Una looked round.She could just make out Edith, waving and tapping on the window from inside the breakfast room of Drake Hall.She waved a teacup about enticingly.
Yes.Tea, even in the lively atmosphere of Drake Hall, would settle her nerves better than anything.
When Una came in, Edith was at the breakfast table with her youngest child, Margaret, on her knee, spooning bread and milk into her O-shaped mouth, and the twins were nowhere to be seen.Una sighed in relief.She approved of this child thoroughly—Margaret was fat and restful, and made such a nice picture on her mother’s lap, like some Italian painting that Pip would know the name of.
A bunch of narcissus against the blue and white china on the table and the morning’s letters spread out on the white cloth completed the picture of domestic bliss.Frances, the magnificent salamander matriarch, was stretched out on the window seat, her blackness heating up in the morning sun.She had knocked a few books and letters onto the floor, but no one seemed to mind.
There was always a certain amount of chaos at Drake Hall, but Una had to admit it was a happy sort of chaos.
Una glimpsed a foreign postmark on one of the letters.It must be from Helena Drake, Simon’s adoptive mother, who was convalescing in Europe indefinitely.She was delicate, and the climate of Italy suited her far better than rainy Ormdale.
“I’ve had a letter from the Belmonte side of the family,” said Edith.“From Irene.You remember her?”
Una nodded.She had last seen Irene Belmonte at Margaret’s christening two years ago.Una had been mildly fascinated to see one of the most prominent ladies of London Jewish society standing near the font itself, her French clothes shimmering with embroidery.
The Belmontes existed at the very pinnacle of London society.Una thought of them as dwelling far above them, on a distant peak shrouded in silks and velvets instead of clouds.Edith occasionally ascended to them—like Moses on Mount Sinai—but the rest of them remained safe at the base of the mountain.
Margaret batted at her mother’s teacup.Una shifted the child onto her own knee for a bit so Edith could enjoy her tea in peace.Margaret wriggled into position good-naturedly.Perhaps it might be all right to be a mother if you had a child like Margaret, Una thought.But that was the problem with children—they were like those knicknacks in the bucket of bran at the charity bazaar.There was no way of knowing what they’d be until it was too late, and you had to smile and pretend it was just what you’d wanted all along.
“The fact is, she’s written to me about you,” said Edith, finishing her tea and pouring Una some.
Una, still thinking about babies in bran buckets, gave a start.“Me?”
“She wants to take you under her wing,” Edith said.
Herwing?Una vividly recalled the half-cloak Mrs Belmonte had worn, the lining the colour of a ripe apricot.Edith had amazed her by divulging that Mrs Belmonte went every year to Paris for a new wardrobe.Una was not sure Paris was quite real.She might as well have said Fairyland.
“I mean, present you to society,” Edith explained.“That sort of thing.You’re exactly the right age for it now.And I thought, with so many changes happening—perhaps you might be ready for a change yourself.”
Una blinked.“But—didn’t Mrs Belmonte see the paper?I’m disgraced.”
Edith gave a wry smile.“I suspect that’s why she wrote.Irene is terribly clever that way.It would be the perfect way to tell society that you have nothing to be ashamed of, you see.That, in fact, even your highest connections are proud to know you, Una.”
“It’s very kind of her,” acknowledged Una, though she was surprised Edith seemed to consider it a good time for Una to run off—it seemed to Una as if the menagerie was particularly vulnerable at the moment.“But I don’t see how Icouldleave.”
Edith dropped a soft fresh roll dusted with flour onto Una’s plate.“Would it make any difference to you if Gwendolyn thought it was a good idea?”
“Does she?”asked Una, giving another start.Everything seemed to be startling her this morning.Was this how brain-fever began?Did one catch brain-fever from being outside all night?
“I’m quite sure she would,” Edith said.“You’d see her in London, you know, and you’d live with Irene and my grandmother and my uncle David.It wouldn’t beallnew faces.Though I’m sure people will be very eager to make your acquaintance.”
Una did not find this comforting in the least.What was the daughter of England’s First Dragon Family supposed to be, removed from her natural habitat?Would she be able to take Oolong?How would she manage in an entirely new environment, where she didn’t know the rules?
Una caught herself.She sounded like Violet.Was this how Violet felt?How ghastly it must be, this feeling of being completely untethered from a place.Why did people ever go anywhere?
Una drew a long breath.She disliked disappointing the Belmontes, but she hated disappointing Edith.
“I’m so very sorry,” said Una.“Please tell Mrs Belmonte I’m terribly grateful for her kindness.But I can’t possibly leave the menagerie at present.”
Una wiped crumps off one of Margaret’s little starfish hands with a sense of relief.She had saidat presentbut she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to leave.She knew exactly who she was in Ormdale.She was needed, useful and capable here.Wasn’t that all she had ever hoped for?And if she was sometimes poked a little, and plagued with worries and nerves—well, that was something that happened to everyone, surely, and it would be worse if everything about her was new all the time.
Edith’s face grew solemn.“Did you know, when I first got to know your oldest sister she believed that she couldn’t leave Ormdale?”
Una stopped jiggling Margaret.Was there to be no end of shocks this morning?
“Gwendolyn thought that?”Una asked in amazement.
Edith nodded.“She was very gothic about it.She had a sort of idea that the abbeyownedher, in some sinister way.It took a while for her to get that out of her head.I know Gwendolyn wants you to have choices of your own, Una.We all do.Of course we love having you here!Nobody wants you to go away, you mustn’t think that.But love doesn’t lock people up—I learned that years ago.”
