The Blue Note

by Charlotte Bingham

  Mrs Eglantine paused again, and her eyes, never, even on a good day, a source of warmth, stared into Miranda’s large blue ones seeking to find in them the same amazement that was reflected in her own voice.

  Perhaps because she had been taught by Aunt Sophie to ‘act’ out her songs, not just sing them, Miranda knew that the time had come for some acting. She saw that it was necessary to assume, for Mrs Eglantine’s benefit, an amazed, happy, and grateful expression. So she did this at once, obediently clasping her hands together in a manner of which she felt Aunt Sophie could only have approved, and at the same time imagining to herself that Mrs Eglantine was not a horrid lady whom she had always disliked, but a toffee, or a piece of chocolate.

  ‘Oh, oh, oh, I am so-oo lucky,’ she intoned, knocking her tightly clasped hands slowly against herself as Aunt Sophie had taught her to do when coming to the end of ‘Oh My Beloved Father’.

  For a dreadful second Miranda thought that her acting could not have been as natural as it should have been, since Mrs Eglantine seemed unimpressed by her dramatic reaction. She was frowning, but then, perhaps remembering that the poor child had only just lost her two beloved guardians, she seemed to relent, and patted Miranda on the side of her head as she moved over to her small Davenport desk, with its clock resting on the top, and her diary beneath.

  ‘Good, that is good. So long as you know that you are the most fortunate of children, then we may not need to say any more.’

  She sat down at her desk, and taking a pair of pince-nez from one of the small drawers at the side she read out a letter which had been placed inside the diary.

  Dear Mrs Eglantine, I would so like to help with the education of my late friends Prudence and Sophie Mowbray’s ward, Miranda Mowbray. The Hall has been requisitioned for the duration, but we would welcome her here at the estate manager’s house, and of course, will be responsible for her education in every way.

  Yours sincerely,

  Allegra Sulgrave

  The pince-nez was now removed and Mrs Eglantine stared across at Miranda.

  ‘You are to live at Burfitt Hall, in Norfolk. You are to live in one of the finest houses in East Anglia. You, who were once nothing but a London gutter-snipe. Well, well, well, the war has thrown up many changes, but surely few as extraordinary as this? Mrs Dingwall will accompany you back to the rectory and help you pack up your things, and then they are to send a car to pick you up. First you will go up to London, and then you will go to East Anglia.’

  Miranda stood up. She was excited at the idea of not being with Mrs Eglantine for much longer, and at the same time she was horrified at the idea of being in a place she did not know. She had grown to know and love Mellaston, and now the house, as well as the aunts, was being taken away from her.

  ‘What about Bobbie? Where is Bobbie? Is she coming?’

  For a few seconds Mrs Eglantine managed to look embarrassed at the mention of Bobbie’s name. The poor child, so ill, and all because of poor conditions. But still, the committee had done their best, and during a war what else could anyone do?

  ‘No, dear, Bobbie is not a well little girl at all. Bobbie is in a place where they will try to help her to get better, but whether or not they can, I would not know. She is not at all a well little girl, I am afraid, Miranda. Besides, she is not a Mowbray. Someone else is looking after her, has made her her ward, a friend of her mama’s, from before the war, a Mrs Beatrice Harper. When the war is over you might see each other again. Or, on the other hand, you might not. After all, there may not be a world in which to meet each other again, dear. Not unless we win the war. And even then, we may not be here. We may well all be dead, like your dear guardians up there in the graveyard. Dead, or under the boots of the Nazis. Don’t forget that.’

  Miranda stared at Mrs Eglantine and, sensing that she was really quite an accomplished sadist, smiled, slowly and beautifully, at the hateful woman in front of her.

  ‘I expect you would like to be dead, quite soon, wouldn’t you, Mrs Eglantine, because of Mr Eglantine? Because of his never having been in uniform, because of his making arms instead of using them? That’s what Aunt Sophie used to say, wasn’t it?’ she asked, smiling sweetly, her cornflour blue eyes as innocent as her words were not.

  Mrs Eglantine stared across at her in horror. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said, sounding suddenly suburban. ‘What did you say? Did you say you wished I was dead?’

  ‘No,’ Miranda replied, all innocence. ‘No, I just thought you might feel the way Aunt Sophie used to say she would feel if her husband was not in uniform – that you might like to be dead, because of Mr Eglantine’s not fighting like everyone else. That’s what Aunt Sophie used to say.’

  There was a short silence during which Mrs Eglantine breathed in and out, and then, controlling her worst feelings and a deep desire to slap Miranda, she rang for Mrs Dingwall instead.

  Mercifully Mrs D came to the door within seconds, far too few as a matter of fact. Mrs Eglantine realized this rather late. The charlady had responded to the bell so quickly that she must have been listening outside the door. Mrs Eglantine could see that the wretched woman was trying to suppress a quite beastly smirk.

  ‘Miranda Mowbray is going to be picked up from the rectory by a military motor car. Some sort of American colonel or another is apparently to fetch her, some friend of her new host family, a Colonel Jennings, I believe. He is on his way to Norfolk and has volunteered to collect her and take her to London, where she will stay, the spoilt little hussy, at the Dorchester. The following day they will travel to Norfolk where she will be left at Burfitt Hall.’

  Miranda was too proud to let Mrs Eglantine see her feelings, too proud to allow her to see what that one word ‘left’ did for her, the terror it gave her. She would never, ever, let anyone older see her feelings. She had never let anyone see how she felt, not since her granny went daft in the bombing, and took her to the first evacuation centre and left her with people who made fun of her. Not since she was first evacuated down to Kent and left to live with the kindly Meades. Not since they had to send her back to London, and her granny had again left her to be once more evacuated. Not since those days had she ever let someone older see how she felt, always suspecting that they would take advantage of it.

  So, now, she left Mrs Eglantine’s house without a backward glance, and walked along beside Mrs Dingwall in proud silence.

  Inside of course she was terrified. She knew that once she went from Mellaston, she would become just like Bobbie, and no-one would ever hear of her again. She would be far away, and just a name, like Bobbie. Worse, she suddenly could not remember Teddy’s school address because the aunts had always done the envelope for her. And she could not remember whether Teddy was meant to be coming home to Mellaston in the holidays, or whether Mrs Eglantine had said the rectory was to be sold, or had been sold. Fear and panic had sent everything from her mind, yet she must not show her feelings. One day she would be grown up, if Hitler did not kill them all, she would be grown up and no-one would ever leave her anywhere again. She would find herself a house, and she would stay there, and there would be sunshine, and she would have chocolates whenever she wanted.

  All the time that they were packing up Miranda’s strange selection of clothes at the old rectory, Mrs Dingwall kept saying, ‘Nice for you, dear, going to London. Exciting too, really, to stay at a famous hotel. I love London, even now, even with the bombing, but I couldn’t live there no more, not with our Marion being taken from us. No, we needed to get away, or it would never have left us, the sorrow of her, and I will say, as soon as we came here, my Albert did desist from some of his worser habits, I will say that for him.’

  As soon as she had finished this speech, Mrs Dingwall would begin again, yet another version of the same speech, and hardly changing the words, so that very soon Miranda realized that she was like a singer with a successful song, quite happy to repeat, and repeat, and repeat, until such time as eventually she stopped. Which eventually she d
id, only to begin again after only a few minutes.

  ‘She’s daft like my granny,’ Miranda told Colonel Jennings once she was seated beside him in the staff car, thankfully waving goodbye to the hatted and floral-aproned figure still standing outside the rectory front door, long after the staff car had turned and was heading back towards the gates.

  Colonel Jennings laughed, and so did his young woman driver.

  ‘That’s British for “crazy”, isn’t it?’ he asked the driver, and she nodded.

  Miranda sat back, careful to keep to her side of the car, and stared out of the window. Mrs Dingwall had been so endlessly talkative Miranda had not really noticed that she was leaving the rectory for ever. She had packed up her few toys, her skipping rope, a teddy bear, and a few books and placed them in the suitcase with her clothes, and they had been taken and put in the boot of the smart military car, but she had not said goodbye to the old house, because of Mrs Dingwall talking, and talking.

  It was raining outside the window. Miranda started to count the drops, and then to watch them racing each other. It was a strangely satisfying occupation, and took her mind off the car going further and further away from Mellaston, as those feelings, those left feelings, started to reassert themselves. They were like sharp, tangled wire in the bottom of her tummy. But if she watched that raindrop and made a bet to herself that it would be the first to reach the bottom of the window – or the next one – or that one – the feelings must go. She would make them.

  Most of all she must not ever, ever think of Teddy, her brother, somewhere in Herefordshire, perhaps missing her, not knowing where she was going, because she knew without being told that Mrs Eglantine would never, ever tell him now, because of Miranda cheeking her, so she really might never see him again.

  Instead she thought of him as he used to be, not at the funeral, but at the rectory, making her play cricket with him, bowling at her, far too fast of course – and how she would shut her eyes, and hope and pray that she would not let him down. And then she thought of him swimming, diving on top of her, making her scream, before they emerged muddy and weed covered from the local lake on a hot summer’s day, and how the aunts would make tiss, tiss noises as they towelled them dry, all the time smiling because they had made sure to have them both taught to swim. For as Aunt Sophie used to murmur, ‘Better to swim than to drown, dear.’

  Miranda thought of all this on the drive to London, and sometimes she slept, and sometimes she woke as Colonel Jennings rattled his papers, or spoke to his driver, and once or twice they stopped at a place with what the Colonel tactfully called facilities, until eventually, after what seemed like days, but was only really hours, Miranda once again sensed London, and there were all the familiar sights of bombed houses, and sandbags, and she suddenly remembered being small there, and the bustle and the excitement of not knowing, ever, what was going to happen next. How people crowded past, and how little of the sky could be seen, and Mellaston was, of a sudden, just a memory. Like a postcard from a holiday place brought back, not written on, to be placed on a mantelpiece, or a sideboard, and every now and then picked up and stared at, only to be replaced again – just an un-addressed card from no-one to no-one, the sight of it bringing back that sense of how it had been, of sounds and people, of voices on summer air, of laughter suppressed, of a piano playing in the distance, its tune only now faintly heard – ‘I’ll See You Again’.

  But the song was wrong. She knew now that she never would.

  But then, not much later, it was no longer just London, but the Dorchester hotel, and Miranda was being helped from the car by the young lady driver, spanking smart in her uniform, and, although she did not know it, everyone was staring at this elegant child in her strangely magnificent clothes. Her long velvet skirt, her lace blouse, and her wool cloak with its red-lined hood made her seem like a child from an old portrait, stepping not from a car, but from another era.

  ‘This is how she was delivered to me, I promise you, Pamela,’ said Colonel Jennings laughingly, once they were all inside the lobby of the Dorchester. ‘Just as you see her. A child from another age, I would say, but so beautiful.’

  ‘Pamela’ was also beautiful. Even Miranda, who was always reluctant to admit beauty in anyone but herself, could see that, so she graciously held out her small paw to the beautiful lady, and shook her ringed hand.

  ‘Hayward Jennings, you have brought us a princess, you have – a princess.’ Pamela bent down to Miranda and studied her quite perfect little face with fascination. ‘Such colouring, such eyes! She will be famous. I predict it.’

  Miranda stared into the green eyes that were gazing into hers, and a warmth such as she had never felt before stole into the centre of her being and then radiated outwards so that finally, inwardly, she gave a great sigh. It might have been mistaken for a sigh of relief at arriving, and indeed it was a sigh of relief and it was about arriving – arriving at the end of a long, long journey. At last someone had said out loud what Miranda had always known. She was going to be famous. She was going to be different from everyone else in Mellaston. They were going to be ordinary, but she was going to be famous. She was going to be famous and beautiful, and this beautiful lady knew it too.

  Of a sudden Miranda was glad that she had left Mellaston, and even Teddy and Bobbie did not seem to matter so much. They would have to take care of themselves. Meanwhile – Miranda glanced around her, as Colonel Jennings and Pamela fell into animated conversation, quite obviously madly in love, looking at each other as if they were both ice creams on a hot day – meanwhile Miranda was going to make sure that she always stayed in places like the Dorchester, always, always, always.

  ‘General Eisenhower was at Claridge’s, but pink was not his colour, so he moved to the first floor here. Now no-one will dare bomb the Dorchester, for fear of Ike,’ Pamela was telling Colonel Jennings, laughing, her eyes never leaving his, sending messages which Miranda could only guess at, knowing that they were quite untranslatable grown-up messages, but also knowing that they were to do with being beautiful and handsome, and staying at hotels.

  Colonel Jennings leaned down to Miranda and spoke to her in his charming, joking, and completely kind way.

  ‘I am not afraid of bombs, and I dare say you are not either, so tonight we are going to have the luxury of staying in a proper suite, and leaving the rest of the scaredy cats to sleep downstairs in the Turkish baths and the corridors and so on, unless of course you are frightened?’

  Miranda shook her head. Of course she was frightened, but since she was already passionately in love with both Colonel Jennings and his beautiful Pamela she had no intention of showing it.

  ‘Follow me, Princess,’ the Colonel said.

  With that Miranda tripped after two of the most glamorous people she had ever met, and two of the kindest too, for they never seemed to even dream of leaving her in someone else’s charge, probably because neither Colonel Jennings nor his Pamela knew anything about children or how to go on with them. Or it might have been because they liked everyone to enjoy themselves as much as they obviously did. Whatever the reason, nothing would do for them but to take their ‘little princess’ everywhere with them.

  And so it was that after a long rest in what seemed to Miranda to be a great gold and red room, and a good wash in a marble bathroom, standing on a thick bath mat and sponging herself all over, Miranda was loaned a special little jewelled cape and a bracelet with small gold animals on it, and a jewelled clip was put in the top of her hair, giving her what Pamela called ‘the Veronica Lake look, darling’. Although Miranda had no idea who ‘Veronica Lake’ might be, she knew that she must be someone beautiful, and for that reason she held her head high and followed her new heroine downstairs to the constant, magical life of the Dorchester hotel.

  ‘Pamela has the eye, as my mother would say. It is quite wonderful, her taste, quite wonderful,’ the Colonel said approvingly, as he held out his arm to Miranda. ‘You look even more beautiful than you looked
a few hours ago, and I did not think that was even possibly possible, my dear.’

  The restaurant, Colonel Jennings told Miranda as they stepped formally and beautifully downstairs after Pamela, had been moved to the Gold Room and the Grill Room to the Ballroom Lounge.

  ‘Which means,’ Colonel Jennings joked, ‘that lamb cutlets now waltz off the plate, and La Timbale de Petits pois quickstep off the trolley.’

  He might as well have been talking Czechoslovakian, but Miranda was determined to laugh and smile as children must who are with grown-ups all the time and don’t want to be left out.

  ‘Because of security no-one here is allowed to be recognized, so I shall introduce you to anyone who stops at our table as Her Royal Highness Princess Miranda,’ the Colonel announced as they sat down and perused the menu cards, which due to shortage of paper were precisely four and a half inches by six inches deep. ‘There is no greater charge here than five whole shillings so I cannot order the world for you, but you might like a translation of tonight’s menu, might you not? Pamela, will you do us the honours?’

  Pamela read out the menu in a clear voice. ‘Les Perles Grises de Sterle, followed by Le Fumet de Tortue au vieux Sherry, then Le Filet de Sole Riviera, and finally Le Blanc de Volaille perigourdine with La Timbale de Petits pois.’

  Miranda was determined to sit bolt upright, as Aunt Sophie had always instructed her. She could not appreciate Pamela’s beautiful, refined, delicately accented French, as Colonel Jennings might be able to, but she would never forget that last big word Timbale. It was like her little jewelled cape, or the clip at the top of her hair; it was like the sound of the band slowly playing Aunt Sophie’s tune – the one she always sang with tears in her eyes: ‘I’ll See You Again’.