The Captive

The House in Bloomsbury

I was seventeen when I experienced one of the most extraordinary adventures which could ever have befallen a young woman, and which gave me a glimpse into a world which was alien to all that I had been brought up to expect; and from then on the whole course of my life was changed.

I always had the impression that I must have been conceived in a moment of absentmindedness on the part of my parents. I could picture their amazement, consternation and acute dismay when signs of my impending arrival must have become apparent. I remember when I was very young, having temporarily escaped from the supervision of my nurse, encountering my father on the stairs. We met so rarely that on this occasion we regarded each other as strangers. His spectacles were pushed up on to his forehead and he pulled them down to look more closely at this strange creature who had strayed into his world, as though trying to remember what it was. Then my mother appeared; she apparently recognized me immediately for she said:

“Oh, it’s the child. Where is the nurse?”

I was quickly snatched up into a pair of familiar arms and hustled away, and when we were out of earshot I heard mutterings.

“Unnatural lot. Never mind. You’ve got your dear old Nanny who loves you.”

Indeed I had and I was content, for besides my dear old Nanny I had Mr. Dolland the butler, Mrs. Harlow the cook, the parlour maid Dot and the housemaid Meg, and Emily the twee ny And later Miss Felicity Wills.

There were two distinct zones in our house and I knew to which one I belonged.

It was a tall house in a London square in a district known as Bloomsbury. The reason it had been chosen as our residence was because of its proximity to the British Museum which was always referred to below stairs with such reverence that when I was first considered old enough to enter its sacred portals I expected to hear a voice from Heaven commanding me to take the shoes from off my feet for the place whereon I was standing was holy ground.

My father was Professor Cranleigh, and he was attached to the Egyptian section of the Museum. He was an authority on Ancient Egypt and in particular Hieroglyphics. Nor did my mother live in his shadow. She shared in his work, accompanied him on his frequent lecture tours, and was the author of a sizeable tome entitled The Significance of the Rosetta Stone, which stood in a prominent place of honour, side by side with the half-dozen works by my father in the room next to his study which was called the library.

They had named me Rosetta, which was a great honour. It linked me with their work which made me feel that at one time they must have had some regard for me. The first thing I wanted to see when Miss Felicity Wills took me to the Museum was this ancient stone. I gazed at it in wonder and listened enraptured while she told me that the strange characters supplied the key to deciphering the writings of ancient Egypt. I could not take my eyes from that basalt tablet which had been so important to my parents but what gave it real significance in my eyes was that it bore the same name as myself.

When I was about five years old my parents became concerned about me.

I must be educated and there was some trepidation in our zone at the prospect of a governess.

“Governesses,” pronounced Mrs. Harlow, when we were all seated at the kitchen table, ‘is funny things. Neither fish nor fowl. “

“No,” I put in, ‘they are ladies. “

“That’s as may be,” went on Mrs. Harlow.

“Too grand for us, not good enough for them.” She pointed to the ceiling, indicating the upper regions of the house.

“They throw their weight about something shocking … and upstairs, well, they’re as mild as milk. Yes, funny things, governesses.”

“I’ve heard,” said Mr. Dolland, ‘that it’s to be the niece of some professor or other. “

Mr. Dolland picked up all the news. He was ‘sharp as a wagonload of monkeys’, according to Mrs. Harlow. Dot had her own sources, gathered when waiting at table.

“It’s this Professor Wills,” she said.

“They was at the University .. only he went on to something else … science or something. Well, he’s got this niece and they want a place for her. It looks certain we’re going to have this Professor Wills’s niece in our house.”

“Will she be clever?” I asked in trepidation.

“Too clever by half, if you ask me,” said Mrs. Harlow.

“I’m not having her interfering in the nursery,” announced Nanny Pollock.

“She’ll be too grand for that. It’ll be meals on trays. Up them stairs for you. Dot … or you, Meg. I can tell you we’re going to get a real madam.”

“I don’t want her here,” I announced.

“I can learn from you.”

That made them laugh.

“Say what you will, lovey,” said Mrs. Harlow.

“We’re not what you’d call eddicated … except perhaps Mr. Dolland.”

We all gazed fondly at Mr. Dolland. Not only did he uphold the dignity of our region, but he kept us amused and at times he could be persuaded to do one of his little ‘turns’. He was a man of many parts, which was not surprising because at one time he had been an actor. I had seen him preparing to go upstairs, formally dressed, the dignified butler, and at other times with his green baize apron round his rather ample waist, cleaning the silver and breaking into song. I would sit there listening and the others would creep up to share in the pleasure and enjoy this one of Mr. Dolland’s many talents.

“Mind you,” he told us modestly, ‘singing’s not my line. I was never one for the halls. It was always the straight theatre for me. In the blood . from the moment I was born. “

Some of my happiest memories of those days are of sitting at that big kitchen table. I remember evenings it must have been winter because it was dark and Mrs. Harlow would light the paraffin-filled lamp and set it in the centre of the table. The kitchen fire would be roaring away and, with my parents absent on some lecture tour, a wonderful sense of peace and security would settle upon us.

Mr. Dolland would talk of the days of his youth when he was on the way to becoming a great actor. It hadn’t worked out as he had planned, otherwise we should not have had him with us, for which we must be grateful although it was a pity for Mr. Dolland. He had had several walk-on parts and had once played the ghost in Hamlet; he had actually worked in the same company as Henry Irving. He followed the progress of the great actor and some years before he had seen his hero’s much-acclaimed Mathias in The Bells.

Sometimes he would beguile us with scenes from the play. A hushed silence would prevail. Seated beside Nanny Pollock, I would grip her hand to assure myself that she was close. It was most effective when the wind howled and we could hear the rain beating against the windows.

“It was such a night as this that the Polish Jew was murdered …”

Mr. Dolland would proclaim in hollow tones, recalling how Mathias had brought about the Jew’s death and been haunted ever after by the sound of the bells. We would sit there shivering, and I used to lie in bed afterwards, gazing fearfully at the shadows in the room and wondering whether they were going to form themselves into the murderer.

Mr. Dolland was greatly respected throughout the house hold, which he would have been in any case, but his talent to amuse had made us love him and if the theatrical world had failed to appreciate him, that was not the case in the house in Bloomsbury.

Happy memories they were. These were my family and I felt safe and happy with them.

In those days the only times I ventured into the dining room were under the sheltering wing of Dot when she laid the table. I used to hold the cutlery for her while she placed it round the table. I would watch with admiration while she dexterously flicked the table napkins into fancy shapes and set them out.

“Don’t it look lovely?” she would say, surveying her handiwork.

“Not that they’ll notice. It’s just talk, talk, talk with them and you don’t have a blooming notion of what they’re talking about. Get quite aerated, some of them do. You’d think they was all going up in smoke all about things that happened long ago … places and people you’ve never heard of. They get so wild about them, too.”

Then I would go round with Meg. We would make the beds together. When she stripped them I would take off my shoes and jump on the feather mattresses because I loved the way my feet sank into them.

I used to help with the making of the beds.

“First the heel and then the head.

That’s the way to make a bed,” we would sing.

“Here,” said Meg.

“Tuck in a bit more. Don’t want their feet falling out, do you? They’d be as cold as that there stone what you was named after.”

Yes, it was a good life and I felt in no sense deprived by a lack of parental interest. I was only grateful to my name sake and all those Egyptian Kings and Queens who took up so much of their attention so that they had none to spare for me. Happy days spent making beds, laying tables, watching Mrs. Harlow chop meat and stir puddings, getting the occasional titbit thrust into my mouth, listening to the dramatic scenes from Mr. Dolland’s frustrated past; and always there were the loving arms of Nanny Pollock, for those moments when comfort was needed.

It was a happy childhood in which I could safely dispense with the attention of my parents.

Then came the day when Miss Felicity Wills, niece of Professor Wills, was to come to the household to be governess to me and concern herself with the rudiments of my education until further plans were made for my future.

I heard the cab draw up at the door. We were at the nursery window, myself, Nanny Pollock, Mrs. Harlow, Dot, Meg and Emily.

I saw her alight and the cabby brought her bags to the door. She looked young and helpless and certainly not in the least terrifying.

“Just a slip of a thing,” commented Nanny.

“You wait,” said Mrs. Harlow, determined to be pessimistic.

“As I’ve told you often, looks ain’t everything to go by.”

The summons to the drawing-room which we were expecting came at length. Nanny had put me into a clean dress and combed my hair.

“Remember to answer up sharp,” she told me.

“And don’t be afraid of them. You’re all right, you are, and Nanny loves you.”

I kissed her fervently and went to the drawing-room, where my parents were waiting for me with Miss Felicity Wills.

“Ah, Rosetta,” said my mother, recognizing me, I supposed, because she was expecting me.

“This is your governess, Miss Felicity Wills. Our daughter, Rosetta, Miss Wills.”

She came towards me and I think I loved her from that moment. She was so dainty and pretty, like a picture I had seen somewhere. She took both my hands and smiled at me. I returned the smile.

“I am afraid you will have to begin on virgin soil, Miss Wills,” said my mother.

“Rosetta has had no tuition as yet.”

“I am sure she has already learned quite a good deal,” said Miss Wills.

My mother lifted her shoulders.

“Rosetta could show you the schoolroom,” said my father.

“That would be an excellent idea,” said Miss Wills. She turned to me, still smiling.

The worst was over. We left the drawing-room together.

“It’s right at the top of the house,” I said.

“Yes. Schoolrooms often are. To leave us undisturbed, I suppose. I hope we shall get along together. So I am your first governess.”

I nodded.

“I’ll tell you something,” she went on.

“You’re my first pupil. So we are beginners … both of us.”

It made an immediate bond between us. I felt a great deal happier than I had when I had awakened that morning and the first thing I had thought of was her arrival. I had imagined a fierce old woman and here was a pretty young girl. She could not have been more than seventeen; and she had already confessed that she had never taught before.

It was a lovely surprise. I knew I was going to be all right.

Life had taken on a new dimension. It was a great joy to me to discover that I was not as ignorant as I had feared.

Somehow I had taught myself to read with the help of Mr. Dolland. I had studied the pictures in the Bible and had loved the stories told by him with dramatic emphasis. They had fascinated me, those pictures:

Rachel at the Well; Adam and Eve being turned out of the Garden of Eden, looking back over their shoulders at the angel with a flaming sword;

John the Baptist standing in the water and preaching. Then of course I had listened to Mr. Dolland’s rendering of Henry V’s speech before

Harfleur and I could recite it, as well as some of “To be or not to be’. Mr. Dolland had greatly fancied himself as Hamlet.

Miss Wills was delighted with me and we were friends from the start.

It was true there was a certain amount of hostility to be overcome with my friends in the kitchen. But Felicity-I was soon calling her Felicity when we were alone was so gracious and by no means as arrogant as Mrs. Harlow had feared, that she soon broke through the barrier between the kitchen and those who, Mrs. Harlow said, thought themselves to be ‘a cut above’. Soon the meals on trays were no more and Felicity joined us at the kitchen table.

Of course it was a state of affairs which would never have been accepted in a well ordered household, but one of the advantages of having parents who lived in a remote atmosphere of scholarship, apart from the mundane menage of a household, was that it gave us freedom.

And how we revelled in it! When I look back on what many would call my neglected childhood, I can only rejoice in it, because it was one of the most wonderful and loving any child could have. But, of course, when one is living it, one does not realize how good it is. It is only when it is over that that becomes clear.

Learning was fun with Felicity. We did our lessons every morning. She made it all so interesting. In fact, she gave the impression that we were finding out things together. She never pretended to know. If I asked a question she would say frankly: “I’ll have to look that up.”

She told me about herself. Her father had died some years ago and they were very poor. She had two sisters of whom she was the eldest. She was fortunate to have her uncle. Professor Wills, her father’s brother, who had helped the family and found this post for her.

She admitted that she had been terrified, expecting a very clever child who would know more than she did.

We laughed about that.

“Well,” she said, ‘the daughter of Professor Cranleigh. He’s a great authority, you know, and very highly respected in the academic world.”

I wasn’t sure what the academic world was but I felt a glow of pride.

After all, he was my father, and it was pleasant to know that he was highly thought of.

“He and your mother have many demands made on them,” she explained.

That was further good news. It would keep them out of our way.

“I thought there would be a great deal of supervision and guidance and that sort of thing. So it has all turned out much better than I expected.”

“I thought you’d be terrible … neither fish nor fowl.”

That seemed very funny and we laughed. We were always laughing. So I was learning fast. History was about people some very odd, not just names and a string of dates. Geography was like an exciting tour round the world. We had a big globe which we turned round and round; we picked out places and imagined we were there.

I was sure that my parents would not have approved of this method of teaching, but it worked well. They would never have engaged anyone who looked like Felicity and who admitted that she had no qualifications and had never taught before if she had not been the niece of Professor Wills.

So we had a great deal to be thankful for and we knew it.

Then there were our walks. We learned what an interesting place Bloomsbury was. It became a game to us to find out how it had become as it was. It was exciting to discover that a century before it had been an isolated village called Lomesbury and between St. Pancras Church and the British Museum were fields and open country. We found the house where the painter Sir Godfrey Kneller had lived; then there

were the rookeries, that area into which we could not venture a maze of streets in which the very poor lived side by side with the criminal classes, where the latter could rest in safety because no one would dare enter the place.

Mr. Dolland, who had been born and bred in Bloomsbury, loved to talk about the old days and, as was to be expected, he knew a good deal about it. There were many interesting conversations on the subject during meals.

We would sit there on winter evenings, the lamp shedding its light on the remains of Mrs. Harlow’s pies or puddings and empty vegetable dishes while Mr. Dolland talked of his early life in Bloomsbury.

He had been born in Gray’s Inn Road and in his boyhood he had explored his surroundings and had many stories to tell of it.

I remember details from those days so well. He really had dramatic powers and like most actors liked to enthral an audience. He certainly could not have had a more appreciative one even though it was smaller than he might have wished.

“Shut your eyes,” he would say, ‘and think of it. Buildings make a difference. Think of this place . like a bit of the country. I was never one for the country myself. “

“You’re like me, Mr. Dolland,” said Mrs. Harlow.

“You like a bit of life.”

“Don’t we all?” asked Dot.

“I don’t know,” put in Nanny Pollock.

“There’s some as swears by the country.”

“I was born and bred in the country,” piped up the twee ny

“I like it here,” I said, ‘with all of us. “

Nanny nodded her approval of that sentiment.

I could see Mr. Dolland was in the mood to entertain us and I was wondering whether to ask for “Once more unto the breach’ or The Bells.

“Ah,” he said.

“There’s been a lot going on round here. If you could only see back to years ago.”

“It’s a pity we have to rely on hearsay,” said Felicity.

“I think it’s fascinating to hear people talk of the past.”

“Mind you,” said Mr. Dolland, “I can’t go back all that way, but I’ve had stories from my granny. She was here before they put up all these buildings. She used to talk about a farm that used to be just about where the top of Russell Street is now. She remembered the Miss Cappers who lived there.”

I settled happily in my chair, hoping for a story about the Miss Cappers. Mr. Dolland saw this. He smiled at me and said: “You want to hear what she told me about them, don’t you. Miss Rosetta?”

I nodded and he began: “They were two old maids, the Misses Capper.

One was crossed in love and the other never had a chance to be. It made them sort of bitter against all men. Well-to-do, they were. They had the farm left to them by their father. Ran it themselves, they did. Wouldn’t have a man about the place. They managed with a dairymaid or two. It was this dislike of the opposite sex. “

“Because one was crossed in love,” said Emily.

“And the other never had a chance to be,” I added.

“Shh,” admonished Nanny.

“Let Mr. Dolland go on.”

“A queer pair they were. Used to ride out on old grey mares. They didn’t like the male sex but they dressed just as though they belonged to it … in top hats and riding breeches. They looked like a couple of old witches. They were known all round as the Mad Cappers.”

I thought that was a good joke and laughed heartily, only to receive another reproving shake of the head from Nanny I should know better.

One should never interrupt Mr. Dolland when he was in full flow.

“It was not that they did anything that was really wicked. It was just that they liked to do a bit of harm here and there. It was a place where boys used to like to fly their kites … it being all open to the sky. One of the Miss Cappers used to ride round with a pair of shears. She’d gallop after the boys with the kites and cut the strings so that

the little boys were standing there … the string in their hands, watching their kites flying off to Kingdom Come.”

“Oh, poor little boys. What a shame,” said Felicity.

“That was the Miss Cappers for you. There was a little stream nearby where the boys used to bathe. There was nothing they liked more on a hot summer’s day than a dip in the water. They’d leave their clothes behind a bush while they went in. This other Miss Capper used to watch them. Then she’d swoop down and steal their clothes.”

“What a nasty old woman,” said Dot.

“She said the boys were trespassing on her land and trespassers should be punished.”

“Surely a little warning would have done?” said Felicity.

“That wasn’t the Miss Cappers’ way. They caused a bit of gossip, those two. I wish I’d been around when they were alive. I’d like to have seen them.”

“You would never have let them cut your kite and send it to Kingdom Come, Mr. Dolland,” I said.

“They were pretty sharp, those two. Then, of course, there were the forty steps.”

We all settled back in our seats to hear the story of the forty steps.

“Is it a ghost story?” I asked eagerly.

“Well, sort of.”

“Perhaps we’d better have it in the morning,” said Nanny, her eyes on me.

“Miss gets a bit excited about ghost stories at the end of the day. I don’t want her awake half the night fancying she hears things. “

“Oh, Mr. Dolland,” I begged.

“Please tell us now. I can’t wait. I want to hear about the forty steps.”

Felicity was smiling at me.

“She’ll be all right,” she said, wanting to hear as much as I did, and, having whetted our appetites, Mr. Dolland saw that he must go on.

Nanny looked a little displeased. She was not as fond of Felicity as the rest of us were. I believed it was because she knew of my affection for her and was afraid it detracted from what I had for her. She need have had no qualms. I was able to love them both.

Mr. Dolland cleared his throat and put on the expression which he must have worn when he was waiting in the wings to go on the stage and do his part.

He began dramatically: “There were two brothers. This was a long time ago when King Charles was on the throne. Well, the King died and his son, the Duke of Monmouth, thought he would make a better king than Charles’s brother James, and there was a battle between them. One of the brothers was for Monmouth and the other for James, so they were enemies fighting on different sides. But what was more important to them was their admiration for a certain young lady. Yes, the two brothers loved the same woman and it got to such a state that they made up their minds to fight it out between them, for this young lady was the Beauty of Bloomsbury and she thought quite a lot of herself, as such young ladies do. She was proud because they were going to fight over her. They were to fight with swords, which was how they did it in those days. It was what they called a duel. There was a patch of ground close to Cappers’ farm. It was waste land and it always had had a bad reputation. It was the haunt of highwaymen and no one with any sense walked there after dark. It seemed a good place for a duel.”

Mr. Dolland picked up the large carving knife from the table and brandished it deftly, stepping back and forth as he battled with an invisible opponent. Gracefully he held the knife but with such realism that I could almost see the two men fighting together.

He paused for a moment and, pointing to the kitchen stove, said:

“There on a bank … enjoying every minute, seeing each brother prepared to kill the other for her sake, sat the cause of the trouble.”

The kitchen stove became a bank. I could see the girl, looking a little like Felicity, only Felicity was too good and kind to want anyone to die for her. It was all so vivid; and that was how it always was with Mr. Dolland’s turns.

He made a dramatic thrust and went on in hollow tones:

“Just as one brother caught the other in the neck, severing a vein, the other struck his brother through the heart. So … both brothers died on Long Fields as it was called then, though afterwards the name was changed to Southampton Fields.”

“Well, I never,” said Mrs. Harlow.

“The things people do for love.”

“Which one haunted her?” I asked.

“You and your ghosts,” said Nanny disapprovingly.

“There always has to be a ghost for this one.”

“Listen to this,” said Mr. Dolland.

“While they were going back and forth’ he did a little more swordplay to illustrate his meaning ‘they made forty steps on that bloodstained patch and where those brothers had trod nothing would ever grow again. People used to go out and look at them. According to my granny, they could see the footsteps clearly and the earth was red as though stained with blood. Nobody ever went there after dark.”

“They didn’t before,” I reminded him.

“But the highwaymen didn’t go there either … and still nobody went.”

“Did they see anything?” asked Dot.

“No. There was just this brooding feeling of something not quite natural. They said that when it rained and the ground was soggy you could still see the footsteps and they were tinged with red. Things were planted but nothing would grow. The footsteps remained.”

“What happened to the girl for whom they fought?” asked Felicity.

“She fades out of the story.”

“I hope they haunted her,” I said.

“They shouldn’t have been such fools,” said Nanny.

“I’ve no patience with fools. Never have had, never will have.”

“It’s rather sad, I think, that they both died,” I commented.

“It would have been better if one of them had remained to suffer remorse . and the girl wasn’t worth all that trouble anyway.”

“You have to accept what is,” Felicity told me.

“You can’t change life to make a neat ending.”

Mr. Dolland went on: “There was a play written about it. It was called The Field of the Forty Steps.”

“Were you in it, Mr. Dolland?” asked Dot.

“No. A bit before my day. I heard of it though, and it made me interested in the story of the brothers. Somebody called Mayhew wrote it with his brother, which was a nice touch … brothers writing about brothers, so to speak. They played it at the theatre in Tottenham Street. It ran for quite a while.”

“Fancy all that happening round here,” said Emily.

“Well, we never know what’s going to happen to any of us at any time,” commented Felicity seriously.

So the time passed, weeks merging into months and months into years.

Happy, unruffled days with little to disturb our serenity. I was approaching my twelfth birthday. I suppose Felicity would have been about twenty-four then. Mr. Dolland was greying at the temples which we declared made him look very distinguished and that added a certain grandeur to his turns. Nanny complained more of her rheumatics and Dot left to get married. We missed her, but Meg took her place and Emily Meg’s and it was thought unnecessary to engage a new twee ny In time Dot produced a beautiful fat baby whom she proudly brought round for us all to see.

There were many happy memories in those days; but I should have realized that they could not go on for ever.

I was growing out of childhood and Felicity had become a beautiful young woman.

Change comes about in the most insidious way.

There had been the odd occasion since Felicity had come to us when she had been invited to join one of the dinner parties given by my parents. Of course, Felicity explained to me, it was because they needed another female to balance the sexes, and as she was the niece of Professor Wills she was a suitable guest, although only the governess. She did not look forward to these occasions. I remember the one dinner dress she had. It was made of black lace and she looked very pretty in it, but it hung in her wardrobe a depressing reminder of the dinner parties which were the only occasions when she wore it.

She was always thankful when my parents went away for the reason that there could be no invitations to dinner parties. She was never sure when they would be forced on her, for to invite her was generally a last-minute decision. She was, as she said, a most reluctant makeshift.

As I grew older I saw a little more of my parents. I would take tea with them at certain times. I believe they felt even more embarrassed in my presence than I did in theirs. They were never unkind. They asked a great many questions about what I was learning and, as I had an aptitude for gathering facts and a fondness for literature, I was able to give a fair account of myself. So although they were not particularly elated by my progress, nor were they as displeased as they might have been.

Then the first signs of the change began, although I did not recognize them as such at the time.

There was to be a dinner party and Felicity was summoned to attend.

“My dress is getting that tired and dusty look which black gets,” she told me.

“You look very nice in it, Felicity,” I assured her.

“I feel so … apart… the outsider. Everyone knows I’m the governess called in to make up the numbers.”

“Well, you look nicer than any of them and you’re more interesting, too.”

That made her laugh.

“All those deedy old professors think I’m a frivolous empty-headed idiot.”

“They are the empty-headed idiots,” I said.

I was with her when she dressed. Her lovely hair was piled high on her head and her nervousness had put a becoming touch of pink into her cheeks.

“You look lovely,” I told her.

“They’ll all be envious.”

That made her laugh again and I was pleased to have lightened her mood a little.

The awesome thought struck me: soon I shall have to go to those boring dinner parties.

She came to my room at eleven that night. I had never seen her look so beautiful. I sat up in bed. She was laughing.

“Oh, Rosetta, I had to tell you.”

“Shh,” I said.

“Nanny Pollock will hear. She’ll say you ought not to disturb my slumbers.”

We giggled and she sat on the edge of my bed.

“It was such … fun.”

“What?” I cried.

“Dinner with the old professors … fun!”

“They weren’t all old. There was one …”

“Yes?”

“He was quite interesting. After dinner …”

“I know,” I broke in.

“The ladies leave the gentlemen to sit over the port to discuss matters which are too weighty or too indelicate for female ears.”

We were laughing again.

“Tell me more about this not-so-old professor,” I said.

“I didn’t know there were such things. I thought they were all born old.”

“Learning can sit lightly on some.”

There was a radiance about her, I noticed then.

“I never thought to see you enjoy a dinner party,” I said.

“You give me hope. It has occurred to me that one day I shall be expected to attend them.”

“It depends on who is there,” she said, smiling to herself.

“You haven’t told me about the young man.”

“Well, he was about thirty, I should say.”

“Oh, not so young.”

“Young for a professor.”

“What’s his subject?”

“Egypt.”

“That seems a popular one.”

“Your parents tend to move in that particular circle.”

“Did you tell him I was named after the Rosetta Stone?”

“As a matter of fact I did.”

“I hope he was suitably impressed.”

And so we went on with our frivolous conversation and just because Felicity had enjoyed one of the dinner parties it did not occur to me that this might be the beginning of change.

The very next day I made the acquaintance of James Grafton. We had taken our morning walk Felicity and I and since we had heard the story of the forty steps and located them, we often went that way.

There was indeed a patch of ground where the grass grew sparsely and it really did look desolate enough to confirm one’s belief in the story.

There was a seat close by. I liked to sit on it, and so vivid had been Mr. Dolland’s reconstruction of the affair that I could imagine the brothers in their fatal battle.

Almost by force of habit we made our way to the seat and sat down. We had not been there very long when a man approached. He took off his hat and bowed. He stood smiling at us while Felicity blushed becomingly.

“Why,” he said, ‘it really is Miss Wills. “

She laughed.

“Oh, good morning, Mr. Grafton. This is Miss Rosetta Cranleigh.”

He bowed in my direction.

“How do you do?” he said.

“May I sit for a moment?”

“Please do,” said Felicity.

Instinctively I knew he was the young man whom she had met at the dinner party on the previous night and that this meeting had been arranged.

There was a little conversation about the weather.

“This is a favourite spot of yours,” he said, and I had a feeling he was telling himself that he must include me in the conversation.

“We come here often,” I told him.

“The story of the forty steps intrigued us,” said Felicity.

“Do you know it?” I asked.

He did not, so I told him.

“When I sit here I can imagine it all,” I said.

“Rosetta’s a romantic,” Felicity told him.

“Most of us are at heart,” he said, smiling at me warmly.

He told us that he was on his way to the Museum. Some papyri had come to light and Professor Cranleigh was going to allow him to have a look at them.

“It is very exciting when something turns up which might increase our knowledge,” he added.

“Professor Cranleigh was telling us last night about some of the wonderful discoveries which have been made recently.”

He went on talking about them and Felicity listened enraptured.

I was suddenly aware that something momentous was happening. She was slipping away from me. It seemed ridiculous to think such a thing. She was as sweet and caring as ever, but she did seem a little absentminded, as though when she was talking to me she was thinking of something else.

But it did not immediately strike me on that first encounter with the attractive Professor Grafton that Felicity was in love.

We met him several times after that and I knew that none of these meetings was by chance. He dined at the house once or twice and on each occasion Felicity joined the party. It occurred to me that my parents were in the secret.

Felicity bought a new dinner dress. We went together to the shop. It was not really what she would have liked but it was the best she could afford, and since she had met James Grafton she had become even prettier and she looked lovely in it. It was blue the colour of her eyes and she was radiant.

Mr. Dolland and Mrs. Harlow soon became aware of what was going on.

“A good thing for her,” said Mrs. Harlow.

“Governesses have a poor time of it. They get attached, like … and then when they’re no longer wanted it’s off to the next one until they get too old … and then what’s to become of them? She’s a pretty young thing and it’s time she had a man to look after her.”

I had to admit I was dismayed. If Felicity married Mr. Grafton she would not be with me. I tried to imagine life without her.

She was taking a great interest in ancient Egypt and we paid many visits to the British Museum. I no longer felt the awe of my childhood and was quite fascinated, and, spurred on by Felicity, I was almost as enthralled by the Egyptian Room as she was.

The mummies in particular attracted me . in a rather morbid way. I felt that if I were alone in that room with them they would come to life.

James Grafton used to meet us in the room sometimes. I would wander off and leave him to whisper with Felicity while I studied the faces of Osiris and Isis just as those who thought they were divine must have seen them all those years ago.

One day my father came into the room and saw us there. There was a moment of puzzlement until it dawned on him that here in this holy of holies was his own daughter.

I was standing by the mummy-shaped coffin of King Menkara one of the oldest in the collection when he came upon me. His eyes lit up with sudden pleasure.

“Well, Rosetta, I am pleased to find you here.”

“I have come with Miss Wills,” I said.

He turned slowly to where Felicity and James were standing.

“I see …” There was a look on his face which in others might have seemed quite puckish but with him it was just rather indulgently knowledgeable.

“You are attracted by the mummies, I see.”

“Yes,” I replied.

“It’s incredible … the remains of these people being here after all those years.”

“I am delighted to see your interest. Come with me.”

I followed him to where Felicity and James were standing.

“I am taking Rosetta to my room,” he said.

“Perhaps you would join us in … say, an hour?”

“Oh, thank you, sir,” said James.

I knew what my father was doing. He was giving them a little time alone. It was amusing to think of my father playing Cupid.

I was taken to his room which I had never seen before. It was lined with books from floor to high ceiling, and there were several glass-doored cabinets which contained all sorts of objects such as stones covered in hieroglyphics and there were some carved images.

“This is the first time you have seen where I work,” he said.

“Yes, Father.”

“I am pleased that you are displaying some interest. We do wonderful work here. If you had been a boy I should have wanted you to follow me.”

I felt I ought to apologize for and defend my sex.

“Like my mother .. ” I began.

“She is an exceptional woman.”

Yes, of course. I could hardly aspire to that. Exceptional I was not.

I had spent my happy childhood with people below stairs who had entertained me, loved me, and made me contented with my lot.

As the embarrassment which our encounters never failed to engender seemed to be building up, he plunged into a description of embalming processes to which I listened entranced, all the time marvelling that I was in the British Museum talking to my father.

Felicity and James Grafton eventually joined us. It was an unusual morning, but by this time I had realized that change was on the way.

Very soon after that Felicity became engaged to James Grafton. I was both excited and apprehensive. It was good to see Felicity so happy and to know something which had never occurred to me until Mrs. Harlow pointed it out, that she was secure.

But there was, of course, the question of what would become of me.

My parents were taking more interest in me, which was in itself disconcerting. I had been discovered by my father showing interest in the exhibits in the Egyptian Room of the British Museum. We had had a little talk in his room there. I was not exactly the ignoramus they had previously thought me. I had a brain which had lain dormant for all these years but I might possibly grow up to be one of them.

Felicity was to be married in March of the following year. I had passed my thirteenth birthday. Felicity was to stay with us until a week before the marriage; then she would go to the house of Professor Wills, who had been responsible for her admission into our household, and from there be married; and in due course she and James would set up house in Oxford to whose university he was attached. The big question was what course should my education now take?

Having received a gift of money from her uncle. Felicity was now able to indulge in replenishing her scanty wardrobe, a task in which I

joined with great enthusiasm, though never quite able to escape from the big question of my future and the prospect of facing the emptiness which her departure must inevitably mean.

I tried to imagine what it would be like without her. She had become part of my life, and closer even than the others. Would there be a new governess of the more traditional sort at cross purposes with Mrs. Harlow and the rest? There was only one Felicity in the world and I had been lucky to have her with me all those years. But there is little comfort in recalling past luck which is about to be snatched away so that the future looks uncertain.

It was about three weeks before the date fixed for the wedding when my parents sent for me.

Since my meeting with my father in the British Museum there had been a subtle change in our relationship. They had certainly become more interested in me and in spite of the fact that I had always told myself I was happy to be without their attention, I was now faintly pleased to have it.

“Rosetta,” said my mother.

“Your father and I have decided that it is time you went away to school.”

This was not unexpected, of course. Felicity had talked to me about it.

“It’s a distinct possibility,” she had said, ‘and really it’s the best thing. Governesses are all very well but you’ll meet people of your own age, and you will enjoy that. “

I could not believe I would enjoy anything as much as being with her and I told her so.

She hugged me tightly.

“There’ll be holidays and you can come and stay with us.”

I remembered that now, so I was prepared.

“Gresham’s is a very good school,” said my father.

“It has been highly recommended. I think it will be most suitable.”

“You will be going there in September,” went on my mother.

“It’s the start of the term. There will be certain preparations. Then there is Nanny Pollock, of course.”

Nanny Pollock! So I was to lose her, too. I felt a great sadness. I remembered those loving arms . those whispered endearments, the comfort I had received.

“We shall give her a good reference,” said my mother.

“She has been excellent,” added my father. Changes changes all around. And the only one who was moving to a happier state was Felicity. There was always some good in everything, Mr. Dolland had said. But how I hated change.

The weeks passed too quickly. Every morning I awoke with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. The future loomed before me, unfamiliar and therefore alarming. I had lived too long in unruffled serenity.

Nanny Pollock was very sad.

“It always comes,” she said.

“Little chicks don’t stay that way forever. You’ve cared for them like they was your own … and then comes the day. They’ve grown up. They’re not your babies any more.”

“Oh Nanny, Nanny. I’ll never forget you.”

“Nor I you, lovey. I’ve had my pets, but them upstairs being as they are made you more my little baby … if you know what I mean.”

“I do. Nanny.”

“It’s not that they was cruel … or hard-hearted … no, none of that. They was just absentminded, like … so deep in all that unnatural writing and what it means and all those kings and queens kept in their coffins all them years. It was unhealthy as well as unnatural and I never did think much of it. Little babies is more important than a lot of dead kings and queens and all the signs they made because they didn’t know how to write properly.”

I laughed and she was glad to see me smile.

She cheered up a little.

“I’m all right,” she said.

“I’ve got a cousin in Somerset. Keeps her own chickens. I always like a real fresh egg for breakfast… laid that morning. I might go to her. I don’t feel like taking on another… but I might. Anyway, there’s no worry on that score. Your mother says not to hurry. I can stay here if I want till I find something I like.”

At length Felicity was married from the house of Professor Wills in Oxford. I went down with my parents for the wedding. We drank the health of the newly married pair and I saw Felicity in her strawberry-coloured going away costume which I had seen before and in fact helped her to choose. She looked radiant and I told myself I must be glad for her while feeling sorry for myself.

When I returned to London they wanted to know all about the wedding.

“She must have made a lovely bride,” said Mrs. Harlow.

“I hope she’s happy. God bless her. She deserves to be. You never know with them professors. They’re funny things.”

“Like governesses, you used to say,” I reminded her.

“Well, I reckon she wasn’t a real governess. She was one on her own.”

Mr. Dolland said we should all drink to the health and happiness of the happy pair. So we did.

The conversation was doleful. Nanny Pollock had almost decided to go to her cousin in Somerset for a spell. She had drunk a little too much wine and had become maudlin.

“Governesses … nannies … it’s their fate. They should know better. They shouldn’t get attached to other people’s children.”

“But we’re not going to lose each other. Nanny,” I reminded her.

“No. You’ll come and see me, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“But it won’t be the same. You’ll be a grownup young lady. Them schools … they do something to you.”

“They’re supposed to educate you.”

“It won’t be the same,” insisted Nanny Pollock, shaking her head dolefully.

“I know how Nanny is feeling,” said Mr. Dolland.

“Felicity has gone.

That was the start. And that’s how it always is with change. A little bit here, a little bit there, and you realize everything is becoming different. “

“And before you can say Jack Robinson,” added Mrs. Harlow, ‘it’s another kettle of fish. “

“Well, you can’t stand still in life,” said Mr. Dolland philosophically.

“I don’t want change,” I cried out.

“I want us all to go on as we always did. I didn’t want Felicity to get married. I wanted it to stay like it always has been.”

Mr. Dolland cleared his throat and solemnly quoted:

‘“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

Mr. Dolland sat back and folded his arms and there was silence. He had pointed out with his usual dramatic emphasis that this was life and we must all accept what we could not alter.