Adele varens 13

 

Chapter 13

 

I had foolishly sent my chaperone north.

I made my way to Mrs. Bridges’ school, where fortunately, her maid recognised me, and did not make me cool my heels for being a young person without escort.

Mrs. Bridges saw me very quickly.

“My dear Adele!” she said. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

“Oh, Mrs. Bridges!” I said “I find myself in a predicament. I have a house in Yorkshire, and my chaperone has gone on there to await me, but when my grandmother died, her lease ended, and I have no maid. I want to hire a girl from an orphan asylum, and then I can stay in a hotel or something without being looked at askance.”

“You will do no such thing, my dear; you will stay here until you are ready to head to your home, and what’s more, you shall travel with Frances and Ruth. We have lost those silly double names, and they chose which half to use.”

“Oh, that is kind of you,” I said. It was.

Frances hugged me when I was taken to partake of staff tea.

“Adele! How well you look!” she said.

“You too,” I said. “Managing to avoid going back?”

“Yes, and your invitation is timely,” said Frances. “Ruth has stayed here with me through the holidays but our step-father wants her to go home, and we know what that means. She is slight and small for her age, and… well, you know.”

I nodded.

“He will never think to look in Yorkshire,” I said. “Mrs. Bridges will tell him merely that you had a letter, and you both left.”

“Ruth is so relieved,” said Frances. “He… he had started to train her to his ways, when mama insisted she go home. I told her what he would do next, and she has been so frightened.”

“I am given to believe that when such acts are done with someone you love, with deep genuine friendship and more, that it is pleasant for both,” I said. “I don’t yet know from personal experience, but I cannot think that all married women are just putting a brave face on it.”

“Mrs. Bridges says the same; and she was married for a few years before she was widowed,” said Frances. “And I believe her, but I would want to like someone a very great deal before risking it.”

“Of course,” I said. “I met someone I like a very great deal.”

“Oh! I am glad for you, if he treats you well.”

“He listens to my opinion. But he does not let me push him around,” I said. Reader, if you feel that I have been too forceful, let me tell you that once or twice when I have suggested something, Tony looked me in the eyes, and said, “No, I think it is a bad idea.” Such ideas had been those I had come up with in anger, like kidnapping Dalley, and leaving him naked, tied in a compromising position in front of the statue of Sir Xeno. Or breaking into our rival college and inserting sodium in all the faucets when they ran hoses into our windows and gave us a wetting.  We ignored it with dignity, which is what led to them disrupting us with noise, and our… doctoring… of their equestrian statue.

It was water based, so they knew that this covered more than one disruption.

 oOoOo

 

Mrs Bridges agreed to be my chaperone to the orphan asylum to pick myself a maid.  

I caught the eye of a child at the asylum right away; she was gurning at the back of her keeper, who was showing me about.

“I want to see the punishment book,” I said.

“I can tell you the names of the girls who have never had their names in it,” she said.

“Ah? Well, I wish to see the names of the girls who have,” I said.

Naturally, there was one name which popped up regularly; for ‘insubordination’ and ‘answering back,’ as well as sewing up the sleeves of the nightgown of a warder for whom she was doing mending, as a punishment for cheek. She had also painted the chalk board with dripping which the children got on bread rather than butter, to make the chalk squeak and fail to write, and had held a hopping race down the dining table.

Her name was Emmie Harris.

“I’ll have her,” I said.

She stared at me.

“But why?” she said. “You may be some kind of non-conformist, and hope to reform the child, but I assure you that she is incorrigible.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “Life won’t be dull.”

I think she thought me some kind of a mad woman. I did not care.

And Emmie Harris turned out to be – as I suspected – the child who had been gurning. When sent for, her cap was awry, and her ginger hair was pulled so tight into two braids the braids stuck out from her head.

“I had something in my eye,” she said.

“Oh, yes, you were trying to remove it when I arrived,” I agreed with her lie. “I trust the obstruction is gone?”

“Yes’m,” she said. “A fly flew in.”

“It must have come down the flue,” I said. “Or even flew down the flue, and was blinded by soot to blunder into your eye.”

She gave me a sideways, upwards glance and I winked, very quickly.

“It did not have time to flee via the flue, when the fly flew in,” she said. She loved words and wordplay.

“You’re going to be my maid,” I said. “I won’t need much but I have to have a maid now I am to come out.”

“Coo, will I get to go to grand balls?” she asked.

“Not tremendously grand, I’m afraid,” I said. “But you can keep your eyes and ears open for me, and be a great help.  If you ever sew up my nightclothes, or those of my friends, I’ll sew up yours, and short-sheet you as well. Understood?”

“Yes’m,” said Emmie.

“Miss Varens means she will whip you,” said her keeper.

“Miss Varens means what Miss Varens says; do not tell lies on my behalf,” I said. “I do not believe in whipping children. If I am pranked, I will prank back. What is sauce for the goose is sauce also for the gander.  Emmie would not win a prank war with me, I have a brother who has studied law at university. They know all about pranking there. It’s the only way, he says, to deal with inveterate pranksters; catch them back and hard enough to make wanting to make more trouble into a game not worth the candle.”

“Well, if you sign for her, she’s your problem,” said the keeper.

“Why, yes, so she is,” I said.

I paid for my new charge; which is to say, I made the needful compulsory voluntary donation to the foundation for the release of one of their sprites, and repaired to Mrs. Bridges’ gig. There was room to squeeze the three of us across the seat.

“She can have some of my old clothes if they are not in use,” I said to Mrs. Bridges. The good woman keeps clothes donated by pupils who have grown out of them, in case of pupils less than adequately provided for.

“Yes, the brown poplin and the blue challis will fit her nicely,” said Mrs. Bridges. “And I’ve some of Frances’s gowns too, which Ruth is not tall enough for as yet.”

This perked Emmie up, supposing that she was not to be dressed exclusively in black.

I dislike black. 

Well, now I had a maid, we might take the train to Yorkshire.

 

“Why did you want me?” asked Emmie. “She said the only reason anyone would want me was someone who enjoyed punishing.”

“She’s a limited old besom,” I said. “Nobody ever broke my spirit, and I like it that they haven’t broken yours. I want you to spy for me if I ask you to, which is harder than merely setting pranks. I may want you to search for letters and make copies of them.”

“I don’t hold with blackmail,” she said.

“Good, neither do I,” I said. “But I like to know what’s going on.  I may not need you to do this. But I need someone clever enough to do so if I feel threatened.”

“I see,” she said. “So, you have enemies, and you want an ace up your sleeve.”

“Précisement,” I said. “Precisely so.”

“Here! I won’t work against the Queen,” said Emmie.

“You won’t be,” I said. “I am half French and grew up speaking it; but I have lived here most of my life.”

“Well, that’s not a problem, then,” she said.

“I like your loyalty and your moral scruples in disliking blackmail,” I said. My own little book from the plumber was in the bank, and I had destroyed everything pertaining to Mary Wakefield, of course.

I did have a brief, spiteful urge to invite her brother to my house party and watch her father squirm when he realised who one of my guests was. But it would be bad luck if Mary fell in love with her brother, for not knowing who he was. 

 

Reader, I was absurdly excited about setting off for Phoenix Hall. I had seen it as it took shape again, but now I was coming home to the first place I had been happy, when I thought that Jane would persuade my father to be a father, and where I had fond hopes that we should be a family, having no understanding of poor mad Bertha and laws about bigamy. Me, I had no expectations of feeling sad there, for what might have been; because I had walked away from it. And I wanted Edward Fairfax Rochester to know that I was happy, carefree, and rich. Of course, he would assume I had gained wealth like my mother as a prostitute, and then I should produce my half brother’s dead grandmother, mother of some poor woman Rochester did not even remember [and how could he, when she did not exist?] but for whom I had documentation and paperwork, and who had an existence de jure if not de facto. A legal training is a fine thing for establishing a trail of paper which proves spurious facts. And had I not been at school, with Mrs. Bridges? The only difficult time was when I was at university; but of course I had been nursing my adoptive grandmother whilst my brother was earning his degree; for who else would do so?  All innocent, innocuous, and a lovely law-suit against my father if he tried to call me a whore. It was a beautiful example of the law of tort. I was not sure if I wanted him to do it, or not; could he rise above himself for his own daughter? Somehow I suspected not.  But if he did not, I would be kindly to him; and therefore it was upon his own actions and words that his fate rested, whether I would treat him the way he should have treated me, or whether I would hound him.

However, I put that behind me to laugh and chatter with my friends on the train; Mary was between jobs, having failed to ‘take’ in her one season, and being considered too young and pretty to be a housekeeper by most people. Celia, on the other hand, had got married, and wrote that she was contented, and expecting her first child. And Nelly? Nelly had not ‘taken’ but her aunt and uncle were happy to let her go and stay in Yorkshire, with proper chaperonage, I did not think that there was much love lost in that family.

I could keep them as my friends and pensioners for life, if need be. Frances and Ruth would be safe, and Mary and Nelly would not have to earn their way.

I had invested wisely in the railways, with my winnings; and my bank account boasted a sum six figures long.

We chattered and laughed as though we were still schoolgirls, all the way on the train, and played foolish card games, which I was careful not to win, and partook of the lunch hamper I had had prepared by Fortnum and Mason. Emmie was a bit overawed by five ladies, but dug into the food with the aplomb of the hungry young person.  She even volunteered some remarks once she had settled down.

None of us were so high in the instep as to discourage her.

We were able to go directly to York, now; and here I hired a chaise and driver to take us up to Phoenix Hall. 

Because of the new railway lines, we should pass close to Ferndean Manor on the way to Phoenix Hall; and I hoped that his curiosity would be aroused.

 

We arrived at last, and Miss Thwaite was there to greet me, and my guests. I embraced her warmly.

“Oh, Adele! How happy I am to see you looking so well and happy!  And what a gracious place this is; all the romance of a Gothic house, but with every modern convenience as well! And Mr. Budge, the solicitor, so kind; I have been placed in a most gracious suite, with a sitting-room, bathroom, and bedroom all for my own use; is this what you intended?” she asked, anxiously.

“Indeed it is, my dear Miss Thwaite!” I said. “I made sure to have a pleasant suite for you; and my friends will also have similar accommodation. Let me make you known to them.” I introduced my schoolfriends, and sent Emmie to the kitchen with orders that she be provided with tea according to the custom of the servants, and that tea and cakes should be brought for us in what I called the Sunshine Salon. It was all tricked out in primrose yellow, misty grey, and touches of gold, and had wide windows looking onto the terrace.

I would love exploring my own domain and making it mine for being lived in, and having convivial souls with me was even better.