by Kate Morton
‘Progress and Disintegration?’ said Teddy, winking at Robbie. ‘You’re not a socialist, are you, Mr Hunter?’
Robbie smiled. ‘No, sir. I have neither possessions to redistribute, nor desire to acquire them.’
Teddy laughed.
‘Come now, Mr Hunter,’ said Deborah. ‘I suspect you’re having fun at our expense.’
‘I’m having fun. I hope it’s not at your expense.’
Deborah smiled in a way she thought beguiling. ‘A little birdie tells me you’re not quite the stray you’d have us think.’
Hannah looked at Emmeline, smiling behind her hands; it wasn’t difficult to deduce the identity of Deborah’s little birdie.
‘What are you talking about, Deb?’ said Teddy. ‘Out with it.’
‘Our guest has been teasing us,’ said Deborah, voice rising triumphantly. ‘For he isn’t Mr Hunter at all, he’s Lord Hunter.’
Teddy lifted his eyebrows. ‘Eh? What’s that?’
Robbie twisted his wineglass by its stem. ‘It’s true enough my father was Lord Hunter. But the title isn’t one I use.’
Teddy eyed Robbie over his plate of roast beef. Denying a title was something he couldn’t understand. He and his father had campaigned long and hard for Lloyd George’s ennobling. ‘You sure you’re not a socialist?’ he said.
‘Enough politics,’ said Emmeline suddenly, rolling her eyes. ‘Of course he’s not a socialist. Robbie’s one of us, and we didn’t invite him so we could bore him to death.’ She fixed her gaze on Robbie, rested her chin on the palm of her hand. ‘Tell us where you’ve been, Robbie.’
‘Most recently?’ said Robbie. ‘Spain.’
Spain. Hannah repeated it to herself. How wonderful.
‘How primitive,’ said Deborah, laughing. ‘What on earth were you doing there?’
‘Fulfilling a promise made long ago.’
‘Madrid, was it?’ said Teddy.
‘For a time,’ said Robbie. ‘On my way to Segovia.’
Teddy frowned. ‘What’s a fellow do in Segovia?’
‘I went to the Alcázar.’
Hannah felt her skin prickle.
‘That dusty old fort?’ said Deborah, smiling broadly. ‘I can’t think of anything worse.’
‘Oh no,’ said Robbie. ‘It was remarkable. Magical. Like stepping into a different world.’
‘Do tell.’
Robbie hesitated, searching for the right words. ‘Sometimes I felt that I could glimpse the past. When evening came, and I was all alone, I could almost hear the whispers of the dead. Ancient secrets swirling by.’
‘How ghoulish,’ said Deborah.
‘Why would you ever leave?’ said Hannah.
‘Yes,’ said Teddy. ‘What brought you back to London, Mr Hunter?’
Robbie met Hannah’s eyes. He smiled, turned to Teddy. ‘Providence, I suspect.’
‘All that travelling,’ said Deborah, cranking up her flirtation. ‘You must have some of the gypsy in you.’
Robbie smiled, but he didn’t answer.
‘Either that or our guest has a guilty conscience,’ said Deborah, leaning toward Robbie and lowering her voice playfully. ‘Is that it, Mr Hunter? Are you on the run?’
‘Only from myself, Miss Luxton,’ said Robbie.
‘You’ll settle down,’ said Teddy, ‘as you get older. I used to have a bit of the travel bug myself. Entertained notions of seeing the world, collecting artefacts and experiences.’ By the way he ran his flat palms over the tablecloth either side of his plate. Hannah knew he was about to launch a lecture. ‘A man accumulates responsibilities as he gets older. Gets set in his ways. Differences that used to thrill when he was younger start to irritate. Take Paris, for instance; I was there recently. I used to adore Paris, but the whole city is going to the dogs. No respect for tradition. The way the women dress!’
‘Dear Tiddles,’ laughed Deborah. ‘So un-chic.’
‘I know you’re fond of the French and their fabrics,’ said Teddy, ‘and for you single women it’s all a bit of fun. But there’s no way a wife of mine would be allowed to gad about like that!’
Hannah couldn’t look at Robbie. She focused attention on her plate, moved her food about and set her fork to rest.
‘Travelling certainly opens one’s eyes to different cultures,’ Robbie was saying. ‘I came across a tribe in the Far East in which the men carved designs into their wives’ faces.’
Emmeline gasped. ‘With a knife?’
Teddy swallowed a lump of half-masticated beef, enthralled. ‘Why on earth?’
‘Wives are considered mere objects of enjoyment and display,’ said Robbie. ‘Husbands think it their god-given right to decorate them as they see fit.’
‘Barbarians,’ said Teddy, shaking his head, signalling to Boyle to refill his wine. ‘And they wonder why they need us to civilise them.’
Hannah didn’t see Robbie again for weeks after that. She thought he’d forgotten his promise to lend her his book of poetry. It was just like him, she suspected, to charm his way into a dinner invitation, make empty promises, then vanish without honouring them. She was not offended, merely disappointed in herself for being taken in. She would think of it no more.
Nonetheless, a fortnight later, when she happened to find herself in the H–J aisle of the little bookstore in Drury Lane, and her eyes happened to alight on a copy of his first poetry collection, she bought it. She had appreciated his poetry, after all, long before she realised him a man of loose promises.
Then Pa died, and any lingering thoughts of Robbie Hunter’s return were put aside. With news of her father’s sudden death, Hannah felt as if her anchor had been severed, as if she had been washed from safe waters and was at the whim of tides she neither knew nor trusted. It was ridiculous, of course. She hadn’t seen Pa for such a long time: he had refused to see her since her marriage and she’d been unable to find the words to convince him otherwise. Yet despite it all, while Pa lived she had been tied to something, to someone large and sturdy. Now she was not. She felt abandoned by him: they had often fought, it was a part of their peculiar relationship, but she had always known he loved her specially. And now, with no word, he was gone. She started to dream at night of dark waters, leaking ships, relentless ocean waves. And in the day she began to dwell once more upon the spiritualist’s vision of darkness and death.
Perhaps it would be different when Emmeline moved permanently to number seventeen, she told herself. For it had been decided after Pa’s death that Hannah would serve as guardian of sorts for Emmeline. It was just as well they keep an eye on her, Teddy said, after the unfortunate business with the film-maker. The more Hannah thought about it, the more she looked forward to the prospect. She would have an ally in the house. Someone who understood her. They would sit up late together, talking and laughing, sharing secrets the way they had when they were younger.
When Emmeline arrived in London, however, she had other ideas. London had always agreed with Emmeline and she threw herself further into the social life she adored. She attended costume balls every night—‘White Parties’, ‘Circus Parties’, ‘Under the Sea Parties’—Hannah could never keep count. Emmeline took part in elaborate treasure hunts that involved the pilfering of prizes, from beggars’ cups to policemen’s hats. She drank too much and smoked too much, and considered the night a failure if she couldn’t find a shot of herself in the society pages the next day.
Hannah found Emmeline one afternoon entertaining a group of friends in the morning room. They had shifted the furniture to the edges of the walls and the expensive Berlin rug lay by the fire in a haphazard roll. A girl in flimsy lime chiffon, whom Hannah had never met, sat on the rolled rug smoking lazily, dropping ash, watching as Emmeline tried to teach a baby-faced young man with two left feet to foxtrot.
‘No, no,’ Emmeline said, laughing. ‘There are four counts, Harry darling. Not three. Here, take my hands and I’ll show you.’ She restarted the gramophone. ‘Ready?’
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sp; Hannah picked her way around the room’s rim. She was so distracted by the casualness with which Emmeline and her friends had colonised the room (her room, after all) that she had quite forgotten what it was she came for. She made pretence of digging around in the writing bureau as Harry collapsed on the sofa, saying, ‘Enough. You’re going to kill me, Emme.’
Emmeline fell next to him, threw her arm around his shoulders. ‘Have it your way, Harry darling, but you can hardly expect me to dance with you at Clarissa’s party if you don’t know the steps. The foxtrot is all the rage and I intend to dance it all night long!’
All night long was right, thought Hannah. More and more, Emmeline’s late nights were becoming early mornings. Not content with dancing the night away at Claridge’s, drinking some sort of brandy and cointreau concoction they called Sidecars, she and her friends had taken to continuing the party at someone’s house. More often than not, a someone who was unknown to them. ‘Gate-crashing’ they called it: touring along Mayfair in evening dress until they found a party to join. Even the servants were beginning to talk. The new housemaid had been clearing the entrance hall when Emmeline swept in at half past five the other morning. Emmeline was just lucky that Teddy didn’t know. That Hannah made sure he didn’t.
‘Jane says Clarissa’s serious this time,’ said the girl in lime chiffon.
‘Think she’ll actually go through with it?’ said Harry.
‘We’ll see tonight,’ said Emmeline. ‘Clarissa’s been threatening to bob her hair for months.’ She laughed. ‘More fool her if she does: with that bone structure she’ll look like a German drill sergeant.’
‘Are you taking gin?’ said Harry.
Emmeline shrugged. ‘Or wine. Hardly matters. Clarissa intends to throw it all in together so people can dip their cups.’
A bottle party, thought Hannah. She’d heard of those. Teddy liked to read her reports from the newspaper when they were at the breakfast table. He’d lower the paper to attract her attention, shake his head with weary disapproval and say, ‘Listen to this. Another of those parties. Mayfair, this time.’ Then he’d read the article, word by word, taking great pleasure, it seemed to Hannah, in describing the uninvited guests, the indecent decorations, the raids by police. Why couldn’t young people behave as they had when they were young, he’d say? Have balls with supper, servants pouring wine, dance cards.
Hannah was so horrified by Teddy’s insinuation that she herself was no longer young that, although she thought Emmeline’s behaviour a little like dancing on the graves of the dead, she never said as much to her.
And she made particular care to ensure Teddy didn’t know Emmeline attended such parties. Much less help to organise them. Hannah became very good at inventing excuses for Emmeline’s nocturnal activities.
But that night, when she climbed the stairs to Teddy’s study, armed with an ingenious half-truth about Emmeline’s dedication to her friend Lady Clarissa, he was not alone. As she neared his closed door, Hannah heard voices. Teddy’s and Simion’s. She was about to turn, to come back later, when she heard her father’s name. She held her breath and crept toward the door.
‘You have to feel sorry for him, though,’ said Teddy. ‘Whatever you think of the man. Dying like that, a hunting accident, a country fellow like him.’
Simion cleared his throat. ‘Well now, Teddy, between you and me, it seems there was more to it than that.’ A meaningful pause. A lowered voice, words Hannah couldn’t make out.
Teddy inhaled quickly. ‘Suicide?’
Lies, Hannah thought, breaths grown hot. Terrible lies.
‘It seems so,’ said Simion. ‘Lord Gifford tells me one of the servants—the elderly fellow, Hamilton—found him out on the estate. The staff were doing their best to cover the details—I’ve told you before, there’s no servant holds a torch to the British servant in matters of discretion—but Lord Gifford reminded them it was his job to protect the family’s reputation and that he needed the facts to do so.’
Hannah heard glass scraping against glass, the burbling of sherry being poured.
‘And what did Gifford say?’ Teddy said. ‘What made him think it was . . . intentional?’
Simion sighed philosophically. ‘The man had been in a bad way for some time. Not all men are suited to the rough and tumble of business. He’d become morose, gun-happy. The servants had taken to following him when he left the house, just to make sure . . .’ He struck a match and the faint waft of cigar smoke reached Hannah. ‘Let’s just say the way I understand it this “accident” was some time coming.’
There was a break in conversation as both men pondered this pronouncement. Hannah held her breath, listened for footsteps.
Having observed the obligatory moment’s silence, Simion continued with renewed energy. ‘Lord Gifford has worked his magic, though—no one’ll ever know the difference—and there’s no reason not to seize the silver lining.’ There was a squeak of leather as he rearranged himself in his chair. ‘I’ve been thinking, it’s about time you took another stab at politics. The business has never been better, you’ve kept your nose clean, gained a reputation amongst Conservatives as a sensible type. Why not seek nomination for the seat of Saffron?’
Teddy’s voice was shiny with the glimmer of hope. ‘You mean move out to Riverton?’
‘It’s yours now, and country people do love their lord of the manor.’
‘Father,’ Teddy said breathlessly, ‘you’re a genius. I’ll call Lord Gifford immediately. See if he’ll have a word with the others on my behalf.’ The telephone cradle rattled. ‘It’s not too late is it?’
‘Never too late for business,’ said Simion. ‘Or politics.’
Hannah pulled away then. She had heard enough.
She didn’t speak to Teddy that night. In any event, Emmeline was home by the comparatively early hour of two. Hannah was still awake in bed when Emmeline stumbled along the hall. She rolled over and closed her eyes tight, tried not to think any more about what Simion had said, about Pa and the way he had died. His desperate unhappiness. His loneliness. The darkness that had claimed him. And she refused to think of the letters of contrition she’d never quite managed to finish.
And in the isolation of her bedroom, with Teddy’s contented snores drifting from the room beyond, noises of night-time London muffled by her window, she fell into dreams of black water, abandoned ships and lonely foghorns floating back to empty shores.
II
Robbie came back. He gave no explanation for his absence, simply sat down in Teddy’s armchair as if no time had passed and presented Hannah with his first volume of poetry. She was about to tell him she already owned a copy when he drew another book from his coat pocket. Small, with a green cover.
‘For you,’ he said, handing it to her.
Hannah’s heart skipped when she saw its title. It was James Joyce’s Ulysses, and it was banned everywhere.
‘But where did you—?’
‘A friend in Paris.’
Hannah ran her fingertips over the word Ulysses. It was about a married couple, she knew, and their moribund physical relationship. She had read—rather Teddy had read her—extracts from the newspaper. He’d called them filth and she had nodded agreement. In truth, she’d found them strangely affecting. She could imagine what Teddy would have said if she’d told him so. He’d have thought her ill, recommended she see a doctor. And perhaps she was.
Yet, though thrilled to have opportunity to read the novel, she wasn’t certain how she felt about Robbie bringing it for her. Did he think she was the type of woman for whom such topics were ordinary fare? Worse: was he making a joke? Did he think her a prude? She was about to ask him when he said, very simply and very gently,
‘I’m sorry about your father.’
And before she could say anything about Ulysses, she realised she was crying.
No one thought much of Robbie’s visits. Not at first. Certainly there was no suggestion that anything improper was passing between him a
nd Hannah. Hannah would’ve been the first to deny it if there had. It was known to everyone that Robbie had been a friend to her brother, had been with him at the end. If he seemed a little irregular, less than respectable, as she knew Boyle continued to maintain, it was easily enough put down to the mystery of war.
Robbie’s visits followed no pattern, his arrival was never planned, but Hannah started looking forward to them, waiting for them. Sometimes she was alone, sometimes Emmeline or Deborah was with her; it didn’t matter. For Hannah, Robbie became a lifeline. They spoke of books and travel. Far-fetched ideas and faraway places. He seemed to know so much about her already. It was almost like having David back. She found she longed for his company, became fidgety between times, bored with whatever else she’d been doing.
Perhaps if Hannah had been less preoccupied she would have noticed she was not the only one for whom Robbie’s visits had come to hold attraction. May have observed that Deborah was spending more time at home. But she did not.
It came as a complete surprise one morning, in the drawing room, when Deborah put aside her crossword puzzle and said, ‘I’m throwing a little soiree to launch the new Chanel fragrance next week, Mr Hunter, and wouldn’t you know it? I’ve been so busy organising I haven’t had time even to think about finding myself a partner.’ She smiled, all white teeth and red lips.
‘Doubt you’ll have trouble,’ said Robbie. ‘Must be heaps of fellows looking for a ride on society’s golden wave.’
‘Of course,’ said Deborah, mistaking Robbie’s irony. ‘All the same, it’s such late notice.’
‘Lord Woodall would be sure to take you,’ said Hannah.
‘Lord Woodall is abroad,’ Deborah said quickly. She smiled at Robbie. ‘And I couldn’t possibly go alone.’
‘Going stag is all the rage according to Emmeline,’ said Hannah.
Deborah appeared not to have heard. She batted her lids at Robbie. ‘Unless . . .’ She shook her head with a coyness that didn’t suit her. ‘No, of course not.’