Two Silver Crosses, page 3
‘Then you will love me?’
‘I shall always love you.’
‘In every way?’
‘Oh, my darling, in every way.’
She was quiet for a long time. Then she asked, ‘Do you forgive me for my poor Emily’s eyes?’
‘There is nothing to forgive. How could you know? Neither of us knew. We both thought we were cured long since. If we’d known we’d have done something about it.’
She sighed and closed her eyes wearily.
‘This must be our secret,’ he said. ‘Your illness. Mine. Whatever happens we will look after one another. But we will keep it secret from everyone.’
‘The doctor knows,’ she pointed out, looking at him again. ‘And Mrs Bonney.’
‘They are like priests, my darling. They keep secrets.’
‘Then we will keep our secret, too. I promise you, Edouard.’
‘All our secrets. Where we met, when we married. All of it. Not just the illnesses.’
‘All of it,’ she promised, looking steadfastly into his eyes.
‘I love you so much,’ he said. ‘More at this moment than I have ever done.’
‘It is the same for me,’ she said. ‘You are everything to me. Everything in all the world.’
And as if to remind her that she had other loves now, Virginia sneezed and whimpered.
‘You and my darling babies,’ she said. ‘I love you all with all my heart.’
Chapter 2
It was Wednesday, May 19th, 1926. The sun was shining through the long lattice windows of the day nursery at High Holborn, the roses were in bloom beside the terrace and the Holborn twins were being dressed for their tenth birthday party.
‘Comme vous êtes belles, mes petites!’ Hortense said, speaking in French as she always did when she was doting on them. ‘How pretty you are.’
She was wrong, of course, but then she was seeing them with a mother’s eye. They weren’t pretty children. Well dressed and well groomed, certainly, distinguished perhaps, with their long equine faces, their straight spines and their confident air, but not beautiful.
They were very much alike, small and slight with slender bones, their mother’s olive skin and the same shock of thick, dark frizzy hair, cut short just below their ears in the fashionable style which bushed out as thick as a thatch on either side of their cheeks. The only differences between them were the way they walked, Ginny darting and precipitate, Emily plodding and steady, and the colour of their eyes. Emily’s were pale blue disks without light or expression, while Ginny’s were so dark as to be almost black, quick and lively and intelligent and the most dramatic indicators of her changing moods. Now they were flashing with pleasure.
‘Do the dresses please you?’ Hortense asked.
It was an unnecessary question, because she could see how pleased they were. Emily’s blind eyes were flickering from side to side as she fingered the white silk, and Ginny was so excited she was squealing and pirouetting before the long mirror, twirling her lovely frilled skirt, three frills, one above the other and all ruched so prettily and edged with satin in a pale lilac to match her sash.
‘Mais oui, Maman. Oui. Oui. Oui,’ she sang. And then dropping from French to English in the effortless way of the truly bilingual, ‘We love them. They’re so chic.’
Maman brought her clothes in Paris and was always very chic, especially when it came to putting colours together. Ginny was particularly proud of her because she looked so French, with long, elegant legs and a wide-eyed face. She was the only one in the family with an oval face and that, combined with high cheekbones and large brown eyes, gave her a striking beauty. Today she was wearing a grass-green crêpe de chine dress that set off her olive skin and her thick bobbed hair to perfection. The trimmings were marvellous. Where poor old Aunty Agnes would have chosen trimmings in a nice safe colour like beige, Maman had her dress pointed up with a lovely bright emerald green silk patterned all over with white polka dots. Her clothes were always exciting and the party dresses she chose for her daughters always superb. But these were the best of them all.
Nanny was trying to do up the row of tiny pearl buttons on the back of Emily’s bodice. ‘You’re very lucky little girls,’ she said. But there was reproach as well as approval in her voice.
‘Yes, Nanny,’ Emily said gently. ‘We know we are.’ And it was true. They were both comfortably aware of their good fortune, that they were loved and special, half French and half English, with two languages to speak where everybody else only had one, and a great house to live in and a fine garden to play in and servants to wait on them and dear old Babbers, their governess, to teach them and a life of ease and comfort to look forward to. Oh very, very lucky.
‘You look a picture in white, the pair of you,’ Nanny said. ‘Don’t you think so, ma’am? Can’t you just see what pretty brides they’ll make.’
It was just as if she’d thrown a bowl of cold water over them, the atmosphere in the room changed so quickly.
Hortense Holborn sucked in her breath as though she’d been stung. The excitement and pirouetting stopped at once and her daughters turned towards Hortense, instantly alert and protective. It was part of the pattern of their lives protecting Maman, especially when there was that vulnerable note in her voice or that stricken expression on her face. They all had to care for one another, Daddy said so. That was the way things were. Ginny looked after Emily because she couldn’t see. Maman looked after Daddy because he was ill with a disease called locomotor ataxia that made him stumble as if he were drunk and gave him sudden attacks of terrible pain. They all looked after Maman, because she could swing from happiness to misery in a second, and she needed a lot of care and consideration.
‘Clear these things away, Nanny, if you please,’ Maman said, and she spoke in her cold voice. ‘I wish to speak to my daughters.’
Oh dear, Ginny thought, as Nanny bundled their discarded clothes together and shot out of the room, Maman is upset. As soon as the door had closed, she and Emily crept to their mother’s side to find out what was wrong, and to put it right if they could.
‘A foolish woman,’ Maman said, speaking in French. ‘Always talking about weddings and marriage. She reads too many romances. To be married is not the only thing for women to do these days. Women have careers now. Many, many women. It is quite the fashion. In any case not all young women want to marry, do they?’
Her daughters took their cue and responded to it at once. ‘No, Maman.’
‘You might not want to get married yourselves, isn’t that right?’
Neither of the twins had given it much thought until then, so they didn’t know what to say.
Their silence was a mistake. Maman’s mood crackled into bad temper. ‘Now think!’ she ordered. ‘Think of all the things women can do nowadays. You could go to college, or be an Olympic swimmer, or an actress, or a film star. Anything. Think of it. You could work in all sorts of places. You could fly an aeroplane if you wanted to. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
Both girls were baffled by the bombardment and alarmed by her temper. Something was badly wrong.
‘Yes, Maman,’ Emily said, quickly. ‘We would, wouldn’t we, Ginny?’
And naturally Ginny agreed, equally quickly.
Maman’s voice grew softer. ‘It would be so much better for you not to get married,’ she said, putting her arms round them.
‘Yes, Maman,’ Emily said, dutifully. It was a very odd thing for Maman to say. Babbers said everybody got married.
‘Some girls are cut out for it,’ Hortense went on. ‘But you are not. For you, marriage would be a very serious error. For you it must be different.’
Ginny wasn’t convinced. ‘Why?’ she asked.
It was her second mistake. ‘Because it must,’ Hortense said, and her voice sounded irritable again. ‘I can’t explain to you now. You must take my word for it. But I am telling you the truth. You must understand that. It would be much much better for you not to marry. It would be much better never even to think of it. You must promise me never to think of it.’
It seemed a peculiar request but because she was so agitated they promised. Ginny put her arms round her mother’s neck and hugged her. ‘I am never going to get married,’ she declared. ‘Never, ever. Not if I live to be a hundred.’
‘Nor am I,’ Emily echoed stoutly, hugging her mother, too. That was what Maman wanted to hear. That was the way to comfort her.
And it did comfort her. Her voice relaxed. ‘That’s my sensible girls,’ she said, kissing them. ‘Now I must see to the table, n’est-ce pas? Stay here, my darlings. Stay here until Miss Babbacombe comes to fetch you. You can wait by the window.’
Arms resting on the sill, they waited at the open window, positioned so that Ginny could see, and Emily could hear what was happening on the terrace below them, and tried to make sense of what they’d just been told.
‘Do you think she meant it?’ Ginny asked. Emily always knew when people meant what they said. She could hear it in their voices.
‘Yes,’ Emily said. ‘I’m sure she did.’
‘She made me feel quite frightened.’
‘Yes. She did.’
‘Still,’ Ginny said, trying to cheer them up. ‘I don’t suppose it’ll matter. I can’t see the point of getting married, really. There’s no fun in it.’
‘Isn’t there?’
‘No. Most people aren’t a bit happy.’
‘Daddy and Maman are happy. Most of the time.’
‘Well yes,’ Ginny admitted. ‘But look at all the others. They’re always getting peeved and shouting at one another and having headaches. Look at Uncle Claud.’
Uncle Claud was always shouting about something or other, the General Strike, or the miners, or Aunty Agnes’ hats. He was shouting now and charging about the terrace where the maids were setting up the trestle tables for their birthday tea.
Emily agreed with that. ‘Being married makes you cry, too,’ she said. ‘If you’re a lady.’ Aunty Agnes cried ever such a lot, especially when Uncle Claud had been roaring at her. She usually did it at night, when she didn’t think anyone was listening, and into her pillow, which made her sobs sound very peculiar, as if they were a long way away. But Emily always heard her, even though her bedroom was right down at the other end of the corridor in the west wing.
‘What will you do instead?’ Emily asked.
‘Instead of what?’
‘Getting married?’
‘Oh, I shall stay here,’ Ginny said. ‘I shall stay in this house for ever and ever. This is the best house in the world.’
Young though they were they both knew how extraordinary High Holborn was, and how privileged they were to live there. For a start it was very big. Over fifty rooms, so Miss Babbacombe said. And the garden was enormous, with two fish ponds, a rose garden, a tennis court, a meadow big enough to graze four horses and two great avenues of trees where you could go for a walk in the shade. But it was the house they loved most because the house was like something out of a fairy tale.
It had been built by their great-grandfather nearly fifty years ago; the architect had adored the Gothic style, considered symmetry boring, and had been convinced that a plain, square room was an affront to the senses. Consequently, he had designed a building that was a hodgepodge of all the styles he most enjoyed. It was part Norman castle, part Tudor manor house, part Gothic mansion, a rambling red-brick confection of battlemented towers, tile-hung gables, long-necked chimneys, half-timbered walls and leaded windows of every size and shape and design. It had an east wing, where the twins lived with Daddy and Maman, and a west wing for Uncle Claud and Aunty Agnes and the boys. Their grandfather lived in the long main house where the special rooms were, the library, the dining room and the morning room, not forgetting the great hall where grandfather held his board meetings and gave parties for the grown-ups. Oh, a wonderful house.
‘But what will you do if you don’t get married?’ Emily asked.
‘I shall probably help Grandfather run the firm.’
Emily was impressed but doubtful. ‘Will he let you?’
‘I don’t see why not. Women can do things just as well as men. Babbers told me. Maman is right about that. And anyway, it’s only signing papers and stuff.’
‘D’you think I could do it, too?’ Emily asked, her blind eyes flickering with interest.
‘Well, not signing papers,’ Ginny said practically. ‘You couldn’t do that could you, because you have to read them first, and you couldn’t do that unless they were in braille. But you could chair meetings. That’s ever so easy.’
Emily wasn’t sure. ‘What do you have to do to chair meetings?’
‘You sit in a chair, of course,’ her sister said practically, ‘and the others sit round the table and you tell them to say things.’
‘What sort of things?’
Ginny didn’t know the answer, but she didn’t have to think one up because at that moment Emily stiffened to attention and she began to speak in French.
‘Écoute! Quelqu’un s’approche,’ she said.
‘You are sure?’ Ginny said, in the same language. ‘I don’t hear anyone.’
‘Yes, yes. It is Mademoiselle Babbacombe.’ And of course it was. Emily was never wrong about footsteps.
Feet splayed and hands clenched into fists as though she was going to beat the world, their governess strode into the room, wafting a smell of starch and carbolic soap before her. She was an eccentric-looking woman, tall and skinny and awkward, and her face, framed by a curly fringe and a long pageboy bob of brown hair, was bizarre. She had pale blue eyes, a very small chin, a rosebud mouth like a doll’s and, sticking inappropriately out of the middle of her face, a long sharp, triangular nose like a beak. But the smile she was beaming towards the twins was all affection.
‘Ah, there you are!’ she said, briskly. ‘Good gels! Ready for the off, are we?’
The twins answered in chorus. ‘Yes, Miss Babbacombe.’
‘That’s the ticket,’ Miss Babbacombe said. ‘Your grandfather’s waiting in the library. I must say you look super.’
This is better, Ginny thought, pushing all thoughts of marriage and Maman’s inexplicable mood away. Now the rituals of the birthday could begin: down to the library to see Grandfather and be given his presents, out to the hall to welcome their guests and then on to the games, the prizes and the birthday tea.
‘All set?’ Miss Babbacombe asked, taking Emily by the hand.
‘I wonder what it’ll be this year,’ Ginny said, as their governess escorted them down the stairs.
‘Something lovely, I’ll be bound,’ Miss Babbacombe said. ‘Soon see. Now are you neat and tidy?’
In his gruff and rather enigmatic way old Mr Holborn was quite fond of his granddaughters, but he was very particular about them being neat. He sat in his special armchair beside the library fireplace, looked down his long nose and examined them critically, his rough grey head cocked to one side.
‘Hello, funny faces,’ he said. ‘How’s the birthday going then?’
‘Very nicely, thank you, Grandfather,’ Ginny said politely. And Emily smiled towards the sound of his voice.
There were two small boxes on the table by his elbow.
‘Birthday presents,’ he said. ‘Something special this time because you’re into double figures. And that only happens once in a lifetime, eh? Hold out your hands.’
It’s too small to be a toy, Emily thought, passing her intelligent fingers over the package he’d put into her hands. Perhaps it’s more furniture for the doll’s house. Puzzling, she unwrapped the parcel, smoothed back the paper, folded it neatly and set it down on the table she knew was behind her.
She was holding a long narrow box, with a hook-and-eye catch that she lifted with a finger nail. She raised the lid, balancing the box on the palm of her left hand, and, breathless with curiosity, felt inside with the tips of her forefinger and thumb. The box was lined with velvet and stretched across the soft nap was a delicate metal chain suspended from a tiny hook. She rolled the chain gently between finger and thumb, following it down until she encountered a small metal cross. It had rounded ends and the front of it was ridged and carved into tiny intricate patterns. There was a stone of some kind embedded in the centre, a stone that was smooth and oddly soft to the touch so that she knew at once that it was something rare and precious.
‘An amethyst,’ Mr Holborn said, watching her fingers and the flicker of those poor blind eyes. ‘The cross is silver. Virginia’s got one just the same except that her amethyst is oval and yours is round, so that you can tell the difference.’
‘It’s beautiful!’ Ginny said. ‘Thank you ever so much. I shall wear it for ever and ever.’
‘So shall I,’ Emily said. ‘Thank you very very much, Grandfather.’
‘Well put them on then,’ Mr Holborn said gruffly. ‘Put them on.’ The clock on the mantlepiece was pinging the hour. ‘Three o’clock. Your guests will be arriving.’ The house would soon be full of screaming children so the sooner he was out of it the better.
The twins kissed him affectionately and were led from his presence, excitement rising; now the party could begin. As they walked into the panelled twilight of the hall, they heard the first car scrunching to a halt on the gravel drive outside. Now for the fun.
Because they were both being educated at home, their birthday party was the one occasion in the year when they had lots of other children to play with. It was a heterogeneous gathering, children from the village, who were very rough and lots of fun, sons and daughters of some of the people who worked in grandfather’s office, who were carefully polite and rather cautious until the party really got under way, and this year their two baby cousins, George and Johnny Everdale, who were being allowed to join in, too. Ginny wasn’t sure about the wisdom of that, because they were very young, only two-and-a-half and just four, and horribly naughty, so they would probably be rather a nuisance unless Aunty Agnes could keep them in order.
