‘Only if you’re having one.’
‘I am.’ I flicked the kettle on. ‘Rory,’ I said, turning to him, ‘let’s get you cleaned up.’ As I took a cloth to his chocolatey mouth, the Sewer Rat didn’t move, just stood and surveyed both of us with his unwavering stare.
‘Star, can I watch Superman?’
‘Is he allowed to watch a film?’ I asked the Sewer Rat.
‘Why not? I’ll come and switch it on for you, Rory.’
By the time the Sewer Rat returned, the tea was brewing in a large earthenware pot on the table.
‘Bloody freezing in that drawing room. I’ve lit a fire. Thanks for the tea,’ he said, sitting down, still in his Barbour. ‘I presume Orlando is taking his nap. My brother is a creature of habit.’
I saw a glimmer of an affectionate smile cross his features, but it was gone before it reached its full potential.
‘Yes.’
‘As a matter of fact, it wasn’t Orlando I’ve come here to see, it’s you,’ he continued. ‘Firstly, to offer my thanks for being here this weekend. It’s saved me from playing babysitter when I’ve had the shoot on the land.’
‘I’m sure Orlando could have managed equally well without me.’
‘Marguerite would never have allowed it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Hasn’t he told you? Besides being asthmatic, Orlando has severe epilepsy. Has done ever since he was a teenager. It’s more or less under control these days, but Marguerite was nervous that he might fit, as Rory can’t make himself understood by phone. He’s learning to text, of course, but as there’s zero signal here at High Weald, that’s not an awful lot of use.’
‘I didn’t know.’ I stood up and walked to the range to check on the brownies and mask my shock.
‘Then that’s very good news, as it means Orlando’s being a good boy and taking his medicine as he should. While you’re working alongside him, I feel it’s important that you know, just in case. Orlando is embarrassed about it. The bottom line is, though, if he does fit, without immediate medical attention, he could die. We nearly lost him a couple of times when he was younger. And the other thing is . . .’
He paused and I held my breath as I waited for him to continue.
‘I wanted to apologise for being less than polite to you when you were last here. I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment, one way or another.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘No, it isn’t. But as I’m sure you’ve already gleaned, I’m not a very nice person.’
Of all the self-absorbed, self-pitying and generally selfish excuses I’d heard over the course of my life, this one took the biscuit. I felt anger fill me, as if I was absorbing heat from the range.
‘Anyway, I brought you this. It’s my shortened transcription of Flora MacNichol’s journals, written by her between the ages of ten and twenty.’
‘Right. Thanks,’ I eventually managed to say to the brownies on the range in front of me.
‘Well, I’ll leave you in peace.’ I heard his footsteps cross the kitchen towards the door. Then a pause. ‘Just one more question for you . . .’
‘What?’
‘Did you bring the animal figurine with you? I’d like to see it.’
I knew it was childish, but my irritation at his infuriating manner got the better of me. ‘I’m . . . not sure. I’ll have a look,’ I replied.
‘Okay. I’ll be back tomorrow. By the way, our Sunday lunch is in the lobby. Bye now.’
Once I had recovered and drunk two glasses of water straight down to quell the burning heat from the anger I felt at my unwanted guest, I ignored the pile of pages set neatly on the table and looked into the lobby. There I found a brace of pheasants alongside a box of assorted fresh fruit and vegetables.
I’m ashamed to admit that the largest pheasant took the brunt of my wrath as I plucked its feathers viciously, gutted it, and chopped off its head, feet and wings. Once that was done, I sat down at the table exhausted, wondering why a person who meant absolutely nothing to me could rouse the depth of anger and frustration I felt.
I fingered the manuscript in front of me, the very fact that his hands had touched the pages making me shudder. But here it was, a possible clue to the past I had been searching for. And whatever I felt for its transcriber, a far higher cause had led me to High Weald.
I found a plate and placed three brownies upon it, clamping the manuscript under my other arm. Then I went in search of Rory, whom I found glued to the television screen, watching Christopher Reeve zooming through the sky.
I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention and indicated the plate of brownies.
‘Thank you!’
I watched him help himself before turning his attention back to his film. And seeing that he was happily occupied, I stoked the fire then I sat down in the deep armchair next to the hearth. Putting the manuscript on my knee, I began to read.
Flora
Esthwaite Hall, The Lake District
April 1909
9
Flora Rose MacNichol ran full pelt across the grass, the hem of her skirt soaking up the early morning dampness like a sheet of fresh blotting paper. The mellow dawn light glinted on the lake and set the icy fronds – remnants of a late frost – a-glitter.
I can get there in time, she told herself as she neared the lake and veered right, her long-suffering black-button boots dancing lightly across the familiar hillocks of hard Lakeland earth, which refused stubbornly to pretend it was a smooth lawn and paid no heed to the constant ministrations of the gardener.
Just in time, Flora arrived at the boulder that sat at the water’s edge. No one knew how it had come to be there, or for that matter why; it was simply a lonely orphan separated from its plentiful brothers and sisters that populated the surrounding screes and valleys. Looking rather like an enormous apple that someone had once taken a bite out of, it had provided a convenient resting place for generations of MacNichol behinds, as they witnessed the spectacle of the sun rising behind the mountains on the other side of the lake.
Just as she sat down, the first rays of sunlight lit up the watery blue sky. A lark flew in perfect synchronicity with its reflection on the lake beneath – a silver silhouette of itself. Flora sighed in pleasure and sniffed the air. Finally, spring had arrived.
Irritated with herself for being in such a hurry that she had forgotten to bring her sketchpad and tin of watercolours with her to capture the moment, she watched the sun break free from its tethers on the horizon and shine a light on the snow-capped peaks, bathing the valley beneath in soft gold light. Then she stood up, realising she had forgotten her shawl too, and that her teeth were chattering in the bitter morning air. Tiny burning sensations began to prickle the delicate skin of her face, like barbs shot by a heavenly bow. She looked upwards and realised it had begun to snow.
‘Spring indeed.’ Flora chuckled as she turned to walk back up the hill towards the Hall, knowing she still had to change her wet skirts and sodden boots before making an appearance at the breakfast table. This past winter had seemed longer than any other, and she could only hope that the raw winds that blew the snow at a cruel angle would soon be just a memory. And as humans, animals and nature came out of hibernation, so too would her universe come alive and fill with the vibrancy and colour she’d longed for.
During the endless months of short, dark days, she’d sat to catch what light there was at one of the windows in her bedroom and used charcoal to sketch the view, feeling that if she were to paint it, it would only be in black and white anyway. And, just like the result of the recent photographic session Mama had insisted on for her and her younger sister, Aurelia, it would only result in a dull facsimile of the real thing.
Aurelia . . . beautiful, golden Aurelia . . . Her sister reminded her of a porcelain doll she’d once been given for Christmas; her wide blue eyes rimmed by coal-dark lashes, set in her perfect face.
‘Peaches and cream beside gruel,’ Flora muttered, p
leased with her apt description of their opposing looks. She thought back to the morning of the photographic session, when the two of them had dressed together in her bedroom, putting on their best gowns. Regarding their reflections in the gilt mirror, Flora noticed how everything about Aurelia had soft, rounded contours, whereas Flora’s own face and body seemed sharp and chiselled in comparison. Her sister was inherently feminine, from her tiny feet to her delicate fingers, and she radiated gentleness. Despite eating porridge laced with cream, Flora could never seem to achieve the heavenly curves of Aurelia and their mother. When she had expressed that thought, Aurelia had given her a gentle poke in the side with her finger.
‘Dear Flora, how often must I tell you that you are beautiful?’
‘I can see myself quite clearly in the mirror. My only redeeming feature is my eyes, and they certainly aren’t enough to turn any heads.’
‘They’re like sapphire beacons, shining in the night sky,’ Aurelia had said and given her sister a warm embrace.
Despite Aurelia’s kindness, it was hard not to feel she didn’t belong. Her father had the red-gold hair and pale skin of his Scottish forebears and her sister had inherited her mother’s cool blonde beauty. And then there was Flora, with what her father rather cruelly called a ‘Germanic’ nose, sallow skin and thick dark hair, which completely refused to stay in a neat chignon.
She paused as she heard the faint call of a cuckoo from far away in the oak trees to the west of the lake, and allowed herself a wry smile. A cuckoo in the nest. That’s me.
Treading back lightly over the tufts of coarse grass, Flora approached the worn stone steps that led up to the terrace. Its heavy grave-like slabs were covered with a winter’s worth of moss and leaves. The house rose above her, its many windows glinting in the pale morning light. Andrew MacNichol, her great-great-grandfather, had built Esthwaite Hall one hundred and fifty years ago, not to be a thing of beauty but to shield its occupants from the cruel Lakeland winters, its sturdy walls fashioned from rough shale rock quarried from the nearby mountains. It was an austere dark grey building, the roofs pitched low and defensively, their edges sharp and forbidding. The house loomed above Esthwaite Water, staunch and immovable amid the wild landscape.
Skirting round the house, Flora entered through the back door to the kitchen where the delivery boy had already deposited the week’s groceries. Inside, Mrs Hillbeck, the cook, and Tilly, the kitchen maid, were already preparing breakfast.
‘Morning, Miss Flora. I s’pose them boots of yours are soaked through again?’ Mrs Hillbeck said, eyeing her as she unlaced them.
‘Yes. Could you put them to dry on the range?’
‘If you don’t mind them smelling of your father’s breakfast kipper,’ the cook replied, as she chopped thick pieces of black pudding into a frying pan.
‘Thank you,’ Flora said, handing the boots to her. ‘I’ll come and collect them later.’
‘I’d be asking your mother for a new pair if I were you, Miss Flora. These have seen better days. The soles’ve worn right through,’ Mrs Hillbeck clucked as she took the boots by the laces and hung them to dry.
Flora left the kitchen, thinking that it would indeed be a wonderful thing to have some new boots, but knowing she couldn’t ask. As she made her way along the dark corridor, a strong smell of mildew assailed her nostrils. Just as there was no money for new boots, neither was there any to repair the damp that had started to seep through the thick stone walls, ruining the one-hundred-year-old chinoiserie wallpaper – a riot of flowers and butterflies – that adorned the walls of Mama’s bedroom.
The MacNichols were ‘impoverished gentry’, a phrase Flora had heard whispered by one customer to another as she waited to be served at the village shop in Near Sawrey. Which was why last year she hadn’t been surprised when her mother, Rose, had told her there were simply no funds available for Flora to make a London debut and be presented at court.
‘You do understand, don’t you, Flora, dear?’
‘Of course I do, Mama.’
Flora had been secretly thrilled that she would be spared the rigmarole of being primped, perfumed and dressed up like a doll for the duration of the Season. She shuddered at the thought of being surrounded by silly giggling girls who didn’t understand that the whole event was no better than a cattle auction, where the prettiest heifer went to the highest male bidder. Which, in human terms, meant netting the son of a duke who would inherit a large estate on his father’s death.
And she abhorred London. On the rare occasions she had accompanied her mother to visit Aunt Charlotte in her grand white house in Mayfair, Flora had felt overwhelmed by the crowded streets, and the continual clip-clopping of the horses’ hooves, mingling with the roaring sound of the motor cars that were becoming so popular, even up here in her beloved Lake District.
However, Flora was equally aware that since she hadn’t been presented with the other young ladies, the chances of her finding a suitable husband of rank and status were heavily diminished.
‘I may well die an old maid,’ she whispered to herself, as she mounted the wide mahogany staircase and hurried along the landing to her bedroom before Mama could spot her soaking skirts. ‘And neither do I care,’ she said defiantly as she entered the room and saw numerous pairs of tiny eyes studying her from inside their cages.
‘I’ll always have you, won’t I?’ she said, her voice softening as she walked over to the first cage and released the catch to allow Posy, a large grey rabbit, to jump into her arms. She had rescued Posy from the mouth of one of her father’s gun dogs and she was the longest surviving member of her menagerie. Flora cradled Posy on her knee and stroked the long, silky ears – the left one missing its tip from when she’d dragged it out of the dog’s jaws. Leaving Posy to hop around the floor, she greeted her other roommates, who included two dormice, a toad named Horace who lived in a makeshift vivarium, and Albert, a sleek white rat, inherited from the groom’s son and named after the late Queen Victoria’s husband. Her mother had been horrified.
‘Really, Flora, I have no wish to deny you your passion for animals, but it comes to something when you are knowingly sharing a bedroom with vermin!’
Rose had not told Alistair, her husband, about Albert, although she had drawn a line at a grass snake Flora had found in the woods. Her shrieks when she had seen it had reverberated around the drawing room and Sarah, the one remaining upstairs maid, had to run to fetch the smelling salts.
‘Givin’ us all a fright with that creature!’ Sarah had scolded Flora, her thick Lakeland dialect more pronounced under duress. The grass snake had duly been returned to its natural habitat.
Undressing down to her bloomers, Flora fed her animals their various breakfasts, pouring small piles of hazelnuts and sunflower seeds into bowls, along with hay and cabbage leaves. For Horace, the toad, she had a handful of the mealworms her father used for fishing bait. Re-dressing hurriedly in a fresh poplin blouse buttoned up to her neck, and a blue floral skirt, she surveyed herself in the mirror. Like the rest of her and her sister’s everyday wardrobe, the fabric was somewhat faded and the style was hardly the latest in haute couture, but the garments, at their mother’s insistence, were at least well cut.
Adjusting the tight collar, Flora regarded her features. ‘I remind myself of Sybil,’ she muttered, remembering the stick insect she’d kept for almost a year in her vivarium before Horace had moved in, and how overjoyed she’d been at the realisation that darling Sybil had given birth. She hadn’t noticed the offspring until they were almost fully grown, so well had they blended in with their environment.
Ghost creatures . . . Just like her: good at being invisible.
She tucked a stray strand of her hair back into the coil at the nape of her neck, replaced Posy inside her hutch, and went to join her family for breakfast.
When she entered the gloomy dining room, her parents and her sister were already seated at the worn mahogany table. As she joined them, a distinct tut of displeasu
re emanated from behind The Times newspaper.
‘Good morning, Flora. I’m glad you finally thought to join us.’ Her mother’s gaze immediately fell to Flora’s feet, surveying their stockinged state. An arched eyebrow was raised, but nothing was said. ‘Did you sleep well, my dear?’
‘Yes, thank you, Mama,’ Flora answered as Sarah put a bowl of porridge in front of her with a cheerful smile. Sarah had taken care of the sisters since they were babies, and knew that the smell of cooked meat was enough to turn Flora’s stomach. Rather than the customary breakfast of kippers, black pudding and sausage that the rest of the family ate, it had finally been agreed after years of Flora refusing point-blank to eat any of it that she should have porridge instead. She vowed that when she ran her own household, no dead animals would ever be served on a plate.
‘Aurelia, dear, you look pale.’ Rose’s eyes flicked over her daughter in concern. ‘Are you feeling quite well?’
‘I am well, thank you,’ Aurelia answered, before raising a small forkful of sausage to her mouth and biting into it daintily.
‘You must rest as much as possible in the next few weeks. The Season can be very tiring and you are only just recovered from that nasty winter chill.’
‘Yes, Mama,’ Aurelia replied, ever patient of her mother’s fussing.
‘I think Aurelia looks positively glowing,’ announced Flora, and her sister smiled gratefully at her.
Always sickly as a baby, Aurelia was treated by her parents and the entire household staff like the doll she so resembled. And now, especially, no one could afford for her to be sick. Their mother had announced a month ago that Aurelia would make her London debut and be presented at court to the King and Queen. It was hoped that she would catch the eye of a suitably wealthy man from a good family like their own. That was, if her sweet temper and beauty could outweigh the dearth of family money.
Even though Flora had no wish to ‘come out’ herself, she did feel slighted at the fact that Aunt Charlotte, her mother’s sister, who was covering the cost of Aurelia’s debut, had not thought to do the same for her eldest niece.
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