She had made another mistake. "Oh, but I am not exhausted. I am so happy to talk here."
Caroline had purposefully pulled the bell rope and little Peg had come.
"Bring candles," Caroline had said. "Mademoiselle St. Martin is very tired. You can light her to her room."
The maid had led the way upstairs after Melisande had said goodnight to Sir Charles and Fermor. Caroline walked beside her as they ascended.
"What a large house," cried Melisande. "I had no idea that it would be so big."
"It has been the home of my family for years and years," Caroline had said, seeming more friendly now that they had left the young man in the drawing-room.
"That is very exciting for you. To say: 'My grandfather, my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather lived here. . . .' And / never knew my father . . . nor my mother."
Caroline had clearly been taught to ignore what might be embarrassing. She had pointed to the effigies which were carved on the
walnut banisters. "They represent members of the family. But you need daylight to see them."
"I look forward to to-morrow. I am sorry that I arrive in darkness. I shall sleep to-night in a house I do not see. It will be a strangeness."
Caroline had been silent. She had been aware that Peg, who must be listening, was with them. She had been thankful for Peg's stupidity, for one did not want such conversation repeated in the servants' hall. She had been glad when they were in the bedroom and Peg had set down her candle and lighted those in the sconces.
"Go and fetch hot water for Mademoiselle St. Martin," had said Caroline. "Or would you like her to help you unpack first, Mademoiselle?"
"There is so little to unpack."
"Peg," Caroline had commanded, "unpack the bag, please."
"Yes, Miss Caroline."
While she had been doing this, Caroline had gone to the window and Melisande followed.
Caroline had said: "You can't see a thing. It's as dark as a shaft, as the mining people say." She drew the curtains then. "There, that's better. I hope you will be happy here. We are a sombre household just at this time. My mother*. . ."
"Yes, I hear . . . from your father. I am so sorry. It is a very great sadness. I know how sad. My own mother I never knew, but that does not mean I cannot have the sympathy. When your father told me . . ."
Caroline had cut her short. "It was so unexpected. She was not strong but when it came ... we were unprepared."
Tears had filled Melisande's eyes. She who had never known a mother, who saw all mothers as idealized saints—a mixture of the Mother Superior and Madame Lefevre—believed the loss of a mother to be the greatest tragedy in the world.
Caroline had said almost angrily: "But if she had not died . . . I suppose you would not be here."
A short silence had followed during which Melisande had thought: She is angry with me. This is a sadness. She has taken a dislike to me.
Peg had unpacked the bag and gone for hot water. Caroline had turned to Melisande and said quickly: "My wedding had to be postponed."
"I am sorry. That must make unhappiness for you."
"We are disappointed . . . both of us."
"I understand."
"Mr. Holland has tried to persuade his people and my father that we should not wait. But there is . . . convention, you know. It distresses us both."
"Convention?"
"Yes. The need to behave as people would expect... in a manner which is due to our position."
Melisande had been about to speak but Caroline had gone on quickly: "When my father wrote saying he was bringing you, he seemed to imply that you were quite a different sort of person.'*
"What sort of person?"
"He wrote saying that he had found a poor person who needed a home, and as Mamma had just died and my wedding had been postponed, he knew I must be lonely, so he had engaged her on the spot. He made her appear to be about forty, very poor, grey-haired, very prim and . . . grateful. At least that is the picture I had in my mind."
"I am poor!" Melisande had cried with a smile. "And if I have not yet forty years then I shall one day. Prim I could be; grateful I am. I hope I shall not always disappoint."
"Oh no ... no. I am sure you will quickly understand us . . . and fit in with us. Your English is a little quaint . . . but I'm sure you will soon be as one of us."
Soon after that Peg had come back with the hot water, and telling Melisande that if there was anything she wanted she must pull the bell rope and someone would come and attend to her wants, Caroline said goodnight and left her.
So Melisande had undressed, washed in the hip bath, put on the cotton nightgown which she had brought with her from the Convent and got into bed. And now she found she was too excited for sleep. She could not stop thinking of the people whom she had met, and chiefly she thought of Fermor and Caroline; the one who so clearly wanted to be her friend, the other of whom she was unsure.
But life was exciting. To-morrow she would see the house; she would get to know it and all the people who lived in it.
As the firelight threw a flickering light about the room she thought of the cold bedrooms at the Convent. Even in winter there had been no fires in the bedrooms there.
She was just beginning to doze when there was a knock on her door. She started. The knock was repeated.
"Please come in," she called, and into the room came the woman she had seen when she had arrived at the house—the one whom they had called Wenna.
She stood by the door and for some inexplicable reason she alarmed Melisande. Perhaps it was because she looked fierce, angry. Why should she be angry with Melisande who had only just arrived at the house?
Melisande sat up in bed.
"I just wondered if you had all you needed," said the woman.
"That is so good ... so kind."
Wenna came slowly to the bed and looked down on Melisande. "I shouldn't by rights have disturbed you once you were in bed. I didn't think you'd be there yet though."
"But I am glad you came. It is a kindness."
"Well, you comfortable, eh? This must be a bit strange . . . after the place you come from, I reckon?"
"It is very different."
"Did Peg look after 'ee? She do dream so. I wondered if she'd brought what you wanted. She do seem piskymazed half the time."
Melisande laughed softly. Why had she thought the woman was angry? Clearly she was trying to be kind. "Peg was very good. Everybody is very good."
"Then I didn't have no cause to come bothering."
"It was no bothering. It was a goodness."
"You come from across the water . . . from foreign parts?"
"Yes."
"And lived there all your life?"
"I lived in a convent."
"My dear life! That must have been a queer place to live."
"It did not seem so. It seemed . . . just the place where I lived."
"I suppose you was put there by your father ... or your mother."
"I . . . suppose so."
"Seems a queer way of going on. Is it the foreign way then?"
"Well, they died, you see; and I had a guardian who thought I should be better in the Convent than, anywhere else. I think that was why I went."