by Sophia Tobin
‘Be careful, sir.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned.’
‘What’s wrong?’
Christian turned off the torch carefully to conserve the battery, climbed out and got to his feet. He hardly knew how to describe what he had seen: the delicate white shapes, and their separation against the dense interrupted clay soil of London.
‘There’s a skeleton.’
‘Not a body?’
‘No, that is, not a new body. We don’t need heavy rescue here. Whoever is there has been dead for a very long time.’
The man took his torch back and rolled his eyes. ‘That’s all we bloody need.’
*
By the time Christian had finished his conversation with the man, and had shone the torch several times into the pit so that he knew he was not mistaken, Peggy had risen from her bed and opened the doors to the Club. Christian had been standing, looking out at the ruined City landscape, when he heard the click and groan of the doors. Turned, and met her smile with his own.
‘Still here?’ she said, looking down at him on the pavement. ‘I fell asleep, but only for a few minutes. And now I feel too tired to sleep.’
‘I’m not sure I could sleep either.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on, if the water’s on,’ she said to him. He let her go without a word, and walked slowly up the steps in her wake. She had left the scent of cinders behind. The tiredness was beginning to catch up with him.
Peggy had descended into the vaults by the time he had reached the Stair Hall. He looked around at the building he had helped to save: at the walls lined by coloured marble, at the white marble staircase in its grandeur, and up at the dome. He saw dragons, and coats of arms, and the arms of the City of London. Although this building was special to him, he could think of a dozen similar. It was civic, he thought, it was impersonal. It was not a place that witnessed life and death, like a church or a register office. He heard the green door to the basement open and close.
‘Christian?’ Livy came out, rubbing one hand across her eyes. She was still dressed in the clothes she had worn the night before, and there was a smut on her face. He stopped himself from reaching out and rubbing it away. Behind her was Whitewood, with his tie on – his tie on, Christian thought – and he felt a sudden searing jealousy that the man had been down there, sleeping near Livy. He struggled to control it, not to let it show on his face.
‘There’s bones in the building,’ he said, with an imitation of a smile. ‘Like a Gothic novel.’
Livy blinked and frowned. ‘What?’
Christian explained what he had found: Livy and Jonathan stared at him. ‘I can only see part of it.’
‘What can you see of the body?’ Her voice was urgent; she looked even paler than the moment before.
‘Not much. The top half. The top of the skull, some of the vertebrae, but some earth has fallen in.’
Jonathan had come up behind Livy, and put his hand on her shoulder. Christian stared at that hand, at that impression of ownership. The sudden anger he felt startled him. Dispassionately, he thought he might strike the man: knock him down. But it was the tiredness, he thought; he had to remember it was the tiredness.
‘Show me.’ Her voice was insistent, strong.
‘Is that a good idea?’ Jonathan, pulling her back.
Christian held out his hand. She walked towards him. And, just briefly, he brushed her elbow before he ushered her towards the front door.
*
As Livy walked through the Stair Hall and into the darkness of the Entrance Hall before that large rectangle of light, to step outside for the first time in many weeks, she felt the building retreat from her, felt it shrink away, so that her focus was on the light, and on reaching the bones which Christian had described to her. She walked without a glance at the beautiful walls, without a thought of their detail, without even thinking of the painting of Charlotte and its cool, contained beauty. She walked towards the anarchy of something. His words had broken through something, torn something open as easily as parachute silk. Her muscles were tired, but she was awake, and she knew she had given everything, and something had begun to stir inside her.
She went down the steps, blinking at the light, and let Christian pass her. He and Jonathan were speaking but she did not listen to them. She did not glance from left to right. They turned the corner.
A vast hole in the pavement: a darkness.
‘I can’t see anything,’ she said.
‘Crouch down,’ said Christian. ‘I’ll shine the torch. Don’t ruin your slacks.’
Jonathan murmured something: she heard the tone of disapproval. He took a few steps away from them, turned his back, and lit a cigarette.
Livy did as Christian said, narrowed her eyes: caught sight of something briefly in a wavering flash of torchlight as Christian swung it; rolled back onto her heels.
‘The skull,’ she said. Put her hands back on the London pavement, to support her weight. The icy dampness of the London stone travelled through her hands, her arms, and into her trunk. And she felt it, she really felt it. Felt it, she realized, in a way that these bones could not feel. And it struck her: Charlotte, in the painting, the golden light behind her, the white skin, the pinpoint of light in her eyes, and that smile, just beginning.
Charlotte was dead. Henry was dead. Ashton was dead. They lived in their letters, in the words, in the flat surface of canvas and paint as hard and bright as enamel, but these things were all just things, as dead as these bones, they were more dead than the London earth, for at least that was teeming with life. The thing that they had been was gone, burned out, released.
And they seemed to speak to her, these people, in unison. As though Henry had put down his pen and looked at her, as though Charlotte brushed her hair with the silver-mounted brush, and leaned to look in the mirror in her portrait, her face beside Livy’s. And Ashton – oh, poor Ashton, never thinking of anyone but himself, never imagining he could ever die, just fighting death, and time, and imagining himself as permanent as a diamond. Christian said her name and touched her shoulder, and as she turned to look at Jonathan – insolent, proud, untouchable – Henry, Charlotte and Ashton turned to her, as though they sensed her presence in their world, a shadow in the corner of the room, there just for a moment.
They said it to her.
Life or death. Decide.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1839
Henry strode to the large windows in his room and flung them open. After the ordeal of tea, he required a smoke. But as he took his first breath of fresh air, and looked out at the hills, their outlines softening in the evening light, there was a knock at the door. The manservant apologetically informed him that Mr Kinsburg had requested to meet him on the lower landing. He suppressed the profanities which sprang to mind, and followed the man down, where he found Ashton and Peregrine.
Ashton announced that they were to have a tour. ‘Before the light goes completely.’
The two men followed their host disconsolately. ‘You look like you’ve been stunned for a kill,’ murmured Peregrine.
‘You’re hardly at your best.’
‘Better than you. Do buck up, Henry.’
They took in corridors, elaborate and pedestrian. Grand reception rooms and the cellar. Dead ends and wrong turns, so that Henry hardly knew where he was. From the rooms that Ashton had refurbished, including Charlotte’s favourite salon, which Henry committed to memory, to the older rooms that Ashton despised – it seemed to Henry that he took them there merely to sneer at them. Henry sought to make Ashton be quieter in the chapel, the oldest part of the house, its stained glass bright in the light of the setting sun, but the man seemed anxious to be back in the other rooms of the house. ‘I really wish to show you my best study,’ he said, so they left the cool, damp air of the chapel, so different in character from the rest of the house, and went to the scarlet and yellow striped room, full of vitrines, jewels, and silver. A single moth fluttered in the darke
ned air.
Stepping back into the main corridor, and then through an anteroom, Henry caught sight of a painting in the shadows, and exclaimed. It was of Mrs Kinsburg, and it captured her entirely, but with extra spirit, it seemed: the slightly sardonic look in her eyes made Henry’s heart beat faster. ‘Why does this painting languish here, in a shadowy corner?’ he said, turning to Ashton with a smile.
But Ashton did not smile in return.
‘It requires alterations,’ he said. ‘I commissioned Mr Winterhalter to paint her. The paint is barely dry. You would not believe what it cost me to bring him here, and the time it took to persuade him. I am not sure he captured her.’
Henry opened his mouth to contradict him, but caught Perry’s warning glance. ‘You can see the influence of Italy on his art,’ he said. ‘The soft light – the landscape beyond. I think it very handsome.’
‘I am having it altered, in a few weeks,’ said Ashton. ‘I have acquired a great diamond,’ his eyes brightened, ‘and it must be included. Perhaps that will raise the portrait a little.’
*
Henry barely had time to change for dinner. ‘It is at a late hour in your honour,’ said Henry’s manservant, a footman who had been charged with valeting for him, and who was gratifyingly loose-tongued. ‘The routine is usually: dine at two; tea at five; supper at nine.’
‘And what is your mistress like? Mrs Kinsburg?’
The man’s face fell blank. ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir.’
Later, Henry hardly remembered dinner. The guests had gathered in one of the galleries: several couples, to whom he was introduced and uncharacteristically immediately forgot their names. There was wine, and more wine; his glass was endlessly full. More than once, he touched his pocket for his sketchbook – but of course, he had changed for dinner, and left it in his room. It was as well, for it would hardly be good manners to start drawing now, no matter how determined his host was to accommodate his eccentricity. He spoke to Nicholas about art, said he would be glad to make introductions in London.
Charlotte flitted around her husband and guests like a Brimstone butterfly in pale yellow satin. She did not speak to him, only granted him and Peregrine her brightest smile. At length, they processed into the dining room. Henry felt that he was lumbering, head down, and put his hand to his collar to check it was straight. Then he stood on the threshold of the ochre room, looking at the table, its mirror polish, loaded with silver-gilt epergnes and centrepieces; lines of cutlery; silver plates to hold porcelain plates in grand layers. Candelabra at two-foot intervals, lit with the finest and purest candles, and above the table a chandelier made of silver, suspended by a chain from the ceiling. Henry put his hand to his eyes.
‘In heraldry terms, I’d say the dominant metal of this room is silver,’ said Peregrine with a hiccup, as he passed Henry, still carrying a full glass and sounding as drunk as his friend. Henry laughed rather louder than he should have done and took a seat at the table. He felt the house pressing in on him: its colour, its assertion. He lessened the speed of his drinking, adjusting to his intoxicated state, letting the room, its noise and sensation, die down. And yet the evening passed in a blur. The dishes were elaborate, the conversation loud and unsettled. On his wrist, Henry felt the spot where Charlotte had touched him prickle in its coolness, building in significance like a sore. He pulled his cuff over it, as though worried someone might see it. Later, as he sobered up, he wondered at the balance of his mind.
After dinner, the ladies withdrew, but instead of taking port and cigars, Ashton drew his gentlemen guests through the house.
‘Where are we going?’ wondered Peregrine aloud.
‘To the Bachelors’ Wing!’ cried an inebriated Ashton, plunging on through the dark corridors with a candle in his hand, with the same bluff aggressiveness as though he were leading a charge into the heart of a battle. They were followed by two footmen, fleet of foot, their antiquated wigs cast off earlier in the evening. ‘Not that I have use of it anymore,’ said Ashton, as they reached the threshold. ‘But I may visit, may I not?’ And he roared with laughter. Some of the other gentlemen guffawed politely.
The room, reasoned Henry, was as large as a great hall would have been in a medieval building. It was curtained with vast swathes of scarlet fabric, and the furniture was in the Gothic taste. He gazed at it: the dark wood, the soft-sheened fabric, spikily chased metal containers that resembled Catholic incense burners. He watched the footmen as they opened the pierced covers and lit aromatic tablets, placing the lids back down, so that sweet smoke spun and twirled from the holes. The room was partitioned by still more scarlet curtains, and Henry was informed there was a billiards table there, but he did not join some of the other men to play. Instead, he and Peregrine sank into one of the commodious sofas. He thought he might fall asleep. But then one of the footmen brought a silver tray, with an indecently large decanter; cigars were produced, and soon the sweet smoke was joined by the scent of cigars, their bitter strength mixing with the sweetness in a thick haze.
They talked nonsense, as men in clubs often did – talked of horses, and women rather than wives, and laughed too loudly. Henry sat silent, his chin on his chest, and it was only when Ashton leaned forwards, and tapped him on the knee, that he came to.
‘Stop dropping ash on my carpet,’ said Ashton. And Peregrine laughed – again – too loudly.
‘My apologies.’
‘What do you think of my house?’ said Ashton. ‘Really?’
Henry did not pause. ‘I think it a triumph.’
‘I mean,’ Ashton waggled his cigar in the air, and it too dropped a veil of ash, like a tree shedding autumn leaves, ‘really.’
‘I really think it is a triumph.’ Henry raised his glass; it seemed to be the only thing he could do to emphasize the words, to try and create a kind of truth, when what he said was a lie. Ashton’s eyes burned bright. ‘To a triumph!’
Henry and Peregrine knocked back their glasses. Ashton stayed where he was. Then he put down his cigar, and rubbed his eyes.
He emitted a low wail, a kind of protest, so that Henry and Peregrine glanced at each other in alarm.
Ashton looked up and fastened his gaze on Henry. He had been so hale earlier, flushed with alcohol and good spirits. But now he was pale, intense, his black hair ruffled, his hands working, rolling over each other. ‘I wanted the truth,’ he said.
‘I say, Kinsburg,’ said Peregrine. ‘He’s telling the truth. It’s a little late, old man. Probably had a bit too much of the . . .’ He whistled.
Ashton nodded, but kept his eyes on Henry. ‘It is late. I should go to my wife. She looked well tonight, did she not? That dress, I should have had her painted in it. Instead she chose black. Black! How I have indulged that lady.’
Henry looked down, a reflex he could not control.
‘Am I right to have done so?’
Henry felt the man’s eyes on him. Perry was silent; Henry sensed him struggling to find something to say.
‘She is your wife. I would say it is right to care for her,’ said Henry.
‘How would you know? How would you know what a tie a wife is? What a burden?’
Henry drew his eyes to his host’s face. He hardly knew what his own expression was, but he saw Ashton’s reaction to it. ‘I have said too much.’ He put a hand to his head. ‘I am two sheets to the wind. Forget it. You will forget it?’
‘Of course we will.’ Perry now, on firmer ground.
Ashton was delving into his pocket. Clumsily, he produced a brown leather box. Fumbling with the catch, he eventually opened it. Henry heard Perry murmur.
A diamond lay on a bed of blue velvet. What light there was, it caught and threw back at them.
‘It’s a beauty, isn’t it?’ Ashton was watching their faces.
‘Quite extraordinary,’ said Perry.
Ashton looked at Henry. ‘Dale-Collingwood?’
‘As my friend says, extraordinary.’
‘A beauty
for a beauty. Not that she cares.’ He snapped the box shut, almost violently. Buried it in his pocket. ‘I meant to show you it earlier.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Not like this.’
‘It’s a privilege to see it.’ Perry again, trying his best.
Ashton rose to his feet. ‘I’ll wish you both goodnight.’
He went, everyone calling their goodnights after him, laughing and waving. One of the footmen followed him. The other, who had been so impassive, lapsed into a tired, rather irritated expression the precise moment Ashton left the room.
The billiard party broke up. Only Henry and Peregrine remained, growing steadily more sober. Eventually they could not bear the darkling look of the last footman anymore, and rose to leave. ‘Come back to my room for another cigar,’ said Henry, going out of the door. Peregrine stayed behind, fishing for coins to tip the disgruntled servant.
Henry turned left, walked up to the leather-covered partition which had been pulled across the corridor to block the gentleman’s noise from echoing down through the rest of the house. But its door had not been closed, and as he stood there, waiting for Peregrine, he saw her. She emerged, like a spectre, from the darkness of the far end of the corridor, a candle in her hand. He saw her upper body in the circle of light. Felt the jagged edge of grief, for a moment, still confused by the drink and the smoke, thinking it was his sister – his dear sister – and then realizing it was her. Her.
He stood rooted to the spot, as Charlotte walked the length of the corridor towards him. Opened his mouth to say her name, and then could not. She was still dressed in her yellow gown, but had removed her jewellery. Her face was open; her eyes softened. No defences, he thought.
She came to him. Reached out, and touched his face.
‘I thought you were a spirit,’ he said.
‘I didn’t wish to startle you,’ she said. ‘My husband said you had a terrible loss.’
He had not said a word about it, beyond the conventional. Never admitted anything, other than his wish to submit to God’s grace, whatever burden that might bring. He turned his head, to bring it more in contact with her hand.
