Cordelia’s eyes grew dreamy. ‘I like the sound of that.’
‘And for Harriet it must be gold brocade. A young Elizabeth, not knowing from day to day whether she is to be queen of all England or have her head cut off. One of those tight bodices with a pointed waist and scalloped tabs, a low square neck, tight winged sleeves and a wheel farthingale skirt. A gold mask – everything gold except the lining of the skirt, which will be crimson. A flash of dark red as you dance suggesting the hidden fires within. Your hair dressed simply, gathered at the crown and then falling down your back.’
‘That sounds glorious,’ I breathed, much taken with the idea. ‘But where can we find such beautiful dresses?’
‘Mrs Wapshott will make them. She is an elderly widow who lives round the corner and once worked for Balmain. There is nothing that woman cannot do. She has already begun my own costume.’
Archie refused to be drawn on what he was intending to wear. Instead he went shopping on our behalf for fabrics, lace and ribbons, and Mrs Wapshott was set to work. Fitting sessions began a few days later. Mrs Wapshott, a bent, bony old lady with hair dyed startlingly black, spent most of the time on her knees and never spoke because her mouth was always full of pins. She studied the detailed drawings Archie had made, draped our bodies with cloth and then attacked it in a frenzy, her scissors snapping like the beak of a large bird. We might have been tailors’ dummies for all the attention she gave us. I cannot remember that she ever looked me in the eye. I am certain she did not know my name.
The construction of the wheel farthingale was a challenge she enjoyed. She confessed to Archie that never in her long life as a seamstress had she been asked to make such a thing. A whalebone hoop like a wheel – my waist being the hub – was suspended by cotton straps, like spokes. The whole structure was covered by a long skirt of gold brocade, the flat top of which was surmounted by a ruff-like frill. It was like wearing a small table but it did miraculous things for my posture. Our dresses, when they were finished, surpassed our imaginings and were a great joy during a time of trial.
Rupert had been right when he said that landladies would be reluctant to give shelter to Dirk and Mark Antony. I answered every advertisement in the ‘To Rent’ section of the Manchester Sentinel. From their aggrieved tones before they slammed down the telephone you would have thought I was asking them to harbour plague rats complete with fleas. I took another day off work and tramped the streets of Manchester. At last I found a house in quite the wrong area, miles from the Sentinel, which stank of cats the minute the landlady opened the door. She looked so like a witch I was afraid to go in. Her hair was long and grey and her nose curved down nearly to her chin. She was toothless and cackled. But she had three cats and three dogs of her own and was amenable to one more of each. The room was, frankly, horrible. It smelled of mould as well as of urine, it was dark, badly furnished, and looked out on an area filled with overflowing dustbins. In the train back to London I tried to think of ways to make it look more attractive. It must do as a temporary home until we could find something better.
When I told Mr Podmore that I was handing in my notice with effect from the first of September I was astonished by his reaction. He put down his pencil, took off his blue spectacles and leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head.
‘All right. How much?’
‘How much what?’
His small, toffee-coloured eyes were cynical. ‘Let’s not play games. How much do you want?’
‘Do you mean money?’
‘I certainly don’t mean sexual titillation.’
I began to think that Mr Podmore was one of the most unpleasant men of my acquaintance. ‘I don’t want money, thanks. At least not more than I’m getting. I’ve got a job with the Manchester Sentinel.’
‘Have you, indeed? Deb Shuns Social Whirl for Smoke Stacks. So what have they offered you?’
I did not think this was any of his business but I told him anyway, hoping to rise in his estimation.
‘I’ll double that.’
I stared at him, unable to believe I was hearing properly.
‘Well?’ He cleaned out an ear with the point of his pencil. ‘What do you say?’ Then, when I still said nothing, he added, ‘I’ll move Tremblebath in with the old dragons and you can have his office. And an expense account of … um, twenty pounds a month. Now I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’
‘You mean … you really want me to stay?’
‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’
‘But why?’
‘All right, Hilary. You want me to spell it out. You’re a tougher cookie than I took you for.’
‘Harriet. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
Mr Podmore waved his hand at a pile of papers on his desk. ‘Readers’ letters. All about “Spook Hall”. Wanting to know the whereabouts of the house with the dummy arm, the exact consequences of the pointing finger, the name of Sir Galahad’s favourite hunter, the bust measurement of the Lady of the Moat. What sort of pinny the serving girl was wearing when she was bricked up. Every psychical research society in the country seems to have read your stuff and they all want information. Apparently every maiden aunt with nerves and every schoolboy with a ghoulish imagination finds it impossible to get through the weekend without his or her copy of the Brixton Mercury. The circulation’s gone up by several thousand in the last few weeks. Don’t tell me this is news to you because I shan’t believe you.’
In the bus, on the way home, I was unable to keep an imbecilic grin off my face. Partly because I kept seeing Mr Podmore’s incredulous expression when he realised that nothing he could offer would persuade me to stay but mostly because I was cock-a-hoop at my own success. Of course I knew that it would have required little in the way of sensation to bump up the circulation of the Brixton Mercury, which was essentially a dull record of small-time news, gossip and events within a depressed locality, hardly more interesting than a parish magazine. If there was any credit going it was due to Mr Podmore for having the idea of ‘Spook Hall’ in the first place. And it had been a lucky fluke to find myself spending a holiday at Pye Place, where there was standing room only for the restless dead.
Still, I was inclined to congratulate myself on having at least made a sustained effort. I had learned the valuable lesson that sitting down and doing the thing, however ill-conceived and badly executed, is half the battle. Now I had to learn how to write. Already my first attempts seemed laughably bad, though I did not yet know how to make them better. Rupert often said, probably as a hint to me, that to write well it is essential to read well.
I was disturbed in the mental composition of a programme of intensive study by a tap on my shoulder.
‘Harriet Byng? It is you. I thought so.’
I turned to see a woman with short grey hair, pale, unfriendly eyes, an aquiline nose and a mouth compressed into a thin disapproving line. It was a very familiar face, yet I could not put a name to it.
‘Hello!’ I smiled, trying to look pleased, hoping to be enlightened.
‘I wasn’t sure at first. You’ve changed your way of dressing. And you’ve got more poise.’ When I continued to stare, she said, ‘It’s Sister Imelda.’
I gulped and almost swallowed my tongue in fright. It was no good reminding myself that I had left school years ago and was beyond her jurisdiction. Her cold gaze seemed to accuse me of irresponsibility, insubordination and cheating on my bus fare. Then I remembered our last conversation. She had made unkind remarks about my family and I had returned the unkindness with a cruel taunt about her relationship with Sister Justinia. I was tempted to jump up and hurl myself from the moving bus.
We stared at each other for a while without speaking. Without a wimple she looked naked, almost indecent. I felt ill at ease to see her neck and ears plainly on view. On Sister Imelda the pale blue scarf knotted round the neck of her neat grey blouse seemed as licentious as a peekaboo bra.
‘Perhaps you didn’t k
now I’d left the order?’
‘Cordelia did say something …’ my voice tailed away.
‘I’ve been ill. But I’m all right now.’
‘Oh. Dear.’ I must try and pull myself together. ‘Sister Imelda, I’m afraid when we last spoke I said some unforgivable things –’
‘No. That’s why I wanted to speak to you. You see, it was you that began it all. Giving up my vocation, I mean. I thought of writing, but then I heard you’d moved away. I read about your father, of course, in the newspapers. I’m glad he didn’t do it. It was difficult for you – and – perhaps I might have been more sympathetic.’
‘Please don’t worry!’ I was eager to make things easy for her. I was sorry to see her somehow diminished, humble, without identity. It was too confusing. I preferred to think of her as a caricature of authority, someone remote, faintly ridiculous and forever beyond intimacy. ‘I am sorry to have hurt you –’
‘No,’ she said again. ‘I was angry – very angry. You were insolent. And cruel.’ For a moment the steel returned to her eyes. ‘But you were quite right. People were talking. For a while I tried to deny it, asking God to give me strength to confront my adversaries and confound them.’
‘Really, I was only trying to defend myself. I just said the first thing that came into my head. It wasn’t worth being upset about –’
‘Ah, but though you spoke in ignorance – and, shall we say, malice – you happened to be speaking the truth. I did love Sister Justinia, with a love that ran counter to my love of God.’
‘Surely God doesn’t mind –’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Harriet.’ Sister Imelda spoke with her old acerbity. ‘I loved Sister Justinia as a woman, not as a sister in Christ. I still do. And I’m very glad to say that she loves me.’ A smile broke across Sister Imelda’s face. I was startled by the change. Her eyes were soft, her face flooded with colour, she looked blissfully happy. ‘We’ve got a nice little flat just down the road from here. I have a job as head of a department teaching adult literacy. Sister Justinia – it’s Alice, now – is working for a children’s charity. We’re very contented.’
‘I’m so pleased.’
Sister Imelda – no doubt she had another name now but I was destined never to know it – stood up.
‘This is my stop. Goodbye, Harriet. I’m glad we had a chance to talk. I don’t suppose we’ll meet again. I hope you’ll keep a watch on that temper. It may not always be a force for good.’
I watched her bustling along the pavement, her thin legs striding briskly beneath her sensible pleated skirt, scarf flapping. The relief of not having her on my conscience was tremendous. But the metamorphosis of my old, much-feared enemy was too much to take in at once. I tried to imagine the two ex-nuns sitting in comfortable chairs each side of a cosy fire, talking, sharing a joke, perhaps watching a gardening programme on television. Eating oatmealed herrings or pickled beetroot or perhaps a casserole. Making cocoa, going to bed … the vision faded here. God had lost the exclusive services of Sister Imelda and Sister Justinia but had gained those of Maria-Alba. I hoped that, like me, he would think things had worked out rather well. For at least half an hour I forgot the dingy, malodorous room in Manchester that awaited us, and the imminent parting from nearly everything that was infinitely dear to me, and felt almost cheerful.
The preparations for the ball were a welcome distraction from present uneasiness over future privations. Visiting the dressmaker, grooming the garden to perfection, and debating with Archie and Cordelia whether to have fireworks, acrobats, lute-players, harpists or performing pigs, left little time during the day to brood.
It was my idea to have a fortune-teller. I found the telephone number of Madame Xanthe – palmist, astrologer, crystal gazer, tarot reader and dowser – in the small ads of the Brixton Mercury. As the cosmos was an open book to Madame Xanthe, it was perhaps surprising that she lived modestly at 27B Nipper Lane, Kensal Green. But I reminded myself that some people very properly despise the material things of this world. Archie hired a small tent for her, then had a crisis of confidence and exchanged it for a larger one.
The great day dawned. We had worried continuously about the weather but the sky was blue and cloudless, the sun hot. We suppressed our excitement at breakfast for Rupert’s sake. He was silent and looked terribly strained. He tried to behave normally, putting up his usual newspaper barrier against conversation but I noticed he did not once turn the page.
Finally he threw down the paper. ‘There is nothing more to be done,’ he announced to no one in particular. ‘Everything has been thought of, every last detail rehearsed. It’s in the lap of the gods now. I’ve told the cast to spend the day resting and forbidden them to even think about the performance tonight, and I shall take a leaf from my own book.’
‘Good,’ said Archie. ‘You can help us with the lights and the flowers. What am I saying? You can’t arrange a bunch of buttercups. But you could at least carry buckets of water that’ll be too heavy for the girls.’
But Rupert had already wandered off to his work-room and when I looked in, an hour later, he was busy tinkering with the models of the sets and making sketches. He stared at me with unseeing eyes when I asked him if he wanted lunch and said, ‘Perfectly, thanks. But I’d better leave a quarter of an hour earlier so I can have a word with the chorus.’
The plan was for Archie to drive Cordelia and me to the theatre. The second the curtain came down on the last act we would rush back to Richmond to oversee the final preparations and change into our costumes. Rupert, having taken a taxi to the theatre earlier, would return on the coach with the cast and musicians. He had claimed his privilege as host not to dress up.
‘Like Max de Winter,’ Cordelia had said. ‘But you aren’t so grumpy. Not all the time, anyway. If I’d been that girl, the one he marries after Rebecca – Joan Fontaine, I mean – I’d have chucked everything with an R on it on to the bonfire. And I’d have told Mrs Danvers to stop mooning about in the west wing and bloody well get on with the housework.’
The marquee and the dance floor arrived in the morning, blocking the mews with lorries, but as the other residents were anticipating an evening of rare excitement they accepted the inconvenience cheerfully. Cordelia and I carried buckets of flowers about to Archie’s dictation.
‘We want to suggest Arcady – pagan pastoral, with an underlying sophistication,’ he said. ‘Luckily I have generous friends with country gardens. Shop flowers are so trite. You girls can divide the alchemilla, catmint and cotton lavender more or less evenly between the vases. Leave the roses to me. Remember, simple yet sumptuous.’
Simple it may have been but he got very snappy with us for not arranging our flowers with sufficient artistry.
‘No, no, no! Not stiff, not symmetrical. It should be graceful, natural! As though you’ve picked a handful at random and just hurled them into a vase.’
‘That’s exactly what we have done,’ protested Cordelia.
There was much sotto voce grumbling and tense badinage before Archie pronounced himself satisfied. The marquee, pretty striped in white and green looked like a bosky bower from A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he had finished, and the scent from the pale pink and dark red roses was intoxicating. Bees and butterflies abandoned ragwort and nettles on the common and zoomed about inside the tent, delighted to find an unexpected epicurean feast. By the time the glasses and silver wine coolers had been set out on damask cloths, and gilt chairs and small tables arranged for those whose costumes or physiques might prevent them from picnicking on the banks of the canal, we were intoxicated by our own cleverness.
The orchestra was warming up as we entered our box in the Grand Tier. In the car I had forgotten about our wonderful party and thought only of Rupert and the agonies of creation with which I was, in a small way, familiar. Pa and Pussyfoot were conspicuous in the stalls, surrounded by worshippers. In the balcony I spotted Ophelia and Charles. They were talking intently to each oth
er. Rupert’s chair between Cordelia and me remained empty.
‘Of course he’s not going to miss it,’ said Archie, but I thought he looked anxious.
‘I hope he hasn’t fainted in the lavs,’ said Cordelia.
This had once happened to Pa when playing Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. The start of the performance had been delayed by nearly an hour while they searched for him and the scene shifters had threatened to strike because of union rules about overtime. The cast had collectively gone to pieces and the audience had to be bribed to wait with the promise of half-price tickets. But in the end Pa had been discovered, revived and thrust on stage, and the play had been, ultimately, a triumph.
Just as the lights were going down Rupert entered the box.
The first notes of the overture made my scalp prickle. It was my first experience of real, live opera. Until now Shakespeare had taken up all my theatre-going energies. When the curtain went up I was thrilled by the vastness of the stage and the spectacular scenery. The subordination of the acting to the music made it an entirely new experience. The extraordinary beauty of the singing demanded, from the beginning, complete emotional engagement. Rupert had been critical of the opera as being weak of plot and not the best of Verdi’s music, but I was entranced.
As the story of conspiracy, assassination and forbidden love unfolded, I lost the thread several times but I abandoned myself to the sheer loveliness of the sight and sound of it. The scene on the quay when Riccardo, surrounded by fishermen, sings his beautiful aria was staged with consummate skill, all flickering firelight, moonlight and starlight. The forest scenes were enchanting with spreading trees, sunlit glades and a real donkey, and no one got stuck in the fortuneteller’s hut.
Clouds among the Stars Page 65