‘I’d no idea you were here,’ Angelina murmured, coming forward.
‘Only just,’ Beatrice replied shyly. They pressed cheeks quickly. Angie smelled of face powder and expensive scent. How grown up she looks, Beatrice thought, with her scarlet lipstick and her hair waved like that. She had felt smart in her neat navy day dress and simple white clutchbag, but next to Angie she felt a plain jane.
‘When did I see you last?’ Angie was asking. ‘Simply ages ago, anyway.’
Beatrice was hurt by this vagueness. ‘August, of course. At Carlyon. I say, do you remember that picnic you and Deirdre had and how awful we all felt afterwards?’
‘Did we? What happened?’
‘Why, yes,’ Beatrice said in puzzlement. Was Angie doing this on purpose? ‘On your birthday. There was something wrong with the fishpaste sandwiches and we were all dreadfully ill.’
‘Oh, I do remember now. It seems a lifetime ago – before the war. Did you see Deirdre in Country Life? I can’t believe with her homely looks she’s the first of us debs to get engaged.’ She took Beatrice’s arm. ‘Come and see Mummy.’ Her voice lowered suddenly. ‘You won’t believe it, but she’s only just told me that you were coming. I’m simply furious with her. She says she forgot. Forgot? No, it’s quite deliberate. She won’t leave me alone.’
Beatrice followed her, feeling close to tears. Why hadn’t Mrs Wincanton told Angie she was coming? And oh, the idea plunged her into misery – was that what they’d been quarrelling about? Her coming to stay?
The odd feeling of being a pawn in some unknowable game did not leave her.
‘Beatrice!’ Mrs Wincanton was sitting at a huge dining-room table, surrounded by cardboard boxes of all sizes and in various states of disembowelment. As she rose to greet Beatrice, a large ball of string rolled from the table onto the floor near Angie. Angie stood and watched it, arms folded, expression petulant. Beatrice stepped over, picked it up and passed it to Mrs Wincanton, feeling embarrassed by Angie’s behaviour.
‘Thank you, Beatrice. Always so helpful.’
She glared at her daughter. Angie glared back.
‘My ladies have been here packing Christmas boxes,’ Oenone explained, ‘for little Jewish children.’
‘Who don’t actually celebrate Christmas,’ Angie said. ‘Daddy laughed like a drain when he heard that one, Bea.’
‘Your father, as usual, is infuriating. Jews still have to eat at Christmas. And wash, one would hope. Plus, many of them are homeless. And if you’d helped, Angie, instead of swanning about, the job would have been done more quickly. Instead, I’m still tying up boxes and hardly had time to tell you about Beatrice.’
‘That’s nonsense.’
‘Angelina. Your rudeness – and in front of our guest.’
‘Beatrice isn’t a guest, Mummy, she’s part of the fur— family.’ She smiled at Beatrice, who forced her mouth to turn up at the edges. She couldn’t remember Angelina ever being as bad as this. Grown up. Glittering. Beautiful. Hard. Spoilt.
‘Mummy, we mustn’t embarrass poor Bea. Shall I ring for tea?’ Without waiting for a response she went over to the fireplace and with an arrogant swoop of her hand, pressed an electric bell.
‘Bea, dear, would you mind putting your finger here while I tie?’ Mrs Wincanton asked. ‘We’ll take tea in the drawing room,’ she told the maid when she appeared.
‘Yes, mam. And Mr Wincanton telephoned to tell you he’s dining out, mam.’
‘Oh, did he? There’ll be the four of us for dinner, then. I believe Peter’s train is due in at five. That’ll be all.’
‘Mummy, I was going to the James’s. You didn’t tell me about Beatrice coming. Remember?’
‘Well, you’ll have to un-go to the James’s. Tell them there’s a war on and you’re wanted here.’
Angie gave an exasperated little screech, but she turned on her elegant heel and marched out of the room. There came the impatient tones of her trying to get through to the James household on the telephone.
‘Last one,’ Mrs Wincanton said, and Beatrice obediently placed her finger on the knot. ‘Then Bless can move them ready for the van tomorrow. The morning room would be best, I think.’ She piled the last box with the others, glanced towards the door and said in a low voice, ‘I should like to have the opportunity of a private word, Beatrice. Perhaps you’d come to my room before dinner?’
‘You’ve seen how she’s become,’ Oenone Wincanton said, balancing a cigarette in a diamond-studded holder on an ashtray on her dressing-table. ‘Of course you’re only young once and I was hardly an angel myself, but I’m worried about her. She does rather play the field, and one’s reputation . . . It doesn’t look well with the dowagers. So protective of their darling heirs.’ She gazed at herself in the mirror, and taking up a silver-backed brush, touched it to her hair in two or three places. ‘I imagine she’ll marry young and then she’ll be someone else’s problem.’