The Truant Spirit (18 page)

She would have liked to watch the mysterious rite of omelette-making, but he allowed no idling in the kitchen, and she had only just put the finishing touches to Bunny’s tray when the first omelette was ready, miraculously golden and fluffy with button mushrooms scattered carelessly round. He put a cover quickly over the plate and told Sabina to hurry.

Bunny’s praise was hard to bear.

“Why, Sabina, how professional!” she exclaimed, when she beheld the omelette. “I’d no idea you were a chef— but of course, you were brought up in the French tradition, were you not?”

“I didn’t cook it—Brock did,” said Sabina miserably and described the ignominious fate of the mixed grill.

“Oh, dear, what sinful waste!” was Bunny’s first rejoinder,

then seeing the girl’s crestfallen face, she added kindly, “Never mind, dear, it was a good attempt, but I should leave the cooking to Brock in future, if I were you. He’s quite an expert.”

“How does he know? I mean it’s not usual for a man, is it, unless—unless—?”

Bunny gave her a quick look.

“Unless it’s part of his trade?” she asked. “Plenty of men are excellent cooks as a hobby, my dear. Why don’t you ask Brock if you’re curious as to what he does for a living?”

But she did not ask him. Bunny’s retort had seemed rather like a rebuke to Sabina, and it was possible that in her old-fashioned way the governess did not approve of the manner in which her favourite pupil made his living. But tonight such matters had no consequence. It was new and curiously intimate to be feeding in the kitchen with the firelight bright on the flags and the china on the old dresser shedding a warmth of colour in the light of the lamp.

Brock had made coffee in a fashion never achieved by Bunny, and they sat at the table with its coarse, checked cloth, in companionable silence.

“You look like Alice in Wonderland with that ribbon round your hair,” he said suddenly and she smiled across at him, conscious that his mood had softened. Perhaps it had done him good to witness her discomfiture and serve a meal that was a rebuke in itself.

“Could you teach me, do you think, to cook?” she asked, and his eyebrows shot up.

“Why should it concern you?” he said. “The wife of Rene Bergerac will have the finest chef in Europe.”

There they were back again, she thought, regretting her question at once. It seemed that at no time, now, could she not be overshadowed by the Chateau Berger.

“I suppose so,” she said disconsolately. “It all sounds — rather wasted on me.”

“But you enjoy your food—you will adapt yourself quickly to the comforts and well-being of such a life. There are many who would envy you.”

“I would like,” she said, stretching her arms to embrace the room, “my own life ... my own kitchen ... a home. A hotel isn’t a home, is it?”

“The Chateau Berger is rather different,” he said. “You will

have your own wing, I don’t doubt, and nothing to stop you having your own kitchen, too, once you can cook.”

“You’re laughing at me,” she said. “Don’t you understand what I mean?”

“Oh, yes, but have you thought that M. Bergerac may also have ideas?”

“But he only wants a house and a wife who will be a—a sort of figurehead.”

“I imagine he expects more than that,” Brock observed dryly. “Did you suppose a marriage of convenience ruled out the normal privileges of a union?”

“No,” she said, “but it’s difficult to imagine the reactions of a man you’ve never met, and Tante says he has poor health.” “Don’t let that deceive you,” he retorted unkindly. “A man has to be in very poor health not to expect his rights.”

She left the table and began wandering round the kitchen, opening cupboards and shutting them in an aimless fashion and coming to rest finally on a rough milking-stool by the range.

“If you’re trying to warn me, Brock, that I will have the normal obligations to fulfil, I’ve always known it,” she said with dignity, and he pushed back his chair impatiently.

“You make a brave showing,” he said, “but you speak with the innocent sureness of inexperience.”

“Why should you care?” she returned with spirit. “You aren’t responsible for the success or failure I may make of my life.”

“True, why should I care?” he replied, but added softly, “except, as I told you, you may get hurt, but that’s something that must happen to all of us. One can’t guard against life.”

She wondered for the first time if he had ever been in love; not with the mountains which had been his solace, but with some woman who had failed to measure up to his standards.

“If you don’t love, you are less likely to be hurt,” she said firmly and he grinned.

“What appalling cynicism in one so young!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you intend to try to love poor M. Bergerac, who has poor health, then?”

“Well—” she said doubtfully, imagining Rene Bergerac, middle-aged and rather fat, with a weak digestion to say the least of it. The fact that he had been a rake in his youth no longer meant very much. A rake should look like Brock, dark and sure and cynical, with a hard charm that could soften to tenderness when he chose ...

“It’s a shame to tease you,” he said. “Let’s get cleared up. You can’t wash up with that bandaged hand, but you can dry. Come on.”

For the rest of the evening he was noncommittal, commenting acidly on the heap of dirty pans she had left in the sink, but rewarding her with a friendly pat when the last clean plates were stacked.

‘Tomorrow,” he said with some pleasure, “we will go marketing. If I am to be chef for the next day or so we will have none of Bunny’s plain rectory fare. I will show you what to expect when you get to France. Now, what do you think you’ll fancy? All the out-of-season things—quail, woodcock, partridge?”

“In a pear-tree?” she asked, and at his mild look of surprise an unwonted gaiety took her, and she danced round the kitchen singing:

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me A

partridge in a pear-tree
...

“How astonishing!” Brock observed, watching her attentively. “What else did your true love send?”

“Oh, lots of things. Lords a-leaping, ladies dancing, pipers piping, drummers drumming.”

“A thoughtful selection, to be sure. Nobody need be bored.”

“There were lots more, and to finish up with, three French hens, two turtle doves and—oh, yes, I’ d forgotten five gold rings.”

“Five? Was he providing for the eventuality of four more husbands, then?”

“Now you’ve spoilt it,” she said, and he gave the ribbon she had tied round her head an affectionate tweak.

“Dear Sabina,” he teased, “you do rise delightfully.”

“Of course,” she amended quite seriously, “there
were
twelve lords a-leaping, so I suppose—”

“You suppose nothing of the kind,” he retorted. “True loves are the same all the world over, one love, one ring, one happy ending; isn’t that the correct formula? Now I think it’s time we packed up and went to bed.”

It was a pleasurable few days for Sabina, proud that she had the running of the house in her hands. Willie came into the kitchen, which was unusual for him, and sat by the fire, not speaking, when it was too wet to work outside, and Mrs. Cheadle, although her housework suffered, drank endless cups of tea and was cosily garrulous.

“You’ve got us all tamed, haven’t you, Sabina?” Brock mocked gently. “Even poor Willie is, like the robin, content to

nest by the fire.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “But I don’t think you’re one of the tamed, Brock.”

His eyebrows lifted, but he made no reply and she did not feel any longer that she might be impertinent in teasing him. He was as good as his word as regards cooking. Sabina watched while delectable dishes formed magically under his supervision, and although he might rap her fingers when he caught them running greedily round the edges of saucepans, he seemed pleased by the awe and respect with which she observed his efforts.

“You’re an excellent audience,” he told her. “If you never lose that gift you’ll have men at your feet all your life.”

She giggled, picturing herself with an adoring chain of admirers, and he said severely:

“You underrate yourself, Sabina, as I’ve told you before. You must learn to command homage as the right of your sex.” “Must I?” she asked, with a sigh, and he grinned.

“Well, perhaps not. I like you as you are.”

They continued to have their meals in the kitchen and Sabina was happy, indulging in her own private make-believe. She felt a little guilty when she took up Bunny’s tray because she was grateful to the cold which kept her upstairs, but Bunny, although she fretted because she was not about in the mornings to help the daily woman, was grateful too for her respite.

“I must have been more tired than I knew,” she told Sabina apologetically, “and it’s so nice being waited upon.”

Sabina regarded her with affection. In her governessing days, she supposed, Bunny had never been waited upon, and as an impoverished vicar’s wife she had done the waiting herself.

“When I marry you must come and stay with me,” she said impulsively, and flushed at the governess’s faint look of surprise. It was, she supposed, a little presumptuous to extend invitations to the home of a man she had not yet met.

The rain had stopped at last, and on the day Bunny was to come downstairs again, Brock beckoned Sabina out of doors.

“You see? Spring has crept up on us unawares,” he said, and she looked about her with astonishment.

The morning air was sweet and softer than silk, and even the moor had stirred from its winter sleep and showed tender colour in its bleakness. The first primroses grew among the graves and the neglected garden had put out spear-like shoots of green.

“Oh. ” said Sabina softly. “It’s like a miracle. ”

“In the Maritimes—round Venice—it will be still more beautiful,” Brock said, but she turned away, not wanting to be reminded of the Chateau Berger. The little time of felicity was over, she thought. Today Bunny was coming down, and tomorrow life would be as it had been, with no more meals in the kitchen, and an intimacy at once broken by the presence of a third person.

They made a fuss of Bunny, and Sabina particularly, because she was conscious of ingratitude, waited on her in a hundred ways, tucking her on the sofa in the living-room, making the
tisanes
which Marthe had taught her, because as she said, convalescence must go on for a while longer. It lasted, in effect, for another day; then Bunny put on her overall and tied her head up in the unbecoming handkerchief and began a furious round of cleaning and polishing.

“It certainly does not do,” she said, “to relinquish the reins, as my dear husband always maintained. Look at the dust in these cabinets and the position of the ornaments—everything in the wrong place.”

“I did help Mrs. Cheadle,” Sabina said, feeling reproved.

“I know, dear, and it was very kind; but you can’t be expected to know where things live, as I do,” said Bunny, and her eyes fell on the
armoire.
“Ah, now someone
has
cared for that. Was

it you, Sabina?” “Yes,” Sabina said. “It’s so beautiful, and since I saw the other one at Penruthan, I’ve taken particular care.”

“The other one?” said Bunny vaguely.

“Yes. Brock said they were originally a pair and a friend had bought this one for you.”

For some reason Bunny looked flustered.

“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten,” she said. “Sabina, I hope you don’t think—well, I suppose all that furniture really belonged to you.”

“I didn’t know of its existence,” said Sabina gently. “And if I had—well, I would have given you the
armoire,
Bunny, if I’d known you wanted it, but you see I wasn’t consulted.”

“Neither did you know me,” retorted Bunny, then stood fingering the
armoire
reflectively.

“I always admired it,” she said, “And when the things were sold, well, as you said—a friend bought it for me.”

“I wonder why the other one was left,” Sabina said. “Now I know the furniture is really mine I shall keep it there until—

until I have somewhere to put it myself.”

“Did your aunt not make over the money to you?” Bunny asked sharply, and Sabina answered as she had replied to Brock.

“I expect she thought it would help with my keep.” Bunny sniffed but said no more, and soon she was in the middle of an orgy of dusting which left little margin for conversation.

The next day Sabina was conscious of change as soon as she got up. Willie Washer wore a new jersey and was tending the garden with unusual zest, and Mrs. Cheadle had arrived for once in time to get the breakfast. Even the house had about it an elusive impression of difference, Sabina thought, but perhaps it was the morning’s post which was really responsible. Certainly both Brock and Bunny received letters which caused them to frown, while for Sabina had come one of the rare postcards from France.

“Tante says that she has now concluded arrangements with M. Bergerac and I may expect them soon,” she announced, not yet quite believing in the end of the fairytale.