Consoled myself in writing long letters to Mama and Mary. How I wish I could bring them here.
‘I’d get out of there if I were her,’ said Jason gloomily.
Jenna shuddered.
‘It’s very odd to think of her, quite alone and adrift, in my house. I wonder which was her room? And where did the girls sleep?’
Jason shrugged. ‘Perhaps in the room where we found the graffiti message that time? You know – “Help me”. Maybe that was them.’
‘Maybe it was.’ Jenna’s scalp prickled.
‘Go on then. Turn the page.’
January 19th
Summoned to take tea this afternoon with Lord Harville, a most momentous occasion, for he has been all but invisible since our first meeting on my arrival here.
A miserable and rainy day but we sat in the drawing room that overlooks the garden, watching the raindrops course down each square pane in the French doors. Any glimpse of the garden was quite obliterated, but of course, my attention was focused upon my employer.
He was perfectly polite, if unsmiling, and seemed solicitous of my comfort.
Of course, his primary motive for our meeting was to ask after the girls and establish for himself whether my appointment was a success or failure.
I knew this, but was truthful with him, opining that, while progress was slow, it was at least progress and I intended to be steady and unwavering in my devotion to their education.
He seemed to appreciate this, but said I must inform him immediately should their behaviour decline or become unmanageable.
All this time, his eyes had remained upon his plate of scones, but now the quality of his attention changed and became something quite other. How, I cannot quite explain, but he held my eyes and proceeded to ask me a perfect barrage of questions about my own education, my likes and dislikes, my hopes and fears.
It was most peculiar to be the object of such a man’s apparently sincere interest. What possible reason could he have had for wanting to know anything at all about a person of such little account as myself?
‘I am a man accustomed to giving orders,’ he said to me. ‘But my own daughters are the only people I cannot make obey. Their conduct shames me.’
‘No,’ I said, and I blush at my presumption now in contradicting him. ‘I think they only crave your attention. Your affection. If you were to invite them to take tea with you, I am sure you would see a gentler side to them.’
He stared at me, so long and so hard that I fully expected to be dismissed on the spot.
But instead, he said, ‘Perhaps I should. Perhaps I will.’
We finished our tea in near-silence after that, save some desultory remarks about the weather and the newspapers.
Alone now in my room I cannot rest for thinking of him and his strange manner. At first I thought him cold and remote, but now I see how grief has laid its mark upon him and changed what he once must have been. A heart beats inside his stiff breast, of that I am sure. But of what use is such knowledge to me? And why does it affect me so?
‘Struck by the love bug,’ said Jason laconically.
‘Oh dear, do you think so?’
‘Poor kid, didn’t take much, did it? Just a bit of attention was enough. I bet he knew it too.’
‘She seems very easy prey,’ Jenna agreed. ‘I hope he doesn’t take advantage of her.’
‘I bet he does.’
‘And those poor girls . . . bereaved of their mother and ignored by their father. God. I’m so glad I didn’t live in those times. Imagine.’
‘I’d have been in the workhouse,’ said Jason. ‘Or more likely in prison. I think prison was meant to be better. Better food.’
‘Or you’d have gone down the mine,’ said Jenna. ‘Virtually every man in Bledburn did. I’d have probably married some miner and lived in a two-up two-down with a brood of screaming kids.’ She laughed. ‘I can’t imagine anything worse.’