John Harding 2-Book Gothic Collection. John Harding
All we had left of our golden summer was the time it took John to horse-and-trap the new woman from the railroad station in town, and that little was taken up by Mrs Grouse inspecting us for general cleanliness and tidiness. Giles was school-suited and I best-frocked, with a shining white pinafore thrown in for good measure. Satisfied that we were presentable, or at least as presentable as we were ever going to be, Mrs Grouse spent the last few minutes goodmannering us and attempting once again to teach me how to drop a curtsey (I had so half-hearted it with Miss Whitaker when she arrived as to make it unnoticeable). For some reason, although I was more than willing to courtesy the governess with a curtsey, my limbs reluctanted until finally Mrs Grouse exasperated. She regarded me critically and forlorned a sigh. ‘Well, it will have to do, I guess. At least Miss Taylor will be able to see the intention is there, even if the execution is somewhat lacking.’
So there we stood, in front of the house where the horse and cart would pull up, a little guard of honour, the three of us on parade. At last you could hear Bluebird’s hooves on the metalled main road and then the horse and trap hove into sight at the top of the drive and we all eagered to make out the person seated behind John.
Moments later she stood before us. She was much older than poor Miss Whitaker, her appearance hovering on the brink before middle age. Her skeletal figure was dressed all in black and I thought how strange that was, for Miss Whitaker had told me governesses always wore grey, but I noticed how well it matched the rooks which were even now circling above us, as though they too had turned out specially to welcome her. She was a handsome woman, with strong features, and dark eyes and black hair. As John handed her down from the trap her eye caught mine and there was something in her look, not familiarity exactly, but some kind of recognition of who I was, that all at once anxioused me, as though she could see clear through the me I pretended to be. This glance discomfited me and evidently her too, for no sooner did our eyes connect than she turned away and gifted Mrs Grouse a smile.
‘You must be Miss Taylor,’ unnecessaried Mrs Grouse; the new arrival unlikelied to be anyone else.
‘And you must be Mrs Grouse,’ returned Miss Taylor, with not quite enough mockery for Mrs Grouse to know it was there. She turned to Giles and me and – her eyes ready now and revealing nothing – larged us a smile. ‘And you of course are Florence and little Giles.’ I dropped her the curtsey when she cued my name, though it wasn’t a great success. ‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am,’ I muttered, trying to sound as if I meant it, but it somehow came out like Sunday-morninging the Lord’s Prayer.
‘Well, Giles,’ said Miss Taylor, ‘have you nothing to say to me?’
My brother nervoused and bit his lip.
‘Come now, Giles,’ urged Mrs Grouse, ‘don’t be rude, speak up.’
‘Well,’ said Giles, screwing his face up with genuine interest, ‘would you rather be boiled in oil and eaten by cannibals, or bayoneted by a Confederate soldier and watch him pull your guts out before your very own eyes?’
Miss Taylor stared at him a moment, then eyebrowed Mrs Grouse. ‘I fancy we have a little work to do here,’ she lighthearted in a manner that somehow managed to critical too.
Inside she didn’t look around much or say anything about the house; it was as though it weren’t any different from what she’d expected. It wasn’t exactly something you could have put your finger on, but it seemed as if she had no curiosity or interest in it, the way most people have in a new place. She turned to Mrs Grouse and brusqued, ‘Now, if you would have your manservant take my bags up to my room, I would like to freshen up and lie down after my journey. What time is dinner served?’
‘Well, we generally eat at six o’clock.’
‘Very well, I shall be down then.’ And so saying she followed John up the stairs. Behind her she left the scent of some flower, but try as it might, my mind could not clutch what it was. Mrs Grouse stood watching her until she disappeared, and then weaked a smile at Giles and me. She wasn’t used to being spoken to like that. And nobody had ever before used the word ‘servant’ about John.
It was at supper, or rather before it even got started, that the first difficulty asserted itself. Miss Taylor appeared just before the appointed time and Mrs Grouse showed her into the small breakfast room off the kitchen where we always ate. Miss Taylor stopped in the doorway and stared at the table.
‘Is there something wrong?’ anxioused Mrs Grouse, forced into a squeezery between the governess and the door to get into the room.
‘Why, yes. There are four places.’ She swung round to face Mrs Grouse, who coloured. Miss Taylor tigered her a smile. ‘Is there perhaps another child I don’t know about? Come, Giles, how is your math? You, Florence and me, how many does that make?’
‘The fourth place is for me,’ said Mrs Grouse. ‘I’ve always eaten with the children. You see, it was only we three for years and years until Master Giles went off to school, and when Miss Whitaker came she just joined in with the rest of us.’
‘That’s as maybe, but you see it’s not appropriate. You are the housekeeper and I am the governess. We must maintain the proprieties. For the sake of the children’s education, you understand.’
Mrs Grouse bridled. She was not one to be walked over. ‘Miss Whitaker was quite happy with the arrangement.’
Miss Taylor raised an eyebrow. ‘Ah yes, but I am not Miss Whitaker.’
Mrs Grouse left the room. The three of us sat down. A moment later a very red-faced Mary came in and began removing the crockery and cutlery from the fourth place. Miss Taylor smiled up at her. ‘You may serve the food now,’ she said.
That night I couldn’t sleep. Outside, the wind howled like a wild beast stalking round the house looking for a way in. And within me, too, there was a howling, one that I couldn’t block out by pillowing my ears. It feared me to sleep that I would dream again of poor Miss Whitaker and the day she died, but my waking anxiety was a shadowy thing I couldn’t quite see or put a name to, and all the worse for that. In the end I decided to do what I often did at such times, to sneak down to the library and read there for a couple of hours until I should be tired enough for sleep, though there was an increased risk that I would be caught now that Miss Taylor was here, of course. Although the wind huffed and puffed without, within the house was quiet as the grave, save for the ticking of the clocks and the occasional creaking of the joists as Blithe settled itself down for the night. But then, if I were caught, all I had to do was pretend to be on one of my nightwalks. It much more difficulted to reach the library in this fashion than it had to sneak down to Mrs Grouse’s sitting room. The library far-ended the house, whereas the housekeeper’s room bottomed the stairs, being almost directly below mine. My main problem, as always, lay in not being able to have a candle to light my way, for that I never had on my nightwalks. In the darkness I had to careful not to stumble against some piece of furniture, some random occasional table, for example, and so wake the whole household; also I must map in my mind where I was. It would be all too easy to wrongturn and so end up wandering the whole night until dawn showed me the way.
Still, as this was not a nightwalk, I was able at least to blindman my arms and so feel ahead of me for any obstruction. In this manner, slowly I reached the long corridor. There was no light coming in through the windows there because the night was unmooned, a fact which unlikelied, but not impossibled, a nightwalk, although I wasn’t concerned about that. It was when I penetrated a little further and was not far from the staircase that would take me down to the first floor that I heard something. I stood still and listened, all my senses alert. At first I took it for the wind blowing a tree branch against some part of the house, for it was exactly the sibilant sound of leaves brushing against something. But then I realised the noise was not fixed but in motion and that, moreover, it was coming toward me. A moment later I recognised it for what it was, the swishing of skirts against floorboards. Whoever it was was, like me, uncandled, but nevertheless able to move at a considerable pace, so that she – it could only be a woman, that noise – must soon be on top of me. It wondered me any normal woman could move so fast in this pitch black. What kind of creature