“No, not at all.”
“Fiona loves to talk about it, don’t you, Fiona?”
“I suppose so. By the way, I’ve made a sketch of that drinking vessel … how I think it should look if completed. Of course, we’ve only a fragment so far. It’s at home. Come and have a look at it when you’re passing.”
“I will,” said Roderick.
It struck me that, as I wondered about her, she might have similar thoughts about me. She might be asking herself how friendly / was with Roderick. She was watching me intently. I could not say in a hostile manner. She had been charmingly welcoming and friendly towards me.
It occurred to me that she must be in love with him.
As we walked back to the manor, talking about what we had seen that morning, I was preoccupied, thinking about my own feelings for Roderick.
Unsettled as my position was, I was being drawn more and more into life at Leverson Manor. My feelings were not only mixed; they went from one extreme to another. I was becoming more and more interested in the house. Sometimes it seemed to welcome me, at others to reject me.
On one occasion I was lost. In those first days it was easy to lose one’s way. There were so many doors: one could easily miss the one for which one looked and find oneself in a hitherto unexplored part of the house.
It was during my first week that this happened to me. I had come from my room and turned into a corridor which I had thought would take me to the staircase. When I realized my mistake, I tried to retrace my steps. I felt sure I was going in the right direction and would in due course come to the hall.
However, I found myself in a part of the house which I had never seen before. I came into a room with several windows and portraits along the wall facing them. The light was strong, for it was early morning and I had been on my way down to breakfast. The room faced east. There was a deep silence. I often felt this in the house when I found myself alone. It was rather disconcerting. There was a table in a corner and beside it a piece of unfinished tapestry on a frame; in another corner of the room was a spinning wheel.
I looked about me. I guessed this was one of the older parts of the house. I tried to fight off that familiar feeling which came to me now and then that I was being watched. It was most uncanny.
I should have tried to retrace my steps immediately, but there was something about the place which made me pause.
I glanced at the pictures on the wall. There were about six of them in ornate frames, and the subjects wore clothes of several early periods. I studied them—Leversons and Claverhams, I guessed. The eyes of some seemed to look straight at me and they made me feel uneasy. As I stared, their expressions seemed to change and to regard me with derision, distrust and dislike.
I was growing very fanciful since I had come here. It was because, in spite of the welcome I had had from Charlie and Roderick, in my heart I knew I should not be here. I wondered what my mother would have been like if she had married Charlie and come to live here. The house would have been different then. She would have dispersed that aura of formality. She would have snapped her fingers at the past.
I moved towards the unfinished tapestry in the frame. I recognized it at once. It was the house itself, in all its splendour. I recognized the coat of arms worked in blues, reds and gold.
There was a rustle behind me. I started guiltily. Lady Constance had come silently into the room and was watching me.
“You are interested in my work, Miss Tremaston?”
“Oh yes … it is quite splendid.”
“You know something of tapestry work?”
“I have never done any.”
“This is the house, you see. The house is very important to me.”
“I know. It is such a magnificent place.”
She had approached me and was standing close to me, watching me intently.
“Ever since I came here I have done my best to maintain the standards laid down by our ancestors.”
“I am sure you have.”
“I am determined that nothing shall disturb that.”
“Yes,” I said. “It would be a pity if anything were to.”
“Were you … er … looking for something?”
“Oh no … no. I lost my way.”
“It is so easy to lose one’s way when one is not accustomed …” Her voice trailed off.
I felt myself shiver slightly. I had a great urge to turn and run away … right out of this house.
I said feebly: “I was going down to breakfast.”
“Oh yes. You go back the way you came. At the end of the corridor you will find the staircase. It leads down to the hall. The breakfast room is on the right.”
“I realize now the way I should have gone. Thank you.”
I was relieved to escape. She was telling me to go, that I did not belong here. It was in every gesture, every inflection of her voice. I must go … soon.
But later that day, when I was having my riding lesson in the paddock, Roderick made me feel how glad he was that I was here, and I wanted to stay.
The uncertainty was soon back with me. I could go to London. Robert had impressed on me that I must use the house whenever I wanted to. He was particularly anxious that I should regard it as my home. It was what my mother would have wanted; and, as with Charlie, now that she was gone, he could only be comforted when he was doing what she would have wanted.
This must necessarily be a waiting period. In the meantime I must try to resign myself with serenity for whatever fate was in store for me. I was less unhappy than I had thought possible during the riding lessons with Roderick and sharing with him the enthusiasm for the Roman remains, in which my interest was growing apace. I was becoming friendly with Fiona and sometimes, when Roderick was busy, I went alone to the cottage. Fiona showed me how to clean pottery with a soft brush in order to loosen the dirt. I would picture as I did so the people who had used such utensils in their ordinary daily lives. I discovered the fascination of delving into and seeking to re-create the past. It was a wonderful way in which to escape from the present.
I tried to forget Lady Constance, and indeed did not see a great deal of her. She would appear at dinner, but other meals she often took in her room. I always sat next to Charlie on those occasions and he would talk to me, protecting me, as it were, against the faintly disguised shafts which came from Lady Constance. Not that she took a great deal of notice of me. Her strategy was to treat me coolly, as a guest whom she hoped would not stay long. No one else seemed to be aware of that, but for me the implication was there.
I had struck up a friendship with Gertie, the maid, who had been given the task of looking after me. She brought my hot water night and morning and cleaned my room.
She was a girl of about seventeen who had come to the family at the age of twelve. She had taken a liking to me, perhaps because I was less formal than most of the guests who came to Leverson Manor. I enjoyed chatting to her.
She knew that I was the daughter of Desiree and was overawed by the fact.
“I saw Desiree once,” she told me. “It was a few years back … when my sister got married. He was comfortably off, her young man … had two stalls in Paddington, in the market there … cockles and mussels. He did a thriving trade. When they were engaged, he took me and my sister to the theatre. It was lovely. He said, ‘I’ll take you to see the great Desiree. That’s what all London’s doing.’ We went to see her in Gypsy Girl.”
I closed my eyes. I remembered it well. There had been the usual quarrels, my mother refusing to wear some of the costumes, Dolly stamping out and being allowed to go … and then coming back and making some compromise over the costumes. And the longing for the old days was almost unbearable.