Another Heartbeat in the House (7 page)

WHAT MRS HEALY
had called the ‘box room' above the kitchen was accessed by a narrow staircase. It was more of a captain's ladder, really, and Edie had to carry Milo up because his legs were too short for the climb. It comprised a long low-ceilinged space that had once been two rooms with windows just under the eaves, and it was crammed to the rafters with junk.

Edie had wrapped herself in a pinafore, piled her hair up under a headscarf and equipped herself with a bag full of dusting rags, as well as a notebook and pencil to make her inventory. She looked as though she meant business, but she kept being distracted by Milo. Nothing was easy with him around; he had decided that everything she did was a game, and everything he happened upon was a toy. He had chewed an old handbag and knocked the head off an ornamental shepherdess and savaged a cushion. Edie found herself cursing him, and cursing Ian too, for being such a bloody fool as to land her with a little dog when she was on a mission, and then Milo would do something to make her laugh and she would find herself blessing Ian instead, for having found her a comrade to accompany her on this enterprise.

But he really was impeding her progress. After ten minutes in the room above the kitchen, her inventory read as follows:

Looking at the three items, Edie decided that she should make the unilateral decision to cross them off the list, dump them in the tea chest marked ‘rubbish', and start again. If she were to record every single item stored here, the roll call would be longer than that of Caligula's enemies. Nobody would want a laundry plunger or a hideous Toby jug, and while the tray may have been a work of art once, it would not fetch anything at auction because it was cracked. She'd have to be rigorous.

She sat back on her heels and looked at Milo.

‘I think we might have bitten off more than we can chew, darling. Give me that!'

Milo tugged fiercely at the felt slouch hat she was trying to prise from between his jaws.

‘This is going to be an enormous undertaking, so we'll have to approach it rationally. By the look of it, people have climbed this ladder routinely over the years, shoved all the junk to the far end to make room, then dumped more things. Ergo, the oldest stuff will be at the very back. So let's start there, and see if we can make a breakthrough.'

It was with difficulty that Edie proceeded through to the far corner, for there was no clear passage. Milo burrowed through the bric-a-brac, tail a-wag, as Edie clambered over it like Aladdin negotiating his cave. Except she rather thought there would be no treasure to be found here. This was a repository of the unwanted, the superfluous and the forgotten, and to judge by the dates on the newspapers in which some of the items were wrapped, it had been accumulating for decades.

Finally she reached the back wall. Already her clothes and hands were grey with dust; she could feel it gathering in her nose and throat. She would have to light a fire in the library so that she could take a bath tonight.

Here, in this long-abandoned corner, the cobwebs lay thick and undisturbed, as if waiting for Howard Carter and his team of archaeologists. Edie hunkered down, squeezing herself between an ottoman and a wooden chest, while Milo perched on a pouffe and put his head on one side. He looked like a good child anticipating
Children's Hour
on the wireless.

Taking a clean duster from the bag, Edie ran it along the surface of the chest, clearing a swathe that revealed the patina beneath. On either side of the hasp the initials ‘E. D.' were carved.

‘Look, Milo!' she said. ‘Edie! It has my name on it.'

Feeling a little like Pandora, she opened the lid. The uppermost item was a Victorian daguerreotype. It depicted, standing on the terrace outside the French windows of Prospect House, a group of five: three women, a man and a girl whom she took to be somewhere in her teens. They were clad in old-fashioned garb, all gazing unsmilingly at the camera. The legend beneath read, in faded ink,
Summer 18
… something. Could it be 1855? Or was it '65?

Edie set the photograph aside, turned a new page in her notebook and wrote,
Item 1: A daguerreotype of a family group
.

Much later, after she had lit the fire in the library and had her bath and scrambled some eggs, Edie leafed through the inventory she had made of the chest's contents, from back to front. They were a disparate lot.

She had listed nearly a hundred items, all from another era – Victorian, she guessed – many of them sartorial. She had unearthed a grey moiré gown with a rose-pink sash, a dark green riding habit, a cashmere robe and a silk damask evening gown. There had been shoes, bonnets and exquisitely embroidered chemises; silk stockings, gloves and dainty reticules. But what interested Edie's editorial eye most was the item she had listed as number 3: the assorted papers, letters and notebooks. These she had sheafed as best she could and stashed in a box file she had found in the library.

‘There's an awful lot of reading here, Milo. Newspaper cuttings,
masses
of manuscripts, letters … It's going to take for ever to go through it all. No wonder it was dumped.'

Delving randomly into the file, she plucked out a page that had been torn from the
Dublin University Magazine
of June 1843. It featured a review of William Thackeray's
Irish Sketch-Book
, describing it as ‘pleasant' and ‘amusing' – a volume to ‘while away an evening'. In the margin alongside the review someone had written in spiky longhand:

Pleasant and amusing! The country is on the brink of catastrophe.

Another clipping, again taken at random, was from
The Nation
, dated August 1846:

A cry of Famine, wilder and more fearful than ever, is rising from every parish in the land: the sole food on which millions are to be fed is stricken by a deadly blight. Within one month those millions will have nothing to eat. Government will have to bethink themselves how a starving nation is to be fed.

A third dip into the file produced a quire of paper covered in the same spiky handwriting that had penned the marginalia:

My story [Edie read] begins in Miss Pinkerton's Academy for the Daughters of Gentlemen in the late summer of the year eighteen hundred and forty. The academy was situated on the Mall in Chiswick – a pretty village on a meander of the Thames an hour by coach from Kensington turnpike. I had endured two years there as an articled pupil, indentured for a handful of guineas per annum to teach the youngest of the gentlemen's daughters French, art and music – without which accomplishments no member of the fair sex can claim to be genteel.

Upon reaching a certain level of finesse, these young ladies proceeded to the marriage market, where they were sorted, valued and labelled by Burke's Peerage, and their mamas deployed in negotiating advantageous matches. Those who were unsuccessful were destined to devote the rest of their lives to the paying and receiving of morning calls, and the embracing of such pastimes as the copying of verses into albums and the reading of mind-improving books. So began the slow descent into apathy and invisibility of a moiety of Miss Pinkerton's pupils, a slippery incline upon which I was determined not to set foot.

On the day I took my leave of the establishment, I paid a visit to the headmistress's study on the ground floor, where a life-sized portrait of my patroness hung behind her high-backed chair. It was a remarkable resemblance – the artist had judged her imperious squint to a nicety, and deftly delineated each of her several chins.

‘Good morning, Miss Pinkerton!' said I, in jaunty fashion. ‘Is it not a beautiful day?'

Miss Pinkerton did not acknowledge my salutation, nor did she invite me to take a seat. I did so anyway, for I was here to procure a document that she had kindly agreed to supply. I had told her I required a testimonial – a letter of commendation to the O'Dowds of Cork, a family in want of a governess.

‘I am come to dictate the letter you promised me,' I told her, with a sunny smile. ‘I received my summons yesterday, and I am eager to fly to the arms of my new charges.'

Miss Pinkerton declined to pay me the courtesy of a response. Her hands trembled with ill-concealed rage as she snatched up her pen and her writing paper, and scribbled the address and the date at the top right-hand corner of the page.

I cleared my throat, and contemplated for a moment while I drummed an idle tattoo with my fingertips upon the glossy mahogany of her escritoire.

‘“Dear Madam,”' I began. ‘“I have the honour and happiness of presenting Miss Eliza Drury to her employers as a young lady worthy to occupy a fitting position in any polished and refined circle. After her two years' residence at my Academy, those virtues which characterize the young English gentlewoman will not be found wanting in the …” Hmm. Allow me to find the
mot juste
… Affable? Good-humoured? What are your thoughts, Miss Pinkerton?'

Miss Pinkerton scowled and remained silent.

‘“The
amiable
Miss Drury,”' I continued, ‘“whose industry and obedience are exemplary, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed both her aged and her youthful companions.”'

Miss Pinkerton's fingers exerted so much pressure on the nib that it gouged the paper as she penned the above paragraph. I uttered a ‘tch' of vexation, and resumed my dictation in slightly less amiable tones.

‘“In music, in dancing, in drawing and orthography, in every variety of embroidery and needlework, Miss Drury will be found to have realized the highest standards of our establishment. In French her fluency, as befits a birthright speaker, is unparalleled. Regular use of the backboard has contributed in no small measure to the acquisition of that dignified deportment and carriage so requisite –” Miss Pinkerton!' I exclaimed. ‘With a little careful penmanship, might you amend that? It is, of course, “requisite”, with two “is” – not “requesite” with three “es”.'

Miss Pinkerton obliged, dotting the ‘i' with another savage jab of her pen.

‘“So
requisite
for every young lady of fashion,”' I reiterated, watching Miss Pinkerton's progress over shoulders that were positively hunched with resentment. It struck me that my patroness herself could have benefited from some hours strapped to the contraption that her hapless charges were obliged to endure. ‘“In leaving my seminary, Miss Drury carries with her the hearts of her companions and the affectionate regards of her mistress, who has the honour to subscribe herself your most humble servant.” And now your signature, Miss Pinkerton, if you would be so kind.'

She obliged, but her hand was still trembling as she sprinkled the document with blotting sand and prepared to address it. I stood sentinel until the paper was folded and sealed, and the wax dried upon it.

‘Thank you, Miss Pinkerton,' said I, pocketing the letter adroitly. ‘Two years in your institution have equipped me with the skill and
savoir faire
necessary to make my way in society. Now I am happy to take my leave of you with a French valediction.
Vous êtes la créature la plus répugnante que j'ai jamais eu le malheur à rencontrer
.'

Despite Miss Pinkerton's academic status, her knowledge of the French language was extremely limited. She had, therefore, not the slightest inkling that I had just told her she was the most hideous being I had ever encountered, and merely folded her hands with a rictus and a bow. Returning the bow, I threw her a sweet smile and sallied forth from the premises into the waiting carriage – the letter of introduction safe in the pocket of my new carnelian wool pelisse – bound for St Katharine Docks and the steamship
Jupiter
.

Edie looked up from the page and turned to Milo.

‘Good grief,' she said. ‘What have we here? Eighteen hundred and forty, Milo. That's nearly a hundred years ago!'

Reaching into the box file, she extracted another quire of paper. The top right-hand corner of each sheet had been paginated, and here and there the initials E. D. had been jotted alongside the page number. E.D. must stand for Eliza Drury. It seemed to her serendipitous that the author's initials should correspond to her name.

Edie threw another log on the grate and, curling up on the fireside chair with the manuscript on her lap and Milo at her feet, she began to read.