Palace Circle (26 page)

Davina made a split-second decision not to say “Lady Davina Conisborough.” “Conisborough. Davina Conisborough. And I helped out in an Anglican orphanage.”

“Then you're good with children?”

Miss Scolby, who had been startled when Davina mentioned Cairo, pursed her lips, clearly not too pleased at having the interview taken out of her hands.

“Yes,” Davina said to him, untroubled by the woman's ruffled feathers.

“Then if you've got the rest of this afternoon free, come with me. My wife usually gives me a hand, but she's visiting her parents in Scotland and won't be back for two more weeks. Do you have any nursing experience?”

She shook her head.

“It doesn't matter. I'm off to a local school to do a general medical inspection. The children are from five to eight years and some of them need a little reassuring. You look as if you might be quite good at that.”

“I am.” Davina was too much her mother's daughter to have any truck with false modesty.

He shot her a friendly grin. “Then let's go.” And tucking the file under his arm he led the way out of the building, saying, “I'd better introduce myself. My name is Fergus Sinclair. Aileen and I are fairly new to Toynbee. Would you like me to tell you about the work we're doing?”

“No, Davina,” said her mother when Davina came home. “No, no, and no. Occupying your time with a little charity work in Cairo is one thing. Acting as an unpaid nursing assistant in the East End of London is quite another. Heaven only knows what you may have picked up from those children. Some of them probably had head lice.”

“They all did—and sores and rashes. And nearly all of them were malnourished.”

“Malnourished?” She had caught her mother's attention.

“Malnourished,” she said again firmly. “Men in the East End have been unemployed for so long that all their wives put on the table is bread and dripping and tea laced with condensed milk. Because the children are underfed, they're vulnerable to
disease. Dr. Sinclair and his wife are carrying out an inoculation program. That is where I come in. East End children aren't used to seeing doctors—and they're certainly not used to the sight of a hypodermic needle. I'm to be what Dr. Sinclair terms ‘a reassuring presence’—and I'm also to make myself useful to Mrs. Sinclair, who is a state registered nurse.”

They were in her mother's bedroom and Delia was seated at her dressing table. She drummed scarlet-painted fingernails on its art-deco surface.

“It's not that I
mind
you doin' charitable work,” she said at last. “I'm glad you have a well-developed social conscience and that you care about people less fortunate than yourself. This summer, though, when you're halfway through your season, just ain't the right time.”

It wasn't often that her mother said “ain't” anymore. Davina knew that the lapse revealed just how upset she was.

Taking a deep breath she set about trying to make her mother feel better. “It won't make much difference to my season,” she said, sitting beside her on the vanity bench and sliding an arm around Delia's waist. “If you let me help Dr. Sinclair during the day, I promise you I'll attend every evening event.”

“And as most evening events don't finish until the early hours of the morning, when will you catch up on your sleep?”

“I'll manage.” She kissed her mother on the cheek, knowing that she had, for once, got her own way. “And to show you how much I love you, I'll put in an appearance at your cocktail party this evening. Where's Fawzia? If our evening is going to start a little earlier than usual she'll need to know.”

“Jack has taken her to an exhibition at the Tate.”

“Unchaperoned?” This time it was Davina's turn to raise her eyebrows.

Her mother reached for her scent. “Yes. It won't harm for
once. They make a very attractive couple and if Jack should propose to her—and I don't see why he shouldn't considering how many other proposals of marriage she's received—then I think Zubair Pasha would give them his blessing.”

It was on the tip of Davina's tongue to remind her mother that Jack was quite possibly still in love with Petra. She didn't do so. On the few occasions when she'd spoken of Jack and Petra, her mother had speedily changed the subject. A cloud of Jean Patou's Joy enveloped them and Delia rose to her feet.

If her mother wanted to do a little matchmaking she was, after all, quite entitled to do so—and Petra's heart wouldn't be hurt, for she'd made it quite clear that she no longer loved Jack. Which, as far as Davina was concerned, was a shame, for Jack would have made the best brother-in-law she could imagine.

The first person she saw when she went down for cocktails was the dark-eyed, dark-haired Baba Metcalfe. Baba was the daughter of the late Lord Curzon, a man who had been a close friend of her father's. Over the years, Davina had met her quite often. Her husband, though, came as quite a shock.

She had imagined Fruity Metcalfe as being a mild-mannered kind of chap. The powerfully built man who removed his arm from around Baba's waist to shake hands with Davina exuded power. As dark-haired as Baba, and abnormally pale-skinned, he had a fierce, almost overpowering intensity about him.

“We haven't met before, though I've known your mother for years,” he said, holding her hand in a strong grip far longer than was necessary. “She tells me you prefer the exoticism of Egypt to bread-and-water life in London.”

His piercing black eyes moved over her face, focusing on her mouth in a way that was so blatantly sexual, she flushed scarlet.

His lips parted in a smile—and she knew it was with satisfaction at the effect he was having.

“I prefer Egypt because I think of it as home,” she said, forcing herself to look away from his hypnotic gaze.

Baba was no longer anywhere near. Across the room Fawzia was standing close to Jack. He was deep in conversation with Argentina's ambassador to Britain and Fawzia was looking at him with an expression on her face that indicated Delia could have been right in thinking a proposal from Jack was one Fawzia might well accept.

“Have you ever traveled to Germany?” Baba's husband asked, his sexual magnetism coming at her in waves. “I think you would like it. Under Hitler it's becoming very youth-conscious. Something it would do Britain good to emulate.”

She was just about to say that she had never been to Germany and to excuse herself and escape from him when Jerome walked into the room, his slight limp a little more noticeable than usual. On seeing them, he strolled toward them.

“Hello, Davina,” he said, giving her an affectionate smile. “I haven't seen much of you while you've been in London. Perhaps it's something we can remedy. As for you, Tom, I thought you were still in Italy paying homage to Mussolini.”

“And I thought you were in Germany, with Brunhilde.”

Jerome gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. “If you're referring to Magda, I did go to Berlin to spend time with her earlier this year. I won't be going again. Unlike you, I'm not an admirer of Hitler and I don't like what's happening in Germany and—as Magda does—I won't be seeing her again. And now, if you'll excuse me, Tom, I'm going to steer Davina into a quiet corner in order to catch up on some family gossip.”

With his hand beneath her arm he propelled her as far away from Fruity as, in the confines of the drawing room, it was possible to get.

“Thank you for that, Uncle Jerome,” she said, her nerves still jangling. “He made me very hot and bothered. I was well out of my depth.”

“I'm not surprised. Tom is a seducer on a massive scale. I suggest you steer well clear of him. Now, what are you going to have to drink? Do you do cocktails—it looks as though Delia's mixing some rather lethal gin fizzes—or d'you stick to champagne?”

“I stick to champagne. And why do so many people refer to Tom as Fruity? It's doesn't suit him. It's too comic a nickname for someone who looks like a demon king.”

“The answer is, that they don't,” he said, amused. “The only Fruity, is Fruity Metcalfe.”

“Then who have I just been talking to?” she asked, looking back to where the demon king had been joined again by Baba.

“Sir Oswald Mosley. Tom is his nickname. Far from being Baba's husband, he's her brother-in-law. His wife, Cimmie, died a couple of months ago.”

Her mother, looking sensational in a dress of lime-green chiffon that fitted close to her slim figure yet floated as if in a breeze, was carrying two gin fizzes in Baba and Tom's direction. As she handed them the drinks, Davina saw Tom Mosley slide his free hand once again around his sister-in-law's waist.

If Jerome also saw what looked to Davina to be a shocking intimacy, he made no comment on it.

“Tell me how you are enjoying your first season,” he said with the kind of avuncular interest in her activities he'd always shown. “In the general way of things your mother would have kept me in touch about it, but I haven't seen a lot of her lately.” There was deep regret in his voice and his gold-flecked eyes were no longer on her but on her mother, who was again mixing cocktails with great expertise. “It's something I intend to rectify.”

Two weeks later Aileen Sinclair returned from Scotland. She was tall, with a square-jawed, high-cheek-boned face and a mass of dark hair. Like Fergus, the clothes she wore were good quality, but had seen better days. Her mauve-flecked tweed skirt was faded; her pink twinset had suffered far too many trips to the laundry; and her sandals were inelegantly flat and serviceable.

“We're going to make a wonderful team, Davina,” she said with a wide, friendly smile and Davina knew instantly that she had at last found a friend who, unlike Fawzia, shared her passion for helping others.

“Fergus thinks you should be taught how to give inoculations and so I have a couple of oranges with me for you to practice on. Have you always wanted to learn a little nursing?”

“Yes—though when I was very young I wanted to be a doctor. And then I realized that I wasn't clever enough.”

“Then be a nurse. You could do your training at Guy's Hospital. For now, though, let's have you practicing puncturing these oranges.”

And with another wide smile her new friend passed her an orange and a syringe.

For the next two weeks Davina enjoyed every hour of every day. Before anyone else was awake she left the house and traveled to Whitechapel on public transport. While Fawzia, with Gwen—and sometimes Jack—attended de rigueur events such as the Wimbledon tennis championship, Davina accompanied Fergus and Aileen on their tireless rounds.

At first she had thought that was what Toynbee Hall was all about.

“Heavens, no,” Fergus said with a chuckle when she put her assumption into words. “Toynbee has a far broader aim. It's a social workshop on a grand scale, Davina.”

They had taken a break from treating the seemingly endless stream of lice-ridden children. Fergus wrapped his hands around a mug of tea. “One of our prime aims is education. There are year-round day classes for the unemployed—all free, of course. There are also weekly debates—often with leading political figures as speakers. Those days the hall is packed to overflowing.”

He put his mug down, took his glasses off, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “One of our central tenets is that education should be a two-way street. How can politicians, for instance, fight poverty and unemployment if they never see these conditions face-to-face? By living for a few weeks at Toynbee they
do so. Men with the experience of Toynbee behind them are men who can truly make a difference.”

He gave a wry grimace. “I just wish more of this country's useless aristocracy would follow their example instead of spending their time drinking cocktails and going to balls so lavish the cost of even one would provide an adequate meal for the half of Whitechapel. How they can live as they do, in their vast houses and estates, while most British people have neither running water nor heating is beyond my ken.”

At the stricken look on her face he gave an apologetic grin. “Sorry. I didn't mean to go off on a rant. It's just something I feel very passionate about. I think we'd better start work again or we'll be here till midnight and Aileen won't want that. Usher in our next snotty-nosed patient, will you?”

Afterward she knew she should have told him about her privileged background, but she hadn't known how to bring up the subject again. There was something else, too.

Whitechapel was an area of Jewish immigrants. The language she'd heard on the streets the first time she had walked from Aldgate East station to Toynbee Hall was Yiddish. Synagogues stood at nearly every corner. And vicious attacks on Jews, by members of Sir Oswald Mosley's new and growing British Union of Fascists, were a daily occurrence.

“And it will only grow worse,” Aileen had said to her gravely. “Like Hitler, his Fascist rhetoric appeals to bullies and thugs, especially when they can parade around in Blackshirt uniforms and give stiff-armed, Nazi-type salutes.”

Whenever Davina thought of Sir Oswald Mosley she cringed. If Fergus and Aileen were to discover that Mosley frequently dropped in for cocktails at her home, they wouldn't want anything further to do with her.