‘Can you hear it, Tabitha, the world calling out to us? Come with me.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Paris or Copenhagen or Ankara, wherever I go.’

  ‘What about poor Charles, who would look after him?’

  ‘His wife, for one.’

  ‘And Claude?’

  Eloise curled her legs up on the sofa. She laid her head on her sister’s lap. Tabitha began to run her hand over her hair.

  ‘I shall miss you.’

  ‘I expect you shall,’ said Eloise, who yawned and closed her eyes.

  1913

  July

  ‘And that is why –’ he let the ascending voices fade, looking out at the smoke from the banqueting tables, as if he were viewing the city and its outlying districts from a hot-air balloon – ‘we say: no. On this we shall not budge. The government may bury their heads if they wish –’ he caught himself speeding up, becoming hectoring – ‘but we shall not. Tariff reform, gentlemen, is the order of the day and by God it is the only order.’

  Applause. Men’s features warped by candlelight. At some unseen signal, a dozen waiters were gliding between the tables with platters of veined cheese and dark grapes. From where Charles stood it seemed balletic, dancers funnelling onto a stage. He had the audience now, he could feel it. The magnetism of their collective attention. It had been piecemeal at first, conversations burbling on as he began his speech, but now he had them, each and every one.

  ‘Pairs, gentlemen; I am told good things come in them.’ He leaned forward on the lectern. ‘A lion and a lamb. A sword and a stone. A tariff and a freeze.’ He straightened himself to his full height. ‘A moderate tariff on foreign manufactured goods and a long overdue freeze on duties.’

  Someone banged their table, others followed. Charles took his chance to improvise.

  ‘This government has lurched from calamity to calamity, have they not?

  Voices rose in agreement.

  ‘We have seen them, we have seen them for what they are; Mr Lloyd George pilloried by one of our own last week, outed as a mere controversialist. Well, here is an uncontroversial statement for you, gentlemen: what our country needs now is not more Lloyd George but more George Lloyd.’

  He gestured with a stern stabbing motion to the Right Honourable Member for Staffordshire West seated at the central table, his dark moustache trimmed above the lip, the small lithe man who had once coxed the Cambridge crew. There was raucous laughter and cries of ‘Hear, hear!’ He had more to say, on Ulster, on Land Taxes, but there were more speeches to come, better to be remembered for wit and brevity than for taking up too much time after supper. Glazebrook had only invited him to speak when a more senior representative of the textile industry had fallen from his horse and broken his back out riding to hounds.

  ‘Thank you.’ He slid his notes into his dinner jacket, and made his way down from the stage. Aitken was there, looking as if he had overindulged, and Lancelot Sanderson; both men nodded at Charles. Then Sanderson rose, with a brandy glass and a long cigar in one hand, slapping Charles on the shoulder as one might strike the flank of a winning horse entering a paddock.

  ‘Fine fellow,’ Charles heard Sanderson say to Aitken who murmured something non-committal.

  After the speeches had finished the guests began to drift from the banqueting hall. A lone voice embarked on a verse of ‘Rule Britannia’ but it failed to take and petered out. Glazebrook and Sanderson, both very red with drink, and a third man who looked quite sober, were standing in the Winter Garden. They were discussing going on to a card room and asked Charles if he would join them.

  ‘My driver is here and I am an appalling gambler. I lose every time.’

  ‘Well, lunch then, here, tomorrow,’ said Sanderson.

  ‘I should be delighted.’

  ‘Now, gentlemen,’ said the third man impatiently to Glazebrook and Sanderson, ‘shall we see if we can’t find ourselves some brass?’ He smiled, revealing large teeth like discoloured ivory.

  Charles bid goodnight to the doorman at the entrance to the hotel. He scanned the street for his driver. Four cars down in the waiting row he saw headlights brighten then dim. He made his way to the landaulet, as Benzie, in his grey suit and cap, opened the door. There was someone inside and for a moment Charles thought he had made a mistake.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming. We’ve had a letter.’

  Tabitha held it up like a winning ticket from a tombola. She was wearing a pair of slippers and a dressing gown. Her hair was tied with what looked like a piece of garden twine. Charles took a seat beside her. A gentleman appeared at the window.

  ‘One moment,’ Charles said, brusquely, to his sister. She had been hounding him about Farthing Bundles, which involved concerned citizens sending impoverished children dolls made from old newspaper and kindling. It seemed ludicrous. He slid down his window.

  ‘Glad I caught you,’ the man said; he was wearing a tightly fitting army parade jacket, and the elasticity had gone from his undereyes. ‘Damn good speech, damn good.’ He clutched at the window then leaned heavily through to shake Charles’s hand, rocking the landaulet towards him.

  ‘Thank you,’ Charles said, tucking his gloves into his top hat, offering his hand to the man.

  ‘From the heart,’ the man said, gripping Charles’s hand. ‘Heart,’ he repeated, tapping his fist below a row of jangling medals. ‘You have my vote.’

  ‘That’s very good of you.’

  The man looked at Tabitha with a wince of incomprehension. He seemed on the verge of comment but a group of men passed and he turned away, calling for them to stop.

  ‘That’s the Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire.’

  ‘He looks like he’s been enjoying the evening.’

  ‘Very shrewd man.’

  ‘Perhaps he would like to contribute to the Mission? Do you have an address at which I might write to him?’

  ‘Thank you, Benzie, home please,’ said Charles, ignoring his sister.

  Benzie released the brake. There was a swift surge of power as the automobile moved off, past the Lord Lieutenant who was staggering towards the waiting group.

  ‘Charles, it’s from Eloise in America.’

  He turned to face his sister.

  ‘The letter. Dolly mentioned it this evening – it’s been sitting on your desk all day. I ran upstairs at once to retrieve it. I hope you don’t think it rude of me?’

  Charles raised his brow.

  ‘She has included a cutting from the Chicago Tribune in which she is mentioned by name. Shall I read it?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ Charles said, looking over notes he had made from the evening on the back of his menu.

  ‘“Amongst the extraordinary detritus of the Armory Show which arrived this week in Chicago, Miss Eloise Wright’s work stands out as at least marginally connected to the august traditions of European painting.”’ Tabitha pressed the cutting to her chest. ‘She says she’s terribly disappointed she didn’t cause more of a stir and that a painting of hers has sold to someone from the Carnegie Steel Company.’

  ‘I’m glad her career is proving lucrative. That’s what, let me see now, income of – how much did the picture sell for?’

  ‘One hundred and fifty-five dollars.’

  ‘Which gives us I believe thirty-one pounds or thereabouts at the current rate of exchange, set against expenditure –’ he took a silver pencil from his breast pocket, drawing a box below his notes on the back of the menu – ‘of let’s say twenty pounds a month for the years she was in Paris, a further twenty-five this past spell in New York, not to mention supplementary expenses of thirty or so pounds per annum, giving a total of one thousand seven hundred and ten pounds expenditure with an income of one hundred and fifty dollars –’

  ‘Fifty-five –’

  ‘I’m sorry, you’re quite right, one hundred and fifty-five dollars or thirty-one pounds sterling thereabouts –’ Charles held the number up to Tabitha for her to confirm his arithmetic. ‘Money soundly invested.’

  ‘Charles, can’t you simply be content for her?’ But his attention had already returned to the notes on the back of his menu.

  All along Oxford Street the theatres and music halls were turning out. Couples with their arms around each other or running to catch the omnibus. A man was playing an accordion on the corner, a small crowd gathered around him.

  ‘It seems I have enough votes for the nomination,’ Charles said, almost to himself. He unbuttoned his jacket, the swell of his stomach relaxed outwards. ‘What is that in your hair?’

  Tabitha touched her hair.

  ‘I was in a rush to catch Benzie when I heard the car.’

  ‘Bizarre.’

  It was Tabitha’s turn to ignore Charles.

  ‘She says she’ll be back in ten days’ time.’

  ‘A few more,’ he continued, ‘and my candidacy will be all but assured. I’m sorry, what did you say?’

  ‘The RMS Carmania to Liverpool. Eloise.’

  ‘I hope she doesn’t intend to do anything to embarrass me.’

  ‘Charles, really.’

  ‘This is not some hobby, Tabitha.’

  He redid his jacket, adjusted his tie as if readying himself to take the stage again.

  ‘Benzie, stop here,’ he said, tapping him on the shoulder.

  He swung the door and jumped from the landaulet, into a puddle at the pavement’s edge. He returned a few moments later with two copies of the Manchester Courier.

  ‘Want to see if my speech made the late edition.’

  Tabitha looked down at his shoes. They were soaking wet.

  ‘Well, don’t just stare, make yourself useful.’

  He passed her a copy of the newspaper.

  ‘Here,’ Tabitha said eventually, ‘“Textile Heir Sparkles at Party Dinner”.’

  ‘See, our sister isn’t the only one making the news.’

  Charles carefully tore the article out and placed it in his breast pocket along with the menu, then wiped his shoes with what remained of the newspaper.

  *

  Tabitha looked across the breakfast table; the marmalade jar – a dazzle of light in its cut-glass sides, the triangles of toast in their pewter rack. Charles had yet to rise, she had heard him thumping around his study after they returned from the hotel last night, and Hettie always took breakfast alone in her room. Tabitha had been enjoying the quiet, the cut flowers, the pristine cloth. As it was Saturday she wasn’t due at the Mission until four; until then the morning stretched out. A figure in white seemed to glide past the doorway.

  ‘Good morning, Aunt Tabitha.’

  ‘Claude, look at you,’ she said, putting down her book.

  He was wearing a pair of flannel trousers with a sharp crease, a white shirt and a cable-knitted cardigan.

  ‘Are those new whites?’

  ‘Mama bought them for me. I think I look rather smart. Smart but deadly.’

  He bent with his tennis racket in two hands, moving his weight from foot to foot.

  ‘Observe also one pair of buckskin rubber-soled tennis oxfords.’

  He had played twice a week for the past month; his face was lightly tanned, deepening to a soft clay redness around the back of his neck and his ears.

  ‘What time is your match?’

  ‘Twelve. There’s a doubles tournament but I need to mend this first.’

  He turned his racket towards Tabitha. Three of the strings had snapped and ran in frayed zigzags down the face.

  ‘Demon, Pastime, Service and Cannes,’ he said, placing the racket on the table, ‘they’re the big four. This is a Demon – an Ordinary, mind you, not a Special.’

  ‘Do you plan to mend it yourself?’

  ‘There’s a man at the club, Walton, who will restring it for a shilling – ninepence if you take the strings out first.’

  He unscrewed the frame and began trying to tease out one of the snapped strings.

  ‘Are you done with that?’ he said, nodding at the rack of toast.

  Claude pulled a slice from the rack, clumsily buttered it, then set a blob of marmalade at its centre which he squashed down with the back of a spoon.

  ‘Your father has a fairly large staff, they will prepare most breakfasts.’

  ‘But someone else’s always tastes so much better,’ he said, wedging the toast in his mouth, as he tried again to work the broken string loose.

  ‘The small sins of the saintly … ’

  ‘Who’s to say I’m saintly?’ he replied with a smirk.

  He placed his toast on the table, a buttery mark spreading on the cloth. He splayed then clenched his fingers.

  ‘So what’s that then?’ he asked as he dragged a cup and saucer across the table towards him.

  ‘Nothing that would interest you.’

  ‘Aunt Tab, you’d be surprised, I’ve a Wisden’s upstairs, cover’s practically falling off it, best shilling I ever spent.’

  ‘This,’ she said, raising her book, ‘is A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah by George Buchanan Gray.’

  ‘Cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek out the right.’ Claude listed the injunctions as if they had radically curtailed his own life so far.

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Rather early in the day for all that, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I worry you may have been spending too long at the Mission – you’ll be bound for Calabar next.’

  ‘Claude Wright, you are an exceedingly rude young man,’ Tabitha said, pouring tea in a loose brown ribbon from the slender spout, with a smile she could not quite suppress.

  The sound of the door knocker echoed through the house sudden as gunfire. Tabitha glanced at Claude. He made his way along the hall buttoning his cardigan. When he unbolted the door he was greeted by the backs of two heads. One of them turned.

  ‘Claude! My God! Look at you!’

  Eloise embraced her nephew. Her hair was cut into a short bob. He stood stiffly, arms by his sides.

  ‘Look at you! A grown man.’ She squeezed his shoulder as if to confirm he was there, then held his arm up and had him spin for her like a ballerina in a music box.

  Tabitha stood a few paces behind Claude.

  ‘But we weren’t expecting you for another ten days.’

  ‘I know, we took an earlier boat.’

  ‘What have you done to your hair?’

  ‘Do you think it rather outré?’ Eloise turned to her sister, jutting a hip, dropping her chin. ‘You should have seen me when I first had it all done, I looked like Claude here. The grocer called me petit bonhomme. Isn’t that right, Bessie?’

  Beside Eloise stood a solid-looking woman in a bat-winged cardigan, fastened with an amber brooch. She had cheeks that sagged below her jaw, a round chin, dark, slightly hooded eyes. Her hair was shot through with grey, pinned in a tight, inexpert crown.

  ‘Claude, allow me to introduce my great friend, patron and travelling companion, Miss Bessie Montana.’

  ‘Handsome boy,’ Bessie said, gripping Claude’s hand, ‘reminds me of Gaston Modot,’ then turning to Tabitha, ‘Modot is a very fine young actor making something of a name for himself in Montmartre,’ then to Eloise, ‘you met him at the dinner I gave for Polaire, Maurice Tourner brought him along,’ then back to Tabitha, ‘they’d made a moving picture about some halfwit who buys a Rembrandt for thirty-five francs in a cafe on Rue Lepic,’ before finally addressing Claude in a semi-confidential tone, ‘there’s very little one can get for thirty-five francs on Rue Lepic these days,’ and stepping past him, without invitation, into the house.

  *

  The family were assembled in the drawing room. Claude had gone to help retrieve their trunks from the waiting motor taxi. Dolly brought through the tray, set bone china on a low table.

  ‘And tell me,’ Charles said, ‘Montana, is that a common name?’

  ‘The story has it my grandfather saw it on a map after he arrived to trap fur with the Blackfoot Confederacy. I’ve come to doubt that as the Montana Territory only came into being by Act of Congress in ’64. Before going west he’d worked as a wolver, slaying the cattle-killing grey by the thousand.’

  She gave a low laugh and then turned in her seat towards the door.

  ‘And who is this?’ she asked as if a slow child or shy dog had come into the room.

  ‘My God, Hettie, hello,’ Eloise said, getting to her feet. Hettie’s hair was white; it came down to below her shoulders.

  ‘Mama,’ said Claude, rising to greet her, kissing her softly on both cheeks. ‘Will you join us?’ He gestured to the table. His mother remained standing.

  ‘I hope you are very comfortable during your stay, Miss Montana.’ She spoke in a tiny dry voice. ‘We are very pleased to have you here. And in the interest you have taken in Eloise. We went to America once, didn’t we, Charles?’

  ‘Was this after Cambridge?’ Bessie asked.

  ‘I gave all that up, Natural Sciences not much use once I made up my mind to go into business,’ Charles said, with a bullishness over which he didn’t quite have full possession.

  ‘So you didn’t take your degree?’ asked Claude.

  ‘Deferred. I believe university statutes say I could go back for it if I wished.’

  ‘You’ve retained an interest in botany,’ said Hettie, as if there were something vaguely improper about it.

  ‘I chair the board for the Cactus House at Alexandra Park –’ he was on more certain ground now – ‘knocks Kew into a cocked hat. The cacti were left to the Corporation by a man named Darrah. Made his money in lead. No expense spared assembling it; West Indies, Mexico, Peru.’

  ‘I find them grotesque,’ said Hettie.

  ‘Some of them are quite different from anything else in the vegetable kingdom, we’ve three and a half thousand specimens looked after by a very capable man named Cobbald.’

  ‘Do they flower?’ asked Eloise, stirring a cube of sugar into her tea.

  ‘The floral recommendations are fairly trivial,’ said Charles.

  ‘In Peru they use the spikes for fish hooks,’ said Tabitha.

  ‘Quite right,’ said Charles. ‘I’m sure you know, Miss Montana, in America a man might survive for months on cacti alone – slice an Echinocactus and you’ve water, while the fruit of the Opuntia will serve as food.’