The House at Tyneford (6 page)

I found myself in a room decorated in white and gilt, red velvet sofas piled high with tasselled cushions and a thick, plush pile carpet. There was a delicious aroma of coffee and freshly baked pastries, and my mouth watered. I stood there, as I considered Violetta would have stood, haughty, impervious, and I must have been quite good, as a smart woman in a staunch black frock sailed toward me across the carpet, her face fixed with a practised smile—polite, professional, with a twist of subservience.

“Madam, may I take your coat?”

Not deigning to speak, I allowed her to remove my jacket from my shoulders and usher me to one of the sumptuous sofas.

“Some coffee? A little cake perhaps?” she asked, as soon as I was comfortably settled.

I felt a little puff of relief. These were questions I had answered many times in my English lessons with Anna.

“Yes, if you please. I would very much like some café.”

She froze. Her tight smile, no longer quite so polite, contracted even tighter.

“You are from Germany?”

“Austria. Vienna.”

“And you are looking for a maid?”

I smiled at her pleasantly, practising indifference, and fished out the crumpled letter from my skirt pocket.

“I am Fräulein . . . excusing me . . . Miss Elise Landau, and I am to Tyneford House.”

The woman’s smile disappeared altogether and she reached out and hauled me up from the sofa with a strong hand, as I realise now, clearly furious at her mistake. How could she have been tricked into treating a refugee, a servant, with the grovelling respect due to an English lady? It was outrageous.

“You came through the wrong door. This entrance is for ladies only.”

She thrust my coat at me. “Go outside and enter through the other door.”

I stared at her, rooted to my spot on the carpet, left arm in the right sleeve of my coat, and tried to remember that I was not Elise but Violetta. I remembered that envious women were always trying to humiliate Violetta (as well as steal her boyfriends, all while she was dying of consumption) and felt a little better. My coat trailing along the ground behind me, I performed my best flounce and left.

Standing outside on the pavement, I leaned against the railings and looked about for another entrance. A flight of steps led down into a basement, and at the bottom, set into a flaking wall, was another black door. It had no brass knocker, only a sign saying PLEASE WALK IN. I descended the stairs, taking care not to slip on the rotting leaves caught in the treads.

There were no sofas, plush carpets or gilt mirrors in this room. Peeling brown linoleum covered the floor and low wooden benches were set against the walls. Girls sat on one side and a few men on the opposite. Glancing along the row, I realised that all the girls looked like me: pale-faced refugees, anxious and yet remembering Mother’s command to sit up straight, expensive gloves clasped between damp fingers. An older couple, he in a well-cut suit and she in a fur stole, sat together on the women’s bench, hand in hand. They looked like they were about to go out for lunch, rather than serve it. I wondered what he had been before: a banker? a violinist? Would she set down her fur on the counter before setting to peeling carrots?

I must have sat there for several hours, watching a moth bash its paper wings against the dangling electric light fitting. I watched the couple go up to the desk together and managed to eavesdrop the odd word: “a situation together . . . butler . . . housekeeper . . . yes, I suppose gardener and cook would do . . .”

“Next maid . . . You. To the desk.”

It took me a moment to realise that the woman with the half-moon spectacles and the ramrod back was calling to me. My cheeks burning, I hurried to the desk and sat down. She peered at me with small blue eyes.

“Manners, please. You may be appointed to one of the finest establishments in all of England. Or Scotland,” she added as an afterthought. “Do you have any experience in domestic service?”

I stared at her, slowly translating her words in my head.

“Well,” she demanded, impatient, “cat caught your tongue?”

This was such a strange expression that I giggled in spite of myself and then, realising my mistake, slapped my hand in front of my mouth. Hastily I pulled out Mrs. Ellsworth’s crumpled epistle from my pocket and pushed it across the table. She read in silence and then looked up at me.

“Well, you are a very lucky girl, Elise. Mr. Rivers comes from a fine old family. Not titled, but ancient nonetheless. You must try to be deserving of his faith in you,” she said in a tone that revealed she thought this most unlikely. “I don’t want to see you back again in a week or two because the work was hard. I had a woman in, a month back, who said she’d been a countess or something. Said she’d never even put on her own stockings before; and if we wasn’t in the midst of such a servant shortage, I would have sent her packing. But then this morning I got a note from Mrs. Forde, saying that Mrs. Baronstein was the best char she’d ever had.”

She disappeared into a side room, returning a minute later with an envelope, which she thrust at me. “Here. Take this. There are sufficient funds for your journey and instructions. You are to take the 8:17 train from Waterloo to Weymouth tomorrow morning. You will be met at Wareham station.”

She studied me for a moment before adding, “I know exactly how much money is in that envelope so don’t go telling Mrs. Ellsworth that it was not enough, or I shall find you out, so help me God.”

I snatched up my letter and, stuffing it into my coat pocket along with the money, strolled past the benches of waiting refugees and former countesses.

Lying on the narrow bed that night, still wearing my now crumpled clothes, I sobbed myself to sleep, dizzy with homesickness.

At 8:19 the next morning, I sat in the third-class carriage of the Weymouth train as it chugged out of Waterloo. My trunk and suitcase were stashed in the luggage car, while I sat sandwiched between two matronly ladies, and, to my chagrin, every time the train lurched left or right I was propelled into the bosom of one or other. Neither lady appeared to notice, but I was extremely glad when one disembarked at Croydon and I was able to slide up to the window seat. I pressed my face against the glass, and through my own reflection I watched the sprawl of London stretch on and on. I had never seen so much grey in my life; the only pinprick of colour was the odd red sweater or yellow frock, fluttering among the dull whites on the washing lines. The small terraced houses backing onto the railway, with their ragged patchwork gardens and dirt-encrusted windows, reminded me of the glimpse into my old neighbours’ lives in the apartments across the street.

My stomach growled. I had eaten the meagre breakfast provided by the hostel, but had no money for lunch, except for the remaining coins in the envelope. I shuddered as I recalled her threat—I couldn’t possibly spend a halfpenny of that money on a bread roll. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I ended up in prison—I rather doubted Julian could help me here.

A young man in a cheap suit smelling of cologne and cigarettes climbed onto the train and, slamming the carriage door, settled opposite me. He gave me a little smile and a nod before unfolding his newspaper. I tried to read the headlines. In my quiet cocoon of unhappiness I had forgotten the outside world for a day or two and had heard no news.
London smog reaches record level... Royal Family embark on voyage to America . . . Is Czechoslovakia next?
I tried to read more, but the print was too small.

“Miss, you want to read?”

I looked up and saw that the young man proffered the newspaper. I hadn’t realised, but I was perched on the edge of my seat.

“Thank you. Please. Yes. I would like very much.”

I took the paper and began to read the article, slowly and yet fairly fluently. I could understand written English quite easily. I felt him watching me.

“Is you from Czechoslovakia then, miss?”

I lowered the
Daily Mail
in surprise. “No, Austria. Vienna.”

“Ah, Vi-enna. I’ve heard of that. Beautiful canals. The Doodge Palace.”

I sighed—the English were as ignorant as Margot had claimed. “No, that is Venice. In Italy.”

From his expression, I could see that this meant nothing. I tried again. “I am from Vienna. Austria?”

He stared at me, smiling blankly, and it was quite apparent that he hadn’t the slightest idea about Vienna. I didn’t know why I should care, and yet it irked me that this overly familiar young man in a shiny suit with a dried egg stain on his left trouser leg knew nothing of my city.

“Beg your pardon?”

I blinked at him again, realising that I’d been speaking in German. “Please excusing me. My English language is not so good. Vienna is best city in all world.”

He gave me an odd look. “Why you here then?”

I had neither the words nor the inclination to answer. I racked my brains for a suitable phrase. “I am explorer. In-tepid.”

I turned back to the window. I wasn’t sure when, but we had left London and were rushing through a verdant land. It began to rain and drops hammered against the windows. We hurtled past cows sheltering beneath clumps of trees and wool-soaked sheep and brimming rivers slopping against their banks. The stations became smaller and the time between them lengthened. The metalled roads winding beside the railway were replaced by dirt tracks, turning to muddy soup in the deluge. I wished I had not packed my raincoat at the bottom of my trunk.

The train travelled more slowly. I could see vast country houses, each the size of an entire apartment building, marooned in swaths of meadow like ocean liners. After the drab squalor of the city, I felt I was not gazing upon reality but a stage set daubed in make-believe colours. The grass was too green, and the banks of primroses beside the tracks bright as fresh butter. I listened to the strange place-names called by the guard: “Next stop Brockenhurst . . . Change here for Blandford Forum and the slow train to Sturminster Newton
. . .
Next stop Christchurch . . .”

I felt drowsy, and my limbs were stiff, while my temples pulsed with the rhythm of the train. It was stuffy inside the carriage and I wrenched open the window and leaned out, enjoying the wind rushing against my cheeks and tearing at the pins fastening my hair. I opened my mouth and tasted salt. We hurtled along wild heath tangled with scrub and black swaths of forest. The trees stretched endlessly into the distance, a mass of swaying green, rippling up and down the sloping hills.

“Next stop Wareham. Wareham next stop,” called the guard, hurrying through the train.

I stood in a rush, heart beating in my ears, and snatched up my satchel and the viola case. I wobbled on my feet as the train shuddered to a halt, fumbled with the door, hands shaking, and climbed out onto the platform. Frightened that the train would leave with my belongings, I shouted for the guard and ran to the luggage car.

“Which one is it, miss? Hurry up now. Train needs to be off.”

Thirty seconds later, I was standing alone on the station platform.

“E
lise Landau?”

“Yes?”

I looked up and saw a lean man of at least seventy years, shoulders slightly stooped, standing at the end of the platform and chewing on a pipe with extreme concentration. He ambled across to me in no particular hurry and glanced at my luggage.

“Yorn?”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. He spat the pipe out of his mouth and enunciated with exaggerated clarity.

“Them baggages is what be belongin’ ter you?”

“Yes.”

Muttering something under his breath, he disappeared down the platform again at the same slow lope, reappearing a few minutes later with a trolley. With surprising ease he heaved on the bags and trundled it toward the front of the station.

“Mr. Bobbin don’t like ter be kept waitin’,” he said gruffly.

I attempted to smooth my dress and hair, while scurrying to keep up. In my experience chauffeurs were invariably impatient. The old man led the way to a cobbled yard, where a smart motorcar waited, engine running, but my companion walked past it, stopping instead beside a ramshackle wooden cart attached to a massive carriage horse, nose buried in a stash of hay.

“Ah. Mr. Bobbin,” he said, letting out a small, satisfied sigh.

In those days, carriages and carts were still a common sight in Vienna, but they belonged to tinkers and coal merchants, or farmers bringing goods to market. I had understood Mr. Rivers to be a wealthy man and presumed him the owner of at least one motorcar. I experienced a strange feeling in my belly as I realised that Mr. Rivers may indeed have a smart motorcar and simply did not choose to send it and his chauffeur to collect the new housemaid. As I idled, my luggage was unceremoniously tossed in the back of the cart and, after clambering onto the driving seat, the old man reached down and hauled me up with a strong arm.