The Hidden Dance

by Susan Wooldridge

  In his desire to be rid of the woman, Captain Henshaw nodded curtly. ‘I shall wire Scotland Yard immediately—’

  He stopped. For the second time that morning Lady Slocombe’s face had gone grey. In a whisper, she gasped, ‘Oh no, you mustn’t call the police!’

  ‘But why on earth not, Lady Slocombe?’

  The big woman floundered. She opened her mouth to speak then thought better of it.

  ‘Lady Slocombe, I should have thought you of all people would wish to see justice done. And done properly.’

  ‘Indeed I do, Captain.’ He watched as the woman drew her large handbag onto her lap and, in so doing, appear to rally. Her voice stronger, she confided, ‘There are certain aspects to this affair that I feel should remain private, that I would prefer not to discuss.’ She ducked her head towards the captain, lowering her voice to a remorseful whisper. ‘Mental instability and so on. Very upsetting if you get my meaning. I trust I need say no more?’

  The question was hypothetical as she did not wait for a reply but steamed on regardless. ‘I would be obliged if you would leave me to handle this extremely delicate matter. Timms has been a family servant for over thirty years and I would not wish to publicly press charges.’ Her smile was all bountiful. Dear God, thought Henshaw, the woman is going to beg for mercy. And indeed she did.

  ‘I beg you, Captain – as the Bard himself has it – ‘the quality of mercy’?’

  Unable to stomach the woman’s ill-disguised hypocrisy further and aware that whatever punishment he meted out would probably be out-done by any walking the plank she could devise, he nodded agreement. Though he feared there were the pair of them in it, he sadly had no proof to corroborate his misgivings; the stolen item had been found in the maid’s possession.

  ‘Under the circumstances, I think an apology to Miss Grossman would be suitable?’ He held the woman’s eye.

  ‘Indeed, Captain, I will be going to her cabin straight away,’ her ladyship replied smoothly. She rose from her chair.

  He gave her a curt nod and she left.

  Alone, he swiftly ran through the happenings of the morning, trying to sift fact from fiction. A curiosity had begun to niggle at the back of his mind all through these last minutes with Lady Slocombe. Why had the well-spoken Mrs Valley been dressed as a chambermaid, carrying a breakfast tray, when he’d first met her during morning inspection? And she’d used the oddest alias, he remembered. What was it? A racecourse, that was it. Aintree. And why did her child speak with such a strong North Country accent?

  He rang down on his intercom to the wireless room.

  ‘Contact Scotland Yard. I want details concerning a young boy. Name: Nicholas Sutton. Age: about ten years old.’ He looked down at the newspaper article on his desk. ‘He appears to be the son of a Sir Charles Sutton. Treat it as a matter of some urgency.’

  He rose to leave his office; he needed to clear his head. There was something extremely unsettling about the whole affair that he couldn’t put his finger on. I am a man of the sea, he thought wearily, I fancy myself neither as politician nor policeman.

  Full speed maintained, 519 miles covered in the last twenty-four hours, they would be docking in New York on time at ten o’clock the next morning. God willing and the weather remaining fair.

  He stepped out of his office and, turning into the wind, headed towards the bridge.

  At midday exactly, Lord Clairmont and his nurse entered the Paris lounge. A shaft of primrose sunlight pierced the dreary clouds and glanced through the long windows as from the nearby Palm Court the gentle strains of ‘It’s Just the Time For Dancing’ started up; the lunchtime concert had commenced.

  Billy watched as the couple made their way to their table. Miss Grossman certainly looked perkier than she had the night before and he had to admit she looked right dapper in her little hat with its pom-pom on the side. Quite the business! As for m’lord, well, all he was good for was gazing and gazing at the nurse as though his heart would burst with pride.

  Billy checked the room – he had a letter to deliver to Lady Slocombe – and noticed most of the guests smiling and nodding at the young couple. Hmm, that’s a bit late, he thought, the pair of ’em could have done with a spot of that last night.

  Lady Slocombe was sitting in the far corner of the room. As he made towards her, he was brought up short by her expression. She was sitting in a fury staring at m’lord and his nurse whilst commenting loudly to her companion, ‘I don’t think I have ever witnessed such barefaced cheek, Dora. When I think of that Grossman girl’s behaviour last evening—’

  Billy’s arrival silenced her. She stared haughtily at the bellboy, who proffered the letter on a tray. ‘Your ladyship.’

  Snatching it, she began greedily tearing at the envelope. ‘Give him a coin, Dora. I expect it’s from the captain.’ Unfolding the page, she held her lorgnette to it. But as she read, much to Billy’s amazement, the woman’s energy appeared to leak away until she sat trembling like a hunted animal, flicking tiny glances all about her. Suddenly she let out a gasp and the lorgnette clattered from her fingers. Frozen, she stared across the lounge, something holding her gaze in a vice-like grip.

  There, on the other side of the room, Lord Clairmont and his nurse sat calmly and boldly regarding the woman.

  So startling seemingly was this challenge that Lady Slocombe forcefully hauled herself to her feet and made to move off at speed, but she stumbled at once, nearly falling, this giddy progress bringing every eye to her. Her exit was rendered even more ridiculous by her tubby little companion frantically padding after her, calling out, ‘Lavinia, wait for me. Oh, Lavinia, are you not well?’

  As the two women passed out of sight, Billy turned back and saw Lord Clairmont raise the nurse’s gloved hand to his lips. Kissing it, he held it tenderly against his face for all the world to see.

  ‘If the captain’s doing his job properly, he’d want to get to the bottom of Lavinia’s allegation.’ Lily’s voice was sullen. She sat huddled and wretched on the bunk, Johnnie standing only inches away by the door. Both felt trapped by the tiny cabin.

  ‘For God’s sake, Lily, we’ve been over and over this. The captain will dismiss the entire rumpus as a troublesome piece of meddling.’ He didn’t believe what he said, not for one minute, but he was sick of the whole bloody affair and he couldn’t see any way forward.

  ‘Don’t shout at me, Johnnie! Just because you don’t know what to do.’

  He sank down onto the bunk beside her; he could feel the terrible misery of the morning threatening to consume them. He’d been terrified from the outset that they’d drop their guard, some petty error betraying them. Added to which he could feel his own personal terrors welling up, the stress baiting his illness back into life.

  He closed his eyes, hearing as he did so the wretched insistence continuing in Lily’s voice. ‘Do you seriously think the captain believes Lavinia doesn’t know this third-class passenger she’s accusing! We should never have come.’ Her tone sulky and shut, he could hear her kicking at fate. Dear God, what wouldn’t she do now?

  He felt a surge of panic and desperately reached for her hands. ‘Lily, we mustn’t fight. What chance do we have if we become enemies?’ He clung to her, frantic that circumstances were about to tear them apart. And the choking fear, for so long unspoken, welled up between them both, driving away the sullen rage that threatened to drown them. They found themselves huddling together, desperate for comfort. Their love, so great and so new, would make them, must make them survive and, without warning, he started to cry. To hide the stupid ridiculous tears, he found her mouth, kissing her desperately. He mustn’t lose her, this woman who’d unlocked his heart.

  Lily clung to him, suddenly sensing the desperation between them, and the life, the daring leaping within her, she started to tear at his tie and the buttons on his shirt – ‘Oh, hell’s bells, these clothes!’ – her other arm clinging round his neck as she passionately returned his kiss.

  They fe
ll back, gasping, their knees and elbows knocking and banging against the wooden confines of the bunk, the kiss between them rough. And Johnnie, feeling his neurasthenic panic pass, helped push up her skirt and together, untidily wrapped, they fell back, panting and laughing onto the bunk.

  Now so great was his need of her, he roughly climbed on top and, with Lily helping him, tore aside her underclothing. She wrapped her legs, her arms around him and fought the desire to close her eyes, to succumb to her own longing. She must see him, she must watch the weary beauty of him. And astonished by his great desire, so different from anything she had ever shared with Charles, she felt an extraordinary love as Johnnie came with a shout, the joy of which Lily was never to forget.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Scotland Yard, London. Saturday afternoon

  ‘Sir, sir!’

  Young PC Battle could hardly contain his excitement. He hared along the highly polished corridor and skidded to a stop in Superintendent Outwood’s doorway.

  ‘Is there a fire, Battle?’ asked Outwood in measured tones.

  ‘Sir, we may have had a breakthrough! A cable from the captain of the SS Etoile’s just come through. Concerning the whereabouts of Nicholas Sutton.’

  Outwood jumped up and, pulling on his jacket, pushed Battle out of the door. ‘Where’s the vessel now?’

  ‘En route for New York, sir. Docks ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  The children were by now playing Lotto and Anthea was proving a master of the game. With supreme joy at this new-found skill, she kept yelling at the top of her voice, ‘Got yer! Got yer!’ leaving Nickie giggling and pop-eyed at the enormous noise his new friend could make.

  ‘She’s found her voice then,’ Mr Valley remarked.

  ‘Thank the Lord,’ muttered Nellie, polishing off a second jam sponge and sitting back. ‘“Ding-ding, full up,” as my gran used to say. And very nice too.’

  ‘And this pea and ham soup is extremely tasty as well,’ remarked Mrs Valley, scraping her bowl, clean as clean.

  ‘You’ve got a bit of an appetite, I’m glad to see,’ said Nellie, ever-comforted by life’s small gifts.

  ‘I think I’ll take these trays back, it’s getting rather crowded in here. Anything further I can get you, ladies?’ Mr Valley asked.

  ‘A cup o’ tea would be very nice, thank you,’ replied Nellie.

  As he left the cabin, she said, ‘I’d forgotten how pleasant it is to have a man about the place. My Davy could be that bloody-minded, pardon my French, neither use nor ornament, but he could charm’t birds off trees.’

  A fleeting memory made her smile. Davy serenading her outside Sheffield General, one dark morning as she’d left the night shift. Down on one knee, in front of all her girl-friends too. He hadn’t cared what anyone’d thought. Nor had she. Best-looking lad of the lot of ’em, her Davy. Always fit as a butcher’s dog.

  Before the memory took hold and turned sour, she shook it away. ‘Enough of all that,’ she said briskly and, gathering her work-basket to her, started to unravel a holey sock. ‘Now, what I’m wanting to know, if it’s not an impertinent question, is ‘ow do you and Mr Valley intend making your money in this ’ere America?’

  ‘Johnnie’s cousin, Howard, lives in Connecticut. He runs a small school there. So we’re hoping he might take us in until we get settled. I can always do my sewing and there’s nothing about pigs that Johnnie doesn’t know.’

  ‘Well, I never,’ said Nellie, ‘but good luck to yer both, I say.’ She held her sock to the light and considered the darn for a minute. ‘Hard work, mind,’ she added, unable to squash the cluck in her voice. Well, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. After all, the woman had never had to work for a living.

  ‘We’re not afraid of that, Mrs Webb. We’ll work as hard as we can.’ Nellie caught the passion in the woman’s voice. ‘We simply have to make enough to deal with Charles, for whenever he catches up with us. Pray God it’s later rather than sooner.’ She glanced down at her child, dropping her voice. ‘We have to make enough so that we can all stay together.’

  The child took no notice; Nellie could see that grown-ups talking was boring beside a game of Lotto. She looked across at little Anthea and smiled; her grandbabbie was talking nineteen t’dozen to her new friend.

  ‘So you’ll start off with this Howard then?’

  ‘Yes, we’re hoping to get Nickie properly settled there. It’s rather a good school, I believe.’

  Nellie watched the woman’s hopes for the future momentarily blot out her fears for the present. She’s a lovely fresh complexion, she thought, and that orange hair’s right pretty on her, too. Though not on some! The image of Davy’s plain sister, Bertha, swam into her mind. Poor Bertha, with her whey face and curly carrotty hair…

  There was a knock, both women swung round.

  ‘Only me,’ Mr Valley called out and entered with a tray of teacups and glasses of lemon squash. ‘I’ve just heard there’s a bit of a “show fight” up there tonight with a 50 guinea purse. “The Bermondsey Bomber v The Townsend Terror”. Should be worth a look.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to make do wi’ fancy-dress parade down here, Mr Valley. The other’s for nobs up top!’

  All light drained out of the afternoon sky, leaving it the colour of smoke.

  In her darkened cabin, Enid Timms sat very still amid the chaos of newspaper and shoes. On her lap, the OXO tin lay open.

  The bracelet had, of course, been kept by the captain and, no doubt, returned to her mistress. But when he handed her back the tin, how could she be sure everything was present and correct, all the valuables she kept in it accounted for? She felt invaded, her world pillaged.

  Carefully, Miss Timms started to make an inventory of her little possessions. She took out the green ink-bottle, the pieces of chalk, the small notebook, the little lock of hair and, most precious of all, tucked away at the bottom, the old envelope.

  She unfolded it and drew out the frail document from which fell a tiny photograph. As always, she turned it over and read the fading pencil marks. ‘Amy 9 months February 1916.’ She opened the document. She did not need her spectacles; she knew what was written. ‘Thirty-first May 1915. Chobham Hall. Amy Frances – Girl. Father: Unknown. Mother: Enid Mary Timms. Occupation of Father: Unknown.’

  In utter misery, she curled up in the chaos of her little bunk. Who had found this in her cabin? Who had read this? Who now knew her secrets?

  Lady Slocombe sat frozen in an armchair in her palatial suite staring across at the letter that lay open on the Louis XVI mahogany desk. Beside it, as though standing guard, a heavy silver-framed photograph of her husband, Charteris. As usual, she hadn’t given him a moment’s thought until now, when disaster loomed, her husband’s wrath being the only thing in the world that truly frightened her. What was she to do? She had read that damned letter so many times since its delivery in the Paris lounge, the phrases wouldn’t stop whistling round her mind…

  Madam,

  Certain matters have come to our attention concerning your past and the acquisition of a criminal record. Silence regarding these matters will only be considered if a full and public apology is made to Miss Matilda Grossman for the inconvenience caused by your false accusation of her. It is to be hoped that this may be the last time such mischief is perpetrated through your thievery. We will be watching.

  She closed her eyes and, as she did so, a wave of terror made her feel alarmingly sick and dizzy.

  Why did no one understand there was an order to the world? An order which, if it was not adhered to, allowed chaos to reign. She, Lavinia, knew the order of things, had always known the order. Power and order. Power was given to so very few; it was a God-given right, as unassailable as the divine right of kings. Not to be ignored but used, in the creation of order.

  That power Lavinia knew to be her right. Her birthright. To be carefully administered, often with secrecy, so that she always had control. Control over chaos. Control to
guide thoughtless creatures, creatures so often indulging in selfish pleasures and joy. She had watched them, crudely demonstrating their enjoyment. Laughing, always laughing. Heedless, hateful laughter. How she hated the sound, the spectacle. Heads thrown back, bodies doubled forward. No control.

  Control must be brought to chaos. This truth, Lavinia had realised long ago, was her duty to impose. This duty was her path through life; its course marked out by, of all people, her stupid little cousin Harriet. Thirty years along, Lavinia could still freshly savour the incident and the girl’s insolence. Harriet on her tiny opera chair, smirking, making Grandmama and that hateful Lily Sutton laugh and giggle. Lavinia closed her eyes; she could see the wretched girl and her cohorts, all three turned towards her, sharing the same silly joke.

  As always with these thoughts, Lavinia felt the consoling, boiling rage swelling through her and, as the anger burned, it felt glorious. How had the pathetic child so dared to overstep the mark? Cousin Harriet, revolting in her poverty, childish in her needs. But dangerous, too, turning the social order upside down, this impoverished relation insinuating herself where she had no right to be.

  Just as the ghastly Grossman girl was doing now, her and her Jewish brethren. Just as so many threatened, everywhere. They had to be stopped before some dreary revolution took place. All of them. She, Lavinia, had to bring order to chaos…

  Alone in her palatial suite, she thought, No one understands that this has been my path through life, my Calvary.

  Now, in this difficult moment, when no one understood her desire to bring order to the chaos, she thought lovingly of her birthright and, in cherishing it, hoped it would bring the comfort she so desperately craved. But tonight as she sat alone, the comfort was joyless.

  ‘Pooh, promise me you won’t forget about me, ever. Not even when I am a hundred.’