He spent quite some time extinguishing that cigarette butt, which gave me time to rearrange my face – though I still didn’t quite believe I’d heard aright. So I said, trying to keep my voice level, ‘But it I’m your substitute sister, and you were Sophie’s guardian, wouldn’t it be more—’ I couldn’t keep going – but my voice had already risen to a question before that pause.
He didn’t look at me as he said, patting his pockets in search of his cigarette case, ‘That substitute sister scheme – surely we agreed it was just a device to keep the chaperons happy about this particular weekend? But, obviously, when it comes to the long-term my – er – commitments – would scarcely allow me to play any real role in your life. Whereas Ted and Eunice are mostly based in Town these days.’
I thought desperately, so where was Chelsea, if it wasn’t in Town? That ‘obviously’ of his echoed in my head – because the only thing that was obvious to me was that he didn’t want anything more to do with me. There was only the one thing he’d wanted from Eve Gunn – so now there was nothing Evelyn Courtney could offer him.
As he continued his search for his cigarette case he informed me, ‘I daresay we’ll run into each other occasionally – I do drop in on Eunice for tea sometimes, and if you should happen to be staying there in your holidays – she’s hoping you’ll spend part of your school holidays with them.’ I was too stunned even to reply as he told me that Eunice was making enquiries about good girls’ boarding schools. Cheltenham Ladies’ College was highly regarded, but she thought Wycombe Abbey might be more forward looking – both had excellent academic reputations, and would ensure I had the requisite qualifications for entering university. ‘Ted thinks that’s the path you should take – he’s got very up-to-date ideas, has Ted – but Eunice says if she were you she’d rather be presented at Court, and make her debut in the usual fashion. She feels a girl’s chances of making a good marriage are so much better if she mixes with the right people at the right age. And when I mentioned what an excellent dancer you were, she said she was sure you’d just love all the fun and excitement of being a debutante. She’s promised that between the three of them she and Lilias and Aunt Constance will provide you with all the chaperonage you need to have a really good time, and meet lots of eligible young men! ‘But in any case, you don’t have to decide on that yet, because we’re all agreed that after you’ve finished school a year abroad will be the ideal for you – with your obvious talent for languages it would be a crying shame not to go. Lilias and Eunice both spent a year on the Continent themselves – Eunice loved Dresden and Lilias thoroughly enjoyed Paris – so they wondered if you might like to learn a new modern language – Italian, say? Ted said that since you’ll have been doing Latin—’
And as he talked of what Ted and Eunice were arranging for me – even his earlier ‘we’ had given way to ‘they’ by now – as he talked of those plans they had for me, I began to feel as if Eve Courtney was disappearing down a hole in the ground, and another girl, well— behaved, obedient – and crushed – was taking her place. But as I slid down into that black hole of Monty not caring for me, of Monty just wanting to shuffle me off on someone else, I did grasp at a single straw. He had let me stay the weekend, despite that telegram. So now I asked abruptly, ‘But why didn’t you just take me up to London on Friday morning?’
For just a fraction of a second he was disconcerted by this interruption of his account of all the fun I, too, would have in Dresden – then he explained, ‘As it happens, Eunice did suggest my doing that.’ He began to pat his pockets in search of his cigarette case – thank goodness he still wasn’t looking at me, I was finding it so hard to keep my face calm – ‘But I told her you’d need some time to adjust to a more settled, schoolroom life again – and to see that being a schoolgirl again was not so very terrible—’
Wasn’t it? You fool, Eve. That was the whole point of these last two days – he was just buttering you up to get you to go quietly. And the weekend seemed to be rushing away past my eyes, like the cinematograph film I’d seen one evening last winter – all black and white, and distant now – But surely he’d been enjoying it too?
Yes – but only in a ‘why not gather the odd rosebud if they’re offered’ kind of way. And further back now I heard him telling me, ‘But, you see, I do play with toys’. That’s all I’d been, a toy to provide some brief amusement – and then be put back in the cupboard. Oh you fool, Eve – how he must have been laughing behind your back at your gullibility!
Stop it, Eve. Feeling sorry for yourself is no use – get angry instead. And think, think. Whatever you do, don’t let him see your mind. Stay calm – and think. But it wasn’t a thought that came first – it was a memory. A memory of him saying it hadn’t been clever of Mr Henderson to send me to a school with the daughters of army officers. How had he known that?
I wasn’t going to let him get away unscathed if I could possibly help it, so I asked him, as casually as I could manage, ‘But are you sure Grandfather Courtney had any property in England? Wouldn’t you have to ask Mr Henderson about that?’
There was a rather too-long silence – Was he going to tell the truth this time? Then he admitted, ‘As it happens, I have.’
‘When?’
‘Friday.’
So it was a conspiracy of three, not four. Not that I’d ever had much time for that fourth conspirator, who’d told me that lie about a curator being some sort of guardian. I looked up at the man who’d just been telling me that guardians were not all that different from curators and said, very deliberately, ‘I’m really not very sure about going back to school—’
And he replied, ‘Well, let’s leave that to be decided later – we’ll get the papers signed first, shall we?’
Very calmly I said, ‘No.’
He paused a moment, and then repeated – as if I’d not spoken – ‘You can choose about school later.’
My calmness erupted into a shout of, ‘But I can’t, can I? Because I’ll have signed away my freedom, by then!’
‘That’s rather an extreme statement, Eve.’
‘It’s true though,’ I retorted angrily, ‘Once I have a guardian, I have no choice! Guardians are totally different from curators in Scotland – I know that. You’ve been lying to me!’
‘I don’t think I quite lied—’
I said bitterly, ‘Earlier, you got out that marble as if I were the only one who cheated. I’m not – you do it, too.’
There was a long silence, and when finally he replied his voice was quieter. ‘Yes, I cheat too. But in this instance I thought it was in your best interests.’ He turned to face me fully. ‘Eve, you are still only seventeen, and you are completely alone in the world. None of your maternal relatives wish to take responsibility for you,’ he’d read that letter – the letter from Hungary, saying they didn’t want me, either – I turned my face away to look at the peacock-draped windows as he concluded, ‘So it did seem to me that what we’d planned was best for you.’
Staring at those brilliantly coloured curtains I told him, ‘I’ll decide what’s best for me.’ The Peacock In His Pride. No – remember the peacocks in India – the slightly dry flavour of the meat which you ate with Apa, with Apa! Spinning round I shouted at Lord Rothbury, ‘That’s why Apa only gave me a curator in his will – so I could make my own choices. And he was right!’
I wasn’t going to let that cock crow again – I’d wring its wretched neck for it, now, this minute. I cried, ‘And Apa didn’t give me too much freedom – he gave me freedom so I could learn to look after myself. And I have, and I can. So I don’t need Ted or Eunice – and I certainly don’t need you! I was just pretending about that bracelet. I knew when I made it you were only having a joke – only pretending to enjoy the weekend so you could butter me up and get me to agree to be shuffled off on someone I don’t even know.’ And then, my voice shaking with anger and distress I added, ‘On someone who stole my Apa’s place. My grandfather had a son of his own, he didn’t need someone else’s.’
I stood up – my legs shaking so much I had to turn and grip the back of the chair to do It. He rose too, his face impassive. I shouted, ‘And I don’t need a bracelet brother either – you can throw those stupid silk tassels away!’
He spoke, his voice level. ‘Eve, we can discuss all this over breakfast, when you’re calmer.’
I yelled, ‘I am calm! And I’m not staying to breakfast, I’m catching the milk train – so you won’t have to waste any more time buttering me up, or picking a few spare rosebuds or whatever you thought you were doing this weekend!’
He moved very quickly to stand between me and the door. ‘I shall not keep you now, Eve, but before you go I have a request to make – as your host.’
I hesitated a moment, then asked ungraciously, ‘What is it?’
‘I would like to see you before you leave my house. Will you give me your word on that?’
Eventually I muttered, ‘Alright.’
‘Thank you.’ Moving aside he opened the door for me. Flinging myself through it I rushed across the landing and into my bedroom, slamming the door shut behind me.