A Dangerous Fortune(77)
The Prince of Wales had been with them for the first week. Solly and Kingo and the prince shared a taste for boisterous fun, and Maisie had helped to provide it. She had substituted soapsuds for whipped cream on Kingo’s dessert; she had unbuttoned Solly’s braces while he dozed in the library, so that his trousers fell down when he stood up; and she had glued together the pages of The Times so that it could not be opened. By hazard the prince himself had been the first to pick up the newspaper, and as he fumbled with the pages there had been a moment of suspense when everyone wondered how he would take it—for though the heir to the throne loved practical jokes, he was never the victim—but then he began to chuckle as he realized what had happened, and the others all laughed uproariously, from relief as much as amusement.
The prince had left, and Hugh Pilaster had arrived; and then the trouble had started.
It was Solly’s idea to get Hugh invited here. Solly liked Hugh. Maisie could not think of a plausible reason to object. It had been Solly who asked Hugh to dinner in London, too.
He had recovered his composure quickly enough, that evening, and had proved himself a perfectly eligible dinner guest. Perhaps his manners were not quite as refined as they might have been if he had spent the last six years in London drawing rooms instead of Boston warehouses, but his natural charm made up for any shortcomings. In the two days he had been at Kingsbridge he had entertained them all with tales of life in America, a place none of them had visited.
It was ironic that she should find Hugh’s manners a little rough. Six years ago it had been the other way around. But she was a quick learner. She had acquired the accent of the upper classes with no trouble. The grammar had taken her a little longer. Hardest of all had been the little subtleties of behavior, the grace notes of social superiority: the way they walked through a door, spoke to a pet dog, changed the subject of a conversation, ignored a drunk. But she had studied hard, and now it all came naturally to her.
Hugh had recovered from the shock of their meeting, but Maisie had not. She would never forget his expression when he first saw her. She had been prepared, but for Hugh it had been a complete surprise. Because of his surprise he had shown his feelings quite nakedly, and Maisie had been dismayed to see the hurt in his eyes. She had wounded him deeply, six years ago, and he had not got over it.
The look on his face had haunted her ever since. She had been upset when she learned he was coming here. She did not want to see him. She did not want the past brought back. She was married to Solly, who was a good husband, and she could not bear the thought of hurting him. And there was Bertie, her reason for living.
Their child was named Hubert, but they called him Bertie, which was also the name of the Prince of Wales. Bertie Greenbourne would be five years old on May 1st, but that was a secret: his birthday was celebrated in September, to hide the fact that he had been born only six months after the wedding. Solly’s family knew the truth, but no one else did: Bertie had been born in Switzerland, during the world tour that had been their honeymoon. Since then Maisie had been happy.
Solly’s parents had not welcomed Maisie. They were stiff-necked snobbish German Jews who had been living in England for generations, and they looked down on Yiddish-speaking Russian Jews just off the boat. The fact that she was carrying another man’s child confirmed their prejudice and gave them an excuse for rejecting her. However, Solly’s sister Kate, who was about Maisie’s age and had a seven-year-old daughter, was nice to Maisie when her parents were not around.
Solly loved her, and he loved Bertie too, although he did not know whose child he was; and that was enough for Maisie—until Hugh came back.
She got up early, as always, and went along to the nursery wing of the great house. Bertie was having breakfast in the nursery dining room with Kingo’s children Anne and Alfred, supervised by three nursery maids. She kissed his sticky face and said: “What are you having?”
“Porridge with honey.” He spoke with the drawling accent of the upper classes, the accent Maisie had been at pains to learn, and from which she still occasionally slipped.
“Is it nice?”
“The honey’s nice.”
“I think I’ll have some,” said Maisie, sitting down. It would be more digestible than the kippers and deviled kidneys the adults had for breakfast.
Bertie did not take after Hugh. As a baby he had resembled Solly, for all babies looked like Solly; and now he was like Maisie’s father, with dark hair and brown eyes. Maisie could see something of Hugh in him now and again, especially when he gave a mischievous grin; but there was no obvious resemblance, fortunately.
A nursery maid brought Maisie a dish of porridge with honey and she tasted it.
“Do you like it, Mama?” said Bertie.
Anne said: “Don’t speak with your mouth full, Bertie.” Anne Kingsbridge was a superior seven-year-old and she lorded it over Bertie and her five-year-old brother Freddy.
“It’s delicious,” said Maisie.
Another maid said: “Would you like some buttered toast, children?” and they all said yes in a chorus.
Maisie had at first felt it was unnatural for a child to grow up surrounded by servants, and she feared that Bertie would be overprotected; but she had learned that rich children played in the dirt and climbed walls and got into fights just as much as the poor, and the main difference was that the people who cleaned up after them got paid.