She tiptoed toward the nearest chair, little typewriting machine clamped beneath a freckled arm.
Lucy Starling was Mr Frederick’s secretary, employed, originally, for the factory in Ipswich. When the war ended and the family moved permanently to Riverton, she started coming from the village, twice a week, to work in Mr Frederick’s study. She was perfectly ordinary to look at. Medium brown hair tucked beneath a prudent straw hat, skirts in dull shades of brown and olive, a plain white blouse. Her only accessory, a small cream cameo at her collar, seemed to sense its own ordinariness, wilting sadly forward to reveal its simple silver clasp.
She had lost her fiance on the Ypres Salient and wore her mourning, like her clothing, with enduring plainness, her grief too reasonable ever to excite great sympathy. Myra, who knew such things, said it was a great shame she had gone and lost a man prepared to marry her, for lightning did not strike twice and with her looks and at her age she would almost certainly end up an old maid. What’s more, Myra added sagely, we were as well to pay particular attention that nothing go missing from upstairs, as Miss Starling was as likely as not to be looking toward her old age.
Myra’s were not the only suspicions aroused by Miss Starling. The arrival of this quiet, unassuming and, by all accounts, conscientious woman, created a stir downstairs that now seems unimaginable.
It was her place that caused such uncertainty. It wasn’t right, Mrs Townsend said, for a young lady of the middle class to be taking liberties in the main house, seating herself in the Master’s study, gadding about with airs and graces out of step with her position. And, though it was doubtful that Miss Starling with her sensible mouse-brown hair, home-stitched clothing and cautious smile could ever be accused of airs and graces, I understood Mrs Townsend’s bother. The lines between upstairs and down had once been clearly and comfortably drawn, but with Miss Starling’s arrival old certainties had begun to shift.
For while she was not one of Them, neither was she one of Us.
Her presence downstairs that afternoon brought a cerise glow to Mr Hamilton’s cheeks and a nervous animation to his fingertips, which now hovered busily about his lapel. The curious matter of station perplexed Mr Hamilton specially, for in the poor, unsuspecting typist he perceived an adversary. Though as butler he was the senior servant, responsible for overseeing the house’s management, as personal secretary she was privy to the shimmering secrets of the family’s business affairs.
Mr Hamilton plucked his gold fob watch from his pocket and made a show of comparing its time with that on the wall clock. The watch had been a gift from the former Lord Ashbury and of it Mr Hamilton was immeasurably proud. It never failed to deliver him stillness, to help retain authority in instances of stress or bother. He ran a pale, steady thumb across its face. ‘Where is Alfred?’ he said, finally.
‘Laying table, Mr Hamilton,’ I said, relieved that the taut balloon of silence had finally been pricked.
‘Still?’ Mr Hamilton snapped closed the watch, his agitation finding welcome focus. ‘It’s been almost a quarter-hour since I sent him with the brandy balloons. Honestly. That boy. I’d like to know what they’ve been teaching him in the military. Ever since he got back he’s been flighty as a feather.’
I flinched as if the criticism had been levelled at me.
‘It’s common with them that’s come home,’ Myra said. ‘Some of them that arrive at the train station are quite strange-’ She stopped polishing wine glasses as she fished about for the right words. ‘Nervous and a bit jumpy.’
‘Jumpy, indeed,’ Mrs Townsend said, shaking her head. ‘He just needs a few good feeds. You’d be jumpy too if you’d been living on army rations. I mean to say. Tins? Of
Miss Starling cleared her throat and said, in a voice leavened with careful elocution: ‘They’re calling it shell shock, I believe.’ She looked about timidly as the room fell silent. ‘At least, that’s what I’ve read. Many of the men are struck by it. It doesn’t do to be too hard on Alfred.’
In the kitchen my hand slipped and black tea leaves rained over the pine table.
Mrs Townsend lay down her rolling pin and pushed her floury sleeves up over her elbows. Blood had rushed to her cheeks. ‘Now just you listen here,’ she said, with an unqualified authority usually the preserve of policemen and mothers. ‘I will not hear talk of that in my kitchen. There’s nothing wrong with Alfred that a few of my dinners won’t fix.’
‘Of course not, Mrs Townsend,’ I said, eyeing Miss Starling. ‘Alfred will be right as rain once he’s had some of your good home cooking.’
‘They’re not a patch on my old dinners, of course, what with the U-boats and now the shortages.’ Mrs Townsend looked at Miss Starling and her voice caught a waver. ‘But I do know what young Alfred likes.’
‘Of course,’ Miss Starling said, traitorous freckles materialising as her cheeks paled. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest…’ Her mouth continued to move around the words she couldn’t find to say. Her lips straightened into a wan smile. ‘You know Alfred best, of course.’
Mrs Townsend nodded tersely, punctuating the fact with renewed attack on the pie dough. The thick air thinned some, and Mr Hamilton turned to me, the afternoon’s strain evident on his face. ‘Hurry up then, girl,’ he said wearily. ‘And when you’re finished, you can make yourself useful upstairs. Help the young ladies dress for dinner. Don’t be too long, mind. The table cards still need placing, and the flowers have to be arranged.’
When the war ended and Mr Frederick and the girls took up permanent residence at Riverton, Hannah and Emmeline had chosen new rooms in the east wing. They were residents now rather than guests, and it was only fitting, said Myra, that they take new rooms to demonstrate the point. Emmeline’s room overlooked Eros and Psyche on the front lawn, while Hannah preferred the smaller one with a view to the rose garden and the lake beyond. The two bedrooms were adjoined by a small sitting area which was always referred to as the burgundy room, though I never could think why as the walls were a pale shade of duck- egg blue and the curtains a William Morris floral in blues and pinks.
The burgundy room bore little evidence of its recent reoccupation, retaining the hallmarks of whichever erstwhile inhabitant had overseen its original decoration. It was comfortably appointed, with a pink chaise longue beneath one window and a burr walnut writing desk beneath the other. An armchair sat stately by the door to the hall. Atop a small mahogany table, its red petals in coy half-bloom, the sole addition posed: a gramophone, whose very novelty seemed to bring a blush to the prudent old furnishings.
As I made my way along the dim corridor, wistful strains of a familiar song seeped beneath the closed door, mingling with the cold, stale air that hugged the skirting boards.
It was Emmeline’s current favourite, on permanent rotation since they’d arrived from London. We were all singing it in the servants’ hall. Even Mr Hamilton had been heard whistling to himself in his pantry.
I knocked once and entered, crossed the once-proud carpet and busied myself sorting the mound of silks and satins that smothered the armchair. I was glad for the occupation. Though I had longed since they left for the girls’ return, in the intervening two years the familiarity I’d felt when last I served them had evaporated. A quiet revolution had taken place and the two girls with pinafores and too-small walking suits had been replaced by young women. I felt shy of them again.
And there was something else, something vague and unnerving. They were two now where they had been three. David’s death had dismantled the triangle, and an enclosed space was now open. Two points are unreliable; with nothing to anchor them there is nothing to stop them drifting in opposite directions. If it is string that binds, it will eventually snap and the points will separate; if elastic, they will continue to part, further and further, until the strain reaches its limit, and they are pulled back with such speed that they cannot help but collide with devastating force.
Hannah was lying on the chaise, book in hand, a faint frown of focus on her brow. Her free hand was pressed against one ear in a vain attempt to block the record’s crackly fervency.
The book was the new James Joyce:
