That night, though, she picked up Murder Most Foul – true stories of dark deeds in Wiltshire; a book she’d found in a junk shop in Marshfield. It contained fifteen stories of horrible things that had happened in the county throughout its history, two of them in Slaughterford itself, most fascinatingly, albeit years and years ago: ‘The Maid of the Mill’, the murder of a local girl; and ‘The Snow Child’, which told the terribly sad story of a family of tinkers (beautiful as exotic animals are, and similarly devoid of morals, the book said) who had perished from the cold one bitter winter night, having been refused shelter by everyone in the village. Only a little boy had survived, and was found lying half-buried by snow, between his dead parents who’d huddled around him and his sister, trying to keep them warm. Pudding normally couldn’t read it without shivering in sympathy, and being grateful for her warm bed, but she couldn’t seem to concentrate on it that night. She read to the end anyway, then put the book down and wondered, for a moment, how different life might be if one were slim, and beautiful, and married to Alistair Hadleigh.
When she was little her mother had marked her bedside candle with her thumbnail, and once the flame had burnt down to that point Pudding would know it was time to blow it out and go to sleep. Now it was up to her when she twisted the knob on her gas lamp to extinguish it, and she was usually the last one awake in the house. She liked to be. Her father worked so hard, and worried so much, he was exhausted. And Donny and her mother needed to be watched over, so watch over them she would. Sometimes, on windy nights, she felt like crying. Which was stupid, she told herself, when there was nothing to cry about, really. She had her home, and her parents, not like the little boy in ‘The Snow Child’. And what about the Tanners and the Smiths, whose sons and brothers hadn’t come back from the war at all? What about Maisie Cooper, whose mother had been kicked in the head when her pony was stung by a bee, and had lain unconscious ever since? Maisie had to be back from college for the holidays by now, but she hadn’t come up to see Pudding. Of course, Pudding had far less free time now she was working, and she understood why some of her other friends stayed away – not everybody knew how to talk to Donny any more, or to Louise, and it made them nervous. But she’d thought Maisie, out of everybody, wouldn’t have minded as much. Pudding refused to cry, not when it was only the wind, making her feel like the last human being on earth.
* * *
In the circle of light cast by the bronze lamp on the desk, Irene’s hand cramped over the paper. She’d been gripping the pen too hard, as though she might have been able to squeeze words out of it. Dear Fin, she’d written. I don’t think I can carry on much longer without a word from you. Just a single bloody word. After that, her hand had stalled. She’d meant to write with a lighter tone. Something more conversational, as though they might manage to pretend a friendship. She’d meant to write something dry about Nancy’s ever watchful presence, or about the absurdity of life in Slaughterford – what kind of name was Pudding, anyway? – or that there only seemed to be four different surnames to go around, or that when Alistair had told her about Manor Farm, she’d heard the ‘Manor’ part louder than the ‘Farm’ part, when the reverse was closer to reality. But those words wouldn’t come. They’d have been false, anyway. Irene shut her eyes and he was there at once. A quiet, diffident presence behind Serena, who was anything but serene. Not overly tall, not overly handsome, but with something warm and deeply compelling about him, so much so that once they’d exchanged a word and a glance, weeks after meeting, Irene had felt both – glance and word – travel right through her like a wave rolling ashore, and hadn’t afterwards been able to want anything but him. Serena had towed him here and there behind her, by his hand, like a child. He’d been so silent, so overshadowed by her for the first few weeks Irene knew them that she hadn’t heard his Scottish accent, or realised that Fin was short for Finlay, a name she’d never heard before.
Serena was a different kettle of fish. All bright, all sparkling, all smiles and loud laughter. Irene had first met her at a costume party, dressed as a peacock – sequins and paste jewels twinkling everywhere, iridescent feathers wafting as she moved, blue and green, turquoise and silver. From then on Irene always saw her that way – even when Serena was wearing brown wool, she dazzled. It took a long time to see that it was armour, in fact, to hide what was going on inside her. Serena had bowled Irene over. She bowled everyone over. She didn’t so much make friends as assume that everyone she met was already her friend – and they usually turned out to be, sooner or later. It seemed impossible to resist Serena; so impossible that, later, when Irene asked Fin why he’d married her and he hadn’t been able to explain it, she’d understood at once. She remembered clearly the first time she hadn’t been able to eat in Serena’s presence. Just as she couldn’t in her mother’s presence. It had been in a restaurant in Piccadilly, over a lunch one Tuesday. Sole Veronique. A group of seven or eight of them, some Irene knew, some she did not. Fin sitting opposite her at the far end of the table. She’d caught his eye by mistake and looked away quickly. Irene has a secret pash, you know, Serena had announced, smiling with her eyes ferocious, drawing attention to Irene when she knew Irene would hate it. Look at her blush – isn’t it adorable? Tell us who it is or we’ll make it up! When the food had arrived Irene’s hands had refused to touch the cutlery, and her mouth had refused to open; just like it did when her mother was watching.
She blinked and took a deep breath, looking down at the scant, wretched words of her letter and hating herself anew. The gas lamp hissed and she thought of all the things she missed about London – not just Fin, or the motor taxicabs Nancy had mentioned earlier. Electric lighting, for one thing, and indoor lavatories; the theatre, and the flicks; music that didn’t involve a squeeze box, washboard or fiddle. The comforting, anonymous throng of busy people; the ease with which new clothes – new camouflage – could be got. The sense, stepping out of the front door, that an infinite variety of things to do, places to be and people to see lay within easy reach. In Wiltshire, there was nothing beyond the front door but mud and animals. The only motor vehicle she’d seen attempting the steep, stony lanes was the lumbering charabanc bus that brought mill workers in the morning, and took villagers off to Chippenham and Corsham. The only thing that both places had in common was the unnatural dearth of young men, and the blank eyes of those who had made it back from the trenches. Carefully, Irene tore away the page with her short letter on it, and was about to screw it up when she heard Alistair’s step outside the door. She quickly slid the page beneath the blotter and arranged her hands in her lap as he came in. He smiled and crossed to her, kissing her cheek.
‘How are you now, darling?’ he asked, solicitously. ‘You gave us quite a scare.’
‘Rather better, thank you. It was really nothing – that sauce was just a little rich for me.’ A cream and sherry sauce, laced with walnut oil. It had coated the inside of her mouth and throat, and she’d felt her cheeks water in protest as her head began to cloud.
‘Yes. Well …’ Alistair trailed off, looking awkward. ‘Irene, I can’t help thinking … I can’t help wondering whether, if you ate a little more, perhaps your system would be more used to …’ He fell silent again.
‘I’m simply … not hungry, a lot of the time. That’s all,’ said Irene. She tried to say it lightly, but it sounded as phoney as it was – her empty stomach clawed at her from morning to night. Yet the thought of food closed her throat. Alistair crouched down by her chair, and took her hands. Guiltily, she noticed the ink on her fingers. Alistair had long hands, pianist’s hands, with very neat fingernails. Not like Fin’s, all bitten down in frustration. Her new husband was undeniably handsome; tall and slim, his hair a muted gold, his eyes half green, half brown. And that way his face was always either smiling or about to be.
‘But you’re so thin, Irene.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘I’ll call Dr Cartwright in the morning, and get him to take a look at you. Just to be on the safe side.’
‘There’s really no need. I’m perfectly all right. Really,’ said Irene.
‘Are you, though? You promised to always tell me the truth, remember? That’s all I ask.’
Alistair looked up at her in a beseeching way, full of the love she felt so unworthy of. How could she possibly keep that promise? She reached out and ran a hand over his hair and down the side of his face, feeling the beginnings of stubble on his jaw. Alistair shut his eyes and turned his face into her touch, kissing her palm, and Irene froze, caught between duty, gratitude, and the urge to flee. Alistair caught her hand tightly and pressed kisses along the inside of her arm, where bluish veins showed beneath the skin. He took a long breath, and shut his eyes, and Irene fought not to pull away.
‘Alistair, I—’ she said. He laid his face along her arm for a moment, then stood up, letting it go, smiling a strained smile.
‘No. I quite understand, what with you under the weather, you poor thing,’ he said, and relief swooped through her. ‘Could you stomach a little Bovril, do you think? Just a small cup?’
‘I think that might be just the ticket, thank you.’ She breathed more easily as Alistair reached the door, but then he paused, and turned. He looked at the blank paper in front of her, and her pen discarded to one side, and the ink on her fingers. He opened his mouth but it took a moment longer for the words to come.
‘I … I do understand how difficult this must be for you, Irene. People are quick to lay blame but … I personally think he treated you abominably. I don’t expect you to forget it all right away. I don’t.’ He swallowed, and met her eye with a wounded gaze. ‘I only ask that you try.’ He shut the door and left her alone again, in the circle of light by the desk, surrounded by the darkness.
In the morning Irene was woken, as she was every morning, by the racket of the heavy horses’ feet on the yard, the incomprehensible banter of the strappers and carters as the teams went out to work, the mooing of the dairy herd, the geese honking with a sound like metal hinges, and the collie dogs barking to be fed. She felt surrounded by baying animals of all kinds. After breakfast, she went down to what was going to be her writing room and hovered outside the door, not announcing her presence at once. It was a small room, half dug into the rising ground on the north-east side of the house, where there was little natural light and the flagstones were so cold, even then in summer, that they felt damp – and possibly were. The walls were painted a faint pink – no panelling, no cornicing, no ceiling rose. The plainest of rooms. The two ancient metal casements were crooked, and the curtains were simple, chequered affairs. The fireplace had been boarded up with a wooden frieze showing an arrangement of flowers and fruit. Overall, the room felt like one that nobody had used in a very long time, and Irene had been drawn to it immediately. In every other part of the house she felt that she was trying to make space for herself in somebody else’s life, somebody else’s house – and that somebody was Nancy.
‘I still don’t see why she need do anything so drastic,’ said Nancy, looking on disapprovingly as Verney Blunt, the village builder, and his lad carried in their ladders and sheets and metal boxes of tools. Verney tipped his hat in a bid to get her to move out of his way, as he struggled to find room for everything, but Nancy ignored him. ‘And why this room, of all of them? She might as well set up camp in the cellar.’
‘I loved this room when I was a boy,’ said Alistair, standing by the window with his hands behind his back.
‘No you didn’t, you goose. You only loved escaping from it. What boy loves his schoolroom?’
‘All right, but I did love it in some ways. Especially when I had Mr Peters. He used to bring me toffee, you know.’
‘I do know. You’d come out with it all over your chin.’
‘Well, Irene likes this room, so as far as I’m concerned she can have it. It’s quiet, and cosy. Quite suitable for a writing room.’
‘Cosy? Tosh. She’ll go blind in here – there’s no light. And she’ll change her mind come winter – that chimney has never done anything but let the wind howl down. Why do you think it was blocked up in the first place?’
‘I know. But look, Aunt Nancy, she needs a room to make her own – no small thing when everything else in this house has been here for centuries. She’s chosen this one, so let’s just say no more about it, shall we? It’s not as though it’s being used for anything else.’
‘But new furniture? New fabrics? New everything?’
‘Why not? It’s about time at least one corner of this old place was brought up to date. I hope she might take on some of the other rooms, in due course. She has quite the eye for it, you know.’
‘Does she indeed. Well.’ Nancy sighed. ‘You’re as soft as my dear departed brother was before you, Alistair.’
‘We can afford to be soft with you to watch over us,’ Alistair told her, smiling.
Irene put her shoulders back and lifted her chin before she entered the room, and refused to let any hint of an apology suffuse her face or voice.
‘I’m really very grateful,’ she said.
‘There you are, darling,’ said Alistair. ‘Mr Blunt here is ready for your instructions.’
‘Mornin’, Mrs Hadleigh,’ said Verney, grudgingly. He was stout, red-faced, white-haired.
‘Hello,’ said Irene. The younger of the workmen, who only looked about fifteen, eyed her curiously, and Irene wondered what account of her was making it out into the wider realm of Slaughterford. The lad had dark, unwashed hair and a thin face, almost ferrety. His eyes were guarded, his whole body poised to flinch.
‘You’re one of the Tanner clan, aren’t you?’ Nancy said to him. The boy nodded, ducking his head.
‘Get on, then, and fetch the rest of the gear,’ said Verney brusquely, sending the boy scuttling from the room.
‘Is the silver quite safe, Mr Blunt?’ said Nancy. Verney Blunt swelled his chest, but looked a little uneasy.
‘I reckon so, Miss Hadleigh. He’s a good lad, not as bad as some of them. And I’ll be keeping my eye on him, you’ve my word on that.’
‘What is he – a Noah? An Abraham? A Jonah?’
‘A Joseph, madam.’
‘One of Slaughterford’s little jokes,’ Nancy said to Irene. ‘That the least godly family in the whole county should decide to opt strictly for biblical names for their offspring.’
‘Oh? But they don’t attend church?’ said Irene.
‘Some of them do. When they aren’t too drunk to stand.’ Nancy shrugged. ‘Well, I shall leave you to your artistic endeavours in here. I must see Lake about the new fencing in Upper Break.’ She strode from the room with her hands thrust hard into the pockets of her jacket.
In her absence Alistair smiled, and pulled Irene into a quick embrace before the workmen’s footsteps approached along the hall again.
‘Who is Lake, and what is an Upper Break?’ said Irene.
‘You met John Lake – remember? The farm manager. Huge chap.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Irene remembered the man’s towering height, and bullish shoulders all but blocking out the sky, but she couldn’t recall his face; she remembered the bass growl of his voice, but not what he had said. She found the Wiltshire accent of the villagers all but unintelligible, and in the first few weeks after their wedding she’d been more of a shell than a whole person. She dreaded meeting again the few of Alistair’s acquaintances she’d been introduced to, since she’d forgotten their names at once.
‘And Upper Break is the high field – the one that goes over the hill towards Biddestone, where the ewes are at the moment. Good pasture, rocky as anything but it drains well.’
‘Nancy’s rather indispensable around here, isn’t she?’
‘I suppose so. Well, not indispensable, but very involved. The farm and Slaughterford are her life.’
‘The farm, Slaughterford, and you.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Especially since we lost my father.’
‘She must have had suitors, in her d
ay? I’ve seen her deb portrait. She was very beautiful.’ The portrait hung in the study, opposite those of Alistair’s parents – Nancy’s brother and sister-in-law. There were early photographs as well, ghostly and pale, including one of Nancy with long dark hair, piled up high, cheekbones like a cat and flawless skin. Something cool and angry in her eyes.
‘There were. But the one she really wanted got away, and it seems as though that was that for Aunt Nancy. That was before I was born, of course, and she’s rather prickly when you ask her about it.’
‘You do surprise me.’
‘Do you feel up to coming down to the mill later today? Then I can show you what I get up to all day long.’
‘I was always given to understand that most men don’t want their wives to know what they get up to all day long,’ said Irene.
‘Well, I am not most men, and you are not most wives. This is your home now, as it’s been my family’s home for generations. My dearest wish is for you to come to know and love it as I do, and be happy here. I know it will take a bit of time to adjust, but you’ll see … There’s a good life to be had here.’ He took her hand and gave it a squeeze, and Irene saw how badly he wanted her to see it, and how she had become a feeble thing, an invalid, who needed to ‘feel up to’ things.
The Hiding Places Page 4
