A Stairs - Eva Ibbotson

Now, as she planned the ball in honour of Muriel Hardwicke with her housekeeper, her steward, her butler and her cook, no one could have guessed that the task afforded her anything but pleasure and delight.

And yet the truth was very different.

Welcoming Ollie back from her day in town, Minna had naturally been eager to know how her stepdaughter had enjoyed her day.

‘Oh, it was lovely. Mummy. It was simply lovely!’ Ollie’s flushed face had been full of delight yet Minna, with her sixth sense for the child’s well-being, had been uneasy.

‘Was your dress very beautiful?’

‘Yes, it was.’ Minna, bracing herself for details, watched with surprise as Ollie’s bright eyes slid away from her own. ‘And then I saw Pupsik who is a sausage dog and he’s got a huge diamond right inside his stomach and the lady let me hold him and he fell asleep on my lap and snored and snored and —’

‘Pupsik? Is that the Lady Lavinia’s dog? Did she bring him to the Ritz?’

‘No, I didn’t go to lunch with them.’ Ollie’s face had gone blank again, a look of defeat flickering in her eyes.

Still trying to make sense of all this, Minna asked, ‘But why, honey?’ Her voice sharpened. ‘Surely they didn’t forget about you?’

‘No, they wanted me to come but… I wasn’t hungry. Well, later I was hungry and I ate four piroshki that Anna’s mother made and some little eggs that fishes lay, all black and slithery, but Pinny wouldn’t let me have any vodka,’ said Ollie, frowning at the only cloud on an otherwise flawless afternoon.

‘But where was this, Ollie?’

‘At the Russian Club. Anna took me there. It’s where she goes, and her friends. It’s lovely and Cousin Sergei was there and he has white, white teeth and he spoke to me in French and afterwards he gave me a piggyback to the taxi and he said -‘

She was off again. Minna let her run on and said no more about the fitting or the bridesmaid’s dress. But that night she tackled Tom.

‘Tom, I can’t understand what happened in London. Why did Ollie spend the afternoon with Anna? I thought she was supposed to be having lunch with you and the bridesmaids?’

‘Yes, well…’ Tom’s shifty expression was so ridiculously like Ollie’s that Minna, worried as she was, managed a smile. ‘She got very tired, you know how it is in those hot shops. So Anna took her off to her place - it was her day off, you see, and I’d given her a lift to town. And I must say I was most grateful to her because it was absolutely grim at the Ritz. You can’t imagine what those girls are like.’

And Tom flushed. Whether or not the hot, sharp imprint that he had felt while eating his vichyssoise, wedged between a screen and a potted palm had or had not been the Lady Lavinia’s knee, the whole thing had been a nightmare. Only for Rupert would he have endured the company of two women who might have been hand-picked for all that was most objectionable in the female sex. And in the hope of diverting his stepmother he began, most entertainingly, to tell her about his lunch.

But though Minna listened with amusement, it was impossible to deflect her from arrjranxiety that touched her stepdaughter and when she had finished laughing and commiserating with Tom, she said, ‘But all the same, something must have gone wrong at that fitting. You know how Ollie went on and on about her dress and how wonderful Muriel was and now suddenly she won’t talk about it at all. She just shuts up like a clam. And though she obviously had a lovely time with Anna, I feel that underneath she’s had some kind of shock.’

Tom was silent. Muriel was Rupert’s chosen bride. Living at Mersham, she would be their closest neighbour and Minna would find it impossible not to be involved and friendly. There was no point in making mischief. So he shook his head and said: ‘Nothing happened, Mother. As far as I am aware it all went perfectly well.’

Minna stared at her stepson. The Byrnes were bruising riders, passionate lovers and gallant soldiers. As liars, however, they had always been bottom of the class.

‘Tom, I try not to fuss about OHie, not to pamper her. But what she has to deal with is not easy. If anything goes wrong she can become bitter and twisted for life. And to help her, I have to know, I have to have the facts. What did happen at Fortman’s?’

So Tom told her.

Minna said nothing then or later. No breath of criticism escaped her lips and she continued to prepare for the ball as if Muriel were a beloved daughter or dear friend. Only once, as she stepped into her huge, cavernous kitchens and Monsieur Bourget rushing forward, said excitedly: ‘I ‘ave just ‘eard that Miss ‘ardwicke eats nothing that ‘as in it alcohol so I cannot cook, I cannot function, I cannot exist? Minna, forgetting herself for the first and only time, said, ‘Miss Hardwicke will eat anything that is served to her in this house. Anything.’

The news that the ball was to be in fancy dress had profoundly depressed Lord Byrne, who had at first been convinced that his wife was joking.

‘You’re not serious, Min? You mean I’m to dress up as some ridiculous cowboy or something? I won’t do it!’

‘Muriel asked me, Harry. She has a dress she particularly wants to wear.’

‘Well, let her wear it then. But you can’t expect me to go gallivanting round my own place making a complete idiot of myself.’

‘I thought maybe you could wear one of the military uniforms out of the costume gallery. They’re really not so different from your dress uniform for the Cold-streams. And it would please her so much.’

‘Not sure that I want to please her all that much,’ snorted Lord Byrne. ‘Met poor little Miss Tonks coming out of the church today when I went to see the sexton about old Hunston’s grave. Seems Muriel doesn’t like her flower arrangements - says they’re too countrified. Won’t have “The Voice That Breathed O’er Eden” either, Morland tells me. Got Miss Frensham trying to read some newfangled hymn and she’s as blind as a bat, poor soul.’

Minna sighed. She had not told her husband what Muriel had said to OHie. but the fear that Muriel had done some real and permanent damage to the child was always present in her mind.

Lord Byrne looked at his wife. He’d married her blind, knowing nothing about her except that she had a quiet voice, a sensible manner and some spare cash. Now, eight years later, he would have died for her without a second’s hesitation. To dress up as a hussar in Wellington’s army would be harder, but he would do it.

‘What about Tom?’ he asked. ‘Does he know about all this dressing up?’

Minna nodded. ‘I’m relying on Ollie to bring him round. Hugh’s the one who’s made most fuss. He actually got the headmaster to let him ring from Craigston to complain. The friend he’s bringing down doesn’t have anything to dress up in. So I said their cadet uniform would be all right.’

Lord Byrne nodded. ‘Rabinovitch won’t like it,’ he said darkly, allowing himself a moment of glee.

Lord Byrne was right. Rabinovitch didn’t like it. Informed by Hannah that he was to attend the ball at Heslop in fancy dress, Rabinovitch turned his liquid frog eyes on his wife and said: ‘Hannerle, make not the stupid jokes.’

‘I don’t joke, Leo. Minna has asked that we dress up. It is for Miss Hardwicke who wishes to be the Pompadour.’

‘And because some stupid shiksa wishes to be -‘

‘Leo! Miss Hardwicke is a most charming girl.’

The conversation now descended into rapid and agitated Yiddish, ending, as was to be expected, in defeat for Leo who agreed to add a red cummerbund to his evening clothes provided it was understood that this, and this alone, would turn him into a bullfighter.