Michael Cox (7 page)

I LAY ON my bed for half an hour, looking out at the pale-blue sky, and musing on the events of the morning.
After a while, I got up to write a short letter to Madame, assuring her that all was well, and promising to write at greater length in due course. Then I went downstairs again, to place the letter in the appointed place for collection, having addressed the envelope to a lady in London, of whom I shall speak hereafter, to avoid the possibility of awkward questions from my fellow servants.
At a little before three o’clock, I went outside to continue my explorations before it was necessary to attend my Lady.
The September sun still bathed the forest of spires and towers, chimneys and turrets, that gives the great house of Evenwood its bristling distinctiveness in a soft aureate light, and threw muted shadows across the clipped lawns and gravel walks. On the south side of the house I discovered a large rectangular fish-pond, closed in by high walls, profusely colonized by bright-yellow stonecrop. Here I lingered, looking down into the still, dark waters at the fish, many of great size, that swam lazily about, until it was time for me to return to the house.
As the Chapel clock struck the hour of five, and having washed my face, brushed my hair, and smoothed down my dress, I knocked at the door of my Lady’s apartments.

3

The First Day Ends

I
Questions and Answers

M
Y LADY
was reclining in the window-seat, book in hand, exactly as I had left her.
‘Come and sit with me, Alice,’ she said, laying down the book with a weary sigh. ‘I shall not go down to dinner tonight after all.’
‘Very well, my Lady,’ I said, taking my place beside her.
‘Now, tell me what you’ve been doing. You must think it a strange kind of service to be allowed to do as you like all the day. But you must not become used to it. I shall work you hard from now on.’
She was smiling – a poor melancholy smile, to be sure; but I saw in her eyes that her words were kindly meant.
I recounted my morning exploration through the East Wing, although omitting my encounters with Mr Perseus and Mr Randolph Duport, and my new acquaintance with Sukie Prout.
‘You might explore Evenwood for ever,’ she said, ‘and still discover new things to admire. Someone once described it to me as a house without end, perpetually disclosing new aspects of itself. There are parts of it that even I have never visited; and others, I’m sure, that will remain forever unknown to me. Perhaps, Alice, you may make some discoveries on my behalf, and come and tell me what you’ve found, for I perceive that you have an enquiring nature.’
Then she asked whether I thought that I would be happy in her service.
‘Oh yes, my Lady. Even more than before, now that I’ve become a little familiar with my new surroundings, and acquainted with some of the people here – especially with you, my Lady.’
She took the compliment with another sad little smile before asking me how I had found Mrs Battersby.
I replied that she seemed a very capable sort of person.
‘Capable!’ she exclaimed, giving an appreciative clap. ‘That exactly describes her! Jane Battersby is certainly capable. A remarkable young woman in many ways, rather mysterious, with a certain worldly wisdom far beyond her station. And whom else have you met today?’
‘Mr Pocock, of course; and Henry Creswick, and also Mr Maggs.’
‘No one else?’
Her eyes were now fixed on me in that discomfiting way she had. Deciding that a little truth was required, I told her how I had met Sukie Prout on the landing below my room.
‘Sukie Prout?’
She thought for a moment.
‘Ah, one of the downstairs-maids.’
‘The upper house-maid, my Lady.’
‘Quite. And no one else?’
I realized then that she knew of my accidental meetings with her sons. For a moment I was unsure how to answer, but she anticipated me.
‘My son Perseus tells me that he has already made your acquaintance. His brother, too, I believe.’
I now had no choice but to admit the fact with as much indifference as I could, although I could not see where I had been at fault.
‘Was it such a little thing to forget?’ she asked.
‘I beg your pardon, my Lady?’
‘To make the acquaintance of the heir to the Tansor Barony, and his younger brother?’
I thought that she was about to reprimand me, but then I saw that a faint smile was playing round her lips.
‘Don’t be alarmed, my dear,’ she said, leaning towards me and patting my hand. ‘I don’t blame you in any way for feeling that you could not tell me. You are alive to these little delicacies, I see. But tell me, which one of my sons did you like best? Perseus or Randolph?’
I confess that I found the question rather shocking. What mother could ask such a thing concerning her two sons, both of whom appeared to me to be eminently worthy, each in his own way, of admiration?
‘Tell me, do!’ she prompted, with unseemly relish, seeing my hesitation. ‘I long to know!’
‘I really cannot say, my Lady. I have so little knowledge of either of your sons, and, really, we spoke only a few words.’
‘But Perseus is the more handsome, is he not?’
‘He is handsome, certainly,’ I readily conceded. ‘But then Mr Randolph Duport is handsome also.’
‘But very differently composed, would you not agree? There is less refinement in poor Randolph’s features, alas, which in some moods can look a little coarse. He has more of his late father in him, and of his father’s family, I dare say, than Perseus. I am also sad to admit that Randolph lacks his brother’s higher talents. It pains me to speak so, but it is only the truth.
‘Perseus, you know, has been blessed with great literary gifts,’ she went on. ‘He has written a most impressive drama in verse, which we hope to see published very shortly. The subject is Merlin and Nimue, which I consider to be a most original one for a poetic drama.’
‘Has not Mr Tennyson written of them in the
Idylls
?’ I enquired, knowing very well that he had. ‘Although I believe Nimue is there called Vivien.’
She threw me a sharply reproachful look for presuming to question her son’s originality of conception.
‘Mr Tennyson’s treatment of the characters is wholly different from my son’s,’ she said coldly, ‘and is, in my view, inferior in every way. He does not make them live as people, as Perseus does by means of the dramatic form. It is his great gift.’
I asked if Mr Perseus Duport intended to make poetry his profession.
‘A gentleman in the position of my eldest son has no need to follow a profession, as you put it, of any kind. But it is impossible to put shackles on natural genius. Like good breeding, it will out. I have no doubt that, when the work is published, it will be universally recognized as possessing uncommon merit. I shall show you the manuscript another time, so that you may judge for yourself. You told me, I think, that you were a great reader of poetry.’
‘Yes, my Lady.’
‘And how did a lady’s-maid acquire such a taste?’
‘My guardian read poetry to me from an early age,’ I replied, ignoring the implied insult. ‘Even when I was unable to understand the meaning of the words, their sound would soothe me, and send me dreaming. And then I was constantly encouraged to read widely, in both English and French, by my tutor, Mr Basil Thornhaugh.’
‘You had a tutor! I’ve never had a maid before who enjoyed such an advantage. And what manner of man was Mr Basil Thornhaugh?’
‘One of the cleverest there could be,’ I replied, ‘possessing, in addition, great discernment and taste.’
‘A most remarkable tutor, by your account. In my experience, such men are always dull failures; but your Mr Thornhaugh appears to have been singular in every way. Yet he was content, it seems, with tutoring a little girl. Why was that, do you suppose? Had he no other profession to follow, or any higher ambitions?’
I could not give a satisfactory answer, knowing almost nothing of my old tutor’s former life. All I could say was that Mr Thornhaugh had private interests to pursue, in addition to his pedagogic duties, and that he had long been engaged on a great work of scholarship.
‘Ah!’ cried Lady Tansor. ‘A private scholar! I know the type. Forever dreaming of writing the
magnum opus
that will make their name live on for generations. I understand now. Few of these men realize their ambition. It simply consumes them, for there is never an end to it.’
She turned her head away for a moment and laid it against one of the leaded window-panes. Then she raised her finger to the glass and began absently tracing some pattern, or perhaps a sequence of letters, as she spoke.
After dinner, she asked me to read to her from another work by Phoebus Daunt,
The Heir: A Romance of the Modern
.
*
‘Do you know it?’ she asked, handing the volume to me.
I told her that I had not yet had the pleasure of reading it.
‘Then this will please both of us,’ she said. ‘Shall we begin?’
I opened the book, and started to read.
Mr Daunt’s poetical gifts appeared to have found their natural expression in the epic form. I imagined that
Paradise Lost
, which I had known and admired since first being introduced to it by Mr Thornhaugh as a child, had been ever before him as the great model for his own essays in what might be called the poetry of magnitude. In Milton’s case, the description would signify the higher character of the subject-matter, as well as the sublime capabilities of the poet; in Mr Daunt’s, a narrower definition of ‘magnitude’ is required; for he appears to have believed that the more lines he wrote, the more impressive the effect would be. Consequently, an hour or more passed and I had barely reached halfway through the second of twelve books.
‘Does it tire you, Alice?’ asked Lady Tansor, hearing me stumble over a particularly inept couplet (the bard had rejected the sterner clarity of blank verse in favour of rhyming couplets, at some frequent cost to sense).
‘No, my Lady. I am very happy to continue for as long as you wish.’
‘No, no,’ she insisted, ‘you are tired. I can see it. I have kept you long enough. There! What a considerate mistress I am! You must not think, however, that I treat all my maids with such partiality, for I never have before.’
She was looking at me expectantly; but when I made no reply, she moved away from the window and stood staring into the fire.
‘No,’ she said, quietly, ‘I have not always been so partial. But you, Alice,’ looking now over her shoulder at me, ‘have qualities that set you apart. I saw them immediately.’
She paused, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to her.
‘Do you know, it now strikes me that your situation is not a little like Mrs Battersby’s.’
She saw the puzzled look on my face, and gave a little laugh.
‘I mean that, like you, she now occupies a station in life that is somewhat beneath the one in which she appears to have been brought up, although you, of course, seem to have enjoyed superior advantages to Mrs Battersby – a tutor, you now tell me! You speak French. You read novels and poetry. And I dare say that you can play and sing, draw and paint, and generally comport yourself like a lady. Indeed, I should say that you
are
a lady, by birth and education. Yet – a little like your clever Mr Thornhaugh, who sounds in every respect to be a gentleman – you have taken up a situation that is beneath both your abilities and your natural condition. Is that not a curious symmetry?’
‘You must remember, my Lady,’ I countered, nervous of her questioning expression, ‘that I had no choice in the matter. When Mrs Poynter died – the old friend of my mother’s, with whom I was then living in London – I had no means of supporting myself. I had only a small life-interest from my father, which was barely sufficient for my needs. As I did not wish to return to France, I went to an agency and was put forward for the position with Miss Gainsborough, which I was fortunate to secure.’
‘Fortunate indeed,’ she said. ‘For someone without previous experience of domestic service, one might have expected you to be put up for a petty place or two, perhaps with a clergyman, or some person in a small way of trade. But then I am not in the least surprised that you impressed Miss Gainsborough, who sounds a very sensible sort of person. I have no doubt that she was of the same mind as I myself. She must have seen, as I did, that you were exceptional, which is a rare quality in a servant.’
She had hardly finished speaking when there was a knock at the door, and a footman came in carrying a letter on a small silver tray.
‘This has come for you, your Ladyship.’
He bowed, and turned to leave.
‘Wait!’ Lady Tansor cried out. ‘This must have been delivered by hand. Where is the person who brought it?’
‘I cannot say, your Ladyship,’ replied the footman. ‘It was slipped under the front door. No one saw who brought it.’
I was able to make out that the letter contained only half a dozen or so lines of writing; but their effect on my mistress was dramatic. As she read, the colour began to drain from her face. When she had finished, she crushed the letter into a ball, and placed it in the pocket of her gown.
‘I think I shall take a short walk on the terrace before retiring,’ she said, trying to act as if nothing had happened. ‘There are some slops to be emptied in the bedroom, and please to light the fire. It has grown a little chilly. Then lay out my night-things, and remain in the bed-chamber until I return. Do not leave the bed-chamber. Do you understand?’
‘Of course, my Lady,’ I replied, happy to comply with her orders, although puzzled by them nonetheless.
Still pale and ill at ease, despite her efforts to appear unconcerned, she crossed to the door, but then stopped.
‘Remember what I said, Alice,’ she said, without turning to face me. ‘Do not leave the bed-chamber until I return.’
She opened the door and swept out into the Picture Gallery, leaving me alone in the suddenly darkened room.

II
The Coming of Mr Thornhaugh

AFTER MY LADY had returned from her walk on the terrace, and I had performed the various duties she required, I was allowed to retire.
My mistress had dismissed me rather brusquely, seeming both cross and anxious, and as disinclined to talk as she had earlier been eager to engage in conversation.
As I was leaving, I had asked whether she was feeling well.
‘Of course I am well,’ she snapped back. ‘Do not fuss so, Alice. I cannot abide fussing.’
‘I don’t mean to fuss, my Lady,’ I replied, contritely. ‘But you look so very pale. May I fetch you something before you retire?’
Her face relaxed a little, and she slumped down in a chair beside the bed.
‘No, nothing,’ she said. Then, with an attempt at a smile: ‘But thank you, Alice. Few of my other maids have been so concerned for me.’
‘Then they did not deserve to occupy the position of maid to you, my Lady,’ said I, in a moment of inspiration. ‘I consider it to be a most important part of my duty to give constant thought to your Ladyship’s well-being.’
‘That,’ she said, ‘is a most original sentiment for a maid to hold; but then of course you are no ordinary maid. Good-night, Alice. The usual time in the morning, please.’
As I turned to go, I saw that there were tears in her eyes.