The House on Vesper Sands

by Paraic O?Donnell

  ‘Oh, yes, I might easily have perched in that draughty corridor for three hours, watching Mr Benedict gnaw at his pencils and wondering how many toes I’d lost to frostbite. How very gallant you are, Mr Healy. In any case, I was in a hurry. I had just got back from the House of Lords, and I have a ball to attend at Ashenden House. One can’t very well write about society if one never ventures into it.’

  ‘What has the House of Lords to do with society? Debutantes have not begun coming out in the ladies’ gallery, surely? Here is the porter, by the way, to bring this bit of foolishness to an end. Did you wish to pass me this article of yours before you are carried out?’

  Octavia set her packet of pages on the table, propping it up with a salt cellar. ‘For fear you should overlook it,’ she explained. ‘Lady Ashenden is giving the ball to honour Lord Strythe, the Earl of Maundley. He has established a benevolent foundation of some kind for injured work girls. I went to Westminster, where a bill on their working conditions was to come before the Lords. I felt I ought to begin by observing the man in his daily element, so that the reader may form her impression of him in the round. Or his impression, come to that. It isn’t unimaginable, I hope, that a man might glance at my page.’

  Mr Healy swelled his cheeks, prodding at the tablecloth with the handle of his fork. ‘If you are so interested in these work girls, you might think of looking into this Spiriters business. Some of the weeklies have shown an interest, and it has done them no harm.’

  ‘The illustrated weeklies, you mean?’ Octavia waved away the porter, who was by now hovering at her shoulder. ‘Well, quite. One expects no better of those. It is sensational nonsense, Mr Healy. What has it to do with the lives of working women?’

  ‘What has it to do with working women, she asks, when there are scullery maids and match girls disappearing left and right. Why, it is just the sort of thing your Mrs Besant has always worked herself up about.’

  Octavia straightened in her chair. ‘Mrs Besant no longer concerns herself with such things. She has left for Paris, or so I understand, where she has taken up with an occultist of some kind. In any case, the Working Conditions Bill—’

  ‘The Working Conditions Bill –’ he gulped from his claret glass, setting it down with clattering emphasis, ‘– is neither here nor there. I have the whole of the paper to devote to the news of the day, and I’m sure our Westminster correspondent will give it his attention if the matter warrants it. As for the readers of “The Ladies’ Page”, I fail to see how it could interest them.’

  She regarded him evenly. ‘To begin with, Mr Healy, not all the readers of my page are ladies. I proposed a new title for that very reason, as you may recall.’

  ‘What title?’ he said. ‘“The Evening Companion”?’

  ‘That was your suggestion, Mr Healy, and I’m afraid it has a disreputable connotation. Mine was “The Spirit of the Age”.’

  He flapped his lips in contempt, shaking his head as he returned to his beef.

  ‘In any case,’ she continued, ‘it isn’t only the season’s fashions that concern them, or the fitting out of Mrs Fitzherbert’s barouche. They are exercised by political questions, and by the social ills that we must all confront.’

  ‘Dear me, Miss Hillingdon. Is it any wonder that I am remiss about our appointments? You are not at one of your lectures now, and I should rather like to finish my dinner without being subjected to an improving course of instruction. I will certainly not have you hectoring the ladies of Mayfair from a soapbox. There is no shortage of advertisers, you know. That page of yours might easily be put to other uses.’

  Octavia rose and smoothed down her gown, at which the porter who loomed near her chair withdrew by a fraction. She raised her chin as she addressed Mr Healy. ‘I need hardly remind you, sir, that my grandfather is still your employer.’

  ‘Your grandfather – for so we must refer to him – was always a man of great decorum. If he were still in his senses, he would rein you in himself. And he would take a dim view of this little spectacle.’

  Felix Hillingdon had thought of children late in life, and on adopting Octavia and her brother, he had chosen not to style himself their father. To do so, he later explained, would have been to claim a youth and vigour he no longer possessed, even if he had affection still in abundance. It was a question that never troubled the family in the slightest, and one that was alluded to by no one else but Mr Healy.

  ‘My grandfather knew a story when he saw one, Mr Healy, until his affliction. He would have paid no attention to ridiculous tales about stealing souls in Whitechapel, but he would have found it curious, as I did, that Lord Strythe seemed so thoroughly satisfied with a bill that hardly imposed a single obligation or penalty on any employer that did not exist before, and that his only stated concern, in sending it back down, was with the funding of institutions such as his own. My grandfather would have found all that peculiar, and would have wondered at any newspaperman who did not.’

  And her grandfather, she might have added, would have found Lord Strythe himself peculiar. Octavia had observed him carefully from the gallery, and he had seemed to her a vain and aloof figure. She had passed him in the lobby as he was helped into his cloak, and though his gaze had settled on her for only a moment, she had never felt so closely examined. A cold fish, her grandfather would have said, though Healy would no doubt dismiss the notion. A devilish cold fish.

  ‘A moment, Miss Hillingdon.’ Mr Healy detached his napkin and settled back in his chair, raising a hand to keep the porter at bay. ‘Do not trouble yourself, Flett. The lady will be leaving presently, and I will see her to the door myself.’

  Octavia seated herself again, and for a moment she and Mr Healy confronted one another in silence.

  ‘Very well, then,’ he said at length. ‘Here is my offer, Miss Hillingdon, since you will give me no peace until I make one. I draw the line at suffragist claptrap, as you very well know, but I am not so benighted as you suppose. I will consider the thing if it is done in the right way. If Lord Strythe is to be honoured for his good works, as you say, then the moment may be right to give the reader an impression of the man.’

  ‘But that is just what I propose, Mr Healy.’

  He held up a plump palm. ‘An impression of him, I say, but one that takes account of his standing. He is not much in view for a man of his station, and the reader may therefore be interested to learn how he diverts himself. Has he a fondness for the opera, let us say, or does he keep a lodge in the Highlands for shooting at grouse? That is what is wanted.’

  ‘Well, perhaps, but I do think—’

  ‘What is not wanted, Miss Hillingdon, is sniping and insinuation about the fellow’s politics, or any pot-banging about the inequities of our social order or the plight of the working poor. If you can bring yourself to keep within that gauge, then perhaps I will begin to see your true promise. If not, it will be the last time you stray from your little paddock. Is that plain?’

  An answer came to Octavia that she chose to suppress. She gave a brief nod.

  ‘Furthermore, you may nurse whatever private opinions you see fit, but I will not have us continually outdone in this Spiriters business. You have a marvellous knack for finding things out, when you are moved to it, and it will not cause you any mortal agony to put it to more general use. Take yourself down to Whitechapel or Spitalfields, or to a seance, to hear what talk there may be among the spiritualists. Fellows who would go out stealing souls may well be known in such circles. Begin your appreciation of Lord Strythe, by all means, but do not think of bringing it to me unless you have something on the Spiriters in your other hand. Have we a bargain, Miss Hillingdon?’

  Octavia looked down for a moment at her lap. It was hardly a resounding victory, yet it was a good deal more ground than Mr Healy had ever yielded before.

  ‘We have,’ she said at last.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Mr Healy, rising. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I should like to take my coffee in peace. And as for
you, Miss Hillingdon, it seems to me that you have work to do.’

  III

  At Ashenden House, Octavia was more discreet in disposing of her bicycle. The possession of a bicycle, to Lady Ashenden’s guests, might be considered tolerable or even charming in the abstract, but they would not expect to confront the physical article as they descended from their town coaches. Whatever her private sympathies, Octavia was obliged for now to ingratiate herself in such circles, and doing so required that she maintain certain appearances.

  It required, too, that she keep up cordial relations with people of influence, even those who shared none of her convictions. She counted some of these as friends, after a fashion, and seldom wanted for company on occasions of this kind. Indeed, she had hardly been announced when Charles Elphinstone, the Marquess of Hartington, broke off a conversation to greet her, relieving the other party of two bumpers of champagne. ‘You toddle back for more, Findlay,’ he said. ‘You will profit from the exercise, goodness knows, and poor Miss Hillingdon looks quite parched.’

  He kissed her lightly on each cheek. ‘Wavy, my darling,’ he said, ‘how captivating you look, though you are quite blue from the cold. Surely you haven’t been careening about on that preposterous bicycle of yours on a night like this? One might as well be in Nova Scotia, or some such accursed place. Christ, how I loathe the cold.’

  ‘Hello, Elf,’ she said, accepting a glass. In her articles, he was Lord Hartington or, on great occasions, The Most Honourable the Marquess of Hartington. Among friends, at his own insistence, he was simply Elf. ‘Are you suffering terribly? You don’t look it, you know. You’re positively tanned.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Elf raised his glass to a passing acquaintance, mouthing something of mischievous significance. ‘Oh, yes. I spent most of last October in Paris, where I was supposed to be learning about their innovations in policing. I’m on a select committee, you see. Only they were having the most glorious Indian summer, and the Bois de Boulogne was simply Arcadian. You can’t imagine the picnics. I’ve been back for months, though, and all that joie de vivre is steadily leaching away. I’m positively ravenous, too, which doesn’t help. I do resent balls that start late. One never has time to dine acceptably, and one is offered nothing but trifles. Legs of honeyed pullet, if you can credit that. What good is a leg of honeyed pullet to anyone but a sickly child?’

  ‘Goodness, how you have suffered,’ said Octavia. ‘Still, it’s a relief to learn that you do have some public function. Speaking of which, I hope you did the right thing in the vote this evening. I couldn’t pick you out from where I was sitting.’

  Elf downed his champagne with a pained expression. ‘Good Lord, was there a vote? What on, old thing? I do rather avoid the place when I can. The House of Commons has all but declawed us now, and the tail is very much wagging the dog, though I’m afraid that’s a horribly muddled metaphor. At any rate, sic transit and what have you. But what on earth were you doing there, Wavy? Furthering one of your causes, I suppose?’

  ‘I was forming an impression of this evening’s guest of honour. That was my intention, at least, though he now seems more of a puzzle than ever. He didn’t seem much concerned with the Working Conditions Bill, beyond his own interests. It all seemed rather peculiar.’

  ‘Yes, well, he’s a peculiar chap, Strythe, yet he can’t seem to put a foot wrong. Fancies himself as Home Secretary, I’m told, when we finally dislodge these Liberals, though quite why anyone would covet that dismal office passeth all understanding. You must tell me when these causes of yours are getting an airing, so that I can make a point of being in attendance. But enough of all that, darling. Have you met Jemima Beausang? You really must. She was staying with the Lyndsays, you know, when Sir Clive came down to breakfast in his natural splendour.’

  ‘You don’t mean that he was naked?’

  ‘Utterly and gloriously so. He sank two hundred thousand into a hole in the ground in Minas Gerais, and what does he have to show for it? Not enough gold to fill a tooth. It’s taken rather a toll on the poor chap’s state of mind. Terribly sad, really, but marvellous fun all the same. No one dared say a word, of course. I mean, what could one say? He’d finished his kippers and got through most of The Times when the nature of the thing appeared to dawn on him. You can’t print a word of that, of course, but I’m sure Jemmy has all sorts of other morceaux.’

  Octavia followed Elf to an adjoining room, where various intimates of his had gathered, using the shelter of an immense potted palm to defame their fellow guests in comparative safety.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Mrs Beausang when Octavia had been introduced. ‘So, this is the Miss Hillingdon you’re forever eulogising. One sees why, of course. Look at her here among us, like an orchid in a bog. But she’s much too wholesome for you, dearest. You’ll have to give up all your vices, starting with that repugnant tobacco of yours.’

  ‘What, these?’ Elf held up his cigarette. ‘They’re from Paris, you know, where I rather acquired a taste for them. The aroma is agreeable, don’t you think? They put in sandalwood, or some such thing.’

  ‘Agreeable? It’s perfectly detestable. Like a fire in a eucalyptus grove. But you’ve reminded me to ask. What on earth were you up to in Paris? The stories I’ve been hearing are very odd indeed.’

  ‘Oh, it was all rather dull,’ Elf replied. ‘Official business, mostly, to do with policing methods. I’ve just been telling Wavy.’

  ‘Well, I heard –’ Jemima laid an accusing finger on his lapel, ‘– that you’d been keeping some rather colourful company there, and that you were seen at the salon of that frightful Madame Blavatsky.’

  ‘What perfect nonsense,’ said Elf. He had been distracted by someone entering the room, or wished to give that impression. ‘Madame Blavatsky is dead, for one thing.’

  ‘Yes, well.’ Jemima gestured carelessly, almost spilling her champagne. ‘I’m misremembering the particulars, perhaps, but it was someone of that sort. A spiritualist, or whatever they call themselves now. Oh, don’t say it isn’t true, Elf. I so enjoyed imagining it all.’

  ‘Really, Elf?’ Octavia said. ‘That doesn’t sound at all like you.’

  ‘Good Lord, no. We were entertained by the comtesse of something at one point, but she doesn’t keep a salon, unless you count her dachshunds. A very ancient creature, and splendidly mad, but hardly an exponent of the occult. I’m afraid you’ve been toyed with, Jemmy.’

  ‘Yes, but it would explain so much,’ Jemima persisted. ‘Like your youthful appearance, for instance. You haven’t aged a day in fifteen years, and here I am, a perfect hag at thirty-seven.’

  ‘Moderate habits, my darling.’ Elf made a theatrical gesture. ‘A life of purity and self-denial.’

  He looked away again, and this time Octavia saw the man who had drawn his attention. He might have been invisibly ordinary in other surroundings, but here he was made conspicuous by his plain brown suit. He stood apart from the crowds, silently turning away the waiters who approached him, and his demeanour was both purposeful and curiously at ease. He met Elf’s gaze with a slight inclination of his head, but otherwise made no overt gesture.

  ‘Do you know that gentleman?’ Octavia said. ‘He seems to know you.’

  ‘Hmm? Oh, vaguely. A Whitehall functionary of some kind. I can’t think what he’s doing here.’

  ‘Perhaps he knows where Lord Strythe is,’ Jemima said. ‘No one else seems to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Octavia said. ‘Isn’t he here?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say? He’s been held up or called away, or goodness knows what. Lady Ashenden is wretched with embarrassment.’

  ‘How awful for her,’ Octavia said. ‘Called away by what, do you know? Something at Westminster?’

  ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention, dearest. Lord Strythe is so unfailingly dull, you see. One never hears of his doing anything. And then that young pianist passed by, and I was quite distracted. What is his name, Kitty, the Austrian gentleman with the good legs?
Is it Klemser or Klein?’

  But Octavia was no longer listening. Taking hold of his cuff, she drew Elf aside. ‘We have to find out what’s happened. Can you help, do you think? I’d do it myself, but you have better connections with Lady Ashenden’s set.’ He glanced over his shoulder again, but the man in brown had been obscured for a moment by an animated cluster of guests. Rumours of Strythe’s absence had no doubt begun to circulate, and those who might know more were being discreetly sought out. ‘Elf, are you listening? I’m sorry to impose, but it’s rather important.’

  ‘Hmm? I’m sorry, darling, what’s important? Not the ball, surely?’

  ‘The ball, yes. It will be talked about, you know, if the guest of honour fails to appear. People will want to know why. That is what I do, you know, and in this case I really do want to discover the truth. Something has happened, clearly, and it must be something out of the ordinary. A man like Strythe wouldn’t forgo all this adulation over a broken carriage wheel. Something has happened, Elf, and I mean to find out what.’

  He considered this for a moment. ‘Perhaps you’re right, darling, though I fear you’ll be disappointed. Strythe is much duller than you might suppose. Still, I shall do all I can. You yourself must remain in the offing, though, so that no one suspects I’m doing your bidding. Her Ladyship is no great friend to the fourth estate, as you may have heard. She was very much aggrieved by her father’s obituary, which slighted his Governorship of Ceylon and, what was worse, understated the size of his estate. It sounds ludicrous, I know, but lesser grudges have propped up centuries of strife. Look, they’re serving ices in the blue drawing room. Wait for me there, won’t you? I shan’t be long, I promise.’

  Octavia watched as he slipped away into the crowd, but did not see him leave the room. He had a gift for stealth, she had often noticed, and seemed at times to appear and disappear at will. In the blue room, she stationed herself with some reluctance on a sofa, but abandoned it again a moment later. She paced the fringes of the room, refusing the sorbets she was repeatedly offered. She watched the clock. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen.