Autumn Softly Fell (3 page)

Dorothea was taken aback. She was sure the maid meant well, but nobody had ever called her
pretty
before, not even her papa. Sometimes he called her ‘my pumpkin’ or ‘my piccalilli’, but a pumpkin was hardly the same as a lily. (What a ‘piccalilli’ might be was anyone’s guess).

This reminder of her papa brought Dorothea back to more pressing matters.

‘Please, do you know where Papa is?’

‘I don’t, miss. I’m sorry. But there’s no need to look so down-
in-the
-mouth! I’m sure your Uncle will be able to tell you.’

‘Is that man really my uncle: the tall, angry man? I didn’t know I had an uncle.’

‘Well, we knew nothing about you either, miss. It was ever so much of a surprise when you showed up as you did last night. Even the mistress – that’s your aunt, miss – even she was taken aback, and she’s never surprised by anything!’

The maid’s smile was infectious. Dorothea found it impossible not to smile back. Even though Henry had been kind to her last night, she had still been rather in awe of him. The nursery maid was more down-to-earth, like an ordinary person: she was someone one could talk to.

‘Please, I don’t know your name.’

‘I’m Turner, but you can call me Nora if you like.’

‘And that lady….’ Dorothea hesitated, feeling the pain in her wrist. ‘The black lady. Is
she
my aunt?’

‘Heaven bless you, no! That’s Mrs Bourne, the housekeeper. As miserable a piece as ever lived. But don’t you go telling her I said so, or she’ll have my guts for garters!’

‘I don’t like her.’

‘You’re not alone, miss.’ Nora winked.

Dorothea warmed to the nursery maid, found that her tongue was loosened. She could now ask some of the questions that were piling up inside her head. Nora did not seem to mind being asked. She answered cheerily and at length as she flitted round the room, scooping up the night dress, making the bed, tending the fire. Most of the people Dorothea had seen downstairs did not belong to the house, she learned. There had been a party, with lots of guests. Some of the guests had stayed the night.

‘Which is why we are all at sixes and sevens today,’ said Nora. ‘The party, the house guests – I’ve been run off my feet!’

‘There was a lady, a nice lady, and a man called Henry.’

‘That will be Lady Fitzwilliam from Hayton Grange, and her son.’

‘He’s got knobbly knees.’

Nora laughed. ‘I daresay he has. He’s a funny one, Mr Henry, scooting along the horse roads in that machine of his.’

‘This house….’ Dorothea paused, not sure how to put it, the way
she felt about the place: the dark façade seen the night before, the dazzling lights of the party, the long corridors, the endless stairs, room after room, walls lined with pictures, the eyes in the portrait staring with disapproval. ‘It’s like … like a palace!’

‘It’s a big place, miss, I’ll grant you that – much grander than Hayton Grange, for instance. But Clifton’s not a palace: not a palace that would be fit for the Queen.’

‘Clifton?’

‘That’s the name of the house, Clifton Park. Didn’t you know? But listen to me going on, and it’s gone twelve already and you’ve not even had your breakfast! Let’s go through to the day room. I’m supposed to be watching Baby, as well as seeing to you. They expect me to have eyes in the back of my head, I’m sure!’

The day room was next door, a large place with a glowing fire and barred windows, shelves stacked with toys and games, a rocking horse, a mournful parrot in a cage.

Nora was peeping into a cot. ‘There’s Baby, miss, sleeping like a log. And over here….’ She took Dorothea’s hand and led her to a big sturdy table in the middle of the room. ‘This young gentleman is your cousin, miss. Aren’t you going to say “hello”, Master Roderick?’

Dorothea, rather self-conscious in her borrowed frock and combed curls, looked shyly at the boy sitting at the table. He was about her own age, perhaps a little younger, scrubbed and spruce in knee breeches and a shirt with a wide collar. He had been playing with tin soldiers. A great many of them were lined up on the table. But now he abandoned his game and slipped off his chair, advancing on Dorothea with a brazen, inquisitive look, grey eyes staring from under black brows.

‘Who are you? Why are you here? I’ve not heard about you before!’

‘My … my name is Dorothea.’

He scoffed. ‘That’s a silly name!’

Dorothea stood her ground. It was all very well being frightened by her tall uncle or by the fierce housekeeper, but she would not allow herself to be browbeaten by a mere boy – especially a rude little boy like this one.

‘
Dorothea
is not a silly name. It is no sillier than
Roderick
.’

‘
Roderick
is a warrior’s name.’ The boy puffed out his chest.

Showing off, thought Dorothea. Just like the boys in Stepnall Street. Just like Mickey.
Look at me! Look at me! Aren’t I brave/smart/strong!
But Mickey, for all his faults, had always looked out for her, even though he wasn’t her brother or her cousin or any other sort of relation. This boy Roderick, she sensed, didn’t look out for anybody other than himself.

‘Now you leave the poor girl alone, Master Roderick,’ said Nora, brushing the boy aside and leading Dorothea to the far side of the table. ‘She’s going to have her breakfast!’

Breakfast
was the word Nora used to describe a feast fit for the Queen. There was porridge, a boiled egg, toast, butter, marmalade and a huge glass of milk. It was more food than Dorothea was used to eating in an entire day, let alone for breakfast. But she was
ravenously
hungry. She could not remember when she had last eaten. She set to work with gusto – even if it was slightly off-putting having Master Roderick watching her every move. Like the people at the party last night, he had obviously never been taught that it was rude to stare.

‘Are you going to eat
all
of that toast?’ he demanded at length.

She shook her head, watched as he grabbed a piece, spooned great dollops of marmalade onto it, gobbled it up. A word formed in her mind: greedy. But then she told herself not to be so hasty. Maybe he was hungry. Maybe he had not had a breakfast fit for a Queen. And perhaps he was rude because he didn’t know any better. He might be quite a nice boy underneath. Papa often said, ‘The world judges by appearances, Dotty – and it’s wrong. It’s plain wrong.’

She couldn’t eat another morsel. She had never felt so full in her life. Getting down from the table, she explored the big room – far bigger than the room where she lived off Stepnall Street. The baby was awake now, kicking and gurgling in its cot. The parrot, rather moth-eaten, was unresponsive. Flames leapt over the coals. Such a pile of coals, too! She had never seen the like.

At that moment, a plump, prickly-looking woman came bustling into the room. She had a black bodice and skirt, and a big red nose.
Locks of greying hair were escaping from under her cap. Dorothea’s heart sank. How many more people would she have to meet in this hectic house?

‘So. This is the forsaken child.’

Abandoned, forsaken
. Dorothea gritted her teeth as the plump woman looked her up and down. She resented such words.

‘Well, my lady,’ said the woman haughtily. ‘What a spectacle you made of yourself last night, by all accounts, turning up out of the blue like that! Mrs Brannan was very cross that her party was spoiled. Quite beside herself, she was – or so I’ve heard. Cook says they had words this morning, the master and the mistress. Not that they haven’t had words before, mark you. It’s only to be expected when a woman marries beneath her. But where was I? Oh yes. Stand up straight so I can look at you!’ The piggy eyes raked over Dorothea once more but seemed to lose focus half way. The woman groaned, clutching her temples. ‘My head’s that bad today I can barely stand it! But listen now because I don’t want to have to repeat myself. I’m Nanny and I’m in charge. You’re to mind your Ps and Qs and do as you’re told. I don’t want a peep out of you, do I make myself clear?’

Dorothea nodded. The cosy feeling that had grown inside her after meeting Nora and eating the big breakfast was rapidly
withering
away, but there was one question that could not wait. She took a deep breath. ‘Please, where’s my papa?’

A look of irritation crossed Nanny’s blotchy face. ‘Now what have I just said? I don’t know where your pa is and I’m sure I don’t care. Hold your tongue now! And that goes for you, too, Master Roderick! The next person to open their mouth will get a good hiding!’

Nanny settled herself in a chair by the fire. She soon fell asleep, snoring. Nora was called away to help downstairs. Roderick went back to his toy soldiers. Dorothea inched her way towards one of the windows. She felt that if she could just see outside, she might not feel so hemmed in. But there were bars on the window which only increased her sense of being trapped, and the world outside – the fields and trees and the great grey sky – seemed very remote and
unfamiliar. It was not at all like the world she knew and gave her no clues as to where her papa might be.

Time ticked by. The trees and fields faded into an early dusk. Dorothea’s eyes filled with tears as she leant against the bars. She felt as if everything was drifting away from her. Her whole life –
everything
she had known – was being swallowed by the grey gloom. But crying got one nowhere. Mrs Browning, back in Stepnall Street – a million miles away, as distant as the moon – boxed their ears if they started ‘bawling and carrying on’, Dorothea and Mickey and Flossie. But Dorothea wouldn’t have minded having her ears boxed – wouldn’t have minded going without that glorious breakfast – if only she could have been home again.

With nothing to do and nowhere to hide, she found she could no longer keep back the memories of last night: all the bits she had tried so very hard to forget. She saw in her mind’s eye her papa and her uncle confronting one another in the midst of the lavish room, growling and snapping their teeth like half-starved dogs in the narrow courts back home.

‘Well, Albert, so this is where you’re holed up now. Very nice. Very nice indeed. Landed on your feet and no mistake. Though it’s a bit off the beaten track, you might say. I had a devil of a job finding the place.’

‘You are drunk, Frank.’

‘I’ve had a nip or two, to keep out the cold. Only a nip.’

‘A bottle or two, I should say, by the state of you.’

‘Now then, Albert, there’s no call for that sort of talk! But why should I expect any different? You always did have it in for me. You always did try and blacken my character.’

‘Is it any wonder, after what you did?’

‘You’re no better’n me, Albert, that’s the long and short of it. There’s only one difference between us. My old man didn’t have a business to pass on. That was where you struck gold.’

‘I built up my own business, Frank. I didn’t need my father’s.’

‘But his money helped, Albert, you can’t deny that. You had all the luck, see? You had all the luck, whereas I fell on hard times.’

‘Took to drink.’

‘That’s a lie, that is! Nor I didn’t, neither – not till I’d lost
everything
, not till it was all gone.’ Her papa had stopped short, had looked down at her. He’d smiled, the special smile that was hers alone. ‘No,’ he’d murmured. ‘Not everything. Not quite everything. I’ve still got one thing left. One precious thing.’ But then the smile had faded and tears had come into his eyes, the tears that had so frightened her. ‘Breaks my heart, so it does, but it’s for the best, it’s all for the best….’

Her uncle had said nothing. When she’d glanced up at him she’d realized that he wasn’t looking at her or her papa. He’d been watching instead a lady on the edge of the crowd: a very stiff, upright lady in a sumptuous gown trimmed with miles of lace, a huge flared skirt sweeping out behind her. Seeing the lady’s icy blue eyes, Dorothea had known that she was very angry, but the anger had been all shut up inside her and had not shown on her face, which had been as cold and blank as a statue’s. She was beautiful like a statue, too, immeasurably dignified, somehow timeless. Dorothea had sensed that her uncle was more aware of this lady than of anyone else in the room, as if the frost in her eyes was piercing him to the marrow.

But she had forgotten all about the beautiful lady when her papa began speaking again. She had watched in dismay as he retreated towards the door, bowing and scraping. Hadn’t he always said,
Just remember, Dotty, we’re as good as anyone, me and you; we’ve nothing to be ashamed of. Hold your head up, Dotty: always hold your head up…

‘I’ll not presume on your ’ospitality no longer, Albert. And I do hope—’ (bowing) ‘—that all you fine ladies and gents will ’scuse the interruption. It was family business, you must understand: family business. But now—’ (bowing again) ‘—I’ll leave you to get on with your party. And you, Dotty: you be a good girl for your uncle, do you hear? And just remember that your old Pa loves you and … well.…’

With that he had gone. Her uncle had followed him out. A low buzz of conversation had broken out in the room, but Dorothea had only had ears for the faint voices in the hallway. Only brief snatches of the angry exchange had been audible.

‘… can’t you do this one thing, for
her
sake, for Flo…?’

‘… dare you talk of my sister—’

‘My wife!’

‘… regret the day she ever clapped eyes on you!’

‘… and we belonged together, but it was the child what did for her. She made me promise …
do your best, Frankie
… but my best ain’t good enough….’

Standing by the window in the day room, the metal bars pressing into her forehead, Dorothea tried to make sense of the remembered words.

‘It’s what Flo would have wanted. She’s your niece, Albert, your own flesh and blood.’

‘Do you seriously imagine you can palm your brat—’

She had heard no more as the piano began to tinkle and the hum of conversation grew louder, and Henry Fitzwilliam had appeared and scooped her off her feet just as she felt her wobbly legs could not hold her up any longer.