A Gathering Storm (8 page)

‘Your mother tells me you like horses,’ Mrs Wincanton said, her eyes merry. ‘We have two. Perhaps you’d like to come and see them sometime?’

Beatrice glanced up at her mother for guidance. Her mother looked away. What was going on?

‘What else do you like, Béatrice?’ Mrs Wincanton pronounced it in the French way, as her mother did. ‘Such a pretty name. Your mother says you do your lessons well.’

Beatrice recalled the disinfectant smell of the rooms above the dentist’s surgery in the town, where Miss Tabitha Starling had been teaching her and two other local girls at a big round table in the window overlooking the back of the inn.

‘I like natural history,’ she said haltingly, not used to undivided adult attention.

‘Ah yes, Angelina told me about your rockpools,’ the woman replied. ‘Very commendable. You speak French, of course, you lucky thing. And I gather your governess lived in Germany for a while before the war? I wish Angelina took more interest in languages. Now that would be useful. Miss Starling’s lessons must have been rather pleasant.’

Their lessons – arithmetic, English, geography and history, with a little German and natural history thrown in – were interestingly taught but were occasionally interrupted by chilling screams of pain from the surgery. But now poor Miss Starling was ill with her nerves again, and with the start of the long summer holiday upon them, had decided to go and live with her widowed sister in Weston-super-Mare.

Mrs Wincanton pulled on a pair of white gloves and remarked, above Beatrice’s head, ‘Mrs Marlow, I imagine she’ll do rather nicely. Speak to your husband about the matter and let me know what you decide. The sum involved will be quite modest, I assure you.’

Beatrice, bewildered, stumbled out a reply to Mrs Wincanton’s, ‘Goodbye, dear,’ and trailed out behind them into the hall. Cook opened the front door, and beyond the garden gate could be glimpsed the sleek black wing of a motor car. After they’d watched it bear Mrs Wincanton away, Mrs Marlow touched Beatrice’s hand and whispered, ‘Well,
ma petite,
I can’t think what your father will say.’

‘Say about what,
maman
?’ Beatrice asked. ‘I don’t understand.’

Her mother pressed her palms together, as though in prayer, though she wasn’t outwardly a very religious woman. ‘Mrs Wincanton would like you to go to Carlyon Manor every day to be a companion for her daughter Angelina.’ She went on, ‘You would join her and her little sister in their studies from September. A Miss Simpkins lives at the house and teaches every morning. The boys will naturally be away at school and Mrs Wincanton says Angelina needs the company of suitable girls of her own age. There is only one month between the two of you.’

‘Oh!’ She would be with Angelina. She could not think how to respond. What had she – thin, shy Beatrice – to offer lovely, golden Angelina? The girl seemed older than her; indeed, if her birthday was in August she was a whole school year ahead. If they were going to school, that is.

‘I’ll talk to your father’, Mrs Marlow sighed. ‘I hope he will agree.’

Days of argument followed.

‘It is a marvellous opportunity for her,’ Delphine would say.

‘We’ll be beholden to them,’ Hugh would object. ‘And she’ll start expecting to live the high life.’

‘Oh come, that’s nonsense – not our little Béatrice,’ she would counter.

Eventually Hugh Marlow gave way, astonished at his wife’s unusual insistence.

It was early in July when Beatrice was first invited up to the house. Her mother went with her. Up the cliff path, then a short walk alongside a field of ripening corn to a lane that ran between stone hedges to the gates of Carlyon Manor. Beatrice yearned for the house until they rounded the bend of the drive, then there it was, a wide expanse of Cornish granite with diamond-hatched windows, high chimneys and a slate roof. They passed a croquet game, abandoned on the front lawn. As they neared the front door their footsteps slowed, and though she said nothing, Delphine held her daughter’s hand more tightly.

A little maid with beady eyes, like a jenny wren, admitted them. ‘The mistress is still out riding,’ she told them, and showed them into the drawing room to wait. Beatrice, who had never been in a place so splendid, gazed at the sunlight dazzling off the electric chandeliers. The french windows stood open and beyond were lawns and flowerbeds and swaying trees.

‘May I go out in the garden?’ she asked her mother.

‘No,
mon amour
, we are not invited,’ said Mrs Marlow, tenderly brushing a lock of hair from her daughter’s face. There was a great tarnished mirror over the fireplace and Beatrice wandered across to make faces in it, though she was barely tall enough to see. She noticed the carved mantelpiece itself and ran her fingers over the pattern of leaves and flowers and fruit, wondering at the warmth and smoothness of the wood. Then her keen eyes spotted a carved insect hidden amongst the petals of a flower. It was a bee, its wings spread wide, and so delicately wrought she could see the markings on them. She traced its shape with a fingertip, thinking that because it was so small perhaps she was the only one who had ever noticed it. When she took a step away from the mantelpiece, the bee could hardly be seen. She was still marvelling at this idea when the door opened and Mrs Wincanton, in riding breeches, burst into the room. She was breathing quickly and her colour was high.

‘I am sorry, Mrs Marlow. It’s so glorious out on the beach, I quite forgot the time.’ She cast her hat and riding crop on a chair. Her bright gaze passed over Beatrice in her neat brown dress and black lace shoes, then she realized what she’d been looking at. ‘Oh, have you found our little bee? I’ll tell you the story about him.’

Mrs Wincanton pulled the bell-rope by the fireplace. Whatever the story she’d been going to tell, it was forgotten, for a sinister rumbling noise had started up somewhere above their heads. Beatrice and her mother looked at the ceiling in alarm, but Oenone Wincanton was unperturbed. When the jenny wren maid appeared she said, ‘We’ll have tea now, Brown. Would you take Miss Beatrice up to meet the children? I gather from the ghastly row that they are somewhere about?’

‘Upstairs, mam, all of ’em. Miss Hetty’s worriting the life out of that poor dog, and now the boys are playing skittles in the corry-dor. The butler’s been up to speak to them twice about their behaviour, but they don’t take no notice, mam.’

‘Oh, never mind. I’ll deal with them later. Boys will be boys,’ Oenone said to no one in particular, with a little laugh. She gave Beatrice’s shoulder a light pat and said, ‘Go with Brown, Beatrice. I’m sure you’ll have a very nice time, whilst I speak to your mother.’

With a pleading look, ignored by her mother, Beatrice followed the little maid out to the hall and up a wide wooden staircase. At the top a long landing stretched right and left into darkness.

‘Look out, miss!’ Brown cried, and pulled her to the wall as a missile came hurtling out of the gloom and sent a pile of wooden objects crashing at the other end.

Roars filled the air: ‘A triumph!’ and ‘Ed, you foul cheat. Your foot was over the line.’ And then came the sound of a struggle. Brown’s high voice piped above the general mayhem, ‘Master Edward, Master Peter, get up, both of you, you’ve got a visitor.’

Edward appeared first, scrambling to his feet, wiping his arm across his perspiring face and laughing. ‘Beatrice.’ He reached for her hand and shook it heartily. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m afraid you arrived at a bad moment. Pete, get up, will you, you storming great idiot.’ Peter, still sprawled on the floor, muttered, ‘Hello.’

Brown pulled herself up to her full four feet ten and said, ‘You’re to look after her, do you understand? Show her round. Now where’s Miss Angie?’

Edward propelled Beatrice into a large untidy schoolroom with no carpet, overlooking the back garden, where the sea could be glimpsed sparkling beyond the trees. Here, too, all was chaos. At a table by the window, Angelina sat reading a crumpled magazine and eating an apple. A gramophone spat out scratchy dance music, and little Hetty, mousy hair flying, was on her hands and knees, chasing a large shuffling personage in and out of the table legs and shouting, ‘Jacky, come here. Jacky!’ It took Beatrice a moment to realize that Jacky was an Old English Sheepdog done up in a dress and bonnet. It looked up shamefaced at Beatrice, who felt a rush of pity. Hetty pushed past it, growling, and crawled over to Beatrice, showing gappy teeth. ‘Guess what I am, guess what I am,’ she shrieked.

‘A dog?’ Beatrice asked.

‘Wrong. She’s a crocodile,’ delivered Peter, rolling his eyes. ‘She’s always a ruddy crocodile. She’s obsessed by crocodiles.’

‘No, I’m not. Today I’m an alligator,’ Hetty shouted with indignation. ‘And Nanny told you not to swear.’

‘You’re not an alligator, you’re a little prig.’

‘Oh, shut up, all of you!’ Edward roared over Hetty’s cry of rage. ‘Can’t you see you’re terrifying poor Beatrice.’

‘How can anyone get peace and quiet to read?’ cried Angie, slapping her magazine shut and getting up from the table. ‘Honestly, all of you. What must you think of us, Beatrice?’ She smiled lazily, pushing back a wavy lock that had escaped from her plait, her large blue eyes dreamy.

A short stout woman in a navy uniform bustled in from the connecting room, her face half-hidden by the stack of board games she was carrying. ‘Children,’ she ordered, in a soft, cracked voice that was lined with steel. ‘Too much noise. Your mother won’t stand for it.’

‘Mother won’t care. Nanny, do stop fussing,’ Edward said, with the casual confidence of the eldest son who could do no wrong. ‘Look, we’ve got Beatrice.’

‘Oh,’ Nanny said, putting down the boxes on the table. ‘So you’re the one. Let me look at you.’

Everybody became quiet as she perused poor Beatrice, who felt her face flush. She twisted her arms together and looked down at her feet, trying to wish away the clumpy black shoes. Angie, she’d noticed, had pretty ballet slippers. Of course she would, no matter that the toes were worn. Beatrice felt no envy, just humility in the presence of beauty.

It was Angie who took pity on her, stepping forward to give her an awkward hug. She smelled deliciously of soap and apple. ‘Don’t mind the others,’ Angie said. ‘They’ve got no manners. I’m glad you’ve come. The boys are perfectly horrid, but it’s awfully boring when they’re away at school.’

‘There’s me,’ shouted Hetty, in high dudgeon. ‘I’m still here.’ Peter made a grunting noise behind her.

Angie pressed her perfect lips together in a complicit smile that meant girls of six didn’t count. Hetty, seeing it, gave an un-alligator-ish pout. Beatrice smiled back at Angie, feeling her heart open like a flower. Ed kicked a piece of chalk, which Peter stamped on. The dog sat down and began to scratch in a vulgar fashion.

‘If everybody’s finished,’ Nanny said severely, ‘you may show Beatrice round Carlyon.’

‘The gardens first,’ Ed said. ‘We’ll make Brown happy and take the skittles outside.’

‘No, the kitchen. I’m hungry.’ That was Hetty.

‘You were very greedy at breakfast,’ Nanny told her. ‘You don’t need anything else.’

‘Let’s take her to the cesspit,’ Peter sang out.

‘Don’t be rude, Peter,’ Angie replied. ‘We’ll go to the stables first, don’t you think, Bea? I want to show you Cloud.’

‘Yes, the stables,’ echoed Beatrice.
Bea.
No one had ever given her a nickname before. She thought of the tiny wooden insect nestling in the carving in the drawing room, behind which was a story.

‘Busy Bea,’ said Hetty.

‘Brown Bea,’ said Peter, looking at Beatrice’s dress.

‘Bees aren’t brown, Pete. Bumblebees are gold and black.’

‘Some are brown,’ Peter argued, glowering at his brother.

‘Beatrice doesn’t bumble, she’s a honey bee, aren’t you?’ Angie took her by the hand.

‘They’re very brown.’

‘Still, I think I like honey bees best,’ she said.

‘So do I,’ said Beatrice.

It would be two months before lessons began in September. For Beatrice the time crawled. Once or twice over the summer she was invited up to the house and these were wonderful exhilarating times. Then came one baking hot day in early August when Angelina turned thirteen, and Beatrice was invited to a picnic on the beach, but everyone was out of sorts for some reason. She was confused to see that Angelina’s eyes were red-rimmed, her lovely mouth turned down. Ed got them all playing cricket on the damp sand above the shoreline.

Peter performed a splendid catch. ‘You’re out, Angie,’ he insisted, and the girl threw down the bat with a wail and marched up the beach to where Mrs Wincanton was packing away the picnic. Beatrice saw her cast herself in her mother’s lap and Oenone hug her tight as she wept inconsolably.

Hetty saw Beatrice’s puzzlement.

‘Daddy was s’posed to come today,’ she explained importantly, ‘but he telephoned to say he isn’t and that’s why she’s upset. Angie feels things very deeply, you know. That’s what Mummy says. Nanny says it’s bad for her to be overwrought. I don’t know what that means, do you?’

‘It means,’ said Peter, pursuing the ball as it rolled past, ‘that you’re a sneak who listens in to grown-ups’ conversations.’

‘Shut up, Peter,’ Hetty cried, and Peter pretended to shy the ball at her, then grabbed her instead and forced sand down her neck.

‘Hey, pack it in, Pete,’ Edward said, coming to rescue Hetty. Beatrice had often noticed that he was the peacemaker, effortlessly defusing tension.

By the time the others trooped up to fetch their towels to swim, the regulation hour for their food to settle having passed, Angie looked more cheerful. Beatrice overheard her tell Edward, ‘Mummy says he might come next week instead.’

After the children had splashed in the waves for a while, they lay on their towels on the beach sharing bottles of homemade lemonade while behind them on the dunes their mother read a book.

‘Bowl me a few balls in a moment, Pete?’ Ed said.

‘S’pose,’ Pete said, grumpy.

‘Don’t you like cricket?’ Beatrice asked him.

‘It’s all right,’ Peter said, with a shrug.

She saw that being good at games came naturally to Edward. He was kind, too, and a natural leader, at ease with everybody and everything, the complete antithesis of poor Peter. She watched Peter’s face, pinched and unhappy, when Angie questioned Edward about school, and Ed told them stories of cheats and swaggerers, of brutal initiation ceremonies and bullying masters. These were, she sensed, not things that happened to Edward, but she wondered if Peter knew about them all too well.