by Sophia Tobin
The boy had frowned again, deeply this time, and his bottom lip stuck out. ‘You are not being tender to me. You have not told me I am better than my sisters. You tell me now.’
She looked at him.
‘Or I will tell Papa.’
She gazed at him: her son. Remembered the days of the twins’ births. Pain that had hummed around her body like clouds of flies in the August afternoon.
‘Mama?’
Charlotte adjusted the fingerless lace mittens she had selected from her room on the journey up through Redlands to the nursery. She pressed one hand to her face now: smelt the trace of lavender. She looked down at her son and smiled.
He spoke again. ‘Papa is best to me. Papa buys me things. My sword, my pony, my globes.’
His nurse decided to intervene. ‘And yet Mama oversees your food and your clothes. Mama orders you the fire that keeps you warm in the evenings. And your favourite pudding.’
He looked a little troubled now. He took Charlotte’s hand again, and pulled her a step or two to the window. From a distance, a black carriage trundled across the horizon. ‘Look,’ he said, suddenly excited. ‘They will be here very soon.’
Charlotte stared at the carriage. ‘Yes, my dear.’
He frowned again. ‘I have been watching for them all afternoon, and now that you have distracted me, they have come. You have ruined it.’
‘If you are not a constant watcher, Thomas, that is hardly my fault,’ said Charlotte, and immediately felt guilty at her sharpness. She put her hands on his shoulders, and gently moved them up a little. ‘Stand up straight when you meet them.’ He shook her hands off him. This movement of rejection shook her, and she leaned forwards and embraced him. But his little body was stiff in her arms and when she took his face in her hands she saw there only his sullenness, the anticipation of speaking ill of her. She kissed him on the forehead. ‘Say whatever you wish to your father,’ she said. ‘But hurry down now. We must greet the visitors.’
*
‘What a monstrosity,’ murmured Peregrine, as the carriage pulled up.
‘Oh, come now,’ said Henry, as the door was opened and the steps let down. ‘It is not as bad as all that. He’s just added an extra half a mile of frontage onto it.’
And here was Ashton, dressed more flamboyantly than Henry expected, in a vivid yellow waistcoat beneath his black frock coat. He seized Henry’s hand and shook it, half-bowing as he did so, and this burst of almost youthful enthusiasm drew Henry up. But Ashton was now greeting Peregrine, and then leading both men towards the grand entrance of the house, where his son stood, shifting on his feet with excitement.
‘My son and heir, Master Thomas Kinsburg,’ cried Ashton, throwing out his arm and directing the men there. Henry glanced at Peregrine; he felt foolish paying obeisance to a child, but both men managed encouraging remarks for the small boy, who had clearly been primed by his father and prattled on about his home surely being the greatest building in England. Henry bit his lip and did not dare glance at Peregrine during the course of this, but was glad when, after several minutes, the child was taken off by his nurse, and his father returned to his normal manner of disengaged archness.
And then there was Mrs Kinsburg.
She had stood back, a pale shape in the vast, dark doorway. One might have mistaken her for a servant, with her preference for the shadows; or had he spent too long poring over plans, and straining his sight? But when she came forwards, Henry saw what an astonishing production she was: the hair, plaited intricately and lying in loops over her ears, a band of the finest lace over the top. Her dress was cream-coloured, adorned with pink roses and green leaves, the many layers of stiff petticoats beneath making her skirt an exaggerated dome. She wore fingerless lace mittens. Her face was free of artificiality; the slight line of pink at her cheekbones was from where she had pinched them. At Ashton’s direction, she came forwards, and she brought the scent of lily of the valley with her. She did not look directly at them: never once did her eyes meet Henry’s, and he was glad of it.
It seemed to Henry that he and Charlotte were frozen for a moment in a tableau: her curtsey and his bow. It was clear that Peregrine and Ashton saw nothing. But he felt – she felt – it, though neither of them signalled to the other. The grey stone of Redlands; the shimmering green of the hills beyond them; a sky so blue it was unearthly. And, just for Henry and Charlotte, the opening shaft of light, as everything suddenly became bright. He had seen it in paintings, felt it pierce his heart. Chiaroscuro: a shaft of light through shadow.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1839
The front hall of Redlands was unremarkable enough: stone, wood, coats of arms. But instead of woodsmoke, dogs and soot, the scent of flowers filled the air, creating a sense of intensity and expectation.
‘We will be taking tea in the salon de printemps,’ said Ashton. He ushered them through a series of smaller older rooms towards one of the new wings.
‘Do you mind if I take drawings throughout the weekend?’ said Henry suddenly. He felt for the sketchbook in his pocket, sensing Peregrine’s eyes on him. ‘I don’t want to forget what I have seen.’
Ashton’s face showed at first astonishment and then gratification. The relief of a person who had expected to display and demonstrate to extract approval, but who had been handed its gift immediately. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘That is – I did not think – you approve, then?’
‘Yes,’ said Henry with a brief nod. There was no flattery in his tone; he sounded tired. Ashton blinked, perplexed; the approval had not come in the form he wanted.
‘My friend is rather eccentric in these things,’ said Peregrine hurriedly. ‘Drawing, always drawing. Let us go in to tea, Henry.’
The salon de printemps did not receive its guests: it erupted upon them. Its decorations and furnishings were all in the rococo style: curves and scrolls and shells and flowers. A frenzy of gold leaf and vivid green silk. There were a number of small ornate tables dotted around the room, and at least six servants at Henry’s count stood formally at several points of the perimeter. At the sight of the guests, a vast silver teapot was brought, together with tea-making apparatus and tiny porcelain cups and saucers in Sèvres Rose Pompadour. Immense ornamental cakes were placed around the room on the many small tables. Henry found himself tended to by Charlotte’s sister-in-law, who was disconcertingly known as Madam Barbara to differentiate her from Charlotte, the other Mrs Kinsburg. He chose a slice of multi-layered sponge cake and watched as the lady sawed through it with an admirable mixture of delicacy and brutality.
‘How marvellous,’ he said, when she eventually presented it to him. Several feet away Peregrine was tackling an immense construction of choux pastry. Staring at the severe black and white stripes on his own piece of cake, Henry rather envied him. He tackled the cake with speed, imagining that it would be best to get it over with. The sugary cream and icing made him feel slightly giddy.
As they ate, Ashton spoke of the formal gardens. Henry nodded, and tried to take in what his host was saying, although his words faded from his mind almost instantly. He sat there for some time, his plate empty in his hand, as Ashton questioned him about his architectural education and travels in europe. As he continued to talk, Charlotte came and gently removed the plate from Henry’s hand, passing it to a servant. There was a moment when Ashton took a forkful of cake into his mouth, affording a pause in his questions.
‘Do you like this room, Mr Dale-Collingwood?’ said Charlotte, in a low voice.
Henry glanced up at her. ‘It’s very pleasant.’
She smiled. ‘It is known as the salon de printemps,’ she said softly. ‘But I always refer to it as the very-very green salon – we have many salons, of different colours. And we do not yet have the correct colour of Sèvres to complement this one.’ He saw the dry humour sparkle in her eyes. But before he could say anything she moved off to speak to Peregrine, and Ashton continued. In the far corner of the room, their tea discarded, Barbara and Nicholas see
med to be having a disagreement, mainly conducted in furious whispers.
Peregrine rose with an air of selfless sacrifice. ‘I say, Kinsburg,’ he said, rather more grandly than anyone would have wished. ‘Did I see various coats of arms carved out of plaster and painted in the entrance hall? I’m rather interested in heraldry.’
Ashton’s face twitched in irritation. ‘That’s an old part of the building, I’ve done nothing to it – my ancestors would recognize it.’ He seemed sorry at the thought. ‘But if you are interested, let me show you, of course.’ He rose with perfect good manners, and went out with Peregrine.
In that vast room, with the sunlight pouring in, yet instantly interrupted by the green walls and drapes, Henry sipped his tiny cup of tea and felt parched. He felt the eyes of the many servants on him, but it was Charlotte who approached him, and filled the teacup using the heavy silver teapot. A swiftly approaching maid offered him milk and then departed again.
‘Thank you.’ He smiled up at Charlotte. She was not looking at him, but turned and carried the teapot back to its tray.
‘A pleasure,’ she said. Then, glancing at Barbara and Nicholas, ‘Do forgive them. My brother-in-law will depart for London soon and his wife is not happy about it.’
‘I can’t imagine why anyone would wish to leave here,’ he said, taking a sip of tea, and relying on standard politeness.
‘Really?’
They looked at each other. The instant familiarity astonished him; caught his breath.
‘Perhaps I can,’ he said, and drank the lukewarm contents of the cup in one go. He glanced at the others, saw they were not observed. He could not help but soften; her very presence uncoiled something in him, both energizing and comforting. He glanced at her dress and coiffure. ‘You look very different from the day I first met you. Is this the real Mrs Kinsburg?’
She touched her hair. ‘This is all illusion. Sugar water and pins. You have already truly met me.’
‘Have I?’
‘Yes.’ She rose, held her hand out for the cup, and with her other hand touched his wrist briefly with her bare fingertips. They were cold, and it felt almost like a sting: the shock of connection, which left an impression on his skin, a buzzing site of activity.
He felt the touch, the impression of it. It was as piercing as grief, and he felt it as an exact parallel. He felt the pressure build behind his eyes. She put the cup on one of the tables, then returned to him. ‘Are you well?’ she said softly.
‘Yes.’
‘You look almost afraid.’
He replied to himself as much as to her. ‘I am.’
She sat down in the nearest chair, her dress’s many layers gathering, sighing and crunching together. How strange and beautiful she looked, he thought, her back perfectly straight, every detail correct. But her eyes were the same – the same troubled eyes that he had looked at in the lodge at the Mirrormakers’ Club. Yet here – there was something about the restraint, the slight sense of all that lay beneath – here at Redlands, she had a certain power. She was not the fragile creature he had raised from the road in the City of London. She rather frightened him.
In the rooms beyond he heard Peregrine and Ashton talking – Peregrine talking rather too much. He knew he should go and support his friend, take himself away from this situation and its simmering tension. Instead, he drew his sketchbook and pencil from his pocket, and said, loudly:
‘Will you permit me to draw this room, Mrs Kinsburg?’
She tilted her head slightly, a question. ‘Of course.’
Barbara did not cease in the low drawn-out reprimand she was giving Nicholas. As he made a show of shifting in his seat, Henry leaned towards Charlotte.
‘Go and stand by the window. Think of your favourite things.’
‘If my husband discovers that you have drawn me—’
‘He will not discover it. Go.’ He smiled. ‘It is the only thing that will help me recover my spirits.’
‘Then I must obey.’
She rose, fluffed out her dress, and then walked to the window and looked out. He looked at the brightness of her profile in the summer sun, and set to drawing her. No details of hair or dress, only that profile, only the strange pools of light and shadow. He did it quickly, the pencil darting over the page, suggesting things rather than the linear drawing of his architecture. He enjoyed breaking from precision. Then, when he felt he had captured her – her life and her light – he slowed down, and began to draw what surrounded her. He had been truthful when he said he would draw the room – he captured the c-and s-swirls; the stylized shells and flowers. So different from his beloved Mirrormakers’ Club, which he still was imagining into life, with its classical precision.
He did not notice that Barbara and Nicholas had stopped arguing. First, he heard the swish of Barbara’s dress: she moved with an assassin’s swiftness.
‘What are you drawing, Mr Dale-Collingwood?’
He had not been prepared; he moved to cover it. He supposed, now that he looked at her, that she was dressed as elaborately as Charlotte.
‘Is it a secret?’ That tone – the tone of a bully on the hunt, a kind of glee and cruelty all mixed together.
He rose to his feet, slapping the sketchbook shut as he did so, smiled and bowed as he rolled it and put it into his capacious pocket.
‘Madam Barbara. I asked Mr Kinsburg if I might draw his rooms – and I must say, you are correct, my working sketches are a secret. I am a proud man. I will work up watercolours of these rooms and send them to you as a gift.’ She looked at him uncertainly; she knew that to go further would be a failure of manners. ‘They will be jewel-like in their beauty,’ he continued. ‘But allow me my sketches.’
‘Stop toying with our guest, Be-be,’ said Nicholas, taking his watch out and checking it. ‘Don’t let her bother you, my dear Dale-Collingwood. I would like to talk to you about art later.’
‘It would be a pleasure.’
Barbara glared at her husband.
Henry glanced at Charlotte, still standing at the window.
‘I will just,’ he said hesitantly, and could not find the words. ‘Just go and see if they need me.’
‘I’m amazed they have been there so long,’ said Charlotte in a carrying voice, without turning to look at him. ‘My husband is very happy we bear arms, of course, but it usually bores him terribly to talk about that kind of thing. He is more interested in beautiful things.’
‘Thank you so much for the tea,’ Henry said, in the perfect volume to carry. ‘And the cake, Madam Barbara. I shall dream about it.’
He left the room with a benevolent smile. He found his friend dominating the conversation and Ashton frowning. He smiled and nodded as Ashton and Peregrine conversed, but he heard nothing of what they said. At the corner of his eye he kept the doorway within sight, so that he would know if Charlotte or one of the others came to join them. But when the conversation of heraldic charges petered out, and they returned to the salon, everyone had gone. Family and servants alike had seemingly departed through other doors, either the formal far one which led on to further rooms, or through secret servants’ doors in the walls. The many cakes had been taken, and the tea apparatus cleared, and only one servant stood watch, a footman, with the ticking of the clock.
Was it true, Henry wondered? Could he still smell the scent of her, the perfume of lily of the valley, or was it the scent of this house, with its vast arrangements of hothouse flowers, sequences of contained rooms, of gorgeous tapestries and lowered drapes, the perfume clinging to them? He wanted to search every corner of the room to check whether there was any trace of her, whether there were even crumbs on the floor or a dropped teaspoon. But no: everything, and everyone, had gone.
For a brief moment he wondered if their encounter had been imaginary, a pleasant afternoon dream from which he would wake in a jolting carriage. He knew that people – like his parents and sister – could be gone in a moment, and never return. The thought twisted, serpent-like, w
aking the grief again in his brain. Peregrine was still talking manfully, clearly noticing that his friend was distracted. But when the venerable brown and gold clock in the corner began to chime, Henry came to: nothing was a dream. He walked to the case, and examined the dial.
‘Ah, that clock,’ said Ashton. ‘You’ve spotted it. It’s Boulle. Did you recognize it?’
CHAPTER TWENTY
1940
ENTRANCE HALL, THE MIRRORMAKERS’ CLUB
In the darkness of a winter evening a few days after Christmas, Christian rang the front doorbell of the Mirrormakers’ Club and heard it echo through the building. Huddled into his coat, his hat low over his brow, he stood poised and tense until he heard Peggy’s slow footsteps. Only then did his shoulders begin to drop.
Her eyes were bright when she opened the door and ushered him quickly in, closing the door so that no light would escape.
‘Hello, Peggy,’ he said. ‘Is Livy here?’ He couldn’t help saying it; he had vowed to be calm, not to mention her, and yet it was the first thing he said.
She read his discomposure in his face, and smiled a comforting smile. ‘She is. We wondered when you’d come back to us, Mr Taylor.’
‘Did you miss me?’ he said, trying to sound playful, following her through the entrance Hall in the sweep of her torchlight. The Stair Hall was dark, the shadows dense and cold, without a hint of its daylight colour.
‘We did,’ she called behind her.
The scent of cigarette smoke drifted up to them as they walked down the stairs. They found Livy and Jonathan sitting in the vaults, cross-legged on the floor, gazing at three large sheets of paper. Christian leaned over and caught sight of plans of each floor of the building. ‘Are these original?’ he asked, noting the copperplate handwriting labelling each room. Scullery. Kitchen. Confectionary.
‘Yes,’ said Livy, smiling up at him. But Jonathan was already folding the papers closed, hurriedly and protectively. He folded one in the wrong direction, and Livy put her hand on his arm. He released it to her, and she folded it. He took it quickly from her. ‘I’ll put these in the Document Room,’ he said.