A Stairs - Eva Ibbotson

‘Oh my God!’ Muriel’s poise was shattered at last. She was as pale as her wedding dress. ‘No, I don’t believe it. His first cousin!’

‘Yes, miss. You will see he has the Templeton eyes and - oh, careful, miss.’

For the thing had arched its back, blobs of spittle came from its mouth - and suddenly it sprang.

It was Dr Lightbody who saved Muriel, dragging her back before the demented creature could sink it’s teeth into her hand.

‘He’s been like this for a while, miss, and I’m afraid he’s getting worse.’

‘But there are others,’ cried Dr Lightbody, ‘Dearest Miss Hardwicke, there are others! This monster has been allowed to marry, to beget other tainted beings.’

Proom inclined his head, ‘Dr Lightbody is correct. If you would care to follow me.’

They ascended another dark and curving staircase to the next room. On the floor lay two enormous boys, to all outward appearance, boys of fourteen or fifteen. But they wore nappies, their fingers were in their mouths; one drooled, the other hiccupped…

‘Master Dennis and Master Donald Herring,’ announced Proom. ‘As you see, they have remained in an infantile stage. The doctor gives no hope of improvement.’

‘It isn’t possible!’

But even as she spoke, Muriel saw that it was possible. Like the mad thing that was their father, these boys had the grey, gold-flecked eyes, the short nose of the Templetons.

A last flight of steps and they reached the top of the tower.

Myrtle had made a splendid nest. There were feathers in her hair, a deep and committed broodiness lit up her features and, even as they watched, she emitted a loud and fulfilling squawk …

‘And this is Mrs Herring,’ said Proom. ‘She, of course,’ he added conscientiously, ‘is no blood relation’.

But Myrtle Herring had been too much for Rupert. And collapsing against a wall, he began to laugh.

It was this laugh which finished Muriel. Hysteria, another dangerous mental aberration, began in just this unbridled way — and stepping forward she slapped him hard across the cheek.

‘You swine! You unmitigated, vile, scheming swine! Trying togetmymoneyoutofme! Trying to trap me into a marriage so that I could bear you some more deformed and squirming . . , things. I’ll have you for this, Rupert! You’ll pay me back every penny I put into that estate -every brass farthing, and the damages I’ll sue you for!’

‘Oh, Miss Hardwicke, if you would only take my protection!’ cried the doctor. ‘We could go to America! I could make you the priestess of the New Eugenics. You would be a goddess to me all my life!’

‘And your wife?’ said Muriel coldly.

‘She is dead.’

Muriel registered this information with a flicker of her pansy eyes. Then she began to remove her engagement ring. The doctor’s pale, beautifully-manicured hand, closing over the solitaire diamond like a vice, prevented her.

‘I’m sure his lordship would want you to keep it as a memento.’

Rupert, still weak from laughter, nodded.

‘Yes, indeed! Do please keep it, Muriel.’

‘Very well.’ She replaced the ring, gathered up her train. ‘Come, Dr Lightbody.’

‘Ronald,’ he begged.

‘Come, Ronald,’ said Muriel Hardwicke, and with a ‘last look of disgust and loathing, swept down the stairs.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘I can’t write a letter like that, Mr Proom,’ said Mrs Bassenthwaite weakly. ‘Not to a countess, I can’t.’

Ten days had passed since the interrupted wedding and Mrs Bassenthwaite, released from hospital, was convalescing on the sofa in the housekeeper’s room.

‘I’d write it myself,’ said Proom, ‘but it would be better coming from you. More correct, you being in charge of the maids.’

Mr Proom had emerged as a local hero, sharing with Leo Rabinovitch and the Herrings, the acclaim of the entire district during the merrymaking which had followed the departure of Miss Hardwicke. Even the knowledge that Mersham would almost certainly have to be sold in order to meet the demands of Miss Hardwicke’s solicitors had not diminished the delight of the villagers, the tenants and the gentry in being rid of a woman so universally detested. To the general happiness, however, there was one exception - the earl himself who had put Mersham’s affairs into the hands of his agent and was about to depart for the Hindu Kush.

‘I’ll tell you what to say,’ persisted Proom - and went to fetch the inkwell and the paper.

- - - -*

‘There’s a letter for you, Anna!’ said Pinny, looking at the postmark and trying not to let the relief show in her voice.

It was Petya, coming to London to greet Niannka and discuss the sale of the jewels, who had told them about the interrupted wedding. Pinny, watching Anna, had seen her turn almost in an instant from the kind of thing one expected to find under a pile of sacking after an earthquake or a famine into a radiant and enchanting girl. Anna discussing with the delighted Mr Stewart at Aspell’s, the jewellers, what he assured them would be ‘the sale of the century’; Anna helping her mother buy presents for the other emigres, treasuring the conviction that it was through Rupert’s good offices that Niannka had been found, was the Anna of the old St Petersburg days with a new glow, a new maturity.

But that had been more than a week ago. Since then, Pinny had watched, day by day, the glow lessen, the joy ebb as the postman still brought no letter, the doorbell still failed to herald the longed-for visitor.

Anna had opened her letter, begun to read - and as she did so the eagerness and expectation in her face was replaced by puzzlement.

‘It is from the housekeeper at Mersham,’ she said, her voice bleak. ‘She says that I have broken my contract. I was engaged till the end of July so I have five more days of work owing to them. She refuses to send the rest of my clothes or Selina Strickland until I make up the time.’

‘Well, really!’ Pinny was outraged. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.’

‘No, they are correct. I thought as I had not been paid for the last week it would be all right but she says not. Rup … the earl… has already left for India and the house must be made ready to go up for sale so there is a great deal to do.’

‘You aren’t going, Anna?’

‘I must. Pinny. Petya will be at his school camp in Scotland so it will be all right. If there is work owing,’ said Anna, lifting her chin, ‘it must be paid.’

- - - -*

‘You’re to treat her exactly as before,’ Proom had instructed his staff. ‘She may be a countess, but while she’s here she’s still a maid.’

‘I can’t!‘wailed Pearl. ‘I’ll curtsy to her, see if Idon’t.’

‘You will do nothing of the kind,’ said Mr Proom -but he was not as relaxed as he pretended, and secretly felt outraged by what he was about to do.

The outrage, the embarrassment, lasted exactly as long as it took Anna, in a blue cotton dress, carrying a straw basket, to cross the kitchen floor and be enveloped in Mrs Park’s motherly arms. But the instructions she received from Mr Proom when the greetings and gossip were over and she had changed into her uniform made her, for a moment, doubt her ears.

‘You wish me to wait at table? In the dining room !’

For the butler’s view on women actually waiting at table, with its middle-class overtones, were well known.

‘One must move with the times,’ said Mr Proom portentously. ‘It is only a small dinner: Lady Wester holme, Mr Frayne, Lord and Lady Byrne and a Mr and Mrs Clarke-Binningfold who are considering the purchase of Mersham. His lordship, as you know, has already left.’