Magic in Vienna

Cook blew her nose and wiped her eyes. ‘You mean that. Miss Cordelia? Then don’t leave it too long, will you? I’ve been thinking of leaving these last few months, but I’m getting on a bit and there aren’t many jobs going…’

Cordelia took her hands in hers. ‘That’s a promise, Cook. Now I must go.’

She carried her case down to the front door after breakfast, Lady Trescombe had said the car would be there at half-past nine and it was exactly that time. She picked up her case and went outside and the elderly man sitting behind the wheel of a Daimler motor car, got out and took it from her with a cheerful: ‘Good morning, Miss. I’m Bates, the chauffeur.’ He cast an eye over her neat, unspectacular person and smiled very kindly at her. ‘Welcome to Lady Trescombe’s household.’ He held the door of the car open but Cordelia hesitated: ‘May I sit in front with you, Bates? You see, I don’t know much about anything. I don’t mean to pry, but it would be a great help if you could tell me a little about Lady Trescombe and her granddaughter—it’s the first time I’ve had a job you see, and I’m not sure about things…’

Bates shut the car door and ushered her into the seat beside his. ‘Well, now, Miss, where shall I start?’ He started the car and drove smoothly away and Cordelia didn’t look back.

By the time they were nearing Guildford she knew quite a lot; Lady Trescombe was the finest lady anyone could work for; not strong but always kind and good tempered. As for the staff, there was himself, his wife who cooked for them all, Elsie the parlour maid who also looked after Lady Trescombe, and Mrs Trump and Miss Gage who came in daily. ‘And then there’s you Miss and our Miss Eileen. A very nice little girl—a bit lively as you might say, but she being the only one is used to having her own way. You like children, Miss?’

‘Yes, Bates, I do.’ She thought briefly of the twins whom she would so gladly have loved if only they had let her. ‘I hope we shall get on well together.’

They were on the outskirts of Guildford now, bypassing the town and going beyond it into the countryside once more. They were almost on the edge of a small village when Bates swinging the car between brick gate posts went, more slowly now, up a short drive to a pleasant red brick house, old and beautifully maintained, it’s latticed windows shining in the sunshine.

Cordelia had been sternly suppressing panic for the last few miles and all for nothing; nothing could have been kinder than her reception as she went through the door held open by Bates.

It was Mrs Bates, short, stout and cheerful, who trotted into the hall, closely followed by Lady Trescombe and in the little flurry of greetings and instructions about her luggage and the urging into the sitting room where coffee was waiting, she forgot her panic. Presently, when she had drunk her coffee while Lady Trescombe chatted about nothing in particular, she was taken up the oak staircase to a room at the back of the house so that she might unpack and settle in, as Mrs Bates cosily put it.

Alone, Cordelia sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around her. The room was square, neither too big nor too small, with a wide latticed window and a low beamed ceiling. It was furnished simply but with great comfort with well polished oak and flowery chintz. There was a thick quilt on the bed and a small easy chair upholstered in pink velvet by the fireplace as well as a writing desk under the window and flowers and books on the bedside table. She took it all in slowly; after the bare austerity of her own bedroom this was heaven indeed. She went over to the cupboard along one wall and peered into its roomy interior; her clothes would be swallowed up in it. There was a bathroom too, pale pink, with thick fluffy towels and a shelf filled with soaps and bath salts. Cordelia shut her eyes and then opened them again, just to make sure that she wasn’t dreaming.

It was real enough; she gave a long happy sigh and unpacked.

When she went downstairs again she found Lady Trescombe sitting in the drawing room where they had had coffee. She would have to ask just what her duties were and what better than to do it at once? Only she wasn’t given the chance. Lady Trescombe put down the book she was reading and smiled at her.

‘I thought it might be best for you to go into the garden and meet Eileen on your own. She will be at the very end, behind the beech hedge I expect. She knows that you will be accompanying us to Vienna but I didn’t tell her you would be coming today. And may I call you Cordelia?’

‘Of course, Lady Trescombe, and I’d like Eileen to call me that too, if you don’t mind.’

‘I think it a very good idea. Get to know each other today and tomorrow we’ll work out some kind of routine. You will want to go shopping—perhaps in two or three days time? Did I tell you how we are travelling?’

Cordelia shook her head. ‘No, Lady Trescombe.’

‘We fly to Munich and take a small cruise ship down the Danube. A slow way to get to Vienna perhaps, but we shall have a week to get to know each other and if Eileen is feeling doubtful about meeting her uncle and her life with him, you will have the opportunity to reassure her. I should warn you that I intend to do nothing during the week; I shall rely upon you to entertain Eileen and keep her happy; we shall meet for lunch and dinner of course, but I shall put you in sole charge.’

She gave Cordelia a questioning look as she spoke and Cordelia returned the look calmly; if Lady Trescombe was hinting delicately that Eileen was going to be difficult she refused to let it fluster her; no one, she considered, could be more difficult than her own stepsister; if she could emerge unscathed from a number of years of dealing with tantrums and rudeness and not be paid for it either, then she could certainly cope with Eileen. She stood up. ‘I’ll go and meet her now, shall I?’

The french windows were open on to the garden beyond and she strolled off, making for the beech hedge in as casual a manner as she could manage. She had no doubt that Lady Trescombe would be watching from the house to see if she were showing any signs of nerves. She reached the beech hedge and went, still unhurriedly, beyond it and, just as Lady Trescombe had said, found Eileen lying on the grass reading.

She hadn’t heard Cordelia, so there was time to study her; she was tall for her age, Cordelia judged, and slim to the point of thinness. She had an untidy mane of dark curly hair and denim trousers and a cotton top which she wore, although crumpled, were exactly what a clothes conscious child of her age would choose.

Cordelia couldn’t see her face; she stepped heavily and deliberately on to the paved path between the hedge and the child looked up. She had been crying, evident from puffed eyelids and a pink nose, neither of which could disguise a pretty face. But the scowl on it wasn’t pretty as she jumped to her feet.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded, and then: ‘You’re the governess Granny said she’d found. Well, I’m not going to like you for a start…’

Cordelia didn’t smile. She said coolly. ‘I’ve lived most of my life with two stepsisters and two stepbrothers and none of them liked me. I’m a bit disappointed that you won’t even give me a trial, but I admire your honesty. Only I think you at least owe me an explanation as to why you’re crying. Because of me?’

‘No, of course not. I didn’t know what you’d be like, did I?’

‘That’s something. Do you want to tell me?’

Eileen stared at her. ‘You’re not a bit what I thought you’d be.’

Cordelia made herself comfortable on a tree stump. ‘What did you expect?’

‘Well—someone old and plain and cross.’

‘I’m plain but I’m not that old and I don’t think I’m often cross, suppose you give me a trial?’

Eileen looked surprised. ‘Well—all right. Do you really want to know why I was crying?’ She added fiercely. ‘I don’t cry much.’

‘Yes, I’d like to know. I’m not curious, mind you—but perhaps, seeing that I’m a complete stranger, I might be able to help a bit.’

‘It’s going away from here and Granny. Mummy and Daddy won’t be coming home for two months and now Uncle Charles says she must have a rest from looking after me and so I have to go and live with him in Vienna until they come home. There’s no one else you see.’

‘You don’t like your Uncle?’

‘I don’t remember him. He’s a surgeon and he’s always busy, I was a little girl when I saw him last, but I can’t remember him very well. He’s very large and quite old. I’ll have to be quiet in his house and I don’t suppose he’ll want to see me much…’

‘He sounds a bit dreary,’ agreed Cordelia, conjuring up a picture of a learned, slightly stooping gentleman, going bald, probably with a drooping moustache and a dislike of children, ‘but as long as we keep out of his way and don’t annoy him, I should think we’d quite enjoy ourselves. I’ve never been to Vienna but I believe it’s an exciting sort of place. Two months isn’t long, you know, and I daresay we’ll be able to fill in the days until your mother and father come home.’ Always supposing, she told herself silently, that uncle didn’t dislike her on sight and send her back to England.

Eileen gave her a childish grin. ‘I think perhaps I’ll like you,’ she observed. ‘Why didn’t your stepsisters and brothers like you?’

Cordelia pondered the question. ‘Well, my father married again, a widow with a little girl and boy, and they didn’t like me overmuch, I suppose because I was grown up and they weren’t, and then my stepmother had twins, and I looked after them. I expect they thought of me as a kind of nursemaid.’

‘You’re not sorry for yourself?’ stated Eileen.

‘Good grief no. I say Eileen, I have to buy some clothes before we go to Vienna, would you help me with that? You see, I’ve been living in the country and I’m not a bit fashionable.’

‘I can see that. What’s your name?’

‘Cordelia.’

Eileen smiled, a wide friendly smile, Cordelia was relieved to see. ‘OK Cordelia, I think you’re nice.’

‘Thank you Eileen, I think you’re nice too. You must tell me what I’m supposed to do, you know. Do you think we ought to go and find your grandmother and tell her that we’ve met?’

Eileen came closer and took her hand. ‘Yes, let’s.’

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS GOING to be all right, decided Cordelia, lying awake in her comfortable bed that first night; the day had gone well. She and Eileen had lunched with Lady Trescombe and then gone for a leisurely walk while the child advised her solemnly about the kind of clothes she should buy and the various improvements she could make to her hair and make-up. Then when that important subject had been dealt with, they made hilarious guesses about Uncle Charles; he was to be stout and short, going bald and stuffy and when Cordelia reminded Eileen that she had said that he was a large man, she was told that people shrank with age. But they didn’t talk about him at tea, after all Lady Trescombe was his mother, and might be sensitive about his appearance. ‘And in any case,’ observed Cordelia, going to say good night, ‘we mustn’t be unkind—we’ve only been joking; perhaps your uncle is the best possible kind of uncle to have.’

Eileen looked doubtful. ‘Well, I don’t think he can be, if he was he’d have been married simply years ago.’ She added anxiously: ‘You will stay, won’t you?’

‘Provided your uncle will let me, my dear.’ Cordelia spoke cheerfully making light of her uncertainty.

It was astonishing how quickly the days flew by. She quickly discovered that Lady Trescombe was only too glad to leave her granddaughter in her care for the greater part of the day. They had lunch and dinner together and sometimes tea, but breakfast they had alone and provided Lady Trescombe knew what their plans were, they could do more or less what they wanted. True, Cordelia supervised Eileen’s piano practice each morning, and they read together for an hour during the day but otherwise the time was theirs to do with it as they wished. They walked miles while Cordelia listened to Eileen’s tales of her parents; they were never ending and she suspected that the child was homesick for them. She had spent the last year with her grandmother, going to a local private school where she had been happy enough but, she confided, lonely. ‘Granny’s friends are all so old,’ she explained, ‘and now I’ll have to stay with Uncle Charles and he’ll be old too…’

‘Well, not as old as all that,’ demurred Cordelia, ‘and if he wants me to stay, I’m not old at all, really. Remember we’ll be in a foreign city and there’s an awful lot to see there and school will be fun. Can you speak any German?’