Luke had heard of the Art Festival at Sandringham. The first day was by invitation only the second geared more toward lesser mortals. The Central Marquee, Freddie said, was where the Fauns were housed. Luke spent an age gazing at the paintings but couldn’t take to them. They were beautiful. The colours were extraordinary, the barley-sugar gold of Julia’s hair and the rose tint of her lips, but the image portrayed was of a character in a fairy story. The Julianna he knows is flesh and blood. She burns her wrist baking cakes and loses patience with plant-stealers. She has a heart and feelings. The deity on those canvasses is as far removed from this world as the Unicorn on which she sits. Eve Carrington’s Julianna glitters like the china on the shelves in her kitchen. A man wouldn’t dare to kiss those lips and mould her to his body for fear she might crack.
What, Luke wondered, did the Prince of Wales see when kissing her hand. His kiss was courtly yet deliberate. Luke knew it and eyes widening so did she. Information was exchanged and a gilt-edged Royal invitation offered. One other person understood the kiss. Eve Carrington saw it and smiled, her smile directed across the room to Luke her eyebrows arched as though to say, ‘what did you expect. He is a man as well as a Prince. ’
That kiss split the front parlour in half, a yard wide trench opened up, the Roberts and old Joe on one side, and Prince Albert and his friends on the other. In that moment Luke knew he was an outsider. The beautiful woman in the grey silk gown standing among the chinking of cups meant nothing to Luke Roberts because Luke Roberts wasn’t there. He was a fly on the wall.
The Royal party left.
‘Well that was splendid!’ Hugh Fitzwilliam bowed a box of macaroons and a lavender bag dangling from his finger, a gift for Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales. ‘May I, Mrs Dryden, on behalf of His Highness extend his congratulations?’
‘Thank you, Sir Hugh.’
Evie adjusted her lace stole. ‘Well done, Ju-ju. You managed awfully well.’
‘Everyone did well,’ said Julianna acknowledging the maids.
‘Indeed they did. I must say Mrs Mac has come on. I understand most of the day’s delicious pastries were of her concocting.’
‘Maud is an excellent cook.’
‘You call her Maud?’
‘I do.’
‘And why not, noblesse oblige and all that! I admit to having misplaced the woman. I had her wearing the wrong apron.’ Evelyn nodded to the window where a crowd had amassed. ‘The hordes are gathering.’
‘So I see.’
‘Let ‘em wait! When we’re gone have your girls lock the door. Don’t let the blighters in! Keep the place closed for a week and from then all bookings to be taken by telephone and only by phone. You understand?’
‘Yes.
‘Make ‘em sweat! They do not deserve you or your ladies.’
‘Thank you, Evelyn, for being here.’
‘Not at all! It’s the least I could do.’
‘I am grateful.’
‘That’s alright. Your introduction to Society is only beginning. It’s best you hold onto your gratitude until later. We are entertaining His Highness soon at the London house. I hope you will attend.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘No Julianna!’ Evie’s eyes were steel. ‘There’ll be no trying. You are required to be there. You are already asked for.’
‘Oh I see.’
‘Good. It’s best you do see.’ Evelyn took Julia’s arm and walked with her to the door. All smiles she paused at the table in the nook. ‘I think your people might go now. They’ve been waiting long enough.’
Julianna took Nan’s hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming all of you. I really don’t know what I would‘ve done were you not here.’
‘You’d have managed. You didn’t need us, Anna.’
‘Oh I did and I do! You’ll never know how much.’
Nan adjusted her hat. ‘This time tomorrow when news of this gets around you won’t need anybody. Isn’t that right, Milady?’
‘Mrs Dryden did make a success of the day but one always needs friends and never more so than when scaling the heights. True friends, Mrs Roberts, are irreplaceable. I know I wouldn’t part with your friendship no matter how lofty the call. You too Mr Carmody! How well you served your lady today. I would wish for gentlemen servers half as loyal.’
Joe was starry-eyed. ‘Thank you ma’m.’
Blue eyes brilliant Evie turned to Luke. ‘And what can one say about you, sir, the fife and drum behind all such chivalry? I confess to being quite envious of Julianna, and along with other ladies of our party here today can’t help but wonder how one might steal your devotion away.’
‘I was glad to be of use.’
‘Glad to be of use?’
‘Yes.’
Evie smiled. ‘A good friend indeed, and in keeping with friendship, and broadening the same, perhaps you and your mother might consider dropping in on my brother and me next time you’re in town. Please know that I, and Freddie, who so enjoyed your company of late, would be pleased to see you.’
What kind of a wondrous beast is a fly on the wall if it sees all and hears all and yet remains unmoved? Luke was aware of Evelyn’s hand on his arm, small yet so strong, a hand that pulls the trigger on a twelve bore. He knew all were watching inside the tea-shop and out. He was aware of eyes staring and his mother’s lips tightening. He knew old Joe felt awkward and though proud and pleased wished himself any place but here. Without knowing he could tell the man on his left, handsome Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam with the medals on his chests, liked Julianna but preferred a man in his arms. Luke was aware of planets and stars revolving. Such a vivid and multi-layered moment the room and people in it might well have been a painting at the Art Festival, a montage, paint layered upon paint, colour upon colour, linen tablecloths and sunlight striking a crystal dish, a wasp inside eating jam.
Omnipresent he knew all and yet could only comprehend Julianna, how pale she was and how she stared a frown behind her eyes. A moment hung above them, a gesture, a bend in the river or deflection of purpose and everything would change. ‘Speak to me, Anna,’ his prayer was mute. ‘I don’t care what you say. Talk to me of Matty, how his speech is improved under the care of a drunken piano player, and how he always adds Mister Wolf to his prayers to Gentle Jesus. Tell of Owen, your studious husband, the pale man who cherished you as an Egyptian artefact rather than a woman of flesh and blood. Talk to me of your worries. Say how you fret about the wall, and of the dead woman who still abides in Greenfields, and the breaking of china. Ask me to help you! Ask me to put a lock on the damned laundry door because some arse is spying on your beauty! Talk to me, heart-of-hearts! Say something! Don’t let go of me in silence or like that balloon presently floating by the window I’ll float away never to be seen again.’
For a moment her gaze held his and then she turned away.
It wasn’t much of a turning away but it was enough to swat the fly. From then on Eve Carrington’s voice was all he heard.
‘I believe you’ve recently developed an interest in art, Mr Roberts.’
‘I am interested but know nothing about it.’
‘Perhaps if you’d visit Russell Square one day next week it shall be mine and my brother’s pleasure to assist you in that knowledge?’
‘Good of you to say so.’
‘So will you come? I think you might be amused.’
‘I’ll come.’
‘Next Thursday?’
‘Next Thursday.’
‘Excellent!’ With a flick Evelyn opened up a parasol her beautiful face half in shade and half in light. ‘So that shall be our plan. A trip round the galleries and back home in time for tea. Do you think you can manage that, Luke?’
‘I don’t see why not. Like most men I’m open to learning.’
Seven o clock the phone rang. Julia was watering the window boxes. It
was Callie Masson. ‘Pop up and have a nightcap with me will you?’
‘I’m awfully tired.’
‘I dare say you are. But humour me. I’ll send Crosby down to light you.’
‘Don’t bother. There’s a full moon. I can see my way.’
Callie was in the small salon her foot bandaged and up on a stool. ‘Don’t ask!’ she said at Julia’s enquiring glance. ‘It seems the people at Holkham are of Scots descent and not happy unless throwing one another about.’
‘You didn’t get to Berkshire then?’
‘I was laid up.’
‘And you didn’t enjoy the ball.’
‘Actually I did. Apart from my ankle it was a riot. What about you? I understand you’ve had a bit of a riot yourself?’
Julia stretched easing tension in her shoulders. ‘It was a surprising day.’
‘Not least a visit from the Prince of Wales?’
‘That too.’
‘That too?’ Callie’s eyebrows shot skyward. ‘You’ve had a bigger surprise than the heir to the throne in your front parlour?!’
‘As I said a day of surprises.’
‘Tell me about it.’
Julia kept details to a minimum. There was much she couldn’t talk about especially Luke Roberts’ projected trips to London; she couldn’t give the words space on her tongue. Weary, she concluding the day’s events with Evie’s advice of a week’s break before reopening the tea-shop.
‘A good idea.’ Callie nodded. ‘It will make people hungry for more than chocolate parfait, which of course they will be once the Sunday newspapers get hold of this.’
‘The newspapers?’
‘Yes, the newspapers. Come tomorrow your little tete-a-tete with HRH will be headline news.’
‘Oh surely not.’
‘Oh surely yes! Tea-for-two with an unknown lady, it’ll be the talk of London.’
‘It was a little more public than that! We were in full view of the world, half the population of Bakers with their noses pressed against the glass.’
‘That doesn’t matter. As of today you are news. Get used to it. Noses pressed against glass is a foretaste of what is to come.’
Julia made her way back with all hope of sleep banished. Foretaste of what is to come? Of course there will be visitors, curiosity will bring them, but her life and Matty suddenly newsworthy, that’s not a welcome thought.
The moon a lamp hanging low over the house she closed the gate behind her and carried on watering the window boxes. All were abed, Matty long ago, and the maids worn out. Earlier Julia thanked them for their efforts.
‘You were so very professional and not at all daunted by our guest.’
‘I was in the back washing up,’ said Maggie. ‘I din’t see much of anythin’.’
‘I’m not sure about calm, madam,’ said Leah. ‘My knees were knocking.’
Julia smiled. ‘No one would have known. You were as you should be and I hope you’ll continue the same. Having been so honoured we may now expect other important guests and must behave in a dignified manner.’
Maggie, half-asleep, rolled her eyes. ‘Madam, must we always be dignified? Can’t we ever be happy and laugh and sing?’
Rightly reproved Julianna had laughed. ‘Of course you can! And why not now while we’re all together? You surely deserve it. But let’s make it a quiet sort of laughter and a mute sort of singing.’
Needless to say Maggie must be impertinent. ‘Can we sing ‘Come into the Garden Maud?’’ she’d said casting a sideways glance at Mrs Mac.
‘I’m not sure that’s appropriate.’
Mrs Mac had shrugged. ‘Let’s sing it, madam, appropriate or not! It’ll be the one and only time anyone invites me into any kind of garden.’
With that she began singing and the maids with her. They danced about the parlour, Maud an ostrich lifting knobbly knees, Leah a mature swan drifting to and fro, and Little Dottie Manners waltzing with Maggie.
They danced and they laughed and were glad. And Julia loved every one.
Thinking about it now outside watering peas she wished she’d danced with them. Abigail Dryden liked the poem Maud but hated the song she said it was for drunken men in saloon bars. She loved Tennyson’s poem, thought it sad, a man in hope of seeing his love waits in the darkness, the sound of laughter and of music coming from the house. ‘He shouldn’t be in the garden,’ mother would say breathlessly. ‘He is her secret and she is his.’
Julia would ask. ‘What do you mean secret?’ Mother would never say. Now Julia doesn’t need to ask. She knows. The secret is Luke Roberts.
Watering can set aside she sat on Matty’s swing, and gathering her skirts and humming softly under her breath began to push lazily back and forth.
It is years since she rode a swing, the last time was in the Rectory on a wooden plank astride Charlotte. Time has moved on but she’s still astride a swing. An image rocks back and forth inside her head, one she can’t shake off, a kiss being offered from one human being to another. It’s not the Prince’s kiss she recalls, the delicate touch of lips on her wrist. No! The kiss she remembers rose up in a woman’s eyes to float through the air and land on target.
Evelyn Carrington kissed Luke in that manner. ‘You will come to London won’t you?’ she’d said. The words were an invitation to visit and the look, her lips parted and her eyes lambent, was an invitation to love. Poets talk of Cupid’s arrow piercing the heart. If this is the case then Cupid’s arrow is sharp and the barbs coated with bitter aloes. Seeing that kiss, watching it happen, Luke Roberts a wanderer lost in a magical forest and about to be spirited away, an arrow had lanced Julia’s breast. She’d wanted to call out, ‘Don’t go, Mister Wolf! Stay with me!’ The words wouldn’t come. Debt, money loans and Meissen china, how could she ask when entangled in so many webs? Let him enjoy another web, one spun of Evie’s magic. He can’t fail to enjoy it.
Alone in the warm darkness Julia swung higher, skirts flaring out and the combs loose in her hair. Love is painful. She never felt that for Owen. Their love was manageable. There’s nothing manageable about jealousy. It hurts; what’s more it left Julia unable to decide whether the pain was caused by the giver or the recipient.
She went into the house and closed and double-locked the door.
The swing was left swaying and the chain links creaking.
‘Come into the garden, Maud, for the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.’
Book Three
Thistles
Sixteen
Beloved Strangers
September 1900, Cairo
Julia is in small private graveyard in the south side of Sarah Salem, Old Cairo. She arrived in Egypt yesterday and this morning received a message from the Foreign Office asking to meet at the cemetery where she was told by a discomfited Consulate that her husband’s body had been removed.
‘What do you mean removed?’
‘We’ve learned this very week that a colleague of the late Doctor’s, a Professor Radcliff who works here in Cairo, and who I understand is on the way to meet you, has had the remains moved to another spot.’
‘What, dug up and taken to another place?’
The Consulate mopped his brow. ‘I know that this sounds like a wanton act of desecration but you know this...’
‘Sounds like?’ Julia hissed. ‘It is an act of desecration.’
‘Yes it is, of course it is. What I meant to say was this is Egypt, Mrs Dryden. A grave is despoiled of treasure and a body removed in the name of antiquity almost every day and no one here so much as raises an eyebrow.’
‘And was my husband’s body removed in the name of antiquity? It can’t have been for treasure. The only treasure t
o be had of Owen was the man himself.’
‘I don’t know why he was taken. I really don’t. I have heard rumours, this place is the Whispering Walls, there’s always some fresh devilry in the wind. But as for veracity you must ask Professor Radcliff.’
‘Don’t worry I will. I can’t tell you how upset I am about this.’
‘I imagine you are and again do apologise.’
‘I would have thought moving a body like that without the relative’s permission to be outside of the law.’
The man sniffed. ‘Where archaeology is concerned there is no law and none to enforce it. This country is a trading post of the dead, tombs robbed and bodies removed to all four corners of the earth and none to say nay. We at the Embassy deplore the whole disgraceful business but with British archaeologists among the forefront of such scavenging can do nothing. Here comes the Professor! Talk to her! Hopefully she’ll be able to set your mind at rest.’
A bullock cart rattled alongside. A woman jumped down. Dressed in Bedouin robe, the floating ends of a scarf wrapped about her head, she strode toward Julia, her hand thrust out in greeting. ‘Mrs Passmore! Ju-ju! At last we meet.’
‘Set my mind at rest?’Julia ground her teeth. ‘I doubt it.’
They sat in the cart, a theatre of three, poor Dorothy suffering from heat prone at the back, and Julia and this woman up front. A Texan, a thin blade of a body with intelligent face and ardent eyes, Kitty Radcliff shook Julia’s hand, remarked on the weather, and then proceeded to uproot any comfortable thoughts Julia might have on her marriage to Owen.
An archaeologist and expert in cuneiform writing Kitty Radcliff said she was based at the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo and had been there these seven years. ‘Though what use they are to me and I to them, an Assyriologist and a female, I don’t know. No matter how bright a woman carries no weight in this country. A lesser species we must fight for every crumb. I wouldn’t mind but I don’t care for Egyptian History. Persia was my choice but having been bitten by the treasure-seeking bug, and lately bitten again by Flinders Petrie and Co, I suppose I’m here until like Owen I too am mowed down by a bullock cart.’
Fragile Blossoms Page 22
