That Would Be a Fairy Tale - By Amanda Grange Page 0,47
secret,’ sniffed Gladys. ‘Not in Little Oakleigh. Everyone’s known for ages but no one’s said anything to you, miss, they know you have your pride.’
Cicely gave a rueful smile. The village was a small place, and sooner or later even the best-kept secrets slipped out. ‘Well, never mind, Gladys, I will help you to find another position. Meanwhile, I intend to speak to Mr Evington on your behalf. Once he realizes that you are not the sort of girl to steal a necklace I am sure he will relent.’
Gladys looked unconvinced. Nevertheless, her conversation with Cicely had done much to soothe her, and when Cicely said she meant to go and find Mr Evington and speak to him that very minute, Gladys said nothing to detain her.
Straightening her shoulders, Cicely passed out of the room . . . not noticing Alex standing in the shadows in the hallway, stunned.
The conversation he had overheard had shaken him to his foundations. It had made him reconsider all his preconceived notions about Cicely, and acknowledge that he had been completely wrong about her. He had come to Oakleigh Manor prepared - no, if he was honest with himself, he had come to Oakleigh Manor determined - to dislike her, and he had attributed to her thoughts and feelings she did not possess.
Before he had even met her he had classed her as one of the people who had made life so impossible for his sister, but that was completely wrong. Far from turning against Gladys, as others had turned against Katie when she had been falsely accused, Cicely had gone out of her way to help the girl. And if Cicely had been present when Katie had needed help, she would have helped Katie as well.
And just what other preconceived notions had he been clinging to for the past few weeks?
The notion that Cicely’s father had been an arrogant and careless man, happy to ruin innocent tradesmen by never paying his bills - that had been one of his totally unjustified thoughts. For instead of being an arrogant and careless man who felt himself too grand to settle his accounts, Mr Haringay had instead been a harmless eccentric who had retreated from the world after his beloved wife had died. He had been guilty of nothing worse than absent-mindedness.
Then again, there was the idea that Cicely was a wealthy woman who had taken a job as his secretary out of boredom, when such was not the case. She had taken a job in order to pay the salary of a boy to help her ageing butler, as the conversation he had just overheard had revealed.
And what of his idea that she had been glad to get rid of the Manor, seeing it as a white elephant? Her distress at the thought of the chestnut being cut down showed that her feelings were quite otherwise. Far from viewing the Manor as a draughty old barn of a place, as he had assumed, she had loved it as her home, for that was what it had been. To her, it was the house in which she and her family had lived for generation after generation, and it carried with it happy memories of her childhood, and the mother she had lost at an early age.
From beginning to end he had built his judgements of her, not on fair and just observation as he usually did, but on prejudice.
It was not pleasant, but it must be acknowledged for all that. He had been wilfully blind.
The realization brought other feelings in its wake. Warm, deep feelings for Cicely which he had too long denied . . .
The sound of Gladys sobbing brought him back to the present, and forced him to put his other thoughts aside - for now. Entering the study, he quickly reassured the girl that she would not lose her position.
‘I never meant to dismiss you,’ he said, ‘but I had to say it in order to calm my guests. You have nothing to fear, however. I know you did not take the necklace and you will not suffer for it having been found in your apron.’ Then, on a different note, he asked, ‘Do you know how it got there, Gladys?’
‘No, sir, I’m sure I don’t.’
‘Did any of the guests bump into you? Might one of them have dropped it in your apron pocket?’
Gladys’s face creased in concentration. Then she shook her head. ‘I couldn’t rightly say, sir.’