So many generations of Eversleighs had added to it; tragedies and comedies had been played out here; and Sally Nullens said that those who could find no rest came back to wander about their homes unseen, but their presence was known to the discerning … like Sally Nullens.
There were many houses like it in the country. It was the big house of the neighbourhood built in the days of Elizabeth with the traditional E type of plan in homage to Gloriana.
East wing, west wing, and centre; hall that was as high as the house with vaulted ceiling and broad oak beams. Some of the rooms were elegantly panelled, but the hall was stone walled and hung with armoury to remind coming generations of the part Eversleighs had played in the country’s history. Over the great fireplace was the painting of the family tree which had to be added to now and then and would no doubt in time spread across the great hall. I was there-not in the main branch, of course. Edwin was on that, and when he married his children would be there right hi the centre. Leigh used to get angry because he wasn’t on it. He could not understand in those days why he should be left out. I believe it had an effect on him and made him want to score over Edwin hi every other way. I began to brood and came up with the idea that often what happened to us in childhood had its effect on the rest of our lives.
But I was only thinking lightly of these things as I stood by the haunted flowerbed, and I knew that I was putting off the moment when I should go and meet this woman who I knew instinctively was going to change my life.
Chastity came out to me, waddling slightly, for she was pregnant again.
“Mistress Priscilla, where be you then? They want you to meet the new governess.
Your mother says to go to the drawing room at once.”
“All right, Chastity,” I said. “I’ll come.” I added: “You shouldn’t run, you know.
You ought to consider your condition.”
“Oh, ‘tis all so natural, mistress.”
I calculated this would be her sixth and she was young yet. I reckoned she had time for at least another ten.
“You’re like a queen bee, Chastity,” I said reproachfully.
“What’s that, mistress?”
I didn’t explain. I thought how provoking fate was to give Chastity one child every year while my parents had only Carl and myself (not counting Edwin who was my mother’s alone). If they had had more, Sally Nullens wouldn’t be sniffing out witches all the time and Emily Philpots would be considered good enough for the young ones. Moreover, I should have been pleased with some little brothers and sisters.
“Have you seen her, Chastity?” I asked.
“Not as you might say, mistress. She was took to the drawing room. My mother sent me to find you. Said Mistress was asking for you.”
I went straight to the drawing room. She was there with my mother and father.
My mother said, “Ah, here is Priscilla. Come and meet Mistress Connalt, Priscilla.”
Christabel Connalt stood up and came towards me. She was tall, slim and very plainly dressed; but she was not without elegance, which I believed came naturally to her.
She wore a cloak of a blue woolen material, which was caught at the throat with a buckle which might have been silver. I could see that the bodice beneath was of the same blue material; it was cut low but she wore a linen kerchief about her neck which added a touch of modesty to the bodice, which came to a deep point and was laced down the front with a silvercoloured cord. Her skirt, still of the same material, fell to the floor in folds. Attached to the cloak was a hood which had fallen back from her head, disclosing dark hair unfashionably unfrizzed and hanging in loose curls, which were tied back from her face.
But it was not her clothes which struck me-after all they were more or less what one would expect of a daughter of a parson whose stipend was so inadequate that his daughter must earn a living in this way. Neat not gaudy, I commented inwardly. And then I looked at her face. She was not beautiful, but there was distinction about her. She was by no means as old as I had expected her to be. I guessed she was in her mid-twenties-old to me, of course, but as some would say, in the prime of life.
Her face was oval in shape, her skin smooth and with the texture of a flower petal; her eyebrows were dark and well defined; her nose was a trifle large; her eyes were large, too, with short, thick dark lashes; her mouth was mobile, by which I mean it betrayed her feelings, I was to discover, far more than her eyes ever did. They would be quite impassive; the eyelids would not flicker but something happened to the mouth which she could not restrain.
I was too taken aback to speak because she was not in the least what I had expected.
“Your pupil, Mistress Connalt,” said my father. He was watching us with a certain twitching of his lips, which I had come to know meant an inner amusement which he was trying not to betray.
“I hope we shall work well together,” she said.
“I hope so, too.”
