by Dominic Luke
She slipped across the corridor and waited in the morning room. A distant bell tinkled. Footsteps sounded: the unobtrusive but unmistakeable tread of the butler, Mr Ordish. He must be about to announce dinner.
Taking her life in her hands, Eliza ran pell-mell to the hallway where she ducked behind the coat cupboard. From here, she could peek out and see right along the passageway that led from the front of the house to the back. Three-quarters of the way along this passage a door opened. The guests emerged. Two-by-two, they crossed from the drawing room to the dining room. Roderick led the way, Mrs Somersby of Brockmorton Manor on his arm. Roderick was tall and handsome, his slicked-back hair dark and shiny. Mrs Somersby was incomparably glamorous and very old: fifty at least. The others followed in order, the ladies in their finest frocks and bedecked with jewels, the gentlemen scrubbed and polished and debonair. The Russian, Eliza noted, was wearing one of Roderick’s jackets. He was taking Miss Cecily Somersby in to dinner: she was a terrible wallflower. The dry sticks were accompanied by Mr Charles Harding – a silly man – and Mr Mark Somersby, who Roderick called ‘the Boer War War-Bore’. Mama and Colonel Harding brought up the rear. Mama was in black, her skin porcelain white. Mama always wore black, since Daddy’s death. Black did not suit her. It made her look cross.
All nine couples had gone in. The dining room door was closed. A maid came scurrying, went into the drawing room, reappeared with a tray of glasses. She pulled the door to with her foot, hurried off towards the basement. The passageway was now empty. No one would need to use it for ages and ages: dinner would be taken in through the other door. Emerging from behind the coat cupboard, Eliza made her way along the passage and put her eye to the crack in the door.
Eighteen people were arranged around the table eating anchovies and drinking sherry. Roderick sat at one end with the curtained window behind him; Mama presided at the other, regal as a queen. Dorothea was halfway along with her back to the door. She had the village doctor on one side, the War Bore on the other. Conversations were sprouting like new shoots in spring. Mrs Somersby, to Roderick’s left, was debating the merits of Christmas decorations. She herself found their prevalence these days somewhat vulgar. What did Roderick think?
Eliza, uninterested in Roderick’s (or anyone’s) opinion of Christmas decorations, found her eye drawn inexorably towards the Russian in his borrowed jacket. He was opposite Dorothea, talking to the wallflower. The wallflower, to Eliza’s disdain, was blushing bright red. But would I, she asked, be any braver, sitting next to a Russian? She had her doubts.
The conversations were blossoming, the noise increasing. Loudest of all (he was always the loudest) was Colonel Harding, seated on Mama’s left. His voice echoed round the room: ‘. . . when I was in India . . . the British Raj . . . those sepoys, not worth a. . . .’ Mama was smiling her ‘very interested’ smile. But how could anyone really be interested in anything the boring Colonel had to say?
Mr Ordish in the background made a sign. The servants began to clear the plates, the footman, Basford, tall and deliberate, the maids brisk and nimble. Eliza wrinkled her nose, remembering how smug Daisy had been at the prospect of waiting on at dinner. But Daisy’s pinafore was coming undone. It would serve her right if it fell off altogether.
The soup arrived. Eliza sniffed. Could it be – was it possible – Cook’s mulligatawny? Cook’s mulligatawny was the finest soup in the world! But there was no time to dwell on the injustice of missing out. Colonel Harding’s voice had risen another notch. The whole table was agog as he butted in (he always butted in) on a disputation between his son and one of the dry sticks: the dark-haired dry stick whose name was Miss Halsted.
‘You are wrong, my dear girl, quite wrong. Women don’t need the vote. They don’t want the vote. There are ladies present. Let us ask them.’
‘The vote!’ exclaimed Mrs Somersby. ‘Oh dear me, no! Please don’t give me the vote! I shouldn’t have the first idea who to vote for!’
‘Of course you wouldn’t!’ boomed the Colonel. ‘And that is just as it should be! Politics is men’s business. There’s nothing in it for ladies to worry their pretty heads about.’
But Miss Halsted had more to say. It was, thought Eliza, rather reckless of her. Perhaps she didn’t realize that the Colonel, when crossed, had been known to become almost apoplectic, going red and purple in the face, his eyes popping out of his head: terrifying.
‘Are women, then, to have no influence in how the country is governed? That way of thinking is, if I may say, typical of a man. Mr Asquith opposes the unearned privilege of the House of Lords but does nothing about the unearned privilege of men!’
‘Asquith?’ growled the Colonel ominously. ‘Asquith is—’
Mama interrupted, smoothing things over. ‘The question is academic, I feel. Women won’t get the vote in my lifetime.’
‘But Mrs Brannan!’ cried Miss Halsted eagerly. ‘In New Zealand women have the vote already!’
‘New Zealand?’ boomed the Colonel. ‘New Zealand! My dear girl, that’s the colonies! There’s no accounting for what goes on in the colonies!’
‘Even in this country,’ Miss Halsted persisted, ‘there have always been women in positions of power. Take Queen Victoria. She ruled the British Empire. She was the most powerful person in the world! If a woman can rule an empire, then surely she’s capable enough to vote!’
‘You’ve got things rather muddled. Queen Victoria didn’t have the vote!’ The Colonel guffawed. He seemed to think he’d scored a resounding success.
Eliza let out her breath. Miss Halsted had got off lightly, her act of defiance laughed away. But how brave she’d been, standing up to the bullying Colonel! Perhaps she wasn’t such a dry stick after all. Certainly she looked quite different this evening with her hair up and wisps of it hanging down, and candlelight reflected in her wide brown eyes. Her rather olive skin gave her an almost exotic appearance, so different from the other ladies round the table. Even Roderick seemed to have noticed and he didn’t have much time for girls: he was always saying so. He was watching Miss Halsted with a fierce look on his face, as if he was angry.
What did it mean? Had the idea of votes for women given him indigestion? But no one really cared about votes for women. Dorothea said it was a fuss over nothing.
The quenelles had been eaten. The quails were brought in. Course followed course. The once immaculate table was now littered with breadcrumbs and spilt salt. Menu cards had been laid aside higgledy-piggledy; the cutlery was askew; wax ran in rivers down the smooth sides of the candles.
Eliza yawned. Grand dinners went on so long! It was impossible to keep up with all the separate conversations. Grown-ups laced their words with so many different meanings.
There were invisible threads, she said to herself, running from person to person, criss-crossing the table like a cat’s cradle or a spider’s web, the pattern growing ever more complex as the dinner wore on. Every glance, every movement, every word added yet another gossamer thread. Some threads were brittle and easily snapped (Mrs Somersby, dabbing decorously at her mouth with her napkin, glanced at Mr Milton then looked away, dismissive). Some threads vibrated like violin strings (the Russian and Miss Ward were debating some arcane point across the table). The thread that linked Roderick and Miss Halsted was taut like steel wire as if holding them against their will; whereas a soft and caressing thread ran from Dorothea to the wallflower, Dorothea taking pity as she always did and trying to ease Cecily’s discomfiture. (‘In Germany on Christmas Eve. . . .’ But why was Dorothea always talking about Germany these days?)
At last it was time for dessert. The crumbs were swept away, the dirty glasses and salt cellars removed. Fresh glasses were put out. The dessert wine was handed round. Mr Ordish in the background inspected every detail with a critical eye. Finally he nodded. He ushered Basford and the maids out of the room. The babble of voices rose to a final crescendo. Faces were flushed, arms were waving; ties were askew and hair out of place. Only Mama wa
s unchanged, a velvet spider sitting at the heart of the web, aware of every thread, aware of every tremor and vibration.
The Colonel began to dominate once more. He was railing against ‘all this newfangled rubbish, science and technology, the work of the Devil’, a favourite theme.
Mrs Somersby smiled mischievously. (Mrs Somersby, mischievous?) ‘What about Crippen, Colonel? Crippen would never have been caught but for new-fangled radio signals.’
Mama stepped in, keeping the peace. ‘What happened to Crippen in the end? I never heard.’
‘Bally fellow was hanged, I should hope,’ said the Colonel.
The Russian spoke up. ‘Hanging is barbaric, the practice of savages!’
‘I agree with Kolya!’ cried Miss Halsted. ‘One can’t really talk of civilization when we still employ the methods of the Dark Ages!’
The Colonel growled threateningly. Eliza prepared for a purple-faced explosion of the most devastating kind. Shock waves could already be felt, radiating round the table. But Mama brought a lightness of touch which stilled the quivering threads, glancing at the Colonel with a raise of her eyebrows, the merest hint of a smile, thereby averting disaster.
‘Surely, Mr Antipov, you can’t defend a man like Crippen? Surely you can’t argue that he didn’t deserve to die?’
‘Life is precious, Mrs Brannan: most precious possession we have. It should not be taken away for punishment or revenge.’
Colonel Harding snorted. ‘And what do you do with your criminals in Russia? Drown them in vodka? Haw, haw, haw!’ His rollicking laughter jolted the invisible web; he nodded and winked at Mama.
Eliza’s hands strayed to her neck. What was it like to be hung? It did sound barbaric. Yet perhaps Mr Crippen deserved it. Who was Mr Crippen? Everyone seemed to know – everyone except her.
Mama gave a little sign and got to her feet. It was time for the ladies to withdraw. They would be leaving the dining room by this very door.
Eliza abandoned her post, scrambled across the passage, dashed through the drawing room and the breakfast room and into the parlour. She would be safe in the parlour (or Mother’s Lair, as Roderick called it). Once the ladies were settled and the coffee had come, she could make her way back to the nursery.
She yawned, settling herself on the sofa. It was peaceful in here, the only light coming from the glowing embers of the fire. If she closed her eyes just for a moment . . . just a moment . . . just . . . just. . . .
She woke with a jerk. The fire had gone out and it was pitch dark. How long had she been asleep? She must get back to the nursery before Dorothea came up – if it wasn’t too late already.
She jumped up, ran into the breakfast room. This too was now in darkness – someone had turned off the lights – but there were slivers of brightness under the doors. There was no sound from the drawing room but a murmur of voices came from the hall. Outside, carriage wheels were crunching on the gravel. A horse stamped impatiently.
Eliza pressed her ear against the hall door. She could hear Colonel Harding, grumpy-voiced, slurring his words and Mr Charles, yawning loudly: the last to leave as they always were. Mr Ordish must be helping them on with their coats, hats and scarves. If only they’d hurry! She was trapped where she was until they moved. But it was probably too late in any case. Dorothea would be back in the nursery by now. The only hope was that she hadn’t looked in on Eliza’s room and seen that the bed was empty.
At last the front door banged shut. The sound of the carriage faded into the night. Eliza slipped out from the breakfast room. As she ran on light feet across the hall, the grandfather clock began to strike the hour. ‘One, two, three . . .’ she counted under her breath . . . ‘ten, eleven, twelve. Gosh! Midnight! How thrilling!’
In her excitement, she almost trod on the book before she saw it. It lay face down on the bottom step where someone had dropped it. What an odd book it was, full of lines of print that didn’t make sense. Some of the letters were quite ordinary; others were mysterious symbols of unknown meaning. Someone had gone through the book underlining passages in pencil and writing notes in the margin: desecration, Dorothea would have called it. Eliza could not imagine how anyone would have time to pause and write down their thoughts. All she ever wanted of a book was to rush to the last page to see how it finished.
‘I see you have found my book.’
The unexpected voice made her heart stop. She had not heard anyone come. Slowly she looked up. There he was, looming over her on the stairs like a giant: the Russian. She could feel her cheeks burning. She must be as red-faced as that wallflower Cecily Somersby. How shameful, how humiliating, to be no better than Cecily Somersby!
‘I . . . I. . . .’ Oh, stupid girl: speak, speak! ‘Your . . . your book.’ She held it out with a shaking hand.
He ran down the last few steps, took the book and slipped it into his jacket pocket. ‘Spasibo. Thank you.’
He was now very close. They were face-to-face in the hallway. He had seemed very tall on the stairs. He was still taller than she was. But he was not as tall as Roderick, nor as imposing.
She lowered her eyes, too shy to look at him.
‘I am always losing my books, Miss Brannan. They drop out of my pockets. I put them down and forget them. I leave them on trains and in other people’s houses. So I am grateful to you.’
He had a deep voice despite his slim frame. He had a most peculiar accent. The familiar hallway seemed suddenly like a wild and uncharted land at this late hour with this stranger before her.
‘I. . . .’ She swallowed, forced herself to speak. She didn’t want to be a wallflower. ‘I shouldn’t be here. I should be in bed.’
‘Ah, I see. Then your secret – is that right word, secret? – is safe with me.’
‘Yes. Yes.’ She was overcome with confusion. ‘Good . . . goodnight!’
She fled. She did not have the courage to look back.
Safely in bed, she pulled the covers close around her. The night light glowed on the bedside table keeping the dark at bay. What an evening! The excitement of the dinner party and then an encounter with the Russian. She had been alone with him, completely alone. Anything might have happened! He might have kidnapped her and carried her off to Russia!
What eyes he had, looking at you as if he could really see you, as if you weren’t just part of the furniture. But she had avoided his eyes. She had stared at his hand instead, the hand that had taken the book from her: the long bony fingers, the pared nails, the red knuckles. His shirt cuff sliding out from the sleeve of Roderick’s jacket had been frayed at the edges.
She tried to remember his name. It began with an A. And what was the name that Miss Halsted had called him during dinner: a different name, a nickname perhaps?
Eliza snuggled down in bed, trying to find words to describe the mysterious Russian. He was like a deer. Or a rabbit. Or . . . or—
Her mind fumbled. The words deer and rabbit didn’t fit. The Russian was like nothing except himself. Maybe all Russians were the same, beyond words, unimaginable.
She hugged herself under the bedcovers, feeling that she’d had a lucky escape: for if he had kidnapped her and carried her off, would anyone have even noticed?
Roderick looked very dashing astride his tall horse Conquest, impeccably turned out from his black silk hat down to his polished black boots, more handsome even than usual: he appeared much older than his nineteen years.
And he’s my brother, thought Eliza: my very own brother.
The word brother had regained its meaning on this blustery Boxing Day morning. It was a dynamic word, a weighty word, ambivalent too: it summed up Roderick completely.
Eliza had come to Lawham to see the hunt off. Dorothea and Miss Halsted were with her in one of Clifton’s motors (Mr Milton and Miss Ward had gone that morning to Darvell Hall to pay their respects to their many relatives). There were one or two other motors on Market Place, several carriages, and a large crowd of onlookers. The huntsmen and women (there were half
a dozen women) were resplendent in their coats of scarlet or black, polished buttons glinting in the grey light. Their horses – bays and greys and roans – were fidgeting and dancing, striking sparks off the cobbles with their hoofs. The hounds were everywhere, yammering and slavering and showing their teeth. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the houses lining the square. The tall, pointed spire of the church tapered into a leaden sky. There was rain in the air.
Roderick was peerless. No one could match him. Some of the riders, indeed, looked rather ridiculous in comparison, with their great paunches and their spindly legs. The Russian was awkward and ill-at-ease. His borrowed clothes did not quite fit. He was pulling at the reins of his prancing horse, frowning. His name was Mr Antipov: Eliza had memorized it at last.
She had learned something terrible about Mr Antipov. He was an atheist. An atheist was someone who did not believe in God, unlikely as that seemed.
‘It’s pure affectation.’ Dorothea had been unusually scathing. ‘And I do think – it would only have been polite – that he could have made the effort to come to church yesterday morning.’
‘Russians are Orthodox, Doro, and not C of E,’ Roderick had said. ‘They have Christmas on a different date. So Antipov would not have gone to our church even if he did believe in all that stuff.’
Mr Antipov must do as he chose, Mama had averred: he was a guest and guests could please themselves. But Eliza could not help but worry.
‘Will Mr Antipov go to hell when he dies?’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so,’ Roderick had replied cheerfully. ‘He’s not a bad sort. God, I’m sure, will forgive him. God is like that – or so Doro tells me.’
But why worry about Mr Antipov? She would probably never see him again. Roderick during his school days had often invited boys who came once and once only. Her brother had exacting standards when it came to friends. All the same, as she sat in the motor on Market Place, Eliza could not help but feel sorry for the Russian, who had no God to protect him, just borrowed clothes and a horse which Roderick called ‘an old nag’.
