The Penny Heart (16 page)

Only as I alighted did I finally get a view of the Hall. In the small glow of the carriage lamp, I was startled to see that its walls were moving; rippling as if alive, like a membrane steadily breathing in and out. Slowly I connected the movement with the sound of sighing exhalation that surrounded us, and taking a few unsteady steps towards the house, I reached out and felt a mass of dry, spiky leaves. When the breeze again lifted, the mass of creeper hissed mournfully again. It will be like living in the heart of a great wood, I told myself. Then a servant with a lamp came forward, and the walls moved again, as if in whispered greeting.

Carefully, I stepped inside a narrow wicket cut into the massive entrance doorway. It had been chilly in the carriage, but inside the building the cold of ancient stones rose up from uneven paving flags.

‘Come along inside, mistress, master. I’ve a fire lit in the Great Hall.’ Michael followed the woman’s bent shape, yawning. What little I could comprehend of the entrance recalled an ancient chapel suddenly opened after centuries of neglect; being both airless and sourly damp. The servant’s candle led to what I later knew as Delafosse’s famed Jacobean staircase, a glory of carved oak peacocks, angels, and other strange devices. Naturally I saw nothing of that on my arrival, only heard beams groan like a galleon’s timbers at sea, and felt the stair treads dangerously warped beneath my feet. The vast space of the stairwell above me was invisible then, but I had a sensation of dust and cobwebs and tiny unseen beings. To my dismay we emerged from a first-floor landing into a second hall as vast as a church and also acrid with decay. At the far end, a fireplace taller than a man held a blazing fire that sent shadows chasing around walls hung with indistinct paintings and tapestries. The firelight hinted at the hammer-beam roof far above us, as black-ribbed as a decayed leviathan.

‘Fetch Mrs Harper at once,’ Michael demanded.

The servant halted, her back bent, in the red glow of the fire.

‘She’s gone, master. Up and gone last week with never a word.’

‘Gone? Damn the woman. Have any other servants been recruited?’

The servant turned a frail face towards us, her eyes shining like beads in the firelight.

‘No one else never come to work here, master. There be only me.’

Michael swiftly established that Mrs Harper had left since his last visit, and had taken her guinea advance of salary with her.

‘What is your name?’ I asked.

‘Nan Homefray, mistress. I was took on by her ladyship a long age past.’

Michael drew a chair up to the fire and rubbed his eyes. I dragged my own chair into the circle of light to join him. ‘Nan, I am sure we can arrange matters in the morning. Meanwhile, is there any supper to be had?’

‘Only what I ’as,’ the woman said. ‘Nowt good enough for you, mistress.’

‘I am sure it is. Please fetch hot food and drink at once.’

Supper, when it arrived, did indeed look paltry: a pottage of nettles, potatoes and onions.

‘I cannot eat this beggarly stuff.’ Michael slammed his dish down and drew closer to the fire, applying a poker to a jug of ale. But I ate my supper gratefully, for it was good plain food, deliciously fragrant with herbs.

‘A man just come with these for you, master,’ Nan announced, shuffling back in for our dishes. She passed Michael two letters that he impatiently held up to a candle. ‘This one is for you,’ he said.

I took the letter and saw it bore Anne’s handwriting. Opening the seal, I found the usual good wishes one might send a newly married woman. ‘I trust you are enjoying every measure of the nuptial bliss you so keenly anticipated . . .’ It was impossible to contemplate a suitable reply. Perhaps tomorrow I could make an answer, omitting all but the bare fact of the wedding?

Puzzling over my letter, I failed at first to notice Michael’s curious behaviour. He had carried a candle over to the far wall, and was peering fixedly at the second letter.

‘Good news, I hope?’

He looked at me. ‘It is of no consequence,’ he said, pushing it into his pocket.

I continued to watch him as he stood beside the candle in a sort of dream. Even in the poor light, I noticed a blank rigidity to his manner.

‘Come here, and drink your ale while it is hot. I suppose we must explore by candlelight. I wonder if Nan has lit a fire upstairs?’

He started back towards me; then halted, pacing back to the candle he had left by the wall. Opening the letter, he read it once again.

‘It’s from Peter. A matter requires my urgent attention.’

‘Now? Surely not. Will tomorrow not do?’

Sweeping back to the fireside, he picked up his boots and began to dress for a journey. ‘I may not be back tonight. Do not wait up for me.’

‘Michael!’ If I had been disappointed earlier in the day, it was nothing to the plunging sensation I now felt in my chest. ‘No. Please don’t leave me here alone.’ I was upset, yes, not only at the strangeness of the place but also at the unthinkable insult to me, his bride.

He continued to dress with exaggerated precision, then turned to me, his jaw tight. ‘I must make one thing very clear. I will do as I will.’ His manner was so remote towards me that he seemed quite another person.

I found myself standing up, my breath shallow. The stone flags beneath my wedding shoes felt unsteady, but I stood firm.

‘Don’t leave me here. Take me with you.’ Before I could see the effect of this remark, my husband turned and marched out of the chamber. A few moments later the great door slammed, and I crouched on a stool before the fire, hating the letter that had arrived with such ill-timing, hating Peter for summoning him – but most of all hating the sickening sensation I was left with, of bitter disenchantment and curdled love.

11

Delafosse Hall

September 1792

~ Wild Rosehip Preserve ~

Take your rosehips from your wild dog rose or eglantine when as big as cherries, and boil in fair water till they be soft, first pulling out the seeds, then strain them and weigh the same of sugar. Boil your sugar with a little water till it candies. Meanwhile heat your rosehips over the fire with sour barberry juice; stir them both together and let it boil up to a pink jelly. Put in your pots to keep and eat as you will.

As told by Nan Homefray, her best way

I listened for Michael all through that wretched night, but he did not come home. In my fancy, such a vast and antique residence as Delafosse Hall sprang to life at night, its timbers creaking like old bones as they bent and twisted in restless dreams. In my darkest hours I was convinced I heard Michael’s step on the stair, but each time I roused myself and coaxed the fire back to life, I found I was mistaken. The wind rose, whistling through the canopy of dry leaves; shaking and tormenting them so that a hundred leaf-points tapped insistently against the window panes. Only in the lull before dawn did I at last fall into deep sleep, curled on a lumpy sofa.

I woke with my neck cricked and my limbs as cold as marble. The great fire had died down to ashes, and the dirty windows leaked pallid grey into the room. I paced about, trying to warm myself, eyeing blackened portraits of dead strangers. I was an interloper, a misfit in that dreary place.

Then a sudden sense of opportunity struck me; that while Michael was away, I might act as I wished. Pulling my shawl tightly about me, I set off to look around my new home.

There was a breathless hush inside Delafosse Hall, a quality of silence that cautioned me to tiptoe from room to room. I winced as my shoes pattered on bare flags, and lifted groaning latches. How many years had the Hall lain empty, I wondered, the stones settling ever deeper into the earth and the shadows gathering undisturbed? Retracing my way to the top of the flamboyant staircase I found a suite of grand rooms fronting the Hall, scattered with ponderous furniture draped in sheets furred with dust. Tapestries sagged on the walls, riddled by ragged moth holes. I was dismayed by the gloom, but soon noticed its source was the mass of foliage obscuring a good part of the sunlight. With the windows cleared and cleaned, and a great deal of soap and hot water, I believed these rooms might one day be made comfortable again. I pictured them with new furnishings and a gathering of happy company around the fire. Then weariness struck me, to think of all these great tasks I must undertake alone.

Turning a corner I found myself in a jewel of a room, a long gallery of beautiful proportions. It was perhaps one hundred feet in length, lined in carved pale oak now warped and swollen. The light fell inside through a series of cracked and undulating diamond panes, quite lovely to behold. I half-closed my eyes, feeling I ought to see the ghosts of another age, promenading in ruffs and doublets. No one appeared, but I did feel a disturbance in the motes of dust that glittered in the pearly light.

I wandered to the pink marble fireplace; listening to tiny feet scurrying behind the oak wainscot. In the hearth lay a dead young rook with a beady yellow eye and broken wings. I caught sight of myself in a tarnished mirror; frowning and pale, my gown creased from sleep, my curls an unpinned mess. Again I felt myself an intruder, a harbinger of change in a realm that did not want me.

A door led on from the gallery, carved with creatures of myth, the largest being the Blair head of an angel. I passed inside and groped at the curtains to raise some light. It was a room of curiosities, dominated by glass cabinets displaying armour, peculiar stones, and relics. The pre-eminent display was an ornamented sword laid on faded crimson silk. Studying the medals and citations hung about the walls I understood it was a sort of shrine to a young man whose portrait hung above the fireplace in oils. He was an assured character, his arm draped over the back of his chair, his dark eyes challenging the spectator from beneath heavy brows. Although he was a fine figure in his red military coat, he was not to my taste as a gentleman. Lieutenant Ashe Moncrieff had won honours against the French near Quebec. His name meant nothing to me, but when I calculated the date of his death at only twenty-eight years old, I sympathised with this forgotten tribute.

Closing the door gently, I climbed a further flight of stairs. There I found smaller, more intimate quarters. I claimed a parlour for myself containing an ornate white fireplace that needed only the clearing of birds’ nests and chimney plaster. A dry chamber with good oak shelves was perfect for Michael’s study, and beyond that lay a turret room with a few ancient leather-bound books to begin a library. I wandered on, up and down odd sets of steps and into corridors that sometimes ended in heaps of plaster. As the house unfolded, possibilities presented themselves; images of new life flickered unsteadily in my mind. Great strength of will would be needed, I knew that, but when I interrogated my doubts, the answer came back again and again – I will do it. I will rouse this house and return it to life.

Auspiciously, I next found a charming bedchamber, dominated by a carved four-poster bed on which fresh linen had recently been laid. Why, I wondered, had Nan not told us about these preparations for our arrival? I fingered the crewel-work coverlet, a garden of chain-stitched tulips; though faded by time, it felt warm. Framed seascapes hung on the walls, sun-bleached curtains cascaded from grand pelmets, a brass clock ticked on the mantelpiece. It was the perfect backdrop to the married love I was still hopeful of kindling.

I stood very still, puzzling over the room’s quality of recent occupation: the bedclothes were not quite straight, and the layer of dust on the dresser bore signs of objects having been moved upon it.

I resolved to ask Nan about it, and moved on, up the final flight of stairs to the attics. Above my head glimmered a vast dome draped with years of matted cobwebs. Here was a warren of dormitories and storerooms, some running with water from breaches in the roof. Yet at the front of the house I found a room that completely entranced me, high in the eaves, so the windows were clear of smothering leaves. Sparse and square, there were signs it had once been a sewing room, and if cleaned, the windows would be flooded with light. At its centre was a stained table and decayed chairs. My own studio, I murmured, picturing my paints and brushes laid out neatly, and myself undisturbed at my work. Here was hope, I thought. Here was the promise of pleasure and painting. Somehow, within this half-ruined edifice, I would make a new life.

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