Philippa Carr - [Daughters of England 05] Read online

  “Go on,” jeered Fleurette. “You’re not hurt. You could have a wall fall on you and you’d come bobbing up. I know your kind.”

  “Then,” said Harriet, “you should be careful not to anger me.”

  Fleurette laughed and went into the room I had prepared for them. A few seconds later Harriet followed.

  It was clear that they disliked each other and I fancied the handsome Jabot was the reason. Life might be exciting in the playacting world but it was clearly far from serene.

  I was awake early next morning. It had been long before I slept and then only fitfully, and the first thing I thought when I awakened was we must feed the players well before they went out into the cold.

  I went to the window. It was no longer snowing and there was only a faint white layer on the ground. I had hoped that they might be snowbound and have to stay with us because the weather was too bad for them to travel. I pictured our having plays every night.

  I went to the kitchens. Jacques was already there with Jeanne and Marianne. They were bustling about preparing ale and bread with cold bacon, as determined as I that the actors should be fed well before their departure.

  The château had taken on a new vitality since they had arrived. Now their voices could be heard—such loud resonant voices; they could not say a good morning without making it sound full of drama, and we were all a little depressed because their stay was coming to its end.

  Jeanne set the table in the hall while Marianne hastily stirred up the fire, which had not completely died down during the night.

  Monsieur Lamotte descended and came at once to me. He kissed my hand and bowed. “Dear lady, rarely have I spent such a comfortable night.”

  “I trust you were warm enough.”

  “The warmth of your welcome wrapped itself around me.” he replied, which might have been another way of saying that the bedclothing had not been very adequate, which I could well believe.

  Madame Lamotte came down with the three children to whom she was telling the story of one of the plays in the company’s repertoire.

  She greeted me effusively and declared that all her life she and the entire troupe would remember with pleasure their visit to Château Congrève.

  Their eyes widened with delight when they saw the food, and Monsieur Lamotte declared that they would partake of it at once.

  “We are ready, loins girded, like the children of Israel. Alas, there is a sadness in our hearts. I know that you would extend your hospitality to us for another night … and I will tell you this, dear lady, part of me hoped to see a blizzard blowing that we might be forced to fall once more upon your kindness. Inclination, dear lady. But there is duty. If we do not reach Paris on time, what of those who are waiting to see our play? They are expecting us. We are booked, lady, and every true actor would rather disappoint himself than his public.”

  I found myself replying in similar vein. I deeply regretted their departure. I should have been happy to entertain them longer, but of course I understood the need for them to move on. They had their work and we were grateful indeed to have been given such a dazzling example of it, which we would never forget. …

  As they were about to sit at the table Madame Lamotte said: “Where is Harriet?”

  I had, of course, noticed her absence, for she was the first one I looked for. Any moment I had been expecting her to descend to the hall.

  Madame Lamotte was looking at Fleurette, who shrugged her shoulders.

  “I woke her up, just as I was coming down,” said Madame Lamotte. “She should be here by now.”

  I said I would go and tell her that they were ready to eat.

  I went to the room which I had assigned to the women and saw Harriet, who was lying on the bed. She looked just as beautiful in the morning as she had in candlelight. Her hair was escaping from a blue ribbon with which she had tied it back and she was in a low-cut bodice and petticoat.

  She smiled at me in a way which I felt had some meaning but I was not sure what.

  “They are waiting for you,” I said.

  She shrugged her shoulders. And held up her foot. “I cannot put it to the ground,” she said. “I could not walk on it. What am I going to do?”

  I went to the bed and gingerly touched the ankle which was faintly swollen. She grimaced as I did so.

  “It’s sprained,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “But on the other hand you might have broken a bone.”

  “How do I know?”

  “In time you will. Can you stand on it?”

  “Yes, but it’s agony.”

  “Madame Lambard has lots of remedies. I could ask her to look at it. But I do know one thing and that is that you should rest it.”

  “But … we have to move on. What is the weather like?”

  “Cold but clear. There’s no more snow … just a thin layer of yesterday’s on the ground. Nothing to stop travelling.”

  “They will have to move on. There’s the engagement in Paris.” Her lips curved into a smile. “Mistress Tolworthy … would you … could you possibly be so good as to let me stay here until I can walk properly? Let me explain. I sing and dance on stage … as well as act. You see, if I hurt my foot through not taking care now, my career could be ruined.”

  I felt a sudden wild excitement. The adventure was not over. She was going to stay … the member of the troupe who excited me most.

  I said quickly: “I should never turn anyone away who needed our help.”

  She reached out her hand and I went and took it. I held it for a moment, looking into her strange but beautiful face.

  “God bless you,” she said. “Please let me stay awhile.”

  “You are welcome,” I replied smiling, and my pleasure must have been apparent.

  “Now,” I said briskly. “I will call Madame Lambard. She may well know what has happened to your foot.”

  “I slipped on the stairs last night,” she said.

  Yes, I thought, when you were quarrelling with Fleurette.

  “It is most likely to be only a sprain. I will tell Madame Lambard.”

  I went down to the hall where they were eating quantities of bread and bacon and drinking ale.

  I said: “Mistress Main has hurt her ankle. She is unable to walk. I have invited her to stay here until she is able to do so. You need have no fears that we shall not look after her.”

  There was a deep silence at the table for a few seconds. Fleurette could not hide a secret smile and Jabot kept his eyes on his tankard of ale.

  Madame Lamotte rose and said: “I will go and see her.”

  I went into the kitchen and said to Jeanne and Marianne: “Mistress Harriet Main is going to stay on for a few days until she is fit to rejoin her companions. She has sprained her ankle.”

  Their faces lit up with pleasure. The kitchen seemed a different place; the fire seemed to glow more brightly.

  The adventure was not over then.

  The air was sharp and frost glittered on the trees as we waved them off and stood watching their departure. Slowly, because of the packhorses they made their way to the road, Monsieur Lamotte leading his troop like a biblical patriarch.

  I felt as though I were watching a scene on a stage. This was the end of the first act and I was thankful that it was not the end of the play. Upstairs lay the leading actress, and while she was on stage the drama must continue.

  As soon as they had gone I went upstairs. She lay on her bed, the rugs pulled up to her chin, her hair spread around her. She was smiling, almost purring; I thought she had a grace which could only be described as feline.

  “So they’ve gone,” she said.

  I nodded.

  She laughed. “Good luck to them. They’ll need it.”

  “And you?” I asked.

  “I have had the good fortune to hurt my ankle here.”

  “Good fortune. I don’t understand.”

  “Well, it is more comfortable here than on the road. I wonder what shelter
they’ll find tonight. Not as cozy as this, I’ll swear. I’ve never played before an audience which gave me such rapt attention before.”

  “Oh, but we know so little here of plays and suchlike.”

  “That would explain it,” she said, and laughed again. “As soon as I saw you,” she went, “I hoped we should be friends.”

  “I am so pleased. I hope we shall.”

  “It is so kind of you to let me stay here. I was terrified that I should do my foot some harm. My feet are an important part of my livelihood, you understand.”

  “But of course. And you will soon recover. I am going to get Madame Lambard to look at your ankle.”

  “There is no hurry.”

  “I think there is. She will know if anything is broken and what should be done.”

  “Wait awhile and talk.”

  But I was firm. I was going immediately to call Madame Lambard.

  Madame Lambard greatly enjoyed doctoring us. She always assumed an air of wisdom, lips pursed, head on one side, trying to talk of things we should not understand. There was a room in the Lambard dwelling which was entirely devoted to the distilling of her herbs … a room full of strange odours with a fire and a cauldron perpetually simmering on it and dried herbs hanging from the beams.

  When she heard that one of the players had hurt an ankle, had stayed behind and was in need of her help, she was overcome with delight. Of course she would come. She would lose no time. The players had been wonderful. Alas that they could not stay and give them another performance. Even her sons had been excited. They had talked of nothing else since.

  She came bustling up to the room in which Harriet lay, exuding a desire to be of service. She prodded the ankle and made Harriet stand on it, at which Harriet cried out in pain.

  “Rest it,” declared Madame Lambard sagely. “That will heal it. I can find no bones broken. I shall put a poultice on it. My own special one. I’ll swear that by tomorrow you will feel the benefit. There is no great swelling. It will be healed, I promise you, very, very soon.”

  Harriet said she did not know how to thank us all.

  “Poor lady,” said Madame Lambard. “It must be irksome for you. All your friends gone on … and you left here.”

  Harriet sighed, but I thought I detected a secret smile about her lips that seemed to indicate that she was not as sorry to stay here as might be expected.

  “Alkanet,” said Madame Lambard mysteriously. “It’s in the poultice. It’s sometimes known as bugloss. There’s viper’s bugloss and field bugloss and the healing properties are without doubt. I’ve known it work wonders.”

  “I know it well,” replied Harriet. “We call it dyer’s bugloss. The sap gives a red dye. It’s good for colouring the cheeks.”

  “You … use that?” I asked.

  “On stage,” she replied, her eyes downcast and her mouth, which she did not seem to be able to control, showing some amusement. “We have to look larger than life on stage, otherwise those in the back row would not see us. So we make ourselves as colourful as possible.”

  “I like hearing about the players,” said Madame Lambard. “What a wonderful life you must have.”

  Again that wry quirk of the lips. I thought for the first time: She is not what she seems.

  How we petted her! Marianne and Jeanne made special dishes for her; Jacques enquired for her. Madame Lambard came in three times during the first day to change the poultice; the children peeped in to talk to her and it was difficult to get them away. Lucas clearly adored her, and as for myself I was fascinated too.

  She was aware of this. She lay back on her pillows and clearly reveled in her position.

  What seemed strange to me was that she did not seem to be very disturbed that the company should have left her behind. I supposed that she was so worldly that she was quite capable of making the journey alone when the time came to join them. I was very innocent.

  The next day she told us she still could not put her foot to the ground without suffering great pain, although while she rested it, it did not hurt. So we continued to dance attendance on her and treat her like an honoured guest and it did not occur to me that she was deceiving us, but on the third day I made a discovery.

  The children had gone riding with Lucas. I had decided at the last minute not to go with them. Jacques was cutting up wood for the Lambards, Marianne and Jeanne were in the kitchen concocting some special dish for Harriet, and I decided that I would go up to see her.

  I knocked at the door and there was no answer, so I quietly pushed it open and looked in. The bed was empty though rumpled. Harriet’s clothes were there, but where was she?

  I could not understand it. A horrible desolation came over me. She had left us. How dull it would all seem now! But how could she have gone without her clothes? No. She was somewhere in the castle. But where? And how could she have left her room when she could only hobble in the utmost pain?

  She had tried to walk. She had fallen. She was lying somewhere in pain. I must find her, for she must be here. She could not have left the house without her clothes.

  As I stood there, my hand on the door, I heard light, running footsteps and they were coming towards this room.

  My heart started to pound as I went into a dark corner of the room and stood very still there, waiting.

  Harriet came running in. There was no sign of a hobble. She tripped round the room, pirouetted on her toes, and then looked at herself in the mirror which stood on the table.

  She must either have sensed my presence or caught a movement in the mirror, for she spun round as I emerged from the shadows.

  I said: “Your ankle is greatly improved.”

  She opened her eyes very wide. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

  “Well” she said, sitting down on the bed and smiling benignly at me, “it was never very bad. Though I did twist it. I slipped on the stairs. Then when it was a little swollen the idea came to me.”

  I should have been warned that anyone who could show such little concern at being found out in a deception like this must have been in a similar situation before.

  She smiled at me appealingly. “I so much wanted to stay,” she said.

  “You wanted to stay here … when …”

  “It’s comfortable,” she said. “More so than some dirty old inn, some poor lodging, not enough food because we can’t pay for it … Oh, much better than that.”

  “But your Paris engagement …?”

  “Our hopes of a Paris engagement. Do you think they would want us … a poor company of strolling players … in Paris!”

  “But Monsieur Lamotte said …”

  “Monsieur Lamotte has his dreams. Don’t we all? And it is nice to think they are realities. It’s a trick people have … particularly actors.”

  “Are you telling me that you pretended to hurt your ankle so that you could stay here?”

  “I did hurt my ankle and when I woke up warm in my bed … your bed shall we say … I thought: I wish I could stay here … for a little while. I wish I could talk to the interesting Arabella and become her friend, and be loved from afar by the adorable Lucas and bask in the admiration of the delectable babies …”

  “You are talking like Monsieur Lamotte.”

  “That’s because I am … or was … one of his players.”

  “Are you going to join them now that you have discovered that you can walk quite painlessly?”

  “It depends on you.”

  “On me!”

  “Certainly. If you decide to turn me out I shall join them. I shall tell them that the rest I have had and the ministrations of the good Madame Lambard have cured me. But I shall only do that if you turn me away.”

  “Are you suggesting that you should stay here?”

  “I have been thinking of it. Young Master Dick has been telling me of a very estimable lady who has, alas, gone to her Maker—Miss Black whose name is spoken with awe. She was the governess and it is a great misfortune that they are now w
ithout that one so necessary to their future.”

  “I have been teaching them. Lucas has helped me.”

  “That is admirable, but you have your duties about the château. Lucas is too young and has scarcely finished his own schooling. You need a governess. If you decided to engage me I should do my utmost to give satisfaction.”

  “A governess? But you are an actress.”

  “I could teach them literature. I am well versed in that. … I know the plays of England and France by heart … or some of them. I could teach them to sing … to dance … to carry themselves as they should. I could really supply a finish to their education.”

  “Do you really mean that you want to stay here in this quiet, dull, old château!”

  “Where there is good fire to warm myself, good food to fill myself and a certain companionship which I feel could become important to me.” She was looking at me earnestly, almost pleadingly. “Well, Arabella, I see you are the one who makes decisions here. What is your answer?”

  I said: “You know I would never turn anyone away who needed shelter.”

  Her smile was dazzling. I felt I wanted to keep looking at her as well as listening to her. Of course I wanted her to stay. Of course I was delighted that she had suggested it, even though I was a little shocked that she had pretended so convincingly, but then she was an actress.

  When I told the children that Mistress Main was to be their new governess, Dick set the young ones leaping high into the air—their special way of conveying approval. Lucas thought it would be good for the children and that our parents would be pleased. I was not so sure of the latter and made up my mind that I should not tell them that Harriet had been a player before she had decided to become a governess—not until they had seen her for themselves that was, and had, as I was sure they would, succumbed to her charm. Jeanne, Marianne and Jacques were pleased to have a new excitement brought into their lives. Madame Lambard could not but approve of one who had so rapidly shown the efficacy of her cures.

  And so Harriet Main settled in our household.

  It changed at once as I had known it would. Even her clothes were different. She had dresses of brocade and velvet which looked wonderful in candlelight. The children thought her beautiful, which in a strange, exotic way she certainly was. They could not take their eyes from her. Lucas was ready to be her slave, but I was the one she wanted most to impress.