Deck With Flowers

by Elizabeth Cadell

  “You won’t have to go back there. I’ll do all the explaining that’s necessary. But while we’re here, I’d like to stay with you. I’m as involved as you are. We both have to find out... whatever there is to find out. But I don’t like the idea of confronting your mother with that photograph without some kind of preparation.”

  “Well, let’s see about preparation when we get there.”

  But when they reached the house, Mrs. Baird was out. They went upstairs and Nicola’s first action was to take the photograph out of the envelope in which she had put it. She placed it on the desk, took it up again, looked round the room and then propped it against a small carved box on a table in the corner.

  “She won’t see that when she first comes in,” she said. “Then I can prepare her and ask her to take a look at the watch in the photograph. All right?”

  “I suppose so. I don’t like it. I think you ought to—”

  “Here she is.”

  Rodney waited. For the first time, fear touched him. Mrs. Baird’s secrets were her own, to keep or to reveal. There should have been a gentler, more gradual approach.

  She was at the top of the stairs, and he stepped forward to take her shopping basket.

  “Thank you. If you had only telephoned to me last night,” she said, addressing them both, “then I could have arranged or—” She broke off abruptly, her eyes on Nicola. “You are not well,” she exclaimed. She came forward and put an anxious hand on Nicola’s forehead. “You are very pale ... no, you have no temperature. What is the matter with you? You should have told me, if you have been ill. Come and sit here and tell me exactly—”

  Her words died away. She had turned to pull forward a chair, and her eyes had fallen on the photograph.

  For some moments there was total, tense silence. She took two slow steps towards the table, and they saw her hand go out and pick up the photograph.

  Something—some instinct, some premonition—made Rodney retreat. He found himself moving slowly backward, step by step, until he felt the window behind him. Nicola had not moved. Her mother was standing motionless, frozen, her eyes on the photograph in her hand. Then she raised unseeing eyes and looked blindly round the room until at last her gaze fixed itself on Nicola.

  “Where”—her voice was a whisper—“where did you get this?”

  Nicola’s face was deathly pale, but she answered steadily.

  “Among the illustrations for Madame Landini’s book.”

  “And you brought it to me—here, to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you see? He was wearing my watch.”

  The look of fear on Mrs. Baird’s face changed slowly to one of utter bewilderment.

  “Watch?” she repeated uncomprehendingly. “Watch?”

  Nicola took a step forward, and then stopped.

  “If you didn’t notice the watch,” she asked in a shaking voice, “then what…then why…”

  “You wanted to find out if I—”

  “All I wanted was to know why he was wearing that watch. When you gave it to me, you said it was unique. I think Madame Landini saw it, and I think that’s why she stopped writing her memoirs, and I think you were afraid that she saw it, and so you made sure I couldn’t take the watch back to London with me. The truth, that’s all I wanted. Whatever was secret, I think I’ve a right to know. The truth, just the truth. I’ve been living for the past few hours in a fog, and I’m frightened. If you know anything, you ought to tell me.”

  “I tried”—Mrs. Baird’s voice was hoarse—“I tried to prevent you from going back. You know that I tried. You wouldn’t listen.”

  She swayed, but before Rodney could move, Nicola had caught her arm and was placing her gently in the chair. Then she knelt beside her and spoke urgently.

  “Mother, you’ve got to tell me. Rodney’s in this just as much as I am. If you don’t want him to talk about it, then he won’t. But I’ve got to know the truth. Please, please tell me the truth.”

  There was silence. Mrs. Baird was breathing in short, painful gasps. Her eyes were closed.

  “Mother—”

  Her eyes opened.

  “The truth? You want the truth?”

  “Yes. All of it. Please. You ... you knew Anton Veitch?”

  Mrs. Baird spoke in a toneless voice. “That was not his name, not his real name. He was an Englishman. His name was Anthony Vine.”

  “When, where... when did you know him?”

  “He was my husband.”

  “Your..

  “In the eyes of God, my husband.”

  “If he ... if he was your husband, then . . .”

  “Yes. He was your father.”

  In the silence, Rodney heard the sound of the sea.

  Chapter 8

  “His name was Robert Anthony Vine,” Mrs. Baird said.

  It was the same room, but to Rodney, it had changed. It had become the backcloth of a drama whose echoes had been sounding for the past weeks in Madame Landini’s residence. Mrs. Baird no longer seemed to him the same woman. Greyfaced, haggard, she was seated in a low chair, her hands in Nicola’s, who was sitting on the floor beside her.

  “His name was Robert Anthony Vine. He was English, born in Cheshire, the son of a clergyman. His parents had very little money. They died when he was a child; his only relation was an aunt, and he went to live with her. When it was clear that he had great musical gifts, his pianoforte teacher asked his aunt to provide money for his studies, but she refused—not because -she did not believe in his talent, but because she herself was the widow of an unsuccessful musician, and wanted a more secure future for the boy. His teacher took him to London, and there he played for the great master Nikolaus Satz. It is from him that Nicola’s name is taken. It was Satz who, when the aunt refused to pay anything, looked round for a patron—and found Princess Anna. She was young, but already world-famous, already rich, and she was known for her generosity to young musicians. She saw Anthony Vine, and heard him play.

  “From that moment, she took charge of everything. She changed his name to Anton Veitch, she arranged his studies, she paid for his lodgings, his lessons, everything. She arranged his first concert. It was in London, and about its success, and the success of his three later concerts, there could be no doubt. But the future she had decided for him was to marry her.

  “He was, of course, in love—how could he not have been? If she had been only beautiful . . . but she was more, much more, and also she was an artist like himself. And above all there was his deep gratitude for all the things she had done for him. These he never forgot—as you will learn.

  “They were married in New York. He was twenty-five, she was two years older. They went on a long honeymoon, and then they returned, as he thought, to resume their careers. and then she told him that she would never agree to be parted from him, never. As it was unthinkable that she should give up her own career, he must agree to give up his, and stay with her always, and become her accompanist.

  “He told himself that he could not refuse to do as she asked. All that he was, he owed to her. So he agreed, and they travelled everywhere, and she sang. No recordings can ever be like that voice. Those who heard it... it is true to say that they were lifted, for a time, into another world. I know, because whenever she sang in London, I went to hear her.

  “In London, at that time, she and her entourage stayed always in the same hotel—the Regal, which was very old, and became out of date, and is now pulled down. A number of rooms, always the same rooms, were reserved for the Princess, in the basement of the hotel were the kitchens, and there your grandfather worked—a pastrycook, Swiss, of no account beyond his work, but in his own sphere an artist, a master like our father.

  “I was his only child. When my mother died, he brought me over to England and I began to work under him. Soon he decided that I must work in better conditions, that I must have more freedom, more movement, more change. I was put in charge of the flower arra
ngements of the hotel. Today, this kind of work is done by people from outside, who make a contract, but then, no. At the Regal, I did it. And one morning, as I was going into the Princess’s suite, carrying a vase of flowers, your father came out.

  “We met face to face. You must believe me when I say that from that moment, nothing was the same ever again, for him or for me. We knew, that first moment. We knew . . . We passed, we looked round, we stopped, we spoke. That was how it began.

  “We had to wait a long time to be happy. He had been married to the Princess for eight years. After the first year, she took lovers, but I believe, I have always believed that your father was the only man who really mattered much to her in her life. He was not happy with her, but he said nothing; always, always he remembered that he owed her everything and that it was through her that he had been given freedom to perfect his art. To the last, he refused to leave her in any way that would be known to the world to humiliate her. He would not have it said of her that her husband had run away.

  “We waited for two years. The Princess travelled, and your father travelled with her. While she was in London, in the hotel, he did not always have to attend the receptions and the banquets to which she went; at those times, he was free. And it was then that we met. Anybody who saw me entering or leaving the rooms would think that I had gone there in the ordinary course of my duties; I had a key, I could go into and out of all the rooms of the hotel at will. In the little room at the end of the suite, a room that was your father’s, in which he worked, practised, arranged programmes for the Princess’s concerts—in this room we met. And loved.

  “For two years, we planned. We were determined to make a new life together, but it could not be a happy life unless he left her in such a way that the world would not know he had run away. She did not need him any more, this much he knew, but he knew also that she would never let him go. So we waited. He and I would come together one day, and be happy—but the world must not know that he had deserted her.

  “We knew that we would live here, in Brighton. It was a place to which she had stated publicly she would never return. We saved what money we could, but for him it was difficult, because all his earnings as an accompanist came through her, and she knew always what he spent. Soon, I came to Brighton and with my father’s help I bought this house and started the patisserie. My father knew something, but not all. He knew that I was waiting ... for someone. I changed my name to Baird and told people that my husband was in a Swiss sanatorium but would soon be well enough to join me.

  “And then he came. We had had time to plan; we did not make any mistakes. They had sailed many times from Southampton; he knew the timing, the routine, everything.

  The moment came when they were to sail to America on the Atlantis.

  “He went on board the ship with the Princess. He stood beside her on the deck as she made her farewells to the crowds below. When the signal was given for visitors to leave the ship, he went down with some of her flowers to the stateroom. He left the flowers, put on a mackintosh, pulled a hat over his eyes—and went into the corridor. Now he was any tall man going ashore after saying goodbye to his friends. He was not so well known that there was any risk of being recognised. On the shore, he did not turn for a last look. He walked out of her life for ever.

  “I was waiting here. My father had gone back to Switzerland. Your father and I began a new life, and he took a new name: Baird. He became Anthony Baird by law, and died Anthony Baird.

  “We wanted children. You came, and we were glad; there were no more. As to his music, if you think that a man whose fingers had had magic in them could never be happy after abandoning his art, you are wrong. He chose, and he never regretted. I thought that perhaps he could teach others the piano, but he thought it was a risk, to bring music back again into our lives. So we lived quietly together, working in the shop. There was no secrecy, no anxiety and no fear. We earned enough to be comfortable, and we were content, loving each other.

  “When you were growing up, I had to have photographs of your father to show you, but I could not risk giving you his likeness, because I thought that one day, you might meet someone who would recognise him. So I brought back from Switzerland photographs of my cousin Hans, who was the same age as your father, and who died at almost the same time. It is Hans whose photographs I put into your room.

  “And that is the truth you wanted to find out. There is nothing else, except for you to try to imagine what I felt when you told me that you were working for Madame Landini, and she had dismissed you. You could not understand why, but to me, it was all quite clear: you had said that she asked you to check the hours that you worked overtime, and I knew instantly that you must have looked at your watch . . . and that she must have seen it. I told you it was the only one made like that, and that is true. It was made by the father of Nikolaus Satz; he was a watchmaker, and when he was old, he amused himself by making some unusual watches. This was one of them. In time it came to Nikolaus, and on the night of your father’s first concert, he was so excited, so happy, he took it off his own wrist and put it on to your father’s. Your father wore it always. So I knew what Madame Landini felt when she saw it. She felt fear. Yes, fear. On one point only was there disagreement between your father and myself—that was, whether she ever suspected that he was not dead. He said she did not, but for myself, I always felt sure that a doubt would remain in her mind. She must have known that he wished to be free, that he regretted giving up his own career, regretted that he was not an artist in his own right. She would never have freed him, but I was sure that she would wonder if he had freed himself. She would not suspect any woman; she watched him closely, but of those meetings in London she knew nothing.

  “When she saw the watch that you were wearing, she must have suffered greatly. At first, when you told me what she did, I thought that she had lost her head—but I was wrong. If she had lost her head, she would have exclaimed at once, she would have asked where you got it—but she kept her head, at any rate at first. But you can imagine how she must have felt. He had been wearing the watch when he disappeared; if you were wearing it, how had you got it? Where had he gone, where was he now? She was afraid to ask you anything, and so you went out of the room and left her to struggle with her thoughts: did you have any connection with him? did you know anything of him? had anyone placed you there deliberately as her secretary? You had just finished typing for her the account of his disappearance—if he was still alive, if you knew anything of him, what revelations would be made when her memoirs were published? If he was alive, would he return? If somebody knew that he had not died, would they reveal what they knew—or demand payment for not telling what they know? You may imagine her feelings. I can. I pitied her from the bottom of my heart. I pitied her when you said that she had come out of that room and behaved as she did. You can imagine how her thoughts would go round and round, making her crazy with fear and confusion. I pitied her when I knew that she wanted you to go back. I knew that she was going to try to find out something of the truth. She hoped to learn something. I did not think she would succeed, for without the watch, there would be no clue for her to follow. And then you came here today and . .”

  “All I knew was that Anton Veitch was wearing that watch. I had to know why.”

  “You guessed nothing?”

  “No. But I was beginning to ... to grope. I knew, or I felt, that there was something, fantastic as it seemed, that connected me with Madame Landini. She’d given me a room in her house to keep my things in, and every day, someone went through my coat pockets and my handbag, and read my letters. I knew it was Madame Landini, and I began to wonder ... I was going crazy with confusion, too. When I saw the photograph with the watch, I knew I had to come down here and see if you could make any …” She stopped. “Didn’t you ever want to tell me the truth?”

  “Never. Never at any time. But for this photograph, you would never have known. I did not want to take the risk that you would blame your father for
what he did. Our past was our past; I did not want you to judge him harshly. Now you know everything, but I am sorry for Madame Landini, because she has always, all these years, held that one small doubt in her heart—and now she is suffering because she cannot prove what she suspects. She is frightened, because she thinks that the past is going to give up its ghosts. If your father were alive, he would be sorry for her, too.”

  “If I’d shown signs of musical talent, what would he have done?”

  “Taught you. Trained you. Started you on your career. But you showed no musical talent. What more do you want to know? Ask me, and I will tell you.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything, without reserve.”

  Rodney left the house and walked down to the sea. The wind had been steadily rising and was now almost at gale force. Spray wet his cheeks and numbed them. He strode along the empty, surf-splashed promenade, thankful for the roar of the waves, grateful to be shut by the sound into a world of his own, where he could let his mind recall the story that he had just heard.

  Far ahead, a solitary figure battled against the wind. He recognised it and quickened his pace; when he caught up with his uncle, he matched his step to the old man’s. Apart from a sidelong glance of recognition, Sir Julian made no sign; even if conversation had been possible, Rodney knew that he would not have welcomed it.

  They walked as far as the last glass shelter; then Sir Julian wheeled and made his way round it, seating himself on the bench protected by the glass partition. He wore no overcoat. His hair was wild, his face pinched, his nose very red, his eyes watery. He shook open his handkerchief and wiped them, looked at Rodney and then narrowed his eyes to study him.