The Novel in the Viola

by Natasha Solomons

  On reaching the house, I banged on the door, hoping that she would answer and not one of her aunts. There was a flicker of light and then a girlish figure in a white dressing gown appeared on the porch. I licked saltwater from my lips.

  ‘I saw what you did. Oh, Elise.’

  I scowled and dug the tip of my nail into the fleshy part of my thumb; I would not let her see me cry. ‘May I stay here, tonight?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Inside, she ushered me to a small bedroom overlooking the beach and handed me a clean nightdress and a bar of soap.

  ‘Try to sleep. We can talk in the morning.’

  I remember that after she left, I stood for a while in the darkness clutching the bundle she’d given me. Eventually, I curled up on the bed, closed my eyes and listened to the rhythmic sound of the waves rumbling on the beach below. Now writing so many years later, I am tempted to ease into a different story. I take a sip of coffee and imagine a story where instead of lying hot and sleepless, I run down to the shore. I take out The Lugger, haul her along the pebbled shore and into the surf. I know how to raise the sail and use the oar to push off the beach. Under the light of the moon, I sail across the wide sea. Sail to France. Sail to Anna and Julian. I arrive in Vienna in the silent dark, drifting up the Danube, a ribbon of black silk. They are waiting on the shore, called down to the river by their dreams, and together we sail away. We float across the ocean to New York – and Margot – and arrive at the Statue of Liberty in our handkerchief sailboat in the rose-red dawn and no one turns us away. It is the storyteller’s prerogative to try to write, every now and then, the ending she might wish for. Even if it exists only on the white page.

  I awoke to knocking on the window. The curtains were open and in the half-light of daybreak I saw Kit. I threw off the covers and waving at him to be quiet, slipped out of the bedroom. Doing my best not to disturb Poppy or her aunts, I crept out of the front door. He was waiting for me in the patch of scrub that passed for the garden of the bungalow.

  ‘I’ve come to—’ he said.

  I put my finger to his lips and led him further from the house. In the midst of my disgrace, I did not wish to wake the others. I wore only Poppy’s white nightgown, and the sand was cold beneath my bare toes. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered.

  ‘Everything’s all right. You can go back,’ said Kit. ‘I’ve spoken to Father and you can go back.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. I can’t. I have to leave.’

  Kit looked exhausted. There were blue shadows beneath his eyes. He had changed into pale brown slacks and a navy sweater but I suspected he had not been to bed.

  ‘After lunch I’m going to hitch a lift up to Cambridge,’ he said, trying to make me look at him.

  I said nothing, and traced patterns in the sand with my toe.

  ‘I’ve spoken with Father. You can go back. When I’m gone,’ he added.

  ‘It’s not fair, Kit. It’s my fault. You shouldn’t have to go.’

  He chuckled. ‘It was my idea. My birthday present.’

  I swallowed and carried on making loops on the ground with my foot. I sighed. He needed to know the truth, even if he never spoke to me again. ‘That’s not why I did it, Kit. I did it because of Diana. She stole my mother’s dress and ruined it. And I was angry with her. And I did it to spite her. It wasn’t because of you at all.’

  Kit ran a hand through his hair. It stuck up around his ears like strands of golden straw.

  ‘You let me kiss you because of Diana?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took a step closer. His eyes were angry now, pupils spreading into the iris like ink into blotting paper. He grabbed my shoulders, his hands warm on my bare skin.

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ I said.

  I tried to wriggle away but he held me firm.

  ‘Because of Diana. Nothing else.’

  ‘I told you. Yes.’

  Instead of letting me go, he bent down and kissed me. The coarse stubble on his chin grazed my cheek. His lips tasted of cigarettes and salt, like he’d been walking along the beach. His mouth was warm and soft and then I was kissing him and thinking of Margot and Robert always kissing in the corner of the drawing room at evening parties with me wondering why do they do that, it’s so very rude, and then I thought now I understand and then I wasn’t thinking anything at all except let him keep on kissing me oh keep on kissing me. He drew away and cupped my chin with both hands.

  ‘Just Diana, then,’ he said, smile twitching.

  I touched my mouth with my fingertips and blinked, too surprised to speak.

  ‘Goodbye, Elise,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘I hope you hear good news from your parents.’

  He leant forward and placed another kiss on my lips. Then he turned and walked away along the cliff path leading back to the big house.

  I woke up several hours later, with Poppy sitting on the edge of my bed, holding out a cup of tea. I jolted upright, nearly knocking it from her hand, and stared at the streams of bright sunlight rushing in at the window.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked, smoothing my rumpled hair.

  ‘Late. Past eleven.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I settled back into the pillows, remembering my disgrace. My lie-in was ignominious rather than luxurious. And yet, Kit had said I was free to return after lunch. I gulped a mouthful of scalding tea, finally reconciled to the revolting English habit of drinking it with milk and sugar.

  ‘A message came from the house. You’re to see the senior staff at one thirty,’ said Poppy, taking the cup, which I had been dangling perilously over the white bedspread. She placed it firmly on the bedside table.

  ‘There is no use brooding till then. Get dressed and we’ll go down to the beach.’

  Pulling on a pair of her slacks, and a red sweater that must have clashed horribly with her hair, I followed her down to the sea, racing along the cliff path. The aunts had already vanished for the day, and I experienced a pang of envy at the thought of her freedom. In Tyneford, every moment of my day was accounted for, but Poppy was at liberty to get up when she liked and do as she pleased. For me, today was an unexpected, disgraceful holiday. Poppy could sit and watch the waves whip across the shore every day if she liked. Her life seemed a veritable paradise.

  The tide was out, and the beach lay bare, pebbles glistening under the cold November sky. We discarded our shoes and socks, raced down to the surf and skimmed flat, brown stones. I only managed three or four bounces before my pebble sank into the water, while Poppy, with a casual flick, sent them racing like frogs across lily pads, eight or nine jumps at a time. Growing bored, we wandered along the strand to Burt’s hut. The old man sat out on his upturned bucket, mending lobster pots again. He gave a friendly wave and we strolled over, loitering awkwardly amongst the spooled fishing-nets.

  ‘Mornin’,’ he called.

  Poppy knelt beside him and grabbed a pot. She pulled out a small knife from her pocket and started to scrape barnacles from the metal.

  ‘Heard there was a spot o’ bother last night wi’ yoos and Mr Kit?’ said Burt.

  I nodded dumbly.

  ‘In trouble wi’ Mr Rivers and Mr Wrexham?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He gave a low chuckle. ‘Yer doesn’t want ter go, does yer?’

  I leant against the wooden fencepost, and for the first time considered leaving Tyneford. Last night in anger and humiliation I had promised to leave, but I had not really thought what that would mean. I imagined Art attaching Mr Bobbin to the ramshackle cart and driving me to the station, jogging slowly across the green hills. And then sitting on the grey train chug-chugging its way back to the grey, smoke-filled city. Perhaps if I were very lucky, I might gain a position with two old spinsters, serving tea and buttered crumpets on paper doilies, as they sucked on their dentures. There would be no more nightjars calling from the heather in the June dark, or the wind whispering in the larch leaves or the sugar scent of jasmine after the rain. No more li
stening to the sea hurtle and smash into the rocks during a storm. And there would be no more Kit. Not exile for a month or two or three, but never again. I swallowed and rubbed damp palms along my slacks.

  ‘No. I don’t want to leave this place.’

  Burt smiled and paused fiddling with his lobster pot.

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Poppy.

  Burt studied the sun above the sea. ‘Bout quarter ter one or thereabouts.’

  ‘You can tell that by looking?’ I asked, awed.

  ‘Nope. Jist heard them church bells.’

  Saying our goodbyes to Burt, we hurried towards Tyneford House. I put on my shoes and socks and Poppy neatened my hair. I felt waves of trepidation as we walked through the stable yard, now empty of cars. All the guests had gone, and I saw Henry winding up the string of lanterns. He pretended not to see me.

  ‘I hope . . . you know,’ said Poppy, giving up on trying to say the right thing and hugging me instead.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said and headed to the back door. Now that I realised how much I wanted to stay, my heart rattled in my chest like a penny in a beggar man’s cup. The servants’ corridor was empty and freshly washed. I surveyed the panelled hall, the scene of last night’s events. All signs of the party had been wiped away, and yet beneath the soap-scented cleanness, I detected a note of sadness. The house sighed and shrugged and like the partygoers themselves, placed her tinsel back into the drawers with the good china, and felt the sag and dullness of everyday life. The tiny holes in the oak panelling, made by generations of woodworms, suddenly seemed worn and drab in the afternoon glare. In the heavy beams overhead, I heard the ominous tick-tick of the death-watch beetle.

  My shoes echoing in the wooden hall, I crossed back to the servants’ corridor, feeling the censure of the Rivers ancestors as they peered down at me from their gilt frames. Even the spaniels poised at their sides watched me with haughty disdain. Save for the portraits, the house was empty. Twelve hours ago it had brimmed with dancing couples and legions of white-suited waiters and now the silence unnerved me. Much as I disliked Diana and Juno, they had filled the house with life and motion. When Margot and I visited the great-aunts in Vienna, we used to explode into their dainty apartment, careering around the lacework tables and porcelain displays with our stories of school and fresh air. We perched on overstuffed sofas, nibbling ginger wafers and chattering without pause, as the three aunts, Gretta, Gerda and Gabrielle, beamed at us through pince-nez spectacles and spoilt us with chocolate, or let us rifle through the jewellery box and use great-grandmother’s diamonds and golden bangles as dressing-up trinkets. When Anna decided it was time to leave, Margot and I were buttoned into our coats and bundled back onto the street, but when I glanced up at the aunts’ apartment, I always spied them in the window, waving. Always waving. Always sad. That is how the big house felt that afternoon – a maiden aunt in the window, waving as the children rush away.

  My feet heavy, I walked over to the butler’s door and knocked.

  ‘Come in.’

  Mr Wrexham and Mrs Ellsworth waited for me in the butler’s pantry. They sat side by side on the two high-backed chairs, while I stood before them, a repentant schoolgirl. I studied the floor, noticing the flagstones were spick and polished. I waited for the scolding, expecting an outpouring of wrath and fully prepared to cry. I was used to men with tempers – Julian could rage like a drunken circus bear (usually when his writing was not going too well or Anna ventured a cautious criticism of his latest draft). But what Mr Wrexham said next, I was not prepared for. He did not shout. He did not appear angry, only sad.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘You are to be the end of us all.’

  Mrs Ellsworth clicked her tongue against her teeth in tacit agreement. Mr Wrexham shifted in his chair and then stood to address me, words pouring forth from his very soul.

  ‘This never would have happened in my father’s time. Girl like you, sacked and gone. Good riddance. But the problem is, you’re not one of us. You’re not one of them either. You don’t fit. In a house like this everyone has his place. And he needs to know it for the thing to work. We each have our roles to play and we’ve managed just fine for a thousand years. But you . . . you and your kind. Mr Rivers and Mr Kit they don’t treat you like a maid. Any other girl would have been dismissed in an instant and not by the master – he wouldn’t have interfered! This is my world. But he’s interfering with the running of the household because of you.’

  Tears trickled wetly down my cheeks unbidden and I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. Mr Wrexham passed me a crisp white handkerchief, but he could not stop. He gazed at me, unhappy.

  ‘Mrs Ellsworth can’t even school you like a proper housemaid. It’s not about laying the fires just right, or pouring the tea, or keeping quiet during dinner. You’ve changed everything. Don’t you see? You are neither one nor the other. This is the end of Tyneford, I promise you. And it’s not your fault but you brought it with you.’

  I sobbed into the old butler’s linen handkerchief, not knowing what I could say, what defence I could offer. His accusation was not personal and was not intended to be cruel. I was merely part of something larger that threatened his world, and the world of his father and grandfathers. But I loved this place, and I had not meant to bring about its demise. I could not believe it was true. He was mistaken. He had to be.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Maybe tomorrow

  I heard nothing from my parents except for a six-word telegram at the end of November: ALL WELL STOP DON’T FRET STOP LOVE ANNA STOP. I sent them weekly letters from the post office in the village, filled with chirping gossip and nonsense or scraps of stories told me by Poppy or Burt. They never replied, and I had no idea whether the letters actually arrived at their destination, but I sent them just the same. I liked to think of Anna and Julian toasting brioche in front of the fire and reading my letters, even if it wasn’t true. The English winter was not as bitter as the Austrian one, no snow padded the rooftops or coated the hillside, but I was cold, colder than I had ever been in my life. I went to bed in my clothes, with my overcoat draped over the covers and a filched hot-water bottle to warm my frozen toes, and I was still cold. I longed for my feathered eiderdown – the English blankets were all too thin. I dreamt about the possible stories that the viola contained. I conjured musicians playing wild tunes on the rocks above Worbarrow Tout, while Julian and Anna danced upon the sea (Julian in his canary-yellow socks). The rosewood held an infinite possibility of stories, and in the darkness Viennese pedlars jostled with goose-stepping soldiers who emerged from apartment buildings with broken windows.

  My fingers swelled with chilblains and I struggled to strike the match to light the living room fires. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be warm; I shivered before the kitchen range, my hands wrapped around a mug of tea, reluctant to venture out into the arctic house. And there was no Kit. I hoped he would be back home for Christmas, but Mrs Ellsworth gave no instructions for his room to be prepared. I crossed my fingers for New Year. December 30th came and went. New Year’s Eve arrived, but not Kit.

  1938 slipped into 1939 while I was sleeping. Mr Wrexham politely invited me to join the servants for a glass of sherry at five past midnight (when Mr Rivers’ solitary glass of champagne had been tidied away) but I declined with equal politeness. I was a shadow in the big house. Mr Rivers barely acknowledged my presence, while the other servants studiously ignored me. Only Art tolerated me, giving me handfuls of hay to feed to Mr Bobbin, the only member of the household who took pleasure in my company.

  On the third of January, a letter arrived from Margot. In the cool morning light, I crouched before the fire in the drawing room and tore it open.

  Anna won’t ask you to help so I decided that I must. The American visa never comes. Julian never writes, not a single word (you would have thought writers would be better correspondents) and Anna’s letters are full of happy lies. I’d like to say that I didn’t believe a word, but I wanted to, oh,
little Bean, I wanted to. And then, Hildegard wrote to me:

  ‘It is no good here for your parents. Every week it is more difficult. They go and they wait and they are told, “Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week.” But the visa never comes.’

  ‘Herr Finkelstein was taken away the night of November 9th. He came back but without his teeth. And they were good strong teeth. I sent Herr and Frau Landau to a hotel that night. They were safe there. But the crazies came here and took Herr Landau’s books and made a bonfire of them in the street. Then they threw his desk out of the window and they burnt that too. Now all his manuscripts are gone and he thanks the God he doesn’t believe in that it was nothing worse.’

  Elise, they cannot wait any longer. Can your Mr Rivers help get them to Britain?

  I lowered the letter, and blew gently on the coals, causing orange flames to flare for a second. I tried not to feel a nudge of jealousy that Anna wrote more often to Margot than to me – it was not important. I must speak to Mr Rivers today, even though he hardly tolerated my presence in the house. I was the reason his son was exiled from Tyneford and the source of the servants’ mutterings, but I would beg him, if I must.

  At half past twelve, Mr Rivers set out for his walk to the top of Flower’s Barrow. From the window in Kit’s room, I watched him trudge up the hill, the gamekeeper’s spaniel wagging at his feet. The sky was grey flint and the grass beneath a virulent green. The grass really was greener in England; on a train through France that other life ago, I had passed through endless hot brown fields. Even the undulating meadows in the Austrian Alps were dull in spring, yellowed by the snow. Mr Rivers walked fast, a tall figure, overcoat flapping in the wind, reaching the top in a few minutes. I’d never noticed before, but he had Kit’s stride, only slower, more deliberate. I settled into the leather armchair beside the window. Drizzle began to fall, spotting the glass and paving stones on the terrace below. I liked hiding in Kit’s room. It smelt of him: sandalwood, cigarettes. A silver case rested on the windowsill, and I flicked it open, lighting one of his familiar Turkish blend. I coughed and wafted the smoke. I knew I should be in trouble if I were caught, but since the incident I had made certain my work was exemplary and Mrs Ellsworth rarely checked up on me anymore. I allowed myself a few puffs and then extinguished it, sliding it back into the case, half smoked. I decided it was not that I missed him – simply the house was empty without him. Without Kit, I had no one to talk to, so it was only natural I should feel his absence. It was nothing more. I ran through the memory of his kiss. I had played it through so often in my mind that it was becoming worn around the edges, his voice scratched and thin, like an overplayed gramophone record.