Chapter Four
FOUR
A KNOCK ON my door. It’s first thing in the morning and I’m eating breakfast, only part dressed.
Groggy from my restless night, though it feels half like a dream: seeing Lady Lascy out there in the fields, chasing her up the path like a wild animal, shouting through the door. I took it much too far.
It’s Mrs Allen on the front step, scowling like a gargoyle. ‘Morning, Miss Morgan.’ Mutton’s with her, and she has to hold firm on his collar to keep him in place. ‘Her Ladyship has asked for you to come up to the main house.’
‘I see.’ That’s it, then: I’m being dismissed. The breeze works its way under my pyjamas, as if autumn has replaced late summer overnight. Mrs Allen appears to be waiting for something. ‘What, right away?’
‘Of course.’
‘All right. I’ll come with you now, in a minute. I just need to …’ Gesturing down at my housecoat.
With Mrs Allen waiting outside, I hurry to dress. Painfully put on the nice skirt, the shoes, neither really recovered from my encounter with the muddy lane that night I first arrived.
When I emerge, Mrs Allen looks me up and down but doesn’t comment, just strides off in the direction of the manor. Ignores the path to cut a straight line over the lawn. I follow behind, batting Mutton away from my stockings. He’s got no clue how much these things cost.
A flash from last night as we reach the front steps. Me, demanding answers. That taunting laugh in reply.
Mrs Allen opens the door. There’s an inverted horseshoe above the lintel, a folk protection from bad luck. Although I’ve been obsessing these past weeks over what Lady Lascy is like, I hesitate now.
‘I don’t have all day,’ says Mrs Allen, one hand flapping in impatience.
We enter into a hall. A massive, echoing space, open right up to the second storey.
A gloriously decorated dome overhead – although, now I think of it, it must be a trick painted on to the ceiling, as I didn’t see a dome from the outside.
Despite the room’s gigantic proportions, it’s so crammed with all sorts of objects that I can hardly squeeze in.
It looks less like a grand hall and more like some kind of antique dealer’s, or an auction house showroom.
Glass cases and cabinets full of bric-a-brac.
A grandfather clock, running two and a half hours late by my count.
A long, low wooden cabinet almost blocking the statement staircase, its surface adorned with polished copper, candlesticks, vases of dried flowers, glassware, china, even a stuffed monkey, its face twisted in a permanent grimace.
A flock of chairs, none of them matching in style but all sharing the same shabby, worn upholstery.
Their seats are over-burdened with needlepoint cushions, furs draped across their arms and backs.
Footstools, lamps, wicker baskets of more dried flowers.
The shell of an unlucky tortoise. On the floor, a large Persian rug – a worrying dark stain at one corner, pushed half under the cabinet in an attempt to conceal it.
A towering stack of empty wooden pallets in one corner.
Garlands of ribbon and glass beads draped up the staircase banisters, and what look like newspapers piled all up the steps.
Walls caked in frames so densely arranged that it’s almost impossible to look at one long enough to make out the picture.
A luxurious chandelier, its chain far too long so that it drips down to eye level.
Dust and cobwebs in the corners, on the surfaces, under the chairs, hanging alongside the chandelier.
Why hasn’t Mrs Allen kept it clean? And this is just the entrance …
‘She’s in the morning room,’ says Mrs Allen, as if I know the layout of the house already. Luckily, the instruction’s accompanied by a pointing finger. Door to the right, almost hidden by a folding screen. ‘Straight through that one, then you’ll see it.’
I nod and pick my way through the maze of obstacles, trying to ignore the crunching noises underfoot from scattered rubbish. I place my hand on the doorknob. It’s ivory or bone, yellowed with age and handling. Turn it slowly.
‘Miss Morgan—’ I turn back at Mrs Allen’s voice. Her expression has a strange twist to it, as if she can’t quite remember what she was about to say. ‘Watch how you go, now.’
Puzzling out what exactly this signals, I step through into the next room.
I’d thought Mrs Allen meant this was the morning room, but I see at once that it’s not.
A dining room: big mahogany table and chairs.
At one end, two seats have place settings and silver out as if in preparation for a dinner party, with fine patterned china on display.
The rest of the surface is lost to a heap of fabric scraps, all different cloths, patterns and colours, from plain cottons to elaborate printed silks.
Scattered candelabras on the table bear mismatched candles, and in places globs of wax have dripped down on to the textiles, soldering them together.
Yet more picture frames teem on the walls.
Needlepoint samplers fill some of these as well.
All around the table, more random items are stacked haphazard: hat boxes, a broken spinning wheel, a knee-high wooden hippo.
Multiple doors lead out to other parts of the house, so Mrs Allen must mean for me to pass through, as if this were a corridor.
I skirt carefully round the table and chairs, wary of getting tangled up.
When I accidentally touch one of the fabric scraps, it’s damp under my palm. I fight back the urge to retch.
Not sure where I’m going, I try the first exit I come to.
A wood-panelled chamber on the other side, stale with the smell of old tobacco.
Nobody in here either. There are rusted swords and spears and guns mounted on the walls.
Horrid. On to the next door, and this one gives me a tingle, right here behind my navel.
I can almost sense that Lady Lascy is in the room beyond.
Is waiting for me. Has maybe even heard my footsteps as I approached.
I place a palm against the white-painted wood of the door as if feeling for vibrations.
This is the last moment of not knowing. After this, all of my speculations will be answered one way or another.
A sadness in my chest at the thought, like a gentle bereavement.
But that’s not what’s important here, because I’m about to get my marching orders.
Don’t know what I’ll do next. Can’t go back to Cardiff.
There’s a cool, icy resolve in my chest to stay calm, not to submit to the degradation of begging for my job.
The humiliation of watching Dad plead with the Reeses to keep him on is still fresh.
Their indifferent expressions, as if his years of hard work meant nothing to them.
I’d wanted more than anything to slap them across their unfeeling faces.
No: I’ll keep my head and my dignity. I open the door.
Very bright – the flickering glow of oil and candlelight.
The day outside is overcast, and the hall and dining room have been in relative gloom, so the contrast when I step into the morning room is dazzling, and this is all I can register at first. Then shapes begin to form and I realize there are multiple light sources: wall sconces, floor lamps, open-flamed candles blazing away.
Every textile surface seems to have some kind of design stitched into it, as if the artist can’t bear to have a scrap of clear fabric in sight.
And so many different objects and patterns, so many oddities and luxuries and reflective surfaces, that I can barely locate the woman I’ve come to visit.
I feel more than see the eyes that are watching me.
And then I find them there, amid it all.
A faded gunmetal blue. Sharp face. High cheekbones.
Pointed arch to the eyebrows and thin, flat lips that tilt up at the corners as if in a private joke.
Flecks of silver on a head of wavy, chestnut hair – this worn unfashionably long, like an old woman, though she must be in her thirties.
Without the ghoulish effect of the lantern light from last night, she could be called attractive.
It’s clear that this is the girl from the photograph.
Arabella Lascy, two decades on. She’s sitting on a low settee, legs crossed at the ankle and tucked beneath.
An elbow is propped on the armrest, so as to support her chin in one hand.
The immediate air is of assessment, deep consideration.
Well, I’m evaluating her right back. Too much jewellery for this time of day, sitting alone at home: pearls round her neck and in her earlobes, gold bangles, glittering rings – three to a finger, not necessarily complementing one another.
A frothy gown, more suited to a party. She can’t have put this all on just for my benefit …
Can she? I’ve never seen anyone this dressed up in my life.
The silence stretches to an unbearable weight.
Well, I think, if I’m going to lose my job anyway, I may as well speak my mind.
‘Look here, I’m not going to apologize for last night, if that’s why you’ve called me in.
I may be your employee, but that doesn’t give you the right to spy on me, or to come into my private quarters without my knowledge.
It’s a violation, that’s what it is, and … ’
I trail off, because Lady Lascy has started to laugh once more. Those thin lips stretch wide over broad, white teeth. Her shoulders heave with it.
‘Have I said something amusing?’ I’m determined not to lose my temper again.