Chapter Six
‘I’m so tired I’m starting to see double. I’ll take a short break, Lady Claudia.’
Claudia looked up and tidied the papers on her desk.
‘You don’t need to ask me, Mr Campbell. You are free to do as you please.’
Mr Campbell had been extremely polite and cautious today—a little worried even. He had been sitting there for a good three hours, working without pause in complete silence. She too had been able to focus a bit, at last, although she did feel guilty for how she had treated him the previous day.
‘By the way, didn’t your father say you were supposed to assist me?’
‘My father must have omitted to say that I don’t understand a thing about antiques. Besides, I’m busy.’
Mr Campbell stood and stretched. He looked at her a little amusedly.
‘You do look busy. By the size of your correspondence, one would say you’re in charge of a war cabinet.’
‘Something of the sort. I have an advice column on The Lady’s Magazine . As it happens, it’s rather popular.’
‘So I heard. How charming .’ His voice was bursting with mockery. ‘Your readers must ask you all the important questions. What to wear at a ball. Or how to have their hair curled in such a way that a certain Duke will notice them at the opera.’
‘Oh, yes. What sort of ribbons to buy. How to avoid a forced marriage. How to pursue one’s dreams when it looks like the whole world is conspiring against you. Trifles like that, Mr Campbell.’
‘I am sure your words will be most comforting to them.’
‘Sometimes talking about one’s experiences with a fellow human is enough to see things a little clearer. You should try it sometimes. It may do you good.’
He frowned.
‘I don’t need help. But, by the sounds of it, they do. And all you can give them is words.’
‘It’s not just words, Mr Campbell.’
‘Compassion. Sympathy. Understanding.’ He mocked her. ‘Words. Words. Words .’
She strode right across the room and pushed the report she had been studying to his chest.
‘ It’s not just words! ’
He smiled, amused, then he leafed through it with great interest. She liked it very much, the way he could immediately become interested in something, forgetting everything else, like a curious animal.
‘Technical drawings. Cost estimates. For…a “shelter”? What kind of shelter, darling?’
‘A shelter for women who are escaping from violent men. I run one already near London. I’m opening another one closer to me, in Oxfordshire.’
‘Ah.’
Mockery vanished from his face. He began restlessly fidgeting with the wedding ring around his little finger.
‘It’s mainly for women who are involved with men out of wedlock. Legally, it’s much more complicated if they have husbands…Although sometimes we are able to help them too.’
‘Right.’
‘You see, for years I answered messages from women abused by men, who could not leave their homes because they had nowhere to go. Others had managed to escape, only to find themselves trapped in a different kind of violence. I had to do something about it. I’d rather live in a society where women do not need shelter. And we will get there someday, I am sure. But in the meantime, I am holding the fort. And the fort will look like this.’ She stood closer to him, and the warm notes of his cologne enveloped her. She leafed through the pages. ‘Here, look. There will be bedrooms, a large dining hall, and two classrooms. We’ll help them learn a trade.’
‘I wish you every success with it,’ Mr Campbell said coolly, but he couldn’t leave that ring alone, and his hands were trembling now. He hid his hands behind his back.
‘I’ve obviously said something wrong, Mr Campbell.’
He tidied his writing supplies. Unnecessarily. Nervously.
‘I better get on with this inventory, Lady Claudia.’
‘I am sorry. I…would you like to tell me what just happened?’
He leafed frantically through the pages of the inventory. But now his eyes were vacant. He was staring in horror at something only he could see.
‘Will you excuse me for a second? I believe I need a moment.’
He walked out of the study, without waiting for her reply.
***
William didn’t know whether he could really remember what he had seen that night, or whether Eric had told him about it. All he knew was that sometimes it crawled out of nowhere and put a knife at his throat. Just like now. His mother’s body, lifeless on the filthy wooden floor of the dilapidated hovel they lived in. He, a little four-year-old child, trying to rouse her. Then Eric picking him up in his arms, and the image fading to black.
He swallowed hard to fight back his tears.
Focus. Focus on where you are now.
He was not in a squalid shed in Oxfordshire. He was as far as he could wish to be, in Lady Claudia’s garden in Rome. The warm air smelled of lemons. He was sitting on a stone bench, his back resting against a cool wall. The water of a small fountain trickled happily under a canopy of leaves. It seemed impossible that such horror and such beauty could coexist not just in the very same world, but in the very same life. That his own eyes had seen both.
A figure approached from the gravelly path, pale and wispy, as though produced by the summer sun. The greenery drew patterns on her dress and her face. He watched them oscillate on her body, mesmerised.
Lady Claudia raised her hands defensively.
‘I will leave immediately if you don’t want me here, Mr Campbell.’
Except, now that she was there, he didn’t want her to leave. He felt a little better just for the fact that she was checking on him. He made space for her on the bench, and she sat down next to him.
‘You don’t want to talk about it.’
It was not a question. It was an acknowledgement, and he appreciated it. He shook his head.
‘That’s fine. I also would sooner die than tell anyone about certain things.’
‘Like about that man the other day?’
She looked at him seriously.
‘Yes.’
Her eyes dropped to his hands, which were quivering on his knees. He furiously tried to stop it, but he couldn’t.
‘Ah, just look at this! You must have seen this before. In your… shelter . You must know about it!’
She remained perfectly calm and collected.
‘I know a little bit about it, yes.’
‘Then make it go away!’
‘I’m afraid I cannot make it go away, Mr Campbell,’ her calm, husky voice reached him through his terror, ‘but I can stay here with you until it passes.’
She cautiously placed her hand on his upper arm, and when she did not see him wince—she remembered it!—she caressed him delicately. He had never allowed another human being to touch him without a motive, without an agenda. It utterly disarmed him, and he looked at her hand on his arm like at an unexplainable phenomenon. She smiled a bit at his surprise.
Her gentle strokes did not stop his hands from trembling, but something else entered that space where there was only him and his fear. And it was more than anyone had ever done for him.
‘Does this happen often to you, Mr Campbell?’ She asked with a pragmatic, knowledgeable tone. He felt safe in those words. Whatever was happening to him, it was predictable and understandable. He was not going insane.
‘No, not at all, thank God. It used to, but it is rarer and rarer. My brother Eric, instead…Iris may have told you…’
He leaned back and closed his eyes. The scent of lemons mixed with her gentle fragrance. A breeze played with his face. He was alive. As long as the peace would always come after the storm, all would be good.
‘It is because of our mother, you see?’ He heard himself whisper. ‘Because of our mother.’
‘I see.’ She said quietly. ‘Was your father a violent man?’
‘Yes.’
He opened his eyes, and he was almost surprised that she was really there, her hand gently caressing his arm.
‘This wedding ring was hers. Or my grandmother’s to be precise. Mother always wore it, so I always keep it with me.’
She looked a little surprised, as though that was not what she had expected.
‘So she passed away, didn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am so sorry.’
‘It was long ago.’
But it wasn’t. It could have been yesterday as far as he was concerned, and it all welled up inside him. So he blurted it out, crude and impossibly violent in the peaceful yellow stillness of the morning.
‘Eric took this ring from her body the night that drunk of our father beat her to death.’
He looked at her defiantly, challenging her to find an adequate response to that horror. For an instant she grimaced as though in physical pain. Then she inhaled and said nothing, because there was nothing that could possibly be said. They were silent for the longest time. Then her warm voice reached him.
‘How old were you when your mother died?’
‘Four. Eric was ten.’
‘Did your father ever hurt you?’
‘Yes.’
She closed her eyes for a second, her fingers to her brow. Then her eyes clouded, and tears dropped from her eyelashes.
She was crying.
It was the most compassion he had ever received in his life.
She let her hand rest on his upper arm another bit, until he stopped trembling and his breathing eased. Then she withdrew it.
‘This ring is the only thing I have left of her.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Would you like to see it?’
‘Yes, with pleasure.’ Her voice was a little unsteady now. ‘If you trust me with it.’
‘I do,’ he heard himself say. So much for earning her trust. It was Lady Claudia who was earning his. He placed the ring in her soft palm. It made it shiver a little, giving something so personal to her.
She inhaled deeply to steady herself, then she inspected the inscription. ‘ Lawrence and Helen. Forever. So sweet. Your grandparents must have loved each other very much.’
‘They did. At least that’s what Eric and Edmund say. The thing doesn’t even fit me. That’s why I wear it on my little finger. It would probably fit you just right.’
He couldn’t quite believe that he had said it. He had no rational explanation for it. She looked up with a strange smile and placed it back in his hand, closing his fingers around it.
He put it back on, confused.
‘It’s not even real gold, see? It’s all worn out and chipped. But it’s the most precious thing in the world to me. I used to think one day I would propose with this.’ He scoffed. ‘The kind of woman I hope to marry now would not know what to do with it. She’d look at it with contempt.’
‘Maybe she’s not the kind of woman you want to marry, then.’
She smiled, then she rested her back against the wall with a sigh.
‘I am so sorry for causing you so much distress today, Mr Campbell.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ He could barely hear his voice, so enthralled he was by the way everything seemed just a little less scary now. He wished that blissful respite could last forever.
‘It is, Mr Campbell. And I am sorry for yesterday too, for talking to you like that. And for the day before, for being sick in front of you.’ She rubbed her hands on her face. ‘I am starting to accumulate so many reasons to apologise. I can barely imagine what I will have to apologise for tomorrow.’
They both chuckled a bit. It felt intimate.
‘If you were to do another early run at the Caffè Greco tomorrow, I may be inclined to forgive you.’ He was not even joking. He wanted her to do it again. To wake up early and buy him the most expensive pralines in the shop, just because she cared. A pathetic thought, really.
‘I will do it, Mr Campbell. But just so I know, would it be to apologise or to spoil you?’
And there it was again, that charming spark of mischief in this stately woman. She scrutinised his eyes intently, then she smiled at him. And it felt a little like Life itself was welcoming him back.
‘To spoil me.’ He wanted to sound mocking, but it came out like a plea.
‘Ah, you are getting inappropriate again.’ She tapped his arm. ‘You must be feeling better then. Of course, I will go there early to spoil you.’
‘You should be careful. If you keep on doing this, you’ll find me every morning at your door like a stray cat, day in, day out. I’ll start bringing dead mice and other mangled creatures to your doorstep. And at some point…you’ll just have to take me in.’
Lady Claudia laughed.
‘A most appealing prospect. I will do my best not to disappoint.’ She stood and smoothed her skirts. ‘I need to go now. I have another duel to prevent in town. It’s the fourth since I arrived in Rome.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘But you can stay here as long as you want. I’ll tell my maid to look after you.’ She held her hand out to him. He clasped it and she shook it firmly with a smile, as though this was the real beginning of their acquaintance. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr Campbell, yes?’
‘Yes. At ten? I have some things to take care of before.’
‘It’s a deal.’ She winked at him and left.
And he felt all the poorer for it.