by Dominic Luke
Left on her own, Eliza felt weighed down by the secret she had to keep. Even if Dorothea said no to the German boy and it all blew over, the secret would still be there. Dorothea would say no, of course – wouldn’t she? What would Mama make of it all if she knew? And Roderick?
Roderick! She had quite forgotten Roderick! He was due at any moment!
She flew upstairs to get ready for her brother’s arrival.
They heard Roderick before they saw him. His voice came echoing up from the hallway, laying down the law, ordering the servants to watch what they were doing with his valise. Next moment, he came breezing into the drawing room, taller, louder, more alive than ever. His sling was gone and his arm to all appearances as good as new.
‘Hello, Mother, Doro. Hello, kiddo. Here I am at last. The train took an age and the crush at Paddington was beyond belief: there wasn’t a porter to be had for love nor money.’
He had plenty to say for himself. He’d had the jolliest time with his friend from university, a rather upmarket sort of boy – an honourable – who lived in a vast house with hundreds of servants. A week really wasn’t long enough, but never mind, there’d be other visits. In the meantime, he had a few days in London to look forward to. And were they all heading back to Clifton for Easter: was that still the general idea? Travelling by train, though, was becoming such a bore. Mother really must consider buying him a motor of his—
He broke off, held up his hand. ‘I say, was that the doorbell? I rather think it was, you know!’ He sat up, watching the door with an eager light in his eyes.
‘How very odd,’ said Mama. ‘We’re not expecting anyone.’
After a moment the door opened and Sally came in. ‘Excuse me, ma’am, there’s a Miss Halsted—’
Roderick interrupted. ‘Show her up, Kirkham. Show her up at once.’
Sally’s eyes flicked from Roderick to Mama. Mama gave no sign. Sally curtsied and went out.
‘By the way, Mother . . .’ Roderick sat back, picking his nails. ‘I wrote to Miss Halsted, invited her to dinner. I thought, as I’d be in town and as Miss Halsted lives here in London. . . .’ He shrugged, as if inviting Miss Halsted was an obvious corollary and didn’t need to be spelled out.
‘You might have given us some warning, Roderick,’ Mama reproached him. But there was no mention of the inconvenience or the extra work in stretching dinner to five. Daisy often said that Master Roderick was allowed to get away with murder and, just then, Eliza was inclined to agree.
Dusk was falling outside in the square but the drawing room was brightly lit and the fire blazing. From her place in the window-seat, Eliza watched as Miss Halsted was shown in and stood a little awkwardly looking round at them. In one hand she held her hat trimmed with fake roses; in the other hand was a bunch of real flowers.
Roderick jumped up. ‘Miss Halsted! So glad you could come! You’re staying to dinner, I hope? Of course you are!’ He took her hat, passed it to Sally Kirkham; took the flowers too, looking at them with a curl of his lip. ‘From an admirer? From Antipov?’ He handed the flowers to Sally, ushered Miss Halsted towards the settee. ‘Sit here, Miss Halsted.’ He placed her next to Mama, sat down beside her.
‘The flowers are not from Mr Antipov,’ said Miss Halsted. ‘Why would you think that Mr Antipov would give me flowers? They are, in fact, a gift from one of my students.’
‘One of your students?’
‘I do some lecturing in the vac. There’s a college for working men in the East End—’
‘Philanthropy.’
‘Philanthropy is not a dirty word, Mr Brannan. I find the work very rewarding if you must know and my students are all very eager to learn. A boy gave me these flowers. He is unemployed so you see they are worth their weight in gold.’
‘Very profligate of him, not to mention presumptuous. You told him so, I presume?’
‘Well, of course I didn’t! That would not have been very gracious.’
Eliza wrinkled her brow. What was philanthropy? And why was Miss Halsted here? She looked rather out of place, sandwiched between Mama and Roderick on the settee: she looked like she felt out of place. Eliza, who had looked forward to dinner with Roderick and just Mama and Dorothea for company, rather resented Miss Halsted’s intrusion.
Dinner ran smoothly, of course. It would take more than one unexpected guest to throw Mama off her stride. In London, Eliza ate with the grown-ups. The normal rules did not apply in London. Roderick spent most of the meal disputing with Miss Halsted.
‘You must face it, there will always be rich and poor, it’s a law of nature. The strong prosper whilst the weak go to the wall. It’s called survival of the fittest.’
‘We humans have risen above the motivations of animals, Mr Brannan. We have the ability to change: to change ourselves and to change the world we live in.’
‘Sentimental humbug! There’s no room for sentiment in the real world!’
‘You take such a pessimistic view of life, Mr Brannan. I can’t think why I associate with you.’
Eliza wondered if they always carried on like this. They seemed to disagree on everything. Why invite Miss Halsted only to quarrel? Mama listened with an air of disapproval. Dorothea seemed barely to be listening at all.
After dinner, Mama despatched Eliza to bed. Eliza was too shy to argue in front of Miss Halsted.
‘I’ll come and tuck you in by-and-by,’ smiled Dorothea.
In her room, Eliza began to brush her hair, counting towards a hundred, but she soon lost interest. She yawned, put the brush aside, crossed to the window, looked out between the curtains. The square was quiet and empty. The skeletal branches of the plane trees were etched against the grey-dark sky. There were pools of light beneath the street lamps. Lights showed in many windows. She wondered what people were doing in all the different rooms. She wondered, for that matter, what was happening downstairs. She yawned again and let the curtain fall back into place.
On her way to the closet, she hesitated at the top of the stairs. She could hear voices below: Roderick’s voice (unmistakeable) and Miss Halsted’s. They had just emerged from the drawing room by the sound of it. Eliza in her stockinged feet inched down first one step then another, listening.
‘I shall walk you home,’ Roderick was saying.
‘I shan’t walk,’ said Miss Halsted. ‘It’s too far to walk. I shall catch an omnibus on the Fulham Road.’
‘Then I shall catch it with you.’
‘Whatever for? I am more than capable of seeing myself home.’
‘In other words, you don’t need the help of a mere man.’
‘That’s it. That’s quite right. You are beginning to learn, Mr Brannan.’
Miss Halsted’s mocking voice faded. Roderick’s reply was all but inaudible. They must be going downstairs, Eliza realized. She debated, looking back up at the landing. How long before Dorothea came to tuck her in?
Curiosity got the better of her. She ran quickly to the first-floor landing and turned the corner, following her brother and Miss Halsted down to the ground floor. She moved slowly, soundlessly, hugging the banister as Roderick’s voice came into earshot once more.
‘. . . and Mother doesn’t dislike you, that’s just her way: she’s the same with everyone. You are using Mother as an excuse to leave.’
‘I don’t need an excuse. It’s quite late enough. Mrs Hammond will be wondering where I am.’
‘Never mind Mrs Hammond. She’s only your cook.’
‘Cook, housekeeper, spy: she spies on Leo and Carla and me and reports back to the Aunts in Tonbridge.’
‘Then you should get rid of her. Get someone else.’
‘We can’t afford anyone else. The Aunts pay Mrs Hammond’s salary. You wouldn’t understand: you never have to worry about money.’
‘How you go on about those aunts of yours!’
‘They interfere and they’re frightfully old-fashioned but they do love us in their own way.’
‘And you love their mo
ney.’
‘What a horrid thing to say! Why must you be so disagreeable, Roderick? You make it very difficult for people to like you. Now please fetch my coat. I’m going home.’
Eliza with infinite care had edged down the last few steps. She now held her breath and peeped round the corner. Roderick and Miss Halsted were by the front door with their backs to her. Roderick was helping Miss Halsted into her coat. It seemed a terribly inappropriate thing to do, at once menial and intimate. Why had they not rung for Sally?
Miss Halsted began buttoning her coat. Roderick, instead of stepping back, moved closer. He put his arms round her from behind. Far from objecting to this treatment, Miss Halsted seemed content to lean back against him and rest there. They stayed like this for what seemed to Eliza an age.
At length Roderick said, muttering into Miss Halsted’s ear, ‘I am sorry for being disagreeable. I wanted to be alone with you, like in January. It was hell not having you to myself this evening.’
‘January was pure luck,’ said Miss Halsted. ‘We’d never get my house to ourselves like that a second time. Which is just as well when you think of . . . of what happened. It mustn’t happen again.’
‘Don’t say that! I shall go mad, wanting you!’
‘Then you must go mad. Please let me go.’
‘I shan’t. I shall keep you here forever.’
Miss Halsted twisted round in his arms. She was facing him now – but also facing Eliza. Eliza shrank back but Miss Halsted only had eyes for Roderick. She gazed up at him, a smile playing on her lips.
‘I preferred it when your arm was broken,’ she murmured. ‘I could get away from you then.’
‘But you didn’t get away from me: just the opposite in January.’
‘I think you broke your arm on purpose, so that I would feel sorry for you. You are a very bad influence, Roderick.’
‘What about your influence on me? You don’t know what it was like, having you sit there all evening calling me “Mr Brannan”. You don’t know how much it made me want to do this—’
Roderick leaned down and kissed her.
He kissed her!
It was too ghastly for words, lips-to-lips, brazen and savage: in this very house, in the hallway, with Mama upstairs and Dorothea—
They broke apart. Eliza ducked back, more afraid than ever they might see her. She heard Miss Halsted’s plaintive voice: ‘Oh, why do I like you so much? I wish I didn’t!’
‘You don’t mean that,’ said Roderick.
‘I don’t know what I mean. I get so confused when I’m with you, I start to think that white is black. But I really must go or else I’ll miss my omnibus.’
They were opening the front door, they were saying their last goodbyes. Eliza turned to go before Roderick came along and caught her. She had to cling to the banister as she climbed up and up, round and round: her legs were like jelly.
The door to her room was ajar as she’d left it. Had Dorothea been yet to tuck her in? Had she found her gone? But what did that matter!
Eliza closed the door, got into bed, pulled the covers up to her chin. She couldn’t get it out of her head, the picture of Roderick kissing Miss Halsted. He’d always been a hot-headed sort of boy but to kiss Miss Halsted as if it was nothing seemed reckless beyond measure. Why had Miss Halsted let him? Why had she seemed to want it and yet not want it too?
Then there’d been all that talk about January: they’d met in January. Had they kissed then too? Eliza remembered now that Roderick had departed Clifton earlier than expected in January, before the beginning of term. He had to meet a friend in London, he’d said: someone he’d known at school.
‘You can’t possibly travel in your condition, Roderick,’ Mama had said. ‘Your arm is in a sling.’
‘Don’t fuss, Mother. I’m not a cripple.’ Roderick had been determined. He’d got his own way.
But what if there’d been no friend, just Miss Halsted? Roderick wouldn’t tell fibs – would he?
Eliza shivered, suddenly wondering if she really knew her brother at all. She wished Dorothea would come quickly to tuck her in and send her off to sleep in peace. But Dorothea too was different, was wrapped up in that German boy and his letter.
It was London, thought Eliza: London changed people, bewitched them. She wished she wasn’t in London. She wished she was back at Clifton, safe, with everything as it should be.
If only she was back at home!
In sure and certain hope, Eliza read, of the resurrection.
She picked the moss off the crumbling gravestone. Died 28 November 1745, aged 38. Who had died? Someone called – it was just possible to make out the name – Maria Adnitt. She’d been the beloved wife of – somebody or other (the name had quite worn away). What had she looked like? Why had she died? Did anyone now remember?
Turning away from Maria Adnitt, Eliza threaded her way between the gravestones of Hayton churchyard, her skirts trailing through the long grass, the tips of her fingers brushing against the tallest stems. What would the resurrection be like? Would all the graves crack open and the dead people come climbing out? Would Maria Adnitt come back to life? Would her husband somebody-or-other come back to life too, even though his name had worn away?
But how dull, how boring, to lie in a coffin for hundreds of years waiting for the resurrection! Jesus had not had to wait. Jesus had been resurrected almost at once. But Jesus was special: that was what the old vicar had said in his Easter service last week. Jesus was special whereas Maria Adnitt was unimportant, had been all but forgotten.
Skirting round the grey church under the blue sky, Eliza took a detour to avoid Daddy’s grave (she didn’t like to look at Daddy’s grave, it gave her a funny feeling in her tummy). She had come full circle now, she could see Dorothea once more standing by another grave, Richard’s grave. Dorothea’s head was bowed, she was lost in thought.
Eliza, ringed round by the long grass, watched from a distance. Birds chirped. A bumble bee lazily buzzed. The spring sun shone brightly. Why had they come to Richard’s grave today? It wasn’t his birthday or the anniversary of his death. Why, for that matter, had they taken their walk this morning instead of in the afternoon as they normally did? Everything was topsy-turvy. If Eliza on returning from London had hoped to get back to the old routine, she had been disappointed.
A visit to the village always took longer than expected when you were with Dorothea. There was always someone wanting to stop and talk; there was always a quick call to make. Dorothea was popular in the village. The villagers laid claim to her. But Eliza felt that, as Dorothea’s cousin, she had a greater claim: she was able therefore to bask in the reflected glory.
Today, after calling at the shop for a length of ribbon and some Fry’s chocolate, they had stopped off at the carpenter’s house opposite the burnt cottages in School Street. A new baby had recently arrived at the carpenter’s. ‘Our little miracle.’ Mrs Keech the carpenter’s wife had proudly cradled her grandson. ‘We thought we’d lost him, Miss Dorothea. We thought we’d lose our poor, dear Milly, too. We had the doctor as well as the midwife: they were here half the night.’
Poor, dear Milly was Mrs Keech’s daughter-in-law, who at other times was said to be not quite good enough for our Nolly and who led him a merry dance. Eliza did not much care for the carpenter and his wife, nor their son Nolly who made it obvious he thought a lot of himself. Milly, by contrast, always seemed rather downtrodden. Dorothea got on with them all equally and they all got on with Dorothea. But that wasn’t very surprising. Probably there was no one in the entire world who disliked Dorothea.
Leaving the carpenter’s, Eliza had walked with Dorothea down School Street then up Back Lane, stopping on the way to pass the time of day with old Mother Franklin sitting wrinkled and toothless outside her daughter’s front door (the way she chewed her gums turned Eliza’s stomach) and also with white-whiskered Mr Lee working on his bit of land (his beady eyes missed nothing; Eliza was rather scared of him). Dorothea had kno
cked in vain at the door of the Carters’ cottage (Nibs Carter was one of Dorothea’s special friends; Eliza found him rather surly) but Mrs Turner had answered the door of the cottage opposite and invited them in for a cup of tea. Mrs Turner by her own admission could ‘talk the hind legs off a donkey’, but Eliza rather liked her: she was plump and jolly and made a fuss of her. When they’d finished their tea and as they were taking their leave, Mrs Turner had followed them out and cut some flowers from her garden for Dorothea. She always gave flowers to Dorothea.
‘What a glorious day, Miss Dorothea! Not a cloud in the sky!’
‘Oh, Mrs Turner! Dear Mrs Turner! How I’d miss you if I went away!’
‘I’d miss you too, bless you! But why would you ever want to leave Clifton? Where would you go?’
Mrs Turner’s flowers now rested against Richard’s grave which was neither crumbling nor moss-grown. Dorothea stood there, silent and solemn – or not quite silent, for Eliza thought she could make out some murmured words.
‘. . . ye now therefore have sorrow, but I shall see you again and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. . . .’
It was something the vicar had said during the Easter service. Why was Dorothea repeating it now? Was she thinking of a time when she would see Richard in heaven?
Eliza barely remembered her cousin Richard who had died years ago aged fourteen. She knew by heart, however, the story of how Dorothea and Richard had first met: how Dorothea had heard a voice in the corridor and had gone to investigate, and the voice turned out to be Richard’s. Dorothea at that time had been newly arrived at Clifton but this was something Eliza had no memory of at all: she couldn’t imagine Clifton without Dorothea.
Dorothea turned, caught sight of Eliza, held out her hand, smiled. It was the old, familiar smile that had mostly been missing these last few weeks. Eliza ran to her joyfully, took her hand.