Mingled With Venom

‘We thought we did. It comes to much the same thing, I suppose. All right. Let’s have another bash.’

‘So now I know why I was taught simple arithmetic,’ said Gamaliel. ‘Five per cent of four hundred thousand pounds is twenty thousand pounds. I have worked it out. I will celebrate by telling you something which will please you. I will go back to school in September and work hard at my O levels and take them again in March, for I am sure I have not passed this time. But A levels are beyond the scope of my intelligence. You must accept that and let me leave when I am seventeen and have been head boy for a year.’

‘I take it that you will settle down with me here at Headlands,’ said Maria to Fiona, ‘and help me cope with Ruby.’

‘I shall be glad to do so. There is no chance now that Rupert will divorce Diana and marry me. He will not sacrifice his children for my sake and I would not want it.’

‘Diana has just as much cause to divorce him as vice versa,’ said Maria, ‘but you are right. Neither of them will deprive their children. It would be scandalous if they did. So my mother’s money does more good now she is dead than it did during her lifetime, and that’s a sad thought.’

Chapter 12

Arrested and Charged

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‘I want to change my name,’ said Miss Pabbay to Maria, whose ward she now was. ‘No prima donna can be saddled with a name like Pabbay, as though one were an island in the Hebrides. Will you pay for me to change it by deed poll, so that it is legal?’

‘I believe it is legal to call oneself by any name one chooses, so long as one is popularly known by it. What name have you chosen?’

‘I shall call myself Antonia Aysgarth. Dame Antonia Aysgarth will sound well, later on, don’t you think?’

‘People will know that it is an assumed name, of course.’

‘I shall not be the first great artiste to assume a name. Anyway, Pabbay is not my real name either, if it comes to that. Will you practise calling me Antonia? And will you ask Fiona and your family and the servants to do the same? It isn’t really much to ask, is it?’

‘No,’ said Maria kindly, ‘it is not, so Antonia it is, from this day forth, so far as the family is concerned, and you will be Miss Aysgarth to the servants.’

‘I shall be changing my name again one day, I suppose.’

‘You mean you intend to marry?’

‘Yes, but not until I have made a career for myself.’

‘But that may take years.’

‘Possibly. I have told Barnaby my plans. We are both young and can afford to wait.’

‘Well, I am glad that the money spent on your training will not be wasted.’

‘Do you grudge me my training?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Maria sincerely. ‘It would be a thousand pities to allow a talent like yours to go to waste. But are you not neglecting your studies by hanging about here instead of returning to London?’

‘I must have time to get over the abuela’s death. You think I am conceited and hard-hearted, but that is not true, I am ambitious and perhaps a little cold-blooded, but not the other things. Besides, I want to know what is to happen to that other poor girl. Do you realise that, if the abuela had not taken me out of the kitchen and given me my chance, I might be in Margaret’s shoes?’

‘Oh, no, you would only be in Sonia’s shoes and no suspicion attaches to her. Margaret had a grievance against my mother. You had none. Besides, there was that business of the monkshood which was dug up.’

‘If it were not for my complaint about her, Margaret might still be kitchenmaid here, and not be in all this trouble, Maria. I feel very sorry for her.’

‘My mother was right to dismiss her. Your position in this house had changed and by my mother’s own wish. Margaret had no right whatever to be insolent to you. It was no business of hers to criticise the actions of her employer and, by being impudent to you, that, in effect, is what she did.’

‘All the same, I’m sorry now that I complained to the abuela. It would have been more in keeping to have suffered the insults with dignity.’

‘Nonsense! Why should anybody suffer insults when they have the means to reply to them?’

‘Do you think the magistrates will find her guilty?’

‘That is not exactly their province. They merely have to decide whether to send her for trial.’

‘It seems the same thing to me.’

‘How long,’ asked Maria, another thought striking her, ‘have you entertained this idea of changing your name?’

‘Oh, for long enough. I don’t know how long. Do you know my real surname, Maria?’

‘No,’ said Maria, after a significant pause, ‘neither my mother nor myself had any interest in attempting to find it out. Why should we? You came with a good character and that was all that concerned us. Does it worry you not to know who you are? I suppose that nowadays you could find out if you wanted to, but I doubt whether you would be any happier for the knowledge. Why not let sleeping dogs lie?’