A Stairs - Eva Ibbotson

She had reached the kitchen gardens, passed through the door in the wall, crossed the orchard. In her clouded brain there was only one bright image: one room, one person to whom she could no longer give a name.

Nearly spent now, she stumbled across the servants’ courtyard, dragging herself along the damp stone walls of the kitchen quarters, groping, putting up a hand with its torn fingernails to feel for the window, the one window behind which was sanctuary.

She had found it. With a last desperate effort she leant across the water butt and tapped once on the pane of glass behind which Mrs Park lay sleeping, before she slithered, unconscious, on to the cobbles.

Win had returned.

- - - -*

‘There’ll have to be an enquiry, Rupert,’ the distraught dowager said to her son. ‘Dr Marsh says there’s no doubt Win’s been seriously ill-treated. It must be an absolutely diabolical place - she was dressed in sacking, literally. She’s half-starved, too, and terrified. If you go up to her, even though she’s barely conscious she puts up her arms as though she expects to be hit. I’m going to get it closed down if it’s the last thing I do. And Rupert, you must speak to Muriel - the servants are dreadfully upset! Mrs Park’s given in her notice - she’s going to take Win to her sister’s when she’s well enough. I can’t think how Muriel came to find such a place. It’s miles away, thank heavens, and notorious, I understand.’

‘Surely Muriel must have made enquiries?’ said the earl, dragging himself out of his private hell to attend to his mother.

‘Well, she should have gone herself to see it, Rupert. You can’t imagine how much harm this will do below stairs. They’re upset enough about Anna’s going, and though it’s noble of her it’s quite unnecessary because Minna asked her to stay and the Rabinovitcb.es also—’

‘Noble?’ Rupert’s voice tore at the dowager’s raw nerves like sandpaper. ‘That’s rich! That’s very rich! Anna hasn’t gone alone, I assure you. She’s eloped. I found her in the garden carrying on like a guttersnipe with one of the chauffeurs.’

‘The chauffeurs?’ The dowager’s brow cleared. She smiled. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot you weren’t there when that came out. It seems that the Nettleford’s chauffeur was her Cousin Sergei, the one she’s so fond of! You can imagine how Honoria carried on when she found she’d let a perfectly good prince get away.’

‘I see. That explains it.’ Rupert’s voice was grimmer than ever. ‘Well, they should make a very handsome couple - and at least we’re spared the strain of having our coals carried upstairs by a princess.’

‘No dear, I’m sure Anna—’

Rupert swung round and the dowager stepped back a pace. Never in all her life had she seen him look like that.

‘You will not mention Anna to me again, please,’ he said. ‘Not ever.’

- - - -*

By the time Rupert came to find her, Muriel was in a very nasty temper. Louise, sent for to replace Anna, had refused to wait on her and Muriel had been compelled, on a morning on which she particularly wished to dazzle, to dress herself.

‘She’ll have to be sent away, Rupert,’ she said now, angrily recounting her tale of woe.

‘There is not the slightest question of Louise being sent away,’ said Rupert levelly. He had just spent half an hour cross-examining his butler. Proom’s attempts at honourable evasion had withered before the tactics that Rupert had perfected in four years of dealing with his men. The earl was now fully informed of the situation below stairs and his anger, though perfectly contained, far outstripped Muriel’s own. ‘Louise was upset because of your treatment of Win which, I don’t scruple to tell you, Muriel, was monstrous! As far as I can see, you virtually had the girl kidnapped on her day off.’

‘How dare you, Rupert. How dare you speak to me like that!’

‘I won’t humiliate you by countermanding the orders you have already given,’ continued Rupert as though she had not spoken, ‘but there must be no further interference with Proom’s arrangements. As for Mrs Proom , Mersham is her home and will be until the day she dies.’

‘Mersham!’ hissed Muriel. ‘Don’t talk to me about Mersham. Your precious Mersham would be under the hammer now if it wasn’t for me.’

‘Yes,’ said Rupert quietly. ‘And better it should be than that it should be destroyed by the kind of ideas perpetrated by your friend Dr Lightbody. If George were alive he’d think that too.’

‘Oh? What’s wrong with Dr Lightbody’s ideas? I happen to be about to invite him to come and work down here.’

Rupert looked at her in amazement. ‘You can’t imagine I would allow that?’ he said.

‘Allow?’ shouted Muriel, her chest heaving with operatic rage. ‘Allow! Who do you think you are?’

Rupert’s next words were spoken very softly.

‘The owner of Mersham, Muriel,’ he said.

And in the stunned silence which followed he went on more gently: ‘Surely you didn’t imagine that your wealth would allow you to bully me? As for Dr Lightbody, you are, of course, perfectly free to choose your own friends, but that I should allow a man whose ideas are wholly repugnant to me to set up shop at Mersham is quite ridiculous.’ His face creased into a smile. ‘On the other hand your relations are quite another matter.’

‘My… relations,’ faltered Muriel.

Rupert nodded. ‘Your grandmother, for example, would be perfectly welcome to make her home with us,’ he went on silkily, ‘or your Uncle Nat. I’ve always wanted to meet a rat-catcher - especially one with such original ideas about what to do with the skins.’

‘You … wouldn’t,’ said Muriel, who had turned quite white.

‘Not if you don’t wish it. But remember what I have said.’ Suddenly he reached out, took her hand: ‘Look, Muriel, you don’t love me, do you? You’re beautiful and capable and rich; you could marry anyone. It’s not too late to free yourself. Think hard, my dear - there are a lot of years ahead of us. Could you really be happy with a man who dislikes everything you hold most dear?’

Panic overwhelmed Muriel. Two days to go: literally the day after tomorrow she would be a countess! Was it possible that this glittering prize could still be snatched from her? On this very morning she had meant to tell Rupert at what times he might physically approach her. That he might find it in himself not to approach her at all had never even crossed her mind. And, squeezing her eyelids together, she managed a perfectly authentic tear.

‘Please don’t talk like that, dearest,’ she said, and for the first time he saw her genuinely afraid. ‘I’m extremely … devoted to you.’ And as he remained silent, ‘You wouldn’t… jilt me?’

Rupert shook his head.

‘No, Muriel,’ he said, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice: ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

- - - -*

Crossing the hall on his way out with his dog, the earl came upon a cluster of servants grouped round the library door which had been left slightly ajar. Peggy with a feather duster, James with his stepladder… Sid.

Moving closer, he heard a voice issuing forth: high-pitched, well-modulated self-assured…

‘… Can anyone seriously, doubt, ladies and gentlemen, that the elimination of all that is sick and maimed andrdispleasing in our society can - and indeed must - be the aim of every thinking…’

The servants, seeing his lordship, scuttled for cover. Rupert pushed open the door. On the dais at the far end of the empty library, one hand resting on the bust of Hercules which had given Anna so much trouble, stood Dr Lightbody, testing the acoustics of his new home.