Valhalla, p.10
Valhalla, page 10
‘What a splendid idea. They tell me Menton is particularly lovely at this time of year.’
And so it went. The plan was executed, but not without a bump in the road. When, through Uncle George, it reached the ears of Bertie, he put his foot down with a stomp that echoed from Norfolk all the way to Richmond Park. No more than his sainted mother, was he averse to the continuing role of young May Teck as his prospective daughter-in-law yet, for a man who had conducted his life with notorious impropriety, he could be oddly sensitive to appearances. Uncle George was dispatched to tell his sister, most politely, that it would be preferable if the Tecks were, in the present sad circumstances, to reside at a greater distance from their grieving cousins at Menton. A little more delicacy might be helpful in bringing the ship into safe harbour. Though fond of his cousin Mary Adelaide, he considered that a little of her went a very long way. And oh there was such a lot of the Duchess.
So Mary Adelaide was compelled to hint to Lady Wolverton that Cannes might in fact be more congenial. And now, May Teck finds herself sitting beneath a palm tree looking out across the azure sheet of the bay. But her lips are pursed, her brow creased, her spirit under siege by forces beyond her control. Mr Thaddy, she thinks, would not want to paint her now. Not like this. Would he even recognise the girl he knew in Florence?
‘You are strong enough to steer by your own star,’ he had said on the night of her seventeenth birthday.
What he would say if he could see her today? Shrinking back once more from the light. The nervous child who, enthralled by the beauty of the hummingbird, had finally summoned the courage to stick her finger in its cage. But life has bitten May Teck now, so she tends her wounds and retreats from it again. She does not go on the excursions to the Ile Sainte Marguerite or to the luncheons on Cap d’Antibes. She hides under the palm tree, the book unread in her lap.
‘I fear I am getting more reserved than ever,’ she writes home to Madame Bricka. ‘But what can I do to prevent it?’
In her bedroom, on a rosewood escritoire by the window, she has placed a framed photograph of Eddy. In the nights when she cannot sleep, she turns on the lamp beside the picture and thinks of him. Odd images come. The patterns of the wallpapers she had chosen for their first home. The barren courtyard she would have transformed into a haven of flowers and shrubs where children might one day play. Eddy sitting on the great ivory throne, herself in a curtsey before him. The awful tableau of the little bedroom on the east front.
She had promised she would never leave him, that she would support him and she had meant it. What joys there might have been. Why does nobody around her seem to think of that? To understand that she is truly grieving, not just in her mourning weeds, but in her heart and soul?
‘They only expect me to regret the loss of good fortune, not of the man himself,’ she writes to Bricka. ‘Is that not quite dreadful? But when I am alone with my thoughts, I do miss him so.’
She does not tell Bricka of the other feelings though. The ones that come in the night, when she sees Eddy’s face up close to hers, handsome and hazy through the smoke from his Turkish cigarettes or when she remembers the warm closeness of his body on the little sofa, the pink tip of his tongue when he looked at her breasts. Dear Lord, she is almost twenty-five years old now. She was lying to herself when she laughingly contemplated her place on the shelf, straight-backed and unconcerned. All the time these feelings grow stronger. Sometimes her own fingers assuage her for a while. But how long is she to wait for this fulfilment? How she wishes she could talk about it to someone but, my God, that would not be the done thing at all; certainly not to her mother, not even to Bricka.
This apart, it is the correspondence with her tutor that is her lifeline and gives her connection to the white sitting room.
‘Bien Chere Amie, do write me one of your clever letters,’ May pleads, ‘and tell me of anything interesting happening in the thinking world. Here there is too much gossip. Here I see nothing but women, women, women. And oh how silly so many of them are. Do they not see it?’
In this though she is partly wrong and she knows it. The machinations going on around her may be unfeeling but they are hardly silly. Far too much rides upon them for that. Georgie and his Papa will come to lunch tomorrow and there is nothing she can do to stop it. Alix and the awful Wales girls will remain at Menton; there is little reason for them to come too. This is man’s work after all. This is a business trip.
And so May Teck sits alone in a far corner of the terraced gardens, trying to hide from what is being done in her name.
XIII
1892
In the night she prays for a thunderstorm that might put them off or a landslide that would block the road. But no, it is another beautiful day, with just a few balls of cumulus daubed onto a luminous sky. As usual, her dresser pulls her corsets tight and buttons her up inside her very best black gown. For once, May is glad of the constriction, of the bonds that encompass her. She will never get through this otherwise.
Poor Georgie, she thinks. What little she knows of him, she likes well enough, but she cannot bear the thought of seeing him. What will they say to one another? How can she look him in the eye?
At the sight of Bertie heaving himself out of the landau, her heart begins to pump. Though he has always been kind to her, she is a little afraid of him. Those hooded Hanoverian eyes that see everything. But today he embraces her gently and the eyes grow moist at the sight of her.
Georgie comes forward, kisses her hand and smiles a flaccid smile. How wan and drained he still looks, his cheeks sunken against the bones. Poor Georgie, she thinks again.
‘Dear Miss May,’ he says. The name for her which he always uses. ‘How very nice.’
After that Georgie says nothing at all. The guests are shown round the gardens before luncheon. The Duchess takes Bertie by the arm and pulls him ahead along the paths; the Duke does the same with Lady Wolverton. They never look back. The ploy is obvious, excruciating. May and Georgie must bring up the rear. In places the way is narrow and they have to walk shoulder to shoulder. She begins to tremble a little and drops her cream silk parasol, the breeze wafting it into a flowerbed. Georgie runs to retrieve it. How funny he looks in his smart linen suit, standing in a bed of aconites holding a lady’s parasol. She almost smiles and he sees it. For the first time, a little colour comes into his face.
‘Thank you, Georgie.’
‘Um, I’m afraid it’s landed right on a spot where your dog has done its business. So it’s now somewhat… um… soiled.’
‘Well let’s just leave it there, shall we?’ she replies. ‘One of the gardeners can dispose of it.’
For the first time in nearly three months, May Teck laughs her vulgar laugh. And now he looks at her properly. Now, just for a moment, a grin inflates his sunken cheeks.
Luncheon is laid on the upper terrace. May and Georgie scuttle back into silence. Not that there is any need for them to speak. The Duchess prattles on about Lord This and Lady That while Bertie eases the pain with a fine Côtes de Provence, wolfs his way through six courses and burps discreetly into the clear sea air. After coffee, the Duchess suggests that he might like to see the aviary up behind the villa. Though perhaps, she says, that might be rather boring for the young people; perhaps they should remain here and play a game of bezique. What Bertie really wants after six courses is a little nap. He looks at her as if she is mad until the penny drops, then drags himself dutifully in her wake towards the bluebirds and the parakeets.
May has always hated bezique. Yet she is compelled to learn it as a necessary accomplishment. Ridiculous. An accomplishment which accomplishes nothing. She does not recall the heroines of Middlemarch or The Mill On The Floss playing bezique. But now she and Georgie sit obediently at the card table in the library, like two ill-behaved children kept in after school. They play in near silence, their eyes fixed on the cards. Only now and then, when she is sure he is concentrating, does she allow herself a glance.
As it was with Eddy, she hardly knows him. And the brothers were chalk and cheese; Georgie much shorter, scarcely taller than herself, though broad and fit. The bulldog to Eddy’s greyhound. Nor is he anywhere near as handsome as his swan-like sibling. Though the features are good enough, they are hidden behind a sailor’s bushy beard from out of which peek two garishly red lips. And the quality that Eddy had, the one that stirred something within her, is not there.
She has been told he can be spirited and merry, though she has not yet encountered it. Like her own, his eyes are bright blue, but she has never yet seen joy in them. He was already sick with the typhoid fever when she and Eddy became engaged and the aura of it hangs round him still. In the little bedroom of the house in Norfolk he was just one more in a sea of faces drowning in shock and disbelief, clutching at any shred of hope till the last breath rattled in the throat. Caught up then in her own grief, she had no energy left to recognise that of the brother. But now, suddenly, as she peruses her cards, he lets her see it.
‘It is eleven weeks,’ he says without looking up, as he scribbles their scores on the back of an envelope.
‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘I know.’
‘Do you really?’ he asks.
‘Of course I do. And twelve next Thursday.’
Georgie glances at her now, surprise on his face.
‘You cared for him then? A little?’
‘More than a little,’ she replies. ‘And it would have become a lot.’
The blue eyes glaze over. He swallows hard.
‘I’m so pleased to hear that,’ he says. ‘One never knows… um… in such arrangements.’
Georgie reaches out across the card table. For a moment she thinks he will take her hand in his, but he simply pats the back of it as if she were a puppy before pulling away again.
‘Thank you, Miss May,’ he says.
They play on for a while. She feels something more should be said, but knows not what. Then she is emboldened.
‘You must feel the loss, Georgie.’
‘Yes.’
The word is no more than a strangled whisper escaping, as if by accident, from the bright red lips but getting somehow lost in the beard. He holds up the pen he is using to keep the scores.
‘This was his. I shall use it till the day I die.’
The game is over. She quite forgets to let him win as she intended. Voices are heard from outside; the expedition to the aviary is returning.
‘Well Georgie, and when do you return to sea?’ she asks, gathering up the cards.
‘To sea?’ he replies, as if it is the silliest question he has ever heard. ‘The sea is over for me now. So much is over for me now. Everything has changed. Surely you must understand that?’
For a moment, she sees the fear in his eyes. How very like it is to the fear she saw in his brother on the day she had made him sit on the ivory throne of Travancore.
Out on the terrace, May feels her mother’s gaze bore into them, like a gypsy trying to read a palm. And how are our two young people getting along, she asks? May cringes, sees Georgie cringe too. If she had the strength to lift her mother up and fling her over the terrace wall into the flowerbeds below, she would do it this instant. Bury her where she falls, rip up a few spring flowers, throw them on top and walk away. Of all the blushes her mother has caused her in her young life, this is perhaps the worst. The anger blazes through her again. How dare they do this to her? And to poor Georgie?
The visit is done. The landau is sent for. Bows and curtseys and kisses. Bertie screws up his eyes as he bestows one on the Duchess. But when it is May’s turn, he takes her chin gently in his podgy hand as if trying to ascertain how well she fares.
‘We’ve seen such trials together, have we not dear girl?’ he says. ‘But the sight of you today does me good.’
Georgie hangs back a little, examining the bridles on the horses. As their hooves paw the gravel, anxious to be off, he does the same with his foot.
‘Well goodbye, Georgie,’ she says, going across to him. The red lips kiss her quickly on the cheek. The blue eyes return to the gravel. His foot paws the ground again. He is struggling to speak. How hard, she thinks, do words come from him. Like blood from a stone.
‘Just eleven weeks,’ he says, as if making some sort of apology.
‘Twelve on Thursday,’ she replies.
‘Twelve on Thursday. Still so soon, don’t you think? So very soon.’
He makes to climb into the landau, then turns back to her.
‘You would have made him a fine wife, Miss May,’ he says quietly. ‘As I’m sure you will for somebody else one day.’
And then he is gone. Before the landau is out of sight down the hill, her parents have her pinned against the wall. Like dentists with pliers, they try to extract every word, every intonation, every expression. They anaesthetise her with compliments on how well she has conducted herself today, but it is extraction nonetheless. Isn’t Georgie such a fine boy? Wasn’t it sweet of him to dash into the flowerbed for your parasol? What did you talk about? Did he comment on how much better you’re looking? And what was it he whispered as he climbed into the landau? Oh, do tell us May.
And she does tell them. The Duchess’s smile wobbles and falters.
‘As I’m sure you will for somebody else one day?’ she repeats. ‘What a singular thing to say. What on earth does that mean? To whom he might be referring? Oh, he’s an odd fish, dear Georgie. Always was.’
What May does not tell is that, as she studied her cards at the bezique table, she had caught Georgie looking at her breasts. The tip of a pink tongue had appeared between the bright red lips.
May is exhausted now. The day is hot. She goes up to her room for a nap. From the window, she sees her parents pacing the gardens, heads close together. The Duke throws his arms up in the air, slumps onto a bench and puts his head in his hands. The Duchess rubs his back as if he is a baby with wind. Calm yourself Francis or you will make yourself ill again. Patience my dear, patience.
The next morning, on the little balconies of the hotels and villas that look out across the bay towards the Esterel, a neatly folded local newspaper lies in wait beside the orange juice, the coffee pot and the pain au chocolat. Eagerly, it records the visit of the Prince of Wales and his son to their cousins the Duke and Duchess of Teck, currently residing at a villa in the hills. The tragic families reunite, they report, still searching together for a way through their grief. But might there not be a glimmer of sunshine on the horizon? A happy ending to a sad tale? The newspaper undertakes to keep its readers informed of all developments. Indeed its readers will be the very first to know, it promises, far in advance of those misguided enough to take a competitive journal.
It is not just the newspapers of the Riviera, but also those of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Madame Bricka writes to tell her so. The tradesmen of Richmond and Sheen are keeping their fingers crossed. Hope rises in the hearts of the couturiers of Bond Street; will the trousseau soon be paid for after all? From John O’Groats to Land’s End, at the breakfast tables of the great and good, the clever and the stupid, the ardent monarchist and the sour-faced republican, it is soon known that Prince George has played bezique with Princess May of Teck. The spy is found to be a discontented parlour maid. She is dismissed on the spot without a reference.
It is not long before Lady Wolverton’s lease is up and they must think of England. But when May Teck thinks of it, she flinches. She pictures the platform at Victoria Station, that very same one from which they had headed into exile so long ago. The panting tribe of newspapermen at the barrier; the crowds of people eager to catch a glimpse of her. All those strangers who know so much of her, although she knows nothing of them. All those eyes trying to discern what she is thinking, feeling. How dare they? With every day, she withdraws a little more.
Her trunks are retrieved from the cellar and deposited in her bedroom ready for her dresser to start packing. She stares at the great things, their mouths agape, waiting to swallow the corsets and the petticoats, the shoes and the hose, the hats and all the black gowns. Suddenly she feels sick. Her hands grip the cool sides of the marble basin as the sweat breaks out on her brow and her stomach retches. Nothing comes, though she wishes it might. When the spasm passes, she sits on the bed and trembles. Then the good, sensible girl becomes someone else entirely. The rage in her belly rushes to her head. Now, she thinks. Now, something must be said, something acknowledged. At last. Right this damn minute.
It is early in the evening, just before dinner. Her parents are on the upper terrace with a decanter of Lady Wolverton’s sherry. The sun sinks lower over the pink-hued mountains, turning them to a bold reddish-black. Pleasure boats steam back into harbour from the Ile Sainte Marguerite. The lights from the town begin to spread up the hillside, a riviere of tiny diamonds on bottle-green velvet. May grips the back of a small bamboo garden chair.
‘Mama, Papa. I’m not going home,’ she says.
‘We don’t want to go home either, chick,’ the Duchess sighs. ‘Do we, Francis? Oh, how I’ll miss this view. It is forever printed on my heart.’
‘I’m not in jest, Mama,’ she says. ‘I refuse to return to England for the time being. All this talk. I simply can’t bear it.’
‘And what talk is that, chick?’
‘You know perfectly well, Mama. The talk of which we do not speak. Or rather of which you both speak all the time, but behind closed doors, never to me. Never to the person most directly affected. Well we must speak of it now. Dear heaven, I’m far from a child.’
The Duchess is a fox caught in a beam of light. Without waiting for the nearest footman, she helps herself to another sherry, but does not reply. The Duke drums his fingers on his knee. The cicadas sing in the cypress trees. Some plate smashes in the distant kitchen, followed by a curse. May tightens her grip on the bamboo chair.
