The Last Dance (9 page)

Grace’s small chubby fingers were struggling to navigate a reverse octave scale from C down to middle C on the piano.

‘I just can’t make this finger,’ she bemoaned, waggling her middle finger at Stella, ‘cross over my thumb.’

Stella was seated next to her. ‘Yes, I agree, it would be so much easier if we all had eight fingers,’ she said in a dry tone. Grace giggled and it was a lovely sound that reminded her of her young ones at home.

‘You look sad, Stella.’ Grace frowned in the open way of a child. ‘Are you?’

She found her charge’s lisp so delightful she gave the girl a hug. ‘No, not at all; you just remind me of my baby sister. She’s beautiful too and laughs just like you.’

‘You think I’m beautiful?’

‘Of course you are.’

‘Mummy and Georgie say I’m fat and that I’ll never be able to enjoy the Season if I keep eating. I like food though, Stella. I’m always hungry.’

Stella took Grace’s hands and covered them with her own. ‘Grace, I’ve been given your holiday schedule and anyone would be hungry with what is planned for you. You’ve got ballet, horse riding, lacrosse, tennis, ballroom dance, deportment classes, piano lessons, French lessons . . . gosh, I felt famished just reading it.’

Grace laughed delightedly.

‘You’re young and healthy and I promise you, you are going to be a dazzling young woman in ten years.’

Grace smiled shyly. ‘Daddy says I am a princess and that a prince will come along one day to marry me.’

She hugged the little girl who she was now certain made do without a lot of hugs. ‘Your father is a wise man. I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen. You won’t need to curtsey at the Debutantes’ Ball in London because you’ll be too busy with the queue of handsome men who desperately want to hear you play the piano, or ride alongside them or dance with them. As for these octaves, I can assure you that it was practice and a lot of growing up that allowed me to stretch between these two Cs. Look!’

Gracie gasped. She counted. ‘. . . nine . . . ten.’

They both laughed at her wonder that Stella could span her long fingers between so many keys.

‘As to the scale, Gracie, it’s a matter of dexterity. Your fingers have to keep practising. It’s a strange new sensation for them. Look, can you do this?’ Stella did the cross-my-fingers action.

‘Oh, yes. We do that all the time in school when we’re playing.’

‘Vainites!’ Stella exclaimed delightedly as a childhood memory of how to call a truce or back out of a contest bubbled up.

‘Yes,’ Gracie agreed. ‘I try not to call vainites.’

‘Because you’re brave and that’s a special quality to have,’ Stella said, hoping the greater truth of what she was saying might somehow resonate in the young mind of her pupil whom she was sure was passively bullied by both her sister and mother. Perhaps her father was her reliable hero, although it seemed he was rarely around.

As if Gracie could read her thoughts, she smiled. ‘Daddy says I’m brave too.’

‘Does he? Dads are very special people,’ she said, feeling another memory pushing through. She pushed it back and returned to their original topic. ‘So I think if we practise some scales each day through the holidays, you will notice a big difference.’

Without being asked Gracie began again with the piano keys, Stella nodding slowly beside her as the girl negotiated each note. At the note F, when Gracie needed to cross over her thumb and hit note E with her middle finger, Stella began to whisper ‘vainites’. She saw her student grin and over the course of a dozen attempts she finally began to make the crossover. When Gracie achieved a clean run of eight notes, they both leaped up and clapped.

Mrs Boyd arrived to dampen the celebration. She blinked to see Stella arm in arm with Gracie, waltzing around the piano room, giggling.

‘Er, Miss Myles, forgive me intruding.’

‘You’re not,’ she said, calming her breathing and cutting Gracie a wide-eyed smirk.

Grace performed a fast pirouette, spinning on one foot. ‘I did the scale, Mrs Boyd. My fingers crossed over.’

The housekeeper stared, unmoved. ‘I see. Well done, Miss Gracie. But I shall have to ask you to keep the noise of your celebrations down.’

‘Oh,’ Stella said, feeling instantly awkward. ‘Are we disturbing you?’

‘Not me, Miss Myles. Mr Ainsworth is in the solar. He has very good hearing plus these old places have ways of carrying their secrets to other floors.’ She gestured at the fireplace, clearly expecting Stella to understand. ‘I’d rather not wait for him to complain.’

‘Daddy’s home?’ Gracie exclaimed.

‘Yesterday, early evening, your father arrived back unexpect-edly.’

As Gracie rushed to gather up her music book, Mrs Boyd held a hand out.

‘Er, I don’t think he wishes to be disturbed.’ She threw Stella an earnest look.

‘Grace, if your father’s working, how about you see him this afternoon?’

‘I haven’t seen him for days and days.’

Mrs Boyd’s urging look had deepened.

‘I thought you might like a game outside after working so hard this morning,’ Stella offered.

The girl turned to her, looking torn.

Stella pressed that advantage. ‘I was thinking about hopscotch. Can’t imagine you can beat me. My sister Carys can’t.’

‘I’ll bet I can,’ Gracie countered, the defiance of challenge sparkling in her dark eyes.

‘All right. If you can beat me, you can choose what we do tomorrow morning for our lesson.’

‘Not French?’

‘Some French, but your choice otherwise.’

‘Then I choose a walk on the hills behind the house. I’m never allowed to go alone.’

‘Nor will you be, Miss Grace,’ Mrs Boyd interjected, unable to help herself.

‘Mrs Boyd is quite right,’ Stella said.

Gracie looked baffled. ‘Well, I want to walk up there like my father does. You’ll have to take me.’

‘That’s a deal, then,’ Stella said, offering to shake hands on it, but her young companion made a cross over her heart instead.

‘No, you have to swear it properly.’

‘I swear. Cross my heart,’ Stella promised, making the identical sign over her chest. ‘Come on, let’s grab our coats and we’ll play some hopscotch.’ She cast a glance towards the housekeeper whose gratitude was etched on her expression.

‘How was your meal last night, Miss Myles?’

‘Lovely, thank you. The flask of cocoa was a delicious treat.’

Mrs Boyd smiled. ‘I’m glad. Lunch at half-past twelve, Miss Gracie?’

‘I want to share mine with Stella, please.’

‘Very good,’ Mrs Boyd said, closing the door, but not before Stella had caught the look of surprise.

Gracie led her to one of the many courtyards, this time into a walled garden whose perfumed flowers had scented the air well ahead of their arrival. She was delighted to note it also offered the long pathway Grace had promised.

‘Is this what you mean?’ her companion asked.

‘Perfect,’ Stella replied, brandishing the chalk. ‘All right, I’ll draw it up. You find us two stones of about this size,’ she said, putting thumb and forefinger together in a small circle.

She busied herself drawing up the hopscotch boxes and listened to Gracie’s enthusiastic chatter.

‘This is Daddy’s and my favourite garden. He made it for me.’

Stella straightened. ‘Really? It’s so beautiful, Gracie. What are those? Their perfume is heavenly.’ She pointed at a row of multi-headed white flowers.

‘I can’t pronounce it. Daddy says he thinks it was named after Georgie.’

Stella looked back at the youngster quizzically. Grace kept chatting. ‘There is a person with that name in an old story. It begins with N, I think. Narsis . . . or something.’

‘Narcissus?’ Stella offered, dampening her instant desire to chuckle. ‘One of the Greek myths.’

‘That’s it!’ Grace replied, delightedly holding up some pebbles. ‘Are these what you want?’

Stella nodded, smiling to herself. So Mr Ainsworth thinks his eldest daughter is self-absorbed! In fact, that was quite a modest way to describe a narcissist, she decided, as Gracie arrived to drop a stone in her palm.

‘What’s my flower, Stella?’ she said.

‘You? Hmm. I think you would be a daffodil. Look at them,’ she said, nodding towards the colourful drift in one corner of the garden. ‘They’re so cheerful and happy. They’re like sunshine.’

‘I’m like that?’

‘You certainly are.’

‘Then I wish there was a story about me and daffodils.’

‘Oh, but there’s a marvellous poem.’

‘Will you tell me it?’

Stella grinned. ‘I’ll teach you it.’ She opened her hand. ‘That’s cunning, Gracie. Let me see yours,’ she said, regarding the roundish pebble rolling in her palm.

Her companion opened her hand and at least looked sheepish about the flatter stone it contained. They both knew Grace’s stone would land and likely stay put, while Stella’s would most probably roll. ‘You’re going to do very well in life, Gracie, and you are giving yourself every good chance to beat me. But I’m good, I warn you.’

Grace flung herself at Stella for an unexpected and affectionate hug. Stella looked up as she twirled the girl around and could swear she saw someone staring at them from one of the top floor windows. The net curtain twitched back though so fast she wasn’t sure if the person was male or female.

‘Have you played this before?’

‘At school, only once.’

‘All right, I’ll go first. So, you throw your stone gently to land on the first square.’ Stella rolled her pebble. ‘And then you jump over that square to land both feet into squares two and three.’

‘I remember this,’ Grace said, sounding delighted. ‘Let me try.’

‘All right, but you have to do a pirouette on square ten. We might as well practise your ballet while we’re about it.’

Gracie bent with laughter.

‘I’m not joking,’ Stella warned, grinning roguishly.

‘And you have to teach me the poem.’

‘Off you go, then.’

Gracie began her turn and Stella began to recite. ‘
I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils.
’

Gracie was pirouetting and even Stella began to laugh aloud now.

‘
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine, And twinkle on the milky way, they stretched in never-ending line, Along the margin of the bay
.’

Grace held up her collected stone. ‘Did it!’

‘Well done, you.’

‘Will you teach me how to say that? It sounded so pretty.’

And so a happy hour slipped by with Grace leaping and pirouetting and Stella encouraging her, praising her, teaching her the poem until Grace was no longer concentrating on where her feet needed to be but was easily reciting the first verse as she hopped along. Stella looked impressed.

‘Bravo! That’s perfect. You’re such a fast learner, Grace. I think we should get you some lunch now.’

‘Will you eat with me? I’m all alone; Mummy and Georgie have gone into Brighton.’

‘How about you? Do you like Brighton?’ Stella wondered as she gathered up the chalk and Grace’s cardigan.

‘I like the pier and I like fish and chips on the beach and after playing in the sea I like getting warm again with a cup of tea at the seafront kiosk. They even let us take a tray down onto the pebbles. The souvenir shops sell sweets in the shape of shingle and huge sticks of pink rock. I like the concerts too in the park and there’s a paddling pool, which was fun when I was really small but I think I’m too grown up for that now that I’m no longer scared of the deep end. Oh, and I love going to the aquarium and seeing all the fish too, even though it smells funny. And there’s a little train that runs along the seafront and —’

‘That all sounds marvellous. You and your mother must have fun when you go.’

‘Oh, I haven’t done any of that with Mummy,’ Grace corrected, skipping alongside. ‘I do those things with Daddy. Mummy and Georgie say that I get in the way. That’s why I couldn’t go today. Georgie said I’d just be a nuisance.’

Stella felt her heart break a little for the youngster but reminded herself that Grace was not Carys; she must not get too emotionally attached and it was also not her place to judge. Even so, she let the girl take her hand as they walked back to the main house.

‘So we can eat together?’

‘Yes, I’ll have lunch with you, Gracie,’ she murmured.

As it turned out, Grace chose to take her meal with the rest of the staff on duty and was clearly a favourite with them – which came as no surprise to Stella, who was now finally introduced to some of the others.

John Potter kindly introduced her. ‘This is our cook, Mrs Beecham – but we all call her Mrs B; our housemaid, Hilly, who seems to dodge brilliantly between cleaning and helping Mrs B; while Mary here shoulders most of the domestic duties for the household . . . laundry and the like; Miss Hailsham assists with additional, more personal housekeeping duties for Georgina and Grace; Pete – he looks after the gardens with a team of helpers, and George Roper manages the property – general maintenance and so on. And of course you know Mrs Boyd and then there’s me. I do odd jobs as well as drive. We used to have a footman but when Samuel married, I don’t think Mr Ainsworth felt like breaking in a stranger and so we just all seemed to absorb his duties and we manage.’

‘It’s lovely to finally meet you all,’ she said, giving them her warmest smile.

‘I didn’t think you’d want to eat with us, Miss Myles. I’d made up a tray,’ Mrs Beecham said, looking around at the setting. ‘Hilly, fetch some cutlery, please.’

‘Oh, I’m very happy to share your table. Um, do call me Stella.’

‘I do prefer to keep it more formal, Miss Myles,’ Mrs Boyd chipped in. ‘Stops any confusion.’

Before Stella could respond, Grace bustled back in, having washed her hands, and Stella began to see that the sunny personality of the youngest member of the house had an infectious quality that she hadn’t misread. With Gracie’s arrival, the slight feeling of tension that had built during her introduction seemed to dissipate.

Grace’s effervescent conversation soon had everyone chuckling, although Stella had a new sense of isolation with a question whispering through her thoughts about how she was going to fit into this household – while everyone was saying the right words about being welcome, she was feeling anything but, both above and below stairs. She tempered her bleak thoughts with the rationalisation that it was only day one, of course, as a cottage pie was scooped out and plonked onto each plate and handed around.