Flint and Roses by Brenda Jagger Page B

no hurry to return to our tall cool house in Blenheim Lane and the chaperonage of our now considerably diminished Miss Mayfield. But Celia, feeling herself slighted by Caroline’s attentions to me as she had felt slighted at Lawcroft Fold by Aunt Hannah’s attentions to Prudence, soon began to fancy herself unwell, and although I suspected that had Caroline offered to drive her to town, or Blaize spent a minute or two with her on that red velvet sofa, she would have made a most rapid recovery, my cousins did not oblige, and there was nothing for it but to take her home.
    Miss Mayfield, ready to do anything that would justify her continued employment, put her to bed, consoled her with herb-scented pillows and raspberry-leaf tea, dabbed at her forehead with aromatic vinegars, murmuring to her, no doubt, that she would soon have a husband to protect her from neglectful cousins, spiteful sisters, from the world’s ills with which Miss Mayfield herself, a spinster lady of no fortune and some forty-five summers, was obliged to cope alone.
    And although, just occasionally, I was aware of my father, stooping beside one of his cabinets, moving a fragile Meissen shepherdess a fraction nearer to her shepherd, an ivory-limbed nymph nearer to the light, his face pinching with its sudden ill-temper at the sight of a pair of Minton pot-pourri vases set a hairsbreadth askew, I found that if I stared at him hard enough his shadow would fade, that if I drew back the curtains to let in the sun he would go away, leaving me to enjoy this incredible luxury of having no one to please but myself.
    Mrs. Naylor, our housekeeper, had her own work to attend to; Miss Mayfield, that fire-breathing schoolroom dragon, sadly reduced now to a scampering little mouse without the prop of my father’s authority, was too afraid of losing her place to make any real attempt to control us. Until mother came home we were, quite incredibly, free, Celia having nothing to distract her from the imaginary music of her wedding-bells, Prudence, no longer held in bondage by her embroidery frame, beginning gradually to assume command, ordering tea to suit her own convenience, not Mrs. Naylor’s, making free use of the carriage in all weathers, at all hours, whether the coachman liked it or not, crisply ordering Miss Mayfield to ‘Tell Mr. Jonas Agbrigg I am not at home’, whenever he happened to call.
    â€˜Oh dear—dear me, Miss Prudence, this is the second time you have refused to receive him, and I could tell he was quite peeved about it. And what will Mrs. Agbrigg say, for you are to dine at Lawcroft tomorrow and cannot avoid seeing Mr. Jonas there.’
    â€˜Well then, my dear,’ Prudence told her, clearly disinclined to listen to her nonsense. ‘You must write a note to Lawcroft explaining that I am not well enough to dine.’
    â€˜Poor Miss Mayfield,’ I said as she hurried away, flustered and tearful. ‘She lives in terror that Aunt Hannah will accuse her of incompetence when mother comes home. Poor soul! I hardly think mother will turn her away but how dreadful—at her age and with those nerves she is always complaining of—to be obliged to find another situation.’
    But Prudence’s fine-boned, fastidious face held little sympathy.
    â€˜Then she should have taken care long ago to avoid such a position.’
    â€˜She has no money. Prudence, She is forced to depend on someone.’
    â€˜Exactly,’ she said, biting off the word like a loose embroidery thread. ‘I am glad you call it depending on someone rather than earning a living, for that perfectly describes her situation here.’
    â€˜Father thought well of her.’
    â€˜Yes, for she suited his requirements. She is a gentlewoman, you see, possibly a shade better-bred than, we are, since her father was a clergyman and her mother an attorney’s daughter. She was educated to be an ornament, and when her family fortunes