annoy him, I should think we’d quite enjoy ourselves. I’ve never been to Vienna but I believe it’s an exciting sort of place. Two months isn’t long, you know, and I daresay we’ll be able to fill in the days until your mother and father come home.’ Always supposing, she told herself silently, that uncle didn’t dislike her on sight and send her back to England.
Eileen gave her a childish grin. ‘I think perhaps I’ll like you,’ she observed. ‘Why didn’t your stepsisters and brothers like you?’
Cordelia pondered the question. ‘Well, my father married again, a widow with a little girl and boy, and they didn’t like me overmuch, I suppose because I was grown up and they weren’t, and then my stepmother had twins, and I looked after them. I expect they thought of me as a kind of nursemaid.’
‘You’re not sorry for yourself?’ stated Eileen.
‘Good grief no. I say Eileen, I have to buy some clothes before we go to Vienna, would you help me with that? You see, I’ve been living in the country and I’m not a bit fashionable.’
‘I can see that. What’s your name?’
‘Cordelia.’
Eileen smiled, a wide friendly smile, Cordelia was relieved to see. ‘OK Cordelia, I think you’re nice.’
‘Thank you Eileen, I think you’re nice too. You must tell me what I’m supposed to do, you know. Do you think we ought to go and find your grandmother and tell her that we’ve met?’
Eileen came closer and took her hand. ‘Yes, let’s.’
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS GOING to be all right, decided Cordelia, lying awake in her comfortable bed that first night; the day had gone well. She and Eileen had lunched with Lady Trescombe and then gone for a leisurely walk while the child advised her solemnly about the kind of clothes she should buy and the various improvements she could make to her hair and make-up. Then when that important subject had been dealt with, they made hilarious guesses about Uncle Charles; he was to be stout and short, going bald and stuffy and when Cordelia reminded Eileen that she had said that he was a large man, she was told that people shrank with age. But they didn’t talk about him at tea, after all Lady Trescombe was his mother, and might be sensitive about his appearance. ‘And in any case,’ observed Cordelia, going to say good night, ‘we mustn’t be unkind—we’ve only been joking; perhaps your uncle is the best possible kind of uncle to have.’
Eileen looked doubtful. ‘Well, I don’t think he can be, if he was he’d have been married simply years ago.’ She added anxiously: ‘You will stay, won’t you?’
‘Provided your uncle will let me, my dear.’ Cordelia spoke cheerfully making light of her uncertainty.
It was astonishing how quickly the days flew by. She quickly discovered that Lady Trescombe was only too glad to leave her granddaughter in her care for the greater part of the day. They had lunch and dinner together and sometimes tea, but breakfast they had alone and provided Lady Trescombe knew what their plans were, they could do more or less what they wanted. True, Cordelia supervised Eileen’s piano practice each morning, and they read together for an hour during the day but otherwise the time was theirs to do with it as they wished. They walked miles while Cordelia listened to Eileen’s tales of her parents; they were never ending and she suspected that the child was homesick for them. She had spent the last year with her grandmother, going to a local private school where she had been happy enough but, she confided, lonely. ‘Granny’s friends are all so old,’ she explained, ‘and now I’ll have to stay with Uncle Charles and he’ll be old too…’
‘Well, not as old as all that,’ demurred Cordelia, ‘and if he wants me to stay, I’m not old at all, really. Remember we’ll be in a foreign city and there’s an awful lot to see there and school will be fun. Can you speak any German?’
‘A little, we had to learn it at school.’
‘Splendid—I can speak it a little too, so we’ll have fun exploring when you’re out of school.’ She saw Eileen pout and said hastily, ‘Let’s make plans for the shopping I still have to do; now what do you suggest I buy?’
She had two weeks salary and she intended to spend almost all she had. Once Eileen was in bed each evening, Cordelia sat in her room, whittling down her list of clothes until she decided that she had done the best she could, so that when, two days before they were due to leave, Lady Trescombe told her that Bates would drive her into Guildford so that she might do her shopping, she knew exactly what she had to look for. Eileen was to go too and if she saw anything she liked, said her grandmother, Cordelia could buy it for her; she was given a roll of notes to use for this purpose although she didn’t think that they would be spent; Eileen had a great many clothes and surely had no use for more.
Bates dropped them off in the middle of the shopping streets, arranged to pick them up during the afternoon and drove away and Cordelia, clutching her purse and with Eileen hanging on her arm, began her search.
She succeeded very well, considering that Eileen held matters up from time to time, seeing something that she simply had to have. But Cordelia, while making no objection to this, took care that they didn’t waste too much time and refused to be side tracked by her young companion’s wish that she should buy several pairs of highly coloured jeans and a handful of T-shirts. ‘Not quite the rig for a governess,’ she pointed out and went on looking for a cotton skirt with which she could wear coloured blouses. She settled for a sand coloured one, which Eileen declared was very dull but which was exactly what Cordelia had wanted. One or two cotton blouses and some sandals took care of her day by day wants—rather sparse, but that would have to do. A cotton jersey dress in a pretty blue would do for travelling and exploring museums and churches and a thin silk jersey dress in pale pastel shades would take care of any social occasions, although she didn’t expect many of those. It only remained to buy a cardigan to match the skirt and a pair of plain court shoes. And by then her money was almost exhausted. There was enough to buy undies and tights from a high street chain store but not enough for a raincoat; she would have to make do with her old one. Perhaps in Vienna she would buy one. The pair of them repaired to the restaurant of the store they were in, ate a good lunch and then browsed around the more expensive shops, where Eileen found exactly the kind of sandals she craved. That they were extremely expensive and unlikely to last more than a month or so, were arguments Cordelia tried in vain; they were bought, and since they were gaily striped, it became imperative to find jeans and a top to match them. Cordelia, watching patiently while Eileen started to try on these garments, wondered what Lady Trescombe would say when she handed over the remnants of the money she had given her.
She need not have worried; Eileen’s grandmother expressed approval of both sandals and outfit, enquired kindly of Cordelia if she had found all that she required for herself and suggested that the evening might be spent in packing. A lengthy business, for Eileen changed her mind a dozen times in as many minutes and when at last Cordelia had packed for her declared that it didn’t really matter if she hadn’t got all she needed with her; she could always buy anything she wanted in Vienna. Cordelia, starting on her own modest packing, wondered what Uncle Charles would have to say to that.
They were to fly from Heathrow to Munich and Bates drove them there in the early morning. Although they were joining the cruise ship at Passau, Lady Trescombe had explained, they would be met by a hired car at Munich airport and drive there in comfort; she had, she explained further, a dislike of travelling in coaches. ‘And I shall not go ashore,’ she told Cordelia, ‘but I think it would be good for Eileen to see as much as possible; so you will take all the tours with her. I hope the weather will be fine.’
