by Nina Dreyer
Imagine it.
Turning up at the door, clutching the invitation, her throat tight with thrilled anticipation, eyes bright with joy, oh, thank you for inviting me… only to be rejected at the door by a servant and turned back, tears of humiliations stinging her cheeks. Why would they want her kind there? Trailing old sequins like snake scales.
A gust of wind howled in the chimney.
Marion pinched her cheeks, hard. Ladies pinch, slatterns paint. She snapped up a Kohl brush from her suitcase and drew rings and rings and rings around her eyes, harder and harder, until her eyes gleamed like tiger’s eye stones on a background of night-black. Perfect for smearing with tears.
She rubbed her arms. She shouldn’t go, looking like this, feeling like this. She’d end up spilling wine all over herself, stuttering, dropping her fork. John would be embarrassed by her. Eilis’ voice rang metallic in her mind. You were trying to impress John, is that it? Oh, he’ll cast you aside in the blink of an eye, you stupid cow.
It had been so different with Erich. She hadn’t needed to say anything to him, to charm him, to win him. All she’d had to do was sit straight on the hard gilt chair by the Gothic windows in the great marble hall, dressed in her stiff white lace gown, while Herr von Liebenfels spoke in low, sombre tones to Erich, waving a hand over Marion’s papers, her pedigree. She’d glanced at Erich out of the corner of her down-turned eye, admiring his posture, his uniform, but of course she hadn’t dared trying to catch his gaze. All she had needed to do was hope and pray, hovering outside the keyhole with giddy breath bated as everything was arranged by Herr von Liebenfels and Erich’s father in the hushed castle library back in Traunstein.
But this was different. Who knew what the rules were anymore? She was on her own now in the chaos of this new world. And she’d only have John’s attention for the briefest moment. Before he got tired of her. Before he saw right through her.
Chapter Sixteen
Half an hour later, Marion hugged herself tightly on the backseat of a black taxicab trundling through the darkened street. Sleet streaked the windows, smearing the faint yellow glow of the few remaining street lights.
The driver glanced at her occasionally through the rear view mirror, his face lit in short glimpses. But he said nothing to her, apart from a muttered comment about some people being able to commandeer all the petrol they wanted.
The cab rounded a corner and growled up a long, dark driveway.
Tall elms glided past. Behind them, Marion glimpsed wide lawns and broken old statues, some fallen over in the wilting grass, others overgrown with dead ivy. Naked branches whipped in the winds.
She rubbed the windowpane and saw the house, white, elegant, towering over a great sullen stretch of lawn. She frowned. Someone was walking around in front of the house.
The driver braked.
A dark figure approached, and Marion started as he rapped on the window. The driver rolled down the window and presented a set of papers in a small leather folder. A sharp light as the man lit a torch and shone it in the driver’s face, then Marion’s. She shielded her eyes with her hand.
The man came to Marion’s side and opened the car door.
‘Papers, please.’ He held out his hand.
Marion looked up at him, still shielding her eyes from the glare of his torch.
A soldier.
Behind him, another approached, yanking the leash of a thick-necked German shepherd.
‘Papers. Miss. Now.’ He was still holding out his hand.
‘I don’t think,’ she began, glancing at the driver. ‘This is some mistake, I’m meant go to a dinner party? The Brockhursts?’ She held out the invitation to the guard with a shaking hand.
‘I said, papers please.’
Marion rummaged in her purse, glancing at the soldier. He tightened his grip on his gun the moment her hand vanished into her purse. She hurriedly pulled out her identity cards. The soldier snapped them from her, turning them over in her hand under the glare of the torch.
‘You can pass.’ He turned, nodding to his companion.
The driver nudged the rear view mirror and looked at Marion. ‘This is as far as I go,’ he said. ‘Don’t want to be seen by anyone anywhere near that house, so I don’t.’
Marion slipped out of the car and looked up at the house, clasping her hands over her pounding heart.
Sandbags lined the walls. The ground had been newly turned in the flowerbeds. Like new graves. The windows were all shuttered and bolted.
Behind her, the taxicab drove away, tyres crunching on gravel.
The soldier with the dog walked by, a rifle hung slung over his shoulder. ‘Dark out here, innit?’ He nodded at the door. ‘Go on. You’ll catch your death out here, duckie.’
Marion shuddered and hurried away from him, towards the front door.
Yellow leaves plastered the wide marble steps leading up to the entrance.
Under an unlit lamp stood John, leaning against the gleaming black door. Sleet glinted in his black hair. He took a drag on his cigarette and smiled as Marion came up the stairs. ‘Look at you,’ he said, his eyes shining.
‘John?’ Marion nervously turned her purse in her fingers. ‘Why are you standing out here?’
‘I wanted to present you myself, is all.’ He flicked a cigarette into the dead flowerbeds.
‘Why,’ she glanced up at the house, ‘why are we here? Why are there soldiers here? I thought we were supposed to dine with someone?’
‘Oh, this is the Brockhurst residence, alright. Grand as they come. Come on. Let’s go in. You’ll like them.’
‘I can’t do this,’ Marion whispered, rubbing her arms. ‘I can’t be around any more soldiers, I can’t be around anymore of this-’
John gently lifted her chin. ‘What’s all this now,’ he said. ‘You haven’t heard? You’re the star of the show now, Marion. Everyone’s talking about you.’
Marion winced. ‘I know they are.’
‘Ah, here. All you need is a warm fire and stiff drink. Come on. Brock’s an old friend of mine. His wife is delightful. They’ll love you. Don’t worry about a thing.’
John crooked his arm and smiled. She slipped her arm into his.
He stabbed a finger to the gilt doorbell.
In the grand marble foyer, a butler emerged. Marion watched with a growing sense of unease as he removed John’s overcoat with the expert caution of a servant in a house where the guests usually come armed.
A maid in a stiff black uniform led the way, and Marion walked arm in arm with John through high-ceilinged hallways, their footsteps muffled by thick carpets in shades of emerald and rubies. Ancient, soot-stained portraits followed them with glazed eyes.
The hushed air smelled of floor polish and rising damp. No scents of home fires or kitchen steam, potted plants or aired laundry.
They walked up a swirling oak staircase, and Marion inhaled the atmosphere of the house, habitually feeling for presences and imprints. She reached out and slid her fingertips over the rose-tinted wallpaper, sensing small slices of intimate hurts and a lingering sense of old grief, like a quiet hum.
‘What are you doing? Feeling up the wallpaper?’ John grinned.
‘Pardon?’ She snatched her hand back and glanced up at him.
‘You’ve no need to feel for ghosts here. Those days are long gone.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘No more solitary night-time adventures in drabness for you.’
They stopped in front of a tall double door. The maid swung it open with a graceful sweep of the arm. ‘Mr. John Kilcoyne, Esq., and Miss Marion Hahn.’
Gleaming chestnut couches crowded the room under a blazing chandelier. A fire spluttered in the grate between two great granite lions. Heavy velvet drapes enclosed the room, and the heat was stifling.
‘John!’ A woman with a glittering headband rose and came towards them, unsteadily picking her way. ‘You made it, oh I am beyond delighted,’ she said, fluttering her fingers over his lapels, ‘oh my, what ghastly weat
her, you’re entirely damp! I say,’ she said, turning, ‘why did we not send a car, Cecil?’
An older man with wiry grey hair gazed philosophically at his brandy glass. He was seated in a great armchair by the fire. And he was wearing a British army uniform.
Marion looked away immediately, her gut lurching. She glanced at John who stood, one hand in his pocket, as if the presence of this uniform did not unnerve him in the slightest.
‘Because, dear,’ said the man, ‘there’s a war on. As I may have mentioned, we do not commandeer army vehicles for the transportation of civilian dinner guests during wartime.’
‘Oh shush,’ the woman turned back to John, ‘a war, indeed. And you can stuff your military vehicles, because I got the neighbour’s wife to order a taxicab for John’s friend here, and they still come if she orders them. So you see, we can quite manage without you, darling.’ She smiled so widely at John that thick slivers of her gums showed. Her voice was slightly dry and nasal, as if she’d suffered a recent head cold. Marion glanced nervously about the room. Nobody had appeared to have noticed her yet.
‘This little war will soon be over, in any event,’ John said.
The man grunted. ‘Who is your lady friend, John,’ he said pointedly.
‘Oh, yes, Hettie, Brock, may I introduce Miss Hahn. From the Salon. Marion, may I introduce Colonel Cecil Brockhurst and his charming wife Hettie, formerly of Walthamstow.’
‘And soon of Walthamstow again,’ said Hettie, shaking Marion’s hand limply without taking her eyes off John. ‘As soon as we are permitted to escape this nonsensical city,’ continued Hettie, turning to Marion. ‘Really, dear, heed my advice – do not, upon any inducement, marry a military man. You never know what dreadful bogs you’ll be carried off to.’ She looked around the room for applause.
Marion realised that another woman was seated in the corner. The dazzling light of the fire obscured her face, and her dark dress mouldered into the shadows behind her.
She rose slowly. ‘Dinner must be almost ready,’ she said in the heavy cadence of Belfast or Armagh. ‘Your guests must be hungry, after their voyage in the dark.’
‘What?’ Hettie turned. ‘Oh, quite. Here comes the man. Oh, and this is Mrs. McKittrick, John, I’m not sure you’ve met? She’s visiting us from Belfast.’
A footman appeared to announce the dinner, and Hettie sauntered towards the dining room, balancing her wine glass precariously. ‘Whoops,’ she laughed, half-tripping over a rug as she caught John’s arm just so.
The colonel led the way for Mrs. McKittrick.
Marion followed behind, staring at the stiff dark green back of the colonel’s uniform jacket. A roll of fat with short, bristling hair spilled over the stiff collar.
The dining room was a blare of light.
On the table, a forest of white candles bristled in silver candelabras, and above, another chandelier glowed. A fireplace bellowed like a furnace. A footman pulled out a silken chair for Marion as the colonel settled himself at the head of the table.
‘Cecil,’ his wife gasped. She let go of John’s arm and stared at her husband. Her lips pursed, then quivered. ‘Why must you insist on ruining everything,’ she gasped, in an entirely different voice. Not high and trilling, but hoarse and hurt.
Marion glanced from her to her husband, then at the table.
By each setting lay a heavy black service revolver. None of them were for show, Marion could see. They had all been used in the recent past. One leaked brown oil onto the pristine table cloth.
‘Well, my dear,’ said the colonel as he tucked a white napkin under his uniform collar, ‘you seem to persist in your delusional fancy that there is no war on to interfere with your social life. Should a gunman or two decide to burst in upon your little soiree this evening, I mean to demonstrate to you the usefulness of pragmatic thinking.’ He raised a crystal glass to her.
‘What?’ She stared at him incredulously. A wine flush rose from her throat to her cheeks.
Marion glanced at the revolvers. Perhaps the colonel meant to entertain them later with a game of Russian roulette.
‘Should a gunman burst upon us, dear,’ said the colonel a little more slowly, ‘I have provided you with the chance to demonstrate to him how noxious his activities are to you, since they ruin your party plans.’
Hettie turned to the footmen. ‘Take those hideous things away this instant.’
The footmen glanced at the colonel.
‘Leave them.’
Hettie sat down heavily and glowered at her empty plate. The colonel didn’t seem to mind in the least. He wore the expression of a man who was practising an important speech in his mind or planning some decisive manoeuvre.
For a while, they all sat in silence.
Marion glanced around the table. Her throat felt like gravel.
She fixed her eyes on the scowling colonel at the head of the table, about lick fat off gilt forks like a conqueror, sinking his teeth into the spoils of war. And herself, sitting at his table like a revenant, thin-soled, dressed in mouldering lace and sooty sequins.
The footmen began to serve from silver trays. White fish, congealing in a cream sauce.
‘I understand that you’ve recently been joined by a new consignment of men, Brock,’ said John. Marion looked at him, wondering how he kept his tone so light.
Brock picked some wilted dill from his teeth. ‘Where do you understand that from?’
‘I saw them arrive at the docks the other morning. Thursday, I believe. Grand uniforms, and some really fine horses.’
Brock considered this as he crunched a fish bone. ‘Grand, indeed. It’s scandalous how they’re decked out. All ill-fitting rack and ruin. What are they, soldiers or police reinforcements? Someone needs to decide, and clear up the chain of command once and for all. Good men they are too. Most of them. Straight from the war. The Great one.’ He glanced at his wife and laid a fish bone on the side of his plate. ‘Which my dear wife here also would not hear mentioned. Ruined her carpets, that war did.’
Hettie reached for the wine carafe. A footman snatched it from her and poured her a glass. She didn’t meet his eye.
‘Your lady friend, our Miss Hahn, is awfully quiet,’ said Brock to John. He put down his silver fork. ‘We should not discuss any military matters, however trivial, until we have determined that this lady does not hold unmentionable sympathies.’
‘Such topics should not be discussed in front of ladies, in any event,’ said Hettie, stabbing resentfully at her fish.
‘But who can say if she is a lady?’ Brock amplified his voice without shouting. A talent of military men, thought Marion. ‘She works at your Salon, I believe, John?’
‘Our most talented practitioner.’ John smiled at Marion and winked almost imperceptibly. ‘You may have seen her picture in the newspapers, from the morning after the execution of that gunman.’
Marion clenched her teeth.
‘I thought all female mediums ran around without their corsets on, emerging from closets at opportune moments and exuding interesting materials from their bodies,’ said Brock.
‘Cecil!’ Hettie slammed her knife down.
‘Charlatans like that are a thing of the past,’ said John, ‘Marion is the most talented medium I’ve ever met, Brock. And the bravest.’
Marion caught his eye and blushed. How she wished it was just the two of them, by candlelight. She would be able to smile back at him, then.
‘Is that so,’ said Brock.
‘So it is. Her work is untainted by the excesses of the London mediums. She’s from Belgium. They do things differently there.’
‘Belgium,’ muttered the colonel, as if the word was offensive. He glanced at Marion with a leery eye. ‘Any military presence in your family then, Miss? Anyone who stood up for themselves when called upon?’
‘Cecil, why must you always interrogate our dinner guests like that?’ Hettie scowled at her husband. ‘She’s not some new recruit, you know. There may be a war
on, as you like to point out every five minutes, but there isn’t a war on in my dining room, thank you very much.’
Marion glared at Brock, willing him to choke on his damned fish bones. Her Erich had marched out with the first of them, never flinching, fighting for his Fatherland, winning an Iron Cross, and now this pompous devil in his monstrous uniform questioned her like she was some snivelling maid. She felt like biting her tongue until she tasted blood. She felt like splintering her glass in her hand and flinging the bloodied shards all over the table.
John caught her eye. He was looking at her across the table with a curious expression on his face. The air above the candles shimmered. She felt her face flushing.
‘And now for the roast,’ said Hettie, studiously avoiding Marion’s eyes, ‘I do hope everyone enjoys venison.’
‘I slaughtered it myself.’ Brock sipped a glass of water.
‘Physical mediumship, or ladies running around without their corsets on, as you put it, is a remnant of old superstitions. We modern spiritualists take a scientific approach to bringing the light of the afterlife to the living,’ said John.
There is no light in the afterlife, thought Marion.
Brock considered John’s words for a moment. ‘I’ll thank you to not bring forth any immortal light of anything at my table.’ He picked up a knife and shredded through a joint of venison held on a silver tray for him by a footman. The grease from the meat glistened in the bright light of the chandelier.
John smiled ironically. ‘I agree that it might spoil your enjoyment of this excellent dinner.’
‘Have you heard the latest news about Sir Hugh Lane’s paintings, John?’ Hettie prodded at her venison and smiled broadly at him. ‘Really, it is atrocious how they conduct this matter. As though the paintings should be shipped back here, only to be blown up or stolen!’
‘Forgive my wife,’ said Brock, chewing vigorously, ‘she occasionally voyages into the realm of current events, but never stumbles across the border into the light of self-awareness.’
‘Picture galleries at the least of our worries.’ It was Mrs. McKittrick who spoke.