Palladian Read Free Page B

she warmed her legs by the fire and began to sip. ‘I have no prejudice at all against women doctors. Especially dear Margaret, whom I have known since … dear, I hope you don’t dislike that very much. Ah, good, then drink it up and it will help you to sleep.’
    ‘But I always do sleep very well,’ said Cassandra.
    ‘And so you should, dear, at your age. Why, it would be a very strange thing if you did not … No, don’t move, it is just a hairpin, and here it is! They slip into the loose-covers, and here is a penny as well … and some crumbs, I’m afraid … I must speak to Ethel. She is not always …’
    ‘Won’t you tell me something about the Vanbrughs?’ Cassandra asked. She was not interrupting, for Mrs Turner had stopped speaking while she searched.
    ‘I can tell you nothing,’ she said. ‘Of course, I knew Margaret – but none of the others. I believe I met her mother once, but nothing remains of that but a picture of her red hat, which I thought unsuitable on such a pale lady, apart from disliking all red hats very much indeed always … but that is not helpful to you … I believe she is delicate … She was very pale … unless she has improved in health, which I hope very much. The little girl I have never met, nor indeed her father, and why she mayn’t go to school like other children, I can’t imagine … it is the forming of character, which contact with other girls would … so much more importantthan … no governess can give that … but it will fill in an awkward little time for you.’ She dabbed at her milky upper lip with a crumpled handkerchief and began to shuffle through some papers on the table beside her. ‘There was the letter I had from Margaret.’ She stood up and took a sheaf of envelopes from the mirror … ‘Oh, here is the little snap of Helen’s boy …’
    Cassandra sat holding the photograph of a fat baby and waited expectantly.
    ‘No, it seems not to be here. I kept it, that I do know … for it was a little puzzling to me at first. “My cousin, Marion,” Margaret wrote, “is looking for someone to teach his little girl.”
“His!”
I thought,
“Marion! His!”
But I discovered that it was one of those names like Evelyn or Hilary or Lindsay that can be either. With an “o”, you see. But “o” or not, I think it rather girlish for a grown man. No, the letter has completely vanished … it is most odd. Isn’t he simply a darling … and so like Helen at that age …’ Mrs Turner took up a large speckled sock and began to turn its heel. ‘I shall knit for half-an-hour, I think, but if I were you I should have an early night … tomorrow there will be so much … such a long way … I will get Ethel to call you in time, with a cup of tea … that will start you off well. I shall see you at breakfast.’
    So, dismissed and without hope of further information about her future employer, Cassandra stood up. She would have liked to have said ‘Dear Mrs Turner!’, to have made some impulsive and affectionate gesture, but Mrs Turner knitted calmly, her hair collapsing on her shoulder and dropping tortoiseshell pins into her lap. She lifted her cheek and Cassandra kissed her good night, feeling like her daughter. ‘Good night, Mrs Turner.’
    ‘Good night, Cassandra. Always know this is your home, dear. I asked Ethel to put a hot bottle in your bed, but mind your toes on it, for it is one of those nasty stone ones and Ishouldn’t like you to hurt yourself. You can find your way, dear, can’t you?’
    Cassandra crossed the hall, which was dark and glassy. She met no one on her way upstairs. Her room was furnished with odds and ends, an unravelling wicker chair, a bamboo table with a Bible and a jug of lemonade almost solid with pieces of cut-up fruit, an iron bedstead and a thin honeycomb quilt. She opened the window and looked at the playing-field and the tossing plumes of poplars at the far end. She began to think of the past, methodically, as if she