The Novel in the Viola

by Natasha Solomons

‘Look, a dandelion clock. The first of the year,’ said Kit, pointing to a white feathered flower nestling amongst the yellow dandelion scribbles that studded the green grass like a child’s painting of a starry sky. He slipped off the wall and plucked it, offering it up to me.

  ‘What o’clock?’ he asked and blew, sending a volley of feathered arrows into the wind.

  Kit and I might not have been engaged, but my life at Tyneford had shifted. Mr Wrexham enquired as to whether I wished to move to more commodious quarters, but I declined. I’d grown to love my attic room. Lying in bed at the top of the house, I dreamt that I sailed along on the lookout post upon the mast of a tall ship, and I had the best view of the endless sea, better than the captain himself. Mr Wrexham, though surprised, agreed that I may remain for the present in my attic chambers, but the morning after Kit’s declaration, I became for the first time ‘Miss Landau’.

  Mr Wrexham summoned me into his study, and for once offered me a cup of tea, which so surprised me that I declined. The butler’s face contracted and I realised, too late, that refusal had been a mistake. So, when he gestured to me to sit, I did so instantly, almost missing the chair in my haste. Manners always impeccable, he contrived not to notice. He perched on the chair opposite, back straight as one of the poplars beside the driveway, knees together, tails dangling behind him, white hands resting upon his black lap.

  ‘This is a situation of some delicacy, Miss Landau. Mr Rivers has informed me that while yourself and Mr Kit are not presently engaged, such an event is highly likely,’ he paused. ‘This makes your present situation somewhat problematic. You can no longer continue as a maid, Miss Landau. But since you are not as yet engaged, we need to proceed with considerable tact.’

  Mr Wrexham explained that my duties were to be undertaken by May and the dailies (Mr Rivers could not endure his future daughter-in-law washing his floors or making his bed a minute longer) but I was to assist Mrs Ellsworth with the running of the household, a more genteel task, that as far as I could tell involved the ordering of dinners and the endless arranging of flowers. I was not permitted to assist with actual cooking. My hands were to be smooth and untainted by work before a ring was slipped onto my finger.

  ‘There remains the awkward matter of meals. Until the engagement is official and declared in The Times, it is not appropriate for you to take your meals with the family. But you can no longer eat in the servants’ hall. It has been decided that you will take your repast in the morning room.’

  I tried not to frown. ‘Alone?’

  ‘For the present, Miss Landau.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Wrexham.’

  He winced, ever so slightly.

  ‘Madam, if I may be so bold. Circumstances have changed. If it pleases you, I am now “Wrexham”.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. As you said, I am not yet engaged. I live in no-man’s land. I take my meals alone. Until I am Mrs Rivers, you are Mr Wrexham.’

  The butler did not smile but gave a slight nod. ‘As you wish, Miss Landau.’

  March drifted into April with a late frost, icing lacework patterns across the windowpanes and smudging the tides of yellow cowslips with white. The black tulips in the terracotta pots on the terrace were bejewelled, like ladies in sable coats dusted with crystal. The nights were clear and cold, and I stood on the single wooden chair in my attic room, peeking out of the window as the stars flashed upon the surface of the sea. Mr Rivers gave permission for me to wire the news to my sister, and did not complain when I sent a rapturous and lavish telegram to Margot.

  EVERYTHING All right STOP BETTER THAN All right STOP SPLENDID STOP ANNA JULIAN COMING TO TYNEFORD STOP BURNT MY CAP AND APRON STOP KIT LOVES ME STOP YOU AND ROBERT MUST COME TO ENGLAND STOP BRING UMBRELLA STOP VERY DAMP HERE STOP

  Diana and Juno departed for London, taking with them the last of Kit’s college friends. Since Kit and I were not officially engaged, there was nothing to tell them, and Mr Rivers and the wily butler had contrived to keep me far away from the two young ladies during their last few days at the house. But the girls were shrewd when it came to matters of love and Diana, with the keen suspicion that she had been slighted, watched me with Gestapo eyes. On her final evening, I went upstairs to find her sitting on my bed. My drawers were open and the contents covered the floor in an untidy kaleidoscope of knickers, brassieres, blouses and gloves.

  ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ I enquired, relieved that I no longer had to address her as ‘your ladyship’.

  Diana shrugged. ‘No. I don’t believe so. Those pearls weren’t stolen, were they?’ she added flatly, pointing to the fine string pulled from their hiding place inside my stocking.

  ‘I’m afraid not. They’re mine.’

  ‘Pity,’ she said without emotion.

  I started to tidy things away.

  ‘He ought to have been mine, you know,’ she said.

  I closed the drawer with a knock and leant back against the bureau. She was quite lovely – golden curls framing her heart-shaped face and a mouth like two curved rose petals.

  ‘Yes. Perhaps he ought,’ I said.

  He’s mine, I thought, and we both heard me say the words, even though I did not speak them aloud.

  May arrived with apple blossom, bluebells on the cliffs, kisses before bedtime and thirty million pounds worth of Bank of England gold travelling in two warships to Canada for safekeeping. The cuckoos called from the dark woods, the Tyneford gardeners planted cabbages in neat rows, and the men debated when the call-up would be announced, while Mr Wrexham fretted as to the havoc such absences would inflict upon his meticulous staff plan. Each evening Kit and Mr Rivers discussed strategies for obtaining exit visas for my parents. While I did not dine with the men, I was permitted to join them afterwards and pour the coffee. Placing the gleaming pot back on the tray, and taking a square of bitter chocolate, I settled beside Kit as he lolled into me, resting his blond head on my shoulders.

  ‘Let them say “no” to me in person,’ said Mr Rivers, who had grown tired of the polite but ambivalent letters from the German embassy: ‘We profoundly regret . . . humble apologies . . . minor delay . . . by Easter . . . before Michaelmas . . .’

  ‘I am tired of all this stalling. I’ve made an appointment at the embassy. I’ll speak to them and see if we can’t sort out this nonsense,’ he said, confident in his belief that two reasonable chaps in a room together may quickly find an amiable resolution. I could not explain to him that German bureaucrats were neither reasonable nor amiable in the true British sense.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Kit.

  ‘Yes, and I will too.’

  I felt my palms itch at the possibility of looking the enemy in the eye – I’d see if I could make him flinch. I longed to do something to help Anna and Julian. I was exhausted by my impotence.

  Mr Rivers frowned. ‘Kit, come if you wish. Elise, it would be best if you did not. Your presence will not help matters.’

  ‘They are my family.’

  ‘And if you want to help them, then you will stay behind. I doubt if the embassy officials will even speak with you,’ said Mr Rivers.

  Frustration bloomed into anger. ‘Because I’m a Jew. I am so tired of it. It’s all I am anymore and I don’t even know what it means. I eat pork and I hate God. But that’s all I am to them. And to you, Mr Rivers. Elise mustn’t marry Kit because she’s a bloody Jew.’

  The two men looked at me, shocked at my outburst. I supposed it wasn’t how nice English girls behaved, and it certainly wasn’t expected from reprieved housemaids. I knew I ought to burst into tears to lessen the effect of my rudeness but I was far too angry.

  ‘I won’t apologise,’ said Mr Rivers. ‘I am trying to do the best for your family. All I ask is that you both wait a short while. You are both very young.’

  Now I did want to cry. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  Excusing myself, I slipped outside into the cool of the garden. Alone on the terrace, I was overcome with embarra
ssment and disgusted at how ungrateful I must appear.

  Mr Rivers, however, did not bear grudges and he smiled at me as, slightly hesitant, I returned to the drawing room some time later.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us shake hands. Friends are allowed to quarrel.’

  Solemnly we shook, and I settled myself on a footstool beside the fire.

  ‘Now,’ said Kit. ‘Everything is arranged. We’re going tomorrow. Is there anything you would like from town? Something for Mrs Landau, perhaps?’

  Tears pricked my eyes, conscious that they were both being much kinder than I deserved. ‘Well, if you’re quite sure. Anna loves scented bath salts.’

  Kit grinned. ‘Expect I can stretch to that. Anything else?’

  ‘Hildegard always used to fill her drawers with little sachets of rosebuds and lavender.’

  ‘Consider it done. I shall go to Liberty’s. They shall instantly pin me as a man in love, asking for such things.’

  ‘And Mr Landau? What does he drink?’ asked Mr Rivers. ‘Wrexham keeps an excellent cellar. But if there is some continental spirit?’

  I smiled. ‘Thank you. You are both so kind. Julian is not particular. He likes any kind of red wine. He’s not partial to spirits.’

  Actually, he referred to the ‘continental spirits’ of schnapps or kirsch favoured by the great-aunts as ‘old hen’s poison’. I stretched before the fire, conscious of the generosity of the two men. I knew I was deeply lucky. Most girls in my position considered themselves fortunate to receive a kind word from the master of the house. Goodness knew, I did not deserve it. And yet with the exception of that night’s outburst, I had noticed that the men were easier with each other when I was in their company. There was no awkward intimacy, no need to speak directly to one another; instead they could tell me about Tyneford, the history of the house and its previous inhabitants: grandmother Julie who was so terrified of dogs that she fainted upon seeing a fox on the hill; Uncle Max who preferred dogs to people, especially to his catty wife. With a comfortable third in the room, father and son appeared to take indirect pleasure in one another’s company. They could talk without talking. Their dinners became shorter and shorter, until I had barely finished my lonely soup when Mr Wrexham came calling for me to come into the drawing room and pour the coffee.

  ‘Shall we play a hand of cards?’ Mr Rivers enquired.

  Kit fidgeted and stretched. ‘No. Not tonight.’

  ‘Shall I make you some toast on the fire?’ I suggested.

  Kit snapped upright. ‘Yes. Splendid.’

  I rang the bell and asked Mr Wrexham to bring bread, butter and the toasting fork from Mrs Ellsworth’s room. When he returned, I knelt before the simmering coals, piercing a thick slice of bread upon the prongs and held it out over the heat. The bread darkened to a golden brown, smouldering gently. The warmth made my cheeks rosy. Kit crept up behind me and crouched on the hearth, while Mr Rivers fiddled with the gramophone, so that the room filled with the running peals of Chopin’s Nocturne in F Minor.

  ‘It’s a little smoky in here,’ I said, and Kit stood up to open the window.

  A trickle of cool air flowed into the room along with the boom of the distant sea, a bass orchestra to accompany the Chopin. I looked at the firelight reflected on their faces and knew that I was forgiven, the quarrel already forgotten. I did not know then that this was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was warm and loved and as the music rippled around me, I knew the best was yet to come. But it is in our nature to be always looking away.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Black dogs and white gloves

  June blazed into July. Dragonflies flitted across the village pond, their wings a shimmering, iridescent green, humming like miniature aircraft. Kit disappeared to Cambridge to take his exams and reappeared a fortnight later having passed with a respectable 2:2. Mr Rivers hid his disappointment behind a bottle of 1928 Veuve Clicquot. We sipped and toasted and I would have been content, if it wasn’t for the ever present worry about my parents. Each morning, I paced the blue room, which had been prepared for their arrival: curtains freshly laundered, lavender bags sweetening the drawers, crystal scent bottles displayed upon the dressing table. I closed my eyes and imagined Anna stretched out on the bed in her cotton pyjamas waiting for me to bring her morning coffee, while Julian, robed in his dressing gown, scribbled in one of his leather notebooks beside the window. The minute they arrived, the last few months would be transformed into a game, everything simple and happy in hindsight; a fairy tale ending in a reunion and, in a year, a summer wedding upon the lawn. I wondered whether Margot and Robert would arrive in time for my sister to be maid of honour.

  On the last day of July, Mr Wrexham came into the yard where I was helping Art brush down Mr Bobbin. He proffered a letter on his silver tray.

  ‘Miss Landau.’

  I seized it and tore it open.

  Darling Bean,

  The visa has come! It has come. I can’t quite believe it, but here it is in my hands. We are coming. Really and truly. Your father is to line up and pay his exit tax (how we are to repay Mr Rivers I shall never know) and then we shall be with you. Tell me, what is Tyneford like at this time of year? You said the cooking is ‘hearty’ – is that the English word? I don’t like offal very much, but I am sure I can get used to anything . . .

  I read no more, but seizing Art and kissing the old man soundly, I raced into the house calling for Kit and Mr Rivers.

  ‘The visa is here! They’re coming!’

  August 29th. Kit and I spread out a picnic rug on the lawns. He wanted to walk to the top of Flower’s Barrow or go for a swim, but I wanted to read the newspapers and write my latest letter to Anna. I no longer posted them, as by the time they arrived Anna and Julian would have left, so I kept them in the viola case. I didn’t want to forget anything when I told her about the last few months. I imagined her reclining in a cushioned deckchair beneath the oak tree’s shade and reading my parcel of letters, chuckling softly and sipping iced tea.

  I now read Art’s Daily Mirror as well as Mr Rivers’ copy of The Times and the papers were spread around us on the grass, weighted down with stones, and flapping like tethered gulls in the breeze. Kit rolled onto his back and shielded his eyes against the glare of the late summer sun.

  ‘So? What does Mr Churchill say this morning?’

  I rustled through the Mirror.

  ‘No one knows what’s going to happen abroad. Nor when the worst will happen.’

  Kit opened an eye. ‘Anna and Julian will be here any day.’

  He’d finally caught my habit of calling them by their first names.

  ‘Any day,’ I echoed.

  ‘Come, darling. There’s no help in fretting. They’ll be here before you know it.’

  I turned to the Mirror. ‘All British ships are now under Admiralty control. From midnight on Saturday every British ship afloat came under Admiralty direction.’

  ‘Ah. Burt’ll be tickled that The Lugger is now part of the navy,’ said Kit, stroking the sun-darkened freckles on my arm. ‘Come for a swim? It’s so blasted hot.’

  ‘No thank you. I’m going to stay here for a bit.’

  ‘Suit yourself. If you fancy joining me, I’ll be on Worbarrow beach.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, planting a kiss on his nose. ‘I will. Give me an hour.’

  I watched him as he strode down to the beach in his white tennis shoes. Long days spent outside in the sunshine had bleached his hair a brighter shade of gold, and his skin had ripened to a rich brown. I was tempted to abandon my papers and run after him. Kit was a muscular swimmer, cutting through the green waves with powerful strokes. Afterwards, he liked to stretch out upon the rocks in his shorts, glistening and lithe as an otter. Yes, I decided. The papers and Anna’s letter could wait. I determined to fetch my bathing things from the house. I scrambled to my feet, flicking a scarlet ladybird from my blouse, and headed back to the terrace. There was the grumble of motorcar tyres on g
ravel, and then the thud-thud of two car doors closing. Mr Rivers was away across the hills for his daily walk, and Art never took the car without him. No guests were expected. My heart leapt. Anna. Julian. It had to be them. I ran to the side of the house, skidding on the loose stones, heart pounding in my ears like a timpani drum. I hurled myself round the corner, and stopped.

  Anna and Julian stand in the driveway. A sound escapes from my lips and, for a moment, I think it is the cry of a gull and not my own voice. They are here. I say the words again and again, not quite believing them. Then I am buried in Anna’s arms and ah, the spice of her perfume. And in the sunlight I see flecks of white in the blonde of her hair and Julian is thin, thinner than I’ve seen him before but it doesn’t matter because they’ll be fed gooseberry crumble until they’re fat again. And I’m crying and I can’t breathe and I’m making a mess on the pressed linen of Anna’s collar.

  ‘Darling, it’s all right,’ says Julian. ‘Everything’s all right now.’

  I take his hand and lead them onto the terrace and we sit in the warm afternoon. A butterfly lands on Anna’s lapel and she gazes down upon it benevolently. ‘Be careful,’ she says, ‘or I shall get too fond of you and turn you into a brooch.’

  I stare at my parents, and see that they are just the same: a little older and worn perhaps but otherwise unchanged. Anna smiles and her forehead creases. Julian stretches out his legs and I see to my delight that his socks don’t match. There is too much to say, so we are silent and listen instead to the sea. Upon the water, a sailboat tacks and rushes towards the far side of the bay. I want to tell them everything: how Anna’s drawers are full of lavender and that Mr Rivers has a special bottle of Château Margaux set aside to celebrate their arrival. I want them to meet Kit. I want Anna to love Kit. The scarlet geraniums in their terracotta pots are so bright – a bold, child’s red, and I decide that I shall always have geraniums on the terrace and they will remind me of this moment. And I want to ask about the great-aunts but I can’t because I am selfish and I don’t want to spoil this feeling of happiness and I try to think of something to ask – anything to stop me thinking about the three old women left alone in Vienna – and I turn to Julian and I ask, ‘What is the novel in the viola about?’