Free The Novel in the Viola by Natasha Solomons

but I will. And I know that by the time you read this, you’ll have eaten it all. Probably all at once so you felt sick and then were hungry the next day.
I heard that there are conch shells in Dorset that sing a perfect middle C. I want you to find one – then we can play together. I’ll play viola and you can whistle on the conch.
     
    I snorted. Margot was always so desperate to include me in her music – to her it was like I was blind and she needed to find ways of showing me how to see. I’d given up explaining that I loved listening to music and felt no longing to play. I’d find her the conch, and I’d take it to America then she’d realise what a ridiculous idea it was. At the word ‘America’ I felt a pain in my chest. It was even further from me than Vienna, across a wider sea.
     
Do as Hilde says, and read Mrs Beeton. All the English ladies use it, Anna says. You must try to behave, Bean. Try not to get dismissed from Mr Rivers’ service. At least not until we have an American visa for you. Then you can prance into the living room at teatime and pick all the cherries off the cake and cheek everyone as though you are at home and you can be expelled from the house and come to California in a hurry and I shall be oh so pleased to see you and we shall drink champagne. But until then, you must be good.
     
    I pinched my arm to stop myself from crying. It was Margot’s lack of commas that did it – she sounded breathless, chattering without a pause like she did when she was excited. Sometimes I hated her, but I enjoyed hating her from nearby. From this distance I’d soon forget how much she annoyed me, and I’d miss her so much, it would become unbearable. I screwed up my eyes and concentrated on all the things about my sister that tormented me: she filched my books, underlining the passages she liked with purple ink; she strutted around my bedroom in her silky underthings displaying her superior bust; sometimes when we fought, she pinched the rolls of baby-fat around my middle between her fingers; and she always looked better in my clothes than I did. No, none of this made me miss her any less – despising my sister was a luxury belonging to the old life. I looked forward with greedy anticipation to the moment when I could hate her again.
    I picked up the white maid’s cap and sauntered over to the small mirror propped on the plain wooden dresser and held it up to my hair. Even Margot couldn’t make this look good, not even if she spent an hour in the bathroom with peach lipstick, powder and the rouge sent from Paris. I dropped it on the floor in disgust, kicking the apron with my bare toe.
    Art had lugged up my trunk and bags while I was in the kitchen with Mrs Ellsworth, and I decided to unpack. I had never unpacked my belongings before; we always had maids of our own to perform such tasks, and after we were forced to dismiss them, Hildegard and the Jewish daily kept our drawers tidy, and our clean linen continued to appear monthly, starched and folded. For the first time since I had departed Vienna, I unlocked the trunk and folded back the lid. Sure enough, the vast volume of Mrs Beeton’s Household Management rested on the top, like a brooding hen. I felt almost glad to see her, like I had a piece of Hildegard with me. I still had no intention of actually reading it. I shoved the undergarments into various drawers, and pulled out my skirts and dresses, spreading them carefully upon the bed. I had a tiny razor blade amongst my wash things, and sitting cross-legged on the blankets, I set about retrieving the valuables from their hiding places, trying not to slice my fingers and bleed over the clean clothes. I felt along the hem of each skirt before hanging it up in the wardrobe, and soon I had a small stash of gold, which I placed inside a stocking and shoved in the back of a drawer. Anna had packed in layers of tissue paper the soft pink evening gown I’d worn that last evening. I didn’t know