Free A Gathering Storm by Rachel Hore Page B

slapping her magazine shut and getting up from the table. ‘Honestly, all of you. What must you think of us, Beatrice?’ She smiled lazily, pushing back a wavy lock that had escaped from her plait, her large blue eyes dreamy.
    A short stout woman in a navy uniform bustled in from the connecting room, her face half-hidden by the stack of board games she was carrying. ‘Children,’ she ordered, in a soft, cracked voice that was lined with steel. ‘Too much noise. Your mother won’t stand for it.’
    ‘Mother won’t care. Nanny, do stop fussing,’ Edward said, with the casual confidence of the eldest son who could do no wrong. ‘Look, we’ve got Beatrice.’
    ‘Oh,’ Nanny said, putting down the boxes on the table. ‘So you’re the one. Let me look at you.’
    Everybody became quiet as she perused poor Beatrice, who felt her face flush. She twisted her arms together and looked down at her feet, trying to wish away the clumpy black shoes. Angie, she’d noticed, had pretty ballet slippers. Of course she would, no matter that the toes were worn. Beatrice felt no envy, just humility in the presence of beauty.
    It was Angie who took pity on her, stepping forward to give her an awkward hug. She smelled deliciously of soap and apple. ‘Don’t mind the others,’ Angie said. ‘They’ve got no manners. I’m glad you’ve come. The boys are perfectly horrid, but it’s awfully boring when they’re away at school.’
    ‘There’s me,’ shouted Hetty, in high dudgeon. ‘I’m still here.’ Peter made a grunting noise behind her.
    Angie pressed her perfect lips together in a complicit smile that meant girls of six didn’t count. Hetty, seeing it, gave an un-alligator-ish pout. Beatrice smiled back at Angie, feeling her heart open like a flower. Ed kicked a piece of chalk, which Peter stamped on. The dog sat down and began to scratch in a vulgar fashion.
    ‘If everybody’s finished,’ Nanny said severely, ‘you may show Beatrice round Carlyon.’
    ‘The gardens first,’ Ed said. ‘We’ll make Brown happy and take the skittles outside.’
    ‘No, the kitchen. I’m hungry.’ That was Hetty.
    ‘You were very greedy at breakfast,’ Nanny told her. ‘You don’t need anything else.’
    ‘Let’s take her to the cesspit,’ Peter sang out.
    ‘Don’t be rude, Peter,’ Angie replied. ‘We’ll go to the stables first, don’t you think, Bea? I want to show you Cloud.’
    ‘Yes, the stables,’ echoed Beatrice. Bea. No one had ever given her a nickname before. She thought of the tiny wooden insect nestling in the carving in the drawing room, behind which was a story.
    ‘Busy Bea,’ said Hetty.
    ‘Brown Bea,’ said Peter, looking at Beatrice’s dress.
    ‘Bees aren’t brown, Pete. Bumblebees are gold and black.’
    ‘Some are brown,’ Peter argued, glowering at his brother.
    ‘Beatrice doesn’t bumble, she’s a honey bee, aren’t you?’ Angie took her by the hand.
    ‘They’re very brown.’
    ‘Still, I think I like honey bees best,’ she said.
    ‘So do I,’ said Beatrice.
    It would be two months before lessons began in September. For Beatrice the time crawled. Once or twice over the summer she was invited up to the house and these were wonderful exhilarating times. Then came one baking hot day in early August when Angelina turned thirteen, and Beatrice was invited to a picnic on the beach, but everyone was out of sorts for some reason. She was confused to see that Angelina’s eyes were red-rimmed, her lovely mouth turned down. Ed got them all playing cricket on the damp sand above the shoreline.
    Peter performed a splendid catch. ‘You’re out, Angie,’ he insisted, and the girl threw down the bat with a wail and marched up the beach to where Mrs Wincanton was packing away the picnic. Beatrice saw her cast herself in her mother’s lap and Oenone hug her tight as she wept inconsolably.
    Hetty saw Beatrice’s puzzlement.
    ‘Daddy was s’posed to come today,’ she explained