Love in Disguise Part 2

Anthea had made an appointment to see Mrs. Goodbody, and parking her car in the wide sweeping drive, was at once overwhelmed by the beauty of the house. It had a charm that came from the elegant proportions of its facade, and this was further enhanced by the beautifully kept flowerbeds and sweep of emerald lawn that lay around it like a lush carpet.

Immediately she envisaged Mrs. Goodbody as a black- robed chatelaine carrying a massive bunch of keys at her waist, and knew a momentary trepidation as she rang the bell.

A middle-aged butler opened the door and led her across a panelled hall and through another door into a smaller hall. Here stood the housekeeper. True, there was a bunch of keys at her waist, but in every other respect she was a replica of Betsy Evans.

'You should have come to the staff entrance,' the woman said as she motioned Anthea into a small, well-furnished sitting-room. 'Luckily Mr. Allen is abroad, so no harm has been done.'

Anthea failed to see what harm could have been done if Mr. Allen had not been abroad, but she knew better than to say this.

'Now then, Miss Wilmot,' the woman went on, settling herself in an easy chair and indicating her visitor to do the same. 'What's this about Miss Evans being ill?'

Quickly Anthea explained the situation and offered her own services until Betsy had recovered.

'I could never take you in place of Miss Evans,' came the shocked response. 'You're far too young to have had any experience.'

'I've kept house for my father for several years,' Anthea said firmly, 'and we've always done a great deal of entertaining. He's a Professor at the university.'

'Why do you want a job like this?'

'Because he has recently remarried and I want to move out. I need somewhere to stay until October and if I can work here for the next few months it would be ideal. You can show me everything that has to be done and then I'll be able to show Betsy.'

'It's out of the question. You aren't old enough to take charge of all the servants.'

'Are there so many?' Anthea asked faintly.

'The butler and his wife-she's the cook when Mr. Allen is here on his own, though he brings his French chef from London when he does any special entertaining. Then there's a kitchenmaid, a pantry boy and four other indoor staff, as well as four who work outdoors. I really don't feel you could cope, Miss Wilmot. I appreciate you want to keep the job open for Miss Evans, but '

'Give me a try,' Anthea pleaded. 'You wouldn't need to pay me. I'd be happy to accept my board and keep.'

'Mr. Allen would never approve of that. If you come here it would have to be on a proper basis.'

'I'm sure I can manage the staff. After all, it's only a question of getting on with people. And if one can do so with two or three, one can do it with twenty!'

'It isn't as easy as that. Everyone here has their own duties and they guard their responsibilities carefully. You need to be a diplomat sometimes to keep the peace.'

'At least give me a trial for a week,' Anthea reiterated, 'It will take you as long as that to arrange for one of the other housekeepers to come.'

'If any of them are still free,' Mrs. Goodbody replied, and eyed Anthea carefully.

Anticipating that everything would depend on the impression she made, Anthea had chosen the most sober clothes she possessed, and had covered her glossy hair with a hat she had unearthed from Chrissy's cupboard.

'Well,' Mrs. Goodbody sighed, staring at her resignedly, 'if I'm to get to Canada on the day I said, I have no choice but to take you. But it's only until Miss Evans can come here herself. I hope that's clearly understood?'

'Certainly.' Anthea hid her elation. 'When do you want me to start?'

'On Monday-the same as I arranged with Miss Evans.' Mrs. Goodbody stood up. 'Would you like a cup of tea?'

Seeing the offer as a further gesture of acceptance, Anthea nodded and watched as the housekeeper made a pot of China tea and cut several liberal slices from a delicious- looking fruit cake.

'All the food is cooked here,' the woman said as Anthea took a bite and murmured appreciatively. 'Mr. Allen won't have ready-cooked food under any circumstances. The vegetables and dairy produce come from his own farm- and the meat too.'

'Grouse from his own moors, no doubt,' Anthea added.

'Yes indeed. And fish from his own river.'

Hiding a smile, Anthea sipped her tea.

'You will wear black, of course,' the housekeeper continued. 'Never any other colour. A black dress with long sleeves.'

'Long sleeves?'

'It gives you more authority. And being young as well...'

'Of course,' Anthea said hastily, and made a mental note to go into town that afternoon and buy something suitable.

Being a housekeeper here-even on a temporary basis- would require several additions to her wardrobe. It was money she could ill afford to spend, for she was anxious to save as much as she could while she was here. She sighed. Her father's new life had certainly put a strain on her own.

'Mr. Allen gives his staff a generous allowance for clothes.' Mrs. Goodbody stood up to indicate that the meeting was over. 'But as you will only be here for a couple of months you should be able to manage with two dresses.'

'I don't want to touch the allowance,' said Anthea. 'That belongs to Betsy.'

'I'm sure she won't mind you using some of it. After all, your coming here is keeping the job open for her!'

The housekeeper led Anthea along the servants' hall to a side door. It opened on to a courtyard and through a stone archway she glimpsed part of the main drive.

'Go through the arch and turn right,' Mrs. Goodbody told her. 'It will take you back to the road.'

Demurely Anthea did as she was told, but as soon as the housekeeper had disappeared through the side door she retraced her steps towards the front of the house where she had parked her car. She must learn to behave more circumspectly in future, she thought as she climbed in and drove away. In Mrs. Goodbody's mind, black-garbed house- j keepers did not drive scarlet Minis.

That night at dinner Anthea told her father she had found herself a job and would be moving the following Monday.

'A living-in job?' her stepmother exclaimed. 'Who is it for?'

'Mr. Mark Allen.'

'The financier? My dear girl, what an excellent opportunity for you! You're certain to meet a lot of interesting people while you're working for him.'

'She meets interesting people here too,' Professor Wilmot said mildly. 'Why does Mr. Allen want to employ a history student?'

It was a question Anthea had foolishly not considered. 'It's more of a-secretarial job than a research one.'

'But you can't type or do shorthand.'

'He doesn't dictate fast and-and there'll be some research,' she said hastily. 'It's a book about-about City financiers from the time of Disraeli onwards.'

'I wouldn't have thought Mr. Allen had either the time or the inclination to write a book.'

'He's the sort of man who will make time for anything- providing he wants to do it.'

'Indeed?' said the Professor. 'Tell me more about him.'

Anthea was flummoxed. To admit she had never met her employer would lead to explanations she was unwilling to give, and she racked her brains to try and remember what she knew of the man. Nothing came to mind and she plunged into conjecture.

i 'He's middle-aged and fussy. Everything has to be just so and-and I think he can be quite tetchy if it isn't. He likes his comforts,' she said, thinking of his beautiful home, 'and he hates having his routine upset,' she added, thinking of the absurdly large staff-both at Bartham Manor and London-who were employed solely to cater to his comforts.

'He doesn't sound particularly charming,' her father commented. 'Do you think you will enjoy working for him?'

'I won't be seeing much of him,' Anthea answered truthfully. 'I mean once he's told me what to do, he'll leave me to get on with it.'

'It all sounds splendid to me,' Maude Wilmot commented and, delighted at the prospect of having the house to herself at last, relaxed in a way she had never done before.

It made Anthea more glad than ever that she was leaving. Her father and stepmother needed to be alone together without her own presence to cause friction.

That night, as she sorted through her clothes and books, she was not unduly surprised when her father came in.

'About this job with Mr. Allen,' he began purposefully, 'I hope you aren't taking it because of Maude? As I said before, this is your home and you are always to regard it as such.'

Anthea jumped up from the floor where she was packing her clothes into a case, and hugged him. 'It's sweet of you to say so, Dad, but my staying here wouldn't work. When Maude and I aren't living together, we'll get on much better.'

'I'm sorry you don't like her.'

'I do like her,' Anthea said quickly. 'She's the right sort of wife for you, and that's more important than anything else.'

'I suppose my friends regard her as an unexpected choice too,' Professor Wilmot sighed. 'But she is sensible and down to earth and she knows exactly how to take care of me.' He sighed. 'It wouldn't have been fair of me to have continued relying on you. And as long as I remained a widower you would have worried about me and not had a life of your own.'

'You didn't have to marry for that.'

'It seemed a sensible reason.' He smiled slightly, his thin face with its untidy grey locks, looking puckish. 'Maude is quite different from your mother, as I'm sure you are aware, and that's sensible too. It's never good to compare one person with another.'

'I know you'll be happy,' Anthea said. 'And I'm doing the right thing by going away. I won't be all that far, you know.'

'That's true; and from October I'll be seeing you at your tutorials. Will your research for Mr. Allen be over by then?'

'Definitely. So I hope you'll use your influence to get me decent rooms in college?'

'What's a father for?' he chuckled, and went out looking more relieved than when he had come in.

On Monday morning Anthea presented herself at Bartham Manor. She was suitably clothed for the part in a black wool dress two sizes too large, thick black stockings and flat-heeled lace-up shoes. Steel-rimmed glasses with plain lenses-which she had once worn in a school play-masked her large grey-green eyes, and unflattering beige powder veiled her creamy skin. Lipstick in an unbecoming shade of purple hid the lovely curves of her mouth and her glossy chestnut hair was pulled away from her face and plaited round her head. The style added several years to her appearance and as she followed the butler down the servants' corridor to Mrs. Goodbody's room, she was reminded of Jane Eyre and hoped there would be no Mr. Rochester in her own life.

With surprising ease Anthea settled into her new position. All the staff had been at the Manor for many years and needed no supervision to ensure they did their work.

She was at a loss to understand why Mr. Allen needed to employ a housekeeper here, for Mrs. Leggat, the cook, could quite easily have done what was required.

It was only as the days passed and she learned more about her duties that she realised she had misjudged the position. Her employer, it seemed, did not so much require a housekeeper as a stand-in-wife. Whenever he was in residence it was her duty to see that there were fresh flowers in his bedroom and library each day; that the humidors were filled with cigars-which she had to finger-test for freshness-and that a stack of new magazines and daily papers were always kept in the drawing-room where the pillows were never to be allowed to stand stiffly against the backs of the settees, but had to be carefully disarrayed to give the room a lived-in appearance.

'Mr. Allen can't abide the place looking as though the decorators have just stepped out,' Mrs. Goodbody explained. 'I've known him come in and sit in every chair just to squash the cushions!'

Anthea's image of the financier began to be somewhat distorted. 'But you say he likes things to be tidy?'

'Tidy but homely.'

'He sounds an awful fusspot,' Anthea muttered, and immediately regretted the comment as she saw Mrs. Good- body frown. 'I'm just worried in case I do anything to upset him,' she added hastily.

'He'll let you know if you do! He can be sharp when he sees fit. But he's always fair.'

'Is he a widower?'

Mrs. Goodbody pursed her lips and considered the question. Then deciding it was a justified one, she answered it.

'He was engaged years ago, but it was broken off. Ever since then he's felt that women are more interested in his money than in him.'

Anthea sniffed irritably. 'Why do rich men always think they're being married for their money?'

'Perhaps because they usually are!'

'Then they've only themselves to blame. Most of them have nothing else to offer a woman except a bank account.'

'Mr. Allen has a great deal to offer besides money. He's a most cultured and intelligent gentleman.'

Privately Anthea did not agree. Apart from the antique furniture and English landscape paintings on the walls- which all looked as if they had been bought with the house-there was no sign of Mr. Allen's culture or intelligence. She had not even seen a book except for the library, where yards of leather-bound volumes in pristine condition lined the walls.

However, later that week when she was shown into his bedroom for the first time, she was obliged to revise her opinion. Here she found shelves crammed with well- thumbed books on travel, history and philosophy. There were no novels and, surprisingly, nothing on finance. But perhaps Mr. Allen felt he already knew everything about that subject!

It was strange to learn about a man via his possessions, and each one added another piece to the jigsaw of his personality. But there were still many gaps missing. From the expensive stereo equipment-both in the library and bedroom-she knew he was fond of music, but his taste here was as austere as she had expected, with a disproportionate amount of Bach and Purcell, the latter being one of her pet aversions. Clothes-which would have given away much more of his personality-were kept in locked wall cupboards, and opened only by Mr. Allen or his valet.

'We only take care of the clothes if Mr. Allen is away for a long time,' the housekeeper explained. 'And then it's just a matter of airing them. Otherwise it's more than my life is worth to touch anything, He can't abide a cufflink out of place.'

'I bet he's never lost one!

'Indeed no.' The woman looked shocked at the thought. 'But when he's down here by himself he mostly wears woollies.'

Anthea at once pictured him in faded cashmere with a scarf around his neck. More and more he was beginning to take on the image of Scrooge. His attitude to money was different, of course, but he certainly possessed the same irascible temperament.

'He sounds so difficult that I'm surprised you've stayed with him,' she commented one evening towards the end of the week as she enjoyed a cup of tea with the housekeeper.

'You'll never find a nicer man to work for,' came the instant reply. 'I wouldn't be leaving now if it weren't for my daughter begging me to go and live with her. Providing you follow the rules he lays down and don't bother him with a lot of gossiping nonsense about the servants, he'll leave you completely alone.'

Since this was exactly what Anthea wanted, she made a. vow to follow his rules come what may.

'Where is Mr. Allen now?' she asked.

'In Hong Kong. But he should be back any day. His secretary always telephones to let us know when he's due. He spends most weekends down here when he's in England, and in the summer he'll come once or twice during the week too. It depends how busy he is.'

'Does he do much entertaining?'

'More in London than he does here. But if he gives a house-party he always brings Monsieur Marcel, the chef. You must watch out for him,' Mrs. Goodbody sniffed. 'He's French.'

Anthea was not sure what this was meant to imply, but considered it would be wiser to wait and see. Looking at her reflection in the mirror in her room later that night, she concluded that she would not need to fear any man- French or otherwise.