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Joanna was glad of the leather gloves going down the hillside again. She was not used to the steepness of the slope, and she soon learned the advantages of squatting down on her heels and controlling her slide with her hands. Anya, of course, had no such fears. She and the dog, Binzer, bounded down the loose shale with complete confidence, and even Jake kept his balance without apparent effort. It was a little annoying for Joanna to have to complete her descent under Anya’s intent appraisal, but she managed to get to her feet near the bottom and meet the girl’s gaze with bland enquiry, hoping the trembling uncertainty of her knees could not be detected.
There was no argument about who should sit where in the Range Rover. Jake ordered Anya and the dog into the back, and Joanna got into the seat beside him with some relief. It had been quite an exhausting trip, one way and another, and she slumped rather wearily against the upholstery as he started the engine. The journey back to Ravengarth was completed almost in silence, but Joanna was aware all the way of the physical presence of Anya’s knees digging into her back, and the not-so-physical awareness of her resentful gaze boring into the back of her head.
As they neared the house, however, Joanna remembered she was still wearing the gloves he had given her, and tugging them off her now sweating palms she dropped them on to the shelf in front of her.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, glancing sideways at her employer, and a vaguely amused quirk tilted his eyebrow.
‘I saw you made use of them,’ he said, with a wry grimace. ‘You’re no fell-runner, I think.’
‘I’m not the outdoor type,’ retorted Joanna shortly, forgetting for a moment that they had an audience, and the amusement deepened in his eyes.
‘That’s the truth,’ he confirmed, turning off the lane on to the track for Ravengarth, and she was dismayed to find she wanted to laugh. It had been such a curious morning, and it wasn’t half over yet, and she could picture her friends’ reaction if she confessed to them that she had been climbing grubby hillsides before nine o’clock and sliding down them again on the seat of her pants.
‘You’re supposed to run down the shale,’ said a clear scornful voice behind them, that completely dissipated the humour of the situation. ‘That’s how you keep your balance. Only dogs and babies slide on their bottoms!’
‘Thank you, Anya, that will do.’
Jake’s curt remonstrance was immediate, and Joanna wondered why the girl had so quickly forgotten the role she had intended to play. If she imagined she could delude her father into thinking she was a reformed character one minute, and then revert to her objectionable self the next, she was very much mistaken.
However, Anya was already restoring her image. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy,’ she was saying, adopting a wounded tone. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. But it’s true, isn’t it? You are supposed to run down the shale. It’s not half as dangerous as it sounds.’
‘Experts run down the shale, Anya, inexperienced climbers don’t,’ Jake retorted, pulling up at the gate that gave on to the copse and pushing open his door. ‘No one could call Miss Seton an experienced climber, and I expect you to show a little more respect.’
He went to open the gate, and Joanna waited resignedly for the retaliation she was sure would come. She wasn’t disappointed. Anya only waited until the door had closed behind her father before saying in a low, venomous voice:
‘Don’t think I’m going to let you stay here, just because you think you’ve won the first round! I can get rid of you any time I like, and I will!’
Joanna listened, but as she did so her own anger flared, and she turned on the child without consideration for her age or her inexperience. ‘Now you listen to me, you little hellcat,’ she spat furiously, ‘no one, but no one, speaks to me like that! Just who do you think you are? Dressed like a scarecrow, with brains to match! Do you think I want to teach you? Do you think I want to stay here in this hole, living in a house that pigs would find offensive? You’re a joke, do you know that? A living, breathing joke, and if it was up to me, you wouldn’t be able to slide down shale on your bottom! You wouldn’t even be able to sit on it!’
Anya shrank back in her seat as she spoke, and if Joanna had been less incensed, she would have seen much sooner how her outburst was draining all the colour out of the child’s cheeks. As it was, she had barely registered the fact before another angry voice broke into her tirade.
‘What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?’ Jake had jerked open his door and was climbing savagely back into the Rover. He glared incredulously at Joanna before turning to look at his daughter, and then shook his head disbelievingly as she took advantage of the situation and burst instantly into tears. ‘Heavens above, I get out of the car for two minutes to open the gate, and you take leave of your senses! If this is your idea of gaining a child’s confidence, I suggest you pack your bags right away. This isn’t Dothegirls Hall, Miss Seton, and I do not condone adults acting like children, whatever the provocation!’
Joanna pressed her lips mutinously together, hunching her shoulders against the acidity of his stare. What was the point of staying here, as he said? Anya didn’t want to learn; she didn’t even want to behave civilly. They were all just wasting their time trying to change her. What she needed was a keeper, not a governess, and Joanna simply hadn’t the patience to humour her.
‘She said our house was a pigsty,’ Anya sniffed indignantly, and Joanna was forced to defend herself when Jake demanded if this was so.
‘It’s true,’ she declared, holding up her head. ‘Your—your housekeeper doesn’t know how to keep house, and the food she serves is appalling. I don’t know what you pay her, but whatever it is, it’s too much!’
Jake was gazing at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and Joanna acknowledged to herself that the situation was unique. He had obviously never had to rebuke the governess before, but if he expected her to apologise and beg to be kept on, he was very much mistaken. It might be pigheaded, it might be a case of cutting off her nose to spite her face; but she was not some mealy-mouthed spinster, willing to suffer any kind of humiliation in order to keep her position. No eleven-year-old was going to make a fool of her, and if it meant her having to take a job in a shop or a factory, then so be it. Anything was better than struggling to save her self-respect with this little savage. In consequence, she was able to meet Jake’s steel-hard eyes with almost insolent indifference, and sensed that he had never been so near to striking a woman before.
Without another word he swung round in his seat, slammed his door, and drove through the gateway. Then, standing on his brakes so that she was almost projected through the windscreen, he got out to close the gate again, leaving his door open this time so that he could hear any exchange there might be. But Anya was either too clever, or too distressed, to be caught that way. She continued to sniff rather plaintively in the back of the vehicle, not responding to Binzer’s mournful whining, or blowing her nose as Joanna could have wished.
When Jake climbed in again, Joanna avoided his gaze, staring rather disconsolately out of the window. She remembered the anticipation she had felt on the outward journey, and her mouth turned down rather cynically at the corners. There should be a union for governesses, she decided, pursing her lips half indignantly. Unfair dismissal, that was what she was being given, and just because she had no desire to stay, was no reason to force her to leave. All right, so she had spoken her mind—wasn’t that better than pretending a liking for the girl she didn’t feel? At least she and Anya understood one another now, even if the next female to be employed was bound to suffer the consequences of her outburst.
She sighed, casting a surreptitious look in her employer’s direction. His profile, set against the shadows of the copse, was hard and unyielding, yet she suddenly knew an illogical feeling of sympathy for him. It couldn’t be easy, trying to bring up a rebellious child like Anya single-handed, particularly in his personal circumstances. Losing his wife like that, losing his career; she and her mother had thought the world had come to an end when her father had died and left them without any money. Money! Money couldn’t solve Jake Sheldon’s problems. They were much more complex than that, and her conscience pricked her at the suspicion that she had perhaps added to them.
Jake parked the Range Rover in the yard and climbed out rather aggressively, Joanna thought. ‘Indoors, bath, and hair washed,’ he ordered the still sniffing Anya, and after she had departed trailing the confused Binzer, he turned back to Joanna.
‘I want to see you in the library in five minutes,’ he told her curtly, before striding away towards the stables. ‘Please don’t keep me waiting.’
Joanna stared after him in some amazement, and then with a helpless shrug she thrust open her door. She almost stood on a chicken as she put her foot to the ground, and it ran squawking away as she drew a steadying breath. Well, he wanted to give her her notice, didn’t he? she argued with herself, as she picked her way towards the house, and then felt a wave of weariness sweep over her as she saw Mrs Harris waiting at the door. She could tell from the housekeeper’s face that Anya had not wasted any time in relating her comments, and she squared her shoulders a little defiantly to bolster her fast-fading confidence.
‘I want a word with you—miss!’ Mrs Harris declared, as she approached, and for a minute Joanna thought she wasn’t going to let her into the house. But although she was slim, she was quite strong, and evidently the housekeeper decided her grievances fell short of physical violence.
Joanna brushed past her into the hall of the house, her upbringing deterring her from conducting any kind of argument outdoors, and Mrs Harris had no choice but to follow her into the library.
‘What’s all this you’ve been saying about my housekeeping?’ she demanded, as soon as Joanna had crossed the threshold. ‘What right have you to make remarks about how I looks after this place? I’ll have you know, I’ve been here nigh on thirty years, and no one’s ever complained before.’
‘Really?’ Joanna didn’t want to get involved in this. It was no business of hers if she was leaving. But she could hardly believe that she was the first to notice the deplorable state of the place.
‘Yes, really,’ Mrs Harris continued aggressively. ‘There was no complaints when Mr Fawcett was alive, and since he’s gone and Mr Sheldon’s took over, he’s never said he wasn’t satisfied with my work.’
‘Perhaps Mr Sheldon, being a man, doesn’t care about such things,’ put in Joanna carefully, and Mrs Harris let out an indignant howl.
‘You cheeky young madam, coming here with your hoity-toity ways, putting on airs and graces, pretending you’re something you’re not! Why, Mrs Hunter herself told us you and your mother was practically penniless since that father of yours gambled all his money away, and you were forced to look for work to support the two of you!’ Joanna’s cheeks burned. What had Aunt Lydia told Jake Sheldon’s sister? How had she phrased the offer of her goddaughter’s services to educate her niece? And how had Marcia Hunter described her to her brother, that his housekeeper should speak so disparagingly of it?
‘My personal affairs are no concern of yours, Mrs Harris,’ she said now, trying desperately to maintain her detachment. If she once resorted to a slanging match with the woman, she would lose all semblance of self-respect, and that was something she must retain at all costs.
‘Personal affairs!’ sneered Mrs Harris scornfully. ‘Your affairs aren’t personal. It was in all the papers—how your father broke his neck trying to jump a fence when he was drunk——’
‘He wasn’t drunk,’ denied Joanna hotly, unable to stay silent on that score. ‘The horse bolted——’
‘So you say.’
‘It’s the truth!’
Mrs Harris obviously didn’t believe her, but she changed her tactics. ‘You soon found out who your friends was, though, didn’t you?’ she taunted. ‘All them posh ways of yours count for nothing when you’ve got no money, do they? And you come here, criticising me! I don’t know how you have the nerve! Saying I keep a dirty house—complaining about my cooking—telling Mr Sheldon that the food is appalling——’
‘It is,’ asserted a hard masculine voice behind them, and their employer came impatiently into the room, applying the flame of the slim gold lighter in his hand to the narrow cigar between his teeth. ‘You’re fired, Mrs Harris. I should have done it long ago, but I’m afraid I’ve allowed everything to slide since—since coming here. I intend to rectify that. And your dismissal is long overdue.’
Joanna didn’t know which one of them was the most astounded, herself or Mrs Harris. The last thing she had expected was that he might actually act on what she had said, and in spite of her aversion for the housekeeper’s slovenly ways, she couldn’t help but sympathise with such an abrupt expulsion.
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