She hadn’t understood then, but she did now: Albie’s addictions. The drinking and gambling. It was rehab he’d needed, to straighten himself out; but little could he or Lillian have known how Maggie had clung to those few overheard words. Three months, and then he’d return for her. She held the promise like a precious secret, like a beloved treasure stashed deep in her pocket.
She had learned the rules of her strange new home diligently, all the while counting down the days. Socks and shoes were compulsory about the house. Her feet, so used to roaming bare, were squashed into new black leather lace-ups that Lillian taught her how to tie, her unruly hair brushed a hundred times twice a day with a large silver hairbrush. There was a correct, but troublesome new way to eat peas: not scooping them up with a fork or spoon, but crushing them onto the back of the fork with a knife. No running in the house. No touching any of her grandfather’s precious antiques. There were certain rooms she was told she must not enter and times she must not disturb Charles. Lillian had made it very clear: Charles Oberon was a man who needed his space. He was not to be bothered by a young child. Lillian had impressed this last point on her with the most solemn of looks. ‘You must understand,’ she’d said, ‘he can get a little . . . frustrated. It’s the wheelchair . . . so hard for him. It’s best for you – best for all of us – if you stay out of his way.’
Maggie had nodded solemnly and told her she understood; and, for the most part, she had complied with the strict dictates laid out by her grandmother. Only once had she forgotten, during a solitary game of marble-rolling across the tiled floor of the great entrance hall, when an errant marble had vanished down a corridor and her pursuit had led her to the door of a room she knew was for her grandfather’s sole use. The door stood ajar and as Maggie bent to retrieve the small ball of coloured glass glinting beside the skirting board, she’d become aware of movement inside. Peering in, she’d seen her grandmother bending to tie one of her grandfather’s shoelaces. Nothing so remarkable in that, except for the dark look she’d seen pass her grandfather’s face as he’d stared down at Lillian from his chair. It was a look she could only interpret as pure, angry hatred. She’d watched, not fully understanding, as Charles had raised an arm and attempted to strike her grandmother, his fist glancing feebly off Lillian’s skull. At that, her grandmother had reared up and given the old man a look. ‘Come now, Charles,’ she’d said, as if soothing a young child. ‘There’s no need for that.’
Sensing her presence, Lillian had looked from Charles to the open door, and spotting Maggie standing there gazing wide-eyed upon the scene, she had crossed the room and closed the door wordlessly, preventing Maggie from prying further.
Maggie, not exactly sure what she had just witnessed, but certain it was something not meant for her eyes, had turned and run into the garden, the errant marble still clutched tightly in her fist as she’d climbed high into the branches of a favourite tree in the arboretum, trying to banish the image of her grandfather’s ugly, twisted face. Lillian had already explained, of course; it was awful to be stuck in that horrid chair . . . but more than that, Maggie suddenly understood something else: how much Lillian must love her husband to care for the cantankerous old man as she did. From that day, she had tried harder to stay out of her grandfather’s way; but just as her fear for her grandfather had taken root, conversely, her love for her grandmother had blossomed. Lillian was an angel, in Maggie’s eyes.
She had doubled her efforts to maintain the house rules, turning it into a game of sorts, counting down the days, ensuring she met every request, knowing that if she kept to her end of the silent bargain, Lillian would be happy and Albie would return at the end of the three months.
But Albie hadn’t returned. Three months had turned into four . . . then five, until, eventually, Maggie had stopped counting, barely able to remember the life she had once lived, her memories distilled to odd fragments, like the faded images from a favourite picture book. When she had finally accepted that he might never return, he had arrived with a fanfare of presents and hugs and gushing praise about how Maggie had grown and how proud he was of her.
It had been a relief to see him again. It almost felt as though life were complete, once more. They had played ball games out on the lawn and taken walks through the woods together. Maggie had started to grow accustomed to his presence about the house, waiting patiently for the day he would tell her to pack her bags and ready herself to return to their old life. But the days had slid by, and being at Cloudesley seemed to do something gradual to Albie. Slowly, his jovial moods began to falter. The brightness in his eyes dimmed and his face settled into an anxious frown. He grew snappish with Maggie and increasingly impatient with her requests for him to play with her. A new distance crept into his interactions with Lillian, no matter how hard her grandmother tried to soften him. It was as if the house itself were dragging him down, stealing his light. Maggie had worried silently about his transformation until she had woken one morning and found Albie’s room empty, his suitcase gone. Her father had packed up and stolen away once more into the night and Maggie, inconsolable at the discovery, had thrown herself onto his bed and cried into his cold pillow.
It had become the pattern of their lives: Albie blowing in and out like a leaf on the wind, and the mother she had once known featuring in only the most distant echoes of memories and dreams: her voice crooning night-time lullabies, her flashing smile, beads plaited into dark hair and a red ruffled skirt that had spun round and round as she’d danced on the sand in front of a burning fire. Those were memories she knew it was not worth dwelling on. Lillian and Cloudesley, she grew to understand, were the only consistencies she could rely upon.
She lies in the same bed in the same room as that very first night at Cloudesley; only now, as a woman of twenty-six, Maggie knows the truth: the people you love leave. Or they get old and frail. Time marches on and everything fades and crumbles. Your life gets squeezed into eight cardboard boxes you can’t bear to open until all you are left with are the broken-down pieces of a huge, echoing house and the ghosts that haunt your dreams.
Lying there, Maggie feels the scale of the place and her sense of responsibility to it like a heavy weight pressing down on her. She has returned to do her duty – to do right by Lillian, the one person who has never let her down – and while she’d thought she could do it, alone in the dark she feels a growing sense of panic that she is not up to the task. She is not the person she needs to be. She needs to be more like her grandmother, strong and stoic. She needs to stay and fight for her legacy; but every fibre of her being is screaming at her to flee. To run away. To be like her parents.
The bed is cool and clammy, the sheets imbued with a musty scent that reminds her of loneliness. She curls up into a foetal position and rubs her feet together for warmth, knowing that it will be a long time before she falls asleep. All she has to do is stay, she tells herself. Don’t be like them. She just needs to close her eyes and wait for morning. She just has to see it through – to fulfil her promise to Lillian – one day at a time.
Chapter 9
Lying in Charles’s four-poster bed, waiting for him to come to her, Lillian thinks about the promises she has made to her husband. To love and to cherish. For better or worse. Till death do us part.
She had said the words in good faith, hope fluttering like a bird in her chest, certain that the vows were the beginning of something wonderful and life-changing. And it has been life-changing. Lillian barely recognises the young woman she once was, or the ground she now finds herself standing upon; for her marriage to Charles is a complicated, volatile landscape. There are so many unspoken rules; so many uncertain dictates; so many fluctuating emotions to anticipate and interpret. She knows he has seen too much – lost too much. She does not, for one moment, underestimate the damage he has endured in those unspoken years away at war, followed so closely by the tragic loss of his first wife.
She only wishes she were more adept at navigating her life with him, better able to understan
d the man she now finds herself bound to. For each day she wakes and steps out into the marriage, she feels as though she balances precariously, never quite sure if the ground she steps on is firm or quicksand, sucking her down into one of Charles’s more erratic moods.
She shifts beneath the sheets and listens for the sound of his approach. At least the pattern of their intimacy is clear to her now, established by Charles in the earliest days of their marriage. She visits his bedroom only at his request, arriving at his door on those nights at 10 p.m. sharp. The routine is always the same: she lets herself in, removes her robe in the light of the small bedside lamp then lies in this bed, staring up into the dark fabric canopy, waiting for her husband to come to her . . . to make love to her.
She supposes that what they do in the dark constitutes making love, though she has nothing else to compare it to, and no one close enough whom she can discuss it with. Joan, perhaps, is her only real confidante, but Lillian knows she couldn’t bear to reveal her naivety to a worldly woman like Joan. She could only imagine her friend’s gasp of shock at the questions she might ask her, and how in doing so she would expose the fractures and failures of her marriage. She loves Joan, but she’s not entirely sure she trusts her – not with those darkest of secrets.
The door to Charles’s bedroom opens with a familiar creak. A small shiver runs through Lillian. Wordlessly, Charles moves across the room. He undresses quickly, sliding into bed beside her and adjusting the covers so that he can manoeuvre on top of her, his face hovering just above hers. He reaches down and tugs her nightdress up around her waist.
She glances up, catching his eye, and he frowns and tilts her face to the side, so that she is no longer looking at him but staring instead at the blank white pillow beside her head.
She closes her eyes and tries to swallow back her small cry as Charles presses down upon her, his breath hot on her cheek as he moves silently, his hands holding her shoulders and pinning her in place, his fingers squeezing tightly.
In her head, she goes to another place. She closes her eyes and imagines a wide pebbled beach, a place she once visited with her parents as a child. She remembers running across the uneven stones, the ocean a cool, blank grey washing onto the shore, over and over, water moving relentlessly across rock. Back and forth. Back and forth. Charles, too, she knows goes somewhere – somewhere unreachable. She glances up and sees the glint of tears squeezing from his closed eyes, sees his contorted face, the pain written there, only ever visible in this moment of release as with a last groan he collapses down onto her.
Lillian lies very still. Slowly, she reaches up and places her arms around him. She feels him relax into her embrace and for the briefest moment he lets her hold him. Her fingers move through his hair, soothing him as if he were a child. Perhaps tonight he will allow her to stay. Perhaps tonight will be the night he doesn’t wake shouting from the violent nightmares of his sleep. ‘You’re safe with me,’ she whispers into the darkness, willing him to let go and allow her in.
At the sound of her voice, his body tenses. He pushes himself off her and rolls onto his side of the bed. ‘You may go,’ he says, his voice cold and Lillian, realising she has erred – said or done the wrong thing – slides out from between the sheets and pulls on her robe.
‘Goodnight,’ she says, but Charles doesn’t answer. She lets herself out of his room and walks the long corridor back to her own empty bed, feeling a dull ache between her legs, and the sharp shard of loneliness and frustration lodged deep in the pit of her belly.
No, her marriage is not at all as she imagined it would be, but as she slides into her own bed and curls in on herself, a small ball of nothingness, she tells herself that all she has to do is fulfil her promise to Charles, one day at a time. For better or for worse.
Lillian is sitting at her writing desk in the drawing room the following morning, blotting ink on a letter when she feels the eyes upon her. Someone is standing in the doorway, watching her. She turns, expecting to find Charles, or perhaps Sarah, her housemaid, hovering at the entrance to the room, unsure whether to enter and dust or polish with her mistress present, but the space is empty; just an open doorframe, the creak of a floorboard, and a ghostly draught of air, moving as if stirred by someone’s departure.
Lillian shakes her head. She is tired. It took her too long to fall asleep last night and her imagination, she knows, can play vivid tricks in this house. She lowers her head to the letter, then instantly lifts it again. There is something else. A scent; something dark and indefinable, carried on the air. Smoke, she realises. A bonfire outside, perhaps. Or Mrs Hill, cursing in the kitchen, scraping at the blackened pan of something forgotten on the hob. She dismisses the thought, her attention already returning to her task, when a fearful roar echoes down the hall. Lillian starts again. That noise. Something is terribly wrong.
She finds them in the library, Albie cowering by the marble fireplace with his hands covering his head and Charles standing over him, his face scarlet with rage, his amber eyes flashing dangerously. ‘You imbecile!’ Charles shouts at the boy.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ says Albie, his voice trembling. ‘It was an accident.’
‘What is it?’ she asks. ‘What’s happened?’
The scent of burning is much stronger in the room, an acrid smell washing over her, catching at the back of her throat. She glances round and notices the pile of ash smouldering in the grate, the loose sheets of singed paper scattered nearby.
Charles turns to her, his fists clenched. ‘I’d just asked Bentham to load up the car for my London trip when I smelled the smoke. I came in here to investigate and I found this little fool trying to set the house on fire.’
She looks from Albie to the grate, where she can now see the pile of ash is actually the burned remains of a leather-bound book, while closer to Charles, a large, black mark smoulders on the ornate Persian rug.
‘I’m sorry,’ Albie pleads, still crouched at his father’s feet.
‘What were you thinking? You could have destroyed the entire house!’
‘I – I – I don’t know. I found the matches. I wanted to see if I could light a fire . . . I was just . . . curious.’
Charles rolls his eyes and runs a hand through his thick russet hair. ‘Good grief,’ he says to no one in particular. ‘It appears I’m raising a half-wit.’ He moves to the mantelpiece and takes a cigar from a box, lighting it with one of the offending matches from the box Albie has used to start his inferno. He takes several long puffs on his cigar, allowing the smoke to drift from his mouth as he studies first Albie and then the burn mark on the rug.
Lillian waits, uncertain whether to intervene or remain silent as Charles assesses the damage. She decides silence is best. Her interference might only enrage him further.
‘It was an accident,’ says Albie again, his head still hung low. ‘The pages caught so quickly. I dropped some of them and they scattered and set the rug on fire. I’m very sorry, Father. I promise it won’t happen again.’
Charles studies Albie through narrowed eyes. ‘Well, I’m glad to see you are remorseful. That is something.’
Albie nods and lifts his head for the first time, meeting his father’s gaze. ‘I am. I’m very sorry.’
Lillian lets out a small breath of air.
‘But this is an irreplaceable rug,’ continues Charles, ‘shipped all the way from the Middle East by your late grandfather. It’s one of a kind . . . incredibly valuable.’
‘He’s said he’s sorry, Charles,’ says Lillian, a twist of fear in her gut. ‘I know he’s caused some damage, but I don’t think you’ll be playing with matches again, will you, Albie?’ she asks, turning to the boy.
Charles casts an irritated glance in her direction as Albie shakes his head solemnly. He seems to consider the rug for a moment longer, then he looks back to Albie. ‘Step forward,’ he says.
The boy’s gaze darts to Lillian. She can see the fear in his eyes, the trembling of his skinny legs as
he steps forward.
‘Hold out your hand.’
‘Charles,’ says Lillian, her fear rearing up like a snake, watching as Charles pushes the boy’s sleeve up to his elbow. ‘He’s apologised.’
‘Yes, and now he will receive his punishment.’
‘Charles. He’s eight years old,’ says Lillian, her voice rising in pitch. ‘It was a mistake. What more do you expect of him?’
‘I expect him to think twice about playing with matches in the future.’ Charles takes the cigar from his mouth and, before Lillian has understood what he intends, he places the smoking end against the inside of Albie’s bare arm.
The boy cries out in pain. Lillian lets out an anguished shriek and flies forward, pushing Charles’s hand away from the boy, sending his cigar flying onto the stone hearth. ‘Stop it,’ she screams. ‘Leave him alone.’
Charles turns to Lillian, a cold fury burning in his eyes. ‘You forget, my dear, that you are not the boy’s mother. Stand aside.’
Lillian is rooted to the spot. ‘I won’t let you hurt him. Hurt me, if you have to punish someone. But not him.’
Charles reaches for Lillian’s face and holds her by the chin, squeezing her jaw so tightly that she feels the bones crunch under his fingers. She senses Albie falling back behind her. Charles tilts her face until she is looking him in the eye, his breath hot on her skin. ‘Don’t goad me, dear. You have no say in how I raise my son.’
She flinches, readying herself for the blow and wonders if he can sense the flare of white-hot hatred she feels for him in that moment; but then, just as suddenly as he has grabbed her, he lets her go, stalking away across the room. ‘I’ll be gone a week,’ he says, throwing the words over his shoulder at her. ‘Perhaps longer. Have the rug replaced before my return. I don’t want to see it again.’
As soon as he has left the room, Lillian darts to the service bell in the corner of the room before pulling the still-whimpering boy towards her. ‘Albie,’ she says, ‘Albie, listen to me. He’s gone.’
The Peacock Summer Page 10