by Dominic Luke
‘It is I who is not good enough for him. What will his friends think, back in Germany? They will hate me, I know they will!’
‘No they won’t. No one could ever hate you, Doro. You’ll always fit in wherever you go. The Germans will grow to like you just as much as we do.’
‘Like?’
‘All right, love: we love you.’
‘You used to say that love only existed in the minds of idle girls.’
‘I used to say a lot of things. I was an odious little tick. I can’t think why you put up with me.’
‘Because I like you.’
‘Like?’
‘All right, love: I love you, Roddy.’
‘What on earth will I do without you, Doro? Nobody keeps me on my toes like you do! But what about you? Are you ready for connubial bliss and all that comes with it?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I am referring to the act of union. And I don’t mean 1707.’
‘Trust you to bring that up. I am not entirely ignorant, Roddy. I do know where Pandora’s kittens came from and how they got there.’
‘Pandora is a cat not a person.’
‘The principle is the same. Dearest Roddy, you think you’re so superior and you’re trying to shock me but you forget that I lived in Stepnall Street. One receives quite an education in Stepnall Street.’
‘Evidently. Eliza only went there once and she’s not been the same since.’
‘Do you know, Roddy, I do believe that you’re in love with Miss Halsted.’
‘That’s rot! That’s absolute rot! How can I be? We’ve nothing in common, we argue all the time, she gets in my head and nearly drives me mad!’
‘Love.’
‘Then love is hell. You have my sympathies, Doro, if you’ve been afflicted too.’
‘Afflicted? You do say the most ridiculous things, Roddy!’
‘So you keep telling me. So you’ve told me every day since you first came here.’
‘Keeping you on your toes.’
‘I pity your poor Teuton once you’re married – if, that is, you decide to go through with it. I told him I was coming up to talk you out of it.’
‘You’re hopeless, Roddy, you really are!’
‘I know. I’m quite beyond redemption.’
They were laughing. Happy. But Eliza in her nightdress in the dark of the day room felt the shard of glass in her heart again. A sob worked its way up her throat threatening to burst out of her. She put a hand over her mouth to keep it in. Why did she feel so lonely and left out?
A thin breeze, almost indiscernible, began to whisper through the open window. Polly’s eye was suddenly unlidded, glinting in the shadows.
‘Oh, Polly! Oh, Polly, why, why, why?’
But Polly, uninterested, closed her eye again. Eliza, rejected, her heart pierced to the core, ran back to bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Tears slowly oozed from her eyes. One-by-one they slid across her cheeks. The curtains began to billow as the breeze strengthened. In the distance, on the edge of hearing, thunder rumbled in the silence of the night.
‘I can’t eat,’ said Eliza. ‘There are too many butterflies in my tummy.’
‘You must have some breakfast.’ Dorothea stood over her, calm and sensible as if this was any other morning. ‘Try a little of this scrambled egg.’
‘You must eat too, Miss Dorothea,’ said Daisy, easing Dorothea into a chair. ‘We can’t have you fainting at the altar.’
Eliza picked at her plateful of eggs. A storm had passed in the night. The sound of thunder had permeated her dreams. It had mixed with the helpless mewling of a kitten before turning inexplicably into the sound of the sea. She had felt as if she was floating on water, her bed rising and falling with the motion of the waves, gulls on the wing wailing above her, the grey sea stretching vast and empty to a distant dark horizon. All at once the sky had cracked open and a blinding light had poured in. With that she had woken to a bright and sunny morning, the sky a washed blue, the air fresh after rain.
Time was marching on. Breakfast was soon abandoned. More and more people came crowding into the nursery. Mama was tall, elegant, unruffled. Miss Cecily Somersby, Eliza’s fellow bridesmaid, stood still and silent in one corner. Daisy darted in and out, fetching and carrying, running errands. Mama’s maid appeared to do Dorothea’s hair. Mrs Turner arrived from the village with a vast bunch of flowers and her two grandsons; Little Dick, Dorothea’s favourite, was ten now and not so little any more. He and his younger brother Sid were to be pageboys. They ran around the room getting under everyone’s feet and exclaiming in shrill voices at such a cornucopia of toys and games.
Mrs Carter from Coventry – the one who wrote the letters – was the next to arrive. ‘Oh, Miss Eliza, how you’ve grown! I’d never have known you for the baby you were.’ Eliza went red with embarrassment at being singled out.
The clock ticked. It was time to get ready. Eliza in her room struggled with her frock as the hubbub next door began to subside.
Daisy came hurrying in. ‘Now, now, miss, you’ll have that dress in shreds if you keep pulling it about like that.’
‘It won’t do up. It doesn’t fit. I look silly.’
‘Of course it fits; let me. You’ll look as pretty as a picture.’
‘I won’t. I’m ugly, so ugly.’
‘My, you are a narky thing this morning! There, that’s all done. Now come and see Miss Dorothea. You won’t recognize her!’
The day room had emptied. Even Mama had gone. Only Dorothea remained. Daisy was right. The transformation was remarkable. Dorothea’s dress was white with a low-cut neckline draped over a lace chemise. The bodice was pouched at the waist. Skirts flared out to float and trail across the floor. Dorothea sparkled. She looked ethereal. The white of her dress was offset by her black hair and the pink of her cheeks.
Dorothea took hold of Eliza’s hands. ‘Well, Eliza? How do I look?’
But Eliza was too choked to speak.
They were alone. Daisy had gone running, she had a million and one things to do, the house must be got ready for when they all came back. But they were not alone for long. A chink of glasses sounded in the corridor and suddenly Roderick was there, a bottle in his hand, glasses dangling from his fingers. He stopped and stared. Eliza watched his eyes widen, his pupils dilate, as he took it in, Dorothea in all her splendour. A smile played on his lips. He was very tall and handsome. He was scrubbed and tidy and decisive, all neat lines from the creases in his trousers to the cut of his jaw. His dark hair was shiny with oil. He smelled of aftershave and Euchrisma.
He held up the bottle. ‘Champagne,’ he said to Dorothea; ‘to steady your nerves.’
‘Oh, Roddy, I hate champagne, I always have.’
‘All the more for me, to settle my nerves.’
‘You will make yourself drunk. And we don’t have time.’
‘Yes we do. You must keep him waiting: another tradition.’ He poured champagne, put the bottle and the spare glass aside on the big nursery table. ‘Mother has gone. There’s only Cecily now. She’s being dosed with smelling salts by the Dreadnought.’
‘Oh, poor thing! I must go to her!’
‘Leave her. She’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it. If the smelling salts don’t work, I shall tell her exactly what I think of her: that will smarten her up.’ He grinned.
‘You mustn’t be horrible to poor Cecily, Roddy, I forbid it!’
His grin grew wider and wider, his eyes glinted, he looked happy, devilish, different. Eliza blushed as he turned to look her.
‘Well, well! My little sister. Who’d have thought.’
They were looking at each other and smiling and it seemed to Eliza that, for a short moment, the sense of occasion and all the fine clothes had been forgotten. It was just the three of them as it always had been, growing up together in the nursery. They’d called her ‘Baby’ until she was nearly seven. She’d never thought to mind it. She wished she was the baby still.
‘My head is throbbing like Hades,’ said Roderick. ‘Antipov’s fault. He never wants to go to bed and he drinks like a fish. All Russians do, I expect. They’ve nothing else to occupy them on those long winter nights.’ He sipped his drink, grimaced. ‘I don’t want this champagne either. I say, Doro, shall we get this over with?’
Dorothea nodded. The two of them were solemn now as Roderick took her arm and they walked side-by-side out of the room. Eliza watched them go. Would she always be left behind, a fixture like Polly in her cage?
Acting on impulse, she reached for Roderick’s abandoned glass, tasted the champagne, gulped it. Strange but quite nice, cool, fizzing in her mouth. Why did Dorothea dislike it so much?
Seized by a sudden panic that they might leave without her, she flew down the stairs. But there they were on the last half-landing waiting beneath the portrait of the man in the white wig whose name was Sir George, an ancestor. They were looking back up the stairs. They had not for-gotten her.
Roderick said, ‘Ready?’ and she nodded vigorously, her heart swelling within her.
Down they went. Cecily Somersby was waiting in the hall. Basford opened the front door. Mr Ordish handed Roderick his top hat. They stepped out into the sunshine. At the foot of the steps was the motor car, the all-modern Mark IV, sleek and black, wonderfully elegant with its simple lines and square edges, shining as if it had just this moment issued from the factory at Allibone Road.
The chauffeur opened the doors and doffed his cap – and suddenly Dorothea was laughing and reaching up to kiss his cheek. ‘Stan! It’s you! What a wonderful surprise! But I thought you’d given up chauffeuring for good?’
‘I couldn’t resist, miss: one last chance to drive you. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
The motor accelerated down the drive. They turned onto the road. The hedgerows were in full leaf. The wheat in Corner Field was ripening in the sun. Breasting the rise, they swept down into the village. Dorothea held Roderick’s hand the whole way.
In the blink of an eye they were pulling up by the lychgate. A crowd had gathered here outside the churchyard. More people were watching from the green. Eliza was self-conscious as she stepped down from the motor. She could see Johnnie Cheeseman standing tiptoe, peering over someone’s shoulder, looking at her with his mouth agape as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
An old woman detached herself from the crowd and tottered forward: Mother Franklin from down Back Lane, toothless and wrinkled and holding in her gnarled hand a little bunch of hedgerow flowers. Dorothea had tears in her eyes as she took the flowers and kissed the old lady, first one cheek, then the other.
The lychgate was open. As Dorothea passed under the roof on Roderick’s arm, applause broke out amongst the crowd. There were cries of, ‘Good luck, Miss Dorothea! Best wishes!’
Eliza with Cecily brought up the rear as they walked up the little path. By the porch they all paused. Roderick turned to Dorothea. ‘Suppose I don’t give you away? Suppose I keep you for myself?’ It was not always easy to tell when he was teasing. Dorothea in any case did not look in the mood for jokes. Green about the gills, Daisy would have said.
‘I wish it was all over!’ Dorothea searched his face. Roderick’s dark eyes were like deep wells. His expression gave nothing away.
‘The last lap,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’
They arranged themselves. Cecily Somersby was as red as a beetroot. Eliza felt giddy. The church door was open wide, ready to receive them. In they went.
It took a moment for Eliza’s eyes to adjust. The church was always gloomy, always bone-chillingly cold, never more than half-full. But as the deep, melodious sound of the organ washed around her, she gazed in wonder at the sight before her. Sunshine slanted in rainbow colours through the stained-glass windows. Every seat was taken. The mellow air was richly scented with an abundance of flowers.
There came a collective sigh from the congregation as Dorothea began her walk up the aisle. People were packed together in rows. Their clothes grew ever more opulent nearer the front. Men had their hair combed and cut and brilliantined. Women wore hats with ribbons and veils, with flowers and fake fruit. There was one vast hat like a galleon in full sail that could only belong to Mrs Somersby.
The genial old vicar was waiting by the chancel, a beaming smile on his face. There, too, was Johann with his brother, both facing away, Johann spotless and elegant in his frock coat. Rainbow sunshine glinted on his golden hair as he turned to look over his shoulder, so grave and modest and well proportioned. The consummate man, said Eliza to herself. She was not sure what the words meant, whether she’d overheard someone using them or whether she’d made them up herself. Somehow they seemed to fit: the consummate man.
She felt that she should hate him for taking Dorothea away but it wasn’t possible. He is too nice and kind and noble, she thought: but I won’t ever get to know him properly, I won’t get the chance. How I wish that. . . . But what did she wish for? Words piled up higgledy-piggledy inside her head and she could no longer sort the wheat from the chaff.
They are going to get married. They are going to get married in this magical palace – for it is not a church but a palace in the sky, a palace resting on the high white clouds. They will get married and then set off. They will set sail in Mrs Somersby’s hat. They will sail off into the wide blue yonder in Mrs Somersby’s hat whilst I, I, I will be left here to fade and wither with all these flowers. . . .
She wanted to laugh at such silliness. She wanted to cry too. She couldn’t do either. She was brimming over. She couldn’t breathe.
Dorothea took the place on Johann’s left. The music suddenly stopped. The echoes died away. There was an expectant hush. Eliza felt the sorcerer’s glass slicing into her heart: slicing and slicing and slicing.
She wondered how she would ever be able to bear it.
The house had come alive. Every door, every window was open. Eliza drifted from room to room. There were people everywhere; a hundred different conversations taking place.
‘My dear, isn’t it extraordinary! This place can’t have seen such a gathering since Old Harry’s day. But of course, you won’t remember Mrs Brannan’s father, you’re too young. He was a gentleman of the old school, famous for his parties: this was thirty years ago and more.’
‘Wonderful situation for a house. Splendid view. The canal, I suppose, must be somewhere over there. And is that – yes – Ingleby Wood. A glorious afternoon. They’ve been so lucky with the weather, the summer we’ve had: so disappointing after last year. Imagine leaving all this! Imagine leaving England! The colonies are one thing, but Germany!’
‘That’s Miss Ryan for you. She has always been a singular sort of girl. All the same, one has grown really rather fond of her.’
‘She certainly seems popular. So many people have come! But tell me, do: who is that gentleman over by the pianoforte?’
‘Wait one second . . . my spectacles . . . ah, yes, that’s the bridegroom’s father. A doctor, I believe. Rather charming for a German. And that boy with him is his younger son.’
‘Not as handsome as his brother but I can see the family resemblance. What about that young man over to the right? There’s something rather odd about him . . . his eyes, perhaps. . . ?’
‘That’s because he’s Russian, my dear. A friend of the family. Mrs Brannan’s son met him at Oxford, of all places.’
‘He met him where? I didn’t quite hear, with all this noise, and Colonel Harding talking at the top of his voice: I am sure one could hear him halfway to Lawham. Isn’t that his youngest daughter over there by the fire screen?’
‘I do believe . . . yes, you’re quite right, that’s Miss Eileen Harding. And that is Mrs Somersby’s son she is talking to. They do seem engrossed. Now, the gentleman to their left is Mr Smith. He designs motor vehicles. He and the late Mr Brannan were in partnership. There’s a factory, I understand, in Coventry. I don’t care for motors myself – noisy, smelly things �
�� but they are quite the rage just now. The family business, so the rumours go, is worth a small fortune.’
‘I’ve heard that Henry Fitzwilliam is involved in all that, the Brannan motor business. I’m surprised not to see him here today.’
‘Oh, but my dear, hush! Didn’t you know? Henry Fitzwilliam was quite besotted with Miss Ryan at one time, made a proposal of marriage which was refused. I expect he couldn’t bear to see her happy with another. Not many people know all this, of course, but as I’m intimately acquainted with the family. . . .’
‘Perhaps then as an intimate acquaintance you could tell me about the – ahem – how to put this delicately – the certain people I’ve seen about the place: the people who look as if they are wearing their slightly shabby Sunday best? Who, for instance, is that woman over by the French doors?’
‘Ah, well, she used to be a maidservant here at Clifton, I believe. Miss Ryan invited her. You know Miss Ryan and her endearing ways.’
‘All the same, there ought to be limits. People of that sort – maidservants – are not really cut out for an occasion like this. They don’t know how to behave in polite society: they are not born with the social graces. One has only to look at her hat; and as for the man with her. . . .’
‘They’re talking about us, Nora, I know they are.’
‘Get on with you, Arnie. Who’d want to talk about you?’
‘Like that, is it? Time was you thought me rather a handsome chap.’
‘If you’re fishing for compliments, Arnold Carter, you can fish elsewhere. I’ve a bone to pick with you. I was relying on you to get that misery guts of a brother of yours up to the big house. Miss Dorothea was most upset not to see him.’
‘You know our Nibs, Nora. Stubborn as a mule. “Too many posh toffs all in one place,” he said.’
‘I’ll give him “posh toffs” when I see him! But never mind that now. Here’s Miss Dorothea coming down the stairs in her going-away clothes. We must go and see her off.’
Tides of people flowed into the hallway and out down the steps. Eliza was swept along with them, following behind Mrs Somersby’s hat which sailed serenely above the sea of faces. The servants were lined up on the gravel. Dorothea was taking her leave of them. Cook was in floods of tears, Basford standing on his dignity biting his lip, Mr Ordish – but no one ever noticed Mr Ordish. Mrs Bourne was misty-eyed as she watched Dorothea go along the line. The Dreadnought, shedding a tear? Was it possible?