The Great Lover by Jill Dawson Page A

camping there, including one ‘very special girl’, whose name is Noel Olivier. Her father, he said, is Sir Sydney, as if I should know who that person is. He chatted as I made up the fire in the grate, the morning having a late-summer chill, and so my back was to him, which was a good thing: he couldn’t see my expression. He talked of the girl and her three lovely sisters and some strange school called Bedales that the girl attends– she is a schoolgirl then, younger than me, even! –a school where, as far as I could understand, nudity and swimming in cold lakes takes the place of book learning.
    Well, how am I supposed to reply to that? When the silence between us grew long, and I wondered (with my back to him) if he was awaiting my answer, I decided a safe bet would be to mention that, for myself, I rather like the nice Mr Ward (Kittie calls him Baldy, on account of his bald pate, though we know his Christian name is Dudley) and the sensible Miss Gwen Darwin. I remarked that it would probably be a good thing if he spent more time with a lady like Miss Darwin, for any lady who has the good sense to put a strip of braid around her skirtin order to catch the mud in a place like this is a very resourceful lady indeed. There was a long pause after I said this, then a sudden snuffle of loud laughter. I turned round.
    ‘How on earth did the maid get so familiar?’ he said, smiling broadly at me.
    I realised at once I had overstepped my place and clapped a hand to my mouth. ‘I’m sorry, I—It’s in my nature to be quick to judge,’ I murmured, and then could think of nothing more to add because the bald truth of this hung in the air between us.
    He was still in bed at this point, but he sat up and stared straight at me, with the look of someone about to deliver a speech. ‘Parents, now: you kiss them sometimes, and send for them when you’re ill, because they’re useful and they like it; and you give them mild books to read, just strong enough to make them think they’re a little shocked, but not much, so they can think they’re keeping up with the times. Oh, you ought to be very kind to them, make little jokes for them, and keep them awake in the evening, if possible. But never, never let them be intimate and confidential because they can’t understand, and it only makes them miserable. Perhaps I should apply the same rule to you, Nell.’
    ‘Oh, I truly am sorry, sir, if I spoke out of turn.’
    ‘I’m joking Nellie. I like your…spirit. It reminds me of home. Ha! Can you imagine that? You remind me of Mother. Calmness and firmness are no good with her. She’s always ever so much calmer and firmer than I could ever be…’
    I didn’t know how to answer this, except to say that a mother is a dear thing; and that both my parents are dead. He gave me a queer look, then, and returned to his reading.
    Was I dismissed? I stood for a moment, wondering, and then turned sharply on my heels, without waiting to hear.
    It is not me who is familiar, I was thinking, but quite the other way round. He is easy with me in that way of men whohave lived their whole life with servants: we’re invisible to them most of the time, except when they need us. I picked up the breakfast things and left the room, asking stiffly if I could do anything more for him (to which he muttered something I didn’t choose to hear). I left without bidding him good morning.
     
    This morning I have received something vile and unwelcome. Seven pages of damn plain speaking from the eldest Olivier girl, Big Sister Margery. Any fond memories I have of the afore-mentioned with her brown mane seductively awry, romping on the grass at Penshurst camp, kicking up her skirts and holding Noel in a headlock worthy of any man dissolved at once. How mistaken I was about her.
    Margery Olivier, I’ve decided, cannot possibly be made of the same flesh and blood as Noel–she must be a witch, sent by the Ranee to torture me. The letter was brought by Nellie,