Love by the Morning Star

by Laura L. Sullivan

  “Fancy him thinking of you at all!” Hardy said, laughing. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?” For she’d mounted the smooth-edged marble stairs and grabbed the velvet bell-pull. “Stop!”

  She turned back to him, wondering why he looked so aghast. Was she supposed to wait for him to ring the bell for her? She had no patience for inaction, or the indolence of propriety. Hannah acutely remembered going to her mother in tears of laughter one time when she’d read some English melodrama in which the heroine had never once in her eighteen years of existence put on her own stockings. It is true, Cora had said with a rueful smile. English ladies—real English ladies—are notorious for doing as little as possible, except ride to the hounds. There are servants for everything else. Young Hannah had scrunched up her face into unaccustomed earnestness and said, Then, Mama, I am glad you moved to Germany. I should not like to do nothing all day. And shouldn’t the servants get awfully tired?

  There were workers in Der Teufel, of course, and she supposed technically they were servants, but they were employees who became friends and happened to sweep and wash dishes, not some lesser form of life evolved to do all of the unpleasant chores. She had no class divide in her life. Certainly, her father had owned the cabaret, and if a city official was sick behind the potted palm Mr. Morgenstern wasn’t the one to clean it up, but when they celebrated some new act, everyone from the busboys to the stars drank champagne and kissed one another.

  “Thank you so much, Hardy,” she said. “Perhaps when I have the leisure you can show me around the garden. I am so fond of flowers, though I know nothing about how to grow them, only how to catch them.” She closed her eyes a moment, recalling a massive bouquet of golden roses an old man had shakily thrown to her after (what else?) a sheep song. She’d buried her face in the blooms, dizzy with sweetness, the petals like a lover’s fingertips . . .

  Dreaming, remembering, she pulled the bell.

  She raised her beatific face to the answering butler, Coombe, who thought he had seen something similar reproduced in one of the improving circulars to which he subscribed, a portrait of Saint Someone in Ecstasy, perhaps Theresa, or Cecelia, or even Francis. He was so taken by her shining, transported countenance that it was a full three seconds before he noticed her shabby clothes, the dark circles under her eyes, her gloveless little paws, and mustered a severe frown that still contained, visible only in a twitch in its sinister corner, a hint of avuncular benevolence.

  “We do not use the front door,” he said, the we sounding more royal than inclusive.

  “What door do we use, then?” Hannah asked, sounding once again quite German in her perplexity.

  “Back entrance only, strictly observed,” he said, then, allowing himself a little joke, “except, of course, on stair-scrubbing days.” He shut the door in her face.

  “But . . .” Hannah attempted.

  He opened it enough to point to her right, and shut it with stern finality. Then he went to inform the housekeeper that the new kitchen maid had arrived, and was going to need a good deal of watching.

  Mrs. Wilcox, the housekeeper, sighed deeply, a luxury she only allowed herself in the company of her old friend Coombe. “It’s Himself’s digestion will suffer for it. Cook’s in such a state, I don’t know how she’ll ever cope with an untrained creature.”

  Cook was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, or quitting, or perhaps jumping for joy, or all three, because only a week before, she’d been humble under-cook Sally Mayweather, a step above kitchen maid, a vast canyon below the lofty Cook. But the old cook, Trapp, had fallen ill and been sent to a sister in Lyme Regis to recover, which, the doctors owned, she might never do, and now her underling had taken her position. It was an honor, a significant increase in salary—and a job of terrifying responsibility requiring the strategy of a general combined with the steady hand of a surgeon, the aesthetics of an artist, and the human understanding of a Viennese psychiatrist. She had two other kitchen maids to help her, but neither was competent enough to fill her old position of under-cook, and they had to be chivvied through even the most mundane tasks. Now she moaned to whoever would listen that she could not possibly prepare daily feasts for the Liripips, never mind the absolute banquets when there were guests, with an incompetent staff.

  But she had, for the past few weeks. The kitchen maids had gone to sleep after midnight on tear-stained pillows, but every bite, from delicate crustless cress tea sandwiches to haunches of venison to a splendid charlotte russe, had been perfection.

  Coombe, remembering that ecstatic Cherubino face, said, without much hope, “Perhaps she’ll do.”

  She would no doubt do for something, but probably not for kitchen maid.

  Anna Is a Kissing Cousin

  LADY LIRIPIP LOOKED THE NEWCOMER up and down, as if she were a Chippendale cabinet of dubious authenticity. “You look English enough. I remember your mother as a brown girl. I suppose your father is blond. How fortunate for you—his sort are so often swarthy, I gather.” She sniffed, and that sniff conveyed volumes.

  Only Anna’s strict self-training kept her from responding. Knowing her inadequacies, her gaps in learning and culture, she tended to remain silent whenever she was not absolutely certain what to say. Her mother did have light brown hair, though she could not imagine how Lady Liripip could have encountered her, and her father was indeed blond. And why should she not look English?

  “I have decided that if you are to be here it is absolutely necessary that we do not speak of your family. I will not do you the discourtesy of speaking ill of your father, and the easiest way to do that is to not refer to him at all. You are not responsible for the sins of your parents—sin is a hard word, I own, but there it is.” She sniffed again, and Anna wondered if she’d trodden on something when she’d exited the car.

  “You are family, of sorts, and I embrace you, and forgive you for what you could not help. But while you are here you will be strictly English. I do not want to hear you converse in a foreign language. That is not done in this house. Even when we entertain ambassadors they are requested to speak our mother tongue. You will kindly not speak of Germany, or the stage. Follow those rules, comport yourself like a proper Englishwoman, and you will fit in quite nicely. I will guide you, my dear.” Lady Liripip smiled, and the effect was ghastly, like a mummy Anna had seen in the British Museum, its lips in a permanent rictus over too-long teeth. “Now come and kiss me, Hannah dear.”

  “It’s Anna, my lady,” she said before she could help herself. “Anna Morgan.”

  Slowly, she was beginning to think that Lord Darling and the German Von had exerted rather more influence on her behalf than she’d dared hope. Where she was expecting to be incognito in the kitchen, here she was being welcomed by the lady of the house, into the very bosom of the family! Had Lord Darling revealed his plan to them? No, he wouldn’t have. Even if he had, it would be imprudent to speak of it. Had he given them a code name for her? Was that where Lady Liripip had gotten Hannah? Though if that had been part of Darling’s scheme, he surely would have prepared Anna to answer to a different name.

  This, at least, did not appear to be a blunder. Lady Liripip’s smile—which now looked almost predatory, so long and so numerous were her gleaming teeth—grew even bigger, and she said, “How sensible of you. Anyone would mark you as a Jewess with the name Hannah. I’m sure you had no say in the matter when your mother named you.” Anna had bossed her tractable mother from a very early age, but not so early as that. “But it is right and just of you to adopt a more English-sounding name now that you are free. We shall get along very well, Anna, I am sure of it. Only you must take pains to learn how a respectable Englishwoman behaves. Gloves, for example, should not be worn indoors.”

  Anna clasped her hands. “I’m very sorry, but I have . . .” She somehow thought the excuse she usually used—sensitive hands—wouldn’t fly with Lady Liripip. “I have an . . . unsightly condition on my hands. I keep them covered to . . . preserve your sensibiliti
es.”

  Lady Liripip looked slightly alarmed, as if she might be thinking of leprosy. Then she calmed. After all, Germany was not quite Molokai. Almost, but not quite.

  “You are a considerate child. Come, we will have tea. Do you have a lady’s maid? No, of course not; what am I thinking? You are penniless.” If it smarted, she did not care, and Anna did not show it. “We will have to see about finding you a husband. I did so well for my stepdaughters. The children of Lord Liripip’s first marriage, you know. Your mother’s sister, his second wife, had no living children, and I have only my darling boy. You shall meet him soon.”

  “I believe I have met him,” Anna said, with a look Lady Liripip did not at all like. Then she gave a dry little laugh, dismissing her fears. This continental Anna was pretty enough, in a blousy, overblown way, she supposed, but not the sort to interest her son. Lady Liripip had been gathering titled young heiresses of impeccable lineage ever since Theodore, Lord Winkfield, known to everyone except his mother as Teddy, had been delivered far enough for his gender to be determined. Her life was devoted to the intellectual pursuit of arranging for him a wife who would be perfectly suitable in every way, not the least important trait being that she would make no effort to supplant her mother-in-law. Lady Liripip was twenty years younger than her husband, and assumed she would end her days as a dowager, a most uncomfortable position if one has not cultivated one’s daughter-in-law with great care.

  No, Lady Liripip thought she knew her son well enough to believe she had nothing to fear from Anna. She took her arm and led her to tea, where she was pleased to find the young lady knew how to handle the Limoges. Anna ate one apricot biscuit with delicate exactitude, nary a crumb to be seen. She made pleasant conversation about flowers in a general way, was vaguely disparaging about modern art, and praised her hostess’s dress, cameo brooch, furniture, and coiffure in the sycophantic manner that was exactly to Lady Liripip’s taste. She was not one for subtlety.

  Lady Liripip found she was pleased with the arrangement. Every woman in her position wants a companion, one she can bully but who will never turn on her. Poor relations are easy to find, if one scours the family tree carefully, but dependent companions are usually old, or frail, or uneducated, or in some way unfit for society. Anna was pretty enough to be an ornament, and her mother was of good stock, but she was poor and solitary and, apparently, desperate, though Lady Liripip only dimly understood what was happening in Germany. (In that she was certainly not alone, in England or the world, or even in many parts of Germany.) Lady Liripip, for reasons she could not begin to fathom, did not seem to attract any female friends. They came to her house with their husbands for her lavish events, paid the requisite social calls, but they did not gossip or scheme. Their flattery was perfunctory, and came mostly from those who had eligible daughters. Anna, gracious and free with her compliments, with a knack for sounding sincere, would be a pleasant diversion for a while. Then, when Lady Liripip was tired of her, she could be married off to a country attorney or a parson.

  The ghastly smile twitched again. Lady Liripip had hated Caroline Curzon and her modern, wild sister, Lord Liripip’s unfortunate second wife. It pleased her to have her dead rival’s relative under her thumb, even if she chose to stroke her with that thumb.

  The door, its hinges weekly greased and then cleaned again to render the grease invisible, opened with respectful silence, admitting a not so silent or respectful Teddy. “Hullo, Mum. What ho, long-lost cousin. Didn’t greet you properly before.” He took Anna’s unprotesting hands, hauled her to her feet, and gave her a kiss on the cheek, releasing her so abruptly afterward that, whether through astonishment or mere lack of support, she toppled back onto the springing cushion, where parts of her continued to bounce in a way that did not please Lady Liripip at all.

  “Anna is not your cousin, dear,” Lady Liripip corrected.

  “Of course not. Still, some sort of relation. I can never fathom second cousins and thingumies once removed. Can I puzzle it out?” He cocked his head and regarded Anna, making her suddenly too warm, stirring feelings that had nothing—or at any rate very little—to do with Teddy’s wealth and title. “I’ve got it! You’re my step-aunt!”

  “I am?” Anna asked.

  “Your mother’s sister was married to my father, so . . . no, your mother would be my step-aunt. You must be my step-cousin. Or my kissing cousin, to use that American slang Mum detests.”

  “What is a kissing cousin?” Anna asked, to cover her confusion about something much bigger than mere slang. Her head was swimming, she was foundering—or floundering, she could never remember which word it was—and she needed Teddy to keep babbling to give her time to catch up.

  Teddy blushed, glanced at his mother, then remembered he was at Oxford and a man, and soldiered on. “First cousins can’t marry, so a cousin you can kiss is anyone more distantly related. Ahem. I’ll dress for dinner, if you don’t mind. Are we en famille tonight, Mum? Make sure I’m sitting next to Anna. I have so much to ask her about Germany. Toodle-oo!”

  When he was gone, Anna breathed, “Oh my!”

  Lady Liripip examined the girl's face carefully, determining whether the hot flush of her ears was instant infatuation, ambition, or shame. She saw Anna's lip tremble, and decided on the latter.

  “I do apologize for Theodore. He has cultivated a most free and cavalier manner. They let practically anyone into Oxford these days, and I fear he might be associating with a literary crowd.” She gave a delicate shudder, like the withers of a thoroughbred when a fly alights. Then she fixed Anna with a penetrating look. “He is so friendly, so chivalrous, so polite, that he is always giving ladies the wrong idea, the poor misguided creatures. I hope you never delude yourself into mistaking his kindness for anything else.”

  “Oh, no, Lady Liripip, I would never presume!” Anna said with such vigor that the older woman’s fears were entirely quelled. Anna lowered her long golden-brown eyelashes for good measure, and tried to look every inch the unassuming relative.

  “You are a good girl,” Lady Liripip said, rising and then patting her on the head as she passed, as if the young woman were a spaniel who could reasonably be expected not to mess on the Persian carpet. She looked at the soft, fair, upturned face, comparing its roses and cream, its large eyes and full lips, with the narrow, horsy, aristocratic faces of the assorted girls she’d selected as proper mates, girls with faces and breeding much like her own. No, she told herself again, Theodore would no more yearn after this girl than he would the kitchen maid.

  Anna, trying and failing to discreetly fix her disarrayed high-piled curls, followed Lady Liripip to the bedroom she’d selected for her guest. She’d actually ordered two made up—one quite grand, quite near to her own, with a view of the terraced gardens, another cramped and insignificant, overlooking some gloomy yews. The girl was well spoken, showed none of the bohemianism or defiance she expected in the offspring of Caroline Curzon, and seemed to have no designs on her beloved boy. She put her in the larger room.

  “Dinner is at eight,” she said, and swept out, thinking she had done an act of almost saintly charity and goodness, yet still relishing the sense of triumph over the girl’s mother and late aunt, her erstwhile nemeses. How bitter it will be for Caroline, she thought, to know that her daughter is safe only because of me, that she owes the clothes on her back, the very food in her stomach, to my generosity.

  And so, doing good but meaning ill, she sat to her toilette in perfect spiritual contentment.

  As soon as she was alone, Anna collapsed into the deep eiderdown of her bed, breathless, giddy with elation. The bright golden arrow of her life had been aiming for this ever since she could put her desires into coherent thoughts. Her father, rising higher than his birth and education ever led him to expect, had pulled her up on his coattails to what she had once thought were lofty heights. But this! A castle, an estate—a titled heir! All placed in the palm of her gloved hand. She had dreamed it might be possible, had sche
med to make it so, but here she was, almost without her volition, placed squarely in luxury and position.

  Anna squeezed the downy voluptuousness of the thick bedspread and laughed, softly at first, then like a maniac. She sprang up and ran to the gilt-edged mirror hovering over a most elegant vanity table and looked at her beauty, regarding it as a beloved old friend, a loyal companion, a partner with whom she would make her fortune.

  He adores me already, she told herself, mistaking his humor and native friendliness for passion (just as Lady Liripip said she would, though one would hate to admit she might be right about anything). Kissing cousins!

  Then, before she even realized she was afraid, she saw the roses flee her cheeks, replaced by ivory pallor. Her body knew before her mind that she was sailing in dangerous waters, under false colors. How on earth had she been mistaken for a—what had Teddy decided on?—step-cousin! Was it all part of the machinations of the Von and Lord Darling, in which Lady Liripip and family were complicit? It seemed a rather complicated cover story. Perhaps they had decided that for whatever service to cause and country she needed to perform, she must be sitting on the parlor couch, not plumping its cushions; that she must be eating succulent mock turtle soup, not preparing it. She would just have to play her part, and all would no doubt become clear in time. Meanwhile, there was Teddy, Lord Winkfield, to ensnare.

  That, however, was looking on the bright side. There was another possibility. What if there were indeed, somewhere in the world, a step-cousin? Lady Liripip had said she was not to speak of Germany, or the stage, that her name was meant to be Hannah, a Jewish name. Lady Liripip did not appear to be acting a role. She seemed to really expect a Jewish girl to appear on her doorstep, to be taken under her wing.

  Father wouldn’t like that, Anna thought. One of her father’s favorite rants of late was about Jewish intellectuals (how he spat those words, one more abhorrent to him than the other) sneaking into the country and stealing the honest livings from good English girls. Let a Jew into your scullery and you might as well invite the rats and beetles, he would shout (forgetting that his own English grocery had been the one with the vermin). Let a Jew cook your supper and you’ll be poisoned. How he would roar at the notion of Jewish girls being taken into aristocratic families.