The Novel in the Viola (6 page)

‘Next maid . . . You. To the desk.’

It took me a moment to realise that the woman with the half-moon spectacles and the ramrod back was calling to me. My cheeks burning, I hurried to the desk and sat down. She peered at me with small blue eyes.

‘Manners, please. You may be appointed to one of the finest establishments in all of England. Or Scotland,’ she added, as an afterthought. ‘Do you have any experience in domestic service?’

I stared at her, slowly translating her words in my head.

‘Well,’ she demanded, impatient. ‘Cat caught your tongue?’

This was such a strange expression that I giggled in spite of myself, and then realising my mistake, slapped my hand in front of my mouth. Hastily, I pulled out Mrs Ellsworth’s crumpled epistle from my pocket and pushed it across the table. She read in silence and then looked up at me.

‘Well, you are a very lucky girl, Elise. Mr Rivers comes from a fine old family. Not titled, but ancient nonetheless. You must try to be deserving of his faith in you,’ she said in a tone that revealed she thought this most unlikely. ‘I don’t want to see you back again in a week or two because the work was hard. I had a woman in a month back who said she’d been a countess or something. Said she’d never even put on her own stockings before and if we wasn’t in the midst of such a servant shortage, I would have sent her packing. But then this morning I got a note from Mrs Forde, saying that Mrs Baronstein was the best char she’d ever had.’

She gazed at me across the table and I realised that some response was required, but once again I found myself imprisoned by my lack of language, unable to utter a word. Realising that I had nothing to say, and presumably taking me for an impertinent wretch, she stood up very straight and pushed back her chair. It squealed against the linoleum like a kicked dog. She disappeared into a side room, returning a minute later with an envelope, which she thrust at me. ‘Here. Take this. There are sufficient funds for your journey and instructions. You are to take the 8:17 train from Waterloo to Weymouth tomorrow morning. You will be met at Wareham station.’

She studied me for a moment, before adding, ‘I know exactly how much money is in that envelope so don’t go telling Mrs Ellsworth that it was not enough, or I shall find you out, so-help-me-God.’

I snatched up my letter and, stuffing it into my coat pocket along with the money, strolled past the benches of waiting refugees and former countesses.

Lying on the narrow bed that night, still wearing my now crumpled clothes, I sobbed myself to sleep. I had never really cried before coming to London. Several months ago, trying to avoid Hildegard’s wrath after having stolen a wing off a cold chicken intended for Anna’s bridge ladies’ luncheon, I had stubbed my toe so hard on the kitchen table that it made my eyes water, but not actually cry.

After the meeting at the Mayfair Agency I had gone to the post office to send Anna a wire, like I had promised. While I waited in yet another queue (I had experienced more standing in polite, shuffle-legged lines in my first thirty-six hours in England than ever before in my life), I composed the telegram in my head:

ENGLISH FRIGHTFUL STOP COMING HOME STOP

Or perhaps:

AM ACCUSED OF THIEVERY STOP ESCAPING TO NEW YORK STOP

And yet, somehow the message I sent when I reached the counter was:

ALL WELL STOP DEPART FOR TYNEFORD TOMORROW STOP ENGLISH CHARMING STOP

At eight-nineteen the next morning, I sat in the third-class carriage of the Weymouth train as it chugged out of Waterloo. My trunk and suitcase were stashed in the luggage car, while I sat sandwiched between two matronly ladies, and to my chagrin, every time the train lurched left or right I was propelled into the bosom of one or other. Neither lady appeared to notice, but I was extremely glad when one disembarked at Croydon and I was able to slide up to the window seat. I pressed my face against the glass, and through my own reflection I watched the sprawl of London stretch on and on. I had never seen so much grey in my life; the only pinprick of colour was the odd red sweater or yellow frock, fluttering amongst the dull whites on the washing-lines. The small terraced houses backing onto the railway, with their ragged patchwork gardens and dirt-encrusted windows, reminded me of the glimpse into my old neighbours’ lives in the apartment across the street. Boys in shorts scrabbled in the dust and lobbed pebbles at the passing train as women scolded them from doorways. All the chimneypots belched smoke and the leaves on the stunted shrubs beside the tracks were black instead of green. I kept my ticket anxiously clasped in my palm, and it grew sticky with sweat, the ink starting to run.

My stomach growled. I had eaten the meagre breakfast provided by the hostel, but had no money for lunch, except for the remaining coins in the envelope. I shuddered as I recalled her threat – I couldn’t possibly spend a halfpenny of that money on a bread roll. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I ended up in prison – I rather doubted Julian could help me here. I regretted having eaten all of Margot’s chocolate.

A young man in a cheap suit smelling of cologne and cigarettes climbed onto the train and, slamming the carriage door, settled opposite me. He gave me a little smile and a nod before unfolding his newspaper. I tried to read the headlines. In my quiet cocoon of unhappiness I had forgotten the outside world for a day or two and had heard no news.
London smog reaches record level . . . Royal Family embark on voyage to America . . . Is Czechoslovakia next?
I tried to read more, but the print was too small.

‘Miss, you want to read?’

I looked up, and saw that the young man proffered the newspaper. I hadn’t realised, but I was perched on the edge of my seat.

‘Thank you. Please. Yes. I would like very much.’

I took the paper and began to read the article, slowly and yet fairly fluently. I could understand written English quite easily. I felt him watching me.

‘Your mouth moves when you read.’

I blinked, startled by such an intimate observation.

‘I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude. I’m Andy. Andy Turnbull.’

I wasn’t sure whether this was usual or not, strangers telling one another their familiar names on trains. Perhaps it only occurred on the Waterloo to Weymouth line. I neither wanted to cause offence nor encourage his attentions.

‘Elise Landau,’ I said curtly, returning to the paper.

‘Is you from Czechoslovakia then, Miss Landau?’

I lowered the
Daily Mail
in surprise. ‘No, Austria. Vienna.’

‘Ah Vi-enna. I’ve heard of that. Beautiful canals. The Doodge Palace.’

I sighed – the English were as ignorant as Margot had claimed. ‘No, that is Venice. In Italy.’

From his expression, I could see that this meant nothing. I tried again. ‘I am from Vienna. Austria?’

He stared at me, smiling blankly, and it was quite apparent that he hadn’t the slightest idea about Vienna. I didn’t know why I should care, and yet it irked me that this overly familiar young man in a shiny suit with a dried egg stain on his left trouser leg knew nothing of my city.

‘
Vienna is a city where you can see the sky. There are a thousand cafés lining the pavements, where we sit and drink coffee and chatter and the old men argue over chess and cards. In spring there are balls, and we dance till three in the morning, the ladies a swirl of white dresses like apple blossoms spiralling to earth in the night. We eat ice creams in the summer by the Danube watching boats hung with lanterns drift along the water. Even the wind waltzes. It is a city of music and light.
’

‘Beg your pardon?’

I blinked at him again, realising that I’d been speaking in German. ‘Please excusing me. My English language is not so good. Vienna is best city in all world.’

He gave me an odd look. ‘Why you here then?’

I had neither the words nor the inclination to answer. I racked my brains for a suitable phrase. ‘I am explorer. In-tepid.’

I raised the paper, and he did not speak to me again for a full half hour. I studied the stories closely, trying to understand the nuance. I suspected that one or two of them were intended to be mildly humorous but the detail was beyond me.

‘May I fetch you something from the buffet?’ asked Andy, interrupting my lesson.

I was dreadfully hungry, and thought guiltily of the envelope of cash in my pocket. Anna insisted that one should never accept offers of refreshment from unknown gentlemen. On reflection, I decided I must be cautious.

‘No, thank you.’

He tipped his hat and ambled along the carriage, bouncing against the benches on either side of the aisle as the train clattered and rocked. A few minutes later he returned with two bottles of milk and two paper bags filled with chocolate biscuits. He pushed one of each into my hands.

‘Sorry, miss. Felt awful uncomfortable munching across from you,’ he said, holding up his own bag of biscuits. ‘Scuse the impertinence.’

‘Thank you,’ I said and sipped at the milk. It was slightly sour, just on the turn, but I didn’t care. I drank greedily in gulps and tried not to cram the biscuits into my mouth. It was the first time in two days that someone had been kind to me.

‘You was hungry,’ he observed.

I swallowed my mouthful of crumbs, suddenly self-conscious. I folded up the newspaper and returned it to him. ‘I thank you, Mr Turnbull. Most kindly.’

He grinned. ‘You’re funny, you are
.
’

I turned back to the window – perhaps in England I was funny. I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure when, but we had left London and rushed through a verdant land. It began to rain and drops hammered against the windows. We hurtled past cows sheltering beneath clumps of trees and wool-soaked sheep and brimming rivers slopping against their banks. The stations became smaller and the time between them lengthened. The metalled roads winding beside the railway were replaced by dirt tracks, turning to muddy soup in the deluge. I wished I had not packed my raincoat at the bottom of my trunk. The carriage began to empty; Andy clambered out at Salisbury, tipping his hat.

The train travelled more slowly. I could see vast country houses, each the size of an entire apartment building, marooned in swathes of meadow like ocean liners. After the drab squalor of the city, I felt I was not gazing upon reality but a stage set daubed in make-believe colours. The grass was too green, and the banks of primroses beside the tracks bright as fresh butter. The rain vanished as suddenly as it had arrived, and the sun slunk out from behind a cloud, so that the sky was streaked with blue and the green ground glistened. I listened to the strange place names called by the guard:
‘
Next stop Brockenhurst . . . Change here for Blandford Forum and the slow train to Sturminster Newton
. . .
Next stop Christchurch . . .’

I felt drowsy, and my limbs were stiff, while my temples pulsed with the rhythm of the train. It was stuffy inside the carriage and I wrenched open the window and leant out, enjoying the wind rushing against my cheeks and tearing at the pins fastening my hair. I opened my mouth and tasted salt. The air was clean and heather-scented, and I scoured the horizon for a glimpse of the sea. We hurtled along wild heath tangled with scrub and black swathes of forest. The trees stretched endlessly into the distance, a mass of swaying green, rippling up and down the sloping hills.

‘Next stop Wareham. Wareham next stop,’ called the guard, hurrying through the train.

I stood in a rush, heart beating in my ears, and snatched up my satchel and the viola case. I wobbled on my feet as the train shuddered to a halt, fumbled with the door, hands shaking, and climbed out onto the platform. Frightened that the train would leave with my belongings, I shouted for the guard and ran to the luggage car.

‘Which one is it, miss? Hurry up now. Train needs to be off.’

Thirty seconds later, I was standing alone on the station platform. A torn poster commanding the reader to DRINK ELDRIDGE POPE’S INDIA PALE ALE flapped in the breeze, and far away a dog barked. I watched as the train became snail-sized and disappeared into the woods, sat down on my trunk and waited.

CHAPTER SIX

Seventeen gates

‘Elise Landau?’

‘Yes?’

I looked up and saw a lean man of at least seventy years, shoulders slightly stooped, standing at the end of the platform and chewing on a pipe with extreme concentration. He ambled across to me in no particular hurry and glanced at my luggage.

‘Yorn?’

I stared at him, uncomprehending. He spat the pipe out of his mouth and enunciated with exaggerated clarity.

‘Them baggages is what be belongin’ ter you?’

‘Yes.’

Muttering something under his breath, he disappeared down the platform again at the same slow lope, reappearing a few minutes later with a trolley. With surprising ease he heaved on the bags and trundled it towards the front of the station.

‘Mr Bobbin don’t like ter be kept waitin’,’ he said gruffly.

I attempted to smooth my dress and hair, while scurrying to keep up. In my experience chauffeurs were invariably impatient. The old man led the way to a cobbled yard, where a smart motorcar waited, engine running, but my companion walked past it, stopping instead beside a ramshackle wooden cart attached to a massive carriage-horse, nose buried in a stash of hay.

‘Ah. Mr Bobbin,’ he said, letting out a small, satisfied sigh.

In those days, carriages and carts were still a common sight in Vienna, but they belonged to tinkers and coal-merchants, or farmers bringing goods to market. I had understood Mr Rivers to be a wealthy man and presumed him the owner of at least one motorcar. I experienced a strange feeling in my belly, as I realised that Mr Rivers may indeed have a smart motorcar and simply did not choose to send it and his chauffeur to collect the new housemaid. As I idled, my luggage was unceremoniously tossed in the back of the cart and after clambering onto the driving seat, the old man reached down and hauled me up with a strong arm.