‘That’s what I always say.’ She paused, holding the door open, then turned, a slow smile spreading across her face. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s a wonder I didn’t think of it earlier.’ She pursed her lips. ‘You’ll join my Conservative Ladies group. We’ve been looking for volunteers for the upcoming gala. You can help write place cards. If you manage that, there are always decorations to be painted.’
Hannah and Emmeline exchanged a glance as Boyle came to the door.
‘The car is here for Miss Emmeline,’ he said. ‘Can I call you a taxi, Miss Deborah?’
‘Don’t bother yourself, Boyle,’ said Deborah chirpily. ‘I feel like some fresh air.’
Boyle nodded and left to supervise the stowing of Emmeline’s bags in the motor car.
‘What a stroke of genius!’ Deborah said, smiling broadly at Hannah. ‘Teddy will be so pleased. His two girls spending all that time together, becoming real chums!’ She inclined her head and lowered her voice. ‘And this way, he’ll never need know about that other unfortunate business.’
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
I won’t wait for Sylvia. I am done waiting. I will find my own cup of tea. A loud, tinny, thumping music comes from the speakers on the makeshift stage, and a group of six young girls are dancing. They are dressed in black and red lycra-little more than swimsuits-and black boots that come all the way to their knees. The heels are high and I wonder how they manage to dance in them at all, then I remember the dancers of my youth. The Hammersmith Palladion, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Emmeline doing the shimmy- shake.
I claw my fingers around the armrest, lean so that my elbow digs into my ribs, and push myself upwards, hugging the rail. I hover for a moment, then transfer my weight to my cane, wait for the landscape to stop still. Blessed heat. I poke my cane gingerly at the ground. The recent rain has left it soft and I am wary of becoming bogged. I use the indentations made by other people’s footsteps. It is a slow process, but I go surely…
‘Hear your future… Read your palm…’
I cannot abide fortune tellers. I was once told I had a short life line; did not properly shake the vague sense of foreboding until I was midway through my sixties.
I pick my way onwards; will not look. I am resigned to my future. It is the past that troubles.
Hannah saw the fortune teller in early 1921. It was a Wednesday morning; Hannah’s ‘at-homes’ were always Wednesday morning. Deborah was lunching at the Savoy Grill and Teddy was at work with his father. Teddy had lost his air of trauma by then; he looked like someone who had woken from a strange dream relieved to realise he was still who he used to be. He and Simion were buying up petrol, tyres, trams and trains. Simion said it was essential to stamp out other forms of transport. It was the only way to ensure that people always needed to buy their cars. Hannah said it was a shame, she rather liked a choice, but Teddy and Simion only laughed and said most people weren’t equipped to make a sound choice and it was just as well if someone made it for them.
A parade of fashionably dressed women had been leaving number seventeen for the past five minutes when I started to clear the tea items. (We had just lost our fifth housemaid and no replacement had yet been found.) Only Hannah, Fanny and Lady Clementine remained, sitting on the lounges, finishing their tea. Hannah was tapping her spoon lightly, distractedly, against her saucer. She was anxious for them to go, though I did not yet know why.
‘Really dear,’ Lady Clementine said, eyeing Hannah over her empty teacup, ‘
Fanny nodded, but was unable to speak as her mouth was full with sponge cake.
‘A woman married too long without children,’ Lady Clementine said dourly. ‘People start to talk.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Hannah. ‘But there’s really nothing to talk about.’ She said it so breezily I shivered. One would have been hard-pressed to detect the hint of strife beneath the veneer. The bitter arguments Hannah’s failure to fall was causing.
Lady Clementine exchanged a glance with Fanny who raised her eyebrows. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there? Downstairs?’
My first thought was that she referred to our lack of housemaids; I realised her true meaning only when Fanny swallowed her cake and added eagerly, ‘There’s doctors you could see.
There was really very little Hannah could say to that. Well there was, of course. She could have told them to mind their own business, and once she probably would have, but time had been rubbing at her edges. So she said nothing. She just smiled and silently willed them to leave.
When they had gone, she collapsed back into the sofa. ‘Finally,’ she said. ‘I thought they’d never go.’ She watched me loading the last of the cups onto my tray. ‘I’m sorry you have to do that, Grace.’
‘It’s all right ma’am,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it won’t be for long.’
‘All the same,’ said Hannah. ‘You’re a lady’s maid. I’ll remind Deborah about finding a replacement.’
I continued arranging the teaspoons.
Hannah was still watching me. ‘Can you keep a secret, Grace?’
‘You know I can, ma’am.’
She withdrew something, a folded piece of newspaper, from beneath her skirt waist and smoothed it open. ‘I found this in the back of one of Boyle’s newspapers.’ She handed it to me.
I couldn’t hand it back quickly enough, wiped my hands on my apron afterwards. I had heard talk downstairs about such things. It was the newest craze, the result of mass bereavement. In those days everyone wanted a word of consolation from their dear lost loves.
‘I have an appointment this afternoon,’ Hannah said.
I couldn’t think what to say. I wished she hadn’t told me. I exhaled. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, ma’am, I don’t hold with seances and the like.’
‘Really, Grace,’ Hannah said, surprised, ‘of all people I’d have thought you’d be more open-minded. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a believer, you know. He communicates regularly with his son Kingsley. He even has seances at his home.’
She wasn’t to know I was no longer devoted to Sherlock Holmes; that in London I had discovered Agatha Christie.
‘It’s not that, ma’am,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe.’
‘No?’
‘No, ma’am. I believe, all right. That’s the problem. It’s not natural. The dead. It’s dangerous to interfere.’
She raised her eyebrows, considering the fact. ‘Dangerous…’
It was the wrong approach to take. By mentioning danger I’d only made the proposition more attractive.
