Half a Crown (13 page)

The old lady’s eyes met Carmichael’s past Elvira, and suddenly they were complicit. “Don’t you ever mean to marry and have children?” she asked.

“If I meet the right man. But with a degree I’ll be able to earn my own living whether or not that happens.” She turned to Carmichael. “I know I’m not a rich girl, even though I’ve been brought up like one since my father died. You’ve been very kind, as kind as a real uncle could possibly have been.”

“Kinder than her own family could have hoped to be,” put in Mrs. Pendill.

“I intend to see you properly provided for, Elvira,” Carmichael said, taking a gulp of abominable cold tea in his confusion.

“Her idea is better,” her aunt said. “Be independent, as so few of us can be these days. I’m seventy-six years old. I was born in the old Queen’s day. I remember Queen Victoria visiting Coltham as if it was yesterday. Things have changed, with motorcars and airships and autobahns, but they haven’t changed so much when it comes to how people live. I was a servant at the Court until I married. I worked in the stillroom. I know how gentry live. You’ll meet the young Queen as I met the old one. Did I tell you what she said to me? She was walking in the garden and she saw me out by the kitchen door, picking parsley. She asked me my name, and I told her, and she asked what I did, and I said I was the stillroom maid. Then she said she’d liked my jam, and then she said, ‘Keep on as you have been doing, Katherine, and you’ll do very well.’ Maybe the young Queen, Queen Elizabeth, will have something to say to you that you can remember all your life.”

“Maybe she will,” Elvira said. She looked pleadingly at Carmichael.

“I think perhaps we’d better be going,” Carmichael said, rescuing her.

The farewells took a long time, and they heard the clock strike again before they emerged from the cottage. The clouds had covered the sun. “I hope it doesn’t rain,” Elvira said, after she hugged her aunt good-bye.

“It won’t rain until tomorrow,” Mrs. Pendill said, definitely. “All that education and they didn’t teach you how to read the weather?”

Carmichael drove off, with Elvira waving beside him. After a moment she laughed, and he laughed too, and it reminded him of a hundred times with Royston when they had got through a sticky interview and back into the car where they could laugh about it. “You’re just like your father,” he said.

“I thought I was going to sink through the floor when she asked if you were bringing me up to marry me,” Elvira said.

“So did I!” said Carmichael. “The idea had never occurred to me. I’d never even thought that other people might be thinking it.”

“I’m sure they’re not. Not anyone who hasn’t spoken to Queen Victoria, that is.” Elvira hesitated. “You know, she’s right about it being an honor to meet the Queen. I’d been thinking of it as a ritual and a bit of a chore, but for someone like Aunt Katherine it is an honor, and it should be for us too. I don’t know. Sometimes I have no idea what class I belong to or where I ought to belong, but she really is right about that.”

“I’ve met the Queen once or twice,” Carmichael said. “She’s very nice from what I’ve seen.”

“That’s not really the point, is it? What’s important is that she’s the Queen. Mr. Normanby’s the Prime Minister, but she’s the one who really matters. He might run the country, but she
is
the country.”

“It’s next week, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Next Tuesday. Poor Betsy will still be in plaster, but her mother wants to go ahead regardless. I don’t know how she’ll carry her flowers. Maybe they’ll let her do without.”

A few drops of rain spattered the windscreen. “We’d better get those primroses before they’re all soaked,” Carmichael said.

“It doesn’t really matter about taking them back, not if it’s raining. I’ve got this little bunch anyway. The important thing is that they’re growing out here, that England’s still here, so beautiful, so green. If it’s going to rain, we might as well head back to London. Oh look! This little village is called Ospringe! Do you think it’s pronounced like
offspring,
or like
orange?”

Carmichael turned north at Ospringe, onto the Gravesend road.

When we got back to London, Uncle Carmichael took me to Cartier and bought me a string of pearls, much nicer than Betsy’s, and the prettiest little lapis-lazuli-and-gold pendant. I thought he’d either forgotten what Aunt Katherine had said or forgiven it, but he insisted on the shop assistant, a frightfully superior young lady, doing up the clasps for me when I tried them on. I’d never thought of him in other than a fatherly way, and I couldn’t, not even experimentally. There was some reserve about him that made it seem almost blasphemous. If he had been doing what Aunt Katherine suspected, which she must have got from some horrible Victorian story, I don’t think I could have gone through with it. Though if he had, he’d have been a different person and I suppose it would have been different.

“Thank you,” I said, as we got back into the car, me clutching the little velvet-lined pouch in its bag. “And thank you for everything, for looking after me since my father died. When I said I wanted a career and to be independent, I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful. It’s just that I don’t want to be dependent.”

“I do understand,” he said. “It’s harder for a girl than a boy, but you’re going the right way about things to my mind, wanting your own life. I’m just glad I can help you do what you want, this Oxford
thing. As I said this morning, I think Sergeant Royston would have been very proud of you.”

I felt different with him, somehow, as if he’d finally noticed that I’d grown up and wasn’t a little girl anymore, and while that was terrific, it was a little bit sad too.

“Will you come to the dinner before the presentation?” I asked, as he pulled up in front of the Maynards’ house.

“Next Tuesday?” He frowned as he pulled on the hand brake. “Next Wednesday is the opening of this idiotic peace conference, so every loon in Europe will be in London. I’ll be run ragged. But I dare say I can manage dinner. Where is it, the Ritz?”

“The Dorchester,” I said. “You’re paying for it, you should know.”

He turned towards me. “I dare say I am, but I don’t argue with what Mrs. Maynard sends me. That’s why she was so polite this morning, no doubt. She started to say that you should have stayed with Betsy, but when I pointed out that Betsy should have stayed with you she soon saw my point.” He smiled, tightly. “Send me a card. But I’ll see you before that. I’ll be bringing your handbag over to return Betsy’s pearls.”

“Mine are much, much nicer,” I said, and leaned over to kiss his cheek.

My banged knee twinged a little as I got out of the car, but I covered it, and waved cheerfully as Uncle Carmichael drove off.

Goldfarb opened the door to me. Only Mr. Maynard, as head of the family, had his own front door key. “There are flowers arrived for you, Miss Elvira,” he said, as I took off my hat.

“For Betsy, surely?” I was surprised.

“For both of you. Miss Betsy’s are in her room, and yours are in the drawing room. I believe Madam would like to see you in there when it’s convenient.” Goldfarb inclined his head a little in a very regal way.

“Do I have time to freshen up a little and look in on Betsy?” I asked.

“Miss Betsy is sleeping,” he said.

I ran upstairs, used the lav and touched up my face, then put my little bunch of primroses into a bud vase in my room, before bracing myself to talk to Mrs. Maynard.

Mr. and Mrs. Maynard were both in the drawing room, along with the biggest bouquet since the Royal wedding. It was mostly carnations, variegated ones, but there were also dog daisies, roses, love-in-a-mist, freesia, and half a dozen other things. It was huge, more than a double armload. It was so big that it had been put in an urn that was normally only used in the ballroom. In April, it was beyond all dreams of extravagance.

“How are you, Elvira, my dear?” Mrs. Maynard asked, smiling one of her insincere smiles and actually getting up and taking my hand. “Sit down, sit down.”

“I wasn’t hurt, I’m just concerned about poor Betsy,” I said, sitting on the sofa beside her.

“The doctors have fixed her up right as rain, don’t worry,” Mr. Maynard said heartily. “I’m only sorry that when we were so concerned over her we allowed your welfare to slip between the cracks.”

I hadn’t forgotten the time I’d spent in the police station in Paddington, but I didn’t especially hold it against the Maynards. “It was natural that you’d be worried about Betsy. She was injured.”

“But you were missing and anything could have happened to you,” Mrs. Maynard said. “You shouldn’t have separated yourself from Betsy and Sir Alan, that was most foolish. We’re all fortunate that the police found you and restored you to your uncle. And apart from Sir Alan, unavoidably, who is practically a member of the family and will not tell, nobody else knows, and nobody else will.”

I blinked for a moment at the way she emphasised this last part. Then I realized. I had been out alone and unsupervised overnight.
For a debutante, this was the equivalent of throwing my bonnet over the windmill or declaring open season on myself. My precious virginity could have been threatened, and just the rumor that it could have would be enough to ruin me. For a moment I was horrified. Then I remembered that Mrs. Maynard’s poisonous whispers about my background would have ruined whatever chances I might have had in advance, and that I didn’t care anyway. “Nothing like that happened,” I said.

“Yes, so your uncle assured us. The police were looking after you all the time.”

“That’s right,” I said, though it seemed to me a remarkably twisted view of my time in the cells, especially when I thought of that redheaded officer shoving me.

“Well, that’s all right then,” Mr. Maynard said, exchanging glances with his wife. “We’ll say no more about it, and as far as anyone else is concerned, you were with poor Betsy the whole time. Now how about having a look at your note from Sir Alan?”

There was a sealed envelope among the flowers. I got up and took it. “Miss Royston,” it said, correctly, on the outside. Inside it began: “My dear Cinderella.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m more sorry than I can say that I didn’t manage to get you home before midnight, and that you ran into some trouble. I’m glad to hear it’s all sorted out, and, having been sworn to secrecy by Mrs. Maynard, shall of course tell no one. I’m sorry my choice of entertainment—and yours as well—turned so unexpectedly violent. I must assure you I had no idea whatsoever that things would get out of hand so quickly. Elizabeth told me you had taxi-money in your bag, and that in the circumstances would be sure to use it. Nevertheless, and despite her injury, it was very wrong of me to leave you alone in such circumstances. Please accept these flowers with my most sincere apologies, and permit me to hope for a dance with you when next we find ourselves in the same circles. Yours sincerely, Alan Bellingham, Bart.”

“It’s just an apology,” I said.

“He sent a matching bouquet to Betsy,” Mrs. Maynard said. “As I said, he’s practically one of the family. He hasn’t actually proposed, but we have very high hopes….”

“How lovely,” I said, smiling brightly. I was not about to steal Betsy’s boo, nor betray her secrets to her parents.

“We didn’t want you to think…,” Mrs. Maynard said, in another of her famous trailing sentences.

“Oh no, I’d never have let any such thought cross my mind,” I assured her enthusiastically.

Betsy came down for dinner, looking awfully pale. Her freckles stood out like islands on a map. She didn’t eat much, just pushed the food around a little with her right hand. Her father kept encouraging her to take something, but all I actually saw her eat was part of a bread roll and a few grapes. I wanted to show her my pearls and my pendant after dinner, but she said she wanted to sleep so I said I’d study, and in fact fell asleep almost at once.

On Friday morning Nanny woke me, looking sour. “Insisting on you both having your fittings, she is,” she said, setting down a cup of tea on my bedside table and drawing back the curtains. It was raining.

“Our fittings?” I asked, yawning, then remembered. “For our Court dresses?”

“Miss Betsy with a broken arm and hardly able to sit up, but Miss Tossie insists that you both go off to have them. What’s the sense in it?” Nanny was an elderly woman, with iron gray hair and a rigid deportment. She had been Mrs. Maynard’s nanny, and come back to her for Betsy’s birth. Betsy always said she had a very soft center and was wonderful with illness and small children. Everyone agreed that she was rather too inclined to continue to treat her erstwhile charges as if they were three years old, but precisely because they once had been, she continued to get away with it. In fairness to Mrs. Maynard,
while I’d been delighted to learn that Nanny called her “Tossie,” I should record that her baptismal name was Theresa.

“There’s no use asking me, Nanny,” I said, sitting up and reaching for the tea. “I hoped we’d put the whole thing off until Betsy was better.” Nanny had known me for years and had seen my transformation from guttersnipe to young lady. These days she regarded me with a certain amount of limited approval, as if I were a puppy or a kitten Betsy had taken a fancy to and who had been house-trained more successfully than she had feared. She didn’t necessarily like me, but she saw I was good for Betsy and that was enough.

“It’s not Miss Betsy who’s panting to get on with it,” Nanny said.

“In a way she is,” I said. “Our whole life for years has been leading towards this.”

“Then why is she crying into her pillow this morning? And don’t tell me it’s the pain, she tried that one on me but I’m too canny for her.”

“You’re cannier than the whole family put together and you know it, thank you, Nanny,” I said, jumping out of bed and making for the door.

“Slippers!” Nanny said, sounding thoroughly horrified that I’d contemplate going out of the room without them. I pushed my feet into them, snatched up my teacup, and was off down the corridor towards Betsy’s room.

Betsy’s room was twice the size of mine, but all the same it was absolutely dominated by the bouquet, twin of mine downstairs even to the urn. I was very glad they hadn’t tried to put mine in my room. The primroses were much more to my taste.