Ravenscliffe (46 page)

‘I’ll make your excuses, darling. You mustn’t come back down if you don’t want to. We can manage without you.’ She leaned in and kissed Thea on the mouth, gentle and swift, not lingering, then she let her hands drop and walked to the door, though it was the very opposite of what she wished to do. If Thea had called her back with the seductive voice she occasionally used; if she had let her clear green eyes drop from Henrietta’s face and roam slowly up and down her body – then all notions of duty and responsibility would have evaporated in the heat of a delicious pursuit of mutual pleasure. But not now: not today. Thea merely turned away in chilly silence, leaving Henrietta to return alone to the drawing room and attempt to explain to a wondering audience the extraordinary behaviour of their young hostess.

For a long while Thea stood, just where she was, as if held there by the fibres of the carpet. She felt caged, hemmed in – ironic, in this vast house, but true. Soon they would be leaving Netherwood for Fulton House, and there, in the noise and the crush of the capital, she knew she would feel less constrained. But even while she anticipated a change of surroundings, her independent spirit resisted their reasons for decamping to London. They were going simply because everyone was going. They were going because it was May, the beginning of the Season, when the important families of England flocked like migrating birds to their London residences. And this was her life: predictability, the price of privilege.

She moved to the long cheval mirror and looked at her reflection with a hard, appraising gaze. Thin, pale, a weakness at the chin – her father’s chin – but wide, mesmerising eyes – her mother’s eyes – and lips that curved naturally into a charming smile. Hair: nothing special but beautifully cut. Bosom: flat. Derrière: flat also. Stomach: concave. She smiled at herself, then frowned.

‘You,’ she said, ‘are a Moaning Minnie and you should snap right out of it.’

She turned this way and that, admiring her silhouette in the oyster silk day dress, which swung with a fluid motion about her shins. This pleased her. Her lovely couture collection, growing ever larger, was a significant source of satisfaction and a not inconsiderable advantage of her new status. By the tiniest degree, her mood began to improve. In the mirror, the reflected Thea watched closely, as if awaiting instructions. All her life, her central and most dearly held tenet had been this: resist the predictable, the unexceptional, the inevitable. And yet here she was, apparently expected to make one of two choices: a solitary afternoon in her bedroom or a stultifying afternoon in the drawing room. She stood a moment longer, thinking, and then from outside, the sound of a motorcar filtered into her consciousness. Someone leaving already? Or an arrival, perhaps? A new guest might be just the ticket, stir things up a little, and with a further small lifting of the heart she moved across to the window and saw Tobias at the wheel of the Wolseley with Jonty Allsop and Dickie crammed in next to him. Instantly, Thea pushed up the sash window and yelled at them – ‘Hey! Where d’ya think you’re going?’ – and though her voice was almost certainly not audible above the engine, some sixth sense made Toby glance up at her window, whereupon he stopped the car at once and climbed out. ‘Thea, my dearest darling,’ he shouted, then: ‘Why aren’t you with the ladies?’ which made her feel cross all over again.

‘Never mind that,’ she said sharply. ‘Where are you going and why aren’t you taking me?’

‘To the fair. And we did look for you, but you were mysteriously absent from the party. I assumed you were otherwise engaged.’ She loved this about Toby; if ever she wasn’t where she should be, he hardly minded. It gave her the sense that within their marriage she was free. ‘My tropical bird,’ he had said to her once, before the wedding, when she was still to be convinced. ‘I would never try to cage you or clip your wings.’ It had inclined her towards marrying him, that promise, along – of course – with his sister’s passionate intensity. It had seemed to Thea like a perfect arrangement and now, looking down at her husband, she smiled.

‘Wait there,’ she called, and she darted away, appearing through the front door of the house not two minutes later. She had on a pea-green velvet jacket and a beret in the same fabric and colour, set at a jaunty angle. He folded his arms and watched her approach, a smile of satisfied ownership on his face. Thea Stirling – for this is how he thought of her still – was his. She reached his side and opened her mouth to reprimand him, but he stopped her with a kiss.

‘Gorgeous woman,’ he said then. ‘Simply gorgeous. You’ll come with us then, I hope?’

‘You make it sound as if it was your idea,’ she said. ‘You make it sound as if you weren’t about to slink off with your cronies, leaving me in the drawing room crossing verbal swords with your mother.’

He held up his hands in defence, the image of innocence wronged.

‘You were nowhere to be found, my love. We searched high and low, didn’t we, chaps?’

He looked back over his shoulder for support and Dickie, from the car, said: ‘Get a move on, old thing. Thea can have my lap.’ He slapped his thighs with both hands.

‘Must I?’ she said, but she was laughing, and she didn’t need to be asked twice.

A potent mix of mingled aromas assaulted Anna as she waited at the foot of the Ferris wheel; trodden grass, engine oil, frying onions. These were the sort of smells that clung to your clothes and hair: that seeped into your pores and followed you home. And the noise! She’d have her hands over her ears if she hadn’t needed them to keep her purse safe in her pocket. Next to her, too close for comfort, an organ grinder wound out an unmelodic racket, competing for precedence with a constant cacophony of shrieking from the thrill-seekers; his monkey, sporting a tiny red fez and sultan’s robe, bared its teeth at her and chattered menacingly. She suffered silently, the official keeper of the loose change and occasional holder of the coats, waiting stoically in the crush for the ride to slow and stop. When the children – laughing from on high, tousled and red-cheeked – caught her eye and waved, she smiled and waved back at them with an attempt at jollity, but it was a poor effort, anyone could see that.

‘I don’t have stomach for it,’ she said, when they begged her to join them on the merry-go-round or the cakewalk, and it was true. Even watching made her queasy. Eve and Daniel and all the children had ridden the magnificent new steam yachts, great painted boats that swung in a wide, sweeping arc, back and forth through the air, and Anna had had to look away. Now she stood with her back to the Ferris wheel because to watch its motion – smooth and sedate though it was – made her dizzy.

‘You look as though you lost a dollar and found a dime.’

Thea Hoyland stood before her in a covetable green beret, beaming.

‘You remember me, right? Thea Stirling. Thea Hoyland now, of course. Or am I Thea Netherwood? Never quite sure. We met weeks ago. This isn’t your idea of fun, huh?’

Anna took the proffered hand, and shook it. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Opposite of fun.’ She looked so glum that Thea laughed.

‘You’re kind of bad for business, I should think. Hey, what do you say we take a stroll, away from the mayhem?’

This was the new countess and all about them men were doffing their caps as they passed, but her manner was so completely informal that Anna saw nothing unusual in the invitation. However, she had Seth and Eliza’s jackets tucked under one arm, and she indicated these with a gloomy expression, as if they presented an insurmountable obstacle to any change of plan. Thea smiled and said: ‘We’ll wait for the Ferris wheel to stop, then. Gosh, he looks a malevolent little fellow.’

She was talking about the monkey, who had shifted his attentions from Anna now and had hunkered down on his little platform as if preparing to spring at Thea instead. She beat him to it, lunging towards him and pulling a face, imitating his own grimace. The monkey shrank back, alarmed, and Anna laughed.

‘Got to stand up to bullies,’ Thea said, then: ‘Look, here everyone comes.’ She nodded at the people spilling off the Ferris wheel and smiled at Anna. ‘You’re almost free.’

‘Are you alone here?’ Anna said, suddenly struck by the unsuitability of a lady, and a titled one at that, wandering unescorted around a fairground.

‘Only by choice. I left my husband in a nasty little beer tent drinking flat brown ale. I’m to meet him by the coconuts at four, but I haven’t yet decided if I will, or if I won’t. He must take his chances.’

Thea grinned and Anna thought, what a powerful, irresistible thing was a ready, engaging smile. ‘Here we are, about
time too,’ Thea was saying, bright and brisk. She took the jackets and thrust them at Daniel, then she looped an arm through Anna’s and pulled her away from the crowd. Eve and the children, joining him, followed his stupefied gaze as Anna, with a brief, apologetic backwards glance, headed away up the common with the Countess of Netherwood.

‘I
’m so pleased to see you again,’ Thea said, the instant they were off. ‘I’ve thought a lot about you since we met.’

‘Have you?’ Anna sounded sceptical. Surely the new wife of the Earl of Netherwood would have more to think about than their chance meeting on the common?

‘I have. You were up a stepladder painting your front door.’

‘I was, yes. I painted whole house, in fact.’

‘Golly, did you really? May I see?’

‘The house?’

Thea nodded. ‘May I? I’d love to view your handiwork.’

Anna cut her a sidelong glance.

‘You think I’m odd, I suppose,’ Thea said. ‘And I suppose I am.’

She laughed, apparently delighted by her oddness, then was suddenly all seriousness again.

‘Have you ever met a person with whom you feel an instant connection?’

‘Yes I have,’ Anna said at once. ‘Eve.’

‘Eve MacLeod, really? Right, because, you see, I met her
down at the hall once or twice and while she seems very nice, I didn’t feel it at all. But then that’s the thing, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’ Anna was utterly perplexed.

‘Chemistry. Here it works, there it doesn’t, and not one of us can say who’s going to spark it off. Do you agree?’

Anna had barely time to frame a response when Thea took off again.

‘So when I met you, I just knew you would be significant to me somehow. There you were, the very spirit of independence, and I recognised something of myself in you.’

‘The very spirit of independence,’ Anna said. She was rather enjoying this conversation.

‘Yes! So plucky and pretty, and capable. Who are you? I mean, you know – where are you from?’

They were at Ravenscliffe now – it really was very close – and Anna led Thea through the garden gate.

‘Oh,’ she said, distracted by the house’s sturdy presence. ‘This is something, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ Anna said. ‘What you said about connections, I felt it here too. It can happen with houses, just as it happens with people.’

‘It can, yes it can,’ said Thea. She nodded her head vigorously. ‘And I don’t have it at all with Netherwood Hall, which is a shame because I have to live there. Fulton House comes closer, but still … my favourite house in the entire world is a white clapboard beach house on Long Island. I spent every summer there until I was sixteen and I long to go back. So, you were saying?’

‘Was I?’

‘Yes, at least, you were about to. I want you to tell me about yourself. Where are you from – that accent, is it Polish?’

‘Russian,’ Anna said. ‘Kiev.’

‘Kiev! How wonderful. Was it wonderful?’

‘Not entirely,’ said Anna. She took out her key and turned
the lock, pushing the door open. The walls of the entrance hall were golden, rich and mellow, the colour of hay in the August sun; they glowed with warmth. Anna’s spirits always lifted when she entered the house, and they did again now. Thea, distracted once more from her interrogation, said: ‘This colour – where did you find it?’

‘I mixed it, from two other colours.’

‘You did? How did you know to do that?’ She didn’t wait for an answer but walked down the hallway until she reached a closed door. ‘May I?’ she said, and Anna nodded. Thea turned the handle, opened the door, looked inside. Green, this time, but almost blue too, with a damask-style repeated pattern in silvery grey. Thea stepped inside and again her fingers traced the wall. I do hope they’re clean, Anna thought.