Joan Smith - Delsie

“No formal announcement of the wedding will be made at all, with your approval, ma’am,” deVigne said to Delsie. “It is so singularly inappropriate to do so at this time. We shall say in the death announcement that he is survived by his wife, Mrs. Grayshott (nee Delsie Sommers) and his daughter, Roberta. That will be announcement enough. There is no question of its being overlooked. You will be presented as Mrs. Grayshott to the callers, and, as Jane so cleverly pointed out, a funeral call is no time to be overly curious as to the details.”

“Delsie is staying here with Bobbie for a few days, Max,” Jane told him. “Let the child become accustomed to her new mama while there is at least one familiar face around, in case she makes strange at first.”

“An excellent idea,” he agreed. “It will be a difficult period for Bobbie. It will give us time to send a few servants to the Cottage to clean it up a little as well.”

“A lot,” Jane countered. “It will require a small army.”

“Is there anyone of your family you wish to notify of your marriage?” Max asked next.

“No, there is no one,” she answered quietly.

“Strothingham ought to be informed,” Sir Harold mentioned.

As Sir Harold was so seldom aware even of important facts, his wife was astonished to learn he had come into contact with a rumor. Her eyes flew first to Sir Harold, then to deVigne, lastly to Delsie, who wondered that the lady should look embarrassed.

“I am not personally acquainted with my cousin, Strothingham,” Delsie answered. “Indeed, I have never so much as seen him.”

“Still, head of your family. Ought to be informed,” Sir Harold told her. “I’ll do it myself, Mrs. Grayshott. Not a close friend of Strothingham, but I was a crony of his uncle’s. Once told him I’d look you up, in fact. Did I ever do it?” he asked with a puzzled frown.

“No, I don’t believe you did,” she answered, staring at him, as folks were inclined to do when first becoming a little aware of his peculiarities.

“Bless my soul! What a memory I have. Shocking,” he said calmly, and went on eating, while Lady Jane and deVigne threw up their eyes in despair.

“Then the only remaining piece of business is to introduce you to Roberta,” deVigne said. “I brought her back with me. She is abovestairs with Miss Milne now. We shall speak of the running of the Cottage another time, Mrs. Grayshott.”

Her jaws clenched at the use of that name, Mrs. Grayshott, but her mind harked back to Sir Harold’s curious speech. He had known Strothingham, had known all this time she was related to him, had even promised to look her up. How different things might have been, had he done it.

After dinner, Lady Jane said she would bring Roberta down, but Delsie asked if she might go up to her instead. She wished the first meeting with the girl to be informal, in private, that she would not feel constrained to be stiff because of the onlookers. Her experience of children told her this was the better way to start off the friendship.

“A good idea,” Max agreed. “As I have already spoken to her of you, I shall make the introduction, if you have no objection?” He was overly careful, she thought, of consulting her on these matters since she had given him the hint.

“None in the world,” she replied, and they went together to the room Roberta was using as hers during the stay at the Dower House. She was a very ordinary-looking child. Mousy brown hair in pigtails, eyes distressingly like her father’s, but she had a winning smile, the absence of front teeth emphasizing the childish, vulnerable air.

“This is the lady I told you about, Bobbie,” he said. “Your new mother, Mrs. Grayshott.”

Delsie watched with amusement and a pang of sympathy as the child clung to deVigne’s fingers, jiggling back and forth shyly, while casting little peeps at herself.

“We’re going to be good friends,” Delsie said encouragingly, and put out her hand.

A little set of pink fingers reached out to take it. “Are you a wicked stepmother?” the girl asked, not in a condemning way at all, but in a spirit of curiosity.

“I hope not indeed!”

“I believe I may have inadvertently used the term stepmother,” deVigne explained.

“The ‘wicked,’ I trust, was her own invention?”

“All stepmothers are wicked,” Bobbie told her conclusively. “They step on you. I hope you’re not a hard stepper.”

“I shall try not to be as wicked as most,” Delsie assured her, then led her to the edge of the bed to sit down, to remove the obstacle of height. “I never beat little girls, or starve them, or hardly ever lock them in a dungeon, if they behave well.”

“Max has a dungeon,” she was told. “He’ll never lock me in it.”

“You must show it to me one day. I’ve never seen a dungeon,” Delsie answered.

“I will. It’s got big thick doors and no windows. It’s black as coal.”

“It sounds lovely.”

“It is. I wouldn’t care if you locked me up in it forever. And you can’t turn my papa against me, because he’s dead,” Bobbie added, knowing the role of stepmothers very well.

“I think I may safely leave you two adversaries to discover each other’s evil propensities,” Max said with a smile, and left. He returned below to announce that the two were in a fair way to becoming acquainted.

“She will know how to handle the child,” Jane informed him with satisfaction.

* * * *

As Roberta did not dwell on the subject of her father’s death, Delsie was happy to avoid it, and spoke bracingly of future projects they would undertake together. She was promised a view of not only a dungeon, but a walking doll and a dog who had fleas. While the last-named did not sound very exciting, she was eager to see the dungeon and the walking doll.

When the governess came to prepare Bobbie for bed, Delsie told her that for this one occasion she would like to perform this chore, to prolong the meeting. She saw that the child was in sore need of mothering, for her garments, outside of her dress, were small for her, and in poor repair. The two got on well together, the older sensing in her new charge that same unsettled quality she had experienced herself, and an eagerness to attach herself to someone.

It was close to an hour before she returned below-stairs to find deVigne just leaving. “I shall spend the night at the Cottage,” he told her.

“The Cottage? What in the world for?” Lady Jane inquired. “The Bristcombes are there.”

“They are old-fashioned,” Max replied. “Mrs. Bristcombe, I noticed, was putting a dish of salt on the coffin to keep the corpse from rising, and as she follows the old customs, she will likely light a candle to propitiate Satan as well. We do not want Mrs. Grayshott’s house to be burned to the ground before ever she moves in.”

These old folkways were well known to Delsie, but for herself, she would not much have cared if the house did burn down. She did not in the least look forward to removing to it.

After deVigne had left, Sir Harold asked her for a game of chess. This sounded preferable to further lessons on Milton, and she was happy to oblige him, for it always fagged her brain to the point where sleep came easily.

The next few days passed with a mixture of joy, embarrassment, and serene contentment. They were never boring. The meetings with the funeral callers were a strain. There was no denying that fact; even with the family at her back she felt foolish to be presented as the bride of a dead man nearly old enough to be her father, one, besides, whom she scarcely knew. But as wise old Lady Jane had predicted, prying questions were kept to a minimum.

Delsie smiled to herself to see deVigne poker up, pinch in his nostrils and say “Indeed?” when a neighbor from the far side of the hill began a discussion on her shock at reading of the affair in the papers. She knew Jane was also busy visualizing dead rats, for she would hear all about it after the company had left.

Few questions were directed to herself, and those that were, she fielded easily enough, for she wore a downcast, bewildered face, and the quizzing was not severe.

The periods with Bobbie were joyful. Such a blessed relief to have the throng of children to which she was accustomed, mostly rowdy boys too, reduced to one fairly well behaved girl, who already looked to her as a surrogate mother, and was beginning to run to her with her secrets and problems. Time was found for a few walks in the afternoon with her stepdaughter, to further the acquaintance.

When the callers were done with, the family would gather back at the Dower House to sit and gossip and even-it seemed incredible-to laugh occasionally. This, in her private thoughts, Delsie considered the happy hour. With the day’s duties done, she could relax. She had quickly come to the stage where she was perfectly at ease with Lady Jane, and no longer on tenterhooks with deVigne, though they still addressed each other formally, with always that “Mrs. Grayshott” irking her. Then there was dinner, a formal meal, whose elegancies she was able to appreciate now as she had not on that first, dreadful day of her wedding.

She had been married on Sunday. The funeral was Thursday. On Friday the idyll was over. DeVigne came over after breakfast to take her to the Cottage, her new home. “I’ll tell Miss Milne to prepare Bobbie’s things,” she said, and excused herself.

“I’m sorry to see them go,” Lady Jane said to her nephew. “It was good to have a spot of company. Harold is as dumb as a dog, unless I let him talk my ear off about Rome or Greece. It was a wise move, Max, to push this marriage.”

“It seems to be working out very well for us. I can’t imagine Mrs. Grayshott will be as happy at the Cottage as she has been here with you.”

“How happy can she have been in Questnow? What a strange, lonely life the girl has led. Little things she says betray her, you know, like how pleasant it is to have company for her meals. She must have eaten all alone, I suppose, since her mama’s passing. Imagine that ninny of a Harold having known Strothingham all along and not telling us. We might have made her acquaintance years ago.”

“She was living in a very mean sort of an apartment. Remarkable she is so refined.”

“I was happily surprised with her liveliness. I had not suspected vivacity from her, for she was such a dowdy little dresser, but she is very conversable. I like her excessively.”

The widow soon returned below with Bobbie and Miss Milne, the three of them to be taken in deVigne’s carriage to the Cottage. Once there, he did no more than make her acquainted with her housekeeper before leaving, saying he would return later in the day.

“You will find plenty to keep you busy,” he said, glancing around at the somber surroundings. “But I shan’t volunteer any suggestions, knowing you like to make your own decisions.” This was said in a rallying tone, but it did not rally her. She felt utterly depressed, and the large beef-faced woman standing before her in a soiled apron did nothing to cheer her up.

“I’ll take my leave now, Mrs. Grayshott,” deVigne bowed, and went to the door. Delsie looked helplessly to the governess and Bobbie, fast disappearing up the stairs, then after deVigne. She took a step after him, wishing she could run right out the door and go back to the Dower House. As she realized what she had done, she continued after him, as though, it had been her intention to accompany him to the front door.

“Don’t despair,” he said in a kindly tone. “This was used to be a fine and attractive home a few years ago, when my sister was alive. You will make it so again in a very short time, I am convinced. Be firm with the Bristcombes. They have fallen into slovenly habits with Andrew not watching them as he ought.” Mrs. Bristcombe stood with her arms crossed, staring at them suspiciously, beyond earshot. Then deVigne was gone, and Delsie turned back to face her future.

Be firm, he had said, and firmness was clearly needed here. “Have you any orders, miss?” Mrs. Bristcombe asked, an insolent expression settling on her coarse features as soon as deVigne was gone.

“Yes, the title is ma’am, not miss,” Delsie said in her firmest teacher’s voice, “and I shall have a great many orders. The first is that you put on a clean apron, and not wear a soiled one in my house again.”

“They don’t stay clean long in the kitchen,” the woman replied tartly, scanning her new mistress from head to toe in a very bold fashion. She had not behaved so when deVigne was with them.

“Then you must have several, to provide yourself a change, must you not?”

“Muslin costs money.”

“All of three shillings a yard, for that quality. I shall buy some, and you will have it made into aprons.”