Chapter Six #2
A trio of pubescent boys has gathered around the vehicle in our absence, eyeing it over with obvious appreciation. They don’t remark on me as I approach, then turn and goggle when I march up to the car and stow the tin.
‘That ain’t yours, is it?’ one of them asks, voice breathy in wonder.
‘My boss’s,’ I say. Normally I’d be encouraging their admiration, but I’m too on edge at the minute, so I ignore their chatter, craning my neck round to see if I can spot Reacher. It’s not so long before he reappears, whistling what sounds like a dance-hall tune.
‘All in order? Excellent.’ He glances at the boys, who have moved a little distance away but are still very obviously taking notice. ‘Now, I’ve been thinking, Miss Morgan, why don’t you drive us back?’
Still wrapped up in my own thoughts, I wonder if I’ve misheard. ‘You’re joking!’
‘Why not?’ Beaming, he tosses me the key. One of the boys gasps.
So now I climb up to the driver’s seat as Reacher turns the crank.
I had a go with some of the farm vehicles, back in the Land Army days, but it’s been years since then.
I place my hands on the steering wheel with reverence.
The polished wood is sleek as a rose petal.
This time, she purrs into life first try, the engine loud but smooth as you like.
It takes a little instruction from Reacher to get a handle on the controls, but then we’re off, the three boys chasing after us a while, shouting their delight.
I take us back the way we came, following Reacher’s gestures to navigate the country lanes.
Push through the gears. The speed meter ticks up, needle wobbling first past fifty, then past sixty.
The damp air hitting my face until it looks like I’ve been crying.
Reacher throws back his head and howls like a wolf.
Coming to a series of sharper bends, I slow our speed. Move back down to third gear. ‘How come Lady Lascy never goes motoring?’ I shout over the wind.
‘She’s afraid!’
I recall what Arabella confessed the other day. ‘To leave the manor grounds, you mean?’
In the corner of my eye, Reacher shrugs. ‘She was afraid of driving long before she stopped going out. It is dangerous, on that main road.’ His next words are lost to the elements.
‘What?’
‘I said, you never know what might jump into your path.’
The drizzle gives way to a shower along the Harfold road, and soon we’re both drenched through, laughing breathless with delight.
I turn us up the drive and, as the manor looms into sight, Reacher leans over to sound the horn with a couple of jolly hoots.
For the first time since moving here, I feel almost as if I’m arriving home.
Tom meets us at the coach house, ready to get the car under cover and start drying it off. ‘How did she go?’ he asks.
‘Like a dream,’ says Reacher, wiping droplets from his spectacles. ‘And Miss Morgan brought us back in fabulous style. How did you find her, Vee?’
‘She drove beautifully,’ I agree. Run a hand over the wheel-arch, now clagged with fresh mud.
I’m reluctant to part with the Renault. Will likely never have another chance like this to drive it.
I wonder again how Arabella can bear to leave it neglected here.
I sigh, ‘I’d better put this poison away, then. ’
‘Try the potting shed, will you?’ asks Tom. ‘It’ll be easier to get to in there.’
However, when I step outside, I’m stopped in my tracks, because here’s Arabella, outside, in the daylight.
Storming across the lawn in a yellow housecoat, raindrops staining the silk.
Carrying, absurdly, a cup of tea, as if in such a rush that she’s forgotten to put it down. Headed in our direction.
‘Maurice!’ she shouts, as she draws into earshot. ‘Come out of there!’
I feel Reacher appear behind me, but I can’t look away from Arabella. Her flushed face, the twist of fury in her jaw.
‘Bellsy, my dear …’
‘Bellsy, my dear!’ Arabella’s lisping imitation of Reacher is not flattering, though there’s a certain accuracy to it. ‘I’m not listening, Maurice! Why did you let her drive that car?’ Then, with more emphasis, ‘That car?’
Reacher raises his hands, palms facing out. A gesture of surrender. ‘It was just a bit of fun.’
‘You know he wouldn’t like it! As if we are not cursed enough already!
’ She’s barefoot, mud and grass spattered up past her ankles from where she’s run across the lawn.
A crazed look in her eye. I’ve no idea what she means about curses, but I assume that ‘he’ must be Charlie, the unfortunate former owner of the Renault.
‘And you!’ Turning her rage now on me. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘Look here, I was only—’ I begin a defence, but am interrupted by the teacup, sailing through the air at an alarming pace and into Reacher’s forehead. Arabella had been so fast that I didn’t even register her throwing it.
‘Fuck!’ Reacher staggers back, clutching his brow. ‘Fuck!’
Arabella looks at her own hand in surprise, as if wondering what’s just happened, and then slowly sinks to her knees in the damp grass. ‘I didn’t …’ Her breathing is ragged, as if fighting back tears. ‘I didn’t mean to …’
‘You’re all right there, my Lady.’ Tom has appeared at her side. ‘Come on, let’s get you up.’ He bends to place an arm around her shoulders, coaxing her back to her feet. The housecoat has fallen open at the chest. I avert my eyes. Not quickly enough to see nothing.
As Tom leads her away, Arabella mumbles to him, the words I catch not making any sense. Something about Charlie. Something about her hair.
‘Christ,’ says Reacher, examining his fingers. They’ve picked up a smear of blood.
‘Does it hurt?’ I ask. ‘Here.’ Hold out a hanky.
‘No, no. That was my fault. Sorry you nearly got a whipping too.’ He presses the hanky to his head. ‘I think it’s just a surface wound.’
‘Let’s get Mrs Allen to have a look,’ I suggest. The housekeeper and I have thawed to one another since Guy Fawkes Day, bonded by the experience of Mutton’s misadventure.
Reacher seems about to protest, but eventually lets me usher him in, where Mrs Allen dabs him with alcohol.
Tuts when he flinches away. None of us comment on Arabella’s behaviour, but I can’t stop thinking over it.
Yes, she’d been angry, but – more than that – her primary emotion after throwing the teacup had been distress.
Was the car too strong a reminder of her youngest brother?
Again, I catch myself feeling sorry for her.
She has so many layers: the awkward recluse, over the grief-stricken orphan, over the playful woman who still shows through in flashes.
Something about her makes me want to reach out and help.
Once Reacher has received his medical attention, I finally take the tin of arsenic over to the potting shed. Clear a space on the top shelf. Hope I never have to think about it again.
The next morning, I’m summoned once more by Mrs Allen. A trudge over the muddy garden to the manor. ‘Her Ladyship’s in a bit of a state,’ she says, as we enter the hall. ‘She won’t come down today.’ Nods at the stairs.
‘She wants me to go up?’
Mrs Allen starts climbing in answer. If anything, the stacks of newspapers on the stairs have multiplied since my last visit. At the top, we turn right – away from the closed wing with the Lascy family genealogy.
The corridor we pass through now is, like the downstairs rooms, packed with furnishings, artwork, ornaments, oddities.
Everything is far too large for the space it occupies, so I have to weave and sidestep, copying the well-practised route taken by Mrs Allen.
I can’t even guess the value of some of these items, yet it’s clear they’ve been treated without any care: a delicate vase with a crack down the centre; a wall hanging with water damage; an antique cabinet with wax melted all across the top; a broken mirror, shards of menacing glass still strewn over the floor.
Mrs Allen stops at one of the doors, knocks. Peers in without waiting for a response. ‘Here she is, my Lady.’ Her tone almost maternal. A reply that I can’t hear, and Mrs Allen tuts and says, ‘Nonsense.’ Pushes open the door so we can both shuffle inside.
The room is a pigsty. There’s no other word to describe it.
The clutter of the rest of the house was a pale precursor to this, the beating heart of the chaos that reigns at Harfold.
The walls are pink; the dark pink of the inside of a cheek, which seems to suck out the light despite the multiple candles and gas lamps blazing.
Furniture crowds every corner, and multi-coloured embroidery threads unspool across any available surface.
Open shelves line one wall, with books, papers and ornaments spilling over as if desperate to escape.
A vast bed stands in the centre – not against any wall, but in the very middle, like an island.
The floor underfoot is a sea of debris. Discarded sewing needles, clothes, jewellery, make-up, knickknacks, papers, stationery, perfume bottles, ribbons, buttons, balled handkerchiefs, plates, shoes, game pieces, spectacles, unlit candles, money, the sheets and pillows from the bed; I have to stop looking else my head will explode.
A perfumed smog chokes the air, as if half a dozen scent bottles have just been upturned on the rug; this must be coming from the mass of cut flowers piled up in one corner, all in various stages of decay.
I realize suddenly, with a melting feeling in my chest, that these are the bouquets I’ve been bringing to Arabella from the garden. She’s kept every single one of them.
Arabella is at the eye of this storm, sitting upright in her bed. She’s still wearing the yellow silk housecoat. A brown stain at the breast, as if she’s spilled tea down it. ‘Thank you, Nora.’