Fiercombe Manor (35 page)

At the top of the stairs she hesitates. No noise is coming from the direction of the nursery, but she suddenly has an urge to go in and see the tiny thing that has somehow unravelled her.

Inside the nursery she chose everything so carefully for, when she was a quite different person, the moonlight shines coldly through the uncurtained window. She can see the silhouette of the cradle quite clearly, but as she starts over to it, her shoes sound so loudly on the polished boards that she stops and pulls them off.

The baby has already started to wake when she gets to it. A pale beam of moonlight has moved to lie across its face. Strangely fascinated, Elizabeth watches it fuss for a few seconds, its tiny hands curled into fists, its regular breathing becoming worried huffs and gasps. When it cries out, just once, she rears back in fright. If the nurserymaid wakes, then she will ask questions, and Elizabeth will be taken back to her room. The next morning Edward will be told that his wife has been wandering through the house at night like a wraith.

The baby squawks again then, louder and more insistent than before. Without thinking, Elizabeth rests a hand on its stomach. “Hush now,” she whispers, wondering where the words came from. The baby's eyes open wide, fixing on Elizabeth's in response, and for half a minute they gaze at each other. Then it screws up its face and begins to cry in earnest. Elizabeth understands then that she has no choice but to pick up the baby, wrap it in a blanket, and leave the nursery.

Like an enchantment, the baby stops crying as soon as she holds it to her, its snuffling breath loud in her ear as it calms. It feels surprisingly solid and heavy for such a small thing; the word
dense
comes into her mind. Muscle, bone, fat, and blood, all densely packed together.

Out in the hallway she listens to see if the noise has woken anyone, but it is deathly quiet. The front door—she can't think clearly of another way out—opens obligingly quietly, and then she is out and under the sky. She looks for stars, but there is too much cloud. It is a true autumnal night, tinged with woodsmoke and heavy with damp that makes it feel colder than it is.

Something about the steps and sunken garden between her and the lake discomforts her when she gets there. She can't go any further. Instead she turns right, hurrying towards the stout walls of the kitchen garden. The baby against her shoulder has fallen asleep or is close to it, its breathing soft and rhythmic.

In the kitchen garden she steps on a sharp pebble, burying her face in the baby's blanket to stifle her gasp of pain. Looking down, she sees that she has no shoes on but can't remember why, or if she wore any in the first place. She has nearly reached the line of bushes that screen the kitchen garden's walls from the lake when it occurs to her anew that she is carrying a baby. She is looking around, wondering where to put it, when her eye is drawn by the moon reflected over and over in the smooth panes of the glasshouse.

It is the perfect solution. She will leave the child there while she goes on to the lake, alone. It will be warm enough, and they will find it easily in the morning when they start to look. A little crying if it wakes early will not hurt it.

Quite decided, she goes in, closes the door, and places an empty crate on a bench where it will be seen. Putting the baby inside, she arranges the blanket under and around it, feeling towards it as someone unsentimental might feel towards a rescued animal; concerned in a dutiful but not personal way.

Then a draught tickles her neck. Looking behind her she sees that the door is still shut, but then she feels it again, cool fingers reaching down the back of her woollen dress. She looks up. One of the larger glass panels has been raised and left open. Somewhere in the fug of her mind she remembers how to close it and fetches the pole, slotting it into the mechanism above and beginning to turn the handles. Creaking slightly, it begins to lower into place.

Hearing the baby begin to fuss again in its sleep, she suddenly feels desperate to have it done and starts twisting faster. High above her something comes loose, and the pane suddenly crashes into position, shattering as it does into large shards that land all around her. The child in response begins to cry, thinly at first and then with great, wrenching sobs. There is no blood on it, she checks that—it has just been frightened by the terrible noise, which has rent the night's peace and left it in tatters. She knows that it has likely been heard up at the house.

It is then that she becomes aware of a stinging sensation in her feet, and looks down to see her already ruined stockings soaked through with blood. All around her are small, jagged pieces of glass that reflect the moon in miniature. Frozen with indecision, she sits down in the dirt, wondering if the alarm has been raised in the house yet, and whether Edward—always a heavy sleeper—has been roused and is in this instant blearily pulling on his boots.

The image of the lake that she has carried in her mind from her bedroom to the nursery to the glasshouse still tantalises. Her longing to slide under its surface into the murky silence is still powerful. She chose her thick dress because it would saturate and then drag her deeper. But it's too late now. By the time she has summoned the energy to leave the glasshouse and get to the lake, they will have reached her.

Her fingers find the piece of glass quite unconsciously. It's a good size in her hand, as though it has been snapped off the larger piece for the very purpose. She rubs at one of its edges with her forefinger and watches the blood rise and spill out of the clean cut. There is little pain.

As the baby cries on, she squeezes her palm into a fist around the glass. That hurts more. When she opens her hand, it's dark with blood, the glass smeared with it. She wipes it off on her dress and then impulsively pulls up her skirts and lays the sharpest point of it against the white, tender skin of her thigh, above the line of her stockings. Making a small, deep cut into the flesh, she watches as the blood begins to run, faster and more freely, pooling between her legs. Something in its movement reminds her of the stream near the manor.

It is just as she begins to feel cold, the draught from the broken pane stronger than before, that they burst in. It's the cries that have guided them to that particular part of the grounds; under the cover of night they wouldn't have seen the baby tucked into the crate or the woman slumped on the ground in a mess of blood, soil, and glass.

What none of them understood, and what she didn't seem able to say, was that she meant the baby no harm, that she had in fact forgotten it was there—the noise of its crying not connected in her mind to a child at all—and that she meant only to end herself.

T
om was quiet as we ate, and I thought he'd probably done enough socialising for the time being. After we'd finished and moved into the small parlour, Mrs. Jelphs said she would make a pot of coffee and went out, leaving us on our own. At first neither of us spoke, though I think I found that more awkward than he did. He seemed deep in thought; it was I who was fiddling nervously with my dress, pulling the hem down so it covered more of my legs, which I'd left bare in the heat.

“Did you get any further with the box?” he said, just when I'd begun to think no one would ever speak again. I glanced over to where the cardboard box was. It was just as it had been when it had inspired me to go and explore in the nursery.

“No, I've been working so hard for Mrs. Jelphs that I've hardly had the time.”

I thought about telling him where I'd been, but didn't know what he would think. I had some vague worry that I would be encroaching too much on the memory of his brother.

He raised an eyebrow. “There's no obligation. I just thought you might have.”

“No.”

The silence yawned and gaped once again. It was a relief when Mrs. Jelphs came in with the coffee, which both of us took an inordinate amount of interest in. We made small talk for nearly an hour before Mrs. Jelphs reluctantly made her excuses and retired to her room.

I was at first nervous to be left alone with him again, this time in case he swiftly made his own excuses. But he made no move to get up, simply staring into the empty hearth. I'd never seen it lit, and just the thought of it made my skin prickle with perspiration. Both the small side casements had been opened as wide as the old iron allowed, but there were no cooling breezes. Any air that did curl in carried the heavy, golden scent of honeysuckle.

“So have you had a pleasant few days?” I said after a time. Any lingering awkwardness was dissolving in the soporific air, and I felt almost sleepy.

He looked up as though he'd forgotten I was there. “Oh yes. Thank you. I always forget quite how many people I have to call in on, but then I probably only come back twice a year.”

“Do some of them live in London as well, like you do?”

I had an image of him charming the daughters of all the best county families—girls with long legs who had grown up playing croquet and riding their own horses. Girls who had grown up to be glossy and accomplished.

“Not really. There are a few, but most of them are people my parents mixed with when we were boys. As they're here even less than me, it falls to yours truly to visit and hear the latest news—who's married who and so forth.”

“It sounds . . . nice,” I said lamely.

“If by nice you mean pretty dull, then yes, it is. But it keeps Mother happy. She likes to hear how everyone is ageing in her absence.”

“The worse the better, I presume?”

He laughed. “Spot on.”

“Do your parents spend all their time in France now?”

“More or less. They only come back to England if there's some business Father has to deal with in person, and Mother rarely leaves London then. Most of their affairs can be dealt with via the post, or by me.”

“It seems a shame that they won't see it this summer, when everything is so lush and gorgeous.”

“Mother prefers the Riviera. Have you been?”

I shook my head. I felt foolishly flattered that he thought I might have.

“It's very beautiful and very . . . ordered. They have quite a small place, back from the sea near Grasse, where they make those famous scents. The house is almost new, with modern bathrooms and all the rest of it. Not like this old pile in its enchanted valley.”

As if what he said had roused it, the carriage clock on the mantel suddenly came to life, its ticking loud and slightly irregular.

“I expect you've long given up wearing a watch by now,” he said, glancing towards the clock, which said erroneously that it was almost two o'clock.

I glanced down at my bare wrist. I'd had a white mark against the tan on the rest of my arm, but it had caught up without my noticing. I couldn't remember when I'd last worn my watch.

“It's a funny thing down here, the time,” I said. “I wondered if it was something to do with the magnetism in the rock, but I didn't dare try out that theory on Ruck.”

“Probably wise. I'm not the one to ask; the sciences were more Henry's thing. Time never really mattered here, growing up. You woke early and went out. You came in to eat when the gong went. In between we were out on the estate, and did as we pleased.”

“The two of you must have had wonderful summers here,” I ventured.

“We did. What more could boys ask for than an entire valley to run wild in? We used to pretend we'd been shipwrecked and washed ashore somewhere deserted and exotic.”

“I used to love those make-believe games,” I said. “Of course I didn't have the run of a place like this, but I did well enough with a couple of old sheets tied to the bedposts so they made a den.”

I thought of Dora and me as girls and felt a distant pang of something like homesickness. She still hadn't written; perhaps it was a case of out of sight, out of mind.

“We were lucky to be always outside,” he continued. “Mother didn't want us making a racket in the house, so out we would go, until dusk or hunger, whichever came first.”

He reached for the box. On top were the small square photographs we'd been looking at before, of the boys by the lake. He leafed through them and then tossed them back in the box.

“I think I want a drink,” he said. “Do you want a drop of this in your coffee?”

He brought over a silver tray upon which was a decanter half full of whisky and a couple of crystal tumblers.

I shook my head and watched as he poured himself a generous measure. Taking a couple of gulps, he topped up his glass again before sinking back in the armchair.

“Do you want to know how he died?” he said abruptly, just when I'd resigned myself to another long lapse in the conversation.

“Only if you want to tell me,” I said, my heart thudding faster.

“I'm not exactly fond of talking about it,” he said, voice thick with emotion. His glass was empty again, and he paused to fill it, clinking the heavy crystal of the decanter against it as he did. “But these days all I seem to talk about is the weather, other people's
aches and pains, and what passes for scandal in the country. It's all nonsense.”

I remained quiet, not wanting to interrupt him.

“It happened near the end of the school vac. Probably a blessing, that. I would have gone out of my mind otherwise. I was packed off to a cousin's house straight after the funeral, and Michaelmas term began a few weeks later. War had been declared in August, so no one at school was very interested in Henry. Almost immediately it felt as though it had happened in another time. There we were at war, and his had been such an ordinary sort of death. Later, when my classmates' brothers started to die out there, I became almost ashamed of it, of how mundane it sounded.”

He looked up at me to see if I was shocked, but I just nodded at him to go on.

“We got into a routine quickly that last summer: me, Henry, and another boy from his form who'd come to stay: Julian Crawford. His people lived in Kenya, and someone was ill—I forget who, his sister or his mother—and so he was to stay with us all summer. He was a few months younger than Henry but seemed older. Henry was a little in awe of him, and it got on my nerves.