It was June when he came; Mother was receiving at home. Cooper brought in a card and Mother picked it up from the tray and I saw her frown a moment as she looked at it. Then she turned to Mrs Clavering and said, ‘How curious – Lord Staveley – I don’t believe we’ve ever met. Show Lord Staveley up, Cooper.’
I sat rigidly beside her as he walked across the room. ‘Lady Pickering, please forgive my intrusion – Muirkirk told me you were at home today.’ He turned to me. ‘Lady Helena, would you be so good as to present me to your Mama?’
Mother glanced at me, her dark eyes suddenly sharp. As soon as I had performed the introductions he said to her, ‘I met your daughter some years ago in Munich, Lady Pickering, so I feel we are old friends – and your inseparable twins were in the same house as my nephew at Eton.’
Mother murmured the correct reply, then touched my hand lightly with hers. ‘Helena, I believe Juno is signing to you.’
Juno was not, but I obediently walked over to the far side of the drawing room. As I pretended to listen to Juno I watched Mother and Lord Staveley from the corner of my eye. They were talking earnestly together. Then he picked up his hat and gloves and threaded his way through the company to me. His face was serious and he stood looking down at me before he spoke. ‘Lady Helena, your Mama has kindly invited me to join her house party at Hatton, at the end of the month. I haven’t given her my reply yet – that depends on you.’ The blood pounded in my ears, I could only stare at him. He said, slowly, ‘I will come – if you will sing for me. Will you do that?’
‘Yes, Lord Staveley. I shall be pleased to sing for you.’
Gravely he looked at me. ‘Then I shall come.’ Turning away, he left the room. I struggled to concentrate as Juno rattled on about the latest exploit of Mrs Pankhurst, but I did not hear a word.
That evening Mother and Papa both dined at home; there were only the three of us. As soon as the servants had left Mother reached for a peach and said, ‘Victor, Lord Staveley called today.’ Papa grunted. ‘I have invited him to our house party at Hatton later this month.’
Papa looked up in surprise. ‘But we won’t be at Hatton then.’
Mother said firmly, ‘We will be, now.’ Papa opened his mouth to protest, but Mother continued, ‘It appears Lord Staveley has known Helena for some time – and he spoke very highly of her singing.’
Two pairs of parental eyes swivelled in my direction. Then they turned and met, with small mutual smiles of satisfaction. ‘Then of course I shall put off going to old Towcester’s, Ria. Lord Staveley, eh? Northants, you know – ironstone.’
Mother added softly, ‘The Irish estates are rather run down, I believe – but extensive.’
Papa cracked a walnut. ‘You know, Ria, I think I’ll have a word with Hyde – discreetly, of course…’
‘Of course,’ Mother echoed, ‘but it’s as well to be prepared, Victor.’ They leant towards each other in a rare moment of amity.
I could not bear to listen to any more. I pushed back my chair. ‘Mother, if you will excuse me…’
‘Of course, my dear.’
Papa smiled jocularly. ‘You run along, Helena – and practise your singing.’
I thrust the door shut, too hard, as their voices murmured on.
Mother insisted on several visits to Mirette’s in Dover Street before she took me back to Hatton; my wardrobe must not be found wanting at this time. I was her ugly duckling who had, suddenly and against all expectations, turned into a swan. I followed her passively, in a daydream of fair hair and blue eyes.
He arrived at Hatton early on Saturday evening, just before the dressing bell. I sat at the table in a daze of happiness; I could not believe he was really here, in our familiar dining room. I kept glancing under my eyelashes down to where he sat, handsome and impeccably tailored, on Mother’s right hand.
When the gentlemen joined us in the drawing room he came up to me and asked, very formally, if I would sing for him.
As I led him through to the music room I asked, ‘Do you wish for Lieder, Lord Staveley?’
He gave an apologetic smile. ‘I’m afraid my accompanying is not up to young Benson’s standards – I can’t sight read.’
I said quickly, ‘I can accompany myself.’
He looked at me, surprised. ‘Even Lieder? I didn’t realize you were such a proficient pianist – that is good news. I was thinking I’d have to brush up my own technique – or rely on the local organist at Bessingdon.’ He spoke so matter of factly that it took a moment for the implications of what he had said to sink in. I sank quickly on to the piano stool to conceal my shaking legs. He chose the simple, lyrical songs and I played and sang for more than an hour. When Mother came to the connecting door he stood up and thanked me gravely before escorting me back to the drawing room.
All through the night I would drift into consciousness and hug myself with sheer joy at the thought that he was sleeping under the same roof. Next morning I tried on and discarded half a dozen frocks until Liliane was bemused. At last I stood before the mirror in a simple pleated linen in a warm peach shade. As always I wished that my nose were straight and my mouth smaller – but today I knew that it did not really matter.
We spoke little at breakfast; I was grateful for Mother’s confident flow of small talk. As we finished our coffee she said lightly, ‘You must ask Helena to show you round the grounds, Lord Staveley. The Japanese garden is quite pretty at this time of the year – and of course the orangery is delightful in June.’
Speechless, I led him out on to the terrace. He turned to me and smiled. ‘Which is it to be, Lady Helena – the orangery or the Japanese garden?’
I said quickly, ‘The orangery is nearer.’
He threw back his head and laughed, and I blushed for my gaucheness.
A gardener slipped quickly out of the far door as we came into the warm scented orangery. I glided in a dream between the waxy white blossoms and dark glossy leaves until he said, ‘Won’t you sit down, Lady Helena?’ I sank down on one of the ornate iron benches and he carefully hitched up the cloth of his elegant grey trouser leg and dropped down on one knee on the stone floor in front of me. He looked up, his face quite still, before he finally spoke. ‘Lady Helena, will you do me the honour of giving me your hand in marriage?’
I looked back into his blue eyes, and saw the network of fine lines around them, and the silver threads among the gold at his temples as I whispered, ‘Yes, yes – of course I will.’
We stayed unmoving for a few moments, like two statues, staring at each other. Then slowly I held out my hand and he took it and I felt his warm lips brush my skin.
I smiled at him and he jumped up quickly and threw himself down beside me so that the iron bench jerked. Drawing a deep breath he said – suddenly, endearingly, young – ‘I’ve never made a proposal of marriage before – I do hope I got that right!’
I felt a bubbling joy well up inside me, I wanted to laugh, to sing. I dared to tease him. ‘Perhaps we should check in the etiquette books, Lord Staveley?’
He turned and looked at me in surprise. Then he began to laugh as he took my hand and squeezed it. ‘What a nice child you are, Helena. But, you know, I’m sure the etiquette books will say you can call me “Gerald” now!’ I felt the hot blushes rise in my cheeks. He smiled and stood up and pulled me up too. ‘I’d better go and see Lord Pickering now, I suppose I should have asked his permission first – but I think I made my intentions pretty clear to your Mama and she didn’t seem to see any problems. Where will your father be at this time of day?’
I almost thrust Gerald through the door of the library, then I ran to the back stairs and flew up them. Alice and Hugh had left their sons at Hatton on their way to Wales; now I burst into the nursery and cried, ‘Nanny – I’m going to be married – I’m going to be married!’ Then I was laughing and crying in the beloved carbolic-soap-scented arms.
Nanny patted my shoulder and said, ‘There, there, dear – isn’t that nice? Well, I am pleased for you, my chick.’
When Cooper came for me I felt very shy. My heart was pounding as I entered the library. Gerald was standing with my father, talking – but he turned towards me at once. The library floor seemed to shiver as I walked forward, but his voice was quite calm. ‘Your father has given his consent, Helena.’
Papa bent over me; his moustaches tickled my cheek. ‘I’m delighted my dear, absolutely delighted.’ He straightened up. ‘She’s a good girl, Staveley old man – you won’t regret it – does as she’s told and never argues. I must go and tell her Mama.’ He strode towards the door and we were alone.
I wanted to run to Gerald and throw my arms around his neck, but I was too shy. I stood rooted to the floor, gazing up at him. He said briskly, ‘Perhaps we should view that Japanese garden now, Helena.’
On the terrace I held my hand out to him; he picked it up and placed it securely through his arm. I leant against him a moment, for the sheer joy of feeling the hard male strength of him. Then we set off sedately for the Japanese garden. The sun shone, the flower beds were a blaze of colour, and the lawns stretched green and inviting before us. I loved him, oh, how I loved him!
As we came up to the curving wooden bridge over the small still lake he said abruptly, ‘Helena, I must leave you after luncheon.’ The shadow swooped darkly down on me. ‘Don’t look so desolate, my dear – it will only be for a few days. But Moira is expecting me.’ The stabbing pain of jealousy pierced me. ‘Remember, it won’t be easy for her, Helena; she’s lived at Bessingdon since she came there as my brother’s bride, and watched her son grow up there.’ And now her son was dead, and I would usurp her place. ‘She’ll be glad it’s to be you, Helena. I dropped a hint, and she was pleased, I know. But I would like to tell her in person as soon as possible.’
And now I was bitterly ashamed of my unreasoning jealousy; he was so kind, so good – how would I ever be worthy of him? ‘Of course, I quite understand – Gerald.’ My voice dropped as I spoke his name; I scarcely dared use it, even now.
‘And there’s something I must bring back for you – the Prescott betrothal ring. Though it’ll have to be altered before it will fit that slender hand of yours.’ With the tip of his finger he gently touched my hand as it lay on his sleeve. I stood very still. ‘Du Ring an meinem Finger, Mein goldenes Ringelein’ my dream had come true. Slowly I raised my eyes to his face: he was gazing ahead at the dainty bamboo tea house. I drank in the firm line of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbones, the fine arch of his eyebrows. I loved him, I loved him – and now he was mine. He stepped forward on to the bridge; I followed obediently.
After luncheon I walked sedately out to the Delaunay-Believille with him; he took my hand, squeezed it quickly and jumped in. I would have liked to have gone to the station, but he had said nothing and I was too shy to suggest it. So I stood gazing after the departing motor, and then walked slowly back inside, quite bereft.
But upstairs Nanny cheered me with plans for the nursery at Bessingdon. ‘This one will be old enough for a governess next year’ – she patted William’s curly head – ‘and then I can come to you.’ I thought of my child, Gerald’s child, safe on Nanny’s lap – and the world seemed to have room for no more joy. Until my brothers arrived home just before teatime and slapped me on the back and promised to come and shoot Gerald’s partridges every year. ‘And his pheasants, and we’ll hunt his foxes,’ ‘and stalk his deer,’ Robbie chipped in, ‘and fish his salmon!’
I laughed. ‘You can come to see me, you selfish wretches.’
Next morning Papa muttered over his Times. ‘Those Serbs ought to be horsewhipped, the lot of them – they’ve shot the Austrian Archduke. That country’s a disgrace – remember the butchery in ’03?’
Uncle Arnold protested, ‘But that was their own king and queen, Victor – quite a family affair.’
‘Well, they’ve shot a Hapsburg now, in Sarajevo – it’s not on.’
Uncle Arnold shrugged. ‘But Sarajevo’s in their own Empire – I don’t see how they can blame Serbia for that.’
‘It says here this feller, this assassin, was a Serb, a Serb Orthodox – they’ll blame Serbia all right.’
Lady Maud joined in. ‘Quite right too – it’s time they were taught a lesson.’
Eddie stabbed his bacon. ‘Not another war in the Balkans, it’s not fair, they have all the luck – one a year.’
Papa put down his paper. ‘Well, Serbia’s nothing to do with the British Empire, I’m glad to say – we’ve got enough problems with Ireland.’ He began to talk about the real crisis, in Ireland, but it flowed over my head unheard. I sat in a happy dream. This time next year I would be entertaining my brothers at my own breakfast table – and perhaps even leaving them briefly for a visit to the nursery? I blushed and blushed and dreamt my dreams.
Gerald wrote to say that he would not be coming back to Hatton until the beginning of the following week. I felt dismay as I read his small neat handwriting – his letter was brief, he would be spending the weekend with a friend in Leicestershire – but he said Moira Staveley had been delighted by his choice and would be writing to me. He was having the ring altered and would bring it with him. The ring! I looked down at my left hand, and then almost ran to the music room. I played and sang Schumann’s Frauen Liebe und Leben with a full heart. But I did not sing the whole song – and for a moment the last stanza with its ominous message of loss darkened my joy – so I put it from me and dwelt instead on the time when I would hold him to my heart and tell him of the coming cradle: the cradle from which his image would smile up at me. I remembered how I had first learnt to sing those words in Munich, with an impossible wish in my heart – and now that wish had come true.
It seemed almost an anticlimax to go off to smoky, dirty Manchester for my singing lesson, but Madame Goldman was expecting me. My brothers said they fancied an outing and drove me there in their new Sunbeam. Just as they came back to collect me a very ruffled Wally Jenkins burst in. ‘Madame, whatever shall I do? That little wretch Flo Morten has gone down with a bad throat – she can’t possibly sing tonight – and we’re booked for the Ainsclough and District Co-operative Society’s annual concert!’
Madame Goldman was soothing. ‘Do not fret so, Waltraute, we will find someone else.’
Wally gave an emphatic shake of the head. ‘We won’t find another soprano who can sing the Barcarolle with me – you know there’s no time to rehearse it properly – and it was to be the highlight of our programme!’ Then her mouth opened in a round ‘O’ and she stared at me before looking back at Madame Goldman; their eyes met, and Wally moved purposefully in my direction. ‘Lady Helena, you can sing the Barcarolle – we rehearsed it lots of times last year – we could have a short practice this morning, if Madame is agreeable?’ Madame Goldman inclined her head. ‘There! And I know you can sing most of Flo’s programme – we can always change the odd item – but the Barcarolle, we must have the Barcarolle, it was a special request.’
I burst out laughing. ‘Oh Wally! How can I possibly sing at – where was it? The Ainsclough and District Coop’s concert? Mother would have a fit.’
Eddie broke in, ‘Mother wouldn’t know. Anyway, you sang at Hammersmith, didn’t you?’
I gaped at my traitorous brother. ‘But Eddie, that was quite different – it was an amateur group. This is a paid concert – I couldn’t possibly take a fee!’
‘Then put it in the plate on Sunday.’
‘Eddie, that’s not the point – there’s Gerald, suppose Gerald found out? I couldn’t, I couldn’t.’
It was Robbie who said thoughtfully, ‘You could go in some sort of disguise, Hellie – obviously if you walk up on to the platform in a silk creation from Mirette’s and are announced as The Lady Helena Girvan, then there would be a sensation – but you don’t have to do that, for goodness’ sake.’
I protested weakly, ‘But…’
Wally’s face was alive. ‘I could lend you one of my sister’s dresses, Lady Helena.’
‘And you could call yourself Miss Girvan,’ Eddie jumped in quickly. ‘I know, Miss Nellie Girvan, the aspiring young soprano! Well, that’s settled – we’ll dine early in Manchester and run you both up there ourselves. Can’t say fairer than that, can we Robbie?’
Robbie nodded, his eyes alight with mischief. I was still protesting when Madame’s accompanist struck up the first bars of the Barcarolle, then I gave in and began to sing.
I borrowed a dress and coat from Liliane, though I wore my own string of pearls – I did not think the honest burghers of Ainsclough would come near enough to judge their quality. Eddie made our excuses to Mother and we set off. As we turned out past the North Lodge I felt a sudden rush of excitement; we were a group of naughty children playing truant, and Lady Helena Girvan would be left behind at Hatton Park – Miss Nellie Girvan would sing in Ainsclough tonight! Ainsclough – I did not even know where it was.
Wally was waiting for us at the Royal Exchange. As soon as she had climbed into the car she said to me, ‘Now, don’t open your mouth more than you have to, Lady Helena.’
‘But how can I…’
‘I mean off the stage, of course. Folks do expect singers to speak differently, but not with your accent.’ ‘Accent – I don’t have an accent, Wally!’ I was indignant.
‘You’ll have one to Ainsclough and District Co-op, my lady. Take the left turn for Bolton, Mr Girvan.’
I sat astounded – how could I have an accent? Servants had accents, even the middle class gave their origins away, but we, we spoke correctly!
We bumped over the setts of Bolton and out into open country. The Sunbeam growled as Robbie changed gear for the long pull up over the empty moorland. We climbed through small stone villages and up on to the rounded tops until at last we began to run down a steep hill and saw before us a small smoky town, in a valley which sprouted high black chimneys instead of trees. So this was Ainsclough, the scene of Miss Nellie Girvan’s first – and last – performance. I began to giggle to myself.
The dignitaries of the Ainsclough and District Cooperative Society welcomed us warmly, with moustaches brushed and quivering, oiled hair plastered down over their round heads and broad smiles on their ruddy faces. ‘Glad you could come along at such short notice, Miss Girvan – it were right good o’ you. Now don’t be frightened, lass – Miss Jenkins here says you’ve not sung often in public – but we’ll not eat you.’ The chairman bared a row of gleaming china teeth.
I smiled and shook sweaty palms but said little, as Wally had instructed, and in a very short space of time we were on the platform. I felt a sudden devastating shiver of nervousness, then the strings began to tune up, the conductor raised his baton and the orchestra embarked briskly on Balfe’s Siege of La Rochelle overture; I forced myself to concentrate.
In a dream I rose to my feet, smiled to the pianist and waited for my cue. When it came I parted my lips and launched into Edward German’s ‘Daffodils’. As my last pianissimo, ‘growing’, died away over the packed hall, I felt a surge of sheer joyous light-heartedness sweep through me – I was intoxicated by the occasion.
The tall thin tenor sang ‘O vision entrancing! O lovely and light’ to the accompaniment of the orchestra. The pianist followed with a Mendelssohn solo and then it was Wally’s turn. As I listened to her full, rich voice singing del Riego’s ‘Slave Song’:
Bright bird, light bird,
Bird with the purple wing,
Do you bring me a letter,
Or do you bring me a ring?
I thought that never had the world been so fair a place – even Ainsclough Co-op Hall seemed a gilded palace tonight.
It was my turn again, Arline’s song from The Bohemian Girl. With a delicious sense of the ridiculous I sang: ‘I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls’ – for though Ainsclough Co-op Society could never guess, I did dwell in the marble-pillared hall of Hatton – and soon I would be boasting of an even higher ancestral name. But then the sentimental words caught hold of me, and with a rapturous longing in my heart I sang:
‘But I also dreamt, which pleased me most.
That you loved me still the same,
That you loved me, you loved me still the same,
That you loved me, you loved me still the same.’
We were a success; the applause for the concluding Barcarolle was deafening. All our encores had been demanded before a radiant Wally led me off the platform.
In the Sunbeam afterwards Robbie suddenly burst out into a roar of laughter. ‘Oh Hellie’ – he wiped his eyes – ‘I’ll never forget it, never as long as I live – you up there singing,’ he produced a squeaky falsetto and parodied: ‘“And I dreamt that one of that noble host came forth my hand to claim,” and little did that solid Lancastrian audience guess that one of the noble host already had made his claim – and it was the future Marchioness of Staveley who was entertaining them in the guise of a humble singing lass! Your face, you looked just like a hen who’s laid a double yolker!’ He laughed and laughed, and Eddie joined in so that his hands shook on the steering wheel and we veered dangerously for a moment; then we settled down to the long pull out of the grimy little valley and back to civilization.