Chapter Fifteen #2
‘Bandar. It means mischievous. He had a little red jacket, which he hated and tried to pull off all the time. I cried when he got out and ran away, but I was secretly relieved. He wasn’t very nice, really.
He wasn’t clean in the house, and he bit everyone.
He bit my syce, my darling Namgay, and the bite went bad and his hand was in bandages for weeks.
Jane’s kitten scratched her quite badly one day when she was trying to tie the bonnet on. You shouldn’t put clothes on animals.’
They reached the nursery. Amelia was asleep, her face delicately flushed, a sheen of moisture on her surprisingly blue eyelids. She had improved enormously in the two months she had been on earth. ‘Isn’t she perfect?’ Nina breathed.
‘She seems a very nice specimen,’ Decius said, and when she looked at him enquiringly, he said, ‘You can take my word for it. Remember what a large family I come from. I have nephews and nieces galore, so I’m quite the expert.’
‘I wasn’t questioning your judgement but the inadequacy of your language.
Very nice, indeed! Oh dear,’ she changed tack, ‘I think something terrible has happened to me. I had a letter from Lepida yesterday, full of things she’d read and ideas she’d had.
I’ve hardly read anything in months, and I have no ideas at all.
I seem content just to sit and look at my baby for hours on end.
If I pick up a book, I put it down again after a few paragraphs and I wouldn’t be able to tell you what it was about. Do you think I’ve lost my mind?’
‘Having had the privilege of observing sisters and sisters-in-law over the years, I can tell you that it’s perfectly normal. You’re meant to think of nothing but the baby. It’s a device of Mother Nature to ensure its survival.’
‘But has my brain gone for good? My aunt would be so disapproving.’
‘I believe the change is temporary. You’ve met my mother. She had eight children, and there’s nothing wrong with her mind.’
‘That makes me feel better,’ Nina said. ‘I’m glad Mr Cowling sent you. How long can you stay?’
‘Oh, I’m only part of the surprise. Come outside and see.’
Standing out in front of the house – and already drawing the attention of some local urchins – was a black and gleaming motor-car, with shiny brass and heavily buttoned green leather seats.
‘Oh, goodness! Is it yours?’ Nina exclaimed.
He laughed. ‘Not even on my extremely generous salary could I afford it! Mr Cowling hired it for the day so that I could take you for an outing. Isn’t it a beauty? It’s a Lanchester, twenty-eight horsepower.’
‘It can’t possibly be as strong as twenty-eight horses. Think what a load they could pull!’
‘It’s not about pulling, it’s about lifting.’
‘Horses don’t lift.’
He gave her a patient look. ‘Picture a weight, suspended by a rope, hanging down over a cliff, with the rope passed over a pulley at the top of the cliff, and attached to a horse’s harness.
If you lead the horse forward, it will pull the rope over the pulley and the weight will come up.
I could draw a diagram if it would help. ’
‘No need, I can imagine that. So the horse, walking forward, is “lifting” the weight?’
‘That’s right. And one horsepower means the force needed to raise five hundred and fifty pounds one foot in one second.’
‘How do they know that’s what a horse can do? And is it a great Shire horse or a little Dartmoor pony?’
‘There, you see, there’s nothing wrong with your brain.’
‘Thank you. But about the horse—?’
‘Doesn’t matter. It’s an agreed unit of measurement for a motor-engine, that’s all, regardless of what horses could do in real life. You might as well question what the weight is doing hanging over the cliff in the first place!’
‘That was going to be my next question,’ she said, laughing. ‘Oh, I do like talking to you! I feel like a new person. So who is going to drive this splendid collection of horses?’
‘I shall,’ he said, with no little pride.
She looked at him. ‘Can you?’
‘Certainly. I was practising all the way here and it’s not at all difficult.
But we have an engineer with us, in case the idea makes you nervous.
’ He gestured, and she only then noticed a man standing patiently off to one side, a freckled, curly-haired young man in a fawn dust coat and a flat cap with goggles pushed up over it.
‘You have to have an engineer in case it goes wrong, though motor-cars are much more reliable nowadays. Simpson here has been watching me and he thinks I am quite capable of driving you safely.’ Simpson grinned assent.
‘So dash inside, Mrs Cowling, and put on your hat and coat, and we’ll be off. ’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Wherever you want.’
Nina thought for a moment. ‘Just out,’ she said.
Mr Cowling was back, pleased that Nina had enjoyed her outing with Decius in the motor-car, more than ready to go straight upstairs with her and inspect the baby.
Amelia was awake, having just been fed. She looked tiny in his big hands.
One cradled her head in a manner that had already become expert, and he gazed down into her face as she gazed up into his, learning each other.
When the nursemaid took back the now sleepy baby to put her down, Cowling said, ‘I went up to the house on my way back from the station. It’s not fully furnished yet, and there are a few details to iron out, but I think it’s fit for you to see it, if you’d like?’
‘Of course I would! I’ve been eaten by curiosity for weeks.’
She had no idea what to expect, except that it would be grand. Her first sight was of the Queen Anne roadside facade, which seemed reassuringly unchanged.
‘I’d have added some columns and fancy stuff,’ he said, when she commented on it, ‘but young Leathwaite said it was exceptionally pure, whatever that means, and I think you like it like this, don’t you? We’ve done all the building at the back.’
‘All the building?’ she queried
‘Why d’you think it took so long? We’ve almost doubled the size of the place. Wait till you see inside!’
Inside there was a strong smell of paint and new plaster, which he promised would soon fade.
The original dining-room, with the vast marble fireplace he had admired, now had a marble floor and fluted rectangular marble pilasters to go with it, and was the reception hall.
The original drawing-room, with the French windows onto the terrace, was now the dining-room.
It contained a new mahogany dining-table, shining like a dark lake.
‘That’ll seat twelve as it is,’ he said, ‘but there’s extra leaves to put in so it’ll take twenty-four. ’
‘Won’t we feel rather lost when it’s just us?’ Nina asked cautiously.
‘There’s a small dining-parlour for common use on the other side of the house. You’ll see when we get to it.’
Beyond the dining-room they passed into the new wing, and Nina passed into a kind of trance.
She knew from his approval of the Grand Hotel in Leicester and the new Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly that he admired the grand, opulent, French renaissance style, and his taste had been given full rein.
There was marble, there were pillars, there was panelling and gilt and mouldings; there were acres of thick carpeting in the Savonnerie style.
The sofas and chairs, though obviously new, were in the Louis XVI mode.
Her only surprise was that the ceilings were plain plaster.
He caught her glance and said, ‘I wanted painted ceilings, but the chandeliers are gas, you see, and Leathwaite said the heat’d damage the paint. ’
There was an ante-room, a long drawing-room, also with French windows onto the terrace, and a music-room.
Upstairs there were bedrooms – a grand one for her and him, with bathroom and dressing-room attached – and a private sitting-room for her, as yet unfurnished except for her writing-desk.
‘I’ve my business-room downstairs,’ he said, ‘so you should have a little place all your own. I thought you’d like to choose everything for it, rather than Leathwaite decide for you. ’
There were more bedrooms, two more bathrooms, and over the entrance front a library, as yet with few books in it.
It had a writing-desk and several reading tables, and between the bookcases were niches containing marble busts.
Nina, bemused, looked at the names – Milton, Shakespeare, Cicero, Julius Caesar.
They’re not new,’ Cowling said. ‘Leathwaite got ’em at a country-house sale.
But you like old things, I know – when they’re fine like that. ’
His tone was anxious, and she realised she hadn’t said anything, either of praise or otherwise, and he must be wondering if he had made a terrible mistake.
It was nothing like the old Wriothesby House, it was nothing like she could have imagined, or would have chosen for herself; but she saw the restraining hand of Leathwaite behind it, keeping the wildest extravagances at bay.
It was grand, opulent, but it was not ridiculous.
It was actually rather beautiful, in an impersonal way.
Yes, that was the thing, she realised. The place you called home was never perfect, and the imperfections were what you loved about it, because they held memories for you: they commemorated your passage through your life.
The interior of this house was immaculate and unlived-in: no-one had yet marked it or given it a patina.
She had been silent too long. He said in a flat tone, ‘You don’t like it,’ and she saw the disappointment and actual pain in his face. She couldn’t bear to hurt him. She had to make an effort. ‘It’s all very beautiful,’ she said, ‘but so different it will take some getting used to.’