The Sisters Mortland

by Sally Beauman

I pick up the Sainsbury’s plastic bag and take from it the other object I’ve brought with me, my Chinese ivory sphere. I leave the spade by the gate for collection on my return and begin walking up the gravel path, now narrowed and overgrown, that leads past the refectory.

  I stop and look down across the valley. The village has grown: ribbon development. These ribbons, composed of new houses, most of them bungalows for retirees or starter homes for young families, now stretch along all the approaching roads to Wykenfield. The largest development, at Orchard Close, has been built where the Doggett brothers once cherished their apple trees. That name is their only memorial. None of the occupants of these new houses works in the village; there is no work in the village. The McIver farm, once four hundred acres, employed twenty men in Joe’s youth. The farm’s now grown to one thousand acres, and it employs two. Students, paid punitive wages, supplement them at harvest time, picking the summer vegetable crops that Hector, under punitive contract, grows for one of the big supermarkets.

  When Angus McIver first came south, in the depths of the agricultural depression, escaping the land starvation in Scotland, where twenty-thousand-acre shooting estates owned by English grandees were commonplace and it was impossible for a small farmer to increase his holding or make a living, he looked at the potential richness of these then neglected fields in disbelief. The old boys down at the pub, satiric yokels who included my grandfather, were waiting for him to fail. They’d buy him a pint, make a few sly jokes about the invasion of Scotsmen here in Suffolk, then they’d tell him just how killing, how man-breaking, this land was: the heaviness of the boulder clay, the droughts in summer, the flints that blunted the plow, the need for costly drainage schemes. Meeting their mocking gaze with his steady blue Presbyterian eye, Angus informed them that he could deal with flints and heavy soil: Where he came from they plowed up boulders of granite.

  Now, Hector tells me, a farm of one thousand acres is scarcely viable. It’s too small; the overheads are too high; the grants, involving night after night of paperwork, are insufficient. He’s thinking of following the latest trend: selling out entirely or renting the land to a management syndicate. There’s a new syndicate that now manages all the land from here to Deepden except his, and a good four thousand acres beyond that. They understand concepts foreign to him, such as taking productive land, high-yield land, and using it for set-aside. There’s going to be big grant money in letting fields lie idle.

  A policy reverse. Change of faith. A reformation. Having laid out trillions to subsidize unnecessary food mountains, they’re now to be abandoned. I look toward Deepden; it’s somewhere over there, beyond the blue, bowled, pale horizon. At night you can see the lights from the American air base staining the sky. Could you do that? I’d asked Hector. Maybe so, maybe so, he answered.

  Father and son; dark prairies; five decades of toil, of stubborn faith in yields and chemicals. Where there were once cattle, sheep, and pigs, there’s now not an animal in sight. Fewer birds sing. I turn away from the valley of my childhood and begin walking toward the Abbey.

  I cross the old moat ditch on a plank that looks as if it’s been recently replaced, go through the archway, and pause in the courtyard. The refectory is padlocked and shuttered, but sound. The roof is intact; the guttering looks well maintained—and that surprises me. Hadn’t Joe said this place was going to rack and ruin? Then I smell wood-smoke. I look up, and once again I see hallucinatory smoke coming from the Abbey chimneys.

  I pass my hand over my eyes. I thought I was healed, over the illness—yet I’m seeing the invisible, conjuring the nonexistent. I look again. The smoke is still there, curling up into the pale sky—I haven’t imagined it.

  I’m cautious in my approach then. Someone—Julia, perhaps, since she’s the only candidate with enough money—must have decided to take this place in hand. Maybe repairs are being done, with a view to selling the Abbey. It’s been empty and unused for so long. Maybe Julia has decided, and Finn agreed, that it’s a liability. Maybe there are workmen here, though if so, it seems odd that neither Flora nor Hector McIver mentioned it. Maybe a replacement for Bella has been found, and the Abbey has a new guardian who goes in from time to time to warm the place and air it; to dust the tables and shake out the covers on the fat armchairs; to polish the silver photograph frames, as Bella did, and wax those hulking “good pieces” of furniture that came from Elde Hall, those relics of Gramps’s privileged childhood.

  I make my way between the yew hedges—they haven’t been cut back. There’s no evidence of any work here, and the path is so narrow that it’s almost impassable. I push my way between the yews and find myself on the edge of the cloister. I can see that the door into the chessboard hall is wide open. I can’t hear any voices, though; there’s no evidence of men at work. I make my way quietly round the east end of the house, keeping close to the walls and out of sight of the windows. I intend to replace the ivory sphere in the Lady Chapel, in its rightful position alongside its fellows. I feel I should do this now; this will be my last visit to the Abbey. In the old pantry off the scullery, there was one window that never latched properly, and I feel certain I’ll get in easily enough by this means or some other. But when I reach the back of the house, looking out over the wilderness of weeds that was once Joe’s orderly and prolific kitchen garden—I’m glad I didn’t take him there—I find that subterfuge is unnecessary. I try the back door. I turn the handle of the back door. The back door opens immediately and silently.

  I stand there, listening. I can hear no voices, no footfalls, no sounds of human presence.

  But in the stillness of the house, I can hear that multitude of other sounds, the shifting and creaking of old timbers, the scurrying of mice behind wainscot, the breathing and movement of an aged building. Listening carefully, I find I can hear the sighs of those inhabitants Maisie befriended, those men and women who will never leave here.

  It’s an illusion: I know that. Even so, as I stand there, I feel the rush of the past, of prayers repeated and repeated, day after day, century after century; I can half hear, almost hear, the whispers of those families who lived here after the nuns left, the whispering tides of their births, deaths, and marriages. I can hear Stella, at the piano, faltering her way through Für Elise, the sad cadence drifting down the stairs to me. I can hear Gramps saying to me, Look at this wine I’ve found, Dan. I thought this had all been finished up years ago, but there’s one bottle left, hiding away for an evening like this. A fine vintage, a historic vintage, let’s take it up and we’ll all drink it tonight, shall we?

  I can hear myself, standing at the kitchen door, saying, Please, ma’am, Joe says would I bring you these? And Stella, exclaiming in delight at the new potatoes, saying, How lovely—aren’t they beautiful?You must be Danny. Come in, Danny, we’re just about to have tea; you must have tea with us. Now, let me introduce you. This is my daughter Julia, and this is Finn, and this is the baby of the family, Maisie.

  I can feel the force of my stare, over thirty years later. No one had ever told me that potatoes could be beautiful. It had never occurred to me that these three girls, whom I’ve already pursued for months, alive with curiosity, peeping out at them from trees and hedges, spying on them in the church, even in the house, wondering if they will be my friends, as I’d so often imagined—it’s never occurred to me how powerful they might be: not until I’m face-to-face with the sisters in triplicate, three identical blue stares meeting mine. Are they assessing me, dismissing me, accepting or judging me? I cannot tell.

  I can’t read them. Can they read me? I wonder.

  I pass my hand over my face. The boy vanishes. The sisters vanish. The past is making me dizzy.

  Which of seven staircases to take? One for each day of the week. I start climbing the main staircase, the one that will lead me directly upstairs to the library, the Lady Chapel. I stop dead halfway up, and my skin goes cold. I am not alone in the house. I am not alone in this house. I can hear footsteps in the library; I
can hear footsteps, pacing back and forth, light footsteps, like those of a woman or a child—and for one cold moment, I think, It’s Maisie.

  I hesitate, then, calming myself, telling myself it’s more likely to be a visiting housekeeper than a visiting ghost, I turn onto a side landing. Silently, I begin to climb the stairs that branch off it. I climb them stealthily and turn into the corridor on the floor above the Lady Chapel. I’ve always felt an interloper here: so many doors on this corridor where the sisters slept. As a small boy, I used to feel that an enchantment might lie behind them; later, that a Lucrece might lie there—all I had to do was open an illicit door, to look down at her, defenseless and sleeping.

  I find myself outside a smaller door. It looks like a cupboard, but it isn’t. I open it carefully—it always creaked if pulled back too hard—and I’m in a familiar dark place. In front of me, now directly at eye height, is a small, square aperture. It is surrounded by stone and crumbling mortar. No doubt spiders lurk in its crevices—but insects no longer have the power to scare me, though those pacing footsteps do. I can hear them clearly now; I can hear some other sighing sound in the room below me. Now I can sense who’s there, pacing back and forth. I know whom I’ll finally see: my mother, Dorrie. I close my eyes and then open them. I lean forward, careful to make no noise; I lean toward the Squint, Bella’s marvel.

  Not my mother, not Maisie, not one of the sisters, either. It’s Finn. It is Finn—and it cannot be Finn. Finn cannot be here. She caught a plane; she’s somewhere in another world, doing all those things she does that I don’t comprehend, in parts of the world I’ve never visited. I shouldn’t have come here.

  I watch a Finn who cannot be there, and my vision is misting; there are cobwebs in this tunnel; I can’t see properly, but I’m beginning to see that she is insubstantial, this pacing figure by the windows. She’s a shadow of her former self; she’s a phantom, conjured by need. Such a frail ghost. If it weren’t for the brightness of her hair, I’d scarcely recognize her.

  I’ll go down to her, I think sadly. I’ll go down to her now, and when I do, I’ll be cheated again. She’ll vanish into the air, as she always does. And I’m about to do that, I’m just about to draw away from this aperture, when I hear a sound—and the ghost woman below responds; her whole demeanor alters. I see her stop pacing; her body tenses. She moves to the middle window and looks out and then, fumbling with the catch in her eagerness, begins to open the casement. I hear footsteps below in the hall, the sound of a man running and a man’s voice, calling, Finn, Finn? Where are you?

  She turns away from the window, she swings round, and her face lights with joy and anticipation. I can’t move. I’m transfixed. I’m waiting to watch me walk into the room below. I’m going to stand here forever. I hear the man’s footsteps cross the landing to the door of the Lady Chapel, and then I see Finn move forward swiftly; she gives a spring, and his arms close around her. He’s wearing a black overcoat. Finn buries her face against his shoulder. I see his hands come up to cradle her head. He lifts her face to his and kisses her mouth. Then, drawing back but still holding her tight, rocking her, pressing her against him, he half turns, so I can see the anguish on his face. It’s my friend, my oldest friend, Nicholas Marlow.

  I hear him say in a low voice, a voice that is broken with emotion, Finn, my darling, my dearest love. Don’t cry, I’m here now. And I won’t leave you.

  I draw back at once, deeply ashamed. I have no right to spy on this. I walk away half-blinded. I descend the stairs quietly. I leave the Chinese ivory sphere on the kitchen table and quietly return to my cottage.

  There, I find I’m now able to face the task of packing up all Joe’s and Bella’s belongings. It doesn’t take as long as I’d feared, and I can now undertake this task—with regrets, and sadly, but efficiently. I work away at it like an automaton.

  Flora and Hector have already provided me with boxes. Within two or three hours, those boxes are filled and the cottage is naked. All the monarchical china and knickknacks packed away; the bright ribbons on the dresser hooks undone and discarded. Sixty years, more; all the memories and residues sorted. This box for Oxfam, these for the rubbish bin. When I come to examine them, the objects here, though so powerful to me, are small in number: Joe, Bella, and I had few possessions.

  I want very few things: I want Joe’s plowing certificates, the photographs of Ocean, and that tinny charm she once gave me. I’ll keep one of the nine surviving crystal balls and Bella’s greasy, much-used pack of tarot cards. I’ll keep Joe’s shotgun, which he trained me to use. I’ll keep the shotgun—and one box of ammunition.

  It’s dusk by the time the job is complete. I know now that I’m not going to stay here, that I’ll return to London. My last task is best achieved there. I lay out the Rider-Waite deck, using the Celtic Cross spread, and—the cards can sometimes be very clear—they confirm the correctness of this decision. How strange these cards are. Many people find them frightening and are perhaps right to do so. They track a fool’s journey through the world, a journey that may lead him toward wisdom and insight—or divert him to other, less pleasant regions. I look at the Major Arcana, at the Empress, the Hanged Man, the Lovers, and the Emperor—a good card that, signifying fatherly influence and authority.

  I spread the four suits: Wands, the suit of creativity; Cups, the suit of feelings and spiritual experience; Swords, the suit of intellect, thought, and reason; and finally, my weakest suit, Pentacles, which signifies the forces of practicality. The difficulty with these cards—aside from the obvious possibility that they may signify nothing at all and are mere toys and superstition—the difficulty with these cards lies in the reading of them. Each numbered card carries a particular resonance, which may contradict the overall force of the suit to which it belongs. Each card qualifies the others; the placing—and the interpretation of the placing—is all. Each card in this pack signifies one thing but contains and can also signify its opposite.

  I’ve drawn the Three of Swords, a card that indicates heartbreak and betrayal, and the Five of Cups, which indicates loss and the abandoning of hope. I have the Tower, the card of sudden change, of a fortress that is also a prison. These cards might imply the very opposite, of course; but I doubt it. I’ve rarely seen a less auspicious spread. There’s one sole card of comfort: the Chariot, signifying assertion and resolution. I slip the cards back inside their worn case. I believe in them. I do not believe in them.

  The part of me that will always be Roma, the part of me that will always belong to Ocean and Bella, says: Read wisely and you will understand. The part of me that Cambridge forged, that twin who used to dismiss these cards, now says: What does it matter? It’s no worse a way of imposing a shape on the world than any other. It’s like religion and philosophy: fake, in other words.

  I put the cards in my bag. If I leave now, if I call a local cab, I’ll be at Deepden station in time for the last connection to London. Back to Highbury Fields and Heartbreak Hotel. That’s fine for my purposes; that’s fine. In London, there’s anonymity.

  I don’t want to perform any act here that would leave shadows behind it or cause distress to those who, like the McIvers, have shown me kindness. Put out the light, I remind myself. Then I hear footsteps outside, and Nick enters the denuded kitchen. I’d wondered if he would seek me out, my honorable friend. I’d wondered if my honorable friend might feel that, this time, it was he who owed me an explanation for past conduct.

  [ twenty-seven ]

  Nick

  Was it always you, Nick?” I say.

  “Yes, always,” he answers.

  He’s sitting at the table by then. I’ve found a bottle of whiskey bought for Joe before the illness took hold, and I’ve poured Nick a glass of neat Scotch: I can see he needs it. I’m drinking water; I can’t risk alcohol—one sip and I’ll be right back where I started. On the table in front of him is that ivory sphere, which he’s returning to me at Finn’s request. They’d seen me leaving, crossing the cloister. Wh
en they found this, in the kitchen where I’d left it, they had understood. Finn would like me to keep it. I sit opposite him. Seeing the pain in his face, I feel no anger or bitterness. I’ve been deceived for over twenty years, for most of my adult life, more mistaken in my readings than I could ever have imagined. I don’t blame Nick or Finn; I don’t even blame myself. It happens.

  “Not Lucas?” I hear myself say. “I was so sure it was Lucas. How stupid of me.”

  “Not necessarily stupid—after all, she married him.”

  “Was it your child, Nick?”

  “Yes.” He covers his face with his hands. There is a long silence, then he says: “I nearly told you the other night, when you came back to my house. I wanted to tell you. Finn is dying, Dan. She has another two months, maybe less. She wanted to spend them here, and I’ve promised to spend them with her.”

  “Dying? Finn is dying?” I look down at the table and trace its lines, the waves and islands of its grain. It’s a long while before I’m able to speak. “So that’s why you were in the gallery,” I say finally. “That’s why you were there, looking at the portrait. I should have known from your face. You knew then, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did. I’d just come from the hospital. I’d had to give her the results of the tests. We both knew what they were likely to tell us. She had an operation last year in South Africa. It’s cancer of the breast. She had chemo out there; I’ve been supervising her treatment in London for the last eight weeks. But she’d left it too late. It had spread to the lymph glands. Now there are secondaries.”

  “There’s no chance that—”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Nick, why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known—oh Christ. Finn doesn’t want to see me, then? Not once, just to say good-bye? I’d like to have seen her. She’s said her good-byes to Lucas, hasn’t she? I saw her leaving his house.” And there is bitterness in my voice now: I can’t hide it.