The Ashford Affair

by Lauren Willig

  Mostly to piss off Mother. It wasn’t a terribly noble thought, but there it was.

  “Last night was tough,” said Jon quietly. “For everyone. Anna doesn’t usually take sleeping pills.”

  “What are we going to do when she goes?” Clemmie hadn’t meant to say the words, but there they were, stark and cold. She looked down at her hands. “And you’re right. I don’t know anything about her. I never bothered to ask.”

  “She didn’t volunteer,” said Jon.

  Clemmie grimaced at him, trying to keep her cool. “Are you being nice to me?”

  “Don’t get used to it.” Jon looked at her for a moment, head tilted, considering. He said, slowly, “Can I show you something?”

  “That depends on what it is.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jon. “You’re not going to get that lucky.” Clemmie snorted. Jon jerked his head sideways. “This way.”

  She followed him into a room that looked like it was ordinarily a study of some kind. The walls were lined with built-in bookcases in a dark wood. There was squishy chair in one corner and a table that looked like it could double as a desk. The room also obviously doubled as the guest room. Clemmie avoided looking at the rumpled sheets on the daybed. There was something weirdly intimate about it. Jon’s suitcase, a plain black wheelie, lay on the floor next to the chair, closed but unzipped, the corner of a pair of khakis bulging out of one side.

  Last night’s blazer was tossed over the arm of the desk chair, still smelling faintly of Granny Addie’s apartment: potpourri and lemon oil.

  Clemmie nodded to the daybed. “I thought you said I wasn’t going to get that lucky.”

  “Control yourself, you animal you. I’m still a married man. Technically.” Kneeling on the bed, Jon scanned the bookshelves, his finger moving from one spine to the next.

  Clemmie stood awkwardly behind him, just far enough back to keep her knees from bumping into the bed. “What are you looking for?”

  Aunt Anna’s library ran heavily towards glossy hardcover coffee table books on art and architecture. She had gotten her degree in art history, Clemmie dimly remembered that. It had been one of the bones of contention between Aunt Anna and Clemmie’s mother, that Aunt Anna had gotten her degree and Mother hadn’t. And, then, as Mother saw it, Aunt Anna had thrown it all away, pursuing first one man, then another. It was something that had been drummed into Clemmie from an early age, the importance of picking a career and sticking with it, of being self-driven and self-supporting. Being a success. Like Granny Addie.

  “This.” Jon pulled a large folio-sized book from the shelf, his T-shirt stretching across his back with the movement. For a professor, he kept in pretty good shape. There was something to be said for those free university gym memberships. “Clem? Clemmie?”

  “What?” She looked down at the book he was shoving under her nose. There was a castle on the front of the book, atmospherically shot in the midst of a fantastical garden of topiary, the sun setting behind the battlements. Great Houses of England?

  “She reads!” said Jon.

  “I do card tricks, too,” said Clemmie. She sat down with it on the daybed, bracing the heavy pages on her knees, trying not to think of her BlackBerry buzzing away in her bag. “What exactly am I meant to be seeing here?”

  Jon flipped through the pages with a sure hand, his eyes on the book. “There.”

  The makers of the book had spared no expense; the paper was glossy and double-weight, with more pictures than text. The page on the left featured a glamour shot of a square building built of golden stone, its dome both echoing and dominating the hills beyond.

  “ASHFORD PARK,” read the heading on the right-hand page, all big black letters. Beneath it, in a prissy, curly script, was inscribed:

  Thou still unravished bower! Token of England’s greatest hour!

  Ne’er knew I true beauty ere I saw Ashford.

  —JOHN KEATS, 1795–1821

  Clemmie hadn’t realized that the Romantic poets had been for hire for marketing and publicity.

  Although the Earls of Ashford trace their heritage back to a Sir Guillaume de Gillecote, the lands comprising the Ashford family seat were first acquired in 1486, following a successful bid on the correct candidate during the Wars of the Roses.

  Successive generations of Gillecotes enlarged and expanded the initial structure, turning a Jacobean showhouse into a neo-classical fantasyland. With 135 rooms …

  “It’s pronounced ‘Gill-cott,’” said Jon helpfully. “The G is hard.”

  Clemmie looked up from the text. “I don’t get it. What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Or Granny Addie?”

  Jon plonked down on the daybed beside her. She could feel the mattress sag, tilting her towards him.

  “This,” he said, tapping a finger against the dome. “This is where Granny Addie grew up.”

  THREE

  London, 1906

  “Impossible!” said a female voice. “Simply impossible.”

  Addie huddled in the hall closet, buried among the coats. The heavy leather coat her father used for motoring formed a wall to her left, the cracks and seams in the leather tracing their own peculiar geography. Her mother’s brown duster brushed Addie’s cheek, still smelling vaguely of her scent, soap and lilac. Addie scrunched herself up small between the bootjack and a set of old fire irons that someone had meant to be taken to be mended and forgotten.

  Usually those fire irons became a castle portcullis or sometimes a garden gate, but today her imaginary worlds had failed her. Camelot with its bright pennants, the hidden gardens of the Hesperides with their golden fruit, Goblin Market with the goblins clucking and clacking, moping and mowing, all were flat and cold. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she squinched her eyes shut, trying to pretend that she wasn’t there.

  They were coming to take her away, Fernie had told her. An aunt and uncle she had never met, who lived in a place of which she had never heard.

  “You’ll like it there,” Fernie had said tearfully, packing up Addie’s dresses, her boots, her pinafores, and, on the very top, where she could reach it easily, her copy of The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. Addie was very attached to Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. “You’ll have cousins to play with. Won’t that be nice?”

  “I’d rather stay with you,” Addie had said, wrapping her arms around Fernie’s waist.

  Fernie was properly Miss Ferncliffe and her governess, but there was nothing governess-like about Fernie. She wrote poetry and sometimes tried it out on Addie, who didn’t understand most of it but liked the cadence of Fernie’s voice and the way she tilted her head as she read. She was only twenty-two, Fernie, and very pretty, with long red hair that she wore piled on top of her head in loops and puffs that she promised she would teach Addie to make just as soon as Addie was old enough. Her dresses all had pretty flounces on the bottom, and lace trim, and she always smelled of rosewater. Addie wanted to be just like her when she grew up.

  “I’d rather that, too,” said Fernie gently. The flounce on her dress swished gently against the wood floor as she moved from dresser to bed, tucking Addie’s brush and comb, the ones with her initials on them, into the corner of the bag. “But where would I keep you?”

  “We can stay here! I’ll be a laundress like Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Fernie squeezed her in a quick, rose-scented hug. Her lips brushed Addie’s hair. “You haven’t much luck keeping your own pinafores clean. I wouldn’t trust you with anyone else’s.”

  Addie bit her lip, bunching together the front of her pinny to hide the telltale smudges on the fabric. “I’ll try harder?”

  But Fernie had been obdurate. Usually, she could be wheedled and cajoled, but not on this. Addie’s aunt and uncle were coming for her and she was to go with them and be a good girl and always remember I love you, Fernie had said, and that your mother and father loved you, too.

  If they loved her, why had they gone away?

  It had been an
omnibus, they said, coming around a sharp corner. The night had been dark and wet. Addie’s parents, heads lowered, one umbrella shared, had been picking their way back from a concert across the rain-slick streets. They had decided to walk, rather than take a cab; it was like them, everyone agreed. Like them, too, to be too absorbed in their discussion to know where they were going or see the vehicle before it was upon them.

  Father had died instantly; Mother had lived long enough to be taken to hospital, but not long enough for Addie to see her. By the time Addie had been told, it was over; they were both gone. Everyone agreed that she wasn’t to come to the funeral, that it was too much for a child her age. Instead, she had sat at home, watching the endless rain weep outside the window as Cook sobbed into her pots and Mary, the one maid, clattered up and down, setting out tea and cakes for Mother’s and Father’s friends who had come to say their final good-byes.

  That had been yesterday, and the house was empty again, cold and empty. Mother’s papers were still where she had left them, on her writing table in the parlor; Father’s pipe was in its saucer. But, already, they had an air of abandonment about them, as though they knew their owners weren’t to come back.

  It was cold in the closet, cold and damp, surrounded by musty coats that no one would ever wear again.

  “Is there anyone in this ridiculous house?” There were people in the front hall, a woman and a man. The woman’s voice dropped. “I have a bad feeling about this, Charles, a very bad feeling.”

  “What else is to be done? We are her family.” It was a man’s voice, clipped, aristocratic, unutterably weary.

  “There are places.…” It was the woman’s voice again.

  “Would you have it said that a Gillecote of Ashford was sent to the poorhouse?”

  “Don’t be pompous, Charles,” said the woman irritably. “You make me sound like something out of Dickens! Hideous, underbred man. I wasn’t suggesting we send her to the poorhouse. But, surely, there are options other than taking her ourselves. What about her mother’s people? She must have come from somewhere.”

  “Vera—”

  “Or the cousins in Canada. They have so many, they’d scarcely notice another. Good hearty, colonial air. Just the thing, surely.”

  “I’m not putting a little girl alone on a boat,” said the man. Uncle Charles. Addie didn’t know anything about him, other than that he was Father’s brother and they hadn’t seen each other since Father had married Mother. “She’ll come to us and that’s an end to it.”

  Addie could hear the click of shoes against the tile of a hallway, the swish of a skirt navigating the narrow corridor between closet and hall table. “I don’t like the idea of her in the nursery with our girls. When you think of her parents—”

  “My brother,” Uncle Charles interjected.

  “Half brother. And that woman. Do you really think I’d have that woman’s child—”

  “Child, Vera,” said Uncle Charles tiredly. “That child. She’s only—what was it? Six? Seven? Young enough to be taught. I have no doubt,” he added dryly, “that if anyone can do it, it will be you.”

  “Addie? Addie?” It was Fernie calling. “Are you hiding?” Addie heard her quick steps come to an abrupt halt. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Have you been waiting long?”

  “There was no one to answer the bell.” It was the woman’s voice, heavy with disapproval.

  “I let the servants go. Since—” Fernie’s voice caught. She went on determinedly. “You must be Lord and Lady Ashford? Thank you so much for coming for Addie. She’s—well, she’s as you can imagine. It’s been very hard for her. For all of us. It was all so sudden, so unexpected—” Her voice broke.

  “Do you have the child ready?” said the woman, breaking off further confidences. “We have the car waiting.”

  “Yes, everything is ready,” said Fernie distractedly. “But Addie— She likes to hide in the closet when she’s upset. It’s her private place.”

  The door opened, letting in a pale triangle of light. Addie made herself as small as she could, scrunched up against the back wall of the closet.

  “Addie,” Fernie said, and there was a pleading note in her voice. “Addie, come and meet your uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Ashford. Please, darling, do come out.”

  Reluctantly, Addie unfolded herself from her snug corner, wiggling out between old boots and discarded umbrellas. Her hair had come out of its ribbon and there were dark smudges on her face where she had wiped at her cheeks with dirty hands.

  The first person she saw was the aunt, Lady Ashford, who stared at her as though she were a bug caught crawling out of the wainscoting. She wasn’t precisely tall, but she seemed to take up a great deal of space. Her hat went up at the sides and down in the middle. There was a feather sprouting from one side, too impossibly purple to have come from any bird Addie could imagine. Lady Ashford wore a fur stole around her shoulders, over a traveling costume of purple and black. Her collar was high and pointy and went up right under her chin, which might be, Addie thought, why she held it quite so high.

  Next to her, Uncle Charles seemed faded in comparison, as if he were a watercolor that had been caught in the rain. Addie’s father’s hair had been blond, too, but Uncle Charles’ was several shades lighter, pale blond blending to silver, his eyes a pale blue that looked as though the color had been bleached out of them. Everything about him was tall and thin, from his long, narrow nose to the long, thin hand on his wife’s arm.

  They were both staring at her. Addie scrunched her shoulders, wishing she had stayed in her closet. They weren’t at all like her parents’ friends, who bribed her into good humor with gifts of sweets or stood her on a chair and made her recite Fernie’s poetry for them, applauding vigorously as she did.

  “Say hello to your aunt and uncle, Addie,” Fernie said nervously.

  “Young ladies,” said Lady Ashford, “do not lurk in cupboards.”

  Addie tucked her chin in. “Then I won’t be a young lady,” she said defiantly. “I’d much rather be a hedgehog.”

  It was the sort of remark that made Fernie shake her head and kiss Addie on the cheek and her parents’ friends laugh.

  The aunt and uncle weren’t amused. Lady Ashford looked triumphant. Lord Ashford looked grave.

  Lady Ashford gave Lord Ashford a significant look. “Grubbing in the dirt, I see,” she said meaningfully.

  “Oh, no,” said Addie quickly, amazed at this lack of comprehension. “Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle doesn’t grub. She washes Lucie’s handkerchiefs for her and makes them nice and clean. She washes Henny-penny’s stockings and Tabby Kitten’s mittens and—”

  “Addie,” said Fernie, very softly.

  “But she does!”

  “Completely ungoverned,” said Lady Ashford. She turned to Fernie. “Have you packed her things?”

  Fernie nodded. “I’ve packed Addie’s clothes, but there are still—there are still Mr. and Mrs. Gillecote’s things. I didn’t know what you would want to do about them, if you want to bring them, or save them for Addie, or—” She looked anxiously to Uncle Charles. “The house was let furnished, but there are, oh, little things. And all their books, of course.”

  “We shan’t be wanting any of that,” said Aunt Vera dismissively. “There are books enough at Ashford.”

  “If you would like to have any of it as a keepsake…” added Uncle Charles to Fernie diplomatically.

  Fernie dumbly shook her head. “No, I couldn’t. But, surely, Addie should have her mother’s books—not to read now, of course, but for when she’s older.…”

  Aunt Vera ignored her. “I assume the child has a coat?”

  Addie opened her mouth to protest, but Fernie put her hand on her shoulder and squeezed, hard. Addie glanced up at Fernie and Fernie shook her head, warning her to silence. Addie looked at the aunt and uncle and back at Fernie and held tight to Fernie’s hand. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t, not in front of the new aunt with the hard, cold eyes or the uncle who ought to l
ook like her father but didn’t.

  As Aunt Vera and Uncle Charles’ chauffeur fetched Addie’s bags, Fernie buttoned Addie into her coat. “Don’t worry, darling,” she whispered. “Just pretend you’re a princess in a tower.”

  Addie wrapped her arms around Fernie’s neck, squeezing as hard as she could, breathing in her rosewater scent for the very last time. “A very high tower.”

  “But a very brave princess.” Fernie squeezed back, then let her go, gently untangling Addie’s arms from around her neck. “Wait. Wait here for a moment.”

  She disappeared in a swirl of skirts and came back again a moment later, breathless, her cheeks pink with exertion.

  “Take this,” she said, and pushed a thin volume into Addie’s hand, cheaply bound in pink, speckled paper.

  It was Fernie’s own copy of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market.

  It was Addie’s favorite poem, with all the clucking and clacking and mopping and mowing. She had made Fernie read it to her again and again, acting out the goblins, alternately playing the parts of Lizzie and Laura, the daring sister and the prudent one.

  “There.” Fernie closed Addie’s hands around the book. “Read that and think of me.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t let your aunt and uncle see it.”

  Addie tucked it away under her coat. Somehow, she had the feeling that Fernie was right. Quiet and subdued, Addie took her place in Uncle Charles’ car.

  “Ashford,” she heard him tell the driver.

  The word echoed in her ears with the thrum of the engine and the rumble of the tires as they pulled away from Guilford Street, rolling their way mile by mile towards the home from which her father had so pointedly run away.

  Ashford.

  New York, 1999

  “Isn’t that Brideshead Revisited?” Clemmie looked at the image on the page. It was Masterpiece Theatre come to life.

  “Nope,” said Jon. “That was Castle Howard. But close. Same architect.”

  The golden stone of Ashford Park gleamed in the sunshine, the dome dominating the landscape for miles around. A multitiered flight of stairs led up to the front entrance, a massive doorway dwarfed by its frame of matched columns, overshadowed by a triangular portico. Long wings stretched out on either side, pilaster after pilaster, window after window, all in perfect symmetry. Even squished flat on an eleven-and-a-half-by-eight-inch piece of paper, the house had an imposing feel to it, the sort of place that was designed to overawe the peasantry and impress visiting monarchs.