Chapter
Ten
House Guests
That afternoon, after Sophie had finished
her riding lesson, we raced each other up to the main house. Mrs Fairfax came
walking out of the entrance hall, waving a note.
‘I just received a message, Anne. The house
is going to be a bit chaotic for the next few days. Mr Rochester is preparing
to leave soon and when he returns he’s bringing a party of guests back with him,
friends and a family from the neighbouring properties, who are visiting. It’s
traditional to be welcoming out here in the country Anne. You and Sophie will
be expected to attend dinner every evening. He’s bringing his girlfriend, Nicola
Ingram, back with him.’
My face froze.
I wasn’t aware he had a girlfriend though I
suppose it was not really any of my business. The previous evening we’d spent
together as friends more than employer and employee. I’d just assumed, like me,
he was alone in the world apart from casual acquaintances. Though he had Sophie
and the monetary advantages his inheritance had given him, he had no close
relatives. But of course, his extreme wealth and his noble lineage really meant
he was nothing like me, apart from a shared experience we’d both felt, a common
bond of childhood neglect.
The next morning over breakfast Mrs Fairfax
tried to warn me.
‘This is a strange place for a young girl Anne;
not much to do apart from looking after Sophie and once the house guests arrive,
well, it becomes more like a hotel with, let’s just say, rambunctious guests.’
‘You forget, I used to live with wild kids
in foster homes before my expensive schooling. I am happy here Mrs Fairfax, perhaps
for the first time. This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve visited or
lived in.’
‘Just be careful Anne. You know little of
the real world or of men like Rochester.’
‘I suppose you must think I’m very naïve for
an eighteen-year-old from London but I’ve been shut up in a girls’ school for
the past few years and there was no topic off limits and no cruelty other girls
wouldn’t stoop to in order to rise to the top, so to speak. There is a kind of
serenity to my days here, something missing that I longed for. Sometimes, my
judgments are flawed. Perhaps I have been harsh in my assessments of people. You
have all been so kind to me here in a way I was not used to, and I have learnt
to take things at face value and not look for the bad in the good.’
Mrs
Fairfax smiled.
‘Just be careful, Anne, like I said. And
remember, sometimes when we are young, we have the most clarity.’
I wasn’t sure what she meant.
That afternoon when we were playing with Sophie’s
doll family and her house in the school room, Sophie started telling me about a
dark-haired lady that roamed the halls at night. In the weeks I’d been with
her, Sophie had literally started talking to me almost totally in English.
‘I saw her once, well, heard her. She was
singing a song in French and I understood all the words. She wore a full length
dress and had wild hair. The maid, Leah, told me there are strange creatures
upstairs who only come out when we are asleep and if you see them they reach
for you and squeeze you and make you scream until you beg them to stop!’
Suddenly Sophie, who was always
demonstrative with people she liked, wrapped her arms around me and squealed.
‘Shh, Sophie. What have I told you about shrieking?
You’ll frighten the entire house.’
‘Well, it’s a scary story. And anyway, she’s
not a ghost, this lady, she’s a creature with fangs and once she bites you, she
goes crazy from the blood and yells the place down.’
‘Utter nonsense,’ I said as Sophie tried to
tickle me, quite successfully I might add.
Sophie was laughing by then and winding
herself around me until we both ended up in a bunch on the floor and Mrs
Fairfax came hurrying in with tea.
Sophie had a note she pulled out from her
jean’s pocket.
‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ Sophie said, ‘it’s
from my riding instructor. I said you were eighteen and single. He wants to
meet you.’
I laughed at Sophie playing matchmaker. I
wanted to see in myself what others might see – a person worthy of friendship
and love, as we all are. But something, or someone, held me back from
responding to the note – just a few words of friendship offering a riding
lesson saying, ‘you must be a very
special person for Sophie to think so highly of you.’
It was sweet and funny and I said we could
invite him to have lunch with us one day after lessons in the meadow. I hadn’t
agreed to the riding lesson since I was slightly afraid of horses and getting
too used to living at Thornton.
Already, I was intrigued, attracted, possibly
enraptured by Nathanial Rochester; but I would never let him know that. There
was no way he could possibly return my feelings and I wanted to save myself the
embarrassment of sharing them.
