‘But I don’t know when an appropriate moment would be.’
‘But why now? I don’t see why you’ve brought this up now, Ellie. Out of the blue.’
‘It was the men, last night, when I was taking the linen—’
Oscar gave a heavy sigh, a moan that interrupted her. For a moment, she thought he was going to walk away but then he thrust the lettuce in her direction. ‘Go on, Ellie – what did they say?’
‘Well, they had some complaint, about the Cub Scouts that were pulling weeds – and they said that children were never permitted on the estate, that I was the only child that had ever been at Marlford and that was only because…’ She was trembling, her words seeming to shrivel, lost in the thick jasmine perfume. ‘They were rather unpleasant in their comments,’ she went on, quietly. ‘And it seems important, Mr Quersley – it really does.’
He looked away, examining something in the straggling vines; then he took a step or two from her, broke a leaf from a branch and rolled it between his fingers, crushing the green fragrance from it before he spoke. ‘All right. What is it?’
She began tentatively. ‘The babies – my sisters. I was wondering… I never found out how, well, you’ve never told me how they were—’
‘I believe I have told you, Ellie. My father drowned them.’ There was a pause. He did not seem to want to go on.
‘Yes, but – exactly. Can I ask how, exactly?’ The question came oddly, the words buckling.
‘He took each of them to the mere and dropped them into the water.’ Oscar smiled faintly, as reassurance. ‘You must understand, Ellie, that I only actually witnessed him render this service from afar – and not only was I a very young man, a boy indeed, but we never discussed it, he and I. It seemed reasonably efficient. The task was undertaken on each occasion before the child was a day old – they were naturally vulnerable at that age.’
‘I see.’
‘They made more of a fuss about the journey in the wheelbarrow, I seem to remember. I suppose it jiggled on the rough ground, disturbing or perhaps paining them.’ He fixed his gaze on the cut lettuce stump, its white juice already congealing, recalling the ritual like a recurring dream: his father’s slow progress through the woods, the unremitting groan of the wheelbarrow pushed to the very edge of the bank. There was a moment – he remembered that – when his father would let go of the metal handles, stand back and steady himself, praying perhaps, the dappled shadows from the oaks dismantling him. Then he would tip the barrow sharply, his head turned aside towards the unblinking gargoyles on the church tower, and there was the unconcerned plop of a weight in the still water, a stone or a baby swaddled tight, drifting awhile, bawling – a heavy sound hardly rising, pulling towards the silt – sinking only slowly, cheap linen soaking through and turning grey, already fraying, threads floating out across the soft ripples like the coarse hair of ducked witches, the mere settling again, the mallard and teal serene, their heads nestled beneath their wings.
‘Unfortunately, the barrow was necessary,’ he added. ‘My father didn’t like to hold them.’ He waited for her to respond. But she was looking at the ground beyond him, and he could not even be sure whether she realized that he had finished speaking. ‘Ellie? There’s nothing more for me to tell you. You do understand? There’s really very little to say – my father never spoke about it. He preferred not to, I believe. He was following orders, of course, but, nonetheless, I think he found the duty onerous.’
She barely moved. But there was something, a shiver.
Oscar shuffled his feet slightly, as though his shoes were suddenly uncomfortable.
She raised her eyes. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever really understood why it happened.’
‘Ellie, please.’ He touched her on the arm. ‘We shouldn’t talk so much about such matters. It’s inevitably upsetting.’
‘But I don’t understand. Why would someone do such a thing to such little babies? I don’t understand.’
‘Do you doubt me, Ellie?’
‘No, no, of course not.’
‘Because you’ve never asked such questions before – you’ve never required further explanation. This curiosity is rather unexpected, you must see that.’
‘Yes, I know… but it’s as though the questions have been there all the time, and I’ve only just begun to realize.’ She smiled at him ruefully, but she could not explain the tiny, constant goad, the increasing rawness of it; it was embedded too deeply, so that she could hardly grasp it. ‘I’m grateful for your help, Mr Quersley, I really am. I don’t mean to doubt you. I’ve never doubted you. But, well… it just doesn’t seem quite real. I wonder, sometimes, whether I’ve simply dreamed the whole story – imagined it, you know. When I look at Papa and I think about it and about what you say happened to the babies – well, I find I want to know why, Mr Quersley. Don’t you see?’ She blinked at the prick of tears and sniffed, apologetic. ‘It’s as I get older, I suppose, that’s all. As I grow up.’
He remained stern. ‘Ellie, it’s not a matter with which I wish to become entangled.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. But I can’t help it. I do try to put it out of my mind, Mr Quersley. I really do, but every day, with Papa…’
‘You must not permit yourself such thoughts. It’s a simple history and it certainly does not merit this kind of discussion. It seemed right that you should know what happened, that’s all, and it was agreed to make the matter known to you – to place you in your family context, as it were.’
He looked away for a moment, taking in the square enclosure of sky above them. She saw the rings of exhaustion around his eyes, the lines cut deep into his face. At this time of year, with the patrol of the mere, all the work at the farm, the gardens and fruit, his days were endless, unbroken, piling age upon him.
It did not seem as though he would say anything else.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Quersley, but I need to ask one more thing. Do you think, Mr Quersley… have you ever wondered – what might have happened to me?’
‘That’s enough, Ellie.’ He was sharp. ‘I think we’ve spoken enough of this.’
‘But what happened to my sisters might have happened to me, too. I might have been drowned, Mr Quersley, just as they were. Isn’t that true? Don’t you ever think about that?’
He gathered himself and pressed the lettuce into her hand. ‘We can’t imagine such things.’ He began to walk away from her.
‘Please – Mr Quersley…’
‘Ellie, I have too much work.’
‘You must have thought about it – even then, you must have thought about it, or you wouldn’t have taken me to the farm when I was first born. You wouldn’t have rescued me.’
He stopped, and turned to face her. ‘That’s melodramatic. I did not rescue you. With your mother’s death, there was naturally a great deal of commotion at the manor. I simply removed you to a quieter place, where you could be tended to.’
‘But I’ve been told – the men have told me – how much you did for me.’
‘I was very young. I acted instinctively.’
‘But, Mr Quersley—’
‘Ellie, that’s enough. I have my chores.’
‘You believed I was in danger, didn’t you?’
He could not look at her.
‘No, Ellie. You were in no danger.’
And before she could begin again, he had left her, walking quickly through the arched gateway. Ellie remained, the lettuce dripping its thin sap onto her wrist.
Four
Later, from the tangle of the rose garden, Ellie saw the metallic sheen of a strange vehicle making its way slowly along the avenue of limes.
Even at a distance it was resplendent in reds, golds and purples, flashing brilliant beams of chrome through the trees, embraced by two brightly dressed figures, advancing gracefully as though floating on a shimmering sea, like Cleopatra’s barge.
She threw down her bunch of roses and ran. ‘Mr Quersley!’ She pushed through the long weeds on the terra
ce and around to the front of the manor, but her call hardly reached the stand of oaks at the margin of the old lawns, and she did not receive an answer. She could see the track to Home Farm leading away through high hedges, but the farmhouse was out of sight; she would never reach Oscar before the vehicle arrived. The hutments were closer, the lines of corrugated metal imprinted on the distance, but she knew she could not tell the men about such a thing.
She hesitated. The visitors continued to advance. They were almost upon her, and she could not face them alone.
‘Papa… Papa!’ Her voice echoed in the ample recesses of the hallway. ‘There’re people coming. Papa!’
Ernest was asleep in his study. The vague impression of emergency only irritated him; he turned in his chair, pulling a cushion across his face. Ellie tugged at it but he held on hard, breathing loudly through the thick matting of old feathers and bare tapestry.
Finally, he sneezed. ‘What? What is it, Ellie, that requires so much commotion?’ He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
‘There are people coming, Papa, up the lime avenue. I saw them.’
‘What kind of people?’
‘I don’t know. They were… they’ve got some kind of car, in different colours.’
Ernest was unconvinced. ‘Tradesmen?’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so.’
‘Not those people who turn up demanding lumber and such like?’
‘No. Nothing like that. Real people.’
Ernest saw the way his daughter screwed her hands in her work apron, and the tense wrinkle of her brow. He wished he could soothe her many anxieties. He flapped the cushion at them so that they dispersed for a moment, nothing more than a swarm of midges, and he smiled kindly, reaching out a hand that did not quite touch hers.
‘Best ask them to supper then, I should think,’ he suggested, brightly. ‘That should do it.’
‘Do what, Papa?’
‘Well, I don’t know – introduce them to us. At the very least it will do that. Won’t it?’
But Ellie was still frowning and, once again, Ernest felt he had failed to solve the insurmountable conundrum of how to be master of this ridiculous house. Perhaps he should set dogs on the intruders, or fire off a round above their heads? Perhaps he should have made Quersley weld the main gates closed to protect them all from trespass? Or maybe that was quite wrong: maybe he should hold court on the portico like a real gentleman, extending a gracious hand and an invitation to dine or shoot pheasants or some such. Perhaps a simple supper was ungenerous.
He did not know what Ellie meant when she looked at him in that way, demanding something impossible; he had no idea any more. It was all too confusing.
He pulled the cushion back against his face and leaned, once more, into the chair.
Ellie was not at all sure how her father’s invitation could be offered. She went out to the top of the steps, standing under the shabby stone portico from where she could see the avenue of limes, the pasture stretching away on one side towards Home Farm, the slope on the other sweeping down towards the mere and the village beyond, the hutments between, where the contours of the estate seemed to meet, the ugly scar of buildings only partly obscured by a line of firs. It was all as it had always been, a landscape she could contain quite easily within her thoughts.
The incessant discord of the vehicle’s extraordinary bodywork was something else. She wondered if she might have a fever, a sickness; she felt her forehead in case she had a temperature and closed her eyes, as though this might dislodge the fantasy. But when she looked again, the visitors were making good progress, almost at the point at which the trees stopped and the drive swept round in a wide-open curve towards the manor.
She could see them quite clearly now. The first had one arm thrust casually through the open front window of the van, and Ellie could see his hand resting lightly on top of the steering wheel. He was taking in his surroundings with measured glances; once he looked behind and seemed to speak to the other figure, a taller man, his head lowered, leaning his shoulder against the rear doors.
In the end, because it seemed right, she went to meet them. They had come to a stop at the end of the lime avenue and were standing together to one side of the vehicle. She saw the way they stared and she traced with them in her mind the blotted grey dereliction of the façade behind her.
‘It’s not as it was,’ she said, holding herself straight, her arms fixed to her sides.
They did not respond to her apology, continuing to gaze instead at the manor: the central domes, high roofs and tall windows recalling the splendour of mighty French châteaux, the graceful chimneys of the original residence still visible behind, a square brick tower standing guard on the Victorian extensions yet further back, and the Georgian portico thrusting confidently towards them, holding them at bay.
‘Papa says you should stay for supper.’
The vibrant colour of their baggy clothing defined them too boldly against the muted histories of the old building.
‘If you like, of course… if you’re able. There’s no obligation.’
She thought for a moment that perhaps they did not understand, and she began to think how she might make the offer in another language. But finally one of the visitors spoke.
‘I’m Dan.’ He stepped forwards but did not smile.
It was the young man she had seen at the front of the van. His dark hair was pushed back from his high forehead and curled to his shoulders – like some kind of late-Georgian wig, she thought – and he wore spectacles. With his long face and thin lips, it conspired to make him seem bookish and grave. He gestured towards the limes.
‘We’re travelling around,’ he went on.
Ellie frowned. ‘Yes. Well, you’re welcome, of course. This is Marlford. But I suppose you knew that.’
‘Marlford? No, we didn’t know.’
‘You weren’t intending to call on us then, as part of your tour?’
‘Here? No way.’ He threw a sharp glance at his companion.
‘People do come from time to time,’ Ellie said. ‘Sightseers.’
He looked past her, taking in the impressive scale more than anything – more than the overgrown flowerbeds and sunken paths; the mossy stones and sprouts of weed from odd places, the sag of the roof.
‘Yeah, well, our van broke down, you see, back on the main road, by your gates, that’s all. We thought you might let us ring.’
It only now occurred to Ellie that the vehicle might be broken in some way. She looked at it mournfully. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. But, you see, we don’t have a telephone…’
‘Don’t you?’ He squinted at her, as though to make sure of the truth of her statement. ‘No means of getting in touch with someone? Even in an emergency?’
The other visitor stepped forward quickly. ‘Look – hi, yeah, I’m Gadiel.’ He smiled, wiping his palm down the faded cotton of his trousers before reaching towards her. ‘We’re sorry to have barged in like this. It’s like Dan says, it’s the van.’
He was tall, with a broad-chested solidity which might have belonged to an older man, but there was something effortlessly, childishly tender in the way his eyes settled on her.
Ellie wondered which of them she should look at. ‘Gadiel? How lovely! Hebrew. Um…’ She looked at neither of them, in the end, but fixed her gaze instead on a crisp slice of the mere visible between the trees. ‘Sent by Moses to reconnoitre the land. Yes, that’s right, I’m sure of it. Isn’t it? I’ve never met a Gadiel.’
She stopped, blushing, as though the admission might be shameful. She wished she could have turned, retreated into the house and left them. Already they demanded too much of her.
Ernest stopped at the sight of the flamboyant guests seated at his long table. He brushed energetically at the sleeves of his battered dinner jacket, sank his feet more firmly into the scarlet pumps he habitually wore on fine evenings and balanced himself. Crossing the room to take his seat, he immediately picked up his knife and sat
with it clenched vertically in his fist.
‘Ah. Yes, ah… I see.’ He blinked at them.
‘We were invited to come and eat,’ Gadiel said, evenly. ‘We were invited when we arrived.’
Dan stared at Ernest. ‘We are allowed to be in here, aren’t we?’
Ernest studied the dining room with some care, as though it might all have changed since he was last there. It was a bright evening; the low sun swept through the long windows, the splits and stains and patches unobtrusive in the generous mid-summer light, but it was as it had always been.
‘In here?’ he repeated at last, perplexed. ‘But where on earth else should we be? Ellie – am I wrong again? We’re quite right, aren’t we? In the dining room?’
She had just entered, wearing an old-fashioned floral dress and a long necklace of green plastic beads; her hair was elaborately plaited, her bare arms straining with the weight of a huge china tureen.
Ernest took this evidence of imminent supper as a good sign. ‘I think we’re right.’ He looked back at Dan, relieved. ‘I think it’s perfectly all right.’
Gadiel stood up and went to help, taking the tureen and placing it near Ernest’s elbow. ‘It’s very kind of you, to allow us in like this.’ He looked around, as Ernest had done, taking in the faded splendour. ‘It’s a beautiful room. The whole place – it’s beautiful.’
‘Yeah, it is.’ But Dan’s admiration was grudging; as soon as he had spoken, he fixed his eyes determinedly on the old wood of the table, closing off the rest of Marlford from sight, stiffening against its efforts to seduce him.
Ellie put her hands to her hair, pushing at the pins, feeling so insubstantial and grey all of a sudden, such a shadow, that she let them dig into her scalp in the hope that they might prick her back to life.
‘But we could have had sandwiches,’ Gadiel went on. ‘That would have been fine.’
‘Sandwiches!’ Ernest might not have known the word. He glanced at his daughter but, gathering nothing from her expression, tapped his thumb on the lid of the tureen.
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