Виктория Холт - Menfreya in the Morning

I thought of Miss James packing her bag and crying discreetly because she was frightened of the future. Poor Miss James! She would haunt me for weeks to come in spite of the alarming prospect before me.

“So she is to be dismissed …”

“You see bow your thoughtless actions affect others.”

A frightening thought occurred to me. Fanny! What of Fanny?

I whispered her name under my breath, but he heard me.

“She remains. She will be employed hi another capacity. And when you are on holiday you will need a maid.”

Waves of thankfulness! Fanny was safe. Why had I not thought of what the consequences might have been to her before I ran away. My father was right I must think before I acted.

He continued: “It is my earnest wish that you should learn a little selflessness. This wantonly thoughtless action of yours has caused me great trouble. Remember it; and should you ever feel tempted to be so wicked again, pray consider, for you will not find me as indulgent next time.”

“You are going away, Papa,” I said.

“I. am going to get on with the work which you interrupted.”

He looked at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to take me in his arms and kiss me. To my amazement I realized that I wanted him to.

If he had, I should have cried; I should have told him how unhappy I was, how sorry that I had had to be born, how I would willingly go back into that limbo where unborn babies were and stay there, if by doing so I could bring my mother back to him.

That was one part of me; the other part hated him.

And the part that hated was uppermost; it showed itself in my sullen expression.

He turned and left me.

The atmosphere in the house was considerably lifted when he went.

Within almost an hour A’Lee was unlocking my door. He was carrying a tray which was covered by a cloth and as he came in he said: “Well, Miss Harriet, the master be gone back to London and us be alone again.”

He set down the tray, winked at me and whipped off the cloth to disclose a Cornish pasty, golden brown, hot and savory, fresh from the oven, and a glass of cider; and with it was a large slice of raisin cake.

“It was all Mrs. A’Lee could lay her hands on at a minute’s notice.”

“It looks delicious.”

“And tastes so, if I know Mrs. A’Lee.”

“But I am supposed to be on bread and milk.”

“Me and Mrs. A’Lee, we never did like the sound of that.”

I sat down at the table and cut the pasty. The savory steam made my mouth water, and A’Lee looked on with satisfaction.

“Well now that be an end to that bread and milk nonsense.”

“My father would be furious if he knew. You’d be dismissed ... both you and Mrs. A’Lee.”

“Not we two. We go with the house, don’t ‘ee forget. He never did like us. We ain’t like his London butler, I reckon.” A’Lee took the cloth which covered the tray, folded it over his arm and minced round the room. His attempts to mimic the overrefined accents of Polden, whom he had seen once or twice when Polden had come to Chough Towers to superintend some special occasion, were so wide of the mark that they made me laugh, as A’Lee had intended they should.

“No,” he said, “we be good enough for Mr. Leveret and we be good enough for ‘ee.”

“Don’t you wish that Mr. Leveret had continued to live here?”

“Oh, them was the days. Mr. Harry may come back. But he be so busy now down to St. Austell and in other parts, they do say. Reckon we belong to be working for the Leverets rather than fine, fancy gentlemen from London, like …”

“Like my father? You don’t want to work for him, do you, A’Lee?”

“Well he do have a nice little maid for a daughter.”

“And she at least likes you better than that stupid Polden.”

“Well she be a real right lady, she be.”

We laughed together.

“That be my own brew of cider. I'd make it for Mr, Leveret. Mr. Harry, he got drunk on it one day. Not much more than eight he were. He come sniffing round the barrel and I didn’t know that he’d been helping himself. That were a time, that were. Don’t ‘ee get too much of a taste for it. Miss Harriet. It be real beady stuff.”

“Not much chance. I’m going away to school.”

“Yes, so we be hearing. Well, you’ll be back, I reckon. And her's to go with ‘ee, so there’ll be fireworks, like as not”

“Who?”

“Miss Gwennan up at Menfreya.”

“Oh … A’Lee! Is it true?”

“You be real proper pleased.”

“It makes all the difference.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Them Menfreys …”

“You don’t like them much, do you, A’Lee.”

“Oh, ‘tain’t rightly a matter of liking or not liking. They’m wild. And they’m made for trouble. Twas due to Menfrey trouble that you be here … sitting on that chair enjoying Mrs. A’Lee’s pasty like it be a nectar of the gods—which it might be, for that there couldn’t have tasted much better, I’ll be bound.”

“Due to Menfrey trouble? But why?”

“Well, why be you here? Because your father, Sir Edward Delvaney, he be the Member. For nigh on seven years he’s been the Member. But before that it was always a Menfrey who went to Parliament in London for us. There was never no foreigner here till these last seven years.”

“Sir Endelion was the Member for Lansella then?”

“Of course, he were. And his father before him. Ever since there was Members it’s been the Menfreys for Lansella.”

“And why did Sir Endelion give up?”

“Why, bless you, my dear, he didn’t so much give it up as it gave him up. The Queen, they do say, be terrible strict, and her wouldn’t have any of her ministers with a bad name, you see. And Sir Endelion, he were something big up there in London. Might have been one of the real heads but for this. Prime Minister, say … or some such thing.”

“What was the scandal?”

“The usual. You never have to ask what, when it’s Menfreys, my dear. It’s who?”

“A woman?”

A’Lee nodded. “Regular scandal Up in London too.

Down here we be used to them. The Menfreys was always good to the girls who got into trouble through them. Find them husbands most likely or homes for the babies. But this were in London. Some very high-born lady, and her husband divorced her because of Sir Endelion.”

“Poor Lady Menfrey!”

“Oh, she be a gentle lady, she be. She forgive him like; and he come back to her. But that didn’t suit the Queen. Nothing would suit her but that Sir Endelion resign, so resign he did; and for the first time any of us remember, we didn’t have a Menfrey up in Parliament for us. That’s how your father came.”

‘They don’t seem to mind.”

‘There’s some that say he be nursing the seat for Mr. Bevil.”

“So … he will go into politics.”

“Well, Menfreys always has. Must have a say in the Government, says they. They’re regular ones for having their say. Mr. Bevil, hell come back, I reckon. All in time. And then there’ll be a Menfrey up hi London for Lansella.”

I finished the cider and swallowed the last of the raisin cake.

That was good, A’Lee,” I said; and I was thinking of poor Lady Menfrey and how angry she must have been—or sorry. Unhappy, in any case. I could imagine Sir Endelion coming back to Menfreya, turned out of Parliament because of scandal.

No wonder they were called the wild Menfreys.

Later that day Gwennan came to see me.

“As soon as I heard your father had gone I came over,” she said. “We’re to go to school … together. We’re undisciplined, and they can’t control us. What fun! They would never have thought of sending us if you hadn’t run away. This is the end of all that”