The Clockmaker's Daughter
Page 40
There was another reason that Edward wanted Lucy there over the summer. She was the first person he had told when he bought the house. It was January 1861, and he had been away on one of his ‘faraways’ for three weeks, four days and two hours. Lucy had been reading On the Origin of Species again, lying across the bed in her room with its dormer window overhanging the street in their house in Hampstead. Suddenly she heard her brother’s familiar rhythm on the pavement below. Lucy knew everybody’s footfall: the drag of the heavy man who brought the milk, the tick-tick-cough of the frail, phlegmy chimney sweep, Clare’s trivial scuttle and Mother’s spindle-sharp heels. But her favourite sound was the purpose and promise of Edward’s booted tread.
Lucy hadn’t needed to look through the window for confirmation. She tossed aside her book, flew down all four flights of stairs and across the hall, leaping into Edward’s arms just as he crossed the threshold into the house. At twelve, Lucy had been too old, really, for such behaviour, but she was small for her age and Edward was easily able to catch her. Lucy adored Edward and had done so since she was a tiny baby in her crib. She hated it when he went away, leaving her with none but Clare and Mother for company. He was only ever gone for a month or so at a time, but without him the days dragged, and the list of things that she’d been keeping in her head to tell him grew as long as her leg.
As soon as she reached his arms, she started her report, each word tripping over the one before it in her rush to account for everything that had happened since he’d left. Usually, Edward listened avidly to her stories before presenting her with the latest treasure he had procured on her behalf; always a book, and always an indulgence of her love for science, history and mathematics. This time, however, he had held his finger to her lips to silence her and said that her report must wait, for it was his turn to speak: he had done something incredible, he said, and he needed to share it with her at once.
Lucy had been intrigued but equally gratified. Clare and Mother were in the house, yet it was she, Lucy, who had been chosen. Edward’s attention was like a light being shone and Lucy basked in its warmth. She went downstairs with him to the kitchen, the one place they could always be sure the others wouldn’t bother them, and it was there, as they sat together at Cook’s waxed and worn table, that Edward told her about the house he had bought. Twin gables, a country garden, the river and the copse of trees. The description was familiar, even before he said, ‘It’s the one, Lucy, the very one from the Night of the Following.’
Lucy had drawn breath then, stars of memory prickling her skin. She had known exactly which house he meant. The Night of the Following was legend between the two of them. Lucy had only been five years old when it happened, but the night was seared onto her memory. She would never forget how strange he was when he finally returned the next morning, his hair all tangled and his eyes wild. It had taken a full day before he would speak about it, but he had told her in the end, the two of them sitting inside the ancient wardrobe in the attic at Beechworth. Lucy was the only person Edward had ever confided in about the Night of the Following; he had trusted her with his greatest secret and it had become an emblem of the bond between them.
‘Are you going to live there?’ she said, her mind skipping immediately to the possibility that she might lose him to the countryside.
He laughed and brushed his hand through his dark hair. ‘I’ve no plans yet beyond possession. They will say it was a madness, Lucy, a madness, and they’ll be right. But I know you understand; I had to have it. The house has been calling to me since the night I first saw it; now, at last, I’ve answered.’
Across the aisle, as Lily Millington laughed at something that Edward had said, Lucy regarded her brother’s current model. She was beautiful, but Lucy suspected that she might not have realised quite how beautiful without Edward’s guidance. That was his gift; everybody said so. He was able to see things that others did not, and then, through his art, alter his spectator’s perceptions so that they could not help but see as well. In the last of his Academy Notes Mr Ruskin had called this the ‘Radcliffe sensory swindle’.
As Lucy watched, Edward brushed a gleaming strand of Lily’s red hair from her face. He tucked it behind her ear and the model smiled. It was the sort of smile that hinted at previous conversations, and Lucy felt something unexpected and shivery rise up inside her.
The first time that Lucy saw Lily Millington she had been little more than a haze of fiery red in the glass house at the bottom of the garden. It had been May 1861 and Lucy, a bit short-sighted, had thought at first that she was looking at the leaves of a potted Japanese maple tree through the glass. Edward had a fondness for exotic plants and was forever visiting Mr Romano on the corner of Willow Road, making sketches of the Italian man’s daughters in exchange for samples of the newest plants brought back from the Americas or even the Antipodes. It was one of their many shared passions, for Lucy, too, delighted in these living, breathing visitors from faraway places, wondrous glimpses into parts of the globe quite unlike their own.
It was only when Mother told Lucy to take two cups of tea down the path on a tray that she realised that Edward had a model in the studio. Her curiosity had been aroused immediately, for she knew who this must be. One could not live within the same house as Edward and fail to partake in the great peaks and troughs of his passions.
Some months before, he had fallen into a slump from which it seemed he would not resurrect himself. He had been painting Adele, but had reached a point where he had exhausted the inspiration to be drawn from her small, neat features. ‘It isn’t that her face isn’t pleasing,’ he had explained to Lucy, pacing back and forth in the studio as she sat upon the rosewood chair by the furnace. ‘It’s only that the space between her pretty ears is vacant.’
Edward had a theory about beauty. He said that the turn of the nose, the cheekbones and lips, the colour of the eyes and the way that the hairs curled at the nape of the neck were all well and good, but that what made a person radiate, whether as oil on canvas or as an albumen print on paper, was intelligence. ‘I don’t mean the ability to explain the workings of the internal combustion engine, or to conduct a lesson on how the telegraph sends a message from here to there; I mean that some people have a light inside them, a facility for enquiry and interest and engagement, that cannot be fabricated and cannot be counterfeited by the artist, no matter his or her skill.’
One morning, though, Edward had arrived home with the dawn, an agitation in his step. The household had barely roused when he threw open the door, but as always the house itself registered his arrival. The stillness of the entrance hall, ever sensitive to his presence, began to reverberate as he tossed his coat onto the hook, and when Lucy, Clare and Mother appeared in their nightdresses at the top of the stairs, he held his arms out and declared, with a joyous smile spread wide across his face, that he had found her, the one that he’d been looking for.
There was much relief all round as they gathered at the breakfast table to hear his story.
The fates, he began, in their infinite wisdom, had put her in his path at Drury Lane. He had spent the evening at the theatre with Thurston Holmes, and it was there, in the crowded, smoky foyer, that he had first caught sight of her. (Lucy would later glean, during a wine-infused dispute between Edward and Thurston on another matter entirely, that it was Thurston who had noticed the fine-limbed, red-haired beauty; he who had observed the way the light caught her hair and rendered her skin alabaster; who had realised that she looked exactly like the subject of the painting that Edward had been planning. It was Thurston, too, who had pulled on Edward’s shirt sleeve, swinging him around, thereby breaking off the conversation he’d been having with a fellow to whom he owed some money, in order that his own eyes might lock upon the woman in the deep blue dress.)
Edward had been spellbound. In that instant, he said, he saw his painting complete. While Edward was experiencing this revelation, however, the woman had turned to leave. Without a thought as to what he
was doing, he began pushing through the crowd, powered by a spirit quite outside himself; he knew only that he had to reach her. He threaded his way across the busy foyer after the woman, slipping through the side exit and into the street. And thank goodness he had, Edward said, glancing around the breakfast table, for when he finally caught up with her in the laneway, he was just in time to rescue her. At the precise moment that Edward was wending his way through the crowds inside the foyer, a man dressed all in black, a man of a most deplorable character, had noticed her alone in the alleyway and hurtled past, ripping an heirloom bracelet from her wrist.
Clare and Mother gasped, and Lucy said, ‘Did you see him?’
‘I was too late. Her brother had already set off after the fellow, but did not catch him. He returned just as I came upon her in the alley: he thought at first glance that I was the perpetrator, returned to finish the job, and called, “Stop! Thief!” But she explained quickly that I was no thief and his demeanour changed at once.’
The woman had turned then, Edward said, and moonlight illuminated the features of her face, and he saw that he had been right when he had glimpsed her from afar: she was indeed the one that he’d been waiting for.
‘What did you do next?’ Lucy asked, as the parlour maid brought in a fresh pot of breakfast tea.
‘I’m afraid that I have no talent for polite intimations,’ he said. ‘I simply told her that I had to paint her.’
Clare raised her eyebrows. ‘And what did she say to that?’
‘More importantly,’ said Mother, ‘what did her brother say?’
‘He was caught by complete surprise. He asked what I meant and I explained as best I could. I fear that I wasn’t as erudite as I might have been, I was still somewhat dazzled.’
‘Did you tell him that you had exhibited at the Royal Academy?’ said Mother. ‘Did you tell him that you have Mr Ruskin’s favour? That your grandfather is titled?’
Edward said that he had done all of that and more. He said that he may even have exaggerated their position a little, naming all of the ancient land and titles he had heretofore done his best to ignore; he had even offered to have his own mother, ‘Lady’ Radcliffe, come to call on their parents to reassure them that their daughter would be in good hands. ‘I felt it was important, Mother, for the brother made a point of saying that they would need to speak with their parents before any commitment was made – that a respectable woman’s reputation could be damaged by her employment as a painter’s model.’
The meeting had been agreed and the parties had said goodnight.
Edward had walked along the river afterwards, and then through the dark London streets, sketching the woman’s face in his mind. He was so enamoured with her that he had managed to misplace his wallet as he wandered, and had been forced to walk all the way back to Hampstead.
When Edward’s spirits were elevated, no one could avoid being swept into his orbit and while he related this tale, Lucy, Clare and Mother had listened avidly. As he reached the end, Mother needed to hear no more. She said that of course she would visit Mr and Mrs Millington and vouch for Edward. Her lady’s maid was set immediately to repairing the moth holes in her finest dress, and a carriage hired to take her down into London.
A metallic scream, a fog of smoke, and the train began to slow. Lucy put her face up to the open window and saw that they were drawing into a station. The sign read, ‘Swindon’, which she knew was where they were disembarking. The platform was patrolled by a punctilious-looking man with a smart uniform and a shiny whistle that he was not timid in using; a number of porters were milling, waiting for arriving passengers.
They alighted from the train, Edward and the other men going straight to the luggage compartments to see about the suitcases and art supplies, all of which (except Lucy’s – she refused to be separated from her books) were loaded into a horse-drawn coach and sent on to the village of Birchwood. Lucy had assumed that they would all go by coach, too, but Edward said that the day was too perfect to waste; besides, the house was far better approached from the river than the road.
And he was right, it was a glorious day. The sky was a lustrous blue, with a clarity that was rarely seen in London, and the air was tinged with country smells like seeding grasses and the tang of sun-warmed manure.
Edward led the way and he did not stick to the roads, taking them instead through wildflower meadows spotted with yellow kingcups, pink foxgloves and blue forget-me-nots. Delicate white sprays of cow parsley were everywhere, and at times they came upon a meandering stream and had to look for stepping stones in order to cross.
It was a long walk, but they did not rush. The four hours passed in a flow, broken up by lunch, and a paddle in the shallows near Lechlade, and a few spots of sketching. The atmosphere was one of frivolity and laughter: Felix had a cloth-wrapped bundle of strawberries which he took from his bag to share; Adele wove wreaths of flowers for all of the women – even Lucy – to wear like crowns; and Thurston disappeared at one stage, only to be found with his hat on his face, fast asleep on the soft green grass beneath a great weeping willow. As the day reached the peak of its heat, Lily Millington, whose long hair fell loose down her back, wrapped it into a shimmering knot and fastened it on the top of her head with Edward’s silk scarf. The skin revealed at the nape of her neck was smooth and white as a lily and made Lucy look away.
Near the Halfpenny Bridge, they took the steps down to the water’s edge and followed the river east, through the cattle-filled meadow and beyond St John’s Lock. By the time they reached the rim of the woods, the sun, though still providing light, had surrendered its heat. Edward was always talking about light and Lucy knew he would say that it had ‘lost its yellow’. The effect was one that Lucy liked. Without the sheen of yellow, the rest of the world seemed blue.
The house, Edward told them, lay on the other side of the woods. He insisted that this was the best way to approach it for the first time, for only when one arrived from the river could the building’s true proportions be glimpsed. The explanation was reasonable and the others didn’t question it, but Lucy knew that there was more to his thinking than he’d admitted. Inside the woods was the clearing from the Night of the Following. Edward was leading them along the very path he’d taken that night, when he fled through the trees and fields, beneath the watchful silver stars, and finally spotted the light in the attic calling to him.
Within the woods, everyone walked in silent single file. Lucy was aware of the sounds of twigs cracking underfoot and leaves rustling, and odd noises at times in the profuse greenery along the secluded track. The branches of the trees in this pocket were not straight. They grew towards the canopy in wavy ribbons and their trunks were covered in ferns and lichens; they were oaks, she thought, with hazel and birch among them. The light fell spangled in places and the air seemed alive with anticipation.
When they finally reached the clearing, Lucy could almost hear the leaves breathing.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine how frightening this place might become in the dead of night.
Lucy would never forget how Edward had looked all those years ago when he finally made it back to their grandparents’ house after the Night of the Following. She glanced ahead, curious to see how he was reacting to being back here now, and was surprised when she saw him reach out to take Lily Millington’s hand.
They all continued across the clearing and then wended their way through the woods on the other side.
Finally, the air began to lighten, and with a last scramble up the overgrown bank they emerged into the open.
A wildflower meadow spilled out before them, and beyond it sat a house with twin gables and a splendid display of chimneys.
Edward turned around, a look of joyous triumph on his face, and Lucy found herself smiling, too.
The strange enchantment of the woods had lifted and the others now began to talk excitedly, as if, having seen the house, the thrilling promise of the summer ahead could finally be tasted.
How much of the land was his? All of it, he said, as far as the eye could see.
Were there bedrooms overlooking the river? Many – the whole first storey was room upon room, and the attic above held more besides.
With a loud call to arms, Thurston began to run and Felix fell in quickly beside him, racing; Clare and Adele linked arms as they started across the meadow. Edward caught Lucy’s gaze and winked at her. ‘Hurry, little sister,’ he said. ‘Go and claim the best room for yourself!’
Lucy grinned and nodded and started bounding after the others. She felt free and more alive than usual, aware of the country air on her face and the lingering warmth of the afternoon sun, the joy of sharing this most important moment with Edward. In such spirit, as she reached the other side of the meadow, she turned back to beckon him.
But he wasn’t watching after her. He and Lily Millington were walking slowly towards the house, their heads bent close together in deep conversation. Lucy waited to catch his eye; she waved her arm to attract his attention but all to no avail.
At length, she turned around and continued, disappointed, towards the house.
And for the first time since they’d set off from Paddington station early that morning, it occurred to Lucy to wonder where Edward’s fiancée, Fanny Brown, was.