Dorothy Eden (43 page)
Authors: Speak to Me of Love
“Oh, for goodness sake! Anna! I’m not scolding you. You can begin
David Copperfield
tomorrow. It’s a long book, if I remember, but we’ve plenty of time.”
A
NNA WAS CALLING FROM
downstairs, “grandmother! Bates is here with the car. Are you ready?”
Beatrice made herself be patient with Hawkins who was taking forever to do her hair. Anna could have done it in a quarter of the time, but one couldn’t hurt the old woman’s feelings. She was dressing Miss Beatrice for her last visit to Bonnington’s. The familiar grey dress with the spotless white fichu, the fur cape over the upright shoulders, the grey hair neatly tucked beneath the little feathered toque. She must look the personage that she had always been, said Hawkins.
Privately Beatrice agreed. She particularly needed to look a personage, to get her through the ordeal ahead. To be wheeled through Bonnington’s for the last time, even with Anna pushing her and assuring her that she rode her chair like a chariot was an experience that had to be faced with dignity and equanimity.
“There’s no need for you to do this, Mother,” Florence had insisted. “It’s unnecessarily sentimental. You’ll only have everyone in tears.”
“And why shouldn’t they be? There was a time when I
was
Bonnington’s. I still may be, for all I know.”
“Oh, I expect you are,” Florence said grudgingly. “Only don’t overdo the sobstuff since you could have saved Bonnington’s if you had wanted to.”
It had all happened as Florence, with her alarming intelligence, had predicted. The day of reckoning for Bonnington’s had come. The depression with its aftermath of unemployment, poverty and hunger, had been the final cause. Beatrice still insisted that in terms of human misery the times were not as bad as they had been in her youth. The ragged crossing-sweepers, the barefooted frozen children huddled together sleeping in packing cases behind the store, the pathetic little match-sellers at the front doors, the sight of whom had been such a blight on one’s complacency, had disappeared. Certainly there were dole queues and bread queues and hungry children and a great deal of despair and hardship, but the country would emerge from this crisis, and pull itself together again.
Unfortunately, it would happen too late to save Bonnington’s unless Beatrice poured in money from the sale of Overton House and its contents. This, as she had already warned Florence, she would never do. A shop or a family tradition? There was never the slightest doubt in her mind.
Nevertheless, the painful argument continued for weeks and months. Beatrice had been bombarded with statistics, falling sales figures, rising salaries and maintenance costs, an exorbitant price for a new lease of the site on which Bonnington’s stood, and estimates for the costs of Florence’s dearly-desired modernisation.
To all this Beatrice remained unsympathetic, almost uninterested. She had accustomed herself to being an invalid. That feat had taken her remaining mental strength. Now all she wanted to do was to spend her last years at Overton House in peace.
Was that being too selfish? One knew that Florence had always considered her to be the most selfish stubborn old woman in the world. But if she handed over the contents and goodwill of Bonnington’s to Florence, surely she was doing all that could be expected of her.
Florence, when she finally saw that she was fighting a losing battle, decided, almost with relief, to open a small smart couture shop in Knightsbridge with James Brush as her partner. After all, they were no longer young. The smaller premises and smaller staff would suit them admirably, and there was no doubt that she had a flair for fashion.
“I,” said Beatrice, also greatly relieved, “will be responsible for Edwin and Anna. The three of us will remain at Overton House. You can be free of us, Florence, as you’ve always wanted to be.”
“Very well,” Florence answered. But her voice was unexpectedly subdued, and just for a flash, the nervous uncertain child looked out of her pale middle-aged eyes. She went on more firmly, “But at least, Mother, if you insist on this farewell, you could let Bates push your chair. Why Anna?”
“Because I prefer Anna. Isn’t that sufficient reason?”
“Mother, you’re beginning to spoil that child.”
Beatrice smiled faintly.
“On the contrary, she’s spoiling me. I must say I find the experience new, and pleasant.”
“It’s not that long since she was a delinquent. I’d say, watch her.”
“That’s exactly what I am enjoying doing.”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Mother. Mellowing in old age is one thing, but overdoing it is another.”
“I know, dear. I should have practised it a bit more when you and Edwin were small. You see, I can still read your thoughts.”
Florence coloured slightly.
“The only thing we really held against you was sending Miss Medway away without any explanation. We loved her and she loved us. I don’t believe either of us ever felt we were loved again.”
The pain was still there, Beatrice thought, testing its sharpness in her heart. But she managed to answer tranquilly, “You’re perfectly right, Florence. That’s why I’m being particularly careful with Anna.”
The Daimler, polished to the brilliance of mirror glass, behaved impeccably. They drew up outside Bonnington’s on the stroke of three o’clock, and Beatrice, avoiding looking at the ‘Closing down sale’ notices splashed over the windows, allowed herself to be helped out and settled in her chair. Anna whispered, “Chin up, Grandmother!” and the chair was set in motion.
They had lined up in two rows to allow her to pass between them, the doormen in their dark blue and gold uniforms, the head floorwalker, the heads of departments, the salesmen in their dark jackets and striped trousers, the saleswomen in their neat white-collared black dresses. She had intended to stand up in her familiar territory, the cash desk, but it proved to be too difficult to mount the steps. Damn, damn, damn, she was a prisoner in this humiliating chair!
Then she felt Anna’s fingers gently pressing her shoulder, and she was able to lift her head and smile, and say the few words they expected of her, of thanks, of appreciation, of good wishes for their future, of time being the traitor.
Someone put a posy of rosebuds into her hands. Everything was suddenly blurred, and she was afraid she would faint. It was as if she saw life passing away in front of her eyes.
“Get me home,” she whispered to Anna.
In the car, she said furiously, “I was a coward.”
“No, you weren’t, Grandmother. You were like a queen.”
“Which one?” she asked suspiciously. “Old Victoria?”
“Of course, Grandmother. You wouldn’t want to be any other one, would you?”
Royal or not, she was human, too, and subject to bodily weaknesses. She fell asleep as soon as she got home. When she awoke it seemed to be late afternoon, by the way the sun slanted across the garden. There was no sign of Hawkins, who must have gone away to leave her in peace, but faintly, from the music room, she could hear the piano playing.
Chopin? No, it was a slow, slightly sad melody she hadn’t heard before.
She sat up and rang the bell for Hawkins.
“Take me downstairs.”
“Certainly, madam. Don’t you want Miss Anna? She’s in the music room.”
“No. I don’t want to disturb her.”
Rather than give up this beloved room with its memories and move downstairs, Beatrice had gone to the great expense of having a lift, into which her wheelchair would fit, installed. Again, Florence had thought the expenditure unwarranted, but Florence didn’t understand sentiment. Or refused to. She wouldn’t have known that William still came to this room and touched her hand, and sometimes kissed her.
Once she had destroyed the beautiful mirror room from petty jealousy. She would not make that mistake again.
The french windows of the music room were open on to the terrace, and at the end of the garden Edwin was working in his herbaceous border. His head was scarcely visible among the tall goldenrod and sunflowers. After a day spent in the garden in the summer, he was amiable and peaceful, smiling in the candlelight at the dinner table. He sometimes now discussed other things than armies and old battles. That was Anna. In her quiet persistent way, she drew him out.
Anna was sitting at the piano with her back to the door. She didn’t hear Beatrice come in. She sang softly, in her clear melodious voice,
Parlez-moi d’amour,
Redites moi des choses tendres.
Votre beau discours,
Mon coeur n’est pas las de l’entendre…
Pourvu que toujours vous répétiez ces mots suprêmes,
Je vous aime…
The plaintive notes died away and as the girl sat quietly Beatrice observed her. The rich brown hair, the pale triangular face with the slanted eyes, the exquisitely fine wrists and ankles. The little duckling was growing. She might even surprise her mother now, if that restless unhappy person, last heard of in Reno, were to see her.
She was not going to have the gentle beauty of her grandmother, or Daisy’s brilliant prettiness. She was always going to be strange and foreign. But intriguing, arresting. One day, without a doubt, a young man with perception was going to fall deeply in love with her. She would be no failure, Anna. The soil of Overton House had luckily proved to be just right for her.
Beatrice sniffed sharply, and said in her gruff voice,
“Sing that song again, but in English. I was never any good at French.”
“I didn’t know you were there, Grandmother.”
Anna began to sing softly, the English words.
Speak to me of love
And say what I’m longing to hear,
Tender words of love
Repeat them again I implore you…
Speak to me of love
And whisper these words to me, dear,
I adore you…
“Grandmother!”
“Yes?”
“You’re not crying, are you?”
“No. Yes. That’s not a suitable song for this house.”
“Why ever not?” Anna’s arched brows, another subtle beauty there, like her slender wrists and ankles, had risen in perplexity.
“Because there has never been enough love here. It’s been entirely my fault. Poor Edwin, Florence—I never loved them enough. Nor Daisy, but that was for another reason. As for William—”
“Now, look here, Grandmother! You can’t say you and Grandfather didn’t love each other. Why, you only had to see the way he looked at you as you went out of a room.”
Beatrice held her breath. “Really?”
“Really, Grandmother. Goodness, you of all people don’t need to be assured of love. I remember being astonished when I first came here that two people so old could still feel like that. Now I know better.”
“You know nothing. Nothing.”
“Grandmother, please! You’ve had a sad day today.”
“Yes, I have. I’ve suddenly decided, you know, that I’m going to leave you Overton House. If you will promise to always give Uncle Edwin a home.”
“But of course! Oh, Grandmother, have I any right?”
“Of course you have a right. More than anybody. You’ll keep Grandfather’s treasures, of course, the pictures and the furniture and the family portraits.”
“And the yellow ground Worcester and the apple green Derby,” Anna breathed.
Beatrice turned the sudden trembling of her lips into a smile.
“And if you see an old man dusting his porcelain or taking out his slides of butterflies, or a stout old shopkeeper out of her element, you will know they are friendly ghosts.” Some compulsion made her add, “There may be another one.”
“Yes?”
“Never mind. Just remember that you can’t fight ghosts. It’s taken me long enough to learn that. Now put that sentimental song away and show me how you’re really getting on with your music. Play me some Chopin.”
Dorothy Eden (1912–1982) was the internationally acclaimed author of more than forty bestselling gothic, romantic suspense, and historical novels. Born in New Zealand, where she attended school and worked as a legal secretary, she moved to London in 1954 and continued to write prolifically. Eden’s novels are known for their suspenseful, spellbinding plots, finely drawn characters, authentic historical detail, and often a hint of spookiness. Her novel of pioneer life in Australia,
The Vines of Yarrabee
, spent four months on the
New York Times
bestseller list. Her gothic historical novels
Ravenscroft
,
Darkwater
, and
Winterwood
are considered by critics and readers alike to be classics of the genre.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The words and music of the song ‘Parlez-moi d’Amour’ are by Jean Lenoir. Published by permission of the Societé d’Editions Musicales Internationales, Paris, and of Harms Inc., California. English translation: copyright © 1931 Bruce Sievier and Jean Lenoir, by permission of Asherberg, Hopwood & Crew Ltd.
Copyright © 1972 by Dorothy Eden
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
978-1-4804-2977-2
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
