Someone Special (73 page)

‘But I wanted to be set on fire! I wanted to bask in Dan’s blaze – and Dan did blaze I can tell you! It’s cruelly unfair to say that Dan’s like Mr Geraint, because you’ve not seen him since he was about ten – and I have. He’s a wonderful person and I almost hate you, Mum, for deliberately splitting us up. I almost hate Snip too, for trapping me, and it’s all your fault, all of it, because you deliberately lied to me just so that I’d do what you wanted me to do.’

‘It’s too late,’ Hester repeated tearfully. She sat down at the kitchen table and buried her face in her hands. ‘You’re a married woman with a home and responsibilities … what can I do except say how sorry I am? I never thought you loved Dan, I just thought you had a girlish crush on him. And darling, six years have changed you and they will have changed Dan too. He’ll either be married, or one of those smart young men in a high-powered job, with no time for the likes of you and me. You’ve not seen him since the war ended, have you? People change, my dearest Nell, people change.’

Nell sat down too. She felt terribly tired, as if all she wanted was to sleep for a week. At the back of her mind, something Mrs Burroughes had once said echoed; something about Dan not caring for her the way she seemed to care for him. Something about her feelings for Dan
being calf-love, having no roots in reality. But right now she was too shocked and miserable to want to remember, to examine her old friend’s words. Hester had lied to her, Snip had trapped her into marriage, and she had lost Dan. Six years on, her memories of him were still sharp and clear, but what about the reality? Would that ever have matched up with the dream? Truthfulness, hovering still, told her that it probably would not, but she was still too angry and hurt to let Hester off the hook.

‘Mum, you’d better go. We’ll talk again when I’ve cooled down.’

‘All right,’ Hester said wearily, getting to her feet. ‘Love’s a funny thing, Nell. Mr Geraint loved us both and hurt us very badly. I love you desperately and only want the best for you, I didn’t want you to be seduced, as I was, and then abandoned. But what I did hurt you, and that was the last thing I intended. So don’t hurt Snip, dearest! Because his love is the best thing that’s ever happened to you, even if you can’t acknowledge it yet.’

Nell worked hard that afternoon. She baked, cleaned down the kitchen, polished the big hall, and then went and made a tray of tea and carried it up to Snip in the Long Gallery.

She walked carefully up the long, shiny corridor, approving of Snip’s labours as she went. He had polished all along here and the dark boards looked like pools of water, clear and deep. When she reached it, she flung open the door of the Long Gallery and blinked in the flooding April sunlight. The sunshine fell on the golden glory of the parquet flooring, diamonded from the three great chandeliers which hung down the centre of the room, and illumined the little tables and small gilt chairs.

The pile of cleaning equipment which he had used was tidily piled up near the door, but of Snip there was no sign.

He must have gone down to the WC, Nell told herself prosaically, but her heart gave a startled little flip when she saw, on the table nearest her, a sheet of white paper carefully held down by one of the empty flower vases. She walked over to it, taking her time, telling herself that it was something Snip had found, some bit of information, perhaps, which he wanted to remember.

But in her heart, suddenly, there was a yawning blackness, as though her heart knew very well what was written on the piece of paper. She picked it up. Read it.

Dear Nell, Listeners never hear good of theirselves; don’t I know it! I’m dead sorry about that Dan fellow, I hope you know I didn’t realise? I was shocked at what your Mum done, that wasn’t right and I’m sure she’s sorry. I don’t want you to hate me though, not ever, so I’m leaving. Not for always or for good, nothing like that. Just so’s we can both have a think. Not that I need to think. These have been the best years of my life so even if it is over, if we decide to call it a day, at least I’ll have it in my head to look back at
.

She had to read it through three times before it really sank in. He had gone! Well, he couldn’t have gone far, that stood to reason. What must have happened was that he had come back for something he’d forgotten, started to open the door and heard the row. Only a saint would have gone away, not listened, once they realised what it was about, and Snip was no saint.

Nell sank into the nearest chair and stared at the note; she wondered what she should do. He said he wasn’t leaving for good, just so that they could have a think. A think? But what on earth would she want to think about? She frowned, puzzling over it. Then her heart sank. He thought she meant all those awful things she had said, all the daft things, too, about Dan being a
blaze of glamour and Snip being a mistake – things she had said to hurt Hester, to revenge herself for a lost dream, but not things she meant!

She scrambled to her feet, kicking the table as she did so and sending the tea-tray and its contents flying over the polished floor. If he believed things like that, he could do anything. She must find him at once, tell him it had all been wickedness and spite on her part, beg him to come back. She loved him, she knew that now; it had probably always been Snip, but Dan and his good looks had got in the way, dizzied her silly young head as a moth is dizzied by light. Then Hester had added to it by making Dan forbidden fruit – her brother, indeed! She remembered, suddenly, all sorts of things she had not liked about Dan: the times he had got her into trouble when they were kids and failed to extricate her; when he had ignored her existence and gone his own way, and other times when she had been quite close enough for him to visit her had he cared to. Times when she had needed him and he had not come.

Why didn’t I ever tell Dan about the fair? she wondered as she flew down the long, shallow flight of stairs. Because I knew he would despise it, think I was just a common kid after all. That was my hero, the man I thought I wanted to marry, someone I dared not trust with the truth about myself.

She had left the kitchen door open. She shot through the room and out the back door. Across the yard, under the arch, through the wild garden, and there was the drive … empty. No small figure with a suitcase trudged along it, no one on a bicycle, or in a car. He had a good start but she could catch him up if she was sensible. She would go to the lodge, tell Hester, find out if she’d seen Snip and then make for the telephone box at the end of the road. She ought to have telephoned from the castle for a taxi, but she had not thought of it in time.

She burst into the lodge. Hester was ironing and looked up. Her face was blotched and still damp with recent tears.

‘Snip’s gone,’ Nell panted. ‘Have you seen him?’

Hester was embarrassed by her tears. She kept her head down, surreptitiously wiped her cheeks, mumbled.

‘No. He’s probably with Matt.’

‘No, he’s left. Mum, he heard! He heard what we said in the kitchen, he left me a note. He’s gone!’

Hester sat down suddenly. ‘He heard? He’s gone?’

‘Yes! I’m going down to the box to phone for a taxi. He can’t have got far, he’ll go to Rhyl of course, catch a train, find Gullivers. What else could he do? I must find him, tell him it was all silly nonsense, that I didn’t mean a word of it.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘Oh, Mum, of
course
I didn’t! I was hurt and upset and very angry, but I didn’t mean … Snip’s someone so special that life without him wouldn’t be life at all. Dan was just puppy-love, like you said, because he was so handsome. He wouldn’t have been right for me, I know it now even if I didn’t know it then. Look, tell Dad … I’ll see you later. Oh, can you lend me some money?’

Hester lent her ten shillings and some pennies and Nell ran down to the road and dived into the telephone box. There was no sign of Snip on the road, but she hadn’t expected it to be that easy. When the taxi arrived she jumped in and told him to take her to the railway station in Rhyl. When Snip was not there she tried the bus terminal, the taxi ranks, the surrounding countryside.

There was no sign of him. To all intents and purposes, Snip Morris had disappeared.

20

IT HAD NOT
been an easy year for any of them. Ever since the news of King George VI’s death had been broken to them in the early stages of their African tour, the Queen and her husband had been struggling to come to terms with what had happened to them. Their children were too young to understand or help; it was only Elizabeth and Philip who could face up to the fearful change in their lives and learn to live with it.

Peggy had watched and marvelled; they were so young, so totally unprepared, but so quick to grasp the nettle held out to them, so resolute. For the Princess to lose her adored and adoring papa had been bad enough, but to have to take on, at her age, all the responsibilities and cares of the monarchy was a task which would have been beyond many women twice her age.

‘But she’s been brought up knowing all about duty,’ old Mrs Day says, when Peggy went around to her flat for a chat about the old days. Mrs Day had been retired for ten years, but her mind was as sharp as ever and her love and admiration for her nursling had never wavered. ‘The King was always driven by conscience; she watched, and learned, and could not help but take it in. She’ll be a wonderful Queen because she never thinks of herself, only of others.’

The terrible year had passed, it sometimes seemed to Peggy, on leaden feet. But the depth of sorrow, if it had not lessened, had eased. The move to Buckingham Palace had been put off for as long as possible, for the young couple had made Clarence House their own and it was a delightful and comfortable home. The palace, on the other hand, had never been either delightful or
comfortable. But they can make it so, Peggy told herself. They’ve done wonders before, they can do it again. At least the shortages are not so severe now. At least it will only need a search to find regency striped wallpaper, not a miracle.

Imperceptibly, the planning of the coronation began to take precedence over other events. It had to be truly memorable, Elizabeth and Philip agreed; they wanted a slightly longer route than had previously been used so that more people might enjoy the spectacle. The Queen and her husband insisted that part of the ceremony be filmed so that those unable to be there might enjoy the scene inside the abbey also. They would both ride, side by side, to the abbey in the gold state coach, and Philip would be the first to render to the Queen his Act of Homage.

It was to be in June, when the weather might just possibly be fine: ‘It’s never fine for royal occasions though,’ the Queen reminded everyone. ‘It always rains – it’s a good sign that it rains. But we must prepare for it, nevertheless.’

They prepared for everything. Rehearsals went well, but not too well, ancient peers of the realm were strategically placed so that someone could keep an eye on them, stop them nodding off at important moments and help them to their feet, to their seats, into the aisles. Elizabeth and Philip agreed to undertake a series of coronation visits, first to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, then to the Commonwealth. They pored over Norman Hartnell’s sketches for their coronation robes and perhaps Elizabeth remembered the argument at the previous coronation, when she had thought that Margaret, as the younger, should have a shorter train, and smiled a little at that long-ago disagreement.

The day before the great day dawned, people were assembling in their thousands. They took up their places on pavements, in squares, around London’s great open
spaces. They were cheerful, loquacious, undaunted by the wait which lay ahead.

It rained, of course.

Anna always knew she would attend the coronation. ‘By hook or by crook’, she had said to her friends. ‘We were born on the same day, I’ve watched her grow up from a little girl like me to a young woman like me, I was outside the abbey cheering when she married, and now I’m going to be outside the abbey cheering as she’s crowned Queen. She’s
my
Princess, she always has been.’

Finding out that Dan was in England had nothing to do with it, of course. She had known that for a month, and had done nothing about it, because what could she do? He had proposed marriage, she had all but agreed to it, and then run away without a word. She had expected him to follow her and had braced herself to explain that she did not intend to marry anyone at all, but he had done no such thing. She had even gone around to the embassy in Paris and asked to speak to him, only to be told that he had been seconded to London until after the coronation.

Anna was friendly with most of the English girls working at UNESCO and with many of the other girls too. Her work was varied and interesting, though her social life, now that Dan was no longer in Paris, left a lot to be desired. She intended to take a couple of weeks’ holiday in September, to go to Italy with Constance. The trip would increase her knowledge of the language and would, she hoped, strengthen the bond between her mother and herself. But she was grimly determined to see the Queen crowned, even if she did not set eyes on Dan.

‘He’ll be coming back after the coronation,’ her friend Thérèse said comfortingly. ‘Everyone says this is so. Already they miss your friend very much, in the embassy.’

Anna felt her heart give a bumpy, uneven bound and
told Thérèse with unaccustomed sharpness that it was a matter of indifference to her where Dan Clifton worked. Thérèse slanted her long black eyes and shrugged, a shrug so typically Gallic that it made Anna laugh, and she felt constrained to tell Thérèse she was sorry for snapping her head off, and was told, with another of those humorous looks, that it was always so; girls in love always snapped at their
amies
. Anna shrugged too and muttered that she supposed she did miss him, Dan being such an old friend …

She had booked her holiday a long while before, so her boss was plaintive when she said she wanted four days in June as well. He said it would be very difficult, that she knew the rules of the department, that he would like to accommodate her … in the end he agreed because he must have guessed that she would hand in her notice if he persisted in refusing.