Dorothy Eden (29 page)

Funny, the killing instincts of the Overtons, he thought ironically. Papa sticking pins in butterflies, himself tumbling birds out of the sky. But with Grandfather, the General and a few other jolly ancestors, it had been people in their rifle sights, or at the receiving end of a sword. Which made them all a murderous lot, if you could count Papa with his butterflies. Privately, Edwin thought him a bit of a milksop with his poor health and his harmless academic occupations, and he was relieved that Papa, who still found the Germans too uncivilised for his taste, didn’t propose to accompany his son on his first trip abroad. Edwin had learned very early in life that it was better to be self-sufficient. Love, especially parents’ love, was arguably a very unreliable emotion.

He did, however, pay a farewell call on Grandmamma Bonnington in her gloomy house where the curtains were scarcely ever pulled back, and the air in the drawing room was the same musty concoction smelling of camphor and unaired clothes and filthy coal smoke which had circulated there when he was a child.

He thought old age grotesque and Grandmamma a prime example of this, with her wheezing breath, purple cheeks, nasty yellowish hair, pouting peevish mouth and figure of colossal size. That nervous bird Miss Finch (though more like a stork than a finch) hovered constantly in the background.

One could not say that love or even affection drew Edwin to this curious establishment. His motives were much more deliberate. He knew he was Grandmamma’s favourite. She wasn’t rich. She owned only this ugly house, some jewellery and a great quantity of terrible clothes. Her actual income, which would cease at her death, came from Bonnington’s.

But the house would fetch a fair price, and Edwin had strong hopes of it being bequeathed to him. As a schoolboy his visits here had always been rewarded with a half sovereign, and when he went up to Oxford these welcome gifts had increased suitably.

Grandmamma was an old sport the way she helped a fellow out. It was the least he could do to pay her a dutiful visit now and then, and entertain her with a few schoolboy jokes which she greatly enjoyed. In a way, he was quite fond of the old horror, and he liked being told he was a dear kind boy. Few enough people said that about him, or even thought about him. He couldn’t talk to his sisters, much less to his parents. He had long ago discovered that even when Mamma was kissing him goodnight, she was listening for Papa’s step. Not even Grandmamma actually knew how lonely he was.

But Berlin and the new friends he would make, and the boar-sticking and so on would change all that. He wanted to meet officers of those elite squadrons who paraded their duelling scars.

With good eyesight he could have been as good as any of them. And if one day before too long he got the money from the sale of Grandmamma’s house, he could cut more of a dash. It was degrading always having to beg for money out of Bonnington’s coffers. And one needed some compensation for having to acknowledge that one’s mother was a shopkeeper.

Florence had quietly continued at Bonnington’s. She said very little except that she had no alternative, since how could a jilted young woman return to social life? She would never have been able to hold up her head.

So she went where she could hold her own. To the Mantles department which she now intended to run. Old Brownie wouldn’t object, because she had always carried on a feud with the other candidate for her shoes, Miss Saunders, who had once been recruited by Miss Beatrice from Worth’s, and who looked down her nose at everything in Bonnington’s, except the handsome salary she was paid.

Miss Florence had real talent, Miss Brown said. If she gave her whole attention to clothes, as she now said she intended doing, she could achieve wonders. Shops had to move with the times. Miss Brown stopped denying that she disliked modern fashions, that she thought women displayed too much bosom and ankle, that her heart was no longer in business.

Presently she would go home and prepare to die.

But first she would get Miss Florence safely established, and there were to be no regrets about a marriage that hadn’t taken place. After all, what happiness had marriage given Miss Beatrice, if she were to speak the absolute truth? Miss Brown was inclined to mutter mysteriously about cuckoos and faithlessness, and congratulate Florence on her escape from some sort of slavery.

Florence didn’t know what she was talking about and wasn’t interested. She was too absorbed in the development of her new hard ambitious unsentimental self. She would prove she could be somebody in the world without the aid of a husband, and she could soon forget that silly dream of eight children who were now to remain unborn.

Much better for them, poor little mites. Life could hurt too much. Who would voluntarily choose it, except charming little show-offs like Daisy with her too high spirits and too few morals. Daisy wanted to wear a real diamond tiara when she came out. A tiny tiny one, she said, but all her own. That was the height of her ambitions.

A
T THE END OF
the current financial year Adam Cope announced with satisfaction that profits were up by twenty thousand pounds. It was due a great deal to the cessation of the war in South Africa. People felt secure once more. They had a pleasure-loving king and they wanted to follow his example, spend extravagantly and enjoy themselves. At least that was the maxim for the majority of Bonnington’s customers. Beatrice found herself inclined to overlook the ninety per cent of London’s population which could not afford to shop in a high-class store. Well, there were shops in less affluent areas for them. Bonnington’s, now it had the Royal Warrant, was turning more and more from practical goods to luxury goods. Papa would have been anxious, he had never thought the rich were good payers, for one thing, but Florence who had an instinct for quality and a surprisingly strong will, was implementing some of her extravagant ideas. Beatrice was a little uneasy about this.

“Stock necessities,” Papa had always said, “and you can’t go wrong.” Russian sables were scarcely necessities, nor were those expensive French toiles. They meant a considerable outlay, and a long wait for one’s money, if they were sold to some members of the aristocracy who were pretty close with their cheque books.

Adam Cope saw this problem in the same way. He and Beatrice had always thought alike. But he was being fair, as he announced in his level unemotional voice, “Mantles have done particularly well, and we must give Miss Florence a good deal of credit for this. Initially I was against including furs in our range, but I’m happy to have been proved wrong.”

“If we claim to dress a young lady from the skin out we must have furs,” Florence said calmly. Like her mother, she had adopted a uniform for the shop. In her case it was a severe black dress adorned only with a long gold chain on which she hung the pretty little enamelled watch her parents had given her for her twenty-first birthday. She had only recently been admitted to these meetings of the heads of staff. Beatrice was still against it. She thought Florence much too young and inexperienced. However, taking into consideration what she had already achieved, she had to be acknowledged. And, to be fair, she had been no older herself when, just married, she had come into Bonnington’s.

“I agree with Miss Florence to a certain extent,” Adam was saying in his measured voice. “But I’m not sure this maxim includes sables.”

“Who are we dressing, Mr Cope? Debutantes or housemaids?” Florence asked.

Beatrice nodded reluctantly. She hadn’t cared for that rather daring motto of Florence’s, “from the skin outwards”, but Florence had insisted that no fashionable young woman was dressed without a fur of one kind or another, beaver, fox, persian lamb, red squirrel, ermine, even plain rabbit. And certainly sables for the fortunate few.

So a salon for furs came into being. It was carpeted in powder blue and furnished with comfortable couches, where husbands or fiancés were persuaded to sit and sip champagne while Florence herself, with her tall flat figure and pale hair and eyes, modelled the luxurious furs with professional skill. Even the wives approved of her, because she had a plain face and was so remote, like some sort of animated doll. And she never had the bad manners to recognise an old friend unless that friend recognised her first. It was a long time since she had gone to the Palace to curtsey to the plump old lady with the little twinkling coronet perched on her black-veiled head.

That sort of thing had definitely been a waste of time, Florence told herself. In these new changed times, if she didn’t allow herself to lie awake at nights, she was happy enough. She was a Bonnington, not an Overton. Her business life was becoming more and more absorbing, and she had so many fresh schemes to put into effect. Just in the moment that Mr Cope had announced the increased profits a brilliant idea had flashed into her head.

Everyone was going mad about the Russian ballet since Karsavina had danced at the Coliseum. It was rumoured that next year Count Serge Diaghilev’s ballet would be coming for a season at Covent Garden theatre. Why not, when it came, be ready with a display of Russian culture? All those bizarre and beautiful things, such as painted ikons, jewelled caskets and trinkets made in the workshops of the famous jeweller Fabergé, materials of barbaric colour and design, wooden carvings and furniture. Perhaps a violinist could be engaged to play background music by Tchaikovski.

“It would be stupendous,” Florence said, her eyes getting the strange arctic gleam that betokened enthusiasm. Could she begin working on the project at once?

Adam Cope was growing penny pinching in his old age. Beatrice saw him scowling and pulling down his mouth.

“Fabergé! But he’s jeweller to the Tsarina. Only empresses can afford his stuff.”

“Then let’s have imitations made,” Florence said promptly. “I wasn’t thinking of an exhibition. Everything will be for sale, paintings, ikons, wooden shoes, furs, brocades. But I really don’t see why we shouldn’t have some real jewellery as well. We don’t want to look as if we can’t afford the grand gesture. Don’t you agree, Mamma?”

Beatrice thought wonderingly that it was simply no time since Florence had been too timid to do more than beg a favour. Now she was demanding, indeed she was giving orders. What an extraordinary effect that broken romance had had on her. One feared she was soured for life.

“Don’t let yourself get so carried away, Florence. This scheme may work, or it may not. It requires a lot of thought. I admit it would make a wonderful window display and I can see that Mr Brush is licking his lips at the thought. Well, Adam, we can’t be the only sticks in the mud. I suggest that Florence be allowed to work out the idea thoroughly, find her sources of supply and get her costings done. Then we can examine the scheme again. But don’t rush into it, Florence. Plan it carefully.”

“We could have all those wonderful colours, violets, scarlets, sharp yellows, that the ballet costumes are made of,” Florence said dreamily. “They’ll make Mr Liberty and his William Morris stuff look very dull.”

She should have been looking like that for Captain Desmond Fielding, Beatrice thought. Well, it was something that she could be aroused to this gleaming excitement at all. Papa, one imagined, would have approved. He would have laughed and exclaimed, “Good Gad! You’ve produced a Bonnington after all, Bea.”

It was a long time since she had been devastated by those milk and water Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, Florence thought. What a silly gullible impressionable creature she had been. Ready to spend all her emotions on the most transient and unreliable things. She knew better now. She would never again allow herself to be so vulnerable. One simply occupied one’s mind with all sorts of schemes. Buying and selling was fascinating. She enjoyed filthy lucre. That was obviously in her blood. And she enjoyed bending people to her will, bossy old dowagers, timid daughters, fluttering silly fashionable women… In a way, it was a revenge for her own uneasiness in their social world. She had found her niche. If she had married she would probably have made a terrible wife.

Not that she intended to forgive Daisy or Desmond Fielding. Nourishing that resentment was making her the strong person she was. Shortly she could foresee endless quarrels with Mamma who was growing old, and therefore old-fashioned. And who had always been a deplorable mother, if it came to that, wrapped up in Papa and the shop, in equal proportions. What chance had her children had?

Edwin was particularly fierce about that. Since he had gone to live in Berlin he corresponded frequently with Florence. They had developed a rapport they hadn’t known as children. He had been exceptionally understanding of her difficulties with Daisy, and she was more aware of his own disappointments in life.

“A happy person is much too selfish,” she wrote, and he answered:

It always surprised me how Mamma could have a flibbertigibbet daughter like Daisy. She takes completely after our father, and I have always thought him rather a milksop of a man, although I suppose he can’t help his bad health. How I wish Grandfather Overton had been our father. The more I hear of the Kaiser, and the more I see of him (riding his splendid charger) the more I admire him. He has overcome his disability of a withered arm, so likewise I am determined to overcome mine, of poor eyesight. I mean, I can compensate for it in some way. Life in Berlin is immensely exciting. I know some people don’t care for the Germans’ love of militarism, begun by that old war-horse Bismarck, but I think it is splendid and inspiring. I would dearly love to be a member of the military élite. Alas, I can only watch and admire. Don’t tell this to other people, Flo, it might be misunderstood. I am British to the core, but I do think we can be awfully ineffective, and never see things until they are pushed right under our noses. For instance, I have no doubt that the war Papa has always predicted will happen. But it is more likely to be against France or Russia than England. At least I hope so, for I can’t see Germany being beaten. If only you could watch the squadrons with their colours parading down the Unter den Linden. I confess to you a very secret wish, that I had a duelling scar down my cheek. To me it is the complete emblem of manhood.

It really was filthy luck for you about Desmond Fielding and the machinations of one’s charming little sister. But good luck to you and your plans in Bonnington’s. Make plenty of money. We need it. I don’t suppose you could persuade Mamma that my salary and her allowance are ridiculously inadequate for the life I am supposed to lead here? If she doesn’t cough up, I’ll have to write to Granny, and God knows how long the idea will take to sink into her ancient head.