The Last Dance

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘Consider it yours. It’s the least I can do for you.’

  ‘But really, Georgina, I don’t need anything from Harp’s End.’

  There were a few moments of silence between them as Stella added hot water to the teapot, waiting for the topic of Grace to be addressed properly. A bird, smaller than a crow but bigger than most garden birds, landed on the fence to watch them.

  ‘Good grief, that’s a large bird,’ Georgina remarked.

  Stella cocked her head in thought as she handed the cup and saucer to her guest. ‘Well, I never; that’s a young jackdaw. Do you know, I saw one the day we took over the premises and came out to admire the garden and I haven’t seen one that close up since? Look at his glossy feathers in the sun – almost purple they’re so black.’

  ‘I’ve not seen one before.’

  ‘I happen to know a lot about jackdaws.’

  ‘Really? How come?’

  Stella’s gaze softened at the memory and decided they might as well confront the spirit of the person who swirled around them. ‘I discovered they were your father’s favourite bird. I have one of his notebooks that I carried to Morocco for him; he wrote at length and with affection about them, especially their intelligence. Interestingly, there’s a myth that suggests if a jackdaw appears it is foretelling the arrival of someone into your life.’ She smiled. ‘And here you are.’

  Stella looked back at the dark bird observing them and she had the most fanciful notion that Rafe was there in spirit, watching over them. It felt comforting but she chose not to share this with Georgina. ‘As a species they are hilariously attracted to shiny objects and will distract you in order to thieve a silver milk-bottle top. They store up anything that reflects the sun like a horde of treasure and unlike the rook or raven, these little fellows don’t eat carrion so I am happy to make them feel most welcome in my garden.’ She didn’t add that she hoped this one would linger now that she’d had the whimsical thought that it carried the soul of Rafe within it.

  It was that thought that made her take full control of the conversation. ‘Georgina, let me make this easier for you; do you want to talk about your father?’

  Her guest looked down and seemed to gather her courage before she spoke again. ‘It’s just, I know you were with him before he died. Mother’s death has sharpened my resolve to be a better daughter – it’s a pity I made this decision so late. Of course, the authorities couldn’t explain anything to us about how and why he died in a desert with a German man beside him. Witnesses placed you at the hotel. I was told that an elderly couple helped with enquiries. They said they saw him leave you and that you went back to your hotel with a man from the café, or something. But even so, it’s all such a mystery and Mother refused to demand more – she let it all slide, as she let herself slide away from both of her daughters as if we didn’t matter much any more, especially since I met Rex, but I do worry about Grace.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that,’ Stella admitted.

  ‘I’ve always loved her. Even now when she’s making herself hard to like. She was always so wretchedly sunny but right now I’d give anything to see her happy again. Anything. She likes Rex because he accepts her exactly how she is, so I’m fortunate in that regard. But she seems to think I’m bossing her around when really all I want to do is make sure she’s strong here.’ Georgina tapped a finger to her temple. ‘I need to know she’s healing.’

  ‘I know all about losing parents too young. It’s not just the shock of losing people you love but your whole life seems to change in that moment. Everything you’ve known is thrown in disarray. And she’s a teenager – it’s a lot to handle at once. You have Rex, you’re in love; I’m sure she’s feeling lonelier than ever.’

  Georgina nodded, frowning as if absorbing this thought deeply. ‘And she lost you too. Even though she won’t hear of it being sold yet, she couldn’t bear to return to Harp’s End, demanded to go to boarding school, which to be honest was probably a good decision because she has a lot of support there. She’s such an emotional sort of character.’ Stella nodded, impressed by Georgina’s display of wisdom. She really had grown up fast in these last few years.

  ‘She’s a carbon copy of her father,’ Georgina continued, ‘although I see lots in her that reflects Mother too. She won’t have it, of course, as Mother was not terribly affectionate, but Grace is a moody fourteen-year-old now, so you can imagine what that’s like.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I’m experiencing similar trials with my sister. They’ll come through it – I mean, look at you!’ They shared a sad smile. ‘I did write to her a few times. Has she ever mentioned my letters?’

  Georgina nodded, looking embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry she hasn’t responded. She blames you, Stella.’

  Stella had to look away and swallow her distress. ‘I wondered if that was the case.’ The jackdaw still observed them. She cleared her throat. ‘I wish I could change that. I’m a firm believer in talking things through . . . if I could see her, perhaps?’

  ‘We can try. She’s angry at the world. It stole you, for a start, and she worshipped you; but then it stole her father, and when she discovered the truth of what had occurred between you both, she went into deep shock. She didn’t speak for weeks and then only in French for a while.’

  Stella looked up, startled.

  ‘She’s past all of that now but you know what a chatterbox Grace used to be – that’s no longer part of her personality. She’s lost that glow that she seemed to shine on everyone. I think time will help Grace see it all in a new light. She needs to forgive you, I suspect, for apparently deserting her, taking away her father, allowing him to die, making her mother so miserable to the point of her wishing away her health. In her angry mind, Grace wraps it all up in the ribbon of Stella.’

  Stella moaned. She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked on her chair. ‘I must see her. Let her rage at me if she wants, but I know it will be better if she can see me, blame me to my face, ask me whatever she wants. Will you tell her you’ve visited? Please, Georgina, try and make it possible for me to visit Grace or vice versa. I have to set things right between us.’

  Georgina drained her tea, put down the cup and saucer and squeezed Stella’s arm. ‘I didn’t come here to upset you about Grace. I promise I will do my utmost to bring you both together.’ Stella’s shoulders slumped with relief. ‘I also didn’t come here to ask you about your relationship with our father. I’m here to make amends for the way you were treated and to ask you to teach me about the man I ignored. Losing Mother has forced me to confront how you felt when you lost your parents and we mocked and punished you further at such a time of grief. I’m deeply ashamed, Stella. My parents were far from perfect but without them I feel rudderless and I know the angels are giving me a second chance with Rex. He is strong and steady.’ She ran a hand through her hair that fell in soft waves to frame her exquisite face. ‘Heaven knows why, but he loves me and I know it to be real because he doesn’t let me get away with any of my former bad behaviour. He spoils me in ways my mother wouldn’t understand. Rex might take me for a simple picnic as his idea of a treat before he’d buy me a new dress. He sits of an evening and talks to me about anything from . . . oh, I don’t know, seashells to politics, and never tires of my opinions, my dreams. He wants me to study again. He encourages me to take up hobbies that don’t require me having to buy my fun or friendship. In fact, he has introduced me to so many lovely people that I feel I now have a circle of friends in Hampshire – people who enjoy me, look forward to seeing me and I can count on. I’ve never had that before. I was such an empty person until Rex and he’s filled me up with everything I lacked, especially love, Stella.’

  She smiled, understanding completely. ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘We met in Geneva. He was delivering his little sister to the same school I had returned to in order to do a term of volunteer work for. My role was to introduce the new girls into the dorm, help with their homesickness and how to fit in,�
�� she said, breaking into bright laughter at the memory. ‘It was love at first sight for me. There I was putting my arms around his weeping baby sister and desperately wanting him to put his arms around me! Of course Mother came to the realisation that Rex is almost everything she had hoped for in terms of my marriage. From a disgustingly wealthy family; eldest son . . . he ticked the most important boxes for her. But in truth he’s everything she wouldn’t like. Rex is tough – hard, some say – but only in the right ways, I’ve come to appreciate. He doesn’t believe in frittering away money on things that don’t matter – I don’t know how many times he’s said to me that I don’t need a new frock for every occasion, and that we only require the minimum of staff. I run my own household and just have some help in every few days to do laundry, look after the grounds. There’s a massive family home that’s his but he prefers the gatekeeper’s lodge – more than big enough, he says, and doesn’t cost as much to heat!’ She said this affecting a deep voice that made Stella laugh. ‘And you know, Stella, I don’t care – I need so much less than I ever imagined would be possible for me – because I love him and I love our life. I even cook a meal for him each night, can you imagine?’

  Stella shook her head. No, she definitely couldn’t imagine that. She reminded herself to remain focused on the pleasure of reconnecting with Georgina rather than lose herself in dark thoughts about Grace that were trilling in her mind.

  ‘And it delights me to plan a dinner that will please him. He seems to enjoy my cooking even when it flops – he can make me laugh about it, want to get it right next time. Now we’re married I’m going to try and entertain . . . up at the big house. I shall plan my own menu, supervise the cooking, arrange the flowers myself and . . .’ She shrugged.

  ‘Suddenly what to wear becomes the least of your problems?’ Stella offered and Georgina let out a gust of laughing agreement. ‘So he’s shifted your perspective.’

  ‘He has. Now I appreciate what is important because I can actually feel it. I think I was moving through life without any emotional compass. Rex looks at me the way I saw my father looking at you. I understand how he must have felt now. Did he tell you that he wrote to me?’ Stella shook her head, privately shocked to hear it but then Rafe was always full of surprises. ‘It was a long letter, about ten pages, which I reread from time to time to remind myself. He told me about him and Mother, about him and you, about him and me. He said he needed to explain it to me this way in case he never had the opportunity to tell me to my face. He wrote it on the ship, I gather. Perhaps he knew he’d never return.’

  Stella hated to revisit this topic but indulged Georgina’s need to uncover truths. ‘I have never forgiven myself about how you found out about your parentage.’

  ‘It’s their fault, not yours. They hid it. Why? Did they not think I’d discover it eventually?’

  Stella shrugged. ‘I’m sorry that I can’t explain it.’

  ‘Why the secret?’ Georgina wondered. Stella could tell she was thinking aloud.

  ‘Shame, perhaps? Your mother was all about appearances. She tolerated plenty so long as life appeared to be perfect and harmonious. I like that you still call him your father, despite what you’ve learned.’

  ‘He’s the only father I’ve known and I punished him for all the time he was alive.’

  ‘Why, Georgina? I never understood that.’

  ‘I think I knew. Somewhere in the pit of my subconscious I recognised that Grace was his and I wasn’t. I don’t know how. Call it instinct. When I was little and it was just me as the youngster in the family I worshipped him – although he was so rarely at home and when he was I felt he didn’t notice me because my mother just dominated every moment with him. I wanted him just for a while to myself. I was never happier than when he’d let me sit in his lap and he’d read to me, or let me look at his sketches. And then when I was eight along came my sister and I could tell, as young as I was, that he instantly loved her more. As she grew, began to look like him, even show some of his mannerisms that people remarked on, I began to hate them both. They were like a little club of two and I wasn’t allowed to join. I looked like Mother and yet I didn’t have her shaped eyes or her mannerisms. When I mentioned this, she’d fob me off and as I grew up all that sense of not belonging turned outward I suppose and became vicious. I don’t think I enjoyed a single happy day from turning thirteen onwards. I hated both of my parents for a while, then I fixated my despair upon him . . . and Grace, although I had to work at it because they were both so irritatingly easy and pleasant. I just wanted to be part of their club. I sensed the oddity of my father but Mother just seemed to look past it; pretend it wasn’t there. I couldn’t imagine how he could be so successful in his business dealings and yet be such a stumbling, bumbling character – it didn’t add up. Mother liked him weak and his laughably gentle hobbies of bird watching or butterfly spotting. It only made me madder, whereas it just seemed to entertain Grace. Perhaps I sensed it was a ruse.’

  Stella now understood why Georgina was here. ‘You want me to tell you about the man I knew, don’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. It’s the only way I can let it all go because it’s important to get on with my life – a life that can now finally be happy because of Rex. But the shadow of the family and its secrets lingers. I want to set it free. I just need to understand.’

  And so Stella began, first by pouring a second cup of tea. She told Georgina everything she could about the character of the man she loved that his daughter so badly wanted to know, including their happy times in Brighton and in Marrakech. It took close to an hour of Stella talking and Georgina barely blinking, listening in rapt attention.

  Finally, Stella shrugged, not prepared to share her suffering of his loss, ending her tale in the café with Margaret and Harold coming to her aid. ‘That was the last time I saw him.’

  ‘A spy?’ Georgina whispered, her tone awed.

  ‘A real chameleon, but then you know that. The man I met in Piccadilly that night you would not recognise as your father. I fell in love with an entirely different Ainsworth to the one you knew. He was effortlessly charming, ridiculously handsome, highly aware of his surrounds and people around him, a fantastic dancer – and he didn’t wear spectacles. Did you know, all of those pairs he possessed had clear glass in them?’

  Georgina sighed. ‘Is that meant to make me feel better?’ Her query wasn’t asked unkindly.

  ‘No. Just a way of explaining that I was duped too. Nothing shocked me more – apart from losing him – than the day I met him at Harp’s End and then helplessly had to join the guile to protect him. It was a burden I neither chose nor wanted. But I loved that stranger I met in London and hated discovering that I was working for his wife, looking after his children. Honestly, Georgina, it was untenable, and I tried to get away but was dragged in further when the need for him to get to Morocco for the government arose. He needed my help, your mother insisted I come . . .’ Stella shook her head. ‘It was awkward and you were difficult. It was always going to implode. What I didn’t know is that he was orchestrating it. He had to get himself off that ship but without your mother – and not for the reason you think; more for her safety and the protection of his family. I now believe that it was he who manipulated poor little Grace into spilling what she heard. I might even be persuaded to believe that he deliberately goaded your mother to have that argument in Grace’s bedroom that night so that, even though vaguely conscious, she would soak up what she heard.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘To get me thrown off the ship too. He used the same trick, don’t you see, to get me away from your mother’s employ and under his authority. I can see that all so clearly now. So should you. It was cynical but your father was trapped, in a way; he was a patriot and he was putting his country’s needs ahead of his own. I have no doubt in my heart that he was a thoroughly good man, but spies have to be cunning, manipulative, shadowy people who live by their wits.’

  ‘Did he tell you he wa
s working for the government?’

  ‘No. That secret I worked out alone; I discovered it by chance on that same evening of Grace’s fall. I challenged him on it, he was truthful and then of course he needed my help. He couldn’t trust anyone else to smuggle the information back to London.’

  ‘What have they done with the information?’

  ‘Who knows, Georgina? I’m not privy to that. Going by what’s happening in Europe, absolutely nothing, I suspect. Our government seems to be appeasing that man in Germany but they’ve had more than five years’ warning of his intent. There are senior people working behind the scenes who have been suspicious of him since he first came to power and what your father and his friend Joseph delivered was simply proof of their collective fears.’

  ‘You think we’re going to war?’

  Stella nodded sadly. ‘I don’t think handing over Czechoslovakia to Germany is going to keep his hunger for power sated.’ She gave a low sigh. ‘But then, what would I, a lady who owns a tearoom, know?’

  ‘You call him Rafe . . . I’ve never heard that name.’

  She explained.

  ‘I really didn’t know him at all, did I?’

  ‘But you do now. He so desperately wanted to be a good father to you but you were difficult to love, Georgina. You pushed him away viciously, but you need to know that he genuinely wanted to help you through your difficult period. He ran out of time.’ She watched Georgina’s eyes water. ‘I’m sorry to upset you.’

  Georgina pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and sniffed into it. ‘Don’t apologise. I deserve to confront all my terrible behaviour and it makes me feel even more generous towards my sister who is growing up through far more difficult circumstances. I must try and remain understanding of her mood swings. Nevertheless, I envy your knowing the darker, more heroic side of him.’

  ‘You mustn’t, because look at me . . . he’s ruined me for others!’ At Georgina’s look of pity, she grinned. ‘But that’s how I want it. I’ve loved, I know how wonderful it is and I don’t want to try and recreate it with anyone else. You’ve found it with Rex. You know what I’m talking about. Besides, he gave me all of this too,’ she said, waving her hand and more. ‘He so wanted me to follow my dream to open the tearooms and I couldn’t let him down. It was him who found this place and bought it. I only learned about its existence a week or so after returning to Britain and accepting that he died over there.’ She lifted a shoulder. ‘He had a colleague deliver a letter that explained his hopes for me. I couldn’t let him down, especially as he’d given me my future . . .’ She stopped before she said more. Was she ready to share it all?