Eva Ibbotson - Magic Flutes

Just two weeks before their departure, an English nobleman, Lord St Henry, his wife and both his young sons had been drowned in a tragic boating accident off the Isle of Wight. Mrs Croft had waited until there was no further doubt — in other words, until the bodies of all four victims had been recovered, undoubtedly dead — before writing an agitated letter of condolence to Lord Frith in his crenellated tower in the Grampians. Frith’s answer, received just before she left for Austria, had been suitably grief-stricken, but it had also been unequivocal. Yes, it was true that his elder brother, St Henry, had died, along with his two sons; the loss was one which had shattered not only himself, but his old father who had aged by ten years and was not expected to live much longer. And yes, Frith had added, it was true that he himself would now inherit his father’s title, but as she could imagine being the Duke of Aberfeldy would mean little when set against the tragic loss of his brother, his two nephews and his brother’s wife. He had ended, as always, with concerned enquiries about Nerine, whose stay abroad must surely soon be coming to an end?

‘You haven’t told him about your marriage?’

Nerine shook her head. ‘There seemed no point until afterwards.’

Mrs Croft frowned. She was in the state bedroom, inspecting her daughter’s trousseau. The full-length chinchilla, the Russian sable, the jacket of Canadian lynx were spread across the bed. The diamond necklace, the double row of pearls and a few other trinkets which Nerine had picked up in Vienna were displayed on the dressing-table.

‘And I’m getting this silver lily,’ said Nerine. ‘It’s a Pfaffenstein heirloom and absolutely priceless. Arthur found out that the Museum of Antiquities in New York offered fifty thousand dollars for it, and that was before the war!’

Mrs Croft nodded. She could not blame Nerine for her choice, but the blow dealt her by Frith’s news was hard to bear. ‘My daughter, the Duchess of Aberfeldy.’ How inevitable it sounded, how right.

‘You would have thought God could have managed it better,’ said Nerine, throwing open the wardrobe to her mother’s awed gaze. ‘Just when one’s really happy He sends along something like this to spoil it.’ She pulled out an ermine-lined theatre cape and held it against her body, watching the play of light on the gold brocade. Yes, she had made the right choice, but really life could be amazingly cruel!

If Aunt Dorothy was pleased with her first sight of Pfaffenstein, its liveried retainers and sumptuous rooms, she received a nasty shock at dinner on the first night.

‘It was a shock, Alice,’ she said to Nerine’s mother when they had retired to the blue salon. ‘I was not prepared for it, you see. Though how one could be prepared for such a thing…’

‘I can see that,’ Mrs Croft replied, and Uncle Victor, Cousin Clarence and Nerine’s brother Arthur all agreed that it had been a shock.

‘I know, but you see Guy is so fond of her,’ explained Nerine. ‘There’s really nothing I can do. He’s taken Mr Tremayne with him and the head steward makes all the seating arrangements now, but even when everybody was here it was the same.’

‘But right opposite me! At the head of the table!’ exclaimed Aunt Dorothy. ‘That accent! I could hardly understand a word she said!’

‘Nor I,’ said Uncle Edgar, who had been on Martha’s right at dinner. ‘I must say, Nerine, I think it’s most unwise of Guy to foist her on you socially. Of course, you wouldn’t expect him to forget her — that would be quite wrong. Money should be sent, and a hamper at Christmas. But I cannot help seeing it as an affront—’

No!’ Nerine was definite about that. ‘Guy thinks it’s the biggest treat in the world to sit next to Martha Hodge at dinner. He put the Austrian Foreign Minister there, specially, when he came last week.’

‘Really?’ Aunt Dorothy was increasingly disturbed by this turn of events. ‘You see, dear, it’s all right for foreigners — they probably wouldn’t notice her accent, though how one could fail to… Or her lapse with the finger bowls. But, after all, Pfaffenstein is only a stage, isn’t it? In the end, to take your place in real society, you’ll have to return to England. And if this Hodge person has become accustomed to living as one of the family you will find acceptance very hard to come by, especially in view of—’

Here she paused, unable to put into words the matter of the Fish Quay, the piece of sacking, and what she referred to as ‘All that’.

‘Yes, I see what you mean. I’ve worried about it myself, Aunt Dorothy. But if one dares to criticize her, Guy just flies off the handle.’

‘My dear, there’s no need to criticize her, that would be quite wrong. We must just make her see, without any rancour, that it would be best for everyone if—’

She broke off as a plump, homely figure appeared in the doorway. Arthur, who had instinctively risen at the sight of a woman, was frowned down by Uncle Victor and sank shamefacedly back on to the couch.

Watched in silence by everyone in the room, Martha said good evening, moved over to a low chair by the window and took out the sock she was proudly knitting with the wool hooked over the left finger as demonstrated by Frau Keller.

‘It’s a grand evening an’ all,’ she said pleasantly. ‘I never seen stars like the ones ’ere. Not that you can see much doon our way, what with all the muck blowin’ off the chimneys.’

No one answered and Martha lifted her head. For a moment her kind face puckered and a look of grief, as unalloyed as it was unmistakable, appeared in her soft, grey eyes. Then she bent again to her task.

An hour later she rolled up her wool, said good night and went to her room. Not a single word had been addressed to her all evening. The education of Martha Hodge, which was to have such far-reaching consequences, had begun.

In the days that followed the Crofts, led by Aunt Dorothy, avoided no opportunity of snubbing Martha. They stopped talking the moment she entered the room, raised their eyebrows when she joined them at table and greeted with pitying smiles her cheerful reports of events in the village.

Nerine joined dutifully in this policy of humiliation, but she found herself in a quandary, for she had discovered in this plainly dressed, working-class woman, an unexpected talent. Three days earlier, crossing the courtyard fresh from her afternoon rest, she had come upon Martha who had spent a most satisfactory afternoon teaching the innkeeper’s wife how to bake a ‘Singin’ Hinny’, and greeted her future daughter-in-law with a quick, involuntary shake of the head.

‘What is it?’ said Nerine sharply.

‘Well, love,’ said Martha, facing it out, ‘it’s the way that scarf’s knotted. The suit’s grand — that soft grey sets you off a treat — but the neckline’s too fussy with that knot right in the middle. Maybe if you was to wear it open, sort of casual like, with the scarf just folded in a bit…’

‘Yes,’ said Nerine quickly. ‘I’ve been worried myself. Come upstairs.’

There followed many absorbing sessions in Nerine’s bedroom, for Pooley, usually so jealous, took to Martha Hodge at once. Together they pored over fashion magazines, selected braids and trimmings, pondered the precise tilt of a hat. Martha’s taste was unerring, her attention inexhaustible, but she was not afraid to speak her mind and Nerine, parading up and down in her trousseau, listened to her suggestions with eager interest. If only she had been a servant, thought Nerine, how easy it would be.

As for Martha, who endured with gentle dignity the snubs and pinpricks she had to face downstairs, she found these sessions hard to bear. In her own way she understood that Nerine’s greed and self-absorption were akin to those of an artist or composer who will sacrifice everything and everyone in the service of his own gift, only Nerine’s gift was her own beauty. She also realized that since there was nothing evil or vicious in this girl which would sicken Guy and thus release him, he was doomed.