The Runaway Daughter Read online

  ‘Why do we need these bubs anyway?’ she asked, staring down at her bosoms and cupping her hands over them, even though they were squeezed into a side-fastening contraption that Jane had found for her.

  ‘You’ll be glad of them some day, believe me,’ Nancy said, passing by to the dressing table.

  ‘I’m sure I won’t.’

  ‘You don’t know how lucky you are. If I were a woman, I’d want to be just your shape. All your wonderful curves,’ Percy said, as he ran his hands down the side of Vita’s costume, admiring her over her shoulder in the mirror.

  Wisey nodded. ‘He’s right you know. There’s nothing wrong with curves.’

  ‘Well, you’re welcome to them. As you well know, they’re good for nothing. How I’d love to have a figure like hers,’ Vita said, nodding towards Edith, who was limbering up at the wooden ballet bar in the corridor.

  ‘Pah!’ Wisey said, moving away. ‘You girls are never satisfied with what you have. You wait till you’re my age, then you’ll be sorry you ever complained.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Percy said. ‘Art can’t lie. If you look at any of the greats, they always celebrate the female form.’

  ‘You’ve got a gorgeous figure,’ Nancy added.

  Vita smiled, buoyed up by her compliment. ‘But surely there must be a way of making them more comfortable?’ She wriggled her back, which was being squeezed by the itchy material, rearranging her front. ‘Can’t you magic up a design for something better than this thing of Jane’s?’

  ‘That’s hard without . . . well, you know, having the equipment myself,’ Percy said.

  ‘So why don’t I help you? We could design something that stretches, rather than squeezes. Something pretty and flattering,’ Vita said.

  She glanced over at Nancy, thinking about the first time she’d seen her in her lacy camisole. How she’d felt a tug of jealous longing. To touch the fabric? Or to touch Nancy? She pushed the shameful thought away.

  ‘That’s a swell idea,’ Nancy said, smiling at Vita and Percy. ‘Why don’t you design some thrilling lingerie for us all.’

  ‘I suppose we could give it a whirl,’ Percy replied, standing back and admiring Vita. ‘There. You look divine,’ and then he mouthed in the mirror, ‘the best of the bunch.’

  Vita smiled at him, delighted with the way she looked. She jiggled her shoulders, making the fringing on the dress dance. She turned round to hug him, as Nancy left and joined the others in the corridor.

  ‘Oh, Percy, I feel so . . . I don’t know. Nervous?’

  ‘You’re excited. It’s the same as nervousness,’ he said, reassuringly.

  ‘But what if I mess it all up? Tonight, I mean?’

  ‘Two minutes,’ Betsy called, as she swung round the door. She took in Vita in the dress and did a whistle. ‘Looking good,’ she added with a wink.

  ‘It’ll go in a flash. Just enjoy it,’ Percy reassured her. ‘You, my darling, were born to be a showgirl.’

  Vita tried to hold on to his words as she waited a few minutes later with the girls. Peeping through the gap onto the stage and the club beyond, she could sense the infectious atmosphere. She jogged her knees as Jerome called, ‘Five, six, seven, eight’ and their number started.

  ‘Here we go,’ Jane said. ‘Good luck, Vita.’

  She followed, blinded by the spotlight, as she ran out after Jane for the start of their routine. This was really happening . . . she was going out there in front of an actual audience – real people, out dancing in a nightclub – who had paid to see her.

  She smiled along the line, as the girls linked up for the small cancan section. Even Edith smiled back.

  Vita thought briefly about what her father, Darius Darton, would say if he could see her now, but it didn’t matter. She was in the bright lights of London town and was totally anonymous. A sudden feeling of euphoria swept over her. Because she couldn’t have found a better place to hide if she’d tried.

  32

  A Notice in the Paper

  Darius Darton banged his wine glass down next to his side-plate at the dinner table, making the china jump.

  ‘Damnation! For the last time, did you provoke her?’ he said. He dabbed his moustache with his linen napkin, then threw it on the china side-plate.

  ‘Provoke her, Father?’ Clement said, keeping his cool as he buttered his bread roll. He wasn’t clear about exactly what had happened on the night Anna had left. He remembered going to the stables and seeing her there, but the concussion had obliterated his memory, and only snippets of their argument had come back. The only thing he knew for sure was that his sister was responsible for his current predicament.

  ‘To make Anna leave? To make her disappear into thin air.’ His father sounded infuriated. ‘I mean, where could she be? She can’t have been able to support herself this long.’

  ‘Can’t we ask the police again? To try and find her?’ Clement asked.

  ‘You know as well as I do that they’re not interested. The facts are that she stole money. She took a bag with her. She deliberately ran away,’ Darius said.

  There was a tense silence. His father looked down the table at his mother, who lowered her eyes obediently. She didn’t have the nerve to challenge either of them about the altercation over Anna’s horse, Dante, which had preceded her flight, although he knew damned well that she wanted to.

  Clement was beginning to suspect that, along with the intense worry that dominated every conversation they’d had over the past two weeks, his mother was also harbouring more rebellious emotions. The longer Anna stayed away, the less desperate she seemed for her daughter to return.

  Without remembering the details of his argument with Anna, and without her being there to punish, Clement had fired Mark, the stablehand. The man should have been quicker at calling for help. It wasn’t fair, he knew, but then life wasn’t. Particularly when it came to his sister.

  It wasn’t fair, for example, that she had always been treated kindly – protected even – by their father, while he’d had to suffer.

  ‘It’s to toughen you up. Make you a man,’ his father had said, that time he’d taken his trousers down and forced the boy to kneel in front of him. Clement couldn’t have been more than ten. ‘And because you’re a man and know what a man feels like now, you must never tell anyone – your mother or your sister.’

  He shuddered, feeling the familiar wash of shame when he thought of that time in his father’s study, behind the locked door. It had been so wrong and was made even worse because Darius Darton had never mentioned it since. It was as if it had never happened. Except that it had, and sometimes the burden of the secret felt like lead in Clement’s soul.

  The grandfather clock ticked heavily. Theresa Darton had stopped eating.

  Clement felt disgust for her weakness swamp him. She’d never stood up for herself. Or for him. Not even when he was a boy. When she must have suspected what her husband was doing to him. She’d done nothing to stop it.

  He pushed the thought away. It was in the past. And things were different now. His father still had a temper, of course, but Clement had learnt not to provoke him. Now that Clement was a man, he could deal with his father better and, in time, he’d get his own back. Or, better still, get out – if his legs would ever carry him. In his innermost thoughts, he fantasized about finding a business that would take him away from the mills. But that, he knew, was wishful thinking. His father had groomed him for one purpose only: to do his bidding.

  Eventually, when the silence became saturated with her husband’s bad mood, Theresa cleared her throat. ‘Let’s not fret too much about Anna, dear,’ she said. ‘It is bad for us all. I have been praying that she’s safe.’

  ‘Praying. Ha!’ Darius exploded, looking at the ceiling, as if that were ridiculous.

  There was another long silence and then his mother tried a final time to lighten the mood. ‘At least business is good. Didn’t you say the mills were busier this year than ever?’ She attempted to look
up at her husband and then, hopefully, at Clement.

  He hated it when she presumed to know anything about the business. He suddenly imagined reaching across the table and hitting her, and the sound that her head might make as it smashed against the fire grate.

  ‘Well?’ she persisted.

  Clement decided not to rebuff her. ‘The foreigners are in on the act, you mark my words, Mother,’ he said. ‘We need to get the monopoly now. It’s the only way to ensure the future.’

  He exchanged a look with his father. Neither of them was going to mention in front of Theresa their plan to secure the monopoly on the mills. And Anna couldn’t have got wind of their plan, surely?

  ‘Why don’t we put a notice in the paper?’ Clement suggested. ‘Something Anna would recognize. An appeal, if you like.’

  ‘The newspaper? I don’t want people thinking—’ Theresa began.

  ‘Thinking what, woman? She could be anywhere,’ Darius snapped. ‘With anyone. You know how flighty and impressionable she is.’

  Clement reached out and put his hand over his mother’s small fist. ‘Don’t worry. She can’t hide forever.’

  ‘But what if she’s . . .?’

  ‘What? With the wrong sort?’ Clement asked. He met his father’s eye. They both knew what might happen to a gullible girl like Anna.

  ‘Stop fretting, woman. You’re just making it worse. As if I didn’t have enough to contend with, without the shame of our daughter being on the loose.’ Darius stood up from his chair and it scraped angrily on the wooden boards.

  ‘I will find her,’ Clement said, in his most placatory tone.

  ‘You can hardly move,’ Darius snapped. ‘In the meantime, sort out a notice in the paper.’

  ‘Of course, Father. As you wish.’

  33

  Shingled

  Vita hadn’t realized the verve with which Nancy would throw herself into the task of ‘taking her in hand’. She’d even written a list. And Vita’s hair was at the very top, followed by other items, such as ‘shoes’, ‘brows’ and ‘smoking lessons – get new holder’.

  Despite being decidedly hungover after the weekend’s shows and dancing afterwards in the club, Nancy had declared that Vita should meet her in Hanover Square at eleven o’clock sharp on Monday morning. Vita wondered how long she would be able to survive on four hours’ sleep, or less, a night.

  But she was too thrilled by Nancy’s new-found attention not to do exactly as she was told. She was fascinated by Nancy’s decree that Vita’s outward appearance was not only worth investing in, but should be paid the utmost attention and care. And that this attention and care were to be fun. And daring. And defining.

  In her previous life, as Anna Darton, her mother had never indulged in such extravagance herself, and abhorred the idea of paying such attention to her only daughter. There had been the occasional new outfit, of course, but that had always been out of necessity and Anna certainly hadn’t been allowed any say in her fashion choices. Her mother, who had always had a phobia about going to the shops, let alone spending money, had barely noticed that Anna spent her childhood in clothes and boots that were perpetually too small. Anna’s hair had been cut by Martha, who had always treated it like some kind of disobedient animal that she had to tame.

  But now, freed from Martha’s care and from her mother’s disapproval, Vita was longing to see the kind of inner sanctum where pampered ladies came to get their hair cut. And she wasn’t disappointed when Nancy guided her through the high white doors of a very grand building.

  ‘Anyone who is anyone comes here,’ Nancy whispered. She cupped her short bob in her hand and bounced it, before smoothing her pink lipstick, making it clear that she was one of Raymond’s best clients. And she’d dressed up for the occasion. She was wearing a coat with a midnight-blue fur trim and long leather gloves to match, with silk-covered buttons up her wrists.

  Vita hoped she was carrying off the hat with the long partridge feather that Percy fashioned on her head, but next to Nancy she felt decidedly dowdy. She’d had to admit to Nancy that she hadn’t any money until she got paid, and Nancy had very kindly agreed to pay for Vita’s haircut, but now Vita worried that it might be very expensive and that she’d owe Nancy a huge debt.

  A glass vase of purple and white calla lilies stood on a table in the reception area, behind which sat a very chic young woman in a grey lace-topped dress and matching hat. There were lots of gilt-framed pictures and light fittings and a lavender-coloured patterned carpet, the like of which Vita had never even imagined existed.

  The air smelt unusual, too, as she gave her coat to a young man, who then ushered them through an ornate set of double doors to a brightly lit room beyond. Across a chequerboard floor of black-and-white tiles, a man in a dark suit stood by a floor-to-ceiling mirror. He was probably in his mid-thirties, Vita supposed, but his tan and his waxed moustache made him look older. She saw some scissors in the top pocket of his jacket. This must be the famous Raymond.

  He kissed Nancy’s hand, burbling in Italian. ‘Bella, bella,’ Vita managed to pick up. She looked at Nancy, who was clearly basking in the attention.

  ‘Raymond, honey, so . . . this is my good pal, Vita. She needs your magic touch,’ Nancy finally explained.

  Vita dutifully sat in the chair and Raymond placed a light-black gown around her neck. It felt odd to be so covered up by such unusual silky material. Especially now that Raymond and Nancy were staring down at her in the mirror.

  ‘May I?’ he gestured, before gently taking the pins out of her hair. It tumbled down around her shoulders. ‘Hmm, I see.’

  Then he pulled Vita’s hair right down, looking in the mirror at the ends in his fingertips. The hair came below her ribs – almost to her waist at the back. She thought of Martha, drawn and grey, yanking the giant hairbrush through it. But now she felt a new sensation. Like she was actually being seen.

  ‘It’s the colour,’ Raymond said. ‘So much natural gold in it. Like the sunshine.’

  Vita had to suppress the urge to giggle, biting down on her smile. He was so effusive and charming. But this felt wonderful.

  ‘You’re thinking . . . short?’ Raymond checked with Nancy. It was clear that she was in charge.

  ‘Short, yes. Of course. A bob. We were thinking a bob, weren’t we?’ Nancy’s eyes met Vita’s in the mirror, but it was obvious the only response required from her was to nod. She glanced down at the shiny barber’s knife on the glass table in front of her.

  ‘Just here, on her jawline.’ Raymond’s soft finger grazed Vita’s jawline and she jumped at the unfamiliar contact. He leant down so that his head was level with hers. ‘It will look . . . fantastico,’ he said, kissing his fingertips.

  ‘I’m sure it will,’ she mumbled, when she thought anything but.

  ‘If you’re having it bobbed, you might as well go the whole hog and have it shingled. Don’t you agree?’ Nancy said.

  Vita wasn’t even sure what ‘shingled’ meant.

  Raymond picked up the long tresses of frizzy browny-blonde hair, pulling it out, to create the kind of volume that Vita had spent the best part of her life trying to subdue.

  ‘Let’s begin,’ he said decisively, putting his foot on a lever on the bottom of the chair. Vita squeaked with shock as she made sudden little jerking movements upwards, as the chair lifted. Then Raymond swivelled her away from the mirror and started snipping briskly with the barber’s knife, as Vita watched the hair fall past her shoulders.

  She stole a look down, her long tresses reminding her of fox brushes on the floor around her, and a sickening feeling rose up in her as she remembered the hunt at Darton Hall.

  34

  The Hunt

  The end-of-season hunt was a tradition that the Dartons had grudgingly kept up, despite their frugal nature. It pained Theresa Darton to have horse-hooves churning up the prized front lawn, and she was suspicious of the neighbourhood landowners, who she felt came to Darton to snoop and possibly to steal. B
ut Darius said it was good for morale and kept the good name of the Dartons at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

  The real reason was that competition between the Dartons and the Arkwrights, who owned the mills on the other side of the valley, was fierce – and Darius wanted to make sure that anyone with influence favoured Darton Mills. It also gave him time to bad-mouth Malcolm Arkwright – his arch-enemy.

  Anna found the day of the hunt difficult – and this year was worse than ever. On the one hand, she welcomed the break in the tedious monotony of her daily life at Darton Hall, but it also made her furious that she was not allowed to take part. Clement wasn’t as good a rider as she was and had little patience with the horses. She knew damned well that she would beat him, if only she were allowed to ride herself.

  She had begged to take part on many occasions, but her father wouldn’t hear of it, lumping her in the same bracket as her mother – a weak and feeble-minded female, too flimsy for the elements, or such a male pursuit. That might have applied to her mother, but not to Anna, who knew that she was robust and sturdy . . . not that her father would ever give her the chance to prove herself. And on the day of the hunt this year, once again, she had to contend with hearing the horns of the riders in the distance and the rumble of the horses’ hooves.

  She stayed at the landing window, hiding behind the thick brocade curtains in the box window, waiting for the riders return, wanting to be first out with the trays of sherry. Up at the Hall she had so little contact with anyone that even the red-faced chaps who’d turned up today were better than nothing. She stared out at the snow-covered hills, her breath clouding the cold glass, wondering if she might see the fox tearing across the field.

  It was while she was waiting that she heard Martha and Elspeth, the scullery girl, whispering as they walked down the stairs. They had no idea that Anna was hiding.