The Glass House
Page 25
It began to snow again, thick and fast, covering the tops of their hats, their shoulders, the backs of their legs. They stopped under the canopy of a tree. Was he lost? She most certainly was: She had never been to this part of the estate before.
“Cold?” he asked.
She shook her head no. He blinked once, twice, three times, his eyelashes full of snow. She reached up and brushed a single speck from his cheek. He swallowed, and then, in a single movement, he took her head in his hands, gently pulled her toward him, and kissed her on the mouth. It was audacious and glorious.
“I found it,” he whispered. “It was here all the time. Look up.”
Cicely glanced up at the swirl of snowflakes coming down from the sky, at the leaves of the tree above. It was hard to tell one from the other. Both, she now saw, were white.
* * *
It was unfortunate, Antonia repeated, that the mule carrying all their supplies had been bitten by a snake, panicked, and thrown itself down a ravine. Malcolm looked at his breakfast, stewed yak that was about to go bad, poked it around with his fork but didn’t eat any. It was March, and they had been trekking for two weeks now, give or take a day. Their feet were blistered, and their bellies ached with hunger and an appetite for anything but yak. Malcolm had never looked so disheveled, his nose burned by the sun and a pale orange stubble covering his chin. It was growing light, and the early-morning sun made him look haggard. She was sure she looked equally terrible—her skin burned, her clothes torn and stiff with sweat and the reek of mule. At least they had porters, six local men and their beasts, who looked at the map and nodded their heads. They knew where they wanted to go.
“How long now?” she asked the lead man, who had a little English.
He smiled a toothless smile and pointed north.
“Two hours,” he said.
Antonia swept back her hair and felt her spirits rise. They were almost there.
Back in the railway carriage, after she had bragged to the lady with the toffees, as the train was about to pull out of Glasgow, she saw the way the woman was looking at her. She was suddenly gripped with terror. What was she doing? Had she gone mad? She would be ripped apart by wild animals or be eaten by crocodiles. She got to her feet and made for the door, pulling, tugging, yanking it open. She had to get off. A breeze rushed down the corridor and caught the back of her throat. As the train started to move, she hurried along the carriage, faster as the train’s pace increased. The door must be open, she realized, as she could hear the screech of the wheels on the tracks. There was a commotion up ahead: a shouting, a thunder of feet and effort and weight. She reached the end of the compartment, where the conductor was standing over the heaving slump of a man.
“You could have been killed!” the conductor was saying. “We take no responsibility…”
Her only exit was blocked. Antonia looked out as the city sped by. Maybe she should throw herself out. That would be a fine end, a crumpled mess at the side of the tracks. Someone would have to clean it up, and she wouldn’t wish that job on anyone. Her eyes blinked with moisture. And then she became aware of a presence at her elbow. Where was her ticket? Surely she hadn’t lost it already. Surely not. But it wasn’t the conductor.
“I took the liberty,” said her husband, “of flinging myself onto your train.”
His trousers were torn at the knee. There was soot on his hands and left ear.
“I’ll climb off at the next stop,” he said, “if you want me to. But otherwise, I’d very much like to come on your trip after all.”
He was looking at her in a way he never had before.
“But you have a job—”
“Bugger the job,” he said.
“I’m going to the back of beyond,” she went on. “To a place no one has really heard of.”
He nodded.
“I’m in.”
She shook her head no.
“Please,” he said, taking a half step closer. “There was never—could never be—anyone else. But you.”
As the train hurtled south, as they thundered through a tunnel and out the other side again, as the world was softened by smoke and steam and the heartbeat of the iron rails beneath the wheels, she saw that he was on the brink, just as she had been only minutes before.
“Look at you,” she said, straightening his collar.
He took her hand and held it to his mouth.
“There probably won’t be room for you at luncheon,” she said. “We’ll have to eat from the buffet car.”
The idea of a hot dinner, even from a train buffet car, was heavenly to her now. As she lay awake beneath her blanket on the remote mountainside, the cold seeping up from below, Antonia couldn’t stop thinking about food, mashed-potato-and-fish pie, cream cakes, and Irish coffee. She even longed for a crumb of Cook’s pastry.
Breakfast the next morning was a lump of stale bread washed down with coffee so weak it was the color of tea. As usual they had risen before dawn and aimed to set off before it got too hot. The mountains here were higher than any Antonia had ever seen, their peaks covered in snow. They were aiming for a dip in the middle, a pass.
The climb was steep, the path rocky underfoot, and twice Antonia slipped and almost fell. But she made it, she reached the top of the pass. As they caught their breath, the lead porter pointed. On the other side was a narrow valley filled with forest. They were almost there. Down, down, down they went, their pace quickening until they reached a small fast-flowing river. There they decided to leave the mules and the porters on one side and wade across, their bags on their heads.
For the first time in her adult life, she felt close to George. Had he been here, had he felt this ice-cold stream rush around his thighs, had he looked up to see eagles soaring above? No wonder he had returned again and again. At the far side Malcolm held out his hand and hauled her up.
“If the map is right,” he said, “the Snow Tree should be—”
“I know,” she said.
They walked up a small rise and looked out across the valley. It was beautiful, the most beautiful view she’d ever seen. Malcolm walked ahead, then paused and looked back. Ever since he had appeared on her train, he had listened to what she had to say, asked her opinion, done what she asked, and although it was fair to say that it was often not without discussion, their roles had fundamentally shifted.
“Antonia?” Malcolm called out. There was a catch in his voice that she couldn’t quite decipher.
She followed him over the rise. In her head she had visualized the Snow Tree exactly, its profusion of white leaves that looked like snowflakes. Instead of the tree, however, there was just a stump and an abandoned wooden hut. The wind rushed down from the mountains, and the sky clouded over. She closed her eyes and opened them again, hoping, she supposed, that it was all some terrible dream. But she was not dreaming. The tree had been cut down and been used to build the hut. She ran her hand through her hair and turned away. They had come all this way, spent weeks on boats, days on trains, then walked on foot for miles, eaten only yak for days—for what? For this? It started to rain, to thunder down in sheets and gusts that quickly soaked her clothes, her hair, even her boots. Could it get any worse? Malcolm’s shoulders were shaking. He came over, and she saw he was not crying but laughing. He was in hysterics. It was impossible to remain upset. Her mouth began to curl up at the corners. As the rain poured, as the sky lowered and the day darkened, they sank onto the grass and laughed until they ached.
They spent the night in the hut and built a small fire to dry their clothes. Later, huddling together to keep warm, they found each other in a way they never had before.
The next day, when they returned to the river, all the mules and porters had gone, leaving just a single object: Antonia’s suitcase. It wasn’t quite so funny then. Without transport, tents, enough food—although they did discover a packet of stale digestive biscuits in the suitcase—or any idea where they were going, they tried to trace their way back. Antonia walked in
front, Malcolm, still carrying the suitcase, close behind. They followed the path until it petered out; they drank from streams and slept entwined together under their jackets against the chill of the mountain night. The mountains seemed to stretch endlessly in all directions.
On the third day they climbed to the top of a ridge to try to get their bearings. They looked out across a valley and there, on the horizon, was a pale haze, like a riot of falling snow, a whole forest of trees with leaves as delicate and perfect as ice crystals.
“Is that…?” she asked.
Malcolm stared. He frowned, he smiled; he hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her to him.
“We’ve found it,” he whispered.
Recommend The Glass House for your next book club!
Reading Group Guide available at
www.readinggroupgold.com
Also by Beatrice Colin
To Capture What We Cannot Keep
The Songwriter
The Glimmer Palace
Disappearing Act
Nude Untitled
About the Author
BEATRICE COLIN was a novelist based in Glasgow, Scotland. She was the author of To Capture What We Cannot Keep and The Glimmer Palace as well as radio plays and adaptations for BBC Radio 4. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by Beatrice Colin
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE GLASS HOUSE. Copyright © 2020 by Beatrice Colin. All rights reserved. For information, address Flatiron Books, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.flatironbooks.com
Cover design by LeeAnn Falciani
Cover photographs: two women © Donald Jean / Arcangel; flowers in glass house © cornfield / Shutterstock.com; linen texture © Ragnarock / Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Colin, Beatrice, author.
Title: The glass house / Beatrice Colin.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Flatiron Books, 2020.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020017249 | ISBN 9781250152503 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250152497 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6103.O443 G53 2020 | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020017249
eISBN 9781250152497
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First Edition: 2020