A Gathering Storm

by Rachel Hore

  The sun crept across the sky. The tide was on the turn now. She could feel the tension of it, sucking and pulling in secret places under the rocks. She wondered idly where the other children had got to and whether they knew about incoming tides. Edward was older; she thought he must know. She’d wait for a while longer just to see, but she’d be in trouble if she were late home.

  She stared over at the passage to the next cove. It was narrower than it had been. Every now and then, a wave would nearly reach the jagged black rocks of the headland. But then several would fall short and she’d decide she was being hasty.

  Time to go. She swung her bag across her shoulder, lifted the bucket of sea creatures and the net and started up the beach, but each step was reluctant. When she reached the far side of the dunes and gained the path back to St Florian, something made her turn round. A cry, she was sure it was a cry. It might be one of the children. She couldn’t go on, couldn’t just leave them there in danger.

  She left her things by the path and retraced her steps, but when she reached the place where the passage had been, she saw that the sea had nearly covered it. They hadn’t come back. They’d be drowned.

  She eyed the vicious rocks, imagining where her hands and feet could fit, and looked down in dismay at her soft hands. She wouldn’t have to go very far – if she could just see the children and warn them . . . She placed her sandalled foot on the lowest ledge and began to climb.

  Chapter 6

  Oenone Wincanton, whose name was pronounced ‘In-ony’, came to tea with Beatrice’s mother the next day. Beatrice skulked in the hall, listening at the door.

  ‘Your daughter is obviously a tomboy. Ah, the dear thing, she sounds just how I used to be.’ Angelina’s mother gave a delicious rippling laugh and Beatrice couldn’t help smiling. ‘I had brothers, you see, and the things we used to get up to would simply make your blood freeze. That’s why you must let me help. Don’t worry, your little Beatrice will turn out beautifully with me, you’ll see.’

  Beatrice narrowed her eyes. What did Mrs Wincanton mean by help?

  ‘But you know where we found her, madame,’ she heard her mother say in her accented English. ‘On the cliff! It makes my heart stop to think of it. Anything dangerous or daring and she cannot resist.’

  When Beatrice had failed to return home the previous evening the Marlows had sounded the alarm. A search party found her as it was growing dark, clutching for dear life to a rocky overhang, unable to go either up or down, soaked by icy spray and terrified, while the Atlantic Ocean churned beneath. Oenone Wincanton had been with them.

  ‘All your little girl would say was, she wanted to save the children. So plucky of her. No reason for her to have known about the steps, of course. It’s impossible to see them if you don’t know where to look.’

  Beatrice knew now that a secret set of steps, cut into the cliff, led up from the second cove to the grounds behind Carlyon Manor. The Wincanton children had simply climbed them and had been home safe and dry twenty minutes after they’d disappeared from Beatrice’s sight. How foolish she felt.

  She slumped against the panelling and hurt her elbow on a shelf. ‘Ow!’

  ‘Who’s there?’ Her mother’s heels tapped on the wooden floor. Beatrice scrambled into the dining room just in time.

  ‘Béatrice?’ her mother’s voice called into the hall.

  ‘She’s in there, the minx,’ Cook said, appearing at the kitchen door with a fresh pot of tea. She scowled at Beatrice.

  ‘O ma fille,’ Delphine Marlow said, scrutinizing the girl. She never frowned – frowning caused wrinkles, she liked to say – but Beatrice felt her frown. ‘Run up and brush your hair, mignonne. Madame Wincanton would like to see you.’

  In the drawing room, Beatrice wasn’t sure where to put herself so she hovered by the fireplace, standing first on one leg, then on the other, and peering at the visitor from under her lashes. Oenone Wincanton looked Beatrice up and down with an amused expression. She was so lovely and elegant, the girl thought; you could see where Angie got her good looks. Mrs Wincanton’s hair was honey-coloured, but a couple of shades darker than her daughter’s, and piled up in an artless coil – not fashionable at all, but beautiful all the same – and her eyes were a pure blue, like pieces cut out of a sky. Beatrice realized where she’d seen her before: racing a dainty bay mare across the shoreline, with an older, soldierly-looking man on a great black hunter in hot pursuit.

  She wasn’t wearing her riding habit today, but a trim tea costume in navy and white. Pearls gleamed at her ears and her throat. She laid down her cup and saucer and patted the sofa beside her. Beatrice shuffled over and slid onto the edge of it, her hands hot under her thighs until, seeing her mother’s moue of displeasure, she took them out and folded them on her lap. The moue transformed itself into the faintest of smiles.

  ‘Your mother tells me you like horses,’ Mrs Wincanton said, her eyes merry. ‘We have two. Perhaps you’d like to come and see them sometime?’

  Beatrice glanced up at her mother for guidance. Her mother looked away. What was going on?

  ‘What else do you like, Béatrice?’ Mrs Wincanton pronounced it in the French way, as her mother did. ‘Such a pretty name. Your mother says you do your lessons well.’

  Beatrice recalled the disinfectant smell of the rooms above the dentist’s surgery in the town, where Miss Tabitha Starling had been teaching her and two other local girls at a big round table in the window overlooking the back of the inn.

  ‘I like natural history,’ she said haltingly, not used to undivided adult attention.

  ‘Ah yes, Angelina told me about your rockpools,’ the woman replied. ‘Very commendable. You speak French, of course, you lucky thing. And I gather your governess lived in Germany for a while before the war? I wish Angelina took more interest in languages. Now that would be useful. Miss Starling’s lessons must have been rather pleasant.’

  Their lessons – arithmetic, English, geography and history, with a little German and natural history thrown in – were interestingly taught but were occasionally interrupted by chilling screams of pain from the surgery. But now poor Miss Starling was ill with her nerves again, and with the start of the long summer holiday upon them, had decided to go and live with her widowed sister in Weston-super-Mare.

  Mrs Wincanton pulled on a pair of white gloves and remarked, above Beatrice’s head, ‘Mrs Marlow, I imagine she’ll do rather nicely. Speak to your husband about the matter and let me know what you decide. The sum involved will be quite modest, I assure you.’

  Beatrice, bewildered, stumbled out a reply to Mrs Wincanton’s, ‘Goodbye, dear,’ and trailed out behind them into the hall. Cook opened the front door, and beyond the garden gate could be glimpsed the sleek black wing of a motor car. After they’d watched it bear Mrs Wincanton away, Mrs Marlow touched Beatrice’s hand and whispered, ‘Well, ma petite, I can’t think what your father will say.’

  ‘Say about what, maman?’ Beatrice asked. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Her mother pressed her palms together, as though in prayer, though she wasn’t outwardly a very religious woman. ‘Mrs Wincanton would like you to go to Carlyon Manor every day to be a companion for her daughter Angelina.’ She went on, ‘You would join her and her little sister in their studies from September. A Miss Simpkins lives at the house and teaches every morning. The boys will naturally be away at school and Mrs Wincanton says Angelina needs the company of suitable girls of her own age. There is only one month between the two of you.’

  ‘Oh!’ She would be with Angelina. She could not think how to respond. What had she – thin, shy Beatrice – to offer lovely, golden Angelina? The girl seemed older than her; indeed, if her birthday was in August she was a whole school year ahead. If they were going to school, that is.

  ‘I’ll talk to your father’, Mrs Marlow sighed. ‘I hope he will agree.’

  Days of argument followed.

  ‘It is a marvellous opportunity for her,’ Delphine woul
d say.

  ‘We’ll be beholden to them,’ Hugh would object. ‘And she’ll start expecting to live the high life.’

  ‘Oh come, that’s nonsense – not our little Béatrice,’ she would counter.

  Eventually Hugh Marlow gave way, astonished at his wife’s unusual insistence.

  It was early in July when Beatrice was first invited up to the house. Her mother went with her. Up the cliff path, then a short walk alongside a field of ripening corn to a lane that ran between stone hedges to the gates of Carlyon Manor. Beatrice yearned for the house until they rounded the bend of the drive, then there it was, a wide expanse of Cornish granite with diamond-hatched windows, high chimneys and a slate roof. They passed a croquet game, abandoned on the front lawn. As they neared the front door their footsteps slowed, and though she said nothing, Delphine held her daughter’s hand more tightly.

  A little maid with beady eyes, like a jenny wren, admitted them. ‘The mistress is still out riding,’ she told them, and showed them into the drawing room to wait. Beatrice, who had never been in a place so splendid, gazed at the sunlight dazzling off the electric chandeliers. The french windows stood open and beyond were lawns and flowerbeds and swaying trees.

  ‘May I go out in the garden?’ she asked her mother.

  ‘No, mon amour, we are not invited,’ said Mrs Marlow, tenderly brushing a lock of hair from her daughter’s face. There was a great tarnished mirror over the fireplace and Beatrice wandered across to make faces in it, though she was barely tall enough to see. She noticed the carved mantelpiece itself and ran her fingers over the pattern of leaves and flowers and fruit, wondering at the warmth and smoothness of the wood. Then her keen eyes spotted a carved insect hidden amongst the petals of a flower. It was a bee, its wings spread wide, and so delicately wrought she could see the markings on them. She traced its shape with a fingertip, thinking that because it was so small perhaps she was the only one who had ever noticed it. When she took a step away from the mantelpiece, the bee could hardly be seen. She was still marvelling at this idea when the door opened and Mrs Wincanton, in riding breeches, burst into the room. She was breathing quickly and her colour was high.

  ‘I am sorry, Mrs Marlow. It’s so glorious out on the beach, I quite forgot the time.’ She cast her hat and riding crop on a chair. Her bright gaze passed over Beatrice in her neat brown dress and black lace shoes, then she realized what she’d been looking at. ‘Oh, have you found our little bee? I’ll tell you the story about him.’

  Mrs Wincanton pulled the bell-rope by the fireplace. Whatever the story she’d been going to tell, it was forgotten, for a sinister rumbling noise had started up somewhere above their heads. Beatrice and her mother looked at the ceiling in alarm, but Oenone Wincanton was unperturbed. When the jenny wren maid appeared she said, ‘We’ll have tea now, Brown. Would you take Miss Beatrice up to meet the children? I gather from the ghastly row that they are somewhere about?’

  ‘Upstairs, mam, all of ’em. Miss Hetty’s worriting the life out of that poor dog, and now the boys are playing skittles in the corry-dor. The butler’s been up to speak to them twice about their behaviour, but they don’t take no notice, mam.’

  ‘Oh, never mind. I’ll deal with them later. Boys will be boys,’ Oenone said to no one in particular, with a little laugh. She gave Beatrice’s shoulder a light pat and said, ‘Go with Brown, Beatrice. I’m sure you’ll have a very nice time, whilst I speak to your mother.’

  With a pleading look, ignored by her mother, Beatrice followed the little maid out to the hall and up a wide wooden staircase. At the top a long landing stretched right and left into darkness.

  ‘Look out, miss!’ Brown cried, and pulled her to the wall as a missile came hurtling out of the gloom and sent a pile of wooden objects crashing at the other end.

  Roars filled the air: ‘A triumph!’ and ‘Ed, you foul cheat. Your foot was over the line.’ And then came the sound of a struggle. Brown’s high voice piped above the general mayhem, ‘Master Edward, Master Peter, get up, both of you, you’ve got a visitor.’

  Edward appeared first, scrambling to his feet, wiping his arm across his perspiring face and laughing. ‘Beatrice.’ He reached for her hand and shook it heartily. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m afraid you arrived at a bad moment. Pete, get up, will you, you storming great idiot.’ Peter, still sprawled on the floor, muttered, ‘Hello.’

  Brown pulled herself up to her full four feet ten and said, ‘You’re to look after her, do you understand? Show her round. Now where’s Miss Angie?’

  Edward propelled Beatrice into a large untidy schoolroom with no carpet, overlooking the back garden, where the sea could be glimpsed sparkling beyond the trees. Here, too, all was chaos. At a table by the window, Angelina sat reading a crumpled magazine and eating an apple. A gramophone spat out scratchy dance music, and little Hetty, mousy hair flying, was on her hands and knees, chasing a large shuffling personage in and out of the table legs and shouting, ‘Jacky, come here. Jacky!’ It took Beatrice a moment to realize that Jacky was an Old English Sheepdog done up in a dress and bonnet. It looked up shamefaced at Beatrice, who felt a rush of pity. Hetty pushed past it, growling, and crawled over to Beatrice, showing gappy teeth. ‘Guess what I am, guess what I am,’ she shrieked.

  ‘A dog?’ Beatrice asked.

  ‘Wrong. She’s a crocodile,’ delivered Peter, rolling his eyes. ‘She’s always a ruddy crocodile. She’s obsessed by crocodiles.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Today I’m an alligator,’ Hetty shouted with indignation. ‘And Nanny told you not to swear.’

  ‘You’re not an alligator, you’re a little prig.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, all of you!’ Edward roared over Hetty’s cry of rage. ‘Can’t you see you’re terrifying poor Beatrice.’

  ‘How can anyone get peace and quiet to read?’ cried Angie, slapping her magazine shut and getting up from the table. ‘Honestly, all of you. What must you think of us, Beatrice?’ She smiled lazily, pushing back a wavy lock that had escaped from her plait, her large blue eyes dreamy.

  A short stout woman in a navy uniform bustled in from the connecting room, her face half-hidden by the stack of board games she was carrying. ‘Children,’ she ordered, in a soft, cracked voice that was lined with steel. ‘Too much noise. Your mother won’t stand for it.’

  ‘Mother won’t care. Nanny, do stop fussing,’ Edward said, with the casual confidence of the eldest son who could do no wrong. ‘Look, we’ve got Beatrice.’

  ‘Oh,’ Nanny said, putting down the boxes on the table. ‘So you’re the one. Let me look at you.’

  Everybody became quiet as she perused poor Beatrice, who felt her face flush. She twisted her arms together and looked down at her feet, trying to wish away the clumpy black shoes. Angie, she’d noticed, had pretty ballet slippers. Of course she would, no matter that the toes were worn. Beatrice felt no envy, just humility in the presence of beauty.

  It was Angie who took pity on her, stepping forward to give her an awkward hug. She smelled deliciously of soap and apple. ‘Don’t mind the others,’ Angie said. ‘They’ve got no manners. I’m glad you’ve come. The boys are perfectly horrid, but it’s awfully boring when they’re away at school.’

  ‘There’s me,’ shouted Hetty, in high dudgeon. ‘I’m still here.’ Peter made a grunting noise behind her.

  Angie pressed her perfect lips together in a complicit smile that meant girls of six didn’t count. Hetty, seeing it, gave an un-alligator-ish pout. Beatrice smiled back at Angie, feeling her heart open like a flower. Ed kicked a piece of chalk, which Peter stamped on. The dog sat down and began to scratch in a vulgar fashion.

  ‘If everybody’s finished,’ Nanny said severely, ‘you may show Beatrice round Carlyon.’

  ‘The gardens first,’ Ed said. ‘We’ll make Brown happy and take the skittles outside.’

  ‘No, the kitchen. I’m hungry.’ That was Hetty.

  ‘You were very greedy at breakfast,’ Nanny told her. ‘You don’t need an
ything else.’

  ‘Let’s take her to the cesspit,’ Peter sang out.

  ‘Don’t be rude, Peter,’ Angie replied. ‘We’ll go to the stables first, don’t you think, Bea? I want to show you Cloud.’

  ‘Yes, the stables,’ echoed Beatrice. Bea. No one had ever given her a nickname before. She thought of the tiny wooden insect nestling in the carving in the drawing room, behind which was a story.

  ‘Busy Bea,’ said Hetty.

  ‘Brown Bea,’ said Peter, looking at Beatrice’s dress.

  ‘Bees aren’t brown, Pete. Bumblebees are gold and black.’

  ‘Some are brown,’ Peter argued, glowering at his brother.

  ‘Beatrice doesn’t bumble, she’s a honey bee, aren’t you?’ Angie took her by the hand.

  ‘They’re very brown.’

  ‘Still, I think I like honey bees best,’ she said.

  ‘So do I,’ said Beatrice.

  It would be two months before lessons began in September. For Beatrice the time crawled. Once or twice over the summer she was invited up to the house and these were wonderful exhilarating times. Then came one baking hot day in early August when Angelina turned thirteen, and Beatrice was invited to a picnic on the beach, but everyone was out of sorts for some reason. She was confused to see that Angelina’s eyes were red-rimmed, her lovely mouth turned down. Ed got them all playing cricket on the damp sand above the shoreline.