Lightning Strikes

by Virginia Andrews

  Mary Margaret’s eyes went from her to me.

  “Hello,” she said barely above a whisper.

  “Hi.” I gave her my best smile, but she looked down and waited.

  We entered the house. I was immediately surprised at how dark the corridor was. The walls were a shade of burgundy. There were pictures everywhere, all dark oils hung in dark frames. A gray rug lined the entryway floor and a very dim chandelier hung from the ceiling. Ahead of us was a staircase that wound to the right. It had a mahogany balustrade, but the steps looked like stone. When I drew closer, I saw they were actually covered in a thin silvery gray carpet.

  Mary Margaret started into the house with Leo banging my luggage into the door frame behind us. He was really straining, yet still no one apparently cared. It seemed I was the only one who even noticed.

  “Wait,” Great-aunt Leonora cried as I started after Mary Margaret. “I’ve decided to show Rain the house first. That way it will be easier for her when Boggs describes her duties. As soon as you settle her in, Mary Margaret, you’ll take her to see Mrs. Chester and get her some tea.”

  “Yes, mum,” Mary Margaret said, followed by the dropping of her eyes as if Great-aunt Leonora was some royal person who wasn’t supposed to be gazed at directly. She added a tiny curtsey like a punctuation mark after responding, again.

  “Over here is the drawing room,” Great-aunt Leonora said.

  I gazed in without stepping through the doorway. There was a small fireplace with a white marble mantel. Around the room were a variety of Romantic paintings and some portraits of dour-looking women and stern-looking men in gray wigs. The windows were draped in cream silk curtains and every table, every available space in fact, was occupied with some artifact, bric-a-brac, vases, pewter figures, or miniatures. There were footstools in front of the chairs and the furniture was done in a dark brown chintz. Against the wall to my right was a tall, dark oak grandfather’s clock with the hands stuck on twelve.

  “All these pictures were collected by my husband’s ancestors. The National Gallery would like to get their hands on them,” she added with a small laugh.

  “Here,” she continued moving down the hallway, “is our dining room.”

  Again, I stood back like someone at a museum being given a lecture and shown precious antiques which were to be looked at only and never touched. I felt as if there was an invisible velvet rope between me and every piece of furniture, every work of art, every statue. Great-aunt Leonora was as knowledgeable as a museum guide.

  “Our dining room is built around a mantel inspired by one that was brought to Buckingham Palace from Brighton. The wallpaper was painted with decorations based on an eighteenth-century pattern, you know. Our dining room chairs have been done in Bertram and Fils chair fabrics. They are all the rage these days. That chandelier,” she said, nodding toward the ceiling at a crystal and green glass chandelier, “comes from Russia. We recently had those French doors installed so we can enjoy the spring and summer air while we dine.”

  The doors looked onto the garden which was in full bloom.

  She showed me what she called the formal living room and told me the Bessarabian carpet was worth thousands and thousands of pounds. There was a baby grand piano with some sheet music opened on it as if someone had just played. All the furnishings were in dark patterns and the room itself looked as unused and as untouched as a showcase in a furniture store window.

  I was truly impressed by the library. It was cluttered with art and valuable-looking objects just like the other rooms, but the library was literally filled to the brim with books in built-in bookcases on every wall. I didn’t think one more volume of anything could be added. The shelves went to the ceiling and there was a ladder that could be pushed along to get access to any book.

  “Richard is very proud of his rare book collection,” Great-aunt Leonora said. “Most of what you see here are first editions, some going back as far as the early nineteenth century. He has original Dickens, Thackeray, Samuel Johnson, George Eliot. You name the author, Richard has something of his or hers,” she added with a tiny laugh that sounded more like the tinkle of small bells.

  The library windows were also draped in silk. There was a velvet sofa with a matching chair. At the far end of the library was a large oak desk. Everything on the top of it was well organized. Whatever wood showed through gleamed with fresh polish.

  “This is the only sexist part of our home,” Great-aunt Leonora declared as she presented the next room that contained a large pool table. “The billiards room is truly for men only. Who wants to come out smelling like a tobacco plant anyway?”

  We glanced at it for a few seconds, but it was long enough for me to get a strong whiff of the cigars that were smoked in it recently.

  As we moved through the house, looking in on each room, I wondered how someone as fragile and small as Mary Margaret could keep up with it all. What a feasting ground for dust, I thought, with all these pieces of art, little statuary, glass figurines, and pewter.

  Trailing behind us during this tour was Leo with my suitcases and Mary Margaret at his side. Boggs remained in the entryway standing like a sentry. Suddenly, Great-aunt Leonora spun around and clapped her hands.

  “I’ve decided to show you some of the upstairs. Everyone else can wait here,” she declared. I glanced at Mary Margaret, but she wouldn’t look directly at me either. Her eyes shifted so that she looked at a blank wall space between two oil paintings of country scenes.

  I followed Great-aunt Leonora up the stairs. She paused at the double doors of her and her husband’s bedroom.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said suddenly, hesitating to open the doors. I raised my eyebrows. She knew what I was thinking? I hoped not. “You’re thinking our rooms are so small compared to my sister’s house. Americans always do things in a bigger way than anyone else,” she continued, once again referring to Americans as foreigners even though she was one. “These older houses weren’t built that way. Here, we had to think about heating them and the cost of that, among other things. However, this is a house with history. Do you know it was built nearly a hundred years before the house Frances lives in was built?” she asked. I shook my head. “This is a country with a past, where laws and art and literature began. But,” she said with a small wag of her head, “you probably know all this, being a good student. Voila!” she cried and threw open her bedroom doors with a dramatic flair.

  She immediately explained that her bed was a Georgian-style painted fourposter. On the side of the room where she had her vanity table hung an Indian ivory-and-ebony oval mirror she claimed Richard had bought at an auction, outbidding someone named Lord Flanders by five thousand pounds. There was a satinwood table where she wrote her notes and letters, long velvet drapes over the windows, lamps she claimed had been imported from Egypt as well as some original Tiffany designs. According to her all of her furnishings had historical meaning and all were refurbished antiques. On the wall to the right of the entry way was a large portrait of a man who she immediately told me was Sir Godfrey Rogers.

  “It’s actually a self-portrait. He dabbled in art. He never developed any sort of reputation, but. . .it’s good,” she said, nodding. She looked at me anticipating some sort of reaction.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know who he was,” I said.

  She laughed that thin jingle of a laugh again.

  “Oh, of course, I forgot. He was the original owner of Endfield Place. And I want to tell you right away,” she added with a serious face, “the stories about the spirit of his dead mistress wandering the hallways of this house are purely imaginative. Don’t let Leo or Mary Margaret or Mrs. Chester or anyone else tell you otherwise.”

  “Dead mistress?”

  “There is a ridiculous tale that he housed his mistress in some secret room because she had become pregnant with his child and rather than have his reputation soiled, he brought her here to give birth without society knowing about it. Legend, and I stress i
t’s legend, has it that his wife poisoned her and she wandered and haunted the house forever and ever afterward until his wife committed suicide.”

  “How horrible,” I said.

  “All poppycock,” she declared with a wave of her hand, “but the stuff that makes for good teatime chat. Very well now. Let’s get you settled in.”

  I gazed around the bedroom again and then followed her out. Something was gnawing at me as we descended the stairs. It was the sort of feeling you have when you know you have something to say, something to ask, but what it is exactly is just a little beyond your thinking because you’ve been so distracted or you’re so tired. It’s like a feather tickling at the back of your brain.

  I glanced again in the rooms we had seen as we joined Mary Margaret and Leo who waited in anticipation. Boggs was still in the entryway, his hands behind his back, rocking up and down on his heels impatiently.

  “Do show Rain her quarters now, Mary Margaret, and as I said, take her immediately afterward to meet Mrs. Chester,” Great-aunt Leonora commanded. I noticed whenever she spoke to the servants, she tilted her head back so that the tip of her chin pointed at them.

  Boggs cleared his throat rather emphatically.

  “Oh,” Great-aunt Leonora said, “but, of course, before you do that, bring her back here and let Boggs describe her duties.” She turned to me. “Welcome again, my dear, and good luck with your studies.”

  She started back toward the stairway. My eyes followed and then drifted off to look at Boggs, who had turned to glare at me. There was still no sign of welcome in his face. I followed Mary Margaret down the hallway and as we turned to enter what they called the servants’ quarters, I realized what it was that had been nudging at my thoughts.

  In none of the rooms, not even their bedroom, did I see a picture of their dead child.

  If Grandmother Hudson had not told me of her, I would never have known she had even existed. How odd, I thought. Was it something English to hide the members of the immediate family who were dead?

  I’ve got a lot to learn about this place and the people, and quickly too, I thought.

  My bedroom was only slightly longer and wider than Grandmother Hudson’s walk-in closet. I had a creaky, groaning iron bed with a mattress so thin, it made my bed back at Grandmother Hudson’s house seem like a cloud. There was a small window with a faded yellow shade over it, and the floor was uncovered hardwood so damp and dark and grainy that it looked like it might be the original floor of the house. Leo set my suitcases down with relief and immediately left us, hobbling away. Against the wall on my right was a mahogany wardrobe which served as the only closet. Beside it on the floor was a little wooden chest with shallow drawers. The room smelled like mothballs.

  “Can we open that window?” I asked Mary Margaret.

  She stared at it and shook her head.

  “I dunno,” she said with big eyes. “Never did.”

  I went to it and struggled with the rusted lock until I had it unlatched. Then I pushed up with the heels of my palms. It didn’t move.

  “I won’t have any air in here,” I complained gazing around.

  “I’ll go fetch Boggs,” she said and left before I could tell her I’d rather struggle with it myself. I tried again, but it didn’t even squeak. It’s probably been shut tight for a hundred years, I thought.

  I put my suitcases on the bed and opened them to take out my clothes and get some of them hung in the wardrobe. Moments later Boggs appeared. He paused for a moment to look at me and then went directly to the window. With a closed fist, he hammered around the frame. Then he put the heels of his palm against it and pushed up. The window groaned and lifted.

  “I’ll get some oil on this later,” he muttered with annoyance. “Hurry along now,” he said before he left.

  I looked at Mary Margaret.

  “This wasn’t the room Sir Godfrey Rogers’s mistress died in, was it?” I asked, half kidding.

  She paled to an even whiter shade, almost the color of snow.

  “Who told you?”

  “It is?” I asked more vehemently.

  “No one is supposed to talk about that,” she replied.

  She walked away and a little while later returned with a uniform folded in her arms. She placed it on the bed without a word. I unfolded it and held it up against me. It was close to my size.

  “The loo is just down the hall here,” she said.

  “The what?”

  “The loo.” She thought a moment. “The lavatory.”

  “Oh, you mean bathroom. Okay, thanks,” I said. “I’d like to throw some cold water on my face. I feel like I’m still flying.”

  She didn’t smile.

  “Better get along,” she advised. “Mr. Boggs is waitin’ on us.”

  “Right,” I said. “We don’t want to keep him cooling his heels,” I muttered.

  She tilted her head as if I had said something totally beyond her. I just shook my head and headed down to what she called the loo. It wasn’t much of a bathroom. There was no shower, just a tub and a sink and a toilet. Above the sink was a small mirror. Every part of the house had been modernized apparently, but not the servants’ quarters. They better not complain about Americans being class conscious and prejudiced, I thought.

  I put on the uniform and then followed Mary Margaret back to the front of the house where Boggs was waiting. He looked me over from head to foot.

  “Pin your hair back,” he ordered. He looked at Mary Margaret. “Why didn’t you tell her that?”

  She looked nervous and frightened.

  “She didn’t have time to,” I said. “She was afraid to keep you waiting much longer.”

  “I’m not talking to you, am I?” he asked me with fury in his eyes. “I’m talking to ’er.”

  Mary Margaret dropped her gaze and lowered her head quickly. I took a deep breath to keep myself from exploding and waited.

  “You’ll help serve breakfast and dinner and then help clean up the dining room after supper. There’ll be dusting and polishing on Saturday mornings with Mary Margaret. Wash the floor in the billiards room, too. See that every loo has paper and keep the bathroom off the billiards room spotless. Mr. Endfield’s guests use it. Mrs. Chester will show you what she wants done in the kitchen. Whenever she needs something from the greengrocer, she’ll tell you or Mary Margaret to go fetch it.”

  “What’s a greengrocer?”

  “It’s a fruit and vegetable store. Margaret can show you the way the first time.”

  “Anything else?” I asked dryly. Didn’t Great-aunt Leonora tell him why I had come to London? I had school to attend and studies.

  “Just know your place,” he ordered. “Everyone who knows ’is place gets along fine. Step out of it and you’ll have to answer to me.”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked him, now feeling myself growing furious.

  “Mr. Endfield prides ’imself on how well ’is house is run. There’s no kidding about that ’ere. Take ’er to Mrs. Chester,” he ordered Mary Margaret.

  She nodded.

  “This way, please,” she said.

  I hesitated and glared back at him. Mama would have said someone stepped on his hand when he was a baby and formed his personality in an instant.

  I trailed after Mary Margaret, suddenly feeling the jet lag that everyone at home had warned me about. I felt more like I was floating along, walking in my sleep. Why didn’t they at least give me a chance to adjust? I wondered. If I complained, would I sound ungrateful?

  I was beginning to wonder if I cared.

  * * *

  “So yer the Yank come ta study ta be an actress, are ya?” Mrs. Chester said after Mary Margaret brought me into the kitchen. She had her hands on her hips.

  She was a stout little lady with rolling-pin arms and heavy hips and an ample bosom. Her hair was blue gray, pinned in a tight bun. Her cheeks were rosy on the crests, but her complexion was the shade of faded old paper with some age spots under her temples and
a small mole on the right side of her neck.

  She wiped her hands on her apron and looked at me.

  “Well, yer a pretty bird. I’ll say that, but can ya hold up ya end?”

  “Hold up my what?”

  “Do your part?”

  “Oh yes,” I said.

  She nodded, looking at me with a tightness around the corners of her mouth. “We start preparin’ breakfast at six-thirty. Mr. Endfield likes a cup of tea taken up ta ’im by seven. Who’s ta do that now?” she asked looking from Mary Margaret to me.

  “I do that,” Mary Margaret said quickly, almost as if she was afraid I would volunteer and take the pleasure away from her.

  Mary Margaret wasn’t unintelligent. I couldn’t help but wonder why she wouldn’t want to do something more with her life. Was it just shyness? She acted like she was from some lower caste of people who were forbidden to address or confront their betters. She made me feel even more class conscious than I did back home with some of those rich girls at Dogwood.

  “Good. I just don’t want the two of ya confusin’ yer duties and buggerin’ up so that I gets the gov on me arse, hear?” she asked firmly. Mary Margaret nodded, her eyes wide.

  “Who’s the gov?” I asked.

  “Who’s the gov?” Mrs. Chester looked at Mary Margaret. “It’s Mr. Boggs, it is. ’E’s in charge. I thought ya was supposed ta be a smart one,” she said. “Ya open yer mouth just once to ’im and you’ll know who’s the gov round ’ere, eh Mary Margaret?”

  “Yes, mum.”

  “Yes, mum,” Mrs. Chester mimicked. She turned to me again. “Ya don’t want ta cross Mr. Boggs when ’e’s got a cob on. Now as ta what you’ll do ’ere,” she said. “First, I don’t want none of me dishes broke or me glasses or cups, ’ear? Ya carry them around with care and watch ’specially during the washin’ up. I don’t need no clod ta mess up me kitchen. We keep everything shipshape. See ’ow me cooker shines,” she said nodding at the stove. “Mr. Endfield, ’e’s a regular Captain Bligh when it comes to ’ow this ’ouse is run.” She thought a moment and then added, “Ya better know right from the start, should ’e ask ya for a cup of tea, ’e’s a mif, see?”