by Xan Brooks
“It’s a present to myself,” Truman-Jones tells the group. “It’s a small goodbye present before embarking for Bombay.”
Winifred stands up, tucks her hair behind her ears in a matter-of-fact manner. “All right,” she says. “If we are going to do it.”
“Fred, wait. Stop.”
“What an occurrence,” Fortnum-Hyde marvels. “And top marks to the pleasure dolls. I’m sure you agree, they have managed to enliven a very dull night.”
Still tugging at the loose strand on the rug, Clarissa says, “Forgive me. I am finding all of this just a trifle unseemly.”
Her objection passes all but unnoticed. Skinny Boy takes Winifred by the hand and together they pick their way through the furniture and out the door. Fortnum-Hyde sees them off by instigating a round of applause.
“Oh poor girl,” Conway says. “First the darkie and then the elephant. There’ll be nothing left of the child by the end of the night.”
“Nonsense,” Fortnum-Hyde rejoins. “Ferdinand is going to eat them both alive.”
“Ten bob for the other one,” Arthur Elms blurts. The words are out of his mouth before he knows what has happened.
Here a thick silence falls on the room. The imp’s outburst has taken everyone by surprise.
“Now then,” Fortnum-Hyde says at length. “Our broken tinderbox exhibits faint signs of life.”
The girl grips her knees. Addressing the young master, she says, “I don’t want to, I’m sorry.”
“Why ever not, child?”
“I don’t like him, that’s all.”
Fortnum-Hyde frowns. “Nobody likes him, that’s beside the point. The man is a dung beetle. He’s a waste of everyone’s time. But it may be that you can rekindle his fire. God knows, he needs something. I have just about given up.”
“Leave her alone,” says Clarissa.
The thing about his sister is that she can always make him laugh. “Leave her alone to do what? What else does she do? We all know why this young lady is here, but it is only you who likes to pretend she is something she’s not. Ferdie and Lulu are the pleasure dolls. They are good at their job and that’s why we love them.” He turns back to the girl. “Go on,” he says. “Get.”
When she continues to hesitate, Conway moves to resolve the impasse. He says, “The viscount just gave you an order, my child. It would be rather ungracious if you forced him to repeat it.”
In the half-light of the great hall, Elms is aware of her casting about to see where her friend has got to, no doubt aiming to overtake the girl for some whispered consultation. But the only figure in the vicinity is the housekeeper, Mrs Cleaver, standing against the far wall with her hands tightly folded. Mrs Cleaver is as impassive as the Sphinx. She prides herself on her skill at revealing no more information than is strictly required.
Placatingly he says, “I reckon they will both have gone upstairs” and then trots behind as the girl makes her ascent. He calls, “But I don’t know what room the skinny negro is using,” and this is true, he does not. He has heard that the musicians like to swap rooms on a nightly basis. He supposes the Long Boys are roving gypsies at heart. They try each room for size but have a horror of becoming too comfortable, too stuck. They are convinced the next room will mark an improvement on the one they are in.
He says, “Actually I lied. I only want to talk to you. And I don’t have ten bob as it is. In fact I am completely stony broke.”
For the first time she speaks. “That’s all right,” she says faintly. “I only want to find Fred.”
But the corridor confuses her; she scrutinises each door in turn.
“Maybe this one,” suggests Elms. He turns the handle and puts his free hand at her back. Inside the big bedroom the lights have been lit. A fire burns in the hearth. The branches of the cedar stand black against the uncurtained windows.
“No, not this one,” she says.
“No, this one is mine.” He closes in behind her and positions his bulk at the door jamb to prevent her escape. “Don’t worry, I mean it, I just want to talk. Sit down for a moment. You’re safe as houses with me.”
It is abundantly clear he repulses the girl. Elms does not mind. He has accepted his role as an object of revulsion. He repulses high-born ladies and well-to-do widows, and now it transpires he can add schoolgirl tarts to the list. This particular tart has no compunction about bedding down with legless cripples and half-dead men in masks, and yet show her healthy Arthur Elms with his proud belly and she says, ‘Oh please no, I don’t like him’. How amusing that is. It merely confirms the imp’s status as the lowest of the low.
Trying again, he indicates the amulet on his chest. He says, “I can’t pay you with money, but I can pay you with this. This was taken from a pharaoh’s tomb, it’s called the Eye of Thoth-Amon. It’s worth more than ten bob, I can tell you that much.”
“I don’t want it.”
He slips the chain from around his neck and immediately feels lighter; he has come to hate the amulet. “Take it as payment. I just want to talk, it’s the only thing I can manage. Take it, miss, please. It’s worth ever so much money.”
Unwillingly she reaches out and gathers the chain in her hand.
He says, “I killed my best friend to get ahold of that thing.”
“Oh take it back,” she says, shocked. “I don’t want it anyway.”
“Too late, it’s yours. Put it in your pocket. Do you believe what I said? That I killed my best friend.”
“I don’t know,” says the girl. But all at once her resistance crumbles; it may be the old amulet has some power after all. She steps into the room and bonelessly drops on the chair by the fire where she proceeds to wrap the chain about one slender fist, pulling its coils so tightly that her flesh stands out pink. He expects her to weep at this point and is momentarily thrown when she doesn’t.
Elms pulls the door at his back. He takes a perch on the edge of the four-poster, poised to glide onto his feet if his guest attempts to escape. His thoughts have been chaotic but the girl’s presence works wonders. She possesses a still, quiet quality, which is entirely at odds with her line of business. She appears to stand apart from the rest of Grantwood’s occupants. He does not even mind that he repulses her so long as she is able to provide him with solace.
“Queen Anne,” he says.
“What?”
“This bed. Queen Anne.” He pats the eiderdown with one white hand. “But don’t worry, I mean it, I only want to talk.” He thinks it might help if he were to unbutton his flies and present her with some tangible evidence of his harmlessness and good intentions. In this moment it feels important that the girl, alone out of everyone, understands the situation. He cannot produce fire. He cannot be aroused in her company. So he sits here before her, a flaccid, hollow man. Whatever he once was has now departed for good.
Instead he leaves his right hand on the bed. He says, “It’s true what I said. I killed men in the war, but of course that doesn’t count. But then I killed my best friend Uriah to get ahold of the amulet and an old nag I could sell. I wish that I hadn’t. I’d take it back if I could.”
“Take it back then. I don’t even want it.”
“Ha,” he says. “What’s done is done.”
But the truth of the matter is that he feels very nearly content. It is the happiest he has been in many months, perhaps the happiest he’s been since his final night in the woods, beside the shallow, rocky river, when they cleared timber from the lean-to and listened to the rain tapping the metal roof overhead. Afterwards he will recall the feel of the eiderdown against the palm of his hand and the soothing sight of the girl in the chair by the fire, her face half-turned to the hearth as he tells her of his life. He has paid for her time, which means that she must sit and be quiet until he has said his piece. It does not concern him that she would rather be elsewhere. They have an und
erstanding, she and him. She cannot leave until he lets her go.
He cocks his head, squints his eyes. “Your mum and dad are both dead, I think.”
She says nothing.
“Yes,” he says. “Both of them dead. All very sad. Do you want me to contact them for you?”
“No.” The very notion appals her. “Please don’t.”
“I can, you know. I can do it for free.”
She shakes her head dumbly.
“Very well. Never mind.”
The voices in his head have gone silent. Maybe they’re listening too. Then, speaking unhurriedly in a measured tone he has never been able to master when inside the drawing room, he explains that he first stole the amulet because he wanted to sell it, but then began to use it as Uriah had used it, as a part of his costume – a stage conjurer’s accessory to augment his real magic. He tells her about his time as a spiritualist, purporting to commune with the dead and bring comfort to the living. He says that being a good spiritualist is much like being a good detective. You need to lay the ground, do your homework and keep an eye out for clues. After that, you dim the lights and shuffle the ingredients and spice up your story with a few harmless white lies. But really what you are doing is leaving a trail or a bait as an invitation for the client to come and meet the spiritualist halfway. And when that happens, you’ve won. The client winds up doing most of the work for you.
The girl leans in to add nuggets of coal to the fire. She says, “So it’s all a lie. It’s all a fake.”
He shakes his head, irked. “You’re not understanding. The lie tells the truth. It comforts the afflicted. That’s what makes it magic.”
“But a lie is a lie. A lie’s always wrong.”
“Not always, though. That’s what I’m saying.”
“And that trick with the flames. That’s not real either.”
“No, that was always real, a reaction to the war. And then it burned out. I can’t do it anymore.”
“Why not, if it’s real?”
By now his fingers have left the eiderdown and begun to probe at one another. He is conscious of a growing agitation. He wishes the girl would keep quiet and simply let him speak. He clears his throat and prepares to tell her about his time in the trench. About the rats and the flies and the charred human flesh that smelled like cuts of roast pork and about how he came away without so much as a scratch, which proves he is blessed – so much more blessed than her pathetic friends in the cottage. He is speaking in a rush; his fingers rush and grope; they have a life of their own. Downstairs, at a distance, the first grandfather clock chimes the hour of midnight.
He says, “Your crippled friends in the cottage. I used to bury those men every day of the week.”
She says, “Show me how you do the trick.”
“It’s not a trick. It’s real. I don’t know how I did it.”
“That’s stupid.”
He says, “The world is stupid, that shows how much you know. Nothing makes any sense. Things just happen, that’s all.”
He rubs the pads of his fingers but it’s no use, he is spent. His energies are exhausted and the magic has wound down. He stares at the lost, lonely girl on the chair by the fire and thinks how nice it would be if they could both leave together. They might take their trade on the road; she could be his assistant. He would treat her so kindly. He could be her saviour.
He urges his hands to stop their writhing. He attempts another laugh. “Could you ever love me, Lucy?”
“No,” she replies without hesitation.
This time his laugh feels looser, less false. “What about like? Could you ever learn to like me?”
“No.”
“No,” Elms says with a sigh. This is what he suspected. The second grandfather clock strikes; the third will follow shortly. Indistinct voices leak back into his brain and now he is convinced that there are screams from the back rows. Something terrible is approaching, it draws closer by the hour. There is nothing to do but sit tight to one side and see what form it will take.
27
The last full day of Lord Hertford’s life arrives bright and cold on a gust of brown leaves. The sheep on the lawn are becomingly ruffled. The camel sets forth to seek shelter in the woods. Somewhere in the house an unfastened window is banging. The acoustics are such it takes the servants a half-hour to find it.
The earl awakens to the weight of a breakfast tray being set upon his lap. He eats a poached egg and white fish and permits his valet to dress him. The night has been an uncommonly restorative one. The autumn light is so splendid that it cajoles him outside. In his wheeled wicker chair he can feel the wind’s whip and drag. His sandy hair is a tumult and his woollen scarf streams out and then up and then across his long face. “Raine,” he complains. “I am temporarily blinded.”
Several gods have been toppled but the butler is quick to reassure him that no lasting damage is done. They come scrunching up the raked gravel drive that leads to the orchard where the groundsman has been summoned to report on the state of the trees. Gesturing with his briar pipe, Coach shows where the root rot is at its worst and where the saplings have failed. Lord Hertford replies with a series of commiserating grunts and then requests an apple be plucked for his inspection. Root rot aside, the fruit appears to be healthy. Perhaps this weekend he will have Cook bake a pie.
Migrating birds wheel overhead. When his chair is turned back towards the gate in the wall, he idly asks whether the two little girls are still boarding at the cottage and Coach scratches his ear and says he believes that they are.
Lord Hertford smiles. “Dear me, they have been with us an awfully long time. I rather think that quite soon they might prefer to go home.”
He lunches on a whim in the kitchens and has Raine fetch Mrs Cleaver to join him at the table. And perhaps he knows he is pointed towards death because he is preoccupied by his legacy and what will follow in his wake. He reminds the housekeeper of the labourers’ summit that these kitchens once hosted, and of the angry farmers whom he brought into line and then set upon a higher path, ensuring they maintained a living wage for those who worked on the land. He recalls the suffragettes and their supporters who employed the house as base camp, and concedes that even she, Mrs Cleaver, has played a small role in shaping British history. That her reward is the ballot and that she must use it wisely.
And he is concerned that these achievements should not be forgotten. The liberal course is almost – not quite – Sisyphean in that it requires a constant, steady hand to nudge the boulder uphill. Relax the pressure for an instant and so much social progress risks being rolled back. Such is the way of the world, and of capital, and of the basest urges of human nature. But he has performed his role as best he could and it now falls to the viscount to take up the challenge. He truly hopes that he will; the evidence is encouraging. If anything, the scope of Rupert’s ambition surpasses even his own. The boy is energetic and bold, almost to a fault, although is that really a problem? The world demands boldness or else nothing ever gets done.
His long features twitch. His blue stare has gone milky. He says, “He is an impressive figure, is he not? I dare say he has given us cause for concern in the past. But he has blossomed into a man of true stature, I think.”
“He is a credit to you, sir,” Mrs Cleaver agrees.
“My one wish is that the tax officials leave him just a little to play with. He is not obviously suited to managing diminishing resources. He has been built to lead an advancing army as opposed to one in retreat.”
“I am confident,” says Mrs Cleaver and then appears to trail off.
Lord Hertford says, “The world appears to me to be shrinking. And yet of course that’s not true. Rupert understands the situation rather better than I.”
The valet runs his bath. He soaps himself and retires for his nap and when he awakens the October brightness has faded and
it is very nearly winter. The clocks introduce the evening with a whirr and a clang. And this is how the day ends for Lord Hertford: installed in his upstairs drawing room, with the fire laid in the grate and a modest supper set on the claw-footed table. He reads fifteen pages of the Life of Disraeli, after which he requests that Clarissa join him for whist. They play three hands in near silence; he keeps dropping his cards. At one stage, losing interest, he gets it into his head that Rupert’s musicians should come up and perform. That would be rather agreeable – a private recital – but Clarissa explains that these particular musicians possess a limited repertoire. They exclusively play jazz, which she knows her father dislikes. The Long Boys, she adds, are slaves to modernity. They have no appreciation of history. They might as well all have been hatched yesterday.
“The modern world,” marvels Lord Hertford with a laugh.
In bed, deep asleep, he is returned to a summer he passed many decades before, navigating the mountainous interior of the Peloponnese. He is a handsome man, lean and trim, striding between hard light and black shadow, or swimming alone in a lake cradled by high granite walls. This was the summer he turned twenty-one and the land about him felt younger even than that, like some glistening newborn, altogether comical in its blinking, stumbling savagery. The cobbled streets are so steep that they invite him to run, and so he canters to eat dinner at the ramshackle tavern where he is circled by garrulous Greek urchins who want his leftover goat stew. And then on to his room where he likes to sit up and drink ouzo and write urgent political tracts, the import of which he can hardly bring himself to believe until he puts it down in black ink and realises that it is all true and that every letter, each word, is like a lick of bright fire. This is the summer he spends in the Peloponnese and the experience transports him and erases all of the years in between, so that when the butler heaves open the door to let the light pour into the room the earl rises up in exaltation to claim it. “Raine,” he exclaims. “You put me in mind of the sun god Apollo.”
