In Sunshine Or In Shadow Read online

  A sudden noise from the cupboard followed by a distinct clucking distracted the next Lady Deverill’s attention. ‘And what is that, please?’ she demanded.

  ‘Mice, your ladyship,’ Rosie put in. ‘We do get a lot of mice up here, you see.’

  ‘It sounded,’ said their visitor, ‘more like a chicken.’ She opened the cupboard door, to reveal a big brown hen sitting on a pile of clean towels.

  ‘That’s Mima,’ Artemis said, hurrying to collect her hen before any harm could befall her. ‘I only put her in there for a minute.’

  Where Jemima had sat, there now lay a large speckled brown egg. ‘You see she broke her leg,’ Artemis explained. ‘And Rosie and I mended it.’ She stroked the chicken who clucked delightedly, as Artemis’s future stepmother stared in horror at the egg.

  ‘I would hardly call that hygienic, would you, Nanny?’ she asked. ‘And I would hardly call this a way to run a nursery.’

  ‘The chicken hardly ever comes up here, your ladyship,’ Nanny stammered. ‘In fact I can’t remember when the last time was.’

  ‘It’s her Christmas treat,’ Artemis explained. ‘And there was a frost.’

  ‘You.’ The future Lady Deverill nodded at Rosie. ‘Take that hen out of here, and then wash all those towels. And the chicken is not to come up here again, is that understood? Ever.’

  No-one said anything. Rosie tried to take the hen from Artemis, but Artemis held on to her firmly.

  Their visitor turned on her heel and went to the door where she turned back to hold the broken doll up to Artemis. ‘As for this,’ she said, ‘I am taking this, my sweet, to show your father who, I feel sure, will not want to let such a thing go unnoticed.’ She said the last word as two words. Un noticed. Very softly, almost sweetly. Unnoticed.

  ‘These plates are cold,’ said Patrick Milligan senior, looking up from his place and staring down the table at his five-year-old daughter, who at once scrambled to her feet.

  ‘Sorry, Pa,’ she said.

  ‘Sit down,’ he commanded, ‘until I’ve finished talking. I have told you time and I have told you time again, but you will not learn. I will not have my food served on stone cold plates.’

  ‘Sorry, Pa,’ Ellie said again.

  ‘All right,’ her father conceded, but not referring to her apology. ‘All right, so you’re only a child, and so you find it’s just one more thing. But you cannot have enough reminding. Your mother, may God rest her soul, your mother in all her born days never once served a hot meal on a cold plate. And if you’re to try and fill her shoes, which I very much doubt you’ll ever do, but if you’re to be even half the woman that she was, may God have mercy on her, then you’ll need all the reminding I can give you.’

  From the silence that followed, Ellie gathered her father had finished with her, so she climbed down from her chair and hurried up to her father’s place.

  ‘Here,’ she said, ‘give me your plate, Pa. I can hot it on the hob.’

  ‘Heat it, child,’ her father sighed. ‘Hot it indeed. You heat plates, not hot them. And you needn’t bother, for it’s too late. The soup’s ruined.’

  But he ate it all the same, Ellie noticed, as she hurried back to her chair. On her way past him, Dermot stuck a foot out and Ellie fell to the floor. The ‘broth’ sniggered.

  ‘Be careful,’ her father said, glaring up from his bowl. ‘You want to watch where you put your feet.’

  There was no way to keep the food as hot as their father liked. Ellie knew this well, although she was barely five and a half years old, because she and Patsy had talked endlessly about the problem as they sat up in their cot while their father and the ‘broth’ played cards below them in the living room. Between them they could think of no way to get the food Mrs MacDonagh had cooked that afternoon, and the plates she had left in the stove, from the kitchen to the table at dinner time without something getting cold.

  ‘We need a trolley,’ Patsy told her once. ‘Like we saw in the magazine. If only we had a trolley. One on wheels.’

  But to have a trolley they needed money, their father’s money, and when Patsy suggested the idea to him, their father laughed and asked them where they expected him to find that sort of money.

  And so something was always cold. Something was always not quite hot or right enough for their father, be it the plates, the pie, or the potatoes. Today it was the plates.

  ‘It’s such a simple thing, boys, wouldn’t you say?’ their father asked, opening the subject up. ‘To keep things which are already hot warm at the very least.’

  The ‘broth’ stared down the table at Ellie, and Ellie stared right back at them. She was already determined that nothing should ever frighten her.

  ‘Now take this meatloaf, boys,’ her father announced after a long silence, for no-one talked unless directly addressed by the head of the family. ‘This meatloaf which that poor Mrs MacDonagh has cooked for us today, God help her. You, Dermot, and Fergal. You’re both old enough to remember your mother’s meatloaf. And wasn’t it just the best meatloaf you had ever tasted?’

  The two eldest of the ‘broth’ agreed with their father, nodding and grinning at him with their mouths full.

  ‘Ah but poor Mrs MacDonagh, you see,’ their father continued. ‘Sure hasn’t she enough on her plate without hearing complaints from the likes of us? Still, you’d have to say she can’t cook a meatloaf. Not like your poor dead mother, me boys. May the Lord have mercy on her soul, and that’s for sure.’

  He looked down the table and held up his plate, as did the ‘broth’. Ellie had barely started her own meal, but now she and Patsy had to get up, as was their required duty, to collect all the dirty crockery and bring in the pudding. It was a rice pudding.

  ‘Dear God above us,’ her father sighed. ‘I sometimes think with the amount of this stuff we have to eat we’ll all turn into rice puddings!’ Nonetheless, he and the broth ate their pudding and then, pushing their chairs back, got up and left the two youngest to do the dishes.

  Ellie stood on a chair at the sink to wash up, while Patsy waited patiently beside her on the floor, taking the plates carefully from her and drying them.

  ‘Would you like to hear a story?’ he asked his sister. ‘The one you like? The one Madame tells you?’

  ‘Yes please,’ said Ellie. ‘The one about the house.’

  It was the favourite of both.

  ‘Once upon a time,’ Patsy began, ‘in an old town, in an old street, there stood a very old ’ouse.’ Patsy loved to imitate Madame.

  Ellie laughed. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Once upon a time,’ her brother began again, ‘in an old town, in an old street, there stood a very old ’ouse, such a grand ’ouse, the sort of ’ouse you do not find nowadays . . .’

  Nanny stood on the bridge that spanned the ornamental lake and looked back at the beautiful house that had been her home for the last thirty years.

  ‘Well, child,’ she said to Artemis who was standing by her side dropping pebbles into the still water, ‘I must say it’s going to seem a little odd not living here any more.’

  ‘Why are you going?’ Artemis asked. ‘You don’t have to go.’

  ‘Oh yes I do, dear,’ Nanny answered grimly. ‘I’ve been given my marching orders. The new broom is sweeping very clean.’

  Artemis realized this was a reference to her new stepmother, but she preferred to try and keep dropping her gathered pebbles into the centre of the splash made by the last one she had dropped. Her nanny had other ideas and took her by the hand.

  ‘Come along, child,’ she ordered, ‘and stop doing that.’

  Together they walked slowly up towards the great house, Artemis lagging slightly behind to try and avoid conversation.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ Nanny was saying ahead of her. ‘If you ask me, it’s just change for change’s sake. First the nursery floor, then a new governess, then poor Rosie demoted to the kitchens –’

  ‘Why was Rosie sent to the kitchens, Nanny?�
�� Artemis asked. ‘Was it because of Mima?’

  ‘It most certainly was, child,’ Nanny replied. ‘Why else do you think? No, I really don’t know, so I don’t. It’s just change for the sake of it.’ She slowed down and looked up at the house now looming high above them. ‘I must say,’ she sighed. ‘I did always think I’d end my days here, I must say.’

  ‘Where are you going, Nanny?’ Artemis asked. ‘Can I come with you?’

  The old woman looked round at the child and smiled, suddenly touched. ‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to come with old Nanny.’

  ‘Yes I do,’ Artemis replied, having spotted her stepmother, sitting up on the stone balustrade, slowly swinging her shapely legs and smoking a cigarette. ‘I hate this place.’

  ‘Hullo you two!’ the second Lady Deverill called down. ‘No prizes for guessing what you two have been up to! Hatching more little plots, I’ll be bound!’

  Artemis and Nanny started to make their way across to the wing. The second Lady Deverill hopped off her perch and wandered down the steps after them.

  ‘I’m having a small lunch party tomorrow!’ she called, as she caught them up. ‘And one of your godmothers is coming, my sweet.’ She touched Artemis lightly on the shoulder as she said the last word, and throwing away her lipstick-stained cigarette butt, fell into step beside them. ‘I think it would be fun if you were there, don’t you Nanny?’ Artemis’s stepmother continued, having tapped Artemis again rather sharply on the shoulder as she said ‘you’. ‘Your godmother says she hasn’t seen you in an age.’

  ‘Which particular godmother is this, Lady Deverill?’ Nanny asked. ‘Her Grace the Duchess of Wells perhaps?’

  ‘Lady Diana Lanchester,’ Lady Deverill replied sharply, before bending down to make her face level with Artemis. ‘A great friend of the first Lady Deverill’s. Of sweety-pie’s moth-er.’ As always, she carefully split a word into two distinct parts, dropping her voice in a conspiratorial way, as if uttering a mild obscenity.

  Then she stood back up. ‘Have her downstairs and ready at a quarter past twelve, Nanny.’ She smiled at her stepchild and then for the last time dug her long finger sharply in Artemis’s shoulder, but Artemis didn’t flinch.

  ‘’By-eeee!’ her stepmother sing-songed gaily as she wandered off. ‘Don’t be lay-et!’

  At twelve fourteen the following midday, Nanny left Artemis, dressed in her favourite old sailor dress and dark blue stockings, in the charge of Porter, the new butler, who then escorted the child into the drawing room.

  ‘The Lady Artemis,’ the butler announced gravely, but after a brief stare at the new arrival everyone resumed their conversations.

  The new Lady Deverill was the centre of a group by the fireplace, smoking her habitual cigarette and laughing at something a handsome man by her side was saying. Artemis then saw her father standing by his favourite window, in the company of a tall dark-haired woman, whom Artemis found to be staring back at her. She saw the woman summon a footman and point at her, and the footman duly arrived to collect Artemis and take her over to her father and his friend.

  Artemis followed the footman across the faded rug, behind the backs of the guests. She failed, however, to avoid her stepmother.

  ‘Gracious me, sweetie!’ she laughed rather too loudly, to attract the attention of her court. ‘But what has Nanny put you in? What is that?’ She laughed again, and Artemis stared back at her, blank-faced.

  ‘It’s my favourite dress,’ she said. ‘Stepmother.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s high time you stopped looking like something out of the last century, don’t you, my sweet?’ her stepmother said. ‘We’ll get Papa to buy you something a little bit more à la mode. Yes?’

  Artemis just stared at her, then bobbing a curtsey, turned away and continued on her interrupted progress.

  ‘Hullo,’ the dark-haired woman said, introducing herself. ‘I’m Diana Lanchester, one of your godmothers.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Artemis curtsied again, and then stared up at the beautiful and elegant woman.

  ‘And I should pay absolutely no attention to your stepmother if I were you,’ she laughed. ‘I think you look like an absolute stunner, don’t you, Bunjy?’

  Her father grunted in reply, while Artemis frowned to herself, privately amazed that anyone should call her father, of all people, by a name as funny as Bunjy.

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember me,’ her godmother said, taking another glass of champagne.

  ‘No I don’t,’ Artemis said. ‘Not a bit.’

  ‘Why should you?’ her godmother replied. ‘I’ve been in America, which was the greatest fun. Much more fun than England,’ she confided. ‘Not nearly so darned stuffy. Tell you what, we’ll go there together one day, I’ll take you. You’ll love it. It really is fun.’

  ‘Some chap or other told me once,’ Artemis’s father suddenly said, ‘that somebody or other discovered America before Columbus or whoever it was who did, but decided it was best to keep it under his hat.’

  Diana laughed uproariously. ‘Oh Bunjy you’re wonderful!’ she said. ‘You always get things so wrong!’

  Artemis frowned to herself once more, as in all her young life she had never heard her father say anything which was meant to be even remotely funny.

  At lunch, she sat next to her godmother who told Artemis all about her late mother.

  ‘We were the best of friends, you know,’ she said. ‘And your mother was the best horsewoman I have ever seen. Quite glorious out hunting. Always took her own line, kept her horses fresh, and never jumped anything unless it was absolutely necessary. But when we were young, she and I used to get up to the most dreadful pranks.’

  Diana Lanchester began to tell Artemis about some of their escapades and soon had the child laughing quite helplessly, which earned a baleful glare down the table from the new Lady Deverill.

  ‘Do eat up, sweetie,’ she called to Artemis. ‘And don’t laugh with food in your mouth, please!’

  Artemis was quite sure she had committed no such breach of nursery discipline, but even so was careful not to laugh out loud again.

  ‘You know, when I was your age,’ Diana whispered, ’at dos like this, your mother and I used to stick our food up the legs of our drawers.’

  Artemis did her best not to burst out laughing once more, even though she had no food in her mouth.

  ‘Your grandfather caught us once,’ Diana Lanchester continued, ‘during a rather grand lunch for a Russian prince. Of course we thought we were for it. But in fact he wasn’t even cross. He agreed the food was so awful he asked us if we wouldn’t mind hiding some of his.’

  This time Artemis failed to control herself, and was forced to bury her laugh in her napkin.

  ‘Diana –’ her stepmother coo-ed down the table. ‘If that child is sick from laughing I shall hold you responsible.’

  ‘Quite right too, Katherine,’ Diana Lanchester smiled back at her hostess. ‘But I don’t think she will be. This goddaughter of mine is a splendid laugher. In fact she’s quite splendid altogether. So splendid that I declare my godchild is an absolute motto.’

  ‘You’ll never get higher praise than that,’ said a man the other side of Artemis. ‘If Diana thinks you’re a motto, that’s tops.’

  ‘Another thing your mother and I did,’ Diana went on, obviously enjoying defying her hostess, ‘was to hang all the chamber pots outside the third floor windows, just as Queen Mary arrived for her stay. Luckily neither your grandmother nor Queen Mary saw them, but your grandfather did. But then he never missed a trick. Soon as the royal visitor had gone, he called us in and told us never to do such a thing again. Queen Mary had such an eye for antiques, you see, if she’d seen them, she’d have gone off with the lot. Royal privilege, did you know that? If they admire something, you darned well have to give it ’em!’

  By now Artemis was quite helpless with laughter, and had to put her napkin to her face in case she made too much noise.


  ‘What fun to hear Artemis laugh,’ her stepmother’s voice floated down the table. ‘She’s such a serious child. I didn’t know she had a sense of humour.’

  ‘That’s probably because you never say anything amusing, Katherine, darling,’ Diana replied.

  The gentleman on the other side of Artemis laughed at that, but also into his napkin, adding ‘bravo’ in a low voice.

  Diana was about to resume her conversation when once again her hostess cut in, addressing her stepdaughter with a glittery smile. ‘Did you enjoy your lunch, my sweet?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Artemis replied.

  ‘Isn’t she sweet?’ Katherine Deverill asked her guests generally. ‘But Artemis isn’t just sweet, she’s also a bit of a farmer. She keeps hens, isn’t that clever? And that was one of her’s we’ve just eaten. Wasn’t it quite delicious? Well worth all the trouble she went to, I’d say, of mending the silly thing’s leg.’

  Artemis stared down the table at her stepmother, who was smiling brightly at her.

  ‘It even had a name, that one, didn’t it, what was it now?’ she asked.

  Artemis said nothing.

  ‘Yes it did,’ her stepmother went on. ‘Let me see. What was it called? You know the one with the broken leg?’

  ‘Jemima,’ Artemis whispered, her eyes fixed on her lace table mat.

  ‘Speak up, sweetie,’ Katherine Deverill said, ‘I can’t hear you.’

  ‘Jemima,’ Artemis said firmly. ‘Her name was Jemima.’

  ‘Jemima, of course.’ The whole table for some reason had fallen silent. ‘And wasn’t Jemima delicious, everyone?’ Katherine Deverill smiled round at her guests.

  ‘You have to feed them corn,’ Artemis said to her godmother. ‘That’s what makes them taste so good. Rosie told me. You have to feed them lots of corn.’

  Immediately there was a loud laugh of relief from the guests, who at once took it that the child had come to terms with her charges’ ultimate fate.

  ‘Well done,’ her godmother said to her, looking at her pale face intently. ‘You really are a motto. And don’t worry if you can’t eat your pud. I can stick it up the leg of my drawers.’