Alice came back from Paris with trunk loads of new dresses - she paraded them in front of me, but would not let me touch. I knew my sister was beautiful, and that evening as Rose brushed out my plaits in front of the dressing table I stared at my straight dark hair, and thin pale face and long narrow neck and thought despairingly of how the new King would despise me when it was my turn to curtsey to him.
Mama was angry with Alice when they came back from her first Season - her anger simmered in the drawing room when we went down after tea. Alice tossed her head and hung on Papa’s arm, and soon she was triumphant, and Mama’s anger had transferred to Papa.
A week later we were coming in from our walk with Miss Ling when Alice ran quickly down the steps of the terrace, a strange young man behind her. ‘Miss Ling, this is Hugh Knowles: Mr Knowles and I are going to be married.’ We stared up at Mr Knowles: he was tall with very broad shoulders and a nice square face under thick brown hair.
He smiled at us shyly and pulled at his moustache. ‘Steady on A1 - Lady Alice, Lord Pickering hasn’t consented yet.’
Alice ignored him. ‘Helena, you may be my bridesmaid.’ I gazed up at her, thrilled. ‘Come along Hugh, I’ll show you the fern house.’ The young man followed her, his face bemused.
My bridesmaid’s frock was beautiful; as Rose unwrapped it, it fell in endless shining pink folds. I could not sleep the night before the wedding, from excitement and the curling rags. Nanny dressed us herself, and I scarcely dared move in my lovely pink frock, for fear of catching my foot in the flounce and tearing it. Best of all were the white glace kid shoes, which fitted my feet like gloves, and were just as soft and supple. Eddie looked sulky in his velvet trousers; he tugged at Robbie’s sash and Robbie pulled back until they both fell on the floor and rolled fighting into the grate. Nanny hauled them up and smacked them hard on their blue velvet bottoms. They stumped down the stairs behind me, pushing each other and giggling. I ignored them and stepped carefully over the carpet to Alice’s room.
Alice was glowing. Her dress clung to her and shimmered as she moved to the dressing table. She bent forward for her maid to put the veil on her head and her round, swelling breasts brushed the shining mahogany top. I squinted down at my own flat chest and sighed with envy.
Her bosom was fuller than ever when she and Hugh came to visit Hatton in November, but Alice was not glowing any more. She sat on the sofa with her feet up and snapped at Hugh as he patiently fetched and carried for her. I liked Hugh; he was kind and never teased me, and he took us all riding and talked to us as if we were grown up. Mama sat with Alice and smiled when poor Hugh blundered against the sofa and Alice’s tongue lashed out at him.
In the new year Miss Ling told us that God had brought Alice a new baby, a dear little boy named Hugo, so now I was an aunt, and the twins were uncles. I preened myself - ‘Aunt Helena’ - I was glad it was a boy baby. Eddie, very interested, asked Miss Ling: ‘Does God bring foals as well?’
Miss Ling said quickly, ‘Of course he does, Eddie.’
‘Then why does he put them into the mare’s belly first?’ Eddie leant forward and added earnestly, ‘Because Flirt had to squeeze and squeeze before she could get her foal out - didn’t she?’ Robbie and I nodded, but I wished Eddie had not said anything - Jenkins had told us not to tell Miss Ling, he said governesses were easily shocked - and now it was obvious she was shocked. She gave a funny choking noise, then said very quickly, ‘Get out your arithmetic books.’
We struggled through our sums. I hated arithmetic, and I don’t think Miss Ling liked it either; she got flustered and kept peeping at the answers in the back of her book.
*
When Mama said it was time for the twins to go away to school I felt as though the world had ended. I cried and cried all through the night before, and I cried all the way to the station. My eyes were so red and swollen I could not see out of them, and I bruised my hip when I blundered into the ticket barrier on the way out. I was grateful for the pain: I wanted to suffer.
Miss Ling held my hand in the dog cart all the way back. Then she sent me off to bathe my eyes and said that if I was a good girl and stopped crying I might go and play the big piano in the music room. Even that promise did not make me feel any better, but I had no more tears to cry now. But when I placed my hands on the ivory keys of the grand piano it spoke in a voice of velvet; I could scarcely believe such lovely sounds had come from my fingers. Miss Ling sat beside me and I played and sang until lunchtime.
But I could not eat, and after lunch my misery returned. I walked in a daze; the park seemed empty and bleak without my constant companions. Miss Ling spoke to me, but I scarcely heard her words. And when I sat upstairs again the letters on the page of my history book jumped and shifted before my eyes.
After tea I slipped up to the nursery; Letty had been sent to bed early so I sat on the rug at Nanny’s feet and watched her needle flash backwards and forwards as she darned one of the twins’ socks. At last I asked, ‘Please, Nanny, teach me to darn. I want to darn their socks for them.’
Nanny pursed her lips. ‘They’ve grown out of these, they’re being sent to Rose’s nephew.’ But I felt that even if my brothers never wore these socks again still, it was some comfort to hold them.
So Nanny taught me to darn, and all week I went up to the nursery in the evening and sat on the rug at her feet and darned my brothers’ old socks. Nanny said I was a neat little darner, and could be trusted with my own cotton stockings, so I mended them as well. I liked darning: I liked the precise, regular movements, and the sense of satisfaction when the hole had been completely filled in.
When my brothers came back in the summer they had changed. They talked casually about boys I did not know and a life I could never share; I cried into my pillow for my lost twins. But after a few days it was as though they had never been away; we roamed the park together and I learnt to swim at last. As we lay drying in the hot sun beside the lake we talked of how we would skate again next winter.
But then Conan arrived for his summer visit and the boys talked together in the mysterious language of school. Conan said girls were sissies, and one day they would not wait for me to finish my practising, and I shed bitter tears because they had gone off with a picnic and left me behind. Mama made me sit down to luncheon in the dining room because the numbers were uneven, and I sat dumb and miserable, while she glared at me from the head of the table. Afterwards she called me back and told me I was a little pudding, and a bad- mannered pudding at that. ‘Goodness, Helena, you’ll be eleven in September, it’s time you learnt at least to exchange a few platitudes with your neighbour at the table.’
I muttered, ‘I’m sorry, Mama.’
She snapped back, ‘You’re too old to call me by that childish name any longer, address me as “Mother” in future - that is, if you can ever think of anything to say.’
I sat miserably in the drawing room, not daring to leave, until Guy told me to put my hat on; he was taking me for a drive. When I went round to the stableyard the groom was harnessing up the gig. Guy strode forward, his sleek dark head gleaming in the sunlight, the soft down of his new moustache showing proudly above his smiling mouth. I gazed up at him adoringly: he was so tall and handsome.
‘I thought you’d like a change from the dog cart today, Hellie - up you get.’ He handed me up as though I were a grown-up lady, then sprang lightly up beside me. ‘Gee up.’
The gig was light and bouncy and Guy drove at a spanking pace through the park. Bowling along in the sparkling sunlight, I began to feel happier. We drove down the narrow main street of Hareford and out into the surrounding lanes. Guy said little, but then Guy never chattered. As we swung round to the next village he looked sideways at me and smiled. ‘Better now, Hellie?’
‘Yes Guy, thank you.’
He put his gloved hand lightly over mine for a moment, then he touched the reins and we bounded forward under the flickering leaves.
Guy went up to Cambridge that autumn,
and the next year the twins reached double figures. Great-Uncle John, their godfather, gave them identical gold hunters on their birthday. Mother said they were far too young for gold watches, but Uncle John told her he was sure they would look after them. My brothers’ faces glowed with pleasure as they cupped their gifts in their hands.
Letty was coming up to the schoolroom now and she was a great nuisance. She hated copying pothooks and hangers; she kept asking what they meant. In the end Miss Ling let her start writing words instead, although she was not nearly neat enough. It did not keep her quiet, though, she never stopped asking questions. She even argued about our Bible stories: ‘If I’d been the elder son and that stupid young one came back and got all the best food I should have been annoyed too - it wasn’t fair.’ When we sang ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, and Miss Ling explained that God had arranged that some people should live in castles, or big houses like Hatton, and be very rich while others should live in small houses and be poor, Letty said, ‘Well, I don’t think that’s very fair of God, is it?’
Miss Ling looked horrified, so I said quickly, ‘But wouldn’t you rather live at Hatton than in one of those dirty little houses outside the gate?’
Letty said sturdily, ‘Of course I would - but that doesn’t make it fair, does it?’
Miss Ling and I looked at each other. Then Miss Ling said firmly, ‘Letty, God doesn’t have to be fair.’
‘Then why do I have to be fair, if God doesn’t?’ It was very difficult to answer Letty sometimes.
The following summer the preparations began for Guy’s coming of age in August. An enormous striped marquee was set up on the lawn the day before, and we were not allowed to go near the kitchens, everyone was so busy. Guests arrived all through the day. There was a big dinner party in the evening, and the twins and I crept out on to the stairs and peered through the balustrade at the glittering procession below. Robbie whispered, ‘It’s like the Ark - the animals going in two by two!’ We stifled our giggles as each shimmering figure passed through the dining-room door on the arm of her black-coated partner. Albert saw us, and winked, and after he had served the dessert he ran up with a tray, just for us. We gorged ourselves on tiny little pancakes stuffed with truffles and lobster in a melting creamy sauce, which exploded in your mouth out of a casing of light flaking pastry. There were oysters in little cones of puff pastry - we pretended we liked them as we chewed and swallowed, then reached for the tiny stuffed birds and bit into them. We scarcely had room for the sweets, but we ate them all the same. Soft, light meringue left a delicious sweetness in the mouth; the trifle had a strange, warm biting tang to it; the tarts tasted of almond, and of other flavours we could not name. And then Albert came up again - with the ices: vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. We licked every wonderful smear off our spoons, then crept away to bed, replete.
I woke early the next morning; it was a lovely day, warm and clear. After luncheon the tenant farmers and estate workers began to arrive, scrubbed and in their Sunday best. There were games for the children on the lawns, and then everyone trooped into the big marquee and tucked into an enormous meal. Mr Anderson from the Home Farm made a speech and presented Guy with an inscribed silver tray and tea service. Very red in the face, Guy made his speech in reply; when he had finished the canvas walls resounded to the claps and cheers.
By the evening I felt very tired and rather sick, so I sat in the window seat above the stairs and watched the brightly-coloured ladies and more sober-suited gentlemen parade on the terrace. At last all the lemonade I had drunk drove me to the water closet. Inside I looked disbelievingly at the blood on my drawers. I could not remember hurting myself, and yet I was bleeding! I leant against the wall for a moment, trembling, then I buttoned my drawers up again and went rushing up the stairs to Nanny.
She was quite calm. ‘Are you, my chick? Well, you’ll be thirteen next month, it’s only to be expected. I’ll fetch you a napkin for now, but my lady will want to send for one of the special belts, like Alice had. Wasteful I call it, throwing cotton pads away every month when there are plenty of good linen rags to be had - still, that’s her way.’
I stared at Nanny, and squeaked, ‘Every month?’
‘Yes, Lady Helena, you’re a woman now.’
But to Mother I was still a child. She was annoyed when Papa suggested that I go with them to London for the Season the following year. Mother said extra piano lessons were completely unnecessary; Miss Ling was perfectly competent. In the end it was Uncle Arnold who persuaded her to let me go. I was thrilled, but when we got there I wished he had not bothered.
I hated London. It was smelly and noisy and dirty. Miss Ling was always harassed, and blushed in shame as I stumbled and faltered in the weekly French and German lessons. I shrank with embarrassment from the other girls who rattled off their verbs as if they had been born knowing them.
Each afternoon we set out grimly for the Park. The only excitement was when we met a column of soldiers on the way: a company of infantry in scarlet tunics marching in the tune of the band, or a troop of Life Guards in their gleaming breastplates and be-furred saddles. Best of all I liked to see the Grenadiers, because as soon as he came down from Cambridge Guy was going to be a Grenadier, just as Papa had been when he was Guy’s age.
Letty liked London. While Miss Ling escorted me to my lessons Rose would take her into the private garden of Cadogan Place. At lunchtime she had to be dragged out, face and hands smeared with soot, pinafore dirty and torn, knees scraped and bleeding. Nanny would mutter darkly about Rose under her breath as she dug gravel out of Letty’s knees and poured on the stinging brown iodine, and the next day Nanny herself would sally out to the garden, with a sulky Letty firmly clasped in one hand. Letty would come back cleaner, but both of them looked so bored that I knew the unfortunate Rose would be sent the next time. Nanny did not like Cadogan Place; she waged an endless, useless war on the smuts that settled on every surface in the nursery, and harried Rose mercilessly.
Three mornings a week Miss Ling and I set out for the Park as usual, but instead of sauntering aimlessly along beside Rotten Row we would stride purposefully through the Albert Gate, cut directly across to the Grosvenor Gate and then head for Hanover Square. Just the other side of it, in Tenterden Street, was the Royal Academy of Music, where I could forget I was in London and focus all my attention on the piano as I played and transposed. The thin, bearded tutor rarely smiled and spoke of nothing but music. I practised diligently every day and glowed when I earned one of his rare words of praise. He told Miss Ling she had taught me well, and we both went home to Cadogan Place with a lighter heart.
Next year I went to London again. One day Miss Ling took me round to Eaton Terrace, to see Alice. Alice lay in bed, looking pale and beautiful. She waved a languid hand at the cradle beside her, and I realized I was an aunt once more: Alice had had a second son. As we left my sister said, ‘Tell Nanny the nursery’s all ready for her, as soon as the monthly nurse leaves.’
I stared at her. ‘Nanny?’
‘Didn’t Mother tell you? Nanny’s coming to me, now, to look after William.’
I was still stunned. I could not imagine Hatton without Nanny. ‘What about Letty?’
Alice said grimly, ‘Letty doesn’t need a nurse, she needs a jailer. No, Helena, it’ll work out very well, you’ll see. I don’t intend to have any more after this one - I’ve done my duty by Hugh - it’s time I had some fun. By the time William’s out of the nursery you’ll be married, and then Nanny can come to you.’
Miss Ling called, ‘Come along, Helena, you’ll be tiring Lady Alice.’ She looked rather pink as she spoke, and rushed me out of the room.
On the walk home I thought about what Alice had said. I hoped my husband would be as nice as Hugh, but I decided I would like more than two boy babies. I told Miss Ling this, but she said I was only fifteen and far too young to be thinking about getting married. She seemed almost annoyed with Alice for speaking of it; I would not even be out
for years. So I thought instead about the new song we had bought that morning; I would practise it after tea.
The next time we went to see Alice, Nanny was already installed in the nursery at Eaton Terrace, with the new baby on her lap. And then we were not allowed to go again because Letty had caught scarlet fever, and so we were in quarantine. Mother was furious; she and Papa had to move out to stay with Lady Maud because we were infectious.
Letty had to have a real nurse, from a hospital, to look after her. One day she was so ill that straw was put down in the street outside to muffle the noise of the traffic. But then she began to get better, though she still looked an odd colour. The doctor told Mother she needed sea air to recuperate, so it was decided that Miss Ling would take her to Cromer for the summer, while I went back in the train to Hatton with Mrs Hill and the staff.
The housemaid who had looked after me since Rose and Nanny had left would still maid me, Mother said, but otherwise I would have to take care of myself - after all, I would be sixteen in September. I felt guilty when Miss Ling kissed me goodbye and said how much she would miss me, because I was pleased at the idea of a whole summer on my own with my brothers - except for Conan, of course.
Chapter Eight
Mother already had a houseful of guests when Conan arrived, so he bunked in with the twins. He was seventeen now, taller and stronger and more reckless than my brothers; they were ready to follow him anywhere. We went down to the larger lake on the evening he came; Conan dared Robbie to climb out over the water on the old willow. Mouth set, Robbie inched his way further and further out, the branch dipped dangerously and I called to him to come back, but he ignored me; seconds later there was an ominous creaking, Robbie scrabbled desperately, then toppled helplessly into the dark water in his best suit. I screamed, Conan laughed, - and Eddie jumped in after his brother, fully clothed.
Song of Songs Page 6