Dorothy Eden (38 page)

Beatrice didn’t know what William wrote to Daisy, but the answer which arrived several weeks later said airily that of course Daisy would adore to come to London and see darling Papa and Mamma and Florence and Edwin again—though why were Florence and Edwin not married, for goodness sake? Only at present Vladimir wouldn’t agree to be parted from her. They were going to stay with friends in Portugal, on the Estoril, lovely gay people, she could never have enough gaiety after the terrible years of the war. Olga and Anna were being left behind at a convent in Madrid, where one hoped Anna was learning obedience. She would come in the autumn, perhaps. Although London might have too many painful memories of Sergei. She wanted to forget pain forever.

William grew very silent, after receiving this letter, and Florence commented that Daisy had grown hard. One had always suspected she would. After all, she had once been too insensitive to know what she was doing to Florence when she deliberately charmed Captain Fielding. So of course she now put her own comfort and well-being first. Presently she would grow tired of her new husband, she had probably only married him to escape from Russia. Then what?

Florence claimed to understand human nature. She had seen enough of it, and grown cynical in the process. No one was ever as kind and good and loving and generous as they hoped others thought them to be. Everyone, basically, was in pursuit of their own interests. Even Mamma who claimed to be such an unselfish and loving wife. Wasn’t hers a classic case of self-interest?

So one would see. Daisy wouldn’t come to London unless for some ulterior motive.

She was proved right. Daisy didn’t come to London. She and her Russian prince went to America instead, hoping, with their titles to be a great social success in Manhattan.

In the end it was Anna, Daisy’s and Sergei’s daughter, who came to England, to London, to Overton House.

T
HE QUIVERING CHILD, THIN
as a chicken’s wishbone, dressed in a straw boater, blazer and gym slip (the uniform of the last school from which she had run away), climbed into the old-fashioned Daimler and sat beside the little erect figure of her grandmother.

She had rebelled intensely about coming to London (“But there isn’t anywhere you want to be, is there?” Mother had said in exasperation). Now she was here she hated it at once, that great smoky crowded Victoria station they had just left, and the grey streets along which they drove.

On meeting her, Grandmother had given her a hard stare, then had shaken hands briskly, and led her to the Daimler where she had tucked the fur-lined rug over Anna’s skinny knees, and addressed herself to the chauffeur.

“Stop at Bonnington’s, Bates. I have some business to attend to, and I’m sure Miss Anna will like to see the shop.”

“Very good, madam.”

“I always associated Victoria station with meeting your grandfather,” she said to Anna. “He was a great traveller. Well, then, so your mother has gone to America.”

Anna nodded, her mouth tightly closed, her eyes creased to prevent any inadvertent weak tears.

“Speak up, child. You’ve a tongue, I hope.”

That old thing. Where’s your tongue, Anna? Cat got it?

Just for a minute, when Grandmother had shaken hands instead of giving her a messy kiss, she had imagined she might now be treated as an adult. Or someone who wasn’t half-idiot, at least. But it wasn’t to be.

So she would have to do her mute act. She was very good at it. She had gone for a whole week without speaking when she had been told of the plan to send her to her grandparents in England. That was after she had run away from her third boarding school and been found starving, dirty and scared, crouched under one of the bridges over the Seine. Who could she have told how desperately horrible that French school was? Not the kind gendarmes, much less her mother or her stepfather. This stern-looking old lady sitting beside her now? Impossible. She was alone, as she had always been. A thin ugly little girl whom nobody liked.

“That,” said Grandmother, pointing to a high brick wall beyond which were large sprawling buildings, “is the back of Buckingham Palace where King George and Queen Mary live. We are coming now to Hyde Park Corner. We will drive across Hyde Park to my shop in the Edgware Road. If you look to your left your will see Rotten Row where ladies and gentlemen ride. On the other side is Park Lane, and there are some of London’s finest houses. A lot of our customers live in them. Since my father died and I took over Bonnington’s, we’ve always dealt with the aristocracy. My daughter Florence says we should turn to the masses now—isn’t that an unpleasant word, like herds of animals? After all, it was by pleasing the upper classes that I obtained the Royal Warrant. You’re not too young to know what that is, I hope. I wonder if by any chance you’ll have a head for business.”

The shrewd grey eyes surveyed her. “I, of course, was far ahead of my time. A woman in business at the turn of the century was regarded as something of a freak. By the way, your grandfather and I won’t stand for any nonsense like your running away from school. You may make your choice, a day school, a boarding school or a governess. But whichever it is, we’ll expect you to honour your part of the agreement. Now, this is Marble Arch, and see, there above the trees, that Union Jack is flying from Bonnington’s. I believe in patriotism. I suppose you’re quite mixed up as to which country you belong to. Well, you’re half English, so you can’t do better than give your loyalty to England. Stop at the front doors, Bates. We seem to have a very silent passenger, but perhaps under the circumstances we must be patient. Come along, my dear. You can talk to your Aunt Florence while I just run through the day’s figures. Then we’ll be off home.”

“Well, you don’t look like your mother, do you?” said the tall thin woman in the severe black dress. She didn’t smile. She merely looked at Anna critically, as if she were something that might be sold in this large glittering shop. But not something that was worthy of display on the front of the counter. Anna’s touchy senses registered that at once. It was a familiar reaction. All those horrid headmistresses had been exactly the same.

“I’m your Aunt Florence. Would you like a glass of milk or some cakes or something while you wait for Mamma? She’s going through the department figures. She’ll take at least an hour. You know the roof of this shop would fall in if Mamma didn’t add up all the sixpences every day. Well—don’t you speak English?”

Anna put on her most vacant expression, the one that Mother, in exasperation, said made her look an imbecile.

Aunt Florence sighed.

“Oh, my lord. I see trouble ahead.” Her voice was sharp but not unkind, and at least she hadn’t said ‘Cat got your tongue?’ She took Anna’s hand and marched her off to the gilt staircase covered with a beautiful moss-green carpet. At the top of this were frondy palms and ferns in pots, and dozens of small tables spread with pale pink table cloths.

Unexpectedly, Aunt Florence said, “I used to be sick when I was nervous. I hope you’re not the same.” Indignation at such a suggestion produced a vigorous shake of Anna’s head.

Aunt Florence gave a faint smile.

“At least you’re not deaf as well as dumb. Sit down and don’t look so miserable. You can’t hate this as much as school, if you ran away three times. I warn you not to try running away here, because if you do we mightn’t bother to look for you. All the same, I think you’ll like Overton House. Our family is all so odd nowadays, it might even be where a funny little thing like you belongs. One thing is certain, your grandfather will spoil you, but don’t let that fool you because it will only be because of your mother. He always loved her best of the three of us. Love is a queer thing. It can be very cruel, very unfair. I have no truck with it. So I’m just telling you, young Anna, no scandals while you’re with us. It’s bad for business.”

“Well, how did you get on with your Aunt Florence?” Grandmother asked when they were back in the Daimler. “I hope she didn’t scare you. She used to be such a shy sensitive child, and now she’s as sharp as a knife. But that’s put on, I suspect. She’s had disappointments. Largely due to your mother, so if she doesn’t like you, that’s the reason. Your Uncle Edwin has had disappointments too. But one should have the strength of mind not to let these things affect one’s character. I don’t suppose anyone ever gets all the love they need—or want. People are so greedy about love.”

Grandmother’s eyes, turned briefly on Anna, suddenly had such a look of sadness that Anna almost broke her vow of silence. She licked her lips and screwed up her eyes, and then to her chagrin Grandmother burst out laughing.

“What a queer little thing you are. Like a little foreign cat. I wonder whatever your grandfather is going to make of you.”

He didn’t make much of her, the thin old man is the gorgeous red quilted silk dressing-gown. He was an invalid, Grandmother had explained, and she must be very quiet with him. Quiet—when she hadn’t yet opened her mouth! You couldn’t get quieter than that. And she certainly was not going to begin to talk after seeing the look of shock in the old man’s face.

He took her hand politely and said, “How do you do, Anna,” in a courteous voice. Unlike Aunt Florence, it seemed that he was acutely disappointed that she did not resemble her mother.

“Tartar,” he said. “She’s exactly like her father, Bea. I remember him clearly, in that little French church, standing beside our exquisite Daisy. Anna has the same outlandish looks.”

“She can’t help that,” said Grandmother. “Wait until she’s been fed up, then we’ll see an improvement. I’ve told her she can make her choice about a boarding school, a day school or a governess, but there’s to be no running away.”

“School will be best,” said Grandfather in a weary voice. “We don’t want the child about the house all day. She’ll be too lonely and she’ll take up too much of your time.” Grandfather reached out a frail hand and Grandmother took it, her soft plump cheeks going pink with pleasure.

Anna, diverted momentarily from her own intense self-pity, stared in wonder. These
old
people, could they be in love? That was funny, even funnier than Mother and nasty fat Vladimir.

“Oh, I don’t think so, William. Miss Finch will look after her until we arrange her future.”

“How long is she to stay?”

“Daisy didn’t say. How long is your mother to be in America, Anna?” Grandmother looked into the shut face and sighed. “No, well, we must just see how things go along. Come and I’ll show you your room, Anna. It was your mother’s and it’s exactly as she left it.”

“You ought to have seen this house before the war,” Finch said. “Cook, three housemaids, lady’s maid, two gardeners, coachman, knife boy, governess for Miss Daisy. It was properly run then. Now there’s only Cook and Bridget and Bates and Hawkins and me.”

“Why?” Anna asked. She had no rule of silence with servants, and this strange birdlike little woman was not someone of whom to be nervous.

“The war, of course. Where were you during the war?”

“In St Petersburg. At home.”

“What was home like if I might ask?”

“All right. Not like this.” Anna looked round the pretty room with its frilled curtains and bedspread, the little pleated petticoat round the dressing table, the rose-patterned carpet, the dainty white furniture. It must have exactly suited Mother. You could see her sitting up in bed in her swansdown-trimmed negligée.

“I suppose not,” said Finch thoughtfully. “The master always worried about Miss Daisy. Myself, I’ve never had a home at all. I’ve always lived in other people’s, not eating much or taking up much room. Lucky I’m so small. I can perch on a twig of someone else’s tree. I was with your great-grandmother until she died. Since then your grandmother has been very kind to me. She’s a good woman, whatever you may think of her.”

“She makes you do what she says,” Anna muttered.

“That’s the prerogative of grown-ups, Miss Anna. Is that all your luggage? Different from your mother. She had trunks galore when she travelled. Never mind, the mistress will see you get some nice clothes from the shop.”

“I don’t care for clothes.”

“Oh dear, what a pity. A certain amount of primping and preening is right for a young lady.”

“Where’s the bathroom?”

“Down the passage on the right. You might like to take a bath before dinner and then I’ll do your hair up. Make you look pretty.”

Pretty, pretty, pretty! Was that all women thought of, Anna wondered scornfully as she wandered down the passage and opened the first door she came to.

She had made a mistake. This was not the bathroom. It was a large gloomy room with the curtains drawn and only one shaded light burning. There was a vast table in the middle of the room, crowded with ranks of toy soldiers on the opposite side of which sat a terrifying figure. A soldier, a
German
soldier, wearing a strange flat-topped helmet, and grey field uniform. He had a monocle stuck in one eye, and a clipped fair moustache over tight lips. As Anna entered he started up, slapping a cane to his side as he came towards her.

She stood still for one petrified moment, then fled, shrieking, “
Nyet, nyet, nyet
!”

Downstairs, William and Beatrice lifted their heads to listen.

“That, I think, is Russian for no,” said William.

“It’s the first word I’ve heard her speak,” Beatrice answered. “Whatever that may prognosticate.”

“Wandering about strange houses is a bad habit,” said Grandmother later, addressing herself to the stiff bolt-upright figure in the bed. “I did it myself once, and found it was usually to my disadvantage.”

“I was only looking for the bathroom,” Anna muttered.

“Exactly. That’s always the excuse. Well, what are you doing in bed at six o’clock? You’re not a baby. Get up and dress and come down to dinner.”

Anna shook her head violently. She didn’t speak again. How could she put into words her fear of that utterly terrifying figure of the German soldier? She had seen plenty of soldiers in her time, and actual fighting during the uprisings in St Petersburg when the wounded and dead lay in the snow along the pavements. But nothing had been so strange and macabre as that silent figure rising slowly and coming towards her in the gloomy room.