The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [10]
When at last, on a bright, mild afternoon, I dressed and came downstairs I felt as if I had been away for months; I was surprised to find the lower floors of Yew House, and their inhabitants, unchanged. Louise was out riding; Veronica was sitting by the fire, studying one of her mother’s magazines; Will, recovered from his cold, was trying to teach the dogs a trick that involved their pretending to be dead; my aunt was on the sofa, drinking a cup of tea and writing in the notebook where she kept her lists.
“Oh, Gemma,” she said vaguely, “I hope you turned off the fire. God knows what the electricity bill will be this quarter.”
“Yes, Aunt.” The word slipped out before I could stop it.
My impertinence made her look up from the notebook, but her eyes did not reach my face. “Why are you wearing Louise’s pullover?”
Mrs. Marsden had come into my room the day before and set a pile of neatly folded clothes on the chest of drawers. I had given no thought to the slight oddity of her returning my washing until I discovered that the pile included several garments that Louise had recently outgrown. I said the pullover was in my room.
“And how did it get there? Elves?”
“With my clean clothes.” I hoped to implicate Betty, who did the laundry.
“Go and take it off at once and bring it to me. Louise’s clothes belong to her and to Veronica. They are not for the taking.”
“So what do you expect me to wear?” I demanded. “At the Sunday school party Mrs. Lunn said I looked positively Dickensian.”
Before my aunt could answer I left the room. Usually I climbed the stairs two at a time but today I mounted them slowly, carrying my defiance like a banner. I had liked the blue pullover, but its loss was nothing compared with the knowledge that I had an ally. When I returned downstairs, wearing a grey cardigan that had belonged first to Louise, then to Veronica, and that even on my small frame barely buttoned, I headed to the kitchen. “Can I help with supper?” I asked.
As she handed me an apron Mrs. Marsden looked askance at the ragged cardigan. “Is that all you could find to wear?”
I described my arrival in the sitting-room.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She shook her tidy head. While I scrubbed the potatoes, she told me the story of the film she’d seen the night before at Perth Odeon. “And then the hero— Mind you take out all the eyes.”
“Oh, Mrs. Marsden,” said my aunt from the doorway. “I was just wondering what time we’re having supper. I’ve invited Mr. Carruthers and his wife for sherry.”
Bob Carruthers, the new master of foxhounds, was a frequent and popular guest at Yew House. He arm-wrestled Will, talked to Louise about riding, admired Veronica’s outfits, and flattered my aunt absurdly, calling her Diana, mistress of the hunt. As for me, he always asked how the hockey was going. “I don’t play,” I would remind him. I much preferred his wife, who was expecting a baby in March and shared my passion for Anne of Green Gables.
“Seven-thirty,” said Mrs. Marsden, briskly stirring the white sauce.
My aunt picked up the pepper grinder and studied the base, as if she had never seen such intricate workmanship. I knew she was hoping that Mrs. Marsden would ask if the Carruthers were staying to dinner and that Mrs. Marsden was determined not to make the invitation easier. Presently she set down the grinder and left the room.
Mrs. Marsden turned to me. “Do four more potatoes. Better now than at seven.”
Defiance was appealing, but it did not warm my cold room, it did not clothe me, it did not fill the long hours after school and chores. On Saturday I walked to the edge of Strathmuir and turned in the direction of Perth. A mile to the west a small hill rose beside the road. On the summit, my uncle had explained, were the remains of a Roman fort. The Romans had made several attempts to subdue this part of Scotland but had never succeeded, any more than the Vikings or, more recently, the Germans. As part of their campaign, however, they had built a number of outlying forts. “Imagine making this with a pick and