Виктория Холт - The Captive

I was seventeen when I experienced one of the most extraordinary adventures which could ever have befallen a young woman, and which gave me a glimpse into a world which was alien to all that I had been brought up to expect; and from then on the whole course of my life was changed.

I always had the impression that I must have been conceived in a moment of absentmindedness on the part of my parents. I could picture their amazement, consternation and acute dismay when signs of my impending arrival must have become apparent. I remember when I was very young, having temporarily escaped from the supervision of my nurse, encountering my father on the stairs. We met so rarely that on this occasion we regarded each other as strangers. His spectacles were pushed up on to his forehead and he pulled them down to look more closely at this strange creature who had strayed into his world, as though trying to remember what it was. Then my mother appeared; she apparently recognized me immediately for she said:

“Oh, it’s the child. Where is the nurse?”

I was quickly snatched up into a pair of familiar arms and hustled away, and when we were out of earshot I heard mutterings.

“Unnatural lot. Never mind. You’ve got your dear old Nanny who loves you.”

Indeed I had and I was content, for besides my dear old Nanny I had Mr. Dolland the butler, Mrs. Harlow the cook, the parlour maid Dot and the housemaid Meg, and Emily the twee ny And later Miss Felicity Wills.

There were two distinct zones in our house and I knew to which one I belonged.

It was a tall house in a London square in a district known as Bloomsbury. The reason it had been chosen as our residence was because of its proximity to the British Museum which was always referred to below stairs with such reverence that when I was first considered old enough to enter its sacred portals I expected to hear a voice from Heaven commanding me to take the shoes from off my feet for the place whereon I was standing was holy ground.

My father was Professor Cranleigh, and he was attached to the Egyptian section of the Museum. He was an authority on Ancient Egypt and in particular Hieroglyphics. Nor did my mother live in his shadow. She shared in his work, accompanied him on his frequent lecture tours, and was the author of a sizeable tome entitled The Significance of the Rosetta Stone, which stood in a prominent place of honour, side by side with the half-dozen works by my father in the room next to his study which was called the library.

They had named me Rosetta, which was a great honour. It linked me with their work which made me feel that at one time they must have had some regard for me. The first thing I wanted to see when Miss Felicity Wills took me to the Museum was this ancient stone. I gazed at it in wonder and listened enraptured while she told me that the strange characters supplied the key to deciphering the writings of ancient Egypt. I could not take my eyes from that basalt tablet which had been so important to my parents but what gave it real significance in my eyes was that it bore the same name as myself.

When I was about five years old my parents became concerned about me.

I must be educated and there was some trepidation in our zone at the prospect of a governess.

“Governesses,” pronounced Mrs. Harlow, when we were all seated at the kitchen table, ‘is funny things. Neither fish nor fowl. “

“No,” I put in, ‘they are ladies. “

“That’s as may be,” went on Mrs. Harlow.

“Too grand for us, not good enough for them.” She pointed to the ceiling, indicating the upper regions of the house.

“They throw their weight about something shocking … and upstairs, well, they’re as mild as milk. Yes, funny things, governesses.”

“I’ve heard,” said Mr. Dolland, ‘that it’s to be the niece of some professor or other. “

Mr. Dolland picked up all the news. He was ‘sharp as a wagonload of monkeys’, according to Mrs. Harlow. Dot had her own sources, gathered when waiting at table.

“It’s this Professor Wills,” she said.

“They was at the University .. only he went on to something else … science or something. Well, he’s got this niece and they want a place for her. It looks certain we’re going to have this Professor Wills’s niece in our house.”

“Will she be clever?” I asked in trepidation.

“Too clever by half, if you ask me,” said Mrs. Harlow.

“I’m not having her interfering in the nursery,” announced Nanny Pollock.

“She’ll be too grand for that. It’ll be meals on trays. Up them stairs for you. Dot … or you, Meg. I can tell you we’re going to get a real madam.”

“I don’t want her here,” I announced.

“I can learn from you.”

That made them laugh.

“Say what you will, lovey,” said Mrs. Harlow.

“We’re not what you’d call eddicated … except perhaps Mr. Dolland.”

We all gazed fondly at Mr. Dolland. Not only did he uphold the dignity of our region, but he kept us amused and at times he could be persuaded to do one of his little ‘turns’. He was a man of many parts, which was not surprising because at one time he had been an actor. I had seen him preparing to go upstairs, formally dressed, the dignified butler, and at other times with his green baize apron round his rather ample waist, cleaning the silver and breaking into song. I would sit there listening and the others would creep up to share in the pleasure and enjoy this one of Mr. Dolland’s many talents.

“Mind you,” he told us modestly, ‘singing’s not my line. I was never one for the halls. It was always the straight theatre for me. In the blood . from the moment I was born. “

Some of my happiest memories of those days are of sitting at that big kitchen table. I remember evenings it must have been winter because it was dark and Mrs. Harlow would light the paraffin-filled lamp and set it in the centre of the table. The kitchen fire would be roaring away and, with my parents absent on some lecture tour, a wonderful sense of peace and security would settle upon us.

Mr. Dolland would talk of the days of his youth when he was on the way to becoming a great actor. It hadn’t worked out as he had planned, otherwise we should not have had him with us, for which we must be grateful although it was a pity for Mr. Dolland. He had had several walk-on parts and had once played the ghost in Hamlet; he had actually worked in the same company as Henry Irving. He followed the progress of the great actor and some years before he had seen his hero’s much-acclaimed Mathias in The Bells.

Sometimes he would beguile us with scenes from the play. A hushed silence would prevail. Seated beside Nanny Pollock, I would grip her hand to assure myself that she was close. It was most effective when the wind howled and we could hear the rain beating against the windows.

“It was such a night as this that the Polish Jew was murdered …”

Mr. Dolland would proclaim in hollow tones, recalling how Mathias had brought about the Jew’s death and been haunted ever after by the sound of the bells. We would sit there shivering, and I used to lie in bed afterwards, gazing fearfully at the shadows in the room and wondering whether they were going to form themselves into the murderer.

Mr. Dolland was greatly respected throughout the house hold, which he would have been in any case, but his talent to amuse had made us love him and if the theatrical world had failed to appreciate him, that was not the case in the house in Bloomsbury.

Happy memories they were. These were my family and I felt safe and happy with them.

In those days the only times I ventured into the dining room were under the sheltering wing of Dot when she laid the table. I used to hold the cutlery for her while she placed it round the table. I would watch with admiration while she dexterously flicked the table napkins into fancy shapes and set them out.