The Visitors

by Sally Beauman

  It took him until the next station, finishing the crossword in the half-hour he always allowed it, before he looked up and began to ask me about Egypt. He listened to my halting replies.

  ‘Ah yes, ballet. You mentioned that in one of your inimitable postcards,’ he remarked. ‘You must cure yourself, Lucy, of this predilection for exclamation marks.’ My description of the Winlocks elicited a dismissive, ‘Oh, Americans,’ and an incautious reference to Lord Carnarvon was an error: ever emphatic in his Socialist views, my father detested and despised aristocrats. He despised the working and middle classes too, but this fact was less often canvassed. I switched tack fast, but my earnest account of the Valley of the Kings caused immediate irritable mirth: his lips thinned.

  ‘Mummified kings, cats, baboons, bulls – even crocodiles, I understand. There’s a civilisation for you! One so advanced it failed to produce a shred of literature. Why any archaeologist worth his salt should choose to dig there, rather than Greece or Italy, I can’t imagine… except for the gold, which they unearth with monotonous regularity, though less so of late, I observe. They impressed you, did they – those Egyptian gods, with birds or dung beetles for heads? They seem preposterous to me.’

  ‘Those beetles symbolise rebirth, Daddy,’ I replied. ‘I liked the gods. And the goddesses.’

  ‘Ah, so you have opinions now, do you?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Forgive me: once you’ve seen the Parthenon, perhaps I’ll bow to them; not before. And the famous tombs? How were they? I seem to remember their prospect excited you a good deal – and Miss Mackenzie too, though, as we know, it takes precious little to excite her.’

  ‘The tombs were the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I shall never ever forget them.’

  ‘Two “evers” in one sentence! My dear, your eloquence is such that I dare ask no further questions. Your replies would overwhelm me.’

  He returned to The Times; I turned to the window. Fields scudded past; it had begun to rain; it was still only three in the afternoon, but the light was fading fast. We were one hour into the journey: another hour to go. I’d forgotten my father’s talent for withering any enthusiasm betrayed by others; I was dying by inches again. I wished I had my ankh, and for want of it fingered the lapis lazuli bead Howard Carter had given me. Folded around it was the note with her address on it that Rose had given me that morning.

  The two of us had been standing on the deck of the Channel steamer, watching the cliffs of Dover approach. ‘My mother’s dead,’ Rose had said suddenly, in a sensible tone. ‘I do know that, Lucy. I may not know how, or where – but I’ve worked it out, and I know she’s never coming back. You know it too – I can see it in your eyes. But you don’t have to pretend any more. You must still protect Petey – but not me.’ She gestured towards her brother; hand-in-hand with Wheeler, he was further along the deck, feeding gulls. Rose gave a small cough. ‘You’ve been jolly good at it, an absolute brick,’ she went on, stealing her small gloved hand into mine. ‘No, don’t argue – you have. So you’ve got to promise me: you’ll write, won’t you, Lucy? You’ll come and visit Petey and me?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ I replied.

  There would be no difficulty in writing, but a visit? I couldn’t see my father’s agreeing to that, but now was not the moment to say so. I looked down at Rose’s small, plump, resolute figure: she was glaring at the white cliffs as they inexorably approached. Both of us had been given the Wheeler treatment that morning: my hair had been disciplined in honour of my father; Rose, prepared for a similar reunion, was wearing a smocked woollen frock, a double-breasted green tweed overcoat with velvet collar, kid gloves, and a bottle-green velour hat with a turned-up brim, fastened under her chin with elastic. This garb did not meet with her approval.

  ‘For two pins, I’d chuck this hat in the Channel,’ she said, sensing my gaze. ‘Hideous thing! And the elastic itches. Can you imagine what Mamma would say, if she could see me now? She’d say I looked bloody awful. But then everything’s bloody awful, my entire life’s going to be bloody awful, and Petey’s too, so I suppose a bloody awful hat doesn’t matter much. In the general scheme of things.’

  ‘It might not be so bad, Rose.’ I was startled by the forbidden swearword and trying to inject conviction into my voice. ‘Wheeler will be there. Eve will come and see you as soon as she’s back in England. You and Petey will have each other––’

  ‘Eight years,’ Rose interrupted. ‘That’s my sentence. I worked it out last night, Lucy. I thought, I can manage that, it isn’t so long – the second I’m eighteen, I shall just snap my fingers and flit. I had it all worked out: I’d set up house with Wheeler, learn typing and that shorthand stuff and become a tip-top secretary. I think I’d be good at that: Mamma always said I was a whizz at organising. Only I won’t be able to flit – I realised that one second later. Because I can’t abandon Petey. So I’ll have to wait until he’s old enough to escape from Father too. And that means fourteen years of hellishness – maybe more.’

  She pinged the elastic on her hat. ‘Unless my father dies, of course,’ she added, in a reflective tone. ‘And there’s not much chance of that, worse luck, because he’s fit as a fiddle and he’s thirty-two, which isn’t terribly old. Still – my mother was only twenty-eight, so accidents can happen. That gives me hope. Meanwhile, here’s my address.’ She handed me a crumpled piece of paper, turned her droll face up to mine and fixed me with her blue piercing stare. ‘Write, Lucy. You have to swear you will. Say: “Rose, I bloody well give you my word”.’

  ‘I bloody well give you my word, Rose,’ I’d replied. It was the first time in my life that I’d said the word ‘bloody’ aloud.

  I began composing a letter in my mind as the Cambridge train rattled onwards. But I’d never attempted to describe my father to Rose or discussed my mother’s death with her, and Rose – trapped in the cocoon of her own grief, fear and bewilderment – had never asked. My imagined letter wasn’t much of a thing: it was so veiled, so disguised, so pumped up with fake optimism that you could tell it was hollow one sentence in. I made up two lines for Rose, then two for Peter, then remembered his tears at Dover and gave up. We were approaching our destination. My father consulted his pocket watch, roused himself and put down the paper at last.

  ‘We shall take a taxicab,’ he announced. ‘I’d prefer to walk, but as it’s raining and you have such an encumbrance of luggage, that seems sensible. Miss Dunsire said she’d have tea waiting for us. I don’t want to be late. I must be back in college well before Hall.’

  ‘Who is Miss Dunsire, Daddy?’ He’d shown no inclination to tell me, so I finally risked the question as the taxicab turned into the bleak familiar road to the town.

  ‘Miss Dunsire is the answer to my prayers. She will be looking after you.’

  ‘But I thought––’

  ‘You surely didn’t imagine I’d be performing that onerous task?’

  ‘Of course not. But I’m eleven now – I’ll be twelve quite soon. I thought, if Mrs Grimshaw still came in, as she did when Mummy was – was there, and if I––’

  ‘Lucy, please. Mrs Grimshaw is the wife of a Trinity College porter. She is a retired gyp who can make beds, deal with laundry and scrub floors. She’s hardly the person I’d want supervising my daughter. Nicola Dunsire is a gentlewoman. She grew up in England, but is descended from a long line of Scottish lawyers and lairds – there’s even a distant connection to Sir Walter Scott, I believe. She has a Cambridge degree – insofar as any female can hold a degree, of course. She completed her course in English Literature at Girton College two years ago, and passed Tripos with distinction. So she —’

  So she’s young, I thought. ‘So she’s to be my governess?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly, up to a point.’ His tone became testy. ‘She will take charge of some of your teaching at least. She will also fulfil the necessary role of housekeeper – something she’s perfectly willing to do, I may add, which is a great weight off my mind,
given that most governesses these days are morbidly sensitive as to their status, expect a houseful of ancillary servants, and demand to be waited on hand, foot and finger. I’d remind you that I am not one of those millionaires you seem to have been consorting with in Egypt: I’m a Fellow of Trinity, on what one can only describe as miserly remuneration. This discussion is otiose. You’ll be meeting Miss Dunsire shortly. She’s an intelligent, resourceful, modern young woman.’ He paused. ‘In fact, she has what one might call advanced views. I find that stimulating. As you will, Lucy, I feel sure.’

  She was also beautiful: he forgot to mention that. Had he noticed? I wondered, as I was ushered into the drawing room once marked with my mother’s imprint, and now so changed; as Nicola Dunsire rose with restless grace from the chair by the fire where she’d been reading, put down her book, and advanced, both hands held out to me. My father was not a man who noticed women; he claimed to dislike all the dons’ wives included in our small circle of acquaintance. Women made him nervous and irritable; finding their voices shrill and their views vacuous, he much preferred the company of men. In the past he’d seemed never to notice their conversation, their appearance or their dress, let alone any claim they might have to prettiness or charm; yet even he, surely, could not have failed to be struck by the young woman who was now clasping my cold hands in her warm ones, and saying, in a low, pure voice: ‘Lucy. How glad I am to meet you. At last.’

  She was tall – about five foot nine, almost my father’s height. She was slender and composed, leaning down to place a gentle dry kiss on my cheek. Not flamboyant, like Poppy d’Erlanger – and as different from her as it was possible for a woman to be, yet equally arresting. Very pale skin; a camellia complexion; a profile as perfect as a Grecian statue, the nose straight, the lips carved. Not a trace, not a hint of make-up – not even of the discreet kind a woman like Eve allowed. Extraordinary eyes, large, blue-green, thickly lashed, with an expression that was clever, appraising and serene; and astonishing hair, thick, lustrous, bronze in colour, intertwined with copper, with gold. She was plainly dressed, in a fine-spun white shirt, and a knee-length grey skirt; she wore no jewellery beyond the smallest of wristwatches. I examined her white skin and the luxuriant flame of her irrepressible hair; it was cut boyishly short in the modern way, and in the firelight resembled pagan armour. Grave, beautiful and austere, I thought; a helmeted virgin goddess: Pallas Athene come down from Mount Olympus to serve tea in a Cambridge sitting room.

  She said little at first: as I’d learn, Nicola Dunsire was a woman possessed of well-honed patience. She concentrated her will – and I could already sense the power of that will, feel its beating pulse in her long silences – on putting my father and me at ease. The tea was Lapsang Souchong, his favourite; as were the small triangles of toast, spread with Gentleman’s Relish, and the cucumber sandwiches, each the size of a postage stamp. The cake, made by her own hands, she ruefully confessed, was Madeira. My father and she sparred a little as to whether this cake were a success, she claiming failure, he insisting it was the best she’d yet made.

  How long has she been here? I was thinking. How long had it taken this Miss Dunsire to ascertain my father’s tastes and practise such homely skills as cake-baking? Averting my eyes from the spectacle of their teasing argument, a protracted witty dispute they clearly both enjoyed, I examined my mother’s room. Who had removed her paintings? Where were the cushions she’d embroidered? Where were her sewing baskets, her books, her photographs? Not even the dusty outlines remained where the pictures had hung. The room, once papered in William Morris’s willow design, had been painted a pale blue; the furniture had been rearranged. My mother had vanished; her presence here, once so vibrant, had been eradicated by an unknown hand.

  Perhaps my face betrayed my feelings: it was at exactly this moment – when I was realising the extent to which my mother had been exorcised, wondering whether my father had organised it, and if so when – that Nicola Dunsire altered course. Ending the dispute as to her cooking skills with a small reproof to my father, she turned her attention to me. I must be exhausted after my journey, but even so she longed to hear… And then began the interrogation: had I seen this, had I been there? Pyramids, temples, tombs: she’d done her homework; she knew all the right prompts, and when they failed to elicit much by way of reply, she shifted ground with skill, a silky segue from Egypt to Rome, from Rome to Greece – thus giving my father the facility he most enjoyed: a platform.

  Off he went. Fifteen minutes, twenty, thirty, ticked by – and he was somewhere in Plato or Aristotle when she cut him off. She performed this act of daring, one that astonished me, with assurance: mid-sentence, her gaze of rapt attention changed to a frown; she rose to her feet, and tapped her watch. ‘Enough!’ she said. ‘Dr Payne – you’re making me forget the time, as you always do. I could listen for another hour, as I’m sure Lucy could. But you’re too enthralling for your own good: two more minutes and you’ll be late for Hall. That I cannot permit.’

  I waited for the irritable outburst that always ensued whenever my father was interrupted or chivvied. It never came. Flattery – even gross flattery, it seemed – could produce a response that my mother’s timid reminders had never achieved. My father rose to his feet like a bashful, obedient little boy. Giving Miss Dunsire a dark sidelong glance, he remarked that the fault was entirely hers: she was such a good listener, he forgot the time when in her company. They laughed together at this, and there was a brief, queer spurt of excitement between them – ignited in their gaze, which had locked. I felt it enter the room with a poltergeist’s zeal.

  Then it was gone, and my father was searching fussily for the gown he’d need for dinner in college, and Miss Dunsire, grave, amused, had it immediately to hand. The door banged shut behind him. From beyond the new curtains came the sound of Cambridge bells. Miss Dunsire returned to the chair opposite me. It still wore its old cover; also a Morris design, it was called ‘Strawberry Thief’ and depicted a thieving thrush, in faded pinks and jade greens. Miss Dunsire sat down.

  ‘When will my father be back?’ I asked.

  ‘We can’t expect him until the end of the week, Lucy,’ she replied. ‘Saturday, perhaps – or Sunday. He’s been living in college since you left for Egypt. I’m sure you understand. Your father has a tremendously heavy workload: lectures, supervisions… And at last he’s begun his new book, did he tell you that? On the plays of Euripides. I rather bullied him into it, I’m afraid. He needs constant access to libraries.’ She paused. ‘Shall you mind?’

  ‘Only seeing him at weekends? No. My mother and I were used to that.’

  ‘Of course you were,’ she said quietly.

  I think she was considering a more intimate approach, another clasping of the hands, but seeing me shrink back in my chair, she changed her mind. To my surprise, she reached for a small box, and took a cigarette from it. She lit it with a match, inhaled, and blew the match out. I caught the faint scent of brimstone.

  ‘I was on five cigarettes a day in the lead-up to Finals, Lucy,’ she announced, in a wry confessional way. ‘I gave up after the last exam, just like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘When I came here, I hadn’t touched them for two years. But your father smokes on occasion; he offered me one the other week – and here I am, addicted again.’

  Some comment seemed required, so I said: ‘In Egypt, everyone smoked, women as well as men. Well, practically everyone,’ I added, as the ghost of Poppy d’Erlanger briefly entered the room. ‘Oh, hellishness,’ the ghost remarked, and disappeared. Silence fell.

  ‘You’d noticed the alterations here, hadn’t you, Lucy?’ Nicola Dunsire ventured, after a pause. ‘They must upset you, I think? May I explain? At our interview, when your father hired me, I could see he was in a pitiful state, worried about your return, unsure what would be best for you, and he was still – lacerated by grief. I do not use the word “lacerated” idly. I never use words in an idle way. It was becoming an ordeal for him, returning t
o this house, with its many reminders of your late mother’s presence…

  ‘You don’t know me, Lucy, so I’ll come clean!’ She tossed the cigarette into the fire. ‘I detest secrets. All those prudish Victorian evasions – no one ever daring to say what he thinks or she feels! This is the 1920s, it’s a new era, and I believe in bringing things into the open – dragging them into the open if need be. So, when I saw the effect this house was having on your father, I came right out with it, Lucy, and I told him frankly that he needed to make a break with the past. No one can live in a museum – nor should they. I told him: stay in college for two weeks, don’t set foot in this house for that time, and leave everything in my hands. I will make the necessary changes. They will be radical. They may shock you at first. They may pain you initially: I’m prepared for that. Leave it to me, I said – and dismiss me if I’m wrong.’

  ‘And he agreed?’

  ‘Of course. Your father is a scholar; men like him, with busy professional lives, have a horror of domestic detail. Why should they concern themselves with cooking and curtain materials, with laundry lists, with deciding where pictures should hang? Things like that bore them to distraction – and, I may as well admit it, they bore me to distraction too. I much prefer to study. I’m a bluestocking, Lucy.’ She gave me a mocking half-smile. ‘On the other hand, I like to live in a place that looks pleasant and runs efficiently, and I’m a well-organised person – I’m a fiend for order, always have been. So I could effect the practical, simple changes that were needed here very easily and quickly. I knew that in your father’s case they’d be therapeutic. And so they have proved.’

  ‘He likes it? He approves?’