Debutantes

by Charlotte Bingham

After a pause which to Portia seemed an eternity but which could not in fact have been longer than a matter of a half a dozen seconds at most, her aunt turned her back and closed the door while from behind it came the voice of Mr Swift, asking her to wait.

  ‘I can explain, Miss Tradescant!’ he called in a high voice without very much conviction. ‘There is a perfectly feasible explanation, I do assure you!’

  ‘There is no need, Mr Swift, I do assure you!’ Aunt Tattie called back. ‘My brother will be pleased to speak with you on the matter in the morning!’

  At the bottom of the flight of stairs down which she had run, passing Portia en route, Aunt Tattie paused and put the back of one mittened hand to her brow, reminding Portia for all the world of an illustration in a book she had once seen entitled A Lady Receives Bad News From Abroad. All that was missing from the scene was the letter containing the fell tidings.

  ‘What is it?’ Portia called after her hurrying white-faced aunt. ‘Are they both ill?’

  ‘You are to say nothing of this matter to anyone, Portia. This is something that is of no concern to you whatsoever.’

  ‘But Miss Collins was screaming, Aunt Tattie.’

  Aunt Tattie turned and faced Portia with what her niece recognized was unnatural calm.

  ‘I think perhaps Miss Collins has gone mad, dearest. I think perhaps Mr Swift has gone mad too. In fact I am really quite sure that they both have.’

  With that Portia was ordered upstairs to her room, once she had given her aunt her solemn promise that she would say nothing to Nanny Tradescant on the matter, after which Aunt Tattie hurried away from her down the corridor and back into the main body of the house, her paces becoming ever more hurried the further she went until she disappeared into the gloom and out of Portia’s sight altogether.

  DEPARTURES

  No-one came to collect Portia for her classes next morning, and after waiting for nearly an hour Nanny Tradescant sent her downstairs to see what was delaying Miss Collins.

  ‘Din’ you know, miss?’ A busy Mildred laying the fires was the only person Portia could find to ask in the whole of the main house. ‘Mr Swift and Miss Collins were both gone this morning. ’Twas I what discovered it an’ all, when I knocks ’em up to do the fires. Miss Collins’s first, but it seemed she din’t even sleep in her bed. And then Mr Swift too, packed up and gone, with his bed linen all over the shop. I thought you must have known they was going, miss, ’cos I mean – professional people don’t usually leave like that without sayin’, does they?’

  Portia asked the maid if her aunt and uncle knew but Mildred said that she couldn’t rightly answer that because she’d been left strict instructions not to disturb either of them, Sir Lampard because he had been back home very late the night before and Miss Tradescant because apparently she wanted to be left to sleep.

  Finding herself at a loose end, Portia took herself off to the library where she stayed reading until Evie was sent down to summon her up for lunch with Nanny.

  ‘I understand both Mr Swift and Miss Collins have departed,’ Nanny Tradescant announced with great satisfaction as they ate their way through a light lunch of boiled chicken, lemon sauce, greens and potatoes. ‘Not before time, is all I have to say. Not before time.’

  ‘Yes,’ Portia replied, uncertain as to how to deal with the conversation because of her vow of secrecy. ‘They went this morning.’

  ‘Last night, as I am given to understand it,’ Nanny corrected her nodding to Evie to heap another spoonful of mashed potatoes onto her plate. ‘They left under cover of darkness, like criminals.’

  ‘I know. Mildred told me.’

  ‘I trust Mildred did not tell you precisely what their criminal act was, young lady?’

  At this Evie dissolved into her usual helpless fit of giggling, earning herself a sharp look from Nanny. ‘This is no laughing matter, Evie. Impropriety is no cause for amusement except to the devil and his disciples.’

  While Evie tried quite unsuccessfully to obey Nanny and stop giggling, Portia attempted to work out precisely what constituted impropriety. She had an idea it was something to do with breaking one or perhaps more of the Ten Commandments, but since she didn’t know what at least four of the Commandments meant she suspected that not even a quiet consultation with her Book of Common Prayer was going to clarify matters.

  She knew it was useless to ask anyone to help her, so she took a private guess at what it could imply, guessing from the sound of it that impropriety must have something to do with the adjective improper, which as she remembered from the few English lessons that Miss Collins had actually given when she first arrived could be taken to mean wrong, unseemly or indecent. She would have consulted the dictionary in her uncle’s library if she could, but since Uncle Lampard kept all what he called the grown-up stuff in a locked cabinet including the Oxford English Dictionary, she knew she would have to be satisfied with guesswork. It made sense to her even so, because if Mr Swift and Miss Collins had been forced to flee from their employment in the middle of the night then that could only be because they were ashamed of what they had done.

  ‘Well,’ Portia concluded to herself as she walked around the garden during the first fall of snow that winter. ‘When one comes to think of it that would explain everything.’

  Obviously whatever Aunt Tattie had seen was terrible, of that Portia was quite convinced, otherwise there would not have been such an outcome, but what exactly constituted such terribleness she had absolutely no idea. At first all she could imagine was that Mr Swift had been trying to do harm to Miss Collins, which would account for the terrible groans and the cries, but that didn’t finally make sense because if that had indeed been the case then surely they would not both have had to leave in the middle of the night like criminals, as Nanny had said. Only Mr Swift would have had to flee, while Miss Collins would have been both allowed and expected to remain and recover. No, what must have happened, Portia concluded, was that they had been robbing the house and when Aunt Tattie had surprised them she had seen the things they had stolen (jewels, silver and those sorts of knicknacks) lying on the bed and had consequently been forced to dismiss them.

  Except that wouldn’t explain the cries and the groans which both she and Aunt Tattie had overheard, Portia argued with herself on yet another walk round the snow-covered grounds. Unless they had been arguing over their share of the loot during which squabble Mr Swift had hit Miss Collins. That seemed the greatest possibility and for a while satisfied the young detective entirely, at least till she reached the frozen trout lake and stopping to skim some stones over its frozen surface she suddenly realized that if that had been the case surely the police would have been called?

  No, she answered herself. Aunt Tattie was far too kind and good to call the police to arrest people Nanny had described as truly poor. Aunt Tattie was a loving person, and a Christian, so she would have given the thieves the chance to turn over a new leaf by not reporting their crime and letting them go in the middle of the night. This was obviously what Nanny meant by her reference to their being criminals and altogether fitted in nicely with Nanny’s depiction of Mr Swift as a fortune hunter. Fortune hunting was obviously another and perhaps a more polite way of describing stealing, so with the case now fully solved Portia skimmed the last flat stone right across the lake and turned for home with a doubly light heart, for with Mr Swift now gone her brother Edward would surely be allowed back home, and with his return life really would go back to normal.

  But of course it didn’t. And the fact that it did not, could not and would not possibly do so became ever more clear to Portia with each passing winter day, as did the realization that her solution to the puzzle was not nearly as close to the truth as she had finally surmised.

  For from the moment Mr Swift disappeared from Bannerwick so too in a way did Aunt Tattie, since from that day she hardly ever left her room. Even when she did, she was so pale and listless that as soon as Nanny saw her she ordered her former charge straight back
to bed as if she was indeed still ten years old. Uncle Lampard, seemingly at a loss to deal with her as he was with any reality, left his sister to herself and spent more and more time in the town, only returning very late at night to be put to bed by Mr Louis in what Nanny now boldly called a state of high inebriation.

  What had once been such a happy place now was a house of melancholy. When she was strong enough Aunt Tattie took to walking round and round the grounds all by herself, sometimes in the twilight and once or twice in total darkness, wandering in places such as the rose garden where only recently she had been so happy watching Mr Swift rehearse his play, or sitting on the bench by the lily pond where she and Mr Swift had read poems to each other or talked about the finer points of the Aesthetic movement. Even when she was indoors and up and about she would not settle in a room but instead would endlessly prowl the corridors muttering to herself with a deep frown on her brow, and if anyone ever stopped to ask her something she just stared at them as if she no longer knew who they were and cared even less.

  Not that the change which had come over Aunt Tattie was ever spoken about or discussed by anyone, not even by Nanny except once to refer to the fact that her former charge seemed to be suffering a little from her nerves. Otherwise nothing was said and life was conducted as if nothing unusual had happened, even though Aunt Tattie was no longer seen in the library for drinks or at table for any of the set meals.

  Portia blamed herself entirely. Night after night she recriminated with herself, blaming herself for telling such a silly lie and wishing she could call it back. Most of all she regretted letting go of the fatal letter to Aunt Augustine, feeling sure that if only she had kept hold of it something inside her would have prevented her from posting it.

  But of course she hadn’t and Evie had popped it in the post box and that had been the beginning of the end.

  Which in turn as far as Portia’s conscience went made matters even worse.

  She began to suffer regularly from nightmares, so much so that she was afraid to go to sleep and so she didn’t, not until she couldn’t fight it any longer. As a result she grew listless, losing weight and developing grey bags under her eyes. On top of that she had heard nothing from Edward, not one letter let alone any drawing of a dragon, so it finally seemed to her as if he was lost to her and that she had been responsible for his loss, as indeed Aunt Tattie was to all intents and purposes lost to her as well and that she, Portia, was solely responsible for poor Aunt Tattie’s nervous collapse. The only comfort she derived at this time, such as it was, was from her endless reading. Day after day she would shut herself away in Uncle Lampard’s library, curled up for hours either in one of the big wing chairs, or half hidden from view behind the shutters at the great latticed windows, reading endlessly about the great explorers and their wonderful adventures in unknown and distant lands. As the rest of the house measured out its days in an eerie silence, Portia sailed the seven seas and hacked her way into deepest Africa, leaving the now melancholy Bannerwick far behind her.

  Then one morning Aunt Tattie suddenly appeared in the library before her, waving a newly arrived letter with a large crest engraved at the top of the page. As was her custom these days Aunt Tattie had made no attempt to dress but was wearing her faded Japanese kimono half open over her nightgown, with her long and now faded auburn hair tangled and falling down in a dishevelled mess around her shoulders.

  ‘Where is Nanny?’ she demanded as soon as she had located Portia. ‘I must speak to Nanny at once. Go on, Porty dearest, go and find me that wicked old woman this minute.’

  And Portia, thoroughly alarmed at her aunt’s sudden appearance but most of all at the note of real anger in her voice, ran out of the library at once to do as she was told, leaving Aunt Tattie in front of the fire staring at the letter she had in her hand, the letter which as Portia had seen bore the unmistakable crest of the Medlar family.

  Nanny could not be found at once, so Portia delegated Mildred to look for her, while she went back in search of Aunt Tattie whom she finally found back in her boudoir.

  ‘What is it, Aunt Tattie?’ she asked. ‘What is it that has upset you so much? I have never seen you like this.’

  ‘Your wretched Aunt Augustine has finally persuaded your father to make her Edward’s guardian, that is what has upset me, Portia!’ Aunt Tattie replied vehemently. ‘His only guardian! He does not even have to come here for the holidays! Imagine! We may never see him again ever, Portia dear – not unless Edward wants to, and what with a pony and all the hunting he is now doing why should he ever want to come back to Bannerwick?’

  Portia frowned and turned away. For once Aunt Tattie was speaking the complete and utter truth and not her usual whimsy. Edward had said to Portia on many occasions that if he was allowed to have a pony and go hunting he would rather live with Aunt Augustine than with anybody.

  But before she could even begin to try to console her aunt, Nanny Tradescant arrived on the scene and Portia was duly despatched downstairs. Even as she closed the door behind her Portia heard the beginnings of the argument, and rather than witness any more unpleasantness she fled as quickly as she could down the great flight of stairs to seek solace in the library.

  Unfortunately the library was directly below Aunt Tattie’s rooms, so there was no escape and Portia found herself overhearing the most terrible argument she had ever heard between two grown people. In her time Bannerwick had never witnessed such a scene. No-one ever raised their voices in the house, no-one ever fought. Not at least until the arrival of Mr Swift and Miss Collins, and the posting of the fatal letter. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Portia threw down the book she had been unable to read and rushed back upstairs, intending to throw herself between the protagonists to try to stop them from possibly tearing each other to pieces.

  By the time she had run up the stairs and down the corridor to her aunt’s boudoir her uncle was also on the scene, having staggered out of his bedroom unshaven, red-eyed, with his unbrushed hair sticking up from his head and still in his dressing gown which he had all but managed to pull on inside out.

  ‘What in the name of St Crispin’s goin’ on in there?’ he muttered, still trying to poke one arm into a dressing-gown sleeve. ‘Someone being flailed alive or some’at?’

  ‘It’s Nanny and Aunt Tattie,’ Portia tried to explain above the noise of the two women. ‘Aunt Tattie got a letter and sent me to fetch Nanny at once.’

  ‘A letter, do you say?’ Uncle Lampard replied, turning round in a full circle in an effort to get into his robe. ‘What sort of a letter would that be, whatever-your-name-is?’

  ‘It looked like it was from Aunt Augustine, Uncle Lampard,’ Portia replied, trying without success to help her uncle into his dressing gown.

  ‘Oh oh,’ Uncle Lampard groaned. ‘A letter from Augustine, eh? That’ll be bad tidings, you can bet your boots, girl.’

  ‘Perhaps we ought to go in and see if there’s anything we can do,’ Portia suggested. ‘Nanny is making the most dreadful noise. It sounds as if she’s ill or something. Listen.’

  Sir Lampard, having finally won the battle between his arm and the sleeve of his robe, now stood stock still, rubbing a hand thoughtfully over the greying stubble on his unshaven chin while he and Portia listened to the frightful moaning which was now emanating from inside Aunt Tattie’s boudoir.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he wondered. ‘Don’t like the sound of that at all, girl. Per’aps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to go and fetch someone.’

  ‘Who, Uncle Lampard? There’s only you and Aunt Tattie, Nanny and I here, so who else could we fetch? Unless you mean one of the servants.’

  ‘That’s precisely what I mean, blow it,’ Uncle Lampard announced. ‘Go and fetch up Louis.’

  ‘Couldn’t you go in and see what you could do, Uncle Lampard?’ Portia asked, not quite seeing how their butler might be able to help.

  ‘No I could not!’ Uncle Lampard retorted. ‘What – go in there? No I most certainly could
not! I can’t stand the sight of the female of the species crying. I cannot stand it, I tell you! Makes me want to slap ’em! Now do as you’re bid and go and find me Louis at once!’

  ‘I really don’t see what Mr Louis will be able to do, Uncle.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Eh? Louis’s a butler for heaven’s sake! Butlers know what to do about all sorts of things! That’s what they’re trained for!’ Uncle Lampard expostulated. ‘Now go on – off with you and double quick, there’s a good boy! I mean girl! Go on – hurry off with you! Hurry hurry hurry!’

  Portia was just about to hurry off as told when the door of Aunt Tattie’s suite of rooms suddenly opened and out came Nanny Tradescant, her glistening face the complexion of a rain-soaked Victoria plum. Behind her stood a pale but resolute Aunt Tattie.

  ‘Tatiana?’ Sir Lampard exclaimed more in surprise than enquiry. ‘Nanny? What is this? Has something dreadful happened here?’

  ‘Oh yes! Yes indeed, Lampard,’ his sister told him, now coming to the threshold. ‘Something has happened all right! Nanny Tradescant is to leave us!’

  ‘Nanny Trad to leave us?’ Uncle Lampard cried, leaning against the wall down which he slowly started to slide. ‘You cannot mean it? Nanny cannot possibly leave us, Tattie! I mean – she can’t possibly. Nannies do not leave families such as ours!’

  ‘You may say what you will, Master Lampard, but I most certainly am leaving,’ Nanny corrected him with an imperious sniff, reaching into a pocket in her dress to produce a handkerchief into which she loudly blew her nose. ‘Nanny has every right to go where and as she pleases. When something has been said which should not have been.’

  With a meaningful nod and another large sniff Nanny Tradescant turned round to glare at her former charge. ‘Is that not the case, Miss Tattie? Was not something said in there which would have been far, far better left unsaid?’

  ‘What are you talking about? How can you say such a thing?’ Aunt Tattie replied with sudden vigour. ‘You should never have made so bold as to write to Augustine! It was not your place to do such a thing!’