Vee had prayed she wouldn’t cry, she mustn’t show any weakness in front of Grandfather. Now she was white hot with rage of her own, and she had no tears to shed.
Grandfather sipped his brandy, calmed down, and proceeded as though she had never spoken, as though he hadn’t said the terrible things about her, about women.
‘Your mother’s place is here, a man in your father’s position needs a wife to help him. So we can’t ask her to go to London with you.’
‘I don’t want to go to London.’
He went on as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Her sister, your Aunt Lettice, is bringing out Claudia this next season, and she’s agreed that you shall do the season together.’
Vee stared at him. ‘Do the season? In London? Me? Are you mad?’
Not all her arguments or pleading could avert her doom. Grandfather held the purse strings, and her father was too weak and too poor to stand up against his domineering sire – why should he, over this, when he hadn’t gone against the paternal wishes ever in his whole life? As for her mother, London was a long way away, and Vee would be out of her sight, which was all she cared about. She had suggested a year – two years, even – in Switzerland, for Vee to work up her languages and that kind of thing, but she had been overruled.
‘Waste of time and money,’ Grandfather had said. ‘Let her be a debutante, then she’ll meet the right kind of young man and marry. Young women can’t marry too young these days, it’s the only thing that keeps them out of mischief. Let Vee find a husband a bit older than herself, that works best. Mind you, I don’t want her getting attached to any layabout young aristocrat. I don’t have any time for that kind of thing, and I shan’t part with a penny unless I approve of the man. She can pick someone who’s got a career ahead of him, of good family, she is your daughter, Anne, and the cousin of an earl, she’s no reason to go feeling grateful for any fly-by-night who grabs her in a taxi and wants to whisk her to the altar four weeks later.’
‘You’re to go to London and do the season and be grateful for it,’ were her grandfather’s parting words.
He was gothic, as gothic as the Minster, as gothic as Daddy’s encrusted beliefs.
‘I’m very displeased at the way you’ve behaved, Vee. I shan’t forget it.’
And I, vowed Vee, shan’t ever forget the way you’ve behaved, and one of these days I’ll get my own back.
She was a modern, and they could make her go to London, but they couldn’t make her marry any man against her will. Which meant, any man at all, for the last thing Vee wanted was to move from the authority of her grandfather to be under the thumb of a husband.
‘Ring for the maid, Vee, your grandfather …’
* * *
Vee wrenched herself awake, to find herself bathed in sweat and hardly able to breathe. There was a tap at the door and Pigeon peered round it. ‘You rang, madam. Are you ill?’
‘I didn’t ring,’ Vee said, but knew that she had no idea what she might or might not have done in the grip of that haunting memory.
Pigeon advanced into the room. She was wearing her uniform; did she sleep in it? Vee wondered.
‘Is it seasickness, madam? Shall I fetch a basin?’
‘No, I’m not sick. It was a bad dream, a nightmare.’
‘If you’re sure. That’s why I’m up, so many of my ladies have succumbed.’
‘Go away!’ Vee said, under her breath.
‘Can I fetch you anything?’ Pigeon asked.
‘No, thank you,’ said Vee, with an attempt at a smile. ‘I’ll be fine now. I’ll just have a drink of water, please.’
Pigeon poured out half a glass from the carafe that had been sliding up and down on the shelf beside the bed. The water slopped to and fro, mimicking the roll of the liner, Vee timed her swallows and gulped it down. ‘Thank you, Pigeon. I hope you manage to get some sleep yourself.’
Typical, Vee thought wearily. Pigeon was a working woman, who probably put in a twelve-hour day, and she had to stay up to pander to the needs of the wealthy passengers who’d probably never done a day’s, let alone a night’s work in their pampered lives. It was all so unfair, she’d always said it wasn’t fair. It was that nursery cry of ‘It isn’t fair’ that had, in the end, brought all her troubles upon her.
The next morning, the passengers on board the Gloriaría awoke to lowering grey skies and an increasing wind. The waves were dark and menacing, with foam from their breaking crests sent whipping across the surface by the angry wind.
‘In for a bit of a blow,’ a cheerful young officer with a cherubic face remarked to Vee as he met her at the door to the dining saloon. ‘Won’t be too full in there, I don’t expect.’
He was right. Even allowing for those passengers who were having breakfast trays brought to their rooms, there was only a thin scattering of people in the huge dining room. Down in the bowels of G-deck, it had brilliant cut mirrors mimicking windows; the bronze-flecked pillars and rows and rows of empty tables, set with white napery, were reflected and multiplied, giving the room a vast and surreal appearance.
Vee, after a restless, unhappy night, didn’t feel like eating anything; she stared at the menu printed on crisp white card. Juice, porridge, eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, omelette … the list went on and on.
She ordered coffee.
‘Aren’t you going to eat anything?’ asked the other occupant of the table. ‘Are you feeling queasy because of the boat? It’s amazing how it rolls, one minute there’s nothing but sky to be seen, and then it’s down, down, and walls of grey sea. Dramatic, I call it.’
Vee had hardly noticed her fellow diners the previous evening. Overcome with tiredness and despair, she had gone through the motions of meeting and greeting the strangers at the table, the men and women with whom she would share all her meals for the next two and a half weeks, without noticing much about them; thankful that the watcher on the quay wasn’t there. After all, he could have boarded at the last minute, when she’d been down in her cabin.
This child, for she was hardly more, must have been one of them. Bony, lanky, gawky, a young lady who had still to stretch her wings. Yet, now Vee was paying attention, an interesting face. She would be a beauty one day. And, come to think of it, where had she seen her before? It wasn’t a face you’d forget.
‘I’m having the lot,’ the girl said. The waiter arrived with a heaped plateful of bacon, eggs, sausage, two little triangles of fried bread, a tomato, mushrooms and a ring of apple. ‘Perfect. And then lashings of toast and butter and marmalade. Heaven. I haven’t been hungry for ages, and I can’t believe I suddenly just want to eat and eat. It’s the sea air. I say, there aren’t many people about this morning.’
Vee sat back as the steward poured her a cup of coffee.
‘They’re affected by the motion of the ship, miss,’ the steward said, with a grin. ‘We won’t see most of them until we’ve passed through the Bay.’
Perdita swallowed a mouthful of sausage. ‘Bay?’
‘Bay of Biscay, miss. Terrible place for storms, especially this time of the year, and the equinoctial gales are severe this year. Even some of the old hands among the passengers are complaining. Still, things are tricky back home and I reckon a storm or two will seem like nothing compared to what’s coming, so they’re better off where they are.’
Perdita watched him go. ‘Awfully clever the way he keeps his balance. I suppose, if