The changeling

“Yes ... just at first. Then I shall come back to London. But I shall not be far away and I shall be coming to see you. It is going to be great fun.” Arriving at the house was an emotional experience. I was prepared for that. Mr. and Mrs. Emery greeted us in the dignified manner of butler and housekeeper in the establishment of a very important gentleman. Here at least were two who did not resent Benedict. After the first encounter Mrs. Emery unbent a little. A sentimental heart beat under the black bombazine and jet ornaments.

“It’s nice to see you here, Miss Rebecca,” she told me, after everyone was settled in and we had a few words alone. “I hope we see you often. Mr. Emery and I often talk of you.”

“You are happy here, Mrs. Emery?”

“Oh yes, Miss Rebecca. The master ... he’s very kind. Not one of the interfering sort. Them sort I can’t abide. He knows we can manage best on our own ... and he gives us a free hand. It’s a fine old house, as you know.”

She was pleased the children had come.

“There’s one thing an old house like this wants and that’s children,” she went on. “All them nurseries going to waste up there. That Leah is a quiet one. She’ll be in the nursery most of the time. Miss Stringer ... well, governesses are always a problem.”

“I think she would like her meals in her room.”

“That’s how it should be.”

Mrs. Emery was well versed in the protocol of houses like this and she was one who would like everything to be as it should be. I heard the children laughing in the nursery and I went in. Leah was with them. She seemed less tense than she had in London.

I said: “You like it here, Leah?”

“Yes, Miss Rebecca,” she answered. “I be one for the country. Tis better for the children. It’s put some color in their cheeks.”

“They didn’t look exactly wan when they arrived.”

“Oh, you know what I mean, Miss.”

Yes, I thought. It means you will be happier here. Well, I was pleased for her. Miss Stringer was slightly less delighted. She was sorry to leave London but at least Manorleigh was not so far from the metropolis as Cornwall and I imagined she would be making little trips to town every now and then.

So everyone seemed satisfied.

Mrs. Emery informed me that she had given me my old room and she looked at me a little questioningly. “I thought that was what you’d want, Miss Rebecca. If not, I can have another made ready on the other side of the house.”

I knew what she meant. This was the room I had occupied when my mother was here.

Would there be too many memories?

It was natural, of course, that I should remember, but as it was six years since my mother had died, I should have thought that, for people like Mrs. Emery, she had now become a figure of the past. But that was not so, I could see. I told her I preferred to stay in my old room.

That first night at Manorleigh was an emotional one for me. Perhaps, I thought coward-like, I should have had another room. I sat at the window for a long time, looking down on the pond where Hermes was still poised for flight, now touched by moonlight. And there was the seat under the tree where I had sat with my mother; I remembered how at the pool she had asked me to care for the unborn child ... almost as though she had known what was going to happen to her.

I spent a restless night. I was haunted by dreams of my mother. I thought I was seated there in the garden and that she came to me. I should expect this, coming back to the house, but as my grandmother had wisely told me, I had to put the past behind me and live for the present. So much had happened since her death. I kept saying to myself, it is six years. But there was a great deal to remind me of her in this house that at times it almost seemed as though she were there.

There was no doubt that the children loved Manorleigh. They quickly settled in which was a great relief. Leah was happier. The place suited her. There was great excitement about the children’s ponies and each day one of the grooms took them riding in the paddock ... a treat they had missed in London. They were both doing well, Thomas, the groom, reported. I was glad. Lucie had changed. She had ceased to cling quite so much to me although I knew I was more important to her than anyone else. But she was more self-reliant now and able to stand up to Belinda. They were quite fond of each other in a way and although they quarrelled occasionally when Belinda exerted her superiority as the daughter of the great man, they were happy in each other’s company, One thing that worried me a little was Belinda’s resentment against her father. I understood how he felt towards the child. He was not the sort of man who would understand children in any way, but he could not forget that it was Belinda’s coming which had resulted in her mother’s departure; and the more I saw of him the more I realized what a deep void her death had made in his life.

I should have been sorry for him. It was a shared emotion. But I could not forget how happy I had been before he came to change everything.