Edward appeared first, scrambling to his feet, wiping his arm across his perspiring face and laughing. ‘Beatrice.’ He reached for her hand and shook it heartily. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m afraid you arrived at a bad moment. Pete, get up, will you, you storming great idiot.’ Peter, still sprawled on the floor, muttered, ‘Hello.’
Brown pulled herself up to her full four feet ten and said, ‘You’re to look after her, do you understand? Show her round. Now where’s Miss Angie?’
Edward propelled Beatrice into a large untidy schoolroom with no carpet, overlooking the back garden, where the sea could be glimpsed sparkling beyond the trees. Here, too, all was chaos. At a table by the window, Angelina sat reading a crumpled magazine and eating an apple. A gramophone spat out scratchy dance music, and little Hetty, mousy hair flying, was on her hands and knees, chasing a large shuffling personage in and out of the table legs and shouting, ‘Jacky, come here. Jacky!’ It took Beatrice a moment to realize that Jacky was an Old English Sheepdog done up in a dress and bonnet. It looked up shamefaced at Beatrice, who felt a rush of pity. Hetty pushed past it, growling, and crawled over to Beatrice, showing gappy teeth. ‘Guess what I am, guess what I am,’ she shrieked.
‘A dog?’ Beatrice asked.
‘Wrong. She’s a crocodile,’ delivered Peter, rolling his eyes. ‘She’s always a ruddy crocodile. She’s obsessed by crocodiles.’
‘No, I’m not. Today I’m an alligator,’ Hetty shouted with indignation. ‘And Nanny told you not to swear.’
‘You’re not an alligator, you’re a little prig.’
‘Oh, shut up, all of you!’ Edward roared over Hetty’s cry of rage. ‘Can’t you see you’re terrifying poor Beatrice.’
‘How can anyone get peace and quiet to read?’ cried Angie, slapping her magazine shut and getting up from the table. ‘Honestly, all of you. What must you think of us, Beatrice?’ She smiled lazily, pushing back a wavy lock that had escaped from her plait, her large blue eyes dreamy.
A short stout woman in a navy uniform bustled in from the connecting room, her face half-hidden by the stack of board games she was carrying. ‘Children,’ she ordered, in a soft, cracked voice that was lined with steel. ‘Too much noise. Your mother won’t stand for it.’
‘Mother won’t care. Nanny, do stop fussing,’ Edward said, with the casual confidence of the eldest son who could do no wrong. ‘Look, we’ve got Beatrice.’
‘Oh,’ Nanny said, putting down the boxes on the table. ‘So you’re the one. Let me look at you.’
Everybody became quiet as she perused poor Beatrice, who felt her face flush. She twisted her arms together and looked down at her feet, trying to wish away the clumpy black shoes. Angie, she’d noticed, had pretty ballet slippers. Of course she would, no matter that the toes were worn. Beatrice felt no envy, just humility in the presence of beauty.
It was Angie who took pity on her, stepping forward to give her an awkward hug. She smelled deliciously of soap and apple. ‘Don’t mind the others,’ Angie said. ‘They’ve got no manners. I’m glad you’ve come. The boys are perfectly horrid, but it’s awfully boring when they’re away at school.’
‘There’s me,’ shouted Hetty, in high dudgeon. ‘I’m still here.’ Peter made a grunting noise behind her.
Angie pressed her perfect lips together in a complicit smile that meant girls of six didn’t count. Hetty, seeing it, gave an un-alligator-ish pout. Beatrice smiled back at Angie, feeling her heart open like a flower. Ed kicked a piece of chalk, which Peter stamped on. The dog sat down and began to scratch in a vulgar fashion.
‘If everybody’s finished,’ Nanny said severely, ‘you may show Beatrice round Carlyon.’
‘The gardens first,’ Ed said. ‘We’ll make Brown happy and take the skittles outside.’
‘No, the kitchen. I’m hungry.’ That was Hetty.
‘You were very greedy at breakfast,’ Nanny told her. ‘You don’t need anything else.’
‘Let’s take her to the cesspit,’ Peter sang out.
‘Don’t be rude, Peter,’ Angie replied. ‘We’ll go to the stables first, don’t you think, Bea? I want to show you Cloud.’
‘Yes, the stables,’ echoed Beatrice. Bea. No one had ever given her a nickname before. She thought of the tiny wooden insect nestling in the carving in the drawing room, behind which was a story.
‘Busy Bea,’ said Hetty.