“It won’t take more than a minute or two.
Just needs fixing on the ring. Jim! Here’s Mr. Lucian. Wants this fixing. See what’s happened? “
Jim nodded and went off.
“Little girl’s pendant, is it?” said Mr. Higgs.
“Yes, her uncle brought it from Hong Kong for her.”
“Chinese, yes. Good craftsmen. They turn out some interesting stuff.
And how’s everyone up at the Grange? “
Lucian assured Mr. Higgs that they were all in excellent health, and I listened in admiration to his easy manner of conversation while I waited impatiently for the return of my pendant.
And there it was . just as it had been . and no one would know that there had been any trouble with the link.
Lucian was going to pay for it, but Mr. Higgs said: “Oh, that’s nothing, Mr. Lucian. Just a matter of fixing it. Glad to oblige.”
Lucian fastened the pendant round my neck.
“There,” he said.
“Safe as houses.”
And I loved him from that moment.
Nanny Gilroy did not like what she heard from Estella about my being at the party.
“Pushing,” she commented.
“Didn’t I always say?”
Estella said: “Lucian brought her in. He saw her in the shrubbery when she lost her pendant.”
“Pendant! What’s a child of her age doing with a pendant?”
“Uncle Toby gave it to her.”
She smiled in that way she did when Uncle Toby’s name was mentioned, and clicked her tongue. But clearly she thought it was not quite so bad if he had been responsible for it.
The next time Estella and Henry were invited to tea, I was too. I began to grow accustomed to going there. I liked Camilla. She never showed in any way that she thought I was not the equal of the others.
As for Lucian, I felt there was a special friendship between us because of the pendant.
So the friendship between Commonwood and the Grange was growing. The shared tutor had been the beginning and then there was Mrs. Marline’s determination to return to the sort of society she had enjoyed before she married beneath her; and she did everything she could to win the approval of Lady Crompton by devoting herself to charitable works particularly those in which her Ladyship was involved. Consequently she was a frequent visitor to the Grange.
Henry could be a friend of Lucian and Estella of Camilla. How fortunate that the sexes fitted so well in the families! I was not excluded. In fact, Lucian always had a special smile for me. At least, I imagined it was special. He would glance at the pendant which I always wore outside my dress when I was out of Nanny Gilroy’s range, and I knew he was recalling our first encounter with some amusement.
Life was very pleasant.
Mrs. Marline had always been a keen horsewoman and we all had riding lessons. Estella and Henry had their ponies and Uncle Toby had provided me with one so that I could join them. What a wonderful uncle he was to me! And I attributed the change in my fortunes to him.
I had begun to realize how important Mrs. Marline was in the household.
Even Nanny Gilroy was subdued in her presence. Everyone was in considerable awe of her even the doctor. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, especially the doctor.
I heard Nanny Gilroy talking about her to Mrs. Barton, the cook.
“She’s a holy terror,” she said.
“She goes on and on and never lets the doctor forget whose money pays most of the bills. She’s the boss all right.”
“He’s good, the doctor,” said Mrs. Barton.
“His patients think the world of him. Mrs. Gardiner said she was in agony with her leg until she went to him. He’s really a nice gentleman in his way.”
“Mild as milk, if you ask me. Can’t seem to stand up for himself.
Well, she’s got the money . and money talks. “
“Money talks all right,” replied Mrs. Barton.
“Poor doctor. I reckon he don’t have much of a life.”
Mrs. Marline took little notice of me. She seemed as though she did not want to know I was there. I did not mind that. Indeed, I was rather glad of it. I had Uncle Toby and now Lucian, Camilla and Sally: and Estella and Henry were not bad and Adeline had always liked me.
At the end of the summer, the gipsy encampment was no longer in the woods.
“There one day and gone the next,” said Nanny.
“Well, good riddance to bad rubbish.”
I wanted to defend them and remind her of how Rosie Perrin had dressed my leg and Jake had carried me home. But of course I said nothing.
Then there was talk of Henry’s going to school.
“That Lucian from the Grange is going, so Master Henry must do the same. Some grand school, I expect it will be. Well, they’re Grange people and where Lucian goes, mark my words, Henry will go too. That’s if I know anything about Madam.”
“Who else, if you don’t?” added Mrs. Barton sycophantically. She was eager to be on good terms with Nanny, who was reckoned to be a power in the household-second only to Mrs. Marline herself.
I should be very sorry when Lucian went away. He and Camilla came to tea at Commonwood now and then. They were very special occasions and I never enjoyed them as much as going to the Grange. Mrs. Marline was not actually present at tea but she hovered. She was so anxious that everything should be in order and that tea at Common wood should be in every degree as good as that taken at the Grange.
I believe she would really have liked to exclude me, but in view of the fact that Lucian had insisted that I join them at the Grange, she could hardly keep me out of these return occasions.
She was intruding more and more on my notice. She had a shrill and penetrating voice and a very domineering manner; and she was usually complaining about something which had or had not been done. She was such a contrast to the mild-mannered doctor. I wondered if it was because of her that he had become as he was-resigned. I imagined she would have that effect on someone like the doctor who seemed to be a man who would avoid trouble at all cost.
It has always amazed me how our lives can go along in a sort of groove for a long time and then some incident changes the entire pattern and what happens after is the result of that one detail, without which nothing that follows would have taken place.
This is what happened at Commonwood House.
Mrs. Marline was eager to join the Hunt, an enthusiasm which she shared with the Cromptons.
Henry, Estella, Adeline and I would often assemble to see the start of it. It would set out from the Grange and Mrs. Marline, looking very much the horsewoman, and as completely in command of her steed as she was of the doctor and her household, would be in the centre of it, exchanging pleasantries with the gentry who had come in from the surrounding neighbourhood.
The men looked splendid in their pink coats. The hounds were barking and there was general excitement in the air.
The doctor did not hunt. He would have been quite out of place among such people.
However, we would watch them ride off after the poor little fox until they were all out of sight. Then we would return home.
It was a cold day, I remember, and we ran all the way. Henry was sighing for the day when he would be able to join the Hunt. Estella was not sure whether she wanted to. She was not all that happy on her pony and even contemplating the frisky mounts of the riders made her nervous.
The day went on as usual. How could we know what an important day it was going to prove to be to us all at Commonwood House?
It was due to the stump of a tree which some time before had been uprooted. The recent rains had exposed it apparently and it lay in the path taken by the hunted fox.
The first I heard of what had happened was when I was in the garden with Estella. The household was quiet. It was amazing what a difference the absence of Mrs. Marline made.