"I--I don't know," stammered Margaret, who totally unprepared for such a proposition, did not know what answer to make. "I should have to ask El----(my friend, I mean) what she thought of it. Ask her advice, I mean."

"Quite so, quite so," Mrs. Danvers said. "But that's all in the future, of course. The first thing you have to do is to make the acquaintance of the children, and, as I said, Hannah has evidently carefully kept them up in the nursery this morning. She is devoted to them, and can't bear the idea of having to share her charge of them with a governess. So I am afraid you may have a little unpleasantness to put up with at first. But she is a good creature, and if you exercise a little tact you will soon be able to smooth her down."

"Yes," said Margaret even more feebly than before. But Mrs. Danvers was not an observant woman, and she was so far from suspecting the hidden dismay with which her new holiday governess listened to her, that later in the day she gave it as her opinion that underneath her exceedingly quiet manner Miss Carson concealed an iron will, and that the reign of stern discipline she was about to inaugurate would have an excellent effect on her grandchildren. And she was genuinely astonished at the derision with which her own children received this prophecy.

CHAPTER X

ELEANOR AT WINDY GAP

To her mingled relief and surprise, Margaret found her small pupils far less troublesome to manage than the tales she had heard about them would have led her to suppose. Daisy and David were a quaint, small couple; but though self-willed and alarmingly high spirited they were affectionate, warm-hearted children and easily ruled by love. They took an instant fancy to Margaret. Perhaps her quiet manner and prim way of speaking appealed to them after the noisy ways of their young aunts, who alternately petted and bullied them; at any rate they showed themselves gratifyingly ready to obey her lightest word.

"We think you a perfect dear," Daisy said at the end of the first morning, winding two fat little arms tightly round Margaret's neck, "and we like you, and we will be good to you, won't we, David?"

"Sure," said David, who had picked up a few Americanisms from his father's New York chauffeur, and delighted in airing them. "You can calculate on that all the time."

Hannah, too, who was a quiet, elderly, and very superior woman, liked the children's governess, and that was no small matter. She approved of Margaret's quiet manner and sedate speech, and never guessing with what a quaking heart Margaret had entered the schoolroom, set her down in her own mind as an ideal governess.

"A far better example to my lambs than Miss Maud with her noisy ways, or Miss Hilary with her sharp, sarcastic speeches, a well-brought-up young lady Miss Carson is, and no mistake either, and will teach Miss Daisy how to behave."

Though Margaret had quite enjoyed her morning with the children, she was not sorry when twelve o'clock struck and the lesson-books were put away.

At that hour the children always went for a walk with Hannah, and Margaret was free not only for the rest of the morning, but for the remainder of the day as well. Certainly the post of holiday governess at The Cedars could not be called an arduous one, but such as it was it was pleasant to think that she filled it satisfactorily, and that she was quite an efficient subst.i.tute for the real Eleanor. So having seen the children put their lesson-books tidily away, Margaret ran lightly downstairs to look for some of the others. It would be nice, she thought innocently, to have a game of tennis with Maud or to take a walk with Hilary or with one of the Greens. No doubt they all knew she would be free at twelve and would be on the look-out for her. The hall and the morning-room were empty, so she went into the garden and, guided by the sound of voices, made her way down to the tennis court. Here Maud and one of the girls she had come to meet the previous evening were playing singles, while Hilary and her two cousins occupied a bench on the bank overlooking the court on the far side.

Unaware of the fact that she was interrupting the game, Margaret began to cross the court by the net, and when interrupted in her progress by a shout from Maud turned and walked up to her.

"I say, whatever do you want?" Maud said impatiently, "Don't you see we are playing?"

"Yes, and I thought I would like to play too, please," said Margaret, in shy but friendly tones. "I have finished with the children for the morning. Perhaps Hilary or one of your cousins will lend me a racquet and I will come and play on your side."

"What, in high-heeled house-shoes, and when we are in the middle of a single!" Maud exclaimed in amazement. "Here, clear out please. Take her away somebody, and let us get on with our game."

Thus summarily dismissed, and blushing crimson at the annoyance in Maud's tone, Margaret backed hurriedly off the court, and though the giggles that came from the bench whereon Hilary and the Greens sat were clearly at her expense, Margaret walked awkwardly towards them.

Neither Hilary nor Joan made any attempt to make room for her to sit down, nor to conceal their amus.e.m.e.nt at her discomfiture, but Nancy, who sat in the middle, edged closer to her sister and patted the bench invitingly.

"You evidently don't know much more about tennis than you do about billiards, do you?" said Hilary scornfully; "or you would not have strolled across the court in that fashion and interrupted the game."

"I am sorry," said Margaret miserably. Already the feeling of eager antic.i.p.ation with which she had left the schoolroom to seek their society had fled, and she was heartily wishing herself back there again; "and I am afraid I have made Maud cross."

"Far too cross," said Nancy. "After all, it's nothing so terrible that you did. It wasn't as if it was a match that Maud was playing. She is only having a game with Anna."

"Fancy thinking you could play in house-shoes though," said Hilary.

"Didn't the girls at Hampstead have tennis-shoes, poor things?"

"I don't know. Yes, I suppose so. I mean, Mrs. McDonald did not--there were no tennis courts," stammered Margaret, her wretchedness increasing as she met Hilary's scrutinising gaze. Surely she was not mistaken, and this time there was marked suspicion of her in Hilary's face.

"Come for a turn with me," said Nancy, who, though quite unconscious of the significance of Hilary's look and manner, was at least acute enough to perceive that her cousin was bent upon making Margaret more uncomfortable than she was already. "I haven't stirred from this seat since eleven, and unless I take some exercise I shan't be able to eat any lunch. We'll go into the kitchen garden and look for some raspberries."

"They'll improve your appet.i.te," jeered her sister.

She waited until the two were out of hearing, and then turned eagerly to Hilary.

"Hilary," she said, "what is it? I can see you are suspicious of Miss Carson. Do tell me. Oh, how quick and clever you are! I am sure you do not like her. I believe you can read people's characters at a glance."

Hilary sniffed, a would-be modest, yet well-pleased sniff, which seemed to say that though it would not become her to endorse Joan's opinion of her talents, truth would not permit her to deny it.

"I know nothing for certain yet," she said darkly, "but I am on the watch. Miss Carson is not all she seems, mark my words."

The early dinner was rather an ordeal for Margaret. All the members of the family, including her two small pupils, who sat one on each side of her and behaved beautifully, were present, besides Anna Finch and a couple of Geoffrey's friends, motor-bicycle enthusiasts like himself, who had come over from Brighton that morning on their machines.

Had Margaret only been allowed to eat her dinner in silence she would not have found the meal as terrifying as she did. Hilary, it was, who would not permit that, for the second Miss Danvers sat opposite to her, and whenever there was a lull in the conversation she would lean across the table and ask Margaret questions about Hampstead. The questions were asked in such apparent innocence that none of the others guessed that she was trying to catch her out in her answers. But Margaret was only too miserably aware of that fact, and she wondered what it was that she could have said or done to raise suspicions about herself before she had even been twenty-four hours in the house. Hilary's sidelong glances and meaningly put questions worked upon her to such a pitch that she expected to hear her say any moment that an imposter sat at their table in the guise of Eleanor Carson. But she need not have feared such an immediate denouncement. Hilary's suspicions had by no means reached that point yet; even if they had she would not have given voice to them. She was enjoying her cat-and-mouse game far too much to wish to bring it to an end as yet, and several days went by without her doing more than making Margaret as uncomfortable as she could by sly questions and glances. Sometimes a whole meal would pa.s.s without her addressing a single word to Margaret, then, as the latter would begin to feel that her vague alarms were groundless, and that Hilary suspected nothing, sudden allusion to Hampstead, or the school where she was supposed to have taught so long, would set her trembling again.

In short, Hilary contrived to make Margaret's life a burden to her, and one night, the fourth since she had come to The Cedars, Margaret resolved that she could stand it no longer. She would make a clean breast of everything, own that she was at The Cedars under a false name, and that she had no right there at all, and go to Mrs. Murray.

The moment in which she took that resolve was the happiest she had known since she had come to The Cedars. For though she had been slow in confessing it even to herself, it was a fact that, quite apart from Hilary's quiet persecution of her, Margaret was not enjoying herself. It was quite evident to her by that time that none of the family, excepting her two pupils, and even they were to go away on the morrow to stay for a fortnight with an aunt of their father's, cared in the least for her.

None of them included her in their plans or sought her society. Maud was out playing golf or tennis all day long; Hilary and Joan were inseparable, and though Nancy was kind it was only in a lazy, good-natured way that in the end counted for very little. The boys, though they were all, especially Geoffrey and Edward, quite nice to her rarely met her, except at meals, so that she could not depend upon them for companionship. And against all that Margaret had to set the constant necessity of weighing all her actions and words. It was even a strain always to have to remember that her name was Eleanor Carson.

What an immense relief it would be to be herself again, even though it meant going up to that solitary house on the downs where she would have only an old deaf lady for company!

Poor Margaret, she was terribly disillusioned, and bitterly now did she regret the hasty act that had landed her in her present predicament. She must have been mad, she thought gloomily, to have planned and carried out such a brazen piece of imposition; and how could she ever have imagined that she would have had the temerity to have carried it on for weeks and weeks. She knew now that she was incapable of carrying it on for another day, and suddenly the impulse arose in her to go straight to Mrs. Danvers and tell her her real name and confess her shameful behaviour. With that idea in her mind she even started to her feet, but paused before she had taken one step in the direction of the morning-room where Mrs. Danvers, unconscious of the bombsh.e.l.l that her holiday governess had been momentarily minded to throw at her feet, was enjoying her usual after-dinner nap.

It was not that Margaret's courage failed her at the thought of the astounding revelation she had to make. In her present mood confession would have been far easier to her than to continue the deception; it was the thought that she would not be acting fairly to her accomplice that stayed her steps. Eleanor must be told first that she could not go on with it, and their confession must be simultaneous. And, no doubt, Eleanor would be as glad and as thankful as she would be to change back into her proper self. Probably she, too, was finding the deception more than she could bear, and would hail the news that they were to resume their own ident.i.ties with untold relief. But for one day more Margaret must continue to be Eleanor, much as she disliked the thought. But it would be only for one day more, she thought to herself encouragingly, and then she would be able to hold up her head again and not fear that every chance question was going to unmask her as a cheat and a fraud.

Although Margaret had originally planned to go and see Eleanor the day after she had come to The Cedars, the days had so far slipped past without her being able to do so. But now, as the children were going away early on the morrow, there was nothing to prevent her from going to Windy Gap as soon as she chose in the morning. And Margaret fell asleep that night resolving to ask Mrs. Danvers' permission to go for a walk on the downs directly after breakfast.

Not that Margaret need have feared that any obstacle would be placed in the way of her following her own devices. The younger members of the family seemed only too ready to let her do exactly as she chose, as long as she did not expect them to entertain her. When she came down to breakfast the next morning it was to find the big room empty save for herself. All the young ladies and all the young gentlemen had, Martin informed her, taken their breakfast to the foot of the cliffs that morning.

"My dear," said Mrs. Danvers, when a little later Margaret went up to her room to ask her permission to absent herself for the morning, "do whatever you like. It is so nice of you not to be offended with my young people for not taking you with them, but when I suggested it to Maud just as they were ready to start at five o'clock this morning, she said it was too late to wake you up then as they were just off. I said it was very naughty of them not to have thought of you in time; but there it is, my dear, they just forgot you."

"They just forgot me," Margaret repeated to herself as she went down the drive, and she sighed rather sadly. But her spirits revived when she found herself clear of the houses and on the downs.

Far down on the left the sea glittered and sparkled in the brilliant sunshine, the cliffs were of a dazzling whiteness against the bright blue sky, and in front of her and on her right stretched an apparently limitless extent of down lands. In the hollows nestled farms and small hamlets surrounded by trees, which in that wind-swept region only grew in those more sheltered situations. The air was most invigorating for, in spite of the sunshine, a fresh breeze was blowing off the sea, and this cooled the air, which otherwise might have been too hot to make the quick rate at which Margaret was walking agreeable. Mrs. Danvers' directions were easy to follow, for not only were there signposts to aid her, but when she was only half-way down the long white road which, with many curves, wound down to the sh.o.r.e, she could see the dip in the cliffs that gave the name of Windy Gap to the little cove at their base, and also trace the road that ran inland from it along the bottom of the valley to the little village of the same name that, well sheltered by trees, lay in the middle of it, a mile or more away from the cliff-line.

Recognising that there was then no need for her to follow the road as far as The Cove, Margaret struck across the downs to her right in the direction of the village, thus saving herself two sides of a triangle. A little grey church with a squat tower, a little grey house that was obviously the parsonage, a row of small cottages, a few isolated ones, and a farm or two made up the village, and Margaret, after wandering up and down the little main street wondering where Mrs. Murray's house was, went into the one small general shop, which was also the post-office, that the village boasted, to inquire. She was told to follow the road for another few hundred yards, and then to take the first turning to the left, which would lead her directly to Rose Cottage, which was the name of Mrs. Murray's house, and to nowhere else.

Following these instructions, Margaret presently found herself climbing a very steep, rough lane, that ended abruptly at a pair of wide gates.

These opened on to a short, winding drive, and without any hesitation Margaret approached the house, intending to ring and ask boldly for Miss Anstruther. And that would be the last time, she earnestly hoped and believed, that she would be obliged to give her name as Miss Carson. The deception they had played was to end very soon now.

It was a charming house and garden that came into view as Margaret turned the last bend of the little winding drive. The house was little and the garden big, and the latter was literally ablaze with flowers. So was the house, too, but on the present occasion Margaret did not discover that.

The situation on the slope of a hill was well chosen, for though fully open to the south, the house and garden were well protected, both by trees and by the rising ground, from the cold north and the boisterous west wind. To-day, with the sun blazing overhead, it was like a veritable sun-trap, and Margaret, who was beginning to feel the effects of her long walk, looked longingly at a deck-chair that stood invitingly under the shade of a weeping ash at the further end of the lawn.

As Margaret's footsteps sounded noisily on the gravel, the chair, which was placed with its back to the house, creaked suddenly, and Eleanor's head appeared round the side of it.

When her eyes fell upon Margaret, whose hand was at that minute outstretched to lay hold of the bell, an expression of the most vivid surprise, not unmixed with consternation, crossed her face, and, making a warning sign to Margaret, she came running across the gra.s.s.