Part One: England
June, 1933
DON PEDRO:
Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for out o’ question, you were born in a merry hour.
BEATRICE:
No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.
– Much Ado About Nothing, Act II, Scene 1
CHAPTER ONE
“That’s it,” I murmur, as I creep closer. “Nearly got you…”
My hands are steady, and I hold my breath, waiting for precisely the right moment to pounce. With a twist of my wrist I manage to trap my elusive prey and I screw the lid on the jar with a flourish.
Victory surges through me. I close my eyes and lift my face to the sun, enjoying the warmth as it ripples across my skin. Nearby, a garden warbler is singing, the melody dancing through the air as the bird marks his territory.
For a moment all is right with the world.
“Beatrice! Not again!” A dismayed voice drags me from my thoughts and I open my eyes to see a figure stalking furiously down the path towards me.
“Hello, Mother!” I exclaim. “Sorry, I was miles away.” I see her jaw tighten. “What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the party?” Mother has been talking about nothing but tonight’s dinner party for months.
“I am ready for the party,” she replies frostily, and now that she is closer, I can see that this is true. My mother always looks very elegant, but she is more dressed up than usual thanks to the rope of pearls around her neck and the dusty-pink evening gown that – though it has seen better days – still retains an air of faded glamour.
My mother is a delicate woman – willowy and elegant and rather tired, like the sort of hothouse flower that droops easily. She is lovely-looking now, but I’ve seen the pictures and I know that she was very, very beautiful when she was my age. She still carries that beauty around in her bones in a way that makes people turn in the street to look at her. She can occasionally be found, flicking through the pages of old fashion magazines with a mournful sigh, gazing longingly at the images of immaculately turned-out debutantes.
“Oh yes,” I say, with what I hope is a pacifying smile. “You look very nice.” Mother’s disapproving glare somehow snaps straight on to the jam jar that is concealed by my dress and would be completely invisible to any other person but her.
“And is there any sensible reason,” she asks, her voice dangerously calm, “why you are standing barefoot and covered in filth in the middle of our lake?”
To be fair, it’s really more of a large pond than a lake, but I cannot deny that I am certainly in it. And that my feet are bare and covered in mud and weeds. As are my legs. And a fair few inches of my dress. The woman in front of me definitely wouldn’t see the appeal of removing her stockings to feel the mud squishing between her toes.
I clear my throat and try the smile again. I aim for the sort of soothing tone one might employ upon a highly strung horse. “Lampyris noctiluca.” I hold the jar forward and tilt it slightly. “Absolutely fascinating.”
Mother’s face remains stony.
“They’ll be more interesting later on,” I explain. “They’re currently in their larval form, but I wanted to observe the bioluminescence more closely once they graduate to adulthood.” No response. “They glow,” I add, a little desperately now. “They’re glow-worms.”
“Of course.” Mother’s voice is flat. “You went into the lake to get glow-worms.”
“Yes.” I nod encouragingly. “Lovely, magical glow-worms.”
I hope that some of my enthusiasm might prove contagious, although if history is anything to go by it is unlikely that the woman in front of me is about to suddenly develop a keen scientific interest in the natural world. Far more likely that I’m about to receive a lecture. These can last quite a long time and require minimal input from me and so I keep a wary eye on her but turn my mind to the question of what I should feed the larvae while they remain in my care.
Mother lifts her hands weakly to her head, rubbing her temples: a weary gesture that I am all too familiar with.
“And did the hunt for these magical … worms … drag you through some kind of swamp?”
“Well, you see…” I begin carefully, “I initially went out searching for butterflies and I was on the trail of quite a sweet chalk hill blue when I slipped and fell in the lake. Only then, as luck would have it, I spotted the glow-worms.” I pause, considering her words. “But, and I just want to be completely clear about this, Mother … glow-worms aren’t actually worms at all, you know – they’re beetles, in the order Coleoptera.”
“I see.” Her voice is painfully reasonable, a fact that I know means she is working herself into a towering temper. “And presumably it is this fall that explains the foliage.” Her gaze flickers to the top of my head and I reach up to find a long, green strand of algae clinging to my dark hair.
“Mmm.” I make a non-committal murmur of agreement, then, “Snails!” I exclaim, as the answer to my problem flashes across my mind.
“What?” A look of disgust flickers on Mother’s face, and she takes an uneasy step backwards. “Where?”
“Oh, no, sorry, I wasn’t talking to you; I just remembered that in their larval forms, glow-worms are particularly partial to snails and I’ll have to try and find one for them.” I begin wading towards the grassy bank, scanning the ground, my eyes lingering on the wall around the flowerbeds – currently covered in riotous overhanging greenery, and the perfect spot for a lurking Mollusca gastropoda.
I glance back up and notice that Mother’s mouth opens and closes, but no noise comes out. I instantly attempt to arrange my features into an expression that is winsome and respectful, because I have observed this phenomenon before, and it is generally followed by a rather lengthy fit of hysterics that I am – naturally – keen to avoid.
Mercifully, at that moment we are interrupted by enthusiastic barking and I just have time to register the look of horror on Mother’s face before Eustace comes crashing through the hedgerow.
In theory, Eustace, the scrappy terrier before us, is supposed to be a working dog: a ratter who lives in the barn with the horses. I christened him Eustace after the patron saint of hunters in an attempt to encourage him to embrace his destiny, but it was not to be. Eustace is, it seems, dreadfully afraid of rats, and fonder of sleeping at the bottom of my bed than concerning himself with matters in the stables. At this exact moment he is grinning – yes, actually grinning – at my mother, his pink, sandpaper tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth as he gathers himself up in preparation to hurl his mud-sodden body at her. For some reason (possibly because she actively dislikes him), Eustace is loopy for my mother, head-over-heels devoted to her.
“Beatrice!” the object of his affection shrieks, and I drop the jar on to the grass, lunging across the pond to intercept the filthy dog cannonballing towards her evening wear.
Clutching the yelping creature to my chest, I mutter soothing words into his ears, scratching him in just the right place so that he settles down to enjoy the fuss, only occasionally casting yearning looks at Mother.