Dorothy Eden (33 page)

“You mean—everything!” Daisy exclaimed.

“Oh heavens no, not that. I haven’t gone that far.” Edwin sighed. “Though I want to. And I shall if I’m ever given the opportunity.”

“Oh, Edwin, do be careful.”

“I’m careful. And I shouldn’t be telling you this. Why am I?”

“I don’t know. Because we’ve both had too much champagne, I expect. Oh, Edwin darling, I am so sorry.”

He smiled faintly. “You’re a warm-hearted little thing, aren’t you? Different from Flo. You haven’t got frozen in this house yet.”

“No. Though I feel cold sometimes.”

Edwin nodded understandingly.

“It was only a warm house once, for a little while, when Flo and I had a governess called Miss Medway. You weren’t born then. We loved her, but Mamma sent her away, and then it got cold again.”

“I don’t feel cold with Papa. Only with Mamma.”

“I know. She never used to see us when we were children. Did you ever notice that? She thought she did, of course. Oh well, who cares? Who cares?” He held out his arms. “Let’s have another dance before we go to bed. It’s been a good night. Though better if I had had Thalia and you had had your Frenchman.”

Daisy went into his arms and began gently waltzing with him, humming to herself.

“He might not be a Frenchman. He might be an Italian or a Swede or a Turk or a Russian. I just don’t think he’s going to be an Englishman.” She swooped dreamily in circles. “I never used to like you, Edwin. I never thought you were human. But you are, aren’t you? I suppose falling in love has done it. But do be careful.”

“Caution and love never mix.”

“You look so handsome without that silly monocle. Not so awe inspiring, but handsome.”

“And I can’t see a thing.”

“You could never marry her, Edwin.”

“Unless the Baron died. We might fight a duel.”

Daisy gave one more startled exclamation.

“You’re crazy. It might be you who got killed.”

“I told you, I’m a better shot than Horst.”

“You’re teasing me. You’re not going to shoot him. Besides you could never afford a castle in Silesia.”

“Aye, there’s the rub. That’s one thing Mamma’s purse won’t stretch to. Anyway, she says I’m in charge of my own fate now.”

“Are you?”

“I’m going to have a dammed good try.”

Florence came home triumphantly with piles of baggage. “Like the Queen of Sheba, only there’s no King Solomon,” Daisy murmured wickedly. However, when the baggage was unpacked and, a month later, displayed in a splendid island on the ground floor of Bonnington’s, Daisy was generous in her admiration. The effect was stunning. She seemed to have brought everything with her except the Tsar and Tsarina themselves.

What was more, Florence had pulled off another brilliant coup. The Russian ballet had just opened at Covent Garden in a glorious gala performance in honour of the coronation of King George and Queen Mary, and somehow Florence had persuaded some members of the cast, not the great Nijinsky, to be sure, but some impressive lesser names, to attend the opening. She was able to advertise this fact in all the morning papers, and to splash posters along the whole of Bonnington’s façade.

“They’re not coming in costume, I hope,” Adam Cope said to Beatrice, in some apprehension.

“Oh, goodness me, no.”

“I hear those tights they wear are embarrassing,” Adam muttered. “We have to think of our older customers.”

“Ballet is supposed to be a great art.” Having made that concession to her daughter’s efforts, Beatrice could add reassuringly that, dressed in ordinary clothes instead of the embarrassing tights, the dancers were going to look quite insignificant. No one would notice them.

However, she was wrong about that, in more ways than one.

The shop was thronged. It seemed as if the whole audience at Covent Garden theatre which had watched Nijinsky’s brilliant ‘Petrouchka’ the previous evening, had come to Bonnington’s today to buy Petrouchka puppets and toy Cossack dancers, and the brilliant red and gold brocades, the fur-lined cloaks and those strange barbaric necklaces and rings. Florence excitedly reported the sale of one sable coat already (she had invested in six, as an experiment), and a certain very wealthy lord had been more than interested in a Fabergé gold and enamel box set with emeralds and rubies. It wasn’t the Cullinan diamond, which Queen Mary had worn to the theatre the previous evening, but it was a bauble that Beatrice would never have had the courage to stock. She still feared that they were getting out of their depth, although Florence insisted that they wait until the exhibition was over before they anticipated their losses.

Actually, it didn’t seem as if there would be a loss, because it did promise to be the most spectacular and successful display they had ever had.

Even William had come. It seemed that Daisy had persuaded him, and here he was, smiling, and admitting that Florence had been very clever indeed. She also seemed to have taste, which was a blessing. But where were the famous dancers? Weren’t they at least wearing Cossack hats so that they could be distinguished? Or perhaps they would execute an
arabesque.

Daisy said, “Don’t be naughty, Papa. If you wait here I’ll make a bet I find one and bring him to talk to you.”

“You’ll cheat. You’ll ask Florence.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Then do make sure that he can speak English otherwise we’ll simply have to stare at one another.”

“I’ll use my instinct,” Daisy said gaily.

And that indeed was what led her to the young man standing on the edge of the crowd, looking interested but puzzled. It was very obvious that he was not English. He had high cheekbones and long tilted shining dark eyes that suggested Tartar blood. He was tall and slender with thick glossy hair as black as his eyes, and growing long down his neck. One could almost have tied it back with a ribbon. He looked alien and very exciting, and was certainly one of the visitors, but Daisy didn’t entirely win her bet with her father because he was not one of the dancers.

“Aren’t you?” Daisy said disappointedly. “I’m sorry, I made a mistake.”

“But I am travelling with the ballet.”

Daisy turned back eagerly. “Then you are a Russian?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You speak awfully good English.”

“I am an interpreter.”

“You mean you interpret for the Corps de Ballet?”

“For all those who do not speak English or French. I also am scene shifting and carrying baggage and doing the bookkeeping.”

Daisy said, “My mother would appreciate the bookkeeping.”

“Appreciate?”

“Approve. She likes doing figures.”

“Your mother!”

His tilted eyebrows lifted in surprise and perplexity, and Daisy began to giggle.

“My mother’s good at figures. Are you a ballet-lover?”

“Excuse?”

“A follower of the ballet?”

“Oh, yes. I even can dance myself, but not well enough to be a member of the Corps de Ballet. I am improving my English, which is why I am here in London.”

He looked at her seriously, then something made him smile, and his strange eyes flickered and blazed, and Daisy felt as if a shaft of lightning had struck her. Or, if that was exaggerating, something pretty effective had struck her. She wondered if Edwin had felt like this when his German baroness had looked into his eyes.

“My father wants to meet you,” she managed to say in a casual voice.

“Me! How is he aware of me?”

“He isn’t. It’s as a bet. Do you understand? A wager.”

“No.”

“It means—oh, just come.”

He followed her through the crowd, but Papa was no longer where she had left him. A shop girl touched Daisy’s arm. “Excuse me, miss, your father asked me to tell you he’s gone to have tea with your mother. You’re to join them.”

Up the stairs, beneath the towering potted palms, the orchestra was playing the Nutcracker Suite. The store blazed with light and colour. It had never been so gay or so festive. It was the stage of Covent Garden theatre, a piece of Eastern extravaganza.

“I’m so sorry, my father didn’t wait,” Daisy said to her companion. As those strange exciting eyes looked at her, she knew she had no intention of losing him. They could go up the stairs to take tea among all the dowagers with their sharp eyes and significant nods, but apart from anything else she could not imagine him sitting conventionally at the table with Mamma and Papa. It would simply spoil everything.

As she hesitated she saw Florence’s cold blue eyes looking at her across the crowd. Florence keeping a close watch on the Fabergé treasures, was not missing what her younger sister was up to either.

Then let’s give her something to talk about.

“I say,” said Daisy, “you don’t want to have tea up there, do you? I know a place just down the street where we can get lemon tea. That’s if you’re thirsty.”

“I am exceedingly thirsty.”

“It’s opposite Kensington Gardens. We can be back in half an hour if your friends need extricating from language difficulties.”

“Magnificent.”

Magnificent! What a splendid word.

“I’m Daisy Overton. Who are you?”

“Sergei Pavel.”

He was looking at her sideways as they went out on to the street. “Is this how women behave in London?”

“Absolutely.”

“Taking lemon tea with strange men?”

“Why not? I have always vowed never to be bored.”

He laughed, with a sudden deep throaty sound. “I am not sure what you mean but I think I guess. You are already improving my English, Miss Daisy.”

“Magnificent.”

She had never been in that unpretentious little teashop before. It would never be unpretentious for her again. After today there ought to be a plaque fixed over the door, not exhibiting the Royal Arms like Bonnington’s, but making the simple statement that here Daisy Overton had met Sergei Pavel from St Petersburg.

If they hadn’t got lemon tea she would teach them how to make it.

“Sir Gay,” she murmured.

“Yes?”

“Nothing. I was just anglicising your name. It’s gay.”

“Gay?”

“Happy. Carefree.”

His strange brilliant slanted eyes were studying her again. “I was told English women were cold.”

“I was born in Italy.”

“Does that make a difference?”

“I think so. At least it has made me different from my sister. Where were you born?”

“In a village not far from St Petersburg. Now I live in St Petersburg.”

Daisy nodded approval. “That’s absolutely right. I see you against steppes, or old Byzantium, or something. I believe Florence brought you to London with her treasures. Are you for sale, Sergei?”

“Are you laughing at me, Miss Daisy?”

“No, no, no! Oh, please don’t think that. I am only talking nonsense. Did your mother teach you to speak English so well?”

“Yes. And my father has a small bookshop where I read very much.”

“Tolstoy?”

“And Puskin, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov. And I listen to the music of Tchaikovski, Stravinsky, Borodin.”

“What are you going to be, besides an interpreter?”

“Oh, I will be a professor of English in a university. Poor, of course,” he added, looking at Daisy’s fur-trimmed jacket.

“Of course. Why not? What fun.”

“Fun?”

“I was thinking of something.”

“I know. Your eyes are telling me.”

“I was thinking of that witch in Russian fairy tales. Baba Yaga. So deliriously fearsome.”

“What a funny girl you are.”

“I have an undisciplined mind. All my teachers have told me that. Sir Gay.”

“Eh?”

“I think your name is fascinating.”

“I like yours, too. Can we meet again?”

Daisy drew a deep breath. This had been meant to be a prank, nothing more. But it was more, already.

“Perhaps.”

“I am free every afternoon there is not a matinée.”

“So am I. Mornings, too.”

“Then you are a society lady?”

“By birth but not inclination.”

“Explain. You are rich?”

“Well—I suppose I’ll have to tell you sooner or later. My mother owns that shop where we met.”

They had been sitting close together. He moved away from her sharply.

“Now don’t be silly. She isn’t rich. I mean, not rich like the landed gentry.”

His eyes had a gleam that looked like hostility.

“I understand what you mean by the landed gentry. That class in Russia causes much suffering to the poor. But why isn’t it your father who is rich?”

“My father is a darling darling clever lazy man. He’s a connoisseur of living.”

“So your mother does the work in a big business. That is strange.”

“It isn’t strange at all for her. She loves it. She’s never bored for a minute. I envy her. Florence has her talent, too. But I haven’t. I’m like Papa. Lazy and opportunistic.”

“Opportunistic?”

“That means doing things on an impulse. Like coming here with you.”

He nodded, more intrigued than approving, she thought. Probably he thought she was a terrible fast creature. He had a long nose, a wide thin-lipped mouth, and that strange foreign face that was yet so sweet and ardent. It was something out of a Russian fairy tale, not the fearsome Baba Yaga, but the innocent who walked through treacherous dark woods unscathed.

I’ll never look at those pink-cheeked brainless guardsmen again, Daisy thought.

“I expect I’d better go back now, though, before there’s a hue and cry.”

He smiled suddenly and unexpectedly, his wide mouth stretching, his eyes luminous.

“Would you like two tickets for the ballet tomorrow night?”

“Oh, how marvellous!”

“I would have to meet you here tomorrow to give them to you.”

“Naturally.”

“We would have more time?”

“Time for muffins as well as tea,” Daisy said blithely. “What a lovely adventure.”

T
HOSE WERE THE WORDS
she used when she went downstairs to dinner that night, ten minutes late, and breathless with lingering excitement.

“I have had such a lovely adventure.”

It was not in her nature to be secretive. Besides, how could she hide the evidence of her glowing face?

“Well, I’m glad it was enjoyable,” said Papa. “Your mother and I thought you had been kidnapped.”