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And may I call you Cordelia?’
‘Of course, Lady Trescombe, and I’d like Eileen to call me that too, if you don’t mind.’
‘I think it a very good idea. Get to know each other today and tomorrow we’ll work out some kind of routine. You will want to go shopping—perhaps in two or three days time? Did I tell you how we are travelling?’
Cordelia shook her head. ‘No, Lady Trescombe.’
‘We fly to Munich and take a small cruise ship down the Danube. A slow way to get to Vienna perhaps, but we shall have a week to get to know each other and if Eileen is feeling doubtful about meeting her uncle and her life with him, you will have the opportunity to reassure her. I should warn you that I intend to do nothing during the week; I shall rely upon you to entertain Eileen and keep her happy; we shall meet for lunch and dinner of course, but I shall put you in sole charge.’
She gave Cordelia a questioning look as she spoke and Cordelia returned the look calmly; if Lady Trescombe was hinting delicately that Eileen was going to be difficult she refused to let it fluster her; no one, she considered, could be more difficult than her own stepsister; if she could emerge unscathed from a number of years of dealing with tantrums and rudeness and not be paid for it either, then she could certainly cope with Eileen. She stood up. ‘I’ll go and meet her now, shall I?’
The french windows were open on to the garden beyond and she strolled off, making for the beech hedge in as casual a manner as she could manage. She had no doubt that Lady Trescombe would be watching from the house to see if she were showing any signs of nerves. She reached the beech hedge and went, still unhurriedly, beyond it and, just as Lady Trescombe had said, found Eileen lying on the grass reading.
She hadn’t heard Cordelia, so there was time to study her; she was tall for her age, Cordelia judged, and slim to the point of thinness. She had an untidy mane of dark curly hair and denim trousers and a cotton top which she wore, although crumpled, were exactly what a clothes conscious child of her age would choose.
Cordelia couldn’t see her face; she stepped heavily and deliberately on to the paved path between the hedge and the child looked up. She had been crying, evident from puffed eyelids and a pink nose, neither of which could disguise a pretty face. But the scowl on it wasn’t pretty as she jumped to her feet.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded, and then: ‘You’re the governess Granny said she’d found. Well, I’m not going to like you for a start…’
Cordelia didn’t smile. She said coolly. ‘I’ve lived most of my life with two stepsisters and two stepbrothers and none of them liked me. I’m a bit disappointed that you won’t even give me a trial, but I admire your honesty. Only I think you at least owe me an explanation as to why you’re crying. Because of me?’
‘No, of course not. I didn’t know what you’d be like, did I?’
‘That’s something. Do you want to tell me?’
Eileen stared at her. ‘You’re not a bit what I thought you’d be.’
Cordelia made herself comfortable on a tree stump. ‘What did you expect?’
‘Well—someone old and plain and cross.’
‘I’m plain but I’m not that old and I don’t think I’m often cross, suppose you give me a trial?’
Eileen looked surprised. ‘Well—all right. Do you really want to know why I was crying?’ She added fiercely. ‘I don’t cry much.’
‘Yes, I’d like to know. I’m not curious, mind you—but perhaps, seeing that I’m a complete stranger, I might be able to help a bit.’
‘It’s going away from here and Granny. Mummy and Daddy won’t be coming home for two months and now Uncle Charles says she must have a rest from looking after me and so I have to go and live with him in Vienna until they come home. There’s no one else you see.’
‘You don’t like your Uncle?’
‘I don’t remember him. He’s a surgeon and he’s always busy, I was a little girl when I saw him last, but I can’t remember him very well. He’s very large and quite old. I’ll have to be quiet in his house and I don’t suppose he’ll want to see me much…’
‘He sounds a bit dreary,’ agreed Cordelia, conjuring up a picture of a learned, slightly stooping gentleman, going bald, probably with a drooping moustache and a dislike of children, ‘but as long as we keep out of his way and don’t annoy him, I should think we’d quite enjoy ourselves. I’ve never been to Vienna but I believe it’s an exciting sort of place. Two months isn’t long, you know, and I daresay we’ll be able to fill in the days until your mother and father come home.’ Always supposing, she told herself silently, that uncle didn’t dislike her on sight and send her back to England.
Eileen gave her a childish grin. ‘I think perhaps I’ll like you,’ she observed. ‘Why didn’t your stepsisters and brothers like you?’
Cordelia pondered the question. ‘Well, my father married again, a widow with a little girl and boy, and they didn’t like me overmuch, I suppose because I was grown up and they weren’t, and then my stepmother had twins, and I looked after them. I expect they thought of me as a kind of nursemaid.’
‘You’re not sorry for yourself?’ stated Eileen.
‘Good grief no. I say Eileen, I have to buy some clothes before we go to Vienna, would you help me with that? You see, I’ve been living in the country and I’m not a bit fashionable.’
‘I can see that. What’s your name?’
‘Cordelia.’
Eileen smiled, a wide friendly smile, Cordelia was relieved to see. ‘OK Cordelia, I think you’re nice.’
‘Thank you Eileen, I think you’re nice too. You must tell me what I’m supposed to do, you know. Do you think we ought to go and find your grandmother and tell her that we’ve met?’
Eileen came closer and took her hand. ‘Yes, let’s.’
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS GOING to be all right, decided Cordelia, lying awake in her comfortable bed that first night; the day had gone well. She and Eileen had lunched with Lady Trescombe and then gone for a leisurely walk while the child advised her solemnly about the kind of clothes she should buy and the various improvements she could make to her hair and make-up. Then when that important subject had been dealt with, they made hilarious guesses about Uncle Charles; he was to be stout and short, going bald and stuffy and when Cordelia reminded Eileen that she had said that he was a large man, she was told that people shrank with age. But they didn’t talk about him at tea, after all Lady Trescombe was his mother, and might be sensitive about his appearance. ‘And in any case,’ observed Cordelia, going to say good night, ‘we mustn’t be unkind—we’ve only been joking; perhaps your uncle is the best possible kind of uncle to have.’
Eileen looked doubtful. ‘Well, I don’t think he can be, if he was he’d have been married simply years ago.’ She added anxiously: ‘You will stay, won’t you?’
‘Provided your uncle will let me, my dear.’ Cordelia spoke cheerfully making light of her uncertainty.
It was astonishing how quickly the days flew by. She quickly discovered that Lady Trescombe was only too glad to leave her granddaughter in her care for the greater part of the day. They had lunch and dinner together and sometimes tea, but breakfast they had alone and provided Lady Trescombe knew what their plans were, they could do more or less what they wanted. True, Cordelia supervised Eileen’s piano practice each morning, and they read together for an hour during the day but otherwise the time was theirs to do with it as they wished. They walked miles while Cordelia listened to Eileen’s tales of her parents; they were never ending and she suspected that the child was homesick for them. She had spent the last year with her grandmother, going to a local private school where she had been happy