The Solitary House (6 page)

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come then. Mr Jarvis is waiting for us.”

My boxes were put into a small green pony carriage by a maid in a starched white apron and cap, dressed altogether rather more formally, to my eyes, than the servants I was used to seeing in our country village. But that was only to be expected.

Presently we drew up to a little lodge, and waited for the keeper to open the gate, before trotting up a long avenue of trees to a broad sweep before a large porch. It was a tall redbrick house with yellow-framed casements, and squares of blue and green glass in the windowpanes. On one side a bay had been thrown out one floor up, creating a view over what seemed to me to be a large and very pretty lawn, bordered with flowers, with beyond it an orchard and a vegetable garden. I heard a bell ring as the trap stopped, and I found my heart beating very fast as Miss Darby got down and helped me to descend. The door opened, and a man appeared. It was not the same person I had seen at Mrs Millard’s but another gentleman. He had a broad smile and a full beard, and came down the steps briskly and took me by the hand.

“Welcome, Hester. I think you will be very happy here.”

I felt the colour flood my face as I tried, without much success, to say some words of thanks, but Mr Jarvis seemed determined not to notice anything was amiss. He drew my hand through his arm as if it was the most natural thing there could be.

“Come,” he said. “Let me show you your new home!”

From that moment I felt quite at my ease with him, and knew in my heart how blessed I was to have found someone I could trust so completely, and in whom I could confide so unreservedly.

He showed me to my little room, and truly I felt myself at that moment the luckiest girl in the world. It was a bright homely room, with a well-tended fire in the hearth, and a high metal-framed bed with smooth white pillows. The window looked down upon the flower-garden, and across the heath to the far-away steeples and towers of London, almost ethereal that day under a light silvery cloud. I turned to Mr Jarvis with tears in my eyes, wondering how all this could be, and almost overcome, saying, “Oh, thank you, thank you!” again and again. But he merely placed his arm about my waist, and made me sit down on the little chair by the fire and take some of the tea that had been thoughtfully placed there in preparation for my arrival.

“My dear Hester,” he said kindly, a few moments later, “how you are a-tremble! Your cup quite clatters against the saucer.”

How could I not be moved? Sitting there with him, seeing him smile upon me, and feeling, for the first time since Mama died, that I was valued and cherished, and had a place in the world.

I put my arms about his neck and kissed him, and he gently patted me on the head and handed me a handkerchief scented with lavender. “There! There!” he said. “There is no cause for tears. This is your home now, and you will find no-one here but those who wish you well.” At least, that is my memory of what he said.
Wish
, I am quite sure it was.

He got up presently and stirred the fire, then sat back once again in the easy-chair. I had by then folded my hands upon my lap and quite recovered myself, and Mr Jarvis started to talk to me as naturally and easily as if we were acquaintances of long date. The look
on his face at that moment was the very image of his innate and generous goodness—I saw that expression for the first time in that moment, but for many years now I have seen it every day, and when I close my eyes it is there still.

“Indeed, Hester,” he began, “I am in hopes that you will play a full part in our little community. I have been told you are a young lady of sense and usefulness; indeed it is obvious to anyone who has been but a quarter of an hour in your society. Some of your fellow boarders are occasionally a little dejected and melancholic—such a thing is quite common and normal, especially when they first come to us—but I feel sure that in such circumstances they could make a friend of you, and benefit immeasurably from being confided to your care.”

I hardly knew what to reply. “I hope you have not formed too high an opinion of my abilities,” I began. “I am very young and I am afraid I am not clever either. I will do my best, but I am very concerned lest you should expect too much of me and then be disappointed.”

He waved his hand at this as if all my fears were quite groundless. “I think it very likely that you may prove a good little woman for all of us, my dear,” he smiled. “Remember the little old woman of the nursery rhyme?

Little old woman, and whither so high?

    
To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky

“This house has its own little clusters of cobwebs, Hester, like all such houses. But you will sweep every one out of the sky for us in the course of your time here. I am quite confident of that.”

And that was how I came to be called Old Woman, and Little Old Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and
Dame Durden, and so many other things of a similar kind that I began almost to think myself the stooped and wizened creature my names seemed to imply.

I soon adapted so fully to the daily routine, that I could hardly remember any other life, and my years at the cottage with my dear Mama seemed like a far-off golden dream. It was a happy and ordered existence we led, and nothing disturbed the calm serenity of our days. There was a place for everything, and a time for everything, whether reading, or baking, or laundry, or tending to the garden. I have had several different companions during the years I have lived here, but at that time we were four boarders, including myself. There was Amy, and there was Caroline, and there was Augusta. Such pretty names, they all had, or so I thought. Amy was small and slight with huge grey eyes and a timid look, and a tendency to hear noises and take fright at the slightest untoward sound or gesture. I do believe the dear little thing took to me at first sight, and by the end of the week she was following me round like a tiny devoted dog, and creeping into my bed at night, whispering that she had heard the ghost on the walk again, or there were cries in the night, or phantoms scratching in the roof above her bed. Caroline, I found almost forbidding, or at least at first. I was introduced to her by Miss Darby the day after my arrival, in the big room downstairs, where she sat at a writing-table looking dissatisfied and sullen, her fingers covered with ink, her hair untidy, and her satin slippers scuffed.

I saw her looking at my own dress, plain and serviceable as it was. “You think a lot of yourself, I dare say,” she said bitterly. But I could see there were tears in her eyes, for all her angry words, so I took a seat by her and tried my best to look her friend.

“Come, come, Miss Caroline,” I coaxed, “a little care, a little tidiness—a pin here and a stitch there, and I could make you as fresh and lovely as a spring day. Lovelier far than I could ever be.”

I put my hand in hers, but she pulled it away saying she was tired.
Miss Darby shook her head and touched her forehead, saying it was hot, and she would have one of the maids fetch a restorative that would help to calm her. Miss Darby then said a few more quiet words to Caroline and she presently put down her pen, and straightened her dress as well she could.

“There,” said Miss Darby brightly, “that’s much better, Caroline. You’re almost presentable for once. Why don’t you take Hester upstairs and show her your room?” adding in an undertone to me, that the chamber was as much in need of attention as its owner. I did what I could to bring a little order, and saw at once that this was a great relief to its occupant, who stood wringing her hands in the centre of the carpet, not knowing, it seemed, whether to fling her arms about me, or berate me for my meddling. I had not long finished my tucking and tidying, when there was a soft tap at the door and it opened to reveal Augusta, hand in hand with little Amy. The latter slipped to my side and whispered that Augusta had just had one of her fits, but Miss Darby had been on hand, and all was well now. I went to Augusta and gave her a kiss, and she smiled timidly at me, though her cheeks were deeply flushed and her eyes still a little wild. Poor girl! I saw her suffer many of these seizures in the months that followed and I am sad to say that they got worse, if anything, over that time. It was not long before I recognised the telltale signs. A strange expression would pass across Augusta’s face, and then she would suddenly stiffen in the most alarming manner, and fall to the ground, no matter where she was; her limbs would thrash about, her mouth would froth, and she would become so rigid and tense that the slightest touch seemed to hurt her. When the fits were particularly bad, her eyes would roll round so that naught but the whites were visible, which was especially terrifying to dear little Amy, who thought it signified that poor Augusta’s soul had been seized by an evil spirit, so I would always take care, if I was nearby, to take Amy apart and sit with her, telling her a fairy story, until Miss Darby had made all peaceable once more.

I spent the next quiet, happy months at my new home, surrounded by my friends, protected by my Guardian, and contriving to make myself as useful as I was cheerful, when one August morning, Mr Jarvis called me to see him. The garden was in the full summer glory, the air fragrant, and the birds singing in the garden. When I opened the door of Mr Jarvis’s room I saw at once that he was not alone. The two of them were standing by the fire talking, and they turned towards me when they heard my approach. Oh she was so beautiful! Such lovely golden hair, and such a pure and innocent face! I thought at once of my mother, and of the likeness of her I still kept close to my heart, and I was—for a moment—a little sad. I think that this lovely girl divined this somehow, for she came to meet me with a smile and kissed me, with nothing in her eyes but affection and acceptance. Oh the joy and relief I felt at that moment!

“This, Hester,” said Mr Jarvis, “is Clara. And this, Clara, is the Little Old Lady I told you of before. If this is a happy home, it is because Dame Durden makes it so.”

He said this out of his love for me, nothing more, and knowing that I almost fear to write it down, in case it should seem like vanity, but it is unlikely, after all, that anyone will ever read these pages but me.

Clara took my hands in hers and led me to the window-seat, and she had such an enchanting way with her that we spent the whole of the rest of the morning sitting there with the sunlight upon her beautiful hair, talking and laughing together. I saw Mr Jarvis look his approval, and knew at once that he had designed we should be
friends, and that I should do what I could to make the dear girl comfortable and content with us. In the days and weeks that followed Clara and I became inseparable, and Mr Jarvis was so good as to allow us to move to adjoining rooms on the ground floor, opening onto the garden, where I would walk before breakfast with my darling. I called her so even then, and it is so natural to me now that I cannot think of her in any other way! She would clasp my hand in hers, and tell me I was a dear creature, and her best friend, and we would both look up to where Mr Jarvis stood watching us at the big bay window.

I remember repeating to my Guardian some such charming words of hers, as we sat together one evening—not for my own vainglory—oh no!—but because—well, just because.

“What a weight off my mind it is that she should love me!” I said. “It is so reassuring to know that a beautiful girl like Clara wishes me for her friend! It is such an encouragement to me!”

“And why should you need anyone else’s encouragement?” he asked, taking my chin gently in his hand. “Clara is by no means the only beautiful girl here. Nor even the most beloved.”

I, very much abashed, hardly knew where to look, and when at last I had the courage to glance up, I saw him looking at me with that careful fatherly look of his that I had come to know so well. I took his hand and kissed it, and held it in mine.

In a little while he smiled, and drew one of my pale flaxen curls through his hand.

“So let us hear no more, Hester, about your looks.”

FOUR

A New Lodger