The Glass House

by Beatrice Colin

  “I wish tradesmen would use the back entrance,” she said and returned to the ledger.

  After she had finished the accounts, Antonia was hoping to get out into the garden for an hour or two and had left her painting materials packed and ready next to the front door. There was a particularly attractive patch of lily of the valley that she had her eye on up the glen. Housekeeping took up more of her time than she liked, but what was the alternative? They couldn’t justify the expense of a housekeeper when she was perfectly capable of doing it herself.

  The rhododendrons had been glorious this year, the colors more intense than any pigment or paint. Her father’s collection included dwarf specimens from high altitudes in China and Nepal and the much larger plants from lower down, their great shiny leaves almost a foot long and their bark a rich rusty red. Only two other people, the gardeners, saw their annual display, which was a shame. Malcolm, her husband, wasn’t interested. The great outdoors, he always said, gave him nothing but chilblains.

  Someone was running down the servants’ stairs at full tilt. Antonia looked up. Cook lifted the kettle off the range. Dora, the housemaid, tried to catch her breath before she spoke.

  “Didn’t know where you were—” she said. “A taxicab all the way from the city—”

  A large black car had indeed parked in front of Balmarra’s main door. The driver seemed to be unloading luggage from the trunk. Three brown leather suitcases had already been placed in the porch. Fastening the button on her cardigan, Antonia stood as tall as she could in her boots and opened the front door.

  “Can I help you?” she said.

  “It’s six shillings all in,” the taxi driver replied, slamming shut the boot. He glanced up and saw the look on her face. “At the railway station in Glasgow I gave an estimation of the fare, and the lady agreed.”

  She was about to ask which lady he was referring to when the door of the taxi swung open to reveal a woman of about thirty. For a moment she was silent, taking Antonia in, so it seemed, from the bottom up. And then, refusing the taxi driver’s hand, she climbed down.

  “George described you perfectly,” she said, adjusting her hat. “You must be his sister, Antonia.”

  “You know my brother, George?”

  “I do indeed. And this”—she turned and held out her arms to a small girl Antonia hadn’t noticed, rubbing her eyes in the back seat—“is our daughter, Kitty.”

  Antonia suddenly needed a chair. But first she needed her purse. Of course she did not have money for the fare and had to ask Dora to ask Cook to raid the housekeeping fund. Before the maid arrived back, however, the woman had paid.

  “Here,” she said, handing the driver a ten-shilling note as if it were nothing. “And here,” she went on, handing over an extra half crown. “Thank you.”

  “We should have taken care of that,” said Antonia, aghast at such a conspicuous display of generosity.

  “It’s done,” she said.

  Dressed in a dark-brown velvet coat, trimmed at the collar and wrist with rabbit fur, the woman who had just arrived was both elegant and soft spoken. Her waist was small, and the hem of skirt just skimmed her ankles, making Antonia’s floor-length day dress seem woefully dated. Although the play of wind from the water lifted a few strands of hair from underneath her hat, she did not seem to notice. Nor did she acknowledge the taxicab, which, with a toot of the horn, turned and headed back along the driveway. Instead the woman pulled off her gloves, took a step forward, and held out a slim, honey-colored hand.

  “I’m Cicely,” she said.

  “Well, this is most unexpected,” Antonia replied as she shook it. “And you’ve come all the way from—?”

  “India, yes. I was going to write. But—”

  Antonia waited for an explanation. Was her brother sick? Had something awful happened to him? She braced herself for bad news and realized that this was the moment she had been expecting for years: Was it an accident, an illness, a drowning, an altercation? She imagined limbs lost, temperatures soaring, a body white and lifeless on mountain scree. She hoped George hadn’t suffered, she hoped the end was swift and dignified and felt the rise of tears in anticipation.

  “But?” she prompted.

  “But here we are,” her brother’s wife replied. There was no bad news. George, she deduced, was still very much alive. A wave of relief was quickly followed by a wave of panic. Judging by the suitcases, they had come to stay. Where would they sleep, was there enough food, what would they think of the house, of the weather, of her, standing on the doorstep in a threadbare cardigan?

  The woman inhaled deeply and stretched in a single movement.

  “I am stiff as a board of wood,” she said. “I thought we’d never arrive! I must say you live so far from anywhere.”

  “Anywhere?” said Antonia.

  “Paris, New York, London—” The woman laughed.

  “Dunoon is rather close,” Antonia said.

  There was a small, slightly awkward pause. Cicely’s eyes flicked to the open door behind her.

  “Goodness,” said Antonia. “What am I doing, letting you stand out here on the doorstep? Please do come in.”

  Visitors were uncommon. Before Edward Pick’s death, the minister had occasionally dropped in for a glass of port and an argument. Other than him, the only people were the grocer, the postman, the roofer, the plumber, and the coal man, and they usually used the back entrance. Although it was not untidy, the house was not prepared for eyes other than the family’s own. Antonia was aware too that although she barely noticed it anymore, on damp summer days like this one the house had a particular smell that was not entirely pleasant—of wet wool, dry rot, and burnt toast. A distant toilet flushed, and above their heads a pipe belched and groaned.

  “I’m afraid you caught us on the hop. We weren’t expecting guests.”

  “I hope it’s not an inconvenience?” replied her brother’s wife. “If you’d rather we took accommodation elsewhere—”

  “Absolutely not! This is an”—she searched for the appropriate phrase—“unexpected pleasure. And I’m sure my husband, Malcolm, will be thrilled to meet you both. He’s heard so much about my younger brother, but of course they’ve never actually met.”

  What would Malcolm say? He made no secret of the fact that he disapproved of George. Although he hadn’t ever said anything negative, it was obvious in the way he referred to him as “that” brother of hers, as if she had another, better one.

  “Why am I not surprised?” she would ask rhetorically when he came home.

  “Why indeed?” he would mutter to himself.

  All the fires were quickly lit in honor of the guests’ arrival. The clouds cleared, and the late afternoon light that fell through the windows—the glass still giving off the faintest whiff of the vinegar used to polish it some time ago—was golden. And even though most of the rooms were still so chilly that you could almost see your breath, Antonia hoped that the flicker of cool yellow flame and the cast of sun across the oak floors would give the impression of warmth if not the physical reality.

  While their suitcases were being taken to the guest rooms on the top floor and the beds were being made up, her brother’s wife and daughter stood at the drawing-room window and stared out. The girl looked about eight, Antonia guessed, but had the composure of a slightly older child. She wore a blue woolen coat buttoned up to the neck, a straw hat, and a pair of white leather ankle boots. Her face was striking, with sepia skin and pale-green eyes, a face that would probably one day turn heads. And yet for all her poise, there was a restlessness about her: She was a fiddler, a foot tapper, a nail-biter. Strands of her hair fell in corkscrews around her face. The toes of her boots were scuffed, and she had a small hole in one stocking. Did she long to escape, to play? To unbutton that coat and pull it off? She vividly remembered the twin constraints of etiquette and restrictive clothing. As she watched, the girl breathed on the window, lifted her finger, and was about to write on the misted glass whe
n her mother preempted her, taking her hand and holding it still.

  “Excellent view,” Cicely said.

  “When it’s not raining, I suppose,” Antonia replied.

  “What’s that down there?” she asked. “Is it an island?”

  “That’s Karrasay,” Antonia said. “It’s not really an island. You can reach it by a narrow causeway. I take it George told you all about Balmarra?”

  “No,” she replied, “not really.”

  Antonia was momentarily taken aback.

  “The gardens look established,” Cicely offered.

  “As well as the formal one,” Antonia explained, “we have about thirty hectares, and I’m sure you saw the glass house on the way here.”

  “We did,” said Cicely. “Impossible to miss, really.”

  Antonia glanced sidelong at her brother’s wife and wondered if she was being facetious. Her words expressed one opinion, her face another.

  “I suppose you have plans,” Cicely said.

  Antonia blinked. Did she mean the gardens? She suddenly felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. The upkeep, the expense, the constant battle to keep the weeds from taking over the flower beds. She hadn’t got as far as planning.

  “Well, of course,” she replied. “My father was a collector of exotic species, but he wasn’t much of a record keeper. It’s all been a little let go in recent years for understandable reasons. But I intend to take it in hand and catalog everything properly.”

  What was she saying? She no idea how to do such a thing. If she painted a flower, shrub, or tree she didn’t recognize, she would collect a specimen and tell herself she would look it up later. But something always came up, and she rarely did.

  “Maybe I could take your coats?” she suggested.

  A bluster of wind rattled the glazing. The clouds had closed over again, and it began to rain. The outlook from the drawing-room window was now undeniably bleak, or dreich as they said in Scots.

  “I think we’ll keep them on for the moment.” Cicely frowned through the glass as the rain grew heavier. Dora came in with a couple of oil lamps even though it was still afternoon. It may have been preferable to sitting in the half dark, but once lit up from the inside, Balmarra sometimes felt like the last house left in the world.

  “There were floods in May,” Antonia began. “The rain brought down all the blossom. It was almost biblical.”

  Her brother’s wife didn’t seem to be listening. She was regarding her daughter with an expression on her face that Antonia couldn’t read. Cicely placed her hand on Kitty’s shoulder for a fraction of a second before the girl shrugged her off.

  “Luckily,” Antonia said in a slightly louder voice. It worked. Cicely turned in her direction.

  “Luckily we have roses all year round,” Antonia continued. “From the glass house. They’ll keep us going for decades to come.”

  There was a moment of what looked like complete incomprehension. Cicely Pick swallowed.

  “How splendid,” she replied, the corners of her mouth twitching a little before they formed a smile.

  Tea was served, along with a Dundee cake and fish paste sandwiches. They took their places at the dining room table. Kitty ate three slices of cake in silence while her mother described their journey: leaving Bombay at sunset, passing through the Suez Canal, arriving at the island of Malta, the antics of the monkeys in Gibraltar. Almost as suddenly as she had started, however, she stopped.

  “I’m afraid I’m not at my best,” she admitted, then drained her teacup. “I have the stamina of a mule, George likes to say, but cannot doze when the world is moving beneath me, not even in the ladies’ carriage.”

  Antonia noticed the blue bruise of lack of sleep beneath each eye. But she was determined not to take the hint. She needed to know exactly why this woman and her daughter were there.

  “How is my brother?” she asked.

  “You know George.” Cicely placed her cup back in its saucer.

  “Another expedition?”

  “Northern Burma,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “Or somewhere around there.”

  “Rong Chu,” said the girl.

  It was the first thing she had said since they arrived. Antonia suddenly had a horrible premonition that she didn’t speak English.

  “It’s a river,” the girl explained, to Antonia’s relief. “In the Lohit Valley.”

  “Wonderful,” Antonia said and forced a smile. “What’s he hunting now?”

  “The usual,” his wife replied. “Plants.”

  “Only the rare ones,” said the girl. Then for emphasis, it seemed, she brushed the remainder of her cake from the table to the floor. Ignore, Antonia told herself, and tried to banish the thought of the resident mice feasting on crumbs.

  “He was sorry he wasn’t able to be here for your father’s funeral,” Cicely Pick said. “He felt rather bad about it, actually.”

  “Couldn’t be helped, I suppose.”

  All Antonia had received over the years from George was the odd Christmas card, never in December, to show that he was still alive, postmarked in all manner of places from Mandalay to Calcutta. Before the funeral, a letter had been dispatched to India, care of the British consul in Bombay, informing him of the news. No acknowledgment had ever been received. And now to find out that not only had George known about their father’s death and not sent word, but that he had failed to pass on the news of his marriage and the birth of his progeny, was shocking.

  For a moment all three of them stared at the teapot.

  “You’ve come all the way from India?” Antonia offered.

  “From Darjeeling, yes,” she replied. “It’s in the mountains, the Himalayas, that is.”

  “Place of the Lightning Bolt,” said Antonia.

  “You know Darjeeling?” asked the girl.

  “Only its name. In Tibetan.”

  “You speak Tibetan?”

  “Oh, no,” she admitted. “I’d like to learn and travel to Tibet one day, or thereabouts. My geography needs a brushup. Maybe you could…?”

  The girl, however, had lost interest and was picking with a fingernail at the gold enamel that edged her side plate.

  “Darjeeling is in western Bengal,” Cicely explained. “Nepal is in the west, Bhutan in the northeast, and Bengal again in the south.”

  “And Tibet?”

  “The north.”

  It clearly was a stupid question. Where else could Tibet be but in the north?

  “Are your people in tea, Cicely?” she asked.

  “Everyone’s in tea. But my father initially worked for the railways. One of my grandfathers was in the military.”

  Antonia nodded. It was not only geography: She knew little about India or railways or tea or the military either, and was reluctant to continue the conversation in case she made even more of a fool of herself. But what were these people doing here without her brother? Why on earth hadn’t they written to tell her they were coming? Before she had formulated the right question, the woman yawned theatrically.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I hate to be rude, but I’m exhausted.”

  “Your rooms should be ready,” Antonia said brightly as she folded up her napkin and rose to her feet. “You must take a nap. Please come this way.”

  The guest suite, as it was officially known, consisted of two bedrooms connected by a door opposite the old nursery. They were on the right-hand side of the house, on the top floor, at the back. Once she had shown them the bathroom and the servant’s bell beside the fireplace, Antonia excused herself. But when the door closed she hovered around the upstairs hall, straightening the picture frames and polishing the glass with her sleeve. She hoped they wouldn’t be too cold; she hoped the beds weren’t damp. They hadn’t actually been slept in for a decade or more, not since her long-dead great-aunt had once-and-never-again stayed for Christmas.

  Now, through the closed door, she heard the girl laugh. Something softened within her. There hadn’t bee
n any children at Balmarra for a very long time. This was not something she had herself chosen, but there it was. She would be accommodating, understanding, sympathetic. Her brother’s wife and daughter had come from another continent, a place where not that long ago the natives had mutinied and slaughtered dozens of British women and children, a place where tigers roamed and tropical diseases were rampant. Also, it couldn’t be easy being married to a man like her brother. The reason for their unexpected visit couldn’t be merely social, could it? The journey must have taken weeks. And yet they didn’t appear to be staying for long: All they had brought with them were a few suitcases. They must be based elsewhere, with one of Cicely’s relatives perhaps? How nice to be remembered, Antonia told herself. Rather than return downstairs, delaying a little longer, she rearranged the glass-house roses in a vase on an occasional table. Finally, from the guest suite, there was a short, devastated sigh.

  Antonia knocked, then whispered: “Is anything wrong?”

  When there was no answer, she opened the door. Cicely was sitting on the bed, her hat off, an open package on her lap. In her hands was a metal tin filled with what looked like dead seedlings.

  “My goodness, you brought them all the way from India?” Antonia asked. “What were they?”

  “Orchids,” Cicely replied.

  “The seeds seem to have germinated,” Antonia said as she peered down at the package. “Then died. But really you didn’t need to bring us a gift.”

  “They weren’t for you,” Kitty replied sharply.

  Antonia blushed scarlet. Not that her brother’s wife noticed. She put the package on the bed and began to root through her handbag. Finally she pulled out a cigarette, held it to her nose, and sniffed. Only then did she look up and notice Antonia still standing by the door.

  “Smoke?” she asked.

  “Oh no,” said Antonia. “I don’t.”

  A few seconds passed. Cicely’s eyebrows raised and her lips opened just a little, a wordless but unmistakable prompt that she should go now.

  “Dinner is at seven,” Antonia said. “I meant to say.”

  “I think we’ll retire early. We’re both so very tired. Could we have ours on a tray?”