by Jane Healey
The dining table itself was very modest compared to its surroundings—containing as it did the silver candlesticks that I had helped retrieve from the storeroom, creeping ivy and sharp holly branches, a stark white tablecloth so weighty it took both maids to carry it after they had spent hours ironing it, and, in pride of place, the immaculate silver formal tableware.
And the servants themselves, the reason this dinner could actually take place? They would be standing, hands at their backs, in the shadows (there was a Japanese lacquer screen too, which also hid a trolley) surrounding the table, waiting to squeeze in between the animals and the diners to fill up water glasses and pour champagne and wines. They would be ferrying in the food from the other end of the corridor—since the entrance from the house, with its walls of mounted heads, was now too narrow to maneuver plates and trolleys through—and would have to walk a frigid path across the gardens from the kitchen to the long gallery in the dark, their way lit only by the moon.
Supplementary servants had been drafted from the village and further afield, black-and-white uniforms brought out, and even an aged butler unearthed from somewhere, who would be greeting people in the entrance hall and directing them to the cloakroom and the library for drinks and, later, to the billiards room—although he had no other tasks, for he was quite doddering despite his immaculate bearing. In addition, the door would be guarded at all times by two night guards, I had been told, who would prevent our erstwhile intruders from gaining access and pilfering specimens while we feasted the hours away.
The way my animals were posed, as if they were a private menagerie owned by the select few who would sit at the table, discomforted me immensely, and that they were turned with their faces and snouts and noses toward the dishes and plates, the food we would be eating, lent an unnerving atmosphere to the corridor, as did the flickering candlelight. The candles themselves were far enough away from the animals that they would not be in danger—I had checked carefully myself—but still they did not feel quite safe here, and neither, I suspected, would the diners, with the gloom of the long gallery at our backs like a dark fog threatening to swallow the scene whole.
And yet, I thought sardonically, despite my distaste for it, this extravagant dinner tableau would be a fine send-off for the museum’s collections. The Major had unwittingly created a farewell party for both them and myself, and we would soon leave his greed and brutish behavior, and all the dangers and nightmares of Lockwood, behind.
Of course, I would also be leaving Lucy behind, but I tried very hard not to think about that. If she and I were still together—and if I were staying—we might have gossiped about Sylvia’s arrangements, about the guests and the ridiculous pageantry of it all. If she and I were together, I might have been getting ready in her room, sipping on crème de menthe and slipping into one of her dresses, feeling the soft touch of silk—silk that had once adorned her body—against my skin. Instead, I was peering into the small mirror in my bedroom, dabbing layers of powder beneath my eyes, using the last dregs of perfume in a bottle I would be unable to replace under rationing, smoothing down the dull frock I had brought with me to Lockwood for formal events and which looked like a very poor cousin indeed to any item in Lucy’s wardrobe.
Lucy and the Major would be the only dinner guests I knew, and I did not imagine I would have much in common with the rest. Still, it was true what the Major said, that I would be there as a representative of the museum, and if they wanted to donate money, to have a room or indeed a wing named after them, then I would do my best to encourage that, with my animals looming like Mafiosi over their shoulders doing most of the work for me.
The nervousness I felt leaving my room and making my way along the hall and down the stairs, into the reservoir of air thick with beeswax and pollen, with base notes of rich cooking, was solely about facing Lucy—in the library for drinks, and across the table at dinner—for I did not care one fig what anyone else but she thought of me. I did not want her to look at me with pity, for her to notice the distance between me and the other, glamorous, women in attendance and find me wanting; I was vain when it came to her. I wanted her to want me, to care for me—I, who had hurt her so grievously; I, who had done nothing to make amends.
The heels of my shoes stuttered on the floor of the corridor as I prepared myself to enter the library, for there she was, her black gown sweeping to the floor, its silk so light it rippled around her legs, her lipstick red as blood, her soft hair piled over one shoulder, a mink fur over the other, and a jeweled evening bag in her hand. Had this wondrous creature ever really loved me, I thought, me with my sallow skin and hands rough from museum work? An unfair thought to have, for had we not shared our innermost thoughts with one another, did I not know that a glamorous mien could hide all manner of emotions, from love to pain?
She smiled sadly when I finally met her gaze and tilted her head minutely. Hullo, I mouthed, and then the gossamer moment was dashed away by the appearance of a cocktail at my elbow, and Sylvia, who had waived her right to a fashionably late arrival, bustling over to introduce me to one of her guests.
I put on my professional hat and espoused the wonders of the museum, drawing attention to the specimens posed in the library as conversation pieces, and sipped gingerly on the cocktails handed to me, grazing on the canapés—caviar, salmon pastries, rolled toast with foie gras, and cheese puffs—sparingly, trying not to remember the guests at the ball who asserted that I was intense and hopeless at casual conversation, hoping that no one could tell I was shaking from anxiety that had nothing to do with tonight. The museum was the most important thing, I reminded myself as I left the room for the bathroom. It did not matter if the other guests thought me poor and plain—they could hardly expect someone stylish as a museum worker—or if they seemed surprised that a woman was in charge of the mammal department—but then women are doing lots of things nowadays, one army man, whose portly bearings reminded me of a wallaby, had said to me dubiously, peering at the décolletage of a female guest walking past us.
“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said, and then a hand clutched my arm quite tightly, making me jump.
It was Mary. She was wearing a glittering sheath of a dress with a white fox fur stole almost as pale as her bleached hair, which was teased into dramatic wings and set off by the shimmer of diamonds on her earlobes and at her throat. Had the Major invited her too? Was there some kind of seedy ménage à trois occurring tonight?
“Can I help you, Mary?” I asked, trying not to snatch my arm out of her grip, to make a scene.
“Are you enjoying living here?” she asked me with a sharp smile that did not quite reach her eyes.
“The museum is happy to have such a wonderful home during the war,” I replied by rote. We shall be out of your hair soon, never you fear, I wanted to say. You’re welcome to it—to Lockwood and life under that tyrant.
“Your hair is so pale,” she said, reaching out to touch one of the pinned waves I had tried to form with little success. “Is it natural? I used to have hair as white as this when I was a child. It takes so much work now,” she said, as if that was my fault.
“Yes, but it’s straight as a pin,” I said. There was something feral about her, something beyond the easy cattiness of her words, that made me want to treat her like a wild animal, soothing and careful. “I could never hope to tease it up like yours,” I added and she smiled triumphantly and finally let go of my arm, sauntering away as I stood there unsettled and baffled.
When I returned to the library, after staring, horrified, at my tired reflection in the bathroom mirror and muttering at myself to keep it together, it was to a full house—a sea of men in regimental dress or sharp black tie and women in sequins and chiffons and silks, satin, and velvet, nearly all of them wearing furs atop their gowns that I cataloged as I passed by, searching for a quiet spot near the okapi cabinet: mink, ermine, white fox—in the form of capelets, stoles, and scarves—many still bearing claws and heads and tails. I could not
help but find this gruesome: I, whose work was spent putting animals back together, preserving them in the nearest semblance of life, preferred it when furs were almost anonymous in their shape, as if they had come from one large amorphous beast, an entirely hypocritical preference.
“Ah, Miss Cartwright, just the woman I was looking for.” The Major’s voice cut across the buzz of conversation as I waved away the offer of another canapé. “Come and tell these fine folk about the animals in this room.”
“I’d be glad to,” I said, without looking at him, and then coughed, trying to clear my throat of the senseless, fearful sob that had seemed trapped there for months. I gave my best introduction to the specimens in the room—the okapi, whose unfamiliar form seemed to fascinate the guests; the giant otter shrew; the mastodon skull; the cabinet of big-cat skulls; the Arabian oryx; the Norway lemming; the platypus; the cabinet of red pandas, their shrew interlopers long gone; and finally the collection of foxes, which set off a spirited conversation about hunting to which I could add very little.
“It’s this damn war,” one man was saying, holding a cigar in his fist. “The army have requisitioned my forest, you see. Not that you fellows aren’t putting it to good use, I’m sure,” he added to the one man in uniform listening to him speak, “but if I don’t get in there and shoot my pheasants, then the poachers’ll have ’em. I never thought the day would come when the poachers would increase in number again. They say it’s rationing but I can’t believe that.”
“Oh, it’s been too long since I’ve been shooting,” the Major said, one arm around Sylvia, who was gazing up at him in adoration, her pink lips folded into a pleased little smile. “I’ve been too busy with work. Perhaps in the new year I’ll arrange a drive.”
“Oh, you must,” another man said.
Thankfully, this dull conversation, which I was trapped next to and could not escape from, was interrupted by the dong of a dinner gong being rung by the poor old butler (who resembled nothing if not a domesticated goat), the ringing sound of which set my teeth on edge, and we dutifully made our way out of the library toward the long gallery, with most of the women taking the arm of the men they had accompanied tonight, while I watched Lucy’s dark head a few paces ahead of me, a diamond pin coaxing her curls into place, glinting at me like a faraway lamp. She was walking alongside an actress who had a stunning heart-shaped face and a familiar profile, a pale pink dress fashioned so simply that I knew it was extraordinarily expensive, but I could not hear what they were talking about. The sex ratio tonight was exact, with some poor sod, perhaps the artist who walked behind me and was trying to explain his avant-garde work to a rather dowdy older lady, being matched to me.
I could hear the delighted gasps of wonder and amazement as the guests in front of me reached the little corridor and made their way into the long gallery itself. And I did feel pleased at the way people slowed to gawp at the animals they passed, murmuring excited comments at each new creature that appeared out of the shadows. The animals had been lacking their usual crush of eager visitors in London, so it was only right that they received a good share of the attention tonight, I thought. A small smile twitched at my mouth as we reached the table itself, where the diners looked awestruck, with those who had sat down already craning back to peer at whichever animal had been chosen to stand behind them, or tugging at the clothing of the person next to them to point out a particular creature in the crowd. Marvelous, people said, astonishing, simply outstanding, and I clung to those words and tried not to hear the backslaps and hearty congratulations given to Lord Lockwood for outdoing himself. They were the museum’s animals, I wanted to say, not his.
Champagne was poured once everyone was settled, and I peered at the specially printed menu as if I had not already read it, the text appearing to dance before me as I tried to calm my thumping heart and keep my eyes from sliding toward Lucy, who was seated at a diagonal from me, next to the artist directly opposite my seat.
I had been expecting a whole boar’s head with apple in mouth, some pheasants shot in the Major’s own forest by his own hand, or perhaps a large turkey, taken apart to be roasted and then stuffed with all manner of things so that it would sit upright in the center of the table, but the Major’s tastes were more cosmopolitan than that.
First we would be having a clear consommé—an extravagance when one knew quite how much meat went into producing such a flavor—with delicate garnishes and a splash of sherry; and to follow, lobster thermidor with green beans; and then a meat course of veal noisettes, with new potatoes and perfect asparagus tips. A salad next, with a rich dressing, and then a croquembouche, its tower glazed with threads of caramel, followed by praline ices and exquisite petit fours, with a cheese course to finish.
It was clear that a good portion of this had been smuggled in against regulations, that it cost vast amounts of money—and with all the servants’ gossip about his funds, was it really wise, I thought, to be spending so much on one fleeting meal? But, expensive though it might be, it tasted of very little to me as I did my best to focus on the too-quiet voice of the lemur-like businessman next to me (who kept asking me whether certain animals were mammals, even though I had already given him a general description of the mammalian class that the children who had visited the museum had grasped quickly) while ignoring both the lord sitting on my other side, whose body seemed strangely rigid in his seat and who kept sniffing loudly, and my beloved Lucy, who looked painfully beautiful and—equally painfully—remote.
How many days, hours, would I have left at Lockwood, would I have left in her presence, I thought, as my hand brushed against the dry ivy leaves on the table. Perhaps I could be like some desert plant, and these months together could be the rarest of summer rainstorms, could be all the water I would ever need to survive, to live on—but I knew that could not be true, for I was a creature of flesh and blood.
Thirty-Eight
My mother would have loved a dinner like this, I thought, as I sipped on my wine, hoping in vain that the alcohol might help soothe my frantic nerves, my fears that the trembling of my heart was a portent, an omen of terrible things to come.
She would have been glittering and luminous, she would have had the men hanging off her every word, the women squirming with envy and not a little awe—at least until the evening curdled, and my father provoked her drunken jealousy, so that she and he would fling barbs like silver knives across the table.
He liked to bring up her island beginnings in company, as if it were a trump card, mockingly naming her a savage, describing how he had found her in some whitewashed shack with no electricity or running water—despite everyone knowing that she had grown up in a grand plantation house—or running along the beach, a wild little thing with no corset or shoes.
I hated it. I hated it too when they continued their arguments in the room underneath mine after the guests had all gone home, his voice scornful, hers desperate, and then the way the sounds would change to grunts and moans and the bed shifting on its legs.
My hothouse flower, he would call her, my Eve in the jungle, my innocent, my wild beauty.
My name is Heloise, she would reply. Use my name, you coward.
Coward, me? To take such a wild wife as you? he would say and then I would hear her slap him and him laugh and say, See? See?
You’ve cursed me, you witch, my father liked to declare—fondly or hatefully, depending on his mood—as the two of them sparred with words in the drawing room, or the dining room, or in the ballroom with the doors flung open as the summer sun heated the world to blazing.
No, my mother would spit back, it’s you who has cursed me, who has trapped me here in this awful house. Why not just kill me? she would say, holding her arms out wide. Why not stuff me like one of your exotic animals and be done with it, place me in some forgotten room, silent and dutiful and forever young?
What a mad thing to say, he would drawl in response, and she would either fly at him with her nails or run from him, fleeing a
long the corridors, up the stairs, in and out of rooms, looking for somewhere safe to hide; looking, I thought now, for the door that would lead her back home, back to a time before she married my father, before she had me, before she ever stepped foot over the threshold of Lockwood Manor.
Thirty-Nine
Just after the lobster course, our cocoon of gluttony was interrupted by the arrival of an uninvited guest.
“What’s that?” a woman said, with a startled tone of voice. “Just look over there; the eyes . . .”
We craned our necks to follow her pointed finger and saw the reflective glint of a pair of eyes in the dark of the corridor, there one moment, and then vanished the next.
“It’s a fox,” I said, pleased that my voice did not shake.
“What, a real one?” the businessman beside me said.
“Yes.”
“Speaking of a hunt,” the man with the thick mustache (a manatee) said to the Major, and rubbed his hands together. “Shall we get the guns out now, and do some shooting in between courses?”
There were hearty guffaws from the table, but I felt a nervous pang in my stomach that seemed to be shared by Lucy who, across from me, was frowning. I put my napkin on the table and murmured an excuse me, but as I made to stand up, the Major halted me. “You can check afterward, Miss Cartwright, otherwise it will disrupt the serving of the next course.”
Every person there was staring at me now, and under the weight of their gaze, I sat back down. “Miss Cartwright is not used to these old houses and their wild interlopers,” the Major said to the others, leaning back a little in his seat. If only he would lean so far back that he might jam his head in the jaws of the gray wolf behind him, I thought. “Foxes, cats, swallows; we have visits from them all,” he said, as several other people mentioned animal sightings at their own estates and manor houses. “Even tiny little scurrying mice,” he added, tickling Sylvia beneath her chin and causing her to shriek delightedly and at such a high pitch it made the hairs on my arms stand up. The Major kissed her cheek in repentance and stared baldly at me, his eyes half lidded, like a lioness feigning nonchalance.
