by Jane Healey
I checked the clock in the hall, and finding it was only nine o’clock, I made up my mind to go and knock on Lucy’s door straightaway, and ask her about the doll before I lost my nerve. As I pulled my door to behind me, I felt a brief lift in my spirits at the thought of seeing her. I was curious about her, and her situation at Lockwood. It was out of the ordinary, perhaps, that she still lived at home unwed at her age, but she had not offered many personal details after our first few more intimate conversations, and neither had I, beyond some superficial talk of our families, so I had no idea if she had any gentlemen callers, or why she had yet to marry. I was strangely relieved that she had not inquired about my own romantic life, or lack thereof. Were anyone else to ask, I would always make some joke about being a happy spinster, brandishing that word before it could be used against me, but if I were truthful I might say that beyond any formless disappointment at being without a spouse, what I felt more than anything was a yawning, and sometimes unbearable, loneliness. But one could not state that one was lonely, could one? It seemed to be the very height of gaucheness and would only make the other person desperately uncomfortable.
I padded down the hall in my stockings, clutching the doll in my hand and hoping I would not run into anyone needing an explanation. The gilt-edged frames of the paintings and prints lining the walls—family portraits and inoffensive landscapes, including one odd painting of the Major and his dogs whose artist had used the wrong paints, oxidizing parts of the canvas, turning it into a sludgy gloom and giving Lord Lockwood a black spot on his chin—glimmered under the hall lights, and as I entered the west wing I felt a twinge of unease that I did my best to ignore. It is funny the irrational connotations one’s mind invents, I thought; how my dreams of being chased along that patch of corridor had bled into my waking life—and I reminded myself that is all they were: dreams.
I followed the spiral staircase to Lucy’s suite and rapped on the door before I could think twice. She swung it open, looking a little startled. She was wearing a slightly faded navy housecoat and had taken off her makeup. I could see her freckles spilling freely over her nose and cheeks and forehead, with one or two flecks on her chin and even her lips, and her hair was sticking up like she had just been sleeping.
“Oh hello,” she said, smiling and clutching the edge of the door. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. No,” I corrected. “I found something under my bed.” I thrust out the doll before I could flee with embarrassment. I could have asked her tomorrow; it was tremendously silly to intrude on her rest.
She took the doll with a frown, seeming to recognize it.
“This was in your bedroom?” she checked.
“Yes.”
“My mother made this,” she said softly, fingering the lace. “She wasn’t well and she thought I needed protecting.” She paused, seeming to consider something, and then continued. “She made several of these to put under the beds I slept in, or to hide in my room. There’s a folktale from the West Indies, where she grew up, about la diablesse, a devil woman who wears white and can command a horde of beasts—at least that’s the tale she told me, I never knew if she had only made it up herself. She was so frightened of her, of the woman in white . . .” She trailed off before rousing herself with a little shake. “I’m sorry if it unnerved you, finding this, Hetty.”
“Oh, no, I was just curious. It could have kept till the morning, I’m sorry to disturb you—”
“I wasn’t busy, just idling away my time,” she said, with a wry laugh, and then pulled the door wider, ushering me into the room. “Come in, I’ll get you something to drink.”
Her bedroom was a portrait of every typical girl’s fantasy, and I did my best not to look gormless with awe. The pale pink carpet was thick enough to lose your toes in, and the walls were papered with exquisite floral pinks and pale reds. For light, there was a large electric chandelier, golden wall sconces, and lamps shaded with pretty pink tulles and bright ribbons. Dried flowers were arranged in vases on little tables and on the mantelpiece, which was painted white and topped by an elaborate etched mirror. The mattress on the four-poster bed was almost at my waist it was so high, and there were gauzy red curtains hanging between each post. She had a pink velvet pouffe to sit on, and a pale gold one as well, a large makeup table with a glass top and silk skirt, laden with makeup and brushes and perfumes, and a padded stool with gold tassels. The curtains were thick velvet, like theater curtains. I liked the metal spiral staircase best—it was so modish, and I wondered what the room upstairs in the eaves looked like.
“It’s a little bit extravagant, isn’t it?” she said, noticing my admiring gaze. “I have rather been cooped up in this house the last few years, so I’ve had a lot of time to spend decorating.”
“It’s lovely,” I said. “Like something out of a film.”
“Crème de menthe?” she asked, setting down the doll on a table and moving toward her drinks trolley. “That’s what I like in the evenings.”
“I’ve never had that before.”
“Never?”
“I don’t really frequent bars and it’s not the kind of drink one keeps in a lodging house with a strict landlady.”
“Well, I hope you like mint,” she said, pouring the green liquor into two delicate glasses.
“Thankfully, yes.”
She handed me a glass and I hunted for somewhere to sit. She tugged the gold pouffe over next to her bed, where she sat with hers.
“Cheers!” I said, and we clinked glasses softly. I could feel a giggle bubbling up inside of me. The drink was so sweet it made my teeth ache and then it warmed my throat nicely. “Lovely,” I said, and took another sip.
“I like to think the mint makes it good for you, like a fresh broth,” she said, with a wry smile.
“Or toothpaste?”
“Quite,” she said, and I let go of my laugh, sniggering between sips as she laughed too.
“Forgive me,” I said, “but sitting here with you feels like a dream, all this pink and softness compared to my boarding house room, it’s like I conjured it up from childhood fantasies of a princess tower or something.”
“It’s nice to have someone to show it off to. No one’s had the chance to visit my room since we used to have lots of parties years ago. The girls used to sleep off their hangovers in here; it was gloriously cozy.”
I suppose that answered the question of whether she had a beau, although even if she had, he would hardly have seen the inside of her bedroom; however modern she looked with her short hair, I knew from firsthand experience how protective her father was of her, and I could not envisage her conspiring behind his back to slip upstairs with a gentleman friend.
“I can imagine,” I said, leaning back and pressing the soles of my feet into the plush carpet. “Are you excited about the dance?” I asked, fumbling around for conversation appropriate to a room such as this. The house had been full of chatter about the ball soon to be held at Lockwood to support the Major’s old troop.
“Oh, I suppose.” She shrugged one shoulder. “There is that sadness that it’s only occurring because of the blasted war. It’s difficult to dance with the soldiers, knowing that they shall soon be off to fight in Europe. But my grandmother always said it was the job of us women to show men what they are fighting for, civilization and all that.” She gulped down the rest of her drink and leaned past me to put the glass on one of the little occasional tables.
“I’m not a very good dancer,” I admitted.
“Oh, but then you must have a good dress,” she said, resting her hand on my shoulder. “A dress can hide all manner of bad dancing.” She was so close I could smell the mint on her breath.
“I have to admit, I don’t believe I have one smart enough.”
“Well, we shall have to find one for you.” She leaped up and swung open the long curtains of her wardrobe. “I tend to wear the same things now, but I have mounds of dresses from the last few years that will fit you, and some of my mother�
��s too.” She brought out a long silk number. “Stand up a minute,” she said, and held it against me.
The touch of the back of her hands against my hips almost made me jump. I could not remember the last time I had been touched by someone else—there were not a lot of hugs at the museum and I had not really had a proper friend since school. And even when I did meet people who were affectionate with those around them, at the odd party or event, it seemed that I wore an invisible “don’t touch me” sign that kept them away from me.
“Too old-fashioned,” she said, and grabbed another, holding it against my shoulders this time. “Hmm, maybe.”
She let the blue dress fall to my feet and I had to resist the urge to pick it up, not wanting it to crease. She gathered about a dozen different dresses, holding them in her arms and dropping them in front of me. “Try them on,” she implored, pouring us more liquor.
And so, in between sips of endless crème de menthe, I tried on a dozen different dresses, at first awkwardly with my back to her and then not bothering to hide my underwear at all, while she helped me with the ties and buttons, tugging down bodices and hems, twisting me to and fro. I was quite dizzy with the attention, with the slide of silks over my skin, the ruffle of tulles over my knees, and her nimble lacing fingers.
Finally, we settled on a blue silk number with a wide netted neck and a bow at my waist. I twisted back and forth in front of her long mirror, standing on tiptoes to mimic heels as she held the too-large hips of the dress behind me to see what it would look like once it was taken in. It felt like we were dancing.
“Can you see it properly? Sit down at my mirror,” she said.
She adjusted the neckline as I sat looking at my reflection, feeling like a theater star in her dressing room. I could almost imagine that the perfumes and potions and silver brushes on the table belonged to me, that my life was this rich and fanciful. “This is a lovely watch,” I said, fingering the delicate silver band of a neat timepiece abandoned on the table. “Mine has gone missing from my room and I have searched everywhere.”
“It is a big house and things do go missing,” she said, moving the straps of the dress around my décolletage with hands so light they tickled my skin, “but you should think of locking your room when you’re not there, just in case.” We shared a glance through the mirror.
“I shall do that,” I said, nodding, and then she was lifting me up from the chair again and ordering me to stand on the pink pouffe in the middle of the room so she could pin the dress.
She did the hem first, folding it neatly in between more sips from her glass, holding pins in her mouth so that her words were mumbled. Then she straightened up to pin the material around my hips.
I stood as still as a slightly swaying statue as she circled me and touched and measured and tugged, and it was as if her fingers were little suns: wherever they lay my skin grew warm. Or perhaps that was the drink.
“I’ll be honest with you, Hetty,” she said, “I do believe I may be a little tight to have altered it correctly just now. We shall have to do another fitting sometime, and with my seamstress, who will help me with sewing the fiddly bits.”
“Of course,” I said, and took her hand to help me down from the pouffe, stumbling as I did so, a little tight myself. She held me by the waist until I had found my feet, and then I peeled myself out of the dress, only realizing how close she was when my arms knocked against her. She shifted me back a step with her hands on my bare waist, and I turned around and redressed quickly, feeling hot and embarrassed.
“Shall I take the doll with me?” I said, spotting it on my way to the door as I almost collided with a side table. “I wouldn’t want it to upset you.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine.” She waved me off. “This house has more than enough reminders of my mother—she lingers in every room.”
“Well, thank you for the drink, and the company,” I said softly as I saw her mouth twist.
“No, I should thank you,” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders, “for taking my mind off things. We shall have to have another drink sometime.”
“I’d love that,” I said, and she hugged me tightly.
I made my leave, and tripped back down the stairs, feeling warm, and perhaps a little bit drunk with crème de menthe and female confidences. It was only when I reached the door to my bedroom that I remembered Lucy’s warning about locking my room. My heart raced as I checked through my belongings, but nothing else was missing, except for that blasted earring I had dropped before, which I hoped would be revealed in the daylight tomorrow, and the watch, which was probably in the upstairs bathroom, now that I thought about it. The jaguar was still missing, of course, but it was not supposed to live in my room, I thought hazily.
I locked my door from the inside and got dressed for bed, only stumbling slightly when I bent down to change socks. Before I slid beneath the blankets, I allowed myself the truly illogical act of checking under my bed—but not for the jewelry I had lost. And if I tucked the sheets carefully under my feet so they would not poke out into the night air, then so what? It was September and might yet get cold. And if I took a little longer to get to sleep, listening to creaks in the hall and staring at the shadow of the great wardrobe in my room, then it was only the crème de menthe swirling its macabre green pictures in my mind.
Nine
I should never have come to this house, my mother used to say, and it was always this house, not this country, even though she complained enough about how the weather compared to her childhood home—the endless days of drudging gray, the bare trees in winter, the frozen drizzle, the narrow hours of weak winter light. She used to describe the grand estate where she grew up to me as I sat and watched her do her toilette—the afternoon thundery showers, the heat of the jungle that made your limbs so hot they pulsed, her favorite swimming pond, and the raucous birds that swooped down from the hills and swept past her veranda. The green, she used to say, with a voice full of longing, they call this a green land but they lied to me; it’s a poor cousin to it, dry and pale, with every leaf so small and mean. Your father promised to build me an orangery, she would say gloomily, and fill it with my plants, but he lied too, for there is no orangery, there is only these gray stone walls, these endless rooms and all the things hidden away in them. And then her voice might trail off and she might turn to look at me as if she did not know who I was.
I’ve had enough of this house, she would say in various tones—bitterly, fearfully, angry, despairingly, and sometimes she would shout the words so loudly you could hear them the floor below or above, and then she would throw something—a china figurine, a book, a side table—which the servants would have to tidy up and, if possible, mend.
Why did you bring me here? I heard her sob to my father once, as I lingered outside their bedroom, frightened after seeing a shadow in the hall outside my own bedroom and thinking it someone lurking, but equally too frightened of my mother’s distress to knock on their door.
It was Martha, a maid who had worked at the house since before I was born, who had found me that day, and taken me by the hand down to the kitchen for hot milk and then set me to work helping her to fill the vases crowding the cramped flower room, showing me how to remove the leaves that would sit under the waterline. Martha had long been my favorite servant because she was plump and motherly in a way that my mother wasn’t, with no invisible trip wires where something you did might unwittingly set her off, but also because she was the only person who could manage my mother and deal with her fits of madness.
“It’s like you cast a spell on her,” I told Martha once, I who had been raised by a woman who spoke often of spells and charms and curses.
“It’s not a spell,” Martha had replied with a laugh. “My father trained horses and I learned how to soothe skittish animals from him. More likely it’s that something about me—my voice or my face—reminds her of someone from her past, like a childhood nurse.”
Martha was wise, no-nonsense, and she al
ways had an answer for me when I was frightened about something, a rationalization.
That scraping noise you hear is ivy scratching the windows in the breeze, she would say when I cried and told her my fears. The scrabbling sound is mice in the wall, hurrying home to their family. When I became scared of the large beast from my nightmares—with four legs or six, with a great furred side and teeth sharp enough to slice through my fingers—she would say, Your father’s hounds will hunt down anything larger than a rat that dares enter the house. Ghosts do not exist, she would say when I told her my fear of the woman in white, the dead are slumbering peacefully in heaven, and it is only the wind or a shadow or a servant ducking out of sight into the back stairs.
Yet she could not be with me all the time, for comforting me was not her job, and she could only spare an hour here or there. I tried to cling to what she said, to the way the house did not seem to affect her as it did everyone else, but the nights were dark and long, and my imagination was boundless.
* * *
A few years ago, Martha had grown too old to walk easily up and down the stairs, to do the fiddly polishing and cleaning that was the work of many of the maids, so she became Lockwood’s laundress, and I used to like spending time with her in that boiling cauldron of a room, my hair curling tight to my head, my face flushing damp, as she listened to me speak of my wishes and dreams and I listened to her speak of what her nieces and nephews were doing, how her father’s old stables fared.
When a maid would bring me my laundered clothes, I would know that Martha had worked them with her tough hands, had tended to them as she’d once tended to me, and folded them carefully, slipping in a linen bag stuffed with dried lavender now and then. She might not have believed in charms, but I did, and she was mine.
But now she was gone. Not because she wished to leave, but because my father had wished it so.
