Виктория Холт - Beyond the blue Mountains

Most definitely, decided Harriet, that creature should not be asked in to drink a glass of cowslip wine. It was really very thoughtless of George to send her to meet a niece of Harriet Ramsdale. If the stories one heard of this woman were true, it was a wicked thing for George to have sent her. Unchastity in George himself was forgivable, because God had made men unchaste creatures; but the women, without whom of course the unchastity of men could not have been, were pariahs, to be despised, to be turned from, to be left to suffer the results of unbridled sin and wickedness. She hated to think of it; she would rather think of her cool still-room or garden laid out with her own hands. But when she was near women such as this one. pictures forced themselves into her mind and would not be ousted.

"Kitty!" she said, and took the girl's hand. Bess's eyes and Bess's mouth! Her skin was flushed and her dress was too low-cut and revealing. Harriet thought uneasily: Is this going to be Bess all over again?

She said: "I have a meal waiting for you." Then she looked through the carriage window.

"I shall convey my thanks to the squire." Jennifer's head was tilted higher and her eyes were really insolent. The first thing Harriet would do, if she married the squire, would be to dismiss that girl.

As Harriet led her through the door to the cool hall, Kitty heard a movement on the stairs, and saw two young excited faces peering down at her. She took off her hat and put it on the oak chest there. Harriet looked at it could not stop looking at it. It was such a ridiculous hat and, lying there, it spoiled the order of the orderly house.

"I do not like litter, my dear. Take up your hat; you can hang it in a cupboard I have cleared in your room.”

Kitty felt chilled by the neatness all around her. Tears suddenly stung her eyelids, and she thought of her mother's apartment with the cosmetics arrayed before her mirror, and the trail of powder across her dressing-table, and the fluffy garments flung down anywhere. Oh, to be back there! But then she would not have met Darrell, and loving and being loved by Darrell was going to be glorious. She smiled dazzlingly. Harriet was a little shocked by the smile; it expressed such confidence in life, and she, a good and virtuous woman whose future was secure, had never felt that confidence. Bess had had it though; here was Bess all over again.

"Come and eat," she said.

Everything was spotlessly clean. There was cold mutton on the table and fruit pie. Kitty put her hat on her head, since there seemed nowhere else to put it, and sat down at the table.

"Peg." called Harriet.

"Bring a glass of ale.”

"Peg?" said Kitty.

"Who is Peg?”

"My maid. A lazy, good-for-nothing piece if ever there was one. And the same applies to Dolly, my other maid. I hope you have brought some recipes from London.”

"Recipes?" Kitty found that so funny that she began to laugh, and because tears had been so neat it wasn't possible to stop laughing. Peg came in and stared at the newcomer, then she began to laugh.

"Please, please!" cried Harriet.

"I do not... I will not..." But they went on laughing, and Dolly came and peeped round the door.

Harriet's face was full of anger. Kitty saw this, and stopped.

"I am sorry. It was just the thought of my mother jam-making. She never did, you know; she never thought of things like that. If she wanted jam she just got it out of a pot; she would never think of how it got there.”

Peg and Dolly were staring in frank amazement at this young lady from another world. Dolly was even so bold as to come close and touch the stuff of her dress.

"Dolly. Peg! Leave this room at once," ordered Harriet, 'and don't dare enter it until I send for you, unless you wish to feel the whip about your shoulders.”

When they had gone, Kitty said: "I am sorry. I expect that was my fault only the thought of my mother making jam was so runny.”

"You are evidently amused very easily!”

Kitty began to eat. Poor old Aunt Harriet, she thought; she didn't look as if she had a very happy time. It must be wearying living in this place, with only recipes and clean floors to think of. How gloomy the prospect, if she had not met Darrell. But, of course, meeting Darrell had changed everything. Perhaps, if she hadn't met him, she wouldn't be saying poor Aunt Harriet, but would just be disliking her.

You couldn't dislike anyone when you were in love; you were only sorry for people like Aunt Harriet.

She ate the fruit pie and drank the ale. and all the time Aunt Harriet talked. She talked of what she would expect Kitty to do; there was the garden; there was the house, so many tasks to be performed, as Kitty could imagine, and it was Aunt Harriet's pride and joy to keep her house clean and shining, and her garden beautiful. Was Kitty fond of fine needlework? No? That could be improved. Did she play the spinet? Dear! Dear! Her education had been neglected. Aunt Harriet confessed that she had been prepared for that, and she added, almost indulgently, she was not sure that she would not rather work on virgin soil.

Kitty watched a harassed bee buzzing and banging himself ineffectually against the window-pane. Her thoughts were on the bee, not on what Aunt Harriet was saying. And from the bee they went to Darrell... A whole day to be lived through before she saw him. She wondered how she would slip out of the house; she had an idea that Aunt Harriet would be a watchful person, not easy to deceive. The thought stimulated her rather than anything else. Perhaps she would run away with Darrell.

She was sure Aunt Harriet was the sort of person who would never approve of their marriage.

"If you would care to see your room," Aunt Harriet was saying, "I will show it to you. You could unpack your things and then come down and take a walk in the garden. I could show you what I hope you will make your duties there. What a lovely thing is a garden! Do you not think so? I always consider it a privilege to be allowed to work in my garden...”

They went up the stairs: everything smelt of soap.

"Your room!" said Aunt Harriet. It was a pleasant enough room, rather bare it seemed after her room in her mother's apartment, but good since it was to be hers, and she would enjoy privacy in it.

"I shall expect you to keep it clean yourself. I cannot lay extra burdens on the shoulders of those two stupid girls. Heaven knows they drive me to distraction now with their follies.”

Kitty unlocked her trunk. Aunt Harriet was kneeling beside it, thrusting her hands into the folds of gowns and mantles.

"What elegance!" She was both grim and prim.

"You will not have need of it here in the country. We can alter these things though; are you handy with your needle?" She made a little clicking noise with her tongue.

"Your mother was most unsuited for motherhood; it seems she neglected you badly.”

"She never did!" cried Kitty in revolt.

"I loved being with her. She was a lovely person. She was the best mother in the world!" Her hands were buried beneath silk and fine merino. She took out the miniature and looked into the lovely, laughing face portrayed there. Harriet, full of curiosity she could not understand, peered over her shoulder and gazed at the magnificent bosom and the bare white shoulders.

"It was done," said Kitty, 'by an artist who loved her." Harriet drew a sharp breath, and the jealousy she had felt for Bess was there in that room as strong as it had been twenty years before.

"It is ... immodest! A man who ... loved her! Oh! I can well imagine the life she led, I can imagine it. She was born wicked. A wanton creature!" Pictures crowded into Harriet's mind. The squire and the hard-faced woman who looked after his children, Bess and men ... vague men. She put her hands to her face, covered her eyes, but the pictures remained. And when she uncovered them, a girl with blazing eyes faced her.