The Dress Lodger (27 page)

“What did you want to discuss?”

No. Not yet. Why spoil it for her so soon? “It can wait until we get there,” he finishes weakly.

Gustine nods and turns her attention back to the wonderful new things around her. They are quickly out of Monkwearmouth township and headed west on wide, straight Southwick Lane. She still has no idea where they are going, knows only that the landscape is changing around her. Lowlying streets distend into terraced rows of houses under construction, houses give way to soft hillocks dotted with winter-shorn ash and elder trees. Rows of carefully planted white globe turnips radiate out from the road, planted to feed the shorthorn cattle considered (by those whose job it is to judge such things) the most handsome in all of England. Gustine has never seen a cow anyplace but the East End, led, with the rest of its condemned herd, down the narrow lanes to the Queen Street slaughterhouse. How foreign and beautiful the white creatures seem in this habitat, their dewlaps swinging as they nuzzle browning autumn grass, their arched tails flicking when they lift their eyes to watch the carriage pass.

The only thing marring her delight is Henry’s strange diffidence. She wishes he would tell her the names of these cows or what part of the county they are in, but nothing in his manner invites conversation. Why would he invite her on holiday and then punish her with silence?

“Where are we going?” she asks at last, when they have been driving without speaking for half an hour. The baby has fallen asleep on her lap, lulled by the swaying of the carriage; but she has begun to labour under an unwelcome suspicion. What if he is stealing away with them like he made off with Fos the other night? It’s strange he has not spoken of that. Where are we going? She is about to demand an answer when a boxy pile of stones appears on a hilltop. They crest the next hill, and the stones resolve themselves into a building—a white, soaring building, taller than anything Gustine has ever seen. Flags fly from its top, an arcade of oak trees lead up to its door. Where on earth are they? Henry stops the rig and turns to her at last.

“I thought you might like to see a castle,” he says.

Tall, turreted Hylton Castle stands halfway between Sunderland and Washington, its neighbour to the west, Henry tells Gustine, who sits up very straight in the carriage, her eyes wide, her mouth half-open. She has never in her life seen a building so grand. Though Sunderland has grown famous for its Iron Bridge, and Washington infamous as the family seat of the first American president, Hylton Castle must not be denied its fair share of glory. Erected by our venerable William de Hylton sometime during the reign of Henry V, the fortress served its purpose up through the Border Wars, when it fell into disuse and was employed as a barn by a local farmer. The family took it up again in the seventeenth century, adding two Georgian wings in the next hundred years, replacing the battlement machicolations with modern pediment windows, and bricking in the roof troughs formerly used for the pouring of boiling oil. Upon the death of the last Hylton baron in 1746, the estate passed to a nephew, who promptly sold it to one Mrs. Bowes of Streatlam and Gibside (who, though she never lived there, added a loggia and a long row of low Gothic buildings), after which the place was leased to Simon Temple, who improved it with gardens and pleasure grounds, then to Mr. Thomas Wade, who has it now, and is once more letting it fall to ruin.

The castle’s fame came from the legend of the Cauld Lad, the spirit of a young servant slain by an especially brutal lord, who haunted Hylton Castle’s kitchens, washing dishes if dishes were left undone, scattering plates and food if the staff proved itself too industrious. He was an odd sort of ghost, far more home-economical than malevolent, and at length was propitiated away completely with a little set of green clothes. Here’s a cloak and here’s a hood, he was heard to say before he vanished, the Cauld Lad will do no more good.

“An honest-to-God castle, just like the one where King William lives and King George and Queen Caroline!” Gustine shouts over her shoulder, leaping from the carriage. “It’s bigger than the Corn Exchange on High Street.”

“See those three crenellated towers in the center and the old carved coats of arms over the door?” Henry says, catching up with their picnic lunch. “That’s the original castle. But the two wings, north and south, were obviously added early last century; you can tell because they are very symmetrical and tidy. And look at the statues of those warriors with pikes fixed atop the towers!” Henry chuckles at the grotesquery of his forefathers’ taste. “They are supposed to be keeping you out, I suppose.”

“Am I not supposed to be here?” Gustine asks worriedly.

Henry shakes his head. “You have every right to be here.”

“Whose are all these?” She points to the clutter of crests surrounding the Hylton Moses with horns. Henry tries to remember what his uncle told him on his first visit, almost a year ago. The rampant lion belongs to the Percy family, the three parrots to the Lumleys; the Eure of Witton, he seems to remember, has the shield with three shells. The Wassyngton (or Washington) family is represented too (a Hylton married into the clan), with their three stars and two crossbars, which was to become the pattern for the American flag. Gustine won’t recognize any of the names, and he doubts if she any idea in which direction America lies.

“Those crests belong to a gaggle of rich noblemen,” he tells her. “Locals and their in-laws.”

“Can we go into the house?” she asks timidly.

He would not hesitate to ask for a tour were his companion Audrey or Mrs. Clanny, but to introduce an East End urchin into a manor home? Henry hesitates. No, that is really going too far. “I don’t believe visitors are allowed inside,” he lies.

“Well, we can see in, at least,” she says. Around back, the shutters to the first story of both wings stand open, and if Henry would give her a boost, she could just make out some of the rich and elaborate furnishings. Well, what could be the harm in that? Setting down the picnic basket, he makes a stirrup out of his hands, and raises her above the sill. Gustine could never have begun to imagine the opulence inside. Not even her peeps into the Bridge Inn dining room have prepared her.

“Look, baby,” she says, holding up the child in her arms. “There’s a woman’s bedroom, painted pink with a white and gold ceiling. It has dainty little chairs, dunked in gold, with dark pink cushions. Look, there’s a clock just like the one we make at the pottery! And there in the corner, a bed dressed as if ready to march down the aisle, all turned out in white silk and damask and panels of illusion. Dr. Chiver,” she calls down, “I bet only one woman sleeps in that bed, and it looks like it could hold eight, while another forty or so could spread out on the floor. Move down one.”

He chuckles and carries her over a few feet so that she might see into the next room. The bottom of her shift brushes his face lightly.

“This room is completely different,” she informs him. “It’s part of the old castle. Look, dearest,” she again addresses the child, “there are long red and blue carpets on the wall with cone-headed women on them, and in their laps are deer—no, what do you call those white animals with the horn? In the middle of their heads?”

“Unicorns,” Henry replies, straining a bit to support her.

“Yes, unicorns are on the carpets, and there’s a fireplace five times as big as Mill Street’s, with lions guarding it. But don’t worry, they’re not real. There’s a long table, as long as the room almost, and dark heavy chairs. I can’t imagine only one family eats at that. …”

“It’s probably the old banquet hall,” Henry tells her. The foot in his hands is so small, even in its heavy boot, it might be a little girl’s. It strains against his fingers, pushing up onto tiptoe.

“Move down one,” she laughs, kicking him lightly with her free foot. “Baby and I want to see.”

Henry is surprised at himself. He, too, is laughing like a jackanapes, hopping down a few feet so that they might spy into another window. The mid-afternoon sun has played magician with Gustine’s worn-out shift, making the sheer fabric nigh invisible. He colours a bit at his proximity to her straining slender leg, so close that he might shut his eyes and rest his cheek upon it. She is barely more than a girl, but the things she must do to her lover, to have him begging for her on the street… Henry pushes these thoughts away. She is utterly unlike the mocking, bawdy whores of Sunderland, which makes her all the more dangerous; a man might forget for a minute what she is, and be lost forever.

“Hullo there, you!” a strange voice shouts. Henry starts up, letting Gustine’s foot slip from his hands. About thirty yards away, coming around the corner of the building, is an old man carrying a rake. He is dressed in brown homespun like a groundskeeper and wears a wide-brimmed felt hat to shade his face.

“Who ayr ye and where ayr ye from?” calls the groundskeeper, keeping his distance.

“Dr. Chiver of Sunderland and a friend,”replies Henry. “We’re up for a picnic.”

“Take yer picnic elsewhere, m’good man. Mr. Wade wants no visitors from a plague town.” The groundskeeper swings around his rake and leans upon it meaningfully. “When we care to die o’ cholery morbus, we’ll be sure t’let you know.”

“We are not infected,” Henry says indignantly.

“P’raps not. But we’ve our orders. No chances to be taken.”

To be considered a contaminant by Mr. Wade, who knows as much about disease and suffering as he does about the making of headcheese? The doctor expects prejudice from the ignorant poor, but the wealthy should know better.

“Come on, Dr. Chiver,” Gustine says lightly, trying to hide her growing apprehension. “Let’s take our basket down the road a bit.”

“‘Ope you got no cholery on the wall there.” The groundskeeper gingerly prods the structure with his rake.

Gustine presses the baby closer and drags a fuming Henry back to the carriage. He lashes the horses, driving them half a mile up the road, until Gustine points out a naked linden tree where a patch of pea-coloured moss looks more or less inviting. If she cranes, she can still see the castle just over the rolling hill, small and white like a lost bone button.

“I apologize for that,” Henry frowns as he spreads the yellow plaid lap robe and unpacks the picnic of cold chicken, artichokes, and sherry (being servantless, Henry ‘d had to plan the meal himself). “If I’d had any idea we’d be received in such an ill-bred manner, I never would have come.”

“It’s all right,” replies Gustine.

“No.” Henry shakes his head. “It was greatly embarrassing.”

“I’m just so happy to have had a chance to see it,” Gustine says, far more at peace with embarrassment than he. “I never knew there were such homes in the world.” And Gustine is honestly happy. She does not covet that house like she did Audrey’s jewelry set last Monday night outside the Theatre Royale; for the smallest twist of fate could have clasped that necklace around her throat or screwed those earrings onto her lobes, but only an upside-down world could tuck her into the pink room’s fairy tale bed. “Thank you for thinking to bring me here.”

Her gratitude embarrasses him, and he is happy to have the food as a distraction. Self-consciously, he arranges a plate for each of them and pours two glasses of tawny Jerez oloroso.

“No thank you,” says Gustine, passing him her glass. “I don’t drink.”

“In your profession—?” Henry says, then breaks off. “Forgive me, I just assumed.”

“My mother died of drink when I was twelve,” says Gustine with little emotion. “I have no desire to follow her.” She eyes the chicken hungrily but pauses before the gray-green thistle. “What is this?”

“It’s an artichoke,” he answers with some surprise. “Haven’t you ever tried one?”

“I’ve never even seen one.” She examines it as if it were the rarest ostrich egg. “How do you eat it?”

Her sense of wonderment, he decides, that’s her charm. Peeling an outer leaf for her and one for himself, he demonstrates how to scrape away the meat. “Drag it between your teeth like this,” he says. “Go ahead. Try it.”

Gustine closes her eyes and draws the spade-shaped leaf over her bottom teeth. She keeps her eyes shut for a very long time, savouring this taste as new as an invitation, as new as a castle. “It tastes like spring,” she says.

“It’s delicate.”

“Is the whole thing like this? It would take a long time to eat.”

“Don’t be impatient.” He smiles. “It’s a food you have to work for.”

The girl nods and bites into another leaf. “I’m trying not to worry that it’s wasteful.”

“The best things are,” Henry laughs. “But we’ll cheat a little.” He plucks the sharp leaves like a lover prognosticating over a flower and, then, drawing his knife, cuts the choke away from the heart. “Eat this,” he says. “It makes it all worthwhile.”

Gustine could not feel more like a princess. Her castle lies over the hill, her prince feeds her a rare and secretive fruit. On her lap, her baby coos happily, reaching up to take the food from her mouth. She lets him gum a little piece of the light green bottom.

“Gustine,” Henry interrupts her reverie. “Why didn’t you tell me this child was yours?”

Gustine pauses over her baby’s dancing legs. The time for confession is upon her, but she dreads it. She takes a peep at the doctor’s sombre face, the same face she watched through the crack in the floor lean hungrily over Fos. The truth is she doesn’t know herself what made her hesitate the other night, when he provided her the perfect opportunity to solicit his help.

“I need to change the baby’s nappie.” She evades his question, untying the other rough cambric diaper from around her throat where she’s worn it as a neckerchief. “Excuse us.”

Henry watches her bend over the child, shake out the soiled diaper, and deftly tie it into a knot. She removes the rough cambric scarf from her neck and slips it under the baby’s chapped bum.

“I spoke to you honestly of his importance to Science,” he chides. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I have my own sort of science,” she says, slowly. “I was going to tell you today.”

He hates the sort of overcharged talk she uses to recount her first sight of him, words like Salvation and Special Gift used in conjunction with fanciful descriptions of seeing through clothes. But as silly as he finds her outpourings, it is difficult to ignore another’s appreciation of one’s own worth, or pretend disinterest in the effect one makes without being aware. For whatever misguided reasons, she did fortunately light upon the right surgeon. Henry believes, as she does, that of all the doctors in this benighted down, he is the only person to whom she might have turned.