Florence and Giles (16 page)

‘Theo,’ I gasped, ‘what in the name of tarnation are you doing here?’

‘Asthma,’ said Theo. In confirmation of this he commenced to coughing and drew from his pocket his flask with the rubber bulb that Dr Bradley had devised for him, opened his mouth and gave himself a good squirt. There was a noise behind me and I rolled over on my side to find Miss Taylor standing there, looking much as I imagined I myself must look, dress dusty and torn and covered in burrs, hair unkempt and betwigged, face sweating and flowering with tiny petals of red, courtesy of the thorns.

I sat up and waved a hand at Theo. ‘May I present Mr Van Hoosier, ma’am. Mr Van Hoosier, Miss Taylor, our new governess.’

She did not know how to react. After all, Theo was not only my friend but also her social superior. She smoothed down her dress and summoned up something like a smile.

‘What were you doing?’ said Theo. His expression was even more mystified than his general look.

‘Playing hide-and-seek,’ I replied.

He looked from one to the other of us. ‘Well then, ladies, I think you’re taking it a mite too seriously. It’s only a game.’

He bent to help me up, indicating with a shrug of his eyebrows that Miss Taylor should take my other side. ‘Florence was doing the hiding and I was doing the seeking,’ she said, digging her talons into my arm. ‘And I think I have won.’

‘Ow!’ I cried, and then added, ‘My ankle!’ for I did not want to give her the satisfaction of having made me cry out. ‘I think I have turned it.’

With one arm under my shoulder to support me, Theo bent down to examine it. ‘Well, it certainly does seem to be swelling up something grand. We shall have to help you back to the house.’

So they supported me, one either side, while I hopped along as best I could in the middle. No sooner had we set off than Theo began coughing and we had to stop while he gave himself another squirt of medicine.

‘It’s how come I’m here,’ he said as we set off again. ‘I went down with a bad attack of asthma the day before we were due to sail. My folks had to go off without me. I was in the hospital and then under the care of my aunt. Now they’ve sent me out here to recuperate in the better air.’

‘You don’t mind?’ I said.

‘Not at all. I’m master of the house. I have ice cream with every meal.’

‘I didn’t mean that, silly. I meant, not going to Europe.’

‘I guess not. After all, it was only to see a load of old ruins and paintings and such and I reckon I can go another time and they’ll still be there.’

As we neared the house Meg and John came running toward us, for Giles had alerted Mrs Grouse to my fleeing the house chased by Miss Taylor and they had all been looking for us. John took charge and lifted me into his arms as if I
were no more than a feather, leaving Theo free to enjoy a good cough. Miss Taylor hurried off to change her dress while I was laid on a chaise in the drawing room.

Mrs Grouse mother-henned over me, wringing her hands. ‘Oh dear, whatever has happened? Why did you run off like that?’

I had no answer. My first thought was to tell her all that had occurred and to trust to her good sense that she would see Miss Taylor for what she was and inform my uncle. The trouble was, I anxioused about being believed. What if I told her about the steamship tickets but our new governess came up with some story to explain them away? I should then have to hand them back and thereby return to her the power to take Giles away. But keeping them and staying silent might not avail me anything either. I knew nothing about the way steamship companies conducted themselves. For all I knew, it might be but a simple matter for Miss Taylor to say she had lost the tickets and get them replaced. I looked up and saw her in the mirror over the fireplace, thoughtfulling down at me, as if trying to guess my next move.

I resolved not to tell Mrs Grouse about the tickets, at least not yet. The best plan I could hit upon was to show them to Hadleigh, for they represented the evidence that he would want before being able to act. The weakness with this plan was the difficulty in contacting the captain. Time was running out. I had already used one of my fourteen days. If I could not get to Hadleigh then there would be nothing for it but to throw myself upon the mercy of Mrs Grouse. But, whichever I did, first I would need to have the tickets in my possession. Even were I to tell Mrs Grouse about the tickets, I could not let her know about the tower room because I did not wish to surrender it as a possible bolthole, a storage
place for secret things and a base. And yet because of my ankle, there was no way I would be able to make the difficult ascent there.

‘I will explain later,’ I told the puzzled housekeeper. ‘If you don’t mind, I would like some time now to chat with Mr Van Hoosier.’

Mrs Grouse doubtfulled a nod and said she would fetch us a pot of tea.

As soon as she was gone I motioned Theo to come closer. He bent his head over mine and ambushed me a kiss plumb on the lips. ‘Not now, Theo, there isn’t time!’ I said, my cheeks hotting up, for it shamed me to be kissed with the governess watching from her mirror. ‘As soon as Giles hears that you’re here he’ll be along like a shot. Now put your ear to my lips and listen, for I have no idea if the mirrors can hear.’

He puzzled me one at this. ‘The mirrors…can hear?’ He upped his eyebrows, but when I took hold of his lapels and pulled him close he raised no objection, figuring no doubt it would put him in the way of another kiss. I soon disillusioned him that, twisting his head so that it was his ear lined up with my mouth, not his lips. I whispered to him about the mirrors and how Miss Taylor had practically the whole house watched. At this Theo let out a mighty guffaw and broke away from me. He stood over me, staring down.

‘Florence, are you sure it’s only your ankle that took a knock? You didn’t by any chance get a bang on the head too?’

‘Theo, it’s true,’ I hissed. ‘I swear by anything you care to name.’

He condescended me a smile, put his hands in his pants pockets and took a casual turn about the room, stopping at the mirror and peering into it for a while, making adjustments
to his necktie as he did. Satisfied he looked quite the beau, he came and sat on the end of the chaise.

‘Florence,’ he whispered, a smile playing about his lips, ‘I have to tell you, she ain’t there.’

‘She’s there, all right,’ I hissed back, bridling at his mockery, ‘but I’m the only one can see her.’

‘Oh, I see – or rather I don’t!’ He patronised me such a nod I would have hit him were I not desperate for his help.

‘Anyhow, never mind about the mirror now, humour me about it if you like, but just listen.’ I had decided to entrust him with one of my greatest secrets. After I had expounded to him my belief that Miss Taylor was planning to take Giles away and the confirmation of it I had received in finding the steamship tickets, I whispered him how to get to the tower room and where to find them. ‘But not yet, Theo, not yet. You won’t have time to do it before Giles gets here and she reappears. We must bide our time. I will tell you when.’

As if this were a cue the door opened and Miss Taylor, now in another dress, black like the other, glided in. She had put her hair up again and cleaned up the thorn cuts on her face and powdered over them so you would scarce have noticed anything different about her at all, if indeed there was. I thought that maybe it was not face paint that had restored her features; perhaps a ghost may renew itself whenever it fancies.

‘Ah, Mr Van Hoosier.’ She beamed a charmer at Theo. ‘You are still here.’ Theo awkwarded upright as if caught doing something he should not, as indeed he had been, listening to my seditious talk. ‘It was so kind of you to take care of Florence, but I think that now I must ask you to cease your ministrations, for the poor girl’ – here she sarcasticked me one – ‘needs rest.’

Theo stood his ground. ‘But ma’am, her ankle…’

‘I have sent John for the doctor. He will be here directly. Now I think if you’ll just step outside…’

Theo was left with no choice. He gave my hand a squeeze. ‘You take care, Florence. I’ll be back tomorrow.’ She ushered him out as if he were a docile cow and I was left alone, listening to the drone of their voices in the hall. The door to the drawing room opened and Giles stood there, holding the handle, not coming into the room but warying me from the threshold.

‘Giles,’ I said, ‘what’s the matter?’

‘Gee, Flo, what was that all about? You must have done something real bad to make her so mad.’

‘Come in, Giles, and close the door,’ I loud whispered him. ‘Come on, hurry!’

He hesitated a moment but then did as I asked. He slowed over to me but still stood a couple of feet off, just out of reach. ‘What’s going on, Flo? Why did she chase you like that? Was it because you went into her room? You left your cloak there, didn’t you? Why did you do that?’

‘Never mind that now, Giles, you must listen to me.’ I dropped my voice to a whisper because of the mirror. ‘I have proof that she means to take you away. I found the steamship tickets.’

His face brightened. ‘Steamship tickets? I’m going on a boat?’

‘Yes, if she isn’t stopped. To Europe.’

‘Europe?’ He thought a moment then said, ‘Why has Theo come back from Europe so soon? Didn’t he like it there?’

‘He never went. He had an asthma attack.’

‘Oh.’

‘Didn’t you speak to him?’

‘Only to say hello. Miss Taylor told me he was just leaving.’

Right on cue I heard the front door close and through the window I saw Theo, walking backwards away from the house, looking at it with an expression that mixed puzzlement with concern. I feebled a wave, which was difficult, laid out as I was on the couch, but it obvioused he could not see and he turned and walked away down the drive.

The door opened again and Miss Taylor came in. She was all smiles with Giles, although I saw that he waried her as he had me. He had, after all, seen her wilding at me earlier, which must have somewhat shaken his impression of her as all sweetness and light. I bethought me that this was something I might work on, that it might opportunity me to drive a wedge between them.

‘Giles,’ she said, ‘please go up to the schoolroom, there’s a good fellow, and fetch Florence’s book for her, will you? Oh, and her embroidery, of course.’ She meaningfulled me one. ‘After all, we mustn’t give away her secret, must we?’

As soon as he was gone she strode over to me. ‘Now listen to me, young lady, and listen well.’ She practically spat the words out. I, of course had no choice but to listen, for I was as a prisoner shackled here by my useless ankle. ‘I want what is mine. You will hand them over now or suffer the consequences.’

‘I cannot do that.’

She sat on the edge of the couch, stretched out her hand and applied it to my ankle, squeezing hard the swelling so that it was all I could do not to cry out. ‘Give them to me!’

‘I cannot, for I do not have them about me.’

She released her grip and suspicioned me a long look, her eyes travelling up and down my body as though she might be contemplating searching me, or else was considering where about my person the tickets might be hid.

‘Go ahead, look,’ I said. ‘You won’t find them.’

‘Very well. But you will tell me where they are.’

‘That’s what you think, you fiend.’

She stood. ‘I can make life very difficult for you, little girl, if you persist in crossing me.’

‘I will not stand by and let you take my brother away.’

‘Your half-brother, you mean. And you are right, you will not stand by, for you will not be standing at all for some days. You will be lying helpless as you are now.’

‘You will only take Giles over my dead body.’

‘Let us hope it doesn’t come to that.’ She was annoyed, I could see it, frustrated that I intransigenced so. ‘Come now,’ she said, in a more conciliatory tone, ‘you may as well give me what’s mine, for they can in no way serve you and the loss of them is but an inconvenience to me. I have only to write a letter to get them replaced. Why not make things easy for us both by telling me where they are?’

‘They are where you will never find them. And you are quite wrong, they are not useless to me. They are proof of your devilish plans.’

She long-silenced me one and then turned and glided from the room, leaving behind her a trail of anger and frustration.

That afternoon the doctor visited and pronounced my ankle sprained and prescribed complete rest and keeping all weight off it for a week. So I lay in the drawing room pretending to sew but really reading my book, which I covered whenever Mrs Grouse or any of the servants came in. And this was my pattern for the next few days. Every morning John would carry me down from my room and set me up for the day on the couch. At mealtimes a small table was brought to me and my food laid out on it. In the evening John carried me back to my room. I had no idea what Miss Taylor had told Mrs Grouse concerning our chase through the woods but, whatever it was, it obvioused she had convinced her that it had been but a game, for it was clear the good housekeeper suspected nothing. At times when I aloned with her I bethought me to tell her all, but held back, for I still doubted being believed. No, my best plan had to be for Theo to get the tickets and then somehow convey them to Hadleigh and thereby prove our new governess’s intentions.

The immediate problem I had with this was how Theo was to gain possession of the tickets, for Miss Taylor, taking the doctor at what I considered to be more than his word, had deemed ‘complete rest’ to mean no visitors. She even
kept Giles’s trips to see me to the minimum. Giles himself seemed to have gotten over his brief fear of her, which I suppose was only to be expected now that he aloned with her for most of every day. On his visits to me he parried any attempt of mine to renew talk of his impending trip with his usual childish prattle.

‘Giles,’ I whispered, when we aloned for an instant one morning, ‘has she said anything to you about going away with her?’

‘Flo,’ he stonewalled, ‘now that you’ve tried being without the use of one of your legs for a while, which would you rather have, a leg chopped off or one of your eyes gouged out?’

How was I to answer that?

It difficulted me greatly that I could think of no way to get Theo into the house to put my plan into action; the whole thing hopelessed, for she had banned him quite. So I was surprised on the third morning of my indisposition to look out the drawing room window and up the drive and see a familiar figure heroning its way toward the house. A moment later Mrs Grouse showed him into me.

‘Theo,’ I gasped, the moment we were alone, ‘how did you get around her prohibition?’

‘By appealing to a greater authority,’ he whispered, for I put a finger to my lips to shh him and indicated the mirror with a nod of my head. He pumped out his chest like a cock pigeon when it is courting the hen. ‘I faked an asthma attack, so my people fetched the doctor and in passing I happened to mention it was a pity you weren’t allowed visitors. Naturally he said that was a load of nonsense and that nothing would do you more good. So here I am.’

‘How clever of you.’

‘Yes.’ He sheepished a little. ‘Mind you, he did say it wasn’t a good idea for me to go out at all, given the state, as he thought, of my asthma, but that’s another matter.’

At this moment Miss Taylor brusqued into the room, evidently having seen Theo through one of her mirrors, followed by Giles, who bounded up to him and regaled him with questions and entreaties to play this and that. Miss Taylor patiented until the first flush of Giles’s enthusiasm for our old friend had abated somewhat, then said, ‘I believe I mentioned to you, Mr Van Hoosier, that the doctor has ordered complete rest for Florence. We don’t want her getting over excited, now do we?’

Theo smiled. ‘I have to say, ma’am, I don’t rightly see how getting excited would have an effect upon a person’s ankle, but in any case I have it on good medical authority that it will do her good to have company,’ and he explained what the doctor had said, omitting the precaution about himself.

Miss Taylor stood chewing her lip and then said, ‘Very well, come along now, Giles, this is lesson time. You can see Mr Van Hoosier later.’

When Theo and I aloned we chatted some more, whispering as I explained what he must do with the tickets, should he secure them, and what he must tell Hadleigh, and then he stood up and said in kind of a stagey way, ‘Tell me, is there any book you require from the library?’ He had his back to the mirror and was making his eyebrows dance about to show he was not in earnest. I straightwayed what he was up to. Under cover of going to the library for me he could get to the tower and recover the tickets. I asked him for
Macbeth
.

So Theo set off. He went first to the library, found
Macbeth
where I had told him it would be and then made his way to the tower. He intentioned if he should encounter Miss Taylor en route there or on his way back to say he had taken a wrong turn when he left the library and gotten lost. With luck, Theo being so vague and stupid-seeming and all, he would be believed. As it fortuned, he met no one on his brief diversion, although Miss Taylor took it upon herself to look in on me while he was gone.

‘Where is Mr Van Hoosier?’ she demanded.

I could tell she suspicioned something. It obvioused she had seen him leave in her spyglass and had lost track of him when he left the library and turned right and went off her map.

‘He went to the library to fetch me a book.’ This much was true and accorded with what she would have seen.

Just then Theo returned. He handed me the book and, as he did so, with his back to her and her mirror, patted his breast pocket. ‘Well, Florence, I’m afraid I must be off,’ he said, adding with studied significance, ‘I have things to do.’

That is the worst about involving such as Theo and Giles in one’s plots: they have not my gift for it. Miss Taylor immediately ear-pricked. ‘Oh yes, Mr Van Hoosier, and what might those things be?’

Theo coloured and began to stammer, the which turned into a cough, and that in turn led to the necessity of a spray. When he had recovered himself he said, ‘Oh, this and that, Miss Taylor. Some mathematics and Greek. My tutor keeps me hard at it and I must be up to the mark with my studies for when I am well enough to return to school.’

This recovery was good by Theo’s standards but I inwarded a curse that he had all but ruined things by trying to be too
smart. Now it obvioused that the governess knew he had the tickets. She would not know what he had them for, but it would have been better had she remained in the dark as to where they were.