by Maggie Humm
The big house, always so full of people’s chatter and the bustle of servants, was silent now. Lily leaned over the parapet, holding her dress back from the dirty edge. The distant murmur of St Ives was charged tonight. Far away, there were children’s excited cries and boat masts clinking together in a chorus of impatience. Lanterns, hanging above the sails, made the whole harbour into a collection of silver dots. Strange voices threw up the odd word from the town while a band played on the quayside.
It felt odd to be an observer, staring from so far away, gazing at the Sloop Inn with its windows shining bright squares onto the waves below. The inn must be full on Regatta Eve. An ill-sorted collection of men holding bottles were smoking outside, and she caught her breath, thinking one of them might be Louis.
Eliza nudged Lily’s arm. “It’s boring waiting here,” she whispered. “It would have been a lot more exciting down on the quayside.”
As Lily put her finger to her lips, fireworks burst into the sky. Silver streams floated down, throwing out a mass of tiny golden stars hanging for a minute touching the real stars, forming golden haloes behind their heads as if they were all in a Byzantine mural.
“Would you mind if I smoked?” Hilary asked, bowing slightly, and Mrs. Ramsay nodded. Whiffs curled around Lily in the balmy air. Downstairs, before dinner, he’d offered her his cigarette case, suggesting a turn in the garden and pointing to the stars, diamond dots in an almost black backdrop, saying they were bright because of the spaces in between. She’d wanted to say something clever, too, in return, something to impress, like life’s dull features were as valuable as dramatic sights, and she’d wanted to smoke with him, but she’d paused, not knowing if Mrs. Ramsay approved of women smoking. Glancing around, she’d noticed Mrs. Ramsay in the drawing room, and she’d smiled at Hilary in agreement, but James and Cam had rushed towards him, demanding a game, and the moment was over. There hadn’t been any time together alone after dinner to talk. Would he ask to see her again in London before he left St Ives at the end of the week?
An explosion much louder than fireworks almost deafened her, and a huge bright arc appeared in the sky over to the south behind the town. Mr. Ramsay put his pocket telescope to one eye with Cam clutching at his elbow, trying to pull his arm downwards, eager to see.
“It’s coming from the direction of Hayle, Father,” Andrew said, “where we walked last Sunday.”
“I suspect, from the reverberating bangs, powder magazines in a mine have exploded,” Mr. Ramsay explained. “Explosive projectiles create similar shapes in the air.”
Louis had said Cornish mining was in decline and excavation scenes would be far fewer in number to paint, so it was best to stick to sea views. How could there be so much dynamite in one place?
“Krakatoa’s volcanic eruption produced a similar light,” Mr. Ramsay added. “It transformed sunsets halfway around the globe.”
There must be horrific injuries from such a huge blast. Why was he talking about sunsets? The arc would be hanging in the sky in the morning, but how many people in Hayle would be alive to see it? She clenched her hands.
“The miners,” he continued, “use explosions to release chemicals.”
How did his cataloguing mind contain so much information? He converted all events into science lessons for the children, but the night of a ghastly accident was surely not a time for teaching.
“What a beautiful sight!” he exclaimed. “Miss Briscoe, you will have a wonderful golden sunset to paint tomorrow evening!”
The words pressed hard against her temples. “Mr. Ramsay, there may be children lying dead in Hayle,” she muttered, standing tense against the parapet. “Deaths and destroyed homes cannot be a ‘sight.’”
He hadn’t heard in the hubbub, and she pushed her hands into her pockets to stop them from trembling. It was insufferable to turn a terrible incident into a conversation piece. Mrs. Ramsay’s portrait was to be her gift to Talland House, but her husband didn’t deserve its beauty as he didn’t deserve its subject. Lily’s face felt hot, and she couldn’t think of a light retort or even something to say to Hilary and Eliza. She wiped her forehead, trying to smooth away an encroaching headache, wanting to escape into the night, into the town below. She’d return to her lodgings.
“The fireworks have finished, and the evening is too chilly now,” she blurted to Mrs. Ramsay, avoiding her eyes, not knowing what she’d see as she bid goodnight. Mrs. Ramsay’s face was white as usual.
“I’d be grateful if you would escort me into the town, Mr. Bankes,” Lily added, “if you’re ready to leave too.”
When he nodded in agreement, she climbed back down the stairs with him. The rooms in the house were all dark.
The next morning on the quayside, a busy scene unfurled as in a detailed scroll. It seemed as if last night’s explosion hadn’t happened, had been a bad dream, and the warm sunlight brought her back to the present, back to the reason for being in St Ives—painting. Pushing Mr. Ramsay’s callous comments into the back of her mind, Lily picked up her brushes, trying to focus on the crowds. Band music wafted across the water, and she soon became lost in the spectacle. She was certain the quality of each thing would reveal itself in a moment; she’d try to capture the essence of the boats and the people on the beach, how they were more true-to-life somehow in their shapes and colours. The temperature was rising, but her choice of a new blouse today was perfect—it was airy and light, and gave her arms freedom to work. It was important to be practical. And she might see Louis.
A gun fired, and several skiffs rowed across the harbour. Each rower had bunting flowing from his cap as if giving extra speed to his oars. A brass band clashed its cymbals, and the wind seemed to blow in unison, forcing spectators on the quayside to hold onto their hats and parasols. She was reminded of one of her student days, when a storm had pushed high, frothy waves against the studio walls, and the whole of the far-off evening was suddenly clear in her mind. Louis had leaned perilously out of a window, his face glistening, shouting into the rain.
“Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!”
They’d all burst out laughing, even Emily. Lily missed his enthusiasm, the way he could turn everything into a dramatic event.
Brought back by the cheering crowds, Lily gazed as the fishing boats became vivid shapes with their masts and bunting creating lines and angles. The judges’ yacht, moored at the harbour entrance, was festooned with triangular flags running from mast to mast, and the mayor of St Ives sat on board, his gold chain glistening in the sunlight.
“There are to be swimming races,” Mr. Bankes had said at breakfast. “Our postman enters every year, I’ve been told. I think I’ll watch from the promontory while you’re painting.”
The gun sounded again, and a line of men dived into the water. The plunge threw up white foam, and among the bobbing heads she could see the blond, curly hair of their postman. She willed him on to victory. The prize of two pounds and ten shillings was a great amount—more than two weeks’ wages. Following the swimmers’ heads to the finishing line with her drawing pencil, she saw the Ramsay family with Mr. Bankes amongst the crowd on the promontory above the race. Cam and James clutched miniature Union Jacks, waving to the men below while Mrs. Ramsay held onto their collars. Perhaps the postman also delivered letters to Talland House?
Hilary stood between Prue and Mrs. Ramsay; he must have brought the sailor’s cap to St Ives to wear for Regatta Day, and how solid he looked with his well-knit body and green serge jacket. The Ramsays resembled the other tourists carrying their black box cameras, except the townsmen touched their cap peaks when speaking, making the family seem as important as the judges sitting in the yacht below.
Prue pointed her Frena at the scene, and Lily adjusted her boater. Would she be in the photograph? The camera range was much too short.
Two photographs of her mot
her she always kept with her rested on her bedside table. In one, her mother, much younger than Lily had ever known, was pictured gazing out of a sash window, opening the catch, almost escaping into the world. The photographer must have clicked his shutter too fast because the light from the window formed a large white circle on the silver print. The other photograph was a studio portrait of Lily sitting on her mother’s lap, Mother’s face against her little cheek. She didn’t remember the studio or the day. She was two perhaps, with chubby features before a winter scarlet fever had thinned her away from babyhood, but Mother’s hair had been so glossy.
On the other side of the harbour, Prue was snapping the boats, as if by creating scenes in her photo album each summer she could seal tight the months of happiness with Mrs. Ramsay before returning to the London winters.
Lily had walked with Prue one evening to the Porthminster Hotel’s darkroom, and in its red light, she’d watched her mix fluids from different acidic-smelling bottles in a tray to develop a film.
“I use little images,” Prue had said, “which I’ve printed onto glossy paper to mark up those I want for my album.”
“You’ve a real eye for shapes and frames, an intuitive artist’s eye,” Lily had said, examining the prints hanging up to dry. Perhaps Prue’s photo album was a place where she could size up her family and frame them in histories beyond Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay’s control.
Prue’s face had shone with exhaustion after the concentrated hours of staring, but she’d smiled at Lily, and they’d returned together to Talland House in congenial silence.
Lily looked up again at the promontory, but Prue and the family, along with Mr. Bankes, had vanished. The church clock struck a quarter to twelve. Yesterday Mrs. Ramsay had asked her to meet them all at midday, so she started packing her brushes and paints into her satchel. The judges’ yacht was already empty; the waves splashing its sides rippled in time with the band’s music. Tables and chairs filled the length of the quayside, with jam jars full of flowers at intervals brightening the cheap paper tablecloths. There seemed to be enough food for the whole town.
People placed chairs in groups and were passing plates of sandwiches and dainty iced buns from neighbour to neighbour. She searched along the tables for the Ramsays and Mr. Bankes, though eating strange food in public wouldn’t be suitable for Mr. Bankes’s careful diet, and in any case, they were all to dine well tonight at Talland House. Mrs. Ramsay had summoned them to appear in their best clothes to savour her grandmother’s special recipe, she’d said, as a treat before Hilary returned to London the next day. Lily imagined Mr. Ramsay saying it would not do—filling up the children with cake and buns in the town.
Glancing away from the crowded throng at the tables, she noticed Louis in the distance, emerging from the Sloop Inn amongst a group of young students engaged in what she was sure would be a brilliant conversation. He hadn’t seen her. He was giving all his attention to the tight white muslin dress of a girl younger than her, standing beside him, whose large bust was scarcely hidden under the shadow of a wide black straw hat. He was standing surprisingly close to the girl, who had an incredibly handsome male student alongside her—Lily assumed he must be her friend.
It was the ninth anniversary of the first time she’d seen Louis, Lily realised. Time looped back upon itself. Those days in the studio had determined what she was becoming, what she would be. Lily shivered, feeling the sea breeze chilly even in the heat of the day.
Her empty stomach felt tense, and she pressed her elbows into her sides, trying to make her body as small as possible. In spite of the new blouse, she didn’t want him to see her. She’d never quite believed what Louis had said about her—“a first-rate student”—to Mrs. Ramsay. With a flush of regret, she guessed her attachment to him might be more about the idea of him. They could never be equals because he was a tutor and a reputed artist, but the pain at the thought of him interested in another was oddly intense. While she gazed, she was half-aware the scene resembled a silent film, because she couldn’t guess what he might be thinking or saying. It seemed odd and far away, as if someone else had been watching Louis and told her about the event the next day. Her need for now was to have him out of her sight and return later. The clock struck twelve, and she walked to the bandstand to meet the Ramsays at the appointed hour. Hilary would be with the family; she could almost feel his warm breath again on the back of her neck.
Gathered at the breakfast table, they all sat apart as if isolated individuals, each with a different future. Summer had turned into autumn, and Hilary’s return to London would be the first of further disruptions; in a few days, when she finished the portrait, she, too, would be leaving, as would Eliza and Mr. Bankes.
At dinner the previous night she’d glanced around and noticed Hilary staring in her direction with an attentive and protective air, a kind of complicity with her amidst the bustling Ramsay family. He’d smiled, and she’d warmed to his look, and to please Mrs. Ramsay, she’d bowed down, for one evening, to the sacred, unquestioned dogma ruling the Ramsay household, of the superior intelligence of men. At least Hilary offered his ideas to everyone, rather than Mr. Ramsay’s private hoard, and his blue eyes had stayed on her for most of the evening. When Mrs. Ramsay had left the dining room, Hilary stepped instantly to her side and, beaming, helped her from the table.
“I hesitate to delay your painting, Miss Briscoe,” he’d said, “but I’d be delighted if you’d walk with me to the railway station tomorrow when I return to London.”
He wanted to be with her. She’d gazed at his fine, soft hair and open face and smiled. Meeting Hilary was like seeing a painting she’d known all her life and never ceased to admire. It felt good to look into his eyes, to be drawn out of herself, but he didn’t know a few hours earlier she’d felt her face flush seeing Louis. He didn’t know she’d had a sudden memory of Louis holding her hand at St Ives railway station. Where had that come from? She hadn’t thought about the day for a long time, but somehow those memories would be more intense than any Hilary could leave. Nodding abstractedly, she’d left the room on his arm while the candles were glowing.
Still in the memory of last night, she glanced across the breakfast table at him and, noticing the salt cellar, remembered why she’d moved it at dinner. It would become a shape she could put into her painting—a new strong line at the rear of Mrs. Ramsay’s figure. The two young visitors opposite, Paul and Minta, who’d arrived yesterday and delayed the meal by searching for Minta’s lost brooch on the beach, were stealing glances at each other from time to time, but Lily felt disconnected. They’d think her a spinster, but the term didn’t define her. Artist did perfectly, although she had some way to travel to become as famous as Louis. As Lily mused on the portrait, Mildred carried eggs and bacon into the room, her dress sweeping the carpet with a prolonged swish.
The sound passed into Lily’s mind, joining others in the house: the blind’s acorn in the children’s nursery tap-tapping the floor in the breeze, Mr. Ramsay spouting poetry when he walked in the garden. They were the sort of ordinary sounds she might hear hundreds of times and never notice, but now, because they were here, at breakfast in Talland House, they were special. Turning to tell Eliza her thought, she saw Mr. Ramsay at the end of the table glower, pluck up the plate the servant had placed before him, and throw it with all its contents through an open garden window; then, with a swift scowl at his wife, he left the room without a word.
Lily stared around at the others, who seemed to be struggling with the drama. She didn’t know what to say. Mr. Ramsay’s intensity was like fireworks on a London stage, and she felt exposed to a family drama she hadn’t bought tickets to watch. His anger was directed at Mrs. Ramsay—it was clear in his look. She was his subaltern; he was her commanding officer. He’d ignored the guests.
There was no beautifully arranged bowl of fruit on the table today for Lily to gaze on and escape from the atmosphere. She glanced at Hilary as he restrained a pucker of disgust, leaned forward, and c
lasped Mrs. Ramsay’s hand.
“We’re all so unhappy our time here ends so soon, my dear Mrs. Ramsay,” he said. “Talland House is made beautiful by your care.”
Lily sat back in her chair. His kind speech was an excellent extinguisher, dampening down the distress spreading through the room like a heavy mist.
“You must return next summer, Mr. Hunt. We count on you,” Mrs. Ramsay replied, but she appeared smaller, her beauty disappearing into fragility, an older woman than when they’d all sat down, as if the reply had exhausted her. From the kitchen the servants’ chatter ignored the hurt they’d inadvertently given.
“If you would excuse me,” Mrs. Ramsay added, biting her lip. “I must attend to Mildred.”
Finishing her coffee, Lily smiled gratefully at Hilary. Breakfast was over, and she’d promised to go with him to the station, together with Eliza. She rose from the table to find her coat and paused in the corridor, seeing Mrs. Ramsay lingering in the hall, leaning against the kitchen door. Lily immediately pivoted to hide the scene from others leaving breakfast, speaking loudly so Mrs. Ramsay would know she was there.
“While you’re finishing packing, Mr. Hunt,” she called out, “I think I’ll take a turn in the garden with Eliza to see if the flowers have recovered after the night’s rain. We’ll join you when you’re ready to leave.” She heard Mrs. Ramsay rush into the kitchen.
Lily and Eliza breathed in the garden’s damp mossy scent, listening to the drip-dripping of water from trees and shrubs, as they picked their way along the rain-soaked gravel path. Pigeons were rustling, bobbing into the rinsed grass. Lily revisited the scene she’d witnessed. “She was staring into space, trembling. Why on earth did he throw the plate?”