Michael Cox (5 page)

2

In Which a Friend is Made

I
Introducing Sukie Prout

E
VER SINCE I
was a little girl, something in my nature has made me try constantly to improve myself. Words, especially, have always been a passion of mine. From an early age, encouraged by Mr Thornhaugh, I developed the habit of writing down new ones that I had learned from my reading, and would then say them over to myself before I went to bed, until I was sure of their sound and meaning.
Sometimes they would be words that I had heard spoken by others; or I would simply open the copy of Mr Walker’s
Pronouncing Dictionary
, which my tutor had given to me, to see what greeted my serendipitous (one of my favourite words) eye.
Mr Thornhaugh had once told me that if we are insensible to the higher powers of language, then we are but crawling things upon the earth, mutely struggling towards the day of our extinction; but with the proper acquisition and use of language, in all its plenitude, we can contend with angels. (I immediately wrote these words down: the piece of paper serves me still as a bookmark.)
I am also an avid collector of facts – another predilection encouraged by Mr Thornhaugh. It is a kind of curse, I confess, to be so disposed, but an agreeable one at the same time, or at least I think it to be so.
When I looked at something, I longed to know the one incontrovertible fact about it that made it what it was. I had then to find two or three ancillary facts (I used to call them my ‘Little Maids in a Row’, attending on the great Queen Fact), that would give greater substance to the first. Then I felt that I had gained some knowledge worth having, and was happy.
Mr Thornhaugh regularly urged me to combine these individual facts, and to rise above the particular to a broader understanding of the whole. I tried hard to do so, but found it impossible. The particular would always draw me to it, leading me on to another fascinating particularity, and then to another. I would be so contented, plucking my knowledge bloom by bloom, and storing each one away separately, that all thought of any higher synoptical or synthetic (two more excellent words) ambition would be put quite out of mind.
Despite this failing, which even Mr Thornhaugh could not correct, the acquirement of factual knowledge was ever delightful to me throughout my childhood, and the habit has remained with me. When I was young, it was another kind of game for me to play, and I did not think it at all strange that a little girl could derive as much pleasure from it as from playing with dolls, or skipping with a rope about the garden.
It might be inferred from these brief remarks that I spent a lonely and sequestered childhood in the Maison de l’Orme, with only my books for company; but I was not without playmates, although they were always carefully selected by Madame.
My especial friend was a girl of about my own age, Amélie Verron, whose father, a government official, was our nearest neighbour in the Avenue d’Uhrich. Monsieur Verron was a widower, and I think Madame felt obliged to demonstrate neighbourly concern with respect to his only child. Every weekday morning, Amélie and I would be taken for walks together in the Bois by my nurse, whilst on Sunday afternoons she and her father would take tea with us.
Amélie was a quiet, nervous child, of a delicate constitution, always content for me to take the lead in our games. When she died, at the age of fourteen, she left a void in my young life that no one else was able to fill. One of our favourite games was to set out a little school-room in the salon or, on fine days, under the chestnut-tree in the garden. Amélie, wearing an expression of the most serious concentration, would sit on a little stool, surrounded by her fellow pupils – a mute company of assorted rag-dolls and stuffed animals – and write slowly and solemnly on a slate, like the obedient little disciple that she was, as I marched up and down in front of her – swathed in a trailing black table-cloth, to mimic a scholar’s gown – loudly dictating the names of the Merovingian kings (very much, I am sure, in the manner of Mr Thornhaugh), or some item of knowledge recently gleaned, either from my tutor or from my own reading. I blush now to think how insufferable I must have been; but dear Amélie never complained.
From this school-room game I soon discovered that I had a great liking – and, I think I may claim, a distinct talent – for public declamation, and began to conceive the notion (much to Mr Thornhaugh’s amusement) that I might grow up to be an actress. To indulge this predilection, a little stage, complete with a gaily painted pasteboard proscenium arch and red plush curtains, was erected for me in one of the upstairs rooms. Here – before an appreciative audience of Madame, Mr Thornhaugh, and Amélie – I would recite long passages from
Paradise Lost
(a particular favourite of Mr Thornhaugh’s), which I had learned by heart, or act out whole scenes from Molière or Shakespeare, taking each part, and giving each one an individual voice. I could not imagine then how these childhood performances, and my ability to hide my true self behind an assumed character, would eventually stand me in good stead for playing the part of maid to Lady Tansor.
I do not wish to give the impression that I was a precocious child, for I am sure that I was not. I was, however, given every opportunity, as well as the means, particularly by Mr Thornhaugh, to use the abilities that God had given me to the full, and I took them.
I was often disobedient and naughty – sometimes so naughty that it exhausted even Madame’s patience. Then I would be exiled to a bare attic room, containing only a bed, a chair, and a three-legged table with a jug of water on it, where I had to spend the term of my sentence without books, pen or paper, or any other diversion, until I was released.
I always regretted my transgressions – indeed, would often hate myself for them. The truth was that I could not bear to see Madame or Mr Thornhaugh angered by my bad behaviour. Consequently, when discovered in my misdeeds, I would display a certain inventiveness (I will not say deviousness) in my excuses – not so that I might escape the punishment I knew I deserved, but to avoid causing Madame or Mr Thornhaugh to think ill of me. Afterwards I would resolve and swear never to be bad again. This, of course, despite my best intentions, would always prove impossible; but, gradually, discovering in myself a strong sense of duty, as well as an active conscience, I began to mend my ways somewhat, although even in later years Madame and I would sometimes fall out after some instance of waywardness on my part. Whilst I could no longer be sent up to my former place of correction, guilt for my ungrateful trespasses became an effective substitute.
Now I had heard the governing voice of Duty once more. Madame had set me this task – this Great Task – to perform. Whatever it was, whatever she asked of me, I was determined not to fail her.

BACK IN MY room, after dressing my Lady, I was thinking of Amélie as I took out my note-book to write down the second (the first being the date and artist of the Corsair portrait in the vestibule) of what was soon to become a store-house of facts concerning the great house of Evenwood and its contents:
Lady T’s sitting-room. Small oval portrait. Young Cavalier boy in blue silk breeches. Beautiful long hair. Inscribed by
Sir Godfrey Kneller
.
Mem
. Kneller a German.
My Lady having no need of me until dinner, I sat for a while wondering what I might do with myself for the remainder of the day. I must make myself known to the housekeeper, Mrs Battersby, and I had undertaken to write to Madame as soon as I could after my arrival. I also wished to resume my exploration of the house. With that final thought, I remembered that Mr Perseus Duport had offered to act as my guide. His even noticing me, let alone his engaging me in conversation, had taken me by surprise. Had he truly meant what he had said? Perhaps he had been teasing the new lady’s-maid, to see whether she would be foolish enough to believe him. Yet although his face had retained a severe and inscrutable expression, his voice had sounded sincere. Very well, then; I would go and seek him out in the Library, and be seen as a fool if I must.
As I closed my door, I heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs. In a moment, a small, panting figure, carrying a mop and a large bucket of slopping water, appeared on the landing below.
It was a freckle-faced girl of perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three, wearing a long striped apron and a strange species of domed cap, a little like a baker’s, pulled tightly down over her forehead, from which a few corkscrew curls of light chestnut hair had succeeded in escaping.
When she saw me she stopped, put down her mop and bucket, curtseyed, and smiled broadly.
‘Good-morning, miss,’ she said.
She moved aside as I made my way down to where she was standing.
‘And who are you?’ I asked with a smile, for she seemed a most winning little creature.
‘Sukie Prout, miss. Upper house-maid.’
‘Well, Sukie Prout, upper house-maid, I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m Miss Gorst, Lady Tansor’s new maid. But you may call me Alice.’
‘Oh no, miss,’ Sukie said, visibly alarmed. ‘I couldn’t do that. Mrs Battersby would never allow it. She’d think it too familiar for one of the servants to address her Ladyhip’s maid so, and would scold me if she heard me. I must call you “miss”, miss, if you don’t mind.’
I wanted to laugh, but she had such a serious look on her funny little face that I quickly checked myself. Not wishing to risk the wrath of Mrs Battersby (of whom I was already forming a distinctly unflattering impression), I therefore suggested that Sukie might address me as ‘Miss Alice’ out of the housekeeper’s hearing.
‘Are you afraid of Mrs Battersby, Sukie?’ I asked, seeing that she remained apprehensive.
‘Afraid? No, not exactly, miss. But she has a way about her that makes you careful to do what she asks. And her words can hurt sometimes, if she’s cross, though she never shouts at you, like old Mrs Horrocks did. It seems worse somehow that she don’t shout, if you know what I mean, miss. I can’t quite explain it, and p’raps I feel it more than others, though everyone – even Mr Pocock – is ruled by her, below stairs, I mean. I’ve heard Mr Pocock say it’s all a matter of character, though I’m not quite sure what he means.’
‘I still wish you to call me “Miss Alice”, in private,’ I said, ‘whether the Great Battersby likes it or not. Will you do that?’
Sukie agreed, if somewhat reluctantly.
‘That’s settled, then,’ I replied. ‘I’m delighted to have made your acquaintance, Sukie Prout, upper house-maid, and hope very much that we’ll be good friends hereafter.’
‘Friends! Her Ladyship’s maid wants to be friends with queer Sukie Prout!’
She gave a delighted little squeal and put her hand to her mouth.
‘Is that what they call you, Sukie?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I pay it no heed,’ she said, with quiet defiance, ‘for I know I am indeed a poor queer thing. If I was bigger and cleverer, I dare say they’d call me something else, and so what’s the use in complaining?’
‘You’re not at all queer to me, Sukie,’ I said. ‘Indeed, you already seem to be the nicest and most sensible person I’ve met here.’
A little blush began to colour her chubby cheeks.
‘Can you tell me one thing I’m curious about, Sukie?’ I asked, as she was picking up her bucket. ‘Why was Miss Plumptre dismissed?’
Setting the bucket down again, Sukie looked up and down the staircase, and lowered her voice to a whisper.
‘Well, miss, that was a great scandal. They said she’d taken a valuable brooch that her Ladyship had left on her dressing-table one day when she’d gone up to London. She denied it, of course, but Barrington swore he’d seen her leaving her Ladyship’s apartments at just the time the brooch disappeared, and when they searched her room, there it was. The curious thing was that she went on denying she’d took it, which no one could understand, seeing that the thing had been found in her room, and this vexed her Ladyship something terrible. And so she was sent on her way, without references. Mind you, she’d never been able to please her Ladyship. But it were a good thing in the end, for now you’re here, miss, to take her place.’
The sound of a door shutting on the floor below suddenly caused Sukie to look down in consternation.
‘I must go, miss – Miss Alice, I mean – before Mrs Battersby catches me.’
Whereupon my new friend curtseyed, wished me good morning, and picked up her mop and bucket, before continuing on her way.

II
The Servants’ Hall

I MADE MY way to the head of the circular stone stairs that Mr Perseus Duport had said led down from the Picture Gallery to the Library.
On reaching the stairs, I hesitated.
I was eager to see for myself the famous Duport Library, which my tutor had told me was celebrated throughout Europe; but was it proper to accept Mr Perseus’s flattering invitation? What would Lady Tansor say? Perhaps I could just take a peep, to see whether Mr Perseus was there, and then decide what to do. So down the stairs I tripped.
At the bottom, I found myself in a narrow hallway, with a curious ceiling decorated all over with intricate patterns of sea-shells. To my right was a glazed door opening on to the terrace that I could see from my room; at the other end of the hallway was a smaller, white-painted door, which I now proceeded to open, as unobtrusively as I could.
The sight that greeted me made me gasp.
Before me stretched an immense rectangular room of dazzling white and gold. Facing me, giving a view of the terrace and the gardens beyond, eight soaring windows, with semi-circular architraves, rose up to meet the exquisitely plastered ceiling, flooding the great room with early-morning light. Between each window, and running the whole length of the opposite wall also, were tall wire-fronted book-cases, whilst on either side of the central aisle stretched two lines of free-standing cases, and a number of glass-topped display cabinets. I had never seen so many books gathered together in one place, and marvelled at the prodigious outlay of time, industry, and expense that assembling such a collection must have required.
At the far end of the room, sitting at a bureau reading, his back towards me, was the distinctive figure of Mr Perseus Duport.
What should I do? Wishing very much to take up his invitation, but convinced now that I should withdraw, and make an exploration on my own of some other part of the house, I began slowly to close the door. As I did so, I was aware of someone coming into the hallway from the terrace.
The newcomer, I was certain, was Mr Randolph Duport.
The contrast between the brothers was marked. Mr Randolph was a good head shorter than Mr Perseus, with broader shoulders, supported on a thick-set, well-made frame, giving the impression of a robust and active constitution. I would have guessed him to be an outdoors man from his tanned complexion and confident bearing, even had he not been wearing a long, well-worn riding-coat and a pair of muddied and equally well-used boots.
His face, dominated by a wavy mop of thick auburn hair and a pair of soft brown eyes, was to me instantly suggestive of an even and open temper. I will not deny that, all in all, he was a singularly personable young gentleman, with a most taking way about him, to which I was neither insensible not – I further admit – indifferent. In my previous life, in the Avenue d’Uhrich, I could fancy Mr Randolph Duport making an impression on me that might have been productive of a good many sighs and tears. As it was, in my new existence, allowing myself to imagine feeling an amourous attaction towards my Lady’s engaging younger son was, of course, quite out of the question. Nevertheless, I was young and susceptible enough to consider it a pleasant situation, to be living under the same roof as two such elgible young gentlemen as Mr Randolph and Mr Perseus Duport.
On seeing me, Mr Randolph’s face lit up in a beaming smile.
‘Hullo there!’ he exclaimed, closing the terrace door and coming towards me. ‘Who’s this? Ah, I have it! It’s Mother’s new maid, ain’t it? How d’ye do? Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Girst – Garst – Gorst. That’s it at last! Miss Gorst!’
He was laughing now – a full, honest, spontaneous laugh, which made me laugh too.
‘But, look here,’ he said, lowering his voice to a more confidential level, and assuming a suddenly serious expression, ‘we shouldn’t be laughing, you know. I’ve come to tell my brother. Slake’s dead.’
Seeing my puzzled look, he explained that the Librarian, Professor Lucian Slake, had suffered a seizure that morning and had died.
‘Bolt from the blue,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Completely unexpected. Fit as a fiddle, old Slake, if you’d have asked me. Saw him only yesterday, looking as chipper as you like. But there it is. Death comes when it will.’
Having delivered himself of this sobering reflection, he wished me good morning, and went into the Library.
Leaving the brothers to their conversation, and feeling secretly gratified that neither of them appeared to find my Lady’s new maid wholly beneath their notice, I decided that I would continue my explorations in the open air.