A Countess Below Stairs (33 page)
Read A Countess Below Stairs Online
Authors: Eva Ibbotson
Nor were the servants at the back of the church any more restrained. Mrs Park, next to her devoted Win, was already blotched and swollen; Peggy and Pearl, Louise and Florence and the two pretty housemaids engaged with an eye on Uncle Sebastien had completely ruined, with their sniffs and gulps, the effect of their morning ablutions in the new attic bathrooms. Mrs Proom, in her wheelchair, had howled herself into hiccups and outside, Baskerville, shut into the gigantic limousine which had been the Baroness Rakov’s engagement present to Sergei, enduring both social exclusion and the company of the dachshund Pupsik, threw back his head and bayed in agony.
To this outburst of emotion there was one notable exception: Heslop’s formidable butler, Hawkins, sitting with disgust beside Old Niannka and listening with loathing to the raucous blubbering of this malodorous foreigner who was now permanently installed at Heslop, trying to set up icons in the billiard room and driving him insane. For it was Niannka who had cut through the gentle persuasions and medical advice which had followed Ollie’s despairing collapse on the night of the ball. What exactly had happened when Anna took her ancient nurse to visit Ollie no one knew. But the old woman had banished everyone from the nursery, wax had been asked for, and pins, and in the silence that followed, Ollie’s voice had been heard gleefully joining in the utterance of unspeakable Russian curses. Minna, returning to find a silver-wigged and unmistakable effigy of Muriel Hardwicke spreadeagled on the floor, had been shocked and angry - until she saw Ollie’s bright face; since when Old Niannka could do no wrong.
But now the bridal car drew up and, on the arms of Petya, almost as tall now as she was herself, Anna walked towards the porch. Her dress was simple and unadorned, she carried only a bouquet of the roses that Mr Cameron had so cunningly named for her, but Countess Grazinsky, waiting to adjust her daughter’s veil, had to turn her head away, so overcome was she by what she saw in Anna’s face.
‘Here are your gloves, dear,’ said Pinny, trying-and failing - to achieve some kind of briskness. And then, ‘It’s time…’
But as Anna stepped inside the church, saw the sea of faces, heard the pounding music, she faltered and stopped. It was too much…the gods would not permit such joy.
‘I’m afraid,’ she whispered, the colour draining from her face. ‘I’m terribly afraid.’
A small voice, brisk and marvellously motherly, came from behind her.
That’s silly, Anna,’ said the Honourable Olive. ‘Being afraid is silly, you know it is.’
Anna turned and met the shining blue eyes of her chief and only bridesmaid. The Honourable Olive’s dress, like Anna’s, had been made by Mrs Bunford. The child had been given free reign for she was all of nine years old now, her natural taste beginning to form, and the white wreath and muslin dress were as simple as Anna’s own. But if ever there was a bridesmaid suffused with th sheer joy of living on such a splendid and dazzling day, that bridesmaid was Ollie Byrne.
And Anna smiled and laid her hand lightly on the bright curls, and turned to walk steadily to where Rupert waited: a man who had passed beyond all doubt and uncertainty - a man who had come home.
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