by Sophia Tobin
‘Hello.’
The handle of the carpet cleaner left her hand and landed on the floor as she turned. Christian Taylor stood on the top stair, the light behind him. Suddenly the sound of hammering from Bill and his mates filled the air.
Livy looked at the carpet cleaner. Christian hurried to it, and picked it up. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I said I might come by,’ he said.
‘But that was weeks ago. I thought you’d forgotten.’
He looked at the hat in his right hand: he was smarter today, wearing a single-breasted dark blue suit. ‘It’s been a fortnight, actually. I wasn’t sure I would come back again. Sometimes it’s best to let things lie. But I found I couldn’t.’
Livy stared at him wordlessly.
‘Mrs Holliday said I could come up. I said I liked the building, and she said you would show it to me.’ She still hadn’t taken the carpet cleaner from him, and he leaned it gingerly up against the wall. ‘But if you really want me to go, I will.’
‘Not at all.’ She turned away from him, pushing her hair behind her ears. ‘We can have a quick look around, if you really wish to. This is the Dining Hall. You’ll hardly see anything,’ she said. ‘The light is dull as ditchwater in here. We can’t waste the electricity.’
She did not hear him behind her, as she led him in: across a margin of sprung boards, on to the carpeted section. But she sensed his step behind her.
She was right: the vast room was dull in the half-light. Although one side had four large windows, decorated with coats of arms in stained glass, the presence of buildings across the narrow street outside – for the City street plan was still medieval in its dimensions – blocked the sunlight from entering. The palest dove-coloured light fell through the windows, was transformed, fluttered, and gone, absorbed by the colour and the density of the room.
Livy turned, and saw Christian gazing up at the ceiling. High above their heads, it was coffered, with elaborate neoclassical motifs executed in red, blue and gold leaf, glinting a dull orange in the light. The gold leaf revealed only the ghost of the details, a hint of what was there. Christian narrowed his eyes, trying to make them out.
‘Early Victorian,’ Livy said.
He glanced at her. ‘Yes. Classical motifs.’ He looked at the metal carcasses of the two central chandeliers, their lustres dismantled. The four corner chandeliers were intact, their glittering glass shrouded in makeshift sheeting. ‘They should be taken down, surely? And the windows boarded?’
‘I’ve said the same.’
He walked up to one wall and examined the cornicing, decorated in gold leaf, separating a section of green marble from a section of mustard-coloured marble. But Livy sensed that this interest only allowed him to concentrate his peripheral senses on the room as a whole. That even as he gazed at the details, he was containing his excitement at the whole of the room.
‘They must have had trouble getting all the marble here,’ she said.
‘It’s not all marble.’
‘I’m sorry?’
He smiled. ‘It’s not all marble. Some of it is. But these sections are scagliola. Painted to appear as marble.’
She came close to him, inspected it in the half-light. ‘It looks real.’
‘You will hardly be able to tell – not with craftsmen of this calibre. But I promise you, it’s an imitation. Not everything here is what it seems.’
She looked at him. She sensed her importance to him: absorbed it wordlessly from his look. She felt suddenly that she did not want to look at him for another moment, and turned away, her breath catching in her throat, close to panicking.
‘It’s all right.’ He was behind her. ‘Please, don’t be upset.’ He began to talk, and she had the feeling he was filling up the silence, allowing her to gather herself, raising his voice in the great room, following her across the carpeted floor at a safe distance. ‘This building is different from the architect’s others. Every building has its language, its vocabulary. But there is a departure between this room and the next – I’ve read about it – this room is neoclassical, the Committee Room is baroque, the Red Parlour is rococo. The ground plan may be neo-Renaissance, symmetrical, but up here – he’s doing the equivalent of mixing his metaphors. It seems – a little disordered. Rather strange.’
She had regained her voice. ‘You really do know a lot about this place.’
‘Less than I’d like to. Will you let me come back and sketch the rooms?’
‘It really isn’t my decision.’
‘Whose, then?’
‘Either the director, the ceremonial head of the Club, who is holed up in a country house somewhere. Or the manager, who runs things from day to day – he is in Sussex, at present. You could write to him there. Or you could ask the man who is staying here at the moment – he is a member of the committee, and I suppose he could authorize you. But, like the army, I don’t think he likes socialists.’ She tried for a smile.
He smiled in return, and it dissolved the worry on his face. ‘Perhaps I won’t mention it. What’s his name?’
‘Jonathan Whitewood.’
She saw his face change; she was not sure how. ‘Did you say Whitewood? Does he own a house called Redlands?’
‘Yes! Do you know him?’
‘Not really.’ He gave a dry smile. ‘Well, thank you – for letting me look. I’ve wanted for years to come here. To see these rooms.’ He looked around. ‘Henry Dale-Collingwood really threw everything at this place.’ He saw the questioning look on her face. ‘The architect. I’m sorry, I didn’t say – it’s him I’ve been thinking of, standing here. I almost feel as though he is standing beside me, pointing out the details: he was that kind of man, I think. He completed the building almost a hundred years ago: 1841.’
Livy thought of Charlotte and Ashton Kinsburg, and that they must have known him. ‘What kind of man was he?’
‘A well-connected, nineteenth-century gentleman architect,’ said Christian. ‘Not particularly well-known, now, but I’ve always rather liked him. He liked scale, and drama, but most importantly he had an eye for detail – an obsession with it, in fact. There is a small archive of his papers and drawings at RIBA, and I looked at them when I was a student. I got the sense he was rather an exacting man, not altogether easy. Incredibly hard on his craftsmen and builders, if they did not reach his high standards. And he wouldn’t have liked me at all, being a member of the lower orders – he spent his weekends at country houses, living it up with various patrons. I have a certain fondness for him, I don’t know why.’
‘I suppose you like his buildings more than him.’
‘I don’t know that I do really like them.’ He smiled. ‘They’re mostly quite conventional, apart from this one. Besides, I’m a little more modern now. I want to focus on the future, and that’s encouraged in the architect’s department.’
‘Why aren’t you there right now?’
‘Because I’ve been at St Paul’s all night and I wanted to see you.’
He was perfectly still; not fidgeting with his hat, not looking away from her. He looked straight into her eyes. Like Jonathan, his stare was direct: but his eyes were dark, and his gaze seemed freighted with emotion rather than cool assessment.
‘You should probably go.’
‘They’ll give me leeway just this once.’
Livy glanced at the empty minstrels’ gallery at the far end of the hall, its gold-leafed balustrade holding back the shadows beyond. She thought of Charlotte, and of the men who were just names to her. ‘I’m doing some research on the Club in the archive,’ she said. ‘There will be documents and minutes about the process of its design and execution. I could tell you about them, if you come back one afternoon. I’m sure Peggy is dying to give you tea.’
She saw the relief on his face. ‘I’d like that very much.’
‘I’ve grown fond of this place. I don’t remember it, before the war. I do
n’t remember what I thought of it. But now, it’s my home. I feel safe here.’
‘And yet you’ve applied to join the Land Army?’
She looked sharply at him.
‘Peggy told me,’ he said.
‘It’s my duty. Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘Fresh starts are overrated.’
‘And yet I seem to have been gifted one,’ she said. As she turned to walk away she saw Jonathan, standing in the doorway. He was smoking a cigarette.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ he said. ‘I came to tell you that I’ve moved Woman and Looking Glass. Do you need any assistance here?’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Mr Whitewood, may I introduce you to Mr Christian Taylor? Mr Taylor works for the London County Council, as . . .’ She glanced at Christian, floundering and blushing.
‘An assistant architect,’ said Christian, walking towards Jonathan, and holding out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
Whitewood did not advance, and only reluctantly, eventually, shook Christian’s hand. When Livy looked at Christian, she saw an unknowable expression on his face.
‘Mr Taylor knows a lot about the building,’ said Livy. ‘The architect was a Henry Dale-Collingwood.’
‘And this is one of his most famous creations,’ continued Christian.
‘My ancestor financed the building of this Club,’ said Jonathan. ‘He was involved deeply in its design, as far as I understand, along with a very involved committee.’
‘But Dale-Collingwood had such a strong personality,’ said Christian. ‘He’s written all over this place. Committee or no committee.’
There was a kind of challenge in the words. At length, Whitewood nodded in Christian’s direction, but spoke to Livy. ‘Lunch is almost ready, Miss Baker.’
‘Of course. Good day, Mr Taylor. If you wouldn’t mind seeing yourself out.’
As she walked away, she heard Christian clear his throat and say her name. And she could not help herself. She turned towards him instinctively.
‘I forgot to tell you,’ he said. ‘I meant to point it out. The infinity of mirrors in this room. Have you noticed it before? The mirrors on the facing walls are placed directly opposite each other, so when you look in them, the rooms seem to go on for ever. Look, Livy, won’t you? When you get a moment. And then ask Bill to wrap the mirrors, so they aren’t broken in the bombing.’
She nodded, and followed Whitewood from the room.
*
Christian waited for a few moments, then walked out, and watched Livy and Jonathan descend the stairs. Then he silently continued onwards, along the landing, to the north anteroom. To his right, there was the Committee Room, in the baroque style which he had read about; to his left, the Red Parlour. He stood on the threshold of it, and settled his hat back on his head as he looked at the bomb damage. It was as though some malign energy had entered the room and shredded it, peeling away plaster and gilding, leaving only wood and the stripped muscle and bone of the room. There were piles of plaster-whitened wood and gilding on the floor. One window was completely free of glass, its white drapes blowing in the breeze. Only the marble fireplace remained undamaged. Through a far door, he glimpsed a bombed-out room, its ceiling down.
It was ruined, he thought, as he was: and he thought again of Livy, as she had been. Over the last two weeks the same memory had stirred in him, unwanted, like an old injury making itself known in a cold winter: the line of her naked back in the moonlight, her eyes wide and open to him, drinking the sight of him in. And then he thought of her as she was now: anxious, desolate, watchful. Perhaps lost to him for ever. Her beauty sharpening as her flesh melted away. For they were both changed, irrevocably.
As he blinked his stinging eyes clean, he looked around the destroyed Red Parlour. He could make out enough of the decoration and its proportion to imagine what it must have been. And he was surprised to realize, with a slow-dawning knowledge, that it wasn’t just familiar because he had read about it. He had seen this room before.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1940
BASEMENT VAULTS, THE MIRRORMAKERS’ CLUB
Livy excused herself from coffee after lunch, leaving Peggy, Bill and Jonathan at the table. She wanted to find the Kinsburgs; to be alone with her task. Seated at the desk in the Document Room, she turned to the first box, labelled: ‘Club: building of’. It was an archive box of stiff buff-coloured card, its structure secured with heavy metal staples. It was discoloured, as though it had spent its life absorbing London’s smoke, and its years of neglect gave it a faintly reproachful air.
She opened the box. On the top was a paper folder, labelled ‘Invoices, 1839’. Sure enough, it contained a pile an inch thick of workmen’s bills: for plasterwork, carving, and all the allied trades required to create the building. Livy closed the folder, and lifted it out carefully. Beneath it, and on top of another folder, there was a small notebook, the smooth ivory-coloured leather of its cover showing signs of age and some decay. Livy picked it up and opened it.
Henry Dale-Collingwood. Architect and surveyor. The Mirrormakers’ Club. 1839.
She thought of Christian. She turned a page. There was a sketch of an acanthus leaf, made in pencil, alongside an ink drawing of a cornucopia. She turned another page, and frowned at similar drawings: almost the same, but not quite. Repetition with the smallest details changed. Just small designs, she thought. Material which would delight Christian, but which would mean nothing to Whitewood. She turned to the end of the notebook, and slipped a folded piece of paper out of the back. Unfolding it, she wondered who had last read its contents.
Gentlemen, I beg leave to submit to you some designs for the Red Parlour, to be executed in the richest style of finish . . . although a slight departure from what was originally discussed.
Livy turned back to the first page and began to read.
She assumed the scrawled note next to a column’s capital was by the architect. The scagliola to match the colour of blue supplied in my paper sample. To match it exactly. She frowned and turned the page. Dale-Collingwood had begun the draft of a letter there.
The colour of the scagliola does not match the sample. It does not answer. It must be remade and I will not countenance delay or argument. I did not wish it to be in imitation of verde antico: that was part of the old scheme, and this is new.
She frowned. Christian had been right: demanding was the word.
It was the same with the plasterers, it was the same with the flowers. The flowers must match exactly, must match my drawing, in every detail.
She wondered whether the letter had ever been sent: saw then lines, the writing less tidy, the ink fading at the end of each sentence.
It is the same in everything. Nothing can match it. Always I ask for it, always I put down what it must be.
Nothing can match it.
Livy sat back in her chair. She turned another page: saw drawings of a bunch of flowers, annotated for colour, gilding and type. Turned another page: a drawing of a chaise longue. No mention of the Kinsburgs, no shadows of other people: only the architect’s relentless attention to detail.
Then, she saw what at first sight was a doodle; swirls of ink. But as her eyes focused on it she saw that it was a cypher, two letters intertwined in a design.
She felt her heart give a little jump in her chest. It was the same feeling she had felt in that moment in the Stair Hall, kissing Jonathan, when a sudden brightness had lifted the room into colour. CK for Charlotte Kinsburg, she thought. But she could see no mention of the full name. She turned one page, then another, but there was no name. Initials were too small a clue to go on.
Instead there was a heading. Committee meeting, 22 September 1839. Beneath it, a list of items to be addressed.
Impatiently, she turned a chunk of pages, and another bill fell out. This one for a safe. The architect’s scrawl across it: more precautions! not just one lock. Livy closed the book.
She got up, turned the lights out, and w
ent out of the basement room and up the stairs. Crossed the Stair Hall, up the staircase, taking the left branch. Straight ahead, past the entrance to the Dining Hall on her right, and down a short passage into the Hide. The doorknob, polished brass, turned with a slight squeak.
The room that had been Miss Hardaker’s Hide was in darkness. The windows were covered with blackout material. Livy pulled a small corner back, and light fell across the desk. The room was not big; the walls were covered with empty mahogany shelves, which had once held the archives, and these looked mournful to Livy. She avoided the sight, sat down at the desk, and started to go through the drawers. Astonishingly, the top drawer was full of unlabelled keys, all, it seemed, of different vintages; Livy stared at them, then shut the drawer.
It was the bottom drawer, the last she checked in, which finally yielded something. Piles of files, not orderly at all. Livy opened the top one, saw the typewritten list, entitled ‘Index’. She took it out and closed the drawer, replaced the blackout, and went out of the door, through the same passage, and onto the landing, emerging with the large doors to the Dining Hall on her left. The vast double doors had been closed when she had passed them before, but now one was open. Frowning, she went to close it.
She was drawn into the room by the sense that there was someone there. Someone, or something; that she moved through a room shot through with presence. But the room was as she had left it: the same dull light, bathing its details in shadow, the gold leaf darkened to ochre. She walked across the small margin of sprung boards, and when she stepped onto the carpet the light changed in the room; changed so that she blinked, and looked again. Some trick of the light – a few clear shafts penetrated the stained glass, and were not lost, so that the glass pendants of the corner chandeliers, beneath their sheeting, seemed to glow briefly between the gaps. A pale orange light, as one sees in the last moments from the setting sun, or – she thought, and could not check it – from a city on fire. In that moment, she looked straight ahead, and realized that she was facing the mirror at the far end; she was central to the reflection, and she could see the mirror behind her, and in that brief breath of light, she saw the reflections repeating, on and on, into an infinity, as Christian had said, so that it drew an exclamation from her.
