Dark Angel by Sally Beauman Page B

about you, Vicky? You didn’t say.”
    “Oh, we have great plans,” my father said in his easy way.
    “Really?” Charlotte fixed upon him a small hard gaze.
    “Yes. We shall stay here, you know. Just as we always do.”
    “All summer?”
    “Definitely. All summer—shan’t we, darling?”
    He turned to my mother, and I saw an amused glance pass between them.
    My mother smiled. “I think so,” she said, in her quiet voice. “Winterscombe is so lovely in June and July, and besides, the boys come over—you know, from the orphanage. We have to be here for that, you see, Charlotte. Now, would you like a sandwich? Perhaps a piece of cake?”
    When tea was over, my parents left us. Charlotte and I sat by the fire and played cards. We played gin rummy for a while and then, in a desultory way, took turns at patience. Charlotte told me about the new Rolls, which would be coming to collect her, and why it was so much better than the Rolls of the preceding year. She told me about Roedean, and how many name tags her brown-uniformed nanny had sewn on her new uniform, and she made it quite clear that playing patience was not her idea of after-tea entertainment.
    I was very humiliated, and very afraid that Charlotte might return to the question of summer holidays, to the fact that we never took holidays abroad. When it was my turn to lay out the cards I did it very slowly, trying to pluck up the courage to mention my mother’s diamonds. By that time I wanted to mention them very much indeed, because I could see that Charlotte thought my mother was plain and shabby, like the house. The thought of my mother’s disapproval held me back, though, and so I continued to lay out the cards and scan my memory: There must be something I could mention that would wipe that supercilious smile off Charlotte’s face—but it was hard to think of anything.
    There were my two uncles, those other pillars of my life, and laying out the cards, I did consider them. Both my uncles were exotic in their ways: Uncle Freddie had had so many careers, including flying mail planes in South America, which must surely be glamorous. He had his enthusiasms, as my Aunt Maud called them, and the latest of these were two greyhounds, brought to Winterscombe the previous month and fed—to my mother’s horror—on beefsteak. These dogs were “goers,” Uncle Freddie said. They were going to win the Irish Greyhound Derby.
    On the other hand, I was not too sure about these dogs, which spent most of the time, when not eating, asleep, and wouldn’t listen to the special commands Uncle Freddie had been given by their Irish trainer. Uncle Freddie’s enthusiasms had—as he would sadly put it—a way of “fizzling out.” Better not to mention the dogs, perhaps, or South America, which Uncle Freddie had left in clouded circumstances. Uncle Steenie, then?
    Uncle Steenie was definitely glamorous. He was an exquisite dresser and an exquisite speaker. He had the blondest hair I had ever seen, and the most beautiful pink-and-white complexion. Uncle Steenie knew everyone-but-everyone, and he called everyone-but-everyone “Darling” in a very warm tone of voice. He also said “too” a great deal: The journey was too impossible; the wine was too squalid; the last hotel was too quaint. Uncle Steenie had a great many friends all over the world, and, since he did not work, he was always visiting them. He was very good about sending postcards, and I usually received one every week. Their messages were brief: Salut, Vicky! Here I am on Capri, he might write, and then he would draw one of his little lightning pictures underneath, of himself or a tree or a shell. Uncle Steenie drew very cleverly and wrote in violet ink. I had a great collection of these postcards: That year alone he had been in Capri, Tangier, Marseilles, Berlin, and a villa in Fiesole which was too marvelous, and which was owned by his best friend, Conrad Vickers, the famous photographer. Uncle Steenie had a