by Karen Powell
Venetia sensed that something else wasn’t right even before her eyes confirmed it. Thomas was looking back and forth between the kitchen girls, Hattie and Sarah, and the stable boy, Olly Sampson, for help, but none of them moved. Lennie had her hand behind her back and a kind of weighty garment draped over one shoulder which fell to the floor and which she dragged stiffly behind her. There was something familiar about it. Venetia drew nearer and saw with a shock that it was the Turkish rug from the floor of the cottage parlour. Her eye had traced the traditional pattern as a distraction during the hours in which she had sat with Peter Fairweather when they first brought him home from the hospital. Venetia approached warily.
‘My mother said to give you this,’ said Lennie. In her other hand was a rosemary bush which must have been wrenched from the ground just recently. Lennie shook it and soil spilled from its tattered roots. ‘Though it doesn’t work anymore.’
‘Lennie, come home,’ said Thomas, stepping forward, holding out his hand to her. ‘If you’ll just stay indoors . . . ’ To Venetia: ‘She wants to go to the woods.’
Lennie snatched her hand back, proffered the rosemary bush once again to Venetia.
‘What’s the matter, Lennie? Are you ill?’ Venetia spoke carefully, trying to imbue her words with a calm she did not feel. ‘Has something else happened with your father?’ she said to Thomas.
‘It stares so,’ said Lennie.
‘What does?’ Venetia said. ‘Did something frighten you, Lennie?’
Behind his sister, Thomas was white-faced.
‘The rag doll in the parlour. Where the roses grow I left him. Not your boy with the pretty mouth but the other.’ Lennie giggled. ‘They took his jacket and hung him from a tree.’ She shook the rosemary impatiently now at Venetia. Like dark snow more soil fell onto the pale stone of the hallway.
Venetia took the plant from her because it seemed she must. The pungent oil from its leaves filled the hallway. On Lennie’s face was the same glassy expression that had unsettled Venetia on the night of the ball. Lennie in her mother’s silver dress, gazing down at her hands as if they belonged to someone else.
’Alexander will be home soon, Lennie,’ she said. ‘And Thomas is here to look after you now.’ She looked over the girl’s shoulder and signalled calm to Lennie’s brother, whose hands were frozen in a gesture of disbelief. ’You mustn’t worry about anything.’
‘Worry!’ All of them jumped at the screech, which seemed to come from somewhere visceral. ‘Why should I worry?’ Lennie spun around to her audience. ‘It was me who took him and I didn’t care about my dress being torn.’
‘Did someone hurt you, Lennie?’ Venetia said. ‘Come upstairs and we can be quiet together, just the two of us. Thomas will fetch the doctor for you.’ She motioned to him as discreetly as possible.
‘Soaked to the skin, they said. That’s why you fall to pieces when they heave-ho you up the river bank.’ Lennie raised her eyes. ‘Poor soul.’
A shaft of sunlight pierced the lantern window above Lennie’s head and held her in its circle. She seemed confused for a second, letting slip the threadbare rug from her shoulders. The nightdress was torn from one shoulder, exposing one small, high breast. Venetia started towards her, wanting to shelter the girl from the gaze of others, but in that sudden blaze of light from above Lennie’s slight frame seemed to grow in stature, the pathetic flimsiness of the cotton nightdress, the bare breast, no longer of any significance. Venetia forgot to be frightened for her, of her, only thought: how magnificent she looks, like a wounded goddess.
A cloud passed over the window. The light faded for a moment. Lennie frowned as she seemed to notice the point of her own breast for the first time. She plucked at the frayed edges of her nightdress with an air of distraction, as though trying to weave them back together again.
.‘Come with me, Lennie,’ said Venetia once again.
‘They wanted to keep me in a box, but I went to the woods for my sins. They said I was safe with the lid pushed down but look at my poor hands!’
Lennie gazed down at her outstretched palms, then covered her eyes. Mud streaking her lovely cheeks, she began to sob.
CHAPTER 53
Venetia, 1955
Why can’t I see her?’ Alexander came at her across the small sitting-room. ‘What exactly is the matter with her, mother? I’ll go down there right away.’
‘I’ve told you all I know,’ said Venetia. ‘She’s sedated. Dr. Harrison says she needs to rest. Besides, Thomas won’t let anyone else in the cottage. Believe me, I’ve tried. I wish I could help him when there’s Fairweather too, but . . . ’
‘She’ll be better then? Once she’s rested. I came back as soon as I got the message. Stupid night porter put it in the wrong pigeonhole.’
Venetia was not sure she believed him, or his story about meeting up with an old school friend in York by chance. It didn’t matter now. ‘I can’t get any answers, Alexander. All Dr. Harrison will say is that she’s had a terrible shock. We made a mistake, letting her be alone with her father like that.’
Her words didn’t even graze the surface.
‘It wasn’t my fault though, was it? What happened with Fairweather. You said I should go away.’
‘The blood clot could have been there a long time, apparently. It could have been making its way towards his brain for we don’t know how long.’ How odd, the thought that something so insubstantial could destroy all the subtle accretions of mind and memory formed over a lifetime in a matter of minutes. Little knot waiting in the darkness, biding its time.
‘So they’re sure it had nothing to do with me? You didn’t tell the doctors about the argument?’
‘Sit down, Alexander, for goodness sake!’
She could not breathe with him standing over her in that way, making her repeat herself all the time, wanting her to shoulder his own agitation. As a small boy he had been just like this, following her from room to room whenever he needed reassurance about some mishap or other. She could hear him now: Everything will be fine, won’t it, Mummy? I won’t get into trouble, will I? Over and over again. Words of comfort had meant nothing to him when he was in that state of mind, the badgering continuing until the very act of it exorcised whatever demon it was that was troubling him. Once, Venetia remembered, when she could stand it no longer, she locked herself in her own dressing room to get away from him, afraid of what she might do, afraid that she might strike him if he did not leave her be. She had sat with her back against the dressing room door, praying that Alexander would find Angus or one of the housemaids to torment instead. And still he had not been done with her, his little fists beating against the door.
‘Tom’ll have to let me in,’ said Alexander. ‘I’ll make him.’
He ran his hands through his hair so that it stuck on end in a parody of shock. ‘I want to do something. Not just sit around here like this. It’s unbearable!’ It would be fruitless to point out that he had not sat down once since he had entered the sitting room. She waited, as she knew she must. At last, a cooler voice: ‘She’ll be better once she’s slept. That’s what Harrison told you. I suppose Fairweather’s going to need looking after from now on?’
Venetia nodded, relieved that his belligerence was blowing itself out. As it always did eventually. ‘Of course. James and I have already started to think of ways . . . ’
‘What’s it got to do with uncle? I don’t see why he must have a say in everything now. It would have been better for Helena if Fairweather had died, really.’
‘He’s her father.’
Alexander had the grace to look startled, as though the fact had not been known to him before now. Venetia watched as he crossed to the window and stared out across the Great Lawn. Deep down, she couldn’t help but admire this creature who had emerged like a chrysalis from her body, even while she despaired of his selfish ways. Alexander placed his outspread
palm on the glass, as though seeking some connection with the closed-up little cottage in the distance. Then withdrew it, giving up on the idea.
Later, she made him walk with her, over the fields, away from the cottage where Lennie still slept and her father lay in his frozen state.
‘Thomas will let us know if there’s any change,’ she said. ‘He promised that at least. And it will do you good to walk.’
Yellow clouds smothered the sun. The midday heat was oppressive. They passed the entrance to the farm, started to climb the bridle path up to the ridge. Soon Venetia found her breath coming in small gasps. Sweat ran down the base of her spine. Alexander moved with small, quick steps up the hillside ahead of her, appearing not to feel the heat at all.
‘Will you marry him?’ He stopped and turned to her, taking advantage of the height he’d gained. ‘Uncle James.’
She waited until she was alongside him before answering.
‘I hadn’t thought of it.’ It hardly matters is what she wanted to say.
‘I’m not enough for you?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I mean if Helena . . . When we marry and have children and so on . . I would have thought that would be enough company for someone of your age.’
She forced down a laugh at this outrage before answering ‘You’ve not been quite clear about your intentions until now.’
‘I’ve hardly had time to think about it since father died. Don’t you want us here?’
‘I’ve never been sure that you cared for the place, Alexander. Not in the way your father did.’ As she spoke, she knew that this had troubled her for a long time. She could not say how he felt about Richmond Hall. Her son seemed to exist in his head, skimming over the surface of his surroundings, captured on occasion by a particular trick of light or a beautiful ruin. It occurred to her only now that this might explain his desire to travel, to be in constant motion with only so much connecting expected of him. ‘You’ve never shown much interest, you see. It gets more and more difficult to find staff, that sort of thing, but we must try to go on as we did before.’
‘It can’t be like before.’ Alexander pushed ahead again, striding up the dusty hillside. Venetia let him go. He was not yet finished with her, she knew, but there seemed little point in exhausting herself in pursuit. He spun round just before he reached the apex of the ridge. ‘Must you marry?’
She could not help but smile though it was no time to joke. ‘Some might think so. For propriety’s sake.’
‘It’s that important to have a man in your bed, so soon after my . . . ’ Alexander’s voice cracked.
The smile left her lips in an instant. Never that, she wanted to say. She had loved the clean lines of her husband’s body but had never been a sensual creature by nature. There was no way in the world that she would discuss such things with her son. It was outrageous that he should ask such intimate questions of his own mother. Was there something wrong with him? She had always felt her son’s otherness—so unlike either of his parents with his scholar’s mind, his obliqueness—and had thought this a good thing. Now she wondered if she had should have snapped at his heels, worried him towards the prosaic. Had she made some dreadful error of judgment?
When they had both reached the top, Venetia stopped to gather her breath. The village sat to their left, within the loop of the river. Before them lay half the county.
‘Did you hear that the Hirons must sell Scawton Place?’ She gestured to a grey smudge in the distance. ‘It’s to be a hotel. And the Favershams are struggling to find staff too. No one wants to stay at home these days. Not since the war.’
‘It’s difficult sometimes,’ said Alexander. ‘Home.’ She waited for him to elaborate, sensing a softening of mood. ‘They say we’re a dying breed, you know. Us landowning types. That’s what Tom and all his new friends bang on about anyway.’
‘Nonsense.’ Fear made her brusque. ‘They said just that after the Wall Street crash and here we all are years later. No-one can just announce such things and expect everyone to give up.’
‘I do wonder if we’ve had our time, mother, as if there’s something rotten at the core of all this now.’ His hand swept over the horizon. ‘Last time I was in London everyone looked so grey and defeated. It felt as though we’d lost the war.’
‘It takes time to recover.’
‘Yes, but all civilisations think they’re indestructible and then they’re not, so maybe this little piece of history is up, our bit, I mean. I don’t believe you’ve never thought of it too. Tell me, why is Helena’s mother buried where she is?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Right at the edge of the graveyard, away from the rest of the Fairweathers. Almost as if no one wanted her there. When I tried to talk to Dr. Harrison about Helena this morning, he said something about her being highly-strung like her mother, and then seemed to think better of it.’
‘He didn’t mean anything.’
‘There was something wrong with her. Did she kill herself? Tom and Helena never seem to like talking about her.’
‘You’re not to speak about it to either of them!’ Her voice was sharp on the breeze. Venetia thought for a moment before continuing. ‘The fact of the matter is that Jennifer, Lennie’s mother, wasn’t well by then.’ She spoke carefully and it was right, because words like insane, running mad belonged only in Gothic novels, not here, on this green hillside in late summer.
CHAPTER 54
Venetia, 1940
It was Mussolini’s fault though no-one could have predicted that on 10th June 1940, the day that Italy declared war on Britain and France. Jenny and Peter Fairweather had been settled at Gatekeeper’s Cottage for a number of years by that time, with Helena toddling around like a little fairy child in the wake of her dark-haired brother. Settled wasn’t quite the right word, for Jenny never seemed quite at home in the cottage.
‘It is so quiet down here,’ Jenny said. While Thomas and Alexander played with toy soldiers on the kitchen floor, Helena, whose name had already been shortened to Lennie, snuffled in her carrycot. It was clear that Jenny did not consider the peace an asset.
‘Everywhere is quiet,’ Venetia said. ‘With the men gone.’ And then wished she hadn’t said anything. Peter Fairweather had failed his fitness test for the army because of his asthma, would have to stay at home, dealing with the small amount of correspondence required in Angus’s absence. But Jenny was too distracted by her own problems to perceive any slight.
‘Up at the Hall there is always something going on. Sometimes a whole day goes by here . . . ’
She found a little solace in her new herb garden. She was not much interested in cooking, but a school friend had given her a book of herbal remedies as a wedding present and she was often to be found with it open on the kitchen counter, making up batches of rosemary oil for bruised knees, or else brewing chamomile tea which she liked to press upon a reluctant Venetia, swearing that it was good for the nervous system.
Venetia would wonder later if there might have been a different outcome had Jenny lived long enough to see the hospital set up at Richmond Hall. She would have been far more suited than Venetia to tending to the young soldiers, would have kept up their spirits with her lively ways, her quick laughter. The work would have given purpose to her days, as well as the companionship and variety she craved and which two small children, however sweet, were incapable of providing.
Angus held out the newspaper to Venetia over breakfast one morning. ‘Collar the lot,’ said the headline. Beneath it was a picture of Churchill and an article about the Italian immigrants who were no longer welcome in Britain now that their country was in league with the Nazis. Later that day she mentioned it to Jenny, who said it was a shame but did not worry herself about it: her father Roberto and uncle Federico had lived in England all these years now.
‘Papa loves this country,�
�� she would say on more than one occasion that summer. Had he not given his only daughter an English name, had he not been overjoyed when a tall, quintessentially English man in the shape of Peter Fairweather came asking for her hand in marriage? Roberto Carloni even dressed like an Englishman, though all the tweed in the world could not disguise his southern European heritage. Venetia met him once or twice, a small, neat man whose open delight at seeing his daughter in so English a setting had charmed her
‘Everyone loves Papa,’ Jenny would say fondly after his visits. But loyalty to one’s adopted country counted for little in the summer of 1940. An employee at the barber’s shop telegrammed to say that Roberto had been interned. Jenny tore up to the Hall, made frantic calls all that day, but no one would tell her where her father had been taken.
Just a week later, Roberto’s brother, Federico was also taken in. Arriving in England in 1913, Federico had started out selling ice cream from a handcart. Within the year, he opened a small ice cream parlour, then an eponymous milk bar just a few streets away from his brother’s barber’s shop in Leeds. Now the shutters were pulled down on both Federico’s and the barber’s shop, the other shopkeepers having little to say about the disappearance of their no-longer-loved neighbours. Venetia, thinking to help, made enquiries on Jenny’s behalf about both the men, but the most she could ascertain was that some Italians were being held on the Isle of Man.
‘Never heard of it!’ Jenny said. ‘I have to visit my Papa.’
‘Wait a few weeks,’ she said. ‘Until things calm a little. Your father and uncle won’t come to any harm.’
On July 2nd, 1940, the Arandora Star, sailing off the coast of western Ireland, was hit by a single torpedo fired by Gunther Prien, captain of U-boat U47. The ship, once a luxury cruise liner, was transporting ‘enemy aliens’ and German prisoners of war to Canada, including over a thousand Italian immigrants. All 15,000 tons of the Arandora Star went to the bottom of the ocean, taking with it those who failed to escape in time, some sucked down in its wake. There were rumours that the crew fired holes into the lifeboats to prevent their passengers from escaping to safety.