Billie's Kiss (13 page)

Lord Hallowhulme was talking, solving his and other
people's problems. The phone cables and batteries had been salvaged but were already set to corrode hopelessly. He'd had his secretary, Johan Gutthorm, order more. Hallowhulme nodded at the desiccated man seated on his left. At this acknowledgement Johan Gutthorm lifted his chin and pursed his lips. Hallowhulme said that the replacements would ship in next to no time – his plans were only a few weeks behind schedule, no harm done. The alginate factory was coming along – thanks to Mr Hesketh. Here Hallowhulme addressed himself to Geordie, his eyes sliding over Billie Paxton, who had just remembered to tilt her soup plate away from her, as she should. ‘As you must by now have divined, Mr Betler, I'm something of a visionary. A man like me needs someone practical near him. A man like me, with dreams and schemes and funds in abundance needs a canny executor, someone to deal with all the details, who will do what needs to be done. And here is my cousin, Murdo, the excellent Mr Hesketh, whom I treasure.'

Geordie responded to this with a polite nod. It was disturbing. Lord Hallowhulme was diligently salvaging the means of his plans – his cables and batteries – while there were people at his table whose losses were irreplaceable.

Hallowhulme went on to say he was concerned about progress on the herring cannery in Southport, at the other end of the island. He'd have to go there very soon.

‘Father, please do take account of the date of the
performance
of our play,' Minnie said. She smiled at the man who removed her soup plate.

Her father asked was the performance at the end of July, as usual?

Rixon moaned.

‘Wait till you read it,' his sister told him. ‘I'm making copies.'

‘Have you thought of using Mr Gutthorm's typewriter?' Hallowhulme asked. ‘Of course I can't volunteer his
time.
We're far too busy.'

‘May I use it?'

‘Ask Johan, Minnie.'

Johan Gutthorm bowed slightly and said Miss Minnie was welcome to use his machine.

‘I've done two fair copies already. Rixon, you and Elov can have yours this evening.' Minnie turned to the salver of greens and took the tongs. She served herself. ‘It's a modern play, by Mr George Bernard Shaw. You'll like it. It's called
Fortune
and
the
Four
Winds.
'

Clara wanted to know if it would be performed on the lawn, or in the ballroom. If outdoors, the gardeners would have to clear all the nettles out of the ha-ha.

‘Indoors,' said Minnie. Then to her brother, ‘I wish you would read it tonight. You
can
choose whether or not you'd like to do it.'

He seemed astonished by this offer.

The serving dish came to Geordie, and he plied the tongs, smiled at Robert, the footman who was serving. Robert had eaten already. Geordie had a standing invitation in the kitchen and Robert had wanted to know why Geordie would choose to eat in
there
–
the dining room. He said, ‘We have almost the same.'

‘Saving the wine,' said Geordie, and saw that the footman might like to add that he wouldn't want to join the family, even for the wine, but that theirs was too short an
acquaintance
for Robert to offer opinions of this sort.

Lord Hallowhulme was tendering more advice. Had his daughter thought to enlist Miss Paxton? He only glanced at Billie, with a stiff baring of his teeth, more grimace than grin. ‘Copying would be a quiet occupation for the sickroom.'

Billie Paxton was silent. Geordie supposed she was puzzling over how to decline, and still seem polite.

Ailsa Tegner said, ‘Miss Paxton can't read.' The twins were watching Billie intently. Apparently they had formed some notion of helping her.

Several people spoke. Some only to ask her, ‘Is that true?' Clara Hallow disbelieving – hadn't Billie and Edith received the same early education?

Billie put down her knife and fork – her hands were trembling, Geordie saw. She folded them in her lap, then gave a very brief account of her trouble, its history. Her father, sister, great-aunt, and Mr Maslen had all tried to teach her. ‘At a very poor return for their efforts,' Billie said. ‘Once people see that I'm not
very
stupid, they begin to imagine I'm stubborn. But really it's a mystery.'

Lord Hallowhulme was quite motionless, then he abruptly jabbed at the air with a raised index finger. He'd thought of something. He motioned Johan Gutthorm toward him and had a word in his ear. Everyone watched. Gutthorm removed his napkin and went out with his instructions – inaudible to most of the table. Hallowhulme fell to eating again. He kept silent and chewed thoroughly, all with an air of suspenseful significance.

Elov Jansen began to look bilious.

Acquitted, Billie resumed eating.

AFTER THE dessert was cleared the ladies retired. Geordie moved closer to the head of the table. Rixon asked his father if he and Elov could please have a small glass of port. They were allowed, and the boys watched Robert pour, their eyebrows up and urging him. Robert was scrupulous, but tantalising; he took his time and gave the decanter a flourishing twist to spin the last hanging drop back into its neck. He smiled at the boys.

Gutthorm came back with what Lord Hallowhulme had wanted – a number of the
British
Medical
Journal
for the year 1896.

Murdo declined the port. He pushed back his chair and slid down in its seat, extended his legs and crossed them at the ankles. He lit a cigarette and tilted his head right back
against the headrest. He asked Gutthorm if the accident report had been typed yet. His understanding was that it had to be ready for the investigator sent by the
Gustav
Edda
's
insurers.

‘Yes, Mr Hesketh, it's done. You can have a copy tonight. But I don't think you'll find anything new, as it is largely based on
your
notes.'

‘I do need to see it in total, Johan. To have the full story.'

Geordie watched Murdo. He knew one salient fact about the wreck – its boiler was intact. He and Murdo had discussed it, or, rather, they had discussed how Murdo had acted on mistaken evidence – Miss Paxton's still unexplained flight. Geordie knew that Murdo Hesketh had never altered his opinion – that the explosion was an act of sabotage. Murdo was only waiting for certain submerged facts to surface, like air bubbles on a long journey from a great depth. Murdo's relaxation, the still silvery brown lashes of his closed eyes, all gave the somewhat menacing impression of patient appetite. He was waiting for something to come up. He was a white bear poised over a seal hole in pack ice.

‘Here it is!' Hallowhulme made his announcement to the whole table. ‘Dr Pringle Morgan: “Congenital Word
Blindness
”.' He was quiet, reading. He read solidly, for ten minutes, during which time Rixon, by licking his lips and dancing his eyebrows at Robert, inveigled another small glass for himself and Elov. Geordie noticed that both the boy and footman knew that Lord Hallowhulme wouldn't see.

Johan Gutthorm waited behind his master's chair. He didn't read over his master's shoulder – something Geordie would never have been able to resist in the circumstances – after all, it couldn't be an indiscretion to read the
Medical
Journal
, which was in the public domain, even if its reader's thoughts at that moment were not.

Hallowhulme put the
Journal
down, and his hand fell on a letter that the secretary had placed by his port glass. ‘What is this?'

Gutthorm said it had arrived in the morning mail. He hadn't passed it on at once because he wasn't sure where the guest was lodged.

‘Capital!' said Hallowhulme, eyeing the address – then, ‘Awkward.' He glanced sidelong at Murdo. He cleared his throat and told Robert that they would join the ladies now, and were all ready for the coffee and cake. Rixon and Elov, startled, knocked back their glasses.

As everyone got up, Murdo said he had some business.

‘Nonsense, cousin, leave it for now. Come in and have coffee.' Hallowhulme collected Murdo as he passed, wrapped an arm around his cousin's shoulders, and led him into the parlour.

Geordie followed, intrigued.

In the parlour Lord Hallowhulme stopped abruptly; he looked angry and at a loss. ‘
Where
is Miss Paxton?'

‘She went up to sit with Mr Maslen,' said Clara.

‘Send for her, Clara. I have something for her.'

‘Surely it can be carried up to her, James?'

‘Certainly not!' Lord Hallowhulme wouldn't sit. He posted himself by the mantelpiece and fidgeted. Clara kept him waiting, she let the maid who carried the coffee settle the tray before sending her out again with a summons for Miss Paxton.

When Billie came in Lord Hallowhulme took his seat. And, as soon as the fireplace was unoccupied, Murdo carried his coffee over to it and faced the fire, not the room.

‘Sit down, dear,' Clara said to Billie. ‘Do have some cake.'

Miss Paxton was watchful; her chin tilted down, she looked at them from under her eyebrows. She appeared to have guessed that she hadn't just been fetched for her share of the cake.

Then Lord Hallowhulme shuffled forward on his seat and asked her to attend a minute. He held up a knife. It was not a cake knife, Geordie saw, but one of the triangular knives from the dining table. It had a dull smear on it where Lord
Hallowhulme had licked it clean before putting it in his pocket. ‘What is this?' He asked.

‘A knife, sir,' Billie said, in a cautious voice, but as if she was used to being asked odd questions.

‘What kind of knife?'

‘A fish knife.'

‘And this?' He pointed to a groove incised the length of the blade.

Billie hesitated.

‘Yes?' Lord Hallowhulme said.

‘I believe it's a gutter of sorts.'

‘Ah. And what would you call it on a ship?'

Billie seemed puzzled. ‘A knife, sir.'

‘No. A gutter –'

‘Oh. I think maybe the scuppers.' She smiled faintly. Perhaps she was thinking of the drunken sailor.

James Hallow stooped, peered at her hard, then
straightened
and asked her if she could point to something in the room which could be described as a vertical.

Billie Paxton took a few steps and touched the window frame beside the silk bellpull.

‘What about upright?' James Hallow said.

She dropped her gaze, then turned her eyes up briefly and glanced through her lashes at Murdo Hesketh. She looked for long enough so that it seemed, when she looked away again, that he'd been patently rejected. She pointed at a standard lamp.

Minnie was laughing.

Lord Hallowhulme said, ‘It is difficult with people, of course, when you have to take moral qualities into account,' explicating her joke – as if it was
his
joke, as if he could see that what she'd done was funny, but not that she'd
meant
to be. Hallowhulme gathered himself again, held his breath, and concentrated on the young woman in front of him. He directed her to the large, dingy, pastoral landscape above the
mantelpiece. Murdo moved out of her way. James Hallow followed her and actually tapped his finger against the small gold mound of a painted haystack. ‘What is this?' he said.

Billie Paxton looked, her eyes darted from the haystack to the many other objects around it. Her jaw set. ‘I can't think,' she said, after a time. ‘I know what is, but I can't think of the word.'

‘It's a haystack, dear,' Lord Hallowhulme said, kindly. Then, ‘Can you find the harrow in this picture?'

She found it straightaway.

James Hallow cleared his throat. ‘I shall have to write to Dr Morgan Pringle,' he said.

Billie was defensive. She said, ‘I can't always think of the name of the thing if I'm shown its picture.'

‘And you're quite a bright girl,' he said.

‘Yes, I am!' Billie fired up, passionate, with the first sign of tears anyone had seen. For a moment Geordie had a sense of her enormous frustration.

Lord Hallowhulme told Miss Paxton that she was a scientific puzzle, which was to say that science had recognised her problem but knew neither its cause nor its cure. ‘However,' he said, in a remote, regretful tone, ‘it
is
considered congenital.' He gave her arm a conciliatory squeeze. Then he told her that a letter had come for her, from Cornwall. Had he her permission to open it?

Billie nodded.

Lord Hallowhulme used the fish knife to slit the envelope, shook the letter open, and some other papers dropped into his lap. He read, and his neck coloured up. ‘Cousin,' he said, and held the letter out to Murdo. ‘Could you read Miss Paxton's letter to her?'

Clara said, ‘James.' She put her cake fork and her as yet untouched wedge of cake back on the table and held out her own hand for the letter. James Hallow seemed neither to hear nor see her. Clara slowly lowered her hand – she cooled, grew
dull, a dying coal under a forming skin of ash.

Murdo took the page from his cousin.

Clara told Rixon and Elov that they needn't stay – since they'd finished their cake. Elov leapt up, brushing crumbs from his front. Rixon joined him. Clara told Minnie and the Tegner twins that, if they also wished to go –

‘I'd like another piece of cake. Thank you,' Minnie said, loudly. It was a sort of bugle call, Geordie thought, not a charge, perhaps a call to muster. The Tegners hesitated, looking at Minnie, then, checked by a gesture from their mother, they left the room. Minnie cut herself another fat slice, conveyed it to her plate, sat back down, sighed in contentment, and tucked in.

Was the letter improper? Geordie wondered. Billie Paxton looked more alarmed than embarrassed. Geordie saw her steel herself, as though she expected an attack.