The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [62]
“Next to the dining-room. There’s a good collection of history books—that was what old Mr. Sinclair liked—and almost every Victorian novel you can think of. Let me show you your room.”
We climbed a broad carpeted stair, each stair rod gleaming. I was still determined to leave in the morning, but at the sight of my corner room, my despair rose another inch. A fire glowed in the grate, and the curtains were drawn snug across the four windows. Against one wall stood a large bed with a flowered quilt. Vicky turned on the lamp on the bedside table and another on the desk. Looking around, I caught sight of myself in the mirror on the wardrobe, and then of my suitcases next to the chest of drawers. In front of the fire were two armchairs and a low table.
“The bathroom is next door,” said Vicky. “I hope you’ll be comfortable.”
“It’s the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m glad you like it.” But the little crease that appeared between her eyebrows suggested something other than gladness. Worrying that, once again, I had betrayed my age, I asked where Nell slept.
“Next door, but she’s been hiding all day.” Vicky wandered over to the dressing-table and fidgeted with the lace mat. “I should tell you that she’s not over the moon about your arrival.”
Why did that phrase “should tell” always herald unpleasantness? Was there no imperative towards happiness? “On the phone,” I said, “you described her as leading her last teacher a merry dance.”
“If only it had been an eightsome reel or a Gay Gordons.” Vicky shook her head. “Poor Miss Cameron. She taught school in Thurso for thirty years before she came here. Seamus said she was husband-hunting, but who would come to the Orkneys to do that?” She described Miss Cameron’s efficiency and Nell’s awfulness: spilling things on her books, running away. Then in December the two were out for a walk when they spotted a fern they’d been looking for, for their scrapbook, on a ledge beside the sea. Nell climbed down to pick it and claimed to be stuck. Miss Cameron, despite her fear of heights, went to rescue her. As soon as she reached the ledge, Nell scarpered. Fortunately Seamus had heard Miss Cameron’s cries. She left the next day.
“And since then,” Vicky said, “Nell’s been running wild. I’m too busy with the farm and the house to mind her. It was obvious you were just a slip of a girl—Mr. Sinclair laughed when I read him your letter over the phone—but he thought you’d be a friend for Nell. For all her naughtiness she’s lonely.”
“I’m eighteen,” I said for the third time that day. “I’m just small for my age.”
“You must be tired, after your long journey.”
She spoke soothingly, as if my lie were irrelevant, and suddenly I felt exhausted all over again. I said I would take a bath, and she offered to bring up supper on a tray. In the doorway she paused. “Maybe keep your door locked. It’s more than twenty years since Seamus came back from the war but he still sometimes sleepwalks.”
“How far away is the sea?”
“Ten minutes across the fields. I’ll show you tomorrow, if the rain stays off.”
In the bathroom I filled the bath half full, added a handful of lavender bath salts from a jar on the window-sill, and sank down into the hot, fragrant water. Not since the hospital had I experienced such luxury. Back in my beautiful room I found a tray with a plate of macaroni and cheese and a little dish of canned peaches set before the glowing fire. As I sat down to eat I heard the distant roaring of my long-missed friend, the waves rolling all the way from Iceland, reaching land.
Unless Vicky asked me to leave I would keep my side of our three-months bargain. I was not afraid of heights.
chapter sixteen
After years of narrow beds fit for nuns and prisoners, I slept in my double bed with a sense of ease and woke to the knowledge that the wind had fallen and the day was fine. Vicky had told me to sleep as long as I wanted, another unknown luxury, and during the half-hour that I lay there, enjoying the warm expanse, the only sounds were those of a rooster crowing in the distance and, nearby,