The Land of Summer

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘You saw my husband, Agnes?’ Emmaline suddenly straightened her back, as if she knew this presaged bad tidings. ‘And when would that be, may I ask?’

  ‘Please don’t be cross, ma’am,’ Agnes begged, her eyes suddenly full of tears. ‘It’s not my fault.’

  ‘I’m not cross with you, Agnes,’ Emmaline assured her. ‘It’s just – you must understand this comes as a bit of a shock. Seeing that my husband is in France.’

  ‘No, ma’am. I mean I know, madam, but I’m sure I saw him, honest. Cross my heart and hope to die. I swear it were him.’

  ‘Perhaps you saw him on his way home. If you saw him – I take it it was when you were out?’ As Agnes nodded, without looking up, she went on, ‘Then the possibility is that he is back in England and either on his way to his offices before coming home, or even now on his way back here.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Agnes muttered.

  ‘That would be very typical of my husband, Aggie. I don’t think even he knows where he is going to be from one minute to the next.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, madam,’ Agnes said, now looking her mistress in the eye as if she had just determined that the truth must and should be known. ‘It was really peculiar, see. I was walking back to the trap, up the High Street, see, ’cos Alan had parked it where we usually does, and this carriage was coming through the town, like. Then this dog runs out and the driver swerves the horses to avoid it and runs on to the pavement, see. Right where I’m standing. I mean it near as anything crashes into me and I don’t know what, I was as close as that to getting hit. And the carriage has tipped over a bit, see – the driver falls off his seat and as the carriage tips over the gentleman inside gets thrown off his seat as well. He falls against the window, sort of on his knees – and as he tries to recover hisself he looks up at me and – and I’m pinned up aginst this wall, see – and he looks at me and he’s only this far away, madam – and honest I swear, madam, honest I swear it was Mr Aubrey.’

  ‘Yes, Aggie.’ Emmaline smiled. ‘And as I said, the probability is that he was on his way either to the office or—’

  ‘There was someone else with him, ma’am,’ Agnes blurted. ‘Beggin’ your pardon.’

  ‘Someone else?’

  ‘There was this other person in the carriage, see. There was this – this woman, like. With Mr Aubrey.’

  Emmaline said nothing. She just looked as steadily as she could at her maid, because she could not think of anything suitable to say, and also because she could hear her heart pounding in her ears, a thrumping sound. She took a deep breath, held it, then nodded at Agnes to indicate that she should proceed.

  ‘She had this red silk coat on and an ’at with a big yellow feather,’ Agnes continued. ‘She in’t seen me as yet, like, but as I can’t get past to get to the trap because I’m stuck up against the wall I’m standing there staring at Mr Aubrey and she says – ’cos she’s fallen off her seat too, like – she says something or other then I hears her say, “You all right, my darling?” She’s leaning up against him, holding her hat, and she’s saying—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Emmaline said quickly. ‘Yes, I heard what you think you heard her say. This woman.’

  There was a silence now as they both considered what had been said. Finally Emmaline, having taken another deep breath, nodded and clasped her hands tightly on her lap.

  ‘They are probably friends in business, Aggie,’ she said. ‘I don’t think we need to – to – er – read too much into this.’ She tried to smile. ‘After all, my husband lives and works here, and I really don’t know very many of the people he knows, so I don’t think we need to think there is anything untoward in this situation.’

  ‘Well, it weren’t just that, madam,’ Agnes continued, swallowing hard and wiping the back of her mouth quickly with her hand. ‘The thing is, obviously, with me this close, the thing is Mr Aubrey sees me, see. He’s looking out of the window and straight at me.’

  ‘Mr Aubrey saw you,’ Emmaline said slowly.

  ‘He couldn’t as help it, ma’am. He was that close to me, see. But when he sees me he just stares. That’s all. He gives me this look, just as though he’s never seen me before. I’m doing me best not to stare at him ’cos I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it, madam, ’cos of the way he’s staring at me. He just looks at me. He looks at me as though I wasn’t there. Then as the carriage tips back upright he gets back on his seat and he leans over – and he pulls the blind down at the window.’

  ‘Thank you, Aggie,’ Emmaline said after a moment. ‘But I think you were probably mistaken, don’t you? I think you thought you saw Mr Aubrey, but if he didn’t recognise you, then it cannot have been him, can it?’

  ‘No, madam,’ Agnes said, colouring deeply. ‘But I mean it was, madam. What I mean is, I’m sure it was, madam.’

  ‘But it can’t have been, Aggie. Not if he didn’t recognise you. And before you tell me that when he saw who it was looking at him he then pretended not to know you, I think you would have seen that, would you not? You would have seen some glimmer of recognition or even surprise on his face when he saw you – if it was my husband, which I now doubt that it was.’

  ‘Yes, madam,’ Agnes muttered. ‘I shouldn’t have as told you, should I? Least not till he come home. Your husband – Mr Aubrey, I means. ’Cos then if he was home now I’d have known it was him, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘No, Aggie,’ Emmaline said. ‘You did right to come and tell me. You were upset because like me you thought Mr Aubrey wasn’t due home for some days yet. And you thought he might have been hurt – in the accident – and then when he seemed not to recognise you – it’s perfectly natural for you both to be upset, and to come and tell me. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re not cross then, madam?’

  ‘No, Aggie. Just a little puzzled, like you. Rather, I was a little puzzled, until it became obvious from what you said that you were mistaken, and that it wasn’t my husband.’

  But when Agnes left, she was still convinced that the gentleman she had seen at such close quarters was indeed her employer, since Mr Aubrey was a man of such distinctive looks that he would not be easily mistaken. Emmaline was equally certain that the man in the carriage with the woman in red could not possibly have been her husband because to her way of thinking it would have been impossible for him not to have recognised someone as familiar and in her own way as distinctive as Agnes. None the less, she asked Wilkinson to telephone her husband’s offices to see when they might be expecting him to return.

  ‘Not for two or three days, madam,’ Wilkinson reported back to her. ‘Apparently Mr Aubrey told his secretary quite specifically he was not to be expected back in the office before Friday at the very earliest, and due to some considerable setbacks, some difficulties the other side of the Channel, it was more likely that he would not be back at his business until the beginning of next week.’

  ‘Which is not going to give us a great deal of time to prepare for Christmas, Wilkinson.’ Emmaline sighed. ‘Not that there seems to be a great deal to prepare for.’

  ‘Things are a little inclined to be left until the last moment sometimes, madam, I do agree,’ Wilkinson said. ‘But never fear. When the orders come it will be all hands to the pumps, I assure you.’

  Although initially more shaken by Agnes’s supposed revelation than she liked to admit, Emmaline, who was at last beginning to feel better and a little stronger, resolved that she would follow up her note to Mr Ashcombe by arranging the meeting with him and Mr Tully for the following morning, and so she slipped discreetly into the telephone room in order to leave a message with the secretary in Mr Hunt’s bookshop that she would be calling in to see Mr Ashcombe at eleven o’clock. She spent the rest of the afternoon in the bedroom, working on her longer poem, before dining alone and retiring early to bed with a book.

  When she thought it was time to blow out her light, she found that sleep would not come. Attributing her insomnia to the fact that she had rested so much over
the past few days, she went to her dressing table and took one of Dr Proctor’s powders mixed in water. It was the first time that she had taken one, and she was surprised to find that in only a short time, with her precious notebook still on her knee, she felt her eyelids growing heavy. Turning to blow out her nightstick, she lay back on her pillows feeling strangely light in mind and body, not even stirring as the notebook filled with her poems slid to the floor.

  But the sleep she finally fell into was fitful, as if the powder had brought on some sort of fever. She knew she was asleep, and that she was dreaming an ugly uncomfortable dream filled with images of strange people, faces that were not quite faces, forms that were neither human nor animal, but she couldn’t wake up – and then there were the noises.

  When she at last forced herself to sit upright, she knew something had woken her because she had heard it in her half-dream: the sound of someone in the house, a door or a floorboard creaking, or perhaps not even a noise, she thought as she sat listening – perhaps it had just been a sense of disturbance. She had taken to the habit of sleeping with the bedroom door a little ajar when Julius was away, half because she found she had become afraid of the dark when she was alone and half because she believed that somehow it was safer, as if it left her a ready exit to flee from whatever nocturnal terror might befall her, or would permit her more readily to call for help and afford one of the servants a better chance of hearing her cry. And now, through the half-open door, she could see a faint ray of light coming from somewhere, not from anywhere on the landing it seemed but from another source, one downstairs. For a moment she sat there, the bedclothes pulled tightly round her for security while she listened and waited, but in vain, because there was nothing to hear. There was just the light, a light that had grown brighter now she was completely awake and fully conscious. Emboldened, she decided to climb out of bed, and take a look over the banisters to see if she could identify its source. Pulling on her dressing gown, and hooking her long hair back over her shoulders, she tiptoed out on to the landing and looked down into the hall.

  The light was coming from Julius’s study. There was no doubt about it. Emmaline could see that the door was slightly open and a strong ray of light was seeping out into the otherwise darkened house. She was about to call out Julius’s name but stopped herself just in time, realising that if it were not her husband, any intruder would be alerted and know that he had been spotted. Instead, she went to the top of the staircase and slowly eased her way step by step down the stairs until she was opposite the study door, in a position to see into the room, hoping to identify the person within. As she stood waiting, holding her breath and frowning into the gloom, she heard the sound of someone moving about inside the room and then by sheer good chance caught sight of him in the large, ornate mirror that hung on the wall opposite the door. It was a tall man in a long dark coat.

  It was Julius, she was sure of it.

  Unable to contain herself, Emmaline called out his name as she ran quickly down the rest of the stairs and into the study, where sure enough she found Julius standing at the desk going through some papers apparently taken from an open drawer. She also realised when she saw the curtains billowing above the desk that for some reason the study window was open.

  ‘Julius?’ she repeated drowsily. ‘Julius – you’re back.’

  Even as she said the words she knew how foolish they must have sounded, but such was her state that she could think of nothing else to say. She remembered that earlier in the day she had been reliably informed that her husband was not to be expected back until the end of the week at the earliest, perhaps not until the beginning of the following week, yet here he was at home in the early hours of the morning, in his study, going through a pile of documents.

  He stared at her in the half-light, clearly startled.

  ‘I’m sorry, Julius,’ she said vaguely. ‘What are you doing home so … so …’ She struggled to complete the thought.

  ‘My dear—’

  ‘What are you doing home?’ Emmaline repeated dreamily. ‘I thought – I thought …’ She searched in her mind for the words, ‘I am sure we were told—’

  ‘Urgent business,’ he said quickly, cutting in on her.

  ‘I see. I do see. Forgive me, but I feel a little strange – it must be the time of the night …’

  ‘I really am sorry.’ Julius smiled, and when he did Emmaline thought she noticed a different look to his eyes, a look that she could not remember seeing before.

  ‘Julius,’ she began again, still not knowing quite what she was going to say.

  ‘I must say, you look …’ he said quietly, ‘your hair looks – I do so love it when women wear their hair down like that.’

  ‘Julius …’

  ‘Go back to bed, do.’

  Emmaline watched him, watched him smile, then looked into his eyes, once again seeing something that seemed to remind her of something, but what?

  ‘Very well,’ she replied drowsily, sensing her heartbeat racing, feeling it as if it was in her mouth. ‘I’ll go back up the stairs as you say. And get into bed.’

  She held the look between them for a moment and then turned to go, but as she did so she felt a hand take her arm, and when she turned back he was standing very close to her. He put his other arm slowly but firmly round her waist, drawing her to him.

  ‘Except, you see, I can’t let you go just like that,’ he murmured. ‘Certainly not without kissing you.’

  Emmaline’s eyes opened as wide as they would go as she realised what was about to happen, and then they closed and everything was dark, everything went black as he held her tightly to him, kissing her firmly. And the more he kissed her, the longer and tighter he held her, the more she wanted to struggle. This was the moment for which she had waited, for which she had longed, holding back her ever-growing impatience with the man who neglected her so cruelly, waiting because she knew she loved him – she thought she loved him, for now in the very act of him kissing her she felt that something was wrong and she put her hands on his chest and tried to push him away, but he just increased his hold on her and kissed her again. She could not match his strength. The light was dim and her heart was pounding so fast that it made her breathless, suffocating her until she was unable to draw breath, to keep awake, to stay conscious.

  Since his eyes were still open he saw her fall away from him, and immediately felt what was now a dead weight in his arms. He put one hand to her neck and felt a pulse still beating, and turning quickly he carried her up the stairs and into the bedroom, where a bedside candle was still burning.

  He laid her on the bed and stood for a while looking down at the slender unconscious young woman lying on her back. He removed her dressing gown, and very soon the clinging white linen of her nightdress revealed the roundness of her young breasts and the slender shape of her waist and the curve of her hips. He began to loosen his tie and the studs in his shirt, smiling to himself as he thought of how much he was going to enjoy this particular turn of events, and of the confusion and the mayhem he was going to cause. But in that moment of imagined delight he became careless, stepping backwards as he began to undo his shirt and walking straight into the low round table on which Dolly and Agnes placed evening biscuits and milk.

  The tray crashed to the floor, as did the heavy decanter and glass, the noise seeming all the more startling in the sepulchral quiet of the house.

  He waited for a moment, listening, before going to the door to check on the corridor outside. Just as he imagined it was safe to return to the bed he saw a light go on on the other side of the pass door at the end of the landing and at once he was gone – down the stairs and into the darkness beyond, leaving no trace of his presence, only an odd sense of disturbance.

  By the time darkness had enveloped him Mrs Graham, pulling her dressing gown tight around her, was bustling along the landing in the direction of Emmaline’s bedroom, where she too saw a light still burning. When she came into the room Emmaline was stil
l unconscious, flat on her back with an arm thrown to the same side as the upturned table and spilled tray.

  The housekeeper hurried to her mistress’s side, kicking aside the notebook by the bed, hoping that her mistress had not blacked out but was merely suffering from some sort of nightmare, or had perhaps taken to sleepwalking, in the midst of which she had knocked over the piece of furniture which had been so close to her bed. Having righted the table and picked up the pieces of broken glassware, Mrs Graham turned back to Emmaline. Putting a hand on the still outstretched arm, she tried to rouse her mistress as quietly and undramatically as she could.

  At first there was no response, Emmaline continuing to lie inert, and seeming to be hardly breathing, so that Mrs Graham found herself leaning forward and taking hold of one of her hands.

  ‘Mrs Aubrey?’ she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and stroking Emmaline’s hand in hers. ‘Mrs Aubrey? Wake up, dear. Please wake up.’

  To Mrs Graham’s great relief there was a slight sign of life, Emmaline’s eyes moving and then opening, although when the older woman leaned over her she seemed to see nothing and no one.

  ‘Mrs Aubrey?’ Mrs Graham repeated. ‘Madam? Madam – are you all right?’

  Now Emmaline turned her head and looked at her, but the housekeeper wasn’t sure she recognised her. ‘What happened?’ she said faintly. ‘Where am I? What happened?’

  ‘You had a dream, dear,’ Mrs Graham said quietly. ‘It would appear you were sleepwalking for a moment, for you knocked over your night table.’

  Emmaline frowned, but continued to stare at her housekeeper rather than look for the sign of any such accident.

  ‘Mrs Graham?’

  ‘It’s all right, dear,’ Mrs Graham assured her. ‘You must just have had a nasty dream, that’s all.’

  ‘I was dreaming, was I?’ Emmaline asked in a low voice, slowly looking round the room as if expecting to see someone. ‘But what? What could I have been dreaming?’