Miss Prudhome gave a worried squeak of agreement, which Hester registered absently. If she threw herself upon the confidence of Mrs Bun
ting-no, even better, Mrs Redland-she could explain her anxieties and enlist that critical lady’s support.
She pushed the plate away. Somehow she could not feel hungry; in fact, her inner equilibrium felt decidedly unsteady. Could she be sickening for something?
‘I will talk about my predicament at Mrs Bunting’s At Home tomorrow,’ she decided out loud. ‘I will be quite frank about my fears and the gossip and I will ask the more formidable matrons for advice.’
‘A good plan.’ Susan nodded vehemently. ‘They will see you have nothing to hide and will feel sorry for you and flattered that you are deferring to their judgement.’
Pleased by this show of support, Hester relaxed, only to be jolted by Jethro. ‘Where did those dead roses come from, Miss Hester?’
There was no point dissembling. ‘I have no idea. I found them on the dining-room table this morning.’ She looked at their startled faces and added, ‘Next to a burned-out candle in a chamber stick.’
‘But there was no one-’
‘You saw a light before we got home!’
‘What roses?’
They spoke over each other in a rush of realization, then fell silent. Jethro gnawed his lower lip. ‘I locked up, all right and tight before we went out, Miss Hester, I’d take my Bible oath on it.’
‘I know,’ she assured him. ‘And you checked again when we got home, I saw you.’
‘We’ll have to change the locks,’ he announced. ‘And I’ll go all round outside and try to force the window catches, see if there are any that are loose.’
‘What did his lordship have to say about the roses?’ Prudy asked abruptly.
‘He said he did not like their symbolism.’
Jethro’s brow furrowed and Susan explained. ‘Dead flowers. And roses, at that-like dead love, perhaps. Nasty.’ She shivered.
‘Well, we will do no good brooding on it,’ Hester said briskly. ‘Jethro, when you have brought in the coals for Susan and checked the windows, please take the gig into Tring and find a locksmith. Susan, you have plenty to do in the house. Prudy, could you spare me a moment, please?’
‘Should we lock ourselves in?’ Miss Prudhome enquired nervously.
‘Certainly not.’ Hester was brisk. ‘Whoever it is, is trying to scare us away and I will not give them the satisfaction.’
She poured herself another cup of coffee, pretending she did not hear Jethro’s muttered observation, ‘Only one person we know of wants us out of here, and that’s a fact.’
When the coffee was finished Hester felt she could put a difficult interview off no longer and bore Miss Prudhome away into the drawing room.
‘What do the roses really mean?’ the little governess asked, her voice quavering.
‘I do not know, only that it appears that someone has access to the house without our knowledge.’
To her surprise Miss Prudhome did not throw a fit of the vapours that Hester had expected to be developing. Her thin lips narrowed and she sat up straighter. ‘And do I understand that his lordship is under suspicion, Hester dear?’
‘He is the only person we know of who wishes me to leave,’ Hester admitted.
‘I know my duty,’ Miss Prudhome announced, ‘it is to protect you.’ Her voice shook again. ‘I know I have not been strong enough. I have shrunk from standing at your side.’
‘It is all so new to you, Maria,’ Hester said, suddenly desperately sorry for the lonely little figure.
Miss Prudhome started. ‘No one ever calls me by my Christian name; my pupils always called me Prudy…’
‘But I am not a pupil,’ Hester said gently. ‘Was it so very difficult and lonely, being a governess?’
‘Yes, but one expects it, you see,’ Maria confided. ‘One is neither one thing nor the other. It was difficult at first, when one was young, to know one’s place, but one soon learns…’