In spite of the issue at the commencement of lunch, Lucille enjoyed her meal. Nicholas was correct in saying that Mrs MacNeice provided great food. The roast lamb was the best she had ever tasted. There were no potatoes, but there was any other vegetable she could have wanted and plenty of string beans. No dessert was offered but there was a bowl of fresh fruit which was sent around the table after the main course dishes were taken away. Nicholas encouraged them to indulge in the fruits of the season – apricots, nectarines and peaches, fresh from the trees in the garden.
Nicholas was an excellent conversationalist once he got going on topics that interested him, she discovered and she found herself absorbed in his stories about country life and farming in particular. Nicholas, it turned out was the owner of a large holding of land on which there were hundreds of sheep. He had a Manager to run the day to day running of the farm whilst he oversaw the overall operations of it, along with other investments. It was easy to forget momentarily the reason why she was here. Under other circumstances, she would have admired him as a caring and engaging host. She had to keep reminding herself of his other side lest words fly out of her mouth before she had considered them carefully, which she had a tendency to do.
Pammi and Sherri both seemed very sweet girls if not a little lacking in confidence, she thought. They were particularly careful to be courteous, she noted, and twice Nicholas praised them on their manners. She took that to mean that there had been improvement over the week. Certainly, Nicholas’ attention to detail was punctilious and he observed them all closely. Sherri, a girl who was really a little too thin, Lucille thought, picked at her food until Nicholas said,
“Sherri, I want your food all eaten up. You won’t leave the table until your plate is clean.”
She ate with more relish after that. All in all, it reminded Lucille of the times she had been with her father to horse racing meetings and they had gone for afternoon tea in the members’ dining room. Everybody was careful to attend to the needs of everybody else at the table and there was a lovely congenial atmosphere, much as she imagined it was in the generation before her when life was more genteel and civil.
Over a cup of tea at the end of the meal, Nicholas asked Lucille how she felt about horses and she told him about the horse racing meetings which had been on her mind only minutes ago. She said it was unfortunate that she had not learned how to ride herself but she feared horses up close.
“We have six horses on this property that we use, mostly for rounding up the sheep and checking the boundaries. Most of them are gentle. I’d like to get you riding while you are here. There is no need to be afraid of them once you know how to handle them. I believe you could do that.”
“Oh no, I couldn...”
“Excuse me?”
In mid sentence, Lucille remembered what Nicholas had said – that if he said she could do something, she could do it. And, it stopped her cold. She didn’t want a lecture again and in some way, his insistence that she could do things that she had never done before was appealing to her. She could not imagine how he could make possible something she had never been able to do before, yet his blind faith in her to accomplish new skills gave her a shot of confidence that perhaps she could.
“Nothing, Sir. I will try, Sir.”
“That’s the way, girl."
Then, Nicholas referred his comments to all the girls.
“Now, our last girl, her name is Susan, will be arriving shortly. Sherri, Pammi, take Lucille up to the bedroom and show her where she will sleep. Then please show her the garden. I shall call for you later this afternoon when we will go over the rules and protocols all together. Dismissed.”
Lucille watched the other two girls for clues as to what she should do and followed their lead. In fact, both of the other girls were a few years younger than Lucille but they had a whole five days of knowledge here over her and that, for now, gave them seniority. In fact, they did nothing special but simply left the room quietly and orderly whilst Nicholas poured himself another cup of tea.
Once outside of the dining room, Sherri put her finger to her mouth to gesture not to talk and so Lucille, who was burning with desire to fire questions at the girls, simply followed them as they made their way upstairs.
Pammi opened the door to a large and really beautiful room, the walls a soft blue and the trim, shiny white. Lucille loved the architecture of these old farm houses with their big rooms, high ceilings and large windows and she noticed these features first. Then, her eyes went to the four single beds, two on one side of the room and two on the other. All four beds were exactly the same. The frame was of wrought iron with vertical bars leading to a horizontal bar at the top of the frame, ending at the height of Lucille’s waist. She had no idea why but the little beds spoke to her and she was lost for words.
The girls showed her where everything was and as Nicholas had said, the contents of her suitcase had been unpacked and put away. Everything in the room was exceptionally neat and ordered and the bathroom had obviously been remodelled in recent times with the long vanity unit having four sinks, one for each girl, two toilets and two showers. Four pure white fluffy towels hung on four individual towel racks.
As orderly as the space was, it was not without its creature comforts. There was a stylish glass vase filled with white roses at a round table at one end of the room, closest to the window, and next to the vase were some recent magazines: Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Madison. The drapes were beautiful; blue and white cotton in a small floral design which matched the colour of the walls perfectly. Lucille was impressed.
Now that she was alone with the girls she was anxious for them to tell her everything they knew and she began to ask them questions: what had happened and what should she know? Pammi, it seemed, had chosen to make herself their spokesperson.
“Lucille, we cannot talk about it. Nicholas told us both that we are not to talk amongst ourselves about what happens here and especially what happens in private, when we are alone with him or ...other people. He says that we will be punished if we do.”
“But, no one is here with us. What they don’t know won’t hurt them, for heaven sakes.”
“I am sorry. I can’t talk about it. But, I will give you some advice. Just obey. Things will go much better for you if you do. Don’t try to buck the system and don’t think that arguing will get you anywhere. Just be polite and obedient.”
Lucille had trouble processing Pammi’s statement. She anticipated that she could win the girls over and that together they could manoeuvre things to their satisfaction. She looked over at Sherri who was nodding her head in agreement.
“Are you two...frightened of something?”
In silence, Sherri walked to the round table and beckoned Lucille to follow her. She opened the drawer of the table to reveal three wooden backed hairbrushes of various shapes and sizes.
Sherri looked at Lucille and Lucille looked back at Sherry. The way their eyes met said it all.
“Ohhhhh.”
“More like ‘ouch’.”
“Let’s go out to the garden,” suggested Pammi, who seemed to want to put an end to this turn of events. “It’s a very pretty garden and we can take some reading out there and wait to be called.”
Together, the three girls left the room and made their way down the stairs again and out to the garden in silence. They were all lost in their individual thoughts.
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