The cider came.
"I trust it is to your liking. Miss Mallory." said Mr. Featherstone.
"It is very good." I replied. "And I really was thirsty."
He leaned towards me. "I am so glad you decided to come in," he said. "I should have been quite desolate if you had not done so."
"If I had not done so you would not have known that the possibility of my coming in had arisen so how could you have been desolate'.'" I asked.
Miss Gilmour laughed. "M\ pupil is not a simple little girl," she said. "You will find it hard to fault her reasoning. I can assure you. Remember, she is taught by me."
"1 must remember that." he said with mock seriousness.
He asked about the map-making shop and I told him that one of
my ancestors had sailed with Drake and that ever since those days there had been great interest in maps in our family.
"Map making is not only interesting, it is profitable," added Miss Gilmour.
He asked me about the country and the Manor which had been my home since my birth. I told him that my mother was dead and that I still missed her very much.
He patted my hand in sympathy. He said: "But you have your father. I'll swear you are the apple of his eye."
"He is hardly aware of me."
"Oh come," protested Miss Gilmour, "he is the best of fathers. He talks a great deal about you to me."
"He did not talk much to Miss Bray."
Miss Gilmour smiled secretly.
"I think he is very eager that you should be well cared for," she said.
Mr. Featherstone had moved his chair nearer to mine. Every now and then he would reach out and touch my arm as though to emphasize a point. It made me feel uneasy and I wished he would not do it. Miss Gilmour did not seem to like his doing it either.
I said: "Are you staying in the neighbourhood, Mr. Featherstone?"
His eyes smiled into mine and he tried to hold my gaze but I looked away.
"I should like to think that was a matter of concern to you, Miss Ann Alice," he said.
"I should hope, of course, that you had comfortable lodgings."
"/ hope I may meet you again when you take one of your country rides."
"Ann Alice is always breaking rules," said Miss Gilmour. "She is not supposed to ride alone. It is a good thing that we met. We can go back together and then it will be thought that we set out in each other's company."
"Do you often break the rules, Miss Ann Alice?" he asked.
"Some rules are really meant to be broken ... if they don't make much sense. I shall soon be seventeen. That is quite old enough to ride alone."
"Indeed it is. Seventeen! A delectable age. I fancy you are something of a rebel."
"And I fancy," said Miss Gilmour, "that we should be returning to the Manor."
I rose. I felt that I wanted to get away from them both. I wanted to be in my room and write down every detail of that encounter in my journal before I forgot.
We came out of the inn and mounted our horses. Mr. Featherstone rode with us a little way and then with one of his exaggerated bows, he left us.
"What an extraordinary thing," said Miss Gilmour. "To run across an old friend of my family like that... quite by chance."
Yes, I thought, you are stressing that fact just a little too much, Miss Gilmour.
I do not trust Miss Gilmour.
I have come straight to my room to write it all down in my journal.
January 1st 1791
The first day of the New Year.
What a long time since I have last written in my journal. I seem to have developed a distaste for writing in it and I have only just thought of it because this is the first day of the year and of course because of Papa.
The journal has been lying at the back of the drawer where I keep it so that it is out of sight. I would not want anyone to read my innermost thoughts, which is how I like to think of what I write in my journal.
I have seen Mr. Featherstone on one or two occasions. He seems to make a habit of coming... "On business" he says. I wonder what his business is and where. If it is in London—as I suppose it is—he is rather far away. I know one can get there in not too long a time, but why not lodge up there?
Sometimes I wonder whether he is—as they say in the kitchen— "sweet on" Miss Gilmour. She is the sort of person men do seem to get "sweet on" rather easily.
I hope he is. Then perhaps he will marry her and carry her off as the Reverend James Eggerton did Miss Bray. Then I should be rid of them both and surely my father would say there is no need of another governess for such a mature person as his daughter has become.
It is Mr. Featherstone's attitude towards me that I find a little worrying. He always seems to try to get close to me; and his hands stray. That is the only way I can think of describing them. He gesticulates when he talks and his hands shoot out to rest on my shoulder, on my arm or sometimes on my hair. And they linger. His eyes glitter and they stare at me. I feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny.
I think he is a little sinister.
But I suppose as he is a friend of Miss Gilmour's family he would want to see her now and then. It is really quite natural and I suppose, as Miss Bray used to say, I am too imaginative.
Christmas was unlike last Christmas ... or any other Christmas.
We had a few guests as we always do, and my father suggested that Miss Gilmour join the party.
"Christmas is Christmas," he said to me—unusually communicative. "And Miss Gilmour is here now. We can't leave her out. Perhaps you should suggest, Ann Alice, that she joins us like a member of the family. Coming from you that would show thoughtfulness and fine feeling."
Miss Gilmour started having her meals with us some time ago. My father had said it was time I gave up eating in the nursery. I was coming up to seventeen. So, with Miss Gilmour, I should join him. Miss Gilmour said she thought it was an excellent idea. In her opinion young people should not be kept too long in the nursery.
So now we sit at the table together. My father has changed quite a lot and this is due to the company of Miss Gilmour. She sparkles and he laughs a good deal at what she has to say. She displays a rather wonderful mixture of decorum and sophistication. She is modest yet bold. What is it? I cannot say except that it is Miss Gilmour and people of the opposite sex seem to find it very attractive.
Miss Gilmour looked embarrassed when the question of Christmas was raised. She was dubious when I asked her to join us and I did not press the point. She brought up the subject at dinner.
"I was so touched," she said. "But I thought it better not. You will have your friends... your special friends."
"But Ann Alice would very much like you to join us. Would you not, my dear?"
Why is it when people want something they like others to pretend they are really the ones who want it?
I hesitated for a moment and as I saw the look of horror begin to dawn in my father's face I said: "Oh.. .of course." And despised myself for lying. Why didn't I tell the truth and say, No, I don't want Miss Gilmour to be there at Christmas. Christmas will be quite different with her.
And I was right about that. Miss Gilmour took over Christmas.
One day, she said to my father: "I have a friend ... a friend of my family ... he is staying at an inn and can't get to his home for Christmas. I feel quite wretched thinking of him all alone for Christmas."
My father immediately said that she must invite him to the house.
I was not really surprised when the guest turned out to be Mr. Featherstone.
So he was there with her and if she had not spoilt our Christmas he would have done so.