Master of Melincourt (5 page)

It seemed to her that hours passed while she was shut up inside such cramped quarters. The light faded, and although through the barred windows she could see stars and the edge of the roof on the opposite side of the courtyard she could see nothing else. Apart from Marquis’s angry stamping and snorting there were no other sounds, and Mothball was too light and airy a creature to make any sound. Every now and again it came close to Edwina and pressed up against her, and she was so thankful that it interposed its bulk between her and the partition on the other side of which the grey refused to be quiet for longer than a few seconds at a time that her fingers went out automatically to caress it.
She began
to understand perfectly that Tina could be fond of it, even violently fond. And she knew that if ever she was released from her place of confinement: her affection for Mothball would be greater than anything the child could bestow on it.

She longed to sit down, but from that point of view Mothball’s presence in the stall was a disadvantage, for she feared that if she sat on the ground the pony might well trample all over her in the dark. And besides, she was too much afraid of Marquis to leave the support of the door, even though it refused to open and let her free.

Inside her head her thoughts became a confused jumble, and she wondered whether, if ever, Tina would remember her promise and come and release her. She wondered what she was doing inside the house, and what Mrs. Blythe the housekeeper thought of her continued absence, and whether she believed that she was shut inside her room and not wishing to be disturbed.

She wondered whether Tina could possibly have forgotten her, or whether it was deliberate cruelty on her part keeping her where she
was
...
whether she intended to keep her there all night, and if so what kind of a surprise was in store for the stable hand who eventually found her.

By that
time her
hair would probably have turned white—especially
if Marquis continued his occasional assaults on the partition that separated them—and she might not be entirely in her right mind. She was very cold by this time, and her teeth would be chattering, and she might be inclined to foam at the mouth, and her eyes would almost certainly be wild and staring.

And another almost certainly, her legs would have given way under her, and she would be found lying on the hard stone floor.

At last ...
at long, long
last, footsteps came across
the
yard,
s
omeone whistled tunelessly, and the stable door
was thrust open. She
heard
a
voice exclaim: “Holy Moses! But
it
can’t
be...” And t
hen, with so much concern
in
the voice that it was like
a
warm blanket wrapped round her, “Are you all right, Miss Sands? What in the world are you doing here? How did you manage to get yourself
shut in?”
He was kneeling beside her on the hard ground, Bennett, the man who was in charge of the stables, and his ho
rn
y hands were doing their best to help her to her feet. She was so stiff that she clung to him.

“I didn’t mean to sit down. I thought it better
to stand...”

“But—but how—?”

He reached for the electric light switch which she hadn’t even noticed, and the whole place became flooded with radiance. Marquis, objecting to it, stamped up and down, and Mothball, who had been very quiet and quiescent, blinked protestingly. Bennett shouted over the partition at the grey:

“Get back, you—
!”

He was startled by the sight of Miss Sands’ pale, drawn face, and asked her anxiously:

“Do you think you can walk, miss? Or would you like me to carry you?”

“No, no, I’m perfectly all right.” She was drawing deep breaths of the cool night air, and although her whole body was shaken with cold the very freshness of it and the unconfined quality of it revived her. She walked stiffly across the yard at Bennett’s side,
and he explained that he had forgotten his keys, and had come back to look for them.

“Otherwise you’d have been in there all night. But how did you come to be shut in, miss?” His bewildered look said plainly that he had never detected in her a particular preference for the stables. “Did someone shut you in?” his eyes narrowing.

“No, no,” she answered again, a little too eagerly this time. “I—it was an accident. I came across to have a look at—to have a look at—-Mothball, and by accident I allowed the door to close behind me.”

“Oh, yes?” She could tell by his sudden dark look, and the drawl in his speech, that he didn’t believe her—that nothing would induce him to believe her. “And what was Miss
Tin
a doing all the time you were shut up with Mothball? It’s eleven o’clock now, and by the looks of you you were shut up some time
.
.. ho
urs
, I’d say. Did Miss Tina think you’d vanished into thin air, or something? And didn’t
she
think it was worth mentioning to anyone?”

“She thought I’d gone to my room, with a—a headache...”

“Oh, yeah?” he returned this time. “And at what time was that?”

“Five o’clock... half past five. I can’t remember.”

“So you were shut up in the stables since five o’clock?”

“Oh, it must have been later than that.”

He decided to cease putting her through any further inquisition, and with the occasional assistance of his arm, and his coat wrapped round her, they reached a side entrance to the house, and she prepared to dip through it like a shadow, plainly not anxious to attract any further attention to herself.

She handed him back his coat.

“Thank you so much, Bennett,” she said, with real gratitude in her voice. “I’ve never been so pleased to see anyone in my life as I was to see you!”

“I can believe it, miss.” He looked down at her from his considerable height. “Did that brute Marquis give you any trouble? He couldn’t have got at you, you know. You were quite safe.”

She said thinly, apologetically, “I’m frightened of horses.”

“I know.”

She smiled up at him wryly, her small, pale face quite shaking his heart.

“Was it so obvious
?
”

“I’m afraid it was, miss. But I shouldn’t worry about that, if I were you. Me, I don’t like black cats. Can’t think what it is about them, but I simply can’t stand them. And I don’t like rats, neither.”

She smiled again, in a distinctly wobbly manner. “You won’t say anything, will you?”

“About to-night, you mean
?
Not if you don’t want me to—”

“I don’t.”

He looked as if he disagreed with her—violently. “I’d like to give that kid
—
But there, I suppose she’s half ruined by the boss. Do you think you’ll be all right, miss? You don’t think you ought to see a doctor, or get me to rouse the housekeeper?” thinking she still looked alarmingly pale.

“No, thank you, I’ll be perfectly all right,” she repeated mechanically. All she wanted to do was to slip away up the dark side stairs and reach her room that way. “Perfectly all right,” she added.

“If I were you, I’d have a nip of brandy—” as if she was bound to keep it in her room—“before I got into bed. You look as if you need it,” he added feelingly.

She made her way slowly up to her room, her limbs still feeling very stiff, and when she reached it she was startled to find Tina sitting in a curiously crouching attitude on the side of her bed. She had been sitting in the dark, and her face was strained. The moment Edwina switched on the light she jumped off the bed and flew across the room to her.

“Oh, thank goodness someone let you out! I was beginning to wonder what I was going to do—”

“About what?”

Edwina’s voice was clear and cold, and she moved mechanically into the centre of the room and, when she reached it, knelt down in front of the electric fire and turned it on.

“About you, of course.” Tina’s voice was extremely strained, and rather husky, but there was a faint hint of impatience in it, too. “All the evening I’ve been worrying and worrying because I couldn’t get across to let you out, and I thought perhaps you might have a fit or something, if no one let you out!”

“I’m sorry you seem to have had a disturbed evening,” Edwina
replied, looking at her distantly with far-away eyes, “but mine wasn’t particularly comfortable. However, I didn’t have a fit, or anything of that kind, so you can allow your anxiety to abate. But why didn’t you let me out as you promised?” she enquired with sudden biting sharpness. “Are your promises like pie-crust, or did you forget that you’d locked me up in the stables?”

Tina drew a deep breath.

“I didn’t forget... of course I didn’t forget. But I just didn’t have the chance to do what I promised. When I got back here after—after locking you up, the vicar was here, and he wanted to see you as well as me, so I had to pretend you’d be in any moment, and he sat there talking and talking ... and of course you didn’t come, and at last he had to go away. And then Mrs. Blythe sent me down to the kitchen to fetch our supper because Anne, the housemaid who looks after us, had sprained her ankle or something like that, and had had to go down to the doctor’s surgery. And then on my way upstairs I dropped the tray with the plates and knives and things on it, and all the china was smashed, and there was a horrible mess, and Mrs. Blythe was so cross she sent me to bed without my supper
...
and I’d already told her that you didn’t want any because you’d got a headache. I said you thought you’d got a touch of sun.”

“Highly inventive of you,” Edwina commented coldly—indeed, with nothing short of arctic coldness. “I don’t think your uncle realises what a clever child you are. And what happened after you were sent to bed without your supper? Did the lack of food deprive you of the strength to go across and let me out?”

“N-no, of course not
...
But I thought I’d wait until Mrs. Blythe had had her supper, and had gone to her sitting-room to watch television, and then steal out and let you out. But by that time,” she admitted, “it was dark, and I—I don’t like the dark—”

“You mean you’re afraid of the dark?” with scathing coolness.

“I’ve never been out alone in the dark,” the child defended herself, “and it’s a long way to the stables.”

“It was also very dark in the stables, since I neglected to find out the position of the electric light switch,” Edwina informed her, with the same air of frozen calm. “But I’ve no doubt if you’d thought of it you’d have been good enough to inform me where it was before you left me to my own devices.”

Tina sounded suddenly exasperated.

“But I didn’t
mean
to do it! I mean, I didn’t mean you to be there in the dark
!”
she attempted to convince Edwina.

“But you did mean to shut me in, didn’t you? That wasn’t by any chance the result of a mental aberration
?
”

“A mental wh-what?”

“Oh, forget it!” Edwina rose from her knees, and looked down in an appalled fashion at her stained cotton dress. A long, long time ago she had been looking forward to a bath and a change of garments, but that seemed so long ago now that it might have been in another existence. However, she was beginning to feel a little warmer, and her teeth were less inclined to chatter, and altogether she felt stronger and more like herself. The sight of the child’s concern aroused a measure of sympathy inside her, for Tina’s face was so woebegone and so apprehensive that it was plain she had had a good many twinges of conscience during the course of the evening, and no doubt, also, her imagination had pictured a good many things happening to Edwina.

There must have been moments when the thought of what she had done—and could not, apparen
tl
y, undo—came near to filling her with a larger amount of alarm than she had felt in the whole course of her life up till now.

“I think we’d better forget what happened tonight,” Edwina said distinctly ... and, she realised, with decidedly unfair magnanimity. Tina herself would almost certainly have preferred to be violently upbraided, since she knew she had done something outrageous, and the whole object of the exercise had been to undermine Miss Sands’ determination to remain at Melincourt in the position of her governess. She was not magnanimous herself by nature, and she didn’t like things being overlooked.

But when she allowed herself to look curiously at Edwina’s face she was not so sure that relations would ever be the same again between her and Miss Sands.

“You—you hate me, don’t you?” she said huskily, and somewhat theatrically.

Edwina looked down at her with a smooth, pale mask of a face.

“I don’t hate anyone,” she told her tonelessly, “and I certainly can’t work up the enthusiasm to hate a self-centred child like you.”

“Wh-what is self-centred?” Tina enquired, lapsing into the stammer that affected her speech sometimes.