Eva Ibbotson - The Morning Gift

‘Finished? What on earth do you mean?’

‘He takes a woman on his next expedition! A woman to the Kulamali Gorge… one of his students with whom he has fallen in love. I tell you, this is the end. I will not go with him… I know what will happen.’ He took a second glass of wine and mopped his brow, pursued by hideous images. A naked woman with loose, lewd hair crawling into the safari tent… hanging her underwear on the line strung between thorn trees… She would soon hear of his private fortune and make suggestions: Somerville was known to be someone who did not wish to marry. ‘I have great respect for the Professor,’ he said, draining his glass and drawing closer to Verena who was not at all like the Lillith of his imagination… who was in fact very like his maiden aunt in Ghent, ‘but this is the end!’

‘Wait a minute, Dr Brille-Lamartaine, are you sure he is taking one of his students? And a woman?’

The Belgian nodded. ‘I am sure. His assistant told me yesterday — he is completely in the Professor’s confidence. The Professor has fallen in love with a girl in his class who is very high-born and very brilliant. It is a secret because she must not be favoured, but in June he will declare ’imself. I tell you, women must not go on these journeys, it is always a disaster, I hav’ seen it. There is jealousy, there is intrigue… and they wear nothing underneath.’ He drained his glass and wiped his brow once more. ‘You will say nothing, I know,’ he said. ‘Oh, there is Sir Neville Willington — you will excuse me?’

‘Yes,’ said Verena. ‘Yes, indeed.’

She could not wait, now, to be alone. If any confirmation was needed, this was it! Not that she had really doubted Quin, but his continuing silence sometimes confused her. But how could he speak while she was still his student? Only last week a Cambridge professor had been dismissed because of his involvement with an undergraduate: she had been foolish all along imagining that Quin could declare himself at this stage. And she wasn’t even going to demand marriage before they sailed. Marriage would come, of course, when he saw how perfectly they were matched, but she would not make it a condition.

So now for her First and for being even fitter — if that was possible — than she had been before!

Frances usually came down to London only twice a year; in November for her Christmas shopping and in May for the Chelsea Flower Show.

This year, however, the wedding of her goddaughter — the niece of Lydia Barchester who had come to grief when retreating backwards from Their Majesties — brought her to London at the end of March. She came under protest, as the result of fierce bullying by Martha who had decreed that she needed a new dress and, in particular, new shoes.

‘Nonsense,’ said Frances. ‘I bought some shoes for the Godchester christening.’

‘That was twelve years ago,’ said Martha.

Frances detested buying anything for her personal adornment, but if it had to be done then it had to be done at Fortnum’s in Piccadilly. Displeased, she took Martha’s shopping list and headed south with Harris in the Buick. Beside her on the seat was a cardboard box padded with wood shavings and containing a dozen dark brown bulbs which, after some hesitation, she had dug out of her garden on the previous day.

When in London, Frances did not stay with Quin, whose flat she regarded as faintly disreputable and liable to yield French actresses or dancing girls. She dined with him, but she stayed at Brown’s Hotel where nothing ever changed, and sent Harris to his married sister in Peckham.

Her day had been carefully planned, yet when she found Harris waiting the next morning with the car, the instructions she gave him surprised even herself.

‘Take me to Number 27 Belsize Close,’ she said.

Harris raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s Hampstead, isn’t it?’

‘Nearly. It’s off Haverstock Hill.’

Now why? thought Frances, already regretting her impulse. She was seeing Quin that evening — why not give the bulbs to him to pass on to Ruth?

The streets as they drove north became meaner, shabbier, and as Harris stopped to ask the way, they were given instructions by a gesticulating, scarcely comprehensible foreigner in a large black hat.

Number 27 was all that she had feared; a dilapidated lodging house, the door unpainted, the wood sagging in the window frames. A cat foraged in the dustbins; the paving stones were cracked.

‘I won’t be long,’ she told Harris, and made her way up the steps.

Leonie, enjoying the calm of her sitting room, for Heini had gone to see his agent, heard the bell, went downstairs and saw an unknown, gaunt lady in dark purple tweeds, and behind her an unmistakably expensive, though ancient, motor car with a uniformed chauffeur.

‘I can help you?’ said Leonie — and then: ‘Are you perhaps the aunt of Professor Somerville?’

‘Good heavens, woman, how did you know?’

‘There is a look… and Ruth has spoken of you. Please come in.’ Then, with the sudden panic which assails women the world over at an unexpected apparition: ‘There is nothing wrong at the university? All is well with the Professor… and with Ruth?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Miss Somerville impatiently, wondering again why she had come. The house was appalling: the worn lino, the smell of cheap disinfectant… ‘I brought some bulbs for your uncle. You are Mrs Berger, I take it? Ruth mentioned that he liked autumn crocus and I have more than I know what to do with. Would you please give them to him?’

‘For Mishak?’ Leonie’s face lit up. ‘Oh, he will be so pleased! He is in the garden now, you must of course take them yourself — he will want to thank you. And I will make us a cup of coffee. No; tea, of course… I forget!’

‘No, thank you. I won’t stay.’

‘But you must! First I will show you the garden… it is best to go through the house because the side door is stuck.’

Frances followed her reluctantly. Now it was going to be impossible to get out of an invitation to drink tea. Foreigners could never make it properly and she would probably be expected to eat something sickly with a spoon.

Mishak was digging his potato patch — and as he straightened and turned towards them, Frances was gripped by a fierce, an overwhelming disappointment.

I have come to fetch you , he had said to Marianne, opening his briefcase, lifting his hat, and she had imagined a dapper little man in an expensive overcoat, a man of the world. But this was an old refugee, a foreigner in a crumpled jacket and cloth cap, shabby and poor and strange. It was all she could do to force herself to approach him.

Leonie explained their errand and Mishak leant his spade against the fence.

‘Autumn crocus?’ he said. ‘Ruth told me how they grow under the cherry tree.’

He took the box, pushed aside the shavings. His hands, as he searched for the bulbs, were earth-stained, square and stumpy-fingered. Hands that planted and mended, that hammered and turned screws. Not really foreign; not really strange…

‘Yes,’ said Mishak, touching a bulb. ‘How I remember them!’ He didn’t even thank her; he only smiled.

The tea was excellent, but Frances could not stay.

‘I have to shop,’ she said wearily.

Leonie’s eyes lit up. ‘Where do you go?’

‘Fortnum’s in Piccadilly.’

‘Ah, that is a wonderful place,’ said Leonie wistfully. ‘You buy a dress?’

Frances nodded. ‘And shoes.’

‘What kind of shoes?’ It was Mishak who spoke, and Frances glared at him as shocked as if it was a tree which had dared to interest itself in her concerns.

‘The same as I always buy,’ she said testily. ‘Brown strap shoes with a side button and low heel.’