The Children's Book

Griselda stood in her party dress, white, like a pillar of salt. She had not a defiant nature. But she had not a compliant nature, either. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She swayed. Dorothy said

“We have been looking forward to midsummer for ever. We have not had the fire, or the music, or the dancing. How can we have them without Griselda and Charles? How can we have the music without Charles? Their beds are made up…”

Basil said to his wife “I really cannot stay.”

“Perhaps we might leave the children with their cousins. It is a time that they have been looking forward…”

“As you wish. I simply do not want to stay.”

“Then we will go,” said Katharina, signalling to her maid, putting out her hands to Olive, who had come to see what was happening. She did not feel she could apologise for Basil, indeed, she felt he was justified, but she had no wish to ruin the party. Violet appeared at her side, murmuring sensible things about the later return of the children. The carriage came and was loaded. No one went to wave goodbye. Humphry went and refilled his glass, drained it, and refilled it again. He was full of an electric sense that everything was at risk. For the moment, there was the party. He called for music.

Dorothy said to Griselda

“The first thing is to find you a dressing-up dress, like ours.”

Griselda was still white and stricken. Violet took her hand to lead her into the nursery. Violet instructed Philip and Phyllis to light the lanterns.

Griselda stood in the nursery and undid the buttons on the pink dress. She stepped out of it, and it subsided, Miss Muffet reduced to a tuffet. She ought to put it on a hanger. She left it where it lay.

Violet said that the Rhine-maiden dress was the thing. It would look pretty on Griselda.

This was an old evening dress of Olive’s, cut down by Violet, and securely stitched into a girl-sized fancy dress. It was sea-green pleated silk over a grass-green underskirt, with a gilded girdle. Violet adjusted it. Griselda put up her hands and undid the tight coils of her hair. Violet brushed it out over her shoulders. Griselda had eyes which would normally be called grey, or hazel, which became, when she was dressed in green, suddenly emerald. Dorothy said “You look lovely.” Griselda wriggled. “I can move, at least.”

When she rejoined the party, everyone clapped. Humphry took another glass of champagne and proposed a toast to Greensleeves. Violet said it was the Rhine-maiden dress, and Anselm Stern began suddenly to sing a version of the opening music of Rheingold, bowing over Griselda’s hand. He had a clear, high voice.

They danced. The music was a trio: Charles on the fiddle, Geraint on the flute, Tom on a mixture of a small drum and a penny whistle. They played “Greensleeves” for Griselda, and “O du lieber Augustin” for August Steyning and Anselm Stern. It was a developing tradition that the old danced with the young. Humphry whirled Dorothy, her small squarish feet racing to keep time, whilst Prosper Cain revolved calmly with Florence. Olive danced with Julian, who was neat and graceful. August Steyning led out Imogen Fludd, and then danced with her stately mother. Humphry released Dorothy, who was breathless, at the request of Leslie Skinner, who handled her as though she was breakable and hopped over tufts in an odd way. Anselm Stern danced with Griselda, humming to himself, capering like his own puppet prince. The Tartarinovs danced together, moving like one whirligig. Anselm Stern bowed to Dorothy, who backed away, and said she did not want to dance any more.

Violet Grimwith insisted that Philip dance with her. He flushed crimson in the lantern light, and shambled to and fro, staring at his feet, until she released him, and took her turn with Humphry. He backed away into the shrubbery, where he found Dorothy, sitting on a bench in the near-darkness, in a kind of nook in the hedge. Both of them were in search of solitude and felt constrained to be polite. Dorothy said, with Fabian truthfulness, that you could have too much dancing. Philip agreed, with a kind of snort.

They sat in silence. Dorothy said

“No one asked you what you wanted to be.”

“Just as well, probably.”

“I said I wanted to be a doctor. I didn’t know I did, until I said it, that was what was odd. Because I do.”

Dorothy believed that if you told someone something truthfully, and honestly, you were giving them something, a kind of respect. Philip said

“Can women be doctors?”

“There are some. It’s hard, I think, to get the training.” She paused. “People don’t think women should work.”

Philip wanted to say “My mum works, she has to.” It wasn’t the right thing to say. He said “My mum works, she has to.”

Dorothy gave him her attention.

“And you? What do you want? Why did you run away?”

He said, sounding cross because he was desperate, “I want to make something. A real pot.” He always saw it in the singular. “It might seem odd, like, to run away from the Potteries, to make a pot. But I had to.”

“I think you will find a way,” said Dorothy, serious in the dark. “I hope we can help.”

“Everyone has been very kind.”

“That isn’t the point.”

There was a silence. They were aware of each other’s unspoken thoughts, the form of Dorothy’s apprehensiveness about her newly discovered ambition, and what it might do to her life, the inarticulate shape of Philip’s need. It grew darker. They stood up at the same time, and went out of the shrubbery, back to the dancers.

August Steyning and Anselm Stern had relieved the musicians so that they could dance. Steyning took the flute, and Stern the fiddle. They improvised waltzes and Bavarian folk dances. Geraint, daring, asked Florence Cain to dance, and they took a few tentative steps, treading on each other’s toes, before Humphry swept her off, and signalled to the players to go faster. He held Florence very close, his hot dry hand hard in the small of her back. She felt him controlling and teaching her body rhythms she hadn’t known she knew, swaying and intricate, her face held on his embroidered chest. Her feet were suddenly skilful, as though she was one of Herr Stern’s puppets. She caught her breath. Violet applauded. Olive came circling past, dancing with Tom,