My grandmother laughed. “Inconvenience indeed!”
I laughed with her. “He doesn’t want us … any more than we want him.”
“So all is well,” said my grandmother.
“He just doesn’t want us to think he doesn’t realize all we are doing,” said my grandfather.
“He will reimburse us for the expense,” she went on.
“What on Earth is he talking about?”
“I suppose he means the nurse and all that.”
“What nonsense!”
“Well, all’s well. We carry on as before.”
It was a great relief to us all. But it did set me wondering. I did not like to be reminded that he was my guardian and Belinda’s father; and that he would be the one to decide our future.
I ran to my grandmother and clung to her. “We’re going to stay with you,” I said. “I won’t leave you.”
“It’ll be all right,” my grandfather assured me. “It’s his way of saying he cares about you. He’s glad you’re here and we’re looking after you—which we can do better than he could … in a place like this.”
When I mentioned the matter later to my grandmother she said: “Don’t worry. It wouldn’t be easy for him to set up a household in London or Manorleigh without a wife. He will be immersed in his career. He just wants us to know that he is aware of his responsibilities, but he must realize that the best place for Belinda is here. But you have to remember that he is her father.”
“I wish he were not,” I said.
My grandmother shook her head sadly.
She was wishing as I was that we had all gone on as it had been when we were all happy together.
A year passed and the anniversary of my mother’s death had come. During the last year Benedict had paid two visits to Cornwall. He inspected the baby. I was in the nursery at the time. Belinda regarded him with indifference. Leah picked her up and placed her in his arms. He held her gingerly and Belinda set up a wail of protest until Leah took her back when she chuckled with gratification.
Leah said: “She’s a very bright baby, sir. You will be proud of her.”
He looked at Leah intently. She lowered her eyes and flushed a little, looking more than ever like a painting of the Madonna.
My grandmother talked to him afterwards about Leah.
“She’s exceptionally good with Belinda,” she told him. “And she’s knowledgeable. She’s the daughter of the midwife and I think she has learned a lot about babies from her mother.”
He said: “She seems efficient.”
He talked to me in that restrained way which suggested that he knew of my dislike for him, and possibly felt the same towards me.
“Rebecca, you will have to go to school at some time,” he said. “It simply isn’t good enough to be merely governess-taught.”
“I’m quite happy with Miss Brown.”
“There is more to education than happiness. It is what was planned for you.”
He meant he and my mother had planned it for me. So she had discussed me with him.
“Perhaps next year,” he said.
So I was safe for the time being.
I was glad when he left for London. My grandmother was relieved too. I think she always had it in mind that he was going to take Belinda and me away from her.
I might be sent to school, but I was sure he would not want Belinda. Something in the way he looked at the child convinced me that he blamed her for my mother’s death.
Pedrek came to Cornwall for the summer holidays, bringing a school friend with him. Of course, the friend did not want a girl to join them. So it was different. Pedrek was a very kind person and always careful of other people’s feelings—he took after his mother in that—so he was aware that I was feeling shut out. He was half apologetic but what could he do? He must entertain his guest. We were all growing up and that was another aspect of change.
I used to go down to the pool often and I would think of my mother and when we had sat there and talked. I remembered how she had asked me to care for the child then unborn. It was as though she had had a premonition of what was going to happen, as though she knew she were going to die.
The pool had meant something special to her and while I was there I would have an uncanny feeling that she was there beside me … that she was trying to talk to me.
It was at the pool that I first became aware of Lucie.
I was interested in her because no one had believed her mother was going to have her until almost the time of her birth—and no one knew who her father was.
Mrs. Polhenny mentioned her now and then.
She said: “You couldn’t find a better mother than Jenny Stubbs, which is a strange thing, her being a penny short in the head so to speak. But she’s nothing short when it comes to babies. Little scrap of a thing that Lucie was … now she’s bonny; and I reckon it’s due to Jenny. Her sort’s meant to be mothers. A pity the good Lord saw fit to cut her a bit short.”
It was the nearest criticism I had ever heard her utter against the Lord, so she must have felt rather strongly.
My grandmother marvelled too. Mrs. Granger at the farm where Jenny worked said the change in her was remarkable since Lucie had been born. “Quite sensible she is now,” went on Mrs. Granger, “and that Lucie … Miss Belinda couldn’t be better looked after. Always clean she is … always well cared for. I let her bring her here. It makes no difference to the work and I wouldn’t want to lose Jenny. She’s a good worker … and now she’s got her wits about her, all the better.”
My grandmother said: “The poor girl had a fixation about a child. You see she lost the child she cared for some years ago. She was always simple and now she’s got another of her own she’s satisfied. When she took you away she looked after you just as she’s looking after little Lucie now. I know that Mrs. Polhenny and her kind deplore the fact that the child is illegitimate but if it changes a life like that there can’t be a lot of harm in it.”
In any case I was very interested in Lucie and she obviously took a liking to me. I used to go to the pool on most afternoons and Jenny would bring her out of the cottage and they would talk to me.
She was two years old at the time—a lovely child with blue eyes and dark hair. She would stand close to me regarding me gravely; then she would smile.
“She’s took a big fancy to you, Miss Rebecca,” said Jenny happily.
Sometimes Leah and Belinda would be with me. The two children were of an age and they would play together. I was amused for, young as they were, Belinda was the dominating one.
I should have liked the children to play more often than they did but Leah sometimes made excuses. When the two little ones were together I had noticed her watching them uneasily. I wondered if she harbored some snobbish notion about Belinda’s belonging to the big house and therefore she should not be playing with a cottage child.
I mentioned this to my grandmother who agreed that the humbler classes were far more aware of these distinctions than we were. We only had to consider the rigid protocol of the staff to realize that.
She was glad that I took an interest in Jenny and Lucie. She herself visited the cottage often and made sure there was always plenty of food and comfort there.
The more I saw of Lucie the fonder I became of her and I looked forward to our meetings.
“What will happen to her?” I said to my grandmother. “It’s all right now she is a baby but what when she grows up?”
“I daresay she will do some sort of work in one of the houses … or farms maybe … like her mother.”
“I always feel there is something unusual about her.”
“We shall keep our eyes on her and do what we can.”
“She is very bright, you know. As bright as Belinda, I think, only Belinda is more forceful.”