“You see, Harriet, nothing remains the same. I am leaving at the end of the week for my finishing school. I wish you were coming. You probably will. Here’s another secret. Your father is talking about it, and Mamma has given him all sorts of details about the place. Well, it seems our fate is not to be parted for long. I shall hope that you too will soon be acquiring an impeccable French accent But don’t become engaged, will you? I want the distinction of being not merely the first but the only engaged woman to arrive at the school.
Q.
“P.S. Bevil is no longer with us. He’s become a soldier. He won’t be leaving for South Africa just yet, but when he does the war will soon be over, you can be sure. Poor Jess is sad, but they’re not engaged. Great relief displayed by the parents. They’ve been absolutely terrified—although, of course, it wouldn’t have been such a calamity, as I am obliging with Harry. See you soon, Harriet, at our finishing school. G.”
Change was in the air, but when I arrived home for the holidays I was faced with the greatest of them all—so far.
It was the end of the spring term and, to my disappointment, I had a letter from my father telling me that instead of spending the holiday as usual at Chough Towers I was to come to London. I should be met at Paddington.
I was disappointed, although neither Gwennan nor Bevil would have been there, but even so I had been looking forward to going to Cornwall, to hear from A’Lee—that infallible source of information—what exactly was happening about Chough Towers, which my father would shortly be vacating, and what improvements had been made to the island house. But most of all I wanted to know more about Bevil and Jessica Trelarken, for I could not believe that Jessica would allow herself to be the partner in one of Devil’s casual affairs.
I could not understand, either, why my father wanted me to be in London. Surely since he disliked seeing me so decidedly, he would want my holidays to be spent where he was not.
As soon as I alighted from the train I saw Fanny, who had come to meet me. She looked just the same as usual in her plain serge cloak with the cotton dress showing beneath; her black bonnet, tied under the chin with gray ribbon, did little for her face except accentuate its pallor and hide the gray-brown hair which was always scraped back unbecomingly. Her expression was anxious. I felt emotional as I watched her. She looked so insignificant—but to me she had tried to be the mother I had never known.
Her face relaxed when she saw me.
“Miss Harriet My! How you’ve grown!”
“You look the same as ever, Fanny.”
“My growing days are over. This is a change … coming to London for this holiday.” She looked at me anxiously. “What do you make of that?’
“Something’s happened?” I asked.
She nodded grimly.
“Oh, Fanny ... what?”
“Your father’s married again. You could have knocked me down with a feather.”
“But, Fanny, whom has he married?”
“You wait, my lady, and you’ll see for yourself.”
“She’s there now … at home?’
“Oh yes. Your father can’t wait to introduce you to your stepmother. He thinks everyone must be as delighted with her as he is.”
“He … delighted!”
“I’d say.”
“But … he couldn’t be delighted about anything.”
“Well, he is about this little bundle of nonsense, I can tell you.”
“Fanny, I never thought of anything like this.”
“That’s what I guessed. So I’m warning you. You had to be prepared … to my way of thinking.”
She had taken my bag and we made our way to where the carriage was waiting. When we were settled in and moving out into the streets, I said: “Fanny, when did it happen?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“He didn’t say anything about it”
“He wasn’t in the habit of sending you long explanations of what he was doing, ducky, was he?”
“But did it happen suddenly … like that?”
“Well, there was a bit of courting, I believe. He changed. One of the maids beard him singing one morning. We thought she was going up the pole when she told us. But it was true. Love’s a funny thing, Miss Harriet”
“It must be if it came to him.”
She laid her hand over mine.
“You’ll find him changed,” she warned.
“It must be for the better then,” I retorted, “because it couldn’t very well be for the worse, could it?”
I did find him changed. But when I met my stepmother I was so astonished that I could only gasp at the incongruity of this match.
As soon as we arrived at the house, Mrs. Trant came into the hall to tell me that I was to go at once to the library, where my father and Lady Delvaney were waiting for me.
As I stood on the threshold of that room, I could sense the change creeping over the house. Nothing, I thought, is going to be the same again. We have come to the end of an epoch. Lady Delvaney was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace. She was a young woman, petite, with fair, fluffy hair, a strikingly fresh complexion, round babyish face and pale blue eyes so large that they looked as though she were startled. Perhaps she was, at the sight of me. She was dressed in pink and white, and my first impression was that she was like a piece of confectionery the cook had made for one of Papa’s parties. There was a pink ribbon in her hair, and her gown was trimmed with pink and white; her face was delicately powdered; her waist was the tiniest I had ever seen, and never had the term “hourglass” been more aptly applied than to her.
But the most startling sight in that room was not this woman. It was my father. I would not have believed he could ever have looked like that. His eyes had become more blue and they were brilliant as they were when he was being witty with his political friends.
“Harriet,” he said, rising and craning towards me, he took my hand in one of his and laid the other on my shoulder— a gesture of affection which he had never before used towards me. “I want you to meet your … stepmother.”
The pretty creature covered her face with her hands and murmured: “Oh, but it sounds so dreadful.”
“Nonsense, my love,” said Father. “Harriet and you win be friends.”
She rose and lifted those big blue eyes to my face—she was considerably shorter than L “Do you think so?” she asked tremulously.
I realized that the creature was—or pretended to be—afraid of me!
“I am sure we can,” I said.
Never had I found it so easy to please my father, who was now smiling at me benignly.
“I’m so gad.”
“Hal” said my father. ”I told you you need have nothing to fear, did I not?”
“You did, Teddy, you did.”
Teddy? That was new to me. Teddy! How absolutely incongruous! But more so that he should actually like it! What miracle had this woman been able to work?