Polly and the Prince (15 page)

That made him shout with laughter. “Is very practical view of life,” he admitted.

Since her mother frequently accused her of impracticality, Polly was pleased. She glanced up at him, to find him grinning down at her with a light in his eyes that made her wonder whether perhaps she was a trifle nervous, after all. Quickly she looked away, and gave a cry of delight.

“Is that the Pavilion?”

Before them spread an enchanted palace of oriental domes and spires and minarets, lacy screens of carved stone, pillars, arches, and cupolas. Kolya pulled up the horses to let her stare at leisure.

“I have to paint it.”

“But of course. You can wait a little while?” he enquired politely.

“Wait? Oh, you are teasing again. Yes, I shall have to wait, for I did not even bring my sketch book. Besides, I want to see the rest of the town, but can we drive right around the Pavilion first?”

As they circled the grounds, Polly was silent, studying the different façades from different angles. She could not help but notice the stacks of bricks, stone and timber, the heaps of rubble from half-demolished houses, the workmen with wheelbarrows and handcarts shouting as they scurried through the dust and din of hammers and saws. For thirty-four years, Kolya had said, this place had been a construction site.

“No wonder the neighbours are disgruntled,” she said as he pulled up again at the original spot.

“Disgruntled?”

“Upset. Vexed.”

“Disgruntled,” he repeated. “Is good word. Yes, I have spoken with many such. Is Mr. Wright, a teacher of music, who was supporting wife, eight children, and two sisters with the lodging house and subscription library, but people will not go to his house because of noise and dirt. He wrote letter three years ago asking for help, and still he has no answer. Also Mr. and Mrs. Shergold, and Dr. Hall, whose patients will not come, and many others. Some are more than disgruntled—are very angry.”

“Who can blame them?”

“I have promised to present new letters directly to the king when I see him. I doubt if others ever reached him.”

“That is kind of you. I wonder whether I could set up my easel on a pile of stones, so as to have a clear view.”

“Nyet!
This I forbid!” Kolya’s vehemence startled Polly. “I beg your pardon, I have not right to forbid, but I beg you will not. If stones are not...
ustoychivy...”
He snapped his fingers in annoyance at his inability to find the word.

“Stable? Steady?” she supplied obligingly.

“Da.
Steady. Is too dangerous. You have no fear but I, I admit, I have fear for you.”

“Very well, I will not. I shall just have to pretend the mess is not there.”

He reached across and pressed her hand, then started the horses off again.
“Spasibo.
Thank you. Now we shall drive on the Steyne. You can explain this name?”

This time Polly was unable to oblige. The Steyne was simply a wide open space used as a promenade. The Pavilion would front it on one corner once all the houses that obscured the view were demolished. The Castle Tavern, with its assembly rooms, a number of fine houses, and many circulating libraries, book shops, and printsellers surrounded all but the southern side.

Kolya pointed out the printseller who had sold Polly’s pictures. She wanted to see if he would take the two panoramas she had painted of Brighton from the downs, but she decided to postpone a visit in favour of going to look at the sea.

As they drove across the Steyne, they were hailed several times by riders, strolling pedestrians, and the occupants of other open carriages. Kolya seemed to know a vast number of people, both ladies and gentlemen. To some he just waved, but he stopped once or twice to introduce Polly. They had nearly reached the Marine Parade when a plump, handsome woman in an elegant barouche signalled imperiously and Kolya drew up alongside.

“Good day, Mr. Volkov.” The lady’s bonnet sported a display of plumes of which an ostrich might have been proud, and diamonds sparkled at her neck and ears.

“Good day, Lady Conyngham. Allow me to present Miss Howard.”

The king’s favourite, her eyes suddenly sharp and inquisitive, bowed graciously. Polly returned the
bow. A few remarks were exchanged on the fineness of the weather and Lady Conyngham drove on.

“I felt that I ought to curtsy,” said Polly as Kolya set the horses in motion, “but I was not sure how to do it without oversetting the carriage. Her ladyship is very affable.”

“Her ladyship is wondering are you related to the Duke of Norfolk. Howard family is one of oldest in the country, I understand. The vice-queen, as she is known, is a daughter of London shopkeeper and the wife of obscure Irish lord. It pleases her to hobble-nobble with ancient nobility.” The scorn in his voice surprised Polly almost as much as his rare mistake delighted her.

“Hob-nob, but I like hobble-nobble much better.” She glanced down at her plain and far from new gown of dark blue cambric and rubbed guiltily at an overlooked streak of brown paint. “She cannot possibly have mistaken me for a relative of the Duke of Norfolk. I expect she was surprised to see anyone so dowdy being driven by you in such a smart carriage.”

Kolya laughed. “On contrary, she thinks you well-connected eccentric. Before her stands dilemma; Lady Conyngham is
of the religious mind, and Howards are powerful Catholics. Is dangerous to offend yet she cannot approve.”

“I would not have her worry for nothing. Promise you will assure her that I am not related.”

“She will look down the nose at you,” he warned.

“I’m not like to meet her again, and if I do what does it matter what she thinks of me?”

“Does not matter,” he agreed, giving her a smile so warm it
made her cheeks grow hot.

By this time they had reached the Marine Parade. Polly forgot her loss of composure as she gazed at the smooth, dark blue swells of the English Channel.

“Sea is colour of your eyes,” Kolya murmured, but it was easy to ignore his disconcerting words with such a prospect spread before her.

Scattered fishing boats rose and fell as the waves rolled shoreward beneath them. Where the water met the sand below the shallow cliff it spread in a lacy froth with a constant susurration, a murmuring background to the mewing cries of the grey-winged gulls that circled above.

“What are those odd huts on wheels?” Polly enquired. “Look, a horse is pulling one into the sea.”

“Those are the bathing machines, for changing of clothes. Watch and you will see a person come out and go down steps into the water. The king first came to Brighton in youth for the sea bathing, for his health. I have heard he was too bold and one of dippers had to stop him going into stormy sea.”

“That woman helping the person down the steps, she is a dipper? Oh, look, she is swimming!”

“You wish to try?”

Polly watched the shivering swimmer emerge from the waves with the aid of her dipper and hurry back into the machine. “Not unless the water grows a good deal warmer,” she decided. “I expect Nick will want to try it. Oh, you said he is gone out on a fishing boat? I wonder which one?”

They watched the boats for a few more minutes, then Kolya drove her through the old part of town, pointing out the area known as the Lanes, too narrow for the carriage, where the fishermen lived. Here too he was known, saluted by old men mending nets and nodding to the women who curtsied as the phaeton passed. He stopped to pass the time of day with a ship’s chandler who stood in the doorway of his bow-fronted shop, his thumbs hooked into his braces.

‘You know everyone!” said Polly. “You have only been here a week or two.”

“I like people,” he said simply.

On the way home they passed the Pavilion again, and Polly began to plan the pictures she would paint of it. Lost to her surroundings, she was surprised when they pulled up in front of Dean House.

“Thank
you,” she said as Kolya helped her down from the high seat. “That was a bang-up tour, as Nick would say. Will you come in for tea?”

“I think not today.”

“Lady Sylvia will not mind.”

“This I know. She is already your friend—is she not?—though you have been here only a week or two.”

“I like people, too,” she explained, smiling.

“Is good.” He kept her hand in his though she was safely down. “However, I must return carriage. You permit that I come tomorrow to hobble-nobble with you?”

Polly laughed. “Oh yes, do come and hobble-nobble.” Again she thanked him, and watched as he sprang up into the phaeton. He drove off with a flourish, looking very dashing, and she turned and went slowly into the house.

He liked people—of course that was good, but did it mean that she was just one among the
many people he liked? She consoled herself with the thought that at least, among so many others, he had time to spare for her.

Chapter 13

The next day, Kolya arrived at Dean House on foot, accompanied by Ned and Nick. Ably seconded by Winnie, Nick requested permission to take the girls to play hide-and-seek. This was granted, with the proviso that they stay away from the ruined house. It had been gutted by fire some years since, Lady Sylvia said, and much of it was still standing, but it was unsafe. Nick promised to steer clear of the place and went off with Winnie hanging babbling on his arm and Annette walking soberly alongside.

Kolya suggested to Polly that they should walk into town to
take her paintings to the printseller. Knowing that Lady Sylvia was hoping for a private word with Ned about her estate, Polly agreed.

“I had best go with you,” said Ned, frowning. “It cannot be proper for you to go about the streets alone with a gentleman.”

“I will send a maid,” Lady Sylvia said promptly, then blushed. “She can carry your paintings. But indeed I do not think it necessary for propriety, if you are to walk in the main streets which are full of company. Brighton is by no means so strict as London in that regard.”

So Kolya carried the canvases, which the printseller was delighted to accept on commission. Mr. Lay, whose mother had had a print shop in the very same spot on the Steyne for many years, turned out to be another friend of Kolya’s. A small, tubby man, he had the face of a good-natured gnome. While Polly was examining his wares, displayed in two small, crowded but well-lit rooms, he and the Russian had their heads together in intimate discussion, the subject of which Kolya did not mention as they strolled back to Dean House.

They found Ned and Lady Sylvia also with their heads together in intimate discussion. Nick brought her daughters back shortly thereafter, and Winnie invited the gentlemen to
stay for nursery tea.

Adding her invitation, Lady Sylvia proposed moving this repast to the dining room for the nonce. While this suited the gentlemen much better than the nursery chairs, Winnie disappeared behind the table, even with a cushion beneath her. She tried kneeling, decided that was uncomfortable, and slid down. She went to stand beside Ned.

“I can’t reach properly,” she told him. “Can I…May I sit on your lap? If you please, sir.”

Polly was surprised by Ned’s gratified expression as he pushed back his chair and lifted the little girl to
his knee. He proceeded to stuff her with every sweetmeat within reach.

Annette seemed overawed by the company. She watched wistfully as her bolder sister chattered to Ned, then turned to Polly, sitting beside her, and confided in a whisper, “I like your brothers.”

“I’m glad.”

“‘Specially Nick. He never calls me Nettie even when he’s teasing. He said he hates being called Nicky so he understands.”

She looked across the table at Nick as she spoke. He grinned and winked at her. “Annette found quite the
best hiding place this afternoon,” he announced. “Of course it helps that she stays still and quiet as a mouse. Winnie always giggles.”

“That’s ‘cos I want you to find me,” Winnie explained, and beamed complacently when all the adults laughed.

Sitting on the terrace that evening in the long June twilight, Polly asked Lady Sylvia whether Ned had been able to advise her about the sale of Westcombe.

Her ladyship looked abashed. “I did not get around to asking him,” she confessed. “We were walking in the garden, talking about gardening, and then about books, and somehow the time passed and you returned. He is so very easy to talk to, I quite forgot my problems. I have not had a serious conversation with a gentleman before, for Ellingham cared nothing for my interests.”

“Ned is always ready to enter into the interests of others, even painting, about which he knows little enough in all conscience. I told you how he had a studio already prepared for me when we arrived at Loxwood.”

“He makes me think I have quite misjudged the masculine half of humanity, though the examples I knew were sufficient to mislead me. Do you think he will call again?” she asked anxiously.

“I’m sure of it, even if I go home. I have finished the portrait of Winnie, you know, and have no more claim upon your hospitality.”

Lady Sylvia was dismayed. “But I thought you wanted to paint the Pavilion. I was looking forward to having you stay at
least a few more weeks. Must you go?”

“Well, no. I hoped you would say that.” Polly grinned disarmingly. “Mama seems to be perfectly happy with her friends, Ned’s business is taking longer than he expected, and I
do
want to paint the Pavilion. I shall not even suggest that my presence might inconvenience you, lest you should agree.”

“Never! I wish you may paint a dozen pictures of the Pavilion.”

Polly started on the first of the proposed dozen the next morning. As usual she began by sketching the scene, setting up her easel where she had a view of the east façade between the piles of building materials. Within minutes she was surrounded by children, and as they drifted away their parents came to see what she was doing.

At
frequent intervals she had to blow away the dust that settled on her paper.

“Aye, miss, ‘tis dirty right enough,” said a harassed-looking woman who had just arrived. “Many a year we’ve been living with it and no heed paid to our letters.”