The Captive (3 page)
Authors: Victoria Holt
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General, #Man-woman relationships, #Mystery & Detective
She was always thankful when my parents went away for the reason that there could be no invitations to dinner parties. She was never sure when they would be forced on her, for to invite her was generally a last-minute decision. She was, as she said, a most reluctant makeshift.
As I grew older I saw a little more of my parents. I would take tea with them at certain times. I believe they felt even more embarrassed in my presence than I did in theirs. They were never unkind. They asked a great many questions about what I was learning and, as I had an aptitude for gathering facts and a fondness for literature, I was able to give a fair account of myself. So although they were not particularly elated by my progress, nor were they as displeased as they might have been.
Then the first signs of the change began, although I did not recognize them as such at the time.
There was to be a dinner party and Felicity was summoned to attend.
“My dress is getting that tired and dusty look which black gets,” she told me.
“You look very nice in it, Felicity,” I assured her.
“I feel so … apart… the outsider. Everyone knows I’m the governess called in to make up the numbers.”
“Well, you look nicer than any of them and you’re more interesting, too.”
That made her laugh.
“All those deedy old professors think I’m a frivolous empty-headed idiot.”
“They are the empty-headed idiots,” I said.
I was with her when she dressed. Her lovely hair was piled high on her head and her nervousness had put a becoming touch of pink into her cheeks.
“You look lovely,” I told her.
“They’ll all be envious.”
That made her laugh again and I was pleased to have lightened her mood a little.
The awesome thought struck me: soon I shall have to go to those boring dinner parties.
She came to my room at eleven that night. I had never seen her look so beautiful. I sat up in bed. She was laughing.
“Oh, Rosetta, I had to tell you.”
“Shh,” I said.
“Nanny Pollock will hear. She’ll say you ought not to disturb my slumbers.”
We giggled and she sat on the edge of my bed.
“It was such … fun.”
“What?” I cried.
“Dinner with the old professors … fun!”
“They weren’t all old. There was one …”
“Yes?”
“He was quite interesting. After dinner …”
“I know,” I broke in.
“The ladies leave the gentlemen to sit over the port to discuss matters which are too weighty or too indelicate for female ears.”
We were laughing again.
“Tell me more about this not-so-old professor,” I said.
“I didn’t know there were such things. I thought they were all born old.”
“Learning can sit lightly on some.”
There was a radiance about her, I noticed then.
“I never thought to see you enjoy a dinner party,” I said.
“You give me hope. It has occurred to me that one day I shall be expected to attend them.”
“It depends on who is there,” she said, smiling to herself.
“You haven’t told me about the young man.”
2. “Well, he was about thirty, I should say.”
“Oh, not so young.”
“Young for a professor.”
“What’s his subject?”
“Egypt.”
“That seems a popular one.”
“Your parents tend to move in that particular circle.”
“Did you tell him I was named after the Rosetta Stone?”
“As a matter of fact I did.”
“I hope he was suitably impressed.”
And so we went on with our frivolous conversation and just because Felicity had enjoyed one of the dinner parties it did not occur to me that this might be the beginning of change.
The very next day I made the acquaintance of James Grafton. We had taken our morning walk Felicity and I and since we had heard the story of the forty steps and located them, we often went that way.
There was indeed a patch of ground where the grass grew sparsely and it really did look desolate enough to confirm one’s belief in the story.
There was a seat close by. I liked to sit on it, and so vivid had been Mr. Dolland’s reconstruction of the affair that I could imagine the brothers in their fatal battle.
Almost by force of habit we made our way to the seat and sat down. We had not been there very long when a man approached. He took off his hat and bowed. He stood smiling at us while Felicity blushed becomingly.
“Why,” he said, ‘it really is Miss Wills. “
She laughed.
“Oh, good morning, Mr. Grafton. This is Miss Rosetta Cranleigh.”
He bowed in my direction.
“How do you do?” he said.
“May I sit for a moment?”
“Please do,” said Felicity.
Instinctively I knew he was the young man whom she had met at the dinner party on the previous night and that this meeting had been arranged.
There was a little conversation about the weather.
“This is a favourite spot of yours,” he said, and I had a feeling he was telling himself that he must include me in the conversation.
“We come here often,” I told him.
“The story of the forty steps intrigued us,” said Felicity.
“Do you know it?” I asked.
He did not, so I told him.
“When I sit here I can imagine it all,” I said.
“Rosetta’s a romantic,” Felicity told him.
“Most of us are at heart,” he said, smiling at me warmly.
He told us that he was on his way to the Museum. Some papyri had come to light and Professor Cranleigh was going to allow him to have a look at them.
“It is very exciting when something turns up which might increase our knowledge,” he added.
“Professor Cranleigh was telling us last night about some of the wonderful discoveries which have been made recently.”
He went on talking about them and Felicity listened enraptured.
I was suddenly aware that something momentous was happening. She was slipping away from me. It seemed ridiculous to think such a thing. She was as sweet and caring as ever, but she did seem a little absentminded, as though when she was talking to me she was thinking of something else.
But it did not immediately strike me on that first encounter with the attractive Professor Grafton that Felicity was in love.
We met him several times after that and I knew that none of these meetings was by chance. He dined at the house once or twice and on each occasion Felicity joined the party. It occurred to me that my parents were in the secret.
Felicity bought a new dinner dress. We went together to
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the shop. It was not really what she would have liked but it was the best she could afford, and since she had met James Grafton she had become even prettier and she looked lovely in it. It was blue the colour of her eyes and she was radiant.
Mr. Dolland and Mrs. Harlow soon became aware of what was going on.
“A good thing for her,” said Mrs. Harlow.
“Governesses have a poor time of it. They get attached, like … and then when they’re no longer wanted it’s off to the next one until they get too old … and then what’s to become of them? She’s a pretty young thing and it’s time she had a man to look after her.”
I had to admit I was dismayed. If Felicity married Mr. Grafton she would not be with me. I tried to imagine life without her.
She was taking a great interest in ancient Egypt and we paid many visits to the British Museum. I no longer felt the awe of my childhood and was quite fascinated, and, spurred on by Felicity, I was almost as enthralled by the Egyptian Room as she was.
The mummies in particular attracted me . in a rather morbid way. I felt that if I were alone in that room with them they would come to life.
James Grafton used to meet us in the room sometimes. I would wander off and leave him to whisper with Felicity while I studied the faces of Osiris and Isis just as those who thought they were divine must have seen them all those years ago.
One day my father came into the room and saw us there. There was a moment of puzzlement until it dawned on him that here in this holy of holies was his own daughter.
I was standing by the mummy-shaped coffin of King Menkara one of the oldest in the collection when he came upon me. His eyes lit up with sudden pleasure.
“Well, Rosetta, I am pleased to find you here.”
“I have come with Miss Wills,” I said.
He turned slowly to where Felicity and James were standing.
“I see …” There was a look on his face which in others might have seemed quite puckish but with him it was just rather indulgently knowledgeable.
“You are attracted by the mummies, I see.”
“Yes,” I replied.
“It’s incredible … the remains of these people being here after all those years.”
“I am delighted to see your interest. Come with me.”
I followed him to where Felicity and James were standing.
“I am taking Rosetta to my room,” he said.
“Perhaps you would join us in … say, an hour?”
“Oh, thank you, sir,” said James.
I knew what my father was doing. He was giving them a little time alone. It was amusing to think of my father playing Cupid.
I was taken to his room which I had never seen before. It was lined with books from floor to high ceiling, and there were several glass-doored cabinets which contained all sorts of objects such as stones covered in hieroglyphics and there were some carved images.
“This is the first time you have seen where I work,” he said.
“Yes, Father.”
“I am pleased that you are displaying some interest. We do wonderful work here. If you had been a boy I should have wanted you to follow me.”
I felt I ought to apologize for and defend my sex.
“Like my mother .. ” I began.
“She is an exceptional woman.”
Yes, of course. I could hardly aspire to that. Exceptional I was not.
I had spent my happy childhood with people below stairs who had entertained me, loved me, and made me contented with my lot.
As the embarrassment which our encounters never failed
2. to engender seemed to be building up, he plunged into a description of embalming processes to which I listened entranced, all the time marvelling that I was in the British Museum talking to my father.
Felicity and James Grafton eventually joined us. It was an unusual morning, but by this time I had realized that change was on the way.
Very soon after that Felicity became engaged to James Grafton. I was both excited and apprehensive. It was good to see Felicity so happy and to know something which had never occurred to me until Mrs. Harlow pointed it out, that she was secure.
But there was, of course, the question of what would become of me.
My parents were taking more interest in me, which was in itself disconcerting. I had been discovered by my father showing interest in the exhibits in the Egyptian Room of the British Museum. We had had a little talk in his room there. I was not exactly the ignoramus they had previously thought me. I had a brain which had lain dormant for all these years but I might possibly grow up to be one of them.
Felicity was to be married in March of the following year. I had passed my thirteenth birthday. Felicity was to stay with us until a week before the marriage; then she would go to the house of Professor Wills, who had been responsible for her admission into our household, and from there be married; and in due course she and James would set up house in Oxford to whose university he was attached. The big question was what course should my education now take?
Having received a gift of money from her uncle. Felicity was now able to indulge in replenishing her scanty wardrobe, a task in which I
joined with great enthusiasm, though never quite able to escape from the big question of my future and the prospect of facing the emptiness which her departure must inevitably mean.
I tried to imagine what it would be like without her. She had become part of my life, and closer even than the others. Would there be a new governess of the more traditional sort at cross purposes with Mrs. Harlow and the rest? There was only one Felicity in the world and I had been lucky to have her with me all those years. But there is little comfort in recalling past luck which is about to be snatched away so that the future looks uncertain.
It was about three weeks before the date fixed for the wedding when my parents sent for me.
Since my meeting with my father in the British Museum there had been a subtle change in our relationship. They had certainly become more interested in me and in spite of the fact that I had always told myself I was happy to be without their attention, I was now faintly pleased to have it.
“Rosetta,” said my mother.
“Your father and I have decided that it is time you went away to school.”
This was not unexpected, of course. Felicity had talked to me about it.
“It’s a distinct possibility,” she had said, ‘and really it’s the best thing. Governesses are all very well but you’ll meet people of your own age, and you will enjoy that. “
I could not believe I would enjoy anything as much as being with her and I told her so.
She hugged me tightly.
“There’ll be holidays and you can come and stay with us.”
I remembered that now, so I was prepared.
“Gresham’s is a very good school,” said my father.
“It has been highly recommended. I think it will be most suitable.”
“You will be going there in September,” went on my mother.
“It’s the start of the term. There will be certain preparations. Then there is Nanny Pollock, of course.”
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Nanny Pollock! So I was to lose her, too. I felt a great sadness. I remembered those loving arms . those whispered endearments, the comfort I had received.
“We shall give her a good reference,” said my mother.
“She has been excellent,” added my father. Changes . changes all around. And the only one who was moving to a happier state was Felicity. There was always some good in everything, Mr. Dolland had said. But how I hated change.
The weeks passed too quickly. Every morning I awoke with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. The future loomed before me, unfamiliar and therefore alarming. I had lived too long in unruffled serenity.
