The Summer Fields

  ‘Well, that is a relief,’ he says, his voice heavy with sarcasm. He slips around the hanging, which lifts like a wave as he moves along behind it. She’s sorely tempted to leave him be, but when she hears the door into the storeroom open, accompanied by a gust of freezing night air, she follows.

  The room is clamped with cold. Mordiford weaves between the pieces of furniture, the sleeves of his shirt white as a ghost in the darkness.

  ‘Come back into the warm, sir. It is as cold as the grave in here.’

  Mordiford ignores her and moves around the room, lifting one or two of the dustsheets. He slides the drawer of the desk open. Is he going to take out the looking glass? No. He sweeps his hand around inside, shuts the drawer and opens one below. He turns to her and says in a voice of genuine enquiry rather than mockery, ‘Someone else has been in here. Have you been asked to move things from this room?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then who has?’ he says roughly.

  ‘I don’t know for certain. I think Joan may have moved some things.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I am not sure. She denied it when I asked. I assumed they were needed for the current festivities.’

  ‘Were they, by God?’ He goes over to the window where a bloom of frost ferns spreads across the glass, sparkling faintly in the moonlight. After struggling for a moment with the rusted latch, he throws the casement open and takes in a deep breath of the night air. Then he stands on his toes and peers down over the edge.

  She comes up behind him in case he tips out, but on hearing her approach, he drops back heavily onto his feet and turning says, ‘I see the candles are burning along the west wing. How many people are here tonight?’

  ‘Two gentlemen and a lady arrived yesterday and apparently three carriages this evening. It’s very busy. The rooms in the south wing have been made ready for guests and the great hall is being set for a dinner.’ He does not respond. ‘In fact,’ she presses on, ‘as you are feeling so much recovered, I wondered if I might not slip down to the gallery later this evening and see the spectacle.’

  ‘You must not.’

  Elen is taken aback by his sincerity of feeling. He quickly changes his tone and adds with familiar contempt, ‘How like a servant to want to go squinting and spying. You would only embarrass yourself if you were caught trying to watch them at private dinner. No, you must promise me you will have no involvement whatsoever in anything that happens in the hall over the next few days.’

  ‘How can I promise such a thing when I may be asked to help, sir?’

  ‘You must refuse.’ He comes forward, and takes her by the wrist. Unlike the iron grip of his father, his touch is firm but not harsh. His expression, however, is one of earnest entreaty. ‘Promise me.’

  She slips from his grasp and takes a step back. ‘I promise I will do nothing to embarrass myself or the family – that is all.’

  His body slumps a little and, turning away, he begins to lift the dustsheets until he uncovers a sofa.

  ‘I need to sit,’ he says, sinking down and placing the lamp on the floor. ‘Will you come and sit with me?’ Before she has the opportunity to refuse, he continues, ‘It seems I cannot shame you into doing as I ask, so sit with me and I will explain.’

  She wonders if, having failed to bully her into submission, he is attempting a more devious approach. She frowns her indecision, but he meets it with a straight and honest look. ‘Please,’ he says with complete candour.

  She throws back the rest of the sheet and takes a seat at the opposite end of the sofa. There is a table underneath the sheet next to her and she sits her candle on it. Mordiford leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, looking down at the palms of his hands, examining the scabs by the light of the lamp. ‘Everything would be so much simpler had I not succumbed to this wretched disease,’ he says. ‘It has trapped me here and you along with me.’

  ‘Our incarceration is a temporary one.’

  ‘But the timing could not be worse.’

  ‘If you refer to your ambition to join the army, I understand but fail to see why it affects me.’

  ‘Because of them,’ Mordiford says, pointing a finger towards the casement windows.

  ‘Your father’s guests?’

  ‘Do not make the mistake that because those people hold high office at Court, they are of high moral standing. Nothing could be further from the truth. My father is a weak man and has fallen in with a bad lot. Go down there and you put yourself in danger.’

  ‘Why would I be in danger?’ Elen says.

  ‘Ah! Now that I have put my cards on the table, you want to draw a compliment from me. You want me to say you are in danger because you are so pretty. I shall not.’

  ‘I want no such thing,’ Elen says, laughing at the absurdity of the conversation.

  Mordiford gets to his feet and paces around the room. ‘Why do you have to be so contrary? Believe me and stay up here in safety.’

  ‘I do believe you, but I think you are exaggerating the threat. I promise I will not spy on their dinner, but I must be allowed to come and go as I always have.’

  He stares down at her for a few moments, then he snatches the lamp from the floor and stalks out of the room.

  * * *

  She finds him in the chair by the fire, scowling at the glowing embers. ‘Build this fire up. It is nearly burned out and I am cold.’ She takes the last two logs from the basket and pushes them into the grate. ‘That’s not enough to revive it,’ he says. ‘Put more on.’

  ‘There is no more, sir.’

  ‘God damn it! Why hasn’t that wretched girl replenished it?’

  ‘I expect she’s busy with the dinner. I am sure she’ll be along by and by.’

  Elen settles down on her chaise longue. She waits to see if he has more to say but presently takes up the chapbook her father brought for her. She tries to concentrate on her reading, but Mordiford’s mood fills the room with tension. Every now and then a particularly loud bellow of distant laughter can be heard in the distance.

  The fire blazes merrily for almost an hour but the wood is dry and soon burns down. Mordiford fidgets in his seat, then goes over to the door and opens it. Another gust of laughter booms from below.

  ‘Listen to them guffawing as they stuff their faces,’ he says. ‘Are the servants not even going to feed me? Am I to stay here, freezing to death and dying of hunger?’

  She lays her chapbook aside and says, ‘Why do you not let me go down and see what’s happening? I can make you ready for bed, where you would be warmer, and I can fetch up a tray.’

  ‘No.’

  She returns to her chapbook. Their stand-off continues for another hour.

  Eventually, Mordiford goes over to the bed and retrieves a blanket. He returns to the cooling grate and tucks the blanket around his legs with unnecessary drama, grunting with the effort. Elen wonders if his fiancée has seen this side of his character, his petulance, his ill-humour – or does he reserve it exclusively for her?

  She continues to read. She hears a clock strike eleven and feels her lids getting heavy. She must have dropped off to sleep because she is woken by Mordiford shaking her shoulder. ‘Wake up,’ he says. ‘It is gone midnight.’

  ‘Would you like me to help you get ready for bed, sir?’

  ‘No. I am cold and hungry, I will not be able to sleep. That blasted girl has not come back.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Mordiford opens his mouth to speak, but closes it again. He paces over to the door and unlatches it, listening at the gap. ‘It is quiet out there. You will have to go down and see what you can find. But don’t talk to anyone.’

  ‘I thought you did not want me to.’

  ‘For the love of Judas! You have made your point, have you not? Just get downstairs and find me something to eat. Fetch me some liquor too. That will have to suffice to warm me since I do not suppose you can struggle up here with firewood.’

  ‘I could try, s
ir.’

  ‘Oh, do not put yourself out on my account.’

  Chapter 23

  All is dark and quiet when Elen steps onto the gallery. A faint glow comes up from below and, concealing herself in the shadows, she peers over the railings into the great hall. The dining table is in disarray, the chairs pushed back as their occupants quit them. Light still comes from the fire, although it has been left to die down. The candles drip and gutter on the branching candelabra.

  Bright against this darkened backdrop is a magnificent arrangement in the centre of the table, rising out of a silver basin. At first she imagines it is fashioned from white flowers but when she looks with more concentration, she realises it is constructed from the whitest, largest feathers she has ever seen.

  Confident that the diners have quit the hall for the night, she steals along the gallery and makes her way down the service stairs. She finds the scullery empty of people and assumes that the servants have been dismissed until the morning. The table where she takes her breakfast is covered in the detritus of the evening’s festivities. To her frustration she can see no unfinished dishes of food. They must have been transported back to the kitchens. She’s about to give up her search when she spots a heel of cheese and a chunk of bread on the sideboard by the back door. She smiles as she tucks these into the pocket of her apron. Mordiford will have to chew on the food destined for tomorrow’s pig swill.

  Unsurprisingly, the alcohol proves a greater challenge because the steward locks it away last thing at night and it is not her place to wake him at this hour. Then a thought strikes her. As the evening has gone on long enough for the staff to be dismissed before the table was cleared, wine may have been left in the great hall.

  She creeps up to the steward’s pantry, pausing for a moment in the doorway to check that the corridor to left and right is empty. A cool draught moves the air past, scented with tobacco. Perhaps a guest is taking a final pipe before settling down for the night.

  Her eyes are well adapted to the half-light now. A fat moon rides high in the sky, bathing the great hall in a cold blue light. Moving along behind the oak pillars, she nears the dining table and is on the point of stepping out onto the tiles when she hears the sound of a door opening on the opposite side of the hall. She slides around the pillar, back into the shadows, her heart knocking on her ribs, mindful of Mordiford’s warning.

  Voices come across the open space towards her. A group of men file into the hall in twos and threes. She cannot make out their faces. They are swathed in hooded cloaks. Each carries a white napkin in his hand, which they drop onto the table.

  They seem to be waiting for someone, because they mill around, making desultory conversation, about what she cannot tell because they talk in hushed voices. Then the confident click of a leather sole across the tiles heralds the arrival of another man who strides towards the group, his cloak eddying around him.

  ‘I have news, gentlemen,’ says a voice, unmistakeably the earl’s. ‘You shall not be disappointed. It has this very minute been confirmed. Our leader will be prepared and waiting for our tableau tomorrow night after dinner.’

  The men thump their gloved fists on the table, others clap and a few give muffled guffaws of excitement.

  ‘But which of us has the expressible pleasure of being the first devil to perform?’ says a man with a strong French accent.

  ‘We draw lots, my dear Comte.’

  ‘But surely,’ another gentleman says, ‘this cannot be right. Does only one of us enjoy the pleasure of our leader?’

  ‘Not at all,’ says the earl. ‘Once the tableau has begun, audience participation is fully encouraged.’ The men mutter and shuffle around, one clenching a fist here, another slapping a companion heartily on the shoulder there.

  ‘Now,’ the earl says. ‘We draw.’ From beneath his cloak, he produces a handful of swan’s feathers, which he fans apart with the vanes uppermost. Each man comes forward and makes his choice as the others gather around, murmuring commiseration or cheering success as a longer quill than the last is freed. When everyone has chosen, they hold them together in the centre for the earl to judge.

  ‘It is a close run race,’ the earl says, ‘but the longest feather has been drawn by…’ He grasps one of the wrists, holding it and the feather aloft. ‘Louis-Antoine de Noailles.’ A muffled hoorah, tainted by a modicum of regret, rises up from the remainder of the group.

  * * *

  Long after the figures disappear and the footsteps die away, Elen stays in the sanctuary of the shadows where the darkness gathers in drifts. The minutes tick by and still she does not move. A door closes in the distance with a bump, a tinkle of laughter comes from a room far away. Out on the estate an owl hoots.

  She told Mordiford his fears were unfounded. Why then is she transfixed to this spot with anxiety? It is probably better to face Mordiford’s anger for failing to bring back liquor than to step out into the great hall – he did, after all, beg her to stay away from the earl and his friends.

  She must get back to the sanctuary of the sickroom. She prays she doesn’t meet one of the guests in the corridor. Earlier, when she made her way here, she was certain the household slept. Now she has no such confidence. And given Mordiford’s vehement warnings, she is afraid. Have the revellers gone to their beds? Perhaps, but she cannot be certain. She has an overwhelming desire to use the quickest route up the central staircase.

  As she stands in a bind of indecision, the moon passes behind a cloud and the light in the great hall dims. Here is her opportunity. She darts out from between the pillars, moving swiftly and silently across the tiles towards the bottom of the great oak staircase. The shadows of the pillars lie like black rugs across the floor and as she reaches the first step, one of the shadows curdles and moves. She claps her hand to her mouth to muffle a shriek. A figure steps from the gloom.

  Chapter 24

  Something about the man’s gait relaxes Elen’s shoulders. She slumps against the bannister as he approaches. ‘Ned,’ she whispers, ‘you gave me such a fright.’

  He takes her by the arm and draws her to sit on the step of the staircase, taking his place beside her. ‘What on earth are you doing creeping around down here?’ he says, his voice quiet but by no means secretive.

  She looks over her shoulder, her eyes scanning the blackness. ‘We’re not safe sitting here, Ned. They may return.’

  ‘They will not, trust me. I know how these evenings run. But I still don’t know why you’re down here spying instead of taking care of your patient.’

  ‘I was not spying.’

  Ned chuckles and pats her hand, but does not reply.

  ‘I had to come down,’ she says. ‘The viscount’s been raving and demanding food and drink. We have been quite forgotten up there this evening. I came down hoping to plunder some leftovers from the banquet, but they all flooded back in here. Ned, what are these men doing? Why were they dressed as they were? I was frightened half to death.’

  Ned shakes his head, laughs softly. ‘It is just one of their many fantastical and foolish traditions. You know what these old families are like. The knights like to dine in the great hall on their own, then they don their outdoor cloaks, pick up their napkins and trek a good league around the outside of the hall. They come back in through the undercroft and up the stairs in the east wing to take dessert with the ladies who have dined in the lower dining room in the west wing.’

  ‘How extraordinarily complicated.’

  ‘I suppose it is. The Knights of St Sebastian enjoy such distractions.’

  ‘And what about the feathers? Why were they drawing lots with feathers?’

  ‘Some bizarre parlour game, I would imagine,’ he says airily. ‘It’s not our place to ask too much. We are here to stay out of their way, clear up behind them and keep our mouths shut. Now,’ he says, getting to his feet and helping her up. ‘Let us see if we cannot find you a dram or two of spirit to soothe your difficult patient.’

  Making his way
over to the table, he takes up a crystal decanter, removes the stopper and sniffs the contents. ‘This will do,’ he says. ‘Fancy a little settler?’

  She creeps over to join him as he pours the black liquid into two glasses, holding one out towards her. ‘Will we not get into terrible trouble?’ she says, her eyes darting around the hall. She feels vulnerable surrounded by so much space, so many shadows.

  ‘Trust me, no one will come back here tonight. They will all be far too distracted with their game. Come, it will do you good. Your face is glowing as white as an apparition.’

  She takes the glass and lifts it to her lips. It smells rich and powerful, as if the essence of a plum pudding has been squeezed into the glass. When the sweetness hits her tongue, it tastes as smooth as a mouthful of cream, and as she swallows, the liquor warms her chest and rushes straight into her cheeks and her fingertips and toes.

  Ned watches her over the rim of his own glass. He raises it to his lips, narrows his eyes as he takes the first sip, tilting his head back with a little sigh the moment he swallows. ‘You must own it,’ he says, ‘that is the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted.’

  ‘It is.’ She smiles back at him before taking another sip.

  ‘I cannot let you take the decanter. You may be accused of pilfering and that would never do,’ he says. ‘Come on, we shall take this back to the pantry and find an appropriate receptacle for you to bring to the viscount. Or perhaps he will have fallen asleep out of boredom and you can finish it yourself.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘I would.’

  He takes the glasses and decanter and sets off towards the servants’ quarters, calling softly for her to follow. Her fears are soothed by his confidence. When they reach the steward’s pantry he puts his load onto the small table in front of the fire, takes a spill from the chimneypiece and pushes it into the embers of the fire before lighting a candle.