The Regency (36 page)

Jenny and Sarah fell in with the plan and helped Fanny
devise her costume, and Mathilde and the Keatings good-
naturedly let her help assemble the 'horrors' for the game,
and even went so far as to allow that her suggestion of shelled
hazelnuts for teeth was a good one. Then, although it was not a formal ball, Fanny was present when the fiddlers struck up,
and was able to feel that she had attended her first dance.
Several of the young men good-naturedly asked her to dance
with them, and she enjoyed herself so much that she did not
even make much of a fuss when Miss Rosedale came to sweep
her off to bed before the end.

The following day, Christmas was really over; and perhaps
it was a reaction to the flatness after all the gaiety that made Fanny feel cross and out of sorts. She felt strangely restless,
and had a perilous feeling that everything had been going too
well: she had been being too good, and Miss Rosedale was
having everything her own way. Fanny feared that she was in
danger of being tamed, and by an unremarkable woman with undeniably thick ankles.

The day began badly, with Fanny upsetting the milk at the
breakfast table, which caused Uncle Ned, who perhaps was
also suffering from a deranged liver after twelve days of high living, to remark that the proper place for children was in the
nursery, and that if Fanny meant to turn the breakfast table
into a quagmire, he would go and have his breakfast in peace
in the steward's room. He then suited his actions to the
words, taking his plate and stumping out of the room with
Tiger at his heels. Fanny felt the force of the rebuke deeply:
her pride was touched, and she brooded silently on it for the
rest of the meal.

After breakfast Sophie had to go to Marie to have a gown
refitted, and Miss Rosedale and Fanny had the nursery to
themselves. Miss Rosedale, perhaps feeling that hard work
was the best remedy for over-indulgence, proposed some exercise in mathematics, at which Fanny baulked.

‘I don't want to. It's dull.'

‘
It isn't,' countered Miss Rosedale infuriatingly. 'Come,
we'll imagine you are Compton, and receiving the rents from
the tenants. Now, this is your book and this your pen: let's
suppose three of your tenants come in at once, and one gives
you —'

‘
I don't want to do mathematics,' Fanny said, throwing
down her slate pencil with a fearsome scowl. Under her
lowered eyebrows she regarded Miss Rosedale rather
dubiously. There ought to be some kind of quarrel between
them, she felt; but on the whole she hoped that Miss Rosedale
would find a way round it, and manage to restore her to good
humour.

‘
Exercising your mind will make the time pass more
quickly,' Miss Rosedale said understandingly. 'I tell you this
from experience. Besides, you will need to be good at
mathematics, if you are going to make sure your stewards don't
cheat you, when you are mistress of Morland Place.’

Usually any reference to Fanny's status worked wonders
with her vanity; but this time Fanny only stuck out her lip. 'I
don't want to. Why should I do anything I don't want? You
can't make me.'

‘
We often have to do things we don't want. It's a part of
being grown-up. Sometimes I don't want to teach you, but I
do, because it's my duty. No-one can make me do it — I have
to make myself. That's being grown-up, too.’

Fanny stared at her in hurt and amazement. Not want to
teach her? But it was she who conferred the favour by
letting
Miss Rosedale teach her!

‘
If you don't want to teach me, you can go away,' she said
furiously. 'I don't want you here. 1 never asked to have you
here. I can look after myself. Just go away — see if I care!'

‘Very well,' said Miss Rosedale, and went.

Fanny was staggered. 'You come back!' she shouted,
but Miss Rosedale closed the door behind her and didn't
reappear.

Fanny sat and brooded. The ideas fermenting in her mind
were new and unpleasant. She came to the realisation that
she liked Miss Rosedale, enjoyed her lessons, wanted her to
approve of her, even love her; and the fear that she might not
made Fanny very angry. The more she thought the more she
feared and the angrier she got. She wanted to strike back in
some way. She must shew Miss Rosedale she didn't care,
make her suffer, make her sorry she had ever thought of
crossing Miss Morland of Morland Place.

Fanny got up and marched out, along the corridor to Miss
Rosedale's bedroom, and there hesitated at the door. The
voice of better sense intruded. This was all wrong. Why not
find Miss Rosedale, apologise, and continue the lesson? The
days would be very long if she were left to her own devices,
unable to go out of doors, and with only Sophie to play with.
But Fanny had never apologised for anything in her life, and
it would be hard to begin now, when she was hurt and angry
into the bargain. She squashed down the voice of reason,
tapped on the door, and receiving no answer, opened it
cautiously.

Miss Rosedale was not in the room. It was clean and tidy,
and there was little evidence of the occupier's personality
there, except in the very sparseness of personal possessions.
There were a few books on a little mahogany stand on the
chimney-piece; a polished wooden box — locked — on the
dressing-table, containing, one must suppose, personal effects
such as letters, since Miss Rosedale never wore jewellery.
There was also, in pride of place in the centre of the chest of
drawers, a vase.

Fanny had been told a little about the vase. It was Miss
Rosedale's one great treasure. She took it with her wherever
she went, always seeing to its packing and unpacking herself,
and asking the housemaids wherever she stayed not to touch
it even to dust it, since it was both fragile and very precious.

Fanny stared at it critically. She thought it hideous, with
its black background and snaky green and yellow flowers.
Famille Noir
Miss Rosedale called it. It was over a hundred
years old, Chinese and very valuable, she said, but its value to
her was much greater, because it had been given to her by
her grandmother, whom she had loved very much, and who
was now dead.

The notion stole into Fanny's head to break it. She picked
it up, and held it, and her fingers tingled from the contact, as
though the vase itself were infested with the idea which was so terrible it was also wonderful. She held her breath. To break
the vase would be an act of such enormity that her mind
circled the idea in fascinated horror, almost unable to look at
it directly. Miss Rosedale would be heartbroken — she would
be furious — she would be shocked and shaken. It would
prove Fanny didn't care a jot for her. Once she'd done it, they
could do what they liked to her, nothing would put the vase
back together again. It would prove her power, deny Miss
Rosedale's power. It would be terrible.

She let out her breath in a sigh. She couldn't do it, of
course. Quite apart from the reverence which had been
instilled in her from birth for things old and valuable, she
couldn't do anything so bad to Miss Rosedale whom — she
admitted reluctantly — she loved and wished to please. Yet
thinking of it, handling the vase and imagining the deed, had
eased something in her. Perhaps just thinking about doing
something so wicked was power enough: you didn't actually
need to do it. She reached up her hands and began carefully
to replace the vase on the chest of drawers.

What happened? Was some demon, released into the air by
her wicked thoughts, hovering in the room, looking for some
mischief to do? As she reached out to do something so simple
— merely replace the vase on the level surface from which she had just taken it — somehow her hand shook, or her judgement
was faulty, and instead of lifing it clear, she struck the
edge of the chest with the base of the vase, which let out a
musical chime. Fear like an icy knife contracted her stomach
as she thought it would break. It didn't break, and relief
flushed through her, making her knees feel weak. And then in
the instant in which the door behind her opened and Miss
Rosedale came in, Fanny's hands somehow lost their power,
released their grip, and the vase fell from them, hit the
polished wooden floorboards, and shattered.

Fanny was numb with shock. Her eyes met Miss Rosedale's
in the mirror, and she whirled round, her mouth open, her
face drained of colour. Her mind babbled uselessly with
horror:
That wasn't meant to happen. I didn't mean it. I was
putting it back. Oh please —
but nothing came out. Miss
Rosedale's face was grim, grim. She said nothing, only
crouched down on her haunches over the shattered ruins of
her precious vase.

Fanny stood where she was, rooted to the spot, her hands
thrust behind her as if to hide their infamy. Miss Rosedale
looked at the pieces in silence for a long time. Then she
picked up a fragment, and then another, and stared at them,
as though disbelieving. Fanny waited numbly for the out
burst. Whatever Miss Rosedale said or did, Fanny swore to
herself she would bear it in silence. She could
kill
her if she
liked. No anger could be great enough to burn out the guilt
from Fanny's mind at that moment.

But nothing happened. The silence went on, Miss Rosedale did not rise up like an avenging angel and smite Fanny down.
And suddenly Fanny realised to her unspeakable horror that
Miss Rosedale was crying. Her head was bent over the
fragments of her vase, and tears were seeping out from her eyes
and running down her adult, unassailable cheeks.

Fanny's paralysis was broken. 'Oh no!' she cried out. 'No,
no, I didn't mean it! Oh please don't, please! I didn't mean to.
I didn't, I promise I didn't!' She threw herself down beside her
dear, kind Miss Rosedale, and flung her arms round her
shoulders in a clumsy embrace. The shoulders were stiff and
unyielding. Fanny was pierced with rejection.

‘
Oh I didn't, I didn't!' she moaned. 'Oh please — I never
meant to break it. I was putting it back! Oh please —’