Kate.”
“Yes. They’ll be ready to serve it in a few minutes.”
Kate was delighted to have lunch in the Trecorn dining room. Carleton was quite attentive to her and treated her like an adult, which she enjoyed. She did justice to the food and talked quite animatedly about Perrivale, which amused Carleton and seemed to lighten his spirits a little. So it was a successful visit.
He came out to the stables with us.
“Thank you for coming,” he said to Kate as well as to me.
“I hope you’ll come again.”
“Oh, we will,” Kate told him, which I found gratifying, and so did he.
On the way back Kate said: “The lunch was nice. But those silly twins with their old dolls’ house were a bore, though.”
“Didn’t you think it was rather a lovely dolls’ house?”
“Cranny, I am not a child. I don’t play with toys. He wants you to go back, doesn’t he?”
“Who?”
“That old Carleton.”
“I feel that your vocabulary must be very limited. You use the same adjective to describe almost everyone.”
“Which adjective?”
“Old.”
“Well, he is old. He does want you to go back and teach those silly twins, doesn’t he?”
“At least they are not old. Why should you think that?”
“Because Nanny Crockett wants you to go back.”
“Not old Nanny Crockett?”
“Well, she’s so old you don’t have to say it. She said she’d keep in touch and so did Carleton.”
“He meant about his brother. He’s going to let me know about his operation.”
“Perhaps they’ll cut off his leg.”
“Of course they won’t and trust you to think of such a thing. They’re going to make it better. He’s a great friend of mine and naturally I want to know how he gets on. So … his brother and Nanny Crockett will keep me informed if they hear of his progress.”
“Oh,” she said and laughed.
Suddenly she burst into song.
‘ “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest, Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum.
Drink and the Devil had done for the rest. “
I thought: I believe she really cares for me.
During the next days I felt very depressed. I was realizing how important it was to me to know that Lucas was close at hand. I grew more and more worried about the operation. Carleton knew no more than I did, and it was typical of Lucas to be reticent about such a thing.
It was brought home to me how futile were my investigations. Lucas thought they were absurd and he was right.
If only he were at hand and I could send a message over to Trecorn and arrange a meeting.
I wondered what this operation would do to him, and I greatly feared the result.
Kate sensed my melancholy and tried to cheer me up. When we were reading my attention would stray and this puzzled her. It was during this time that I began to be sure that she had some affection for me.
That would have been very comforting at any other time but now I could think only of Lucas.
She would try to cajole me to talk and I found myself talking to her about the past. I told her of the house in Bloomsbury, of-my parents and their preoccupation with the British Museum. She was amused that I had been named after the Rosetta Stone.
She said: “It is like that with me. I haven’t got a father … but my mother has always had other things … not the British Museum but . other things …”
At any other time I should have questioned her about her feelings but I was so obsessed by Lucas that I let the opportunity pass.
She wanted to hear a great deal about Mr. Dolland. I told her about his ‘turns’ and she was particularly interested in The Bells.
“I wish we had them here,” she said.
“Wouldn’t it be fun?”
I admitted that it would and it had been fun in the old days.
She put her arm through mine and squeezed with a rare show of affection.
“It didn’t matter about them only caring for the old British Museum, did it? It doesn’t matter … if you have other things …”
I was touched. She was telling me that my presence made up for her mother’s neglect.
When I told her of Felicity’s arrival she squealed with delight. I saw why. It was the similarity with my coming to Perrivale.
“You thought some awful governess was coming,” she said.
“Old, of course,” I added, and we laughed.
“Well, they are all old,” she said.
“Did you think of how you were going to make her go?”
“No, I didn’t. I wasn’t such a monster as you are.”
She rocked back and forth in merriment.
“You wouldn’t go now, would you, Cranny?” she said.
“If I felt you wanted me to stay …”
“I do.”
“I thought you hated all governesses.”
“All of them except you.”
“I’m flattered and honoured.”
She smiled at me rather shyly and said: “I’m not going to call you Cranny any more. You’re going to be Rosetta. I think it’s ever so funny, being named after that thing.”
“Well, it was a rather special stone.”
“An old stone!”
“The adjective fits this time.”
“All those squiggly things on it… like worms.”
“Hieroglyphics are not in the least like worms.”
“All right. You’re Rosetta.”
I think because I had told her about my childhood she wanted to tell me about hers. And that, of course, was just what I wanted to hear.
“We must have been a long way from the British Museum,” she said.
“I never heard of it till now. We were always waiting for him to come home. “
“Your … father?” I prompted.
She nodded.
“It was awful. My mother was afraid … not so much as I was when I used to be there … all by myself. It was dark …”
“At night was this?”
She looked puzzled.
“I can’t remember. It was a horrid room. I had a bed on the floor in the corner … my mother was in the other bed. I used to look at her hair in the morning. It was like red gold all spread out over the pillow. I used to wake up in the morning … I didn’t know what to do. Then she’d be there … and she’d be gone again. There was someone from downstairs.
She used to look in to see if I was all right. “
“And you were all alone there for a lot of the time.”
“I think so.”
