She had recourse to the torn off strip of petticoat again, and blowing her nose with an air of determination, sniffed back the tears.
A sudden knock at the door startled her. Gerald? But could he be here so quickly?
She hastily dabbed at her eyes, thankful for the darkness that she saw had come on outside unnoticed, dimming the room.
‘Come,’ she called.
The door opened. A stout female stood in the aperture, an oil lamp in her hand. She came into the room. A middle-aged countrywoman, plump of cheek, and a little shy. She held up the lamp.
‘Beg pardon, miss, but I’m told as how—’ She broke off, her eyes widening, her jaw dropping open.
All at once Melusine remembered Pottiswick, and the errand he had run.
‘You are Mrs Ibstock, I think,’ she said eagerly.
Pottiswick’s daughter found her tongue. ‘Lawks-a-mussy! It’s Miss Mary. Miss Mary to the life.’
Chapter Nine
As she devoured the simple meal of bread and cheese, and several slices of cold roast beef, the whole washed down with a poor sort of coffee, Melusine listened with avid interest to the details of her mother’s life as revealed by the exclamatory conversation of Joan Ibstock. This forthright dame was so excited, she could not keep still, but paced about the parlour much as Melusine had done earlier.
‘Well, what was I to think, miss? Martha never wrote nothing about you, and I did ask.’
‘You see,’ Melusine explained between mouthfuls of food, ‘poor Marthe had promised to my father that she will say nothing. She broke this promise when she told me that my mother was this Mary, and not Suzanne Valade at all.’
‘But she must have known I’d longed to hear of you. When mistress took and died—’ Joan broke off and sighed, moving away to the window. ‘Well, water under the bridge is that, miss. Anyhow, it were me as got you down to the wet-nurse. Come every day to see you was flourishing. On the orders of Mr Jarvis, that were. But I’d have done it without, though it weren’t my place. Only an undermaid I was then. But Miss Mary and me—’
Melusine looked up as the woman broke off again. She smiled encouragingly, laying aside her plate and turning her chair from the table.
‘You knew her well, Miss Mary?’
Mrs Ibstock turned at the window. ‘We was of an age, you see, miss. Used to play together, we did, all over Remenham House. Miss Mary and me, and Martha too sometimes. Oh, Mr Jarvis paid no mind,’ she added hastily, as if expecting disapproval. ‘That there governess didn’t like it, of course, me being the lodgekeeper’s girl, and Martha just a country wench like me. Her pa was only the smithy. T’weren’t fitting, we knew that. But Mr Jarvis said as how Miss Mary not having no brothers and sisters like, it were good to have friends.’
‘I see now how it was that Marthe knew of the secret passage,’ Melusine said.
‘Oh, we was always in there, miss,’ admitted Joan, moving closer. She shuddered, adding confidentially, ‘You wouldn’t get me in there now, mind. Nasty, damp passages. Rats and things crawling all over. Horrid!’
‘Yes, but it has been extremely useful for me,’ argued Melusine, ‘so that I am very much pleased with this passage.’
‘Fancy my old pa thinking you was a French spy. Though he never seen so much of Miss Mary as I did. Mind, when we were all growed up, it were different. And when she took and married that Mr Charvill, we didn’t think to see her at Remenham House no more.’
‘But you say that I was born here,’ objected Melusine. ‘Certainly you must have seen her.’
Mrs Ibstock’s lips tightened and she looked away a moment. ‘Yes, miss. She come home within a few months of the wedding. She were that miserable.’
Melusine rose from her chair in sudden irritation. ‘Oh, peste. I know why. For that my father so stupide was in love with this Suzanne Valade, is it not?’
‘Well, miss,’ temporised Mrs Ibstock, ‘we didn’t rightly know that then. For he come after her, did Mr Charvill. And a right set-to there were betwixt him and Mr Jarvis, I can tell you. Miss Mary being his only child ’an all, he were in a right pelter.’
Melusine could not suppress a smile. ‘And with my grandfather Charvill also so very angry, it was not perhaps so very comfortable for my father.’
‘Between the devil and the deep blue sea, he were,’ agreed Pottiswick’s daughter. ‘Small wonder in a way that he found hisself consolation elsewhere.’
Melusine sobered, sitting down again. ‘Yes, only that this consolation he had found before he married my mother. This I know for at the Valade estate it was talked of very much, even that they supposed me there to be the daughter of Suzanne.’
‘But you don’t look anything like her,’ burst out Mrs Ibstock.
‘Comment? You have then met this Suzanne?’
The woman turned a deep red. ‘It weren’t my wish, miss, I can tell you that. Only your pa knew as how I were the one as saw to you at the wet-nurse’s cottage, and he got a-hold of me and made me bring him to you.’
‘Eh bien? And so?’
‘He says as how he’s going to take you with him to France with his new wife.’ Joan sniffed. ‘Well! I hadn’t no notion as he’d got hisself married again. I didn’t believe him and I said so. I said as how I’d tell Mr Jarvis as he wanted to take you away. So he bring me to see this Suzanne, who were staying at an inn nearby.’
‘But it is imbecile,’ interrupted Melusine, struck by the impracticalities of her father’s scheme. ‘To take a baby all the way to France without a wet-nurse.’
‘That’s just it,’ said Joan Ibstock shamefacedly. She went across to the little window again, her back to Melusine. ‘He arst me to find him someone who might go with you. I’m that shamed to confess it, miss, but it were then I thought of Martha.’
Melusine stared. ‘Martha was my wet-nurse? But she is unmarried.’
Joan nodded, her face still averted. ‘Aye, that she was. Fell to sin, did Martha. Took and ran away when she got herself with child. Only she sent me a message, and together we found a cottage for her to stay at. An old woman took her in. She were brought to bed a few days after Miss Mary. Only her babe died. And so—’
‘And so she was able to become my—’ Melusine did not say it, for wet-nurse no longer seemed appropriate. Martha had been more to her than that.
‘It was a good chance for a new life,’ Joan explained, venturing to face Melusine again, ‘and Martha took it. Small blame to her. But we were both pledged to secrecy, and I couldn’t reveal my part for fear that I would lose my place. For Mr Jarvis was beside himself when the letter come from Mr Charvill and he knew he’d lost you as well as Miss Mary.’ Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘He’d have been that happy if he’d known how you’re the spit of her, miss.’
Melusine jumped up, full of new hope, all the earlier clouds vanishing from her horizon. ‘But this is altogether a chance of the luckiest. You will be my witness, Madame Joan. When I shall go to the lawyers that have the interest of this estate Remenham, you will come with me.’
