought: He mentioned a settlement. I wonder how much it would have been. But these were only vagrant thoughts. On the whole, she knew she had made the wise choice.

  Mr. Umpton took a keen interest in deVigne’s visit to the school. The true reason for his coming could not be told, so Delsie invented a different story to appease him, one having to do with becoming governess to Roberta at some future date. He didn’t believe a word of it, and developed such a strong suspicion of her that life at school was nearly intolerable.

  Maybe he thought she was angling for his job. If a single student laughed or spoke loudly, he was at the door complaining of the noise. He complained too that the students coming to him from her class were ill-trained, couldn’t read a word, and could hardly add two and two. He even spoke badly of her to his students, an unpardonable offense, so that they looked at her in a jeering way. The few who used to come after class for work no longer showed up. He spoke more than once of the mistake of hiring a woman for a man’s job. “Next time we’ll know better,” he’d say meaningfully, implying that the next time was not far off.

  The autumn wore on, the weather becoming colder, the days shortening, the winds growing more bitter, and the memory of the visit faded. She thought regretfully, once or twice a day, how fine it would have been if it had been a governess they were looking for, instead of a wife.

  Chapter Four

  On the last Sunday in November, Delsie set her unadorned round bonnet on her head, looking in the mirror to see that it was straight. Her serious gray eyes looked back at her wistfully. She would have liked a prettier bonnet, at least on Sunday, but the schoolteacher was one who must dress discreetly. Dark clothing, she had been told. No curls, no powder, no scent, no jewelry of an ostentatious sort, Mr. Umpton had announced, with a disapproving eye at her simple gold locket. I might as well be a grandmother, she thought, then wrinkled her nose at her reflection and went downstairs to call for Miss Frisk, who would accompany her to church.

  Since they had arrived early, their heads, like everyone else’s, turned when the party from the Hall entered. No company today, Delsie noted. Only Lord deVigne, Lady Jane, Sir Harold, and the young girl, Roberta, who came with them only infrequently. They entered their family pew, across the aisle and a few seats ahead of Miss Frisk and herself. The service progressed as usual, the hymns, and then it was time for the announcements. The vicar cleared his throat and looked around before speaking.

  “I would like to ask the benefit of the prayers of the congregation this morning for Mr. Andrew Grayshott of this parish, well known to us all...”

  My God, he’s dead! Delsie thought, and her eyes flew to the deVigne pew. So soon! Less than a month since Lord deVigne had asked her to marry him. I would have only had to live with him for a month. Surely it would have been worth it. I would be with them now, for the rest of my life. All this went through her head in a second. Then the minister’s voice went on. “... who is very ill. Also for the repose of the soul of...” Lord deVigne’s black head turned around over his shoulder. He directed a meaningful look across the aisle and back to Delsie, who was still staring at him, a question on her face. Their eyes met and, though no word was spoken, she was dead certain she would see him again that day.

  After church, she went straight home and to her room. No “little chat” with Miss Frisk today. Within minutes—he hadn’t even taken the others back up the hill, but had come to her directly from the church—there was a knock at her door. She had scarcely taken off her hat and hung up her pelisse. She assumed it would be Miss Frisk, big with the news that Lord deVigne awaited her belowstairs, but she was wrong. It was deVigne himself standing there, hat in hand, filling the small door frame with his size. “May I come in?” he asked.

  “I’m not allowed gentlemen callers in my rooms,” she told him. “We can go downstairs.”

  “I have spoken to Miss Frisk,” he replied and, bending his head, stepped in.

  “Oh—in that case...” It was unnecessary to extend any invitation. He was already inside, glancing around her apartment.

  Never had her little rooms looked so bleak as they did today, as she imagined how they must appear to one accustomed to elegance. The shabby, threadbare rug, where dim outlines of flowers were all that remained of a once lively pattern, her homemade curtains and cushions, their unfaded yellow and blue stripes only strengthening the age of the rest, the worn settee to which she must lead him—all spoke of poverty and meager living. A vase of wilting flowers, weeds really, sat forlornly on the sofa table, and if he glanced through to her kitchen, he would see the breakfast dishes unwashed on the counter, for on Sundays she slept in and cleaned up after church.

  “Pray be seated, milord,” she invited, in the lofty tones of a duchess.

  He sat on the settee, while she took up the one chair beside it. “You know why I am here?” he began at once.

  “I heard the announcement in church. Mr. Grayshott is ill—worse, I presume.”

  “Dying. He has caught pneumonia. There is no hope of a recovery. I have come to repeat my request of a few weeks ago. Will you marry him now?”

  She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be right. I can’t marry a dying man.”

  “Your excuse—reason—on the last occasion I spoke to you on the matter was that I could not guarantee his death, I can now guarantee it, absolutely.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “It was your meaning. You said you couldn’t marry him because he might recuperate. He is now beyond hope of it. All the advantages I outlined to you at that time still exist. You would be removed from this—place,” he said, with a flutter of shapely hands, substituting a milder term than the word “hovel,” which had first occurred to him. “You would no longer be required to work so hard for your living. For a few days spent as Mr. Grayshott’s wife, you would achieve independence.”

  “It’s not right. Marriage is a sacrament. You should love the person. I can’t marry for those reasons you give—for self-advancement.”

  “Marriage is also a legal contract. Think of it in that context. You would agree to take on the care of Roberta in exchange for a home and some security. It is a better position than the one you now hold.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head in confusion, for, while she felt bound to object, there had sprung up, back in the church, a strong regret that she had first refused. “How would it look to the villagers? I marry him one day, and two days later he is dead.”

  “You will have no trouble with the villagers. When you are seen to be under my family’s protection, on intimate terms with us, they will not bother you. There will be a little unavoidable gossip, of course, but these things blow over quickly.”

  “On intimate terms with us.” It was the most forceful argument he could have used. Her whole being lon
ged to accept, but conscience held out. It wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right to do such a monstrous thing as marry Mr. Grayshott. She tried, in a disjointed way, to put these thoughts into words. He nodded, but impatiently, frowning.

  “Yes, yes, I understand your scruples. It is not the marriage any young lady would dream of, certainly, but still, it would be no bad thing for you. You needn’t consider it as selling yourself, as you mentioned previously, the other time I spoke to you. It would be a job—you would have charge of Roberta, you would be working still, in a way. She needs a mother. That poor child has been badly neglected. She needs the care of a conscientious woman like yourself, someone to take a real and lasting interest in her welfare. She is scarcely ever allowed to come to us. She was with us today only because her father is so ill. It would be an act of charity on your part, certainly not taking advantage of anyone. No one loses anything by your accepting. Even Clancy Grayshott will be happy enough to have the girl off his hands. He only takes her to keep her from me. He will not be sorry to see her placed with an objective third party like yourself. Roberta gains a mother, you a good position in life, and you will be saving me a long and costly court battle.” He spoke quickly, urgently, and convincingly, but still she was not quite talked over.

  “I must have a little time to think, to consider it. I am sure there is something wrong with it. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Time is what we do not have. Andrew is dying. While we sit here talking, he might be drawing his last breath.” He leaned forward from the settee, looking with those commanding eyes at her, pinning her to her chair, and his voice increased in pace, in urgency.

  “Think of yourself! Such a chance as this is not likely to come to you again, Miss Sommers. You live alone, and lonely I should think, in this crabbed little room. What company can there possibly be for a woman like you in this village? Whom do you see nights? The fishermen and their wives? What do you do for entertainment, relaxation? You are an educated, cultured lady, one prepared for better than this menial existence you lead. Your short life is being squandered away in this place. Come to us, to your own sort of people, and lead a normal life. There are times when we must act with promptness and decision. This is one of those times for you, Miss Sommers. Come with me now, or I think you will regret it all the rest of your life.”