Chapter Fourteen
Dinner Party
I decided to dress for dinner, to give
Nicola something to worry about.
I bathed and dried and used tongs on my
hair in a fairly good attempt to imitate the fashionable models I’d noticed in
magazines discarded where Nicola had left them.
It is true I only had one dress; I’d spent
the part of my salary I wasn’t saving at the local village shop on brushes and
paper and art supplies; but the dress was new and very fashionable – a dark,
above the knee, fitted sixties style. I wore it over a cherry coloured polo
sweater, black opaque stockings and knee length, black riding boots - the ones
I’d been mysteriously provided with even after I’d said I did not wish to take
lessons.
Sophie wore a pink dress with a bow at the
back and flat, ballet slippers. She looked like the flower girl at a wedding as
she skipped across the ballroom and into the dining room.
The table was lit up with candles and
flowers. Mrs Fairfax had been told to hire extra staff from the village
specifically for the weekend. The dinner party was in full swing when Sophie
and I entered the room. Although Rochester looked up momentarily and smiled,
his eyes noting that I was more appropriately dressed as Mrs Fairfax had
remarked, he did not stop talking to Nicola. There were other friends, a guy
named Riff and another woman called Jess. Riff wore a black leather jacket. He
was the lead singer in Riffraff, the band
Rochester managed. Riff was half asleep throughout dinner but still managed to
drink at regular intervals. His girlfriend hung off his every word, nuzzling
his shoulder.
As the first course was served, Jess
started to nibble Riff’s ear which made Sophie giggle. Meanwhile, Nicola looked enraptured at the
man seated opposite her, Nathanial, and even made a point of getting up out of
her seat to cut up his food for him while he’d excused himself to take a phone
call. I’m not sure that was the best move on her part. He didn’t look entirely
pleased when he returned.
Sophie and I were seated near the end of
the long table.
To my right was a good-looking stranger, a
man who did not seem to know the rest of the party. He had dark brown hair with
a long fringe and was around the same age as Rochester. He smiled warmly and introduced
himself to me.
‘How do you do? I’m Christopher Mason. May
I ask who I have the pleasure of sitting alongside?’
His accent was from somewhere across the
sea; America or Ireland; perhaps both. I noticed Mr Rochester’s casual glance in
my direction and it pleased me that now it was his turn to see my attention
diverted elsewhere.
‘I’m
Anne Eyre, Sophie’s English tutor. I’m also her nanny,’ I said, quite loudly
and proudly.
The
young man smiled at me, then looked coldly at Sophie, who smiled back at him in
her trusting way. Sophie looked particularly adorable with her curls tied in a pink
ribbon. She was an enchanting child, (like
a pet Rochester had noted, when Sophie was out of earshot, with his usual
droll humour).
I noticed Christopher again glanced at the
child coldly, and I wondered why.
‘And… how old is the child?’ he asked me,
almost impatiently, as the first course of lobster bisque was served.
‘Sophie is six,’ I said, quietly.
He nodded as if mentally doing some
arithmetic that I couldn’t possibly understand. I broke some bread and took the
soup spoon, grateful for the etiquette lessons I’d considered stupid at Lockwood
School. I knew to use the round spoon first and to eat using utensils from the
outside in. I’d taught Sophie to do the same and she was behaving extremely
well for a soon-to-be tired six-year-old.
The conversation around the table grew more
animated, the smoke thicker and the music louder. Mrs Fairfax had taken Sophie off
to bed after pudding, which was covered in a delicious cloud of caramel sauce
over cream and strawberries. After I’d finished eating, I decided it was time
for me to also escape.
Nathanial Rochester had been happily talking
with Nicola all evening, barely acknowledging my presence and not bothering to
speak to me even once. On the other side of Nicola was a good-looking man
called Matthew Eaton. He ate with relish, talked animatedly all evening and was
extremely good natured. Matthew had also been to university with Rochester and
every now and then tapped on his glass to tell jokes that were vaguely funny.
The only time Nathanial looked over at me
was when I spoke to Christopher Mason and
he only appeared to be interested in our conversation when Christopher started telling me about his life in New
Orleans (where he’d come from before his legal office transferred him to
London).
After coffee was served, Christopher
excused himself on the grounds of being tired from his long journey.
‘Nonsense, man,’ Rochester said. ‘London is
just a few miles…’
‘Yes,
but Ireland is a few hours, by plane and before that I was in America so I’m
afraid I’ve had a long week…’
He smiled and said, ‘It’s been nice to talk
to you Anne, I hope I see you in the morning.’
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that comment.
After he left, the conversation became rowdier as Riff and Jess started playing
guitar and bickering between chord progressions.
Finally, I managed to get up and leave the
room unnoticed.
I wound up the stairs, haunted by the
generations of Rochesters that lined the wall along with statues and paintings
of birds and other exotic creatures that had been lured to this place from
other lands; captured and kept here. The wind outside was howling as I made my
way to my room. When I got ready for bed, I again had the sense that I was not
alone.
A loud thump was followed by a scream
beyond the rafters. The house guests, to my knowledge, had remained in the
dining room. Mrs Poole was normally asleep at this hour but I thought Edwina Fairfax
had told me she had gone into the village to meet a friend. It was unusual that
she hadn’t made an appearance at dinner, although she tended to eat in the
village on most occasions. The sound was not of this world. It definitely
wasn’t Mrs Fairfax or Sophie who were both asleep by now, or either of the
maids who weren’t in bed yet.
The
next morning, at breakfast, most of the guests were still asleep. Nicola was
bleary eyed but had obviously decided to eat breakfast and be civil. She made
an effort to smile at me, saying, ‘Good morning Anne,’ in a way that could
almost have been described as warm. I suppose once she felt secure in her
perceived superiority there was no need to treat me like a threat.
Mrs Fairfax announced that the entire party
would be leaving to go to a recording session in London. One of their friends, Matthew
Eaton, owned a music studio there. They had left after breakfast without so
much as a goodbye. I was told they would return when they were finished.
Sophie looked quite dismayed that she
hadn’t had the chance to wave them off. ‘Come on Sophie,’ I said. ‘It’s just us
again. Let’s go over our sentences for the week then go outside.’ Reluctantly,
she walked upstairs with me after breakfast. Mrs Fairfax shook her head, clearly
not impressed by Nathanial’s thoughtless behaviour.
After our English lesson, Sophie and I
walked around the estate that morning repeating our bilingual game of naming
every object in sight in both French and English. This helped my language skills
as well.
At one point, after we’d exhausted the
words to describe everything we saw, Sophie grabbed my fingers and asked me why
I wasn’t listening to her chatter or her jokes. For some reason, today, I
didn’t find them funny. Together we walked around the frosty grounds back
towards Thornton Hall. I found myself glancing at the trees and the sky with my
young charge, hardly thinking about our conversation or the answers I gave to
Sophie’s many questions. I was distracted, thinking about Nathanial, wondering
when he would return.
When he did return, the following evening,
I was seated in the drawing room, enduring the mundane chatter of the female
guests who basically ignored my presence in their company. Tonight, Christopher
Mason was noticeably absent and the seat beside me was empty. Sophie had been
taken upstairs early after she had been passed around the group like a toy. Her
prattle had become decidedly irritating to Nicola who disliked anything or
anyone that took Nathanial’s attention away from her.
After the evening meal was served, I ate
just enough pudding, before I felt I could leave the crowded room without being
missed.
Nathanial Rochester and I stood up simultaneously
as he announced, ‘Anne, I hope you are not leaving us. We have arranged after
dinner party games - a magician has arrived to entertain us with card tricks
and illusions,’ he stated.
I
had never really enjoyed fairground entertainment but it would be extremely
obvious if I left in full view of everyone.
Nicola stood up and tapped her glass with
a spoon before stating, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have organised, for your
entertainment and because it is my birthday request, a fortune teller! A
palmist from the local country fair is visiting for the evening to read
everyone’s fortunes!’ Nicola then clapped her hands loudly.
‘Come Anne, she will be set up in the
library in ten minutes… you must go early since you are always the first to
leave.’
Nicola nodded, clearly happy to be rid of
me sooner than she expected. My absence would allow her to linger exclusively with
her intended husband.
Rochester stood and whispered something
about, ‘I’ll just finalize the payment.’
Nicola looked extremely self-satisfied. The most amiable of our house
guests, Matthew Eaton, jumped up and said, ‘Okay, I’ll go first then.’
Nicola smiled approvingly. ‘Each time slot
goes for ten minutes,’ she said. ‘Anne, I’ve scheduled you in next.’
Having once worked as a society party
planner, Nicola was in her element organising others. I had no doubt both the
magician, who was happily pulling a card from behind my ear as I inwardly
cringed, and the fortune teller, were the result of her suggestions and
probably known to her.
