“Well. I do have a trunk at the station. Miss Sutton said you could get it for me.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“How do you manage? I know there isn’t any car.”
“No, Miss. I uses the wheelbarrer, fetchin’ anythin’ from the depot—parcels of books mostly.”
“Good.”
As the man started to move away, Fredericka felt a sudden impulse to detain him. The silent house and great overgrown garden were all at once oppressive.
“Is it Miss Sutton, or Mrs. Sutton, Chris?”
“Miss, if you means Miss Philippine the lady who met your train. Her aunty is ole Mrs. Sutton that owns the big place out on the turnpike. Her father, that was Mrs. Sutton’s brother, he went to the big war, the first one, and married hisself to a French woman. But they both got themselves killed in this war we had just presently. Ole Mrs. Sutton she went and hunted for Miss Philippine until she foun’ her at last and brought her back home.”
“Hasn’t she any children of her own then?” Fredericka couldn’t resist asking. Then she was immediately sorry for the question. Was she prying into affairs that were no business of hers? Why must she analyse every word she spoke? Why must she be so sensitive? She looked a little nervously at Chris but he answered her without hesitation.
“Yes, Miss, she’s got two children of her own—Miss Catherine—that’s Mrs. Clay, that was. She ain’t married jes’ at present. She lives in New York but she’s jus’ visitin’ heah right now. Then there’s the boy—got hisself all smashed up in the war though.”
“He isn’t called Colonel, is he?” she asked, somewhat to her own surprise.
“Oh no, Miss. He’s Roger—Roger Sutton,” he added unnecessarily.
He began to move away toward the brick path that ran round the house to the front and Fredericka said quickly, “There was a man I—er—well, there was someone called Colonel at the junction and I just wondered if it could have been this Mr. Sutton.”
“No Ma’am.” Chris turned back. The smile had gone at last, and he regarded Fredericka solemnly. “Perhaps it could likely have been Colonel Mohun. He teaches in the college and everyone calls him Colonel ’round here.”
Fredericka, for the third time that day, felt herself blushing. She wished now that she hadn’t spoken. If only Chris would stop looking at her and go away.
“The Colonel’s a good man,” Chris said slowly, and something in the way he emphasized the word “good” made Fredericka look up quickly. Yes, it was as if he had said, “Those others, those Suttons, are a bad lot.”
“Thanks, Chris. I’ll be here tonight, probably working in the shop, so you can bring the trunk any time.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Fredericka watched the retreating back and wished she hadn’t talked so much. As the sound of Chris’s footsteps died away, the garden seemed unnaturally silent. She shivered. Was it a sudden cool breeze, or was it something else—a coldness and loneliness inside herself? Who was that illustrator who made trees into witches and ogres? Rackham. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder—was that also true of—evil? Why was she suddenly so disenchanted? She shivered again and got up to walk indoors slowly. She must apply her own mental discipline to such ridiculous imaginings.
Chapter 2
Fredericka woke herself with a loud sneeze and turned over to look at the clock on the table by her bed.
Eight. Later than usual—much. But there had been the thunderstorm in the middle of the night and she had lain awake for a long time afterwards. She opened her eyes wide and stared at the unfamiliar yellow room.
She sneezed again, sat up, and was sure that she had started a cold. Her eyes ached and her throat felt like sandpaper.
As she dressed slowly, stopping at intervals to reach for a paper handkerchief, she was aware of a curious apprehension that had nothing to do with her cold and nothing to do with being alone in a strange house. Suddenly she sneezed again.
“Sneeze on Sunday, sneeze for—” What was the old rhyme? She finished dressing hurriedly and then looked out the window at the back of the room, over the sloping tin roof of the porch to the patch of lawn and the tangle of bushes beyond. She must explore that jungle later if the sun came out. But not now. The dark leaves hung heavy and dank from their night’s wetting and even the lawn was steaming after the heat of yesterday.
Why didn’t she stop staring out of the window? Why didn’t she go down and put on the coffee and make an effort to throw off this unreasonable depression? Why?
Suddenly she stiffened where she stood. Yes, the wet bushes were moving and there was no hint of wind to move them. As she stared a white face appeared, and then, slowly and cautiously, the body attached to it. A young girl in a checked gingham dress. Fredericka relaxed. But why should this girl approach so stealthily through the wet bushes as though she did not want to be seen. Why, for that matter, did she come at all, unasked?
Fredericka stuffed her apron pocket with tissues and hurried downstairs to the back door, which she threw open suddenly as a relief to her annoyance. Her visitor was now standing in full view.
“Yes?” Fredericka said coldly.
“Oh,” said the girl, looking up. “You must be Fredericka Wing.”
“I am. And who, if I may ask, are you?” In spite of herself, Fredericka was annoyed at the use of her first name by the stranger, and her annoyance was not relieved by the sight of the unprepossessing girl who stared back at her. Young, certainly not more than sixteen, sullen, untidy, her too-full face blotched with patches of crimson acne.
“I’m Margie Hartwell.” The girl paused as if this explanation should be enough for anyone, and then she added reluctantly and as if compelled by Fredericka’s evident hostility, “I’ve come for some things Mom wanted from the storeroom.”
Fredericka was about to forbid her to enter the house when she realized that she was behaving stupidly simply because she did not like the girl and her unannounced arrival. After all, Miss Hartwell had spoken of this child as her niece. With an effort, Fredericka managed to say nothing, but she turned away abruptly toward the kitchen and the more cheerful thought of coffee.
Margie banged through the screen door and Fredericka could hear her heavy footsteps go up the stairs and into the room over the office which Philippine had called the personal storeroom and which she had discovered to be full of family possessions.
This kind of behaviour might be all right for South Sutton, but it was not going to be all right for Fredericka Wing.
By the time Margie returned, Fredericka was finishing her breakfast. The girl stood in the doorway, looking hungry, but Fredericka did not ask her in.
“I wish,” she said stiffly, “that another time you would let me know when you want to come into the house. I live here now, you know.”
“But Auntie said—”
Fredericka cut her short. “It doesn’t matter what Miss Hartwell said. I’m in charge here now and I don’t like people banging in and out unasked.”
The girl stared at her and the blotches on her face turned an angry red, but she said nothing. After a moment, she turned and went out the back door, slamming it deliberately behind her.
And that’s that, Fredericka thought. Now, just because I’m tired and have a cold and was startled, I’ve had to antagonize that miserable child. She got up and went to the sink to wash the dishes. Outside, the hammock looked soggy and bedraggled. Should she have covered it with something? Oh, blast it, blast everything. If this place wasn’t so full of lunatics, she’d have started off on the right foot. As it was…
But