In the space of a few sentences he had dismissed her claims of being physically threatened, and reduced her qualifications to nil.
‘I never expected to have to get a job, Mr Sheldon,’ she declared now, holding up her head in icy disdain. ‘Until my father’s death——’
‘Yes, I know,’ he interrupted unpleasantly, tumbling a pile of canvases on to the floor and taking the seat behind the desk. ‘You were a lady of leisure—I had heard. However, I’m not interested in how you came to be looking for a job, rather the accomplishments you have which make you think you are capable of teaching an eleven-year-old.’ Joanna gazed at him, not quite able to hide her astonishment. Did he really think he could speak to her like that, employee or otherwise? How dared he sit here in this rundown house, making excuses for a child who was little more than a barbarian, so far as Joanna could see, and expect her to be grateful for his indulgence in even listening to her? However dismayed her mother might be, surely she would not expect her daughter to be subjected to such treatment.
Grasping the strap of her handbag, Joanna rose to her feet. ‘I don’t think the accomplishments I possess fit me for this position at all, Mr Sheldon,’ she declared coldly. ‘We have obviously both been under some misapprehension about the other. I expected to have to teach a—a little girl, not an uncontrollable adolescent, and if I was prepared to make allowances for the child, I’m certainly not prepared to make allowances for its father!’
If she expected her remarks to arouse some answering retort from him, she was very much mistaken. And while remorse at the recklessness of such a declaration, influenced as it was by the lateness of the hour and a reluctant awareness of her own unfamiliarity with either the area or its transport services, caused her no small anxiety, Jake Sheldon sat there, gazing up at her, a look of sardonic amusement twisting his hard features.
‘You think I’m an ignorant savage, don’t you?’ he asked at last. ‘You’d like very much to tell me what I can do with my job. But from what I hear, you don’t have a great deal of choice.’
Joanna gulped. ‘I can get another job, Mr Sheldon.’
‘Can you?’
He pushed back his own chair now and stood up, dark and intimidating in the rapidly fading light. It was obviously later than she had thought, and the prospect of making her way back to the road and possibly having to thumb a lift back to Penrith was a daunting one. But she would not stay here to be insulted, not by a man who in his rough shirt and waistcoat and mud-splattered corded pants looked more like a gipsy than anything else.
‘I suggest, Miss Seton, that you reconsider,’ he said now. ‘Perhaps I was—hard on you, but you have to understand, it’s over two years since I had any—polite conversation. As to your abilities to teach Anya, that’s something we have both to consider. However, I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, provided you are prepared to do the same.’
It was scarcely an apology. On the contrary, it was more in the nature of a concession, as if he was overlooking her insolence.
‘I really don’t think I can stay here, Mr Sheldon,’ she insisted, glancing round at the shabby chairs, the equally shabby carpet. ‘I—well, I was misinformed. Your sister told my godmother that your daughter needed eighteen months’ preparation for boarding school. Having seen the child for myself, I suggest her estimate was vastly underrated.’
‘The challenge is too much for you, then?’ he remarked scornfully. ‘I had heard you had spirit, the only evident point in your favour. Apparently that was overrated.’
Joanna’s lips compressed, tom by the conflicting desire to prove to this man that he was wrong, and the conviction that she should leave now before any further humiliation was heaped upon her.
As she hesitated, groping for words, there was a tap on the half-open door behind her, and a slovenly-looking woman appeared in the aperture. Jake Sheldon seemed resigned, but not impatient, at the interruption, and arched black brows above those startling tawny eyes.
‘Yes, Mrs Harris?’
‘What time will you be wanting your supper, sir,’ she enquired, casting a look of avid curiosity in Joanna’s direction, so that she was firmly convinced that was the only reason the woman had appeared. ‘Anya’s tucking into hers in the kitchen, right this minute, but I wondered whether you and the—er—young lady——’
‘Anya’s doing what!’
The thunderous tones obviously cowed the cook—housekeeper?—as much as they shocked Joanna. With a muffled oath her would-be employer strode angrily across the room, disappearing out the door without a backward glance. It was left to Joanna to exchange an awkward glance with Mrs Harris, and they both waited in anxious anticipation for what would happen next.
They did not have long to wait. Seconds later, the silence was broken by a scream of indignation, and two pairs of footsteps could be heard approaching from the kitchens, and then receding up the stairs. These sounds were accompanied by more of the choking sobs Anya had emitted earlier, and the low harsh admonishment of Jake Sheldon’s not unattractive tones.
Mrs Harris waited until they were out of earshot, and then said confidentially: ‘A proper tearaway, that young Anya is, and no mistake. What’s she done now? Why was Mr Sheldon so angry, just ‘cos she was having her supper?’
Joanna licked her dry lips. ‘I—I really don’t know,’ she lied, wishing perversely that Jake Sheldon would hurry and come back, and Mrs Harris’s bony arms folded across her flat bosom.
‘You going to stay then?’ she enquired, apparently determined to make the most of her employer’s absence. ‘I shouldn’t, if I was you. No place for a nicely brought up young lady, this isn’t. And if you expect to make any headway with that limb of Satan,’ she dipped her head significantly in the direction of the door, ‘then you can think again. Three ladies there’ve been, real nice ladies, like yourself. Maybe a bit older, but all with proper qualifications, you know. All gone! Every one of them. Wouldn’t put up with that besom for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Drummed out of school, she was. Been to four schools since she and her father came here, but none of them would keep her. Troublemaker, that’s what they said, nothing but trouble——’
‘Really, Mrs—Harris, is it?’ Joanna had to stop her somehow, ‘I don’t think you ought to be telling me all this. I—er—if I decide not to stay, it won’t be because of anything you’ve said.’
‘But you are thinking of it, then?’ Mrs Harris had heard the note of indecision in her voice. ‘Don’t blame you. Living in this Godforsaken place.’
She pronounced God as Gawd, obviously in no way offended by Joanna’s attempt to silence her. She was a garrulous old gossip, and Joanna’s mother wouldn’t have had her in the house for more than five minutes, but apparently Jake Sheldon had no such misgivings.
‘Mrs Harris …’ Joanna was beginning again, when heavy footsteps sounded once more on the stairs. Evidently Mr Sheldon was returning, and her voice trailed away as he strode back into the room.
‘You may leave us, Mrs Harris,’ he said shortly, seemingly irritated to find her still there. ‘You can serve supper in half an hour. Whether Miss Seton chooses to join me or not is immaterial. Lay a place, just in case.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The woman cast another glance in Joanna’s direction, before
