The Glass of Time

by Michael Cox

  ‘Then say it quickly, dear Guardian,’ was my reply, ‘for you are frightening me dreadfully.’

  ‘There’s my brave, dear child,’ she said, kissing me. ‘Very well. You are to go to England – not quite yet, but soon, when certain matters have been arranged – to begin a new life.’

  I was completely unprepared for this extraordinary announcement. Leave the Maison de l’Orme, the only home I had ever known, to go alone to England, where I had never been in my life, so suddenly, without warning, and with no reason given? It was absurd, impossible.

  ‘But why?’ I asked, my heart thumping with apprehension and bewilderment. ‘And for how long?’

  ‘As to the last,’ replied Madame, with the strangest smile, ‘if you are successful in accomplishing the task I shall be asking you to undertake, then you may never return here – indeed, I hope, with all my heart, that it may be so.’

  As I listened in astonishment, she went on to tell me that, for some weeks past, regular advertisements had been placed in London newspapers setting out my qualifications for a place as lady’s-maid.

  ‘Lady’s-maid!’ I exclaimed, in disbelief. ‘A servant!’ Had my guardian gone mad?

  ‘Hear me out, dear child,’ said Madame, kissing me once more.

  It appeared that the intention of the advertisements had been to recommend me for a particular vacancy that Madame knew existed, and to which a reply had now been received. The consequence was that I must go to a great country house in England called Evenwood, there to be interviewed by its owner, the widowed Lady Tansor.

  ‘You must charm this lady,’ urged Madame. ‘This will present no difficulty, for you charm everyone – as your dear departed father did. She will immediately discern that you are no common servant, but have been brought up as a lady, and this will be your great advantage. But you will have one other. There will be something about you that she will not be able to resist, although she might try. I cannot say more; but this you must believe, and take strength from it.’

  ‘But why must I do these things?’ I asked, dumbfounded by her words. ‘You still have not told me.’

  Again that strange smile, which I believe was meant to set my mind at rest, but only served to alarm me even more.

  ‘Dear child,’ she said, ‘don’t be angry with me, for I can see that you are, and I understand how you must feel. There is a purpose – a great purpose – to be served by your becoming maid to Lady Tansor, but it must be kept from you for the time being. Knowing too much too soon will make it all the harder for you to play your part, and compromise those qualities of innocence and inexperience in your character that you will need to draw on. If you secure this position, as I’m sure you will, you must daily convince your mistress that you are indeed what you present yourself to be. She must have no suspicions of you. Until you have gained her complete trust, therefore, the less you know, the better; for your ignorance will make your behaviour more natural and unstudied. When you have established yourself in her favour, it will be time for you to know everything – and you shall. On that you have my solemn word.

  ‘So will you trust me, child, as you have always trusted me, and believe that what I do, I do to serve your interests alone, to which, since the day you were born, I have always been, and shall always be, devoted?’

  What could I say to such an appeal? It was only too true. Her loving care for me had been daily proved. Surely I must trust her now, although blindly? Not to do so would be to repudiate all she had done for me, all she meant to me. I had no mother; I had no father; no brother or sister. I had only Madame, whose lilting voice used to sing me to sleep, or hush me gently when I awoke from the fearful nightmares to which I have always been susceptible. I was certain that she would never deceive me, nor deliberately put me in the way of harm. If the task that she now wished me to undertake was bound to my closest interests, as she continued to insist, what cause did I have to doubt her?

  I knew in my heart that, in the end, the duty I owed to Madame would make it impossible for me to reject her assurances that my going to England was absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, I eventually accepted them only with the greatest reluctance, feeling that my guardian had given me no other choice, by exploiting my love for her to overcome my most natural and reasonable objections.

  ‘Dear child,’ said Madame, after I had composed myself a little, her elfin face now alive with relief. ‘We know only too well that this is a great deal to ask of you, and at so young an age; but we also know that you have it in your power—’

  ‘“We”?’ I broke in.

  For the first time she hesitated in her reply, as if she had let slip something that she had not wished me to know.

  ‘Why, myself and Mr Thornhaugh, of course,’ she said, after a moment’s thought. ‘Who else should I mean?’

  I asked what my tutor had to do with the matter.

  ‘Dear child,’ came her smiling reply, accompanied by a soft touch of her hand, ‘you know how much I have come to rely on Mr Thornhaugh’s advice, having no husband to turn to. I need that advice more than ever now.’

  I appreciated why Madame had made my tutor a party in what she kept calling the ‘Great Task’, for he was in every way a most exceptional individual, in whom I also trusted absolutely; but why had she not told me of this from the start?

  ‘I have taken Mr Thornhaugh into my confidence,’ she admitted. ‘He must know all, if he is to assist me. I would not have kept this from you had Mr Thornhaugh himself not insisted on it. It is to his credit that he was sensible of the delicacy of the situation. He felt that it would be hurtful to you if I told you that your tutor knew what you cannot yet know. He was right, of course. Will you forgive me?’

  We sat in silence, our arms around each other, rocking gently to and fro, until at last Madame said that we would resume our conversation in the morning.

  From that day onwards, she set about preparing me for what lay ahead. Her own maid tutored me daily in the various duties that I would be called upon to perform, and I was given a copy of Mrs Isabella Beeton’s excellent manual of household management, in which the many onerous responsibilities of a lady’s-maid were set out. This I studied assiduously night after night, and later made sure to take the book with me to Evenwood.

  It was frequently impossible for me to stop myself from asking Madame yet again about the purpose of the Great Task, and why it required me to quit France.

  ‘It is your destiny, dear child,’ she would say, in a most solemn and conclusive manner, which instantly discouraged further enquiry, ‘as well as your duty.’ This was all the answer she would ever give me; and so, feeling the impossibility of defying Destiny, I at last submitted to the inevitable.

  A week or so later, on a hazy August morning, Madame came to me as I was sitting reading in the salon. I saw immediately that she had something of the greatest importance to tell me.

  ‘Are you ready, dear child, to begin the Great Task?’ she asked, flushed with excitement.

  She stretched both her hands out towards me. I took them, and we stood facing each other, our fingers locked tightly together.

  ‘I am ready,’ I replied, although I was sick with renewed apprehension, and still silently resentful at the position of unquestioning obedience to Madame’s will in which I had been placed.

  ‘Do not think that you will be alone,’ she said, gently stroking my hair. ‘I shall be here, whenever you need me – and Mr Thornhaugh too, of course – and you will always have a friend near by in England.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yes, and a good and trustworthy one, who will make sure that no harm comes to you, and who will watch over you in my place. But you will not know this person, unless – God forbid – circumstances make it imperative that you should do so.’

  So the time for leaving the house in the Avenue d’Uhrich grew ever nearer. In the last days, Madame had impressed upon me again and again the need, if I secured the position, to gain Lady Tansor’s complete trust, whilst warning me that this might not be won quickly, or easily. She then told me that there had
been only one intimate friend of her own sex in Lady Tansor’s life, but that, as far as she knew, this friendship had been ended many years ago.

  ‘You must not remain a mere servant for long,’ she went on, ‘but must become a substitute for that lost friend. The success of the Great Task depends on it.’

  For the last time, I ventured to ask what the purpose of the Great Task was, knowing even as I did so what Madame’s response would be. For now (it was always, provokingly, ‘for now’), I must continue to put my faith in her, although she promised to send me three ‘Letters of Instruction’, the last of which would finally reveal the goal of the Great Task, and how it was to be achieved.

  FROM THAT MOMENT, I have come to feel that my life is not my own, and that it has never been truly mine. Yet until then, on the contrary, it seems to me that I passed a most contented and enviable childhood and girlhood, secure in my own protected world; often alone, but never lonely; and fully alive within myself, where I revelled constantly in bright imaginings – except when the nightmares came, and I would cry out in terror. But even these, while dreaded, did not disturb me so much when the next day broke fair, and I would wake to see the dear face of Madame, whom, if the terror had been severe, I would always find sleeping in the chair beside my bed, her hand closed protectively over mine.

  Of my mother, I could recall nothing. Of my father, I sometimes fancied that I had a vague remembrance, as of a place once visited long ago, but of which one retains only the faintest sense, indistinct yet always bringing with it the same indelible impression. Curiously, this fragment of memory never tormented me. It was too insubstantial, and came too infrequently. Only on birthdays did I sometimes feel forlorn at my orphan state; but then I would scold myself for my ingratitude towards Madame, and look upon myself as a very selfish creature indeed. Orphans that I had read of in books were often poor suffering things, cruelly treated by wicked guardians or stepmothers. It was never so with me. Madame was kind and caring; the house in the Avenue d’Uhrich, although its high walls shut out the distant world, was large and comfortable. I wanted for nothing, lacked no bodily comforts or stimulation of the mind; I was loved, knew that I was loved, and loved in return. How, then, should I have been sad or unhappy?

  WHEN I WAS quite young, Madame would often take me to the little Cemetery of St-Vincent, to show me where my mother and father were buried, side by side, under two flat granite slabs, in the deep shadow of the boundary wall. My hand held tightly in hers, I would stare down at the slabs, fascinated by the stark brevity of their inscriptions:

  MARGUERITE ALICE GORST

  1836–1858

  EDWIN GORST

  DIED 1862

  My mother’s inscription would always make me sad: such a beautiful name, and – as I one day realized, when I had learned my numbers – so young to have been taken into Death’s arms.

  For my father’s, I felt a strange and fanciful curiosity; for the presence of a single date made it appear to my child’s mind that he had somehow never been born, yet had contrived to die. This, of course, I simply could not comprehend, until Madame told me it meant that the year of his birth was unknown or uncertain.

  Often, standing with Madame silently regarding the graves, and having no portraits or photographs of them to feed on, I would try to picture what my parents might have looked like – whether they had been short or tall, dark or fair – and wonder, as far as my limited experience of life and the world was able to inform my juvenile speculations, what circumstances had brought them to this, their final resting-place; but I never could.

  Throughout my childhood, Madame had often told me that my mother had been beautiful (as all mothers must of course be in the imaginations of orphaned children who never knew them), and that my father had been handsome and clever (as all fathers of such children must also be), for she had known my father before his marriage, and, later, when he and my mother had lived with her for a time in the Maison de l’Orme.

  This much, together with the bare circumstances of their first coming to Paris, their taking up residence with her in the Avenue d’Uhrich, my birth there, and their subsequent deaths – my mother’s soon after I had been born, my father’s a few years afterwards – was all Madame would tell me about my departed parents; and for the duration of my childhood this was all I needed to know. As I grew older, however, I became greatly curious to learn more about them; but Madame would always – in her gentle but immovable way – evade my questions. ‘One day, dear child, one day,’ she would say, kissing away all further importuning.

  Thus I had grown up in Madame’s tender care, knowing little more about myself than that my name was Esperanza Alice Gorst, born on 1st September in the year 1857, the only child of Edwin and Marguerite Gorst, both of whom lay in the Cemetery of St-Vincent.

  II

  The Heir

  A KNOCK AT the door roused me from my reverie. Running back to my bed, I quickly pulled on my robe and went to answer it. It was the head footman, Barrington, tray in hand.

  ‘Breakfast, miss,’ he said, gloomily.

  After placing the tray on the table, he gave a little cough, as if he wished to say something more.

  ‘Yes, Barrington?’

  ‘Mrs Battersby sends to know, miss, if you’ll be taking your meals in the steward’s room from now on.’

  ‘Is that the custom here for my Lady’s maid?’

  ‘It is, miss.’

  ‘And Mrs Battersby is my Lady’s housekeeper?’

  ‘She is, miss.’

  ‘Very well, then. Please send Mrs Battersby my very best compliments, and tell her that I shall be pleased to take my meals in the steward’s room.’

  He executed a meagre bow, and departed.

  JONAH BARRINGTON

  Footman. Tall and wiry, straight-backed, military bearing, hollow-cheeked, doleful of aspect, full head of stiff grey hair. Large ears with peeping tufts of white, like caterpillars. Fifty years of age? Small pursed mouth giving the impression that he exists in a state of surprised disapproval of the world in which he unaccountably finds himself, although I have a sense that he is a kindly soul at heart. An unobtrusive but watchful air about him.

  This was the description of Barrington that I made in my Book of Secrets, after its subject had left, and I had drunk up my tea and eaten my bread-and-butter. Then I washed, dressed myself in the plain black gown, starched white pinafore, and cap that Madame had provided, and went out, for the first time on my own, into the great house of Evenwood.

  THE NARROW WOODEN stairs that led down from my room took me, first, to a white-washed corridor, then, becoming wider and grander, to the Picture Gallery, lit by a row of arched windows, in which stood the door to my Lady’s private apartments.

  It was now nearly seven o’clock, giving me time enough before I must attend Lady Tansor to do a little exploring. So, after examining the pictures in the gallery, I continued my descent until I emerged at last into the great echoing vestibule, with its domed lantern high above, through which the morning sun was now streaming.

  Beneath the lantern, in a semi-circular alcove, and surrounded by six candles set in tall wooden holders, hung a painting. It showed a short, stiff-necked, proud-looking gentleman and his wife, the latter cradling a baby lovingly in her arms.

  The lady possessed a most exceptional beauty and grace, with an abundance of dark hair gathered up under a cap of black lace, a narrow band of velvet around her long white throat.

  I cannot say why it was, but her image instantly exercised a peculiar and lasting power over me. My heart seemed to beat a little faster as I looked upon her. In after days, I would often come and stand intently looking at the picture, as if such an act of dedicated concentration might bring her back to life; for – unaccountable and fantastical though it seemed – I wished with all my heart and soul to know her, speak to her, to hear her voice, and to see her move amongst living creatures once again.

  I discovered soon enough that she was Laura Duport, first wife of the late Lord Tansor, my Lady’s predecessor, a
nd that the pretty babe had been his Lordship’s only son, Henry Hereward Duport, on whom all his dearest hopes for the continuation of his line had briefly rested. The little boy, however, had been cruelly taken from him at the age of seven, after a fatal fall from his pony. Lord Tansor’s heart had been broken – yes, and his poor wife’s, too; for Sukie Prout later told me that she went quite mad at the last. She was found wandering about the Park, in a cruel frost, dressed only in her shift, bleeding and hurt. They carried her back to the house, but she died soon afterwards, and was buried in the Mausoleum that stands on the edge of the Park.

  I turned away from the portrait and looked about me.

  To my left was a pair of tall gilded doors surmounted by a shield carved in stone, bearing (as I later discovered) the Tansor arms. One of the doors being partly open, I peeped in, and then went through into a richly appointed room of a predominantly yellow colour, with a great chandelier, suspended by a massive gold chain, that appeared to my mind like some strange crystal galleon floating in mid-air.

  I passed through this apartment into another, in which the colour red predominated this time, and then into a third and a fourth, each one sumptuously decorated and furnished. Paintings in ornate frames, many of huge dimensions, rich tapestries, and towering looking-glasses crowded the walls; and wherever the eye rested were accumulations of precious objects of every size, shape, and kind.

  The fourth of these rooms, which I came to know as the Green Drawing-Room, opened into the magnificent State Saloon. Its walls and lofty ceiling were entirely covered with brightly painted scenes of ancient Athens and Rome, in which columns and buildings had been so cunningly rendered by the artist that, on first seeing them, I almost believed that they must actually be real, and made of stone.