‘I’m so sorry, Mary.’
‘Uncle Dalbeattie,’ Eliza said, ‘please, does it open?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Dalbeattie tucked up his trousers and squatted down. He flipped the catch and the house swung open, like a cracked walnut, revealing its interior – the curving staircase, the hedgehogs on the bannisters, even the little cupboards and window seats that lifted up and where treasure could be stored. There, in their rooms, were the iron bedsteads, the trunks, the casement windows. The house was curious in one respect – the hinge was to the right, not the left. The great chimney of Nightingale House, with the huge fireplace in the sitting room, had been made, in the doll’s house version, into the hinged side.
‘Here,’ said Dalbeattie, lifting off a chimney-pot. ‘Here’s a magic thing – a hiding place.’ Eliza, standing on tiptoe, peered down into it.
‘It’s wide enough for my stick collection,’ said John, coming forward timidly.
‘Sticks,’ said Dalbeattie, putting his arm around John’s small frame. John stared at the house, down into the chimney. ‘Or sweets. Did you know about this, Mary?’
‘No!’ said Mary. ‘Not in all the years . . .’
‘I found this,’ and he handed her a note. She opened it, fingers trembling. It was a thin scroll of paper and written on it in a neat, childish hand:
I am sorry I broke your bear’s tea set your loving brother Rupert Dysart
Mary clutched the note tightly, staring unblinking at it. ‘So like him. To be sorry and not be able to say sorry so to hide it somewhere.’ She couldn’t remember anything of this tea set. ‘Oh, Pertwee.’ And she turned away, clutching the paper.
‘You could hide anything down there,’ said John, much taken with this idea, his shy eyes raking over the different rooms of the house, his hand reaching up to waggle inside the chimney.
Dalbeattie took something from his pocket, and dropped it down the chimney stack. It landed with a clunk. ‘A ha’penny for you, if you can get it out.’
‘Treasure,’ said John, shivering with pleasure. He turned to Dalbeattie, smiling a toothy, happy grin. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘It’s my pleasure, young Master Horner. I hope it brings all of you many years of pleasure.’ Dalbeattie ruffled John’s fine blond hair and John caught his hand, then scuttled away. Dalbeattie replaced the chimney-pot lid, shut the house up again, and turned to Mary, who had folded up the little note and tucked it into her sleeve. He went to take her hand, almost without thinking it seemed, then stopped. She met his eyes, smiling.
‘You, who are so busy, found time to do this,’ she said.
‘It is a pleasure to help my friend. He allowed me to practise all my ideas on this house . . .’ He looked around. ‘It was my playground, my attempt at a family home – I look around and that is what I see.’ He rested one hand on the chimney-pot. ‘It is a home.’
‘Run and get into the bath, children,’ said Mary. ‘Zipporah has filled it nice and high and is warming your clothes. You mustn’t catch cold.’
‘It’s summer—!’ Eliza began.
‘Yes, and you’re wet through. Go, please, to your room, and on the way back down you may fetch the wooden figures from your Mama’s desk drawer. They belong in the house.’
‘Yes,’ said Eliza. She stood on one foot and said seriously: ‘Uncle Dalbeattie – thank you, it’s a most fantastic house.’
They were gone, running upstairs as fast as they could go, and they left Mary and Dalbeattie, staring across at each other in the dying light of the afternoon.
A cold breeze rippled across her skin; Mary shivered as she looked up at him. At his long face, the still grey eyes, the muscle in his cheek that twitched. He said nothing, meeting her gaze, his hands gently clenched by his side. The shadow of that morning’s shave was on his jawline – she longed, then, to reach up, feel it against her fingers –
Mary knew then, without anything else being said. All the natural impulses Nurse Bryant had said were inside her and her sister that needed controlling; all the times she had stared in despair at Pertwee, disporting himself so shamefully with some young woman; the way Liddy described her first night with Ned, the ecstasy obvious from her expression, her tone.
She cleared her throat.
‘Thank you. Pertwee would be glad, I think.’
He did not speak, but nodded, still staring at her, or past her, she could not tell.
‘About Pertwee – I am so sorry I did not see you in Paris—’
She put her hand up, and was annoyed to find it shaking. ‘It’s of no concern now. Thank you for your help.’
‘Mary, I must explain it to you—’
‘No, sir. Dear Dalbeattie! Please do not. Now excuse me – I must attend to the children.’
He hesitated. ‘Mary – Miss Dysart—’
But she was gone, hastening upstairs.
He came to her room that night.
A soft tapping at the door, deadly soft, so much so that at first she thought it was – what? The spirits she had long suspected ran throughout the house and the garden, leaving mischief and magic in their wake? The full moon shone through her thin curtains, as Mary wrapped herself in her shawl. It cast milk-white shadows over her bare feet as she padded quickly over the dark floorboards. The Arabian Nights was still open on her dresser; John and Eliza had joined her in bed to have it read to them, their little bodies, warm and dry again now after their adventure, squashed against hers.
She opened the door, hesitantly, just an inch to find him there. He did not bend, nor whisper. He merely said, calmly:
‘May I come in?’
Fear rose in her throat. ‘Is it the children? Is one of them ill?’
‘No. I have to talk to you. May I?’
Mary, too surprised to say no, simply opened the door. It was Dalbeattie, after all. He had saved Liddy and Ned from sinking into poverty, he had remodelled this very house. After Pertwee had been found dead in his rooms, a brain haemorrhage they had said, he had arranged everything: had sent Mary the next day to an hotel with Alphonse George’s sister acting as escort; he had brought back Pertwee’s body from France himself, and had settled his debts, sold his paintings and possessions, and given her the money from which she now eked out her small, quiet existence. She had seen him irregularly: at christening parties, the last time in London several years ago, at a preview of the Summer Exhibition.
His wife, Rose, was usually in Scotland, but she had accompanied him on this occasion. She was as tall as him, slim, hollow-eyed, dressed most exquisitely in a tweed day dress of soft purple and green, and a beautiful hat trimmed with curling peacock feathers. She did not like London, she told Mary. It was loud, and terrifying. This dress was new, Mama had had it made for her and it was uncomfortable. She wanted to be at their home, stabling the horses.
‘I should think,’ Mary had said kindly, watching over her shoulder to make sure Pertwee was not saying something unfortunate to the wife of the President, ‘that Dalbeattie is most glad to have you in London with him for once, and to show you off.’
‘Oh,’ said this unusual creature. ‘I shouldn’t think so. I’m most unhappy here.’ A tear had formed in one eye, and she brushed it away. ‘I want to be back at home.’
She was young – but Mary and Liddy were young. She was beautiful, and tall, and she and Dalbeattie had had the same upbringing. But Mary could see with utter clarity that she was the wrong wife for Dalbeattie. They did not speak once to one another except when Dalbeattie asked if she was ready to leave.
‘Lord, yes. The train home tomorrow morning is very early. We must be ready for it.’
‘He doesn’t hate her,’ Liddy had whispered afterwards. ‘It would be better if he did. But she is the kind who should never have married. Oh, not like you, Mary, don’t put on one of your mysterious faces. You have a capacity to love as deeply as I do.’
Now Dalbeattie stood inside her doorway holding the candle. He was wearing the most magnificent dressing gown,
dark-aubergine velvet, embroiderered all over with birds, in gold and silver thread.
‘Why are you here?’ he said quietly.
She laughed. ‘You disdain supper and then come to my room at midnight, dressed like – like a sultan, off to inspect his harem, and ask me this question?’
He glanced at The Arabian Nights behind her and smiled. ‘I’m so sorry. Forgive me. I meant, why are you at Nightingale House?’
‘Again: I might ask the same of you, with better reason.’
‘I thought you’d stay in Paris after Pertwee died. That is what you told me.’
‘I found I could not.’
‘I would have helped you arrange things, had I known.’
‘Thank you; I was happy to do it by myself. It was not your concern.’
‘I promised your brother I would look after you,’ he said.
‘And I was happy to arrange matters to my own satisfaction.’ She lifted her eyes to his. ‘Thank you for your kindness to him.’
‘I loved him dearly. You know I did. He and Ned stood as family to me when I came to London from Scotland, knowing no one. We promised to help one another, we three, and we have. We did. Where do you live now?’
‘In Hammersmith, by the river, in rooms. It is far enough for me to feel certain I won’t bump into Father or – or anyone else, and near enough to the railway that I am able to visit Liddy. I have a quiet life, perfectly pleasant. There is the lending library, and the hospital, and societies – I have various friends whom I meet. Clubs, and so forth. The suffragists, the Fine Arts Society, the Socialists—’
‘A socialist and a suffragist, Mary. How have you time for Fine Arts?’
Mary met his gaze, steadily. ‘The hour is extremely late. Liddy and Ned do not care much for convention but their servants would, were they to see us. You are married. What do you want with me, Lucius?’
‘Mary – if I may. I understand that my arriving here today places you in an awkward position. I tried to talk to you but I couldn’t do it in front of the children. I’m sorry to ambush you in your room.’ He stopped and looked around. ‘Is it very late? What hour is it?’ She was smiling; he glanced at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Good heavens, I had no idea – oh, hang it, Mary. I must talk to you.’
Outside, the wind shifted restlessly in the trees. It was just the two of them, in the dark wood-panelled room. Mary put her hand against the old wooden bedframe, steadying herself. ‘Yes?’
‘I am sorry. I came to explain myself to you. To say that I am very sorry.’
‘Sorry for what? How could you ever be sorry?’
‘I am sorry I married. I know you said you would never wed, and that is why I was persuaded by my father to offer for Rose.’ He was staring at the book, intently. ‘We have never spoken of these things before . . . I have wanted to, so many times, and yet, not knowing you well enough, and yet . . . and yet knowing you . . .’ He shook his head, a bittersweet smile twisting his kind face. ‘My wife and I – I hoped that perhaps we would rub along together well enough . . . We have a love of the Highlands, of the heather and the hills. She is not stupid. But it was, from the very beginning, a disaster. I will be frank. I cannot be a husband to her. She does not want it. She admits she should never have married.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I am –’ He smiled and said carefully, ‘I am not a husband to her. I was, once, but not since then. Our honeymoon, in Germany.’ He rubbed his face in the old Dalbeattie way. ‘God’s teeth, Mary, what a disaster.’
You should not be saying these things to me, she should have said, but she did not.
‘How so? I know nothing of honeymoons.’
He was leaning against the bedstead. ‘You know enough to understand the act must take place for the marriage to be consummated and the wife must not drive a fork into the husband’s leg when the husband tries to – oh goodness.’
‘Goodness indeed.’
‘Yes. I was not able to – persuade her to be my wife. I didn’t try very hard, in all honesty, but before I could pursue the matter further she had taken a fork out of her skirt and driven it into my thigh.’ He was rubbing his face so much his hair stood up on end. ‘I passed out. She locked herself in the bathroom. The maid thought I’d been murdered. It was all rather like Scheherazade, trying to avoid death—’ He looked up. ‘Why are you laughing, Mary?’
Mary was closing the book, her face turned from him. ‘I am not, I swear it. Where was this?’
‘Weimar. It’s a beautiful town, cradle of the Enlightenment—’ He stopped as she faced him again. ‘You are laughing.’
‘I should not . . . oh Dalbeattie.’ She covered her mouth.‘But that poor girl – poor you. Did you hurt her?’
‘Her?’ Dalbeattie practically shouted in outrage. ‘Not her, I put my hand on her shoulder, that was it! Out came the fork . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.’ And watching her, he began to laugh too. ‘I told no one. Not even Ned.’
‘I can see why. Is your leg fully recovered?’
‘It is, thank you. Poor Rose.’
Her mirth subsided as quickly as it had flared up. ‘Yes, poor Rose. Was she in love with you, ever?’
He shook his head. ‘No. She loves the horses. And her little sister. She’s wonderful with children. I hoped perhaps we might have a family, and that would give her something to do, other than sink into misery over her dissatisfaction with her husband. She ought not to have married, she told me so herself. The whole family, hers and mine, I think, would like to stab me with a fork. She let me, once. Said she had to know, that I must try, though I did not want to . . .’ He passed a hand over his face. ‘It was awful, Mary, I – I – the sounds she made . . . I hurt her . . .’ He stopped, and said quietly, ‘Her damned father – forgive me, but he’s a brute and for that reason alone I’m glad she’s out of his house – he’s after me all the time, for money, for not staying up in Scotland.’
‘A woman’s lot,’ said Mary, quietly. ‘Good Lord, Dalbeattie.’ She swallowed, staring into his gentle face. ‘I am sorry to hear it.’
‘I am sorry that it happened. I should – oh, I don’t know what I should have done.’ His dark eyes were dilated in the dim light of the room. ‘Please tell me, Mary – would you ever have changed your mind? Would you ever have married?’
She shook her head. ‘Never.’ What else could she say?
‘I suppose I should be glad. Perhaps not.’ He watched her; it was so strange, the understanding between them, how normal it felt to be standing there talking, her in a nightgown, he in his dressing gown, the very picture of domestic intimacy. ‘I did always want you, you know. I can’t dress it up, you see. I wish I could.’ His voice was low, quieter now; she moved towards him. ‘I wanted you, Mary. Know that I do. I will never speak of this to you again. I should not have come to you so late – I should not be here at all – and yet I am glad, for –’ His voice was hoarse; she saw almost with disbelief that he had tears in his eyes. ‘I have loved you from that very first day in the garden.’
‘I—’ she began, tears in her eyes, but then a terrible cry tore through the whispered hush of her room – an unearthly scream, and both of them jumped. ‘John—’ Mary hissed. She grabbed her own oil lamp and made for the door, then was still, as other cries echoed around and above them.
‘It’s the owls,’ she said, with a shuddering sigh of relief. ‘They’re in the trees behind the house. It’s the Milk Moon, Zipporah says. They’re all a-fluster. Sometimes it wakes me and I think it’s John – he has the most terrible nightmares, poor thing, and then I realise it can’t be him, but the noise might wake him nonetheless – I’m most awfully afraid of it, to be honest!’
‘I can well imagine.’ Dalbeattie was still staring at her.
Silence fell again and this time it came like a roaring rush into the large, moonlit room. Mary’s heart thudded sharply in her breast. She was afraid of going up in flames, one spark on the touchpaper, and she would be
lost . . .
Don’t give in. No matter how much you would like to.
‘My dearest.’ He took her hands, folding them in his own as he had done earlier that day and she allowed herself to look at him then, at his dear face, huge, kind and serious.
Raising herself on tiptoe, she said, ‘Thank you for coming. I am glad you did.’
They were formal, both nodding. Her hair, which had been twisted behind her back, fell over her shoulder. She pushed it away, and looked up at him. ‘If I were to give myself to anyone – Dearest, you know that it would be you. You must know too that I have loved you for many years now.’
‘I see,’ he said again, and in the silvery moonlight his eyes flashed.
She moved towards him – only an inch or two, shifting her hand so it circled his arm, and moving his hand on to her shoulder, shaking her own hair behind her back. Then, very gently, he wrapped his long, strong fingers around the top of her neck.
The pads of his fingertips were warm, sending liquid shooting through her where they touched her skin. They stood very still, holding each other in this way, and Mary thought she might faint in his arms. She could not breathe; she did not want to. No one had touched her like this – Pertwee had gripped her roughly, when he was in his cups, the children twined their arms around her neck, Liddy hugged her, but this . . .
Dalbeattie bent his head, and their lips met. She felt his mouth against hers, and it was wonderful. His body pressed forward, against her, and desire unfurled inside her, starting in the stomach, where his dressing gown pressed against the thin lawn of her nightgown.
I am here . . . we are here . . . this is real.
Another cry, this time softer, and she drew back, her mouth wet, her hair disordered, holding onto the cord of the dressing gown.
‘That was John,’ she said.
Dalbeattie’s breath was ragged. ‘I think it was.’ He gripped her shoulders, and kissed her again.
‘Mary—’
With huge effort, and a low moan, he drew himself away.
‘Stay,’ she said.
‘No, no. I will go now.’ His hand gripped hers; they stared at each other, all reserve gone. ‘Dearest Mary. I should not – I will leave tomorrow.’
The Garden of Lost and Found Page 27