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CHAPTER XII

In that particularly cold spring of 1821, one of the more popular attractions in all of London was Burford’s Panorama. The View of Naples and Surrounding Scenery was housed in the specially constructed Rotunda in the Strand, and the great queue outside almost as famous as the spectacle within. Fanny was privately sure that, if she were to miss the experience, then she would survive. However, the young people had been begging to see it for weeks and, the happiness of others being her constant and guiding concern, here Fanny was.

‘Stay close to me, Fan.’ George, Fanny’s brother, pressed her arm into his side as they emerged from Surrey Street and pushed through the crowd. Above the press of grim, filthy buildings there was a clear and bright sky. ‘Keep in!’ he called over his shoulder, where William brought up the rear, with Mary Dorothea on one side and the new governess, Miss Atkinson, on the other. ‘Stick at it!’ The entrance was in their sights now. ‘Watch it, Will! Hold on to the ladies!’

A small crowd on the street was shouting abuse at the top of its lungs. Honestly, Fanny would like very much to be surprised to find such coarse people at an event of such innocence, but she was now thoroughly used to it. Everywhere one went in Town – the smartest of places, the quietest of days; even once, heaven forbid, on a Sunday – one could find a mob, quite out of its mind about one thing or other.

‘What are they protesting this time?’ she shouted into George’s left ear. It was never easy to tell.

‘They are against it!’ George shouted back, grabbing Miss Atkinson’s arm and pulling the whole party towards the enclosed entrance. He paid their one shilling per head.

‘I gathered they were against something ,’ Fanny muttered and took a deep breath. They were now in a dark, narrow corridor – utterly black, eerily quiet. ‘They generally are.’

Fanny held George’s coat-tails with one hand, and Mary’s muff with the other. The passage was so cramped, they had no choice but to move single file, blind in the darkness. ‘Will?’ she called out to her other brother, voice regrettably shrill.

‘Here, Fan,’ William returned. ‘Close to Miss Atkinson. All safe – bringing up the rear.’

Dear boy, Fanny thought as she cautiously edged her way forward with tiny steps. How he has matured lately. Even a few months ago, she could not possibly have imagined the young man he was now, so protective of Mary Dorothea – who, after all, was no relation of his – and quietly courteous to her governess.

‘Up she rises!’ George suddenly shouted. ‘Ladies, beware!’

They were still in pitch black, and now forced to climb a steep flight of steps.

‘Don’t panic, girls!’ Fanny’s heart was thumping. She felt dizzy and sick. ‘It is perfectly safe.’ She heard a gasp, a little scream. And was that a giggle? Surely not. ‘Miss Atkinson?’ This place was so thoroughly unnatural. The poor young lady was quite possibly scared out of her wits.

‘Thank you, madam.’ Miss Atkinson’s speaking voice had a pleasing musicality. ‘Please do not concern yourself. I am perfectly well.’

‘And we have made it!’ George shouted in triumph. ‘Here is the curtain. Ready, all?’

Their eyes were so shocked by the light flooding in through the glass roof that at first they were blinded. With all the grace and speed of a tortoise emerging from winter, Fanny groped her way to the central platform and clung to the railings in fear of her life.

‘I say!’ George exclaimed, spinning round on his heel like a dancer. ‘Will you look at that?’

The five stood – suspended in space, bathed by the sunshine – surrounded on all sides by an enormous, painted replica of the Neapolitan region. William, bending his neck back to take in the sky, whistled in admiration. ‘What an extraordinary sight!’ He reached out and offered his arms again to Miss Atkinson and Mary. ‘Ladies?’ He smiled. ‘A stroll through the Italian streets, if you will?’

Fanny hoped they were not wanting to spend too long here. Personally, she felt she had got the measure of it already. She had been once to Paris – most unenjoyable; the food made her ill – and formed there the firm opinion that one European city was much like another. She tucked her arm under George’s and allowed him to walk her around.

‘So what were they against, that crowd outside? While not doubting their passion, I could not quite make it out.’

‘This very Panorama, apparently.’ George spoke from the side of his mouth as he studied the painting. ‘False representation … fakery … we mortal fools cannot be trusted to tell the difference between this and the real thing … all the usual.’

Fanny sighed. Londoners: give them all a day on horseback over the Weald or a full week of harvest, then let us see if they still hold these ridiculous views.

It was the middle of March. She and Sir Edward, with Mary Dorothea and her new governess, had been up in Town since January and, though she was trying her best to get used to it, London would persist in being so very different from everything she thought as the norm.

Take these other visitors, for example. Her eye had already slid from the ‘astonishing spectacle’. She was now studying the people around them – that was the thing about these so-called attractions: one did rub up against all sorts – and seeing something she had lately noticed a lot: the staring. Was this a new custom? She had come to Town once or twice over the years, and had never previously been so aware. But now, wherever she went with Miss Atkinson and Mary, passers-by seemed to gawp and it was happening right there again, in the Panorama. The girls walked; the heads turned. Furthermore, some of these heads seemed then to whisper between themselves. It was deeply unpleasant. Fanny often found herself blushing and there was she, now a married lady. Her heart went out to Mary and Miss A. They simply were not used to such impertinence. It certainly did not happen in Ashford.

‘I say, Fan.’ William approached her. ‘Will you look at that now?’

Fanny gave Naples a cursory glance. It appeared to be quite horribly hot, and frightfully busy. How did anyone live, all cramped together like that? ‘At what exactly?’

‘Oh!’ Miss Atkinson clasped her hands into the position of prayer and raised them, as if the Holy Ghost were coming out of the wall. ‘The quite wondrous basilica!’

‘Ah, yes. Perfectly splendid.’ None of it was quite Fanny’s cup of tea – all rather Catholic – and she was beginning to wonder if the governess might not be just a little affected. ‘Have we had enough, do we think?’ she asked the young people brightly.

And soon they were back out on the streets.

As a London establishment, Number 57 Portland Place suited Fanny and Sir Edward exceedingly well. Within the towering white stucco mansion, the rooms were many and large, the amenities excellent and Lady Banks so delighted to host them that it felt almost as if the generosity were theirs.

It was now late afternoon, and the ladies were peaceably alone in the drawing room. ‘How blessed I am to have you all under my roof.’ Lady Banks was never to be found without her embroidery frame and, almost always, with a needle in hand. ‘You chase away my old widow’s sorrows, my dear, and keep me sprightly.’ She gave a vague stab at the canvas, but did not pull the thread through.

‘I was thinking the same thing only today.’ Fanny directed her words around the person of the footman who poured her tisane. ‘About my own blessings, I mean.’ She stared into the fireplace and hoped that his next job might be another log. ‘We were at that Panorama business—’

‘Ah, yes. Of course, my views on that are well known. Did you not think it fr-r-rightful?’

The footman saw to the fire, which hissed and then flared.

‘Perfectly dreadful, I’m afraid. I thought I might faint.’ Fanny shuddered at the memory. ‘But it did lead me to think how very lucky I am,’ she said earnestly.

‘Did it, my dear?’ Lady Banks dropped her work in delight. ‘Do tell me precisely why .’ She snuggled into her armchair with anticipation.

‘Well, just imagine if one had been born a Continental —’

Lady Banks looked a little surprised.

‘—and forced for society’s sake to stay in somewhere like Naples. Lady Banks.’ She leaned forward. ‘I have seen it. Well, Mr Burford’s representation, at least. The place is impossible . Those poor, benighted Italians could not swing a cat .’ She sat back again, and looked up at the great portrait that hung on the chimney piece. As well as being the most courageous explorer and quite brilliant botanist – or so it was said – Sir Joseph looked, too, as if he was rather gentle and kind. Had their paths crossed would he have approved of her? Fanny very much hoped so.

‘So are we not lucky to be British , and gathered in London? And, of course, to have you , dear Lady Banks. You are so kind to us. Without you, I would have nowhere to stay while the House was in session: my husband would be in Town and I all alone at home in the country.’ Fanny felt oddly moved. ‘Well then, how sad.’

‘Newlyweds.’ Lady Banks winked like a pantomime dame. Fanny blushed. ‘Anything else?’

‘And, well.’ In fact, something was on her mind. She decided to share it. After all, Lady Banks had softened a lot since the first time they met. ‘I was worried, when I married my beloved husband, that I might lose touch with my dear siblings, whose lives would continue to travel down one avenue, so to speak, while mine took off on another. I was forced at a young age, you know, to be something more like a mother to them and have often worried that it had somehow prevented them from seeing me more as a sister, or friend .’

Privately, Fanny had feared that, once she was no longer looking after them – working, arranging, the general business of nurturing – they would have no further need of her whatsoever. They had often, when they were younger, played a game called the Most. Lizzie was always the Most Beautiful, William the Most Fun, and so on and so forth. Fanny had always longed to be the Most … well, she barely minded, as long as it was at least a little bit interesting. In fact, she was rarely mentioned. But that was too bleak to share.

‘And now look! George and William have actually chosen to spend the whole of this week with me, which hasn’t happened for years . They came with us to the Strand – and heavens knows how we would have survived it without them – even though they have no especial responsibility to us now. And they have just taken Mary out to the park – fear not, Miss A is there as her chaperone – which seems to me so enormously kind. And on top of all that, we have Ned asking to join us for dinner … Is it not touching?

‘I knew we were close, but had no idea until this season that they would, well …’ She gave a little laugh which she hoped was suitably modest, and flicked her fingers. ‘… flock quite in the manner they have.’

Lady Banks opened her mouth to speak, then thought for a moment and closed it again. She stared into the fire, smiled to herself, shrugged.

Then up she spoke: ‘And is there anything else you might like to mention? Anything at all?’

‘I – no – I can’t think—’ Fanny looked nervous, and flushed.

‘Then I shall say it myself.’ Lady Banks returned to her embroidery. ‘I hear your dear husband is somewhat unwell.’ She reached for her thimble. ‘Ague of the face this time, or something other?’

‘Yes, the ague – or so I believe.’ Fanny felt uneasy.

‘Quite what that is exactly, I cannot possibly imagine, though I am sure it brings with it the most acute form of suffering, eh?’ She picked at her stitching. ‘But to my point: this is something you might want to make a note of, in future.’ And groped for the thread. ‘It will crop up every time, as it did with poor Annabella – do not be offended, my dear. Dead and buried, dead and buried.’

Now Lady Banks was warming to her subject, the embroidery was back in her lap.

‘By the time she got to her third, of course, it was how she knew. Sir Edward’s own health would suffer some hideous collapse and – lo! – the dear lady would discover she had started a baby.’ The jowls wobbled in emphasis. ‘Of course, we should still call Dr Maton here, to be on the safe side, but I think he will only confirm what we already know.

‘Congratulations, my dear. It is the most excellent news. Another little Knatchbull! Let us hope it comes out just like our dear Mary Dorothea.’

Sir Edward and Fanny had planned to leave it some weeks before they told the children. They were all to be together for Easter in Kent, and that seemed the optimum moment, as the baby was due in the late summer. However, the business was not proving quite as straightforward as Fanny had hoped. Rather than blooming, as was expected, she felt, more often, indifferent and Dr Maton had ordered enforced rest. It was decided that Fanny should immediately return to Godmersham, where she could expect to be well looked after by dear Marianne. And of course, this had to be shared with Miss Atkinson, and Mary Dorothea.

Bearing in mind their particular closeness, Sir Edward was keen to be the one to tell his daughter. He later reported back with some pride that the child had wept tears of happiness and soaked his shoulder quite through. Fanny took Miss Atkinson alone.

‘You asked to see me, madam?’ The governess put her head around the door, smiled prettily, stepped in and then curtseyed.

She really does have the most perfect manner, thought Fanny. Respectful but easy – a combination quite hard to achieve. How remarkably clever of Sir Edward to hire her; what an excellent father he was. She bade Miss Atkinson sit, informed her of the interesting developments which Miss Atkinson politely pretended she did not already know and announced they’d be returning to Kent in the morning.

Somehow, she then felt more should be said: ‘Now, of course, in the coming months – few years, indeed – I cannot see that I will be able to spend quite as much time with Mary as I would like.’

‘Of course, madam,’ Miss Atkinson replied with all possible warmth. ‘You will have your hands full.’

‘Quite so. Therefore, my dear husband and I would like some reassurance that you are happy in this situation and have no intention of leaving us before Mary is “out”.’

‘Madam, I could not be happier. Mary Dorothea is the most excellent pupil, as well as companion.’

As she spoke, Fanny studied Miss Atkinson’s appearance almost for the first time. Why had she not noticed before? It can only be that she had not truly been looking.

‘She has such an interested mind, is so quick to learn and her facility for music has deeply impressed me,’ Miss Atkinson went on.

The governess had about her an elegance rarely seen beyond the best drawing rooms. Her features were fine – her nose, in particular, slender and narrow. There, the skin appeared particularly thin and delicate so that, when she smiled, it stretched across the bridge, creating a flare in the nostril. Fanny could not deny that the whole effect was unusually winning.

‘She has so many fine qualities – I am daily enchanted! – that in my experience are rarely to be found together. For example, she has a highly developed, innate sense of right and wrong – one might call it a moral clarity – unusual for a girl of her years. Yet at the same time, her sense of humour is simply delightful! Mary Dorothea is keen to work, pleased to play … Madam, I must say that, as a pupil, she is almost too good to be true.’

Her hair was not golden – more honey from heather – but her complexion was glowing, even on that dark, cold afternoon.

‘And I hope – feel, indeed – that, while Mary Dorothea shows me all due respect as her teacher, she and I still manage to be, truly, very good friends.’

The fact was, Miss Atkinson was uncommonly pretty.

So why on earth had Sir Edward taken her on? Once upon a time, Fanny herself had had a governess who was rather similar – charming and clever and all the rest. Naturally, it ended unpleasantly – does it not always? – and left her poor dear late mama badly shaken. If Fanny were to perform her stepmotherly duties properly, she should keep a good eye on this Miss Atkinson.

But for now, it was time for her afternoon sleep.