The Peacock Summer

by Hannah Richell

  Maggie waits a moment before she asks her next question. ‘Do you mind if I ask . . .’ she stares at his hands, wondering how best to approach the event, ‘if I ask how it happened? The fire.’

  The heavy furrows deepen in the man’s brow. ‘I wish I could tell you, but even after all these years, it’s not something I understand.’ He sighs and Maggie can see him trying to cast his mind back.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to cause any upset.’

  He doesn’t seem to hear her. He is staring across the room, unseeing, returning to a place of memory. ‘The room was finished,’ he says. ‘I’d stayed up all the previous night working on the . . .’ he hesitates, ‘the final touches.’

  Maggie nods encouragingly but knows not to interrupt.

  ‘I knew it was time for me to leave Cloudesley. I had retired upstairs to my room to pack when I heard a commotion. The dog – Monty – was barking outside. And there were shouts out in the grounds. Something about those sounds, the urgency . . . I just knew something was terribly wrong.

  ‘I ran down the back staircase to the west wing and it was there in the corridor that I saw the smoke rolling out from beneath the door to the painted room. When I went to open it, I found it was locked. There was no key. I had to kick it open with brute force. I was only thinking of trying to save the room. I had no idea she was in there.’

  ‘Who? Lillian?’

  The man nods. ‘All I could see was smoke. There were flames creeping up the curtains beside the window seat and then I heard the coughing. She was on the floor, down on her hands and knees. Just as I saw her, the curtains over the window seat fell onto her. There was the sound of glass smashing. I knew I had to get her out.’

  Maggie stares at the man, horrified. She remembers the sight of the twisted scars on her grandmother’s legs and winces.

  ‘She was unconscious by the time I reached her. Her legs were caught in the burning curtains, all tangled up. I didn’t think. I just reached for them and dragged them off her, then pulled her from the room.

  ‘It was a very confused situation. Lillian was badly hurt. She was taken away in the first ambulance and it was only after she’d left, when someone came to check on me, that they saw what had happened.’ He looks down at his hands. ‘It must sound strange, but I hadn’t felt a thing.’

  Maggie shudders. She can’t imagine. She busies herself with pouring more tea, allowing Jack Fincher a moment to compose himself.

  ‘How was the fire put out?’

  ‘Whoever was outside must have activated the pump system. They smashed the window and fed the hoses through, taking water from the fountain. I believe that’s how they saved the house. Extraordinary, really; Cloudesley could have been razed to the ground.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I was taken to the same hospital as your grandmother – though they wouldn’t let me see her. It was only when the police came to question me – when they told me they were treating it as an act of arson – that I realised they believed someone had deliberately started the fire. I was told they had found my cigarette lighter at the scene and that I was the prime suspect.’

  Maggie stares at the man, fascinated and horrified in equal measure. ‘They thought you’d set the fire? Why would they think you’d destroy your own work? Something you’d spent all summer creating?’

  ‘Why indeed?’

  ‘Were you charged?’

  ‘No.’ Jack sighs. ‘It didn’t look good for me for several days; but then, out of the blue, Charles had a change of heart. He had the police drop the charges.’

  ‘Because he knew you were innocent?’

  The artist shrugs. ‘I have no idea. It’s as baffling to me now as it was then. All these years and I haven’t been able to understand the events of that day. All I know is that I had lost my lighter – in the woods, the house, or somewhere in the grounds of the estate. Whoever found it must have set the fire and left the lighter behind, to frame me, perhaps.’

  ‘Who could it have been?’

  ‘My suspicion was Charles. Though I have no proof.’

  ‘Why?’ Maggie is struggling to follow Jack’s explanation. ‘Why would he destroy the room he had commissioned, a room in his own house?’ Maggie studies Jack Fincher. She remembers her grandmother’s final moments, sitting beneath the tree beside the retaining wall. We saved one once. Understanding rings like a bell. ‘She loved you.’

  ‘I believe she did,’ he says softly. ‘And I loved her. Very much.’

  Maggie nods, but doesn’t interrupt.

  ‘I fell for her over the course of that one summer. You may be shocked to learn this, but I wanted her to leave Charles and come away with me. The day before the fire, we met in the woods behind the house. We argued. I didn’t feel she would be . . . safe . . . remaining at Cloudesley; but she refused to come with me. After we’d parted, I was in a terrible fury. I went back to the painted room and, in my rage, I added a final scene.’

  ‘What scene?’

  ‘I made a small addition. A fox, painted in one corner, a sparrowhawk lying dead at its feet. The fox I, rather foolishly, gave some . . . identifying characteristics. Anyone who knew the man would have seen quite clearly I had meant it to represent Charles. It was crudely done, but a message I wanted Lillian to see.’

  ‘Oh.’ Maggie is taken aback.

  ‘It was very foolish. You see, in doing so, I believe I either incited Charles’s rage and gave him a motive to destroy the murals, or I created a strong reason for Lillian to want to hide the evidence, before he found out about our affair. She must have felt so exposed . . . so afraid. I didn’t think, you see, what it might mean for her.’

  Maggie is still trying to assemble the jumbled pieces of the puzzle in her head. ‘But you said Lillian was trapped inside the room at the time of the fire. It was locked?’

  Jack nods.

  ‘So if it were Charles who started the fire, was he trying to kill her? Or if it were Lillian, trying to hide evidence of your affair, was she . . .’ Maggie can’t quite believe what she is about to ask, ‘was she trying to kill herself?’

  ‘No. She wouldn’t have left Albie, or her sister, Helena. She was devoted to them. In my mind, everything points to Charles. I think he set the fire in a rage – to punish me. I’m not even sure he knew Lillian was in the room at the time. I found her over by the window seat. Perhaps she had been resting there. Hidden, somehow, behind the long drapes. It must have been a dreadful accident.’

  Maggie thinks of the dark marks climbing the walls near the destroyed window seat, evidence of the curtains that once hung there. She shudders to imagine them, thick velvet cloth catching alight, going up like tinder.

  He shakes his head. ‘Charles could be . . . aggressive.’ He glances across at Maggie. ‘And he was certainly impulsive. But I don’t think he would have deliberately tried to kill her. He did set me up to take the fall, though. I can only imagine he backed away from the charges when he realised what sort of a scandal it might bring to the Oberon name.’

  ‘Did you see Lillian again? After the fire?’

  Jack Fincher shakes his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not? You loved her. Why didn’t you try to find her again? To find out the truth?’

  ‘I thought about it. But she’d told me herself the day before the fire that she wouldn’t come away with me . . . and afterwards,’ he looks down at his hands, ‘everything had changed. I no longer had any kind of future to offer her. I wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with. I would never paint again. I couldn’t even hold her hand, stroke her face. I didn’t want her to see me like that. I thought she’d be better off without me.’

  ‘Wasn’t that her decision to make?’

  Jack shrugs. ‘Perhaps.’ He glances up at Maggie. ‘Though after Cloudesley, I was damaged in more ways than this,’ he says, lifting his gnarled hands, dropping them back into his lap. ‘I was never paid for the work I completed that summer and I grew very poor. But worse than that, m
y heart was broken. I couldn’t work. I went through . . . a very dark time. Too much drink. Not enough hope.’

  Maggie nods.

  ‘I’ve never forgotten her. I’ve thought of her every day since the fire. I saw her . . . in my dreams, many times, but elsewhere too. Sometimes just a flash of blonde hair or a certain laugh could evoke her. Once, I even chased after a woman. I was on a bridge in Frome, with Gertie and the girls, feeding the ducks. I saw a woman in the distance in a red coat and for a moment I really thought it was her. I set off in pursuit but lost her in the crowds. It took me a while to come to my senses . . . but for just that moment, I was convinced it was her, come to find me after all those years.’

  The echo of something is rattling in Maggie’s mind. A man with his little girls feeding the ducks. But she has a head full of questions for this man and doesn’t want to waste a moment. ‘So you did eventually marry? You had children? Girls, you say? Lucy is your granddaughter?’

  Jack shakes his head sadly. ‘Oh no. Gertie was my sister. She had three delightful daughters. I eventually pulled myself together enough to be their uncle. A good one, I hope. Lucy is my great niece,’ he adds proudly. He is smiling, but Maggie can see the pain and regret in his eyes. ‘After many lost years, I cleaned up my act and opened the gallery in Frome. I turned my attention to supporting other artists and made a modest income – enough to get by. Though whenever I thought of contacting your grandmother – and there were many occasions when I thought of her – I felt a terrible shame. I never wanted her to see me this way. The failed artist.’

  ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t—’

  But he is already waving away her words, deflecting with a new question. ‘So you’re Albie’s daughter?’ he says. ‘How is the boy?’

  Maggie can’t help the laugh that escapes her. ‘Boy? He’s sixty-eight! But yes, I suppose in many respects he is still a boy. The boy who refused to grow up and settle down.’ She smiles. ‘He’s a terrible father. I’ve learned the hard way not to expect anything from him. It’s easier that way. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt still. He’s my dad. Probably the best thing he ever did for me was to leave me at Cloudesley with Lillian and ask her to raise me; although I didn’t know it for a long time.’

  ‘Did your father ever talk to you about his childhood?’

  Maggie shakes her head.

  ‘Try not to judge him too harshly. We all carry our own scars, our own pain.’

  Maggie narrows her eyes. She wants to ask more but Jack is clearing his throat.

  ‘And so you grew up at Cloudesley too, like Albie?’

  ‘Yes, I rattled around that huge house with my grandparents. Lillian was my saving grace.’

  ‘And Charles?’ The man is eyeing her keenly.

  Maggie shrugs. ‘I wasn’t as close to him. He was an invalid for most of my childhood. Stuck in a wheelchair.’ She eyes Jack Fincher again. ‘I’m told he was a force to be reckoned with, back in the day, before the business went under and he suffered his stroke. But I only ever really knew him as an old man diminished by poor health. It’s sad, really. You probably knew a very different Charles?’

  ‘I certainly did.’ Jack clears his throat. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He collapsed in the drawing room one day. Poor Charles. To spend the rest of his life like that, trapped in his own failing body.’

  ‘Life is strange,’ Jack murmurs.

  ‘If I’m honest, I preferred to keep out of his way. It was Lillian who ran the show. Cloudesley was so obviously her domain. She made all the decisions, kept the place going, with Bentham’s help.’

  ‘Ah, Bentham. Whatever happened to the fellow?’

  ‘I believe he stayed on at Cloudesley for years, though eventually he retired in the late eighties, I think. He became something of a friend to Gran, after Charles’s death. He’d call in on her. I’d see them together, drinking tea out on the terrace, or taking a walk around the house and grounds. I used to tease Gran that he had a crush on her. I don’t think it was ever romantic, but she was very sad when he died. She told me then that she’d come to see him as a sort of protector.’ Maggie shrugs. ‘I never quite understood it, but I suppose she meant she saw him as a custodian to Cloudesley, someone who helped to watch over the old place.’

  Maggie notices Jack’s watering eyes and turns away to pour a second cup of tea for them both.

  ‘She was a good woman,’ he says after a while. ‘Devoted to Albie and her sister, Helena.’

  Maggie sighs. ‘Well, I’m not sure my father deserved her devotion. He hasn’t been very good to her over the years.’

  ‘Perhaps you made up for that?’

  Maggie smiles. ‘God, do you think so? Poor Lillian.’

  ‘Your grandmother was driven by a wonderful instinct to care for others – a strong maternal streak. I imagine you must have brought her great joy.’

  ‘And great strife too, I’m afraid. I’m no angel.’

  ‘Are any of us? I’ve found great joy from the closeness I share with my sister’s family. Perhaps it was the same for Lillian? Besides, it sounds to me as if you were there when it mattered most. At the end, by her side. That’s what counts.’

  Maggie thinks for a moment. ‘You were there too, in a way.’

  The man looks up from his cup, startled. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘What I mean is that she spoke about you at the end. On the day she died, she told me about a hawk you rescued together.’

  A gentle smile breaks over Jack’s face, drawing a light into his dark eyes. ‘Did she now? Well, well.’

  The waiter is back at their table. He offers them fresh hot water for their tea, but they both decline. Maggie checks the time on her watch. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve kept you rather a long time. Would you mind if I asked you one last question?’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘What was your inspiration for the room?’

  Jack Fincher sighs and a small smile comes over his face. ‘It was your grandfather who commissioned the painted room, but from the very first brushstroke, it was hers. Not that anyone else could have known, but I was creating a tribute.

  ‘I had intended for the room to be the story of our summer together, full of signs and symbols only she would recognise, moments we had shared. My hope was that it would stand as a secret legacy.’ Jack looks around at the Whistler mural on the wall beside them. ‘So much that is beautiful about life is fleeting, impermanent. I think that’s why I felt compelled to try to capture it. I wanted my paintings to remain as reassurance of my devotion, permanent evidence of what we had shared, to remain long after I had left Cloudesley and our moment together had faded.’ He clears his throat. ‘It’s been one of my greatest regrets that it was destroyed by the fire – that she only ever saw it the once.’

  Maggie has been fiddling with the silver tea strainer as she listens, but when she hears these words, she places it carefully back in its tray and turns to him. ‘She only saw it the once?’ She shakes her head. ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘About the room?’

  He looks at her, puzzled.

  ‘It’s still there,’ she says, watching as his dark eyes slowly widen. ‘I unlocked it just a few weeks ago. There’s some significant fire damage, of course, to the walls near the window seat. There’s some damp here and there too, a few worrying cracks along the curved, outer wall; but the majority of your work remains. Soot-stained, of course, but surprisingly intact. It seems that by shutting up the room, boarding up the windows, protecting it all these years from sunlight, Charles unwittingly helped to preserve the integrity of your work.’

  The old man looks stunned. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true. The National Trust sent a specialist to survey the room. They were very excited to see it. They’ve reassured me that most of it is salvageable. It’s really quite remarkable.’

  It is Jack Fincher’s turn to look astonished. ‘But Charles – he told me . . .�
�� Maggie notices the man’s hands trembling. ‘When he came to the hospital that day, he told me the room had been lost. He said it had been completely destroyed.’

  Maggie shakes her head. ‘It’s not true. I don’t know why he lied to you, but he did. Your murals survived.’

  ‘Well I never.’ Jack Fincher shakes his head, clearly confounded. ‘All this time . . .’

  ‘He must have hated that Lillian loved you. Perhaps that’s why he told you it was destroyed? A form of revenge. He boarded the windows and locked the entire wing, but Lillian must have taken the key, after Charles’s stroke. Presumably he couldn’t keep her from the room any longer. I believe she spent many secret hours in there over the years.’ Maggie thinks of Lillian’s nighttime wanderings, her sooty feet, the way Jane had found her collapsed outside the locked door in the hall, her grandmother’s unwavering insistence that she remain at Cloudesley. ‘I think she was going in and out, right up until her death. It was a private sanctuary for her. Her personal treasure. The reason she couldn’t bear to leave.’

  Jack shakes his head. ‘So she saw it again, after the day of the fire?’

  ‘Yes. Again and again.’

  ‘After all this time . . . it seems like a miracle.’

  ‘Yes,’ agrees Maggie, ‘it is a miracle; because it’s your room that has given Cloudesley a future. Thanks to your murals, the National Trust has determined that the house has special cultural significance. They’re sending in a team of specialists to work on its restoration in the New Year. I’m going to stay on in one part of the house in a residential capacity, but we’ll open most of the interior and the grounds to the public for the first time next spring, with a special exhibition of your room. There’s a great deal of excitement building already. You must come and see it,’ she adds. ‘We will have a grand unveiling – a party. You must be our guest of honour.’

  Jack still looks dazed. It’s as he reaches for a napkin and presses discreetly at the corner of his eyes that she remembers something else.