The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [8]
“Cruel,” exclaimed Mrs. Marsden. She had turned on the light and it shone on her fair hair, which was as usual pulled into a tight bun. “What nonsense. Your aunt gives you a home, food, and clothes. Without her you would be in an orphanage.”
“At least there would be no one to say I’m worse than a dog. All the other children would be orphans too, and when people were stupid or unkind, they’d be punished.”
Mrs. Marsden shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Orphanages are dreadful places. The children have no toys or books or drawing things. They work all day and are scolded for the smallest fault. You know how clumsy you are and how you take half an hour to lay a fire because you’re daydreaming. You would always be in trouble. Now lie still and don’t talk while I go and tell your aunt that you’re awake.”
Who would I talk to? I wanted to say, but even this brief conversation had exhausted me. I was happy to lie back and close my eyes. Mrs. Marsden was right—I didn’t know the first thing about orphanages—but I couldn’t go back to being the docile girl who had allowed Will and Louise to bully her. As I drifted towards sleep I vowed I would no longer let myself be treated like an unpaid servant.
When I awoke again a man with cavernous nostrils and gold-rimmed glasses was bending over me, one hand wrapped around my wrist. “Well, young lady,” said Dr. Shearer, “how are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“You didn’t seem fine last night.” He held up his hand and made me count fingers. Then he asked the names of the queen—Elizabeth II—and the prime minister—Harold Macmillan—and where I lived. I answered quietly, not quarrelling with the simple questions; Dr. Shearer had been a friend of my uncle’s and, on his rare visits to the house, always greeted me kindly. Once in the autumn when I was walking home from school he had stopped in his red sports car to give me a lift. “Hold on,” he had said, and then we were flying down the road, past the fields of startled cows and sheep. When we skidded to a halt in front of Yew House, he had said I was the perfect passenger.
“Can you sit up?” he asked now.
I tried, but little dots appeared before my eyes. Gently he told me to lie down again. Could I tell him what had happened? I described my encounter with Will, how he had attacked me, how my aunt had taken his side and locked me in the sewing-room. “It was freezing and she wouldn’t even turn on the light.”
“Heavens, Doctor,” said my aunt from the doorway. “You’d think I was an ogre. She flew at Will like a wildcat only because he reminded her of how much she owes our family. I would be failing in my duty if I didn’t make sure that Gemma understands that she won’t have the same advantages as her cousins. She will have to work for her living as soon as she’s able.”
She came into the room and stationed herself at the foot of the bed. It was as if a peacock had invaded the nest of a sparrow. Everything about her—her hair, her pullover, her lipstick—was too large and vivid.
“She might go to university,” ventured the doctor. “She might marry.”
My uncle had always spoken as if all four of us would go to university. Now my aunt acknowledged, grudgingly, that this was possible. “But she’s a plain little thing, and bad tempered to boot. Even if she finds a husband, she’ll have to work, like Betty.”
“Oh, come now,” said Dr. Shearer. “Betty has a good head on her shoulders. If she hadn’t left school at fourteen, she’d have made a capable nurse. Many women make their own way in the world nowadays: teaching, working in offices. Gemma will have the advantages of your example, and a thorough education.”
He stepped over to the window, barely more than a single stride for him, to check the latch. Turning back to my aunt, he remarked that the room was chilly. If my condition turned into flu or pneumonia, who knew how long I might be in bed. My aunt said she’d always understood that the dry heat of an electric fire was the worst thing for an invalid, but if the doctor insisted, she would send one up. She had something to ask him,