Another Heartbeat in the House (44 page)

He died on Christmas eve. How sad for Annie and Minnie! Edie felt a surge of real affection for Thackeray. Here he was, ranked by the
Dictionary of English Literature
as one of the very greatest of English novelists; but in the end, she knew, he was just a man captivated by a woman, hoping that she might return his love.

She shut the book, then, on impulse, opened it again and leafed through to ‘D'. Between William Drummond (of whom Edie had never heard) and the poet John Dryden, there was no entry. If Eliza Drury had ever become a published author, her works had been erased from literary history along with
Wuthering Heights
and
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
.

Edie slid the dictionary back on the shelf, and as she did so, she dislodged a copy of
Miss Nettie's Girls – Capital Short Stories for Holiday Reading
. Tucked inside was a photograph of her and Hilly, taken down at the little pier. They were standing arm-in-arm, grinning at the camera, and behind them was the boat that they had taken out onto the lake, the day Hilly had caught the trout.

Edie looked at their freckled twelve-year-old faces, at their gangly, pre-adolescent limbs and their sticky-out pigtails, and then she saw the lockets that each of them wore around their necks – cheap nickel-plated things bought in Woolworth's in Cork. They had made a blood pact the day the photograph was taken, Edie remembered, cutting the pads of their thumbs with a penknife and pressing them together so that Edie's blood ran through Hilly's veins, and vice versa. Then they had stanched the blood with two squares cut from a pocket handkerchief, and encased the scraps of linen in the lockets. Where were they now, those lockets? Edie wondered. Long gone. But that summer the gimcrack trinkets had been invested with as much totemic value as the Crown Jewels.

Edie slid the photograph between the pages of her diary. When she got back to London, she would find a frame for it, and reinstate Hilly on top of her bureau.

Beyond the window, beyond the lake and the hills, a silvery grey light was beginning to creep. It was dawn already; there was no point in going to bed now; besides, Edie was as curious as Eliza to know what the legendary Devonshire House was like: it had lain abandoned since the Great War, and had been demolished just twelve years previously. It tickled her to know that the Duke's wine cellar, which had once housed some of the costliest vintages in the world, had been reincarnated as the ticket office of the Green Park tube station.

She headed for the kitchen to fetch the remains of the toffee she had bought a week ago in Doneraile Stores, and to make herself a fresh pot of tea.

Never had I seen such sumptuousness as lay hidden behind the high, forbidding walls of the Duke of Devonshire's house in Piccadilly. A staircase with a crystal handrail led to the ballroom on the piano nobile where the gilt, the mirrors, the marble, the tapestries wrought in silver and gold thread, the astonishing plasterwork, the paintings, the hothouse flowers and the thousands of candles all reminded me of stories I had read of the excesses of Versailles. I found myself gaping here at a Raphael, there at a Rubens, and when I saw what was indubitably an oil by Rembrandt, I could scarcely refrain from gesticulating as excitedly as a child at a funfair.

However, none of the other guests seemed impressed by the masterpieces lining the walls. I remembered something I had read in a novel by Fanny Burney: ‘There's nothing in the world so fashionable as taking no notice of things … all the
ton
do so.' How glad I was to be hoi polloi!

I had not danced since the days at Doneraile Court when I had used to step out with superannuated husbands and second sons. After the Agricultural Society Ball in the Imperial Hotel in Cork, St Leger and I had never again danced together. We had not wanted to draw attention to the astonishing synergy that was manifest when we took to the floor. Now I watched the ladies glide onto the glossy parquet, caught tantalizing glimpses of lace underskirts as their crinolines swayed in waltz-time, heard the swish of silk and tarlatan, and smiled at William as he offered me his arm.

He was a poor dancer, and he knew it.

‘I will introduce you to some likely fellows,' he said, apologetically. ‘I know you will not care to dance with me again this evening.'

‘On the contrary, William, I am very comfortable dancing with you.'

I felt his hand press more firmly against the small of my back, saw a flush rise to his cheeks.

‘I wish you would not go,' he said, for the dozenth time that day.

‘I can't stay, William.'

‘Confound the gossipmongers!'

‘It is not the gossip that I'm afraid of. I am one of those women society will find fault with no matter what I do. I could wear sackcloth, and renounce my sinful past and devote my life to good works, and people would still find something to carp about. But I will not have aspersions cast upon you, for – quite apart from the fact that such scandal could damage your career – you are an honourable man.'

‘People say I am a cynic.'

‘You
are
a cynic – and all to the good, for if people are not shown what is wrong in the world, nobody will ever go to the trouble of putting it right.
Vanity Fair
is quite deliciously iconoclastic.'

‘It would never have been written without –'

‘Me. I know. I am longing to be able to hold the finished volume in my hands and say “Becky Sharp –
c'est moi
!” I hope you will not be too hard on her when the day of reckoning comes.'

‘She is going to –'

‘No! Don't tell me! Let me find out her fate by instalments, like all your other readers.'

‘I have the last sentence. It is something you said, once.'

‘I look forward to reading it.'

The tempo of the music accelerated, and he made an ungainly lunge forward, narrowly missing my foot.

‘I beg your pardon. I am sure you wish you had a more gallant partner. The minute we step off the floor, your dance card will be full. I had a letter today, incidentally, from a gentleman who was anxious to know where he might meet Miss Sharp.'

‘No! People believe she really exists?'

‘They do.'

‘That must be the highest compliment a writer can receive.'

‘I have had others, from fellows who appear to be quite hopelessly in love with her.'

‘What do you tell them?'

‘I tell them that Miss Sharp has the most adamantine of hearts.'

I smiled. ‘If only they knew.'

The waltz came to an end, and as William led me off the floor, my skirts brushed those of a lady who had skimmed to a halt beside me. I heard a hissed intake of breath, glimpsed a scintillation of emeralds, felt an agitation of the air as a fan snapped open. It was Sophia St Leger.

We looked at one another for a moment, frozen in an attitude of bristling hostility, and then William said: ‘Mr St Leger. How good to see you again,' and Jameson said, ‘Mr Thackeray!' and suddenly the music started up again. Sophia drew the blades of her fan together in one fluid movement, laid a hand upon her husband's arm and, slanting me a glance over her bare shoulder, glided back with him into the tide of dancers.

I turned and, moving in a random direction, found myself in an anteroom beneath a Titian which – since it depicted a riderless horse pursued by a serpent – perfectly reflected my mood. William had followed me. He drew forward a chair for me to sit upon, and stood awkwardly while I toyed with my fan, running a blade over and over again between forefinger and thumb. Taking off his spectacles, he polished them with his pocket handkerchief, then said, quite abruptly, ‘I will take a message to him if you like.'

‘To St Leger?'

William nodded, and then he produced his little, ubiquitous notebook, tore off a page and handed it to me as though he were proffering contraband.

I took it, and the pencil he held out, and sat staring at the blank sheet for many moments. Then I looked up at William with a helpless expression. ‘This must be how you feel every morning when you are confronted by your
tabula rasa
.'

He shook his head and smiled ruefully. ‘Not since you've been living with me. I don't know what I shall do without your encouragement.'

‘Don't, William. You'll make me cry.'

‘Then I had better turn my back. If I were to see my Becky cry, I might be tempted to allow her to live happily ever after.'

He took a few steps away, and was at once accosted by a lady decked in diamonds who flapped at him so aggressively I saw him wince.

‘You must not allow Miss Sharp to get her claws into Mr Osborne!' she squawked. ‘Does not Amelia know that she is harbouring a serpent in her bosom?'

Returning my attention to the clean sheet, I wrote, ‘
Dear Jamey, I wish
…' And I could think of nothing else to say. Nothing came into my head but the words of a song that Young Biddy used to sing:

I wish … I wish … I wish in vain/I wish I was a maid again/A maid again I ne'er will be/'Til cherries grow on an ivy tree
…

I could see that William was heroically trying to effect an escape from the pterodactyl in diamonds. Sucking in my breath, I wrote in a hand so untidy it was barely recognizable as my own, ‘…
I wish I could see you. I am going back to Ireland. I will be in Lissaguirra from next week. Clara Venus misses you. I miss you. Your Eliza.
'

Then I looked up. Beyond the door to the anteroom my true love was standing with a group of people who were whinnying and braying like donkeys on Derby Day. The men had great equine teeth and the women were sporting the kind of plumes that highfalutin carriage horses wear.

He looked wretched with boredom. Casting around, his eyes lit upon me. I remembered how he had looked the first time I laid eyes on him, and knew now that that impression had been right: St Leger was a thoroughbred – a racehorse, a Bucephalus – and when he smiled I could not but smile back. A be-ruffled beldame standing next to him emitted a nickering laugh; he slid a mock-fearful look at her, then cocked an eyebrow at me. I saw his lips form the word ‘Help', and suddenly I felt such effervescence of spirit that I wanted to laugh out loud. It was as though he had just taken hold of my ear bob and tweaked it.

I sent him an invitation with my eyes. But Sophia, ever watchful, laid a hand on his arm and drew his attention to a footman passing with a tray. As the assembled company lunged for fresh glasses, Jameson was lost to view, obscured by balloon sleeves and gauzy stoles, and when the footman resumed his course, he was gone, and so was Sophia.

I looked down at the sheet of paper in my lap.

I miss you. Your Eliza
, I read. And then I added three words that I had never in my life said to anyone aside from my daughter.

I love you
, I wrote. Then I folded the paper across once, twice, three times, and tucked it between the blades of my fan.

‘Dear God, that woman was relentless!' William was beside me, incandescent with indignation. ‘She had the nerve to tell me that she was at school with the prototypes for both Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp, and that Amelia had a pockmarked face, and Becky a squint!' He huffed and puffed for a minute or two more, and then he looked at me and said, ‘You have something for me?'

I unfurled my fan, and he glanced at the note I had concealed in its pleats.

‘Will I take that to him now?' he asked with a brusqueness I knew cost him some effort.

‘Yes, please, William,' I said.

BEFORE I LEFT
London, I paid a visit to Isabella. Camberwell was three or four miles from Kensington, a pretty place with a village green and solid, respectable houses. William had declined to come with me, saying that he thought it best not to see his wife in the company of someone whom she might not recognize.

Astonishingly, she did recognize me, though she did not know my name. Mrs Bakewell showed me into a dim parlour, where heavy moreen curtains obscured most of the light. Her charge was sitting by the fire on a button-backed armchair upholstered in faded green velvet. She was brushing her hair and looking at an album lying open on her lap. She set aside the brush when I was announced, and invited me to take a seat beside her while Mrs Bakewell went off to fetch tea.