by Dominic Luke
Eliza had heard the story many times, how Dorothea had turned up at Clifton out of the blue, brought from London by her papa, who had then gone off, never to be seen again. Having no idea what Dorothea’s papa looked like, Eliza had come to picture him dressed in flowing robes with a long beard, like a saint in a painting; she pictured him with a halo offering up a baby for Daddy to look after. But that was silly. Dorothea hadn’t been a baby when she came to Clifton: she’d been a little girl of seven or eight.
Where had Dorothea come from exactly? She must have been a baby once; she must have been delivered as babies were, delivered to their new home in the doctor’s black bag or the midwife’s. Eliza frowned, remembering Mrs Keech’s words that morning concerning her grandson: ‘Our little miracle . . . we thought we’d lost him. . . .’ How did that tally with babies being delivered? Could babies sometimes get lost in transit, like letters in the post?
Letters! The thought of letters was like a dose of salts, clearing her head. Dorothea had been upset about the burnt letters. Eliza remembered the brief glimpse of Dorothea’s tear-streaked face. Dorothea might need her and here she was, dithering! It was Dorothea that mattered, more than Mama or Roderick, more than anyone. She must go to Dorothea at once.
She raced up the stairs. In the day room, the lights were on, the fire glowing, Polly was biting the bars of her cage, but there was no Dorothea. There was no Dorothea in her room, either. But what a mess! Drawers were open, the wardrobe too; clothes were strewn on the bed. Dorothea, who was always so tidy, so scrupulous!
A cold hand seized hold of Eliza’s heart. She was sure that Dorothea had packed a bag. Dorothea must be going away. But it wasn’t too late to stop her. No one had come down the stairs all the time Eliza had been sitting there.
Like the clanging of a bell, the thought came to her: What about the back stairs?
The back stairs! Quick, oh quick!
She flew along the corridor, plunged headlong down the back stairs. In the ground-floor corridor she hesitated. Faintly up the basement steps came the sound of crockery, of voices, of laughter: life going on as normal. It seemed incredible that Dorothea would leave all this without a word. Where would she go?
Just to be sure, Eliza opened the door on her left. A short, dark passage took her to the outside door. She stepped into the stable yard. She was in one corner, near the water pump. It was cold, dark, there was a smell of horses. On the far side of the yard, a glimmer of light was coming from inside the old coach house which now served as a garage for the motors.
At that moment something brushed against Eliza’s skirts. Her heart stopped. She was too terrified even to scream. And then—
‘Miaow! Miaow!’
‘Oh, Pandora, it’s you!’ Shuddering with relief, Eliza scooped up the cat into her arms, hugging the warm body tightly against her. ‘You did give me a fright, you naughty girl! I’m looking for Doro. Have you seen her?’
Pandora’s eyes glinted, she wrinkled her nose in displeasure. Wriggling free, she jumped down and went stalking off into the shadows with her tail in the air: she was a very independent cat. As Eliza watched Pandora disappear, bubbles of laughter suddenly burst out of her for no reason she could think of. It was horribly loud in the quiet of the yard.
Forcing the laughter back down, she made her way to the coach house. The fold-back door was ajar. Light spilled out onto the cobbles. She could hear voices inside. She peeked through one of the grimy windows set in the door panels. She saw an oil lamp hanging from a hook and the three Clifton motors lined up side-by-side. Dorothea was there with her coat on and holding a little bag. Smith the chauffeur was in his shirtsleeves, a chamois leather in his hand.
‘London, Miss Dorothea?’ He sounded doubtful. ‘London’s a long way at this time of night.’
‘Please, Stan, I must go at once, I must. Too much time has been wasted already.’
‘Does it mean that much, miss?’
‘More than anything.’
‘And it can’t wait until morning?’
‘I can’t bear to lose one more second!’
Eliza had no doubt that Smith would allow himself to be persuaded. People did things for Dorothea. They put themselves out. It was part of her magic.
‘I’ll need to put a clean shirt on, miss, and fetch my coat.’
‘Hurry, please hurry.’
Eliza with infinite care had edged round the door and now ducked down behind the nearest motor. Just in time. Smith passed within inches of her, went running off to his billet up in what had once been the coachman’s rooms. His boots rang on the cobbles, echoed up the stairs, faded. Silence fell.
Eliza’s heart sounded in her ears like galloping hoofs. She wanted to rush out and throw her arms around Dorothea but something held her back. All she knew was that she didn’t want to be parted from her cousin. Where Dorothea went, she must go too. But she couldn’t risk asking permission and being refused.
Eliza peeped out. Dorothea was standing by the open door, looking out. Seizing her chance, Eliza quickly debated: which motor would Smith take? Not this old landaulet, the one they’d used to follow the Boxing Day hunt. He would take the new four-door Mark IV saloon, his pride and joy: he’d obviously been polishing it even at this hour when Dorothea found him.
Eliza crept round behind the motors. She eased open the back door of the Mark IV, crawled into the foot space, pulled a rug on top of her. Almost at once came the sound of the garage door being rolled back and the voices of Dorothea and of Smith.
‘I’ll sit in the front with you, Stan.’
‘Right you are, miss.’
The engine coughed, spluttered, came to life. The motor began to move. They were inching out into the stable yard. Next came the sound of the tyres crunching over the gravel in front of the house. The motor swung round. They must have turned onto the Lawham Road. Soon they would be passing through the village. A mile or so further on and they’d come to the crossroads and the way to London. Eliza wondered if anyone at home had noticed yet that they’d gone. Were Mama and Roderick still talking in the drawing room? Was Mr Antipov still sitting at the dinner table, forgotten?
The motor gathered speed. The engine began to purr like Pandora when you tickled her behind the ears. Eliza felt a thrill of excitement. She hugged herself beneath the rug, eyes wide and heart beating as the motor sped into the night.
Chapter Three
Eliza woke with a start. She looked around wide-eyed. She’d been having such dreams, the most uncomfortable dreams. But here she was safe and sound in her own room at 28 Essex Square.
She lay listening to the muffled sound of hoofs clip-clopping past outside, the whistling of a delivery boy running down some area steps. How long had they been in London now? Mama had been shopping, Roderick was expected, it would soon be Easter.
But no. There was something wrong. She frowned, looking round again. The curtains weren’t closed, for one thing. Sunshine was slanting in through the window. And she had been sleeping in her clothes. She was wrapped in an old rug with just the bare mattress beneath.
Her mind raced. It all came back in a rush. They’d returned to Clifton weeks ago. Easter had come and gone. Yesterday morning she’d walked to the village with Dorothea. There’d been an eclipse. Mr Antipov had arrived. She’d been allowed to eat downstairs with the grown-ups. And then—
She tried for a moment to blank it out as she lay watching the shadows on the ceiling, the sunshine fading in and out. But there was no getting away from it, everything that had happened, ending with her stowing away in the motor unseen by Dorothea or Smith. They’d set off for London in the dark. It had seemed like an adventure.
Time had passed. She’d grown weary. Incredible to think, but she’d actually fallen asleep. How many hours had passed before she woke, muzzy, cramped and aching, chilled to the bone? The motor had been still and silent, the darkness oppressive. She had felt that they had entered an endless night leaving daylight behind forever. If this was adve
nture, she’d said to herself, shivering, then she wanted no part of it.
She had scrambled up onto the back seat, afraid they’d abandoned her, that she was all alone. But Dorothea at least had still been there, asleep in the front seat, her chin on her chest. The driver’s seat had been empty. Eliza remembered hearing a faint sound like trickling water: the only sound in all the silence. Looking out, she’d seen that the motor was parked by a gate in a hedge. The road had run on into the dark, arrow-straight and deserted, with fields deep in shadow on either side. The black silhouettes of trees had been etched against a moonless sky. It had been an alien landscape, utterly unknown.
The trickling sound had stopped. Smith in his long chauffeur’s coat had stepped away from the hedge. She had realized that he must have been passing water.
In her bedroom at 28 Essex Square, Eliza shuddered with revulsion. Men were so coarse, so crude, Smith with his spots and crooked teeth peeing up a hedge in the open like a dog. Even her own brother was little better. In this very house Roderick had put his arms round Miss Halsted and kissed her as if it was nothing. Watching the shadows chase each other across the ceiling, Eliza recalled how she’d ducked down as Smith walked back to the motor fastening his trousers. He’d been puffing and blowing from the cold as he got in. Dorothea had stirred.
‘What time is it? Why have we stopped? Is something wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong, miss. I couldn’t keep my eyes propped open, that’s all. I had to stop and stretch my legs.’ (He’d not mentioned the peeing.)
Dorothea had sat up, yawning and rubbing her eyes. ‘Where are we?’
‘Somewhere near Dunstable, I think, miss.’
And then—
‘Ah – ah – atchoo!’
Eliza cringed, remembering her sneeze, loud enough to wake the dead. There’d been nothing she could do to stop it.
Smith had pulled the rug away. He and Dorothea had peered down at her, craning over the backs of their seats, their faces strange and pale in the dark. Dorothea in particular had looked drawn and haggard. Eliza must be taken back immediately, she’d said: this was not a game, Eliza would only get in the way.
Eliza in her room at Essex Square relived the utter misery of that moment, being rejected by Dorothea. Eliza’s rage and despair had built up inside her as Smith explained why it would be more trouble than it was worth to go back.
‘I don’t want to go anywhere with either of you!’ The rage and despair had finally erupted. ‘You’re both horrible! I hate you! I never want to see you again!’
She had thrown the car door open and wriggled free. Unhitching the rickety wooden gate, she had pushed it aside and gone running across a big dark field with no idea where she was going. Almost at once she had tripped over a tussock or a molehill and gone sprawling on her face. The shock of the fall had knocked all the anger out of her. As she’d lain there breathless and shivering on the grass, the faint screech of a barn owl had sent a shiver up her spine.
Smith had loomed over her. ‘Don’t lie there in the dew, miss, you’ll catch your death.’ He had helped her to her feet. ‘That’s the way, up you come. You’ve not hurt yourself, have you? Can you walk? I’ll put my coat round you, to keep you warm. Off we go, miss.’
Smith’s coat, she remembered, had smelt of leather and of Smith himself, but it had been comforting somehow to have it wrapped around her. She had pulled it close, letting herself be guided back to the motor car.
The rest of the journey was hazy in her mind. She had slept in fits and starts on the back seat. Her waking moments had been cloaked in misery. Dorothea, she’d felt sure, had washed her hands of her. The words, I wash my hands of you, had echoed over and over in her head. It was silly, because it was not a phrase that Dorothea would ever use. It was something Daisy was in the habit of saying: ‘Oh, that Sally Kirkham, who does she think she is? She’s only a housemaid but she goes around like she’s Lady Muck. I wash my hands of her.’ Or, ‘Our Billy, he’s nothing but a great lummock! I’ve never known such a misery in all my life! I wash my hands of him!’
They had reached Essex Square at last. It had been silent and deserted, ghostly, the street lamps feebly glowing, a hint of dawn in the sky, cold and pallid. Shivering on the front steps of number 28, Eliza had stood with Smith watching Dorothea fumble in her bag. A moment later Dorothea had turned to face them with a look of defeat.
‘The keys – I completely forgot – we can’t get in – oh, Stan, it’s a disaster!’
‘Don’t you fret, miss. I’ll get us in, you’ll see.’
And he had. He’d disappeared down the area steps to reappear moments later, opening the front door from inside and grinning at their astonished faces.
Eliza had stared at him in wonder. ‘How did you do it?’
Smith had laughed out loud, as if the dark and the silence didn’t daunt him in the least. ‘I’m a man of many talents, miss. We didn’t always live in the most select parts of town when I was a nipper and Dad was on his uppers. I had some right old mates in those days. They taught me a lot. Not that Dad was impressed. He used to box my ears for hanging round with the wrong sort.’
It was easy to forget that the chauffeur’s ‘Dad’ was Mr Smith the motor designer. Mr Smith had been a sort of protégé of Daddy’s and was now general manager of the BFS Motor Company. Indeed, the ‘S’ in the company name stood for ‘Smith’, a junior partner. But despite his elevated status, Mr Smith liked his children to ‘work their way up’ just as he had: hence his son’s position as chauffeur at Clifton. Roderick scoffed at such a high-minded attitude: had he been in Smith’s shoes, he said, he wouldn’t have stood for it. But would Roderick have been able to break into Essex Square like a burglar?
Eliza had been dead on her feet as she stumbled up the last few steps and crossed the threshold. Smith had scooped her into his arms and carried her upstairs: he was thin as a rake but stronger than he looked. He must have wrapped her in this rug, must have taken her boots off too. She’d fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep to wake hours later in the fitful sunshine. And so here she was lying on her bed in 28 Essex Square on the morning – was it still morning? – of Thursday 18 April. She was in a house with no servants and no Mama, and the whole of London just the other side of the door. The thought filled her with a strange, nervous excitement.
But how could she bear to face any of it if Dorothea would not take her back?
Dorothea was downstairs in the drawing room, sitting in the window-seat. The room was completely familiar and yet subtly different; dust sheets over the chairs, the fire grate raked and empty, the carriage clock silent. Smith was flat out on the settee, his coat spread over him, his legs sticking out, feet dangling, holes in his socks. He looked different asleep, younger perhaps: even his spots served only to add to his air of innocence. His unkempt hair looked like an unruly boy’s.
Eliza hesitated in the doorway. Dorothea looked washed out, a pale copy of the real Dorothea. Eliza was shy of her. To be shy of Dorothea was awful, not right, a travesty. But then Dorothea smiled and it was the same dear smile. She held out her arms and Eliza ran and stumbled to be enfolded, embraced, comforted. It was all right. It was all right. She hadn’t lost Dorothea after all.
‘Are . . . are you mad at me?’ Eliza ventured to ask at length, snuggled next to her cousin in the window-seat. ‘You . . . you said you didn’t want me, that I shouldn’t have come.’
‘I don’t remember what I said. I was tired, overwrought. But I could never be mad with you, Eliza.’
‘Why have we come?’
‘To find my papa,’ said Dorothea calmly, confidently, as if it was easy, as if her papa was out there somewhere just waiting for her. But it was all so long ago, twelve years since Dorothea had been brought to Clifton as a little girl: a lifetime to Eliza, who had been no more than a baby when Dorothea came. Was it possible after so long to find someone who’d not been heard of for years?
‘We can try,’ said Dorothea. ‘We can start by
going back to the places where I used to live – to Stepnall Street.’
Stepnall Street. Why did the name sound faintly sinister?
Eliza thrust this question aside as Smith showed signs of life at last, yawning and rubbing his eyes. He sat up, stretching in his shirtsleeves. His long coat slid off him and onto the floor.
‘Morning, Miss Dorothea, Miss Eliza. How long have I been asleep?’
‘Ages and ages,’ said Eliza. ‘I’ve been awake for hours. I’m going to help Doro look for her papa.’
‘I’ll help too. But what about a bite of breakfast first? My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.’
‘Breakfast!’ exclaimed Dorothea. ‘I never gave a thought to breakfast – or lunch or dinner, for that matter. I packed a few clothes and nothing else. I didn’t even bring any money. How could I be so stupid!’
‘I’ve a few shillings in my pocket, miss: enough to tide us over. We can buy some grub. We can send a telegram too. They’ll be wondering what’s become of us back at Clifton.’ He was pulling on his knee-high boots, buttoning his jacket, picking up his peaked cap. ‘Now then, where might there be some shops in these parts?’
The street in front was clogged with traffic. The omnibus had come to a halt. Eliza looked out from the top deck, overawed by the tall and daunting buildings on every side, defying the sky. There were countless windows; there were sloping roofs; there were tall, pointed spires. Big brash letters were perched high on the eaves of a corner building spelling out the word BOVRIL. Looming ahead – immense, imposing – was a vast dome: Dorothea called it St Paul’s. A flower girl was sitting on the steps with a basket. Next to a red pillar box, a man was feeding the birds, throwing out handfuls of bread – or was it seeds? Pigeons wheeled and flocked and swooped suddenly down. Sparrows darted in and out. Swirling traffic coming the other way passed in endless procession. The sun shone in fits and starts. The sky was patched with thin grey cloud. Eliza’s hair blew in the breeze: she had not brought a hat.
Already it seemed an age since they had eaten bread and boiled eggs sitting at the kitchen table in the basement at 28 Essex Square. They had walked afterwards almost merrily in the spring sunshine to catch an omnibus on the King’s Road, setting out on the first stage of the quest to find Dorothea’s papa. Eliza was somewhat familiar with the sedate streets around Essex Square. She knew the King’s Road too, she knew Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, she had a passing acquaintance with Oxford Street and Piccadilly and Euston station. She had even once or twice been on an omnibus. But as they’d travelled further and further from the places she recognized, as they’d got off one omnibus and onto another, she had begun to feel giddy. Smith had summed it up best. ‘Big place, this London,’ he’d said in his matter-of-fact voice, staring out at the passing streets. Yes, London was big. It was immense. It made her head ache to think about it. The traffic was never-ending. And the people – she would never have guessed there were so many people in the entire world let alone in one city.