The FitzOsbornes in Exile (6 page)

Being the middle of winter, the rose garden consisted of spiky twigs sticking out of the ground, the daffodil beds were mounds of mud, and the herb garden was mostly wooden signs indicating where things might appear in three months’ time. But there was a nice, long hothouse, with a fat-bellied stove at each end keeping the trays of seedlings and potted flowers warm. Next to the hothouse was a fishpond, and beyond that were the stables. As there wasn’t much to say about any of this, Rupert and I crunched along the path in near silence, smiling shyly whenever we happened to catch the other’s eye. Unfortunately, my tongue had knotted up again. I couldn’t think of anything he might be interested in discussing; he probably felt the same about me. It was with a slight note of desperation that he asked if I’d like to see the birds.

“Oh! You mean your homing pigeons?” I asked.

“And yours. Well, Toby’s. I’ve been looking after them for him.”

He led me up a wooden staircase at the back of the stables, and we emerged into a large, light-filled loft. Soft cooing noises came from all around—from the rafters, from shallow boxes nailed to the walls, and from Rupert’s shoulder, where a white creature with feathery legs and a fanned tail had just landed.

“Is that a
pigeon
?” I asked, wide-eyed.

“A fancy one, yes,” he said, placing the bird beside a bowl of grain on a long wooden table. The bird pecked at a corn kernel disdainfully, then waddled off. “And a very spoilt one, as you can see. One of Julia’s young men gave it to her. But most of the birds here are ordinary homing pigeons.”

“Hardly
ordinary
,” I said. “Flying for hundreds of miles in a single day! How many do you have?”

“Thirty-nine,” he said, not even having to think about it. “But there are at least a dozen pairs that I’m hoping will nest this spring. Each hen usually lays two eggs, so—”

He stopped abruptly and blushed, perhaps remembering that such subjects weren’t meant to be discussed in mixed company. I quickly looked around for another topic.

“Goodness, it’s all so … so well organized,” I said, which was quite true. Each metal feed-bin was neatly labeled, the floor was swept clean, the water in each bowl was clear. It smelled pleasantly of wheat and straw and feathers.

“We have a very good pigeon man,” said Rupert, still slightly pink. “He does most of it, especially when I’m at school.” Walking over to a nearby box, he peered inside, then lifted out a bird. “Here’s one of Toby’s. The first one to make it back with your message, actually. Hold out your hands.”

I did so, and a soft, warm weight was lowered into them. A gray pigeon, vaguely familiar-looking, gazed up at me. I stared back, a heavy feeling growing in my chest.

“She’s four years old, one of my very first chicks. I remember training her.”

“How …” I cleared my throat and started again. “How can you tell one bird from another?”

“That little metal band on her leg. And she remembered exactly which box was hers, she headed straight to it. After I’d fed her, of course.”

“She must have been so hungry,” I said. “And, and so
tired
, flying all that way—”

Then I burst into tears.

Poor Rupert. When he’d agreed to show me round the garden, he had no idea he’d be forced to deal with
this
. The pigeon fluffed out her feathers, wondering why it had suddenly started raining inside, and Rupert stepped forward to rescue the unfortunate bird. Then he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to me.

“I’m
so
sorry,” he said, looking almost as distressed as I felt. “I’m such a
clod
 … Won’t you sit down?” He led me over to a bench and sat beside me as I sobbed and sobbed. It was the sort of crying that I knew from experience wouldn’t stop just because I wanted it to—in fact, trying to control it only made it worse. After about five minutes, which felt like five hours, I ran out of tears and oxygen.

“Sorry,” I gasped.

“No, it’s
my
fault,” he said. “I was so thoughtless, reminding you of—”

“Montmaray,” I said. I blew my nose into his handkerchief.

“Mummy told me not to mention it,” he said miserably. “That it would be too awful for you, and then I went and—”

I took an unsteady breath. “Although it
is
supposed to make one feel better, having a good cry,” I said.

“Do you feel better?” he asked.

“Not just at the moment, no,” I admitted. “I feel much worse.”

“As though you’d stuffed a whole lot of things into a cupboard, far too many to fit, and you were worried the door would burst open? And then it
did
, at the worst possible moment, and everything fell out on the floor and smashed?”

“Well … yes,” I said, staring at him.

And indeed, I
did
feel empty inside, and it
did
seem that my memories of Montmaray had been shattered beyond repair, that even my oldest, happiest recollections were tainted by the way things had ended. But I was surprised that a near stranger, a
boy
at that, could understand this so well.

“How does it burst out for you?” I asked, curious. “Toby never cries anymore. At least—he did a bit when he broke his leg, but he was barely conscious at the time.”

Rupert looked down at his hands. “Well, I haven’t had anything
nearly
as dreadful as what you’ve had to deal with, of course. Just … well, just being homesick and hating school. But I
do
cry. I try to save it up for when no one’s around, though. It’s difficult at school. Sometimes one has to save it up for
weeks
, and by then, it’s stopped being sadness and become a sort of … irritation with everything and everyone.”

“I can’t imagine
you
stomping about, kicking and swearing at people,” I said with a watery smile.

“No, it’s more snapping at them—usually at friends because they’re the closest and most convenient,” he said. “Which makes one feel even worse. I think it would be easier to be a girl, to be
expected
to cry.”

“Veronica doesn’t.”

“What,
never
?”

“Never. Not even when she was very little.”

“Gosh, Julia does it about once a day,” he said. “She doesn’t even have to be sad. She cried when Ant gave her her Christmas present, and then when our grandmother said Julia could borrow her tiara for the wedding …”

We discussed whether crying was an involuntary reflex, like sneezing, and whether animals cried. The conversation was so interesting that I almost forgot to be upset. But I kept needing to blow my nose, and a glance out the window revealed the afternoon light had suddenly grown much dimmer. Rupert jumped up and showed me the sink, and I washed my face and dried it on my sleeve. It didn’t do much good—I knew my eyes would stay red and puffy for hours. We went back into the house, where everyone stared, then decided the most courteous thing to do would be to ignore my woebegone countenance. Lord Astley had been called away to his study to speak with a tenant, so the rest of us sat around the drawing room for a while, Julia and Toby reading bits of
Tatler
and
Country Life
out loud to each other in silly voices and Rupert dabbing ointment on his rabbit’s paw where she’d gnawed off her bandage. Then Parker brought the car to the front, and we went outside, and Lady Astley kissed us all goodbye in a very motherly way, which nearly made me start crying again. In the car, Toby put his arm round my shoulders, and Veronica took my hand and squeezed it. Nobody said anything. I was so exhausted, I slept most of the way back.

I mean, most of the way
home
. I have to start thinking of it as that.

22nd January 1937

Surprisingly, I have felt better since my outburst—not right away, because when I got back to Milford, my primary emotion was severe embarrassment over what the Stanley-Rosses must have thought of me. But that night, for the first time since I’d arrived, I didn’t dream—or I didn’t recall what I’d dreamt, which I took to be a good sign, since the ones I did remember were so horrid. I told Veronica this when I went in to see her before breakfast. I’ve got into the habit of sitting on (or in, if it’s especially cold) her bed while she goes through the process of waking up, which seems to take her about ten times as long as it did at Montmaray.

“So,” I concluded, “I’ve decided it’s better to
talk
about things. Otherwise it just bursts out some other way, in nightmares or fits of weeping.”

“You sound like that Freud-obsessed tutor we used to have,” Veronica said, her eyes still closed.

“Oh, yes—what was his name? Francis? Fergus? Something like that. But, Veronica, that reminds me! Have you written to Daniel Bloom yet?”

“No.”

“But what if he’s still sending letters to Montmaray and they’re being Returned to Sender! He’d be so worried!” Another thought occurred to me. “Do you think it was in the newspapers? The bombing, I mean. The British government knows we’re here, because that policeman came round just after we arrived and told Aunt Charlotte we needed registration cards. Not that she paid the slightest bit of attention to him. But do you think people know
why
we’re here?”

Veronica finally opened her eyes, but only to glare at me.

“I suppose Daniel might have heard about it, anyway,” I went on, not allowing the glare to deter me. “Doesn’t he work as a journalist now?”

“Not that sort of journalist,” she mumbled, closing her eyes again.

“What sort? Veronica, don’t go back to sleep!”

“He writes for some little weekly in the East End,” she said, and turned over on her side.

“Perhaps we can see him when we go to London,” I said. “Did you know it’s a quarter to eight? Are you getting up today?”

“Is there any point?”

“
Yes
. We get to see the new governess in action! And Henry’s pony arrives this morning.” Veronica groaned.

“Aunt Charlotte wants
us
to have riding lessons, too,” I said. “She says it’s an essential part of a young lady’s education, that one can’t even
begin
to take part in Society if one can’t ride. That’s how most meet their future husbands, apparently—at a hunt or the races or a polo match. Or at dinner parties, where everyone
talks
about hunts and races and polo matches.”

“All the more reason not to learn to ride, then,” she said.

“They are awfully big, aren’t they?” I said, biting my bottom lip. “Horses, I mean. It’s such a long way down if one falls off.”

“Yes, I expect people die of it all the time.”

“You’re not being helpful,” I told her. “Sit up, and I’ll brush your hair while you finish waking up.”

She submitted to this, and then to me twisting the thick, dark waves into a knot at her nape. It was as I was pinning this in place that I returned to my original topic, the one that had been battering against the sides of my head for days, even though I’d made a very good attempt at ignoring it for a while.

“What are we going to
do
? I mean, about Montmaray, about the Germans.”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Nothing?”

But she’d shrugged into her dressing gown and was stalking off to the bathroom. Unfortunately, having a policy of talking about things doesn’t mean one’s conversational partners will actually
answer
, or even listen properly. I also happen to know that Veronica shoved her
Brief History of Montmaray
parcel at the very bottom of her wardrobe. Unopened.

Another person who is not very interested in discussing Montmaray’s invasion is Aunt Charlotte, who seems to assume “the authorities” will deal with it. But
what
authorities? I daren’t ask. Aunt Charlotte regards the whole subject as entirely unsuitable for young ladies. I also suspect she simply doesn’t
care
as much as we do. She hasn’t been back to Montmaray since my grandfather’s funeral in 1917, before I was even born, and she seems thoroughly entrenched in English Society now. Perhaps Montmaray is one of those childhood things she has put aside, along with hopscotch and teddy bears and Beatrix Potter.

I suppose that when she arrived here in England as a young bride, torn from her home and unable to do a thing about it, she just got on with it—threw herself into Society life, and then, after her husband died and there was no longer any possibility of children, channeled her relentless energies into managing her estate and building up her stable of racing horses and bossing around people on her charity committees. She had a responsibility to her husband, to her new country, not to look back. It was what her parents would have expected of her. It was the Sensible Thing to Do.

My aunt is extremely Sensible.

Anyway. Henry came down to breakfast that morning dressed in her new riding jacket and jodhpurs, trailed by her governess, Miss Thompson. I’ve never seen anyone wear so much pink at once; she’d even pinned a pink silk rose to her lapel, and every time Toby glanced in her general direction, her whole head blushed to match. Aunt Charlotte had apparently chosen the most girlish governess available, in the hope that all the pinkness would rub off on Henry.

“Did I say she’d last three weeks?” Toby muttered. “I meant three
days.
”

To make up for this, I gave her an especially encouraging smile, but I don’t think she noticed—she was too busy being terrified of Aunt Charlotte.

Simon wasn’t at breakfast, but he joined Veronica, Toby, and me in the library before luncheon. While Veronica and Toby grappled with Gibbon’s
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, Simon sat beside me on the window seat and told me all about Rebecca’s introduction to the clinic, which hadn’t been entirely smooth.

“Still, the therapists are very experienced,” he said, a little line appearing between his brows. “And she has a lovely bedroom, with a view of the sea. I think that will help, don’t you?”

Just as I succeed in hardening my heart towards Simon, he reveals something of himself that makes me adore him. To care so deeply about Rebecca—a
most
unlovable person—is surely the mark of a kind soul, even if Simon does his best to disguise it. I was agreeing that sea views were extremely soothing when Henry burst into the room.

“What are you all doing in here?
Talking
, I suppose!”

“How was your first riding lesson?” Toby asked.

“Well! You won’t
believe
it!” exclaimed Henry. “I had to put both my legs on
one side
, in this silly girls’ saddle! I thought it would be like pictures of cowboys, a leg on either side of the horse. How else is one supposed to stay on? But Aunt Charlotte says that only boys get to ride like that! It’s the stupidest thing! It ought to be the other way round. It’s boys who have dangling bits between their legs
—they
ought to be the ones riding sidesaddle!”

“Quite right,” said Toby. “Especially if they have really
large
bits. The first time I got off a horse, I couldn’t walk properly for hours afterwards.”

Simon was suddenly overcome by a severe coughing fit and had to leave the room in search of a glass of water.

“
Please
tell me you didn’t say that in front of Aunt Charlotte,” I begged Henry.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because it isn’t very ladylike,” said Veronica, straightening her face. “Nor gentlemanly. Come here, you’ve got mud all over you.”

“I fell off twice,” said Henry proudly as Veronica helped her out of her filthy riding jacket. “That was mostly the saddle’s fault, though. I do love my pony. He’s called Lightning. Isn’t that a good name? And the groom is called Ericson, and he’s going to see if he can find a proper saddle for me tomorrow.”

“Where’s Miss Thompson?” I asked.

“Lying down in her room,” said Henry. “She got dizzy when I fell off the first time. You’d think it was
her
who’d fallen on her head. Then she had a screaming fit because Carlos jumped up on her. He only wanted to see what was on her hat, and do you know what it was? Pink rabbit fur! No wonder he was confused.”

“Did I say three days?” Toby murmured to me. “I meant three
hours
.”

“Anyway,” said Henry, “have you come up with a plan yet? For getting Montmaray back from the Nasties?”

“Nazis,” I corrected.

Veronica got up and walked out.

“Why does she always do that?” said Henry, her face falling. “Whenever anyone mentions Montmaray—”

“Never mind, Horrid Hen,” said Toby quickly. “Because we need her out of the room while we figure out what to do for her birthday.”

“Aunt Charlotte’s giving her a three-strand pearl necklace,” said Henry. “I overheard her talking to Barnes about it.”

“You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping,” I told her.

“It’s practice for when I become a private detective,” said Henry. “Toby, can I borrow a shilling? I know what I’m getting her, but it’s a secret.”

“What are
we
getting her?” I asked Toby as he handed over a coin. “Books, I suppose.”

“Probably,” he said. “But I do have one surprise up my sleeve—I got Simon to look up the address of her Communist paramour.”

“Don’t call Daniel
that
,” I said crossly. I was starting to regret ever having told Toby about Daniel. “And we don’t even know if he
is
a Communist.”

“Well, apparently he runs a newspaper distributed by the International Alliance for the Promotion of Socialist Beliefs, so I doubt he’ll be campaigning for the Conservatives at the next election. You’d better write to him—he doesn’t know me.”

After further debate about Veronica’s birthday present, Toby and I decided on a subscription to
The Manchester Guardian
, because she’d complained that
The Times
was biased and kept spelling the names of Spanish towns incorrectly. However, given the current state of the world, I hardly think a newspaper will cheer her up. And I
so
want her to feel better—if not actually happy, then at least as though there’s a point to getting out of bed in the morning. I do think I understand a
little
of how she must feel. Montmaray would have ceased to function if Veronica had stayed in bed all day, but here there’s Aunt Charlotte to make all the decisions, and a small army of servants to take care of the house and grounds. To feel superfluous, on top of everything else …

For now I wonder if Veronica actually blames
herself
for what happened to Montmaray. It would explain her refusing even to talk about it. She’s so used to being responsible for everything, perhaps she thinks she could have, should have, done something differently, something that would have changed how it all turned out. Which is absurd, of course. The Germans were
always
going to come up to the castle, regardless of what she said or did; her father was bound to go berserk when he discovered them; and whether we’d told the truth about Hans Brandt’s death or not, Gebhardt would still have been determined to make us pay for it …

How depressing, the image of the greatest tragedy of one’s life as a series of toppling dominoes, the whole thing started off by the careless nudge of an elbow, and not even one’s
own
elbow. It almost makes me want to climb into bed and pull the covers up over
my
head, too. I shouldn’t be surprised that Veronica can barely muster the energy to have a decent argument with Simon nowadays.

It might be easier for Veronica if she enjoyed some of the activities
I
use as distractions—experimenting with new hairstyles, for instance, or talking Barnes into letting me try on all Aunt Charlotte’s jewelry. But feminine frippery merely serves to remind Veronica that here her value lies in her looks, not her brain (that, indeed, her brain will be a serious liability when it comes to husband-hunting, unless she’s clever enough to disguise how clever she is). But fortunately, Toby has talked Parker into giving Veronica driving lessons. So, between that and Veronica trying to prepare Toby for his exams, she should be too busy to succumb to despair—I
hope
.

I also wrote to Daniel explaining our new circumstances and reminding him that Veronica’s birthday is on Saturday, adding a subtle hint that he send something cheering, or at least intriguing enough to be a distraction. I then spent some time puzzling over the conundrum of Rupert’s linen handkerchief, now washed and ironed (although not by me). In books, weeping females are often lent handkerchiefs by gallant gentlemen, but hardly ever does the reader find out what happens to the handkerchief afterwards (unless it sparks off some catastrophe, as with poor Desdemona). What’s the correct etiquette for such an occasion? Should I post it back to Rupert with a letter of thanks? Or is he desperately trying to forget all about the incident, and me? He was so easy to talk to, once we got started, but the whole thing’s really quite embarrassing … I suppose I should just give it to Toby and ask
him
to return it, but I’ll need to brace myself for the teasing that will probably result. In any case, subsequent events pushed such trivial matters as handkerchiefs from my mind.

Firstly, Miss Thompson bolted (on the same early-morning London train as Simon, it turned out). Her resignation letter, brought in at breakfast by a footman, cited a mother who’d suddenly developed a grave illness. While Miss Thompson’s departure came as no great surprise, it did make Aunt Charlotte very cross, because it meant she had to find another governess. The situation, already tense, was not improved when Henry started shrieking at Toby, who’d just put a rasher of bacon on her plate.