Beatrice liked the house right away. While its design conjured a medieval hall bred with a couple of thatched cottages, its large, commodious rooms, electric lights, and bright floors spoke of commerce and energy, not a household turning into stone under the geologic pressure of its own lineage. Lady Marbely had moved with the slow drag of a woman waiting her interment in the family crypt, her life and home dusty with protocol and made reclusive by walls of superiority. Beatrice did not know how Agatha Kent and her husband really stood in the world, but she did not think they were likely to pounce on all the flaws in her bloodline before the soup was on the dinner table.
“You must be Beatrice and you must be hungry,” said a plump woman in a slippery Oriental gown, coming out of the open glass doors leading to a living room with many lamps. She was of that certain age when the bloom of youth must give way to strength of character, but her face was handsome in its intelligent eyes and commanding smile, and her hair retained a youthful spring as it threatened to escape from its carefully pinned rolls. “I’m Agatha Kent, and this is my nephew Daniel Bookham.”
“How do you do,” he said without even a conventional trace of interest.
Though she had chosen to put the romantic notions of the schoolgirl behind her, Beatrice was not yet immune to a handsome face. With carefully disheveled brown hair falling into blue eyes, the sharpest of jawlines, and an almost downy moustache, Daniel Bookham was a very striking young man. Though she told herself that he was absurd in his carelessly tied cravat and generally bohemian affect, she was forced to squash a brief disappointment that he was younger than her.
“And you’ve already met my other nephew, Hugh Grange,” added Agatha. Beatrice turned and reconsidered him in the bright light of the front hall. He was taller than Daniel, by a head, and plain in a way that might be considered handsome when not compared directly to the almost classical form of his younger cousin. As his aunt dispensed him to see to the luggage and called for the maid to show her to her room, Beatrice decided it would be prudent to keep her eyes firmly in Hugh Grange’s direction.
—
It was probably the third-best guest room, thought Beatrice, small and furnished with a narrow oak bed and a simple writing desk, but pleasantly decorated with blue striped wallpaper and flowery chintz curtains. A lace-skirted sink, with running water, occupied one corner, and a large window stood open to the night and the fragrance of the garden. In the distance, a shimmer of silver indicated the moonlit sea. Across the hall, the maid had proudly displayed a bathroom containing an enormous tub with a frightening array of brass taps and an ornate mahogany throne, the raised seat of which revealed an indoor water closet. A carved mahogany tank set high on the wall and a long brass chain gave it an almost ecclesiastical air.
“I know how to operate it, thank you,” said Beatrice, forestalling the maid’s instructions.
“There’s no other guests in this wing,” said the maid. “So you’ll have it to yourself.”
“Are the gentlemen not staying?” asked Beatrice.
“They like to stay in their old rooms on the top floor,” said the maid. “Can’t imagine how Master Hugh manages to sleep in that little bed of his, scrunched up like a hedgehog I expect, but he won’t hear of moving, and Master Daniel tried the green room at the front for a while, but Master Hugh teased him something dreadful and Mrs. Kent wouldn’t let him smoke cigars because the curtains were all new, so he was pretty soon off upstairs again.” Her voice softened as she hurried on, and Beatrice thought better of the young men for inspiring such affection.
She remembered her father and the fierce loyalty he had commanded in the many servants who had looked after the two of them. How sweet, and yet how bitter the many partings. How many times had she been pillowed against the bosom of a sobbing housekeeper who had stroked her hair and begged her to write? Once they had taken a maid with them, to Italy, and the maid had been almost prostrate with grief at letting them down, but found it impossible to accustom herself to foreign parts. Beatrice could summon, too easily, the cold railway platform, the tearstained face of the maid in the train window, and herself, a thin child, controlling a wave of shivers and resolving to keep the next maid at more of a distance. Each kind servant—and they were all employed by her father for their kindness rather than for any great skills in cleaning or cooking, it seemed—was held a little more distant than the last, until she could look now at Agatha Kent’s maid with a completely dispassionate appraisal.
The breathless girl was struggling to remain haughty. No doubt the servants all knew Beatrice was a schoolteacher, and it was a funny thing about those in service, thought Beatrice, that they could be as rude as revolutionaries to those just above them while remaining unconditionally loyal to their masters. The girl was clearly friendly at heart, a stout worker, and had a local accent that probably made her suffer the condescension of others. Beatrice gave her a broad smile.
“Thank you for being so kind, Jenny,” she said.
“I’ll fetch you some supper up right away,” said the girl. She smiled back, and no trace of haughtiness remained.
—
Coming downstairs in a fresh blouse and a shawl, Beatrice met Daniel crossing the entrance hall.
“Ah, wait here one minute and I’ll ask Aunt Agatha where she wants you,” he said, disappearing through the living room doors.
Beatrice paused on the bottom stair, gripping the banister until her wrist ached. She murmured, very fast, “Humiliation is the sport of the petty,” an admonition of her father’s that she had found all too useful this past year.
“Shall I put the schoolteacher in the small study?” she heard Daniel ask.
“Oh, heavens no, there’s no fire in there and it’s distinctly chilly after dark. Ask her to come in here.”
Daniel appeared in the doorway, a frown marring his classical features, and waved at her. “In here, miss. Don’t be shy, we’re very informal.”
“I assure you I was not raised to be shy,” said Beatrice, her voice sharp. “A country living room holds no terrors for me.”
“Do you hear that, Aunt?” said Daniel. “Not everyone is terrified of you.”
“I should hope not,” said Agatha, reclining in one corner of an overstuffed sofa. “Why, I am the mildest mannered of women and I get on with everyone.”
Hugh, sitting in a wing chair by the fireplace, seemed to choke on his own laughter and took a swig from his glass as he got to his feet.
“See, even Hugh will tell you my aunt is a most formidable woman.” Daniel smiled at Beatrice, but she was now immune to his charms, inoculated by his casual arrogance.
“You boys are very rude,” said Agatha. “Why don’t you offer Miss Nash a drink, Daniel? Do come and sit by me, Miss Nash.”
“Nothing for me, thank you,” said Beatrice, who would have loved a small glass of port but knew better than to ask. It had taken several weeks for Lady Marbely to stop commenting on how unusual it was for a lady to be so knowledgeable about port and how sad it was that she had had no mother to counteract her father’s more unusual ideas about what was suitable.
“Did you have enough to eat?” asked Agatha. “I can ring for some fruit.”
“No thank you, the supper was lovely, and my room is very comfortable. It is so nice of you to have me.”
“Well, I think it’s important that we get to know each other, preferably before the rest of the town. We have important work to do, Miss Nash, and it is vital that you and I understand each other completely.”
“I think that’s our signal to leave,” said Daniel. “Hugh and I will go have that game of billiards now.”
—
“Hugh must talk to you about the tutoring,” said Agatha, as the young men left the room.