Wishtide
Thursday, 7 pm
CONFIDENTIAL
My dear Fred,
Here I am, sound in wind and limb, after a very long day of being shaken to pieces and covered with soot on the railway. As you may imagine, I was rather dreading my arrival at the castle and fully prepared for the traditional trials of the governess – leftover food, meagre fires and insolent servants. My fears were groundless, however; please tell Fanny how well the Calderstones treat their governesses, which might give her pause for thought next time she expects your poor Miss Birch to dine upon broken meats in a cold schoolroom.
A comfortable carriage was waiting for me at Horncastle. Wishtide is situated in the southernmost part of the Lincolnshire Wolds, and in the chill, slate-coloured autumn dusk we drove through a country of wooded hills, with church towers and cottages clustered in the valleys. In the very last of the light we suddenly turned off the road into a great pair of gates. I was able to see how excellently the lodge was kept, which I always think significant. The woman who opened the gates was as neat as a pin and dropped a very civil curtsy. It was too dark after that to admire the famous lawns and trees of the park.
The house is enormous. It was built twenty-five years ago in the style of a castle, with squat turrets and mullioned windows. I walked up the steps into a huge, vaulted hall, where two Great Danes dozed and wheezed before a blazing fire, in a fireplace the size of my front parlour.
The housekeeper, Mrs Craik, came out to meet me. I was anxious to make a good impression on this woman – in my experience the housekeeper keeps the keys of a house in more senses than one (Thorpe, the butler here, is far too grand a personage to deal with a governess). Mrs Craik is a thin, grey-headed woman of about my years. She wears an apron of black silk, and is a little reserved in her manner, which is a shame from my point of view.
But she is kind, and evidently (as Mrs B would say) knows her onions – everything I have seen here is in the most beautiful order. I am writing this beside a generous fire, in my very pleasant bedroom. I have a high bed, an armchair, a desk, and plentiful supplies of coal and candles. The curtains and bed-hangings have seen some service, but are in good repair and spotlessly clean. My supper, brought to me by a decently spoken girl from the kitchen, consisted of game pie, baked apple cream and a glass of wine. I think in such easy circumstances I might even like being a governess.
I am to meet Sir James and Lady Calderstone after dinner, presumably to talk about –
There was a loud knock at my door. I laid down my pen. ‘Come in.’
I was expecting another servant, and I was startled to see a tall young man in evening clothes, simmering with indignation.
‘Mrs Rodd?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Charles Calderstone – and I may as well tell you straight out – I know why you’re here.’
I said I had been engaged to teach his sisters.
‘Pish,’ said Mr Charles. ‘You’re spying for my father.’
Well, here was a fine beginning; did this mean everyone knew?
I stood up, very much on my dignity. ‘Yes, I’m conducting an inquiry at the request of your father. Strictly speaking, I am indeed a “spy”. If my position here is common knowledge, I’m afraid I won’t be of much use to him.’
‘It’s not common knowledge – I’ve just had an almighty row with him and he told me. Everyone else thinks you’re here for the girls.’
‘And are you about to blow my cover?’
This piece of criminal cant (I picked up all kinds of expressions from Fred) surprised and disarmed him. He had burst into my room with his guns blazing, and was now uncertain. ‘I – I don’t know.’
‘Before you make up your mind, perhaps you should steal a march on your father and give me your side of the story.’ I gestured to the armchair beside the fire. ‘Please sit down.’
He hovered. ‘He’ll tell you I’m a fool and it’s a pack of lies.’
‘I’ve already explained in my correspondence with your father that I am only interested in concrete facts, not hearsay or slander. Please do sit down, Mr Charles.’
‘Well – all right.’ The firelight was bright, and showed me what a handsome young man he was. His hair was of a rich dark brown; his brown eyes were large and tender, with long, girlish lashes, yet his jaw was strong and his mouth firm and stubborn.
And this fine young prince had fallen in love with a Nobody from Nowhere – as princes sometimes do, though not as often as romantic tradition would have you believe; we would never have heard of King Cophetua if kings were in the habit of marrying beggar-maids.
I moved my chair so that we faced each other across the hearth. Mr Charles harrumphed and reddened and looked at his knees.
‘Let us be confidential,’ I said gently. ‘Tell me what you like, and don’t worry that I’ll report it to your parents.’
He glanced up hopefully. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’
‘You have my word as a Christian lady. If that’s not enough, you can ask the Bishops of Ripon, Peterborough and Bath and Wells, all of whom have dined at my table, and seem to think I’m generally a good sort.’
Mr Charles smiled at this, and his smile was fresh and open and charming – he reminded me a little of Matt, my beloved, portly old archdeacon, back in the days when he was a slender young curate with all his hair (the idol of the parish; oh, my unbelieving joy when he chose me, the silent, black-browed girl in the corner; I never allowed myself to forget how it had felt to be young and in love).
‘I hope you are a good sort,’ he said. ‘Nobody listens to me here. And I have to stop my father’s vile campaign.’
‘Campaign?’
‘To blacken the name of a lady, and – and to stop me marrying her.’
I couldn’t argue with him; this was exactly his father’s campaign; the fact that he had engaged me was proof of his determination. ‘But if you are to marry her, Mr Charles, your parents have a right to know about her background. For a young man in your position, an injudicious match would be a very bad step. They are only trying to protect you, surely.’
‘No they are not!’ His voice was tight, choking back fury. ‘My father wants me to marry someone else – that’s why he’s so set on ruining the reputation of Helen Orme – whom I know to be as pure as my own sisters!’
His eyes were wet with tears of hurt and anger; he was working himself into a state, and I didn’t necessarily wish the rest of the house to know about this conversation.
I made my voice soft and inviting. ‘Tell me about Mrs Orme.’
‘She’s – I don’t know where to begin. She came here to give the girls lessons in Italian. She speaks it like a native; it’s astonishing to hear her.’
‘Did she live in the house?’
‘No, she has a cottage, near Horncastle. She shares it with her sister-in-law, and they live in a poor sort of way – genteel, you know, but they’ve only a hundred and fifty pounds a year between them, so it’s a scrape.’
(I did indeed know, and had a pang of fellow-feeling for Mrs Orme.)
‘I made a promise to my father,’ Mr Charles said, ‘that I wouldn’t do anything to cause talk in the villages. That means I can’t take care of Helen – Mrs Orme – as much as I’d like. She’d rather die than take money from me – I send the girls round with little presents of game and wine and so forth, as often as I dare. But naturally the whole countryside knows where it comes from.’
Here was an interesting situation. The first mental note I made was that Mrs Orme had refused money. Perhaps this was a sign of her purity, perhaps of her intelligence. The second was Mr Charles’s careless reference to his sisters.
‘Do your sisters still call on Mrs Orme?’
‘Yes, when the old man is away. Our mother tries to stop them, but the girls are fond of her and they keep disobeying.’
‘So you’d say that Miss Blanche and Miss Elizabeth are in sympathy with your proposed marriage?’
Mr Charles smiled. ‘They’ve been a pair of bricks. Have you met them yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Don’t mind if Blanche is cross with you at first – she’s furious to be getting yet another governess, and she says she doesn’t want to be finished. But she’s all right really.’
He had calmed down; when he spoke of his sisters, the impassioned lover changed back into a cheerful and good-natured young man.
‘Thank you for the warning; I’ll bear it in mind.’
‘And you’ll like Bessie, she’s a dear old thing.’
‘So it was your sisters who introduced you to Mrs Orme?’
‘It wasn’t exactly a formal introduction; I came upon them all in the garden, sitting on the big bearskin under the trees. It was like stumbling into Paradise – this sprite of a girl in a grey gown – an angel in Quaker’s clothing –’
‘A girl?’
I’d kept my tone light, but he knew what I was getting at and coloured angrily.
‘She looks like a girl – she’s as small and delicate as a fairy.’
‘Do you know her age?’
‘Of course – we don’t have secrets. She’s two-and-thirty, which is nine years older than I am, but I couldn’t care a straw.’
‘Has she talked much about her late husband?’
‘Not much – but only because I don’t like hearing about dead saints.’
‘According to Helen. But it wasn’t a love match – in the romantic sense, I mean.’ He looked away from me, to mumble, ‘It wasn’t a true marriage, if you understand.’
He was trying to tell me – blushing up to his eyes – that Mrs Orme was, so to speak, still in a state of maidenhood. I wasn’t sure that I believed this.
But I nodded gravely. ‘And she met Mr Orme in Italy.’
‘Yes, and he died there.’
‘Do you know what she did before her marriage?’
‘Of course I do!’ Mr Charles held his head up proudly. ‘She was in your trade.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Of course, you’re only pretending to be a governess, but Helen was a real one. She lived with several aristocratic families.’
‘I see.’ I wasn’t sure that I believed this either.
‘She has nothing to hide, Mrs Rodd. Her maiden name was Lyndhurst; her father was a poor curate on the Suffolk coast. She was left an orphan at a very young age, and forced to earn her own living in other people’s houses. There you are; that’s all there is to know. It’s shameful of my parents to hold her poor background against her; it’s not her fault she’s had a hard life.’
‘No.’ Nobody could help where they were born; it would indeed have been shameful of the Calderstones to object to Mrs Orme simply because she had been forced to earn her own bread.
But this puzzled me: if the story Mr Charles told was true, the match surely need not be seen as such a disaster. People would whisper about the fact that Mrs Orme was a widow, and older than her husband. But poverty is forgivable in a clergyman’s daughter, and her essential gentility was beyond question; any social disappointment could have been very quickly absorbed. Why (as Mrs B would say) were his parents in such a taking?
And another thing: I had known many governesses in my time, starting with my own. They were all, to a woman, the daughters or widows of poor clergymen. The large majority were imperfectly educated and sadly lacking in the expensive accomplishments. How had Mrs Orme, this orphaned curate’s daughter, turned herself into a polished lady who spoke perfect French and Italian? Her late husband was an educated man, but that did not explain it; they were only married a matter of months.
The clock on the chimney-piece chimed the hour; it was nearly time for me to meet Sir James and Lady Calderstone, and I became businesslike.
‘Mr Charles, I must ask – I was told about a certain rumour.’
‘What – that she was married to someone else before Edmund Orme?’ He laughed angrily. ‘Yes, I’ve heard all about that, and it’s a pack of lies.’
‘Do you know where the rumour originated?’
‘No, and I don’t care; it’s arrant nonsense. I know it in the marrow of my bones.’
‘Before I meet your parents, Mr Charles, I must know if you intend to stand in the way of my inquiries. I can’t be of any use at all if you are set against me.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about me. I’m happy for you to poke and pry all you like – I know you won’t find a single thing against her.’
‘And you won’t tell anyone else why I’m here?’
‘I give you my word I won’t tell a soul. That’s exactly what I said to my father. I told him I wasn’t afraid of the truth, and neither is Mrs Orme. I’m going back to town this very night, and I wouldn’t dream of standing in your way.’
‘You won’t tell Mrs Orme?’
‘My word of honour. You’ll see for yourself that she has nothing to hide.’
His belief in her purity was absolute; she was his spotless idol. I didn’t like to think how he would feel if I found any blemishes.