“You could never do that.” Vivian Gossinger was moved to respond by centuries of good breeding and his aunt’s silence, which had not helped the chill in the room. “You’re a national treasure, Cousin Sophie.”
“And you are so like your dear father, may our Father in heaven rest his soul!” Miss Doffit smiled mistily.
“You know I sleep in his old room. And I must admit I have grown very fond of it and the way the wind whistles so cheerfully through the windows. Would you believe it, Vivian, sometimes I forget for weeks on end your daddy once telling me that particular bedroom is haunted by that ill-bred young woman who put a wicked curse on Gossinger Hall in the eighteenth century.”
Miss Doffit eyed Sir Henry, saw he looked cross, and hung her head as if wishing it would drop into a conveniently placed executioner’s bucket. “May I,” she gathered herself together, “make myself useful by going to see what is keeping Hutchins from bringing in our tea?”
“It is unlike him to be unpunctual.” Lady Gossinger fussed with the strand of pearls around her neck. She hadn’t caught more than a stray sentence here and there of Cousin Sophie’s ramblings since the part about the depravity of secondhand shops. What would the old lady think if she knew about the one in Bethnal Green? Hard as her Ladyship had worked at obliterating her past, Mabel Bowser’s legacy lingered. And at that moment, although she was even more fond of her husband than she was of young Vivian, Lady Gossinger could have strangled the man.
In a burst of insensitivity a few weeks previously, Sir Henry had purchased the late Mr. and Mrs. Bowser’s former shop, and the flat above, as a present for his wife’s fiftieth birthday. On presenting her with the deed, Sir Henry explained that he had prayed upon the matter and had become convinced she would want this piece of property for sentimental reasons. Also, it would make a nice little nest egg. Sir Henry had said this looking at peace with himself and the world. And to think of the wonderful present she had hidden away for his birthday coming up shortly! Lady Gossinger had only contemplated hitting him for an instant before she
remembered that doing so would have put her back on a par with the likes of Edna. Truth be told, it wasn’t a bad investment. The building had been let for the last ten years to the same tenant. Even so, for weeks after her birthday Lady Gossinger had walked around with her arms close to her sides, for fear that if she raised them an inch a telltale whiff of Bethnal Green would escape. Now she stopped fiddling with her pearls and drew in her elbows.
“A bit odd, Hutchins being late. Never met such a stickler for time. And here it is ten minutes past four,” Sir Henry said, looking at the clock, whose hands were locked in prayer as they had been ever since the pendulum had stopped, according to family legend, one midnight long ago. The baronet cleared his throat. “It’s about Hutchins that I’ve been wanting to have a word with you all. But felt it could wait. Didn’t want to spoil anyone’s tea. Thought you’d all take the news better on full tummies.”
“Is Hutchins ill?” Vivian Gossinger forgot about good posture and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the epitome of well-bred concern for a family servant.
“He’s not dying?” Lady Gossinger sounded quite put out, feeling—quite rightly—that Hutchins should have notified his employers of his intention. “Well, I must say he’s been doing a very good job of looking well.”
“No, no! He’s not got an appointment with the Grim Reaper. Nothing like that!” Sir Henry shifted further back in his throne chair, which was not made for seating comfort, as the expression on his face bore witness. He started to speak, being anxious to get on with what he had to say, but being a gentleman, allowed a lady to go first.
“Hutchins isn’t especially old, Vivian,” said Cousin Sophie, who took great pride in being eighty-four, and
staunchly resented people in their seventies putting themselves forward as elderly.
“But come to think of it, he must be close to retirement age,” said Vivian. “Even so, Uncle Henry, I always assumed Hutchins would never leave Gossinger until he was carried out in his coffin. Particularly as he has his granddaughter here.”
“Ah, yes! Little Flora!” Sir Henry spoke quite fondly. “Of course, she’s grown up now and works about the house or in the gift shop. But when Hutchins first brought her here after her mother died, she was only about four or five. Really quite a playful little thing. Quite like having a puppy about the place. I remember she used to like going up into the trunk room and playing dressing-up games.”
“Hutchins seems quite devoted to her,” Cousin Sophie broke in, once more forgetting that fate had allotted her a permanent place in the shadows. “Human nature being what it is, people always make lots of fuss when a man, and one who is not,” she conceded, “particularly young, takes on the upbringing of a child. But think of that woman who last week had quadruplets, or whatever they’re called, at age sixty-four!”
“Cousin Sophie,” Vivian Gossinger’s lips had thawed out sufficiently to allow a smile, “you’ve been at it again, reading the tabloids.”
“No, no, it was a proper newspaper! And I’m sure I heard the same story on the wireless, about this retired schoolteacher from Bridlington, who married a much younger man and decided she wanted to give him a child. Some people would say a pipe rack would have made a more suitable gift, but I thought it quite brave of Mrs. Smith.” Cousin Sophie nodded sagely. “Her story made me think about you, Mabel.”
“Me?” Lady Gossinger did not sound pleased. “I am
not
years older than Henry!”
“No, no, of course not.” The old lady backed into
her corner of the sofa. “It was because you always seem so young, not much more than a girl really, that I began to think how lovely it would be if you and Henry were to have a baby. A boy, of course. And I could make myself useful looking after it.” Sentimental sigh. “You wouldn’t mind, would you, Vivian?”
“Mind your looking after it?”
“No, dear! Mind being supplanted as Henry’s heir.”
Giving Cousin Sophie a cross look, Lady Gossinger said: “In the course of leaping from one subject to another we have lost track of the fact, Henry,” she turned to her husband, “that you were about to tell us something or other about Hutchins. Sorry about that, old bean! But out with it now. You have my undivided attention.”
Flora hadn’t forgotten that her grandfather had asked her to take afternoon tea up to the tower room. But she had lost track of time. This was partly because a button had popped off her white blouse while she was serving a customer in the gift shop, and she’d had to go and sew it back on. At which time she had noticed that her hair was slipping out of its knot and she also had a run in her tights. However, the main reason she failed to look at her watch was that this was Grandpa’s birthday and she was obsessed with making sure that their little sitting room looked as festive as possible.
It was always a cozy apartment, with lots of books on the shelves and Grandpa’s chair drawn snugly up to the fireplace, but today Flora wanted everything perfect. She had filled a blue and white china jug with winter pansies and put it on the drop-leaf table. The
iced chocolate cake she had made early that morning looked very tasty on its silver doily and she had strung balloons from the backs of the two dining chairs. Grandpa would pretend to be surprised and they would have a merry supper, but Flora could not rid herself of one disappointment, that the birthday present she so longed to give him was not to be.
A couple of weeks previously she had screwed up her courage and written to Her Majesty, telling her about Grandpa and the marvelous silver polish he made up in accordance with an old family recipe. Flora had explained that the silver polish was sold at the Gossinger Hall gift shop and that people made special trips, often driving many miles to buy it. Would it be asking too much (she had underlined these words) to hope that Her Majesty might consider granting one of her Royal Warrants for this excellent product?
After rereading the letter several times to make sure she hadn’t made any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, Flora had taken it down to the postbox, her heart thudding all the way. That night when she went to bed she had lain awake a long time picturing Grandpa’s look of stunned delight when her dream for him came true. Even though she knew it was foolish, Flora had begun hoping for a reply by the end of the week. Perhaps it would be written by a lady-in-waiting requesting that a bottle of the silver polish be sent to Buckingham Palace. To be tried out on the royal silver collection. But now more than a fortnight had passed, and Flora was beginning to think that she might never receive a response. Perhaps Her Majesty, if she ever saw the letter, had decided that Miss Flora Hutchins was either a complete crackpot or the cheekiest person alive.
Mrs. Bellows, who was the housekeeper at Gossinger Hall for a few years when Flora was a child, had enjoyed making up stories to entertain the little girl on rainy afternoons. Of course they weren’t as good as Grandpa’s stories, but she had told some awfully jolly ones about Her Majesty and life at Buckingham Palace. And those stories had remained with Flora long after Mrs. Bellows found that Gossinger Hall didn’t agree with her lumbago and went to work somewhere else. They had portrayed Her Majesty Elizabeth II as a woman with a tender heart who wanted to be a real Mum to each and every one of her subjects. And years afterward, particularly when she was feeling down, Flora would weave her own versions of Mrs. Bellows’s Queen stories.
“I think I’ve been completely taken in,” Flora said out loud as she adjusted a candle on the chocolate birthday cake, “but I’ve no one to blame but myself. Only a real twit would expect the Queen to care two hoots about homemade silver polish. Thank goodness Grandpa doesn’t know what I did: I see now that he would be completely mortified by my impudence. Unlike Mrs. Bellows, he views Her Majesty as a sacred personage who has never eaten baked beans in her royal life and is to be revered from the appropriate distance. It was just that I wanted this to be Grandpa’s best birthday ever, because I think he sometimes worries about growing older. He wonders what will become of Sir Henry and Gossinger Hall when he reaches an age at which he is no longer able to take care of them. And,” Flora sighed, “Grandpa knows he’s the only person I have to love me. In some ways he still thinks of me as a little girl. But maybe that is changing.”
She moved over to the mirror above the bookcase and stood tidying her hair back into its knot. She had baby-fine dark hair that wasn’t ideal for constraining with rubber bands and pins, but her grandfather had always urged her not to cut it short. Perhaps, thought Flora, that’s because my mother had lovely long hair and he needs to see something in me that reminds him of her. All of which made it most surprising that
Grandpa had said, quite out of the blue, at breakfast that morning: “Flora, why don’t you think about doing something different to your hair? Something a little more modern.”
“Well, that proves it,” Flora informed her reflection, “his birthday is getting to him. He’s taken to wondering if he should give me a shoosh out of the nest. Most girls would have taken off long ago, I suppose. But I could never leave Grandpa, and,” she bit her lip, “I have to admit, there’s another reason I like being at Gossinger, even though her Ladyship is a pain in the neck. It’s because of Vivian.”
A blush crept up her cheeks and she imagined what her grandfather would say if she confessed to thinking about a member of the family by his first name. “But I can’t help it.” Flora turned away from the mirror and pressed her hands against her face. “I’m like one of those pathetic girls in fairy stories who fall in love with the handsome prince. Although, come to think of it, Cinderella wasn’t so pathetic, she got to marry him. And anyway, I didn’t develop a mad pash for Vivian at first sight. I must have been five years old the first time I saw him. And he scared me senseless until I was at least seven because I always seemed to be in his way when he was rushing up the stairs. It wasn’t until he played marbles with me one afternoon that I decided he was the nicest person alive, next to Grandpa. And I must have been at least sixteen before I reached the point where just hearing that he was coming to Gossinger for the weekend was enough to make the world spin out of control.”
It was then that Flora glanced at the mantel clock and discovered it was ten minutes past four and she was already well and truly late in taking tea up to the tower room. Rummaging through a drawer, she grabbed up a clean apron and dashed along to the kitchen, where Mrs. Much, the current housekeeper, was tapping her foot and looking at her watch.
“So sorry.” Flora grabbed up the nearest tray and headed out into the hall. Five minutes later, after carrying up two more trays and depositing them on the oak trolley stationed for the purpose on the landing, she pushed open the heavily studded door and entered the room, looking, as Lady Gossinger had so often thought with deep satisfaction, exactly like a maid in a Christie novel.
“I’m ever so sorry to be late!” Luckily Flora’s heavy breathing was lost in the rattle of wheels over the stone floor. A teaspoon went flying over the edge of the trolley and Vivian leaped to his feet in a futile attempt to catch the silver missile.
“I don’t understand why you’re here at all, Florie.” Lady Gossinger had adapted the girl’s name in this way, believing it better suited to her lowly station in life. “Now, don’t stand there, child, looking as if you’re waiting to have your adenoids removed. Where is your grandfather?”
“He’s all right, is he?” Sir Henry inquired. “Not feeling under the weather, I hope? Isn’t like Hutchins not to bring up the tea himself. I’ve known him to crawl up those steps when he was half dead with pneumonia.”
“It’s my fault.” Flora kept her eyes on her hands as they moved among the cups and saucers. “Grandfather asked me particularly to fill in for him because he wanted to keep an eye on things below. There’s a tour going on, a whole classful of schoolboys, and Grandfather was afraid the teacher wouldn’t be able to keep them from getting rowdy and out of hand.”