Anna’s visit to her father’s workshop was both as exciting and as pleasurable as she had hoped it would be. Eagerly she begged to be allowed to go again and her father, with growing pride and enthusiasm at his daughter’s interest, readily agreed. So it was that the one visit turned into two, three, four – until by that winter of 1888 Anna was a familiar figure in the Hatton Garden rooms as, absorbed, she watched the – to her – magical and fascinating processes that produced the lovely objects that glimmered upon velvet in the Piccadilly showrooms. The goldsmith and the silversmith, the enamellers and the workers in precious stones, she got to know them all; and most of them, at first amused or ready to be irritated by the child’s precocious interest in their work, came genuinely to enjoy her company, her unfeigned admiration for their skills and her avid eagerness to learn. For her part Anna – hardly until then known for her brilliance or application in the schoolroom, where she had often been the absolute despair of Miss Spencer as she stumbled through times tables and mental arithmetic – showed a quite remarkable grasp and understanding when it came to this, the subject that had fascinated her for as long as she could remember. Very soon she knew at a glance the cut of a stone, could discuss intelligently and informedly the pros and cons of a particular cut for an individual jewel. Time and again she would beg her father to tell her of his work on the Shuvenski Diamond, the stone upon which Rose and Company was founded; of all things she longed to see the fabulous thing, and her pride in her father’s skill and courage in attempting such a task in such conditions both touched and pleased him. The process of enamelling particularly fascinated her – the glowing colours laid, layer upon layer, fired and lovingly polished to brilliance. She spoke knowingly of cloisonné, of champlevé and of guilloché – to her mother’s quiet disapproval, for Grace, whilst gratified at her daughter’s unexpected talent, nevertheless did not consider such knowledge either desirable or ladylike, since she could see no possible application for it in the future and was concerned that in pursuing this eccentric interest the girl was neglecting those accomplishments so dear to Grace’s own heart that might recommend her in the future to a young man looking for a wife. Heaven knew, the child had little enough to offer in the way of looks – a few ladylike and practical accomplishments would take her a lot further in Grace’s opinion than a superfluous knowledge of brilliant cuts and the method of achieving oyster enamel In this, however, happily for her daughter, as in everything else, she recognized her husband’s authority and accepted his rulings, though not without private reservations; and so Anna continued to spend hours at the workshops, mostly watching her father’s chief enameller, Tom Logan, experiment with the subtle shades and colours that were so popular with Rose’s clients, occasionally helping to polish some of the minor pieces with the wooden wheel and wash-leather used for that purpose. The alloys, too, of the silversmith and goldsmith pleased her colour-conscious eye – rose-gold, green-gold, white-gold.
“Father, the snowdrop pin for Lady Masham – don’t you think green-gold would be better? The white is harsh, I think, with pearl.”
“Anna,” Grace looked up from her plate and fixed her daughter with a severe eye, “I hardly think that your father needs to be told his own business at his own dinner table.”
Anna subsided, but not before she had caught the conspiratorial half-wink that her father sent her way.
In her room she would sit for absorbed hours, pencil in hand, drawing those flowing, stylized designs that she so loved; delicate flowers, curving leaves, fairy-winged butterflies and – most frequently and in all shapes, sizes and colours – her beloved dragonflies. For her mother at Christmas she had designed a graceful spray of moonstone bluebells with a narrow knotted ribbon of gold flowing through the slender, green-gold leaves. The conception was entirely her own, the execution of it was left in the hands of her father’s craftsmen. She thought it quite the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. She took the finished brooch to her father, watched him anxiously as he held it for a long time before commenting.
“Don’t you like it?”
“I like it very much indeed.” He studied the spray. “It might well have come from Paris, or from Liberty’s – the style is modern, yet somehow distinctive.” She stood before him, her breath held – he was talking to her as he might to Tom, or to one of the others. He lifted his head. “It occurs to me – would you mind if we made another – perhaps a little bigger – using sapphires, maybe? The Countess was looking for—” He stopped, seeing the expression on her face “No?”
“Well, I—” She wanted more than anything in the world to please him – but this was her mother’s and she wanted no one else to have it. “Might I try to do something else for you? A little different? I’ve tons of ideas—”
“Of course. Of course. Do another by all means.”
“Tomorrow. I could do it tomorrow—” She stopped as something he had said registered in her mind. “Sapphires? You’d have it set with sapphires?”
“That’s what she wants. And Anna—”
She looked at him enquiringly.
“Don’t you think it’s time you stopped working for nothing? A workman, I believe they say, is worthy of his hire. You make me a design that I like – I’ll pay you for it.”
She laughed delightedly. “Oh, Papa – you are the loveliest father in the world – and I’m the luckiest, luckiest girl!” The agonies of rejection she had suffered a couple of years earlier seemed now a bad dream. She had never been happier, and it showed in her face, radiated from her like sunshine.
“I declare, child,” her mother said one day in some astonishment, “I do believe that your fairy godmother has waved her magic wand at last! You’re growing. And you’ve actually got some colour in your cheeks.” She, Tanya and Anna were gathered in the stone-flagged lobby of the Bayswater house, a miscellaneous and unlikely collection of blankets and bundles of clothes about their feet. Grace handed the covered basket she was holding to her daughter. “Carry this for me, will you? And do be careful – Cook’s junket never seems to set really well. Tanya and I can bring the blankets. The cabbie will help us with the clothes—”
“Oh, Mama – must I come today? Tom says he might find time to look at my drawings for the little decorated box today – he’ll be waiting.”
Her mother marched briskly to the door. “Then I’m very much afraid that he’ll have to wait. The Refuge needs these things and extra hands far more than Mr Logan needs you to keep him from his workbench. Come along.”
Anna knew when not to argue. Reluctantly, she went. These trips to the East End with her mother and Aunt Hermione were the one thing she truly detested. She knew it was wrong, knew it her Christian duty, as her mother so often informed her, to help those less fortunate than herself, but try as she might she could not bring herself to do anything but hate that part of the city with its filthy, over-crowded streets, its soot-darkened brickwork and reeking gutters. Even more was she repelled by the ragged, sallow, undernourished and spiritless people who came to the Refuge for shelter and hand-outs. She hated having to know that such people, such an environment, even existed. The squalor and the ugliness repulsed her, and no amount of self-castigation could stop that. She huddled now in the corner seat of the cab, her head turned from the distinctive, unpleasantly musty smell of the heap of clothes beside her, staring out of the window – seeing not the passing dingy streets but emerald dewdrops upon a leaf-comb, diamond raindrops upon an enamelled flower – why not? Tomorrow she’d go to the workshop with Papa – she’d talk to Tom about it.
It was spring when Matthew Smithson asked, at last, for Tanya’s hand in marriage – a spring when industrial unrest was stirring in London’s docklands, when the troublesome and recurring Irish Question split the country’s politicians and when, in far-off South Africa, Cecil Rhodes, with the resources of de Beers Consolidated Mines behind him signed the largest cheque that had ever been written – for more than five million pounds – and with the stroke of a pen achieved his dream of gaining control of the greater part of the world’s output of diamonds. The marriage proposal – long looked-for by most of the Rose household – was finally prompted by the fact that Matthew was required to go abroad for several months on business for his father’s bank. Rather than leave his still, as he saw it, far from certain prospects to cool for five or six months’ absence, the young man took his courage in both hands and, one cool April evening, gambled upon Tanya’s growing trust in and undisguised fondness for him and asked at last the question upon which he had no doubt all of his future happiness rested.
Tanya stood quite still, eyes downcast, her hands in his.
He waited, heart thumping like a frightened schoolboy’s. “My love?” he prompted at last, unable to bear a moment longer such suspense.
She lifted her eyes. Within them was a light of desperate uncertainty. His heart sank. Fool! After all his patience, all his restraint, he had misread her heart and her fears – he would lose her.
“I – yes, Matthew. I’ll marry you.”
The words were so low that he could barely hear them – barely credit what he heard.
She half-smiled, fearfully.
He clutched her hands. “I’ll make you happy. I swear it. There’s a little house just around the corner from here. Father says he’ll buy it for us as a wedding gift. So – you shan’t be far from Mr and Mrs Rose and your brother—”
“I should like that.”
They stood, absurdly awkward, their tight-clasped hands between them, breast-high. He had never kissed her – had never even attempted to do so, daunted as much by Tanya’s reserve as by the conventions. He kissed her now, however, lightly and tenderly upon her closed, cool mouth and wondered at the tremor that shook her as he did so. She drew back quickly, ducked her head so that her fair hair brushed his cheek and its fragrance mingled with the soft perfumes of the spring garden. He exercised every ounce of restraint he possessed and let her go.
“September,” he said, softly. “We’ll be married at the end of September. Does that suit you, my love? The house should be ready by then.”
She nodded, not looking at him. He reached a finger to her chin and turned her face towards him. Serious, trusting as a child, yet apprehensive she watched him. He kissed her again, then, long and gently, feeling her tremble again, unable in his inexperience to tell desire from fear, knowing only that within himself was a fire lit and raging that only her nearness could quench. He stepped back, formally offered her his crooked arm. “Shall we go and tell the others?”
No one in the household was unaffected by the announcement. Josef, resolutely dismissing fears with which he had lived for so long that they had almost ceased to threaten, was openly delighted. Joss, won over at last by Matthew’s obvious and tender devotion to his sister, offered gruff congratulations. Anna almost at once begged her father to be allowed to design the wedding present and Grace – as delighted as if Tanya had truly been her own daughter – found herself reflecting upon the duties of a surrogate mother to an inexperienced girl about to marry.
Not for a couple of months, as it happened, did a suitable opportunity arise to broach the delicate subject that demanded discussion. By that time the wedding preparations were well under way. It was after a fitting of the all-important wedding gown – a marvellous creation of ivory silk with a fall of lace at throat and wrist and a train that swept the floor a full three feet behind its wearer, an extravagance that was a personal present from Joss to his sister – that Grace decided that, embarrassing or no, the effort must be made. She took a deep breath. “My dear—”
Tanya looked up, smiling, paused in the rebuttoning of her day dress. It was June. The weather, sultry all day, looked ready to break at any moment. Heavy clouds threatened and a distant murmur of thunder silenced the birds in the garden.
Grace cleared her throat. “I feel – that perhaps we should – that is that I should – speak to you. Regarding—”
Tanya buttoned the last of her buttons and waited obediently, her face puzzled.
“—regarding the – delicate subject of marriage. Of the duties of a woman with regard to her husband’s – needs.” Uncharacteristically nervous, she avoided the girl’s eyes and looked into the garden. Brief storm-wind tossed the branches of the trees and turned the leaves. The room fell to silence for a moment. Tanya waited, her pale face expressionless now.
Grace struggled on, heartily wishing she had never started. She could just as easily have let well alone, as her own mother sensibly had. “You understand, of course, that there are – certain differences between man and woman. Physical differences. And differences of—” She stopped again. She knew she was making a wretched job of this. Her one desire now was to finish. “That is to say – within married life – within the marriage bed – there are certain demands that a man is entitled to make of his wife and to which she must submit obediently and with grace.” Beyond the window a flash of lightning split the summer darkness. Moments later the thunder cracked above their heads. Inside the room the silence lengthened. Grace, on sudden impulse, leaned to the girl and touched her arm. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this. Don’t be afraid, Tanya dear. Your Matthew is a truly gentle man. He’ll teach you the way of these things. It isn’t something that I find easy to talk of.”
Tanya nodded and attempted a smile. Her long fingers fiddled restlessly with a narrow velvet ribbon at her throat.
“Well, now,” relief was tangible in Grace’s voice, now that the awkward and undeniably unsatisfactory interview was over, “I’ll have to leave you, I’m afraid – cook’s waiting for next week’s menus.”
As the other woman hurried from the darkening room Tanya turned to the window. Outside great spots of rain had started to fall, rustling restlessly in the leaves, splashing upon roof and paving stone. Lightning and thunder crashed together. The girl did not even blink. The rain fell faster, quickening to a torrent, drowning the beaten earth, beating down grass and flower.
Somewhere in memory a child screamed.
Tanya Anatov, still as an alabaster statue, stared into the streaming curtain of rain and tried to remember.
That summer was one when the increasing restlessness of a working population, whose conditions and wages had in no way kept pace with the wealth that their sweated toil had produced for others, became focused upon London’s docks. Dock work was hard and dangerous, the pay meagre, the conditions often atrocious. The indignity of the infamous ‘calling on’ system – the men caged, queueing, begging for work at dawn and noon, fighting, often literally, for a chance for survival for themselves and their dependents – was a matter of bitter resentment. For years a discontent had been bred that culminated, at the end of those summer months, in an angry demand for improved conditions and a decent living wage; sixpence an hour – the ‘Dockers’ Tanner’ as it came universally to be called. In August 1889, just a few days after Matthew Smithson’s return from America, the dockers – united, determined, pushed to outraged and, some considered, outrageous action – went on strike. Not a crane moved, not a ship docked. Stevedores, carpenters, lightermen, dockers; the action was solid. With bands and banners, men, women and children marched the streets of London. Cargoes rotted at the waterside, nothing moved on the wharves or in the great warehouses, and the capital almost at once began to feel the pinch. Yet, oddly, support for the strike was widespread and by no means confined to the working-classes. When the action started the union had in its coffers the far from princely sum of seven shillings and sixpence – no work meant no money and families, already undernourished, might easily have starved. Yet, astonishingly, the money rolled in and the strike held. For a month Londoners sweltered, the shortages grew, yet still the pennies, the shillings and the pounds were donated – by other unions, some from as far away as Australia, by individual workers, by people of comfortable means who were beginning to be sickened at the exploitation that had been condoned and encouraged by generations of profit-takers in the docks.
By early September, Grace declared herself truly worried – not, as might have been expected, by the threat to the established order posed by a rabble of working men, nor yet by the issues that had sparked the action – but by the fact that the wedding was fast approaching and the caterers were complaining that nowhere at any price could they obtain the supplies they needed. The happy occasion was but three weeks off; surely, surely, the wretched dockers could not hold out so long?
They did not have to. On the 14th of September the dockworkers’ demands – incredibly to some – were almost all met, a paralysed London began to move again and, to Grace’s relief, disaster was averted.
Matthew it was who brought the news of the return to work to Bayswater – a Matthew mildly amused by the heartfelt relief with which Grace received it. In his opinion, it mattered not a jot that there might have been nothing to offer the guests at the wedding breakfast. If the strike had gone on for ever – if the sun had fallen from the sky and the world stopped turning – what did it matter? Tanya would be his. Nothing and no one could spoil that. He watched her, that afternoon, across the tea table. Everything she did, her every expression and movement held him spellbound. It seemed to him that he would never tire of the sight of her. He turned to find Grace’s eyes upon him, amused and affectionate. God, he’d been gawping like a lovestruck schoolboy! He blushed fiercely.
Grace moved her chair back from the table and reached for the small silver handbell to summon the maid. “Well now, why don’t you two young people take a walk in the garden before the sun goes? I know you’ve a lot to talk about.”
Anna jumped to her feet. “May I come?”
Tanya opened her mouth to answer, smiling. Grace, taking pity on Matthew’s disappointed face – he had not had a moment alone with Tanya since his return from America – said sharply, “No, you may not. With all this gallivanting off to the workshop you’ve sadly neglected your piano practice. If you’re to play that piece at the Smithsons’ on Sunday evening, then an hour’s practice now wouldn’t come amiss. Or you’ll disgrace us all.”
‘Oh, but—”
“Anna!”
Anna subsided, her face rebellious.
Matthew escorted Tanya on to the verandah and down into the garden. She was dressed in rustling sapphire silk trimmed with heavy Brussels lace. He was certain that no one in the world could possibly look lovelier. In companionable silence they strolled through the small shrubbery to the little pool. Sun glinted golden on the dark surface of the water. From beyond the high wall came the familiar street sounds – vendors called their wares, wheels creaked and rattled, horses’ hooves clattered upon cobblestones. Yet here, within this enclosed green refuge, even the house hidden by the trees, they might have been alone in the world. Matthew took Tanya’s hand in his.
“Two weeks. Just two weeks and you’ll be Mrs Matthew Smithson. I still don’t dare to believe it.”
She smiled. Her hair was spun gold in the sun.
“Have you been to see the house lately? It’s looking very smart. It’s small of course – but it will do for a start, won’t it?” His voice was a little anxious.
“It’s lovely. I like it very much.”
“And you don’t mind that my wretched mother’s insisted on interviewing all the servants?” Matthew’s mother was a forceful lady of great authority and little tact.
She laughed a little. “Of course not. I should not have known where to start.”
He tugged at her hand, drew her to the small grassy bank that was Anna’s favourite place in the garden. “Let’s sit for a moment. It’s quite dry. Here—” He took off his jacket and laid it upon the ground for her to sit on. She settled herself beside him, straight-backed, her hands loose in her lap, her head turned from him as she watched the insects skimming the surface of the water. Matthew leaned on one elbow, studying her sun-gilded profile, aware of a rising need to touch her, to feel her warmth, her nearness. He had been away for a very long time; each day of his absence he had thought of this girl, dreamed of her, imagined what it would be to take her to wife—
“Tanya,” he said suddenly, and she turned at the strangeness of his voice, straight into his arms and his seeking mouth.
She froze.
“Tanya,” he said again. “Dearest love.” His hard-held self-control was no match for the desire that flooded his body, burning him, blinding him to the panic in her eyes. His mouth was at her neck, his breath hot. His hand brushed her breast, constricted beneath its layers of clothing. Eyes closed he sought her mouth with his own, his weight, awkwardly unbalanced as he was, bearing her over beneath him. She lay rigid as a lifeless doll. He opened his eyes. She looked at him in horror and in fear. He drew back. “Tanya—”
She slid away from him, levering herself with her arms, her terrified eyes not leaving his face. She looked at him as she might have looked at a fearful, threatening stranger. “No,” she whispered. “No. No. No!”
“Tanya – please – darling, I’m sorry.” Concerned, he reached a hand to her. She shrank from him. She was shaking her head now, jerkily, from side to side, rubbing her open palms against the fine material of her skirt in a strange, compulsive movement, as if to clean them. “No,” she said again, and this time her voice was lifted and threaded with unmistakable hysteria. It seemed to him that she looked through him to some horror that lay beyond. “Oh God!” she said then and, trembling violently, buried her face in her hands.
He was frantic now. “Tanya, please, I didn’t mean to hurt you – to frighten you – you know I wouldn’t—” He tried to put an arm about her.
With the most violent movement he had ever known her make she turned from him. Between her fingers he saw the glint of tears.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t!” She began to rock, to and fro, like a desolate child. “Oh, God!” she said again, and the terrible tone of her voice struck him to stillness and to silence. He drew back, watching her, helpless. She sat for a long time so, rocking, face covered, shoulders hunched as if she were protecting herself from blows. When at last she lifted her head the sun had gone and dark shadow had invaded the garden like an enemy. Her face was a still, cold blur of white in the twilight.
From the house Grace’s voice called. “Tanya? Matthew? Are you there?”
“Please go,” Tanya said.
“Go? I can’t go and leave you like this. You know I can’t. Darling, I’m sorry, truly sorry, but I don’t understand. If you are to be my wife—”
She shook her head. “No.”
“What?”
“No. Matthew, I can’t be your wife. Not yours, not anyone’s. Please don’t ask me why. If you love me, please don’t ask. Just go. Now.” Her low, trembling voice still sounded to be on the very verge of hysteria.
“Can’t marry me? Tanya, for heaven’s sake – what is all this? I’m sorry if I frightened you – if I was clumsy – I shouldn’t have kissed you like that – but—”
She scrambled to her feet, eluding his hand, and began to walk fast through the trees, back towards the house.
“Tanya – wait!” He ran after her, caught her arm.
She wrenched away with surprising strength. “Don’t touch me. You mustn’t touch me. I’m—” She stopped. “I love you. You mustn’t touch me. I’m – dirty. Filthy! You don’t understand.” She picked up her skirts and flew through the gathering dusk, tears streaming down her face.
“Why, Tanya? What on earth—” Grace stood on the terrace, waiting. The girl fled past her and into the house.
From the garden Matthew called, tears in his voice. “Tanya? Tanya!”
Within the house a door slammed and there was silence.
She would not leave her room. Food left outside the door remained there, untouched. One after another they tried to speak to her through the door; to no avail. For twenty-four hours she spoke to no one, nor was there any sign or sound of movement. Indeed the only evidence that she was there at all was in the door being firmly locked on the inside.
“But – what can be wrong? What’s got into her?” Grace was terribly distressed. A distraught Matthew had stumblingly attempted to explain what had happened before, his presence an obvious embarrassment, he had left. “Matthew swears he didn’t hurt her – he wouldn’t, we all know that. Do you have any idea? She seems finally to have taken leave of her senses.”
Standing by the window, his back to her, her husband shook his head. He could not bear to turn and meet her eyes, could not indeed meet the eyes of any of them. His fault. All his fault. Be sure your sins will find you out. Josef Rosenberg knew as surely as if he had entered her skin what ailed Tanya Anatov. If she would just let him in – just let him speak to her – explain – reassure—
Upstairs, Tanya sat as one struck deaf and dumb, tearless now, and comfortless; remembering, hating herself and the world that had done this to her. But most of all herself; defiled, unclean.
It was Joss who finally, that second night, gained admittance, not by shouting, nor by begging and pleading as Josef had done, but by the simple expedient of sitting down in the corridor, his back against her closed door and informing the silence that he, as stubborn an Anatov as any, could remain so for as long as it took her to open the door. For hours he sat, unmoving, speaking occasionally to the closed door, inconsequential things, sometimes in his still heavily-accented English, more often as the night wore on in his own strange, quiet tongue; the tongue of Tanya’s forgotten childhood. At last, in a house exhausted and sleeping, long past midnight he heard the key click softly in the lock above his head. Wordless he stood, and entered the room.
Hours later he emerged. Behind him a kind of peace had descended after the storm. A wraith moved on the dark landing; Grace came to him, candle in hand, hair streaming down her back, her voluminous nightgown billowing as she moved. Unconsciously he noted how frail she looked so, in contrast to her carefully groomed daytime self, how much older than she had just a year or so before. She voiced no question, but stood looking at him, anxiety in every drawn line of her face. Joss’s own face, by the light of her candle, was perilous, bone-white and cruel with pain. “She’ll sleep now, I think,” was all he said, and with that Grace had to be satisfied.
But Joss was terribly wrong. His haunted sister did not sleep. Just before dawn saw the end of an endless night she rose, dressed, and left the house. As the pearl-glow of sunrise touched the eastern sky she stood above the dark waters of the Thames and remembered the sea, beside which she had first met Matthew; the cool, rushing, cleansing sea of which she had never been afraid.
They recovered her body the following afternoon, at the turn of the tide. The boatman shook his head as he disentangled his hook from the unfeeling, dead flesh. Another of them. What made them do it? And this one – Lord she’d been a looker all right. Amazing how many of them were. What a waste.