Hannah couldn’t either, when she saw her. She was sitting on the chaise longue in her bedroom with her head thrown back against the cushions, her complexion yellowish grey. Her forehead was lightly beaded with sweat, and she seemed to be breathing much more quickly that she usually did.
Hannah took one look at her and then ran across the long corridor to tap on Emmanuel’s dressing room door.
‘Please tell Mr Lammeck Madam is ill,’ she said to the valet. ‘I think she needs a doctor.’
The next half hour was hubbub and hell. Emmanuel came rushing to Mary’s room, and slammed the door behind him when he went in, leaving Hannah and the valet hovering outside uncertain of what to do. Again his voice was raised, and somewhere behind the blustering Hannah could hear Mary’s voice, thin and weak. It was more than she could tolerate, standing out there in the heavily carpeted corridor with the scent of tuberoses and jasmine in her nostrils. She felt Mary’s need of her as powerfully as if there had been a rope tied around her middle with Mary pulling on it, and she took a deep breath, pushed the door open and walked in quietly.
‘This is sheer bloody nonsense,’ Emmanuel was shouting. ‘You're doing it just to spite me the way you have before and I won’t let you get away with it. Do what you like tomorrow. Go into a bloody clinic for the next year for all I care, but tonight you stand in the reception line with me, and you smile and you look good for once in your life you behave like a wife. I’ve kept you like a damned duchess for nearly thirty years. Now try and give me something back for my money, you hear me? Lying there like some puking infant!’
‘Shall I send for the doctor, sir?’ Hannah said loudly. ‘I could send a footman, or telephone if you tell me which one you want called.’
‘No bloody doctors!’ Emmanuel was in his shirt sleeves, his collar lying in a ring on the back of his neck and making him look absurd. ‘There’s not a bloody thing wrong with the stupid bitch apart from bad temper.’
‘I could send the carriage for the doctor, if you’d prefer, sir,’ Hannah said, her own terror mounting in her. Mary looked so appalling, and Emmanuel’s fury was almost tangible, filing the room with a sort of mist.
‘I’ve told you, she’s not ill! This is just a … Mary, sit up!’
Hannah looked at him for a moment and then took a deep breath and moved across to the chaise longue and knelt beside it so that she could slip one arm under Mary’s back, and lift her gently, for she was trying to sit up unaided. The effort brought some colour back to her cheeks, and she seemed to be breathing more normally now.
‘It’s all right, Hannah,’ she said. I shall be all right. Don’t worry.’
‘Do you want a doctor, Mrs Mary?’ She said it quietly, urgently, touching Mary’s face with one hand. It felt surprisingly cool under her fingers.
‘No, I shall be all right. Emmanuel, I'll do my best, I really will. But I can’t manage on my own, I told you. I need Hannah there; you’ve got to let her … ’
‘I told you! No!’ Emmanuel began to shout again. ‘For God’s sake, woman, what are you? Some sort of cripple you can’t stand beside me without a crutch?’
‘Call it that if you like.’ Mary was taking deeper slower breaths now, and looking a little less pallid. ‘Call if what you like. But I told you, I can’t unless she’s there.’
There was a short silence and then he threw his hands up in a gesture compounded of both fury and resignation. ‘All right, all right!’ But for God’s sake get yourself ready, will you! It’s getting late.’ He went storming out, taking the valet with him, and slammed the door behind him.
There was a silence and then Mary smiled, a slow easy smile, and sat up, apparently without undue effort.
‘He said you couldn’t be at the ball,’ she said after a moment. ‘Said you were getting above yourself. Such a thing! As if you could! I’ve got a dress ready. In the far wardrobe.’
Hannah sat back on her heels and stared at the face so close to her own.
‘Mrs Mary?’ she said after a moment. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I shall be better once I see you dressed,’ Mary said, and leaned back now on the cushions. ‘I made up my mid to it, you see. I just couldn’t see how I could manage to stand there unless you were there, so I had to show him, didn’t I?’
Hannah stood up and folded her hands against her skirt, looking down at the quiet figure on the chaise longue.
‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ she said after a moment.
‘Wouldn’t what?’
‘Be so - I mean, it’s only me. I can’t do all that much.’
Mary smiled, and put out one hand. ‘You have no idea what you can do, Hannah, my love. You make all the difference in the world to me. Just being you.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘It’s not right.’
‘That I should love you so much? Why not right? you're like a daughter to me, Hannah, you must know that.’
‘But I'm not your daughter.’ She knew she sounded mulish and couldn’t help it. ‘Momma and Poppa … ’
There was a littler silence and then Mary said. ‘I know. Of course. Momma and Poppa. Never mind, Hannah. There’s no need to fret over it. Jut put on the dress. It’s in the far wardrobe.’
For a long moment she stood there, trying to imagine it all. Tried to imagine shaking her head and turning and going away, back to Antcliff Street and telling them she’d come home, telling Uncle Alex she would go to his tea shop. But the imagining wouldn’t take hold for alongside it there was one happening deep in her mind, all by itself; herself in a ball gown, twisting and turning under a great crystal chandelier, beside a grey tulle sea and under decorated model aeroplanes hung from the ceiling, and the music and Daniel breathing on her cheek as he whistled the ‘Blue Danube' in her ear. And while all that happened behind her eyes, in front of them lay Mary with her head thrown back on her cushions and her eyes wide and watchful in her pale face, willing her to do as she wanted.
And because Mary was weak, and had all the power of truly weak people, she won, just as she had won the battle with her husband. Hannah turned and went to the far wardrobe and took out the gown.
It was white raw silk looped with satin ribbons with a lace sweep across the bust and fringing the upper arms and she recognized at once one of her own designs, a drawing she had made one evening a few weeks before when they had sat side by side before the fire and Mary coaxed her into showing her her ‘dream dress'. She had been high spirited that night and happy, Hannah remembered now, and had been lavish with her pencil, making great curves of satin across the swirling skirt, and cutting the decolletage daringly low. It had looked wickedly expensive as just a drawing on a page. Now, lying across her arm in all its superb reality, it looked unbelievable sumptuous.
‘There are satin shoes there too, and a beaded bag - see? It has that fringe you so much admired when we saw it in the Ladies Journal.’
‘You’ve thought of everything,’ Hannah said, her voice rather flat, and Mary smiled and sat up, and swung her feet off the chaise longue to the floor.
‘I know,’ she said, and giggled like a child. ‘It’s been such fun hiding it all from you, I pray it fits. I gave it to Miss Winkworth with one of your other dresses for the measurements and she swore it’s exactly the same. Do put it on, my love, and then I shall arrange your hair. A Gibson Girl knot will be best, I think. I have some gardenias for you, too. Oh, Hannah, isn’t it fun?’
Despite all her misgivings, it was. The dress fitted perfectly, clinging to her long waist as though she had been poured into it, and making her rather heavy breasts look rich but exactly right above the swirl of the silken skirt.
‘You have just the right shape for today’s fashions, Hannah,’ May said with satisfaction, and the delight in Hannah’s appearance was infectious and made her feel, just for the moment, like the most lavishly rich lady who had ever existed. ‘No one will look as you do tonight. No one.’
It was difficult to be as she usually was, when she followed Mary
out of her bedroom half an hour later. She had sat quietly, wearing a plain cotton wrapper over her gown, while the maid set the room to rights, and then, after she had gone away, had dressed Mary’s hair as carefully she could, and helped her fasten her own gown, a confection of deep yellow satin and fringe that somehow managed to look rather dull, once it was on, despite the fact that it had cost the better part of a hundred pounds. But Mary was unconcerned with her own appearance; it was Hannah who mattered, Hannah around whom she fussed and fiddled, clearly happier than she had been for weeks. Soon she was to stand beside her husband at the top of her own staircase and greet her guests among them her husband’s mistress. She was to welcome a king who was pretending not to one in such a manner that he would feel both respected and relaxed, difficult feat that he always demanded of those of his subjects he treated as friends. She was to spend the whole evening pretending to be serene and happy, a formidable task for one of Mary’s nature. Yet now all she cared about was the appearance of an East End charity girl; who was neither family nor servant, a nothing of a girl who yet mattered more to her than husband or husband’s mistress or any number of kings. It made Hannah feel exceedingly uneasy.
But when the time came, and she slipped out of the room to walk beside Mary as she made her way to the top of the staircase, she could not help feeling her heart life in her throat, almost choking with excitement. Here was another of her fantasies taking solid reality. It was almost more than she could bear.
27
It grew hotter and hotter, and the scent of the dying flowers mingled with the smell of human sweat and champagne and cigars and made her feel a little sick; but it cold have been the excitement that made her chest so tight and her belly so queasy. It was all so exactly as she had imagined it so often, the slow parade of people coming up the stairs to be greeted by their host and hostess at the top, the men in their penguin brilliance, the women in their deep cut gowns, so tight at the waist, so swirling at the skirt below the curve of their hips, and so gleaming of complexion and hair. She stood just behind Mary, where she could put out a hand to support her should Mary, feel at all weak, and watched the glittering array as they murmured their way past.
At first, Emmanuel had looked at her with his face tight and cold, and yet with an expression in his eyes that alarmed her. There was a voracity about them as they swept down and over the gown that clung to her so closely, and then flicked back to stare into her eyes. It was as though he had taken the dress off with that look and she felt exposed and ashamed.
But then he had ignored her, standing beside Mary as the guests started to arrive, all smiles and bonhomie, becoming ever more glistening of forehead and louder of laugh. Daniel arrived fairly early, behind his mother, who was looking quite ravishing in emerald satin, and with his father, Albert, beside him, together with a tall fair young man. He bent his head very slightly at Hannah, but she pretended she had not seen him, shifting her gaze to the girl who was walking beside Davida. She was tall and had very dark eyes under brows which swept up like parentheses, and which gave her a look of hauteur. But she was beautiful, of that there was no question. Very slender, she was encased in rich creamy lace, and her shoulders sloped above her decolletage, gleaming like marble. Her hair, as dark as her eyes and very abundant, was piled on her small head making her long neck seem very fragile. The total effect was magnificent.
‘Deawest Mawy, a splendid evening, such a cwush!’ Davida murmured, kissing Mary’s cheek and totally ignoring Hannah. But Hannah knew she had seen her, had noticed her gown and probably registered just how costly it was. "Dear Leontine dined with us for the evening, and her dear brother Willem, you remember Willem I'm sure, from Amsterdam? Of course you do.’ The tall young man behind Daniel bowed with a very Continental crispness. ‘Come and kiss dear Mawy. Is she not looking quite divine? Daniel, dear one, come and kiss your aunt.’
She drew him forward, and somehow contrived to arrange him alongside Leontine so that they looked as though they were a couple. It was inevitable that as the crowd behind pushed onwards and upwards Leontine should set her hand on Daniels', and be led by him into the ballroom. Almost at once they were dancing. Hannah could see them through the great double doors, and tried hard not to notice how very gracefully the tall girl moved, the way her back curved so deliciously under his guiding hand and how attentively he seemed to listen to her as they danced by, his head bent toward her.
‘Margaret, how good to see you, so glad you could come,’ Mary was saying to a stout woman in deep purple. ‘And Peter, how well you look too, dear boy.’
Peter Lammeck, Alfred’s son, a tall and rather thin young man looking very like his cousin Daniel, bent his head to kiss his aunts cheek and smiled at Hannah, and she bobbed her head back in some confusion. She had seen him before, when he had come visiting Mary with Daniel but he had seemed a very quiet young man, with little to say for himself, and she was surprised that he had noticed her t all. She watched him go into the ballroom and thought for a moment with a pang of her own brothers - stocky, rather short in stature and not all as elegant as the young men of this family. What was it about these rich Jews that made them so different from the East End ones? The people at Uncle Alex’s party seemed alien in comparison, an exotic chattering exuberant lot as unlike these languorous quiet creatures a she herself was unlike her brothers. It was all so strange that she felt more and more as if she were in one of her dreams, as though she were sitting high in a corner of the great ballroom staring down at all that was going on below.
The family were gathering in strength. Emmanuel’s brothers, Albert and Alfred, instead of passing on into the ballroom as their wives and sons had done - Davida leading the way with great imperiousness - had stopped to stand behind Emmanuel, talking to each other and to him when he could be distracted from greeting newcomers. They looked like great birds, Hannah thought, with their glossy black tail coats and blindingly whit shirt fronts decorated with diamond studs. They looked so alike too, all with dark hair receding over their high foreheads and greying at the temples, all olive of complexion and rotund figure and with gold chains looped across their expanses of belly. hey all had clean shaven cheeks, pendulous and a little shadowed by their dark beard growths, and they all looked exceedingly prosperous.
‘Susan, and dear Ezra,’ Mary was saying. ‘How nice.’ And she swayed a little as Susan kissed her, and Hannah, watchful and very quick, put he hand unobtrusively against her back and she steadied. ‘Are the children well?’
‘Very well, dear. Very well. Marcus is getting so tall, you’d be amazed. And Daphne is the sweetest little darling you ever saw - and little Rupert - oh, you should have heard what he said to his nurse this morning … ’
She chattered on and Hannah could feel the tension in Mary, who always suffered when her sisters-in-law talked of their children. Davida did it with malice, Hannah was sure, but on the occasions when she had heard Susan talk as she did now, she felt nothing in her but genuine passion for her own children and total unawareness of the effect that such talk might have on a disappointed woman like Mary. Which was odd, Hannah thought now, listening to her, when you remembered that Susan had seen two of her own children die when they were babies. Women are very strange, she told herself as at last Susan and Ezra moved on, making way for the people behind. Very strange.
Her hand was still on Mary’s back and she felt her stiffen and turned her head to look. She had been almost unaware of the butler’s voice, intoning the names of each arrival, until now, but this time it seemed to be louder and much more enunciated than other names had been. ‘Mrs Thomas Chantry,’ he said. Mary tilted her head and held out her hand.
‘Mrs Chantry,’ she murmured as though Hannah could not see her face, standing as she was behind her, she knew as surely as if she had been staring at it that Mary looked serene and calm, and that her eyes had flicked away after the proper interval of time to the next guest.
‘Mrs Chantry, a large blonde woman with a cheerful face
and small but very bright eyes moved on past Emmanuel. Hannah had to admire her, for she merely bent her head and went on into the ballroom, seeming quite unabashed by the face that clearly everyone standing nearby, and most particularly the cluster of brothers standing behind her host, were well aware of the special relationship she enjoyed with him. Yet from her demeanour no one would have thought they were anything but the merest of acquaintances. It was a magnificent performance.
They kept on coming. Hannah stared with particular interest at Mrs Keppel, a dark eyed, dark haired beauty with a very friendly face who stood and chattered at Mary with such vivacity that no one seemed to notice that Mary hardly answered her, and also at the somewhat faded beauty of Lillie Langtry, arriving on the arm of a man who had cheeks that looked painted, so reddened were they by years of heavy drinking.
There were other famous faces too, faces she had seen in the illustrated journals, and on the picture post cards that the servants kept pinned up on the board in the servants' hall. It was a most fashionable party, and she could tell that Mary felt all the work and planning had been worthwhile as Emmanuel became more and more cheerful, and even seemed to look at her with some approval when next he caught her eye.
The music had been going for some time, waltz succeeding polka and then some of the newest ragtime tunes, freshly imported from America. Hannah listened to the irresistible beat, and made herself resist it, not moving a muscle as she stood there doggedly behind Mary. It wasn’t easy but she did it. There was a little stir then, below in the hall. Emmanuel stiffened and so did is brothers, moving forward to be nearer to him, and Hannah heard a booming voice from the crush of people below, and then a loud laugh.
Emmanuel almost visibly relaxed. Clearly he had, for a while, doubted whether the King would arrive at all, and the sound of that voice coming up to him from his own hallway reddened his face with pleasure and made him gleam ever more richly with satisfaction. The butler opened his mouth to announce the newest guest as he came up the stairs, a cigar in one hand, and his other resting on the shoulder of a tall young man, an equerry, but he shook his head at him, and obediently the butler closed his mouth.
The Running Years Page 29
