The Florian Signet

by John Burke

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be good for Uncle Edgar to have you along, though,’ Caroline said as we went into the hall. ‘You still pursue crotchets and quavers together?’ She glanced down at the two sheets of music I was trying not to crumple. ‘Still the busy little bluestocking?’

  To anyone else the amusement in her tone might have sounded affectionate.

  I accompanied her upstairs to my bedroom. On her last visit here she had made little secret of her scorn for the house, with its uneven walls, its draughts and its inescapably ecclesiastical feeling and smell – ‘Like damp cassocks and badly snuffed candles,’ she had once airily said to me. The place was undeniably hard to keep clean and warm and dry. There were too many crevices, too much old wood and plaster, and too many rooms. Things had not been too bad when the boys were at home, but when they went away they left, one by one, an increasing number of echoing spaces. Even so, I wondered what Caroline honestly made of this spaciousness now, in contrast with that little terraced house in Sunderland which, so I’d heard, was all that had been salvaged from the wreck of Uncle Henry’s fortunes.

  She turned on the landing to look at me. Her eyes widened, darker than her silky brown hair and even richer. I felt a pang of shame at my own complacency, and very nearly put out a hand and said something sentimental. But her small mouth, which used to pucker up so winsomely when she wanted to coax something out of her father, had somehow tightened and thinned these last few years, and was ready to snap at me the moment she detected any hint of condescension.

  I was showing her where everything was to be found in the bedroom when Aunt Aurelia and my mother stopped by the doorway.

  ‘Nora, you’re not giving up your own room? Oh, but Caroline wouldn’t have wanted that, would you, dear?’

  I said: ‘It’s more comfortable than the spare room along the landing. And as I’m going away, it would be silly to have a lot of moving to and fro.’

  ‘If you’d been staying on,’ said Caroline in a level tone, ‘no doubt I’d have made shift to be comfortable in the spare room.’

  ‘It’s so sweet of you, Nora,’ said her mother, ‘but you didn’t have to move out until you were ready to leave.’

  ‘Just for the sake of a few days, it seemed simplest to let Caroline come straight in. Silly to have a lot of moving to and fro,’ I said again.

  ‘Isn’t that thoughtful?’

  Caroline opened a drawer in the dressing-table and contemplated the clean paper with which I had lined it. ‘I promise to look after it, Nora. And keep it as tidy and spotless as I can.’

  I left her to unpack and went downstairs.

  That evening at dinner my mother made the most of her new audience. She loved the chance of talking to someone not encountered for a long time, asking them what they had been doing and what had been happening, rarely allowing time for an answer before she conceived another question. As her voice rose and fell I was conscious of the thickening of her accent again, with a lilt that was, for no reason, vaguely Scottish.

  Caroline looked about her, appraising the room. In the fading light from the window her hair had the sheen of highly polished mahogany, more finely grained than the polished woodwork of our table or the long oak dresser.

  She caught my eye and said: ‘So now it’s your turn to be pushed off to the Continent to broaden your mind.’

  ‘Hardly a case of being pushed off,’ protested my father. ‘Dragged along with her ageing invalid, rather. And the broadening will be somewhat limited. The ladies will spend most of their time dancing attendance on me, waiting for me to consume or submerge myself in prescribed quantities of water.’

  ‘You’ll find it such a wonderful experience, Nora.’ Aunt Aurelia flashed little smiles at me and her daughter. ‘Caroline has never forgotten it, have you, dear?’

  ‘I do my best.’

  It was so curt and dismissive that I turned away from that icily beautiful face and looked out of the window, over the yew hedge and up to the filigree of the lantern tower against the darkening sky. Aunt Aurelia went on gushing thanks to my mother and father for all they had done on Caroline’s behalf; and outside an owl swooped suddenly around a crocketed pinnacle.

  ‘You’ll have to guard Nora against the young men,’ Aunt Aurelia piped on. ‘Of course Caroline did have any number of offers while she was abroad. Hardly surprising, knowing what foreigners are.’ Then, glimpsing my mother’s little flicker of mirth, she realized what she had said, gasped, and cried: ‘Oh, dear, you know I didn’t mean . . . it was only the men I meant, not . . .’

  My mother turned to Caroline. ‘We never heard of any affairs of the heart while you were away.’

  ‘I was worked too hard to have leisure for such things.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Aunt Aurelia. ‘She won’t let us into her secrets. But I know, I know. A mother understands these things. And since she got back . . . though I mustn’t give away secrets either, must I?’

  In a voice meant to be languid but with too prickly an edge to succeed, Caroline said: ‘Do you suffer this kind of nonsense, Nora? I can’t endure having it taken for granted that two people should automatically marry because relatives suppose they will.’

  Her mother began: ‘When an agreeable match presents itself –’

  ‘Agreement demands two people of like mind,’ said Caroline, ‘and no third, fourth or fifth party to push them together.’ She persisted: ‘What about you, Nora? Has something dull and suitable been fixed for you?’

  Before I could reply my mother began fussily pushing a vegetable dish under Caroline’s nose. Whenever conversation took a turn which displeased or bored her, or when she herself had been offered no opportunity of talking for five or more minutes, it was her habit to offer a second helping of potatoes, encourage my father to carve more meat, push condiments in all directions, and in general create such a stir that anyone caught in the middle of a sentence would never again find the path to the end of it.

  Next day I was deputed to take Caroline for a stroll and show her where everything was in the town. In a place as compact as Ely, tucked on its shallow island above the levels, this was no long task. Having pointed out the shops she was most likely to be interested in, and politely ignored her affected lack of interest, I suggested we might go down to the river. Caroline neither assented nor complained. She was in that state I had known years ago: a waiting mood, waiting to see which way she should jump, maybe even waiting to decide whether it was worth jumping at all. Until she saw something she coveted – usually something of mine, however trivial – she played at indifference. Or perhaps the indifference, while it lasted, was as real as everything else about her.

  We followed the footpath around the Cherry Hill orchards and down the slope of parkland towards the quays. Pointing out the boat-yards across the river and their images mirrored in the water, I became aware that she was looking not at the shacks and cradles and a half-made keel but at her own reflection. I looked down. My own face and hair looked dull beside hers. I had straight black hair which my mother said came from some Slav ancestor of hers, and which my father swore was just the shade of his Welsh grandmother’s. My eyes, too, were very deep and dark, and in the still water showed as blind and empty sockets. I did not know, myself, what was behind those sombre features, so could scarcely expect anyone else to be in sympathy.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a tremor of light at the bend of the river. The bow wave of a barge broke the surface and sent water slapping against the banks. The horse had stopped, and the stern of the barge was slowly roped in towards the stage.

  ‘Delivering grain for the maltings,’ I explained.

  ‘Just the sort of thing I’d expect you to know,’ said Caroline.

  We strolled along the uneven footpath.

  Caroline shaded her eyes. ‘The name on that boat . . .’

  ‘Warrington. They’re the big shippers in these parts: coastal, canal, everything, From Wisbech.’

  ‘Warrington’s of Wisbech,’ she sa
id softly. ‘You know them?’

  Indeed I did. I knew John Warrington, one of my father’s oldest friends. And his son Dominic. But all I said was: ‘Everyone hereabouts knows them.’

  Her gaze was still fixed on the coloured scrollwork and lettering. ‘The same Warringtons,’ she asked, ‘who drove my father to ruin?’

  It took my breath away. How could she have conceived such a wild notion? For a moment I was at a loss for words. Then I managed:

  ‘I don’t know the full story of what happened, but I’m sure there was nothing like that in it.’

  ‘I know what happened. I know exactly what happened.’

  ‘Caroline, if you’d ever met the Warringtons –’

  ‘You think I’d ever want to meet any one of them?’

  Whether she wanted to or not, there was a meeting sooner than might have been anticipated.

  We turned back towards the town, up through the old vineyards towards the great sprawling length of that earthbound ship of whose splendour I never grew weary. So far as Caroline was concerned there might have been nothing whatsoever on the skyline. She looked straight ahead but I sensed she was seeing something quite different, and I did not even venture to draw her attention to the lovely jumble of red-tiled roofs with their dustings of stonecrop, or the fine-spun streamers of cloud far up in the heavens. It struck me that, with only her own perverse grudges to sustain her, she was going to have a dull time while we were away. In silence we made our way along Firmary Lane and back to the house – to find Dominic Warrington waiting for us.

  He had come by train to Ely to check on certain dues down at the maltings – ‘And I thought I would call in to wish you a pleasant journey.’

  My mother introduced him to Caroline. They were almost of a height; and Caroline looked directly into his eyes and kindled a response I did not care to see. Of course it was impossible to blame any man for being quickened by Caroline’s beauty. Still I was upset enough to blurt out something utterly stupid in an effort to distract his attention.

  He smiled down at me. Condescendingly, I thought.

  He wore a riding coat with a high, almost military collar and amber buttons. As ever, he carried himself confidently but without a hint of swagger; and although his main concern was with boats and barges and railways, I never saw a man – nor have seen one to this day – who could sit a horse as proudly as he did.

  ‘So you’ll be having two months of leisure and luxury,’ he was saying, ‘while we poor souls endure two months of deprivation.’

  He was with us for no more than ten minutes, most of which was taken up by conventional queries about our route, the name of our hotel, and my father’s health. These queries were shared out pretty evenly between my mother and myself; but it seemed to me that another, silent dialogue was going on at the same time and that I was no part of it.

  Caroline stood unusually still and statuesque.

  Aunt Aurelia appeared and was introduced, and there was another flurry of polite exchanges. Then Dominic shook hands with us all, and would have left me to the last but for Caroline’s moving aside to look with apparent casualness over the hedge.

  Dominic stooped to kiss my cheek lightly. ‘Do write to me, Little Leonora. Bring a breath of foreign excitement into our drab landscape. Promise?’

  There was a suspicion of dark curl above the edge of his collar. Another twist of hair made a sardonic question mark above his right eyebrow. As he straightened up I was possessed by a sudden, shameful urge to plead with him not to turn away from me, not yet.

  But it was Caroline’s turn. With a convincing start of surprise she let him take her hand. Equally convincing was the impulsiveness with which she blurted out:

  ‘You mustn’t cease visiting the Close simply because Nora is away. I’m sure my mother would like you to take tea with us any afternoon you happen to be in the town.’

  I found that I was staring at his firm profile, the high forehead and blunt nose and stern chin, softened by his generous and humorous mouth, as if I might never see them again.

  ‘Bon voyage, then.’

  When he had gone and I was alone with Caroline, I was tempted to draw some spiteful contrast between her denunciation of the Warringtons and her abrupt conversion to liking Dominic. Was she going to amplify that mysterious earlier remark?

  Instead she mused: ‘I thought you told me there was nobody with whom you had an understanding?’

  ‘I don’t think I said anything, one way or the other.’

  ‘No,’ she said without a blink. ‘No, that’s right: you didn’t, did you? So there are no . . . intentions . . . on either side?’

  ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘Oh, Nora, it’s no concern of mine. Just a passing curiosity. It’s so long since we met – one tries to catch up, you know.’

  She waited. In the end I said: ‘No intentions. None.’

  Or none, I thought wistfully, that I knew of.

  In her face I read the mistake I had made. Her expression was as instinctively greedy as it had so often been in childhood. She wanted Dominic. At first sight she had decided she wanted him. And I had committed myself to going away and leaving the field clear for her.

  Chapter Two

  The most convenient route from our part of the country was by steamer from Harwich to Rotterdam and then by express train up the Rhine to Cologne. We broke the journey in Cologne for a day, ostensibly so that my father could rest, in reality so that he could trot eagerly if painfully from one antiquarian book and print shop to another. Then we set off to the east again, into rising waves of hills, sometimes with a crest of sunlight and shadowy swell, sometimes dark and spiky with pine and fir trees along one successive ridge after another. Dark green was swallowed up by darker, velvety green one moment, and cut off into utter blackness the next. A whaleback of mountain slid past, and there was an abrupt pinnacle crowned by the fangs of castle ruins.

  It was a long way from Ely, in spirit as in miles. Shapes and shadows were all quite different, belonging to a world remote from our unbroken levels and vast unbroken sky.

  A long way from Ely; and from Dominic; and from Caroline and whatever notions she might be toying with.

  I tried to let all thought of them be drawn away, leaving it behind like some forgotten item of luggage. Foreign travel could hardly do its work of broadening the mind if that mind remained dismally fixed on home.

  Our fenland towns were set on hillocks above their watery surroundings. Carlsbad was just the opposite: strung out along the winding valley of the River Tepel, it huddled below rugged volcanic hills, with smart houses and hotels and bathing establishments tucked into every available inch. Here and there the birches and spruce of the steep slopes were broken by sumptuous white mansions, ornamental temples, and the half-hidden turrets of fashionable villas glinting from wooded crevices. Some looked as if they had been dropped into place from the sky rather than thrust up from the town below.

  When we first set out for a stroll, after registering into our unpretentious little hotel behind the Marktplatz, I was oppressed by the looming ridges and the narrowness of the valley. But within a day or two I succumbed to the new pattern of light and shade, forest and mansion; and to the crosscurrents of language and accent. Faces, clothes and colours came in such variety that one could never be bored: with visitors from so many parts of Europe, and so many styles and mannerisms to watch while sauntering along the riverside promenades and through the parks, one found the actors and their theatre almost superfluous. The sheer elegance of the place cast its spell on the most dyspeptic invalid.

  Whatever his symptoms, my father was far from being dyspeptic in outlook. If he had ever had any doubts about travelling so far for a cure, once he was here he decided to make the best of it. Mother had had no doubts at all. After years of happy marriage in England she still thought of Bohemia as her homeland, and radiated an infectious delight which I felt would be as beneficial to my father as all the foul-tasting waters he could consu
me in two months – provided she did not overdo it and exhaust him. Something about her reminded me of some marshland vicar’s wife who, after a spell of frugal but ungrumbling years, is treated to a lavish shopping spree in Cambridge.

  Father’s medical regimen and the fashionable timetable for coffee, cakes and conversation dictated our daily progress. The cure began early in the morning. Every hotel had its list of guests who must be aroused not later than half past five. Mother was persuaded that there was no reason for her to be bound to this and, undoubtedly suspecting that my father would prefer an hour or two of tranquillity while undergoing his treatment, she did not try to force herself on him but made a great show of pleasure at being allowed to stay in bed while the rest of the world went off to be cleansed.

  It was hinted, however, in the gentlest sort of way that my father would welcome my company at his early rendezvous. I escorted him to the concentration of springs along the Sprudelgasse, and stood in line for him with the narrow beaker handed by a trim little maid to each new arrival at the end of the queue. Some mornings there could be more than a hundred people ahead, edging forward to take their dose. Some patients sent a manservant with the cup, and for a small sum one could hire a Dienstmann to take one’s place; but I quite enjoyed waiting on my father’s behalf, looking around, recognizing after a few days the regular patients and picking out the newcomers.

  Father sat sometimes by the rail above the flickering carp in the river, waving to me and smiling his thanks every now and then. At other times he would get as close as he could to the band which played waltzes, marches and galops until eight o’clock. Between beakers we went for a stroll, returning for a refill or, according to the ritual worked out by the physician, proceeding to another spring.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you taking coffee or one of those disgusting cream cakes,’ my father encouraged me. ‘You can always walk it off later. I assure you I’m in no danger of temptation.’