‘I think, Miss Elliott, that you had better explain your absence from the moment you abandoned the schoolroom until you rang at the front door just now,’ Miss Hetherington-Smith said. It was clear that she was still very angry and Hester had no doubt that the older woman was looking forward to handing out a blistering set-down, if not worse. Nevertheless,
remembering Miss Andrews, she calmly drew up a chair and sat down on it, pulling Lonnie on to her knee as she did so.
‘Since this may take some time and Lonnie is extremely tired, I think we had both better sit down,’ she said, guiltily aware that her tone of sweet reasonableness was probably enough to infuriate a saint, but quite unable to stop herself imitating Miss Andrews, once she had begun. ‘As I’m sure you know, Mimms has given Miss Leonora a plot of garden for her own …’
Hester told the bare bones of the story as well as she could, emphasising the fact that Lonnie had not meant to disobey, had merely tried to rescue her pet and had been attacked by a group of rough, unpleasant children who had tried to take the kitten from her and had chased her, so that she had fallen twice, hurting herself quite badly on both occasions, but still managing to escape her pursuers.
Miss Hetherington-Smith sniffed disdainfully and, for the first time, took a good long look at her niece. ‘I can see that that part of your story, at least, is the truth,’ she said grudgingly, ‘since Miss Leonora looks like a guttersnipe and not like the young lady she is supposed to be. Go on with your tale, Miss Elliott.’
Hester continued with her story, mentioning in passing that the child had been rescued by a young boy who had taken her to his mother and had then returned to fetch Hester.
As she spoke, she watched Miss Hetherington-Smith for some sign of softening but saw none, and when she finished her narrative she suspected that the older woman was disappointed that she could find so little fault. But it was soon apparent that she underestimated her employer’s abilities in that line.
‘This young boy,’ Miss Hetherington-Smith said. ‘I take it you met him in the park? Where do these people live? Are they respectable?’
Lonnie’s hand had been lying against Hester’s knee; now she felt the small fingers give her a warning pinch and answered glibly: ‘Very respectable I should imagine. The boy has a delightful little sister and they often visit the park. Their home is not far from here though I’m afraid I didn’t notice the address.’
‘Well, it seems that though you are clearly at fault, Miss Leonora had no right to behave as she did. In fact, had it not been for the kitten … yes, I see my way clear now. The kitten must go. I cannot have my whole household disrupted by a pet which is out of control, and clearly one cannot teach a kitten to behave in a responsible manner.’
Hester began to protest but Lonnie, Kitty still tightly clasped in her arms, bounced to her feet. ‘How dare you try to take my cat away, you wicked old woman,’ she shrieked at her aunt. ‘If I tell my daddy that you have done so, he will come over to England and chop off your head, or – or send you away from this house, which is his, and let you live in a miserable slum somewhere.’
Miss Hetherington-Smith actually blinked and a tide of red mottled her neck and her thin cheeks. She glared furiously at Lonnie, then directed the glare upon Hester. ‘If this is the way you teach your charge to behave, then it is you who needs disciplining,’ she said harshly. ‘I really feel that my niece would do better if I took your advice, Miss Elliott, and sent her away to a boarding school, where she might be properly disciplined. Why, when I was a girl, if I had spoken to anyone like that, I would have been locked
in my room for a week and fed on bread and water. In fact, I’ve a good mind to keep Miss Leonora on bread and water until I receive a proper apology.’
‘You may shut me in the nursery for a month if it gives you satisfaction,’ Lonnie said angrily, ‘but don’t you dare try to take my kitten away from me.’ She turned imploring eyes upon Hester. ‘You won’t let her take Kitty, will you, Hester?’
‘And you should not call your governess by her Christian name,’ Miss Hetherington-Smith said, almost triumphantly. ‘She is Miss Elliott to me, and should be the same to you. Really, I don’t know what has been happening in my own house. The idea!’ She turned to Hester. ‘Have you taught the child no respect? I can see, if it is left to you, she will become a disgrace to our family name.’
Hester heaved a sigh and stood up, setting Lonnie down on the floor beside her. ‘I’m very sorry you find me so unsatisfactory, Miss Hetherington-Smith,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Lonnie – I mean Miss Leonora – please apologise to your aunt for your rudeness. I am sure Miss Hetherington-Smith did not mean to threaten Kitty and understands how much your pet means to you. Why, your letters to your father are always full of Kitty’s antics and I’m sure he’d be greatly distressed if you wrote and said that your aunt had sent your pet away.’ She smiled sweetly at the old woman. ‘Isn’t that so, Miss Hetherington-Smith?’
‘On this one occasion, I am prepared to overlook what has happened,’ Miss Hetherington-Smith said, after a long pause, during which she glared balefully at both Lonnie and Hester. ‘But in future, Miss Elliott, I shall want a detailed account each morning of how you mean to spend the day.’
‘Very well, Miss Hetherington-Smith,’ Hester said
dutifully, and turned away to hide a smile. Would Miss Hetherington-Smith expect a written report, including such things as visits to the WC and the time spent in the bath on a Friday night?
Once they had regained the schoolroom and Lonnie had settled Kitty in her basket, the two girls stared at one another. ‘I know it’s wrong to lie, Hester,’ Lonnie said, after a moment, ‘and anyway, you didn’t, not exactly, because the Baileys
are
respectable. But wasn’t Aunt Emmeline horrid? If I hadn’t thought to threaten her with my daddy, I do believe she really would have turned Kitty out. She is horrible, isn’t she?’
‘She’s old-fashioned and narrow-minded and doesn’t understand children in the least,’ Hester said guardedly. She was uncomfortably aware that Lonnie, when in a rage, was quite capable of repeating some casual remark of her own in order to score over her aunt. ‘But remember, dear, she isn’t actually going to do anything, not this time at any rate, so in future we must both be very careful not to behave in a way which could annoy her.’
‘Huh! If that means I mustn’t go round to the Baileys’ again, then I’m going to annoy her the very next chance I get,’ Lonnie said roundly. ‘I won’t let her choose my friends, I won’t, I won’t!’
Hester agreed, but pointed out that if they were careful, they might continue to lead their own lives without too much interference. ‘I don’t approve of blackmail,’ she said, trying to sound a good deal more disapproving than she felt, ‘but there’s no doubt your aunt is in some awe of your father and does not wish to offend him. It is a card we cannot afford to play too often, but it has certainly come in useful today.’
‘I don’t quite know what you mean when you
talk about playing cards, but I know very well that Aunt Emmeline is living in my father’s house, and should remember it when she tries to boss me about,’ Lonnie said grandly. But though Hester was amused by this remark, she kept her face straight and merely recommended Lonnie to come to her room and have a good wash before tumbling into bed.
‘For your aunt was quite right when she said you looked a real little guttersnipe,’ she told her charge. ‘And I can see you’re absolutely exhausted. As for calling me Miss Elliott, perhaps you’d best do so in your aunt’s hearing, but when we’re up here or outside the house, I think we’ll stick to “Hester”, don’t you?’
‘Yes please, Hester,’ Lonnie mumbled, speaking round a huge yawn. ‘And you’ll call me Lonnie, won’t you? Daddy only called me “Leonora” when he was cross.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Hester agreed, ushering her charge into her small, whitewashed bedroom and beginning to pour cold water from the jug into the basin. ‘And now let’s get to bed, young lady, before we fall asleep on the linoleum!’
Emmeline Hetherington-Smith watched her niece and the governess depart and then sat down heavily in a velvet-upholstered armchair drawn up by the empty fireplace. She was trying to tell herself that she had won the encounter, that she had put the hateful Miss Elliott in her place and frightened her niece with the threat of taking the kitten from her. But even as she sat down in the chair, she could feel the heat of fury and frustration rising to her cheeks. How dare that impudent chit of a governess speak to her the way she had! And as for Leonora, nasty,
spoilt little thing, she had been worse. If only, oh, if only her brother, Leonard, had not been such a fond father, had not laid the law down regarding her employment of Miss Elliott! The truth was she was financially dependent upon her brother for almost everything. True, her father had provided for her generously in his will, but that had been fifteen years ago and what had seemed a large sum then seemed so no longer.
Leonard had advised her to invest the money in one of his thriving companies but she had ignored him; he was a dozen years her junior and her choleric temper – and her pride – would not allow her to accept advice from someone she regarded as a mere stripling. So the money had remained where her father had placed it and of course there had been calls upon it when she needed extras, such as a holiday on the Continent, a trip to Scotland for the shooting or a visit to London when her wardrobe needed replenishing. The result was that her inheritance had shrunk frighteningly, leaving her unable to imagine existing without Leonard’s help.
Sitting in the empty drawing room, Miss Hetherington-Smith wished, not for the first time, that she had taken her brother’s advice and invested her money. After all, it need not necessarily have been in one of Leonard’s companies, he had always made that clear. He had advised buying shares in the India Rubber Company, or even in a local firm such as Lewis’s or Blackler’s and, though she had not taken this advice, she had been unable to resist following these companies’ fortunes in the financial press. She had very soon realised that, had she done as Leonard suggested, she would by now be a rich woman, but there was no point in repining. Before she
could reinvest her money the Depression was upon them, and though Leonard still believed she should capitalise upon her shrunken income, her cautious nature would not allow her to do so. To lose her little bit of money, her ‘independence’, would have killed her, she believed, so when Leonard had suggested that she should take care of the child, adding that he would provide and pay for a governess, continue to pay all household expenses and triple her own allowance, she had been quite unable to resist.
Now, with the flush of anger still heating her thin cheeks, she wondered whether she would have accepted the challenge had she known what a pert, disagreeable child Leonora was and how arrogant and self-possessed the governess. Of the two, she really thought she disliked Miss Elliott the more. A child could be punished, humiliated, reduced to tears and repentance, but a grown woman of twenty-four, experienced in the ways of the world, would have her own ways of combating aggression, no matter how such aggression was disguised.
Miss Hetherington-Smith began to dream of the revenge which she longed to wreak upon the heads of her two uninvited guests. If she played her cards right she could get her own back on both of them. She could criticise the governess for a thousand faults, real and imaginary, say she was bringing the child up to be rude and selfish … and this would mean Leonora could indeed be shut in her room and fed on bread and water for her sins.
For quite half an hour, Miss Hetherington-Smith sat in the velvet armchair, indulging herself by planning a campaign which would end in her victory over Miss Elliott and her charge. In fact it was only the opening of the drawing room door and the timid voice of Miss
Hutchinson, asking her whether she would like a hot drink before bedtime, which brought her abruptly back to the present. Sighing, she stood up slowly, hearing her knees creak a protest, for she had sat in the same position for far too long. ‘Yes, Miss Hutchinson, tell Maud to bring hot milk and a plate of digestive biscuits to the small parlour,’ she said grandly. ‘I have a problem I should like to discuss with you.’
Alone in her neat first floor bedroom that night, getting ready for bed, Miss Hutchinson considered the problem which her employer had laid out before her. At the time, she had tried to sound sympathetic, admitting that the situation was a difficult one, but in her heart she had been dismayed. She had known, of course, that her employer was a spiteful woman, full of self-importance, who needed careful handling. Her own approach from the start had been to agree with everything Miss Hetherington-Smith said, to try to placate her when she was in a bad mood and to soothe ruffled feelings in the servants’ quarters. When she had first been told of the impending arrival of her employer’s niece and her governess, she had been truly dismayed. She had worked very hard to win a place in Miss Hetherington-Smith’s confidence, had believed herself to be a valued employee and companion, and immediately feared that she would be pushed into the background, possibly even dismissed, when the newcomers arrived. So it had been with real pleasure that she had seen how the child’s mere presence irritated Miss Hetherington-Smith. Her employer had banished both intruders to the attics and had made it plain that she expected the governess both to take care of her pupil and to
keep her out of the way of the adult members of the household.
Miss Hutchinson had expected Miss Elliott to dine with them, perhaps even to share their luncheon, but this had not proved to be the case. Miss Hetherington-Smith had informed her companion that though she meant to do her duty by her niece she had no intention of changing her way of life by one iota, and this had satisfied Miss Hutchinson very well. A niece and a governess who seldom saw the mistress of the house were unlikely to worm their way into that lady’s cold heart.