Lord of the Far Island (2 page)

In the afternoons after lessons we would walk in Kensington Gardens with Nanny Grange. She would sit on a seat in the flower walk while we gamboled around. nd not out of sight, Miss Ellen, or Il have something to say to you.She rarely had to worry on that score because I liked to hang about and hear what she said to the other nannies.

sme mother. My word, what a tartar. I not stay if it wasn for the fact that my aunt was her nanny, and it right and proper to keep these things in families. Sickly little thing, Miss Esme. As for that Miss Ellen, a real little madam. My patience, you think she was the daughter of the house instead of the poor relation. Mark my words, it will be brought home to her one day.

The other nannies would talk of their employers and their charges and I would make Esmeralda be quiet while we listened. Our companions shrieked, threw their balls to one another, spun their tops or cuddled their dolls and there would I be seated nonchalantly on the grass behind the seat on which the nannies sat, shamelessly listening.

I was obsessed with curiosity about my mother.

y aunt says she was really pretty. Our young miss is the living image, I reckon. And wel have trouble with her, I shouldn wonder. But that to come. Come home she did, said my aunt. She was in a state. Something went wronghe never knew what, but back she came to her mother, bringing the child with her. My goodness me, it must have been jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I heard they never let her forget what she had done. As for Miss Ellen grandmother, she was another such as her cousin Agatha. Looking after the heathen and seeing he gets his soup and shirts and making her own daughter life a misery and the little n too. Then Miss Frances goes and dies and leaves our Miss Ellen, who never let forget that she a burden. I mean to say an old lady like Mrs. Emdon and a lively young child it didn work! And when she died she took her in. Couldn do anything else really. She not likely to let the child forget what she doing for her either.

Thus at an early age I gleaned the hazy facts about my beginnings.

They intrigued me. I often wondered about my father, but he was never mentioned and I could discover nothing about him. Contemplating my past, I felt I had not been exactly precious to anyone. Perhaps Cousin Agatha wanted me in a way, though, but only because I was a little check mark on her calendar of virtue.

I was not the sort of child to brood. For some remarkable and fortunate reasonr so it then seemed had an infinite belief in my ability to get the best out of life, and Esmeralda at least was glad to have me as a surrogate sister. In fact she was lost without me. I could never be alone long because she would soon seek me out; she had no desire for her own company. She was afraid of her mother, afraid of the dark and afraid of life. In being sorry for Esmeralda I suppose I could be glad to be myself.

In the summer we went to Cousin William Loring country house. What an upheaval that used to be. There would be packing for days and we would grow quite wild with excitement planning everything we would do in the country. We traveled in the brougham to the railway station and there followed the feverish bustle of getting into the train and debating whether we should face the engine or have our backs to itn adventure in itself. We were accompanied by our governess, of course, who made sure that we sat erect on the plush seats and that I was not too noisy when I called Esmeralda attention to the villages and countryside through which we passed. Some of the servants had gone on ahead and some would follow. Cousin Agatha usually arrived a week or so after we did, a blessed delay, and then she transferred her good works to the country instead of the town. The country estate was in Sussexear enough to London to enable Cousin Agatha to go to town without too much effort when the worthy occasion demanded and Cousin William Loring could also attend to his vast business interests and not be altogether deprived of the fresh country air.

Esmeralda and I learned to ride, visit the poor, help at the church fete and indulge in the country activities of the gentry.

There was entertaining in the country as there was in town. Esmeralda and I were not as yet included in that, but I was vastly interested in it and I would sketch the dresses of the guests and imagine myself in them. I used to make Esmeralda hide with me on the staircase to see them arriving and watched with delight as they entered the great hall where Cousin Agatha, very stately, and Cousin William Loring, looking quite insignificant in comparison, received them.

I would drag Esmeralda out of bed and make her peer through the banisters at the brilliant array, sometimes darting to the head of the stairs so that had any looked up I should have been in full view of them. Esmeralda would tremble with fear and I would laugh at her, knowing that I should never be sent away because above all Cousin Agatha must boast of her goodness to me. I would caper round our bedroom and make Esmeralda dance with me.

It was in the country that I became really aware of the great importance of the Carringtons. Even Cousin Agatha spoke their names with a certain awe. They lived in Trentham Towers, a very grand house on a hill mansionnd Mr. Josiah Carrington was a sort of squire in the neighborhood. Like Cousin William Loring, he had big interests in the City and had a London residencen Park Lane in fact. Nanny Grange had pointed it out to us on several occasions. hat the CarringtonsTown Place,she said in hushed tones, as though it were paradise itself.

They owned most of the Sussex hamlet and the surrounding farms, and Mr. Josiah Carrington wife was Lady Emily, which meant that she was the daughter of an earl. One of Cousin Agatha great ambitions was to live on terms of familiarity with the Carringtons, and as she was a woman who only had to want something to get it, she did, after a fashion. Cousin William Sussex house was pleasantly Georgian with gracious portico and elegant lines. The drawing room was on the first floor and as it was large and lofty with a beautiful molded ceiling it was ideal for entertaining. Here Cousin Agatha eceivedevery Thursday when she was t Homein the country, and the dinner parties and the balls she gave were very well attended. She would be most disconsolate if for some reason the Carringtons were not present.

She was very gracious to Lady Emily and claimed great interest in everything that lady did while Cousin William and Mr. Josiah Carrington discussed he Marketwith equal passion.

Then there was Philip Carrington, who was about a year older than I and some two years older than Esmeralda. Cousin Agatha was very anxious that he and Esmeralda should be good friends. I remember our going to the country in the early summer and meeting Philip for the first time. Esmeralda had been formally introduced to him in the drawing room; I had been excluded. Then Cousin Agatha had instructed Esmeralda to take Philip to the stables and show him her pony.

I waylaid them on the way and joined them.

Philip was fair, with freckles across his nose and very light blue eyes; he was about my height and I was tall for my age. He looked interested in me, for I could see he had already decided to despise Esmeralda and was put out because he had been sent off with a girl, and a puny one at that.

suppose you ride ponies,he said rather scornfully.

ell, what do you ride?I asked.

horse of course.

e shall have horses later on,said Esmeralda.

He ignored her.

I said: e could ride horses just as well. Theye no different from ponies.

hat do you know about that?

So we bickered all the way to the stables.

He scorned our ponies and I was angry with him because I loved my Brownie passionately, but it is true that I never felt quite the same about the poor creature after that. He showed us the horse he had ridden over on.

very small one,I pointed out.

bet you couldn ride it.

bet I could.

It was a challenge. Esmeralda trembled with fear and kept murmuring, o, Ellen, don,as I mounted his horse barebacked and rode it recklessly round the paddock. I must admit I was a bit scared, but I wasn going to let him score over me and I had the insult to poor Brownie to answer.

Philip mounted then and performed some tricks for us to admire. He showed off blatantly. He and I sparred all the time, but there was no doubt that we enjoyed the sparring. It used to upset Esmeralda because she thought we hated each other.

ama wouldn like it,she told me. emember, he a Carrington.

ell, I a Kellaway,I said, nd that as good as a Carrington.

Philip had a tutor that summer and we saw a great deal of him. It was then that I first heard of Rollo.

hat a silly name,I said, which made Philip flush with fury.

Rollo was his brother, who was ten years older than he was. Philip spoke of him with pride. He was about twelve then, so Rollo was twenty-two. He was at Oxford and according to Philip could do everything.

pity he can change his name,I said just to plague him.

t a great name, you silly thing. It a Viking name.

hey were pirates,I said scornfully.

hey ruled the seas. Everywhere they went they conquered. Rollo was the great one who went to France and the King there was so worried he gave him a great slice of his country and that became Normandy. Wee Normans.He looked at us disparagingly. e came over here and conquered you.

ou didn,I cried. ecause we are Normans too, aren we, Esmeralda?

Esmeralda was not sure. I gave her a little push. She had no idea how to deal with Philip. Not that either of us took any notice of her opinion in any case.

e were better Normans than you were,said Philip. e were the dukes and you were only the common people.

h no, we weren.

And that was how it went on.

Once Esmeralda said to me: ama would be cross if she knew how you quarreled with Philip. You forget he a Carrington.

I remember when Rollo came down from Oxford. I first saw him riding in the lanes with Philip. His horse was white and as I said to Esmeralda after he had passed he ought to have had one of those helmets with wings at the side, then he would have looked just like a Viking. We did not speak to him. Philip called a greeting to us as he passed, making it clear that he had no time to waste on two girls with such a magnificent creature about. Rollo himself scarcely looked at us.

He was invited to the house of course and a great fuss was made of him. Cousin Agatha practically fawned on him. Nanny Grange said afterwards that you think he was some sort of a god and that Madam had her claws out to pick him up for Miss Esmeralda. el be the heir of all those millions, I suppose,she said. hough I reckon Master Philip will have his little picking.

When we returned to London that year I saw more of Rollo. When he was on vacation he called on us with his parents. I used to love those occasions when the carriages lined the street and pulled up outside our door. There would be red-and-white-striped awning for the guests to pass under and people used to line up to see them arrive. I loved watching from the nursery window.

They were enjoyable days. I used to wake up every morning with a delicious sense of excitement. The servants would chatter about the guests and there was a great deal of talk about the Carringtons. Sometimes Cousin Agatha and Cousin William Loring went to Park Lane to dine. We would watch them go and greatly regret that the dinner party was not at our house.

As I have said, I lived a great deal of my life belowstairs, and when possible I would secret myself at the servantstable and listen. If Esmeralda were with me they would be self-conscious; they didn mind me so much, perhaps because my fate would one day be similar to theirs.

I heard one of them say, hat Miss Ellen, she neither the one nor the other. I reckon when she older shel be sent out governessing. I rather be a housemaid. You do know your place then.

Such a thought alarmed me only briefly. I was sure that when the time came I would be able to take care of myself; but at the moment my lack of status gave me the glorious opportunity to hover between stairs. They talked quite freely in front of me. I quickly learned that Her and Him were Cousin Agatha and Cousin William Loring and that She was parsimonious, saw the cook housekeeping accounts every week and relentlessly queried every item and that He was frightened of Her and daren raise his voice against Her. She was all for social climbing. Look how she ran after those Carringtons. Shameful! And they kept a good establishment, my word they did, both in Park Lane and in Sussex, and it had come to the cook ears that She had made Him buy that Sussex house just because the Carringtons had their place there. Always plotting, She was, to move up the ladder.

I learned through a series of subtle winks and nods (which they thought I was not smart enough to interpret) that She was determined to link the family with that of the great Carringtons and them having boys and her having a girl, the method was as easy as pie to understand.

I was amazed. They believed they were going to marry Esmeralda to Philip or to the magnificent creature I had seen on his white horse! It made me want to laugh as I debated whether to tell Esmeralda. But there was no point in scaring her completely out of her wits. She was not always in full possession of them as it was.

Life was full of interest: Upstairs in our nursery quarters, where I could spy on what Cousin Agatha was constantly reminding me were my betters, and downstairs in the kitchen, where I could drink in secret information when they all grew rather sleepy after finishing the joint or the chicken pie washed down with cook best elderberry or dandelion wine.

I was pleased too that my origins were mysterious. I would have hated to own Cousin Agatha for a mother, as I would tell Esmeralda when I was feeling mean. Perhaps Cousin William Loring would have been a kind sort of father, but his subservience to his wife did not make me admire him.

So there was the autumn and winteroaring fires and chestnuts popping on the hearth; the muffin man; hansom cabs clopping by. Peering out to watch them and wondering about the people who were riding in them, I would invent all sorts of stories to which Esmeralda would listen enthralled and then she would say: ow can you know who are in them and where they are going?I would narrow my eyes and whistle. here are more things in Heaven and Earth, Esmeralda Loring, than you wot of in your philosophy.She would shiver and regard me with awe (which I very much enjoyed). I would quote to her often, and sometimes pretend I had made up the words I spoke. She believed me. She could not learn as quickly as I could. It was a pity that she was so ineffectual. It gave me an exaggerated idea of my own cleverness. However, Cousin Agatha did her best to rid me of that; and perhaps, as I gathered from the servantsgossip and Cousin Agatha manner towards me that I was of not much account, it was not so unfortunate after all, for I needed something to keep up my confidence.