Talland House

by Maggie Humm

  “Should we ask Andrew to run back?” Lily asked, taking Prue’s hand.

  “It’s too far away,” Prue said. “We mustn’t be late.”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll always love you,” Lily said, smiling. “We’ll tell her together.”

  Prue’s long face lifted, and she took a moment before releasing Lily’s grip. Remembering herself when a child, quivering about a lost doll, swept up by her mother and held tight, Lily felt her eyes moisten. As the path tapered into Talland Road, the children burst through the gate, and Mrs. Ramsay stepped out of the house in greeting.

  “Mrs. Adams has brought us blue lobsters today,” she said. “We are to feast on fish tonight.”

  The children weren’t listening; Cam jumped up and down, holding Shag’s paws to make the dog dance on its back legs, while the other children rushed into the maze of hiding places in the gardens.

  “I’m so relieved,” Eliza whispered to Lily, “we’re free from the responsibility of caring for them.”

  “Had I known, Mrs. Ramsay,” Hilary said, beaming, “I could have presented you with a fine gurnard for our dinner table.” He turned to Lily for confirmation of his triumph.

  “Andrew caught a fish, too, and kept it,” Lily explained, “but Mr. Hunt was kindness itself. He returned his own gurnard to the ocean before it even noticed the lack of sea water.”

  Mrs. Ramsay’s drawn face lifted as she laughed and clapped her hands.

  “Exactly what I encourage my family to do, Mr. Hunt,” she exclaimed, “but often without success. I admire you immensely.”

  Hilary seemed gratified, and Lily stepped closer so they could share Mrs. Ramsay’s smile; experiencing a new kind of freedom, Lily felt liberated to say what she thought—Hilary was a caring man and she liked him. She was about to speak again when a scream from Sophie in the kitchen brought the children running back to the house.

  Through an open door they all watched, stunned, as Andrew used a long broom handle to slap his fish flat on a chopping table. The smacking sound cut into her. Over its open mouth a fly hovered. Shrill cries came from Cam, and Mrs. Ramsay swung the little girl into her arms, ordering Andrew to stop. The tabletop was covered with slimy grey fish scales, and trickles of blood had spurted onto Sophie’s apron and Andrew’s shirt. Lily could almost feel the flecks on her skin. A fish eye lay in a hollow of the table, shining in the gaslight.

  “Please wash immediately,” Mrs. Ramsay told the children, “and change for dinner.” Holding Cam tight, she guided them away. Andrew’s tendency to violence had not disappeared then, Lily observed. She shivered, pulling her shawl around her shoulders, and Eliza touched her arm.

  “Let’s take a turn in the garden,” Eliza said. “The fresh air and flowers will take our minds off the past few minutes.”

  Lily nodded, her face softening as she watched Hilary play catch with James and Jasper on the lawn. By the time the two women returned indoors, chattering, Lily felt as though she’d found a true companion—almost the sister she’d never had—feeling the drawing room tight around her, enveloping her in its cosiness.

  “You must stay for dinner,” Mrs. Ramsay said with a smile. “Mr. Bankes and Mr. Tansley are both about somewhere in the gardens appreciating the late sun and plan to join us, but first I need to choose books to donate to St Ives’s town library.” She held out her hands to Lily and Eliza. “Do help me.”

  Lily stood by the bookcase. Did Mrs. Ramsay guess everyone felt more at ease in her presence? Each person had a brighter face, an offprint of her beauty, and in turn, gave the best of themselves to others. The children were calmer, happier with their mother, but Mrs. Ramsay seemed absorbed in her thoughts, trailing her fingers along the tops of the books.

  “We have a complete set of Sir Walter,” she said, “but Mr. Ramsay would be heartbroken if I gave those to the library. He often reads the novels aloud to the children in the evenings.”

  How could Cam and James manage to stay awake? Mrs. Ramsay was now sorting books and putting old magazines in bundles crisscrossed with green string. As she removed a few books from a shelf, she exposed a little bottle at the back, which she slid into her palm and put into her skirt pocket. Lily glanced at Eliza, but Eliza was busily tying more magazines together with the string. Adjusting her skirt, Mrs. Ramsay bent over to a lower shelf and drew out a thin leather-bound book, running her fingers abstractedly up the spine, caressing the cover with a preoccupied expression.

  “It’s a copy of Ghosts,” Mrs. Ramsay said, looking up. “I must keep this, Miss Briscoe. We saw the first performance. The play was banned from public view and showed to a select audience. I felt so brave. Mr. Ramsay was quite overcome.” Lost in the memory, her face was white.

  If she’d been the same age as Mrs. Ramsay, Lily knew she’d have attended, sharing the excitement, daring to watch such a controversial play. The Morning Post reported many disreputable ladies in the audience wore dresses of Indian muslin without any stays. Her mother had thrown away the paper before Father could see.

  “At the time, the ridiculous critics called the play ‘an open drain,’ I believe,” Lily replied, “but I adored the heroine, Mrs. Alving.”

  As if she hadn’t heard, Mrs. Ramsay glanced away, rearranging the remaining books on the shelves. After a few moments she coughed, clearing her throat.

  “The children are planning to show us their new play, Sleeping Beauty, after dinner,” she said. “Do stay. The plays are always very short. The children would be so happy.”

  Lily couldn’t refuse a request from Mrs. Ramsay. A clashing of pans sounded from the kitchen. Sophie must be agitated having to prepare an early supper for so many guests.

  Half an hour later, Mrs. Ramsay swept them all into the dining room. Fresh air from the open windows smelled sweet with honeysuckle, and Mildred had covered the old scratched table with a new tablecloth. Lily stared at the towering, almost sculptured fruit bowl resplendent in the centre, as if the bounty from a still life had escaped its frame.

  “It was arranged by Rose,” Mrs. Ramsay said, catching her glance, “the most artistic of all my children.”

  “The display looks truly beautiful,” Lily said. The polished fruit shone like bright enamel.

  A soft radiance from a large ship’s lantern hanging in the centre of the ceiling spread over the assembled guests as Mrs. Ramsay hurried them through the meal. Instead of the usual soup, there was a delicious savoury of mushrooms with anchovy cream. The mixture, the exact size of a walnut, lay in the centre of each mushroom, placed in overlapping circles round the plate, and the regularity pleased Lily with its flawless symmetry; everything seemed to be in perfect patterns here at Talland House.

  “Do eat up my banquet.” Mrs. Ramsay flourished her napkin at the dishes of lobster salad, chicken, and the mushrooms. “We end the meal with jellies, and then the play will begin.”

  Tansley picked over the last remains of his salad, and Mr. Bankes held out his plate to Mrs. Ramsay for another serving of chicken. It was a tribute to her as hostess, surely, but staring hard at Mr. Bankes, Mr. Ramsay abruptly threw his napkin down onto the table.

  “He needs her undivided attention,” Eliza whispered to Lily, as Mrs. Ramsay gripped the serving spoon, gazing at her husband. The room felt close with the heavy aroma of the gas mantles, and Lily wished they could finish the meal in peace. Hilary glanced at her and leaned forward, his wide shoulders partly hiding Mr. Ramsay from her sight.

  “You must know a great deal about art, Miss Briscoe,” he said. “Eliza told me of your year in Paris.”

  Smoothing her hair, Lily tried to think of a reply that wouldn’t be too clever, glad Hilary must have deliberately distracted attention from Mr. Ramsay.

  “I went to Paris because I love the way the French use colour, Mr. Hunt,” Lily said, “and the ways in which light can change colours. It’s about trying to capture the ‘thisness’ of each thing rather than painting every detail.”

  With Eliza she could have talk
ed for hours about French art, but, as usual, she’d said something too clever at a dinner table. Other people seemed to rely on easy ready-made phrases, but Hilary seemed amused, his powerful figure looming above her.

  “Well, it’s beyond me, very different from Father’s paintings,” he said with a chuckle, helping Lily from her chair and offering his arm as they were directed into the drawing room for the theatricals. Mildred cleared away the crystal glasses—the jellies were wolfed down—so Mrs. Ramsay would be glad.

  “I sincerely hope your lovely orange pigment isn’t Titian’s realgar!” he continued. “Father told me all about the strange properties of paint. Some even contain arsenic. He used to say art reproduces colour unnaturally.”

  “Goodness no, Mr. Hunt!” Lily replied. “I take great care and always use shop-bought paints.”

  She sensed Hilary wanted no further explanations from her. He was talking loudly, burnishing his nuggets of knowledge for the approval of others, but the wine had made her carefree, and the words somehow seemed to burble out.

  “In Paris I learned to see more than flat colour. I saw form with all its complexities and spaces.”

  Hilary stared, his arm loosening on hers. She’d said far too much. The words hung in the air, and she couldn’t brush them away. Giving him a quick smile, she walked with him into the drawing room.

  Later, outside on the garden path after the play, Lily stood for a moment waiting for Mr. Bankes to escort her down into St Ives. The evening seemed to have changed her in a way entirely unimaginable four hours before. Somehow those pretentious statements she’d made vanished from her mind as she glanced up at the moonlit sky. What had happened in particular to make her feel so cheerful? Was it something Hilary said, or Mrs. Ramsay?

  As she’d entered the drawing room on Hilary’s arm, Mrs. Ramsay had confided, “Rose designed all the costumes herself and hung black crepe paper to serve as stage curtains as well as writing the play. Prue helped a little with copying out the parts. Rose was in agony as I read her script this morning,” she’d said, looking proud. “I told her there were too many characters, but Rose said she’d read out the plot to us before the play to avoid any confusion about the doubling of roles. You must all clap as soon as it ends.”

  Lily had felt herself to be in the midst of cleverness. Mr. Ramsay had grudgingly admitted Andrew was a star at mathematics. Prue’s voice sounded like a professional soprano, and Rose was a budding artist. With the audience assembled, Prue had dimmed the gas mantles to create a dramatic effect for when Rose entered, dressed, since she was the authoress, in the lead role as Aurora. Lily had watched Mrs. Ramsay, with Cam tight on her lap, give an encouraging nod to Rose after the introduction, with Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Tansley looking uncomfortable on the narrow wooden folding chairs, all the armchairs having been allocated to the ladies by Rose. The men’s minds must have been elsewhere, perhaps thinking about being in Mr. Ramsay’s den, smoking cheroots or shag tobacco and discussing his important papers.

  Lily fixed her attention on the “stage” and then watched as the black crepe was swished away. Rose, Princess Aurora, had taken a dramatic pose in order to fall prone after touching the spindle and spinning reel, cleverly contrived from a bicycle wheel surrounded by balls of Mrs. Ramsay’s wool. So why was Rose flapping her hands at them all if she was meant to be flat on the floor, asleep; did she want them to lie down and mimic her pose, or was it the moment to applaud?

  “The whole kingdom falls asleep with Aurora,” Mrs. Ramsay had whispered. “We must pretend to sleep.” Rose had stopped waving her hands. As they’d all closed their eyes, the silence allowed the last birdsong from the garden to tremble on the air through the French windows. Lily had listened to the different notes, thinking of her painting, with the stillness rolling over her. Even the servants in the kitchen were inaudible.

  How content I am here with everyone, she’d thought, bringing up her head. Squinting a little, she’d noticed Hilary wasn’t asleep as requested. He wasn’t watching Aurora lying in a delicate swoon but instead was gazing at Lily—for how long? They’d shared a smile as Prince Désiré jumped from the back of the room onto the “stage,” and, throwing a wooden sword to one side, Jasper had bent over his sister. The smacking of the kiss had opened everyone’s eyes, and Mrs. Ramsay clapped loudly.

  “Wonderful! The play is perfectly wonderful.” Mrs. Ramsay had called out encouraging applause, and Mr. Ramsay had raised his eyebrows and rushed from the drawing room, taking a packet of cheroots from his pocket, with Tansley following almost on his heels. As Lily had left the house, Hilary had insisted on helping with her coat, and she’d felt his warm breath on the back of her neck as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. Somehow his gesture had become a touch, a suggestion of something more, although she wasn’t sure what this might become.

  Joined by Mr. Bankes, Lily glanced back at Talland House, feeling the evening had altered something in her, made her more certain about herself and somehow about Hilary, and all this would make Mrs. Ramsay’s portrait grow clearer in the evening air. It was a matter of shapes and colours, but it wasn’t anything she could talk about with Mr. Bankes. A breeze was blowing straight from the harbour spread out before them, the boats moored for the night. Moonlight threw a pencil of silver glint across the water paralleled by a beam from the town’s old lighthouse. The clear stripes of brilliance made her quiver in the way lines of poetry could sometimes make her cry. It wasn’t a hazy, impressionistic evening but seemed incredibly sharp and modern.

  She remembered Louis saying once that trying to paint moonlight was like trying to paint a soul, and the view ahead transformed into his Moonlight St Ives. She’d watched him paint it, in front of all the students, amazed at his easy technique. It had been her first week in the studio. Lily struggled for self-possession. Mr. Bankes wouldn’t understand her feelings for Louis and Hilary, and she was confused now herself about them both. The sea air was colder tonight. Autumn was here.

  Later that week, as she arrived at Talland House, Lily smiled around at the guests grouped at the breakfast table.

  “Good morning,” she said. “What a wonderful smell.”

  “Mr. Ramsay prefers to have strong coffee in his study first thing each day,” Mrs. Ramsay explained. “I always grind the beans myself to make sure of the strength.”

  “Well, Beethoven, too, I believe, always insisted on sixty beans per cup,” Lily said, but Mrs. Ramsay was already carrying her husband’s coffee through to his den.

  She wanted Mrs. Ramsay to sit again in the window seat after breakfast so she could paint her while outside with her easel on the edge of the lawn, the window acting as a frame. Sipping coffee, Lily waited for her to return, admiring Hilary looking dashing in his holiday tweed as he smiled at her, the padding in the shoulders of his jacket increasing his presence at the table. She felt a sense of belonging somewhere interesting for the first time in many years and, today, as she thought about the portrait, everything was suspended.

  Glancing through the open study door, Lily could see Mr. Ramsay at his desk adjust his glasses and take his long finger down the page of a book while Mrs. Ramsay stood, head bowed, at one side. His face flushed, and, with a roar, a fist came crashing down on the book. Mrs. Ramsay gave an inarticulate murmur, looked round, and closed the door. Lily glanced at Prue.

  “It’s the weekly accounts day,” Prue whispered. “Father is so reproachful if he finds any inaccuracy. Best if we pay no attention so as not to embarrass Mama.”

  Lily nodded, giving a weak smile. He was a brute to treat Mrs. Ramsay so. She didn’t know what to say and looked down. The Cornishman lay unread on the breakfast room table.

  “May I read this?” Lily asked, and, as Prue nodded, she flicked through the pages, a column about an art exhibition in Truro Market Hall catching her eye. Reading the expected praise for Olsson’s Moonlight—“beautiful in tone”—she was shocked by the next few lines describing Louis’s painting St Ives, Morning as “small and u
nimportant, with a tone rather low.” How could a Cornish newspaper review him so shabbily? She bit her lip and reread the piece. It was damning. In her mind were all the things he’d given to Cornwall, his teaching, the hundreds of visitors coming to Studio Day spending money keeping St Ives afloat when the fishing was sparse. It was insufferable how the paper praised “a study of two terrier dogs” immediately after dismissing Louis.

  She’d go at once to his studio; it was a good excuse to visit. The portrait would have to wait for an hour or two. In any case, Mrs. Ramsay may not be free to pose and might well not wish to after Mr. Ramsay’s angry outburst. With a sigh, Lily stood, and, asking Hilary to give her apologies to Mrs. Ramsay, she buttoned her jacket. As she ran down into the town, the narrow streets, which had appeared so quaintly medieval on the first visit, now were constricting, hemming her in as she rushed past the harbour. She had a sense of arriving in a toy town rather than the charming, picturesque place she’d grown to love. Residue, dripped by the carts carrying fish from the quayside to the railway station, made the cobbles slimy, and the briny smell was almost overpowering. Her shoes slipped, turning the run into a fast walk.

  Reaching Louis’s studio, she took a moment to recover her breath. Even now, in front of the door, she stood for a full minute. What could she say, how should she talk discretely about The Cornishman? She made a gentle knock. Louis stared when he saw her standing in the doorway, but he nodded with a half-smile as he shook her hand.

  “It’s good of you to come, Miss Briscoe. An unexpected visit!”

  The greeting was less ebullient than usual, but he was unchanged, the same warm brown eyes and baggy paint-spattered trousers. For a moment neither of them stepped across the space between their feet, and it felt like the morning had stopped until he offered her a seat. Buoyed up by the idea she could be of some help, Lily thought for a moment about the right phrase and glanced around. The loft was as full as ever of cheery curios and half-completed paintings, including one, still wet, he must be finishing. She felt she was seeing it afresh through frosted glass in ghostly shapes, and it had a singular mood of containment, the stillness of a place holding all it needed within its walls.