Strands of Bronze and Gold Read Free Page A

stood in my father’s place, and surely what he’d asked, while not customary, was not actually inappropriate.
    “Of course you can.” He nodded encouragement. “You will join me for supper in the banquet hall in forty-five minutes.” He strode from the room.
    Mrs. Duckworth puffed and wheezed over to the paneling besidethe fireplace and pressed a cunningly hidden spring. The panel whispered open, revealing an alcove lined with tall wardrobes. In the center stood a hip bath, shaped like a great shell. I should be Venus emerging from the sea on her half shell when I stood in it.
    Suddenly exhaustion washed over me like a tidal wave. I yearned to take a bath right now and then go straight to bed. But I mustn’t be unsociable on my first evening.
    The housekeeper was sympathetic. “It’s all a great deal to take in, isn’t it? I tried to tell the master you might like a light supper in your room and then bed, but he would have none of it. You never can tell him anything when he’s excited about something. Many’s the time when he was small, I reminded him, ‘Now, Master Bernard, waited-for pleasures are all the more precious for the waiting,’ but he never would listen.”
    “You were here with M. de Cressac when he was a child?”
    “Not here. But yes. I was his nurse over in France. My father had been in the wars with Napoleon, and Mother and I followed him about, first to Portugal and then to Southern France, where the de Cressacs hired me. They wanted an English nurse, you see, so Master Bernard would grow up speaking both French and English.”
    How odd to think of this comfortable, simple woman, who seemed as if she should like nothing better than a cozy English cottage fireside, traipsing about in foreign places.
    “His English is perfect,” I commented.
    “Yes, indeed. I took such pains with him. And we were that fond of each other that he kept me on as housekeeper in his French estate, and when he brought Wyndriven Abbey over—oh, the crazy ways of the very rich!—he insisted I come along. Ling and Achal, themaster’s valet, and Alphonse, the cook, are the only other staff who have been with the master since France. Mr. Bass, the agent, came to him soon after. He’s a Southerner. All the rest of the servants were purchased here.”
    I winced at the word “purchased,” but she didn’t notice. An ornate little sofa stood at an angle near the bath. I lowered myself to it now and touched the seat beside me. “Won’t you sit for a minute and tell me more about everything? I’ve waited so long to come here, and you must know all about my godfather and this place.”
    Mrs. Duckworth needed no further urging. She settled herself down comfortably and continued. “Of course, I’m not familiar with the workers on the master’s plantation. Wyndriven Plantation, it’s called. ’Tis on the other side of Chicataw, and we haven’t much to do with them.”
    “Master Bernard must have been a wonderful little boy for you to be so attached to him.”
    There followed a long description of Mrs. Duckworth’s affection for, and the wonders of, dear young Master Bernard, of his French home, his seat on a pony, and his skills at fencing.
    I mused that she must have loved the little boy as my family loved me. I had been spoiled too, perhaps—not materially, except for my godfather’s gifts, but with an abundance of affection and attention partly because everyone wanted to make up for the fact that I never knew my mother.
    Mrs. Duckworth was about to launch into a description of Master Bernard’s
father’s
seat on his horse and
his
accomplishments when she stopped in midsentence. “Goodness me, we’d better hurry,hadn’t we? The master said forty-five minutes, and it must be nearly that now. We don’t want him waiting.”
    I wished she hadn’t stopped. I loved
knowing
things.
    Mrs. Duckworth threw back the doors of one of the wardrobes. I had only a moment to gain an impression of a rainbow of dresses