Flowers Stained With Moonlight (4 page)

‘How old was he,’ I insisted awkwardly. I felt rather than thought that she disliked the question, and wondered vaguely why.

‘Ah. Yes. He was … let me see, I do not know his exact age.’

‘But roughly?’

‘Roughly speaking, he must have been nearing – near fifty years old.’

‘Oh!’ My exclamation was not very discreet, but the information surprised me. As the husband of her daughter, I had naturally imagined a much younger man. Why, Mrs Bryce-Fortescue herself did not look so much.

‘Yes,’ she replied calmly. ‘You seem surprised. I suppose you expected my daughter to be married to a man closer to her own age.’

‘Yes, but it was a foolish prejudice,’ I answered humbly, disliking to have my thoughts read, even if they were very silly and obvious thoughts. ‘Can you tell me how Mr Granger became acquainted with your daughter?’

There was a faint pause. She seemed to be recollecting, or collecting, her thoughts.

‘He met her through me,’ she said. ‘I met Mr Granger at the home of some mutual friends, some seven or eight years ago. I was intrigued by him, for he was very unlike the men I was used to meeting. He had a strong and dominating personality, the kind of personality which leads a man to success no matter what his background. He had done far more, with far less advantages, than any other man of my acquaintance, and I felt a certain … admiration for him. He became a frequent caller at our house; Sylvia was then a girl of fifteen or sixteen. She was not in the least bit interested in him, but she was a very lovely girl, and I see now that he may have been … fond of her from the beginning, although he said nothing about it for many years. Indeed, he never said or hinted a word of any such thing until two years ago – all at once, and most unexpectedly.’ She flushed.

‘What happened then?’

‘Then he asked to marry her,’ she responded drily.

‘Was she pleased? How did she feel about it?’

‘I do not wish to speak for my daughter,’ she replied with a shade of coolness. ‘Naturally, she was pleased, as she
accepted the proposal. The age difference certainly did not constitute an insurmountable obstacle. But I cannot give you any details about her feelings or about the marriage. Neither my daughter nor I are given to the expression of transports of feeling. You must see if you can learn directly from her what you wish to know.’

There was something curious in her attitude; something strange, contradictory. She seemed to wish to enlighten me, and yet something blocked the flow of information, as though there were something about her daughter’s marriage, or about private affairs in general, that she seemed to feel and yet to be unable to pronounce, maybe even to herself. Perhaps she was simply obeying the impulse of discretion and the need to present a certain face to the world.

At any rate, one thing appears clear: Mrs Bryce-Fortescue is not going to drown me in a spate of worldly chatter. She will put her house at my disposal, and answer factual questions to the best of her ability, but I do not think she is sincerely capable of doing more. Her character forbids it.

At length, and after a good deal of mutual silence, the carriage drew up in front of Mrs Bryce-Fortescue’s imposing home. The house is indescribably full of charm; summer roses fall in clusters over the low, projecting southern wing, and the warm stone of an unusual rosy hue, bringing to mind the ‘Maidstone’ of the house’s name, peeps through them in the sunshine. Light glints on the casements and large trees cast shade over a wild little garden surrounded by a low, moss-covered wall, with a gate giving onto the vast fields and lanes beyond. I stopped, delighted, and stared about me.

‘Here we are: welcome to Maidstone Hall. I am afraid that it is in rather a sorry state,’ said Mrs Bryce-Fortescue, leading me up the somewhat overgrown garden path. ‘I have not been able to keep it up as it deserves, since my husband died.’

‘But it’s lovely!’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s one of the loveliest houses I’ve ever seen!’ The sun glanced over its irregular stone surface, burnished by time and enlivened by wild flowers and grasses spilling out of the many nooks and crannies.

‘Lovely, but rotting slowly from within,’ she replied sadly. ‘The entire part of the roof over the west wing leaks, and that part of the house cannot be used. We have no gardener, and the garden is sadly neglected. Mr Huxtable and I occasionally work in it, but purely for the pleasure that a sunny garden can bring – we are no professionals! Snowdrops in January, crocuses in February, daffodils in March, wisteria in April, and then the roses – all these come by themselves, year after year, through no effort of ours other than a mild pruning. In my grandfather’s time, a bevy of servants, workers and gardeners kept the place in order; it is not a very large house, but it is extremely old and has a great deal of history. It has belonged to my family for many generations, and each one has added some dramatic event or another to its story.’

‘It is enchanting, just as it is,’ I told her. ‘It would be almost a pity for it to be kept neat and orderly.’

‘It would be a pity if the roof fell in entirely! And the day that will happen may not be so far away,’ she responded tartly. ‘But the rather small part of the house that we
occupy is in good enough condition, fortunately. Please come inside. I shall introduce you to the servants, and take you around.’

We entered the front door, bending our heads slightly to avoid the overhanging bunches of roses, and found ourselves in a cool hallway. A very elderly man stood there, greeting us with smooth politeness. Behind us, Peter had unhitched the horses and was leading them towards the rickety stables that could be seen at some little distance.

‘This is Mr Huxtable,’ said Mrs Bryce-Fortescue with great formality. ‘Mr Huxtable, this is our new guest, Miss Duncan.’

Mr Huxtable welcomed me with great, if slightly doddering, polish, and took my shawl and hat.

‘Miss Sylvia and Miss Wright are in the parlour. Luncheon will be served very shortly,’ he informed us, before disappearing through a swinging door at the end of the passage into some mysterious nether regions of the house which I immediately determined to investigate at the soonest opportunity.

Apart from the swinging door, three other doors gave onto the hallway where we stood, one on the left and two on the right. Mrs Bryce-Fortescue opened the left-hand one first.

‘This is the only room in the west wing we continue to use,’ she said, beckoning me to look inside. ‘As it is on the ground floor, it is not really in danger from the roof. The chamber above it receives most of the water, and we have bricked and covered the floor very thickly and put in a great many buckets, to protect the ceiling here. It is rather a lot
of work to keep the water from leaking through, but we cannot do without our library. The collection is the work of my father and my grandfather. Mr Huxtable keeps it in order. I do not know what I would do without him. He does not have much work to do as a butler, here, when I am so often alone, but I believe he enjoys pottering about the house and garden as a pastime.’

I looked beyond her into a very spacious, high-ceilinged room, entirely lined with books on beautifully built shelves, elegantly carpeted, and furnished with burnished wooden desks with leather surfaces and writing lamps, and a few plump, deep leather armchairs. No fire burned in the vast fireplace, but the room was free of dust, and had a warmly loved and lived-in look. A long gallery or balcony ran around three sides of it, well above head level, and many more bookshelves stood upon it.

‘It’s wonderful!’ I exclaimed. ‘One could stay here for years, just reading!’

‘No one could read all that,’ she smiled. ‘I have not read one tenth, probably not even one twentieth of it. But I love it just the same. I spent many hours here as a child. Now, let us go into the parlour and meet the girls.’

She closed the door, and opened one of those on the right-hand side of the entrance hall. With a swish of skirts, two young ladies who were seated there rose to greet us. The parlour was a much less imposing room than the library, though very charming. The upholstery was much used and the original prints were almost invisibly pale. The large bay window looked out over the front walk up which
we had come a few minutes before. All trace of the horses, the carriage and Peter had now disappeared. I had only time to observe so much before my hand was taken in a weak but nervous gesture by a small, very cool one, and I found myself facing a pretty young lady of near my own age.

‘I am Sylvia Granger,’ she was saying, and I observed her with great care. She was a pale, eggshell delicate creature with an air of almost painful fragility that was quite touching. Her ash blonde hair was drawn back into a soft, loose round mass on her neck. She was, of course, entirely dressed in mourning, but her dress was not fashionably tight about the waist; its supple fabric and soft, unconstraining lines would delight that contemporary
arbiter elegantiarum
Oscar Wilde.

‘I am very pleased to meet you,’ I said. ‘Your mother has told me so much about you.’ The phrase was awkward, but then, so was the situation. I knew that I was supposed to be a daughter of friends of Mrs Bryce-Fortescue, but this morsel of information was far from sufficient to teach me how to play my part – some elements of character were needed! I quickly decided to play, as much as possible, the part of myself: a poor, hard-working, but enterprising young lady, delighted to be invited to an elegant and friendly house. Not so far from the truth.

‘Did she?’ responded Sylvia slowly, with a hint of annoyance in her tone. I smiled blandly and engagingly, in order to convey the impression that Mrs Bryce-Fortescue had made only the most banal remarks. Which also was not so far from the truth.

‘This is my friend Camilla Wright,’ said Sylvia, turning
to her friend who was coming up to join us. She was quite different from Sylvia; rather taller, a handsome girl, with thick black waves of hair combed back and gathered into a large firm knot held with a net. She stretched out her hand and shook mine rather firmly, then suddenly smiled.

‘I’m very glad to meet you,’ she said simply. ‘It’s a lovely place. We walk a great deal; I hope you will join us sometimes for a ramble.’

‘Oh, yes, indeed!’ I chimed in girlishly, feeling rather foolish, and wondering if she, too, were not playing a role. I hoped she didn’t mean to keep me at a distance, and that I should eventually manage to get to know her better, as I thought she could be a precious source of information.

Our small talk was a little strained, as I simply could not feel free in the presence of Mrs Bryce-Fortescue, and was furthermore a little nervous about making some awkward slip. It was a relief when luncheon was finally announced, and we entered the dining room next to the parlour.

The luncheon was served by Mr Huxtable, together with a rather gaunt person called Sarah. The table was long and the four of us were necessarily rather far apart, which made conversation even more difficult than before. The others seemed used to it; their remarks were all tranquilly banal, and mostly concerned the food. The meal was spare and the ingredients simple: a chop and green beans followed by a fruit pudding, the whole of it, however, beautifully prepared. After it was finished and cleared away, Mrs Bryce-Fortescue sent Mr Huxtable to fetch the cook, for she wished to introduce her to me. We spoke only for
a brief moment, standing at the swinging door leading into the servants’ quarters, but Mrs Firmin was so friendly and plump, so frankly pleased to have another guest to feed, and so openly and simply eager to discuss the fascinating subject of cooking, that I found myself sighing with the sheer relief of being acquainted with such a person after the social strain I had just endured!

‘Do you like spotted dick, dearie?’ she was saying pleasantly. ‘Lovely – we’ll have that tonight, then, after the roast. Just let me know if there’s any special thing you’d favour.’

Mr Huxtable, Sarah and Mrs Firmin comprise the entire staff of the household. It seems a small one, yet when I reflect that Mrs Bryce-Fortescue lives most of the time quite alone, I suppose that after all it is probably more than sufficient.

After the culinary conversation, Mrs Bryce-Fortescue showed me upstairs to my room, the farthest of a line of three small chambers next to each other on the left-hand side of the narrow passageway lying directly over the large one below.

‘My room is there, and the bathroom is beyond,’ she said, gesturing towards the closed doors on the right-hand side of the passage before opening the one leading into the room in which she had placed me. It was a neat little square, with a window looking out over the gardens at the back of the house.

‘This other door leads into the chamber over the library,’ she told me, indicating a closed door on the opposite side of the room from the one we entered by, with a little dressing
table in front of it. ‘It is bolted shut, for we no longer enter that room. Not only is there a real danger of tiles or parts of beams falling from the roof into the room, as has already happened several times, but the floor has been inundated with water so deeply and so often that we fear it is quite rotten in parts, under the bricks, and we are afraid it may break open over the library. This room used to be Sylvia’s old schoolroom, but we have fitted it out with a bed since then. Camilla is next to you, in the room that was once used by Sylvia’s governess, and she herself is in her own bedroom beyond. We have no problems with floors or ceilings in these little rooms; they and the roof above them were strengthened and rebuilt just two years ago.’

‘It must be a great job to have the roof mended,’ I remarked.

‘Yes, it is a difficult job, for the rotten beams must be carefully removed and replaced and the roof tiles also. It was … it was thanks to the generosity of my son-in-law that I could have it done. He offered to have some of the most urgent work on the house done for me when he married Sylvia, and I – I accepted his offer.’

‘That was very kind of him,’ I said innocently, although Mr Granger’s gift sounded suspiciously like what is known as a bride-price in certain primitive societies. Mrs Bryce-Fortescue did not answer, and I began to have a feeling that Mr Granger was not a simple character. I determined that my first step would be to spare no efforts to find out everything I could about the kind of man he was, and decided that my first source of information should
be the coachman Peter. I asked if it would be all right for Peter to take me to the post office tomorrow.