Daughter of the House

‘Wait,’ she told him.

When she glanced down again the dressing table was bare except for her hairbrush and comb.

The Shaws lived in a suburban enclave of substantial new red-brick villas to the north of Maida Vale. It was a highly respectable area marked out by pleached limes and encaustic tiles, leafy in summer and scented in winter with coal smoke and damp earth. The Shaws’ house had a projecting double-height bay topped off with a conical turret roofed in slate, for which Devil had mockingly nicknamed it Bavaria after one of Ludwig’s fantasy castles. Their own smaller, more gracefully proportioned house was a hundred years older but the stink of the tanneries to the east often crept around it, and decaying hovels and factories crowded at the margins of the canal basin only yards from their door. Yet Devil would not hear of a move to anywhere more rural. He loathed suburbia and claimed to have a physical aversion to open countryside.

Matthew came to the door dressed in shirtsleeves and a woollen waistcoat. He loved his home and presiding over his table, and was always a happier man on his own territory. Devil was formal in a starched collar and a fitted coat. He raised an eyebrow as the men shook hands.

‘On your way up to bed, Matty?’

Laughing, Matthew ruffled Arthur’s hair. Arthur bore this with good humour, even though in a year or so he would easily top his uncle in height.

‘Here he is, the scholar. You’ll be talking to us in Latin or Greek by Christmas, Arthur, eh?’

‘I already know Latin and Greek, Uncle Matthew.’

Faith came forward, rosy-cheeked and handsome in a new blue dress.

‘So we are all together again. Rowland and Edwin have come from Town specially to give you a send-off, Arthur.’

Rowland stuck out a hand. ‘Arthur, my boy. We’ve been waiting for you. Come out for a smoke with us?’

‘Rowland, please,’ Faith remonstrated.

Arthur glowed. He admired his adult cousins and he liked nothing better than listening to their knowing talk about girls and business. The three of them went outside to a little stone-paved terrace bordered with azalea bushes and Japanese maples. Lizzie made a point of taking Nancy by the arm and leading her to the window seat at the other end of the room for a cosy talk. Cornelius sat calmly. As always he gave the impression of being busy with his own thoughts.

The first breath of autumn in the air gave Matthew the excuse to light a fire, and as the day faded Faith turned on the lamps under their painted-glass shades. Pools of brightness lay on the rugs and fringed cushions and upholstered stools. The crowded, homely room was stuffed with mementoes. Faith loved to arrange framed photographs on the lid of the piano, showing her children at every stage from dimpled babyhood to the latest one of Edwin on a bicycling holiday with his friends from the bank.

Later Matthew led the way into the dining room. Arthur was given the place of honour at the head of the table. Candles burned in a branched pewter candlestick and there were new napkins and a matching table runner.

Faith had only one little housemaid and a daily char and she did most of the lighter domestic work and all the cooking herself. She was an excellent plain cook and her dishes always arrived hot at the table and in the proper sequence. This made a contrast with Islington, where matters were not always so smoothly arranged even though there were more hands to do the work. Domestic comforts always put Devil in a good humour. He tilted back in his chair and grinned across the table at his wife.

Lizzie and Nancy carried plates up from the kitchen. Lizzie took the opportunity to continue the talk they had begun on the window seat, saying, ‘You do look a bit cheesed off, my girl. What’s up?’

Cheesed off wasn’t exactly it, but Nancy was touched that her cousin had noticed.

‘I am a little, I suppose.’

Lizzie’s dark eyebrows rose.

‘Battles at home, eh? Don’t tell me you are getting to be a rebellious creature, Nancy?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘If so let me tell you, life will not get any easier from now on.’

Nancy glanced over her shoulder and said hastily, ‘Oh no, nothing like that. But can I ask you something?’

‘Go ahead.’

She blurted out, ‘Do you ever feel solitary? As if there are millions of people swarming around you, and yet no one knows who you are?’

Her cousin shrewdly eyed her.

‘I used to, all the time. My dear brothers, you know, deaf and blind to half the world. My father is a Victorian figure and my mother is equally historic. Of course she is, and Aunt Eliza too. They don’t understand modern life. We have to make our own way, and we won’t allow the men to dictate to us. Gaining the vote is only the beginning of it. You’ll find out you’re not alone, just as soon as you start making your own women friends.’

‘I won’t always feel like an outsider?’

Lizzie nudged her ribs. ‘You’re not an outsider. You’ve got me, for a start. You’ll grow into yourself. That’s what happens.’

She enjoyed offering advice as a woman of the world.

‘Tell you what, Nance. Why don’t you come with me to one of my suffragist meetings? There are all sorts of jolly interesting women for you to meet, and there’s no boring formality to it.’

‘Aren’t they evening meetings? I shouldn’t think I’d be allowed to come.’

In the dining room doorway Lizzie paused and winked.

‘Shhhh. We’ll say I am escorting you to … I know, to an orchestral concert.’

Nancy had to laugh.

Matthew brandished the carving knife. ‘Splendid.’

Nancy slid into her chair, consoled by Lizzie’s brisk affection. She glanced round the circle of faces and told herself that here was a loving and happy family. The locket belonged to the Uncanny. And so did Helena Clare, née Feather.

After dinner they enjoyed some music. Matthew had a strong tenor voice and Faith accompanied him for two or three songs, and then the sisters played a piano duet. Under protest, with his voice sliding and cracking, Arthur performed ‘In the Lion’s Cage’, a comic ditty that had been his party piece since he was six years old. Edwin joined in the choruses, miming the lion’s antics until they all shook with laughter.

Finally Rowland rolled up his shirtsleeves, bit a cigarette between his teeth and crashed into a ragtime tune. He played with such wild energy that no one minded the wrong notes. The rugs had been pushed back and they were all laughing and dancing, even Cornelius. The two-step was beyond him but he hopped from foot to foot, managing not to trample on his sister’s feet.

There had been a glass of wine for everyone at dinner, to drink a toast to Arthur and wish him luck, and Nancy felt the heat of alcohol flushing through her veins. She flung her arms around Cornelius’s jigging bulk.

‘I love you, Neelie,’ she smiled.

He answered solemnly, ‘And I you.’

Devil seized Faith’s modern glass fire screen. He tipped it on one side and balanced it on two stools. He stroked his wrists and flexed his hands, the signal for magic.

A bright penny lay in the palm of his left hand. He threw it in the air, caught it and pressed it down to the glass. They all heard the clink.

Devil made a show of crouching close to the screen. He slid his right palm underneath the glass so it matched the left and pressed downwards with great force. Then with a great sweep he lifted the upper hand and revealed the penny shining in the lower palm. It seemed that he had forced it through an unbroken sheet of glass.

Everyone laughed and clapped. Arthur ran to his father.

‘Disguise, distraction, deception, misdirection,’ he chanted.

‘Very good, my boy. You are one-tenth of the way to becoming a magician.’

‘And I know the other nine-tenths, Pappy, don’t I?’

‘Practice,’ they all chorused.

At the door as they were leaving Eliza kissed her sister.