The Running Years

by Claire Rayner

  Some of her success was due not so much to her own abilities as to the fact that she had told them that the King was to be a guest at the ball. Mary had not told her not to say so, so she had, and it worked like yeast in dough, lifting the entire staff to a high excitement. The lower in the hierarchy they were, the less likely actually to clap eyes on their corpulent monarch for themselves, the more tearing the excitement and the more air of importance they assumed.

  Hannah listened to the undercurrents of excitement and marvelled. Just for a King, all this? It seemed to her to be absurd, for no one in the East End gave a fig for royalty. The important people in their lives were landlords and sweatshop owners and rabbis and shopkeepers who allowed credit; their interest in the doings of remote aristocrats and rulers (who weren’t even worth considering anyway on account they weren’t Jewish) was minimal.

  But here in Eaton Square everyone except Hannah seemed to be in a fever of excitement. Every evening Emmanuel catechized Mary at length about what preparations had been achieved that day and listened with his eyes narrowed as Hannah read out the information on her interminable lists. Mary herself showed her excitement in ever deepening gloom, and anxiety, which she hid from Emmanuel, and the staff showed theirs by becoming ever more punctilious. This was no time to risk being given your notice for sloppy work.

  Daniel was perhaps the one who came nearest of them all to sharing Hannah’s unconcern about the King. He came as usual one afternoon for tea, and found Mary and Hannah with their heads bent over the ballroom design which had been sent in from the catering department at Harrods. It showed the number of facsimiles of Bleriot’s aeroplane swooping over the Channel, which were to be made in quarter size and suspended from the ceiling, and also offered a number of pennants on which further depictions of the aeroplane were painted. There were to be streamers in the design of the French flag and plaster birds and paper clouds, and all round the walls of the great ballroom Channel waves made of grey-blue tulle. It all looked very exotic and, to Hannah’s critical eye, somewhat excessive. Her own taste ran to simpler decorations.

  ‘Why aeroplanes?’ Daniel said, staring down at the hodgepodge on Mary’s lap. ‘Why not streamers? Much more fun. Why, you could put a model of one on rockers right down the centre of the supper room and serve the buffet in it and then if you're fortunate the duller guests will get seasick and go home and leave just a select few of us to enjoy the elbow room and the music.’

  ‘It’s Emmanuel’s idea,’ Mary said fretfully. ‘He had some plan to start some sort of mail delivery service, I believe. Or is that cousin Louis Damont? I don’t know. Anyway, it seems the King is very enamoured of flying machines, and that is why we are to have them. Should we have them in the supper room as well, then? I hadn’t thought of it.’

  'Not unless you can persuade all the bores to climb into them and keep out of my way,’ he said, and smiled at Hannah. ‘In fact, tell'em to stay away, and you and I shall dance all evening, Hannah, what do you say?’

  ‘I have too much work to do,’ Hannah said, a little primly, trying to ignore the way he had given words to her own current daydream. ‘And we can’t have aeroplanes in the supper room, Mrs Mary, because they’d impede the waiters and… ’

  ‘I was only joshing,’ Daniel said. ‘Don’t get so stuffy Hannah! You're as bad as the rest of them, getting all into a lather just over a ball! What does it matter anyway? He went and leaned against the mantlepiece and kicked one of the coals in the grate with the toe of his boot, making sparks fly in the hot air. "I'm bored out of my mind with balls.’

  ‘The King is coming, Daniel! And he’s never been here before, Mary said. ‘Luck you. He’s always coming to Mamma’s parties, and a dead bore it all is, to be sure! Can’t do this, mustn’t do that - you shouldn’t bother with it all, Aunt Mary. You’ve better things to do with your time, surely, than be like … like everyone else and fuss over the Royals.’

  ‘Do you talk so to your mother, Daniel?’ Mary said with a flash of spirits. You’d surprise me if you did.’

  ‘I’d surprise myself,’ Daniel grimaced. ‘Of course I don’t. Can you imagine what happens at our house when the wretched man’s coming? It’s not his fault, I suppose. I mean, he might be quite an entertaining fellow. It’s the fuss I loathe.

  ‘So do I,’ Hannah said, almost without realizing she had spoken, and then went crimson as Daniel turned to stare at her.

  ‘Dear me! So the mouse squeaks, does it?’ he said and grinned. ‘And here I was thinking you’d be in a great fuss and lather of excitement at the thought of seeing his boring majesty!’

  ‘I'm too busy to be excited,’ Hanna said and the mask came down over her face again as her colour subsided. ‘Mrs Mary, shall I go and talk to Harrods on telephone and tell them they can put it all in hand, then? There’s not a lot of time, and if you're sure it’s what you want … ’

  ‘Are you sure, Hannah? Mary said, her face creased with anxiety. ‘Daniel seems not to think it right.’

  ‘I'm quite sure, Mrs Mary,’ Hannah said firmly. He didn’t look at Daniel, but he picked up the message anyway and laughed and said easily, ‘Oh, Aunt Mary, pay no attention to me. I'm bored and irritable and was just making mischief. They're splendid designs and I'm sure Uncle Emmanuel and the King will worship them and you for being so clever as to provide ‘em. Put ‘em in hand, at once, do Hannah, and then come and tell me how many dances we shall have. What do you say? Do you like dancing?’ 'I don’t know,’ Hannah said. "I - I’ve never tried.’ Liar, she thought. Liar, who knows every step to every dance there is, from reading about balls and listening to the servants and watching them practise in the servant’s hall and then trying for yourself, alone up in the attic. Liar.

  ‘Then it’s high time you did!’ Daniel said, ‘Hey, Aunt Mary? Shall I teach your little amanuensis to step it lively? Come on.’ He crossed the room and took Hannah’s hand and, whistling the ‘Blue Danube', dragged her across the carpet into a somewhat clumsy waltz.

  She didn’t believe it. This was the stuff of her dreams, having Daniel’s arms around her waist, and one hand in his. Ridiculous, marvellous, mad – la, la, la, la, lala, lala, la la la lala, lala, lala … mad, ridiculous, marvellous.!

  Mary was glowing with delight, watching them, her chin lifted with an excitement that Hannah had never seen in her before, and after another moment of resistance she let got and followed Daniel’s urging hand on her back, and followed his step. His whistling came breathily in her ear and warmed her face.

  It was inevitable, of course. She had never seen anything but totally circumspect in all her dealing in this house, had never in all the years she had been there behaved in any way but the demure and polite one she had learned so early in her life. And the first time she allowed herself to be otherwise, there was Emmanuel standing at the door watching her, his face rigid with disapproval.

  26

  Daniel saw him after a moment and then, very deliberately, took one more turn round the room before relinquishing his hold on Hannah.

  ‘Hello, Uncle Emmanuel! You see how seriously I take your ball? Making sue I'm in good trim, getting my dancing knees oiled.’

  ‘Yes,’ Emmanuel said frostily. ‘I see. Mary, how many replies have you had to your cards today? Lord Minton came into Lammeck Alley today and said he hadn’t had a card for the ball, to the best of his knowledge.’

  ‘Hannah?’ Mary turned her head to look across appealingly to where Hannah was standing with her back to the window, so that her face was in shadow. ‘You dealt with that for me, I think… ’

  ‘Lord Minton’s card went in the first batch, Mrs Mary,’ Hannah said. ‘And I have here the answer from Lady Minton, in this afternoon’s post. Perhaps she hadn’t mentioned it to him yet.’

  ‘You see!’ May said. ‘I knew everything was in hand.’

  ‘And we have had sixty-three replies so far,’ Hannah went on. ‘I imagine the rest will be here by the end of the week.’

  ‘Quit
e the secretary, aren’t we?’ Emmanuel said. ‘Well, Daniel, I dare say you’ve better things to do than wait about here. My regards to your mother. Mary, I want to talk to you.’

  They left the room together, Hannah and Daniel, and she almost ran as the door closed behind them, hurrying for the stairs, but he caught up with her and grasped her wrist.

  ‘You said you couldn’t dance!’ he said. ‘Such a lie! You dance very well. We'll dance at the ball, shall we?’

  ‘I shan’t be there,’ Hannah said. ‘I mean, not for dancing. How can I be?’

  ‘How can’t you? You're always with Aunt Mary. I can’t imagine her getting through the evening without you. Of course you'll be there. And we'll dance.’

  Emmanuel’s' voice was raised suddenly. They heard the muffled sound of it from behind the closed drawing room door although the words couldn’t be identified. Hannah’s brows creased. That Mary and Emmanuel were not on close terms was common knowledge in the household, but they never raised their voices at each other. To hear Emmanuel shouting was not only strange to Hannah but alarming. She pulled her wrist away from Daniel’s grasp and said quickly, ‘I think you’d better go, don’t you?’

  He frowned. ‘Are they fighting?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ She allowed herself to sound pettish. ‘I'm only a servant. How should I know?’

  ‘A servant? Don’t be silly. you’re… ‘He stopped. ‘Different,’ he said. ‘Not a servant.’

  ‘What else am I? A fetcher and carrier.’

  ‘Not a servant. You call my aunt by her name, and anyway … ’

  ‘That was what she asked me to do. She wanted me to call her just Mary, but I couldn’t do that. Not Aunt, so we made it Mrs. Mary and that seems best.’

  ‘… and anyway, you're Jewish,’ he went on as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Jewish girls aren’t servants. How can you be one?’

  ‘Jewish girls aren’t servants?’ She felt anger bubble in her; anger at the way Emmanuel’s voice was still raised behind the closed door, anger at her own confusion at the way Daniel was standing so close to her that she couldn’t get away, because she had her back to the banisters, and a more general diffused anger at the confusion that had filled her ever since Uncle Alex had made his offer and she had had to refuse it. Now she indulged the feeling.

  ‘Jewish girls are factory slaves, of course, working all the hours God gives in stinking workshops where they can’t breathe properly, and never getting the chance to lift their eyes from what they're doing. Or they kill themselves trying to keep slum rooms half clean and their children alive in them, or give up trying and die before they're forty, but they're not servants! That would never do, would it, for your sort? You sit in your big rich houses and go to the East End settlement and hand out charity with our noses in the air and then talk about how awful it is down there, but you wouldn’t ever demean a Jewish girl by turning her into one of your servants, would you? Unless you can do it in a special way, calling us as companions or something.’

  He had been standing very still, his face expressionless. He held that stillness for a long moment after she came breathlessly to a stop. The he said, quietly. ‘I thought you cared for my aunt. She’s been good to you, I thought.’

  ‘Of course I care for her!’ To her fury she felt her eyes brighten with tears. ‘Of course I do! She’s been marvellous to me! She' done all she can to make me what I'm not which is her own daughter. But I'm not, and I ever can be. I'm a servant. But do I care.’

  ‘You don’t sound very caring.’

  ‘What can you understand?’ she said and now she sounded tired. ‘What can you understand about that it’s like to be anyone but the person you are? You have a marvellous life.’

  ‘How do you know?’ It was his turn to sound angry. ‘What do you know about anything to do with me? I go to Lammeck Alley in the morning because they won’t let me do anything I want to do and they're still trying to make up their minds about what I can be used for in their damned business, and I dance around my mother and aunts in the afternoons and do what I can to entertain myself in what’s left of my life. What do you know about what it’s like to be me?

  ‘I don’t,’ she said, and at last her self-training and caution came back. ‘I'm sorry to have spoken so. You're quite right. Please excuse me.’ She ducked under his arm and away towards the head of the stairs, but he went after her, and caught her again, this time around the waist.

  There was a last shout from Emmanuel and then the drawing door flew open and he came out, his broad face gleaming with sweat and his mouth turned down. At the sight of him Daniel turned and at last let her go, so that she could get away and to the stairs.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, hanging around? If you want to go sniffing around skirts, go and do it in your mother’s house,’ Emmanuel said, and his voice was still loud. ‘As for you … ’ He flicked his eyes at Hannah. ‘You're getting a bit above yourself, aren’t you? You’d better mind your manners. Go on in. You're wanted.’ He jerked his head at the drawing room door, and then pushed past them and went stumping down the stairs, his back very straight.

  After a moment Daniel said, ‘I'm sorry. That was appalling. I'm sorry.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologize,’ she said. ‘I told you, I'm only a servant,’ and she went into the drawing room and closed the door behind her quietly, and stood with her back to the panels looking across at Mary.

  She was sitting as she had been when Hannah had last seen her, still in her armchair, her face quiet and expressionless. She lifted her eyes after a moment and looked at Hannah, and essayed a small smile.

  ‘Dear me,’ she said, and her voice sounded quiet normal. ‘Quite a fuss. Did you hear?’

  ‘Just that Mr Lammeck was shouting,’ Hannah said, and came across the room. ‘Not what he said.’

  ‘He wants me to invite Mrs Chantry to the ball. And Mrs Keppel, of course.’

  ‘Mrs Keppel?’ Hannah said.

  ‘Mrs Keppel? Hannah said.

  ‘She’s the King’s whore,’ Mary said in a conversational tone. Didn’t you know that?’

  Hannah felt her face go pink but with amazement rather than shock. To hear Mary use such a word was as surprising as hearing the kitchen cat declaim Shakespeare.

  ‘Just as Mrs Chantry is Emmanuel’s. He didn’t think I knew. Silly, really. He should have realized there were plenty of people to tell me. Davida … ‘ She smiled again at Hannah, her face as calm as if she were discussing the weather ‘The woman’s got two children, it seems. Boys. He spends a lot on them.’

  Hannah stood dumbly, unable to do anything even though it was clear that Mary was suffering a great deal. It had been a long time since Hannah had seen her quite so still, and quiet so controlled.

  ‘I don’t want her here, of course. How can I want her? I said as much. But he says I’ve got to, and reminded me I’ve got no children, so -' She stood up. ‘So you’d better send cards, Hannah. Will you do it as soon as you’ve dealt with the design business?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hannah said. ‘If you want me to.’

  ‘I want you to.’

  ‘I'm sorry,’ Hannah said after a moment.

  ‘No need, my dear. No need. I'm used to it, really, dealing with him, I mean. But I’ve got you and that helps.’ She smiled then, a wide and brilliant look that made Hannah feel again that chill of alarm that came whenever Mary displayed her feeling for her too obviously. ‘You make all the difference, you see. All the difference in the world. I can manage anything between Sundays and Fridays.

  The days between that afternoon and the ball were busy and Mary seemed to most onlookers to be her usual quiet self, but to Hannah’s more experienced eye, it was as though a spring were being very slowly wound up inside her, taking each day to a level of tautness that seemed the tightest she could reach, only to be increased yet more the next day. Her face was smooth and showed no concern at all as she went about her affairs, with Hannah watchful at her side, and her eyes seemed unt
roubled, but Hannah knew, and worried about her. It was like waiting for a thunderstorm to erupt.

  On the day of the ball the house rang with activity. Harrod’s men rushed about setting up the decorations in the ballroom. Florists arrived in droves with great boxes of glowers. An army of servants polished everything in sight. The kitchens were a maelstrom of activity, with the regular staff as well as the extra people hired for the day falling over each other in their efforts. The supper room bulged with housemaids spreading tablecloths and arranging dishes, the pantry glittered with silver as the butler sorted out what dish should be used where, and the cellars were ablaze with light as the champagne was carefully stacked in ice baths.

  Mary seemed unperturbed by the busyness and for a little while even Hannah began to believe that all would be well, until late in the afternoon when Emmanuel came back from Lammeck Alley, his face white with tension as he hurried up to his dressing room.

  Hannah was in the ballroom checking on one of the pennants which had come adrift and needed repinning, and making sure that the last traces of French chalk had been polished from the expanse of gleaming wooden floor when one of the parlour maids came with a message that she was to go to Madam at once.

  ‘Got a fit of the megrims,’ she girl said over her shoulder as she bustled back to the kitchen to get her share of the special afternoon tea that had been provided for all the staff. ‘Looks shockin', she does. Can’t see ‘er at no ball tonight and that’s a fact.’