Dorothy Eden (21 page)

Florence, unfortunately, was going to be put in the shade. The years had a way of going by, and one day, unless she had made her own life by then, it seemed certain that Miss Daisy Overton was going to outshine her elder sister.

“We’ll meet that problem when it arises,” Beatrice murmured to herself in the vulnerable hours of the night when doubts did assail her. Sometimes she wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to have had the baby adopted at birth by strangers.

And lost William?

Although hadn’t she already lost him, behind the firmly closed doors of the blue bedroom?

Patience, she said to herself yet again. I am right. I
must
be right.

Charles Stewart Parnell, ruined by a woman, was dead. Young Willie of Prussia, nephew of the Prince of Wales, was on the throne of Germany and William was uneasy about it. He didn’t trust that young man. In a country that esteemed physical perfection above everything, the young Prince had had to try so hard to compensate for his withered arm that his character had become warped. He was too ambitious, he admired that old warmonger Bismarck too much. Although his grandmother, Queen Victoria, still seemed to retain some affection for him. She, poor thing, stiffer than ever with rheumatism, had lost her precious youngest daughter and ewe lamb, Princess Beatrice, to a handsome husband. Bonnington’s had had a hectic and stimulating time outfitting guests for that wedding.

The new Italian silks had been a triumphant success, and it was rumoured, though it had not yet actually happened, that the elegant Princess Louise was coming to examine them and order a gown. The old Queen got all her mantles from that haberdasher at Windsor, and was too old and too little interested in clothes to change her custom now. But it was said—this was another rumour—that she had much admired certain of the Princess Beatrice’s wedding gifts in Italian leather, and Venetian glass, and had wanted to know where they could be obtained.

So Beatrice’s foreign department was successfully established. Now, with Mr Brush’s clever help, she was planning a theatrical display with its theme those very successful operettas of Mr Gilbert and Mr Sullivan. The Mikado provided material for the most colourful Oriental extravaganza of multi-coloured silks, kimonos, Chinese porcelain and jade. Even William commented on it.

“You’re becoming a virtuoso, Bea,” he said, and her pleasure was quite out of proportion to the compliment.

“I deserve success, don’t I?”

“You do.”

“Then shouldn’t we have an evening at the theatre to celebrate?” She had spoken impulsively, and now was thinking quickly. She would wear that lovely Worth gown hung away for too long, and this time William would notice it, since there would be no rival to take his attention.

“By all means,” William said amiably. “Why don’t we give Florence a treat? She’s old enough to stay up, isn’t she?”

“I expect she is,” Beatrice answered reluctantly, the vision of their tête-à-tête evening gone. And Florence had that deplorable tendency to be sick with excitement. But if it pleased William to have his eldest daughter with them, then his wishes must be indulged. It was enough that he had agreed to go.

Finally, the theatre outing became a family party, for Mamma thought she would like to go, too, and this meant the inclusion of the faithful though sadly bullied Miss Finch.

It wasn’t exactly what Beatrice had intended. However, with William spending so many evenings at his club, this was better than nothing.

They took a box, and rustled into it importantly just before the curtain rose. Florence was put on one of the little gilt chairs in the front so as to get an unimpeded view of the stage.

She was deliriously happy. She had thought for a long time that she was old enough for a night out, and it was doubly gratifying that Edwin was to be left at home. She promised him patronisingly that she would show him her programme.

She had a white dress trimmed with tiny pink rosebuds, and a blue velvet cape. Her long fine hair, released from knobbly rag curlers, looked very pretty spread over her cape. She had just made the intoxicating and very feminine discovery that if you felt beautiful you were beautiful.

Everyone said that one day Miss Daisy would put Miss Florence’s nose out of joint, but she had nothing to do with Florence’s triumph tonight. Baby was fast asleep in her cradle, and Florence indulged in the fantasy that she was the prettiest child in London, at least, if not the world.

She sat on the edge of her chair and drank in the scene, the ladies with their bare shoulders and their sparkling jewels, the gentlemen in evening dress, though none more handsome than Mamma in her lovely lacy dress, and Papa looking smiling and happy as he hadn’t done for a long time.

Grandmamma rustled in the background. Whenever she moved she creaked mysteriously, as if her bones were breaking (it was only her stays, Lizzie said). She was eating chocolates out of a box which Miss Finch held. Florence had been forbidden to eat any, in case of dire consequences, and neither Mamma nor Papa cared for them. Grandmamma, enormous in her rustling black taffeta, was probably glad that she could have the entire box to herself. The older she got, the greedier she got, saying frankly that she might as well enjoy her favourite food while she could still digest it. It was a pity she had chosen to enjoy it at the theatre, for the sucking noises she made were irritating. But when at last the curtain went up and the glittering stage was spread before her dazzled eyes, Florence was aware of nothing else. She was in a trance of delight. She knew that she was going to remember this evening all her life.

Even though its happiness was to be so brief.

For in the first interval, Grandmamma suddenly said,

“That Miss Medway. I thought you said she was with a family in Germany, Bea.”

“In Switzerland, Mamma.”

“Well, she isn’t. I saw her in Flask Walk this morning.”

Mamma turned sharply.

“You must have been mistaken.”

“Oh, no, there’s nothing wrong with my eyesight. Is there, Finch?”

“No, Mrs Bonnington, your eyesight is remarkable.”

“There she was in that brown dress and a little bit of a bonnet. She always did dress neatly, I must say. She looked as if she was coming down from Overton House. Had she been calling?”

“No!” said Mamma in an explosive whisper that sent a queer tremor down Florence’s spine. “You’ve made a mistake, Mamma. Miss Medway is in Zürich. Isn’t she, William?”

Instead of answering, Papa did something quite extraordinary. He got up and walked out of the box, closing the door behind him, quietly, as if he didn’t want to disturb anybody.

“Now what did I say to offend him?” Grandmamma grumbled. “Really, Bea, William is ridiculously touchy. He’s not ill, is he?”

Before Mamma could answer, the curtain went up, and all the magic of the scene was there again. Papa was missing it. He really must hurry back or the play would be spoiled for him. When he didn’t return, it was obviously spoiled for Mamma, and for Florence, too, for she could no longer concentrate on the stage. Her acute senses told her that something was very wrong, Papa mysteriously disappeared like this, and Mamma sitting stiffly with both her hands gripping her pretty feather fan. Beneath these worries, there was the fearful excitement that perhaps Grandmamma was speaking the truth, and Miss Medway really had come back.

If she had been outside Overton House, why hadn’t she rung the doorbell and come in? Had she been too afraid of Mamma, for that mysterious reason never told to Florence and Edwin? But in that case, why come near the house at all?

When the lights came up at the end of the second act, Mamma said quietly, “Excuse me a moment. Florence, stay with Grandmamma,” and she, too, left the box.

She had gone to look for Papa, of course.

“Men!” Grandmamma was muttering. “Self-centred wretches! Finch, isn’t there a strawberry-flavoured chocolate in this lot? Well, I hope they come back before the lights go down.”

Mamma came back alone. She said to Florence, “Papa wasn’t feeling well and has taken a cab home. We must wait until the end, otherwise we’ll miss Dixon.”

She said this in a voice of restrained impatience, as if she were afraid the third act would last forever.

“How do you
know
about Papa being ill?” Florence whispered agonisedly.

“The doorman told me he’d called a cab. He left a message for us.”

But Florence who sometimes, regrettably, was forced into telling lies, was fairly well able to detect lies in others. She knew Papa hadn’t left the theatre because he was ill. He had gone to look for Miss Medway. In the dark. And now they were both lost.

“She’s overtired, that’s all,” Mamma said to Lizzie, handing over the damp sobbing Florence. “The excitement has been too much for her. Get her into bed and make her drink some hot milk. It was a mistake to take her, I’m afraid. She’s still too young for the theatre.”

Not a word about Papa being lost. Not a word about Dixon driving home with four ladies, and Papa’s seat empty. Florence’s sobs had swollen her throat so much that she couldn’t speak. Anyway, by this time she was in such a nervous state that she was afraid to ask whether Papa was home, or whether his bedroom, like his seat in the carriage, was empty.

“It will all sort itself out in the morning,” Lizzie was saying cheerfully.

Papa going away with Miss Medway? That was the fear that made Florence cry so much. Because she had known for a long time that Mamma would never allow Miss Medway in the house again.

Soon after her return from Italy with the new baby, Florence had raised the subject stubbornly, but the answer had been chilling.

“Florence, I am asking you and Edwin never to mention that name again.” Then Mamma had added more calmly, “It’s hurtful to Miss Sloane, being always reminded that someone else was your favourite governess. Now don’t look so tragic. These things happen in life. People come and people go.”

The more reasonable voice hadn’t erased the shock of Mamma’s first sharp not-to-be-disobeyed order. Florence had only been able to conclude that Miss Medway had done something bad. Although obviously Papa didn’t think so, or he wouldn’t have gone in search of her tonight.

Would he ever come back?

Florence’s tears trickled into her pillow. She heard the crackle of Lizzie’s starched apron, and the hissing of the little spirit lamp as the milk was heated. Safe familiar nursery sounds that made her aching eyes fall shut.

Perhaps this had all been a dream, the theatre, Papa’s disappearance, everything. At least, she thought with glum satisfaction, she hadn’t been sick.

In the early hours of the morning the door of the blue bedroom banged shut. By then the servants had long ago been sent to bed, told that the master had gone on from the theatre to his club, and only Beatrice, lying sleepless, heard that reassuring bang.

Like Florence she, too, had been afraid that William had disappeared, never to return.

Three o’clock in the morning was not an hour for wisdom. Anxiety and grief had taken its place.

Beatrice knocked softly at William’s door, then louder.

“William, it’s me. I hope your door isn’t locked.”

His voice came draggingly.

“For heaven’s sake, of course it isn’t.”

She went in then, and saw him seated at his writing desk writing something by lamplight. She had meant to say, where have you been, what have you been doing, but instead the suspicious words shot out,

“What are you writing?”

“A letter.”

“At this hour of night?”

He was still dressed in evening clothes. He looked achingly tired and hollow-cheeked. His eyes had a look of burning intensity.

“It’s to a hotel in Rome.”

He waved the sheet of letter paper at her, showing the heading in his fine handwriting. “The Manager, Grand Hotel…” The unspoken thought that it was not a letter to Mary Medway hung between them.

“Are you going away?”

“I thought so.”

“Perhaps it’s a good idea.”

What
was
she to say, faced by his haunted eyes.

“Mamma could have been mistaken, you know,” she said.

He nodded slightly. Then he said almost inaudibly, “It would be the baby she came back to see. If she did come. She wouldn’t break her word otherwise.”

“She has no right even to see the baby,” Beatrice cried furiously.

He moved away from the light so that his face became shadowed, his expression unreadable.

“William, you must forget her!”

“Don’t ask the impossible, Bea. I’ve done everything else.”

“Only because she asked it. Not because I asked it. And not of your own accord.” The bitter jealous words escaped, and it seemed as if he were never going to answer them.

But he did, eventually. And then she wished he had never spoken for he hurt her unbearably.

“I thought you knew about love,” he said.

She
did
know about love. But another kind from his, the strong enduring kind which had nothing to do with this romantic fancy from which he was suffering. That was all it was, a romantic attachment aggravated by deprivation.

He must not think her an unfeeling monster. She was only acting for the good of them all. Time, that slow-footed dragging old time, would tell. If only they were both ten years older and this agony dimmed and forgotten.

“It’s best you go away, dearest,” she said, with infinite tenderness.

A week later he left, and the very next day the new nursemaid, Hilda, told Lizzie a young woman had taken ever such a fancy to Baby when she had been wheeling her down Heath Street. The woman had stopped to look in the perambulator, and Baby had crowed at her, little angel that she was. But then everybody admired Miss Daisy. This event wasn’t unusual enough to tell the mistress.

Which was a pity, because if she had done so, what followed might have been prevented.

Two days later Hilda, with Lizzie and Florence and Edwin, wheeled Daisy in her perambulator on to the Heath where there was a little crowd gathered round the striped tent of a Punch and Judy show.

Fascinated by the little frenzied gabbling puppets, the children pressed closer. Edwin clapped excitedly. When the performance was finished he wanted to stay to watch another one, and shrieked when Lizzie dragged him away.