Shepherdess of Sheep Read online

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  PART TWO

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  PART THREE

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Epilogue

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  Noel Streatfeild

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  Noel Streatfeild

  SHEPHERDESS OF SHEEP

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  Contents

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  PART TWO

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  PART THREE

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Epilogue

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  Also by Noel Streatfeild

  and available from Bello

  The Whicharts

  Parson’s Nine

  A Shepherdess of Sheep

  It Pays to be Good

  Caroline England

  Luke

  The Winter is Past

  I Ordered a Table for Six

  Myra Carrol

  Grass in Piccadilly

  Mothering Sunday

  Aunt Clara

  Judith

  The Silent Speaker

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  To

  MY MOTHER

  “She walks—the lady of my delight—

  A shepherdess of sheep.”

  Alice Meynell

  Prologue

  SARAH ONION turned out of Piccadilly, and into Dover Street, and walked up the left-hand pavement, nervously eyeing the houses across the street. Then with a sudden catch of her breath she stopped. She gave an extra tug to her already smooth black gloves, and another turn to her veil where it was twisted to hold it tight under her chin, and looked down at her neat black coat and skirt. “A lady is known by her appearance and reticence,” she murmured, then squared her thin shoulders, and crossed the street. Once there she stopped facing a brass plate. There could be no mistake about it. “Miss Black’s Agency” in large letters, and “Second Floor” in small ones, but Sarah read it several times, and then compared the address on the letter she was holding, and then read the brass plate again, and quite suddenly she giggled. “You poor idiot,” she scolded herself. “Do you know you are loitering here because you are afraid to go in? If Lady Alse could see you now she would say: ‘Sarah, this is most peculiar behaviour,’ and for once she’d be quite right. Now, my girl, let’s have no more nonsense from you. How do you think you are going to leave footprints on the sands of time, when you can’t even take your feet up an agent’s stairs? Now, when I say ‘One, two, three, go,’ you’ll go, and that’s all there is to it!” She took a deep breath. “One, two, three, go!” On the “go” she put her foot on the first step and began her climb to the second floor.

  Miss Black’s room was filled with large books and files, the walls were a dingy yellow, the ceiling grey, and the floor covered in oilcloth, once patterned in red and brown, but now peeling with old age. The only furniture was a desk and two chairs, and the only decoration a large engraving of Queen Victoria at the bonnet and mantle date. On one of the chairs, under Queen Victoria and behind the desk, sat Miss Black. Miss Black was one of those persons who appear to step from the schoolroom to the grave without any visible alteration in their appearance. She was so nondescript and so sandy-coloured that Sarah, pausing nervously in the doorway, thought, “Did God make her to match the wall-paper, or she choose the walls to match her?” Thinking this, her lips twitched. Miss Black, looking up at that moment, saw the twitch and rapped out sharply, “Sit down, please.” Sarah shocked with herself for her misplaced levity, sat quickly, and folded her hands in her lap, and looked reverently at Queen Victoria. After a moment Miss Black pushed away the ledger in which she was writing.

  “Miss Onion?”

  “Yes.”

  Miss Black opened a drawer and took out some letters—“I have had two letters about you, one from Lady Alse, and one from Miss Tobin.”

  “That’s right, I knew they had written. Miss Tobin taught me and Lady Alse has been a mother to me. I expect she’s told you that. I’ve another letter from her here, but there’s nothing much in it, I think, except to prove me being me.”

  Miss Black read the letter and nodded.

  “Purely introductory. Now, Miss Onion, stop me if I have any of the facts wrong. Your father was doctor in the village of Stouton Saint Mary, and you were therefore tenants of Lady Alse. Your mother died when you were quite small.”

  “When I was ten.”

  “Quite. After which Lady Alse mothered you and your sister and arranged that you should come every day to Stouton Castle to do lessons with little Miss Alse.”

  “Yes, with Miss Tobin.”

  “Quite. Miss Tobin, as you doubtless know, was sent to Lady Alse by me. She is a governess of whose abilities I have the highest opinion, and she writes that she found you an exceptionally clever girl, in fact she says it was her wish that you should be sent to college.”

  “I know, but Daddy didn’t like women being educated too much, and neither did Lady Alse, so I didn’t go.”

  “Quite. Of course, if you had gone and had taken a degree, you would be able to earn more money to-day.”

  “I know, but you see Daddy didn’t know he was going to die.”

  “Quite.”

  “It wasn’t ‘quite’ at all; he might have known easily, might have stopped himself dying really; he felt awfully ill and he would go out hunting just the same, and so he died of pneumonia. He hadn’t expected to die for years and years, and so he hadn’t begun to save, and when everything was paid up he only left Mary and me fifty pounds a year between us, and as we couldn’t live on that, Lady Alse’s lawyer has invested it, and with the interest it gets it will be more presently, and can keep Mary and me in our declining years. But I think Mary might marry, she’s very pretty—”

  “Quite, but—”

  “Mary’s gone as a companion to a cousin. It’s not a very nice engagement, because Cousin May is religious, and last time we stayed with her we had to hand round tracts out-of-doors to people we didn’t know. But I don’t think Mary could get much else to do, she’s delicate and no good
at lessons, but she’s pretty.” She stopped, for Miss Black, despairing of interrupting this flow of information, suddenly thrust a form in front of her—

  “Would you fill this in, please? There is a pen beside you.” Sarah dipped the pen into the rather gritty ink, and sucked its end and read the form, then she filled in her name: Sarah Bertha Onion. She read it out loud and grinned at Miss Black—

  “Isn’t that the most terrible mixture, Bertha and Onion; either’s bad enough, but together they are simply frightful, aren’t they?” Miss Black nodded, but it was not a nod of consent, but a directional nod which led Sarah’s eye back to the form. She felt the unspoken reproof, and scolded herself. “Now you mustn’t keep talking, it’s a besetting sin; goodness knows you’ve been told that often enough.” To show how businesslike and silent she could be, she wrote nineteen against her age, and Hugh Patrick Onion, Doctor, against her father’s name and profession, then she hesitated, and after thought looked up apologetically at Miss Black. “I haven’t an address, I’m just staying with Lady Alse till I’m suited, and I don’t think I’ve any qualifications, and I don’t know what salary to ask for, but very little would do as long as they keep me, and take me at once, because although Lady Alse said I could stay with her till I was suited, I think she’s hoping the suiting won’t take very long.”

  “Put Lady Alse’s address. I will fill in your qualifications for you. Your salary should be fifty pounds.”

  “Should it? Should it really? That’s as much as Mary and I have for our declining years.”

  Miss Black gave a sniff, and Sarah, feeling all it was meant to say, held the tip of her tongue between her teeth, and raised her eyes attentively. “I won’t say one word more,” she thought.

  Miss Black tapped the desk with her forefinger, then she leant back, having obviously come to a decision—

  “I am going to send you to a family at once.”

  “Now, do you mean?” Sarah was so surprised that the words leapt from her before she had time to hold them back.

  Miss Black looked at her crushingly—

  “Naturally not. I am perfectly aware you are only in London for the day, and must go back to pack your things, but I should like you to go to-morrow.”

  “Would you?” Sarah gave a relieved sigh. “Lady Alse will be pleased.”

  “Now kindly do not talk for a moment, but listen to me. This is rather an unusual situation, for you go to it solely on my recommendation, for Mrs. Lane is an invalid and so there is no interview, as there would be in the ordinary way. You go for a month’s trial, fares both ways and two months’ salary. The difficulty is to suit Mrs. Lane; she is determined to go on trying until she has found exactly what she wants. She has four children, and has the strongest views on their education, and, although she is tied to a sofa, she overlooks everything herself. She has given me the clearest instructions as to whom she wants, and I have done my best. I have sent her five excellent young women, good class, the right age, highly educated—”

  “And they’ve not been kept after the month?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t think you’d better send me. Lady Alse says I mustn’t expect too much, for though I’ve had a good education, I am very unfinished.”

  Miss Black nodded—

  “I realise that. But, nevertheless, I intend sending you. Mrs. Lane may like someone that she can mould. I shall send a telegram to tell her to expect you to-morrow. I will look up trains for you now.” She drew the Bradshaw towards her, and Sarah watched her glumly as she turned over the pages with experienced fingers.

  “I wish you wouldn’t send me there, Miss Black. I don’t think I’m the sort of person to be taken when five other people, of the sort you said they were, weren’t. And I don’t like to think what Lady Alse will say if I’m back in a month.”

  Miss Black shut the Bradshaw and picked up a pencil and a sheet of note paper—

  “Make up your mind not to be back in a month. You catch the ten-forty-one up to London to-morrow morning and cross to Victoria and catch the one-eighteen down.” She jotted down the trains. “Never expect to fail; I have said that to many a girl and she lived to thank me for the advice. My other advice to you, on the threshold of your career, is, identify yourself with the household in which you live, let their aims be your aims, and your one wish to gain the respect of your pupils. Always remember the words of the late Lord Beaconsfield, ‘The secret of success is constancy to purpose.’”

  Sarah looked depressed—

  “I think I’d better borrow a pencil and paper,” she said, “and write that down.”

  PART ONE

  Chapter I

  SARAH followed the butler up the stairs, and felt oppressed by his silence. She toyed with the idea of mentioning to him that it was a beautiful day, but thought better of it, recalling that Lady Alse had said: “Be careful to keep the servants in their place.” But, step by step, as she followed him and noted the correctness of his back, her respect for Lady Alse’s advice weakened. “It’s my belief,” she told herself, “that Lady Alse, never having been a governess, didn’t know what she was talking about. I expect really it’s him that keeps me in my place.” At this moment they reached the drawing-room door—

  “Miss Onion, madam.”

  Sarah stood alone in the doorway, and looked across many feet of rose and gold carpet to Mrs. Lane lying on a sofa by an open window.

  “How-do-you-do, Miss Onion? I’m afraid I can’t get up; will you come and sit here beside me?”

  Sarah, her eyes full of pity, crossed the room and stammered

  “Do you know, I expected you to be quite old.”

  “Old! Why?”

  “You being an invalid. Why, you aren’t much older than me.”

  “Oh, come, I’ve been married nine years. How old are you? Seventeen?”

  “Nineteen. I was nineteen last month.”

  “Were you really? You don’t look it.”

  “No, I know I don’t. Lady Alse says my appearance is a grave disadvantage to me.”

  “Does she? Who’s Lady Alse?”

  “You know, it does seem odd to me to hear you say that, I thought everybody knew Lady Alse, just like they knew God.”

  “Does everybody know God? I should have doubted it.” Sarah blushed.

  “Goodness me! I oughtn’t to have said that. I will say just what I think, it pops into my head and out it comes; it’s my besetting sin.”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t mind. Tell me about Lady Alse.”

  “She showed Daddy how to bring us up. You see, our mother died when Mary was eleven and me ten.”

  “You poor little things. And now your father wants you to be a governess?”

  “Oh no, he doesn’t, at least, I shouldn’t think so, unless he’s changed a lot; you see, he’s dead. I filled in a form saying so; didn’t Miss Black send it to you?”

  “I’ve only had a telegram to say you were coming so far. I daresay I’ll get a letter by the afternoon post, but, anyway, I’d much rather you told me about yourself; it’s more interesting than reading it on a form.”

  “There isn’t any more to tell. Daddy died and only left Mary and me fifty pounds a year between us, so we’re saving it for our declining years.”

  Mrs. Lane laughed.

  “They sound a bit frugal, your declining years. Whose idea was it you should teach, your own?”

  Sarah looked grave; this seemed to her a leading question, and not one to be replied to, as her inclination lay, by: “Me? No! I never thought of doing anything.” No, decidedly that was the wrong sort of answer for a governess to make, and one on a month’s trial at that.

  “I don’t think,” Mrs. Lane broke in just as the pause was becoming awkward, “that teaching is the sort of career to take up in a haphazard way merely because you have to earn your living; such a lot
, such a terrible lot, depends on you.”

  Sarah was awed and puzzled. “I think Sarah should teach,” Miss Tobin had written. “I shall get this poor child a nice situation as a governess,” Lady Alse had said to her friends. And: “A governess, how nice,” the friends had said to Sarah. And now here was Mrs. Lane being solemn about it, almost as if she was going to be a missionary. She tried to find a suitable answer.

  “I know. ‘The secret of success is constancy to purpose.’”

  Mrs. Lane gazed at her with dancing eyes.

  “You do say the most unexpected things. Who on earth said that? Was it Lady Alse?” Without waiting for a reply, she continued, again serious: “The secret of success as a governess, my dear, is a much less cut-and-dried affair; I should think constancy of purpose, especially when a rule of life, would be a positive hindrance.”

  “Would it? Well, I am glad, it’s depressed me ever since Miss Black said it.” Sarah suddenly felt at ease, and wriggled back comfortably in her chair. “The truth is, I don’t know a bit if I’ll make a good governess; it wouldn’t surprise me if I didn’t. The person you ought to have had was Miss Tobin, even Miss Black approved of her, and I shouldn’t think she was a person who often approved of people. I’ve been sent to you because of Miss Tobin, not a bit because of me. I don’t think if Miss Tobin hadn’t written about me, I’d ever have been sent anywhere at all. Miss Tobin looked just like a governess—that’s a great help, you know—she wore pince-nez, they look just right, I could wear those myself, of course, but they’d have to have plain glass in them, for I see very well.”

  “My dear Miss Onion, don’t dream of getting pince-nez, I want my babies to have nice things to look at. I’m sure Miss Tobin never looked nice.’’

  “Oh yes, she did, in her own way, when she hadn’t hay fever or a sick headache.”

  “All the same, I’m convinced I wouldn’t have cared for Miss Tobin, and, anyway, here you are, and I hope you are going to be happy while you are with us. You won’t be overworked; I’ve four children, but only two do any lessons, Ursula and Ann, they are seven and five. The other two, Peter and Jane, are three and eighteen months, and spend their time with Nanny in the nursery. Of course, Ursula and Ann don’t do very serious lessons yet, but they want taking for walks and playing with. My husband—”