Dreams That Veil

by Dominic Luke

  The hunt was off at last. Horns blared. Horses charged. The hounds went streaming down Priory Street between the rows of terraced cottages. Roderick and Mr Antipov disappeared into the mêlée.

  ‘Now we can go home,’ said Dorothea, ‘and not before time. It looks like rain.’

  ‘Oh no, please, not yet!’ cried Miss Halsted. ‘Couldn’t we follow them, Miss Ryan, just a little way? I’m starting to enjoy myself!’

  The chauffeur Smith twisted round in his seat to look at them. ‘If we head down London Road, miss, we can meet up with the hunt again on the other side of Barrow Hill. I’ve heard that they’re going to draw the coverts between Bodford and Newbolt.’

  Dorothea did not care for hunting. She’d said to Roderick that morning as they were all preparing to leave, ‘What a bloodthirsty lot you are! The poor fox!’

  ‘Poor fox, my eye!’ Roderick had scoffed. ‘Why did God make foxes if not to be hunted?’

  Roderick was all for hunting. Smith was too, even if he never rode. And now Miss Halsted was enthusiastic as well. Dorothea, therefore, gave way: more for Smith’s sake, Eliza felt, than for Miss Halsted’s.

  They left Lawham and drove out past Barrow Hill. Smith turned off the main road onto a cart track which wound its way towards the village of Newbolt hidden somewhere ahead amongst the wintry fields and leafless hedges. To the left, the land rose in steep slopes to the long, flattened summit of Barrow Hill. Rooks flying high were black dots against the scudding clouds.

  Smith brought the motor to a halt and turned off the engine. In the sudden silence Eliza could hear, carried on the gusting breeze, the faint yammering of the hounds.

  ‘They’re coming this way!’ Smith jumped down from his driver’s seat. ‘And they’ve found a fox by the sound of it!’

  He turned up the collar of his long chauffeur’s coat, gazing out across the fields. Miss Halsted joined him, slim and stylish in her three-quarter coat and large hat. Her interest in the hunt seemed somehow unladylike. Eliza wondered what Roderick saw in her. Would she too pay one visit to Clifton and then disappear?

  Red and black blobs appeared in the distance: the riders in all their finery. They seemed to be moving without purpose, spread higgledy-piggledy across the fields. The noise of the hounds grew louder, blown on the wind. A far-off horn wailed.

  ‘They’ve lost the scent.’ Smith was disappointed. ‘The whole field is strung out.’

  One of the black blobs now detached itself and began to head in their direction. The blob soon became recognizable as Colonel Harding, his horse picking its way across a ploughed field.

  ‘Hoi there! Miss Ryan! There’s been an accident! Your cousin, I’m afraid: young Brannan. He’s taken a tumble. Nothing to worry about. But he’s a little winded and his arm is giving him pain. It could have been worse, of course. When I was in India—’

  Miss Halsted interrupted. ‘Where is he? We should go to him!’

  ‘It might be an idea, Miss Ryan, if you were to take him home in that contraption of yours.’ The Colonel curled his lip. His hatred of motors was notorious. ‘You take him back and my man will bring his horse. Follow me.’

  The Colonel led the way, tugging sharply on the reins of his big horse as it pranced and bobbed along the cart track. The motor juddered behind, Smith manhandling the steering wheel. Eliza’s heart was beating fast. Roderick was all right, the Colonel had said. But to a man who’d been in the army, anyone would be all right who wasn’t stone dead.

  The worst of Eliza’s fears abated as they reached Roderick waiting by the side of the track. He’d lost his hat, he was covered in mud, he was clutching his arm, but he certainly wasn’t dead. He let rip in true Roderick style as they drew near. ‘That absolute ass Charles Harding! He’s nothing but a prize idiot!’

  ‘Hush, Roddy,’ murmured Dorothea. ‘The Colonel will hear you.’

  ‘I hope he does! He ought to know what a fool he has for a son! Charles Harding is the biggest fool that ever drew breath! He headed the fox, rode over the hounds, made his first horse lame. And then, to top it off, he jinked right in front of me at a hedge and I went head-over-heels. I was lucky not to break my neck!’

  ‘That’s awful, that’s terrible!’ cried Miss Halsted. ‘But you’ve no serious injuries? You aren’t badly hurt?’

  ‘Only my arm. It’s throbbing like Hades.’

  ‘And you’re shivering, and covered in cuts and grazes. You poor thing! I expect you’re suffering from shock. Here, let me help you into the motor.’ Miss Halsted took charge, bundling Roderick into the car, wrapping him in rugs. His teeth were chattering. ‘That’ll be the shock, making you feel cold. You must have the chauffeur’s coat. We’ll put the roof up too. Now, Miss Ryan, if you sit this side and I sit the other, together we can keep him warm. The little girl can sit in the front.’

  Little girl! Eliza was seething as she got into the front passenger seat. Anyone would think that Roderick was Miss Halsted’s brother, the way she was carrying on! Even Dorothea had been pushed aside. Why was Roderick just sitting there letting her pet and pat him? Usually he hated fuss. Usually he bit your head off if you tried to smother him (as he called it).

  Smith finished fixing the roof and set the motor going. Eliza sat stiff and formal in the front seat all the way home.

  Roderick was helped into the house and laid on the couch in the drawing room. Quite a congregation gathered. Mama was there, of course, and Dorothea and Miss Halsted. Mr Milton and Miss Ward were back from Darvell Hall. At a respectful distance, Mr Ordish, Mrs Bourne, Basford and two of the maids looked on; Cook peeked round the door. Eliza found herself thrust to one side and ignored.

  Mama wiped the mud off Roderick’s face and mopped his brow. Dorothea eased off his jacket. Miss Halsted removed his boots. Mrs Bourne and the maids hastened to fetch pillows and blankets. Basford heaved the couch nearer the fire. A glass of water was thrust into the patient’s hand and then a glass of brandy. The best linen was torn up without a murmur to make a sling or bandages, depending on who one listened to.

  Finally, Dr Camborne arrived hotfoot from the village. He ushered everyone out of the room. Eliza sat glumly on the stairs. No one told her to go back to the nursery. No one took any notice of her at all.

  She cocked an ear. There were voices in the passage, Miss Halsted and Miss Ward whispering together. They must be waiting outside the drawing room door as if they could not tear themselves away.

  ‘Rosa, I’m disappointed in you!’ hissed Miss Ward. ‘How can you say you enjoyed the hunting?’

  ‘I didn’t enjoy it exactly. But there is something rather . . . exciting about it. There’s a sense of tradition, of Merrie Olde England.’

  ‘It’s cruel. A cruel sport. Not a sport at all. “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.” Oh, why did we ever come here? It’s everything we abhor!’

  ‘We came because Roderick invited us.’

  ‘Oh, well, Roderick!’ Miss Ward’s tone suggested that she did not think much of Roderick.

  ‘He’s not so bad, Maggie, he really isn’t, once you get to know him.’

  ‘That’s not what you used to say. You used to call him a hidebound chauvinist.’

  ‘I may have been a little . . . hasty. One shouldn’t be too judgmental. One should always give people the benefit of the doubt. And you have to admit, Maggie, here in his own setting he is rather magnificent – heroic, almost.’

  ‘You’ve lost your head, Rosa. All men are the same: you should know that. All men are the enemy.’

  ‘Oh, Maggie, don’t be so obdurate! Not all men are—’

  At this point, the conversation came to an abrupt end. The doctor had finished with Roderick, was saying his goodbyes. Everyone gathered once more in the drawing room.

  ‘What did Arthur Camborne say?’ asked Mama.

  ‘I’ve a broken a bone. I could have told him that. He’s put this splint-thing on. He seemed to take great delight in twisting my arm about until I was in the throes of
agony. He’s something of a sadist on the quiet.’

  ‘That’s rather unfair,’ said Mama, gently chiding. ‘It was good of him to come so quickly.’

  ‘Yes, of course. He’s an angel from heaven, is dear old Arthur.’

  From her vantage point by the piano, Eliza studied her brother. Was he really heroic as Miss Halsted said? He’d looked very dashing that morning sitting tall and straight-backed on Conquest. But now he was ashen-faced, dishevelled, covered in cuts and bruises. His poor arm, too! How fragile people were! What had Miss Ward meant by calling him the enemy? The fact that Miss Halsted had defended him set Eliza’s teeth on edge.

  ‘Does it hurt very much?’ asked Eliza when at last she was able to get a word in edgeways, daring to touch – very gently – his arm in its sling.

  ‘Not much,’ he said. ‘Not at all.’ He laughed but his voice did not have its usual swagger. ‘What are those tears for? I’m not dead yet, you silly goose. My arm will mend. Give me your hand. You can help me up and see me to my room.’

  Her heart swelled as she pulled on his good arm so that he could get to his feet: he had asked her to help, not Mama or Miss Halsted or even Dorothea! Oh, she did love him so! But he’d only laugh all the more if she told him.

  ‘Where is your hat, Eliza?’ said Dorothea in the nursery after tea. ‘It needs mending. There’s a ribbon loose.’

  ‘Oh—’ Eliza looked round, then remembered. ‘I left it in the drawing room on the piano. I’ll fetch it.’

  She ran helter-skelter down the stairs, arriving in the hallway just as the front door opened and Mr Antipov let himself in. He was wet, mud-spattered, limping. His fingers were white from the cold, his face streaked with blood.

  ‘You’re hurt! You’re bleeding!’ The meeting was so unexpected, he looked so bedraggled that she forgot that she was shy of him.

  ‘Not my blood. The fox. Is old English custom on first hunt, they tell me, to wear the blood of the fox. Do you think they have joke on me, about fox’s blood?’

  ‘Then they found the fox after all? They killed it?’ It seemed all the more real, seeing the dried blood on the Russian’s pale, ordinary face.

  He looked in this state like the barbarian she’d first imagined he would be. But oddly his eyes, which she’d been rather afraid of before, now belied his gory appearance. They were not savage eyes. Just the opposite. The fear she had felt the other evening, that he might kidnap her and carry her off to Russia, now seemed quite absurd.

  She thought of the fox, the poor fox as Dorothea had called it. She found herself, most disconcertingly, agreeing with Miss Ward of all people, that hunting was cruel.

  ‘Do . . . do you hunt foxes in Russia?’

  ‘In Russia we hunt wolves and bears.’

  ‘Wolves! Are there really wolves in Russia?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Have you ever seen one?’

  ‘One time, at our dacha—’

  At that moment, the door to the breakfast room opened and Mama appeared. She took in the scene; poised, impassive.

  ‘Ah, Mr Antipov, you are back at last. You will want to get changed, I expect, and to bathe. There is plenty of time before dinner. I shall send the footman up.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Brannan.’ The Russian gave one of his little bows which, if anyone else had done it, would have looked silly; but with him – and when it was Mama he was bowing to – it seemed strangely in keeping.

  As Mr Antipov made his way upstairs, Mama cast a glance at Eliza. ‘What are you doing out of the nursery, Elizabeth? Please return there immediately.’

  The guests departed. Mr Milton and Miss Ward were to see in the New Year at Darvell Hall; Miss Halsted was off to visit some aunts in Tonbridge; and Mr Antipov had an appointment with an émigré friend of his father’s. It wouldn’t be long before Roderick was off too, heading back to Oxford for the Hilary term. Then, at last, life at Clifton would get back to normal.

  To her surprise, Eliza found this thought not in the least comforting. The days had flown by with the house so busy. The old routine paled by comparison. And the thought that she might not see Mr Antipov again for a long time – if ever – filled her with an entirely unexpected sense of desolation.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Such a day! I’m quite exhausted!’

  Mama had just got in. She sank onto the settee giving the impression of being flustered, though of course there wasn’t actually a hair out of place. She still had her hat on and, as Eliza watched from the window-seat, began to reach round for the hatpins.

  ‘London is so much more crowded than it used to be and people nowadays have such bad manners. The shops are not half as good as I remember, either. I can’t think why I let you persuade me to come, Dorothea.’

  Dorothea, who had not just her hat on but her coat as well, had sat down in the chair by the door. Mama’s remark seemed to pass her by, which was most unusual. Mama obviously thought so too. She gave Dorothea a quizzical glance but let it pass.

  Still searching for the hatpins, Mama continued, ‘It’s remarkable how few horse buses one sees these days. But there are motors everywhere. We saw – how many was it, Dorothea? – so many BFS machines, half a dozen at least. Albert would be astonished. When I was young—’ Mama broke off, exclaimed irritably, ‘Oh, this hat! What is wrong with it?’

  Dorothea looked up at last. ‘Shall I ring for Sally, Aunt?’

  ‘There’s no need. I’ve done it.’ Mama removed the last pin with a flourish, took off her hat, laid it on the settee. Patting her coiffure, she got to her feet. ‘I think I’ll take a little rest now. I shall go up. What time is Roderick due?’

  ‘Just after five, Aunt.’

  ‘I shall be sure to be down in plenty of time.’ Mama swept to the door, looked back. ‘Do sit up straight, Elizabeth. You will get a curved spine if you slouch like that.’

  Eliza pulled a face as Mama left the room. She would die of boredom long before her spine ever became curved. It was Tuesday today. They’d arrived in London last Friday. She’d not been allowed on any of the shopping trips: she would only get in the way, Mama had said. Not that Eliza particularly wanted to go clothes shopping with Mama. But it would have been nice to see the crowds, the shops and the many BFS motors for herself. Instead she spent her days looking out of the window at the neat square with its railed garden and trim terraces of white-fronted houses. Nothing much ever happened. People passed by on the pavement below. There was an occasional motor car, a handful of four-wheelers, delivery boys on bicycles, the butcher’s van, the baker’s cart. At times, a maid from one of the houses opposite walked back and forth with a perambulator in the garden. The leafless branches of the plane trees swayed in the breeze. The drab sky threatened rain which never came. It was all very dull. London – the real London – was out there somewhere, just out of reach: round the corner, down the next street.

  They had not visited their house at 28 Essex Square in Chelsea for nearly four years, since before Daddy died. But now that Mama was out of mourning she had decided she needed some new clothes and Dorothea had suggested London. Here Roderick was to join them today. Since the end of term, he’d been visiting yet another new Oxford friend. Eliza counted off the weeks since she’d last seen her brother. Nearly three months. It was April already.

  The last time they’d come to London, Eliza remembered, Daddy had promised to take her on their next visit to a place called the Crystal Palace. It was a name that had stirred her imagination. She had looked forward to it so much. But Daddy was no longer in a position to keep his promise. He had died instead.

  The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece was loud in the silence. The seconds slid slowly by. Dorothea sat with a faraway look in her eyes. Eliza shrank from disturbing her.

  At length, Dorothea sighed. She grew suddenly agitated, wringing her hands. It was as if she’d woken from a long sleep.

  ‘Oh, Eliza! I simply must tell someone or I shall go mad!’

  ‘Tell
someone what?’ asked Eliza, apprehensive.

  ‘About the letter. The letter.’

  This was not much help. Letters often came for Dorothea. There were letters, for instance, from Mrs Carter in Coventry who’d once been a nursery maid at Clifton; there were letters from abroad with strange stamps. Eliza had grown to recognize the different writing on the envelopes: Mrs Carter’s laborious hand; the flowing script with little flourishes that belonged to the former governess Mlle Lacroix; and the neat, compact penmanship of the German boy they’d met on holiday in Switzerland nearly two years ago.

  Now that she came to think about it, Eliza remembered that it had been a German letter that had arrived at Clifton on the day they departed for London. There had been so much going on that morning that she hadn’t given it another thought.

  ‘The letter—’ Eliza prompted.

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t know where to start. He said . . . he wrote . . . he’s asked me to marry him!’

  Eliza reeled with shock at Dorothea’s words. Marriage? To the German boy? But that was impossible, unthinkable: one might as well marry Polly the Parrot. Eliza could not even remember the German boy’s name. He had been quiet and shy. He’d not climbed up mountains like his companion (his cousin); he’d been convalescing. There had seemed nothing remarkable about him although Roderick, for some reason, had disliked him.

  ‘But Doro . . . you can’t . . . you mustn’t. . . .’

  ‘Mustn’t?’ Dorothea stared at her with wide eyes. To Eliza’s dismay, tears began brimming and coursing down Dorothea’s cheeks. ‘But you’re right, of course: I can’t possibly marry him. I can’t marry anyone. How could I, plain old Dorothea? I am nobody. I have nothing.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re nobody, Doro! You’re . . . you’re everything! And . . . and . . . and he must think so too or he wouldn’t write so many letters!’

  ‘He’s so kind, so thoughtful. He said I must take as long as I like to make up my mind.’ Dorothea took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped the tears from her cheeks with her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Eliza. I shouldn’t have burdened you with this. You won’t say anything, will you? You won’t say anything to anyone? No, of course you won’t! I know I can rely on you!’ She gave a tearful smile and then got to her feet, patting her hair in an unconscious imitation of Mama. ‘I must look a fright. I will go and tidy myself straight away.’