by Sophia Tobin
‘Miss Isabel is resting, ma’am,’ said the nurse. ‘She is a little tired today. No cause for alarm.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I am.’
‘I will visit her later.’
‘My sister is a weakling.’
‘Hush now, dear.’
‘Come here,’ said Ashton, holding out a hand. Thomas came down to them, slowly now, and in the manner of a little Cavalier, which he had been practising, she could tell. He babbled of swords, and of his tutor, and of his nurse being naughty to him. Charlotte touched his hair: soft, clean, and as golden as hers was dark.
‘I must change,’ she murmured. He made a slight move towards her, and she found herself dipping to kiss his head. He did not smell of her; he did not smell of her daughters; he was, still, a little foreign object. ‘You look very fine in your new suit.’
‘You look very fine too,’ he said. His chin rested on her shoulder. It was enough.
She rose, and Ashton put his hand out to her. She took it, and kissed it, in a swell of tenderness which had seemed unimaginable hours before. Such was the shifting kaleidoscope of her marriage, for her feelings towards her husband were not constant – they changed with the light and the hour. She left Ashton talking to their son and his nurse, and climbed the stairs softly. She saw the shadow of a servant at the turn of one flight, and she took another, pretending she had not seen them. Past the eyes of a dozen Kinsburg ancestors, made rich by glass; past a wall of arms and armour; through a corridor where the Dutch still lifes hung, to her suite of rooms, where her maid, Katie, greeted her. Charlotte embraced her, enquired after her, and finally sat down with a sigh.
‘I’ll wear the green dress,’ she said.
‘Best not be late to tea,’ said Katie. ‘Mr Lemaire has been working flat out.’ And she smirked.
Charlotte groaned. Barbara, the wife of Ashton’s brother Nicholas, largely expressed difficult emotions through the medium of patisserie, and had engaged a French specialist, Mr Lemaire, to execute it. The scale of the cakes she ordered for tea was proportional to her rage each day. They were cakes of garish colours, iced elaborately, stuffed with cream, sixteen-layered, mirror-glazed. Cakes that had to be attacked rather than eaten. Barbara rarely ate a slice herself, instead forcing portions on those around her.
Charlotte went to the window as Katie brought the gown she had asked for. She looked out at the perfectly manicured gardens of Redlands, with their topiary and fountains, and always a gardener, so perfectly dressed, carefully and quietly tending to something. She had looked at this view every day of her marriage. In the past it had chilled her; its perfection had a certain power over her. But now, all of a sudden, the columns of light and shadow falling through the pruned trees on the horizon were no longer about order and confinement; they were simply beautiful.
‘You seem well, madam,’ murmured Katie.
Charlotte looked at her and wondered if everyone could see the hope in her eyes when she thought of Henry. She did not have to see him again, but he had changed everything. She felt that beyond the window, the sun had been released from a covering of clouds, and was filling the room with an intense golden light. Some kind of new beginning had been made.
She felt the density of the feeling between her and Henry as they sat in the lodge, comrades and friends. She was filled with it, as the golden light warmed her.
She smiled at Katie. ‘I have been calm too long,’ she said. Her maid shrugged, used to her strangeness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1940
COMMITTEE ROOM, THE MIRRORMAKERS’ CLUB
In the Committee Room the light poured in through the broken windows, left unboarded by Bill. Way above Livy’s head, the gilded cornicing depicted cherubs with plump and babyish faces, horses racing across the countryside, and stylized trees. The light bounced off the gilded highlights. This side of the building got good light, and its furnishings, although lavish, were also businesslike: the long committee table and leather upholstered chairs imparted a briskness which was comforting to Livy. She found a section of the table which was not studded with glass, and put her small pile of boxes there. She was tired of the vaults, and wanted to come up into the light. She was also tired of her emotions. Despite her disappointment at Jonathan, she felt drawn to him. She always knew when he was watching her, as she read through the archives. Felt his eyes; sensed him. And the kiss had lingered in her mind.
The smoke and dust from a hundred bombed buildings hung in the air of the empty City streets. Thick and noxious, the kind of air that stuck its nails into the back of your throat, so that you felt the scrape of it there hours later. And yet, standing at the glassless window of the Committee Room, Livy thought she sensed the freshness of the winter, a hint of the irrepressible life of the city.
Earlier that morning, she had sat with the painting in its basement vault where Jonathan had placed it, wrapped in sheeting. On the floor, leaning on one hand, her legs folded behind her. Not memorizing any details, just interrogating Charlotte’s vivid face on that flat surface. Who are you looking at? she said. Who are you focusing on, just past my shoulder? Ashton? Henry? Some other person I know nothing of, lingering in the corners of your life? She thought if she looked long enough, Charlotte might give her some answers. That the vivid face might speak, glowing with the light from beyond the window, Redlands behind her. Charlotte’s face: self-assured, almost mocking. Slightly impatient. But silent. Charlotte’s expression seemed to change with the colour of Livy’s own thoughts. Today, she had seen a slightly rebellious look in those eyes.
Livy realized that she had equated Ashton with Jonathan. Ashton was so absent from the things she had read, that this vacancy had simply been filled by his great-grandson, with his black hair and his green eyes. Jonathan had lingered around her these past days, and his silence was harder for her to bear than if he had spoken. It was silence that drew things from her, that made her want to fill it with words, and questions. She had worked on, reading through the boxes, sensing him always nearby, as though he were waiting for something. The scent of him intoxicated her – she both longed for and dreaded the touch of his hand on the back of her neck.
*
Sitting at the Committee Room table, Livy turned another letter. Henry Dale-Collingwood’s writing was variable: sometimes so neat that it seemed like a formal exercise, sometimes so scrawled and on the borders of indecipherable that it seemed to tell of agitation. Her connection to him, set in motion by Christian, had strengthened over the days. He repeated phrases, phrases so formal and impenetrable that she was sure he was hiding behind them. Surely a man could not be so pompous?
I send respectful thanks to the committee for their valuable and enriching insights . . .
I beg leave to inform the committee . . .
I ask the committee’s permission to . . .
If the committee will forgive me, I will take the liberty of . . .
Occasionally, she thought she heard him clearly: a weary sarcasm in the elaborate phrasing. But she could not be sure.
She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. She had been reading, she thought, for a minimum of an hour and a half, and all of the letters so far had been by the architect. They were full of politeness and brusque, gentlemanly vocabulary. Nothing personal at all. Miss Hardaker’s ‘Index’ had not helped. She had focused on financial matters, rather than individuals. The only thing to do was to keep reading.
The next letter was in different handwriting, and Livy’s heart rate spiked when she saw the name at the bottom: Ashton Kinsburg.
She leaned back in her chair, and breathed out. Then she scanned the letter, and the result was deflation. She had found the first mention of the name Jonathan had been looking for, and it was the dullest letter she had ever seen, referring to the proposed proportions of a room. It was written in a hard, firm, large character, which she did not like. The writing was ugly. And there was an insistence to it, even when he obscured reprimands. That ma
tter we spoke of; I would be grateful if you could give it your attention as soon as possible.
She turned it over, to the address side. There, she saw a drawing, in slightly lighter ink – the ink Dale-Collingwood’s last letter had been written in. He had drawn a face: a creepy, funny little face, like a green man, tendrils proceeding out from it. Beneath it, he had written ‘taceo’. Livy did not understand the Latin, but she found that she was smiling. She lay the doodled side of paper alongside one of Henry’s more formal letters; there was no mistake, it was his ink, and his hand.
‘I say, Henry,’ she said. ‘There you are.’
A thought occurred to her, and she sifted back through one of the other boxes looking for a typewritten list she had seen earlier. She assumed that it had been typed by Miss Hardaker, who had evidently been through these boxes: she saw the traces of her, such as, in pencil, a date written out beneath a scrappily written ink version, clarifying it for future researchers, or perhaps even just herself.
The typed list was headed: ‘Works of art displayed in the Mirrormakers’ Club on its opening in 1841, taken from the committee minutes’.
Livy ran her eyes down the list, all three pages of it: and then again, frowning.
There was no trace of Woman and Looking Glass, or any other title like it; no trace of a painting called Mrs Charlotte Kinsburg.
She put the list back. So Henry hadn’t known this painting. It must have been acquired for the Club later in its history.
‘You’re a sight for sore eyes.’
Her heart jumped, and she looked up to see Christian. ‘Why on earth do you come tiptoeing in?’ she said. ‘Can’t you announce yourself? You’re forever making me jump.’ And she began to laugh, unexpectedly.
He laughed in return. ‘Can’t help it.’ He stood there, hat in hand, and the same old reverse magnetism kept them apart: her wariness, his caution. ‘I just thought I’d stop by,’ he said. ‘I’m meant to be having lunch with a pal at Fishmongers’ Hall.’
As she looked at his watchful face, she found herself wanting to confide in him, and the strange mixture of closeness and alienation troubled her. Her feeling towards Jonathan was a simple desire. But for Jonathan she felt none of the familiarity she had with Christian: as though she could yield every thought to him without any effort.
‘As you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful.’ She patted the chair next to her. He came to it eagerly, drawing it out and sitting down.
‘Are these the archives you mentioned to me?’ he said.
‘Yes. Do you know what taceo means?’ She pointed at the letter where Henry Dale-Collingwood had written it.
He frowned and thought for a moment, his lips moving as he ran through the options. ‘If my schoolboy Latin answers, I think it means “I keep silent”,’ he said. ‘What’s the context?’
‘I hardly know. He’s written it on a letter from Ashton Kinsburg, one of the patrons who funded the building of the Club. But it’s clearly a private note to himself. Like a doodle.’
‘What are you looking for?’
‘It’s a kind of mystery, which Mr Whitewood wants me to solve.’
‘You always did love a mystery. Agatha Christie, if I recall.’
A part of her slotted into place: of course she had. She blinked, and considered it. ‘Not that kind,’ she said. ‘Not a death. It’s a diamond, actually. What Mr Whitewood is looking for.’
‘How bizarre.’ Christian glanced at her then back to the archive material. He was running his eyes over the letters. ‘These are a goldmine, architecturally speaking. Can I sit here, with you, and read them?’
She felt the blush run its way across her face. ‘One day, perhaps. But Mr Whitewood might not like it.’
‘I’m sure. Does he think I’m a threat to him?’
‘In what way?’
He kept his eyes on the letters, turning one in his hand, as though he were reading it. ‘He wants you, Livy. That much is clear.’
Her stomach muscles tightened. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
He put the letter down, abandoning the attempt to read it, and looked into her eyes. His were a clear brown, and his expression was tinged with sadness, but without any of the reticence she had seen in him before. He almost looked angry. ‘Of course he does. You’re beautiful, innocent and vulnerable. Just his type, I’d have thought.’
She got up from the table: he put his hand out to take her wrist but withdrew before touching her. ‘I’m sorry. Have I upset you? I apologize. I didn’t mean to. Please, sit down.’ He looked down at her wrist. ‘Your watch is broken.’
‘Yes.’ She put her hand to it. She didn’t know why she continued to wear the cracked watch. She could not bring herself to take it off.
‘I know someone who can fix that,’ he said.
‘It’s perfectly fine. You’d best go. I’m meant to be mopping the backstairs.’ She was. She had already spent far too much time ‘going through the old papers’, as Peggy called it.
‘Can I come with you? You never finished that tour you promised me.’
‘I don’t think I promised you anything.’
He looked away sharply. ‘Touché.’
She felt sorry at the look on his face. ‘It’s not that exciting. The backstairs are just the servants’ stairs: stone flights of steps. And they get muddy, because the firewatchers use them. On the ground floor, there is a ring of service rooms, which run around the perimeter of the building, against the larger rooms, but hidden mainly by the Stair Hall and its marble walls. Much smaller than the grand rooms, and not that interesting.’
His eyes sparked. ‘But coming from the servant class myself, I would like to see them, very much.’
She sighed, trying and failing to stop the smile that came to her face. ‘Oh, come on, then. I suppose we might trip over the diamond in the dark.’
She had left the mop and bucket behind one of the Committee Room doors. She led the way, him dawdling behind, pausing on the upper landing of the Stair Hall. She couldn’t blame him: with its colour and grandeur, its scale, it was an intoxicating room. He was looking up and around, trying to absorb every detail of the place, she could tell. As she reached the door to the backstairs, by the door to the Hide, she put the bucket down.
The door was rattling in its frame. For a moment, she wondered who had opened another door in the ring of rooms, or if air was flooding in from a bombed and broken window downstairs, setting up a kind of current which was making the door shake. The shaking became more and more violent, the slight margin of room for rattling in the wooden frame somehow making it more concentrated, more horrible.
But then, the doorknob turned. It turned as though there were someone on the other side, trying to open a locked door. The doorknob turned and reverted again and again, and Livy could sense the pressure on the other side, the pushing. She did not know why; it sent a sick chill around her heart.
She glanced to her left. Christian was still on the north landing, looking up at the dome. She went to him. He turned and read something on her face. ‘What is it?’
‘Come here.’ She led him back to the door. In those few moments, those few steps, everything had fallen silent and still. It was just a door.
She glanced at him. ‘I think it might be locked. It was shaking, as though someone were on the other side.’ She didn’t want to touch it.
Christian reached forwards, and turned the doorknob. Gently, it unclicked and opened, smoothly and easily. He pushed the door, stepped back and Livy took a step forwards, flipped the light switch on, and looked down the turning staircase. There was no one there, no sound or sign that anyone had been there.
‘I must have been mistaken,’ said Livy.
‘Old buildings,’ said Christian, ‘all have a ghost or two.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1940
SERVANTS’ STAIRCASE, THE MIRRORMAKERS’ CLUB
Livy and Christian set off down the empty back staircase, and every step echoed.
Here there were no carpets to soften the noise of everyday life, and the shape and materials of the long staircase made the acoustics harsh and ugly. The door slammed behind them, the noise reverberating off the stone. Christian put down the mop and bucket on the first turning step. The steps were of lead-coloured grey stone, their centres smoothed by a century of comings and goings.
‘I’ll just show you the other rooms quickly,’ she said. ‘Then you must leave me to mop the stairs.’
‘I’ll mop them for you, if you like.’
‘I’m perfectly capable. But thank you.’
Livy put her hand to the smooth surface of the wooden bannister: the stair spindles were metal arabesques. Designed by Henry, she had no doubt: in fact, she was sure she had seen a sketch for them in pencil, in one of the notebooks. Christian was half a step behind her. She stopped; he stopped. As the sound of their footsteps faded into silence, she felt the sense of him behind her.
‘There’s a bathroom to the right, the firewatchers fill their buckets there sometimes,’ she said. ‘But the other service rooms are shut off. The blackout is left up, permanently.’
‘I don’t mind the darkness if you don’t,’ he said.
At the bottom of the stairs, she turned to the left to lead him into the shut-off rooms, and stopped. She felt a sudden obstruction there. She didn’t want to step forwards, into the rooms which had been closed off. These past weeks, she had kept to a few places: the vaults, the Stair Hall, the other public rooms. Not the darkness. And it was Christian who was making her step forwards, into the shadows. For a moment she thought about turning back, about telling him to go, that he could not make her do it.
‘Livy?’ he said, behind her.
She stepped forwards.
The ghost of the light from the staircase helped them find their way into the dust-sheeted rooms, thick blackout material over the vast windows. Strange forms loomed out at them: dust-sheeted desks and chairs.