Too Close to the Sun (2 page)

‘That wouldn’t suit you at all,’ he said. ‘You like to be busy.’

‘Not always.’ She opened her eyes and turned her head towards him. He sat plucking blades of grass and tossing them aside. ‘Sometimes it’s good to just relax or have fun,’ she said.

After lying there for several more minutes she sat up and replaced her hat, then got up and brushed down her dress. ‘Come on, young William, let’s be off.’

And they set off again, over the stile and into the lane and so on to the road. And after a while there ahead of them was the old low stone wall that marked the front boundary of Asterleigh House. Minutes later they were starting up the drive.

Asterleigh House, situated a mile from the village of Berron Wick, stood back from the road on the top of a low ridge, surrounded by elms and oaks and the green rolling fields of Wiltshire. To the northeast lay the city of Redbury, and beyond that the railway town of Swindon. Directly to the east was the market town of Corster. To the south lay Salisbury and the Wiltshire plains. The house, with its façade of white stone, was large, comprising over thirty rooms, and stood hemmed by well-laid herbaceous borders
and green lawns. Begun in the 1850s, it was said that the house had never been finished. But finished or not, to outsiders it was impressive; few people in the surrounding villages knew any other dwelling as fine.

Grace and Billy had never been inside any similar house in their lives, and nor had they been that close to any. Not that they had been very
deep
inside Asterleigh; they had only been into the kitchen; but even entry into the kitchen of such a place was worthy of remark.

And now they were approaching the kitchen again, moving across the cobbled yard from the side gate. A maid was in the yard, beating a carpet, a colourful, oriental piece, that for convenience’s sake hung on a line. As they went to move past her towards the rear door, she let her hands fall at her sides, as if having let go a huge weight, and gave the deepest sigh. ‘Yes, can I’elp you?’ she said. She was plain in appearance, with frizzy reddish hair and a mass of freckles over her pale pink face.

‘We’ve brought something for Mr Spencer,’ Grace said.

As she finished speaking, another maid, this one wearing a neat white apron and cap, opened the back door.

‘It’s all right, Annie,’ she said, then, looking at Grace and Billy she raised her eyebrows and said, ‘Yes, miss?’

With Billy following, Grace crossed to the door. ‘We’ve brought something for Mr Spencer,’ she said again.

‘The master’s not in right now,’ the girl said. ‘Can you tell me what you’ve got?’

‘Two of Mrs Spencer’s pictures.’

‘If you’d care to wait a moment, I’ll let the missis know. Who shall I say it is?’

‘Miss Grace Harper.’

‘Right.’ As the maid began to close the door behind her she added, ‘I’d better shut this and keep out the dust.’

The door closed behind the maid as she went back into the house. In the yard the red-haired maid resumed beating
the carpet, pounding out little puffs of dust that floated away on the warm air. As Grace watched, her eyes met the other girl’s. The latter relaxed her beating for a moment and smiled. ‘You want a nice job, miss? This ent the day for beatin’ carpets, I can tell you.’

A minute later and the maid was back. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘The missis’d like to see you.’

‘Mrs Spencer?’ Grace said, a little awed.

‘Yes. You must come indoors.’

As the maid stood aside, Billy held out the wrapped picture to Grace and murmured, ‘You go on, Grace, I’ll stay here.’

‘Of course not,’ Grace replied. ‘You must come with me.’ The maid was waiting, and after a moment Grace and Billy – after carefully wiping their shoes on the doormat – moved past her into a rear passageway, on the left of which was a washhouse and, on the right, the kitchen in which a cook and a maid were at work. The parlour maid closed the door behind them and said, ‘If you’d like to follow me, miss …’

She opened the door in front of them and they passed through into the spacious main hall. The floor, laid in circles and rectangles of marble in pink, white and grey, seemed to stretch to a vast distance, enclosed by a staircase that curved elegantly down from the upper floor in a sweeping, graceful arc. Grace and Billy looked around them. They had never been in this part of the house before. Now, seeing the lavish interior, it was like being in another world. On the walls hung tall paintings of men and women in clothes from the past; there were long velvet drapes at the tall windows. The whole room seemed so enormous; its great fireplace – all laid with logs even in this day of July – and its sofa and fine chairs seeming to take up so little space in the vast room.

And, looking up, there were even more wonders to see,
for the great height of the circular hall went to the very top of the house, ending in a great cupola glazed with coloured glass that let through shafts of light of different hues that touched the walls and stairs; and touched too a gallery that ran almost all around the hall on its top floor, a gallery with statues standing in niches in the wall.

There was no time to stand and gape, though, for the maid was speaking to them, a trifle impatiently. ‘Please,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘come this way.’

Grace had never had any thought of being invited into the house proper – and even less so of being summoned in to meet Mrs Spencer. Had the possibility occurred to her, she would have taken more trouble with her appearance. As it was, she was wearing her oldest summer dress, a cotton affair with pink and blue flowers on a white background. When new, it had been very attractive, and had suited her well. Now, however, its best days were past: the blue had run in the wash and it had been darned at the right shoulder and elbow. Grace wore it nowadays – as on this day – only for unimportant errands – and errands when she did not expect to encounter anyone of importance. Very conscious of her dress having seen better times – as had her plain hat and dusty boots – Grace, with Billy reluctantly following, went after the maid along a deeply carpeted passage.

Some way along, the maid came to a halt, knocked on a door, pushed it open and bent into the room. Grace heard her murmur something and then the girl was turning back to them. ‘The mistress says if you please to come in.’

Grace had no idea what to expect.
Mr
Spencer she had seen on two or three occasions during his visits to her father’s workshop, but Mrs Spencer was something of a mystery. The story went that, although born in the area, she had lived most of her life in Swindon, only returning following her marriage – a marriage that had come
comparatively late in her life. However, although resident in the general area once more, she was very rarely seen in the nearest village, Berron Wick. Going by what Grace had heard, about the only place she was ever glimpsed was in the local church on occasions such as Easter, Christmas, and Harvest Festivals. And even then she was barely in evidence, always sitting right at the front in the reserved pew, and swathed in her hats and veils.

But now Grace and Billy were being ushered into the room, and, supposedly, into the woman’s presence.

The door clicked closed behind them and with the sound Grace realized that the maid had departed. She and Billy stood side by side, Billy so close he was almost touching her. Here in this room it was so much cooler. It faced north, so the light – today unclouded and bright – was subtle, steady and unchanging. It was not a large room, but it gave a feeling of spaciousness due to the lack of any great amount of furniture in the place. What was there was comprised in the main of a couple of rather distressed chests of drawers and a bureau. Also a gate-legged table – once a handsome, highly polished piece, now scratched and paint-stained. The walls were hung with paintings, some framed, some on unadorned canvas stretchers. They consisted of landscapes, still lifes and a few animal studies. They were, Grace observed, in a similar style to those which she and Billy now held in their hands. For the rest of the furnishing, there were several rows of shelves also, bearing what looked like stretched canvases and various jars and pots, some of which held artists’ brushes. In the air hung a smell of linseed oil and turpentine – smells that Grace recognized from her father’s workshop. Over the carpet was spread what looked to be old dustsheets and hessian – obviously to protect the carpet from paint stains, of which not a few marked the make-do covering. The greater part of the paint stains lay around an area a few feet from the
window on which stood an artist’s easel with a canvas on it. Before it, sitting on a chair and leaning forward with paintbrush in hand, sat Mrs Spencer.

Seeming almost to be unaware of them – though of course that could not be – she continued with her work. Sitting almost with her back to the newcomers, she was working on a painting of a still-life composition that lay before her on a table: white roses in a vase, with lemons and pears, the whole arrangement placed on a chequered cloth. Another table, not far from the woman’s right hand, bore a paint-smeared palette, a jar holding paintbrushes, small bottles of liquid and a scattering of tubes of paint.

Grace observed as Mrs Spencer sat back in her chair, paintbrush in hand, and looked judiciously and doubtfully at the canvas before her. She appeared a tallish, slender woman. She was not young, Grace could see; she must be well into her fifties. She wore a large hat, resting low on her forehead, which did not completely cover her grey hair, cotton gloves – once white, now stained with a hundred different paint colours – and an artist’s smock, its own whiteness also marked with paint stains of different hues. At her throat was a dark crimson bow. The whole effect reminded Grace of portraits of famous artists she had seen in picture books over the years.

‘So,’ the woman said, ‘I understand you’ve brought my pictures.’ She spoke with a soft tone, looking at the unfinished canvas with her head a little on one side. She lifted the brush as if she would use it on the palette to mix more colours, but then, just as quickly, she seemed to decide that she would go no further for the time being, and put it down on the painting table.

‘Enough, enough,’ she said, endorsing her action. ‘I’m not getting anywhere, so what’s the use?’ Still without turning to them, she raised her gloved hand and crooked her index finger. ‘Come. Come closer. Both of you.’

Grace stepped forward and Billy followed and came to a halt at her side. Only then did the woman turn towards them.

‘So,’ she said, ‘ – my pictures. My husband had intended them to be a surprise for me, but he won’t mind if his little surprise is rather spoiled. I never could rest on anticipation.’ She held out her gloved hands and Grace took a step forward and placed the burlap-wrapped package into them. Fumbling with the strings, Mrs Spencer said, ‘Mr Harper made the frames and set the paintings in them, is that so?’

Grace raised her head and nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And you’re his daughter, is that correct?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Getting nowhere with the strings, Mrs Spencer impatiently thrust the package back towards Grace. ‘Here – your fingers are more nimble than mine.’

Grace took the package from the woman. In moments she had the strings untied and was taking from its wrapping the framed canvas. Measuring about fourteen by ten, it was a landscape: green fields fading away to a high horizon beneath a rather stormy sky. Grace held it out and Mrs Spencer took it, held it before her and looked at it long and hard. As she did so, Grace took the painting held by Billy, and unwrapped it. Mrs Spencer put the landscape down, leaning it against the side of the easel, then took the second painting from Grace. After looking at it for several seconds in silence, she murmured with irony, ‘Well, it’s certainly a lovely frame. He does fine work, your father.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Grace.

‘We have a bureau that he made, and an excellent little footstool. My husband has spoken of having your father make us some other items. We thought perhaps some more shelves for the library, and maybe a chessboard. And, of
course, there’s the cabinet your father’s now working on.’ A brief pause, then, tilting her head slightly, she said, ‘And what is your name?’

‘Grace.’

‘Grace?’

‘Grace Helen Harper.’

‘I see, and what do you do, Miss Grace Helen Harper?’

‘Do, ma’am?’

‘For a living? I assume you do something.’

‘Well, yes – for the time being I’m teaching. I’m a governess.’

‘A governess. Does that mean you have a brain?’

‘I hope so, ma’am.’

‘And do you live with your employers?’

‘No, I’m daily, visiting.’

‘I see. And whom do you visit?’

‘The sons of Mr Marren. He’s a businessman who lives not far from where we live in Green Shipton.’

‘How many sons?’

‘Two. They’re twins. Nine years old.’

‘Do you enjoy it? Teaching them?’

‘Most of the time, ma’am, yes.’

The woman’s mouth moved in a slight smile. ‘Most of the time?’

Grace shrugged. ‘Well – sometimes they can be – testing.’

‘I’m sure they can.’ Silence. Then Mrs Spencer spoke again. ‘What did you mean just now when you said you’re teaching
for the time being
?’

‘Oh – well – my employment with the Marren boys is coming to an end.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘They’re due to go away to boarding school.’

‘So you’ve become redundant.’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

‘Oh, dear. So what will you do? Look for a new position?’

‘Soon, yes. I have just three more days teaching the boys, then I must think about my future.’

‘I should think you’d have given it some thought already.’

‘Yes – of course.’ Grace felt at a disadvantage, and increasingly somewhat like a child who has caused displeasure. ‘I do have certain responsibilities at home,’ she said. ‘Apart from teaching I help out at home, helping to look after the family.’

‘And how did you come to be a teacher?’

‘I was taught by my mother.’

‘Was your mother a teacher? – a governess?’

‘No, she – she wasn’t anything. I mean, she didn’t have any particular position. She was the daughter of a vicar, the Rev. Cleeson of Coller Down.’