This was something new. It had to do with the change in the man’s expression from sternness to tenderness, from power to humility. Alec felt he could have walked through his gaze into the future.
* * *
For days he’d been avoiding the manor house. Reverend Borenius, who often visited, had stepped up his solicitous questions now that Alec was getting ready to emigrate. But on this rainy afternoon, he risked the vicar’s prying. He lingered near the house, outside the drawing room windows. He was rewarded with a glimpse of the newly arrived stranger within, talking with Borenius and young Mrs. Durham. The man’s figure was athletic, as he had sensed it would be. Alec haunted the kitchen, where he learned that the guest was one Mr. Hall, Cambridge classmate and intimate friend of Squire Durham. He remembered the gossip he’d heard from Simcox.
The news of his identity gave some validation to the desire that Alec believed he’d seen in the man’s face. It also tantalized him. He grew jealous of the one he worked for. Durham and Hall. Cambridge had been theirs, where teachers like Grant and Morgan coddled them and where the work of servants like Alec gave them the leisure to love. Maybe they still were lovers.
He chatted around the kitchen till he learned that Mr. Hall would be sleeping in the Russet Room; then he posted himself in the shadows below its window, where parted curtains showed a lamp burning. Maybe he would pass the window, and Alec could see more of him. Durham, however, had just returned home from a day of political canvassing. Would the squire go to Hall’s room?
Hall himself appeared above, alone, looking out at the rain. Soon the face, handsome, troubled (and lonely, Alec told himself), withdrew. The maid closed the curtains. He heard the beagles baying, off in the kennels. For the first time in all his service he’d neglected to feed them on schedule. He walked back toward the gamekeeper’s cottage, still puzzling.
That morning, when he had been planning his day, he’d intended to spend the evening in his room reading about Argentina. Now he wanted only to get back to the main house as soon as he could. After tending the dogs, he changed his wet clothes and, though he’d shaved in the morning, he did so again. The rain had curled his hair; he was about to tame it with a comb when he recalled that the Mildreds said it was pretty that way—like that of a prince or a pirate. So he left it, and even encouraged the curl with his fingers. The effect pleased him in the mirror: maybe he did resemble Giorgione’s young soldier. But when he remembered Risley’s flattery, he frowned at his image, judged the curls unmanly, and tried combing them flat. He was more confident about his chest, smooth and broad; he unbuttoned the top of his shirt to show it off some. He was glad his spare trousers were old corduroys, worn thin and revealingly tight. He didn’t know how, but he planned to put himself in Hall’s way tonight.
At the house, after the meal was cleared upstairs, Alec stayed on in the kitchen, contrary to his habit. Milly asked why.
“Hopin’ the rain might ease up,” he said, drying the pots.
He learned that Simcox would be looking after Mr. Hall as his valet. Piqued, he wished he could think of how he himself might be closer to Hall. Then he got lucky.
The drawing room bell rang on the board. The parlormaid, whose duty it was to answer, was in the toilet. As it rang once again, she rushed out of the loo and up the stairs cursing. She returned immediately to fetch dry rags and a basin. “It’s leakin’ again up there,” she said, “the roof over the window bay. Come on, Simcox—we’re to shift the piano out of the drip.”
“I’ll give a hand,” Alec said too quickly and loud. When the others looked at him in surprise, he added, “A piano takes two men, don’t it?”
“It’s on casters,” said Simcox. “We’ll manage.”
“Still, it’s heavy; miss might injure herself.”
“Yes, Scudder, come along,” the parlormaid said. “I’ve got my hands full.”
“But they’re in evening clothes up there,” Simcox said, “and this one looking like Will Scarlet.”
“Didn’t the ol’ trout just give me the stink eye for them ringin’ twice?” she said. “Come on, now, you two.”
Upstairs, candlelight touched the drawing room’s shabbiness with bleary glamour. For Alec, though, it all served as a foil for Hall, a striking figure in his black and white clothes among the faded colors. Talking with Archie London, the squire’s brother-in-law, Hall took no notice when the three servants entered together. The old lady did, though. She muttered, “Le délai s’explique. C’est toujours comme ça quand—we have our little idylls belowstairs too, you know.”
She spoke French no better than his village schoolteacher, so Alec understood every word. Still going on about the delay. The smutty trull, did she imagine that he and Simcox, two poofs, had been fucking the parlormaid on the kitchen counter? Couldn’t be simple as the girl’s taking a piss? Meantime, how about the old lady’s son and his lover boy playing willy-grab under her dinner table?
The leaking ceiling was merely a symptom: Penge House was falling apart. The servants got down to work quietly, hampered by the threadbare rug under the piano, soaked through and jamming the casters. And Anne Durham had mucked things up further by trying to dry the piano wires with blotting paper, now all shredded and stuck. She left that problem for the maid to fix.
“You men, what do you want to do tomorrow?” Durham said to his guests. “I must go canvassing. Don’t come too. It’s beyond words dull. Like to take out a gun or what?”
“Very nice,” said Hall and London.
“Scudder,” said Durham, “do you hear?”
Alec heard, but, struggling with the piano, did not answer quickly enough. The old lady muttered another insult, “Le bonhomme est distrait.” Distracted was right. But not by the parlormaid.
“What—?” Alec whispered to Simcox.
“Scudder,” Durham repeated, “the gentlemen’ll shoot tomorrow—I’m sure I don’t know what, but come round at ten. Shall we turn in now?”
“Early to bed’s the rule here, as you know, Mr. Hall,” said Anne Durham. She bade good night to the three servants and led the way upstairs. Hall tarried. The servants were now on their knees: the parlormaid drying the floor, the men trying to yank the rug smooth. From under the piano Alec could see the gentleman walk to the bookcase.
“Damnation,” Hall muttered, “isn’t there anything, anything?”
“What’s that?” Alec whispered to Simcox.
“Sshh,” Simcox said, “he’s not talking to us.”
Hall found a book and left. Alec and Simcox maneuvered the piano away from the leak. The parlormaid dismissed them; she stayed on, complaining to herself, to put the room in order.
Alec was glum. Hall had never once looked at him in the drawing room. Had their meeting of eyes that morning, so momentous to Alec, meant nothing to him? Then he took heart, allowing that maybe Hall was being cautious. Anyway, Alec would be near him tomorrow for shooting. When he went back out into the night’s heavy rain, he intended to return straight to his room in the gamekeeper’s cottage, but, unable to help himself, he detoured by the Russet Room window. Just as he did so, the curtains parted above, and there was Hall.
The man stared off into the park, into the rain. As before, he seemed troubled. He sighed. Then he did something strange: he slapped his own face with his right hand, as if trying to startle or even punish himself. Was something wrong? Should Alec call out? Would he be angry? Then the curtains closed, and Hall was gone.
For the second time that day, Alec was soaked. He did not return to his room, though. Instead he went to the boathouse. It was leaky, much worse than the drawing room, but he thought of the place as his own. He wanted only his solitude. He took off the wet clothes, wrapped himself in the blanket he’d bought for Argentina, and huddled in the corner that he’d padded with cushions from the old rowboat. The blanket dried him and contained his warmth against his flesh. He listened to the rain—on the roof, on the pond. There was no reason for hope, but reason was beside the po
int.
Next morning, during two hours of shooting rabbits, Hall said no more to Alec than he would have to a cabbie in town. Sometimes their eyes met, but Alec saw none of the fire of yesterday’s gaze; Hall merely gave him a vacant little smile that cemented the barrier of class, while Archie London never shut his damned mouth—rarely hitting his mark, often missing, always bragging. Despite the rain, London coerced Hall into shooting again after lunch. The showers let up and fog came in their place. Hall seemed even more distant than he’d been in the morning, as if preoccupied, though sometimes Alec caught the man staring at him, not unkindly, nor quite present, like a daydreamer.
Near four o’clock, Alec spotted a ferret and aimed. London, without warning, fired first. He missed, and the ferret dashed. Before Alec could contain his disgust, he said, “Damn—that pesky thing’s been raiding the quail.” London was peeved at the servant’s implying that the miss was his fault, but Hall chuckled.
That was the end of their outing. The gentlemen returned to the house for tea.
The hours of nearness had sharpened Alec’s attraction. He found Hall’s voice mellow and gentle, his eyes beautiful—greenish, flecked with brown like the woods. While they were shooting, Alec, whenever he could, stood where he might better admire Hall’s body, sometimes so close that he could feel the man’s warmth. Once, when he’d whispered over his shoulder, “There, sir, between the spruce and the oak,” Hall turned to Alec and their faces nearly touched. Neither flinched. Alec guided Hall’s eyes back to the quarry with his own: Hall fired and hit his mark.
For a second day, Alec had put off packing. Instead he moped in the boathouse. And again after dinner, he lingered in the kitchen. The rain resumed. When at last he went back out into the wet night, he stopped under the Russet Room window.
He saw a play of two men’s shadows on the closed curtains. He recognized Hall at once, but who was up there with him? Simcox? Then Alec knew it was Durham. Again, jealousy took hold of him. Would they embrace? Alec thought to fire his rifle. That would startle them apart. The shadows drew closer to each other. Alec aimed toward the sky. But before he pulled the trigger, they separated, and then Durham’s shadow was gone.
Alec lowered the shotgun. He was weeping and did not know why. The rain washed the salt of his tears back into his eyes, stinging them. Then immediately the curtains upstairs were pulled open, the sash thrown wide, and Hall appeared, the downpour soaking his hair. He looked wild, troubled. “Come!” he suddenly yelled toward the sky. Just as suddenly he drew back, slammed shut the window, and closed the curtains.
The outburst shocked Alec more than his gunshot would have shaken the night.
He walked away—not to his room, but to the boathouse, to stay alone again. Last night there’d been hope, but tonight his emotions were desperate, his lust urgent, fired by the day’s close contact. His senses—sight, hearing, smell—could conjure Hall now. He imagined his eyes, his voice, his warmth.
Toward dawn a plan took shape: He’d suggest that Hall come to the pond to swim. He’d accompany the gentleman there, as he had others when they swam. But he’d strip naked himself as he’d never done and join Hall in the water. Surely the man would like what he saw. And if not, so what? In ten days Alec would be aboard ship, out of reach of disappointment and disgrace.
But at breakfast he learned from Simcox that Mr. Hall would be leaving by the early train, returning to the city with Mr. London. Alec got up from the kitchen table without a word. He went around to the front door, where he found Hall, pacing by the motorcar in the rain, preoccupied, impatient to leave. His eyes widened when he saw Alec.
“Ah, Scudder,” he said, “here we are, for yesterday’s shoot.” He offered a tip. Alec, tongue-tied, refused the money silently. Hall shrugged and went into the house, where, through the open door, Alec saw him speaking with London, who then came out and likewise offered a tip. Alec, confused, muttered thanks and, without looking at the money, accepted it. London went back and spoke again with Hall, who called to Alec familiarly from the doorway, “Hullo! So my five shillings aren’t good enough! So you’ll only take gold!”
Humiliated, he could have grabbed Hall by his lapels, shaken him, and yelled, I am not your servant!
Instead he attended in silence as Anne Durham, joined by the squire, bade goodbye to her guests: “Best of luck!” Then, to her husband, but intending for Hall to overhear: “Now, a woman in love never bluffs—I wish I knew the girl’s name. I imagine her a lively brunette with bright brown eyes.”
A girl in the city. That’s why Hall was leaving. Alec snatched the gentleman’s suitcase before Simcox could and carried it to the car. “Stick it in, then,” said Hall to him coldly.
The auto backfired and pulled away. Without hesitating or thinking why, Alec ran off across the park. Not far from the house the road took a steep hairpin climb through some dog roses. Days of rain had gouged it with ruts—he was sure the mud would slow the car down. He ran through the wet grass and woods faster than he had raced at Brenford; the strain and his madness made his heart pound. He caught up to the car near the top of the rise. He chased it alongside the roses, thorns snagging his skin and his clothes. Hall leaned his head out of the window. On meeting the forest-green eyes, Alec abruptly stood still. Now it was Hall who was dumbfounded by their silent encounter, not Alec. Before it had gone on many yards, mist and rain turned the auto to shadow in Alec’s sight.
He watched the rain rinse the blood from his scratched hands. What had happened to him? he wondered. Two days ago he’d been eager to start his new life, ready for freedom from the likes of Durham and Hall and their feeble old world, the one that kept them on high at the price of his degradation. But now? Muddy, bleeding, chasing a car in the rain like a wet hound … For what? A crush on a man who despised him?
He walked back to the keeper’s cottage, to his room. He’d not slept in his bed, he realized, for two nights. He felt exhausted and duly chastened. He slapped his own face; he laughed when he remembered how he had seen Hall do the same. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and yelled, “Go!”
The gamekeeper’s wife poked her head in at the door. “Alec, what’s wrong?”
“Sorry, Missus—tryin’ to scare off that ferret I saw out the window—”
“Well, dry yourself now, before you get sick; they’re counting on you for cricket tomorrow.” Closing the door after her, she muttered to herself, “In the rain with their guns for hours on end. Why don’t these men stay in and play cards…?”
Alec cleaned himself up. He also took stock of his folly and declared it behind him. He resolved to get back to business, his own. From the boathouse he fetched the blanket along with some books he’d left, and packed it all away in his trunk for the trip—he’d spend no more nights there. He sorted and rechecked the papers for embarkation. He was determined to sleep soundly tonight in his own bed and wake up ready for the next day, when he’d help roll the pitch for the match and play well, a last bit of fun before leaving Penge and Wiltshire and England. Hall was gone, also his madness.
And the rain too, at last. The clear evening sky promised a bright day tomorrow. Feeling healthy again, like getting over a nasty but short-lived virus, he was walking toward the main house for supper, past clouds of evening primroses in plentiful bloom after whole days of soaking, when he saw Hall among the flowers, touching them, sniffing them. Alec stopped dead; his throat went dry; he wanted to duck away. But if he did so, he would attract notice and questions. Instead he approached the guest, touched his cap, and said the first thing that came to mind, “Evenin’, sir. Will you be shootin’ tomorrow?”
“Ah, Scudder, good evening—you know there’s the match in the morning—they’ve asked me to play for the park.”
“Yes sir, of course. Forgetful of me to ask…”
Hall, it struck Alec, was paying him full attention. He felt his face redden when he recalled this morning’s reprimand about the money and then his chasing the car. But the
man’s frank regard conveyed no reproach. Alec fumbled for something to say. “I’m sure I’m very sorry I failed to give you and Mr. London full satisfaction, sir.”
“That’s all right, Scudder.” Then Hall gave a conciliatory smile and turned to go into the house.
Before he could stop himself, Alec called out, “Glad to see you down again so soon, sir.”
“That’s all right, Scudder,” Hall said again and went in. Alec, regretting he had spoken out of place, watched him go.
At supper in the kitchen the others noticed that Alec was lost in thought. Simcox said, “He’s off to the moon.”
“Dreamin’ about Argentina,” Milly said, “all the money he’ll make and wooin’ some rich rancher’s daughter.”
Alec smiled. He said to Simcox, “Only three upstairs at dinner? Just Mr. Hall and the vicar with the ol’ lady, and she’s withdrew?”
“Lively company for the young gentleman, eh?”
“Might you go ask him, then, before the gents rejoin the missus, if he’d care to swim in the pond tomorrow, after the match? I’ve bailed out the rowboat since the rain let up. He might like to dive—them Cambridge types all like to.”
“Go on, Simcox,” the parlormaid said. “Maybe it’ll hurry them along and we can finish.”
“All right.” Simcox yawned and straightened his shirtfront. He went off and reported back promptly, “Mr. Hall won’t be swimming, Scudder. He said he saw you before dinner. Nothing new since.” Then he added slyly, “On the other hand, the vicar requests a meeting this evening. Asks if you’ll kindly tarry a bit so’s he can speak with you.”
Alec groaned, the parlormaid rolled her eyes, Milly shrieked with laughter, then covered her mouth just as the Reverend Borenius appeared at the open kitchen door and rapped quietly on the frame. The servants all stood at their places, Milly so quickly she knocked over her chair. “Pardon the interruption,” said the vicar, “but I was hoping to speak briefly with Mr. Scudder—his departure is so fast approaching.”
Alec Page 5
