The Novel in the Viola (10 page)

‘Mr Bobbin don’t talk nearly as much poppycock as the rest o’ yer,’ said Art. ‘Can’t blame a man fer wantin’ a bit o’ peace wi’ his dinner.’

I couldn’t blame him at all, and wished I could take my bowl and sneak outside to eat beside Mr Bobbin in the quiet yard. I smiled at Art, and he gave me a quick wink as he left. I felt a flush of happiness at the feeling I had an ally amongst the household. May gazed at me with ill-concealed dislike.

After the meal, we cleared away the dishes into the sink in the back scullery, where May stood up to her elbows in soapsuds, scrubbing and complaining under her breath. The other servants vanished to their duties, while I trailed after Mrs Ellsworth and Mr Wrexham into the kitchen. I hovered in the doorway, not knowing what I ought to do next.

‘Elise. You are to wait at table tonight,’ said Mr Wrexham. ‘Mr Rivers has a guest and it’s Henry’s evening off.’

‘And I’m very happy to take his place, Mr Wrexham,’ said Mrs Ellsworth.

‘No thank you, Mrs Ellsworth,’ he replied. ‘The child must learn. She has been engaged as house parlour maid and she shall fulfil those duties.’

I watched the pair of elderly servants. I guessed that they had lived in this house together for twenty years, and yet they never spoke to one another without using a formal title. Mrs Ellsworth stifled a little sigh and sat down at the kitchen table. Mr Wrexham laid a fresh place setting around her, and handed me a pair of forks and a willow-patterned dish filled with dried peas.

‘Now serve Mrs Ellsworth her vegetables.’

Every night at supper, one of the maids, or later Hildegard herself, had elegantly placed vegetables and potatoes on my plate. Now that it was my turn, I did not find it so easy. The peas tumbled onto Mrs Ellsworth’s lap, or else I dropped the forks. I was scolded for leaning in too close (
this is not a common public house
,
girl
) and for standing too far back (
how can you wait on a lady from such a distance? A little common sense, please
). After half an hour, Mrs Ellsworth stood up.

‘Excuse me, Mr Wrexham. I have a dinner to cook.’

She walked over to the vast cooking range and clattered pots, while Mr Wrexham returned the dish to its place on the dresser and poured the dried peas back into a jar. He handed me a clean apron.

‘Tonight, Elise, you shall serve the water and collect the empty plates.’

I frowned; I had succeeded in placing nearly all of my last forkful of peas smoothly on Mrs Ellsworth’s plate – only one had disappeared down the back of her neck. I felt quite cheated at being relegated to water duty but decided it was best not to argue.

‘Now sit down,’ said Mr Wrexham.

I sat, wondering what was to be the next lesson. Perhaps the art of the wrist flourish when unfolding a napkin? But then, I felt Mr Wrexham’s hands in my hair. I whipped around to come face to face with a gleaming pair of scissors.

‘No hysterics, please. Your hair must be cut.’

‘No. No. I cannot.’

I backed away from him towards the oak dresser at the far end of the kitchen. My heart pounded in my ears and the stew in my belly bubbled. I kept my eyes fixed on the long blades. I must not blink. Must not blink. In my mind I saw the scissor-man in
Struwwelpeter
coming at me with his cry ‘snip, snip’, ready to slice off my hair.

‘I will not cut it,’ I half shouted, half cried, edging further into the corner.

‘Elise. Stop making such a fuss,’ said Mrs Ellsworth. ‘And Mr Wrexham, you’re frightening the girl. She’s turned quite white.’

Mr Wrexham lowered his scissors and folded his arms. ‘I cannot have anyone waiting in my dining room with long hair. It’s undignified and unsightly. And unclean.’

Mrs Ellsworth turned to me, her face almost sympathetic. ‘In England, dear, all maids must have their hair cut short. It’s a mark of position. And hygiene,’ she added, as though we Austrians knew nothing of cleanliness.

I closed my eyes, blinking back the threatened tears. Margot had admonished me to be good. I must not be dismissed, not over something so silly.

‘Then I shall cut the hair. But I shall cut. Not him,’ I pointed to Mr Wrexham, now lurking behind the hulking table.

Mrs Ellsworth gave a curt nod. ‘Very well. Give Elise your scissors, Mr Wrexham.’

He placed them on the table and slid them towards me. I stared at them, glinting as the light from the high windows fell across the blades. I knew Mrs Ellsworth and Mr Wrexham both watched me, doubting my nerve. Taking a breath, I seized the scissors and stalked to the door.

‘Above the collar, Elise,’ called Mr Wrexham.

I ran helter-skelter up the back stairs to my attic room and slammed the door. I perched on the end of the narrow bed, steel scissors on my lap. The dressing table mirror was tilted so that it reflected my pale face and tight mouth. Mr Wrexham had not unfastened my cap when attempting to cut my hair, and it remained pinned behind my ears. With trembling fingers, I removed the lace, and then drew out each pin holding my long black hair. It tumbled in dark waves down my back and I ran my fingers through it, feeling the softness against my cheek. My hair, my one beauty. I was vain over nothing else. Margot used to tease me when we were small that I was a changeling. Anna and Julian could not be my real parents; they were too clever and beautiful and I was round and ugly and couldn’t play music. I knew she lied. My black hair was the exact colour of Julian’s. At bedtime when I was a child, he snuggled beside me on my bed, our two heads touching, dark as a night river, and he wrapped my long plait around his wrist while he recited stories. Once he whispered the tale of Samson and Delilah. Samson, the Hebrew prince, who ripped open a lion with his hands and pulled a comb of honey from its chest. Samson’s strength was hidden in his straw-coloured hair, until Delilah came with her wine and her treachery and her scissors and cut her prince into a mortal. I stared at Julian with wide eyes, until he laughed and goosed me, but I could not understand the joke and promised him with childish solemnity, ‘Like Samson I will not cut my hair.’

I picked up my brush. It had real boar bristles sewn into a sponge mounted on a mahogany paddle, a present from Anna for my birthday. I drew it through my hair, slowly teasing out the tangles and knots, until my hair shone in the gloom. Setting the brush aside, I parted my hair and plaited it for the last time. Staring into the mirror, I picked up the scissors and cut. I gasped, before I realised that it did not hurt. My braid was so thick, I had to hack and slice. After a minute, I sat staring at my plait lying discarded on the floor. I scooped it up and walked over to the wastebasket, but hesitated before tossing it in. I held a timeline in my hands: I had been growing my hair since I was nine years old. The feathery ends belonged to the plump child racing barefoot around the apartment, hiding from her sister. I’d played with Margot’s porcelain doll and she pulled my hair so hard, my eyes watered. In revenge, I ran my fingertips along Hildegard’s filthy floor rag and then stole into Margot’s room and, opening her viola case, stroked my dirty fingers along the bow hair. When she came to play, the instrument shrieked a moment before Margot herself. I hid myself in the laundry room, feeling guilty about the damage to her viola bow and tried to appease my conscience by recalling the stinging pain of her pulling my hair.

I opened an empty drawer and, coiling the plait round, placed it inside. There was something faintly macabre about the detached hair lying in the cardboard container, but I could not quite bear to throw it away.

When I returned to the kitchen an hour later, eyes red from crying, Mrs Ellsworth was careful not to say a word. She pressed a mug of hot tea and a ginger biscuit into my hands and continued to fuss over her pastry. Recognising this token of kindness, I accepted the tea and tried to eat the biscuit, but it scratched my throat.

‘Now, go through to the dining room. Remember to stand on the gentleman’s left, just beside his elbow and keep your left arm folded behind you as you lean. Don’t smile. Not that there’s any danger of that,’ she muttered, adjusting my cap and brushing a crease from my apron. ‘Don’t mind Mr Wrexham. He’s not a bad man; he just likes things done in the old ways.’

Leaving the warm kitchen, pots bubbling, the sound of May banging pans from the scullery echoing behind me, I hurried along the passageway into the panelled hall. It was perfectly quiet and empty. I tried to remember which door led to the dining room. All were shut, and a series of wooden doors faced me on every side. I listened and hearing movement behind one, concluded that this was the dining room and slipped inside, looking for Mr Wrexham.

Mr Rivers leant over a billiard table, a tumbler of whisky beside him. I mumbled an apology and tried to slide out before he noticed me.

‘Your hair.’

‘What?’

‘You cut your hair.’

‘Excusing me, I must be finding Mr Wrexham.’

Mr Rivers lowered his billiard cue and took a step closer, reaching out as if to touch me, and then stopped, reaching for his whisky instead. He took a deep draught. Setting his glass down on the table, he gave a little wave, dismissing me. He adjusted his cue and leant low over the green baize, narrowing his eyes as he aimed for the white.

‘Wrexham will be in the dining room. Second door on the right.’

I made to leave and then, hesitating, addressed him in a most un-parlour maid like manner.

‘Why me, Mr Rivers? I know nothing where things are. There are dozen of advertising-ments in
Times
newspaper every day. Why you hire me to be maid and not some other girl?’

He straightened, studying me for a moment and then smiled.

‘I was glancing through the paper and saw that ridiculous message you’d placed – “I will cook your goose” or some such. It made me laugh.’

It struck me that Mr Rivers was an unusual man. I couldn’t imagine many men hiring maids according to their comedic possibilities. He bent over the billiard table once again, lining up the red.

‘Then, by chance I noticed your name –
Landau.
There’s a curious novelist with the same name. Seemed an auspicious coincidence. Told Mrs Ellsworth to write to you. She’s always complaining that it’s impossible to find new staff.’

‘Julian Landau?’

‘Yes. You know of him?’

‘He’s my father.’

‘Really?’

He stood up, setting his cue on the table, game forgotten.

‘I’ve all his books. Come and see.’

I followed him into the library, where he pointed to a series of bound books, lined up in symmetrical rows above his desk. In the strange house, they appeared to me as old friends, and I felt the pleasure of recognition as I saw them. I supposed in a way my father had saved me – his books had brought me to Tyneford. I thought of Julian’s new novel hidden away in the viola, and wondered when it would be bound in smart leather and join the others on the shelf.

‘You may read them, if you like,’ said Mr Rivers. ‘They must make you think of home.’

I thanked him politely; Anna always said that a man with an excellent taste in literature was a man to be trusted.

Dinner passed without incident. I poured water and stacked plates and stood in the corner and was miserable. The two men sat at opposite ends of the dining table, separated by a desert of polished mahogany, so that all conversation had to be yodelled from one end to the other. Mr Wrexham shuttled between them, carrying trays of vegetables and pouring wine. I could not understand why they did not sit together at one end of the table like Julian and Anna did when they had no guests to entertain. It was absurd English manners and tradition over commonsense – if this was Mrs Beeton’s advice, I didn’t think much of it. Mr Rivers neither looked at me nor acknowledged my presence. His guest was a jowly man, with a red beard coating his double chins. They spoke of politics and war and Chamberlain, but I was too unhappy to eavesdrop. Mr Wrexham was pleased with my performance, and sent me up to bed with a cup of cocoa as a reward. I could not understand why the English used food to communicate. In Vienna Frau Finkelstein trained her pug with treats.

Upstairs in my attic room, I poured the dregs of cocoa out into the yard, watching it spatter down the brickwork. Pulling on my pyjamas, I settled onto the bed and drawing out a scrap of writing paper and a pencil began to compose a letter home.

Dear Margot (and Julian and Anna and Hildegard since I know you will all be reading this letter),

I have not yet had a chance to search for shells. They made me cut my hair. But please don’t be sad. I look quite sophisticated. And thinner. I’m not sure which of these is best. I shall go to an excellent hairdresser in New York and have it properly trimmed, and then I shall look very fine indeed.

When do you leave for America? Do you all go together? Remember to send for me straight away. But don’t worry – it is not terrible here, so much as dull – there is no one to talk to. I don’t think the other servants like me very much. Mr Rivers is all right – he likes Papa’s books. I love you all.

I read through the letter, which seemed to hold a lightness that I did not feel, pulled out the viola from its hiding place beneath my bed and cradled it in my arms.

‘
What’s your story? Do you have a name yet? I think you are about a girl stranded on a rainy island. A girl with green eyes and a weakness for chocolate.’

In my mind I heard a snort, as Julian shook his head.

‘I’d never write that sort of story. Not in a million years.’

I rattled the viola, listening to the stack of pages inside knock against the wood.

‘Pirates, then, Papa. I hope there are pirates and a tall ship.’

Julian laughed, a deep rumble.
‘Far too romantic.’

‘Give me a hint?’
I pleaded to the imaginary Julian, and tried in vain to shake a page loose from its hiding place and out through the f-holes. It was no use and I stashed the viola back in its case. I closed my eyes and pretended that I was at home in Vienna, listening to Hildegard fuss in the kitchen, while Anna and Julian slept across the hall. If I tried very hard, I could almost hear Julian snore.