All I Want Is You (17 page)

But sometimes I woke in the night feeling that perhaps I’d made the most terrible mistake, because I’d turned my back on the only thing I wanted – Mr Maldon.
You know what they say?
Beatrice’s final words still trickled through my veins like poison.
If you want to know all the secrets of a great house, ask the servants. How does it feel to be used, Sophie? Oh dear – I can see from your face that you actually thought he cared.

It was as well my new life kept me so occupied: indeed, I was constantly absorbed with the business of finding my way round London, and of getting to the
theatre in time for the various rehearsals and shows. Though if Cora and I were working different shifts – she might do the matinées and I the evenings, for example, I had to travel to the theatre on my own, and sometimes I made mistakes.

One evening, as I was taking the trolleybus home after a show, it broke down; rather than wait for another, I decided to walk. But I took a wrong turning and before I knew it I was in a narrow street where the gutter down the middle ran with filth and some women in rough clothes pointed and laughed at me. I turned and hurried back the way I’d come, my heart pounding, afraid because I was in a place I shouldn’t be, but it wasn’t just that. For I’d felt someone was watching me.

I dismissed it as my foolish imagination. But after that, the feeling that I was being watched never left me. And every evening I gazed round the theatre with its rows and rows of packed seats; I looked up at the ornate boxes swagged with satin where the rich people sat and, fool that I was, I never stopped thinking: What if Ash were there? What if he were to come for me?

I want to sleep tonight with you in my arms, Sophie.
I couldn’t forget those words of his, nor the look in his eyes when I left him.

I continued to be surprised that Cora, who was so pretty, had no followers. One night, when we were in the sitting room of our tiny house drinking cocoa, she told me she’d been involved for a while with a man called Danny, and though she laughed about him and said he was a
no-good two-faced cheat, I guessed that she’d been really, really hurt by him.

She wanted, of course, to know about my life, and so I told her about being a scullery maid at Belfield Hall. After she’d put some more coal on the fire – outside it was raw, with a thick London fog filling the streets, she slipped off her shoes, sat next to me on our rickety sofa with Fred the cat on her lap and said, ‘You don’t fool me, sweetie. There’s more. Isn’t there?’

Suddenly a huge ache almost blocked my throat. I tried to speak but couldn’t.

She sighed, her eyes full of pity. ‘A man. There’s always some wretched man. Is he a cheat, like Danny? Married, then? Religious?’ I shook my head to each. ‘A gambler?’ she pressed on. ‘A bankrupt? A drunk?’

‘Stop. Stop.’ I was almost laughing. ‘He’s not married, he doesn’t drink – or gamble, as far as I know. He’s also handsome and he’s very, very rich…’

My voice broke and she leaned across to hug me. ‘Oh, Sophie! Where on earth did you meet him?’

‘He owns the Hall where I used to work.’

She whistled. ‘My, my, handsome
and
rich. Attagirl. Was it – you know – your first time?’

Just then our neighbour began practising his saxophone and Cora broke off to throw one of her shoes at the wall. ‘Dratted man…’ She turned back to me. ‘Look, Sophie, you can tell me all about it even if it was a let-down – losing your virginity’s a complete bore. I remember my first boyfriend fumbled away for a few minutes, and it was over before I realised it had begun.
Most of the other men in my life have been the same, except for bloody Danny…’

For a moment I saw tears sparkle in her eyes, but she dashed them away and laughed. ‘Go on,’ she urged, ‘tell Auntie Cora what went wrong. No, let me guess. Did you find out that he preferred men, like our Cally?’

Cally was what the girls called Mr Calladine, and I’d already realised I was quite safe with him. ‘Prefer men? No. I was only with him for one night, but it –
he
– was quite wonderful.’

‘Wonderful in what way? Spill the beans, girl. Did you reach – ’ Cora rolled her eyes – ‘the pinnacle of bliss with him, Sophie?’

I hesitated. ‘Twice.’

‘In one evening?’

‘In an hour.’

‘Oh, my goodness. And… your first time.’ Slowly she tucked her knees up under her – Fred the cat had jumped off her in disgust – and gazed at me in awe. ‘You lucky, lucky thing. I so often feel as if – you know, as if I’m almost there. But then the blessed man comes too early, or pulls out, or something disastrous. Only Danny, blasted Danny gave me the full works. But this bastard of yours didn’t want any more? Sweetie, that must have been awful for you.’

‘But he
did
want more.’ I tried so hard to be light-hearted. ‘He asked me to be his mistress.’

‘And you said no?’ Her hazel eyes were solemn. ‘Sophie, how can any girl refuse an offer from a man who is gorgeous, rich and fantastic in bed as well? What would you do if he turned up again?’

‘I’d say no again.’

‘But why? Were you worried about getting pregnant? You can deal with it, you know – make him use a sheath, or make sure he pulls out in time. Though of course,’ she added, ‘if you go on top of him, you can be so much more in control.’

‘If I go on top?’ Then my cheeks burned because I’d suddenly remembered the picture Margaret had shown me in Lady Beatrice’s book.

‘Oh my, you’re such an innocent!’ marvelled Cora. ‘Ride him, girl, or take him in your mouth – they all love
that.
’ Once more I blushed hotly, remembering Beatrice and her American. ‘In other words,’ went on Cora blithely, ‘if your man turns up again, don’t lose him this time. You must have made quite an impression on him – you were a virgin, you clearly had no idea what you were doing, yet you had him desperate for more.’

I felt so young and so stupid. The other maids had never talked to me like this, not even Nell. ‘I thought it was like that for everybody, Cora.’

‘My God, no.’ She leaned closer. ‘I’ve told you about
my
first time. And you should just try asking some of Cally’s girls about their ghastly experiences. Mindy – you know poor Mindy? Her stepfather used to rape her regularly till she ran away. As for little Jeannie, she was put on the game in Soho by her dear mother when she was scarcely out of school. London’s a big, dark place, Sophie, once you lose your way. So your first-time experience was…
unusual
.’

I was silent a moment. ‘You can say that again,’ I replied at last. ‘He tied me up.’

‘Oh.’ She sat back a little. ‘Oh, my goodness. One of
those
.’ Then she brightened. ‘Well, you know – if that’s all…’

‘He tied me up and blindfolded me,’ I said, ‘before we did it.’
Did it.
How cold, how clinical, but how else could I describe what Ash and I did?
Making love
just wasn’t right at all, though he showed desire, oh, yes – harsh, furious desire. But not love. Never love. ‘He didn’t want me to see him, Cora. Or touch him, even. It made me feel… it made me feel so far beneath him.’

Fred had leaped onto her lap again; she stroked him thoughtfully and said, ‘That’s really strange. But Sophie, lots of rich men are a bit odd you know – I blame their upbringing. They have strict governesses when they’re little, then there are peculiar masters at those boarding schools of theirs. They get beaten and God knows what else. You hear such stories.’

I remembered the servants’ gossip about Ash as a boy, and how his artist father and his French mother once forgot to collect him from school at the beginning of the summer holidays. I shivered.

‘Tying you up,’ Cora went on, clearly intrigued. ‘Do you think he does that to all his women?’

The thought made me feel even bleaker. ‘I don’t know. Apparently – ’ I tried to steady myself – ‘apparently he pays his mistresses well; in fact he said that he prefers to pay for his entertainment.’

‘Makes sense. Money pretty much guarantees a woman’s silence, since she’ll tend to keep quiet about a man’s funny habits in the hope that he’ll come back and pay her for more.’

I nodded. ‘He despises women, I think.’

‘Sounds like it, sweetie. Have you – you know, been with anyone else since?’

‘No!’ I must have gone rigid at the thought. ‘Oh, no. How could I?’

Cora tickled Fred’s tummy. ‘Might be the only answer,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘The only cure. But there’s no rush. Your man – was he in the fighting?’

‘I don’t think so. Why?’

‘Hmm. I’ve heard that men who’ve been in the trenches can have very strange habits once you get their clothes off, to make up for what they’ve been through – bombing, shell-shock and the rest of it.’ She reached for her cocoa. ‘Then again, some are just born peculiar.
Men
.’

‘Men.’ I made an effort to smile back. Just then a particularly piercing saxophone melody wafted through the wall from next door. ‘He’s good,’ I said.

‘What?’ I think I’d startled Cora out of a Danny – reverie.

‘The man next door. On the saxophone.’

‘Benedict? He plays in a band. He’s rather sweet. But after midnight – too much!’ She threw her other shoe at the wall and we rose to go to bed, but first Cora hugged me. ‘It’s bliss, isn’t it, Sophie?’ she whispered. ‘Being young, being in London and being free to do what we like?’

But that night I heard her weeping her heart out into her pillow.

I couldn’t sleep either. For the first time since leaving Belfield Hall I drew out Ash’s letters, looking for the last
one written early in 1917.
I have to go away. I want you to still write to me, though, Sophie. I want you to still think of me, and to think well of me.

I thrust it away, remembering Beatrice’s sneer.
He must have decided he needed a spy below stairs.
But where had he gone to, early in 1917, in the midst of that terrible war? Everyone said he’d used the war to make money; but I thought of his dreadfully burned hands, and when I fell asleep at last, it was to dream of flames engulfing him, while I tried desperately to save him, calling out his name.

I woke with a dry throat in the middle of the night. After tiptoeing downstairs for a glass of water, I happened to glance out of the front window, where the tattered curtains didn’t quite meet – and on the other side of the street a shadow moved. I was being watched. I was sure of it now. I was being watched.

Have I mentioned that I had, by then, an admirer? He’d been an airman in the war; his full name, which he hated, was Algernon Stewart-Lynton, but he preferred to be called simply Lynton, and he asked me out, so sweetly, every week. Poor Lynton was twenty-four years old and his right leg had been badly broken during a German bombing raid over Kent. He had to walk with a stick, which he hated.

A few nights after my conversation with Cora, Lynton came backstage after the show to bring me a bouquet of flowers. His stick clattered to the floor as he tried to present them to me, and I heard him swear under his breath.

‘Bloody stick,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I wish I could hurl it to kingdom come, but then I’d never get anywhere, would I? Come out with me tonight, Sophie, do!’

I was putting his flowers in a vase but I turned to him with a smile. ‘Lynton, I never go out after the show.’ I didn’t want him to think it was because of his injury.

He sighed, then gave his sweet grin. ‘I won’t stop asking you, you know. We could dine at Claridge’s, the Ritz – anywhere you fancy. I’ll be in again tomorrow in case you change your mind, Sophie!’

I knew I wouldn’t, but I didn’t want to be cruel to him. How was he to know that I still dreamed of only one man?

Around then a spell of cold, grey February weather closed in on the city, which coincided with the time that I started to have my first doubts about having joined Mr Calladine’s show.

Fashions in entertainment had changed since the end of the war, and the rich set were now starting to abandon theatres like ours in favour of restaurants and nightclubs like the Embassy in Old Bond Street and the Café Royal in Regent Street. Meanwhile Mr Calladine’s rent had almost doubled in the last year, his pianist Miss Ronald informed us, and in his attempt to pull in customers, Cally was changing our routines almost weekly and our costumes as well, making them flimsier and more revealing, which I hated, especially as it meant more men started hanging around the theatre afterwards to proposition us.

Another way Cally was trying to boost custom was by offering reduced ticket rates for large groups, and since fancy-dress parties were all the rage then amongst the young, we would see them piling into the theatre dressed up as anything you could think of – ancient Greeks or Hawaiians, Victorians or even cowboys and Indians, because of the Tom Mix films that were so popular.

One night twenty or so young men and women came in wearing soldiers’ uniforms, calling themselves ‘The Injured Heroes’. They wore bandages stained with red dye and used false crutches to hobble into their seats, then in the interval they shrieked with laughter at each other’s outfits and fake war wounds. As ill-luck would have it, I’d seen that Lynton was in his box that night – he’d waved cheerfully to me at the start of the show as usual. But after the interval I noticed he’d gone.

‘They shouldn’t do it,’ I muttered fiercely to myself at the end of our final number, in which we marched around the stage to the tune of ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, while the fancy-dress party stood and made ridiculous army salutes. ‘They shouldn’t be allowed to do it.’

Pauline heard, and mocked me. ‘You
are
a little fool, aren’t you?’

Ignoring her, I went to find Cora. Last night after the show she’d told me she was going out for a meal with someone – I’d waited expectantly for her to tell me more, but to my surprise she hadn’t uttered another word. I’d heard her come in very late, after a motorcar stopped in the street outside, and the next morning, though I’d had to wake her up, she still said nothing about where she’d been, and with whom.

But that evening she’d stumbled through our numbers as if she was ill, and on our way home on the trolleybus she suddenly became so drained of colour that I feared she might faint. I got her to our usual stop, but she made for the gutter at the side of the road, then she leaned over and was violently sick.