Florence and Giles (17 page)

The next few days were an agony to me, laid up helpless as I was, not only unable to do anything to halt the progress of Miss Taylor’s plans but also in the most terrible ignorance as to the furtherance of my own. I had no way of knowing what Theo was up to. It occurred to me that the answer might simply be nothing, nothing at all. Suppose he considered what he had seen, a half-crazed girl in a state of unseemly disarray pursued through the woods by her governess, together with what I had told him, that this same governess was a ghost, the spirit of a previous governess come back to haunt us and steal away my brother, although for what motive it was unclear; moreover, that this spirit could see like an owl in the dark, without recourse to candles, walk on water and watch people through all the mirrors in the house? What if he considered all that and decided I was plainly not in my right mind? It was a great deal to expect even someone so naïve as Theo to believe.

But then again, the boy besotted with me…

About the only entertainment I had during my recuperation was in dodging my book out of the sight of Mrs Grouse and Meg, who both so mother-henned me that I was not often left with a whole hour to myself. I would no sooner settle
myself down to read than one or other of them would be in to make up the fire or bring me a drink or some little delicacy, a cake or cookie which Meg had prepared especially (and no doubt consumed half a dozen of herself), so that I constanted grabbing my embroidery and holding it over my book. Thus I found myself reading in stops and starts and it was almost like the old three-or-four-paging days in the tower when I had to look up to see if Theo was upping the drive. I wondered that Mrs Grouse didn’t in turn wonder how my embroidery made no progress, or if she secretly thought me another Penelope, unravelling by night what I stitched by day.

The other thing I anxioused about was what that witch our new governess might be up to with Giles. For apart from a few minutes here or there, such as after a meal, she kept him from me, away up in the schoolroom, my absence opportunitying her perfectly to poison his mind against me and seduce him to her plans. Although I had little chance to alone with Giles, when I did manage to whisper a question to him he reticented, hanging his head and avoiding my eyes, and then quickly changed the subject. Giles will not give up a secret easily, but he is not good at concealing the fact that he has one. It obvioused that now he was part of her plan, his secrets were with her, not me.

There was no way in which I could alter this for now; all I could do was Lady of Shalott my way through the days, waiting for Hadleigh to shining-armour up the drive. But on the fourth day it was not Hadleigh who came, but Theo.

I could tell there was something wrong the moment he walked through the door. He so anxioused that he almost rushed into the room and blurted it right out, but I held up a finger and nodded toward the mirror to caution him to hold his fire. He came and nexted me on the couch.

‘Did you see Hadleigh?’ I whispered. ‘What did he say?’

Theo shook his head miserably. ‘It took me until yesterday to get into town. I had another asthma attack, a real one this time – it’s very bad at the moment – and was laid up, so my tutor wouldn’t countenance letting me go. Not that I was capable of it anyhow.’

I impatiented through all this, for Theo’s asthma did not hold the interest for me that it did for him. When does the illness of anyone other than one’s self? But I said nothing, for I did not want to impression him I did not care. Theo was now my only ally until Hadleigh should come.

‘So what happened?’ I hissed, but before he could answer Theo plunged into a fit of coughing, the worst I had ever witnessed him have, so that between coughs his intake of breath was a rasp, like someone sawing wood, or scraping nails on a slate. It teeth-edged me quite.

Theo took out his spray and gave himself a good puff and the fit eventually quieted. ‘Well, yesterday I was much better and asked if I might go out in the carriage for a drive. My tutor didn’t want to accompany me – he never does, he prefers to swot his life away at his books – and so, once in the carriage, I ordered the man to drive me into town. There I said I wanted to visit the stationer’s to see if they had in any new books and so was able to sneak off to the police station.’

‘But you didn’t manage to see Hadleigh?’ I difficulted to keep my voice from exasperating. I so wished it could have been me and not Theo walking those sidewalks; I felt I should not have failed, although in this I was soon proved wrong.

‘No, that’s what I’m coming to.’

‘But why ever not?’ I knew I was sounding angry but I could not help myself. My brother’s very existence might
depend upon this and to be so let down hopedashed me quite.

‘Because he wasn’t there!’ Theo snapped that one back at me in the same tone, wormturning at my annoyance with him. Mollified, I held up a finger, for he louded enough for the mirror to hear.

He lowered his voice. ‘His clerk said he was away working on an important case. He’s in New York. He’ll be gone for a month.’

A tear stole from my eye and down my cheek, I felt so the frustration of being balked at every turn. ‘Then there is no hope. No hope at all.’

‘Wait, Florence, you haven’t heard it all yet. The clerk asked me my business and I mentioned that I was not there on my own behalf but from you, at which the clerk said in that case he had something for you, a letter.’

‘Keep your voice down!’ I hissed again. ‘A letter, where is it?’

‘Why, inside my jacket. Do you reckon it’s safe to pass it over here?’

‘Wait a moment, let me think.’ I looked up at the mirror. If Theo came any closer either my modesty would be compromised or it would obvious he was passing something to me. ‘Listen, where is it in your jacket?’

‘In the inner breast pocket on my right-hand side. The tickets are there too.’

‘All right, I’m going to speak normally now. When I do, you do just as I ask and I’ll slip my hand inside your jacket and take the letter, OK?’

Theo wide-eyed at the pleasurable impropriety of this. ‘OK!’

‘Theo,’ I alouded, ‘I have slid down on the couch somewhat. I wonder if you would be so kind as to lift me up a little?’

‘Why of course, Miss Florence, I shall be delighted to assist you.’ He really did hopeless any kind of subterfuge! Nevertheless, he stood up and, bending over me, got his hands under my elbows and made to lift me up. I slid my right hand inside his jacket, felt instantly the letter and tickets and extracted them, and, as he released me, slipped my booty under my embroidery, it being the last thing anyone in the house had ever evinced any interest in. With Theo between me and the mirror, I managed from there to transfer the contraband inside the bodice of my frock.

The strange thing was that although all this must have suspicioned Miss Taylor in the mirror, she did not put in an appearance in person. I wondered at this, for she knew Theo had the tickets, and here he was, behaving strangely before her very eyes. It puzzled me quite. It was almost as if she did not care any more about the tickets and made me think that, as she had threatened, she had simply written for and obtained replacements. If this were the case, it suited me, for holding on to the tickets had never been a guarantee of preventing her plan, but rather only to have the proof of its existence. What it also meant was that Miss Taylor had no fear of me, which could only be because she had no knowledge of my visit to Hadleigh or that his visit here had been anything but what it surfaced to be. On the other hand, perhaps now she had no need to fear any aid to me from that quarter, for Hadleigh was apparently out of the picture and would be so until long after she had implemented her plan and awayed my hapless brother.

Theo stayed with me a couple of hours, during which time, of course, Meg came in, so that we were soon feasting on bread and honey and cakes. No one had sent to fetch Miss Taylor and she chose not to come of her own accord.
Were it not for the impending danger and the letter – which of course I could not yet read – burning a hole through my bodice, we might have pleasant afternooned. As it was, it was all too easy to slip from superficialling a remark about this or that, a book or some such, back to the matter which now preoccupied us both, and each of us had at times to stop the other mid-speech, for at some moments we often forgot to quiet before the mirror. It even occurred to me that this might be Miss Taylor’s scheme, to alone us and give us rope enough to hang ourselves by our forgetting we were watched.

Although we tried to recapture our old jollity, and I think that Theo almost did – because for him, perhaps, all the business with our new governess was but a bit of a game, something he did not truly believe in – there was something strained in our relationship. The fault was mine; I was using him, for I wanted him not so much as a friend that afternoon but as a means of making slow hours pass more quick.

It eventuated that he had to leave and I aloned my dinner off a little table, not even being able to read as I ate for fear of discovery by one of the servants. Afterward Giles came in and bantered with me for a while, but in truth I did not want his company either but longed for him to be called up to his bed and for John to come to fetch me to mine.

In the end time passed, as it always will, and John deposited me in my bed. As usual, Mary brought me my nightgown and made to help me change into it, as she had every night of my indisposition, but I told her I did not need her and sent her away. It feared me the letter from Hadleigh might be revealed as she took off my dress. When I quite sured she was gone, I slid the letter and tickets under my mattress, changed into my nightgown, blew out my candle and slipped between the sheets. I had a long wait now until Miss Taylor
looked in and then retired for the night – that is, as much as she ever slept the whole night, what with her nocturnal visit to Giles and all.

After her brief inspection, with no timepiece visible in the dark I counted the long watches of the night by the hoots of my old friend the owl, surely the most inaccurate clock any person ever had, but when I certained it was well past midnight, the witching hour as they say in books, I decided it safe to light my candle and take out the letter. I had been thinking of nothing else these long hours, as well you might imagine, for I had no idea what it might contain. Why should Hadleigh write to me? What could he possibly have to say? I unoptimisted about it, for I feared it would be but a lecture on grief and remorse, that I should read and dwell in my imagination less and get out into the world more.

Dear Florence,

I am leaving this letter for you because a special assignment takes me away from my post for a few weeks. I wanted to reassure you that I have not forgotten the business we discussed, although at the time we spoke I had severe doubts for your reason and, had I been a medical man, might have diagnosed a serious case of hysteria in you. For that I now owe you an apology, because although I have to say your feelings about your governess are too fantastical for a sensible body to credit your suspicions, they may not be entirely without foundation. After my visit to you I made immediate contact with the agency that arranged Miss Taylor’s employment as your governess. The first thing that was somewhat strange was that she did not answer an advertisement for the post because they did not
place one, relying instead upon the teachers they had already on their books, although Miss Taylor was not one of those. Not only that, but when she contacted them, she was not looking for general employment, but asked specifically about the post at Blithe. The lady I spoke to formed the impression that Miss Taylor had contacted several other agencies as well, to see if the post was one they had been asked to fill. Unfortunately the agency was none too diligent in checking Miss Taylor out. They were so delighted to have someone who was ready to take the post without any haggling as to salary (your uncle, it seems is none too generous in that respect) or other conditions such as wishing to interview the children first and so on, and who moreover knew of the unfortunate circumstances under which the post had become vacant and who did not mind – it seems such accidents not uncommonly discourage many applicants – that they simply offered it to her.

This in itself would not matter, a bird in the hand and all that, except that, when pressed, they admitted that they were in such a hurry to appoint her, having no other suitable candidate, they took the two letters of reference they had from her at face value and made no further checks. I am now in New York and yesterday attempted to visit the two referees, only to find that the addresses in the letters do not exist. Now for that to happen with one address might be put down to a simple mistake, but two? Something is not right here.

I suggest you show this letter to Mrs Grouse, who I expect will confront Miss Taylor or may wish to write your uncle about it. He will no doubt want to investigate
the matter further and should it prove Miss Taylor has indeed fabricated her history then I am sure she will be dismissed and any bother to you and Giles removed. I hope this clears the matter up for you.

With all good wishes

Your friend

Frank Hadleigh

I clenched the letter in triumph. I had it! At last I had it, the proof, the ocular proof that I was not some crazy child, but that our new governess was not who she purported to be, but a fraud, a fake. Along with the steamship tickets, it would surely be convincing evidence she was up to no good and enough to persuade Mrs Grouse to order her from the house without waiting to hear from my uncle. I wanted to dance. I wanted to remove the cloth I threw over the mirror every night and pirouette before the evil witch’s very eyes. I no longer cared if she knew what I was thinking, for I had all but won. Giles was safe!

I could not wait for it to morning. At the very earliest intimation of light seeping in around the edges of the drapes, I hauled myself up so I was sitting on the edge of my bed and, with some difficulty because of my ankle, which, although much stronger now, would still not bear my full weight, managed to pull off my nightgown and replace it with my frock. By the time I had finished this the first lark had sung and it was now light enough for me to reckon it the time when Mrs Grouse would be up and about, which was always before we children and Miss Taylor.

I concealed Hadleigh’s letter and the steamship tickets inside the bodice of my dress, then hopped across the room to my wardrobe, took a spare chemise from it and hopped to the door. Because I could not walk normally, short of laying me down and dragging myself inch by inch, hopping was my only means of locomotion. It anxioused me that it was so noisy Miss Taylor must hear me bumping around, but it fortuned she did not. There was no mirror in the upper corridor between my room and the staircase, so I did not fear being observed. When I reached the staircase I sat me down on the top step and shuffled my way onto the next and so on and in this fashion I soon downstairsed. With the
aid of the newel post at the bottom, I hauled myself upright again and hopped my way to the kitchen, where I found the housekeeper at breakfast with the servants. When I entered they were all laughing heartily at some joke or other, but the laughter stopped as soon as they saw me, for no one expected me to be able to move around on my own, and certainly not to come hopping in upon their meal. Seeing me, Mrs Grouse blushed and hurriedly took her napkin to her mouth, wiping away the smile. It obvioused she was embarrassed; it was bad enough having to eat with the servants, without being caught fraternising with them too.

‘Why, Miss Florence,’ she said, ‘what on earth are you thinking of? You know very well you’re not supposed to be on your feet.’ Then, seeing my expression, she said, ‘There’s nothing wrong, I hope?’

‘There is a great deal wrong, Mrs Grouse,’ I bolded. ‘And I must speak with you privately right away.’

Extremely agitated by my tone, the good woman abandoned her breakfast forthwith and had John carry me into her sitting room. He was about to put me down on the couch there but I cried out, ‘No, wait!’, pointed to the mirror on the wall and bade him carry me over to it. He exchanged a baffled look with the housekeeper but nevertheless complied. Once at the mirror, I draped the chemise over it, for this is why I had brought it, which occasioned another puzzled look from John to Mrs Grouse, which she returned with a shrug.

‘I do not want her watching us,’ I said to Mrs Grouse as John laid me down on the couch, at which the honest man’s eyebrow began to twitch in a most uncontrolled way.

Mrs Grouse signalled him to leave us and, soon as he was gone, said, ‘And who might “her” be? Is it someone who lives
in the mirror, perhaps?’ Her tone was patronising, pretending she thought my action might be reasonable, which of course, for anyone who did not know what was going on in the house, it was not.

‘Miss Taylor,’ I said.

Mrs Grouse merely stared at me.

‘I have some things to show you,’ I said and reached into my bodice and produced Hadleigh’s letter and the steamship tickets. She overed to me and I handed her the latter.

‘What are these?’ she said, after studying them a moment or two.

‘They’re steamship tickets for a voyage from New York to France,’ I told her.

‘Well, I see that. But what’s the meaning of it?’

‘I took them from Miss Taylor’s room.’

She stared at me, both puzzled and alarmed. ‘I don’t think you should have done that, my dear. That’s not at all right. You shouldn’t even have been in her room, let alone have taken things from her.’

‘But don’t you see, they’re her tickets.’

Mrs Grouse frowned. ‘But how do you know what they are, miss, when you can’t read?’

‘Never mind that now. The point is, they mean she is planning a trip. A trip for two.’

‘A trip…?’

Really, Mrs Grouse was uncommon slow. ‘Yes, for her and someone else. And look at the date.’

Mrs Grouse studied the tickets some more. ‘Why, that’s the end of next week. But I don’t understand. She has said nothing to me about leaving. And she could not go next week, for she would have to work out her notice period, which is three months.’

‘Ah, but you see she cares nothing for such things. She simply wants to take Giles.’

‘Giles?’ Mrs Grouse looked mystified beyond belief, her poor face crying out that this was all too much for her. ‘But why should she want to do that? It doesn’t make sense.’

At this I stumbled somewhat. For I could not tell her the real reason. I carefulled not to mention my theory that Miss Taylor and Whitaker were one and the same. My action with the mirror had already strained her credulity, although it had necessaried if we were to have privacy away from the governess’s prying eyes.

‘I – I don’t know, but I am sure as anything that’s what she intends. Anyway, that’s not all. Look at this.’ And I handed her Hadleigh’s letter.

It took her some considerable time to read it. When she reached the end, she said, ‘Frank Hadleigh. Isn’t that the police captain?’

‘Yes. I – I met him when we went to town to take Giles to the dentist and confided in him my suspicions about this evil woman. As you can see, they were entirely justified, for she has obviously tricked her way into her post. And why should she do that unless it were for some wicked purpose?’

Mrs Grouse scrutinised Hadleigh’s letter some more and I saw understanding spread across her face, and then a smile. ‘I knew it! I knew from the start there was something not right about that woman. Making me eat with the servants, indeed!’

She rose from her seat, her face a mask of determination. ‘We’ll see about this. Oh yes, we will, we’ll soon see about this.’

She brusqued from the room, leaving me stranded on the couch, and I heard her march to the breakfast room and
thrust open the door. Miss Taylor and Giles were evidently not yet there, for I heard her footsteps straightway march back out again and start up the stairs. I desperated to know what was going on and began to struggle to pull myself into a sitting position. It fortuned that Mrs Grouse had left the door open, for as I finally managed to sit up and swung myself round so that I could put my feet to the ground, I heard voices upstairs, from which I deduced that Mrs Grouse had met Miss Taylor and Giles on their way down to breakfast. I could hear Mrs Grouse’s angry tone, but frustratingly could not make out one word of what she was saying. A moment later Giles burst into the room.

‘Flo!’ he panted, obviously having run all the way downstairs, his eyes aglow with excitement. ‘You have to come quick. Miss Taylor and Mrs Grouse are having an almighty row!’

Then he stopped and remembered my ankle. ‘Oh,’ he said. He dashed across the room and offered me his shoulder to lean on, which was so like the old Giles and not at all like the new, uncaring one he had become under our new governess that it eye-watered me quite. I pointed out to him that he was offering me the wrong shoulder, for it was on my good side, and he hurried around me and I leaned on the other one.

From above we could hear both women’s voices now, the two of them shouting, but at the same time not distinct enough to possible us to understand anything. Giles and I had just outed the door into the hall when there was an almighty crash from above, followed by a thunderous bumping noise, and we were just in time to see the housekeeper come tumbling down the stairs, nearly all the way to the bottom, where her body came to rest while her head
seemed to carry on and whiplash onto the cold hard tiles of the hall floor with an almighty crack. She lay there completely still.

Giles hopped me over to her. We reached her just as Miss Taylor came running down the stairs, her expression all alarmed. At that moment John and Meg, having heard Mrs Grouse crashing down the stairs, burst into the hallway.

Miss Taylor looked around at us all. ‘She was all excited about something,’ she said, her eyes flicking from one to the other of us as though seeking acceptance for her words. ‘She was waving her hands about and, well, she was on the top step, with her back to the stairs and she must have overbalanced, for she went tumbling backwards. I – I tried to grab her, but it all happened so fast and…and, well, she was too far away.’ I noticed that in her hand she clutched Hadleigh’s letter and the steamship tickets.

Meg was on her knees by the housekeeper. She laid her head upon the other woman’s breast. Straightening up, she took charge. ‘She’s still breathing and I don’t see any blood, so there’s hope. John, get out the horse and ride to Dr Bradley. Tell him to get here with all possible speed. Miss Taylor, this isn’t a sight for children. You must get them right away.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ Miss Taylor murmured. I saw her slip the papers into her pocket. ‘Come along, children!’ She made to walk around the stricken housekeeper, obviously intending for us to go up to the schoolroom, but then, realising we were not following, she turned and, seeing Giles struggling, his shoulder under my arm, remembered my ankle. She walked back to us. With John gone for the doctor there was no one to carry me upstairs. She motioned Giles aside and put her arm beneath mine. ‘Come, we will go to the library.’

She helped me along the long corridor. Neither of us spoke.
I too upsetted about Mrs Grouse to think of anything else. I had known the woman all my life, or at least as long as I had memory for. She was often a silly old fool, but she had a kind heart and always meant well.

In the library Miss Taylor deposited me in a large armchair and began pacing up and down, her face, which I had only seen masked or false-smiling or angry, now contorted in an agony of anxiety. It pleasured me to twist the knife.

‘You have murdered her!’ I bolded.

She stopped in her ambulation and faced me. ‘No! Don’t say such a thing. It was an accident. The poor woman got excited about something and overbalanced and fell. That is all.’

‘You pushed her, you fiend!’

Giles alarmed a look from her to me. ‘Flo, you mustn’t talk like that. Why would Miss Taylor want to do that?’

‘Because she isn’t Miss Taylor,’ I said, glaring her one.

She took a step backward, as if I had prodded her, like one schoolboy goading another to fight.

‘Not Miss Taylor?’ Giles puzzled, then started to laugh. ‘Why, sis, of course she’s Miss Taylor. Who else would she be?’

‘Miss Whitaker!’ I said.

Our new governess stared at me a long moment, as I imagine a pugilist might stare at an opponent, weighing him up. At last she smiled and shook her head. ‘You mustn’t mind your sister, Giles. She has these strange fantasies.’ She walked over to the fire, pulled something from her pocket, which I knew must be Hadleigh’s letter, and thrust it into the flames. There was nothing I could do but watch it vanish into smoke, first flaring up and then the edges curling, so that it folded in upon itself and then turned black and crumpled to ash
and disappeared as if it had never been. I totally unevidenced now.

Giles looked from one to the other of us and then shrugged. ‘That was my idea, a long time ago, miss,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that now. Miss Whitaker was a real meanie. She wouldn’t let Flo come in here at all, or look at books. You’re not like her.’

Miss Taylor beamed him a kindly one. ‘Thank you, Giles.’

‘And, miss, you want to know something else?’

‘What, my dear?’

‘We haven’t had our breakfast.’

We walked and hopped back to the breakfast room. Mrs Grouse still lay at the foot of the stairs, the servants having been afraid to move her. Meg had comfortabled her by placing a pillow beneath her head and throwing a blanket over her. For a woman who often could appear angry or anxious when animated, the housekeeper looked strangely peaceful in repose. I could see the rhythmic rise and fall of her breast but she gave no other sign of life and certainly none of any awareness of what transpired around her.

We had just finished breakfast, or rather Giles had, for I ate as little as the governess, which is to say nothing at all, when we heard the doctor arrive. Shortly after, Miss Taylor was sent for, and from the way Dr Bradley behaved toward her (for Giles and I watched and listened by cracking open the diningroom door) it seemed that, at least in his own mind, he had appointed her head of the household. He told her that Mrs Grouse had suffered a concussion and was presently unconscious. When Miss Taylor asked what exactly that might mean, Bradley shook his head and muttered, ‘I’m afraid I cannot rightly answer that. It may be like an after
dinner’s sleep, as it were, from which she will awake unharmed and refreshed in the morning, or it could be that she will lapse into a coma, from which position the outcome could be more serious, much more serious. What I propose is that John and I carry her to her bed and make her comfortable there. I will visit again in the morning and, in two or three days, if there is no improvement, then I suggest we move her to the county hospital, where she can be kept under proper observation, just to be on the safe side.’

All this was duly done, and once everything had settled down again, we repaired once more to the library. I found the constant hopping tiring, but the one ray of light in my shattered universe was that having put my ankle to the ground a few times now, I could tell the pain was lessened and felt to myself that by the morning I would be well enough to walk upon it once more, although I decided I would quiet this fact, for which I had my reasons.

So there we were, the three of us in the library, me sullening a book, Giles at his lessons with Miss Taylor and billing and cooing with her as though nothing of any great moment had happened, as though his sister had never called her a murderess, as though none of us had ever heard of steamship tickets. There was but one big difference from the way things had been before, and that was that we were constantly broke in upon, for now, taking their cue from the doctor, all the servants deferred to Miss Taylor and constanted in and out to consult her on matters concerning the running of the house.