Moon over the Alps (Collected Works of Essie Summers Book 2), page 7
. . . . .
Charles Beaudonais-Smith was coming home, and Charles Beaudonais-Smith was in a very bad temper, had been ever since the moment on the Auckland-Christchurch Viscount when the attentive and charming air hostess had handed him a pictorial. Charles had opened a spread of glossy pictures in the centre to find some excellent pictures of Dragonshill staring him in the face.
His first feeling of pleasure and interest had quickly given way to annoyance and concern. The first caption he read said: “This magnificent alpine homestead was the scene of an anxious stirring search for a small four-year-old boy recently. He spent the entire night outside while frantic searchers combed every inch of the rugged, precipitous country. Planes were flown in from adjacent sheep-runs, the police were alerted, crossings of the dangerous river where quicksands abound were made in the treacherous darkness with water swirling up around the floorboards of the army truck that is the only vehicle safe for crossing the river in. Anxiety and nameless fears wrung the hearts of all who searched and all who waited through the long cold night with hot-water bottles and warmed blankets ready. . . .”
There was a lot more of it. It had been a grand story that hadn’t leaked out to journalistic quarters till long after it happened. The pictorial had been fortunate that some weeks before a Canterbury journalist had come out to Dragonshill and had written up the sheep station with a brief history of the early days and a lengthy story of present-day farming methods in the Alps.
Some excellent photographs had been taken, by permission and co-operation of the Beaudonais-Smith brothers, and the article and photographs had arrived at the office about the time some reporter had got wind of the incident about Noel.
Charles was aghast. Noel . . . out all night . . . whatever would Hilary say? It had never happened before. He hoped to God the pictorial did not find its way into some Boston stationer’s for Hilary to pick up. It would destroy her peace of mind. He read to the bitter end . . . “The governess, Miss Smith, who has been with the family only a very short time, said it was the most terrifying night of her life.”
Charles’s lips tightened. He cared nothing for the anxiety or terror Miss Smith had known. She should have known in the first place exactly where her charges were. He supposed she was some city wench, attracted by the high salary, and would have had her head deep in some trashy film magazine while Noel, at dusk, wandered about in dangerous and desolate country till he fell asleep exhausted in the lean-to by the creek. If the creek had risen suddenly, as sometimes it did . . .
And where the devil was Tilly? Why Miss Smith, blast the woman? Charles decided not to ring from Harewood Airport that he was on his way. He’d hire a taxi from Christchurch, no matter what the cost, instead of waiting for the Mount Cook bus next day, and get to Dragonshill without delay. Heaven alone knew what might yet happen with some feather-headed irresponsible female in charge of the homestead!
. . . . .
It was tea-time at Dragonshill, which was the evening meal, a sit-down affair, for, in common with most farming folk, their dinner most days was a midday affair. Tea, as distinct from afternoon tea-time which was at three, was served at six-thirty, and after it, when the dishes were washed, the children did their homework and went to bed.
The blinds were pulled down against the close darkness outside, the stove gurgled and roared, a comforting warmth pervaded the whole kitchen, and the group were seating themselves around the long narrow table. Grand’mère at the head, very much the matriarch, the shepherds and the children sandwiched at each side.
Penny’s chair, at the foot, was vacant as yet, for she was turning from the stove, a huge ashet held in an oven-cloth. She set it carefully on the enormous table-mat in the centre. Even Madame’s eyes sparkled at the sight. The shepherds whistled appreciatively, three of the children said, “Yum! Yum!” and Noel uttered, “Oh, slerp!”
His great-grandmother said sharply, “Noel! I consider that an expression most revolting. I do not know from where you could have got it.”
Noel’s face was angelic, his tone informative. “From the comics, Grand’mère. You know . . . that great big slobbery dog. He looks at the bone in his dish and dribbles like mad and says, ‘Slerrrrrrp!’ It’s very ’spressive, don’t you think?”
Penny bit off a smile. She must not let Madame down. She said hastily, “I’ll just wash my hands and be with you in a moment to serve.” She took off her apron, hung it on a hook and went quickly along the hall to the bathroom. It was as she was still in the hall that she thought she heard hooves outside, a sound which ceased even as she listened for it. She must have imagined it. Or perhaps Copper Boy was in the nearer paddock and throwing up his heels.
Penny dried her hands, slipped along to her bedroom to brush her hair, renew her lipstick, dab a little powder on the nose that was shiny from bending over the fierce oil-stove.
As she came along the tiny passage that led to her room she heard the back door flung open and a chorus of voices rise up. She halted dead from sheer surprise. Strangers simply did not walk into the Dragonshill kitchen unannounced. They had to ring up and be brought across the river.
The next moment she knew beyond doubting who the newcomer was as ecstatic tones rising like a part-song from the children smote her ears.
“Uncle Carl! Oh, Uncle Carl! How did you get across? How’s Daddy? How’s Mummy? When are they coming home? Did you ride? Did you come in a Vickers Viscount? Did you bring us some American candy? Uncle Carl, we’ve —”
The babble of voices died down. Penny stood where she had stopped, suddenly shy of meeting Uncle Carl the martinet, the real owner of Dragonshill, of intruding as a stranger on a family reunion.
Penny imagined Uncle Carl must have held up his hand to quell the children . . . that was probably all he had to do, that stern disciplinarian . . . while he greeted his grandmother, for now she heard Madame’s sweet, quavery old voice:
“Why, Carl . . . Carl, mon fils!”
Then a rush of talking again from the children, amongst it something that made Penny want to laugh. “Look, Uncle Carl . . . look what we’ve got for tea. Those funny little chopped-up things are green peppers. She says they aren’t as hot as they sound. Have you ever had green peppers? And Uncle Carl, she’s a beaut governess . . . and nature study . . . Gosh! Does she know it! And she’s not a bit frightened of spiders or mice, or even wetas. And she collects stamps . . . and she can change a wheel on the truck easy as pie . . . Gosh! You couldn’t imagine old Tilly, could you?”
Uncle Carl laughed, and from the way the babble ceased again, no doubt the hand was up. “One at a time, please, children,” he said, and at the sound of his voice Penny felt as if a hand twisted her heart-strings. How stupid, how sentimentally stupid! Must she always hear, in every voice, the undertones of Charles’s? She listened again, rather painfully, for the voice. They were certainly extolling her culinary accomplishments more than her teaching. If Carl Beaudonais-Smith was the disciplinarian she thought, he might not be pleased.
His voice again. “There’s only one thing I demand of a cook, youngsters. Tell me — is she the sort of fraud who calls stewed apple with a square of pastry on top apple pie?”
Pierre answered. “No, sir! She’s the pie-dish kind.”
“Well, at least that’s one thing in her favour.”
An odd thing to say . . . but his voice was doing all sorts of things to Penny. It must be imagination. Out of her longing for the man who had hurt her so cruelly she was conjuring this up. The only way to dispel the illusion was to meet the crusty Carl, and probably in his forbidding exterior she would find nothing at all to remind her of Charles. She pushed open the door just as Madame said, “It is quite true, Carl, our Miss Smith is a cook of efficiency incroyable.”
Penny looked straight to the far end of the kitchen and met the newcomer’s eyes fairly and squarely. Charles’s eyes. She could not have told how long they stood like that, eyes locked, incredulity struggling with conviction in both pairs.
Then Charles smiled a thin-lipped smile, tight and bleak. He looked across at his grandmother.
“No need to introduce us, Grand’mère. We have met before.”
The surprise that greeted this served to cover up the real feelings of both Penny and Charles.
Penny was beyond speech, but Charles said quite naturally, “I’d no idea she was here, of course. Thought Tilly was at the helm. Where is she? Oh, good lord . . . peritonitis? How is she? . . . oh, splendid. I must get down to Timaru to see her. Thank goodness she pulled through. Miss Smith and I met at Picton. She was staying at Ahuareka too . . . that’s all.”
“That’s all.”
Penny recovered herself. She turned to Madame. “You will think it strange, Madame . . . but I honestly had no idea. I . . . er . . . knew your grandson only as Mr. Smith. You know how it is in guest-houses . . . ships that pass in the night. And you always called him Carl. And . . .” she looked about the kitchen, “there don’t seem to be any photos of him about.” She looked at the table. “Perhaps I should put that hot dish back in the oven till Mr. Beaudonais-Smith can join us?”
Madame said quickly, “I have an idea my grandson might be very hungry indeed . . . and I know I am. It is a dish that looks so delectable. It might dry in the oven. Would you just wash your hands, Carl, and sit down?”
He stripped off his coat, dropped it on a chair, washed his hands at the sink, came to the table.
He looked at the ashet. It was heaped with rice, white and fluffy, sprinkled with the chopped peppers, and ringed about with parsley. In the middle, arranged like the spokes of a wheel, were deliciously tender lamb shanks, brown and crisp, looking more like chicken, over them poured an intriguing barbecue sauce, spicily redolent, and mixed with chopped bacon.
It certainly was delicious, but Penny ate mechanically. She felt she might choke at any moment. News was exchanged, everyone butted in on everyone else, till Grand’mère reminded them of their manners.
Charles sat at his table, answering the children’s and the men’s excited questioning with an ease of manner that did not, quite, extend to Penny. Yes, he’d decided to surprise them . . . wasn’t often he could, was it, but he heard at Llewellyn’s, the nearest homestead over the river, that the streams were low. They had loaned him a horse.
Hilary was well and quite enjoying her surprise visit to the States now Francis was out of the wood. It would be a long, boring convalescence for him, though. Meanwhile, Hilary was happy just to have him on the mend. Charles had called on the New Zealand Embassy, and had found Hilary private board with some kindly people from New Zealand.
In turn the children and shepherds supplied the owner of Dragonshill with all the news of the sheep station, news of the stock, the wildfowl, the new kittens, the keas that had been shot, the fish caught, and in between it all, Madame continued to sing Penny’s praises. Charles answered her with the courtesy that the old lady instinctively demanded and received from everyone, saying how fortunate Miss Smith could cook so well, could teach so well, that she seemed to like the country, isolated though it was.
And Penny hated him for it, knowing he was insincere, knowing his tongue was in his cheek, that he had been furious at finding her installed in his home.
“Penelope’s Viennese pastries are dreams,” said the old lady, “and a feast for the eye as well as the palate.”
“I’ll say,” said Walter. “I’ve never seen anything like them. She could earn her living as a chef. Any Wellington hotel would engage her on the strength of her pastries alone.”
“And she could easily launch a bread-shop specialising in fancy bread,” added Arene. “We told her there was no need to cook bread here now we have the deep freeze, but she couldn’t resist having a go. We all hang around the kitchen when she’s doing it. If we are really good she lets us have a go at the kneading.”
Charles saw the sheer affection in his grandmother’s eyes as they rested on Penny’s flushed cheeks. The old lady said, “She even made me some long twisty loaves like you buy in French markets.”
Charles drawled, “I must congratulate you, Miss Smith. Not everyone finds the way to my grandmother’s heart, but you certainly seem to have found it.”
Penny’s colour rose higher.
“How did you learn all these things, Miss Smith? Unusual arts for present-day girls, aren’t they? And I thought you were a city typist.”
Penny’s voice was cool, even. “I was a typist. Cooking was a hobby of mine, and my brother paid for me to take continental cooking classes. He entertained a lot, people from overseas, business acquaintances, and he liked unusual foods. So did his wife.”
(They had also liked someone to do the hard work, to bend for hours over hot stoves at the week-ends; they had liked someone — a Cinderella — to serve them while they entertained at leisurely ease.)
“What a pity you didn’t get to know each other better on holiday,” persisted Madame. “How pleasant if we had known you knew each other. Still, I suppose in that short time you were hardly on those sort of terms . . . knowing much about each other.”
Those sort of terms . . . what sort of terms had she, and the Charles of Ahuareka been on? Kissing terms . . . kisses that meant precisely nothing, though at the time you had deluded yourself they were inevitable, that they had to be.
Charles said suavely, “And of course my holiday was suddenly terminated.” His eyes met Penny’s squarely, challengingly. “And so, if I remember, was yours. Isn’t that so?”
Her tone was matter-of-fact too. “Yes, I suddenly tired of the company. It began to be boring. Pity to prolong these things when the savour has gone out of them.”
“Quite,” said Charles.
Madame looked sharply at them both. Penny rose to pour the coffee.
Three hours later when the shepherds had gone back to their quarters, and Madame Beaudonais had gone to her room, the moment Penny had dreaded came upon her. She and Charles Beaudonais-Smith were alone.
“Well, Miss Smith?” he said.
“Yes, Mr. Beaudonais-Smith?” Her tone matched his.
“What does it all add up to?”
She was unco-operative. “What does what add up to?”
“Your being here . . . in a position that demands a well-balanced, responsible type of person?”
“I should think it was fairly simple . . . like an elementary problem in arithmetic. Your grandmother advertised for a governess. I wanted a position away from Christchurch. I saw her advertisement in the Christchurch Star coming home from Kaikoura. I rang. She engaged me. I came.” Penny paused and added, “Believe me, had I known you lived here, I shouldn’t have dreamed of applying. After all, had you done me the honour of supplying me with your correct name, I would have known, and would never have considered it. It was an unfortunate coincidence, a mischance I couldn’t foresee.”
Her tail-end remarks he disregarded. “Why did you want a job away from Christchurch? Anything discreditable? You’d better tell me, for I want the truth, and intend to have it, suppose I have to set afoot enquiries up there.”
Penny’s eyes flashed. “There’s nothing discreditable. My employer there gave me a splendid reference. He is Mr. Hugh Grinstead of Grinstead, Wannaker’s, Importers. Madame Beaudonais didn’t ask to see it, but I insisted on her reading it when I arrived. There was no question of supplying references by mail; the matter was urgent. If you’re in any doubt about me after reading it, I suggest you ring Mr. Grinstead and have a talk with him.”
Charles Beaudonais-Smith considered it unhurriedly. Then he said. “But what was your reason for wanting to get away from Christchurch?”
“A personal reason.” Penny’s back was straight, her lips a stubborn line.
Her eyes were as coldly grey as they had been at the foot of the Ahuareka stairs that morning.
“You would like to say it’s none of my business, wouldn’t you. Miss Smith?”
“Well, is it?”
“Yes. Most employers, when someone applies for a position, make it a routine question: ‘And what are your reasons for wishing to leave your present position?‘ Isn’t that so, Miss Smith?”
“It is. But isn’t Madame Beaudonais my employer? She engaged me.”
“She is not. I pay the cheques.”
“And ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune.’ Very well, Mr. Beaudonais-Smith. This is the reason: I was trained to teach. The training, almost completed, I interrupted to nurse my mother till she died. Since then, for one reason and another, I have kept at my office career. When I suddenly saw Madame’s advertisement, I realised that here was a position that would suit me admirably. It would take me from Christchurch and give me the job I like best.”
“H’mm.” He considered it. He shot a quick glance at her. “Odd time to change your position, wasn’t it?”
Penny was bewildered. “I haven’t a clue what you mean.”
He shrugged. “I should have thought it obvious. An engaged girl usually contemplates marriage in the near future. She doesn’t usually suddenly decide to take up a frustrated career.”
Penny said quietly, “I am engaged no longer. I — it was broken off.”
Charles Beaudonais-Smith let out a deep breath. “I see . . . things were in a mess, were they, emotionally? So you cut and ran. You’re in a habit of running away from embarrassing situations, aren’t you, Miss Smith? You can’t stay to see them out!”
Penny said nothing, but could not control the bright colour that rushed into her cheeks. She would not hang her head, however.
Charles said, with a laugh of utter contempt, “I suppose he found out that you played around with other men on your holiday, that for all your touching air of innocence and simplicity you’re nothing but a cheap little two-timer.”
Penny said expressionlessly, “If you want to think that was the reason, you may, Mr. Beaudonais-Smith. It doesn’t matter to me.” She paused, and added, “I shall fall in with whatever arrangements you make to take me back to Tekapo.”
