Prodigies

by Francis King

  Alexine shrugged. ‘I prefer being home.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice. And I prefer having you home.’ Harriet drew Alexine to her and once again hugged her. ‘You’re all I’ve got.’

  ‘Oh, you have a lot of other things too,’ Addy said with a laugh tinged with bitterness.

  ‘Where’s Sammy?’ Alexine asked, having hardly responded to her mother’s embrace.

  All through the ride from the station, Alexine had been thinking of him. She had brought him a box of sweets, a bow and arrow, a real one, not another toy one like the one that she herself possessed, and some French lead soldiers, from Napoleon’s Grande Armée.

  Harriet and Addy looked at each other, and at once Alexine knew, knew with absolute certainty, as she so often knew things still unspoken by her mother, that something was wrong.

  ‘He’s gone, darling,’ Harriet said.

  ‘Gone!’

  ‘Yes. He’s gone back to his home. That seemed the best thing for him.’

  ‘To Jamaica?’ Alexine was incredulous. How could such a thing have happened?

  ‘Yes, darling. One of your Uncle John’s people was about to sail there, and so we decided that the best thing would be for him to take Sammy with him.’

  ‘The best thing! For whom is it best? For him?’

  ‘Yes, darling. I’ve explained. I don’t think he was ever really happy here. He’ll be far happier among his own people.’

  ‘How do you know whether he was happy or not?’ Alexine was now white with fury; her heavy jaw was set. ‘ You’ve never known anything about him. I’m the one who’s always known about him. He was my friend. He wanted to be with me. He did, he did!’

  ‘Now, come on, chérie. That’s enough of all that. You’re tired after your long journey. You ought to get up to bed.’

  Her fury boiling over, Alexine suddenly rushed at her mother and began to pummel her with her fists. Harriet grabbed her arms, at the same time as Addy put hands to her shoulders from behind her. Alexine began to scream.

  Nanny Rose, who had been drowsing by the fire in her room, heard the scream and realized that the Paris party had returned. What was going on? She lumbered to her bare feet and then pushed them into slippers, at the same time readjusting her shawl.

  As she shuffled crablike down the stairs, hand to bannister, she heard Harriet’s voice: ‘ Now that’s enough of that. Quite enough. Just pull yourself together. Get up! And stop that din!’ Alexine was lying on the floor, sobbing and kicking her feet in a violent tattoo. Nanny Rose had never before heard the mistress talk to Alexine in that commanding, implacable voice.

  ‘Oh, Nanny, do see what you can do with her. She’s worked herself into this state simply because that wretched boy has gone.’

  Creakily Nanny Rose knelt down and put a hand on Alexine’s shoulder. ‘Now come along, darling. Come upstairs with me. It’s time for bed. Bed.’ Her voice was coaxing, gentle, maternal. That was how she used to talk to Alexine when she was still a small child.

  Alexine raised herself, turned to her, put out her arms. Nanny Rose enfolded her. ‘There, there!’ she muttered. ‘Come on, sweet. I’m going to make you some hot chocolate. That’s what you’d like, isn’t it?’

  As Nanny Rose and Alexine mounted the stairs, Addy turned to Harriet. ‘What a fuss about nothing!’

  But suddenly Harriet was overcome with guilt. She bit her lower lip. She was unnaturally flushed and her hands were trembling.

  ‘You couldn’t have kept him here. How could you? John agreed about that, we all agreed. His family will be happy to see him.

  And they’ll be even happier to have all that money. It may not seem much to us but to them it will be a fortune.’

  ‘I hope I’ve done the right thing,’ Harriet said.

  ‘Of course you have.’

  Upstairs, Nanny Rose did not think so. As she brushed Alexine’s hair with long, rhythmical strokes, the cup of half-drunk chocolate on the dressing table beside them, she was saying: ‘I don’t understand it. Why did they have to send that poor creature back? What sort of life will he have out there? And he was such a nice friend for you.’

  ‘One day I’ll find him again. I’ll go out there and find him. You’ll see. I’ll find him.’

  Book 2

  Chapter One

  BOTH AGED SEVENTEEN, Alexine and Monsieur Thierry’s tiny, pretty, frivolous daughter, Sophie, had become the closest of friends. A day rarely passed when one of them did not visit the other. Impartially, they would talk to each other now in Dutch, which Sophie spoke with so many grammatical mistakes and with such an appalling accent that Alexine was always laughing at her, now in French, and now in English. Together they would feed and exercise the unruly pack of dogs, some pedigree but most mongrel strays, that Alexine had collected over the years. Visitors would put their hands to their ears in horror at the constant barking and yapping. For her favourite among these dogs, a mongrel called Flopsy, Alexine had even had a visiting card printed, which she would deposit along with hers when paying an obligatory call – as though to say ‘I’d have so much have liked to see you, but Flopsy was in such a hurry to get on with his walk.’

  Sophie had a sweet, small, pure soprano voice, free of all vibrato. Alexine would listen entranced as, accompanied by Harriet, she would sing some drawing-room ballad at a party. Before meeting Sophie, Alexine had, like her father, been indifferent to music. Now she would creep into the room whenever she heard her mother playing, as Harriet so often did when she had nothing else to occupy her, and struggle to come to terms with an art for which she lacked any natural affinity.

  Monsieur Thierry did not care for the closeness of the relationship. He now only half remembered how the precocious girl, with the touchingly fragile arms and neck and the luxuriant, shiny hair, had enthralled him so many years before in Paris. Recently he had succumbed to a secret, never to be fulfilled yearning for another young girl who, when not occupied on some task to do with her father’s confectionery shop, would perch, chin propped on palm, on the railings outside it. As he entered or left the shop, making seldom necessary purchases, he would address her as ‘chouchoute’ and she would then giggle behind a raised hand, since the word sounded so bizarre to her.

  What Monsieur Thierry had against Alexine was not that, so many years before, she had decisively rebuffed him in the railway carriage, but that her unconventionality of behaviour was so often a subject of gossip. That she was vastly rich sometimes mitigated this gossip, but more often, because of envy in that close-knit society of people often living far beyond their means, exacerbated it. ‘ If only she were more ladylike!’ or ‘If only she were more womanlike!’ was the usual tenor of the criticisms. She was, people complained, so independent and emphatic in her views, brusquely contradicting her elders. There was something at once too vigorous and too awkward about all her movements, as she strode down a street, arms swinging, or decisively mounted a stile, unaided. Her voice had such a vibrant, impatient tone to it.

  Such criticism also took in Harriet. Coming from such an old and distinguished family, people would say to each other, she knew perfectly well how a young, unmarried woman should conduct herself. But, instead of attempting to restrain her daughter’s behaviour, she indulged and even encouraged her in it. When other girls of her age would have their chaperons, Alexine would appear on her own; on more than one occasion, she had been glimpsed riding astride instead of side-saddle; and, though as extravagant as her mother in her patronage not merely of Madame Molnar but also of a host of other dressmakers, she all too often did not care, even on formal occasions, how she looked.

  More than once Monsieur Thierry asked his aristocratic, blue-stocking wife, seven years older than himself, whether she did not think that there might not be something ‘ unhealthy’ in the relationship between their only child and the heiress in the large house visible, in its extensive grounds, from the upstairs windows of their far smaller one. Often from those windows they would see Alexine, surround
ed by her dogs, toiling in the garden, along with one or both of the gardeners, as if she were a gardener herself. Madame Thierry would laugh and shake her head, dismissing her husband’s suspicions. Young girls of that age would often form these intense friendships, she said. She herself had had such a friend, a Russian girl, long since dead, who had been a pupil in the same convent. Madame Thierry was a sensible woman; and in any case an innate laziness made her retreat from any possibility of friction or fuss.

  Monsieur Thierry’s worry was that, if the close friendship of his daughter with Alexine were to cause any scandal, he might never achieve the ambassadorship that, despite his wife’s powerful connections, was already overdue. Madame Thierry did not care about the ambassadorship, which might prove an inconvenience if it took them too far away from Paris for her to pay her frequent visits to her friends and family there.

  Harriet’s parties were always lavish; but they, too, were often the focus of criticism. Inevitably among the guests would be members of the aristocracy and of the corps diplomatique. But so too would be writers, composers, artists, and people who, often far less successfully than Philip, were dependent on commerce for their livelihood. Harriet’s sole criterion for issuing an invitation was whether a prospective guest was amusing, interesting, talented or attractive.

  It was at a Palace Ball that Alexine first set eyes on Count Adolf Franz Joseph von Königsmark, though she had already heard of him, newly arrived as Prussian military attaché, from friends. He was so handsome, these friends had enthused, he had such beautiful manners, he was so full of fun.

  Alexine had, with her usual unpunctuality, arrived late, with a flustered Harriet and a fuming Addy, at the ball. One of her dogs, an English mastiff bitch, was pupping and instead of leaving it to Harry to cope with the situation, she had insisted on being present to ensure that all went well. Repeatedly her mother had sent servants out to the stables to tell her to hurry, she must get dressed, they could not possibly arrive late for a palace ball. Eventually, in her finery, her small feet in their delicate shoes picking their way over mud and straw, Harriet herself had gone out. ‘ Please, darling! Please!’ The lateness of their arrival did not go unremarked. Even the Queen noticed it and commented on it to the lady-in-waiting, Addy’s friend Juliana, who was already beginning to supplant Addy in the royal favour.

  Arm in arm, Alexine and Sophie swayed down the ballroom, looking to right and left. Then Sophie gripped Alexine’s arm and, on tiptoe, put her lips to Alexine’s ear. ‘ Over there! Look! That must be him!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The German count. You know. They were talking about him yesterday.’ She giggled. ‘ He’s beautiful, really beautiful. So broad and tall!’

  Alexine looked over in the direction that Sophie was now indicating with an inclination of her head. The young man was standing with the Prussian consul, who was his uncle, the consul’s wife and Madame Thierry.

  ‘Maman’s talking to him. Let’s go over.’

  ‘No.’ Alexine felt an immediate attraction, but she was determined to resist it. ‘No!’ She pulled at Sophie’s arm. ‘Oh, come on!’

  But Sophie would not come on. Eventually, reluctantly acquiescent, Alexine allowed herself to be led across the floor.

  Königsmark was surprisingly shy. At first, after the introductions had been made, he kept turning his head aside, to gaze out over to the dancers, as though wary of even looking at the two young girls, much less talking to them. But Sophie was bold. Repeatedly she questioned him – when had he arrived from Prussia? was he happy in his post? where was he living? – until, at long last, he was prepared to focus all his attention on them. But Alexine, with an appearance of detachment, even disdain, kept aloof from the ensuing conversation.

  To her amazement, it was she, not Sophie, whom he first asked for a dance. Capriciously, she refused him – ‘I’m so sorry. My card’s full already’ – and then at once regretted it. He turned to Sophie: ‘And you, mademoiselle? Is your card also full?’ Sophie said that there was still one dance unclaimed. ‘Then you will allow me to have it?’ Sophie nodded. She was overjoyed, as was her mother. Everyone in Dutch society had already agreed, less than a week after his arrival in the city, that the Count, with his striking looks and his aristocratic forebears, was highly eligible.

  Later, as she herself danced with a lumpish, spotted young man, with a faint body odour, a nephew of the King, Alexine repeatedly glanced over to Sophie and Königsmark. How happy they seemed, constantly smiling at each other as they met, joined, separated, took each other’s hands! What an idiot she had been!

  ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ Harriet asked Alexine in the carriage going home.

  ‘Oh, it was so tedious! All these balls are so tedious! The same people, the same food, the same music. Nothing ever changes.’

  But something had changed.

  Alexine was surprised that at their next meeting, on the following afternoon, Sophie had lost all her enthusiasm for the Prussian. He was too tall, she complained, she had got a crick in her neck from being obliged constantly to look up at him; he was so solemn, talking endlessly about politics; he had such a deep, slow, guttural voice and, though his French was correct enough, he had a weird way of accentuating it. She began to give an uncannily accurate imitation.

  ‘But his eyes!’ Alexine protested. ‘Those extraordinary blue, blue eyes! And his hair! That blond, blond hair!’

  ‘The blond beast,’ Sophie said, with a laugh. That evening, she had also danced with a Prince Caradja, a small, swarthy, prematurely balding man, a First Secretary at the Turkish Embassy, with whom her father played chess, and she had suddenly decided, on no more than a whim so it seemed to Alexine, that he was the one whom she wanted to marry.

  ‘Oh, but everyone says that Caradja has no money at all!’ Alexine protested. ‘You’ll end up having to wash his one shirt for him, while he lies in bed smoking those horrible cigarettes of his.’ Sophie gave a joyful laugh. ‘I shouldn’t mind doing that at all.

  After I’d finished washing the shirt, I’d jump into his bed and

  smoke a cigarette with him.’

  ‘Oh, Sophie, how can you?’

  Secretly, Alexine was relieved that there would be no competition

  between them.

  That year archery had become the craze among the members – men, women, children – of society at The Hague. All through a summer that was a sequence of one hot, cloudless day after another, people held their archery parties out on their lawns or, if those were not extensive enough, on some nearby stretch of open ground. Lavish refreshments were laid out on trestle tables, servants were loaned from one household to another. When Harriet gave such a party, the dogs wandered among the contestants, causing a lot of secret annoyance. One, a Pekinese, was, to Alexine’s horror, all but transfixed by a wayward arrow.

  Two days after the Palace ball, Alexine arrived with Harriet at one such party – Addy, with her dislike of any strenuous physical activity had declined to come – to see that the Count was already performing at the butts. Leaving her mother with their hostess, after a few perfunctory words of greeting, she strode over, closed parasol extended like a stick to hasten her passage through the crowds, and took up her position just behind him. Through his white silk shirt, she could see the powerful muscles of his shoulders. He was sweating in the heat, and between the shoulders the shirt was sticking to his vertebrae. Sweat had also dampened his thick, unusually long, wavy hair, and glistened on a cheekbone, each time that, preparatory to shooting, he half-turned his head, without seeing her behind him.

  ‘Bravo!’ an elderly man standing next to Alexine called out. At once there was some clapping from a small group of women also watching. With a decisive smack, the arrow had hit the bull’s eye. Another followed it to the same place, to even more applause. Then, as though he had become suddenly bored, Königsmark’s aim became increasingly erratic, until, obviously annoyed with himself, he gave up.

  As he was about to low
er the bow, Alexine stepped forward and put out a hand: ‘ Let me try!’

  He stared at her in amazement. There were separate butts for the women, who shot over a shorter distance and used smaller bows. Then he laughed, half embarrassed and half pleased. ‘ I’d be happy to do anything for mademoiselle. But this bow isn’t for a lady.’

  Alexine laughed. ‘Oh, come on!’ Again she held out her hand. ‘Let me try. I’m not a lady,’ she added. ‘Everyone says how unladylike I am.’

  ‘Very well, mademoiselle. Try. But it’ll be far too heavy for you. I warn you.’

  Alexine took the bow, and Königsmark handed her an arrow. Amazed by the sight, more and more people gathered round them. To everyone’s surprise, the first arrow not merely reached as far as the target but struck the inner ring. The next arrow overshot it. The third grazed the outer edge. The remaining three arrows all fell just short. But everyone agreed that, for a woman, Alexine had done amazingly well. Whether they approved of her doing amazingly well was another matter. ‘Typical!’ ‘That girl’s just doesn’t know how to behave.’ ‘She might be a boy.’ ‘Why doesn’t her mother have more control over her?’ As the crowd slowly dispersed, the familiar criticisms were repeated.

  ‘You’re a marvel,’ Königsmark told her. ‘Now, after that exertion, let me get you some iced tea.’

  How could Sophie have taken exception to that slow, deep, guttural, heavily accented way of speaking French? Alexine thrilled to it.

  She put an arm through his. ‘Thank you. Yes, I’d like that.’

  ‘I hadn’t realized that you were such an Amazon.’

  ‘Don’t Amazons have only one breast? As you can see, I have two.’