Authors: Barbara Cleverly
‘There she is! That’s Anna! Good Lord. She actually
was
a nurse. So much she didn’t tell me …’ Responding to the invitation in the Russian’s expression, he smiled, his eyes returning to the photograph. ‘One of my crew was careless enough to cut his leg to the bone on a day when our doctor was ashore in Trondheim. They brought him to me, dripping blood and swooning, and Anna, who was with me on deck, snapped out of her torpid state and had the chap sedated, stitched up and bandaged with all the skill of a medic in no time. Saved the leg, I reckon.’
The princess chuckled. ‘She was always a fine needlewoman. But none of these girls was truly a nurse, you know. Amateurs all, some more capable than others. Some with decorative merit only. You’re looking, Captain, at the contents of the topmost drawer of the Russian aristocracy doing their bit in wartime for their country. The Empress Alexandra herself led by example and floated through the wards in cape and wimple dispensing comfort. Though I ought not to disparage their efforts – they meant well, and, in Anna’s case, acquired a genuine skill, they say. But, Captain … you do well to pick her out amongst so many beauties, all wearing an unflattering starched headdress …?’
The question was lightly put but Swinburne picked up an underlying tension. Was he being quizzed in some way? Had the photograph, prominently placed as it was, been set there deliberately as some kind of test? The captain was a straightforward man, who couldn’t be doing with traps and subtleties. His reply came at once.
‘Be assured ma’am, I’d know her face anywhere. It’s the line of the nose, like a Greek statue, and the dark eyebrows – they have the sweep of a gull’s wing. She’s the one on the far left. I’d no idea this was her world.’
The princess, who had been tugging at the pearls at her throat in some suspense, sighed with relief at his identification and stopped her fidgeting. She came to stand at his side, looking at the photograph with him, relaxed now and companionable. Whatever test she’d just administered, he seemed to have passed it. ‘Yes, Captain, that is indeed our Anna. My poor cousin Peter’s daughter. I held her in my arms the day she was born.’
He was pleased to note in her voice the tremble of an emotion she could no longer hold back, the tears gathering in her eyes, the furtive hunting in her sleeve for a handkerchief. She accepted the crisp square of linen he offered and put it to use with grace and murmured thanks. After a moment, she spoke again more brightly. ‘As a child, Anna spent many summers with us in the Crimea … she will feel at home here with me now. But I share your dismay at a world so abruptly and tragically torn from us. Anna would have made a good marriage. She could have had her pick of the finest young men of Europe. Probably not royalty but a count at the very least … a duke perhaps? Sadly now all dead or dispersed and she herself ruined beyond any hope of—’
She suppressed the alarming thought and her tone became crisp. ‘But that is all past, and we must look, as you say, to her future. You may leave her with us in total confidence. I have heard your words and understood the deeper concerns on which you are tactfully silent. I say again – I will provide the care she needs.’
Swinburne had heard the same tone from admirals and generals. There was only one acceptable answer: ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’ This tiny, decisive woman he had no knowledge of and no reason to trust had, unaccountably, got under his defences. He nodded his superfluous agreement. ‘Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am,’ he said, and he smiled as he spoke.
Swinburne bowed and made to leave.
‘Wait, Captain!’ She hesitated for a moment, then picked up the photograph and handed it to him. ‘If you will keep it for your eyes alone you may have this – some slight reward for your care. But be discreet. We aristocrats all have a price on our heads still and are pursued. London is full of ruthless men, not a few of them our enemies.’
As he took it from her, murmuring his thanks, he caught a flash of indulgence and pity in her eyes. She’d guessed his secret in minutes. Time he was gone.
The two women ran into each other’s arms, exclaiming softly in delighted recognition. Swinburne skirted silently round them in the hallway, glad enough to hear:
‘Aunt Tizzi!’
‘Anna, my dear girl! At last! We have you safe.’
In the outburst of tears and sobs that followed, they didn’t hear him leaving.
He was blameless. As innocent as the obliging bird that gobbles down the inky, sweet berry of the deadly nightshade and then flies off unwittingly to disperse the seed, Captain Swinburne had just dropped off a deadly cargo in a fertile corner of London.
He prepared to move on.
‘We’re finished here, cabby. Back to Piccadilly while you can still see the road.’
He shouldn’t have looked back.
A last glance through the window showed him Anna. She’d come outside again and was standing motionless, neither waving away nor beckoning back, watching him leave. The fog was coming down and he couldn’t make out her face but, in his imagination, he saw her dark otter’s eyes following him as the taxi drew away.
Cheyne Walk, London, August 1922
Joe Sandilands had grown out of the habit of packing. In India, his many journeys had been eased by the silent and efficient attentions of a bearer. And now, six weeks after his return, he was ashamed to find he’d almost lost the knack.
In irritation, he left his suitcase in the middle of the living-room floor, gaping open in readiness for the inevitable afterthoughts. These swiftly followed as he cruised about his room, his eye lighting on things without which he couldn’t possibly survive a long weekend in the country. As he passed his bookshelves he tweaked from the ranks the Wodehouse he hadn’t had time to read since his return. He threw it in. A packet of Fribourg & Treyer cigarettes followed. There would be boxes full of Turkish or Virginian available to guests on every gleaming table at the great house he was about to visit but he never liked to be seen helping himself. He paused and considered. Could it be interpreted as an insult to one’s host – taking one’s own supplies?
The ludicrous question betrayed the level of his anxiety concerning this jaunt. He defiantly chucked in another packet. He followed it with a bag of mint humbugs.
Glad to be distracted by a peremptory hoot from the river, he went to stand at the window, looking down on the restless surface of the Thames and listened while the bells of Chelsea Old Church struck the hour. Six o’clock. Cocktail time. His sister Lydia, a stickler for punctuality, would be getting back from her shopping expedition at any moment. Time to go down and help her with her bags. There would be bags! And the hand-operated mechanism of the lift he knew terrified her, though, independent girl that she was, she would never summon help. Joe started guiltily as he heard her upstairs already and letting herself into the flat.
She called out a greeting and dropped a cascade of packages and hat boxes on to the sofa. Responding to Joe’s raised eyebrows, she said, ‘Just a few things. The rest are being delivered to Surrey.’ She kicked off her shoes and, cursing gently about the traffic in Sloane Street, came to join him at the window. Joe poured out a gin and tonic and handed it to her. They listened for a moment in companionable silence to the swash and rustle of a tugboat towing a flotilla of barges upstream into the glare of the westering sun.
‘I love this time of day,’ Joe said, sipping his dry sherry.
His sister looked at him in disbelief. ‘Isn’t it time you found somewhere better than this? Tiny rooms you can only get up to in a dangerous, wheezing old lift? An attack of vertigo every time you look through the window? Lots Road power station on one side, smoky tugs going up and down the river all day – and night too, as far as I can see … Joe, you’re living in a coal hole!’
‘It suits me,’ Joe said defensively. ‘I like the river from this distance. Nobody knows where I am. I can get a bit of peace and quiet. And anyway, this place seems to suit
you
well enough too – handy for Harrods and always a spare room to be had when the sales are on. What more could a girl want?’
‘A little less of the bachelor austerity, is what.’ Lydia put down her glass and moved around the room switching on lamps and plumping up cushions. ‘Your Mrs Jago only cleans this place for you – you can’t expect her to add any decorative touches. Why don’t you let me … Ah! Getting ahead with your packing, I see?’ She made for the open suitcase. ‘I’ll help you.’
Always a mistake to let an older sister help you with your packing.
Joe reckoned that the damage had been done, the precedent set, when he was a boy and going off to school for the first time. At that moment of uncertainty he’d been grateful for a bossy girl counting handkerchiefs, refolding his shirts and confiscating his cache of marbles. Today the twenty-nine-year-old, six-foot commander at Scotland Yard that he had become resented the attention. He decided to do a bit of commanding.
‘Do leave off, Lydia. I’m only going away for a weekend in the country.’
Lydia wasn’t listening. Up to the elbows stirring about amongst his things, she’d pounced on an alien element. ‘A Cerebos Salt tin? What’s this doing hiding amongst your dress shirts, Joe?’ She held it away from her and shook it. It rattled. Lydia stared at the familiar blue and white container with distaste. ‘What have you got in this rusty old thing? Not still smuggling marbles, are you? Or is this your stash of spare bullets for your big bad Browning?’
Joe snatched it from her and twisted off the lid, revealing the innocent contents. ‘Toothbrush, paste, shaving things. Happy with that?’
‘No. Not a bit. Think, Joe! You’re off to stay at the country seat of an earl, trying to make a good impression on your elders and betters … what’s his lordship going to think? More to the point, what’s his
footman
going to think when he unpacks for you? You’ll be a laughing stock below stairs. I’ll pop out to Bond Street tomorrow, first thing, and get you a decent wash bag.’
‘You’ll do no such thing! I’ve always used a Cerebos Salt tin and I see no reason to stop.’
‘But it’s disgusting – it’s rusting away.’
‘What do you expect? It’s travelled across oceans and halfway round India. It made an appearance at a far grander establishment than Gratton Court.’
‘India? Oh, no! You’re telling me you took this insanitary object with you when you stayed with the Maharajah What’s his name?’
‘I did. A humble salt tin stood on a marble bathroom shelf in the Palace of Ranipur, batting for England amongst the crystal, the jade and the gold accessories, placed there – without comment – by the bearer who unpacked my things.’
‘I’m surprised someone didn’t remove it.’
‘Someone did. When I unpacked on my return to Simla I noted that my faithful old receptacle had been taken away and replaced … with a brand new Cerebos Salt tin! This very one.’
Lydia chuckled. ‘Now that’s style.’
‘That’s Indian good manners – and humour,’ Joe agreed quietly. ‘Can’t tell you how glad I am to be home, but … I miss the laughter, Lyd. And the colour. In sober old London.’ He saw dismay dawning in her eyes and hurried to add: ‘But I’ve done with serious travelling for now. Got a career to relaunch!’
A sudden understanding of the tin’s significance silenced her. Schoolboys, soldiers and now, apparently, strapping great police commanders – they all needed a reminder of home in strange or threatening situations. Lydia put it back in the suitcase. ‘You can always claim then that it was a gift from a maharajah – should anyone ask,’ she said comfortably. ‘But I suppose they must be used to eccentricities at Gratton Court – the old Prince of Wales was a constant guest there in the good old days.’ She gave a mock shudder. ‘Now I shouldn’t have liked to view the contents of
his
salt tin!’
Joe responded to his sister’s unexpressed anxiety. ‘I’ll be fine, Lyd. Don’t worry about me. Big boy these days. And it’s not as though it’s an interview I’ve been called up for. There’s nothing much riding on this, you know. I’ve already got the job – had it for two years now. They just want to check I can drink my soup without slurping and get through dinner with a selection of rabid old fire-eaters without poking one in the eye with a fish knife. I shall keep smiling, tell a few tall stories, sing baritone in the after-dinner choruses round the grand piano and shoot a commendable but not showy number of birds.’
‘What are you using for guns?’
‘Pa’s old pair. I’ve sent them ahead. Respectable but nothing flashy. Now if we were going for real game, I could have impressed them with the Holland & Holland Royal I used in India. Sir George insisted on giving it to me. Not many charging buffalo offering themselves as targets on Exmoor, though.’
‘You
used
it in India? Joe, you don’t like shooting animals.’
‘True. But the animals in question were tiger. Man-eaters both. With hundreds of deaths on their rap sheets!’
‘Both?’
‘I shot two of them, in as many minutes. One male, one female. They were hunting as a pair.’
Lydia laughed. ‘You’re having me on. Sounds like the beginning of a good yarn, though, for when the port starts to circulate.’