ELEANOR AT WINDY GAP
To her mingled relief and surprise, Margaret found her small pupils far
less troublesome to manage than the tales she had heard about them would
have led her to suppose. Daisy and David were a quaint, small couple; but
though self-willed and alarmingly high spirited they were affectionate,
warm-hearted children and easily ruled by love. They took an instant
fancy to Margaret. Perhaps her quiet manner and prim way of speaking
appealed to them after the noisy ways of their young aunts, who
alternately petted and bullied them; at any rate they showed themselves
gratifyingly ready to obey her lightest word.
"We think you a perfect dear," Daisy said at the end of the first
morning, winding two fat little arms tightly round Margaret's neck, "and
we like you, and we will be good to you, won't we, David?"
"Sure," said David, who had picked up a few Americanisms from his
father's New York chauffeur, and delighted in airing them. "You can
calculate on that all the time."
Hannah, too, who was a quiet, elderly, and very superior woman, liked the
children's governess, and that was no small matter. She approved of
Margaret's quiet manner and sedate speech, and never guessing with what
a quaking heart Margaret had entered the schoolroom, set her down in her
own mind as an ideal governess.
"A far better example to my lambs than Miss Maud with her noisy ways, or
Miss Hilary with her sharp, sarcastic speeches, a well-brought-up young
lady Miss Carson is, and no mistake either, and will teach Miss Daisy how
to behave."
Though Margaret had quite enjoyed her morning with the children, she was
not sorry when twelve o'clock struck and the lesson-books were put away.
At that hour the children always went for a walk with Hannah, and
Margaret was free not only for the rest of the morning, but for the
remainder of the day as well. Certainly the post of holiday governess at
The Cedars could not be called an arduous one, but such as it was it was
pleasant to think that she filled it satisfactorily, and that she was
quite an efficient substitute for the real Eleanor. So having seen the
children put their lesson-books tidily away, Margaret ran lightly
downstairs to look for some of the others. It would be nice, she thought
innocently, to have a game of tennis with Maud or to take a walk with
Hilary or with one of the Greens. No doubt they all knew she would be
free at twelve and would be on the look-out for her. The hall and the
morning-room were empty, so she went into the garden and, guided by the
sound of voices, made her way down to the tennis court. Here Maud and one
of the girls she had come to meet the previous evening were playing
singles, while Hilary and her two cousins occupied a bench on the bank
overlooking the court on the far side.
Unaware of the fact that she was interrupting the game, Margaret began to
cross the court by the net, and when interrupted in her progress by a
shout from Maud turned and walked up to her.
"I say, whatever do you want?" Maud said impatiently, "Don't you see we
are playing?"
"Yes, and I thought I would like to play too, please," said Margaret,
in shy but friendly tones. "I have finished with the children for the
morning. Perhaps Hilary or one of your cousins will lend me a racquet and
I will come and play on your side."
"What, in high-heeled house-shoes, and when we are in the middle of a
single!" Maud exclaimed in amazement. "Here, clear out please. Take her
away somebody, and let us get on with our game."
Thus summarily dismissed, and blushing crimson at the annoyance in Maud's
tone, Margaret backed hurriedly off the court, and though the giggles
that came from the bench whereon Hilary and the Greens sat were clearly
at her expense, Margaret walked awkwardly towards them.
Neither Hilary nor Joan made any attempt to make room for her to sit
down, nor to conceal their amusement at her discomfiture, but Nancy, who
sat in the middle, edged closer to her sister and patted the bench
invitingly.
"You evidently don't know much more about tennis than you do about
billiards, do you?" said Hilary scornfully; "or you would not have
strolled across the court in that fashion and interrupted the game."
"I am sorry," said Margaret miserably. Already the feeling of eager
anticipation with which she had left the schoolroom to seek their society
had fled, and she was heartily wishing herself back there again; "and I
am afraid I have made Maud cross."
"Far too cross," said Nancy. "After all, it's nothing so terrible that
you did. It wasn't as if it was a match that Maud was playing. She is
only having a game with Anna."
"Fancy thinking you could play in house-shoes though," said Hilary.
"Didn't the girls at Hampstead have tennis-shoes, poor things?"
"I don't know. Yes, I suppose so. I mean, Mrs. McDonald did not--there
were no tennis courts," stammered Margaret, her wretchedness increasing
as she met Hilary's scrutinising gaze. Surely she was not mistaken, and
this time there was marked suspicion of her in Hilary's face.
"Come for a turn with me," said Nancy, who, though quite unconscious of
the significance of Hilary's look and manner, was at least acute enough
to perceive that her cousin was bent upon making Margaret more
uncomfortable than she was already. "I haven't stirred from this seat
since eleven, and unless I take some exercise I shan't be able to eat any
lunch. We'll go into the kitchen garden and look for some raspberries."
"They'll improve your appetite," jeered her sister.
She waited until the two were out of hearing, and then turned eagerly to
Hilary.
"Hilary," she said, "what is it? I can see you are suspicious of Miss
Carson. Do tell me. Oh, how quick and clever you are! I am sure you do
not like her. I believe you can read people's characters at a glance."
Hilary sniffed, a would-be modest, yet well-pleased sniff, which seemed
to say that though it would not become her to endorse Joan's opinion of
her talents, truth would not permit her to deny it.
"I know nothing for certain yet," she said darkly, "but I am on the
watch. Miss Carson is not all she seems, mark my words."
The early dinner was rather an ordeal for Margaret. All the members of
the family, including her two small pupils, who sat one on each side of
her and behaved beautifully, were present, besides Anna Finch and a
couple of Geoffrey's friends, motor-bicycle enthusiasts like himself, who
had come over from Brighton that morning on their machines.
Had Margaret only been allowed to eat her dinner in silence she would not
have found the meal as terrifying as she did. Hilary, it was, who would
not permit that, for the second Miss Danvers sat opposite to her, and
whenever there was a lull in the conversation she would lean across the
table and ask Margaret questions about Hampstead. The questions were
asked in such apparent innocence that none of the others guessed that she
was trying to catch her out in her answers. But Margaret was only too
miserably aware of that fact, and she wondered what it was that she could
have said or done to raise suspicions about herself before she had even
been twenty-four hours in the house. Hilary's sidelong glances and
meaningly put questions worked upon her to such a pitch that she expected
to hear her say any moment that an imposter sat at their table in the
guise of Eleanor Carson. But she need not have feared such an immediate
denouncement. Hilary's suspicions had by no means reached that point yet;
even if they had she would not have given voice to them. She was enjoying
her cat-and-mouse game far too much to wish to bring it to an end as yet,
and several days went by without her doing more than making Margaret as
uncomfortable as she could by sly questions and glances. Sometimes a
whole meal would pass without her addressing a single word to Margaret,
then, as the latter would begin to feel that her vague alarms were
groundless, and that Hilary suspected nothing, sudden allusion to
Hampstead, or the school where she was supposed to have taught so long,
would set her trembling again.
In short, Hilary contrived to make Margaret's life a burden to her, and
one night, the fourth since she had come to The Cedars, Margaret resolved
that she could stand it no longer. She would make a clean breast of
everything, own that she was at The Cedars under a false name, and that
she had no right there at all, and go to Mrs. Murray.
The moment in which she took that resolve was the happiest she had known
since she had come to The Cedars. For though she had been slow in
confessing it even to herself, it was a fact that, quite apart from
Hilary's quiet persecution of her, Margaret was not enjoying herself. It
was quite evident to her by that time that none of the family, excepting
her two pupils, and even they were to go away on the morrow to stay for
a fortnight with an aunt of their father's, cared in the least for her.
None of them included her in their plans or sought her society. Maud was
out playing golf or tennis all day long; Hilary and Joan were
inseparable, and though Nancy was kind it was only in a lazy,
good-natured way that in the end counted for very little. The boys,
though they were all, especially Geoffrey and Edward, quite nice to her
rarely met her, except at meals, so that she could not depend upon them
for companionship. And against all that Margaret had to set the constant
necessity of weighing all her actions and words. It was even a strain
always to have to remember that her name was Eleanor Carson.
What an immense relief it would be to be herself again, even though it
meant going up to that solitary house on the downs where she would have
only an old deaf lady for company!
Poor Margaret, she was terribly disillusioned, and bitterly now did she
regret the hasty act that had landed her in her present predicament. She
must have been mad, she thought gloomily, to have planned and carried out
such a brazen piece of imposition; and how could she ever have imagined
that she would have had the temerity to have carried it on for weeks and
weeks. She knew now that she was incapable of carrying it on for another
day, and suddenly the impulse arose in her to go straight to Mrs. Danvers
and tell her her real name and confess her shameful behaviour. With that
idea in her mind she even started to her feet, but paused before she had
taken one step in the direction of the morning-room where Mrs. Danvers,
unconscious of the bombshell that her holiday governess had been
momentarily minded to throw at her feet, was enjoying her usual
after-dinner nap.
It was not that Margaret's courage failed her at the thought of the
astounding revelation she had to make. In her present mood confession
would have been far easier to her than to continue the deception; it was
the thought that she would not be acting fairly to her accomplice that
stayed her steps. Eleanor must be told first that she could not go on
with it, and their confession must be simultaneous. And, no doubt,
Eleanor would be as glad and as thankful as she would be to change back
into her proper self. Probably she, too, was finding the deception more
than she could bear, and would hail the news that they were to resume
their own identities with untold relief. But for one day more Margaret
must continue to be Eleanor, much as she disliked the thought. But it
would be only for one day more, she thought to herself encouragingly, and
then she would be able to hold up her head again and not fear that every
chance question was going to unmask her as a cheat and a fraud.
Although Margaret had originally planned to go and see Eleanor the day
after she had come to The Cedars, the days had so far slipped past
without her being able to do so. But now, as the children were going away
early on the morrow, there was nothing to prevent her from going to Windy
Gap as soon as she chose in the morning. And Margaret fell asleep that
night resolving to ask Mrs. Danvers' permission to go for a walk on the
downs directly after breakfast.
Not that Margaret need have feared that any obstacle would be placed in
the way of her following her own devices. The younger members of the
family seemed only too ready to let her do exactly as she chose, as long
as she did not expect them to entertain her. When she came down to
breakfast the next morning it was to find the big room empty save for
herself. All the young ladies and all the young gentlemen had, Martin
informed her, taken their breakfast to the foot of the cliffs that
morning.
"My dear," said Mrs. Danvers, when a little later Margaret went up to her
room to ask her permission to absent herself for the morning, "do
whatever you like. It is so nice of you not to be offended with my young
people for not taking you with them, but when I suggested it to Maud just
as they were ready to start at five o'clock this morning, she said it was
too late to wake you up then as they were just off. I said it was very
naughty of them not to have thought of you in time; but there it is, my
dear, they just forgot you."
"They just forgot me," Margaret repeated to herself as she went down the
drive, and she sighed rather sadly. But her spirits revived when she
found herself clear of the houses and on the downs.
Far down on the left the sea glittered and sparkled in the brilliant
sunshine, the cliffs were of a dazzling whiteness against the bright blue
sky, and in front of her and on her right stretched an apparently
limitless extent of down lands. In the hollows nestled farms and small
hamlets surrounded by trees, which in that wind-swept region only grew in
those more sheltered situations. The air was most invigorating for, in
spite of the sunshine, a fresh breeze was blowing off the sea, and this
cooled the air, which otherwise might have been too hot to make the quick
rate at which Margaret was walking agreeable. Mrs. Danvers' directions
were easy to follow, for not only were there signposts to aid her, but
when she was only half-way down the long white road which, with many
curves, wound down to the shore, she could see the dip in the cliffs that
gave the name of Windy Gap to the little cove at their base, and also
trace the road that ran inland from it along the bottom of the valley to
the little village of the same name that, well sheltered by trees, lay in
the middle of it, a mile or more away from the cliff-line.
Recognising that there was then no need for her to follow the road as
far as The Cove, Margaret struck across the downs to her right in the
direction of the village, thus saving herself two sides of a triangle. A
little grey church with a squat tower, a little grey house that was
obviously the parsonage, a row of small cottages, a few isolated ones,
and a farm or two made up the village, and Margaret, after wandering up
and down the little main street wondering where Mrs. Murray's house was,
went into the one small general shop, which was also the post-office,
that the village boasted, to inquire. She was told to follow the road
for another few hundred yards, and then to take the first turning to the
left, which would lead her directly to Rose Cottage, which was the name
of Mrs. Murray's house, and to nowhere else.
Following these instructions, Margaret presently found herself climbing
a very steep, rough lane, that ended abruptly at a pair of wide gates.
These opened on to a short, winding drive, and without any hesitation
Margaret approached the house, intending to ring and ask boldly for Miss
Anstruther. And that would be the last time, she earnestly hoped and
believed, that she would be obliged to give her name as Miss Carson. The
deception they had played was to end very soon now.
It was a charming house and garden that came into view as Margaret turned
the last bend of the little winding drive. The house was little and the
garden big, and the latter was literally ablaze with flowers. So was the
house, too, but on the present occasion Margaret did not discover that.
The situation on the slope of a hill was well chosen, for though fully
open to the south, the house and garden were well protected, both by
trees and by the rising ground, from the cold north and the boisterous
west wind. To-day, with the sun blazing overhead, it was like a veritable
sun-trap, and Margaret, who was beginning to feel the effects of her long
walk, looked longingly at a deck-chair that stood invitingly under the
shade of a weeping ash at the further end of the lawn.
As Margaret's footsteps sounded noisily on the gravel, the chair, which
was placed with its back to the house, creaked suddenly, and Eleanor's
head appeared round the side of it.
When her eyes fell upon Margaret, whose hand was at that minute
outstretched to lay hold of the bell, an expression of the most vivid
surprise, not unmixed with consternation, crossed her face, and, making
a warning sign to Margaret, she came running across the grass.
"Don't ring," she said, in a voice that was cautiously lowered. "Mrs.
Murray is out, and it's no use disturbing the servants. I say, what on
earth made you come up here on such a grilling day? You must be too hot
for anything!"
"I thought you would have been wondering why I had not been up here
before," said Margaret, feeling rather forlorn at the reception she was
getting.
"Not a bit of it," returned Eleanor. "I have scarcely thought of you the
last few days. I feel as if I had been Margaret Anstruther all my life!"
"And do you like it?" Margaret asked. The question slipped almost
unawares from her lips, but she could not recall it, and she waited with
a good deal of anxiety for the answer. She hoped it would not be in the
affirmative, for if it were it would make what she had to say so very
much harder for Eleanor to hear.
"Like it?" said Eleanor ecstatically. "Liking is not the word! And, oh!
I have such news, such glorious, glorious news to give you! So, on the
whole, I am glad you have come, although at first I was rather dismayed
at the riskiness of it. But come away from here. I can take you to a
quiet spot where we can have a long, long talk unheard, and unseen from
the windows."
While she spoke she was piloting Margaret across the lawn, past the shady
tree, in full view of the windows where she had been sitting, towards a
little grass path that cut in two the wide border of gay herbaceous
flowers that backed the far end of the garden, and led suddenly to a
flight of brick steps which descended to a walled-in kitchen garden
below. This being on a much lower level than the lawn was quite invisible
from the windows. A wide path ran along beside the rock-work that banked
up the lawn, and at the end of the path there was a comfortable little
summer-house furnished with a table and chairs.
"I have made this snug little retreat my own," said Eleanor, as she led
the way into it and invited Margaret to be seated. "I come here in the
afternoons and do my lessons, and it is already quite understood by Mrs.
Murray and the servants that when I am working here I do not like to be
disturbed. She is very good and leaves me to myself now a lot. At first
she was rather inclined to come and talk to me a good deal, but I think
she sees now that I hate wasting time talking, and so lets me alone.
Well, now I am sure you are longing to hear all about my arrival and my
first meeting with Mrs. Murray. So I will tell you about that first, and
keep my best news to the last."
If Margaret had said what was in her mind at that moment, she would have
said that what she longed most to hear was herself telling Eleanor that
she wanted to change back into her proper self again; but somehow, though
the words were on the tip of her tongue, she could not bring herself to
utter them. With a sinking heart she was beginning to realise that
Eleanor, far from wanting to be herself again, would much rather remain
Margaret Anstruther. And it was dreadful to think of the disappointment
that she must cause her when she said what she had come to say.
"Well, now to begin at the beginning," Eleanor said, leaning comfortably
back on her chair with her hands lying loosely on her lap. Margaret
noticed that three fingers of her right hand were in bandages. "I can
confess now what I am sure you never guessed at the time, and that is
that I was in a horrid fright when I said good-bye to you at the station,
and I believe at the very last minute if I could have jumped back into
the train I would have done so, but Mrs. Murray was so kind that I soon
got over my nervousness. Not that it would have mattered, though, if I
hadn't," she added with a little laugh, "for Margaret, I found, was
expected to be shy. I suppose, as poor Mrs. Murray is so dreadfully deaf,
it is easier to pass myself off as you than it might otherwise have been,
but certainly if I have made any glaring mistakes she has never noticed
them, and if I really had been you my task could not have been simpler.
Of course, the first evening she asked me a great many questions about
Mr. Anstruther and your home, and your lessons, and your governess, and
why the doctor had said you were to go away, and so on, and I answered
them all in first-class style, for I have everything you had told me
fresh in my mind. Oh, but what do you think! Our plans might have been
wrecked at the outset by something neither of us had foreseen. That
evening, just as we were going to bed, Mrs. Murray said to me in the
quiet, low tone in which she always speaks, and which it makes it
dreadfully difficult to hear what she says, that the first thing next
morning I must write to my grandfather, and tell him of my safe arrival.
I was dismayed, if you like, for I had no notion what your handwriting
was like, or any hope of copying it if I knew, but I kept my countenance,
and gave no sign of dismay. And the next morning at breakfast, while
cutting a piece of bread in half, the knife slipped and I cut the three
middle fingers of my right hand so badly that each of them had to be
wrapped up in bandages. So you see that to hold a pen was impossible, and
Mrs. Murray wrote instead of me to announce my safe arrival here."
"Oh, Eleanor!" Margaret exclaimed, "and you cut yourself on purpose."
"Of course, it was the only thing to be done; and I say I did it so well
that I haven't been able to write yet. It was rather nice and clever of
me wasn't it?"
"It was very clever," Margaret said, in a grave voice.
Three days ago, when they had laid this plot together, she might have
been able to add that this final little touch of Eleanor's was nice, too;
but somehow she could not now bring herself to utter the word. Eleanor,
however, never noticed the omission, but in the vivacious tone in which
she had spoken throughout, went on to give a further account of all that
had happened to her since she had left Margaret at the station three days
since. That she was completely happy could not be doubted. Every word she
uttered showed that she was radiantly content with her new existence, and
was not troubled by as much as one small single scruple as to the
deception on Mrs. Murray that she was so successfully carrying out.
Indeed, it was evident that she had not given that side of the matter
a thought.
"But I am keeping the best part of all until the last to tell you," she
said; "and that is, of course, about my voice."
"Your voice," echoed Margaret. "Oh, of course, about your singing, you
mean."
She had completely forgotten Eleanor's great ambition to be a famous
singer.
"You remember what I told you that Signor Vanucci said to me, that I
ought to be the greatest singer of my generation, that he foresaw a
splendid future before me, that my voice had infinite possibilities.
But that it was, of course, quite untrained."
Margaret nodded. She remembered now.
"I can never forget those three phrases," Eleanor said in a slow,
thoughtful tone, as she gazed dreamily past Margaret at the wooden wall
of the summer-house over behind her. "Never. How often during the last
dreary six months have I not repeated them to myself. They had been
alternately my joy and my misery according as my hopes of getting proper
training some day, and my fear that I never would were in the ascendant.
But all that is over now, and I am a pupil of Martelli's. Do you know,
Margaret, I have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure that I am awake
and not dreaming. Even as I sit here telling it all to you the whole
situation--you, me, Madame Martelli, and everybody seem as though they
were a part of a dream, a lovely dream, but still a dream. Does it seem
like a dream to you?"
"N--no, not exactly," said Margaret, with a slow shake of her head. "It
all seems quite real to me. But tell me what Madame Martelli said about
your voice."
"Yes, I am not telling my story properly," said Eleanor, "but the truth
is that though I sit here so calmly, and talk so quietly, I am just
devoured by excitement whenever I think of my good luck. Well, I can tell
you what Madame Martelli said in a very few words. She was even more
enthusiastic than Signor Vanucci about my voice. Far, far more. I went
down to her the very first morning after I got here, you know. Mrs.
Murray was rather surprised at my eagerness to start off to my lessons,
she wanted instead to take me for a drive and show me the country, she
said; but I told her that I would much rather go down and see the Signora
at once, and so, although I believe she was a little disappointed that I
would not come driving with her, she took me down to the little house
where the Signora lives and left me to my fate after she had introduced
us. Picture to yourself, Margaret, a little woman with hair and eyes of
almost coal-like blackness, and a little sallow, eager face, and you have
the once great Madame Martelli to the life. Though she has lived in
England for a great many years she does not talk English very well, and
her foreign accent is very strong. She thought, of course, that singing
and music were only to be my secondary subjects, and that I had come to
her principally to study Italian, and at first I did not undeceive her,
but got out my grammar and exercise-books, and did dictations and
translations as if I aspired to learn nothing more from her. For two
hours we kept at it, and then she looked at her watch.
"Your grandfather wishes, too, that we do a little singing and playing,"
she said, and a distinct sigh of resignation came from her. "Which do you
like best, the playing or the singing?"
"Singing," I answered. "I love singing, Madame Martelli, more than I love
anything else in the whole wide world."
"Indeed," she said politely and kindly. "Zat is vary nice. Your
grandfather, he say through Mrs. Murray to me that you have ze pretty
little drawing-room voice, and would I kindly teach it. And so," again
that sigh of resignation, "will you please sit down to ze piano, and sing
me ze leetle song? Hey, is it not so that you have ye nice leetle voice?"
At that, Margaret, I really don't know what came over me, for supposing
Signor Vanucci had been wrong, and I had no voice, she would have thought
me mad, but truth to say, I simply did not feel I was risking anything
when I turned, and looking at her across the big grand piano that fills
up her little drawing-room, and said, "No, it is not true, I have not a
nice little drawing-room voice."
"Of course she thought I was shy and modest, and was nervous at the
thought of singing before her, and her face, when I went on in a calm,
matter-of-fact voice, 'No, I have not a little drawing-room voice, but
I have a voice which, with your training, is going to be one of the
greatest and best voices that has been heard in Europe this century,' was
a study."
Margaret gasped, "Oh, Eleanor, how could you! for supposing--supposing it
had all been a mistake. What did she think of you?"
"I gave her no time to think of me," said Eleanor. "I simply sat down and
sang, and then all she thought of was my voice. And as I had sung a scale
to Signor Vanucci, I did the same for her. And as I sang I kept my eyes
on her face, for somehow I was full of a glorious, careless confidence as
to what her verdict was going to be. Surprise and wonder, and then a sort
of rapt delight, were depicted in turn on her face, and as I sang the
last note she dropped quietly on to the nearest chair and just stared at
me for a moment. Then she began to talk rapidly to herself in Italian,
and for a moment a horrid nervousness did seize me as to what she
thought; but then she came over and kissed me, and I knew it was all
right. Then with her hands on my shoulders, she drew back and looked at
me. 'Wonderful! wonderful! wonderful!' she said in a sort of awed tone.
And then suddenly she asked me how old I was. It was really the first
coherent thing she had said. I said I was nineteen and would soon be
twenty. At that she clenched her hands and flung her arms wide in a sort
of despairing gesture. 'Oh, but we must work, work, work!' she said. Her
pronunciation is not like that, but I can't quite get it.
"At that moment Mrs. Murray's pony-carriage drew up outside the house,
and seeing us through the window she gave the reins to the man and came
in. Madame Martelli fairly turned upon her in a perfect frenzy of
excitement, and wanted to know why--why--why I had not been properly
taught, that I had a marvellous voice, and that if I had not come to
her when I did no one might ever have discovered it. Well, of course,
Madame Martelli talks so fast and in such very broken English, and Mrs.
Murray is so deaf, that she did not understand one-half or one-quarter
of what was said to her. But though Madame Martelli must have seen that
from her bewildered expression she did not mind a bit, she just talked
on and on of all that I must do, and all that she would do for me. And
Mrs. Murray just sat there and listened as well as she could. When Madame
Martelli was quite out of breath with her excitement and the rapidity
with which she had talked, Mrs. Murray said in the quiet, low tones in
which she always speaks, and which sounded then like cold-water drops on
a raging volcano, if there is any sense in that metaphor, which I don't
believe there is, by the way:--
"'I am glad you think, then, that her voice is worth training, and that
you consent to give her lessons.'"
"The very calmness of the reply nearly set off Madame Martelli again. If
I hadn't been feeling pretty strung up myself, Margaret, I could have
laughed at the amazement and despair depicted on her face when she found
that the announcement that I had such a marvellous voice was received so
calmly.
"'Worth training. I consent!' The sheer despair of getting Mrs. Murray to
understand seized her, and she could only sit and gasp.
"I think Mrs. Murray grasped then that Madame was disappointed that what
she said had not produced more sensation, for she said kindly:--
"'I am not really at all surprised that you are pleased with her voice,
for her grandfather said she had a nice little voice, very true and
sweet, and he wished her to have regular lessons. It is very kind of you
to take so much interest in it.'"
"'It is a preevilege,' Madame Martelli said. 'It will give me a new
interest in life.' And then she turned to me and wrung my hand again and
again, and though she hurt my three cuts dreadfully, I never even winced.
"'What queer, excitable people foreigners are!' Mrs. Murray said to me
placidly as we drove away; 'but I am glad, my dear Margaret, that you
have a voice worth training. It is a great thing to be able to amuse
oneself with music and give pleasure to one's friends at the same time.'"
Eleanor had recounted this scene with so much vivacity, accompanying her
recital with various gesticulations, and imitating with what Margaret
felt sure was considerable accuracy the different voices of Madame
Martelli and Mrs. Murray, that in spite of her own pre-occupation she had
listened to it with great interest. But when it was over, and Eleanor,
still talking at a tremendous pace as if she wanted to get all she had to
say told in the shortest possible space of time, had gone on to tell her
various other items connected with her two days' stay in Rose Cottage,
Margaret relapsed into the rather moody frame of mind that the first
glimpse she had caught of Eleanor's radiantly happy face had brought upon
her.
"Every morning after breakfast, and every afternoon after tea, I am to go
down to Madame Martelli's house. She lives in a tiny cottage perched on
the opposite side of the valley just above the church, and all my
practising is done at her house. She has forbidden me to sing a note by
myself at present. I read Italian and French with her too, but, as you
can guess, most of the time I spend in practising. Then for the rest of
the day my time is my own. Of course I am a good deal by myself, but I
like that; it gives me more time to study. Oh, I can tell you I find the
silence that reigns up here delightful. If you had lived in the middle of
a crowd of chattering girls for the last five years you could understand
that too. Oh, but it is a lovely, wonderful time that I am having now,
and I shan't forget that I owe it to you."
She fell suddenly silent, and a dreamy look came into her eyes, and a
smile lingered round her mouth. Margaret, noting it, knew that the smile
had nothing whatever to do with her in spite of the expression of
gratitude towards her to which she had just given utterance. It was in
thoughts of herself alone that Eleanor was wrapped; dreams of her own
rosy future were floating before the vision of her mind, and she saw
herself successful, famous, her name on every one's lips, one of the
world-renowned singers of the century. No wonder that in those
entrancing, soaring dreams there was no room for thought of the pale,
grave, silent girl beside her. But presently, the smile still lingering
round the corners of her mouth, Eleanor came out of her dreams, and
turning to Margaret with one of the rapid transitions of mood that
Margaret found so bewildering, she began to laugh at herself.
"Do you know, Margaret," she said, "I believe I am the most egotistical
person that ever existed. Here have I been raving about myself and about
my future greatness, and I have not even asked you one single, solitary
question about yourself. And now, having told you how very, very much I
like being you, tell me how much you like being me."
But now that her opportunity to speak had arrived, Margaret could not
for the moment make use of it. An odd, choking sensation came into her
throat, tears gathered in her eyes, and before she could prevent it, a
big drop rolled silently down her face.
"Good gracious!" Eleanor exclaimed, leaning across the little round table
so as to get a better view of Margaret's face. "Is it as bad as all
that?"
Still Margaret was unable to answer, unless a second tear rolling down
from her other eye could be taken as an answer.
"Oh dear! oh dear!" said Eleanor, fairly aghast at Margaret's unexpected
behaviour. "Whatever can be done!"
All the radiant happiness was gone from her face, and she looked utterly
disconcerted and taken aback.
Then Margaret found her voice.
"Oh, I want to change!" she said, in a voice broken with sobs. "I want to
be myself again."
"But you can't!" Eleanor exclaimed sharply. "That is out of the question.
How can we change now?"
"By telling everybody everything," Margaret said. "They cannot do
anything very dreadful to us, can they?"
Eleanor gave a short and very mirthless laugh.
"They can't do anything very dreadful to you--no," she said. Then in a
perfectly expressionless voice, "You have quite made up your mind, then?"
"Oh, quite," Margaret said, eagerly relieved beyond measure to find that
Eleanor had received her announcement so quietly.
"And how do you mean to set about it?" Eleanor said in the same stony
sort of voice. "Am I to tell Mrs. Murray first, or are you to tell Mrs.
Danvers?"
"As I am up here I could tell Mrs. Murray," Margaret answered timidly,
"and then we could go down together and tell Mrs. Danvers. Oh, Eleanor,
you do not know how distressing it is to me to be deceiving everybody as
I am doing at present. I am sure one girl, Hilary, the second daughter,
knows that I am hiding something, and she is always trying to find out
what it is. She makes my life a burden to me," added Margaret
pathetically. "And it does make me so unhappy to feel that I cannot look
everybody honestly in the face and tell nothing but the truth. And they
all laugh at me, and make fun of me, and think me so silly and shy, and
Mrs. Danvers asked me last night if I would like to go to California with
her as a governess because I get on so well with her children."
"Are you doing any teaching, then?" Eleanor asked.
"Yes, I am a holiday governess to a little boy and a girl. Oh, I do not
mind that at all--they are very good children. It is Hilary, the second
daughter, that I do not like, and though some of the boys are nice, they
do not take much notice of me, and I can see they do not care for me at
all. And I used to think," added poor Margaret mournfully, "that all
young people of my own age would like me, and that I should enjoy myself
so much in their society. But that is not the worst part of it, it is the
feeling that I am in the house on false pretences, and that every time
they call me Miss Carson, and I answer to the name, I am telling a lie.
It is so--so horrible and dishonest."
"I see," said Eleanor slowly; "but I suppose it wasn't until you found
out that you didn't like being me that you began to worry about the
dishonesty of the plan."
"No, I suppose not," said Margaret rather uneasily. "But now that I have
found it out, I should not care to stay there even if I were enjoying it
ever so much--which," she added, "I am not."
"You have at least made that quite clear," Eleanor said drily.
"Then you do not mind our changing?" Margaret said. She found Eleanor's
manner quite inscrutable. After her first passionate exclamation that it
was impossible she seemed to accept Margaret's decision without any
argument whatever, and yet the latter felt that the matter was by no
means settled yet.
"Does it matter if I do mind?" said Eleanor. Her face was very white and
her eyes gazed unflinchingly into Margaret's. The latter was frightened
at the tragic despair they expressed, but she answered firmly enough.
"Yes, of course, I am sorry if you do mind very much, but I mean to
confess all the same."
"Then there is nothing more to be said, is there?" Eleanor answered, and
as she spoke she rose to her feet. "Come, I hear the carriage wheels on
the gravel. Mrs. Murray has returned from her drive. Let us go to her at
once."
She walked rapidly out of the summer-house in the direction of the flight
of steps that led to the upper garden, and after a momentary hesitation
Margaret rose and followed her. The path was wide enough for two to walk
abreast if one of the two did not occupy the middle of it, but as that
was just what Eleanor was doing, Margaret was obliged to follow behind.
Eleanor walked on in silence, apparently of the opinion that the last
word had been said; but Margaret, who was looking doubtfully at the back
of Eleanor's erectly held head, could not bear to think that they were to
part in that constrained way.
"Eleanor!" she exclaimed impulsively, taking a quick step or two forward
and laying one hand timidly on the other's arm as if she would have
detained her for a moment, "I wish you would say that you were not angry
with me."
"What right have I to be angry?" Eleanor said very coldly, as with a
slight but decisive movement she freed her arm from Margaret's touch.
"Only it would have been better for me if we had never met."
"But it is no worse for you than it is for me," Margaret said eagerly,
trying again, but quite unsuccessfully, to walk beside Eleanor. "I
suppose we shall both get terrible scoldings. I from grandfather and
Mrs. Murray, and you from Mrs. Danvers, but they cannot go on being angry
with us for always, can they? And Eleanor, if it is your singing lessons
that you are minding about so much, could you not walk up here from
Seabourne every day and go on with them? It is not so very far, and you
have only to teach David and Daisy in the morning. All the rest of the
day you are quite free."
"I should imagine that as far as Mrs. Danvers is concerned I am quite
free all day long," Eleanor replied, with a little, short laugh.
"What do you mean?" Margaret exclaimed in a puzzled tone. "I do not
understand."
"You didn't suppose, did you," Eleanor replied, without as much as
turning her head as she still walked on, "that I was going back to The
Cedars in your place?"
"Why, of course, I did. Where else would you go?"
"That I must decide presently. After lunch, probably, if I am allowed to
stay here so long."
"But why won't you go to Mrs. Danvers? You were on your way there when
first I met you, before all this happened?"
"Before all this happened, yes," Eleanor returned; "but do you suppose
that she would be willing to have me as her holiday governess now? That
I have only to go down to her house and say, 'Here I am, the real Eleanor
Carson, arrived at last; I am a little late I know, but I played a trick
off on you, and sent another girl in my place. Now, however, we have
decided to change back into our own selves, and she has gone to her
friends, and I have come to you.' It is likely, isn't it, that she would
be willing to have me in her house as a governess to her grandchildren?"
"But why shouldn't she be as willing to have you as Mrs. Murray will be
to have me?" Margaret said in a bewildered tone.
Eleanor shrugged her shoulder. "Because our positions are a little
different, that is all. Your grandfather is Mrs. Murray's friend; this
was to have been your home, and if you ran away from it for a few days
you will, of course, get into disgrace on your return; but no one will
dream of saying that you had not a perfect right to return, in fact they
will make it their business to see that you do not run away again. But,
on the other hand, The Cedars is not my home. Mrs. Danvers is not my
friend, and though I should, no doubt, have got on well enough there
under ordinary circumstances, it isn't likely that she will consent to
take me in now. Naturally enough she will be dreadfully angry at the
liberty we have taken with her."
"But just as angry with me as with you," said Margaret, who felt that in
claiming her share of the blame she lessened Eleanor's.
"Oh, yes," Eleanor agreed indifferently, "that is quite likely. But then,
you see, her anger will not matter to you as much as it will to me. It
does not take away your bread-and-butter and your bed to sleep in, does
it?"
By that time Eleanor had reached the flight of steps and she began to
mount them. But Margaret had come to a pause at their foot, her progress
arrested by Eleanor's last words.
For the first time she had grasped what the full result of confession
would be to Eleanor, and her dismay deprived her for the moment of all
power of speech.
"Wait!" she cried then in a stifled voice. "Oh Eleanor, wait!"
"What for?" Eleanor returned impatiently. But glancing downwards and
seeing that Margaret had sunk on to the lowest step and had covered her
face with her hands, the hard, contemptuous expression her face had worn
relaxed somewhat.
"Don't bother about me, Margaret," she said, "I really don't care two
straws about going to The Cedars. From what you have told me the Danvers
do not appear to be a very attractive family, and I painted my own plight
blacker than I need have done. I have got somewhere to go. The empty
school at Hampstead is open to me for the rest of the summer holidays.
Miss Marvel gave me leave to spend them there if I had nowhere to go, so
I shall be all right. So, for goodness sake," she added, unable to keep
the impatience she felt at the weakness Margaret was displaying out of
her voice, "don't cry about me."
"I'm not crying," Margaret said in a muffled tone, due to the fact that
her face was still buried in her hands. "I'm thinking. Please do not
speak to me for a minute."
With a little shrug of her shoulders Eleanor fell silent, and she
surveyed Margaret's bowed shoulders as she sat huddled up on the step
beneath her with a touch of scorn in her glance. So Margaret had
difficulty even in summoning up enough courage to go in and face Mrs.
Murray. What a poor thing it was! she thought. But Eleanor was conscious
of no anger against her weak-kneed confederate who was leaving her so
badly in the lurch. She was not to blame for her feeble vacillating
nature, that could not even adhere for three days to the plot she had
entered upon so joyously. Eleanor was only angry with herself for having
put faith in her. And what would Madame Martelli say when she heard that
her pupil was not her real pupil at all? But of her, and of all she would
lose by going away, Eleanor could not trust herself to think. With an
effort she made her mind a blank and stood drearily silent waiting for
Margaret to get up and follow her to the house. Of what Mrs. Murray would
do or say when she was told that the girl she had received into her
house, and to whom she had shown every kindness in her power, was not her
old friend's granddaughter but a sheer impostor, Eleanor never even
thought. If she had taken Mrs. Murray's probable feelings into
consideration in any way, she would merely have supposed that indignation
at the liberty that had been taken with her would swallow up any kindly
liking that she might have been beginning to feel for her.
The silence that had fallen between the two girls had lasted fully three
minutes before Margaret lifted her face from her hands and rising to her
feet, faced Eleanor.
"I have thought over everything you have said, and I find I cannot do it
after all."
"But you have told me that already," Eleanor said, restraining her
impatience with difficulty. "Come along and let us get it over."
"No, no; you do not understand. I mean I cannot turn you out from here.
I will go on with it. I had not thought about Mrs. Danvers not taking you
in my place; but I believe you are right, and that she would not. So I
shall go on being Eleanor Carson until--until--well, I suppose until we
are found out."
Eleanor shook her head. "You will change your mind again to-morrow," she
said curtly.
Margaret flushed. "No," she replied steadily, "I will not. You may
believe me when I say I shall not. You see, Eleanor, when I first wanted
so much to be in your place and go to The Cedars I had no idea what was
before me. I was disappointed when I found out, and so, of course, my
wish was to change back into myself again; and I never thought of the
effect my change of purpose would have upon you. But this time I am doing
it with my eyes open."
There was a new ring in Margaret's voice, a look of resolution on her
face that was strange to it, and Eleanor, glancing at her in amazement,
realised that she was showing a latent strength of purpose that had
perhaps for the first time in her sheltered, uneventful life been called
out in her. Nevertheless she refused to believe that Margaret really
meant what she said.
"But the dishonesty you spoke of just now," she said. "What about that;
and your dislike to the deception we are both practising? That remains
the same."
"I know," said Margaret in a low tone, a shadow crossing her face and
dimming the look of courageous resolve it wore. "But that is unavoidable.
It seems to me now that it would be quite as bad, if not worse, to break
faith with you."
Still Eleanor did not give way. Her conscience did not need to speak very
loudly for her to hear it telling her that in accepting Margaret's offer
she was doing a very wrong thing. In her heart of hearts she had known
all along that their plot was inexcusable from every point of view, and
that when it came to be known most of the blame would be laid at her
door, not only because she was the elder and the more worldly wise of the
two, but because most people would consider that she had been the one to
profit most by the exchange. But she had been carried away by Margaret's
urgent pleadings and persuasions and had finally suppressed her
misgivings and consented to the plot. Now, however, the case was altered.
It was only out of a spirit of pure self-sacrifice that Margaret was
urging her to continue to bear her name, and she knew that in yielding
she would be guilty of great selfishness.
"Think of your singing lessons with Madame Martelli," said Margaret,
who was quietly watching the struggle with herself to which Eleanor's
changing face bore eloquent witness.
That clenched the matter. Eleanor gave in; but this time it was she who
found it difficult to meet Margaret's eyes.
"Oh, Margaret," she said, "if you appeal to my ambition my better self
goes under. I accept, then; but you're a brick, a perfect brick, and I
feel too mean for words."