No sooner had the girl got up from her ‘sickbed’ than he spoke of her needing to take things easy for a while longer.
‘It would help her recovery if she had some time off work on one or two evenings a week,’ he said to Mrs Jenkins, threatening to implicate her even more into whatever he had in mind for Jay. As she saw it, he was behaving almost like a father to her, and that was dangerous.
Chambers still slept in the box room with the water tank and was becoming frustrated and morose in her work, with no foreseeable prospect of returning to the room she and Jay had shared. In fact, young Rose was now sharing with her, leaving Jay with a room all to herself.
‘We can’t have Rose continuing to sleep in the kitchen,’ he said by way of excuse. ‘I know the lowest order of servants are little considered in some households, but that is not my way. We can squeeze a truckle bed in there for her – which will be an improvement for her, don’t you think, Mrs Jenkins?’
Young Rose had relieved Ellie in doing all the more menial jobs: laundry, ironing, beating carpets, sweeping the outside area, sluicing the drain, cleaning the servants’ outside lavatory and the like.
‘And she’ll be out of your way, Mrs Jenkins,’ he went on. ‘It can’t be easy entering your kitchen first thing in the morning to see her getting up.’
It might have seemed a more proper arrangement had she not known different. It was only a matter of time before the mistress got to know about these strange changes and fell to wondering what was behind them. Lately she had hardly left her room, except for dinner and when entertaining, keeping to herself, speaking only to her as ‘Cook’ when she came to her room to discuss meals and purchasing provisions. Poor young Dora, closeted with her, must have been miserable. Mrs Jenkins felt sorry for her sometimes.
Then, a few weeks later, there appeared a new face in the house. Nora Jenkins wondered if the mistress was as in the dark about that as about Chambers’ altered sleeping arrangements. But the young man was as much a mystery to her, except that she was told his name. Around seven thirty each Tuesday evening he’d arrive – by the front door, if you please – to be shown straight up to the master’s study, giving her no time to quiz him. She felt a little irked that Doctor Lowe hadn’t confided in her what the young man was doing here. She suspected it had something to do with Ellie, but what she couldn’t think, even though she racked her brains.
It was Chambers’ task to answer the tug on the door bell and conduct him up to Doctor Lowe’s study, her complaining over sleeping arrangements pacified a little by this apparently important role.
‘It’s all very mysterious though, ain’t it?’ she said on the occasion of his second visit. ‘He don’t look like a doctor or lawyer or any professional sort.’
‘Whatever he is is nothing to do with you,’ she was reminded by Mrs Jenkins, by the third visit having been taken into the master’s confidence.
‘I’ve discovered young Jay is quite a talented little artist and I feel it might benefit her to be encouraged,’ he’d confided after she had voiced her disapproval of being kept in the dark about the visitor. The ordinary staff had no need to know, but she had been with this family long enough to feel part of it, and not to be confided in struck her as grossly underhanded.
‘I have asked the young man, the son of a colleague of mine and quite a talented painter himself, to come and give her a few lessons. But – and this is between you and me, Mrs Jenkins – I would rather my wife didn’t know for the time being, and I know you will not allow this to go any further.’
She would dearly have liked to ask how he expected to keep his wife from knowing and what would happen when she did find out, as she was bound to eventually. Nevertheless, she would keep her eyes open and an ear to the ground. But she could see trouble brewing, even so.
By indulging the girl he was treading on shaky ground. Long ago she too had noticed the resemblance to his deceased child. It took only half an eye to see that what he was doing – trying to recreate one to replace the child he had lost – was tantamount to disaster. It could only bring trouble. But if trouble did arise from it, she would make sure she was there to help.
‘I’ll leave you with Mr Deel then, my dear.’
As Doctor Lowe withdrew from his study, Ellie smiled at the young man. His name was Michael. His surname was spelled differently from the English way, his father being Dutch. His mother was English, he’d told her when she’d first been introduced to him some four weeks ago.
Doctor Lowe had kept going on about her diction and how it would be so nice if she could learn to speak correctly. She’d tried, but her heart hadn’t been in it, still disturbed, as she was, by what she’d been through at his hands.
It had had to be done and she’d been in the most capable hands, he being solely concerned for her safety and wellbeing; but it hadn’t made it any less traumatic. For several days she hadn’t been able to look at him. He was being so kind, and came into her room when the house was quiet to sit by her bed and talk to her – of his work, his student days, his childhood; it was like a proper father speaking, but she couldn’t feel
