Chapter Eight 1891 #3
Diana showed little emotion about the clearing of Amy’s room. Only the dressing-table set made her pause – the brush with strands of pale hair still tangled in it; the oval mirror with its small, ghostly thumbprint. She stood holding them for a long time, then took them away without a word.
The drapes and pictures were changed; the mahogany tester bed heaved out in pieces on to an auctioneer’s cart.
In came a narrow bed with a plain candlewick bedspread; a chest of drawers with a broken foot; an old Ottoman rug that had once been good but was now faded and spotted with burns. And in came Audrey Wagstaff.
Neither of them knew how to behave, to begin with.
Theo sought her out, the first few mornings, only to find her curled up asleep on the rug, because the bed, she said meekly, was too soft and too hot.
One of the kitchen maids came and told Theo that Audrey hadn’t eaten all day, because she hadn’t known where or when to present herself for meals, and was too shy to ask.
Audrey had no idea of her duties and neither did Theo.
Diana made a few pointed remarks, and then Kitty, whose nose had been put out of joint about the new girl getting her own room, got over it and took Audrey under her wing.
Audrey began to bring Theo’s cup of tea in the morning, and the jug of hot water for her to wash, and took over the spot-cleaning of her dresses and jackets, and the brushing and arranging of her hair. At this, Audrey had real skill.
‘I used to do Michaela’s hair, and she liked it all up and fancy,’ Audrey said, then pursed her lips and wouldn’t say who Michaela was.
Theo didn’t press her. Missy had taught her that people who had nothing ought, at least, to be allowed to keep their secrets.
So, her usual lopsided combs and loose plaits were transformed into creations with elaborate twists that criss-crossed the crown of her head; or into voluminous rolls that were fastened invisibly and didn’t fall down all day.
Theo’s suddenly elegant hair mollified Diana about the choice of Audrey Wagstaff.
The fact that she cost the household next to nothing also helped.
Many times, in the first few weeks, Theo found herself regretting that she was now responsible, in many ways, for this other person.
Despondent at the thought that Audrey would always be around.
But gradually she noticed that Audrey’s presence in the room didn’t make her feel self-conscious, or anxious, or as though anything were expected of her.
Audrey was self-contained; she seemed to need to occupy only a specific amount of space in the world, and no more.
She didn’t ask why Theo almost always wore her gold butterfly pendant, when she had so many others to choose from, or why she often sat down to write a letter only to never finish or send it.
She didn’t ask the meaning of the strange silver coin she often found under Theo’s pillow, or in the pocket of her dress.
‘What’s Salisbury like?’ Theo asked her one day.
‘Haven’t you been, miss? I thought rich folk went visiting all over.’
‘Well, we’re not so very rich. And with people coming here to stay, we don’t often go anywhere ourselves.’
‘Oh.’ Audrey thought about it for a moment. ‘Well, it’s known to be a handsome city, and plenty do holiday there. But I don’t suppose I’ve seen the Salisbury you’d see, if you were to visit. And I don’t suppose you’d see the Salisbury I know, neither,’ she said.
‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ Theo said.
That was the end of it, and typical of their conversations.
One morning Theo woke too early, stared at the ceiling for a while, and then around at the four walls of her room.
So very familiar, and secure. Like the walls of a cell.
From next door she heard the gentle creak of the floorboards as Audrey got up.
Already, her maid appeared to have developed a sixth sense: however ungodly the hour, she always knew when Theo had woken.
And perhaps had learned that, left to their own devices, her mistress’s thoughts would tread a resolute path towards dark places.
With the softest of knocks Audrey came in, carrying a single candle to push back the dark. She was still in her nightdress, her hair in a plait hanging over one shoulder.
‘Pardon me, miss,’ she whispered. ‘I will get myself dressed quick, but is there anything you need?’
‘No, thank you, Audrey. I’m sorry to get you up so early.’
‘No need to be sorry, miss. I’ll be back in just a moment with some tea.’
‘No – no tea yet. Audrey . . . do you feel like a walk?’
‘Certainly, miss.’
‘Hurry and get dressed, and so will I. Dress warmly.’
They went up to the castle, just visible as the sky paled.
Past the stumps of the elms that had fallen just before Toby left.
Past the spring, where Rosalind Mackie had said her prayers.
Through the shadow of the broken west wall, where Kit had climbed – too high – to impress Missy.
Look at me, Missy! Past the window with the circular mark, where Toby had looked at her at last – holding her heart, as well as her face, in the palm of his hand.
Everywhere was loaded with memory, and with loss.
She missed them all with unabated intensity.
‘I must leave,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s only . . . I don’t know how I shall ever do it.’
Audrey looked at her and then away, calm and undemanding.
They had never discussed the summer of 1889.
Theo spoke of it to nobody except Crudge and Dr Anscombe, and then only haltingly, in brief and broken phrases.
She supposed the other girls at St Agnes’s had filled Audrey in on the scandal, if not the moment she arrived then the moment after.
She wondered what version Audrey had heard.
Theo needed to be somewhere else, where there was a chance life might feel more bearable.
‘My uncle says that travel broadens one’s horizons, and reminds us of our place in the grander scheme of things. Perhaps that would cure me.’ She heaved in a sigh. ‘A change from the everyday.’
‘Are you bored, miss?’
‘Bored?’ Theo glanced at her maid. ‘I’m worse than bored, Audrey. I’m . . . mired. And everything here . . . everything here makes me think sad thoughts.’
In silence, Audrey took her hand.
‘Mesopotamia,’ Theo said. ‘That’s where I should like to go.’
‘Where’s that, miss?’
‘A very long way away, east of the Mediterranean Sea. Do you know where that is?’
Audrey shook her head.
‘I’ll show you on the map when we get back. My uncle once said he’d take me there, but he never did. Not yet, anyway.’
‘Why not?’
‘The usual reason. Mama would never allow it. Mr Crudge isn’t truly my uncle, you see.’
‘Yes – I’ve heard Mrs Hallewell say that.’
‘She says it often.’
‘What’s in Mesy . . . Messa . . . ?’
‘Mesopotamia?’ Theo smiled. ‘I’ve no idea. A lot of sand and palm trees, as I picture it; lost cities and . . . And I really don’t know. That’s why I’d like to go there.’
‘But . . .’ Audrey hesitated. ‘It’s not such a bad home, is it? The one you’ve got? And I’m sure Mrs Hallewell only wants what’s best.’
‘Yes, possibly. But best for whom?’ Theo took another deep breath. ‘And you’re right – the problem is with me, not Hallewell.’
The sun rose higher, bright on the scabbed yellow leaves of the willows down by the stream. Theo tried to remember how it had felt to be the girl who’d stood in that same spot at sunrise more than two years before, full of hope and love and plans. But that version of herself was a stranger now.
‘Let’s go back,’ she said. ‘I . . . I need to write a letter.’
Toby read in his room until the Chapter Library in the cathedral opened.
That was the best place to study – it was impossible not to concentrate in the reverent hush of near a thousand years of history.
Hours could slide by without him even noticing the hard bench, or the draught around his ankles.
When it closed at lunchtime he went to the university’s own library, nearby on Palace Green, but he was far more likely to be interrupted there.
He didn’t like to have his reading schedule set back.
He followed the advice in the university guidebook, to always read first what he liked least; to work steadily for at least eight hours a day (he usually increased this to ten); not to take too many notes in a lecture, and never to assume that what was in his notebook was necessarily in his brain.
He read until a meal interrupted him, or Womersley thumped at the door, or he’d booked to take a boat out.
From his room in Hatfield Hall he could see the River Wear through the trees, and the boat house down below.
He’d tried all sorts of clubs and activities in his early days in Durham, when his mind had been chaotic and he’d had few friends.
There’d been so many new rules to learn, so much information to take in.
He’d reeled from day to day, pillar to post, barely holding himself together.
Sitting in silence at meals while his fellows got acquainted; feeling as though he spoke a different language to them.
How he’d passed the matriculation exam he had no idea.
He hadn’t won the foundation scholarship he’d needed, but the Principal had made allowances because of his personal circumstances.
He’d been permitted to delay paying his first battels until the beginning of the Epiphany term, by which time he’d had the chance to win an exhibition at the Michaelmas collections – the end of term exams. Which he had won, because by that time he’d discovered boxing, and could once again focus his thoughts for more than an hour at a time.
Then he’d taken the two-year Classics scholarship at the start of the second year, and, with Nimrod’s continued contributions, he’d managed to scrape by.