“Though I do suppose that no gentleman would be happy to take a working woman to wife.” There was no love lost whatsoever between Anna and her sister-in-law.
Alex shrugged, his mind elsewhere. He had just this morning returned from the town of Saffron Walden in Essex, where he had been in close consultation with the best solicitors in the county about a legal wrangle concerning the northern boundary of Alice’s father’s country home, Bissetts Manor, just a few miles from the town. Mr Peabody was always generously grateful to those who worked in his service. And anyway Bissetts, one day, would come to Alice. Alex had no intention of inheriting a legal dispute with the property. He picked at the meal before him. Honestly, Pa had really gone too far – there was enough to feed an army – to say nothing of the drink. Surreptitiously he felt in his pocket for the elegant solid gold watch that had been a present from his father-in-law on the day twin sons had been born; he had promised to be at the club by early afternoon. How long, he wondered, before he could decently slip away? “I’m sorry?”
His wife made a small, irritated movement with her head, “Really, Alexis, I sometimes wonder if you listen to a word I say. I asked where they are to live?”
“Who?”
“Why Anna and Joss of course.”
“Oh – rented rooms I believe. Somewhere in Kew. As a matter of fact I think that father’s a bit put out that Joss doesn’t want to buy a house near here. Joss says they can’t afford it yet, though I must say I find that a bit hard to take. He’s a close-mouthed fellow, but from what I’ve been picking up in the City lately, he’s been doing very well for himself on the quiet – to say nothing of what he’s taking from the firm.” He waved away the hired footman who hovered at his elbow waiting to refill his glass. Joss on the other hand, at the end of the table, did not wait to be helped but took the bottle from the tray and filled his own glass brim-full. Alice and Alex exchanged pained, meaningful glances, and Alice’s elegant eyebrows lifted slightly.
Further down the table someone else noticed the action also. James, resplendent in his subaltern’s uniform, buttons and buckles gleaming, caught Joss’s eye, grinned, and lifted his own glass in admiring salute. In his opinion his new brother-in-law had drunk enough already this afternoon to put the toughest fusilier under the table. His eyes moved to Anna. With her hectically flushed cheeks and bright eyes, hair piled upon her head and prettily threaded with fresh flowers, she looked as striking, he thought, as he had ever seen her. In fact – he made a valiant effort to focus eyes that were a little blurred by his father’s lavish hospitality – with her pale eyes and sharp cheekbones accentuated by her high colour, her upswept hair revealing a grace of bone that was not usually immediately apparent, his sister came close to the beauty for which he knew she had always yearned. She looked up at that moment and found his eyes upon her. He lifted his glass again and winked brotherly admiration. She smiled, brilliantly, answered his salute with her own glass but did not drink. James looked back at Joss’s dark, unsmiling face. He hardly looked the eager groom. James, with more than a suspicion of the way that Joss may have spent the previous night, was not altogether surprised. He wondered, briefly and with a flash of perturbing sobriety, if his sister knew what she was taking on: then dismissed the uncomfortable thought. What a gentleman did with his wife obviously could have no connection at all with those activities in which he, James, and Joss had indulged one riotous night in Whitechapel a few months before. That surely was the service that the ladies of the night offered their more respectable sisters – to satisfy a man’s carnal needs so that his relationship with his wife should be pure, unsullied – his drink-befuddled mind gave up the hunt for the right word – well, different, anyway. Who could possibly imagine Anna, or Alice, or shy, simpering Dulcie who sat beside him now, giggling and fluttering her eyelashes, engaging in the lewd antics of the strumpets in the Whitechapel house? The mere thought brought embarrassed colour to his cheeks. He took another steadying mouthful of champagne. Dulcie pouted, charmingly reproving, her eyes sharp.
“Ladies and Gentlemen. Pray silence for Mr Josef Rose, the father of the bride—” The gavel rose and fell. Josef stood and cleared his throat painfully. Anna sighed and, beneath the starched tablecloth, slipped her lace-gloved hand over Joss’s. How much longer?
The towering confection of a cake gleamed in the light. From the far end of the second table she caught a glimpse of Christopher Smithson’s face. He watched her glumly, looked away when she caught his eyes upon her. Poor Christopher. He really wasn’t so bad. And much better looking now he’d grown a bit and slimmed down. Not that he was or ever could be any competition to her Joss – guiltily she tried to concentrate on what her father was saying. The problem with champagne was that it was so wretchedly easy to drink – really, her head felt positively light. She suppressed a giggle at the thought. Joss quirked an enquiring eyebrow at her and she almost laughed aloud with happiness. Soon, soon they could go. She imagined a darkened room, the fire lit, supper for two – herself and Joss alone at last – suddenly and unexpectedly she found herself to have difficulty in breathing evenly. And the thumping in her heart – surely that could be seen beneath the pale, fragile silk of her gown by everyone in the room? She felt herself flushing at the thought. Heavens – now Michael, in his capacity as Joss’s best man had come, a little unsteadily, to his feet. Would they never stop?
It came to an end at last, and with Anna changed into her going-away suit of dark blue linen with puffed sleeves, wide reveres and crisp white blouse, a ribboned and plumed blue straw hat upon her piled hair, they left in a flurry of rice and rose petals, a bustle of kisses and hugs and good wishes. The chimney sweep who had been hired for luck – and who had irritated Alice almost into a seizure by planting a large black handprint upon her pale blue silk – deposited a last sooty kiss on Anna’s cheek. “Good luck, Missis. An’ may all yer troubles be little ’uns.”
“And so say all of us.” James hugged her, squeezing the breath from her body. “Be happy, love.”
“I will.”
Alex saluted her soberly upon her cheek. “Goodbye, Anna.”
Anna suppressed an urgent desire to explain kindly to him that this was a wedding, not a funeral, but with considerable strength of will resisted. Since his marriage to the – in Anna’s opinion – appalling Alice, Alex had irritated her more than ever.
“Bye, Sis. Have fun.” Young Michael, much the worse for an uncounted number of glasses of champagne, thrust the unopened bottle that he carried into her arms. “Take this for luck!”
She laughed, and hugged him hard. Ralph too had a warm goodbye for her and then she was in her father’s arms and for the first time inexplicably close to tears. Joss stood by, watching, waiting, his hand on the carriage door. Anna and Josef stood wordless for a moment in each other’s arms. The sparkle of tears was in Josef’s eyes. Then he stepped back and Anna allowed herself to be handed into the waiting hansom. Moments later they were bowling away, the lifted voices fading behind them. September sunshine, evening-gold, slanted through the window. Anna reached a hand to Joss’s arm. He looked, she thought suddenly, tired to exhaustion. His expression was unreadable.
“Mrs Anna Anatov,” she said, softly. “That’s who I am. Mrs Anna Anatov.”
He half-smiled, that slight downward twist to his lips that she loved so much. “As a matter of fact,” he said, and despite herself she registered the precision with which he pronounced the words, a sure sign she had already come to know, that he had been drinking heavily, “the Countess Anatov. Had you forgotten?”
She stared at him in delight. “Goodness! Why, yes – yes, I had! It always seemed so odd – that you should be a Count—”
He shook his head. “Don’t take it too seriously. In Russia such titles are two a penny. And an unlanded and outlawed Count is no catch at all.”
“I think he’s a catch.” The new Countess snuggled close, lifted her face to his.
His lips were quiet, cool, entire
ly passionless. She held at bay her disappointment. He was tired. It had been an exhausting day. “Are we nearly there?” They were trotting now across Kew Bridge, the river swirling below, metallic with light.
“Nearly.”
The sun was setting as they drew up outside an unprepossessing block of apartments in a street that was a turning off the main, busy thoroughfare of Kew Road. Anna stoically ignored the faint sinking of her heart. It would have been so nice to have had their own little house in a quiet square somewhere—
Joss paid off the grinning cabby. Passers-by glanced, smiling at the now-grubby ribbons that had been tied by mischievous fingers to any protruding part of the hansom. Feeling horribly conspicuous in her so obviously new outfit, the bottle of champagne she still clutched as great a give-away as a written notice, Anna fidgeted self-consciously on the pavement.
“Good luck, Guv’nor.” The cabby touched his whip to his greasy hat, watched with a sly smile as his passengers walked the narrow path to the door.
“Second floor,” Joss said.
“Yes. I remember.” Their words were stilted. A strange and awkward embarrassment seemed to have stiffened Anna’s joints. Twice she nearly fell up the steep stairs. Her chagrin at her own, inexplicable clumsiness was, however, eliminated entirely by the shock she received when Joss opened the door of the apartment. She stared, speechless.
“Damnation!” Joss said, grimly.
“But – Joss! What’s happened? It looks as if – as if—” Anna stopped as various particulars of the chaos struck her numbed brain.
Angrily Joss strode into the disordered room. “Mrs Avery? Mrs Avery! Damn and blast it, where is the woman? She was supposed to have cleared this lot up—”
Empty bottles and glasses cluttered every surface. The curtains were half-shut. The air was heavy and acrid as poison. A woman’s red stocking draped the back of an armchair. Joss snatched at it, but not before Anna’s shocked eyes had taken it in.
“Mrs Avery!”
“There’s no one here,” Anna said. Her voice sounded odd in her own ears. The stale air and the reek of liquor turned her stomach queasily.
Joss strode to the window, flung back the curtains and threw the window up with a crash to demolish the building. “I’ll murder the woman when I see her.”
“Who?”
“Mrs Avery. The woman who’s been looking after me while I’ve been living here. I thought it best to keep her on at least until you’ve hired staff of your own. She’s a passable cook, if nothing else. She was supposed to have come in today and—” He stopped as they both heard the sound of the key in the lock.
“Mr Anatov? That you, Mr Anatov? I saw you from across the road. My, my – what you doin’ here?” The thin, slatternly woman who came through the door stopped short at sight of Anna. Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, Lordy me! Don’t tell me – it wasn’t today? I was sure you said termorrer—”
“No, Mrs Avery. Today.” Joss’s voice was exceptionally quiet. “Today. You were supposed to have cleared up this mess and cooked us a meal.”
“I r-really don’t want anything to eat.” Anna hated the tearful trembling of her own voice. She bit her lip, hard.
Neither Joss nor the woman paid the slightest attention to her. She stood like an abandoned child, hands clasped incongruously around the champagne bottle, trying not to look at the appalling mess about her, trying even harder not to draw the obvious conclusions from the disordered room.
“I’m really sorry, Mr Anatov. Wouldn’t have had this fer the world. Tell you what – why don’t you take the young – that is, yer wife – fer a nice little walk – the Gardens are a treat at this time of year – an’ I’ll have the place ready in a trice.”
“I don’t want to go for a walk.” Anna’s voice was firmer this time and not to be ignored. “I’m tired. I want to change, and to rest.” She looked at Joss. “There surely must be a bedroom I can use?”
Joss hesitated. With a knowing smirk Mrs Avery bustled to his rescue. “Two shakes of a lamb’s tail, dearie. You just wait here. I’ll see to it.” She slipped through a door and into a dark, narrow hall in which were stacked the trunks, unopened, that Anna had had delivered to the apartment a couple of days before. A door beyond stood ajar. Anna turned away. The bedroom, it seemed, certainly needed Mrs Avery’s attentions. She fought fiercely the rising, miserable tears, looked at Joss.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stiffly. “Believe me, I didn’t intend this to happen.”
She gestured helplessly at the wrecked room. “But – Joss – what happened? How did it get like this?”
“Some friends came. Last night.” He shrugged. “The party got – a little out of hand.”
She stirred an empty vodka bottle with her foot. “Yes.”
He watched her, on his face, had she seen it, a strange mixture of exasperation, near anger and something close to sympathy. “Poor Anna,” he said, very softly.
Her head came up sharply at that. “What do you mean, ‘poor Anna’? Is that any way to speak on our wedding day?”
The shutters closed upon his face once more. He did not reply.
“Joss – please – what’s wrong? Why are you acting so strangely? You haven’t even – haven’t even,” the imminence of tears was now evident in her voice, “kissed me,” she finished, desolately.
“Mrs Avery must be nearly finished in the bedroom,” he said brusquely. “Go and unpack your trunks. I’ll clear up in here and get the fire going. Here, give me that.” He took the bottle of champagne that she had all but forgotten that she was clutching from her unresisting hands.
She turned from him, head high, and walked through the dingy hall to the bedroom. Mrs Avery, smoothing the counterpane of the freshly-made bed, looked up with bird-like, inquisitive eyes, straightened and watched as Anna, with slightly shaking hands, carefully withdrew her long hatpin, then took off her blue hat. “Not much of a homecomin’, dearie,” she commiserated with over-familiar solicitousness.
Anna’s misery snapped into temper. “Mrs Avery, my homecoming is none of your business. And I’ll thank you during the short term of your working here to call me Ma’am.”
The thin lips tightened. “Yes – Ma’am.” The woman stalked past her.
Anna slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, trying to control her trembling and surveying the dreary room. Iron bedstead, old, battered pine washstand with a line of sickly green cracked tiles, and a chipped discoloured jug and basin, curtains that looked as if they had not been washed since the day they had been hung, threadbare, colourless carpet – the place was even worse than she remembered it. And there, tossed into a corner and missed – by accident or by design? – in Mrs Avery’s hurried attentions to the room, was the partner to the scarlet stocking that had been in the sitting room. The tears that rose this time were not to be resisted. They ran down her cheeks as if of their own volition, dripped from her chin to the wide, starched collar of her blouse. She sat ramrod stiff on the edge of the lumpy, uncomfortable bed and stared in blank wretchedness at the rapidly blurring, dirty wall.
It was more than an hour before she felt composed enough to face Joss, and in that time, despite her not unreasonable hopes, he made no attempt to approach her. When at last, her clothes unpacked and tidied away, her swollen face bathed in the awful basin, her hair loosened about the shoulders of her red velvet wrap, the chill of evening and a desperate certainty that Joss had forgotten her existence drove her back into the now comparatively tidy sitting room, she found him sitting in darkness before the small fireplace. Of Mrs Avery there was, thankfully, no sign. The champagne bottle was open, and emptied. On the small table by his side stood a bottle of vodka and a glass. She took a deep breath, trying to control her shaking and to banish the emotional tears that she knew were very close to the surface and which she sensed would do nothing but make a bad situation worse.
“Joss?”
This time he did move, turning his head from the light and f
rom her.
“Joss – I’m sorry I got upset. It wasn’t your fault that that odious little woman had got the days wrong. It just—” She swallowed. He neither moved nor looked at her. “It just isn’t quite what I expected.”
“No. I don’t suppose it is.”
She waited. He said no more, but lifted a hand to his face, pressing the heels of his hands for one short moment hard into his forehead. Something in the movement, some sense of desperate tiredness or confusion, wrenched her heart. The room was very still. The sound of traffic from the main road had died. Somewhere in the building a dog yapped. Impulsively Anna dropped to her knees beside Joss’s chair and took his cold hand in hers, laying her hot cheek against it, her aching tear-stained eyes upon his shadowed face. “Joss – please – what is it? Are you – angry with me?”
“No.”
“Then – what?” Her voice sounded small, wretched, almost childlike. Unhappy tears were close.
He looked at her sombrely. “Go to bed, Anna.”
She swallowed. In truth the thought of laying her aching head upon a pillow was more than attractive. “I – aren’t you coming?” She blushed, fiercely.
“Later.”
She did not know how to argue, had no means within her experience to deal with the awful, inexplicable breach that she felt yawned between them. Helplessly her hands dropped from his. She stumbled to her feet, her toe catching in her skirt, almost tripping her. She walked blindly to the door and towards that bedroom that had so recently shown signs of riotous occupation. By comparison now the silence in the apartment was like the grave. The door clicked shut behind her.
Joss Anatov stared into a sullenly glowing cave of coal and tried to recall the bitter satisfaction afforded him by Josef’s farewell to his daughter that afternoon. His enemy was isolated. His punishment was begun. That was enough. To the devil with anyone else’s suffering. He stretched a hand to the glass.
From the bedroom came the sound of a dry, instantly stifled sob.
The Rose Stone Page 19