“Don’t talk nonsense, Harry,” she said, severely. “If you will come with me, Miss Earle, I will show you your room.” She led the way into the house, and I followed meekly, my heart in my shoes.
A huge square hall, furnished as a sitting-room, opened at one end into a conservatory. From one corner ascended a splendidly-carved staircase, with wide, shallow steps, which formed, above, a gallery that ran round two sides of the hall. Up this I trailed at my employer’s heels, and, passing down a softly-carpeted passage, found myself in a room at the end; small, but pleasant enough, with a large window overlooking the back premises and part of the garden. Beyond the back yard came a stretch of lightly-timbered paddock, which ended abruptly in what, I found later on, was a steep descent to the beach. The shore itself was hidden from the house by the edge of the cliff: but further out showed the deep-blue line of the sea, broken by curving headlands that formed the bay near which The Towers stood. It was all beautiful; in any other circumstances I should have been wildly happy to be in such a place. But as it was, I longed for the little back street in Prahran!
Mrs. McNab was speaking in her cool, hard voice.
“This is your room, Miss Earle. Judith’s is next door, and Jack’s just across the passage. Judith will show you the schoolroom, which will be your sitting-room, later on. You will generally have your evening meal there with the children. To-morrow I will take you over the house and explain your duties to you. You are probably tired after your journey; I will send you up some tea, and then you had better rest until the evening.”
The words were kind enough, but the voice would have chilled anyone. I stammered out something in the way of thanks, and Mrs. McNab went out, her firm tread sounding briskly along the passage. Presently a neat maid brought in a tray and put it down with a long stare at me—a stare compounded equally of superciliousness and curiosity; and I was left alone in my new home.
“ ‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea,’ he said—
‘please don’t mind. You look awfully tired.’ ”
The Tower Rooms] [Page 30
CHAPTER IV
I DISCOVER MANY THINGS
TWO days later I had settled down fairly well to life at The Towers.