The Peacock Summer

by Hannah Richell

It’s certainly not the life she’d imagined when she agreed to marry Charles. Back then, she’d assumed she would bear his children. She’d dared to think she might even have a role to play in his business. How naive she was. How little she understood the complicated man she shares a life with. And how frustrated she is with the bland tenor of these hours she now spends in this house. She feels the days of her life falling away, like playing cards tossed to the wind, scattered and meaningless. She is no more use than the myriad of Charles’s expensive trophies cluttering the house – beautiful but pointless. Like a lily. Or a peacock. Perhaps she could write that for the parish magazine, she thinks with a wry smile. A column on the tedium of a life of privilege.

  The bee falls silent. Lillian watches it slowly scale the glass pane, almost making it to the opening at the top where fresh air and freedom beckon, before it falls back down to the sill with an angry buzzing.

  Watching the trapped insect, her thoughts turn with a guilty flash to Helena. She hasn’t visited her in almost a week. She really must go. Experience has taught her that the longer she leaves it between visits, the more she begins to dread the occasion and the harder it will be. Her boredom certainly seems all the more awful when she thinks of her sister. It could so easily have been her – their fates exchanged with the simple toss of a die. She can’t help but think were it Helena and not her sitting here in this house, her sister would be coping far more admirably. Helena would have known how to handle a man like Charles. She only has to think of Helena’s quick wit, her ability for dramatic flair, the afternoons she’d push the table back against the wall and wind up their father’s gramophone and dance for their mother; or the way she’d dash along the London pavements on a Saturday morning, dragging Lillian behind her, anxious not to miss a single moment of the films showing at the picture house, to know her sister would have been a more formidable match. It had been Helena’s dream that she might one day be a celebrated movie star – an actress to rival Vivien Leigh or Katharine Hepburn – and with her enviable looks, the lightness of her laughter, the readiness of her smile and that fierce streak of determination running through her blood, Lillian had always known her sister would succeed.

  She sighs and stares blindly at the words she has scrawled onto the paper before her. She should be living for the both of them. She owes it to Helena to make something of this life, not to sit here bemoaning her existence, watching bees bash themselves silly against windows as the days slip slowly by.

  The sound of the French doors creaking open in the dining room next door interrupts her thoughts. She leans back, obscuring herself behind the brocade curtain, and watches as Jack Fincher steps out onto the terrace. He stands for a moment in the bright sunshine, lifts his hands to the sky and stretches, the fabric of his shirt pulling taut across his shoulders before he drops his arms and begins to make for the wide stone steps leading down onto the lawn. He saunters casually, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the red leather-bound sketchbook, loping in that relaxed, loose-limbed way of his. The sight of the book makes Lillian’s stomach fall and she ducks a little further behind the curtain.

  Jack skips down the steps then heads across the lawn, careful to skirt around the peahens and their chicks, making for the distant retaining wall and, she assumes, the meadow beyond. He stops as he reaches the drop then spins slowly back to the house.

  Lillian holds her breath. She’s almost certain she cannot be seen at the window, but she remains perfectly still, watching as he begins to retrace his steps up the lawn before stopping ten metres or so from the peahens. He considers them for a moment then lowers himself cross-legged onto the grass, opening his book and retrieving the pencil from behind his ear. It’s the birds, she realises; he is going to sketch them.

  She doesn’t know how long she watches him for, but there is something rather soothing, almost hypnotic, about observing the artist at work. He is bent over the paper, lost in his task, glancing up every so often to study the birds as they strut across the lawn. Occasionally, he reaches out and brushes at the paper with his fingers.

  Jack watching the birds.

  Lillian watching Jack.

  Is this how he observed her? she wonders, thinking back to the portraits in his sketchbook. Did he hide from view, surreptitious and furtive? The idea still unsettles her.

  Drowsy in the warmth of the sun, with the bee bumbling lazily at the glass, Lillian closes her eyes. It was such a silly thing, to be found leafing through his sketchbook; hardly as though she were reading his private diary. If only she’d taken the opportunity to address her faux pas immediately, rather than dashing off, a vision of guilt. Perhaps she would have told him how good she thought they were – the vignettes of the house – the feathers and the plants. There would have been no need to mention those pictures of her. No need to let him know she’d even seen them.

  The sunshine is a caress on her neck, like warm fingers trailing across her skin. She sits, eyes closed, lost in the sensation and her thoughts, when a loud thump rattles the windowpane beside her.

  Startled, she looks up just in time to see a dark shape about the size of a gentleman’s hat sliding down the outside of the glass and dropping to the terrace.

  She stands and peers over the edge of the sill and sees that the crumpled object is not in fact a hat, but a large brown bird, its chest rising and falling in shallow breaths and its orange eyes wide open and unblinking. Lillian stares at it, taking in the sharp curved beak, its bright yellow talons, the chevron pattern of its chest feathers, until another movement captures her attention out on the lawn. Jack is racing across the grass, bounding up the terrace steps two at a time, his pace only slowing when he reaches the top and catches sight of her standing at the drawing-room window. She raises her hand – half greeting, half request that he stop where he is – and he seems to understand, nodding as she indicates that she will join him outside.

  ‘It’s a sparrowhawk,’ she says, as she draws up beside him.

  ‘Yes, it flew right over me chasing a dove. Looks as though the poor fellow has done some serious damage.’

  They move closer and Lillian notices that its chest has stopped moving and its eyes have taken on a blank, glassy look. ‘Poor thing,’ she murmurs. ‘I’ve never seen one this close before. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Yes, though unfortunately I think he’s taken his last flight.’

  She looks around. ‘We can’t just leave it here.’

  ‘No.’ Jack thinks for a moment. ‘Do you have a box?’

  She knows she could ring for one of the staff to come and help, but something about the sight of the damaged bird has affected her. She doesn’t want to sit by passively watching others work. She wants to do something. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Wait here.’

  It only takes a few minutes to run to her dressing room and retrieve an old hatbox. She shows it to Jack, who nods his approval, watching over her as she bends and carefully scoops the inanimate bird into it. She can’t help flinching as it flops heavily into the box. ‘I’ll leave the lid open a crack, just in case . . .’ she says, although they both know it’s unnecessary. ‘We need a suitable resting place,’ she says. ‘Somewhere the cats won’t be able to get at it.’

  Jack looks across the gardens to the wildflower meadow and woods beyond. ‘I have an idea. Allow me?’ he asks, reaching for the box.

  Even with the camaraderie that has risen between them through their shared task, Lillian still struggles to make small talk as they head down the lawn then through the high grass of the untamed meadow where poppies and ox-eye daisies brush against Lillian’s legs. Only the sound of the grass moving around them and the low drone of insects break the silence. She knows she still owes him a proper apology and though the words dance on the tip of her tongue, she can’t quite bring herself to say them out loud.

  At the edge of the beech trees, Jack stops to offer her his hand over the wooden stile. She hesitates, turning to glance back at Cloudesley, seeing it standing there, a jewel g
leaming on the crest of the hill. If she steps into the trees she knows she will no longer be visible to anyone up at the house; she will blend like a smudge into the shadows. The thought is not unappealing as she accepts his hand and steps over the stile, dropping down into the woodland beyond.

  ‘Any signs of life?’ she asks hopefully.

  Jack shakes his head.

  They weave between the trees and bracken, leaves and sticks cracking beneath their feet, grey flints and white chalk jutting like shards of bone glinting through the soil. Out of the direct sunlight, the air is soft and green, as if they walk through cool water. The further they go, the thicker the insidious ivy scaling the beech tree trunks and the denser the canopy. ‘You seem to know where you’re going,’ she says, breaking the silence.

  ‘I walk out here, sometimes, to escape the room. The vastness of the task . . . it can overwhelm me. Plus, there’s something about being out here among trees. A familiarity; like being with old friends.’

  She stumbles on a thick tree root sprawling across the ground, grabbing at the hand Jack offers, then dropping it quickly.

  ‘I’ve read about this,’ says Jack. ‘It’s quite common for sparrowhawks to crash while showing off to a mate or chasing prey.’

  ‘It is?’ She looks about, realising they have left all signs of a path behind them. Just as she is about to protest that she really shouldn’t go any further in her house shoes, the grey tree trunks part and Lillian finds herself stepping out into a natural clearing.

  ‘Here we are,’ says Jack.

  Lillian stops and looks around, marvelling at the high, green canopy and the soft light streaming through the branches. Overhead a magpie flits through the branches of a tree, rustling leaves until it takes flight with a mournful cry, its wings beating the air. ‘This is beautiful,’ she says.

  ‘Yes,’ agrees Jack. ‘It’s like standing inside nature’s own cathedral, don’t you think?’

  Jack removes the lid of the hatbox and gently tips the bird onto the forest floor. They both take a step back, watching hopefully, but the bird lies stiff and unmoving among the leaves.

  ‘Oh dear. Perhaps we should bury it,’ she suggests.

  Jack nods but as they haven’t thought to bring anything to dig with they eventually, in unspoken agreement, cover it half-heartedly with dry leaves before retreating a short distance to sit upon a fallen tree trunk, neither of them, it seems, quite ready to return to the house.

  It is quiet in the clearing, though gradually Lillian’s ears attune to the soft rustling of insects and birds moving through the undergrowth, the faraway tapping of a woodpecker high in a tree. Down on the ground, a bronze-coloured beetle tries to scale the side of her shoe. It slips on the smooth leather and tumbles back into the dry leaves, waggling its legs in the air.

  She shifts slightly on the tree trunk then watches as Jack pulls a strand of grass from a clump growing nearby and sucks on one end, looking about at the canopy overhead. ‘Wonderful light,’ he murmurs. ‘I wish I hadn’t left my sketchbook at the house.’

  She knows she must say something. But the moment stretches and she can’t find the words so instead she looks about, trying to see the clearing as he might, trying to view the world through an artist’s eyes. What details would he pull from this scene, what elements would he commit to memory to reproduce on paper?

  A cathedral, he’d said; and she supposes there is something rather celestial and awe-inspiring about the tall, arched trees and the light streaming in golden shafts through the soft green branches, filtered as though through stained glass.

  Her eyes slide to Jack’s profile, her gaze lingering on the fullness of his lips and the strong angle of his jaw. He shifts slightly on the log. His hand is only centimetres from her own; his fingers long and slender – how she imagines a pianist’s would look, if it weren’t for the smudges of grey charcoal on his skin.

  ‘It’s so peaceful,’ she says, closing her eyes, shaking the hair from her face, succumbing to the warm light falling through the trees. She allows her breathing to slow and her shoulders to relax. Soon they will turn back for the house. The world will keep spinning and this moment with the dead bird and the woods and the intriguing man at her side will be gone, relegated to hazy memory.

  She isn’t sure how long they sit like that, the two of them side by side, lost in their own thoughts, but it’s a soft scratching sound that brings her attention back to the clearing. Opening her eyes, she looks across to where they had left the prone bird and is startled to see the hawk no longer lying beneath the leaf litter but standing upright, its head cocked, one beady orange eye peering at her with suspicion. ‘Look,’ she whispers, reaching for Jack’s arm.

  Jack follows her gaze. The bird studies them a moment then hops clumsily away through the leaves towards the base of a tree. Lillian holds her breath, watching as it half-extends one wing. It hops a few more paces but it looks off-balance; too damaged to fly; but it’s as if it hears her thought and determines to prove her wrong for suddenly it stretches out both wings and, in one fluid movement, takes flight across the clearing to land in the lowest branch of a nearby tree. Lillian feels her heart beating in her chest, a heady mix of excitement and elation.

  The sparrowhawk perches on the bough, its eye still fixed in their direction before it glides off the branch and sails low across the clearing in a showy swoop before soaring away through the trees and out of sight.

  ‘Well how about that?’ says Jack. ‘Lazarus rises.’ He turns to her and Lillian, suddenly aware that she is still gripping his sleeve, drops her hand.

  ‘It’s lucky . . . lucky we didn’t bury it.’ She tries to smile but all the muscles in her face seem to have frozen. Her heart thuds loudly in her chest. The moment stretches.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, finding at last her long-awaited apology. ‘In your room . . . the other day . . . I wasn’t rifling through your belongings.’ He raises one eyebrow and she finds the grace to correct herself. ‘What I mean is that I didn’t enter your room with the intention of looking at your private things. I wanted to leave the flowers. Then I saw your sketchbook and I couldn’t resist. I should never have looked at your drawings. I’m sorry,’ she repeats.

  She’s not sure what she expected in response, but it certainly isn’t his hand shifting on the tree trunk and coming to rest lightly over her own. She looks down at their hands lying together on the log – and wonders if the fast pulse beating beneath her skin is as obvious to him as it is to her.

  Somewhere high above their heads a finch chatters in the trees. In a move so instinctive she barely knows it’s happening, she lifts her fingers and laces them through his, so that their hands sit entwined on the trunk.

  A sigh leaves Jack’s lips – a soft exhalation – and in that moment she is lost. There is no Cloudesley, no Charles, no ticking clocks, no past or future; there is nothing but the clearing and Jack, and their hands clasped together. When she looks up at him, his face seems closer, so close she can see the amber flecks in the slate-grey of his eyes.

  It is like gravity, she thinks, as she leans in towards him, her lips meeting his. It is a force so natural – so inevitable – so like falling – or flying – that she isn’t sure she could stop their kiss even if she tried.

  Chapter 12

  Maggie is running a bath for Lillian. ‘How hot do you like it?’ she shouts into the room where she’s left her grandmother undressing. There is no answer so she leaves the water running into the old claw-foot tub and returns to find Lillian hunched over, struggling to undo her blouse.

  ‘Here, let me help you.’ Maggie unfastens the buttons and slides the shirt from Lillian’s shoulders.

  How strange life is, she thinks. All those years as a child when Lillian cared for her – helped her to bathe and dress, checked and labelled the uniform in her school trunk, combed her hair for nits, rubbed salve onto cuts. All those times Lillian tested her on her spellings or made her chant her multiplication tables. The excruci
ating sex talk, the first box of tampons, the revolting yet magical cure she had mixed up for her first violent hangover. The weekend they sat and discussed her career options and Maggie had dared to admit for the very first time that what she really wanted to do – most of all – was go to art college and be an artist and Lillian had looked her in the eye, nodded once and said, ‘Someone once told me that if you’re going to throw your life away on art, you should do it properly. Be bold. No half measures.’ And Maggie had understood that Lillian wasn’t laughing at her, as she’d feared she might, but accepting her decision, unconditionally.

  Beneath it all – the care and the advice – had been a constant and unswerving affection; and here she is now, returning the favour, helping an ailing Lillian undress and slip into a warm bath. Perhaps it is the simplest acts of devotion, she thinks, folding the shirt and laying it onto a nearby chair, that send the strongest messages of love.

  Lillian, struggling with a stocking, sits herself down on a gilt chair and Maggie kneels down to help peel it off. As it slides from her leg, Maggie rests back on her heels. ‘What are those marks?’ she asks, her gaze fixed on the thick, raised ridges of white flesh that twist around her grandmother’s calves like vines.

  ‘They’re scars.’ Lillian doesn’t return Maggie’s stare.

  ‘Yes, but how did you get them?’

  ‘Oh, it happened a long time ago now.’

  Maggie narrows her eyes at Lillian. ‘Gran?’

  ‘Just a silly accident. Nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘A silly accident? Does it hurt?’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘But how? And how did I never notice this about you?’ She thinks back to the night of her grandmother’s wanderings when it was dark and her long nightdress had fallen down to her ankles, covering these awful scars.

  Lillian sniffs, still not looking at Maggie. ‘In my day, it wasn’t the done thing to appear in public with bare legs. Stockings were more seemly. I’ve upheld the standard over the years.’