Daughter of the House

by Rosie Thomas

  ‘Pa? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Eh? This is my theatre, isn’t it? Evening, Sylvia.’

  Desmond was Devil’s lieutenant and informer nowadays. He would certainly have let Devil know that Nancy had been ill during the performance.

  ‘I thought I would come down and motor you home, Nancy. How was the show?’

  ‘It went all right. It wasn’t the easiest of nights. But a couple came back afterwards, wanting a private sitting.’

  ‘Ha.’

  Devil had come to terms with his daughter’s success. He much preferred Nancy’s act to be just that, and to take place only on the stage under the lights where it could be contained. He understood that tonight’s performance must have called up other voices, and as always he shied away from acknowledging anything further.

  ‘They’ll be paying, will they?’

  ‘Yes, they will. Sylvia, don’t wait for us, unless you’d like a lift?’

  Sylvia put on her coat, tying a scarf over her white hair before placing her hat on top. Nancy went to kiss her but Sylvia brushed her off. She never liked to be the focus of attention, especially when Devil was present.

  ‘I’d rather go on the underground, just as usual. You are a good girl,’ she murmured.

  After she had gone Devil looked at the champagne glasses, two empty and the third full. Lady Celia had not touched hers. He knocked it back before picking up her card from the arm of the chair. Then he pursed his lips in a silent whistle.

  ‘I know,’ Nancy smiled.

  Parked in the alley with its nose towards the river, Devil’s latest car was another Ford, a little less crumpled and beaten than the wartime messenger vehicle. He handed Nancy to the passenger seat and swung the starting handle.

  As they chugged eastwards along the Strand Devil said, ‘You should have seen what was outside the front tonight. A brand new three-and-a-half-litre Bentley, no less, with the Flying B shining on the front. Cream bodywork, with dark red outlining. Perhaps a little flashy, but still gorgeous. There was no chauffeur to be seen, just a couple of men who looked as if they’d been paid to mind it for an hour. So the lucky fellow must have been driving it himself. Wait until I tell old Gibb about it.’

  ‘How do you know the Bentley owner was a man?’

  Devil looked shocked for a moment, but then he obligingly chuckled.

  ‘Where do you get these notions, my girl? Do they all come from Jinny Main?’

  ‘Not all of them.’

  The house in Bruton Street, Mayfair, was five storeys tall. The facade was an intimidating expanse of white-painted lintels and glittering windows, with a fanlight arching over an immense front door set with polished brasswork. Nancy thought how much Cornelius would like to make an architectural drawing of this fine terrace, only to remember that Cornelius hadn’t done any drawing for years. She climbed six immaculate steps, past a pair of lead lions couchant that guarded the area railings, and rang the bell.

  The door was opened immediately by a wax-faced man wearing a white tie and a short black coat with silver buttons. He was the first footman she had ever encountered in a private house.

  ‘Good morning, miss. Lady Celia is expecting you.’

  There were silver trays for cards, a floor waxed to the point of hazard, and a tiered chandelier suspended over the curve of a grand stairway. The portraits lining the walls were clearly ancestors. They must be hers, she thought. They didn’t look as if they had anything to do with cotton mills.

  Celia Maitland jumped up as soon as she was shown into the room. She rushed forward to shake hands and Nancy felt how thin and cold the other woman’s were.

  ‘I’m so glad you have come. Will this room suit you? I mean, it might be too small. Or too big, I don’t know.’ Her voice tailed off.

  This would be Celia’s private sitting room, Nancy sup-posed. It was pretty and feminine with silk-covered walls and upholstery in pale grey and rose pink.

  ‘It’s perfect.’

  ‘I have lowered the blinds a little. But we could have them raised, if you prefer?’

  She answered that the light was just right, and refused the offers of tea or a cocktail. They sat down together.

  ‘Well, then.’ Celia chewed the corner of her lip. ‘Shall we begin?’

  Nancy said gently, ‘Yes, if you are ready. Won’t you tell me about Richard?’

  Celia’s eyes slid at once to a silver-framed studio portrait of the two of them angled on the table beside her.

  They had no other siblings and their childhood had been lonely, she said. Their parents seldom appeared and the nanny they shared had been unkind. Nancy could imagine the two forlorn little creatures set apart by privilege in a vast, echoing old house. After her father’s death, Celia explained, the title and estate would now pass to a cousin.

  ‘If I had been a boy …’ she said.

  Her smile was so weak it was more like a shiver. Nancy suppressed what she had seen in the Uncanny and concentrated on the two young faces in the photograph.

  Celia went on, ‘I am quite useless, aren’t I? You said at the seance I should have a child. My husband is a very kind man and he is patient with me, but that no longer seems likely to happen.’

  ‘There is time.’

  ‘Yes. Gilbert sends his regards, by the way. He has some business to see to today.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Disappointment stretched stubborn black wings inside her.

  Nancy let stillness gather around them as they listened to the tiny ticking of the Sèvres clock on the mantel. There were avenues she could have gone down, gentle clichés and generalised assurances she could have offered, but she did not. None of the medium’s repertoire of devices seemed appropriate here. The walls of the room pressed inwards as they waited. At last Celia raised her head.

  ‘You said it wasn’t like making a telephone call.’

  ‘No.’

  The girl’s damp lashes were faint crescents against the papery skin. Her whisper was almost inaudible.

  ‘I was so feeble when he died. I should have been brave instead, for my mother and father’s sake.’

  Nancy didn’t ask whether her mother and father had been able to look after her when she needed them. She assumed not.

  ‘You know, I must have been quite, quite mad for a while. I tried to kill myself but I couldn’t manage even that. There were all kinds of doctors and treatments. I think poor Gilbert married me to keep me alive. We had only been engaged for a few weeks before the news about Richard came.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

  ‘Well. It doesn’t matter. Thank you, Nancy. Will you come again? I would like it so much if you would.’

  Nancy shook her head. She regretted the misplaced longing that had impelled her to come here. It had been wrong of her and she felt ashamed.

  ‘No. I don’t think I can help you.’

  ‘Oh, no! I have put you off. This is too terrible. I am not always such a miserable specimen, you know. Sometimes I can be the most tremendous fun, honestly.’

  Celia became agitated. She fidgeted on her sofa and then jumped up, her eyes flicking restlessly across the room. Nancy felt a subconscious twitch of alarm, rooted in some association that she couldn’t quite place.

  Celia pounced on a thick creamy envelope that lay among the new novels and glossy magazines on her writ-ing desk.

  ‘Please do take this. It’s the least thing, when you have been so kind to come here and listen to me talking nonsense.’

  Nancy drew back.

  ‘I really can’t take your money. I don’t have the right to tell you what to do or think, but I’m not surprised you are suffering. You have been through a terrible time. I don’t think reaching out to your brother through someone like me, a stage entertainer, will heal anything. Couldn’t you forgive yourself instead for a tragedy that wasn’t your fault, and let yourself begin to recover?’

  She expressed herself clumsily, but it was what she felt.


  Celia sank down on to the sofa.

  ‘Dear God. Recover? I don’t know. I wish I could.’

  She covered her face with her hands and began to sob. Appalled, Nancy hovered beside her.

  ‘I am so sorry to have upset you. Is there someone I can call?’ she whispered.

  The girl fended her off. ‘No. Thank you for your kindness. Please leave me alone now.’

  There was nothing she could do. Nancy found her way to the head of the stairs and looked down at the footman standing with folded hands in the hallway.

  ‘I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t hear her ladyship’s bell.’

  ‘I found my own way, thank you.’

  It was a relief to step out into the street where cabs rattled past and news vendors were crying the late edition. The looming house reminded her of the wooden display boxes for Cornelius’s butterflies, with Celia the single fragile butterfly in a huge, polished case.

  Nancy’s tactic for subduing her feelings was to absorb herself in work and in the unending problems of Waterloo Street. She trod numbly through the days until another ordinary night at the Palmyra and a show for an unremarkable audience. She came offstage afterwards and sat in Eliza’s red wrap with her feet up on the fender. Sylvia was humming as she tidied the room and the footsteps of stagehands sounded along the passageways.

  There was a knock at the door. Gilbert Maitland stood framed by the dim corridor light.

  ‘May I come in? Your stage-door manager sent me up.’

  The dresser stepped aside. Nancy gasped and instinctively hid her bare feet under the folds of silk.

  Gil refused a drink. He said, ‘Thank you for seeing Celia last week. She said you gave her a great deal to think about.’

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t help.’

  He glanced in Sylvia’s direction. The dresser had turned aside. He said formally to Nancy, ‘I wondered if I might take you out to supper? If you are not already committed, that is? There is something I would like to discuss with you.’

  The unspoken silently clamoured between them.

  ‘I’m not committed.’

  No, she warned herself. Yes, every fibre of her being insisted.

  Gilbert said, ‘Then I’ll wait for you outside in my car. Please don’t hurry.’

  As soon as he was gone Sylvia protested, ‘He can’t just walk in here, cool as a spring evening. What does he want?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Seeing her expression Nancy tried to laugh. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Sylvia. I can look after myself.’

  Sylvia pursed her lips. ‘What about your young man?’

  Lion. In the rush of the moment Nancy had all but forgotten him. She flushed.

  ‘It’s nothing like that, Sylvia. For goodness’ sake. It will be some sort of business proposal, I expect.’

  Nancy drew on her stockings, careful with the seams, and clipped the suspenders. Sylvia’s expression conveyed dismay as well as the suggestion that Nancy was not being quite candid. But Nancy only shook her head to loosen her hair, leaned towards the mirror to redden her lips and finally slid her arms into the sleeves of the coat Sylvia held for her.

  She said lightly, as if nothing was happening, ‘Goodnight. You will lock up, won’t you, if Desmond and the others have gone home?’

  If she stayed late and Devil was not there Nancy liked to secure the theatre herself. She would walk back to the stage and take a moment to look into the confection of green and gold and thick velvet. She was her parents’ child after all, the daughter of the house.

  ‘I can slide a few bolts and lock the doors, yes,’ the dresser said.

  Sylvia was rarely disapproving. Nancy didn’t stay to placate her. The only car parked at the theatre front was a cream-and-red Bentley with the winged B tipping the bonnet. Gilbert Maitland stepped down and opened the passenger door for her.

  Nancy laughed. ‘My father saw this car the other evening. He described it to me rather as if he’d seen a film star. What happened to the Daimler?’

  ‘Higgs insisted on the new Bentley. I do like the sound of your father. Are you comfortable?’

  She was embraced by an acre of cream leather upholstery.

  ‘Quite comfortable, thank you.’

  They drove westwards along the Strand, the evening flood of buses and taxicabs seeming to part like the Red Sea ahead of the car’s huge headlamps. Nancy stared out at the windows and street signs and raucous West End dazzle as if she had never seen these familiar sights before. She was hardly aware of drawing up in front of the Ritz.

  ‘Do you have any objection to this?’ he asked.

  Women in silver shimmer and furs and dancing shoes were passing under the arches of the facade. The hotel’s name blazed out in electric lights. Gilbert extended his arm to her.

  She was in a plain frock and her ordinary coat.

  ‘I’m not dressed for it.’

  ‘Dressed? You needn’t give a damn about what you are wearing, now or ever. Clothes are superficial and you are nothing of the kind.’

  She would have liked to believe him. She accepted the arm he extended, held up her head, and the doorman bowed as they passed into the scented warmth of the hotel.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Maitland. Good evening, madam.’

  They were met by banks of flowers, music, and crowds of people in evening clothes. They processed through the throng to the doors of the dining room where the head waiter led them to a table. Nancy surveyed the room and all the edges of her prejudice melted. It was absurdly glamorous and it was beautiful. Panels of mirrors reflected the drapes at the windows facing over the darkened park and a dozen chandeliers were linked by swags of bronze. Through an opulent haze of gold and rosy light waiters bore domed dishes, diners talked and laughed over silver and crystal, music played and on the small dance floor dancers swayed in each other’s arms.

  She breathed, ‘My goodness. What a wonderful sight.’

  If anyone was to be here, in this room tonight, Nancy was pleased that it happened to be her.

  Gil Maitland smiled. Her unaffected delight in the Ritz dining room pleased him.

  A glass was placed next to her hand. In this place, it seemed nothing had to be fought for. A wish had only to be half-formed and it was granted.

  ‘Miss Wix. Oh, for God’s sake. May I call you Nancy? That’s how I have thought of you since we first met, all that time ago. I’m afraid I draw the line at Zenobia.’

  Since we first met? I have thought of you? The words hammered in her head.

  ‘Zenobia is my stage name. Nancy will do very well.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m Gil. You know that.’

  She drank some champagne before looking at him over the rim of the glass.

  ‘Where is Lady Celia tonight?’

  He nodded. ‘Celia is at home with her family, in Northamptonshire. She has been unwell the last week, so her formidable mother has stepped in where it seems I can’t manage.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I hope it wasn’t anything to do with our failed seance. I tried to convince her that most probably nothing would happen. It doesn’t always. I could have made up something to satisfy her, I suppose, but I like your wife and I didn’t want to embark on a deception.’

  Gil didn’t answer directly. They were circling each other, Nancy knew that much. He held his sleek head on one side and his light-coloured eyes ran over her face. Beneath his left cheekbone was the indentation, not quite a dimple, flickering in place of a smile. She remembered it very well.

  ‘I would do anything, anything at all, to make Celia feel happier,’ he said at length.

  Nancy waited. Of course he would. He was her husband.

  He went on, still studying her. ‘I overheard what the woman said at that dreadful party last year, and I remembered that Celia had spoken about your work. I was quite startled to recognise you as the girl from Fleet Street.’

  ‘If you recognised me, why didn’t you speak to me?’

  His gaze steadied. ‘Did you want me to?’
/>
  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were with your young man. I felt very old and dull and out of place.’

  Even though her throat felt constricted Nancy couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘You?’

  He sighed. ‘Ah, Nancy. We don’t know the first thing about each other, do we? Celia wanted to come to your seance at the Palmyra, so I accompanied her. I was interested to see what you might do, and I imagined that the whole business would be easily dismissed. Then that … strange event occurred. I admit that it shocked me. It was my idea to come backstage afterwards, thinking there might be a way you could help Celia.’ There was a pause before he added, ‘I should say, I also wanted very much to see you again.’

  ‘I know.’ She spoke so softly that the music almost drowned her words.

  Gold-rimmed plates were placed in front of them.

  While they ate, Gil wanted to know how she had been transformed from a print-shop worker into a stage medium. In this most worldly of settings it was difficult to explain any of it, but she did her best.

  ‘When I was a young girl I met another medium, a very strange man, who said I had a gift.’ She described how that had come about, and what had happened after the war. ‘It was very haphazard to begin with. We had family troubles and I needed to earn some money.’

  Gil Maitland was remarkably easy to talk to. She had never told anyone so much so quickly, not even Lion or Jinny.

  ‘Where is this person now, this Mr Feather?’

  She hesitated. ‘I sometimes catch sight of him.’

  Once in a while she would look out into her audience and meet his disturbing stare. At other times she would catch a glimpse of him in the street, turning a corner ahead or watching her from a doorway.

  She was aware that Feather always kept her in his sights, either as his link to Helena or for other reasons she was even less eager to imagine.

  Gil said at last, ‘Forgive me, Nancy. I’d assumed these seances were usually faked.’

  ‘That’s understandable. I don’t mind you saying it. Sometimes – usually, in fact – I am a fake.’

  ‘But you did see Richard, didn’t you?’

  Her eyes were on the tablecloth. ‘Yes.’

  He prompted gently. ‘And?’