Joan Smith (3 page)

He smiled apologetically to me, but it was clearly his habit to humor Aunt Loo. He entered willingly into a discussion of this possibility, while I sat deciding how I would like to come back, if I got another whirl out of life. A man, I thought. Definitely as a man. Too many feminine qualities irked me; being coy and dainty, being backward in speaking to strangers, especially male strangers, having to wear skirts and ride sidesaddle. Yes, I would like to be a man, but with my present size and strength. When I tuned back into the conversation of the oldsters, the subject had changed.

“We shall have a session tomorrow night,” Aunt Loo was saying. “Will you speak to the Franconis for me, Walter, or shall I write them a note?”

“I am going to the village. I’ll arrange it. What hour would you like to have the sitting?”

“After dinner, ninish would suit me. If Pierre and Mr. Sinclair are back, they will join us. Pierre is not very good at it, but Mr. Sinclair shows a surprising flair. I am sure Valerie would like to try it as well.”

A “sitting” conveyed to me having one’s portrait taken, but this was obviously not the sort of sitting being spoken of here. I put the question to Dr. Hill. “A séance
,
” he confessed, not without a trace of shame. “Your aunt has taken up an interest in spiritualism. There are a pair in the village who seem to have a knack for it. Franconi is their name—a man and his wife. She is the medium.”

“Medium what?” I asked, my confusion becoming deeper. Auntie had mentioned spiritualism at home, to explain her funny gowns, but had not expanded on it when she encountered Papa’s scowl and Mama’s dumfounded frown. I thought she had her fortune read from time to time—something of the sort.

“Medium for contacting Edward,” she told me. “Madam Franconi is trying to get in touch with Edward for me, my late husband, you remember, dear. Such a relief to know I can still talk to him. It is a wonderful thing. Do not judge it out of hand. Just think, if you could talk to your grandmother, or some dear departed one.”

“I don’t remember Grandma Ford. I don’t have any dear departed ones yet.”

“How very uninteresting the young are after all,” she said sadly to Walter.

“But I would like to be reincarnated,” I added, to placate her.

“Yes, that is an interesting alternative, but there is no saying you would come back as a human being, Valerie. You might very well come back as a mouse or a bird or anything. I wonder if Valerie was not a lion or tiger in her last incarnation, Walter! Doesn’t she have the traces of it still? And Madame was saying just before I left that there will sometimes be a carry-over. She is quite sure Lady Morgan used to be a mouse, for besides looking quite like one, she is
petrified
of cats. Imagine!”

Walter smiled sheepishly, for a medical man to be countenancing such unscientific stuff. “There is no harm in it,” he told me. “It amuses us oldsters, who have little enough to keep us occupied.”

“Never apologize for your beliefs, Walter,” Loo commanded, her brindled head sitting back at a haughty angle, while her blue eyes snapped. “Valerie is a child.
We
are older, and wiser. She is not required to believe, neither are we required to apologize for believing. Let her try a sitting. If nothing comes of it, she need not try again.”

“You need not try at all, if it does not interest you,” he told me.

“I’ll try it. I’ll try anything once,” I answered without hesitation. It was a custom I followed in my life to accept all new experiences that were offered. Whoever would have thought snails or oysters would taste so delicious, for instance, to look at them? Till I jumped into the lake, I never thought I would like swimming either, but I adore it. One would not have believed kissing Arthur Crombie would be at all satisfactory with that moustache, but it was very nice. I am all for trying new things. Except perhaps jumping over the toll-booth. I have still some reservations on that point.

Dr. Hill prescribed a glass of wine and an early retirement for us after the exhaustion of our travels, then left to allow us to fill the prescription.

“He seems very nice,” I told her when we were alone.

“He is the oldest friend I have in Hampshire. He was Edward’s good friend when we got married. He married some cousin of Edward’s first wife. Edward was best man at the wedding, which was well before my time. Walter would have been our best man as well, except that we got married at Bath, where we met. I was there with Grandmother Ford, Valerie. I wonder if there is any chance of contacting her tomorrow night.”

“We shall see.”

It would be misleading to say I had grave doubts on that score. I hadn’t a doubt in the world it was all a bag of moonshine, but the experience would be interesting. I would try it—once.

In the morning, I tried another new experience: sleeping in till nine o’clock and having cocoa in bed. It was marvelous. I mean to try it every day while I am here at Troy Fenners. My aunt was locked up in her scriptorium when I came down for breakfast. I sat at the table alone, but before two eggs were consumed, I was joined by Pierre St. Clair. He was a perfect little Napoleon of a man in so far as height goes, but not nearly so bellicose. In fact, he was charming, and not bad-looking either, barring his small stature. He was dark-haired, dark-eyed, swarthy-skinned, elegant in the extreme, stopping just a shadow short of being foppish. He advanced toward me at a leisurely waddle, caused by the outward turning of his toes.

“I hear you are the Miss Ford,” he said, performing a polite bow at the side of my chair.

“You must be the Pierre St. Clair,” I replied, offering him my hand. I mean to be quite insistent in future on always shaking everyone’s hand instead of curtseying. At twenty-one, I think I might take this privilege to myself without appearing brash.

The Pierre did not seem to know what to make of my gesture. He put his other hand over mine, and stood there, smiling and nodding for several seconds, while my eggs turned cold. “Won’t you have a chair, Mr. St. Clair?” I suggested.

“I have many chairs,” he smiled, looking around the table where he had, to be sure, a choice of eleven. Still, he was strangely reluctant to select one.

“Do sit down. Have you had breakfast?” I asked.

“I have had the coffee. I shall have more the coffee, to keep you companies.”

“How nice.”

“You will pour me the coffee,” he said, but in a polite, deferential tone.

After a brief consideration, I gave in and poured. “Also of the cream and sugar,” was his next suggestion.

“Help yourself,” I said, nodding toward them. One can humor a foreigner only so far.

“Yes, very help yourself,” he agreed, sitting down beside me and adding an unconscionable quantity of cream and sugar to his cup. “I am happied to make you welcome to
Trois Fen
ê
tres,”
he went on.

“I am happy to be here.”

“I also.
Tante
Louise is the charming hostess, when she is here. Maybe I adopt her to me.”

“Plan to make a long stay of it, do you?”

“Only for the coffee.
Tante
Louise is not the true aunt, you understood. She is the cousin.”

“She is
my
aunt.
”

“She is my cousin.”

“Quite.”

“Precisely. The Sinclair, you comprehend, is the St. Clair, in bastardized English. Mr. Sinclair, he tells me this. I meet many bastardized St. Clairs at Wight. It is the island where I am gone with Mr. Welland Sinclair.”

“Yes, so I understand.”

“It is not difficult to comprehend. They are all my cousins. I have many English cousins. I too am very English. In France, I am took always for an English.”

“I don’t think you’ll have that difficulty in England, Mr. St. Clair.”

“Call me Sinclair. It is better. When at Rome, do like the Italians do, as we say in English.”

“Yes, we say that all the time.”

“The coffee, he is too very much sweet,” was his next attempt at communication.

“He is darling, isn’t he?”

“Too sweet darling,” he decided, shoving the cup away. “I am to be the friend companion to show the
Trois Fen
ê
tres
at you.
Tante
Louise, she tells me so. Yes?”

“Wasn’t that sly of her? Shall I try to speak French, Mr. St. Clair? It might be easier for you.”

“But no absolutely! Speaking the French becomes very difficult to me. I speak the English best. I think to stay absolutely at England now on, with
Tante
Louise.”

“Lucky
Tante
Louise.”

“Lucky Pierre also too. I am very much at the home here. My chap friend, Welland Sinclair, who is my cousin you recall—he tells me every day I am more English. No one guesses but that for my name, so I call me Peter Sinclair in the future. You also will call me Peter Sinclair, please you.”

“I shall be very happy to, Peter Sinclair.”

“Good. Now stop eating, or you become too gross. We walk.”

“I haven’t finished my breakfast.”

“Tante
Louise, she wants that I show you the horse for jumping something. I don’t know what it is. A very big she horse.”

“My tollbooth-jumping mount! Excellent, I’ll go with you.” I hopped up, eager to see my mount, and wondering where Aunt Loo had got hold of it so early.

“Mon Dieu!”
Pierre (sorry,
Peter)
exclaimed as I arose to tower above him.
“Comme c’est une grande fille!”

“The English is best, Peter,” I reminded him.

“The most best English girl I ever see,” he smiled fatuously, offering his arm to accompany me to the stable. “I think the horse, she is too big for a girl, but now
...
” He gave a Gallic shrug that speaks so many words and hastened along to the stables, his elegant little shiny Hessians hopping to keep up with me. He tried to slow us down, for he was low-set, and not very agile in motion.

The mount was a cross between an Arabian and a Percheron, my favorite sort of jumper. She was a mare, called Nancy. “Whose mount is she?” I asked Pierre.

“The Hill medicine man lent her. You can drive this animal?”

“No, but I can ride and jump her. I’m going to change into my habit now and try her paces. Want to come along?”

“I do not have a horse here. In France, I have many stables. My cousin, he is lending me a horse later soon. We English can’t do without our horses,” he assured me.

He jabbered incessantly all the way back to the house. It was a relief to my poor ears to leave him at the door.

Pinny came running to my room when she saw me enter the house. She got out my riding habit and bonnet, brushed them meticulously, and took my gown to hang up as I pulled it off. It was lovely to have her there, picking up after me, and feeling honored to be allowed to do it. I suppose for her it was no worse than sweeping carpets and polishing furniture. “That Mr. St. Clair is a wicked rattle-jaw, Miss Ford,” she warned me, somewhat belatedly to be sure. “Carries on with the girls when her ladyship’s back is turned, and that isn’t the worst of him either.”

“What could be worse, Pinny?” I asked her mischievously.

“He has a conning way about him. The mistress is so fond of him I don’t doubt he’ll become a tenant for life.”

“What, settle down at Troy Fenners you mean?” I asked, surprised that my aunt could tolerate his jabbering.

“We all think that’s what he has in his mind. He certainly likes it here, especially since Mr. Sinclair moved into the gatehouse. Close as winkle-weavers, the pair of them. If you want my opinion, miss, it’s a case of the scavengers gathering to see what they can pick from her, and they pick plenty
.
”

“What on earth are you talking about, Pinny? You mean she gives them things—money?”

“She’s doing something with it since they came. We never were short of anything before, and
that’s
a fact. She hasn’t paid us our last quarter wages. Of course she was away visiting, but she’d never have let it go before, and she hasn’t mentioned it since her return either. Cook says the grocer in the village was a-knocking at the back door yesterday for payment of his bill, and her without a pence in her coffers to pay him off.”

“It must be an oversight. I’ll speak to her if you like, remind her to pay the staff.”

“Oh, never in the world, miss!” she pleaded, her poor squinted eyes looking horrified. “I wouldn’t want her to know we’ve been gossiping, but it
is
odd, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” I agreed.

“Shall I give this muslin a washing, miss?”

“Good gracious no! I’ve only worn it for an hour. Hang it up.”

“I pressed the suit you wore for traveling. It’s hanging in the clothespress. Is there anything else, miss? Any mending or polishing of shoes, gloves to be washed?”

“Do whatever you see needs doing, Pinny,” I answered, glowing with joy at shucking all my personal chores off on her willing shoulders. “I must go now. I can’t keep Nancy waiting.”

“That great whopper of a nag Dr. Hill left off on his way to the village? I never thought a lady could ride it, but then you’re not
...
” She bumbled to a stop, too embarrassed to go on.

“No, I’m not, am I?” I asked unhelpfully, and left the room, smiling at her.

The smile faded as I considered her remarks about not getting paid. How was it possible my aunt was short of funds? She had, according to family gossip, ten thousand pounds per annum from Sir Edward, plus whatever small dowry she had brought to her marriage.

Yet she had not given us girls a guinea on this last trip, as she customarily did. That is
all
she ever gave us. If her money was being used by buzzard-relatives, the Fords were not to blame. I could not imagine Pierre being so sly, but then his particular brand of English tended to cloud his actual thinking. He might be a cunning rascal, made to appear a fool by his broken English. He spoke a good deal of his cousin, this Welland Sinclair who was staying at the gatehouse. Welland, according to what I had learned, was a pensioner of Lord St. Regis. He might have thought to find easier pickings from a lone female relation. I would canter Nancy down toward the gatehouse and try for a look at Welland.