Snare of Serpents Read online

Nanny Grant had left only a short time before. She had gone to live with a cousin in the country. Her departure had saddened me deeply. She had been my mother’s nurse and had stayed with her until her marriage and then she had come to this house and eventually nannied me. We had been very close in those early days. She was the one who had comforted me when I had my nightmares and fell and hurt myself. There would always be memories of those days. When the snow came she would take me out into the garden at the back between the mews and the house, patiently sitting on a seat while I made a snowman. I remembered her suddenly picking me up and crying: “That’ll do. Do you want to turn your old nanny into a snowman? Look at you now. Your eyes are dancing at the thought. Ye’re a wee villain, that’s what ye are.”

  I remember those rainy days when we sat at the window waiting for it to clear up so that we could go out. We would sing together:

  Rainy rainy rattle stanes

  Dinna rain on me

  Rain on John o‘ Groaties’ hoose

  Far across the sea.

  And now Nanny Grant had gone, leaving those wonderful memories—all part of a life over which a shutter was drawn on that tragic day I had gone into my mother’s room and found her dead.

  ”MOURNING FOR A DAUGHTER is a year,” announced Mrs. Kirkwell. “For us I reckon it should be from three to six months. Six for Mr. Kirkwell and me. Three months will be enough for the maids.”

  How I hated my black clothes. Every time I put them on I was reminded of my mother lying dead in her bed.

  Nothing was the same. Sometimes I had a feeling that we were waiting for something to happen, waiting to emerge from our mourning. Lilias, I knew, was waiting for the summons to my father’s presence to be told that as I was growing up her services would no longer be needed.

  As for my father, he was away more than ever. I was glad of this. I dreaded meals with him. We were both too conscious of that empty chair.

  Not that he had ever been communicative. He had always seemed encased in a demeanour of formality. My mother, though, had been able to break through it. I thought of how his lips twitched when he felt amusement which he tried hard to suppress. I guessed he had cared for her deeply, which was strange because she was so different from him. She would have thrust aside the conventions to which he adhered so strongly. I remembered his gently reproaching voice when she said something which he considered rather outrageous. “My dear … my dear …” I had heard him murmur, smiling in spite of himself. If it had been left to her, our household would have been a merry one.

  Once my mother said: “Your father is a man of high principles, a good man. He tries so hard to live up to his high standards. Sometimes I think it is more comfortable to set them slightly lower, so that one does not have to disappoint oneself.”

  I did not quite understand what she meant and when I asked her to explain she just laughed and said: “My mind’s wandering. It’s nothing …” Then she shrugged her shoulders and murmured: “Poor David.”

  I wondered why she should be pitying my father. But she would say no more on the subject.

  Some three weeks after my mother’s death my father’s sister, Aunt Roberta, came to stay with us. She had been ill at the time of the funeral and unable to attend, but at this time she had recovered her good health.

  She was quite unlike my father. He was a reserved man who kept aloof from us. Not so Aunt Roberta. Her voice could be heard all over the house, high-pitched and authoritative. She surveyed us all with the utmost disapproval.

  She was unmarried. Mrs. Kirkwell, who greatly resented her presence in the house, said she was not surprised that Miss Glentyre had not been able to find a man bold enough to take her on.

  Aunt Roberta announced that she had come to us because my father, having lost his wife, would need a woman to supervise his household. As my mother had never supervised anything this was unacceptable from the start. Moreover it sent shivers of apprehension through the house, for it implied that Aunt Roberta intended to make her stay a permanent one.

  From the moment she arrived she began to disrupt the household. Resentment was brewing, and it occurred to me that the servants might soon be looking for new places.

  “It’s a good thing that Mr. Kirkwell is a patient man,” Mrs. Kirkwell told Lilias, who imparted the information to me. Lilias added: “I really think that, comfortable as they have all been here, this might be too much for them.”

  How I wished she would go.

  My father, fortunately, was less patient than Mr. Kirkwell. There was an acid conversation between them one evening at dinner.

  The conversation was about me.

  “You should remember, David, that you have a daughter,” began Roberta, helping herself from the dish of parsnips which Kitty was offering.

  “It is something I am not likely to forget,” retorted my father.

  “She is growing up … fast.”

  “At the same rate, I have always thought, as others of her age.”

  “She needs looking after.”

  “She has a perfectly adequate governess. That, I believe, will suffice for a while.”

  “Governess!” snorted Aunt Roberta. “What do they know about launching a girl?”

  “Launching?” I cried in dismay.

  “I was not talking to you, Davina.”

  I felt angry that she should consider I was still at the stage of being seen but not heard, yet not too young for launching.

  “You were talking about me,” I retorted sharply.

  “Oh dear me. What is the world coming to?”

  “Roberta,” said my father calmly. “You are welcome to stay here, but I cannot have you attempting to rule my household. It has always been efficiently managed, and I do not care to have it changed.”

  “I cannot understand you, David,” said Aunt Roberta. “I think you forget …”

  “It is you who forget that you are no longer the elder sister. I know that you are two years older than I, and that may have had some significance when you were eight and I was six. But at this stage I do not need you to look after my household.”

  She was taken aback. She shrugged her shoulders philosophically with an air of resignation, murmuring: “The ingratitude of some people is beyond all understanding.”

  I thought she might have left the house then, but she seemed to persuade herself that, unappreciated as she was, it was her duty to steer us away from disaster.

  Then something happened which shocked me deeply—as it did all of us—and made her decision for her.

  Hamish was driving my father almost all the time now. The position in the mews had been reversed. It was not Hamish who now stood in when his father was otherwise engaged, but the father who was called when Hamish was not available. Hamish was swaggering more than ever. He made a habit of coming into the kitchen. He would sit in a chair at the table watching everyone … even me if I happened to be there. It was clear that Kitty, Bess and the tweeny found his presence exciting; and he indulged in condescending flirtation with them.

  I could not understand why they liked him so much. I thought his hairy arms were revolting. He seemed to find great pleasure in displaying them, and his sleeves were invariably rolled up to the elbow so that he could stroke his arms caressingly.

  Mrs. Kirkwell regarded him with suspicion. He had tried to be jolly with her, but without success. He had a habit of laying his hands on the girls which they seemed to like; but the charm he exerted so easily over them did not extend to Mrs. Kirkwell.

  Once he touched her shoulder as she passed and murmured: “You must have been a bonny wench in your day, Mrs. K. A bit of a wee handful, if you asked me … but perhaps not so wee, eh?”

  She replied with the utmost dignity: “I’d thank you to remember who you are talking to, Hamish Vosper.”

  At which he made cooing noises and said: “So it’s like that, is it? I’ve got to mind me pints and quarts here, I can see.”

  “And I can’t have you lying around in this kitc
hen either,” retorted Mrs. Kirkwell.

  “Oh aye. But I’m waiting for the master, you see.”

  “Well, the sooner he sends for you the better in my opinion.”

  Lilias Milne came into the kitchen at that moment, I remember. She wanted to speak to Bess to ask her if she had seen a packet of pins on her table that morning. She had left them there and now they were gone. She thought Bess might have put them in with the rubbish.

  I noticed that Hamish was watching her with a look of speculation—not as he looked at the young girls, but intently … differently.

  IT WAS A FEW DAYS LATER when the trouble arose.

  It began when I met Aunt Roberta on the stairs. It was after luncheon and I knew she had a rest in the afternoon. It was the one time when the house settled down to a peaceful quietness.

  Aunt Roberta had been a little subdued since her altercation with my father, but she still supervised all that went on in the house and her eagle eye constantly alighted with disapproval on most things around her.

  I was on the point of hastily returning to my room when she saw me.

  “Oh, it’s you, is it, Davina? You are dressed for going out?”

  “Yes. Miss Milne and I often take a walk at this time of day.”

  She was about to pass some comment when she stopped suddenly, listening.

  “Is anything wrong?” I asked.

  She put her fingers to her lips and I went quietly to stand beside her.

  “Listen,” she whispered.

  I heard the sound of a stifled laugh and strange noises. They were coming from behind one of the closed doors.

  Aunt Roberta strode to that door and threw it open. I was standing beside her and I saw a sight which astonished me. The tangled bodies of Kitty and Hamish were on the bed and both of them were in a state of seminudity.

  They started up. Kitty’s face was scarlet and even Hamish looked a little taken aback.

  I heard Aunt Roberta’s quick intake of breath. Her first thoughts were for me. “Leave us, Davina,” she cried.

  But I could not move. I could only stare in fascination at the two on the bed.

  Aunt Roberta advanced into the room.

  “Disgusting … I never saw … you depraved …” She was spluttering, for once unable to find the words she needed.

  Hamish had risen from the bed and began struggling into his clothes. He assumed an air of truculent bravado. He grinned at Aunt Roberta. “Well,” he said, “it’s only human nature, after all.”

  “You disgusting creature,” she said. “Get out of this house. As for you …” She could not bring herself to say Kitty’s name. “You … you slut. You’ll pack your bags immediately and get out … get out, both of you.”

  Hamish shrugged his shoulders, but Kitty looked stunned. Her face, which had been as red as holly berries, was now as white as paper.

  Aunt Roberta turned and almost fell on me.

  “Davina! What is the world coming to? I told you to go. It is quite … disgusting. I knew something was going on in this house. As soon as your father comes in …”

  I turned and fled. I shut myself in my room. I, too, was shocked. I felt nauseated. “Human nature,” Hamish had said. I had never been so close to that sort of human nature before.

  THERE WAS SILENCE in the house. The servants had congregated in the kitchen. I pictured them sitting round the table whispering. Lilias came to my room.

  “There is going to be trouble,” she said. “And you were there.”

  I nodded.

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw the two of them … on the bed.”

  Lilias shivered.

  “It was so repulsive,” I said. “Hamish’s legs are hairy … just like his arms.”

  “I suppose a man like that would have some sort of attraction for a girl like Kitty.”

  “What sort of attraction?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but I can see that he is … virile. He could be quite overpowering to a young girl. They’ll dismiss her, of course. They’ll dismiss both of them. I wonder where Kitty will go. And what will they do with him? He lives there … in the mews. There’s going to be great trouble over this when your father comes home.”

  I could not forget Kitty’s face. There had been such terrible fear there. She had been with us for four years and had been fourteen when she had come to us from the country.

  “Where will she go?” I asked. Lilias shook her head.

  I knew that when my father came home Aunt Roberta would insist that Kitty left. I could not get out of my mind a picture of her standing on the pavement surrounded by her few possessions.

  I went up to the room she shared with Bess and Jenny the tweeny. She was there alone, sent there by Aunt Roberta. She was sitting on the bed looking desperately afraid.

  I went in and sat beside her. She seemed like a different person in her skirt and blouse from that half-nude creature on the bed.

  “Oh, Miss Davina, you shouldn’t be here,” she said. Then: “Is the master home?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet.”

  “Her?” she asked.

  “You mean my aunt? My father has made it clear that she does not run the household.”

  “I’ll have to go when he comes.”

  “How could you … do that?” I demanded. And added: “With him?”

  She looked at me and shook her head. “You don’t understand, Miss Davina. It’s natural like … with him.”

  “Human nature,” I said, quoting him. “But it seems so …”

  “Well, there’s something about him.”

  “All that hair,” I said with a shiver. “On his legs as well as his arms.”

  “Maybe …”

  “Kitty, what will you do?”

  She shook her head and started to cry.

  “If they send you away … where will you go?”

  “I just don’t know, Miss.”

  “Could you go to your home?”

  “It’s miles away … near to John o’ Groats. I came down because there’s nothing for me up there. There’s only me old dad now. He couldna keep me up there. There’s nothing. I canna go back and tell him why.”

  “Then where, Kitty?”

  “Perhaps the master will give me another chance,” she said hopefully, but I could see she thought there was little chance of that.

  I thought of his reading the Bible … all the little bits about the vengeance of the Lord, and it occurred to me that he would consider Kitty’s sin too great for forgiveness. I had always liked Kitty. She had been jolly and merry. I wanted to help her. I had a money box in which I put the odd coin saved from my weekly pocket money. She could have what I had there. It was not much, and the problem was where could she go?

  “You must go somewhere,” I said.

  She shook her head in despair.

  What happened to girls who had sinned as Kitty had? They were driven out into the falling snow. There was no snow at this time, but that was small consolation.

  I had heard of a nun being walled up for a similar offence. It appeared to be one of the greatest sins. Because of it some girls had babies and were shamed forever.

  I did my best to comfort Kitty. I hoped my father would not come home that night, which would give her a little respite— time to think of some solution.

  I went to Lilias and told her that I had been with Kitty and what a state of desolation she was in.

  “She’s a fool,” said Lilias, “to behave so … and particularly with a man like Hamish. She can’t be quite right in the head.”

  “She really is desperate, Lilias. She has nowhere to go.”

  “Poor girl.”

  “What will she do? She might kill herself. Lilias, what if she did? I should never forget that I hadn’t helped her.”

  “What could you do?”

  “I could give her the little money I have.”

  “I doubt that would last long.”

  “I went to talk to her about
having to go. You could go back to your vicarage. You do have a home. It’s different for Kitty. She has nowhere to go. They wouldn’t be so cruel, would they, to turn her out when she has nowhere to go?”

  “She’s committed the cardinal sin, it seems. They stoned people like that, according to the Bible. I think some people would do the same today.”

  “What can we do for her?”

  “You say she has nowhere to go.”

  “That’s what she says. If they turn her out she will just wander about the streets. Lilias, I can’t bear it. She was so happy here. I can’t forget the way she laughed when he looked at her and joked … and it has all led to this.”

  Lilias was thoughtful. She said suddenly: “I feel as you do about Kitty. She’s got caught up with that man. He’s a rake and she … well, she’s a silly flighty girl. He overwhelmed her… and she gave way. It’s easy to understand. And for that her life will be ruined, while he goes merrily on his way.”

  “If my father dismisses Kitty he’ll have to dismiss Hamish, so Hamish will have to go away.”

  “How can he dismiss the whole family? I’ve thought of something: I’ll send Kitty to my home.”

  “To your home? What could they do?”

  “My father is vicar of Lakemere. He is a real Christian. By that I mean he practises what he preaches. Few do, you know. He is truly a good man. We’re poor … but he wouldn’t refuse Kitty shelter. He might be able to find a place for her. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s helped a girl in trouble. I’ll write and tell him about it.”

  “Would he take her in … after what she’s done?”

  “If I wrote to him he would understand.”

  “Oh, Lilias, wouldn’t that be wonderful!”

  “It’s a hope anyway,” said Lilias.

  I threw my arms round her neck. “Will you write that letter? Will you tell her where she can go? I’ll see how much money I’ve got. If we could get her fare.”

  “I daresay she will be given the wages which are due to her and with what we can muster …”

  “I’m going to tell her. I must. I couldn’t bear to see that awful lost look on her face.”

  I went and told Kitty what we were planning and I had the pleasure of seeing her abject despair turn to hope.