Arthur drew Imogen forward, gently but firmly relieving her of her cloak. “Imogen, my love, this is Jane Cooper, who has been keeping house for me since my Emma left me.” He spoke to Imogen, but he addressed himself to Jane. “I do not know what I would have done without her these many years.”
“Eaten cold stew and overboiled potatoes,” said Jane tartly. “You are too soft. People take advantage.” Her eyes raked over Imogen’s shabby traveling dress, her black gloves. “I had thought you went to find a book.”
“I found the book and my Imogen, too,” said Arthur easily. He dropped Imogen’s gloves and bonnet on a table topped in dark marble. “We were married a month since.”
Jane Cooper’s lips were very thin. “This is certainly … unexpected.”
Embarrassed for her husband, Imogen said quickly, “I am so very sorry. The letter must have been lost along the way. We had meant to tell you, but my father—” Imogen’s throat closed around the words.
Her father had lasted long enough to see her married, but not much after. Word had reached her and Arthur on the road, at a dreary coaching inn somewhere in Devon. Her father had been found two mornings after her wedding, at his writing desk, his beloved books and papers around him, a miniature of Imogen’s mother in his hand.
It was for the best, Imogen had told herself. He was with her mother now.
But Imogen missed him all the same.
“I see,” said Miss Cooper, her lips narrow and tight. Turning to Arthur, she said, “She is very young.”
“Like Proserpina, Imogen brings with her the spring,” said Arthur poetically.
It was, Imogen thought, a lovely compliment, but not very much to the point, especially given that it had rained all the way from Cornwall to London. Imogen put her chin up and her shoulders back. “I managed my father’s household in Cornwall. For many years.”
Miss Cooper descended the stairs in a crinkle of crinoline. “Cornwall,” she said, as though Imogen had said “Mongolia.” “I assure you, you shall find this very different from Cornwall.”
“I expect I shall,” said Imogen warily, put off by the hostility in the other woman’s voice.
For a moment, Imogen fancied that she saw her father’s face. She could hear his gentle voice, counseling her, as he so often had, to compassion. Wouldn’t she be furious, too, if a strange woman were to show up on her doorstep and announce herself mistress of the house? As a dead wife’s sister, Jane Cooper had no real place in the household; she was neither blood relation nor employee. It wasn’t the least bit surprising that she should resent Imogen’s appearance.
In an effort at conciliation, Imogen said, “I have been very much looking forward to meeting Evangeline.”
“Evangeline is long since asleep,” Miss Cooper said coolly, and turned to Arthur. “I have kept your correspondence for you in your study—”
“Admirable, Jane!” said Arthur, nodding and smiling at Imogen as though Jane were a pet who had performed a particularly clever trick.
Miss Cooper cast Imogen a smug look. “—but there was one letter I had thought a mistake.” There was a pile of cards on a silver tray on the marble-topped table. Jane rustled through them, retrieving a sheet of paper folded and sealed in the old style. She held it out to Imogen, by the tips of her fingers, as though holding something diseased. “This must be for you.”
It was addressed to Mrs. Arthur Grantham. It took Imogen a moment to remember that was she.
“I assumed it was a mistake,” Miss Cooper said to Arthur. “I had meant to give it to you when you returned home.”
The writing was unfamiliar. Imogen broke the seal. “It is from my aunt,” she said in surprise. “Lady Hadley.”
Imogen supposed it wasn’t all that odd that Aunt Hadley should have written. Imogen had, directly after the funeral, penned a hasty letter to her uncle William at Hadley Hall, informing him of her own marriage and her father’s death, the one so sadly on the heels of the other. Imogen had apologized for the hasty nature of the funeral arrangements and provided them with her new direction.
Some expression of condolence was to be expected, even if her memories of Hadley Hall were hazy with time. Her father and uncle had corresponded irregularly, but Imogen had seen nothing of her aunt, uncle, or cousins since her father had taken to living in Cornwall.
Miss Cooper raised a brow. “Grand relations you have.”
Imogen shook her head in demurral. “The name is an old one, but not particularly distinguished. It is only a baronetcy.”
“Only a baronetcy,” echoed Jane. “Well. I suppose we must seem like nothing to you after that.”
Imogen glanced at her in confusion. “Not at all.” She wasn’t quite sure how she had offended, but she felt it important to set it right. “This is far grander than anything Hadley Hall can boast. My uncle has always cared more for his stables than his house.”
“Hadley Hall,” murmured Miss Cooper, and looked significantly at Arthur.
Arthur placed a hand on Imogen’s arm. “What does your aunt say, my love?”
Imogen glanced down at the creased sheet of paper. “She says—”
Not condolences, or, at least, not the sort Imogen had expected. The letter was a triumph of malice and poor grammar. They had made discreet inquiries, wrote her aunt, and their man of business had informed them that Arthur Grantham was nothing more than the son of a wine merchant; indeed, he actively pursued the business himself. Imogen had, so far as they were concerned, put herself beneath all notice by marrying so far beneath herself. Imogen should expect them to have nothing more to do with her. They hoped she would be happy with her tradesman, and it was really no more than was to be expected after the haphazard way her father had raised her. If he had heeded their advice and—
Imogen hastily folded the letter before she could read further. She didn’t need to. Of all the nasty, snobbish, vile—
To say such horrible things, about Arthur, cultivated, scholarly Arthur, and, even worse, of her own dear father, scarcely cold in his grave. And to do so in such a splotched, uneven hand, rife with blots and misspellings and language straight from the stables—she didn’t care if Aunt Hadley had an earl for an uncle and the best seat on a horse in five counties; she was still a crude, unlettered old hag and Arthur was worth twenty of her, however much his father might have been in trade. A fishmonger would have more in her of true gentility than Imogen’s Aunt Hadley had.
“Well?” said Miss Cooper. “Or are we not fit to hear?”
Imogen drew in a deep, uneven breath. “My aunt wishes us felicitations on our marriage,” she said steadily. “And condolences on my father’s death.”
There was no need for Arthur to know the horrid things Aunt Hadley had said; it would only hurt him, and needlessly.
On an impulse, Imogen reached out and took his hand, squeezing it with all the emotion in her heart. Arthur was her family now, all the family she needed.
“‘With one drooping and one auspicious eye,’” Arthur quoted soulfully, if inaccurately. Lifting her hand to his lips, he brushed her knuckles with an airy kiss. Imogen saw Jane stiffen and look away. “From this sad beginning, my love, shall come many happy years. Whatever may have been past, this is your home now. Jane will show you about.”
“Oh, no,” said Imogen quickly. “I shouldn’t wish to put anyone out. Tomorrow is more than time enough.”
Tomorrow, when she was less worn with travel, she would sit down with Jane and make her see that it was all quite all right, that she hadn’t the slightest notion of displacing her. Tomorrow, in the light of day.
“In that case,” Arthur said, framing Imogen’s face in his hands, “you must have a tray in your room and go straight to bed.”
In this strange house, with the candlelight flickering off the smug faces of the painted lions lining the tops of the walls?
“Not unless you come with me,” said Imogen firmly, “You are quite as worn with travel as I am.”
For a
moment, Imogen thought he might demur, but his face softened and he said, in a voice intended only for her, “You know, my love, that I can deny you nothing.”
“Your correspondence—” said Miss Cooper shrilly.
“Can wait for another day,” said Arthur. He linked his arm through Imogen’s. “Come, my love, and let me show you to your room.”
It was petty, Imogen knew, but hard not to feel a little flicker of triumph. She looked back over her shoulder at Miss Cooper’s pinched face.
“Good night,” Imogen said as warmly as she could.
The other woman did not return the sentiment.
“I am afraid we have offended Miss Cooper,” Imogen murmured to Arthur as they ascended the stairs. There were candles lit in sconces on the wall, beeswax candles, and the carpet beneath her feet was something finer than the usual drugget, far finer than anything she had been accustomed to at home.
Trade, Imogen could hear Aunt Hadley sniff.
“It is late,” was all Arthur said, as if that explained everything. As he pushed open a door the hinges protested as though they had not been used in a very long time.
The heavy drapes were drawn, blocking the faint light of the stars, and the air was heavy with the scent of dusk and damp. Arthur’s candle cut an uneven path through the darkness, revealing rosewood furniture draped in flowered pink brocade.
It ought to have been pleasant. Once, it might have been. The bed and dressing table were both of rosewood, carved in gentle curves. The paintings on the wall were all floral in theme, delicately framed in gilt. The two long windows were shrouded in heavy drapes in a color that must once have been rose, like the bedspread, but had faded to an ashy pink.
“This room has not been used in many years,” Arthur said apologetically.
He set the candle down on a dressing table, next to the miniature of a woman propped on a small, gilded easel. The woman looked a little like Miss Cooper, but her features were softer, rounder, her hair in a froth of blond curls around her smiling face. She was young, as young as Imogen. The candlelight flickered off the painted features, lending an uncanny illusion of life to those painted blue eyes.
There was no doubting who she was, or to whom this room must have belonged.
In the mirror over the dressing table Imogen could see her own face reflected back at her, pale and drawn, her hair dark and drab about her face, loose, limp locks straggling free of their pins, nothing like the pink and gold loveliness of the woman in the picture.
In the candlelight Arthur suddenly seemed a stranger, this man whom Imogen had known only a little more than a month, on whom all her happiness depended.
Impulsively Imogen put her hand on Arthur’s sleeve. “Do you miss her? Your—” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say wife. “Her?”
For a moment he seemed almost puzzled, and then his eyes followed Imogen’s to the miniature on the mantelpiece. Arthur lifted the picture of his wife, regarding it as if viewing a stranger.
“It was a very long time ago,” he said almost apologetically. And then, as though he were examining any work of art, “It is a good likeness.”
Imogen didn’t want it to be a good likeness. She wanted it to be rank flattery, for the real Emma Grantham to have been squint-eyed or hunchbacked or have a laugh like an unoiled door hinge.
In a subdued voice Imogen said, “It was too bad of you not to give Miss Cooper any notice of my existence.”
Setting down the picture of his first wife, Arthur held out both hands to Imogen. “You are too precious to share.”
Next to the miniature of his wife Imogen felt anything but precious; she felt large, clumsy, and gauche.
Imogen nestled her hands in Arthur’s, drawing reassurance from his touch, trying to hold on to the memory of their time together in Cornwall, that enchanted courtship in the garden, when Arthur’s eyes had been for her and for her only.
Naturally, everything seemed gloomy now, late at night, with the rain dripping down the shrouded windowpanes, but the morning would dawn sunny and bright and they would begin their lives here together just as Arthur had promised they would, working together in perfect companionship and harmony.
But she couldn’t quite stop worrying away at the uncomfortable realization that Arthur hadn’t bothered to let anyone know at home about his new wife.
“She was very cross,” said Imogen. “And she had every right to be.”
“Once Jane knows you, she will love you, just as I do.” Imogen felt the pleasure of his words warm her like sunshine until Arthur added thoughtfully, “She will be a great help to you as you learn to get on.”
“I did manage my father’s household for a great many years,” Imogen reminded him, wishing she felt more confident that the one translated to the other. Miss Cooper was right; London was a very long way from Cornwall. Imogen tilted her head up at her husband. “And I thought it was I who was meant to be a help to you. With your work.”
“Oh, yes, that,” Arthur said vaguely. He touched a finger to her cheek, skimming the surface as if it were a treasured relic. “I didn’t bring you here to use you as a clerk. I shouldn’t want my wife weighted down with dreary old papers.”
Imogen laughed up at him. She was on more stable ground here. “You know I don’t find them the least bit dreary. Your compendium—”
“Certainly doesn’t call for such diligence from a new bride as that,” said her husband indulgently. “Besides, there is nothing here that would interest you just now, just dull correspondence and business matters. I was away too long and there are matters that await my approval.”
“Of course,” said Imogen, trying to look as though she understood. She knew that Arthur still, nominally, ran his father’s import operations. She knew nothing of such things, but she could learn. “Perhaps I might help you? Two hands make light work.”
“That is what my clerks are for.” Arthur looked at her dark dress, at the cheap fabric, the fall of the skirt. “Talk to Jane about buying some fabric for new dresses. I like to see you in pretty things.”
Imogen almost opened her mouth to protest—but what was there to protest in being offered a new dress? It was all reasonable enough. He was right; she didn’t know anything about the import of amontillado, and it would be foolish for her to make a mess of his correspondence when he had clerks for that. Once his pressing business was dealt with, there would be time enough for them to resume work on his compendium of medieval religious art.
In the meantime, she still had a house to explore and a new stepdaughter to meet. Imogen had only just arrived. There was plenty of time for all the bits and pieces of their new life to fall into place.
“I am so happy to be here at last,” she said huskily, sliding her arms up around Arthur’s neck. “In your home.”
“In our home,” he corrected her. “It is your home now, too.”
And as he leaned forward to press a kiss against her brow, and then her closed eyelids, she heard a floorboard creak outside.
As though someone were listening.
Herne Hill, 2009
“Is someone there?” Julia’s voice sounded very small and tinny in the dark hallway. Get a grip, she told herself, and called out, more forcefully, “Hello?”
Her fingers fumbled for a light switch and found it. It was gummy, but it worked. Two bulbs blinked into life high above her head, encased in elaborately chased frosted glass. The pale light they produced only dusted the edges of the gloom. The hall wasn’t particularly large, even to her city-bred eyes, but the ceiling seemed to go up and up, the light fixture hanging from an elaborate, if dusty, plaster roundel.
A staircase, carpeted in red patterned with what might originally have been blue, rose up in front of her, turning sharply towards a landing.
Footsteps pattered down the stairs, accompanied by a voice calling, “Sorry! It’s just me.”
Julia’s hands, which had tightened around the strap of her computer bag—burglar knocked out by PC!—relaxed. T
he voice wasn’t familiar, but it certainly didn’t sound threatening. It was a woman’s voice, husky, and unmistakably British.
“Is that Julia?” The owner of the voice passed the curve of the stair, the worn treads squeaking as she cantered down the final flight, one hand on the banister, the other flapping for balance. She stopped, breathless, at the bottom, sweeping her long hair out of her face. “Hi.”
Her hair was a darker brown than Julia’s, expertly streaked with lighter highlights. Over a pair of designer jeans she wore one of those floaty chiffon tops that only the very tall and very thin can wear. She was both.
What was a fashion model doing in her front hall? The lawyer hadn’t said anything about anyone being in residence. The word “empty” had been used quite distinctly.
Julia dumped her computer bag on top of her wheelie. “Yes, it is Julia,” she said cautiously. “And you are—?”
“Oh, sorry.” The stranger came forward, hand extended in welcome. Even in ballet flats, she was a good four inches taller than Julia in her high-heeled loafers. “It’s Nat,” she said, and, when Julia looked blank, tried again. “Natalie? Your cousin? I’ve haven’t seen you since—well. Yonks.”
Julia forced a smile. Not very polite to admit she had no recollection of Natalie, no recollection at all, so instead she said, “It’s been a while.”
She didn’t ask, What are you doing here? but the question must have been implied, because Natalie laughed lightly and said, “Crenshaw told my mother that you’d be in this week, so I thought I’d pop by, make sure the lights worked and the loo wasn’t stopped up. I didn’t mean to scare you, though. They hadn’t thought you’d be in until tomorrow.”
Natalie was smiling, smiling brightly, but her eyes didn’t match her lips. Or maybe that was just the half-light of the hall, creating shadows, distorting perception.
Next to the other woman’s casual trendiness Julia felt even more dirty and disheveled than she had before, painfully aware that her jeans and shirt had been with her since New York. They had the accumulated stains on them to prove it. Her hair was coming out of her ponytail and she could feel the waves of dirt coming off herself like Pig-Pen in the old Charlie Brown comics.
That Summer Page 4
