Free Fanny and Stella by Neil McKenna Page B

Master Frederick William Park, or Miss Fanny Winifred Park as she invariably thought of herself, were tinged and tainted with grief.
    Sometimes Fanny would sit quietly in the drawing room and solemnly turn the stiff, gilded leaves of the album of family photographs, and she would feel a lump in her throat and tears pricking at her eyes when she came to the photographs of those three of her brothers and two of her sisters who had died in their infancy. As the youngest of twelve children, she had not known these early departed brothers and sisters and she would often wonder how they would have been had they lived.
    But Fanny had known her brother Atherton for all her short life. She was seven when the news of his death was received, and she could still recall how 35 Wimpole Street was plunged into a dark and terrible passage of grief, and how her Papa turned suddenly into a frail old man. Lieutenant Atherton Allan Park, so handsome in the full dress uniform of the 24th Bombay Native Infantry, so proud to serve his Queen and country, so cruelly cut down – hacked to death – at Jhansi under the burning Indian sun. Fanny shivered and shuddered at the thought.
    Her tears would flow even more strongly when she looked at those precious few photographs of her poor Mamma, taken from them when Fanny was not yet three. Fanny herself could only remember her Mamma in fragments and feelings, as if from a half-waking dream. But Lucy, Sissy and Atherton (until he was so cruelly taken), and Alexander and Georgina – even Harry (though he was only seven at the time) – could all remember Mamma and could all tell Fanny about her and the way she was.
    And then there was Mary Batson, who had nursed all twelve of them and had been her Mamma’s nurse when she was a little girl. Mary Batson was still with them after all these years, and Mary knew everything there was to know about Mamma. Fanny would sit and listen to Mary’s stories about the old days, about life in Merton Grove, when Wimbledon was a charming small village, about the balls, the parties and the love affairs, and about the time Papa and Mamma got married.
    Everybody, from Mary Batson to Papa, to Lucy and Sissy and Georgina, agreed that her Mamma had been sweet-tempered and kind, with never a harsh word to say about anybody or anything.
    She was also very devout, and it was she, Mary Batson said, who had introduced morning and evening prayers into the house. Even after Mamma’s early departure from this world, the tradition had continued, though now only in the mornings, and for as long as she could remember Fanny had knelt in the crowded drawing room for what seemed like an age as Papa led the household in prayers of exhortation and supplication. (Not that any of it had done much good, Fanny reflected, given the catalogue of griefs and sorrows that had been inflicted upon them.)
    Number 35 Wimpole Street was a house of women. Counting the servants, there were no fewer than thirteen women to three men and two boys. When he was at home, Papa was usually in his study. Atherton was away with the Army in India, and Alexander, who was eleven years older than Fanny, was away at school. Which left only herself and Harry in a houseful of women.
    Lucy, who was nineteen when Mamma departed this life, had brought up the two boys, with the assistance of Mary Batson and the kindly interference of two elderly aunts. As the baby of the family, Fanny was showered with love and attention and was frankly a little spoilt. Indeed, both boys were spoilt. Harry was tall and handsome. He could charm the birds from the trees, a talent he used to talk his way out of hot water, in which commodity he frequently found himself immersed. Trouble followed Harry like a shadow, and Papa used to despair of him.
    Frederick William, or Fanny Winifred, was altogether a different kettle of fish. He – or she – was quite unlike any of his siblings in looks or personality or demeanour. Mary Batson would nod and