Chapter 24 A Chip Off the Old Block
George arranged her legs across the blanket they’d spread on the lawn and wiggled her bare toes, throwing her head back to soak up the warm sunshine.
Honor, who held an old paper parasol, told her she’d get freckles if she wasn’t careful.
“I don’t care,” George said, eyes closed.
“I don’t care if I turn as brown as an Indian. ”
“Look at the garden,” said Honor guiltily, reclining on her elbows.
“I must get a man to come and tidy things up. Though I must say, you’d never know where we dug.
Do you remember, Robbie planted some poppies there, because he said they’d spread and grow quickly.
Now there are only a few poppies and an absolute riot of wild bugleweed. Mother Nature colluding in our scheme.”
George turned her head lazily in the direction of Jimmy’s grave. “Is that what those purple flowers are called, bugleweed? Pretty. A little bunch will look nice in my new vase.”
“I feel there’s an apt literary phrase for that. Since Comyns paid for the vase, I mean. Poetic justice? No, that’s not right. Ironic juxtaposition, maybe.” Honor swatted away a bumblebee. “Robbie would know.”
“So,” said George, “I went to see my mother yesterday.”
“And how is Lady Susan?”
“Full of revelations, as it happens. Well, one revelation mainly. It turns out my real father isn’t Charles, but some old swain of Susan’s. Sir Alec St. John Gardner. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Honor put down her parasol and sat upright. She opened her mouth to speak. Then she leaned forward and touched George’s shoulder. “Is she… is she completely sure about that?”
“Evidently so. Reading between the lines, Susan and Charles were no longer sharing a bed by the time of my conception. But what I don’t understand—what I’m hoping you’ll tell me—is how Sir Alec got together with your mother. Yours and Jimmy’s mother, I mean. He was your brother, too, wasn’t he?”
“Oh, but George.” Honor smiled, and her face seemed to shed all the anguish of the past months. For a moment she looked like the old Honor. “This is wonderful news.”
“I suppose so. He sounds like a nice fellow, Alec. Nicer than Charles, at any rate. Which doesn’t set the bar very high, of course.”
“Indeed not,” said Honor with feeling. “But what I mean is, if Charles isn’t your father, then you and Jimmy were no relation. Charles was his father, you see.”
George opened her mouth, but found herself dumbstruck.
“I haven’t talked about it in nearly thirty years,” said Honor. “I was fourteen, and my father had taken me into the West End to apply for a job at a hotel.”
Elsie, ascending from the depths of the hotel, found her way back to the service door. She stepped into the brightness of the August afternoon and was momentarily disorientated, unsure in which direction to walk for the Strand. Her father, Conor, would be waiting with great impatience.
But to her surprise, he was talking animatedly to a man she’d never seen before.
He was a few years older than Conor, she assessed, and blue blooded.
She could tell from his gold watch chain, but also from the way he stood, as if his head, though large, weighed less than other people’s.
He caught Elsie staring and gave her a look she couldn’t decipher.
“Ah, here she is at last,” said Conor. “Elsie, Field Marshal Lord Mountford-Owen saved my life at Ypres. Carried me away from the gas when my leg was shattered.”
“How is the old leg?” asked Lord Mountford-Owen. “You kept it, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes, they pinned it back together all right.”
“So, young lady,” he said to Elsie, “did you get the position?”
“They’ll write, they said. Which probably means no.”
“It had better not,” said Conor. “She left school weeks ago. Was turned down for a post as a machine operator at the pencil factory. She didn’t look strong enough, they said. Not strong enough, my foot. Look at her, healthy great girl.”
Lord Mountford-Owen eyed her unblinkingly, like a lizard. “No more school, eh?” he said. “All grown-up?”
“My fourteenth birthday was in May,” said Elsie with a note of defensiveness.
She didn’t understand why he was bothering to talk to her.
Grown-ups, especially gentlemen, usually acted like she was invisible.
Either that or they looked down their noses, like she had no right to breathe the same air as them.
“Well, they know me here,” he said, gesturing up at the Savoy Hotel and Restaurant sign. “So don’t you worry, I’ll put in a good word.”
Do what you like, she thought. Who wants to toil away in a kitchen, anyway? Not her.
“Elsie Shaughnessy?” the man shouted from across the room. He advanced toward her, tall and thin, wearing white like the kitchen staff, except his trousers and jacket were snowy and unblemished. “You’re wanted upstairs, love. Well, don’t just stand there, look lively.”
She’d been on her feet for nine hours, scrubbing pans, scouring grease off the stoves, and peeling and chopping endless piles of vegetables.
She put down her potato knife and looked at the man.
“Have I got the sack?” she said hopefully.
It was her fifth day, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could stick with it.
After a day of slaving, she was expected to sleep in a poky little room with two other girls.
Ivy snored like a zeppelin raid, and Myrtle droned on endlessly about her fella in the navy, who had promised to marry her when she was sixteen.
Rather him than me, thought Elsie, having seen Myrtle without her foundation garments.
The tall man looked her up and down. “No time for chitchat, and take that filthy apron off, for God’s sake. No, leave it there. We’ll find you something to put on.”
She followed him out of the warren of kitchens, through the din of different languages making themselves heard above oven doors slamming, plates clashing, heavy footsteps ferrying everything from half a cow to a barrel of live trout.
They went up a narrow metal staircase and emerged into the cave, or so it was known: a sort of staff hub with noticeboards and lockers like at railway stations.
“Minnie,” he yelled, “be a treasure and get this girl a waitress’s uniform, will you? Then send her to me.”
Oh, thought Elsie, I’m being promoted. Already. Fancy that.
A motherly colored lady appeared through a door, one of several flanking the cave.
After she’d rooted around and found a uniform for Elsie, she sent her into a little side office to get changed.
The black dress with a frilled white pinafore was much too big.
She turned up the dress’s cuffs and pulled the pinafore’s belt twice around her waist, knotting it at the back.
“Sorry, darlin’,” said Minnie in her singsong West Indian voice, “we got no other girls your size. Now, take yourself along the corridor and through the double doors to Mr. Edwardson.”
“Who is Mr. Edwardson?” she managed to ask. “I mean, what is his position?” He was someone, she presumed, with the authority to promote her.
“The head floors waiter, of course. Go on with you, and watch you don’t trip on that hem.”
“Thank goodness,” said Mr. Edwardson when he saw her.
“About blooming time.” He handed her a silver tray holding a bottle of champagne in a brass bucket and two glasses—flutes, Elsie thought they might be called.
“Steady as you go. Get the lift up. Suite 325. Don’t look so frightened, he won’t bite. ”
“But…” she began as Mr. Edwardson turned his back on her and began berating a carbuncled youth in a gold waistcoat about smudges on a cocktail glass. “I ought to smash this over your head,” he hissed, “and I just might.”
Elsie quickly retreated, gripping the edges of the heavy tray as though it were the most precious thing in the world.
With difficulty, she balanced the tray on one arm and knocked on the door of suite 325. Perhaps she’d get a tip! She’d buy herself a Flake, her favorite. Elsie had a sweet tooth. The smell from the cakery had been making her mouth water all day.
Of all people, the man who answered the door, in his shirtsleeves and bare-headed, was Lord Whatshisface from the other day.
“Ah, Miss Shaughnessy,” he said warmly, as if he was expecting her.
“Please, come in.” He held the door open.
The room she entered was high-ceilinged and softly lit.
She had a general impression of pinks and reds, of fringed lampshades and gold-framed mirrors.
Her footsteps were silent on the thick carpet.
“Shall I put your champagne down here?” she asked, indicating a low marble-topped table. She looked around for Lady Whatsherface. After all, there were two glasses.
“By all means. And please, sit down for a moment and tell me if they’re treating you well here.”
“Oh, but I think Mr. Edwardson will expect me back downstairs.”
“Nonsense.” He sat down on the gleaming pale settee and patted the area next to him. “Elsie, have you ever tried champagne? May I call you Elsie? And you must call me Charles. Champagne isn’t to everyone’s taste, but you strike me as a girl with a sophisticated palate.”
He poured two glasses and handed one to her. She sipped. It was sharply chilly and bitter on her tongue. Altogether unpleasant. “Mm,” she said. “Very nice.”
“Cheers.” He clinked his glass against hers. She took several more sips. With each one, she found herself disliking the taste less. “Do you know,” he said, “I have a daughter, Arabella, who’s just about your age. But she’s not nearly as pretty as you.”
Unused to compliments, indeed never having heard she was pretty—quite the contrary—Elsie had no words, no formula to respond. After several moments she said, “Has Arabella got any brothers or sisters?”