Виктория Холт - Mistress of Mellyn

” I see,” he said, ” that you have come to a turning point in your life You are moving into a strange new world which is entirely different from anything you have known before. You will have to exercise caution the utmost caution.”

I smiled cynically. ” You see me taking a journey. What would you say if I told you I was visiting relatives and could not possibly be moving into your strange new world?”

” I should say you were not a very truthful young lady.” His smile was puckish. I could not help feeling a little liking for him. I thought he was a somewhat irresponsible person, but he was very lighthearted and, being in his company, to some extent made me share that lightheartedness. ” No,” he went on, ” you are travelling to a new life, a new post. There’s no mistake about that. Before, you lived a secluded life in the country, then you went to the town.”

” I believe I implied that.”

” You did not need to imply it-But it is not the past which concerns us on occasions like this, is it? It is the future.”

” Well, what of the future?”

” You are going to a strange house, a house full of shadowy. You will have to walk warily in that house, Miss er ” He waited, but I did not supply what be was asking for, and he went on: ” You have to earn your living. I see a child there and a man… Perhaps it is the child’s father. They are wrapped in shadows. There is someone else there … but perhaps she is already dead.”

It was the deep sepulchral note in his voice rather than the words he said which momentarily unnerved me.

I snatched my hand away. ” What nonsense!” I said.

He ignored me and half closed his eyes. Then he went on :

” You will need to watch little Alice, and your duties will extend beyond the care of her. You must most certainly beware of Alice.”

I felt a faint tingling which began at the base of my spine and seemed to creep up to my neck. This, I supposed, was what is known as making one’s flesh creep.

Little Alice! But her name was not Alice. It was Alvean. It had unnerved me for the moment because it had sounded similar.

Then I felt irritated and a little angry. Did I look the part then? Was it possible that I already carried the mark of the penurious gentlewoman forced to take the only course open to her? A governess!

Was he laughing at me? He lay back against the upholstery^ of the carriage, his eyes still dosed. I looked out of the|| window as though he and his ridiculous fortune-telling were of; not the slightest interest to me.

He opened his eyes then and took out his watch. He studied it gravely, for all the world as though this extraordinary conversation had not taken place between us.

” In four minutes’ time,” he said briskly, ” we shall pull into Liskeard. Allow me to assist you with your bags.”

He took them down from the rack. ” Miss Martha Leigh,” was clearly written on the labels, “Mount Mellyn, Mellyn, Cornwall.”

He did not appear to glance at these labels and I felt that he i had lost interest in me. ?

When we came into the station, he alighted and set my bags on the platform. Then he took off the hat which he had set apon his head when he picked up the bags, and with a deep bow he left me.

While I was murmuring my thanks I saw an elderly man coming towards me, calling: ” Miss Leigh! Miss Leigh! Be you Miss Leigh then?” And for the moment I forgot about my travelling companion.

I was facing a merry little man with a brown, wrinkled skin and eyes of reddish brown; he wore a corduroy jacket and a sugar-loaf hat which he had pushed to the back of his head and seemed to have forgotten.

Ginger hair sprouted from under this, and his brows and moustaches were of the same gingery colour.

” Well, Miss,” he said, ” so I picked you out then. Be these your bags? Give them to me. You and me and old Cherry Pie ‘ml soon be home.”

He took my bags and I walked behind him, but be soon fell into step beside me.

” Is the house far from here?” I asked.

” Old Cherry Pie’U carry us there all in good time,” he answered, as he loaded my bags into the trap and I climbed in beside him.

He seemed to be a garrulous man and I could not resist the temptation of trying to discover, before I arrived, something about the people among whom I was going to live.

I said: ” This house. Mount Mellyn, sounds as though it’s on a hill.”

“Well, ‘tis built on a cliff top, facing the sea, and the gardens run down to the sea. Mount Mellyn and Mount Widden are like twins. Two houses, standing defiant like, daring the sea to come and take ‘em.

But they’m built on firm rock. “

” So there are two houses,” I said. ” We have near neighbours.”

” In a manner of speaking. Nansellocks, they who are at Mount Widden, have been there these last two hundred years. They be separated from us by more than a mile, and there’s Mellyn Cove in between. The families have always been good neighbours until ” He stopped and I prompted: ” Until ?”

” You’ll bear fast enough,” he answered.

I thought it was beneath my dignity to probe into such matters so I changed the subject. ” Do you keep many servants?” I asked.

” There be me and Mrs. Tapperty and my girls. Daisy and Kitty. We live in the rooms over the stables. In the house there’s Mrs. Polgrey and Tom Polgrey and young Gilly. Not that you’d call her a servant. But they have her there and she passes for such.”

” Gilly!” I said. ” That’s an unusual name.”

” Gillyflower. Reckon Jennifer Polgrey was a bit daft to give her a name like that. No wonder the child’s what she is.”

” Jennifer? Is that Mrs. Polgrey?”

“Nay! Jennifer was Mrs. Polgrey’s girl. Great dark eyes and the littlest waist you ever saw. Kept herself to herself until one day she goes lying in the hay or maybe the gillyflowers with someone. Then, before we know where we are, little Gilly’s arrived; as for Jennifer her just walked into the sea one morning. We reckoned there wasn’t much doubt who Gilly’s father was.”

I said nothing and, disappointed by my lack of interest, he went on :

” She wasn’t the first. We knowed her wouldn’t be the last. Geoffry Nansellock left a trail of bastards wherever he | went.” He laughed and looked sideways at me. ” No need for 9 you to look so prim. Miss.

He can’t hurt you. Ghosts can’t ‘| hurt a young lady, and that’s all Master Geoffry Nansellock is now . nothing more than a ghost. “

” So he’s dead too. He didn’t … walk into the sea after Jennifer?”

That made Tapperty chuckle. ” Not him. He was killed in a train accident. You must have heard of that accident. It was just as the train was running out of Plymouth. It ran off the lines and over a bank. The slaughter was terrible. Mr. Geoff, he were on that train, and up to no good on it either. But that was the end of him.”

” Well, I shall not meet him, but I shall meet Gillyflower, I suppose.

And is that all the servants? “

” There are odd boys and girls some for the gardens, some for the stables, some in the house. But it ain’t what it was. Things have changed since the mistress died.”

” Mr. TreMellyn is a very sad man, I suppose.”

Tapperty lifted his shoulders.

” How long is it since she died?” I asked.

” It would be little more than a year, I reckon.”

” And he has only just decided that he needs a governess for little Miss Alvean?”

” There have been three governesses so far. You be the fourth. They don’t stay, none of them. Miss Bray and Miss Garrett, they said the place was too quiet for them. There was Miss Jansen a real pretty creature. But she was sent away. She took what didn’t belong to her.