Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Ormdale
Violet tried to make believe the dinner wasn’t about her—the celebratory dinner with the best crystal, china, and serpentine silver, and the shining facing of her extended family around the table.
It might be for the American naturalist, she thought, who had turned up at the dinner, large as life.
Larger—he was even taller than Simon. Mr Anderson was seated between their uncle and Edith.
At present, he was leaning forward a little to answer Iggy’s questions about cowboys.
Iggy and Dolly were seated on either side of Simon’s quiet father, MrForrester.
“How on earth did the American end up at dinner?” Violet whispered to Una as they found their seats and Oolong slipped under the table into his accustomed place at Una’s feet.
In Aunt Emily’s absence, Una was at the tail end of the table and Violet claimed the empty spot next to her. “And are those dinner clothes?”
“Oh, that was Uncle,” whispered Una. “And Mr Anderson brought the dinner things with him.”
Before they could seat themselves, Mr Anderson startled them by jumping up and running round the table to pull out both their chairs.
“Good evening, Miss Worms,” he said heartily, sliding their chairs carefully under them as if they were made of porcelain. “And Miss Worms!”
Violet got the impression Edith was giggling behind her napkin.
As Anderson went back to his seat, Violet leaned close to Una and spoke low. “He hasn’t worked out which of us is which yet, has he?”
“Does it matter?” Una murmured, smoothing her napkin over her lap.
Mr Anderson sat back down with a satisfied smile and recommenced answering Iggy’s questions.
“Does he smile more than anyone else,” Violet asked out of the side of her mouth, “or is it just the teeth that make it seem like that?”
“I think it’s because he’s American,” Una whispered back.
“You mean the confidence, or the teeth?”
“Do shut up, please,” Una said sweetly through her own teeth.
“We ought to sort out this mix-up,” Violet said, “because when he proposes to you later I’d rather it not be with my name.”
Una pinched her. This had been her childhood signal for Violet to drop a subject, but Violet wasn’t used to it anymore and she let out a full-throated yelp.
Mr Anderson paused with his water glass halfway to his lips.
“I do beg your pardon,” Una said, “the dragons are getting peckish.” She pointed under the table.
Mr Anderson leaned back in his chair to peer under the table linen. It must have been the first time he laid eyes on Frances and Oolong, for he mostly disappeared, leaving only his highly developed neck and shoulders visible.
Now that his source of information on the Wild West had dried up, Ignatius leaned towards Violet and pleaded in a loud stage-whisper, “Will you tell us more about how you took care of the dancing bears?”
Everyone looked at Violet. Mr Forrester put his hand on Iggy’s shoulder.
“Stop asking questions!” hissed Dolly.
“But it’s so interesting!” Iggy objected. “And Cousin Violet knows all about it because she was with one for simply ages.”
The silence was dense as fruitcake. Violet didn’t dare look up from her plate. All she could see of Una were her hands, clasped together tightly in her lap.
“Later, Iggy,” Violet managed.
“I do hope it was a respectable sort of circus that employed you,” said Uncle George in a pained tone.
Violet felt pressure rising inside her like water in a pipe; she was a quarter-inch from coming apart at the seams, she knew. There was no such thing as a respectable circus!
Heaven help her, she was going to say something terrible.
“No bearded lady, then?” said Iggy with profound disappointment.
“Oh, never fear, Iggy, I was the bearded lady,” were the terrible words that tumbled out of Violet’s lips.
At that precise moment, the rest of Mr Anderson reappeared, very flushed from being under the table for so long.
“What do you do about their diet, Miss Violet?” he asked Una earnestly. “I’m concerned the large black one is overnourished.”
For a moment, nobody moved or made a sound. Then Edith started to laugh, and it set everyone off.
Uncle George took pity on poor Mr Anderson, who was looking round the table in perplexity.
“Please forgive our odd behaviour this evening—my niece has just been telling us something very interesting,” Uncle George explained. “She has been making a study of—“
“The expanding opportunities for female employment in the modern age?” Edith suggested, and now it was Simon’s turn to cough into his napkin.
“Precisely.” Sir George turned to Violet. “Now, about those dancing bears—I sense that Ignatius is still very eager to hear about them.”
It took Violet a moment to collect her wits enough to realise what he was asking.
“Do you want to hear about the dancing bears, Una?“ Violet asked doubtfully, still not looking at her.
Una’s hands loosened.
“Who wouldn’t?” she said simply. “Do tell us about that time you ran away to the circus, Violet.”
Violet sorted through complicated emotions. This wasn’t how she’d imagined telling Una—though, to be fair, none of the ways she’d imagined had turned out well. But there was no turning back now, and everyone was looking at her expectantly, so she plunged ahead.
“Well!” Violet said. “There was this time when the chap who did the act with the bears fell ill, and I offered to do it, but they didn’t really know me—the bears, that is—so I wore his clothes.
Hoping that his smell would calm them down, you know!
They were far too large for me, so I was tripping over the trousers the whole time.
I managed to get through the routine without being mauled, but I fell flat on my face as I was leading the bears out of the ring.
There was a great roar from the audience and I heard children wailing.
They were shouting that they wanted the clown to come back. ”
Violet risked a glance round the table to see how this story was being received.
Dolly and Iggy were delighted. Edith was transfixed.
Simon still had his napkin covering most of his face.
Uncle George looked perplexed. Mr Anderson took notes.
She did hope they were about the dragons, and not about her brief career as a circus clown.
She couldn’t look at Una.
“That’s—that’s the end of the story,” Violet said.
Una picked up her glass.
“I propose a toast,” Una said brightly. “To Violet’s safe return home to Ormdale.”
Now it was Violet’s turn to stare at Una. To her amazement, Una smiled back at her. It was possibly the first real smile Una had given her since she came home.
“To Violet’s return!” everyone chorused, lifting their glasses.
There was a little silence as everyone drank. Mr Anderson looked around the table, puzzled.
“Violet?” echoed Mr Anderson.
After Mr Anderson had gone away at last to a bed he’d obtained previously in the village, and while the Drake-Forresters remained, waiting for their carriage to be brought round, and they were all gathered in the sitting room together, Violet went up to Uncle George and put her hand on his arm.
“Uncle George, I can’t pretend you would have approved of everything that went on at the circus.
Things were pretty fast and loose. But I—well, I never broke any commandments.
I want you to know that. Aunt Emily hammered them in, and thankfully, there’s only ten of them.
Except the sabbath one—I’m never feel sure whether I’ve kept it or not.
I don’t suppose that one matters as much as the others. ”
Uncle George looked very kindly at Violet. “If it suited you there, why did you leave it, Violet?”
Violet swallowed. “I came back because I didn’t have a future in the circus.
It wasn’t the right place for me, in the end.
” This wasn’t the whole story, but it was true.
“It was the same reason I left the dale, really. But I hoped—I hoped that if I came back, Edith and Simon would let me train Elfed, now I’d got older.
But that’s all over. So I’m at a loose end, you see.
There’s not really anything for me anywhere now. ”
She tried to say it lightly, but it didn’t work.
“You will always have a future here, Violet,” said Uncle George kindly, grasping the hand she’d laid on his arm.
“But what did you mean, Violet?” asked Edith, sidling in, quick as always. “What was your plan for Elfed?”
Violet’s eyes went round the room.
“I wanted to take him to Blackpool,” she said.
Una looked up in surprise from stroking Oolong.
“Is Blackpool in particular need of a dragon?” Simon asked from where he leaned on the chimneypiece, one hand playing with his son’s curls while Iggy paged through his copy of The Boy’s Own Paper on the hearthrug.
“It’s where the Lancashire Aero Club has an Aviation Week, every July,” Violet said. “I went to the first one, last year.”
“With flying machines?” exclaimed Iggy, looking up with bright eyes.
“Like the ones in Father’s books?” asked Dolly.
Violet nodded. “All kinds of them! They race each other. They had aeronauts from all over Europe and North America. The Daily Mail gave a thousand pounds for the fastest lap, and the chap who won it only got it a few yards off the ground! Everyone made such a fuss about that French fellow who got across the Channel last year in one piece, but that’s nothing to us!
Can’t you just imagine their faces if one of us went faster than any air machine they’ve been able to make, on a dragon? ”
Simon eyes went all faraway, and the firelight played over his face. “You want to enter a dragon into an air race,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Why not?” Violet said. “Their machines are flimsy as anything. Half the time they don’t even take off properly!”
“Would they allow it?” Edith asked. “Don’t the rules specify a machine?”
“I can’t imagine they’ve ever thought to rule out a large reptile,” Simon said sensibly.
“Just imagine it—Edith on Cariad, swooping in and outpacing all of them!” said Violet.
“And the look on their faces!” crowed Iggy, and Dolly’s face was glowing.
Una and Uncle George were the only ones that didn’t look excited about the whole idea.
“Yes, I imagine it would cause a sensation—especially in my interesting condition!“ Edith agreed, laughing. “And after Mr Wells was so very rude about our dragons—nostalgic relics of the Dark Ages, indeed! We could show they actually belong in the twentieth century!”
“Think how Aunt Gwen would love it!” cried Dolly.
“She would, wouldn’t she?” Edith mused. Then Edith sighed, bringing herself back to earth.
“It’s a lovely dream. But it’s yours, Violet—not mine.
I’m so sorry about Blackpool. But I know there is a place for you in Ormdale, Violet, if you want it.
You just have to find out what it is, like I did.
“ Edith slid her arm through her husband’s and leaned on him. “Like Simon did.”
Violet was old enough to remember that before Simon married Edith, there had been something slightly wrong about him, as if he didn’t quite belong. Now he unapologetically filled every inch of the space his frame required.
What was it Janushek had said yesterday? That he had stopped looking for a better country and started making one?
Violet noticed Edith’s eyes shift to her father-in-law, Peter Forrester, where he sat with Dolly’s head on his shoulder. “Like all of us did, really,” Edith said softly, with a smile at Violet, as if to say See?
For an instant, Violet did see—the hope that her family had that she, too, could find a place for herself just as they had.
Violet just found it hard to believe. After all, if she was going to find a place here, why hadn’t she done it already?
Her eyes went to Una, and Una looked away quickly.