“There we are,” she said. “It suits you.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly…,” Antonia began. “It’s far too special.”
“It’s yours,” she said. “In India we have a saying. It is not the value of the gift but the sincerity with which it is given which is important.”
For a second Antonia wondered if Cicely was making fun of her. Was she sincere? If the scarf had really been intended for her, then why hadn’t she given it to her the day she arrived? Or was it not sincerity but guilt that motivated the action? Antonia ran the tips of her fingers down the beautiful scarf. She desired it so much she practically ached. Should she accept it? How could she not without making a scene? On balance, she made a decision. She would take Cicely at face value; she would give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Well, I suppose,” Antonia began. “If you insist, then thank you.”
“Going anywhere special?” Cicely asked, gesturing at Antonia’s hair.
Antonia’s hand immediately rose to her head, to smooth down any stray hairs, and her cheeks flushed.
“What?” she said. “No, oh no.”
“I thought we might go to Dunoon.”
“Really? When?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Cicely said. “We could do with a walk.”
“I’m rather busy,” said Antonia. “I’m sorry.”
Cicely gave her a smile, that smile, as Antonia took in that she hadn’t actually been invited.
5
They had just reached the village of Sandbank when Kitty heard it, a rumbling, a spluttering, high above. Cicely looked up, shading her eyes with her hand. It was a biplane, making a great circle through the sky, its shadow looping across the hills, the river, the sugar refineries, before it headed out to sea.
“Where is it going?” asked Kitty.
“Probably just out for a spin,” she replied. “Like we are.”
It was a relief to get away from Balmarra. They had breakfasted at eight and left the house an hour later. George would have been impressed; he was always complaining about how long it took Cicely to get ready. Would he really have preferred the alternative? Her hair in a plait and her clothes thrown on? Did he want her to look like Antonia? She doubted it.
Kitty skipped as they crossed a bridge and then followed the road for at least a mile. Several carriages and motorcars passed by, the occupants staring down at them curiously. Otherwise the only people they saw were on foot: a couple of young girls who giggled behind their hands, a farmer with a sheepdog that barked at them, and finally Mr. Baillie’s nephew. He was wearing a dark overcoat and carrying a heavy leather satchel.
“Morning,” she said as she passed him.
“Same to you,” he replied.
“Was that—?” Kitty whispered.
“Yes,” she replied. “The younger gardener.”
“Where has he been?” Kitty asked.
She was at the age where she believed that her mother knew everything. Cicely stole a glance over her shoulder. Mr. Baillie’s nephew was walking backward, looking after them. She turned, but not quickly enough for Kitty. She stopped and then gave a small wave. Cicely spun her around by the shoulders, took her hand, and walked faster.
“Don’t want to miss the post office,” she said. “It might close.”
“When does it close?”
“Half past hurry up,” she said.
Kitty laughed.
“Two minutes to slow coach,” she suggested. “Quarter to quickly.”
“Enough,” she said after Kitty had reeled off several more.
George had arranged he would write to her care of the local post office. It wouldn’t do for his sister or her husband to open and read any of their correspondence accidentally. And there was the other reason she needed to visit Dunoon, the more pressing one—to pay a visit to Edward Pick’s solicitor. She hoped he would see her without an appointment.
An ocean liner sailing down the Clyde Estuary to the Irish Sea passed by so close that they could almost see the faces of the men, women, and children on the decks, all heading, she supposed, to America or Canada to start new lives. Kitty was silent, maybe thinking, as she was, of the continent they had left behind, of India. Did one ever sever the link with one’s homeland? It pulled like a current, and she compared every taste, every color, every smell. She dreamed of the mountains, of Darjeeling, and woke up disoriented, surprised to find herself in another land and another climate.
A seagull glided in the sky above. The wind boomed in her ears. Once they reached the headland, the town was visible in the distance. Kitty liked the sound of it in her mouth and sang a little song, “Dunoon, Dunoon, Dunoon.” Across a small inlet was a huge red sandstone castle. Unlike Balmarra, it looked as if it had been built in the last fifty years and was bigger, grander, with a sweep of lawn and an exquisitely planted garden.
Maybe Antonia and Malcolm had never expected that George would come back and claim what was his; maybe they had thought he would let them live there for as long as they wanted. After all, his life was elsewhere; it was doubtful that he had thought of Balmarra more than a couple of times in years. But now he needed the money, desperately, immediately, and that drive was stronger than any sense of filial loyalty.
Hopefully the solicitor would be able to suggest a palatable solution. A buyout, perhaps? Would Antonia and Malcolm have enough money for that? Would their marriage survive? And if not, what would happen? She pictured Antonia alone on a deck with a suitcase at her ankle, sailing off to another, more turbulent life. The worst thing was that she seemed to have absolutely no idea, no inkling, of what was coming.
By the time they reached Dunoon, the sky had clouded over again, a raw wind was coming off the water, and large waves buffeted the pier. The cafés on the seafront were open for the season and faded bunting, strung from the lampposts, snapped in the wind. A few holidaymakers strolled about eating ice cream, and several families were camped out on the shingle beach shivering in their swimming costumes, only the very brave or very young venturing into the water.
In the post office a man with leather flying goggles on his head was chatting with the clerk. The queue stretched out the door, and the other customers were becoming impatient.
“Do we have all day?” one elderly man said under his breath. “Oh no, we don’t!”
“I’ll wait for it,” the man at the front said, and finally stepped aside. When he saw the queue he apologized profusely and then he stood, his elbow on the counter, and began to whistle. As they stood in line, Cicely scrutinized him: mid- to late-thirties, she guessed. As well as the goggles, he wore a leather flying jacket and a bright yellow silk scarf knotted around his neck. It was a slash of color in swaths of gray and black wool. His hair was dark, and he had a small scar on his right temple. Was it his plane they had seen in the sky? The whistling, the goggles, the scarf, the way he leaned on the counter as if he owned it, were in sharp contrast to the people queuing up to buy a stamp. He was clearly someone in this small town.
After twenty minutes Kitty and Cicely finally reached the front of the queue.
“I wondered if you had any post for me?” she asked, writing her name on a piece of paper and slipping it across the counter to the clerk.
“A letter came for you from India, Mrs. Pick,” he said.
As he went to fetch it, she sensed a presence. The whistling man was standing at her elbow gazing down at her.
“I couldn’t help overhearing, but you don’t happen to be related to the late Edward Pick?”
“I am, yes,” she replied. “I’m his son George’s wife. And this is our daughter, Kitty.”
He took a sharp intake of breath, as if surprised, and then his face widened into a smile. It was an expression quite without diffidence, of a man at complete ease with himself, more than a little disarming.
“Keir Lorimer,” he said by way of introduction. “I had great respect for your father-in-law and was sorry to hear of his death. My condolences
.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “I’m afraid I never met him, but I’ll pass them on to his family.”
He cocked his head.
“We are visiting from abroad,” she explained. “From Darjeeling. It’s in India.”
“I know where it is,” he replied.
The office door opened, and the man appeared, handing Cicely a letter and Lorimer a parcel.
“Just arrived, Mr. Lorimer,” he said.
“Come to dinner,” Lorimer told Cicely as they turned to leave the post office. “I’ll send word to Balmarra, and we can work out a date.”
“Oh no,” she replied. “We won’t be staying for long.”
“All the more reason to make it sooner rather than later,” he said before he headed out of the door, whistling once more.
Dunoon was much smaller than Darjeeling. After walking the length of the main street, Cicely and Kitty took refuge in the restaurant of a hotel on Argyll Street. The dining room was paneled with dark wood, and four electric lights flickered dismally behind their orange shades. Three elderly men sat at a table overlooking the gardens, and several groups of middle-aged ladies perched in booths at the back. Their entrance caused a small stir, a turning of heads, as if they had let in a bluster of air of another temperature. First they were shown to a table in the middle of the room—the very worst, second only to one next to the kitchens. Cicely asked for another table, and they were grudgingly shown a slightly better one at the window and given menus.
With some swallowed-down amusement—what were black pudding, haggis, neeps, or stovies?—they both ordered the roast lamb. When it came, the meat overcooked and the gravy congealed, Kitty moved the food around the plate with her fork but didn’t eat much of it. Cicely admonished but couldn’t really blame her. Once the plates had been cleared without comment, she brought out George’s letter.
“Now. I thought we could read it together,” she said as she slipped open the envelope with her finger.
Her daughter was staring out the window.
“Kitty?” she asked.
“I wish he was here too,” Kitty said.
“I know,” she said unfolding the thin blue paper. “Now, are you listening?”
Dear Cicely and Kitty, if you are reading this, then you must have arrived safely in Scotland. Since I last saw you I have walked too many miles to count, over mountain passes, across rope bridges and through lush valleys. I have paid my respects to a maharajah, and stayed in a village on the Holy mountain where nothing can be killed. In some of the places I have been, they have never seen white people before and the crowds gather.
As I predicted, much of the land hasn’t been explored. One day I slipped from a path and fell down a cliff. Please don’t concern yourself; obviously all was well. I grabbed on to some greenery to save myself from falling further only to find it was a species of buddleia that I didn’t recognise. If it is indeed a new species, I will instruct the Regius Keeper in Edinburgh to call it Buddleia kittii. I am sending this letter with a muleteer who is heading back to civilization and has promised he will post it. He is waiting outside now, so I must stop. Much affection, George.
Cicely folded up the letter and put it back in the envelope.
“Seems he’s having quite an adventure,” she said.
“I think he’s making a terrible mistake,” said Kitty, still staring out the window. “You both are.”
How much did she know?
“Everyone goes to school,” she told her. “And you’ll be happy at the one we’ve chosen.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she replied.
Kitty’s face was set, her jaw clenched. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought her to Balmarra after all.
“You don’t want to live in that draughty old place, do you?” Cicely said brightly.
“You never even asked me.”
“Well, do you? Do you want to live there and not go to school, to molder away like … like … your aunt Antonia?”
Kitty didn’t answer. Cicely signaled for the bill
“Why is everything always about money?” Kitty said eventually.
“Why, indeed?” said Cicely.
The solicitor, Mr. Drummond, was an elderly man with scant hair the color of house dust. His office was on the first floor above a dentist. While Kitty waited in reception he ushered Cicely in, then whacked the seat several times with his handkerchief before he invited her to sit. It was clearly quite an inconvenience for her to simply turn up rather than make an appointment.
“I am sorry to disappoint,” he said once she had explained the reason for her visit. “But I still need more time to go through the paperwork.”
“Is there a problem?” she asked. “It has been over twelve months.”
He smiled and bowed his head.
“It shouldn’t take long,” he replied. “However, there have been a few unforeseen complications.”
“What kinds of complications?” she asked.
His threaded his fingers together and placed his hands on the desk in front of him.
“For reasons of confidentiality,” he replied, “I am unable to give you any further information, Mrs. Pick. I’m sorry.”
This was not the news she had been expecting at all.
“Mr. Drummond,” she said. “I have come all the way from India.”
“I realize that,” he replied. “But all I can do is assure you that I’m doing everything I can. You’re staying at the estate, I take it?”
“We are. For the time being.”
How could she have come all this way to find the situation so unresolved? Maybe Edward Pick had changed his mind before he died? Maybe he had changed his will?
“I’ll write as soon as I have news,” he said.
As she closed the door of the solicitor’s office behind her, she clung to the brass door handle for support.
“What’s the matter?” Kitty asked her. “Mummy?”
She turned and forced a smile. Best not to think about the school fees, the unpaid debts, the soaring cost of the expedition. Edward Pick clearly stated he was leaving Balmarra to his son. She had read the letter herself.
On the walk home, the sun shone. The weather had turned fair. She looked up at the sky half expecting to see the same plane scoring the blue. They would have to stay and find a way to make the situation work to their advantage. What else could she do?
* * *
After Cicely and Kitty had gone, the house was so quiet that the air seemed to pause, like a body of water settling after a storm. It was midmorning. A weekday. Cook was out, Dora too. Antonia walked from room to room, running her fingers over the cool porcelain of the door handles, the pale green linen weave of the wallpaper, and the smooth curve of the banister’s polished mahogany. There was a certain security, she knew, in the feel of familiar objects, in the texture of the permanent. Most likely the house would still be standing when she was long gone. A sudden vision struck her, of Balmarra as a huge stone tomb, for both the living and the dead. She shuddered. It was her lot in life, she thought grimly, to be perpetually cold.
George’s room had lain untouched since he had left it—a single bed with a blue woolen counterpane, a washstand, an empty mahogany suit stand, and a bookshelf stacked with Boy’s Own annuals. Antonia stepped inside and crossed to the window. Mist was drifting in from the north, obliterating the water with a thickening breath of white. She ran her hand over the bedcover. It was cold and slightly damp. But it didn’t seem that long ago that George was sitting on this bed, his rucksack packed, tying his bootlaces.
“I’m walking to Italy to see the orange blossom,” he had told them the night before he left.
“Well, you better hurry,” her father had replied facetiously. “Or you’ll miss it.”
It had taken him five months, and he had almost died, he told her later, in a snowstorm in the Alps. But he had made it: He had walked thousands of miles with nothing more than a change of clothes and a compass, to lie in an
Italian orange grove, Citrus sinensis, to be exact, the air heavy with the drift of fragrant blossom, just as he had dreamed it would be.
And was it worth it? she had asked him once he had returned. George had looked at her with unmistakable pity in his eyes.
“Seeing the world is the greatest thing a man can do,” he had replied.
Antonia was not so lucky. She was not a man, and the female sex rarely walked anywhere unaccompanied, especially not across continents. George had always had the odds stacked in his favor. While George was sent away to school, Antonia was educated at home by a series of governesses whose subject matter was limited to needlework, piano, and conversational French. Whatever the difference in their education, the siblings had grown up with a sense of mutual distrust and the knowledge that nothing either of them ever did would be quite good enough for their father. He could be cruel, unkind, and divisive, encouraging sibling to compete against sibling at every opportunity. He offered prizes for the fastest runner, the highest climber—the best, the biggest, the longest, the rarest, whatever took his fancy. Once he even had them racing snails. Not only did he expect the winner to make fun of the loser, he often forgot about the prize. Even though he was younger by two years, George nearly always won. On one of the rare occasions she won, Antonia had reminded her father that he owed her a shilling, and he had been so angry that she had been banished, sent to bed without any supper for a week. While George had absented himself, running away from Balmarra as soon as he could, she had remained, turned inward, and folded into herself until the face she showed the world was as blank as crockery.
But it could have been worse. A few years later a friend of her father had introduced her to the solicitor Malcolm McCulloch, who was unmarried and available. They began to court, and he had soon proposed. The wedding was a private affair attended only by close family and her father’s friend, followed by a short honeymoon in North Berwick, where she had caught cold and had to spend most of it in bed. On their return it was decided that the newlyweds would base themselves at Balmarra with her elderly father, until his inevitable demise.
The Glass House Page 8
