The Property of a Gentleman: One House. Many secrets.

by Catherine Gaskin

  ‘Because we haven’t had a chance. I thought when you took off that morning, in such a rush, for London, that you were running away from me. Stanton told me about the bowl, and all that. Well ... this isn’t the place to talk, and I’ve got to go back to Thirlbeck to collect the boys. Stanton says he’ll come to see you when it’s over, later this evening.’

  ‘No – don’t let him! He shouldn’t come here, Nat – he mustn’t. Nat, take care of him. I need him now. I’ve lost – I’ve lost enough.’

  ‘Yes, Jo – I’ll take care of him.’

  As he reached the door I called to him: ‘Nat, come back and take me home – take me back to Thirlbeck. I don’t want to stay here.’

  ‘Tomorrow, Jo. Tomorrow you’ll be stronger. They might have found the donor by then.’

  He was gone. The church clock struck another quarter-hour. Tears of frustration and weakness brimmed in my eyes.

  III

  They brought me clear soup and toast, and a boiled egg. I ate some of it, and then got out of bed. I found I could walk quite steadily, with only a sense of woodenness in my legs, and a slight blurring of vision. I found my clothes hanging in a cupboard and dressed. It seemed to take a long time to dress. Then I went to the door and opened it. I was in a part of the hospital I didn’t remember seeing before. A young nurse was standing at a table built against the wall, writing. She looked up in surprise.

  ‘Oh, you’re up! I don’t think ...’

  ‘Please, I’d like to go. I’m perfectly well. I wonder if there’s some way I can get a taxi to Thirlbeck? I want to go back.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Roswell. I don’t think you should go – and I haven’t the authority to let you go. I’ll have to call one of the doctors.’

  ‘I’d like to discharge myself. I don’t need to see a doctor for that.’

  ‘Sister’s off duty ... if you could wait ...’

  It took some insistence and another nurse came along and tried to persuade me to go back to bed. In time they produced the proper discharge form, and I signed it. Then I asked the same question as before. ‘Is there a taxi service I could call to get back to Thirlbeck?’

  The younger of the two nurses glanced hesitantly at the other, then spoke to me. ‘I’m going off duty in ten minutes. I live in that direction. It wouldn’t be any trouble to take you on. I have a car ...’

  I thanked her, and waited. I fingered the keys to the North and South Lodges of Thirlbeck, still in the pocket of my anorak. I seemed to need to get within those gates. I thought of the quiet there, the safety from questions which lay behind those gates.

  The young nurse came, hardly recognisable out of uniform, her long hair falling freely down her back. Her car was a Mini, just a little older than mine. ‘It’s good of you,’ I said. ‘I hope there won’t be trouble for you.’

  ‘Oh, no – I don’t think so. All one can say is that the sooner you’re back in bed the better, and since you were determined to go ... You’re sure you’ll take proper care? Have some hot tea as soon as you get there, and see that there’s plenty of hot-water bottles ...’

  It was all she said until we reached the gates of the South Lodge. ‘What do I do? Blow the horn?’

  I gave her the key. ‘I don’t think anyone will be there. They’ve all gone ... Lord Askew’s body was being taken to the church this evening. They wanted to do it as quietly as possible.’

  She used the key, drove through, and as carefully closed the gates, but leaving them unlocked for her return. ‘I wouldn’t care to be locked in.’ She drove on slowly. ‘I’d better confess I’ve always wanted to come in here,’ she said. ‘You know how it is – when you’re kept out of a place you always want to see what’s behind the walls. Once my father and I climbed Great Birkeld up to the ridge. That was the only time I’ve ever seen into this valley – we could see the house through glasses. A sort of fairy-tale place, I thought. And then the mist came down. It was rather rough getting back down again. We’ve never climbed that high since.’ She added: ‘The odd thing is that Lord Askew is our landlord. We’ve never seen him.’ We were driving through the park now; it was getting too dark to see the cattle except where the headlights struck them; the sheep were grey masses in the gathering darkness beneath the trees. We were coming close to the house, where the maze of rhododendrons began. The pace became slower, and I felt an impatience rise in me.

  ‘It’s all right, isn’t it?’ the girl said. ‘I mean – there will be someone here?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if there isn’t.’

  ‘You mean you don’t mind being alone in that house? What about the dogs? I hear they’re very fierce ...’

  I stifled the first words that came. She was only expressing what I had felt that first time I had approached Thirlbeck. ‘It will be all right,’ I said. ‘If there’s no one there, there soon will be. Don’t worry about the dogs. They know me.’

  A single light burned above the front steps. I was about to direct the girl to the back door, suddenly realising that I, in fact, didn’t have a key to the house itself. I didn’t know what I would do now. I knew I wouldn’t be able to persuade her to leave me sitting on the back-door step. I began to feel, also, that I needed that hot cup of tea.

  Unexpectedly the front door opened. I should have known that Tolson would not leave the house unattended. The dogs streamed down the steps, their tails wagging a silent welcome. I felt the girl stiffen in the seat beside me. ‘God! – they’re monsters!’ and then, ‘Oh, look – who’s that?’

  For an instant she seemed hardly different from the first time I had seen her – the slender figure in silhouette against the lighted hall, her face shadowed as it had been then, the fall of thick shining hair. But now she was wearing pants and a jacket, and there was no sense of languor in her stance.

  ‘She – she is a friend of Lord Askew’s. The one who died,’ I remembered to add. ‘She’s been staying here.’ The dogs were all around the car, and the girl didn’t want to move. I started to get out, and the weakness attacked my knees.

  The girl rolled down the window and called to the Condesa. ‘We need some help.’

  The Condesa came down to the car. ‘I didn’t know it was you,’ she said. ‘I had to be careful. Tolson told me to be very careful.’ She was helping me out, her hands surprisingly gentle after the savagery of that morning. She had an almost unnatural calm, as if she were deliberately imposing it upon herself. The girl took courage from the silence and friendliness of the dogs, and came around to help me. I was grateful for the support on each side. I hadn’t imagined my legs would feel like this. The girl was talking to the Condesa. ‘She insisted on discharging herself from the hospital. She should go to bed at once. Hot tea and hot-water bottles ...’ We had reached the top of the steps and entered the hall, and the girl’s voice faded. I could feel her check, as the great extent of the hall and the staircase was revealed. And once again I was reminded of how it had first struck me. The girl found her voice at last. ‘Would you ... would you like me to help? I’m a nurse – from the hospital. I could at least see her to bed. Or make tea – or something.’

  I expected the Condesa to accept. I didn’t think she would relish the role of nurse, the carrier of tray and hot-water bottles. But she shook her head. ‘You are most kind. Thank you. But I’m sure I shall manage. The others will be back soon. I did not go.’ She addressed herself to me now. ‘You understand that I could not go to – to that.’

  I felt ashamed. In my own grieving I had not thought too much of hers. ‘I’ll go then,’ the girl said, in a rather flat, small voice. She was disappointed; she had wanted to stay, to see more. ‘If you’d just see that the dogs ...?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. I sat on a chair, and the dogs crowded about me.

  ‘They do know you, don’t they?’ the girl said. Then she gave a last long careful look about the hall. ‘I’ll go then,’ she repeated, and began to walk slowly towards the door.

  The Condesa was there before he
r, the door already open, as if she were impatient for her to be gone. ‘Can she have brandy?’ she asked the girl.

  ‘I’m not really sure,’ the girl replied. ‘She’s over the worst of the shock now – but giving alcohol is always chancy. Better not, perhaps. If you could get her to eat something ... she’s very weak.’ She paused at the doorway, and looked back at me. ‘Well – I hope you feel better soon. Goodbye.’

  I raised my hand to her. ‘Thank you – thank you very much.’ Even as she walked down the steps the Condesa had closed the doors behind her and begun thrusting the bolts home. I thought at least she might have waited until the girl had reached the car. I had a sudden wish that the girl had not gone. I wished I had asked her to stay, though I didn’t know why. The aloofness of the Condesa was disconcerting. I didn’t want her to help me; the house was so silent as the sound of the Mini faded in the distance. Comfort came from the rough heads of the dogs as I laid my hands on them.

  The Condesa came towards me briskly. ‘I’ll help you up the stairs, and then I think some brandy – ’ She cut me short as I began to protest. ‘Ah, what do they know? At that hospital they are all fools. Once you are in bed, it will be all right ...’

  I could feel the athletic strength of her body as she helped me rise; I wondered why I ever thought her slenderness denoted weakness, when she could hold a horse with such ease, and handle a gun, manage a powerful car. As we mounted the stairs I thought of something else. I had seen her handbag on a chair in the hall, and the jacket she was wearing was leather, as if she was dressed for travel. I was conscious of the smell of her perfume, and all at once I was also conscious that now she was a woman very much alone.

  I said, ‘Will you stay – I mean, will you stay for the funeral?’ Perhaps it was the wrong thing to say, but she seemed on the point of departure.

  ‘Roberto is dead,’ she said flatly. ‘I have no need to take part in his burial. For me, he is dead, and I am no longer part of his life.’

  ‘I tried ...’ I began.

  She cut me short. ‘I know you tried. The grief for me is that I was not permitted to try.’ Then the calm of her voice broke. ‘If we had been elsewhere – if we had been in London or Rome or Paris, Roberto would have lived. I know it! There would have been better people, better treatment.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I answered. ‘No matter what they had done – and they did try awfully hard. He just couldn’t keep the blood they were transfusing – he was haemorrhaging as fast as they gave it to him. His heart may have given out in the end ...’

  ‘If they could have found that other donor. The fools – they did not try hard enough.’ Then she cried out in fury, as one of the dogs pressed too close. ‘Oh, damn these dogs! I have stood them for Roberto’s sake, but to me they are damnable. Ugly brutes ... why must they always be in the way? – like having horses in the house! I have been trying to get into the study to use the telephone to make plane reservations, and they stand there, and will not let me pass. Pests – yes, pests, they are!’

  I realised that I felt sorry for her, a new experience, and that some jealousy had crept into her attitude towards me, which until now had been one of indifference. I wondered if she suspected that my relationship with Askew had gone closer than the coincidence of the same blood group. She was much more alone than I. I had never imagined ever feeling sorry for this silken creature, this aristocrat bred to horses and guns, and yet preserving her fine-boned wrists and ankles.

  ‘I think ...’ I didn’t want to admit that I had ever explored the house so fully. ‘I think there’s a telephone extension in Lord Askew’s room.’

  ‘Yes ... so there is.’ Her tone was curiously flat, as if that information was not what she sought. ‘But still those dogs ... they follow one everywhere. Why do they do it?’ Her tone became harshly nervous.

  So I turned on the stairs and said gently to the dogs, ‘Stay! Thor ... Ulf ... Oden. Stay!’ They halted, and the pleasured wagging of their tails was stilled. I felt sorry I had had to say it – their presence gave me comfort. But the Condesa was trying, in her fashion, to be kind, and the dogs annoyed her. So I left them behind. ‘I hope they’ll just stay there,’ I said, ‘and then they won’t bother you.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  We reached the Spanish Woman’s room. I slumped into the chair by the fire. I saw that since the time when the fires had burned out as I slept after that late return to Thirlbeck, and the conversation with Tolson – God, had it only been that morning? – someone had been in and cleared the ashes, and relaid the kindling and the wood. They were ready for a match to be set, but it didn’t seem to occur to the Condesa to do that. I thought that all her life someone else had been doing such things for her. I also thought that I should have been capable of doing it for myself, but it seemed too much trouble. I didn’t want to move.

  ‘You’ll be all right?’ she was saying. ‘You have the nightgown and the robe? You should get undressed and into bed. I shall bring brandy.’ She didn’t offer to get these things for me. She wasn’t the kind of person to handle other people’s clothing – and yet I recalled how she had snatched Askew’s clothes from the nurse that morning. I didn’t have the strength then to ask her what had become of the miniature which had been in his pocket, or to argue for its possession. I would wait until she returned with the brandy.

  ‘Yes ... I can manage. Thank you.’

  She was gone, and I was alone, wishing more than ever that I had asked the nurse to stay. It was easier for the Condesa to bring brandy than to fuss with tea and hot-water bottles. I wondered how long it would be before Tolson came back. I wished I had a cigarette, I wished the fire was lighted. I saw matches on the rim of the candlestick, but it was too much of an effort to bend down to the fire. I stood up at last and went to the cupboard where my clothes hung. I took off the anorak, and immediately shivered in the chill of the room. I hung it up carefully – carefully because all of my movements seemed to require great care and precision. I was like a person drunk, knowing that each action had to be performed with great exactitude and concentration or the whole focus would slip into a blurred fog. I was reaching for my nightgown, hanging on one of the heavy oak pegs on the back wall of the cupboard when the focus seemed momentarily to desert me. I was falling, and I grabbed at the peg as a support. I hung there, swaying, fighting off the blackness that threatened. The earth itself had seemed to move with me; I had slipped sideways, and the strain on my arms became too much. I felt myself falling, and the oak peg itself seemed to have gone, and the very back of the cupboard was no longer there to support my body as I slipped down. I fell into blackness in a tangle of my own clothes which I had wrenched from their hangers. I fell into blackness and the smell of ancient dust.

  I don’t know how long the blackness remained – it could have been minutes, or only seconds. I could open my eyes, and I started to disentagle myself from the clothes that had come down with my fall. The faint light from the bedside lamp did not reach into this space – a new space, I was beginning to realise, not part of the hanging cupboard, but an extension of it. I got to my hands and knees. Exploring, groping, my fingers encountered the feel of rough bricks and crumbling mortar. The dust on the floor where I knelt was a thick, muffling sheet. The smell of the ages was in this recess. I crawled backwards out of the space, and pulled myself to my feet by holding on to the door of the cupboard.

  I rested with both hands on the mantelshelf for a few minutes. The fall had knocked the breath out of me, and I waited for a while to recover it. My hand still trembled violently as I struggled to light the candle on the mantelshelf.

  I went inside again, kicking aside the clothes that had fallen.

  I stood there with the candle burning steadily in that draughtless space, and I saw what had survived of the Spanish Woman for almost four hundred years.

  That short body, now a skeleton, had been laid with due reverence, on a carved oak chest. It was dressed in a gown of yellow silk which might once h
ave been white, as might the yellow lace of the ruff, and the lace of the cap that was tied about that narrow little skull. The hair held in place by the cap was black. The gloved skeletal fingers had been intertwined about an elaborately jewelled crucifix. A heavy signet ring had been placed over one of the gloved fingers. The gloves were embroidered with silk and seed pearls, as were the little slippers. I put out one finger cautiously, afraid that the glove might crumble to dust at my touch; it remained intact. I traced the initials on the ring. J.F.C. Juana Fernández de Córdoba.

  I felt no horror at what I saw. That little face might once have been beautiful; all I saw was the skull with small, undecayed teeth exposed. She had only been seventeen, they said. Someone – and no one would ever know who – had recovered her body and somehow managed to bring it back here, dressing her in what might have been her bridal gown, giving her her crucifix, laying her in an attitude of repose. I didn’t doubt that in the oak chest on which she lay were some of the possessions which she had brought with her on that long journey from Spain, other gowns and slippers, the baby clothes she would have been stitching for her unborn child. I stood and wondered why she had been brought here, and laid in this place. Had there been more Catholic sympathisers in this place than anyone had known of, or guessed? – those too frightened to appear openly to befriend the widowed second Countess of Askew, but roused to pity for that unburied body? Perhaps they had brought her to this place with the thought of eventual burial, and the chance had never come.

  Secret places such as this were no novelty in a house built in such a period of history. Had this been intended as one of their priest’s holes? Had indeed the first Earl remained secretly Catholic, and heard Mass, and been prepared to give shelter and succour to any hunted man who fled and defied Protestantism? I wondered if it were even possible that her supposed murderer, the third Earl, had had her body laid here – he, too fearful of giving a Catholic a grave in the family burial ground, at that time when the Birketts must have been under the cloud of Elizabeth’s displeasure. When the tarn had finally given back her body, had he ordered it brought here secretly, her possessions gathered about her, and the door locked against the world until the Spanish Woman would be finally forgotten? But who, then, had dressed her this way, with tenderness and compassion?