The Honours (18 page)

A small, typewritten card tucked into the corner of the frame read:
November 1888. Assistant Keeper Mr H. Garforth recovers the last of the weekend's bag. Over two days' shooting, six guns (Lord Alderberen, Sir N. Goole, Cpt. B. Hunstanton, Mr M. Rao, Mr B. Khan, Rev. J. S. Coe) accounted for 2,686 pheasants, 80 partridges, 74 hares, 134 rabbits and 1 woodcock
.

Delphine examined the young Mr Garforth. He wore a black coat with a high collar and six brass buttons down the front. Beneath the pushed-back brim of his bowler hat, his face was tanned and lineless.

The photograph to the left showed a youth in a pith helmet, squatting with his rifle across his knees in front of a felled water buffalo. In the background, amongst tall dry grass, an Indian servant smiled uncertainly. The caption read:
Mysore, 1869. The young sahib shows off his first trophy
.

Tucked away in the top-left of the display was a photograph that looked to have been taken in the orangery. The washed-out, blurry
image showed a dozen men and women dressed in kimonos, holding fans and parasols; at the front of the group stood a slight man in black evening dress, clutching a katana in an elaborate gilt-iron scabbard. He stood with one shoulder dipped, looking past the camera as if someone had just called to him. Delphine had to squint to read the little card in the corner of the frame:
March 1853. The 3rd Earl of Alderberen and servants prepare for the annual Birthday Play
.

Her chest clenched. She stared at the figure at the front of the photograph. His face was a blot of white.

She had always assumed no photographs existed of Lord Alderberen's father. Wasn't he supposed to have been a recluse? Hadn't he hidden himself away, because he was deformed, or a vampire, or a lunatic?

‘Don't eat with your mouth open,' said Mr Garforth, flicking a clot of crabmeat from his whiskers. He was always grumpy at Sunday supper, partly out of tiredness (the walk to church was a round trip of eight miles), and partly because Mrs Hagstrom insisted on tuning the wireless to Radio Luxembourg, which he disapproved of because it carried advertisements for the pools on the Sabbath.

Delphine swallowed her last mouthful of bread and jam.

‘I thought the old Earl didn't like to go out.'

‘What are you talking about?'

She pointed at the faded photograph. Everybody turned to look. Mr Garforth peered over his shoulder, craning his neck until his eyes found the picture.

‘Well?' she said.

Mr Garforth took a piece of bread and began to butter it with the easy grace of a barber stropping a razor. ‘That was taken before the fire.'

Alice helped Mrs Hagstrom clear the plates away. Mrs Hagstrom laid out a coffee cake cut up into fingers, a dish of bourbons and a bowl of oranges.

‘So, Henry.' Mrs Hagstrom took an orange from the pile. ‘I suppose it's too much to hope that you might have passed a broom round that grubby cottage of yours since I last came by? Place was like a coalmine.'

‘I'm
fine
, thank you.'

She jabbed her fingernail into the peel and tore off a strip. ‘You're a man, is what you are, Henry, and a proud one at that, one who'd rather live in squalor than admit he needs help. When was the last time you had visitors?'

Delphine thought Mr Garforth's cottage was very tidy, thank you very much. Mr Garforth dunked a bourbon into his tea and looked murderous.

‘I'm supposed to have the afternoon off Wednesday,' said Mrs Hagstrom. ‘I'll be round with the mop and duster, if only to save you from yourse – '

‘No. Muriel.' Mr Garforth held up a palm. ‘Can't let you do that.'

She ripped off more skin. ‘I insist.'

‘That's very kind, but no.'

‘Henry, you can't go on living as you do.'

‘I get by.'

‘I'm coming round and that's that.'

‘No!' Mr Garforth slammed a palm against the table. Delphine's cake fork bounced off her lap and hit the floor. She ducked under the table to retrieve it.

The first thing she saw was Alice's little white hand smoothing Reggie's thigh. She flushed and began groping about on the cold tiles for her fork, unable to focus. Muffled through a layer of oak, she heard Mr Garforth say: ‘Please. Just leave me be. I'll tidy the clutter in my own time.'

After everyone had finished, Mr Garforth took out his pipe while Reggie and Alice and Mr Wightman lit cigarettes. Mrs Hagstrom took a bottle of scotch whisky from the cupboard and poured everyone a glass. She let Delphine have a drop watered down in a mug. Delphine sipped it and felt needling fire across her gums and tongue. Delphine asked for a cigarette and Mr Garforth gave her a look, so she leant back and listened to the wireless and smelt his tobacco, mild and wafting like a hayloft in summer.

Somewhere behind her head, a maple-cased wall clock tocked dully. Mr Garforth said that, back in the old days, the Hall employed
a clockman whose sole job it was to patrol the house winding the various timepieces. Now, Lord Alderberen barely kept enough staff to make dinner.

‘He was a good man.'

It took Delphine a moment to realise that the speaker was Mr Wightman. He gazed at the barred slit of a window on the far wall.

‘Shy, maybe. Not mad.' At this, Delphine worked out who he was talking about. ‘His Lordship's father never needed
tunnels
. The village was ailing. He knew we wouldn't take charity. He invented jobs. The tunnels were just an excuse. His wife had passed. Young Master Lazarus was packed off to India. He became father to all of us. He was lonely.'

Mr Wightman refilled his glass with whisky. He opened his tobacco tin to reveal a few loose brown threads. Alice nudged Reggie, who took a pack of Player's from his shirt pocket and tapped one out onto the table. Mr Wightman accepted the cigarette. He struck a match against the white brick.

‘Did you know him?' said Alice.

‘Nope. Before my time.' He touched the flame to the tip of his cigarette. ‘But I lived amongst them as did – my father included. I never heard anyone speak ill of his Lordship. No one had a bad thing to say.'

‘I don't wonder no one had a bad thing to say,' said Reggie, making a face as he sipped his whisky. ‘They never saw him.'

‘Is it true he never left his bedroom for thirty years?' said Alice. ‘And that he took all his meals through a special letterbox?'

Mrs Hagstrom hissed. ‘Don't be so stupid, girl.'

‘Father said the letterbox was for letters,' said Mr Wightman. ‘Correspondence in, instructions for the workers out. He took his meals through a hatch. And it wasn't just his bedroom. It was most of the west-wing first floor. His Lordship liked his privacy. After the fire, the only person allowed into his chambers was Mr Cox, his valet.'

‘I reckon he was sneaking out,' said Reggie. ‘All those tunnels. I reckon he had a bird.'

‘I reckon you'd best keep your opinions to yourself, lad,' said Mr Garforth.

‘All the stories of her Ladyship say she was a remarkable woman,' said Mr Wightman. ‘A little quiet perhaps but, oh, what a beauty. She was dearer to his Lordship than . . . well, you've seen all the portraits. They were all done after the fire. He filled the house with her. All the pictures of him he had taken down and destroyed. That photograph was down the back of a wardrobe for twenty years. It was like he thought if he didn't exist, she could live.'

A bell jangled in the adjoining room.

‘That's me.' Alice finished her whisky and stood. She ducked through the archway. Delphine watched from the table as she fastened her white bib apron in a smudged looking-glass.

Mrs Hagstrom shook her head. ‘We're run ragged in this house. So much for giving everyone jobs.'

‘Muriel, that's enough,' said Mr Garforth.

She held up her sinewy hands. ‘Well, hang me for being honest. If it weren't for the dailies, I'd of dropped down dead years ago. Half the Hall's under dust sheets. For the number of staff we struggle by on, you'd think we were working for the village doctor.'

Alice returned carrying a silver tray with scalloped edges. On the tray sat a pot of tea, a tumbler of scotch, and a brown glass bottle. Delphine squinted at the label. In Dr Lansley's familiar, regimented hand she made out the words:
tincture of silver
.

Mr Wightman knuckled at his eyes. For a strange second, Delphine thought he was crying.

‘That's the problem with this country,' he said. ‘Everything's gone to ruin. All the good men, all the gentlemen and hardworking lads, got nobbled in France. All that's left are bank managers and soft-bellied Sunday golfers.' He sucked on his cigarette and it glowed like his forge. ‘The old master lost his wife. He could've took the coward's way out, but he didn't. He soldiered on. Even in his misery, he was always looking for ways to help others.

‘Same with his Lordship. After what happened with Arthur . . . ' He took a sharp breath and drained his glass. ‘The whole Stokeham bloodline's cursed. But they fight it. They won't give in to fate.'

His hand was shaking as he ground his cigarette out.

‘Oh, but you can't escape your fate,' said Alice. ‘A fortune teller
told my Uncle Jack that he wouldn't go on holiday this year. He went to Southend just to spite her and got hit by a trolleybus.'

Delphine imagined the shriek of brakes, the dry thud as Uncle Jack went down. She saw blood, broken teeth. She remembered Mr Kung gasping on the sand, froth pooling in his eyes.

All at once, her whisky tasted of cinders.

‘I've got to go.' She was rising, clutching at her collar. ‘Thank you. Sorry.'

The bell rang again.

‘Delphine!' said Mr Garforth.

‘I've got to go!' She spilled out into the corridor, unable to breathe. She stumbled towards the stairs. Her lungs tightened.

In unison, the Hall's clocks began striking the hour.

CHAPTER 12

THE BRAT OF HEAVEN

July 1935

D
elphine was lying on her tummy in the treehouse, poring over Mr Kung's crumpled notes. The crabbed Chinese characters were giving her a headache. Some of the larger ones looked like crude little maps. And there was that word: ‘DELLAPESTE'. Did she recognise it, or had she just stared at it for so long that it felt familiar? She slapped the page aside and heard weeping.

Delphine pressed her face flat to the floor. From somewhere in the surrounding alders and sycamores came the curt, squeaky calls and liquid trills of a goldfinch. She relaxed. She had mistaken birdsong for . . . No. There it was again. Someone was beneath her.

She slithered from the clubhouse to the crow's nest. She held her breath.

She pulled herself up and peered over the rim of the barrel. Diamonds of midday sunlight studded the woodland floor, shifting in the wind. Amongst glossy fronds of hart's tongue fern, a woman sat with her hands over her face, softly crying. Delphine saw the golden hair against the shoulder of a navy blue prefect's jacket and recognised Miss DeGroot.

Over the past couple of weeks, Miss DeGroot had begun affecting a swagger stick. The lion's head pommel lay beside her in the undergrowth. She had kicked off her chocolate-brown walking boots. She wept without ostentation.

She dragged a forearm across her eyes.

‘If you're going to stare, at least toss me a peanut.'

Delphine dropped back inside the barrel. She clamped a palm over her mouth. Perhaps Miss DeGroot had been talking to herself. Perhaps someone was coming. Delphine's heart squeezed in her chest.

‘I know you're up there. I can hear the boards creaking.'

Delphine held herself rigid, eyes screwed shut. If she kept still, Miss DeGroot would give up and walk away.

‘Hey. I'm not mad at you. Just trying to be neighbourly.' A sigh. ‘Okay. Have it your way. I plan on crying for a solid forty minutes, so I hope you weren't hoping to leave any time soon. Ah. There you are.'

Delphine stuck her head over the parapet. Miss DeGroot was standing, looking up at the treehouse.

‘Hello,' said Delphine.

‘Hi.' Miss DeGroot folded her arms. ‘Nice cabana you've got here.'

Delphine had a tingly sensation in her belly. ‘Thank you.'

Miss DeGroot's eyes were pink. The soft lines over her cheekbones glistened. She sniffed, then snorted unapologetically.

Delphine havered, then, with a weightless feeling, she said: ‘You can look inside, if you like.'

A corner of Miss DeGroot's smile steepened. She looked down at her fingernails.

‘You don't have to humour me. I was just kidding about the crying jag.' She swatted the air. ‘Go on. Enjoy your freedom while you still have some.' She began walking away.

Delphine kicked loose the rope ladder. It unfurled with a clatter. Miss DeGroot spun round. She laughed and put a hand to her mouth.

‘That's quite the red carpet.'

‘It's safe. I repaired it.'

Miss DeGroot prodded the ladder with her stick. ‘Okay, then.' She glanced at a paper bag lying next to her boots. ‘I've got a bag of maple candies I can trade for sanctuary. How's that?'

‘Acceptable.' Delphine folded Mr Kung's notes and tucked them
inside her sock. She shuffled to the edge of the treehouse. Miss DeGroot placed a foot on the first rung.

‘I'm not supposed to be exerting myself. I'm supposed to be an – ungh – invalid.' She thrust her swagger stick upwards. Delphine grabbed the cold brass pommel and helped pull Miss DeGroot the last few feet. She reached the top sweaty, panting. ‘Wow. What a swell place.' Delphine caught a whiff of perfume: lemon, cedarwood. Miss DeGroot rolled onto her back and lay catching her breath, taking in the clubhouse (four driftwood walls beneath a rusting corrugated-iron roof) and the crow's nest (an old rain barrel with the bottom knocked out of it). Grey-green oak moss coated a seam where one of the walls met the tree. In the opposite corner, cobwebs crisscrossed the papery husk of an abandoned wasps' nest. ‘How long it take you to build?'

‘It was like this when I found it.'

Miss DeGroot half-closed her eyes. ‘I like it.'

The treehouse filled with goldfinch song and the quiet gasp of wind through leaves. Delphine was not sure what to say. She looked at the old wasps' nest. A lattice of silver filaments hung across its underside. She could hear Miss DeGroot breathing. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She inhaled the scent of wet leaves and old wood, tinged with perfume. In the lower half of the web, a spider had caught something fat and struggling.

When she glanced back, Miss DeGroot had stretched her legs. She was sucking on a candy.

‘So,' she said, ‘what do you think about up here?'

International spy rings. Secret codes. The invasion of Britain. Giant rabid bats. My father
.

Delphine turned out her bottom lip. ‘Nothing.'

‘You seem to have taken a shine to the harbourmaster's son. I saw the two of you gabbing down by the quay.'

Delphine's cheeks glowed. ‘I was buying a
knife
.'

‘That's okay, sweetie. No need to be embarrassed.'

Delphine prised up a loose board and retrieved a blade folded into a crude scrimshaw handle.

‘There.' She slammed it down on the floor beside Miss DeGroot's head.

Miss DeGroot glanced over and laughed. ‘Okay, okay, I believe you.' She held her palms up. ‘No offence intended. Good for you. Boys are the dullest.'

Delphine snatched up the knife, wondering if she had been a bit rash. What if Miss DeGroot told Mother? She was placing it back in its box when she felt Miss DeGroot's eyes over her shoulder.

‘Is that an air rifle?'

‘No, it's . . . ' Delphine stopped herself. ‘Yes.'

Miss DeGroot gazed at the double-barrelled shotgun tucked inside the floor compartment. She rubbed her palms together.

‘I had one back on the farm. Used to sit up in the hayloft and use the old pump for target practice. Once my brother Stanley was fetching his bathwater and I got him right in the seat of his pants.' She mimed looking down sights, the kick of the trigger pull.

‘Was he all right?'

‘Naturally.' Miss DeGroot lay down again and sighed theatrically. ‘Life was simple back then. You hid in barns. You shot your family.' She patted the paper bag. ‘Have a candy.'

Delphine picked out a hard brown candy and sucked on it, glad of the distraction. The sweetness was so intense she felt a headache coming on.

Miss DeGroot closed her eyes. She extended her arms and slid them up and down like someone making a snow angel.

‘We must seem ancient to you. Do I seem ancient?'

Delphine glanced at Miss DeGroot. Up close, she did look older. Fine cracks radiated from her eyes and her skin had the sickly cast of semolina. Her blond hair was thinning at the scalp.

‘No.'

‘You're a sweetheart. And a liar.'

Delphine bit her lower lip.

‘Do you love Mr Propp?'

One of Miss DeGroot's eyes snapped open. ‘That's a very strong word.'

Delphine wrinkled her nose.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be. I'm your guest. It was a fair question.' Miss DeGroot
squinted at the corrugated-iron ceiling. ‘I should say all Spim is founded on the doctrine of
amour-Propp
. Of course, Ivan says that none of us
can
love – not while we're asleep. Oh, we all
think
we do. But when you look at it, what we call “love” is just a cat's cradle of demands and rewards. Real love doesn't make you feel good. You have to pay. Real love is sacrifice. It costs you.' She let out a short, mirthless laugh. ‘Huh. Perhaps I do love him.'

Delphine drew in the dust with her fingertip. ‘You don't think he's wicked?'

‘Now, what on earth would make you say that?'

Delphine felt her face getting hot. ‘I heard somebody say so.'

‘Who?'

‘I don't remember.'

Miss DeGroot's gaze hung on Delphine a moment longer.

‘Well, maybe they're right. Maybe everyone we place our trust in is destined to betray us. I honestly don't know any more.' She draped a forearm over her face. ‘Oh gosh, he's really done a number on our heads, hasn't he?'

‘What about Dr Lansley?'

‘What about him?' Miss DeGroot slid her arm from her eyes. ‘Young lady, I do believe you're trying to shake me down for gossip.'

‘No, I'm just . . . I . . . ' Delphine clenched her fists, breathed in. ‘Can you keep a secret?'

‘No.'

‘Oh, uh . . . '

‘But at least I'm honest.' Miss DeGroot lifted herself up onto her elbows. ‘Look, I know the Doctor isn't exactly a teddy bear, but he's not good with . . . well, anyone, really. Try not to take it personally. You know he saved dozens of lives during the war? Lost his hearing, too. Small wonder he's a little cranky.'

‘I have evidence suggesting Mr Propp is a spy.'

‘Is that your secret?'

Delphine nodded. ‘And I think Lord Alderberen and Dr Lansley are in on it.'

Miss DeGroot tilted her head forward. ‘Why are you trusting me with this?'

‘I don't know. I thought . . . you might believe me.'

Miss DeGroot closed her eyes. She smiled and brought a finger to her cheek. A tear rolled over her knuckle.

‘You're a nice girl, you know that?' She sat up. ‘Okay. Tell me about it.'

Delphine told her everything. She talked about the secret passages and tunnels, about overhearing Propp and Lord Alderberen on the first day, she even – after picking at a splinter in the floor – admitted to opening Propp's post and finding the letter from Mr Kung. All the while, she monitored Miss DeGroot's face for signs of scepticism, anger, or boredom. Miss DeGroot nodded and watched. She did not smirk.

‘He left this on the beach.' Delphine slid the folded paper from her sock. ‘It was wrapped round a book my father took.' As she passed it to Miss DeGroot, she realised that her hand was shaking. ‘I can't read it.'

Miss DeGroot studied the page. She folded it in half, running her thumb along the crease, and lay it on the floor beside her.

‘You must be exhausted.'

‘I don't know what to do.'

‘Listen.' Miss DeGroot reached out and closed her fingers over the back of Delphine's palm. They were soft and clammy. ‘I believe you.'

Delphine breathed out long and hard.

‘I believe everything you've told me.' Miss DeGroot gave Delphine's hand a squeeze, then let go. ‘I know it's hard to understand, but all the adults here . . . we're broken. Me, the Doctor, Lazarus, your father. Look at that professor of yours, shut away in the chimera room, surrounded by beasts while he waits on a letter from the latest handsome young undergraduate he's mooning over. Dreaming of a hidden country they can run away to together.' She shook her head. ‘The island of Dr Morose!

‘I'm sure those men like to dream they could take over the world. Making trunk calls at the dead of night, playing kingmakers. But that's all they're doing – playing. Maybe Ivan really is a spy, who knows? If he is, this is the best place for him. Away from London, away from anyone of any influence whatsoever.'

‘But . . . '

‘The symposium? Oh, darling, no one of any account goes there. Important people are too busy running the country.'

Delphine sagged. ‘You think I've imagined it all.'

‘No. Absolutely not.' She picked up Mr Kung's notes. ‘I'll look at this. I'll think on what you've said. And if you find anything more, or . . . you just need somebody to talk to, you come find me, you hear?'

Delphine placed her hand flat on the floor. She could feel her palm pulsing against the warped wood.

‘All right,' she said.

Miss DeGroot stretched and yawned.

‘Why were you cry – '

Delphine was cut off by approaching voices. Miss DeGroot scrambled into the crow's nest. She grabbed a leafy branch and pulled it down across her face. She beckoned for Delphine, who joined her on the battlements.

Down in the woods, Dr Lansley was pushing Lord Alderberen in his wheelchair. The wheels eek-eek-eeked as they traversed bumpy ground. Lord Alderberen clutched a tartan blanket spread across his knees. Walking alongside, hands tucked into the pockets of his silk waistcoat, was Propp.

‘Speak of the devil,' said Miss DeGroot. ‘Here come the girls of Radcliff Hall.'

‘What?'

‘Shh!'

The wheelchair progressed in a succession of jerks and hiccups; Dr Lansley was grimacing with the effort. The sound of snapping twigs grew louder. She could make out Lansley's part of the conversation, since, as usual, he was noisiest.

‘Well, that's as maybe, but . . . No, it's not that I disagree, I just . . . Well, I'll have to take your word on that, won't I, because as you keep telling me, I can't make the trip. Damn it, Lazarus, can't you wheel yourself for a bit? It's like ploughing treacle. Steady, there's a dip here . . . '

Delphine glanced to her right. Miss DeGroot had vanished. She
heard footfalls on the hollow floor and suddenly Miss DeGroot was beside her, brandishing the shotgun.

‘What's the betting I can still hit Titus in the backside at thirty yards?'

‘No!'

‘What, don't you think I can manage it?' Miss DeGroot barged her way into the crow's nest. ‘Come on. I bet you a pack of Du Mauriers. Right in the hiney.'

‘Please, you can't.'

‘Pshaw! Just watch me.' She swung the gun towards the approaching trio and squinted down the sights.

Mr Garforth had made Delphine swear to keep her gun unloaded unless preparing for a shot. She would never dream of breaking her word, but experience had broadened her definition of ‘preparing'. After all, shouldn't she always be prepared? When the perfect bird presented itself, she didn't want to be fumbling for cartridges. In a sense, her whole life was a preparation for the next shot, and thus the only true negligence was leaving her shotgun
un
loaded.