Voyage of Innocence. Elizabeth Edmondson

      Claudia, drifting past in a haze of blue, champagne glass in her hand: ‘Does he know you’ve borrowed them?’

      Alfred, laughing, asking if that was guesswork or the famous Vere insight. ‘As it happens, I thought it easier not to ask.’

      ‘What if he has a dance tonight?’

      ‘I dare say he has a spare set. Or he can take a leaf out of my book, and go in flannels.’

      Marcus, in an outrageous gold-threaded waistcoat, sliding through the guests, giving Alfred a kiss: ‘Lovely to see you.’

      ‘Don’t kiss me, Marcus, it’s bad for my reputation as a hard-hitting journalist. The reason for the tails, Vee, is that Ruth issued an ultimatum re dressing, and I rather wanted to come. I need a little frivolity in my hectic and serious life.’

      A heavy sweetness and brilliance from the roses massed in silver bowls around the room. More colour from the women’s long dresses, set off by the austerity of the men’s evening clothes. Sir Iain and a nephew flamboyant in their tartan kilts. An army officer in black and red.

      Marcus noticing the officer: ‘Who’s the handsome soldier?’

      Henry Messenger, darling Harry, dashing and full of life. Joel, watching him watching me, his face stricken, then glowering.

      John Petrus, appearing suddenly, like the demon in the pantomime. Complimenting Claudia and Vee on their looks. A blue glance from Claudia at him, then her eyes fixed on her shoes; how did Petrus so often manage to wipe out Claudia’s gaiety and sense of humour, just by being there?

      Vee seeing Hugh across the room, her face lighting up: ‘Hugh! Oh, Hugh, I’d no idea you were coming! I didn’t know you were back in England.’

      Hugh, almost gaunt, looking rather tense, accepting a glass of champagne from a hovering footman: ‘Couldn’t miss this, not after a three-line whip from Lally. I only got back this morning, and I’ve been a bit rushed.’

      ‘You’re looking frightfully thin.’

      ‘Got a tummy bug that laid me low for a while. Thought my number was up, actually, but a local witch woman looked after me and fed me on foul messes and herby brews; I had to get better, simply to get away from her. Ah, Alfred, good to see you.’

      The dinner table, gleaming and glittering with silver and crystal and white and gold porcelain. Shimmering reflections of faces and jewels in the silver epergnes filled with more flowers.

      Wonderful food, the buzz of conversation, a sense of pleasure almost tangible.

      Ruth Oronsay, addressing her younger guests with sudden seriousness: ‘Youth is a precious time, which vanishes quickly and absolutely. And for your generation, going out into a difficult world, it is doubly precious. You may be called upon to bear terrible responsibilities, just as your fathers were, and then you will look back to this evening and remember the joy of dancing a June night away. Memories of music and light and laughter stay with us all the days of our life; they are the gift that youth bestows upon maturity.’

      Prescient, Lally said to herself now. A touch of the Claudias.

      Sir Iain on his feet, glass in hand, footmen stepping forward to fill glasses, the guests pushing back their chairs and rising to their feet, the younger people light-hearted and amused by the touch of solemnity.

      Sir Iain lifting his glass for the King. Adding another toast, with a smile for his wife. ‘Youth.’

      Ruth Oronsay collecting up the ladies and leading the way to the drawing room. No one lingering over coffee and exquisite hand-made chocolates. Guests streaming out of the house and into the waiting motors, the women sweeping their long skirts out of the way of the men’s gleaming patent shoes. The cars setting off through the wrought iron gates on the way to the ball.

      Lally dozed, then accepted some more ginger cordial, it did seem to be working, then slept, and woke feeling almost human.

      Miss Tyrell was in the cabin, folding clothes.

      ‘I hope I didn’t wake you, Mrs Messenger. You’re a better colour, that’s a good sign.’

      ‘I’m feeling better.’ Lally yawned and stretched. ‘Perhaps you can run me a bath. I don’t suppose they have showers on board, do they?’

      No, they didn’t, of course not. And maybe the bath could wait a little while, it was soothing just to lie there.

      ‘So you were up at Oxford with Mrs Hotspur, were you?’ Miss Tyrell said. ‘Peter was talking about her, but I didn’t pay much attention, what a talker that boy is! Miss Trenchard as was, Verity Trenchard, but they always called her Vee.’

      ‘Do you know her? Oh, you would, of course, I was forgetting she’s Lady Claudia’s cousin.’

      ‘As it happens, I had charge of her for a brief while. I was nanny at the Deanery the summer of 1926.’ She wrapped a piece of tissue paper around a cashmere jumper and tucked in the edges with deft hands. ‘My word, that was a bad time for the family.’

      ‘So you looked after Vee – Mrs Hotspur?’

      Miss Tyrell had the remote look of one gazing into the past. ‘There were three Trenchard children.’

      ‘Three? But I thought …’

      ‘There was the boy, Hugh, he was away at his public school at the time. Then there was Verity, who was twelve, too old to need a nanny. My charge was little Daisy, five years old, and the apple of her parents’ eye. They adored her, and they were heartbroken when she died.’

      ‘Died?’ Lally was appalled. ‘I had no idea! I never knew that Vee had a sister.’

      ‘Diphtheria, there was a lot of it about that year. They blamed Verity for it; they said Daisy must have caught it from her, but since both girls went down with it within days of one another, I had my doubts. There were several cases in the city, Daisy might have picked it up anywhere. Verity was very ill, hers was the life they despaired of, not the little one, but then Daisy took a turn for the worse and died, while Verity recovered. Mrs Trenchard had what you might call a breakdown. Nerves.’

      ‘I’m not surprised.’ Lally closed her eyes, remembering the frightening days of Peter’s illness. ‘How dreadful for her.’

      ‘The one I pitied was Verity. She was the one who suffered most in my opinion. Oh yes, her parents grieved, how do you ever get over such a loss? But to my way of thinking they had two other young lives left to them, and those were the ones who mattered. There was Verity, still very weak after her illness, and then Hugh came home from school, once the whole place had been cleaned and disinfected.’

      ‘It must have been a terrible shock to him, to lose his sister.’

      ‘It was, of course, but he had a head on him, that boy. All the servants went on and on about Daisy, saying she was an angelic child, too good for this world and all that kind of sentimental nonsense. I had my own opinion of her, you get to know about children when you do my job, and you watch them grow up. I heard Hugh say to Vee, as they called her, that it was sad about Daisy, but he reckoned that she’d have grown up to be an unpleasant person; if you were sly and deceitful at five, he said, what hope was there of your growing up into a decent human being?’

      ‘Hugh said that?’ Lally wasn’t surprised. ‘Yes, I can believe it. Hugh never goes in for self-deception, he is the most clear-headed man.’

      ‘Of course, not being a very nice child has nothing to do with the gift of life, and if we only survived on our deserts, then where would most of us be? However, to the parents, to the Dean and his wife, Daisy was their lodestar; perfection itself. A tragedy like that can work in two ways, it pulls a family together or splits them apart. There was no question which it was in that household. The family was already divided, and if I hadn’t known it from the moment I stepped inside the front door, I’d have known it when I heard with my own ears Mrs Trenchard say that she wished Verity had been the one to go,