by Sophia Tobin
He put his hand to the smooth bannister. When he saw her reappear at the top of the stairs he did not know where to look, and settled on the dancers in a far room, their movement at the end of an enfilade of rooms, hoping that she would see him. She paused beside him, on the bottom step. Her gloved hand rested on the bannister an inch from his.
‘Mr Dale-Collingwood,’ she said. He turned his eyes on her.
‘It does not do to stay away from the party,’ she said. ‘I have been sent down again.’
‘By whom?’
She smiled. ‘My sister-in-law,’ she said. ‘Her baby daughter means she has a reason to rest, but I do not. And I am the hostess.’ She looked around. He saw it. Servants, duty, the fear pervading this household and making everyone step to Ashton’s direction. ‘It is quiet enough in my husband’s study. I will go there in half an hour or so. Past the dancing; through the red and blue salon, and the white.’ And she went, smiling at the other guests she passed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
1840
He went early to the study. He walked in the opposite direction to his hostess, who was taking the salutation of her visitors. On the way, he paused and watched a quadrille being danced in one of the subsidiary rooms, but he could not stay there long. He had to keep moving.
The study was dark, lit mainly by the healthy fire burning in the grate. A couple of large ormolu candelabra, taller than Henry, were also lit, but their flames struggled to alleviate the darkness. They were decorated with putti, and Henry wondered at Ashton’s obsession with miniature cherubs and Cupid, as though he knew something of it, when they seemed the very opposite of Ashton’s inclination. Two men sat in buttoned leather seats beside the fire, discussing bonds and stocks. Henry did not know them. With confidence, he went to the decanter at the back of the room and noisily poured himself a brandy, putting the decanter down heavily onto the tray and clearing his throat with gusto. Disconcerted, the men left, glancing at each other as they did so in silent agreement at his ill manners.
He drank the glass back and, as he put it down, saw that his hand was slightly unsteady. He thought of Charlotte, looking into the face of her young admirer. He poured another drink.
For a moment, he glimpsed the man he had once been, free from the storm of his emotions, sensible and rational, unrushed and unhurried. Or perhaps he had never been any of these things. The sting of the brandy opened a brief gap in the clouds, a brief gap in the static that filled his head like a headache. What was he doing? How did he think this would end? Without reaching any kind of decision, he put the glass down and walked towards the door. But at that moment, Charlotte opened it, and came in.
She closed the door behind her, and leaned upon it as much as the circle of her dress allowed her to. ‘Mr Dale-Collingwood,’ she said, as though she were surprised to see him there.
He came to her, still half with the intention of leaving. But as her face resolved out of the darkness, he saw the light shining off her blue eyes, blue as lapis. She was a jewel, Ashton’s perfect construction, and his desire cooled. Then she put her gloved hands out, and placed them flat against his chest. She breathed out, gave him that sardonic, half-amused look, and was flesh. ‘I am so glad to see you,’ she said. ‘To see a friend.’
In that moment, all thoughts of leaving were banished. Henry reached past her, and turned the key in the lock. She turned her head towards it, as the mechanism clicked. ‘We should not,’ she said.
He took a step away from her. ‘Unlock it yourself, then,’ he said. He went back to the decanter. ‘If you prefer to go back to your young admirer.’
She watched him pour another drink. ‘What is wrong?’ she said. There was uncertainty in her voice now.
He knocked it back. ‘Forgive me. Do I seem unkind? I am not being unkind to you?’
‘Of course not,’ she said.
‘I would not have come to this house.’ He tried not to make his voice sad, but when he heard it, it seemed neither masculine, nor confident, only weary. ‘But your husband invited me in such a way – I could not refuse.’
‘I understand,’ she said. ‘You do not wish to be here, and I have now brought you in here. Please do go, now. Forgive me, Henry.’ The sound of his name in her mouth blotted everything else out. She walked over to a wall of shelves, as though seeking a book, in the midst of a ball. Turned her back on him, so he could leave.
He slammed his glass down and went to her, but she did not turn, even when he put his hands on her bare shoulders. He did not dare to lean against her, to drop his lips to the place where her neck met her shoulders, to feel the roughness of the diamond upon the softness of her skin. He stared at the stone, cold and rough. ‘What a wretched thing,’ he said.
‘He had it set so I could wear it,’ she said. ‘But his intention is that it should be set permanently in a tiara, once a design has been agreed. I can’t bear it.’
He felt her move, and then he saw that she had unbuttoned one of her gloves, and pulled it from her arm and fingers as she turned towards him. Her left hand was bare, and he saw that she was not wearing her wedding ring. And she reached up, and raked her hand through his hair, until her hand lay fast and warm against the back of his head. He lowered his head and kissed her.
He had never kissed a woman of his own class in such a way. This was not a chaste kiss, or hurried, as their first had been. It had its own rhythm, in which one gave and the other took, so that when they drew apart they laughed, breathlessly, at their synchronicity. Henry’s hands had found her waist; he was frustrated at the hard, corseted shape of her, she seemed so like an object, a doll. He lifted her clean off the floor, and held her against him, and his mouth found the base of her neck. She clung to him; buried her face in his hair, and inhaled the scent of him.
The fire let out a sequence of crackles, and the moment of shock broke their reverie. Holding her against him, he clung to her, savouring her warm breath against his face. After a moment, he put her gently down. She held his face in her hands, one gloved, one bare.
‘Who was that man?’ he said hoarsely. ‘The one forever at your side in the ballroom?’
‘A mere child – I am a friend of his mother.’
‘Don’t try and fool me. He is in love with you.’
‘He is not.’ She looked at him, and he saw watchfulness there. ‘I was not sure – if you would still love me, after all this time.’
In answer, he kissed her again.
‘You sent watercolour sketches to Barbara. You sent a note explaining them.’
He held her away from him. ‘You cannot think that a sign of my regard for her? I had promised her those things. I had to send them. Who is that boy? Who is he? You must promise me—’
‘I have told you who he is. I wondered if you would notice it, if I smiled at him.’
He gripped her arms. ‘Notice it?’
She searched his face with her eyes, and kissed him briefly. ‘I am sorry to have doubted you. I cannot stay here too long. I will go.’ She made to pass him, and he seized her wrist. ‘I must go,’ she murmured, and this time he let her. She went to a servants’ door in the wall, opened it, and went out.
Henry knew he could not drink another brandy without making himself as sick as a dog. He crossed the room in three strides and unlocked the door.
He walked numbly through the dancing, through conversation, through drinking men, all the time the ache in his head building. The music seemed tuneless, the guests’ frivolity jarring, almost crazed in its pitch. He collected his cloak and hat, and went out into the darkness, down the front steps, through the gates, and then out onto the street. He shook off the attempt of servants to aid him: he would travel without help of any kind from Ashton Kinsburg.
On the street, he hailed a hackney cab and directed it to Pall Mall. He could not go home tonight.
*
The doorman of his gentlemen’s club greeted him with only slightly raised eyebrows, and directed his usual suite to be prepared.
Henry thought of sending a note to Russell Square, but decided against it. He barely spoke to the man who showed him to his room and lit the lamps. He was consumed with thoughts of Charlotte.
He had admired women of his own class before, but not in this way. In the past he had admired from an emotional distance, as one admired a painting, or a view. In their clean, icy, uncorrupted beauty they were sculpture as much as flesh and blood. More than that, he had never examined his skills as a lover and found himself wanting. He had assumed he would marry; that the duty of procreation would lead to the pleasure, the normal pleasure he had only found in women of a lower class until now. And of those women, he had never thought of giving them anything, of asking them anything: the act itself was enough, he had assumed. Now he wished to question it. He had known that he loved her, but now – if they could, just once, be together, as they might have been as husband and wife. As he had kissed Charlotte, they had enacted a kind of game; he knew she had chosen to yield one moment, and to seek the next. It had been a conversation in touch which needed to be continued, as intoxicating as it was dangerous. But he must give her satisfaction.
There was a knock at his door, and when he called out, Foi came in, bearing a decanter and glass.
Henry groaned. ‘For God’s sake, Foi, do you ever sleep?’
She was not as neatly dressed as normal; there was no white cap on her head, only a long, mousy-coloured plait of hair down her back. Her mouth had its same pertness, and she leaned close to him as she put the tray down. ‘I shall now,’ she said. ‘Wishing you a good evening, sir.’ Then, with her usual lingering look, she curtseyed and turned.
‘Wait.’
She looked back at him. Did she see it, he thought? Did she sense the fire in his blood? Was there proof of it in his face? How base men are, he thought. He poured a drink, and threw it down. The moment had a quality either of revelation, or terrible mistake.
‘Do you require anything of me, sir?’
Choose, he thought.
‘Yes.’
It was enough. Glancing behind her, she closed the door. She came to him, leaned over him, a few inches from his face. ‘Sir?’
He put his hands to her waist, held her back from him, for a moment. The alcohol sang through his blood. She was not wearing her stays beneath her black gown. He felt the rise and fall of her sides as she breathed. She was so unlike his Charlotte that he could have laughed out loud. Oblivion rushed towards him.
‘Sir?’
He saw, beneath her brazenness, a slight uncertainty, almost a fear.
‘I want you to teach me, Foi,’ he said.
She frowned.
‘Pleasure,’ he said. ‘How to give pleasure.’
He filled the glass again, and pushed it towards her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
1840
Charlotte walked amid the ruins of the party in the plainest morning dress she had. Katie, sleepy and quiet, had helped her dress before Charlotte sent her back to doze in the adjoining dressing room. When she came downstairs the entrance hall was full of light. The servants had risen early, of course, and opened several windows, but the smell of alcohol, food and sweat still lingered in the air. The chairs were still arranged as they had been; the tables still covered in their white cloths, stained with red and white wines, with sauces and food. She walked gingerly around the remnants of a glass, left shattered on the stone floor of the entrance hall.
There was the sound of servants gossiping as they worked in the white salon, and someone was whistling in a distant room. Of course, no one expected her or Ashton to be up before ten. They thought them asleep, high above, in their separate rooms. So she walked quietly, remembering the sounds of the night before, savouring her aloneness. Especially in the ballroom, where so many beauties had twirled in Henry’s arms. Yet all that was left was debris: feathers on the floor from so many headdresses and shawls, crumbs and spills, a piece of torn lace.
A maid came scuttling out of one of the rooms, bearing a tray of wine glasses, and skidded to an absolute halt at the sight of her mistress.
‘Mrs Kinsburg,’ she cried, and attempted to curtsey. ‘You’ll be wanting breakfast.’ There was a slight resentment to her discomposure, a sense that Charlotte was breaking a well-known rule by being up before her time, while the servants claimed the house as their own.
‘I will wait until Mr Kinsburg is up before breakfasting,’ said Charlotte. ‘He will come down at ten, as usual. I will go and sit in his study. If you could ask someone to set a fire there.’
She walked through the rooms slowly, the other servants falling silent as she did so. She smiled at them. One of the footmen rushed into the study after her, and began to make the fire with many apologies. She asked him to open the shutters once the fledgling flames were climbing into life.
She walked around the room, looking at the spines of the books. She couldn’t help but think of them as witnesses of what had passed between her and Henry. She couldn’t help but think of this room as infused with love, somehow. Then, near one of the occasional tables, she paused.
Pinioned beneath the empty decanter and glasses was a sheaf of papers. She came closer and examined them. They were architectural sketches of a domed room, with a plinth in the middle, a wavy outline upon it. She saw the note, in Ashton’s handwriting: Kinsburg tomb. She closed her eyes. So he had continued with the plan. He had even been discussing it with his acquaintances: another huge project, this time to record the details of his life, to leave his heavy-footed trace upon the world. And now she realized what those wavy lines in the centre of the drawing represented: Ashton and her. Beside each other for eternity.
She thought of the diamond, cold and heavy on its chain. How he had undone the necklace the night before, and replaced the stone tenderly in its box. Would it, too, have its place in their mausoleum?
She looked around the study. Ashton was there, as Ashton was everywhere. There was no escaping him. Henry’s kiss seemed like something imagined. What was real was this room, with her husband’s prints all over it; what was real was this cold morning light, this insubordinate fire which did not catch properly, and the drawing of a tomb weighted down by empty brandy glasses.
This place would always be his. But she could find other places.
*
Henry woke with Foi sleeping beside him. His head throbbed and his mouth was dry. He moved, slowly, and sat upright on the edge of the bed, naked. It was only when he pulled a sheet towards him, to cover himself, that she woke.
He could not meet her eyes. It was the quietest he had ever known her, as she slowly dressed and plaited her hair at his looking glass. He pulled his trousers on, and his shirt, then found his wallet. He stood back from her as she put her shoes on. Then he handed her the money.
It was far too much, but she did not protest, despite looking hard at him. There was no pertness about her today, no smart remarks, but no desolation either. He could not pick a single emotion from her inert expression. She went from the room without a word.
He waited for a decent interval before ringing and asking for hot water. The young man who served him was not self-conscious, even though Henry looked for it. He sent the man away, and left himself unshaven. He could not seem to wash the smell of Foi from his skin, from his hands. He went out into the Sunday morning light still feeling rank, and went to church.
Henry took communion, then went home to Russell Square, where he greeted his rather shaken servants with an apology. Polly leapt into his arms and tried to lick his face, and it was only this which made him smile, at last, and think that life might return to normal. The housekeeper told him that Polly had slept outside his room, whimpering, and had refused to leave his door or come down to Mrs Smits’ room. He cradled the dog affectionately and petted her.
He was not hungry, and gave everyone the afternoon off – most, but not all, had been due to take the afternoon anyway. He washed, and re-dressed, dousing himself with cologne, but still could not raise
enough hunger to eat even a hunk of bread and cheese. He left his discarded clothes on the bed and the soapy water in its basin to be collected later. He drank some cold coffee which had been made for him before the servants had gone out, but only because his body needed something, and the headache had returned.
He went out onto the squares and streets, where Londoners walked in their Sunday best. He felt that people looked at him, even as he walked, well-dressed, his top hat on and with him swinging his cane in an impression of energy and jauntiness. He simply kept walking, hoping that he might become more inconspicuous, to himself and to others.
He had been walking for an hour or so when he recovered his hunger at the scent of food from a chophouse. He went in, ordered, and was swiftly brought a dish of stew, which he ate hungrily. Warmed, and full, he felt the tension leave his body, a strange kind of security dull his feelings. The night could be forgotten; in the morning he would go to the office, and direct the building work, and answer his letters, and be himself again.
He tipped the cook and went out onto the streets once more. The shops he passed were closed, but he glanced in the windows cheerfully. At a bookseller’s window he scanned the shelves, looking for diversion. At the sight of Poems Chiefly Lyrical by Lord Tennyson he swallowed down his dull shock. He had not expected to see it; nor had he expected to feel his cheerful mood shift and fall sharply. Charlotte had loved the book, and she had quoted lines from ‘Mariana’ to him once: telling how she dreaded the evenings, sitting with Ashton.
But most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping towards his western bower.
He hurried home through the twilight, past churches and shops, couples and families. A light was lit within his house. He went in to find the servants returned, and him expected to dine. The book spine hovered in his mind, gold on blue. He went up the stairs, Polly at his heels, and into his room, where he put his cane down with a clatter and handed his hat to his valet. The man brought him hot water so that he could wash the London grime from his face. Henry watched him go, and sat on the edge of the bed, as he had sat on the edge of another bed, that morning, and watched Foi plait her muddy-blonde hair.