At first he had simply fallen for her face and delightful personality, but he soon realised that she was very intelligent and quite capable of keeping her end up in the older and more sophisticated circles in which he moved. Before leaving her in the hills to return to his various business interests in the city, he had taken her for a day’s outing to Simla. They rode up the Western Mall in a rickshaw, for the way was steep, and did not get down until they reached Scandal Point. From there they dived into a narrow alley fringed with elaborately decorated houses. The alley was roughly cobbled and Rosalind was wondering aloud why her companion chose to scramble up such terrain when Leonard led her into a tiny shop, so crammed with gold and jewels that they dazzled the eye. There, he had bought her a diamond ring of such breathtaking beauty that even the merchant from whom they had bought it saw it go with regret, saying it was the finest gem he had ever owned. Rosalind had been enchanted with it, saying that she particularly liked it because it was not huge or ostentatious but simply the most beautiful jewel she had ever seen. Certainly, she had never expected to own such a one, and as they made their way back to the hill station she looked at her companion speculatively, her large grey eyes wide with curiosity. ‘Darling Len, can you really afford a stone like this?’ she asked in her usual straightforward manner. ‘I’m afraid I never thought of the cost when the old man produced tray after tray of stones, but if it’s going to embarrass …’
Touched both by the naiveté of her question and
the simple kindliness of it, he had laughed out loud and given her an exuberant hug. ‘Ros, light of my life, I could afford to buy every gem in the shop if I really wanted to,’ he assured her. ‘I have a great many business interests all over India. I have homes in three major cities and the hill bungalow which you’ve already seen, besides a house in Liverpool and property in central London. Your ring is well within my means.’
Rosalind had laughed and returned his hug and then, standing on tiptoe, she had kissed his cheek. ‘Well, at least you know I’m not marrying you for your money,’ she remarked. ‘To tell you the truth, Len, I’d marry you if you were just a box-wallah, peddling pins and hair ribbons and cheap jewellery to half the housewives in Delhi.’
Leonard heard the sincerity behind the words and felt his heart swell with pride. His first wife, Deirdre, had been his second cousin, so he had known her all his life. Her family had lived on the Wirral and there had been coming and going between the Radnors and the Hetherington-Smiths for as long as he could remember. He had always thought of Deirdre as a sweet and simple country girl and after two years in India, struggling with the business and being cheated over household expenses by his staff, he had decided his best course would be to marry.
He had returned to England, proposed to his little country cousin and gone back to Delhi with his blushing bride. He had never regretted his marriage and had taken it for granted that, as the stronger personality of the two, he would always have to look after Deirdre, but she had done her best to keep up with him and had proved popular with his friends and acquaintances.
Lonnie had been born long after the couple had given up all hope of ever having a child and Deirdre had been besotted by her daughter, wanting to protect her from every wind which blew and anxious over the many health risks with which India abounded. Other children played in their gardens, taking the risk of snake bite, scorpion sting or the snapping of a stray dog, should it gain access, but Lonnie was five before her mother allowed her to play out of doors and even then she was always accompanied by her
ayah
and seldom allowed to invite other children on to their property.
When Deirdre had died, Leonard’s grief had been deep and totally honest. He had loved her and would miss her gentle loving ways for the rest of his life, he had thought, but now, when he was with Rosalind, he found to his shame that it was hard to bring Derdre’s small oval face and shining, toffee-brown hair to mind. What was more, he knew that Deirdre had never been his intellectual equal, whereas there were times when he ruefully suspected that despite the age difference Rosalind was at least as clever as he, if not more so.
So now Leonard made his way to the railway station where he would catch a train up into the hills, where Rosalind waited. They intended to get married as soon as they returned to the plains and to have a honeymoon aboard one of the many cruise ships which took on passengers in Amritsar, for though Leonard longed to introduce his beautiful young wife to his dearest Lonnie he had no desire to visit England in winter, when he could scarcely expect Liverpool, the city of his birth, to look its best.
As soon as he and Rosalind had tied the knot
he meant to write a long, chatty letter to his sister informing her of his new status and another to Lonnie, assuring her that her new stepmother was the most wonderful person in the world. Rosalind loved children and was good with them; Leonard had seen many evidences of this since his fiancée was staying with the Cuthbertsons who had half a dozen children with ages ranging from four months to eight years.
As he boarded the train, taking his place in the first-class sleeper and pouring himself a generous
chota-peg
from the decanter of whisky on the little sideboard, he reflected that the letter to Lonnie must be tactful in the extreme. He would have liked to tell her that Rosalind’s presence would mean she might return to India once more, to live with him and his new wife, but he knew this was impossible. The educational and social advantages of living in England could not be lightly dismissed, and then there was the continuing health hazard which India’s extreme heat and the prevalence of diseases such as cholera represented to growing children.
Having thought about his responsibilities, Leonard leaned back in his comfortable seat, just as the train began to move forward. Through the window, he could see the crowded platform with its little knots of people cooking meals, sleeping or indulging in fierce arguments gradually being left behind. The journey would take almost four days and this period was always one to which he looked forward because he could relax completely and enjoy the varied scenery through which the train passed whilst allowing his thoughts free reign. It was an opportunity to draft out the letters which he meant to send when the time was right, so he fished in his attaché case and
brought out his writing pad, his fountain pen and a sheet of pink blotting paper. He pulled out the flap of the small writing desk and laid the things out on it. Then he pulled his chair closer and picked up his pen. Presently, with his eyes gazing straight ahead, he began to think of Rosalind.
‘There’s a letter for me from Daddy!’ Lonnie came dancing up the stairs and into the schoolroom where her breakfast porridge was awaiting her attention. ‘Oh, Hester, I do love Daddy’s letters. They are always exciting and quite often he tells me about my friends, if you can call them friends, that is. Last time he wrote, he told me how naughty Arnold Cuthbertson had been.’ She giggled, sliding into her seat and picking up her porridge spoon. ‘Doesn’t the cold make one hungry, Hester? I took Kitty down to play in the snow but she didn’t like it one bit. She picked up her paws one at a time and shook them, then she sneezed and went hoppity hop back into the house.’ She took a large spoonful of porridge and crammed it into her mouth, then began to wrench at the envelope. ‘Daddy said that Arnie Cuthbertson put a big dead bull-frog in a guest’s bed and nearly made her faint. She’s got ever such a funny name – the guest I mean – she’s called Miss Bright. Daddy says she’s ever so nice and was a real sport about the bull-frog, but Mr Cuthbertson didn’t think it was funny and wouldn’t let Arnie ride his pony or go on a picnic for a whole week.’
‘That sounds fair,’ Hester said. She did not mind bull-frogs in their natural element but would not have cared to discover one in her bed, particularly if the discovery was made by a naked toe. ‘Just you put that envelope down, miss, and eat your porridge.
We don’t have many rules up here but one of them is
hot food should be eaten hot and letters can always wait
, and you don’t want to get porridge all over Daddy’s letter, do you?’
Lonnie laughed but began to ply her porridge spoon energetically and presently was scraping the dish clean. ‘That was lovely; you
do
make nice porridge, Hester, much nicer than Cook’s,’ she said, pushing back her empty plate. ‘May I open the letter now?’
‘Wouldn’t you like a piece of toast?’ Hester said. ‘I can make you some in the twinkling of an eye.’
Lonnie, however, shook her head. ‘No thanks, I’m full to the brim with porridge,’ she said, reaching eagerly for the envelope. ‘I wonder where Daddy is now? He went back to the hills, you know, but I don’t suppose he stayed there very long. I expect by now …’ She had ripped open the envelope and immediately began to read the flimsy pages, her lips moving silently as she perused every word. Hester got up and began to clear the table, carrying the dishes through into the small kitchenette. She had got into the habit of always washing their crockery and cutlery and both cooking and clearing away their meals, since this saved the servants a job and would, she hoped, endear her to Miss Hetherington-Smith, who was constantly grumbling that Hester and the child made a great deal of work for the maids. Hester had acquired a second gas ring, upon which she boiled a large pan of water for washing up, and close to the basin which she used for this purpose stood three enamel buckets holding cold water. Hester put the sticky porridge dishes, spoons, knives and side plates into the bowl and splashed boiling water on to them, then added a judicious amount of cold. She
set to work with her little mop and had very soon finished the task, leaving the dishes to dry in the rack which Cook had provided. She was about to return to the schoolroom and suggest that they start lessons at once in order to go out into the snow as soon as they had finished, when the door shot open and Lonnie appeared. Her face was bright red and her dark eyes were flashing dangerously. ‘You’ll never guess what my daddy’s been and gone and done,’ she said in a high, furious voice. ‘He’s been and gone and married that Bright woman! Oh, Hester, I can’t
believe
my daddy would do such a thing! If he was lonely, why didn’t he have me taken back to India again? Or he could have married
you –
you’re ever so pretty and we know each other so well that it wouldn’t have made much difference. Why, you could still have stayed with me over here because lots of mummies do that. They visit India every other year for three or four months and the daddies come back to England for their long leaves whenever they can.’ As Hester turned away from the washstand, Lonnie hurled herself across the room and into her governess’s arms, still too furious for tears, though Hester thought they were not far off. ‘Oh, Hester, what shall I do? I hate Miss Bright, hate her, hate her! How
dare
she marry my daddy the moment my back’s turned! Daddy says she will be my stepmother and I must love her and be good to her, but I won’t, I won’t!’
‘Darling Lonnie, I don’t suppose you’ll see much of her for the next few years,’ Hester said gently. ‘Remember how lonely your daddy must have been with you far away and your mother gone.’
‘Mummy’s only been dead two and a bit years,’ Lonnie said resentfully. ‘People don’t marry again
so quickly as a rule. Anyway, Daddy
isn’t
lonely, he’s got heaps and heaps of friends, and if he
was
lonely, why couldn’t he have kept my dear
ayah?
She would have looked after him as well as any wife could.’
Over the top of the child’s head, Hester allowed herself a small grin. She knew very little about marriage herself, but guessed that no
ayah
, no matter how good, could perform all the duties of a wife. However, it would not do to say so to the child. ‘Your father is an Englishman, dearest, and needs an English woman as his partner,’ she explained gently.
Lonnie gave a derisive sniff. ‘Why?’ she said baldly. ‘My father speaks perfectly good Hindi and my
ayah
spoke quite good English. Oh, Hester, I
don’t
understand.’
Hester took a deep breath and her mind searched feverishly through various similes, at last coming up with one she hoped Lonnie would understand. ‘Kitty is a cat, right? She’s a very young cat at the moment but one day she will look round her for a mate, a he-cat. She will want to be with him and perhaps they will have baby kittens of their own later on. Do you understand that, Lonnie?’
Hester had sat herself down in the upright kitchen chair, with Lonnie sucking her thumb, a thing she rarely did in the daylight hours, leaning against her knee. The child did not speak, but after a moment nodded her head.
‘Well, if you had a little dog, do you suppose that the little dog and Kitty would become excellent friends? If they wanted to do so, could they live happily together and have kittens or puppies?’
Lonnie looked up, then gave a watery giggle. ‘That’s
silly,’ she mumbled around her thumb. ‘But … but I know what you are trying to say. My
ayah
was a dear but she was nothing like my mother. Yes, I suppose Daddy does need someone of his own kind, though I wish it could have been me, or you. Then things needn’t have changed. And he says in his letter that he’s taking Rosalind – that’s her name, Rosalind – on a world cruise. He’ll be gone six months – six whole months, Hester – so I shan’t even be able to write to him, though he says he’ll send me cards and presents from every port.’ She sniffed dolefully. ‘So things will change even more, don’t you think?’
‘Dear Lonnie, things
won’t
change,’ Hester insisted. ‘You must not imagine that your daddy will love you less because he also loves Miss Bright. There are two quite different kinds of love, you know, so you needn’t worry that you will be displaced in your father’s affections. You are his dear little girl and nobody can take that away from you. As for the cruise, six months will soon pass and you’ll have your daddy’s letters and presents every week or so. You can write to him regularly, you know, as you have always done, then when he gets home he’ll have all the fun of reading what you’ve been doing while he was away.’
‘When he comes home he
says
he’ll bring that woman to England for a nice long stay,’ Lonnie admitted grudgingly. ‘He
says
she wants to meet me – and you and Aunt Emmeline of course – but I dare say that’s just one of the promises grown-ups make and never mean to keep.’
Hester laughed. ‘You mustn’t be so determined to believe the worst of people,’ she said, giving Lonnie’s thin shoulders a little squeeze. ‘Now put
your letter somewhere safe and we’ll forget lessons for this morning and go out and play in the snow.’
Lonnie removed her thumb from her mouth and rubbed her face with her sleeve, then smiled up at Hester. ‘I can’t put the letter away; I threw it in the fire,’ she said briskly. ‘I was very cross and upset and I wanted to punish Daddy for being so – so secretive. If he had come back to England and got married here, I might have been a bridesmaid. I’ve always wanted to be a bridesmaid but now I don’t suppose I’ll ever get the chance,’ she finished dolefully.
Hester leaned down and gave Lonnie’s tear-wet cheek a quick kiss. She had never been particularly demonstrative but had realised for some time that Lonnie missed the cuddles and caresses which had been a part of her life, both with her parents and with her
ayah
. Hester had felt awkward at first, for her own father had not been a demonstrative man, but now Lonnie took it for granted that she could sit on her governess’s knee when she was unhappy and would always be kissed good night and good morning. ‘You shall be bridesmaid if I ever get married,’ Hester promised recklessly. ‘Now I think you ought to wash your face before you’re seen in public, or everyone will guess you’ve been upset. I’ll pour you some warm water so you can make a proper job of it.’
Later that day, Miss Emmeline sat at the window with her brother’s letter spread out on the large desk in front of her, watching the snow whirl past. She was thinking hard. Her first reaction to his news had been one of incredulity and rage. She had never liked her sister-in-law – had never really known her in fact – but ever since Deirdre died she had
begun to consider herself the natural heiress to the enormous fortune which her brother had built up. Without actively wishing him harm, she had begun to take it for granted that he was unlikely to outlive her, despite her being a dozen years the elder, for everyone knew that men aged much quicker than women and that those in tropical climes frequently fell prey to misadventures and diseases unknown in England.
She had accepted, of course, that Leonard would leave most of his money to Lonnie but guessed that, as the child’s guardian, she would hold any such monies in trust until the child either married or was considered old enough to manage her own affairs. Yet now, out of the blue, came the news that Leonard was married, and to a young and lovely woman who would undoubtedly outlive both Leonard and Emmeline herself.
Emmeline picked up the letter and read it through again. In the back of her fertile mind was a thought which would not quite come to the surface. Something in the letter could be turned to her advantage, only she could not quite see … if she read the letter again, slowly … if she consulted Hutchinson … except she did not wish to let her companion see how baffled and frustrated she felt. She simply must work out the puzzle for herself. She would get no rest until she had done so.
She had read the first three paragraphs when it suddenly occurred to her just how she could use the information her brother had given her. He and his new wife were embarking on a world cruise for six months. For six whole, glorious months they would be incommunicado, unable to receive letters or information from anyone, including the wretched
child who had turned the Hetherington-Smith household upside down and whose smug, self-satisfied governess had dared to defy the mistress of the house and make her feel small and petty. She had never let Miss Elliott know it but she had received an extremely unpleasant letter from her brother, regarding the payment of Miss Elliott’s salary. He had been very angry and had not scrupled to tell his elder sister that she had no right to charge a dependent employee for her keep. He had added that unless she wanted him to pay Miss Elliott direct she had better mend her ways at once, assure the governess that a mistake had been made, reimburse her for the money already withheld, and never attempt to do such a thing again.
At the time, Miss Emmeline had been in danger of having an apoplexy from sheer rage and frustration. She had only been able to bring herself to comply with her brother’s wishes by dwelling on the revenge she would wreak upon Miss Elliott when the opportunity presented itself. She had planned to dismiss the governess without a character as soon as she possibly could, playing with the lovely notion of accusing the younger woman of theft, immoral behaviour or contaminating the mind of a child. She knew, of course, that unless such an accusation could be substantiated her brother would be very angry with her, might even stop her allowance or cease to pay the household expenses. But since she knew in her heart that such dreams were unlikely ever to come to fruition, she scarcely considered her brother’s reaction.
But now it seemed that fate had delivered Miss Elliott into her hands. She could make use of the girl in any way she wished and Leonard would not find
out what was happening for six whole months. She had long thought that the job of Lonnie’s governess was not a particularly exacting one. A couple of hours of lessons each morning and perhaps a walk around a museum in the afternoon were tasks, she felt, that could be undertaken by almost anyone. As her brother paid the governess’s wages, however, there was no point in dismissing Miss Elliott since she herself would have to employ someone in her place. But in the meantime, she would see that the young woman was kept fully occupied. Already, Miss Elliott was responsible for nursery tea and for clearing away and washing up the tea things. In future, she could undertake other, similar tasks. If Miss Elliott – I shall call her Hester in future, Miss Emmeline told herself – could keep her own room tidy, then she could do the same for the whole of the second floor. She could easily fit such tasks as dusting, polishing and cleaning windows into her duties without disturbing the child’s lessons. Warming to her theme, Miss Emmeline realised that with her governess busy the child might become a nuisance, for everyone knew that Satan could always find work for idle hands to do. Therefore, while Miss Elliott – Hester – busied herself with cleaning the rooms on the second floor, the child might as well either assist the governess or come down into the kitchen and make herself useful there.