Mermaids Singing (8 page)

‘It couldn’t be helped,’ Kitty said, undoing the buttons on Leonie’s velvet coat.

‘Just because you’re the favourite today,’ Nanny said, ramming her bonnet on her head. ‘Sucking up to her ladyship and pushing me out. You’d better watch your step, young Kitty, or I’ll see that you go back to the scullery and let Olive and Dora sort you out.’

‘Sorry, Nanny.’

‘I should think so.’ Nanny yanked at the ribbons on her bonnet, making an unsuccessful attempt to tie a bow. ‘Bother the thing! My fingers are all thumbs and it’s your fault, Kitty.’

Sitting Leonie in her chair at the nursery table, Kitty offered to tie the bow and, somewhat grudgingly, Nanny allowed her to help.

‘Don’t tie it too tight,’ Nanny said, frowning. ‘And I may be a bit late back seeing as how you’ve kept me waiting.’

‘That’s all right,’ Kitty said, giving the bow a final tweak. ‘I got it all worked out if Miss Lane comes nosing round.’

‘Right then,’ Nanny said, studying her reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece. ‘You owe me that. Now I’m off to meet my young man and if you don’t do everything just right, I’ll not be responsible for my actions when I get back. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, Nanny.’

‘And you see to it that Miss Leonie gets her tea and supper on time.’

Dora and Olive were off duty when Kitty went down to collect the nursery tea tray. The only person in the kitchen was the new scullery maid, a skinny little thing, all elbows and knees, who could not have been a day over twelve. She didn’t answer when Kitty spoke to her, just stared with saucer-like eyes and ran into the scullery, closing the door behind her. It wasn’t hard to imagine that this was the housemaids’ new object of spite. When she came down later to collect her own supper tray, she caught Olive and Dora tormenting the poor girl and Kitty’s temper flared.

‘Ain’t you lot got nothing better to do than pick on them what can’t fight back?’

Dora spun around, her mouth twisted as if she had just sucked a lemon. ‘Well, look here, Olive. Her high-and-mightiness speaks to us now.’

‘You may think you’re better than us now you’ve sucked up to her ladyship,’ Olive said, sneering, ‘but you’re still the same turd that floated in on the tide.’

‘I don’t care what you say,’ Kitty retorted, sticking her chin out. ‘You leave that poor girl alone or I’ll …’

‘You’ll what?’ Dora pushed Kitty with the flat of her hands. ‘You’ll sneak to Madam?’

‘I ain’t scared of you, Dora.’

With a swift movement, Dora had Kitty’s arm pinned behind her back. She jerked it upwards until Kitty yelped with pain. ‘Are you scared of me now?’

Kitty shook her head, even when another savage tug threatened to snap her bones.

‘Say it.’ Dora spat the words in Kitty’s ear, hissing like a snake.

‘N-never.’

Olive clawed at Dora’s arm. ‘Careful, Dora, if you break her arm you’ll be in trouble.’

With a hefty push, Dora sent Kitty sprawling onto the tiled floor. ‘Get out of my sight, you bag of piss.’

Rubbing her grazed knees, Kitty scrambled to her feet. Holding her head high, she picked up her supper tray, ignoring the pain from her arm, leaving the kitchen to catcalls and hoots of laughter from Dora and Olive.

Upstairs in the nursery, having settled Leonie for the night, Kitty sat down to eat her supper. Taking the cover off the dish, she stifled a scream, jumping to her feet with her hand clamped over her mouth. Lying on the plate was a large, dead rat.

‘What’s the matter with your arm, Kitty?’ Bella said, noticing that the girl was pale, with dark shadows beneath her eyes and holding her arm limply at her side. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

Kitty bobbed a curtsey. ‘I slipped in the bathroom and twisted it a bit, that’s all.’

Bella could spot a lie a mile off, she had told them often enough in the past. ‘Are they treating you well below stairs? You would tell me if they weren’t, wouldn’t you?’

‘It was an accident, my lady. Shall I take Miss Leonie back to the nursery for her bath?’

Scooping Leonie up in her arms, Bella kissed her rosy cheek, inhaling the sweet scent of Pears soap and the sugary smell of the sweet that Leonie had dribbled all down her chin. ‘Night, night, baby. Mama will see you in the morning.’

‘Kitty.’ Jerking away from her mother, Leonie held her chubby arms out to Kitty.

‘She loves you.’ Suffering a pinprick of jealousy, Bella passed Leonie into Kitty’s arms and was immediately ashamed of herself as she saw Kitty flinch with pain. ‘If your arm isn’t better by tomorrow, I shall insist that you see my doctor.’

Bobbing a curtsey, Kitty carried Leonie out of the room.

‘You spoil that girl.’

Bella spun around to see Maria standing in the doorway that led off her boudoir to her bedroom. ‘I know that the poor child is being bullied by the lower servants but she won’t admit it.’

‘She’s a kid from the slums, she’s tough and she’ll get over it.’

‘Some things you never get over,’ Bella said, sinking down on the padded velvet stool in front of her dressing table.

‘The past is past and you’ve done all right for yourself,’ Maria said, yanking steel pins out of Bella’s elaborately coiffed hair. ‘Don’t meddle with what goes on below stairs.’

‘Ouch, that hurt,’ Bella said, wincing as Maria dragged the comb through a stubborn knot. ‘Be more careful.’

‘You’ve got a face as long as a fiddle!’ Maria eyed her reflection in the mirror with a suspicious gleam in her eyes. ‘What’s up with you tonight?’

‘Sometimes I wish I’d stayed single, plain Bella La Rue, singer and dancer, working the music halls. I’m only twenty-three; I’m still young and yet I feel my life is over.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Yes, I do. I mean it with all my heart. I’m tired of pretending to be something I’m not. At least when I’d done my act on the stage I could go back to being myself.’

‘Don’t talk daft, Bella. This life is a bed of roses compared to flogging yourself to death in cheap music halls, lodging in flea-ridden rooms with damp beds and never knowing where the next penny was coming from.’

‘But at least I was free then,’ Bella said, sighing. ‘People took me for what I was and didn’t sneer at me behind my back.’

Maria’s harsh expression softened just a little. ‘They’re just jealous. Now sit still and let me get you ready. You know Sir Desmond hates being kept waiting and you don’t want to turn up late at Lord Swafford’s dinner party.’

‘I don’t want to go at all.’

Maria picked up a silver-backed hairbrush and began brushing Bella’s hair in long, sweeping strokes. ‘What happened today that upset you so much?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Such a fuss about nothing?’

‘Well, Iris was being difficult as usual – and then I met Giles Rackham and his hateful friend in the park.’

Maria’s slanting black eyebrows snapped together. ‘Rackham! I thought that bastard had gone abroad for good.’

‘So did I, but he’s back and if he chooses to speak out, I’ll be ruined.’

‘I doubt he’ll do that. He’s got too much pride to want the world to know that you ran away from him.’

‘I thought he’d abandoned me in Dover. You said he wouldn’t come back.’

‘And he didn’t, not for three whole years, so don’t you forget that, my girl. You keep away from him, Bella. He’s trouble.’

‘I hate him,’ Bella said, snatching the hairbrush from Maria’s hand and throwing it across the room. ‘I hate, loathe and detest him. He’s an unprincipled seducer of young girls, a gambler and a liar.’

‘Just you remember that when he turns on the charm then,’ Maria said, shaking her head. ‘Sir Desmond is no fool and a scandal could lose him his seat in the House of Commons. You keep your head, my girl, and think of little Leonie.’

An hour later, dressed in a shimmering gown of ivory satin, trimmed with Brussels lace, Bella glided down the marble staircase to the entrance hall. Sir Desmond and Iris were already there, wrapped in their outdoor clothes, waiting for her.

‘You’re late, Bella,’ Sir Desmond said, making a show of consulting his gold pocket watch. ‘You might at least make an effort to be ready on time.’

‘I’m sorry, Desmond,’ Bella said, as Maria slipped her sable cape over her shoulders. ‘It won’t happen again.’

‘I managed to be ready on time,’ Iris said, shooting a resentful glance at Maria. ‘And I don’t have the luxury of a personal maid. I have to make do with Jane.’

‘That will do, Iris,’ Sir Desmond said, striding towards the door. ‘I don’t want to listen to two women bickering all the way to Belgrave Square.’

Iris’s mouth turned down at the corners and she tossed her head, but she refrained from answering. Bella could feel her eyes boring into the back of her head as she followed Desmond down the stone steps, and a shiver went down her spine. If Iris were to discover her past relationship with Rackham … The mere thought of it made her feel sick with dread.

Lord Swafford’s mansion in Belgrave Square was filled with politicians and their wives, eminent writers, artists and intellectuals. Acting out her role as a dutiful wife, there to enhance her husband’s reputation and to be decorative rather than to contribute anything to the evening, Bella smiled a lot and said very little. Desmond’s contemporaries seemed to appreciate her reticence, and she overheard one of the ladies saying that, in spite of her background, Sir Desmond’s young wife seemed a charming, well-mannered young lady. From the looks that Iris was giving her, Bella knew that she didn’t agree. She turned away, determined not to let Iris see that her constant sniping bothered her, and came face to face with Giles Rackham.

‘My dear Lady Mableton,’ Rackham said, with a small bow. ‘How delightful to meet you twice in the same day.’

Bella felt her heart pounding against the cage of her tightly laced corsets and prayed silently that she wouldn’t faint. She couldn’t keep up the pretence of not knowing him and risk drawing attention to herself. Inclining her head, she forced her lips into a smile. ‘Good evening, Mr Rackham.’

Rackham grinned, his teeth startlingly white against his olive skin. ‘So you remember me now.’

‘I do,’ Bella said, unfurling her fan and fluttering it in front of her face. ‘And I’m surprised they allowed a libertine like you to enter this house.’

‘I’m devastated, my dear Bella,’ Rackham said, holding his hand over his heart, his eyes gleaming with amusement. ‘You seem to have lost your good opinion of me, but I remember a time when it wasn’t so.’

‘And I’d rather forget it,’ Bella said, in a low voice. ‘I don’t know how you managed to worm your way into this party but, if you have even the slightest vestige of regard left for me, you’ll leave now, before anyone notices you.’

‘You know that I would do anything to oblige you, my darling. But it might prove be a bit difficult since our illustrious host, Lord Swafford, is my uncle.’

Glancing over his shoulder, Bella saw Iris watching them with a frankly curious expression on her face. To make matters worse, Desmond had just come into the room, chatting with Lady Swafford, and they were heading this way.

‘Just leave me alone, Giles,’ Bella said. ‘For God’s sake, leave me be.’

Rackham took her hand and brushed it with his lips. ‘I will. For now, at least.’ And he strolled off.

Rackham was seated on the opposite side of the table from Bella at dinner, a few places down and too far away for conversation, but close enough for him to catch her eye every time she turned her head in his direction. Every mouthful of food seemed to choke her and, by the time Lady Swafford rose to her feet, requesting the ladies to join her in the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to their port and cigars, Bella had developed a pounding headache.

In the drawing room, Lady Swafford, a large lady with a deep bosom that seemed to droop beneath the weight of her diamond and ruby necklace, sailed up to Bella and laid her hand on her arm. ‘You look a little pale, my dear. Are you not feeling quite the thing?’

‘Just a headache,’ Bella said, glancing over Lady Swafford’s ample shoulders to make sure that Iris was not within earshot. Mercifully, she was seated at a card table on the far side of the room. ‘It will pass in a moment or two.’

‘I understand,’ Lady Swafford said, with a knowing smile. ‘I was like that every time I was in an interesting condition.’

‘No, no,’ protested Bella, feeling the colour flood to her cheeks. ‘It’s not that.’

‘No? But of course you already have a little daughter, have you not?’

‘Leonie, yes, she is just two.’

‘And Sir Desmond already has a son and heir,’ Lady Swafford said, her gaze shifting as her interest appeared to wane.

‘Yes, Edward, but I have yet to meet him.’

A spark of curiosity lighting her eyes, Lady Swafford put her head on one side. ‘I believe that the gallant captain is in the Sudan fighting the Dervishes.’

‘We all hope he will return safely before too long.’

‘Yes, of course, we hope that for all our brave men, and no doubt the gentlemen are still mourning the death of poor General Gordon at Khartoum, and celebrating our glorious victory at Omdurman. You’ll excuse me, my dear.’

Lady Swafford patted Bella’s hand, moving on to speak to an elderly dowager, who was clutching a hearing trumpet to her ear and shouting at her companion, a thin, pale-faced young woman who looked as though she would rather be anywhere but here.

Bella could sympathise wholeheartedly with that feeling, but she was thankful that Lady Swafford’s interrogation had ended so quickly, although she could sense the covert stares of some of the older matrons. Once again, she had the uncomfortable feeling that she was the main topic of conversation. Her head ached miserably and her stomach muscles felt as though they were tied in a knot; she dreaded the moment when the gentlemen joined them and a further, inevitable encounter with Rackham. Iris appeared to be deeply engrossed in her card game or else she was deliberately ignoring her. Either way, Bella thought this infinitely preferable to direct confrontation. She took a turn around the room and found a quiet corner where she sat down on a love seat, watching the door. When the gentlemen joined them, she would seek out Desmond, plead her headache and ask him to send for the carriage.