by Kate Morton
‘No-’
‘Bet she had a good laugh about it.’
‘Oh no,’ I said quickly. ‘It wasn’t like that. She was worried about you.’ I swallowed, dared to say: ‘I’m worried about you.’
He looked up sharply from beneath the lock of hair his glass-shuffling had worked loose. His mouth was etched with tiny angry lines. ‘Worried about me?’
His strange, brittle tone made me wary, yet I was seized by an uncontrollable urge to make things right. ‘It’s just, it’s not like you to drop a tray, and then you didn’t mention it… I thought you might be frightened of Mr Hamilton finding out. But he wouldn’t be angry, Alfred. I’m sure of it. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes in their duties.’
He looked at me, and for a moment I thought he might laugh. Instead, his features were contorted by a sneer. ‘You silly little girl,’ he said. ‘You think I care about a few cakes ending up on the floor?’
‘Alfred-’
‘You think I don’t know about duty? After where I’ve been?’
‘I didn’t say that-’
‘It’s what you’re thinking though, isn’t it? I can feel you all looking at me, watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake. Well, you can stop waiting and you can keep your worrying. There’s nothing wrong with me, you hear? Nothing!’
My eyes were smarting, his bitter tone made my skin prickle. I whispered, ‘I just wanted to help-’
‘To help?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘And what makes you think you can help me?’
‘Why, Alfred,’ I said tentatively, wondering what he could possibly mean. ‘You and I… we’re… It’s like you said… in your letters-’
‘Forget what I said.’
‘But Alfred-’
‘Stay away from me, Grace,’ he said coldly, returning his attention to the glasses. ‘I never asked for your help. I don’t need it and I don’t want it. Go on, get out of here and let me get on with my work.’
My cheeks burned: with disillusionment, with the feverish afterglow of confrontation, but most hotly with embarrassment. I had perceived a closeness where none existed. God help me, in my most private moments I had even begun to imagine a future for Alfred and me. Courtship, marriage, maybe even a family of our own. And now, to realise I had mistaken absence for greater feeling…
I spent the early evening downstairs. If Mrs Townsend wondered where my sudden dedication to the finer points of pheasant roasting came from, she knew better than to ask. I basted and boned, and even helped with stuffing. Anything to avoid being sent back upstairs where Alfred was serving.
My course of avoidance was on good track until Mr Hamilton thrust a cocktail salver into my hands.
‘But Mr Hamilton,’ I said disconsolately. ‘I’m helping Mrs Townsend with the meals.’
Mr Hamilton, eyeballs glistening behind his glasses at the perceived challenge, replied, ‘And I am telling you to take the cocktails.’
‘But Alfred-’
‘Alfred is busy fixing the dining room,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘Quickly now, girl. Don’t keep the Master waiting.’
It was a small party, six in all, and yet the room gave the impression of being overfull. Thick with loud voices and inordinate heat. Mr Frederick, eager to make a good impression, had insisted on extra heating and Mr Hamilton had risen to the challenge, hiring two oil stoves. A particularly strident female perfume had flourished in the hothouse conditions and now threatened to overwhelm the room and its occupants.
I saw Mr Frederick first, dressed in his black dinner suit, looking almost as fine as the Major had once done, though thinner and somehow less starched. He stood by the mahogany bureau, talking to a puffy man with salt and pepper hair that perched like a wreath around his shiny pate.
The puffy man pointed toward a porcelain vase on the bureau. ‘I saw one of those at Sotheby’s,’ he said in an accent of gentrified northern English mixed with something else. ‘Identical.’ He leaned closer. ‘It’s worth a pretty penny, old boy.’
Mr Frederick replied vaguely. ‘I wouldn’t know, Great-grandfather brought that back from the Far East. It’s sat there ever since.’
‘You hear that, Estella?’ Simion Luxton called across the room to his doughy wife, seated between Emmeline and Hannah on the sofa. ‘Frederick said it’s been in the family for generations. He’s been using it as a paperweight.’
Estella Luxton smiled tolerantly at her husband and between them passed a type of unspoken communication borne of years of joint existence. In that moment’s glance I perceived their marriage as one of practical endurance. A symbiotic relationship whose usefulness had long outlived its passion.
Duty to her husband fulfilled, Estella returned her attention to Emmeline, in whom she had discovered a fellow high-society enthusiast. For what her husband lacked in hair, Estella more than made up. Hers, the colour of pewter, was wound into a sleek and impressive chignon, curiously American in its construction. It reminded me of a photograph Mr Hamilton had pinned on the noticeboard downstairs, a New York skyscraper covered in scaffolding: complex and impressive without ever being properly attractive. She smiled at something Emmeline said and I was stunned by her unusually white teeth.
I skirted the room, laid the cocktail tray on the dumb waiter beneath the window and curtseyed routinely. The young Mr Luxton was seated in the armchair, half listening as Emmeline and Estella discussed the upcoming country season in rapturous tones.
Theodore-Teddy as we came to think of him-was handsome in the way all wealthy men were handsome in those days. Basic good looks enhanced with confidence created a façade of wit and charm, put a knowing gleam in the eyes and gave glisten to the hair. Swiftly put paid to any suggestion of middling intelligence.
He had dark hair, almost as black as his well-pressed dinner suit, and he wore a distinguished moustache which made him look like a screen actor. Like Douglas Fairbanks, I thought suddenly, and felt my cheeks flush. When he smiled it was broad and free, his teeth whiter even than his mother’s. There must be something in the American water, I decided, for all of their teeth were as white as the strand of pearls Hannah wore at her neck, over the gold chain of her photograph locket.
As Estella commenced a detailed description of Lady Hamilton’s most recent ball, in a metallic accent I had never heard before, Teddy’s gaze began to wander the room. Noticing his guest’s lack of occupation, Mr Frederick motioned tensely to Hannah who cleared her throat and said, half-heartedly, ‘Your crossing was pleasant, I trust?’
‘Very pleasant,’ he said with an easy smile. ‘Though Mother and Father would answer differently, I’m sure. Neither have sea legs. Each was as sick as the other from the moment we left New York until we reached Bristol.’
Hannah took a sip from her cocktail then submitted another stiff sample of polite conversation. ‘How long will you be staying in England?’
‘Just a short visit for me, I’m afraid. I’m off to the continent next week. Egypt.’
‘Egypt,’ Hannah said, eyes widening.
Teddy laughed. ‘Yes. I have business there.’
‘You’re going to see the pyramids of Egypt?’
‘Not this time, I’m afraid. Just a few days in Cairo and then on to Florence.’
‘God-awful place,’ Simion said loudly, sitting in the second armchair. ‘Full of pigeons and wogs. Give me good old England any day.’
Mr Hamilton motioned toward Simion’s glass, nearly empty despite having recently been filled. I took my cocktail bottle to his side.
I could feel Simion’s eyes on me as I topped up his glass. ‘There are certain pleasures,’ he said, ‘unique to this country.’ He leaned slightly and his warm arm brushed my thigh. ‘Try as I might, I haven’t found them anywhere else.’
I had to concentrate to keep a blank expression on my face, and not to pour too quickly. An eternity passed before the glass was finally full and I could leave his side. As I rounded the lounge, I saw Hannah frowning at the place where I had been.
‘
My husband does love England,’ Estella said rather pointlessly.
‘Hunting, shooting and golf,’ Simion said. ‘No one does them better than the British.’ He took a swig of cocktail and leaned back in the armchair. ‘Best thing of all, though, is the English mind-set,’ Simion said. ‘There are two types of people in England. Those born to give orders.’ His gaze found mine across the room. ‘And those born to take them.’
Hannah’s frown deepened.
‘It keeps things running well,’ Simion continued. ‘Not so in America, I’m afraid. The fellow who shines your shoes on the street corner is as like as not to be dreaming of owning his own company. There’s little to make a man so damnably nervous as an entire population of labourers puffed up with unreasonable…’ he rolled the distasteful word around his mouth a moment and spat it out, ‘ambitions.’
‘Imagine,’ Hannah said, ‘a working man who expects more from life than the stench of other men’s feet.’
‘Abominable!’ Simion said, blind to Hannah’s irony.
‘One would think they’d realise,’ she said, voice rising a semitone, ‘that only the fortunate have a right to concern themselves with ambition.’
Mr Frederick shot her a warning glance.
‘They’d save us all a lot of bother if they did,’ Simion said with a nod. ‘You only have to look at the Bolsheviks to realise how dangerous these people can be when they get ideas above their station.’
‘A man shouldn’t seek to improve himself?’ Hannah said.
The younger Mr Luxton, Teddy, continued to look at Hannah, a slight smile making his lips twitch beneath his moustache. ‘Oh, Father approves of self-improvement, don’t you, Father? As a boy I heard of little else.’
‘My grandfather pulled himself out of the mines with sheer determination,’ Simion said. ‘Now look at the Luxton family.’
‘An admirable transformation.’ Hannah smiled. ‘Just not to be attempted by everyone, Mr Luxton?’
‘Just so,’ he said. ‘Just so.’
Mr Frederick, eager to leave precarious waters, cleared his throat impatiently and looked toward Mr Hamilton.
Mr Hamilton nodded imperceptibly and leaned near to Hannah. ‘Dinner is served, miss.’ He looked at me and signalled that I should return downstairs.
‘Well,’ Hannah said as I slipped from the room. ‘Shall we dine?’
Fish followed green pea soup, pheasant followed fish and by all accounts things were going well. Myra made occasional appearances downstairs, providing welcome reports of the evening’s progress. Though working at a frantic pace, Mrs Townsend was never too busy for an update on Hannah’s performance as hostess. She nodded when Myra announced that though Miss Hannah was doing well, her manner was not yet so charming as her grandmother’s.
‘Of course not,’ Mrs Townsend said, sweat beading at her hairline. ‘It’s natural with Lady Violet. She couldn’t host a party that wasn’t perfect if she tried. Miss Hannah will improve with practice. She may never be a perfect hostess, but she’ll certainly be a good one. It’s in the blood.’
‘You’re probably right, Mrs Townsend,’ Myra said. She straightened the trim of her apron and lowered her voice. ‘So long as she doesn’t get swept up with… modern notions.’
‘What sort of modern notions?’ I said.
‘Aye. She always was an intelligent child,’ Mrs Townsend said regrettably. ‘All those books are bound to put ideas in a girl’s head.’
‘What sort of modern notions?’
‘Marriage will cure her, though. You mark my words,’ Mrs Townsend said to Myra.
‘I’m sure you’re right, Mrs Townsend.’
‘What sort of modern notions?’ I said impatiently.
‘There’s some young ladies just don’t know what they need until they find themselves a suitable husband,’ Mrs Townsend said.
I could stand it no longer. ‘Miss Hannah’s not going to get married,’ I said. ‘Never. I heard her say so herself. She’s going to travel the world and live a life of adventure.’
Myra gasped and Mrs Townsend stared at me. ‘What are you talking about, you silly girl,’ Mrs Townsend said, pressing a hand firmly against my forehead. ‘You’ve gone mad talking nonsense like that. You sound like Katie. Of course Miss Hannah’s going to get married. It’s every debutante’s wish: to be married briskly and brilliantly. What’s more, it’s her duty now that poor Master David-’
‘Myra,’ Mr Hamilton said, hurrying down the stairs. ‘Where is that champagne?’
‘I’ve got it, Mr Hamilton.’ Katie’s voice preceded her loping form. She emerged from the ice room, bottles clutched awkwardly under both arms, smiling broadly. ‘The others were too busy arguing, but I’ve got it.’
‘Well hurry up then, girl,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘The Master’s guests will be going thirsty.’ He turned toward the kitchen and peered down his nose. ‘I must say it’s not like you to dawdle over your duties, Myra.’
‘Here you are, Mr Hamilton,’ said Katie.
‘Up you go, Myra,’ he said disparagingly. ‘Now that I’m here I might as well bring them myself.’
Myra glared at me and disappeared up the stairs.
‘Really, Mrs Townsend,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘Keeping Myra here arguing. You know we need all hands on deck tonight. May I enquire as to what was so important that it required your urgent discussion?’
‘It was nothing, Mr Hamilton,’ Mrs Townsend said, refusing to meet my eyes. ‘Not an argument at all, just a little matter between Myra and Grace and me.’
‘They were talking about Miss Hannah,’ Katie said. ‘I heard them-’
‘Silence, Katie,’ Mr Hamilton said.
‘But I-’
‘Katie!’ Mrs Townsend said. ‘That’s enough! And for goodness sake, put those bottles down so Mr Hamilton can get them up for the Master.’
Katie released the bottles onto the kitchen table.
Mr Hamilton, reminded of the task at hand, abandoned his inquiries and began to open the first bottle. Despite his expertise, the cork was stubborn, refusing to emerge until its handler least expected and-
Bang!
It shot from the bottle, exploded a lamp globe into a hundred pieces, and landed in Mrs Townsend’s pot of butterscotch sauce. The liberated champagne showered Mr Hamilton’s face and hair with triumphant effervescence.
‘Katie, you silly girl!’ Mrs Townsend exclaimed. ‘You’ve gone and shaken the bottles!’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Townsend,’ Katie said, beginning to giggle as she was wont to do in moments of bother. ‘I was just trying to hurry, like Mr Hamilton said.’
‘More haste, less speed, Katie,’ Mr Hamilton said, the slick of champagne on his face detracting from the seriousness of his admonition.
‘Here, Mr Hamilton.’ Mrs Townsend clutched the corner of her apron to wipe his shiny nose. ‘Let me get you cleaned up.’
‘Oh, Mrs Townsend,’ Katie giggled. ‘You’ve gone and put flour all over his face!’
‘Katie!’ Mr Hamilton snapped, swiping at his face with a handkerchief that had materialised amid the confusion. ‘You are a silly girl. Not an ounce of sense to show for any of your years here. Sometimes I really do wonder why we keep you…’
I heard Alfred before I saw him.
Over the din of Mr Hamilton’s scolding, Mrs Townsend’s fussing and Katie’s protestations, the rasping rise and fall of breath.
He later told me he had come downstairs to find what was keeping Mr Hamilton, but now he stood at bottom, so still and so pale, a marble statue of himself, or else a ghost…
As my eyes found his, a spell was broken and he turned on his heel, disappeared down the corridor, footsteps echoing on stone, through the back door and into the dark.
Everyone watched, silent. Mr Hamilton’s body twitched as if he thought to follow, but duty was ever his master. He ran his handkerchief across his face one last time and turned to us, lips pressed together so they sketched one pale line of dutiful resignation.
‘Grace,’ he said as I prepared to chase Alfred. ‘Put on your good apron. You’re needed upstairs.’
•
In the dining room I took my place between the chiffonier and the Louis XIV chair. On the opposite wall Myra raised her eyebrows. Powerless to convey all that had happened downstairs, unsure what such an explanation would contain, I lifted my shoulders slightly and looked away. Wondered where Alfred was and whether he would ever be himself again.
They were finishing the pheasant course and the air quivered with the polite tinkle of cutlery on fine china.
‘Well,’ Estella said, ‘that was,’ imperceptible pause, ‘just lovely.’ I watched her profile, watched the way her jaw worked as she chewed each word, wringing from it all life and vitality before pushing it out through broad, crimson lips. I remember her lips especially, as she was the only person wearing makeup. Much to Emmeline’s eternal sorrow, Mr Frederick had rather definite ideas on makeup and its wearers.
Estella cleared a valley between the leftover mounds of solidifying pheasant and laid down her cutlery. She kissed cherry splotches onto a white linen napkin I would have to scrub later. ‘Such unusual flavours.’ She smiled at Mr Frederick sympathetically. ‘It must be difficult with the shortages.’
Myra raised her eyebrows. For a guest to comment directly on the meal was almost unheard of. Indeed, such blatant respects verged on discourtesy, all too easily interpreted as evidence of surprise or, worse, relief. We would have to be cautious when recounting to Mrs Townsend.
Mr Frederick, as astonished as we, launched an uneasy oratory on Mrs Townsend’s unparalleled skill as a ration cook, under which veil Estella took opportunity to peruse the room. Her gaze alighted first on the ornate plaster cornices marrying wall to ceiling, slid south to the William Morris frieze on the dado rail, before resting, finally, on the wall-mounted Ashbury crest. Taking stock, or so it seemed, as all the while her tongue darted methodically beneath her cheek, working some stubborn and distasteful morsel from between her gleaming teeth.
Small sociable chat was not Mr Frederick’s metier in life, and his narration, once started, became a desolate conversational island from which there seemed no escape. He began to flounder. He cast about with his eyes but Estella, Simion, Teddy and Emmeline had all found discrete occupation elsewhere. He had almost surrendered to his fate when finally, in Hannah, he found an ally. They exchanged a glance, and while he allowed his desultory description of Mrs Townsend’s butterless scones to wilt, she cleared her throat.
