‘I wrote to Lady Medlar for the good of the family, Master Lampard,’ Nanny said in her grandest, most self-important tones, deciding that it was no longer sensible to try to carry on the argument with his sister. ‘I merely asked her for some good advice, which sadly seems to be in very short supply in this particular household.’
‘Quite right too, Nanny,’ Sir Lampard meekly agreed from where he now sat, right down on his haunches and squatting on his heels. ‘Whatever you do’s always for the best. We know that.’
‘Your sister would not agree with that alas, Master Lampard,’ Nanny sighed, stuffing her large white handkerchief back into her pocket. ‘Your sister accused me of wrecking the life of this family simply because I allowed it to be known by Lady Medlar that I did not consider the way Master Edward was being educated by that simpering tutor of his to be in any way proper or acceptable. In return, and although I have been proved to have been in the right, your sister has insulted me, questioned my integrity and criticized me with such partiality that I cannot possibly remain under the roof of a house which up until this moment I had considered to be my home.’
The last part of Nanny Tradescant’s summation seemed to catch her unawares, for her eyes suddenly filled with huge tears and she began to sob, making as she did so a dreadful seal-like noise.
‘My God,’ Sir Lampard muttered from his crouched position. ‘My God.’ The sight and sound of his old nanny’s lamentations upset him so much that he pushed himself up the wall until he was back on his feet and once again stood facing his old nurse. ‘Nanny?’
‘To think!’ Nanny cried between sobs, taking a breath in three short quivers. ‘To think I thought of this as my home! And now! Now at my age I am to be cast out from the bosom of what I thought was my family and thrown upon the mercy of my poor sister in Littlehampton!’
‘Never,’ Sir Lampard assured her, shaking his head from side to side. ‘Never, never, never.’
‘She is not being thrown out of here at all, Lampard!’ Aunt Tattie cried, steadying herself with one hand against the lintel of her door. ‘Leaving and going to her sister’s was all her idea! As if I would ask her to do such a thing!’
‘You could hardly expect me to stay here!’ Nanny thundered, rounding on Aunt Tattie and knocking Portia spinning across the corridor. ‘Did you think for one moment Nanny was going to stand by and do nothing while you ruined her little boy? Did you? Did you think Nanny was just going to sit by and watch and do nothing while you and that smarmy tutor turned my little soldier into a molly?’
‘A molly?’ Sir Lampard gasped in astonishment behind his old nurse. ‘A molly? What in heaven’s name are you talking about, woman?’
‘You know perfectly well what I am talking about! And kindly do not call Nanny woman!’ Nanny boomed, her tears now forgotten. ‘What do you think happens when boys are not encouraged to be boys, but to spout poetry all day and do Greek dancing? You should know what happens – because it happened to you!’ She stopped to point an accusatory finger at the now plainly quivering Sir Lampard Tradescant. ‘You are what happens if the proper disciplines are not observed! When people such as your mother are allowed to indulge their whims with their little boys! Time and time again I said to your father send him away to school! Send him out hunting! Put a gun in his hand! But your mother would have none of it and look! See the result for yourself! So I was certainly not going to have such a thing happen to my little soldier, most certainly not! Over Nanny’s dead body was she going to have her little soldier turning into some feeble-minded wildflower!’
This was altogether too much for Aunt Tattie, who having practically strangled herself with her string of beads during this last outburst now gave a short frightening gasp such as Portia had never heard before and collapsed in a dead faint.
As she hurried to the dressing table to find some smelling salts Portia heard Nanny Tradescant remark from the doorway that her aunt fainted only to get attention, something she had done ever since she was a girl, and Nanny was not going to be bested by such a tired ruse. Thereupon she swept out of sight down the corridor, leaving Aunt Tattie’s still quivering brother stunned and practically speechless.
‘What a beeswax,’ was all he could manage as Portia held the smelling salts under her aunt’s Grecian nose. ‘What an absolute and complete beeswax.’
Once righted and with her clothes carefully rearranged by her dutiful niece Aunt Tattie opened both eyes, blinked slowly and regarded the room as if she had landed on a distant planet.
‘What happened?’ she whispered. ‘Where am I? What has happened?’
As Portia carefully waved some more Lively Sarah under her aunt’s nose she began carefully to explain what had occurred in as undramatic a fashion as possible, and as she did so her uncle crawled over to the day bed in one corner of the room and with a long moan of despair collapsed on it face down.
‘I really didn’t intend for Nanny to go, Lampard dearest—’ Aunt Tattie called to her brother.
‘You know what Nanny’s like, Tattie,’ Sir Lampard groaned from his bed of grief. ‘You know you can’t say boo to her. Lord knows I remember every inch of that wretched airing cupboard in the nursery she used to hurl me into whenever I tried it! Lord knows I do!’
‘Portia.’ Aunt Tattie suddenly turned her concentration on her niece who was still kneeling and waving the sal volatile under her nose, although in a less vigorous fashion. ‘Portia dearest—’
‘She won’t listen to me, Aunt Tattie,’ Portia said, guessing what she was about to be asked. ‘If she won’t listen to either you or Uncle Lampard, she is hardly going to listen to a child.’
‘No, no, she will,’ her aunt assured her. ‘After all, you are still in her care. And Nanny Tradescant is far too responsible a nurse to walk out and leave you. So go after her now, dearest one, and throw yourself on her mercy. I know she will listen to you.’
Portia did as she was asked but all to no avail, for Nanny Tradescant’s mind was quite made up. There was no point in her staying any longer anyway, she assured her remaining charge, since the reason for her being there had long ago been removed. Edward was lost to her, and without Edward there was no reason for her to continue at Bannerwick.
‘But didn’t you know what might happen when you wrote that letter, Nanny?’ Portia wondered.
‘No,’ Nanny Tradescant replied, already beginning to collect her things from round the nursery. ‘I merely thought that Lady Medlar would come here and instil some sense into your aunt and uncle’s heads. I had absolutely no idea that she would remove Edward entirely from my charge. As if. As if indeed. And as for you, you are over thirteen years of age, young lady, so you do not need a nanny any longer. You will not be uncared for. You will still have Evie.’
‘But I have no governess, Nanny,’ Portia insisted. ‘And fond as I am of Evie, she is not the same as you. She can hardly go on bringing me up the way you have done.’
‘That is for your aunt and uncle to worry about, Portia,’ Nanny Tradescant said, taking her books down from the shelves. ‘Besides, you are a girl, and do not require a nanny’s attentions the way a boy does. You are an independent sort of child anyway, always have been and always will be, so I should imagine you will experience very few difficulties during the rest of your growing up. Not in a place such as this. Most particularly with such an uncle and aunt who are so full of ideas and who it seems always know best.’
With that, Nanny picked up a pile of freshly ironed laundry and disappeared into her room to pack.
Neither of Portia’s older relatives took the news of Nanny Tradescant’s imminent departure anything but badly. Sir Lampard retired to his study with a decanter of whisky while Aunt Tattie simply took to her bed, leaving Portia to reflect more and more upon the massive and apparently unending harm she had caused by her mendacity. Worst of all, the day that Nanny Tradescant finally left, driven in style to the station by Plumb in a carriage generally reserved for guests and with a banker’s draft for
a more than generous sum to go towards her retirement safely in her handbag, Portia learned that Edward was not coming home for Christmas.
‘I am afraid not, dearest,’ Aunt Tattie told her from behind her loom. ‘I’m afraid your sainted Aunt Augustine will never let go of dearest Edward now. He is lost to us, Portia.’
When she understood all hope was gone as far as persuading Aunt Augustine to change her mind went, Portia put on her winter cloak and took herself out into the frosted garden where she walked and walked until she came to an understanding with herself about what had happened to her life and the lives of all those with whom she was involved, the understanding being that there was only one thing she could do and that was to make sure that when she grew up she somehow made up to them all for the terrible damage she had done. She was determined on it.
DOWN FROM THE NURSERY
In the four years which had elapsed since that fateful Christmas which none of them could ever forget, Portia had seen her brother no more than a half a dozen times. He had been allowed on short visits to Bannerwick, for his birthday and at Christmas time, but they were never alone together for more than a few minutes, for Edward was always in the company of Aunt Augustine.
The same went for when Portia was allowed to visit Shepton Hall. Even when they went out riding they were always accompanied by either a servant or indeed Aunt Augustine herself, who was as it transpired an excellent horsewoman. Despite all the trappings for which he had wished Portia felt Edward suffered from not seeing more of Aunt Tattie and herself, but when she asked him directly if he was unhappy it was always only to receive the same reply.
‘What do you think, Porty?’ he would say. ‘I have this splendid pony, and Turpin – that’s the gamekeeper – Turpin is teaching me to shoot. I fish in the lake and the river here and I go to the best school in England. So what do you think?’
‘Do you like Eton, Edward?’
‘I like it as much as all the other boys do. I have learned to box, and to fence, and to row, which is a whole lot better than doing silly plays dressed up as a girl. What about you, Porty? Do you have a new governess yet? Or have you managed to persuade the ancestors to let you go off to school as well?’
Regretfully Portia would have to report that such was still not her luck. Uncle Lampard was standing by his declared belief that girls simply did not count.
‘You know what he says, Edward,’ she said, on one of the few occasions they were actually alone. ‘Girls don’t need education. He says it’s a pure waste of money because all girls are there for is to grow up and get married and you don’t have to have read the right books to get married. So he says. You just have to be the right sex, that’s all. By the way, did you ever find out from anyone at school what a wildflower is?’
Edward had shaken his head with a frown.
‘I see,’ Portia had said thoughtfully. ‘Evie says it’s something to do with unnatural tendencies. I suppose that means liking poetry and art and weaving and things, like Uncle Lampard and Aunt Tattie do.’
‘And putting on silly plays about the moon and the sun in verse – yerghh!’
‘Yes, of course. I suppose that’s why Nanny Tradescant called Uncle Lampard and Aunt Tattie wildflowers. Because they’re not normal like everyone else.’
‘’Spose so.’ Edward agreed, not in the least interested. ‘Oh good – here’s tea.’
Portia saw with what relief Edward ended the conversation and sadly she realized that she and Edward were no longer close. They might still love each other, but they were no longer close and perhaps, thanks to her, they never would be again.
So with her aunt becoming more wrapped up in her Arts and Crafts with each passing day, back at Bannerwick Portia came to understand the shape that her life was taking, for things were being daily imposed upon her now, things with which she had had little to do while Nanny Tradescant had been in residence. For the first year after Nanny’s departure, while they were still living up on the nursery floor, the kind-hearted Evie had served her purpose in keeping their quarters clean and tidy, but apart from her domestic duties she had little other use. She was a simple-minded girl and though of a harmless disposition she was not someone with whom Portia could become familiar. So once Portia had a bedroom on the same floor as her aunt and uncle, Evie disappeared back below stairs, leaving the responsibility of organizing the domestic arrangements to her young mistress. Portia very soon found she had her hands full trying to keep in order a house that might otherwise fall apart at the seams, for from the moment of Nanny Tradescant’s departure Aunt Tattie appeared to have abnegated all responsibility for the welfare of the household, preferring to stay reading in her suite of rooms for most of the day, until she would finally appear late in the afternoon only to wander around the house with half her hair unpinned and falling over her shoulders and the buttons on her clothes done up in the wrong holes so that there were unsightly gaps.
In the early days her maid would follow behind hoping to repair the damage, now and then trying to rebutton or fasten her employer’s garments, but Aunt Tattie would have none of this, swatting vaguely at the unfortunate girl with whatever book she had in her hand or with her large and increasingly damaged fan. Finally the maid gave in and confined her attempts to dressing Aunt Tattie solely to the boudoir, after which Portia took over the task of trying to keep her aunt looking at least outwardly respectable.
Although Portia privately ascribed the blame for her aunt’s increasing peculiarity not to the old nurse’s going but to Mr Swift’s midnight flit, within two years of Nanny’s departure Portia found that she was responsible not just for Aunt Tattie but for the running of the whole house. Certainly as the days went by she realized she was spending as much time in the kitchens as she had been in the library, since without her aunt’s supervision, however wayward it might have been, the organization of the place was breaking down.
The housekeeper, a small ferret-faced woman with a big black bun of hair, had according to Mr Louis always needed watching, and now that she was not being quite as closely overseen as she had been the household accounts began to go sadly awry. Portia learned this from Mr Louis to whom for obvious reasons she now grew closer. It was vital to have an important ally in the household staff, for the more time she was forced to spend beyond the pass door the more Portia understood that below stairs raged an almost open warfare.
During one of the lulls in the constant battle that seemed to constitute kitchen life, as Portia and Mr Louis sat drinking tea in his pantry, Portia wondered idly for how long the battle had been raging.
‘Since ze time of ze first Kin’ of England, Miss Porsher,’ the butler replied in his still appalling English. ‘I imagines zere once to have been a terrible battle here and someone he decided to build an ’ouse around it.’
The main protagonists were, unsurprisingly enough, Cook and Mrs Whiteways the housekeeper, who were at each other from dawn till dusk when both would retire hurt, Mrs Whiteways to her room and her creative accountancy and Cook to her bottle and her pack of cards. Somehow, although Portia could not imagine how, when Aunt Tattie had been in full possession of her senses things had been difficult but only, according to Mr Louis, on the odd occasion. Now, seeming to sense their employer’s withdrawal from reality and with only Mr Louis left in charge, Cook and Mrs Whiteways had mutually decided that it was a fight to the death and heaven help anyone who interfered.
On receipt of the housekeeping allowance Mrs Whiteways would immediately cut every corner imaginable and present Cook with provisions which Cook in turn pronounced uncookable. To prove the point she would then prepare whatever was requested as badly as possible, hoping that someone upstairs would notice and come down to complain, thus discovering Mrs Whiteways’s iniquity.
But no-one did. At least not for a good long while.
There were two good reasons for this and they were that Aunt Tattie now hardly ate anything let alone noticed what the food with which she toyed was like, while Uncle
Lampard, despairing of his sister’s dementia, absented himself with more and more frequency from Bannerwick, either taking himself to London where he would stay at his club for an extended visit or when at home going off on one of his late night ‘jaunts’ in one of the nearby towns. He was hardly now seen in the dining room, and on the rare occasions when he was he usually seemed unnaturally sleepy throughout most of the meal.
Portia meanwhile began to despair of what was happening to the once famous table at Bannerwick. Gone were the succulent roasts and the delicate home-made pies and in their place up from the kitchen came fatty stews and skinny chickens, served on badly washed plates, with unpolished silver and smudged glasses. At first she tried to draw her aunt’s attention to the declining standards, but Aunt Tattie was in such a permanent daydream that Portia soon realized she was wasting her breath. The unconditional warfare which now raged permanently behind the pass door meant that the whole house was gradually going to the dogs, with vases left full of half-dead flowers, fires built on unemptied grates and everywhere a thin film of dust and grime.
Since no-one else seemed in the slightest bit concerned Portia began to take over. She did not set out specifically to do so. On the contrary she found the occupation overtaking her, but as she became more and more involved in the management of the house she realized this was as good a way as any she could imagine to keep herself from thinking too much and to try to make up to her aunt and uncle for her childish deception.
So she determined to restore the house and its cuisine to their former order and to see to the welfare of her uncle and aunt, both of whom seemed now to need careful attention. But she resolved not to achieve her ends by delegation but instead by involving herself personally in every aspect of the work, helping the maids with the fires, the beds and the dusting, Mr Louis with the silver, Mrs Whiteways with the planning of the meals and Cook with their execution. The only aspect of life at Bannerwick with which she did not need to involve herself was the care of the gardens, for that was an area where due to the maintenance of the proper disciplines peace and happiness still reigned, so while enjoying their undoubted beauty and tranquillity Portia mercifully did not have to set to out of doors as well.
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