1940
STAIR HALL, THE MIRRORMAKERS’ CLUB
A visitor to the Mirrormakers’ Club on the late afternoon of a November day might have seen what they thought to be a wraith. The grand central staircase of white marble, which split at the first landing into two, looked forlorn in the emptiness, as though it awaited guests in crinolines and tailcoats. The left branch of the staircase led to the north landing, from which could be accessed the large Dining Hall, Miss Hardaker’s office, known as the Hide, the Committee Room and Red Parlour. The right branch led to the south landing, which presented another entrance to the other end of the Dining Hall, and the News Room, before the ring met in the Red Parlour, but these had been rendered inaccessible by bomb damage. A slim figure, dressed in a grey jumper and darker grey woollen skirt, was seated on a step on the right branch, and was staring up at the central dome above the staircase, which was decorated mesmerizingly in tapering black and white checks. Either side of the dome, demi-lunes with ornamental grating let in the light, but the large chandelier, shrouded in white sheets, would have done well to be lit, to bring the panels of green, pink and white marble on the Stair Hall walls to life. What light there was caught fleetingly on the woman’s hair and in her eyes. She was examining the place, sensing it, as though, even in the blackout, she might be able to find her way by touch. It had become her daily habit, to know the place well, as though it were a code that needed to be deciphered. It was home; it was everything.
The wraith was Livy.
The sound of the doorbell interrupted her, the hard-edged trill echoing through the near-empty building. Up to the dome above the staircase, and back again, halting her in her place.
A robust knocking at the door.
She walked towards the darkness of the Entrance Hall slowly.
‘I say, hello?’ A man’s voice. ‘Is that you, Bill?’
Livy came to the door, stood on her tiptoes and looked through the peephole. A man stood there, smartly dressed, with a large case in his hand, and carrying his gas mask in a brown leather box, its long strap over his right shoulder. He was older, late forties at least, and despite his height and broad shoulders had a rather hungry look to him: defined cheekbones, pale green eyes, and thick black hair. The face was handsome, perfect by some buried classical equation, and this beauty overrode his tiredness. He looked rather like a faded matinee idol.
But the face inspired faint dread in Livy as she paused behind the peephole. Another stranger, and perhaps one that knew her.
‘I know someone’s there,’ he said.
She turned the key in the door, and opened it a crack.
Their eyes met, and she saw him take a breath. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Hello there. I didn’t expect to see you. I thought all the staff were let go apart from Mr and Mrs Holliday.’
‘No,’ she said. She did not open the door any wider.
‘Don’t you recognize me?’ Beneath his detached tone she heard the affront in his voice. ‘I am on the committee.’
‘Of course,’ she said, feeling the energy drain out of her. ‘Good afternoon, sir. Please come in.’
She opened the door widely and he passed her. ‘Find a place for this, will you?’ He handed her his hat and coat and mounted the steps to the entrance of the Stair Hall. ‘Where to?’ He looked at her, was perplexed by her silence. Finally, his irritation broke through properly. ‘Where are Mr and Mrs Holliday?’
‘If you’ll take a seat here, sir, I’ll find them.’ She pointed towards one of the large, architect-designed chairs which sat beside the staircase, domesticating the vast interior.
Walking behind him, she felt the weight of his beautiful coat, a grey Chesterfield ripe with the mixed scent of cigars and cologne.
She fetched Peggy, who greeted him with reverence. ‘Oh, Mr Whitewood!’ she said, hurrying towards him. The note of gladness in her voice was caught in the acoustic of the marble-clad hall. ‘We didn’t know you were coming, sir. Would you like a cup of tea? A poached egg and some buttered toast?’ Livy glanced at her. They were only supposed to have one egg per person per week.
‘Only,’ he spread out one hand, ‘only if it’s not any trouble, Mrs Holliday. I’ll be staying for a few days, perhaps even weeks, so I’ll register for temporary rations. I don’t want you to be short of anything.’
‘Or you might wish to eat in restaurants,’ said Livy. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she realized how rude they sounded.
Peggy ignored her. ‘Very good, Mr Whitewood: a poached egg it is. Where would you like to take your tea?’
‘I’ll take it here with you, if you’ll permit me, Peggy, and,’ one hand out, to indicate Livy’s presence, ‘this young lady.’
‘Miss Baker, sir,’ Peggy said, her eyes widening. ‘You remember Miss Baker?’
He nodded. ‘I do, I do. But I don’t remember why she is here now.’
Livy did nothing; despite Mrs Holliday’s pleading look, as though to say ‘smile at him’, she stood there silently. Already, she sensed the shift in the room: this man had power, and he was therefore a threat. In the midst of his energy she felt her own sense of self, which she had gradually started to accumulate over the past few weeks, guttering like a candle flame in a strong breeze.
‘Miss Baker had a direct hit on her lodgings two months ago, sir. She’s registered for war work now but until she goes, she’s helping us, especially when we give tea and supper to the firewatchers. And in the day she’s working in the Document Room, trying to organize things with the archive. The director and the manager both know, and signed it off. Miss Hardaker was meant to put things in order before the war but it never quite happened.’
‘Ah,’ he said in a regretful, slightly patronizing tone. ‘The venerable Miss Hardaker. Do you know, I once caught her piling documents into the furnace?’
‘Oh, goodness,’ Peggy half-laughed fearfully.
Livy took her chance, watching Peggy tiptoe off to make toast. ‘The archive is rather patchy. Finding things is rather a matter of luck than anything else,’ she said.
A frown briefly crossed the visitor’s face but then he smiled cordially, attempting to make a connection. ‘I might have need of your expertise,’ he said. ‘I am here to visit friends, but also to look for some papers which have a connection with my family. We’ve been members of the Mirrormakers’ Club for generations. Looking-glass-makers’ Club, perhaps I should say. It’s not quite the thing to say mirror these days, but as our greatest poets used it, why not? “And in her hand she held a mirror bright”.’
Livy nodded, flushing that she did not know the reference. Peggy had explained to her that the Mirrormakers’ Club was known more formally as the Mirrormakers’ and City Club. The original founders had been well-connected traders in small mirrors, cabinets and glass, who had loosened ties with their livery company and decided to form a club for convivial company, the first in the City of London. Its members now included any City gentleman who knew the right person through blood or business, but the name had been kept. Members were elected by ballot.
‘I can’t remember seeing anything related to the Whitewoods,’ she said. ‘But I’ll gladly look for you.’
‘That’s not the name,’ he said. ‘I’m researching my mother’s side of the family, the Kinsburgs. And I can look myself, if you just point me in the right direction.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ she said.
They sat in awkward silence, until Peggy came bustling out with the poached egg and toast on a tray.
‘Sorry not to have a newspaper for you, sir,’ she said. ‘We do take The Times, thin as it is these days, but Mr Holliday’s done something with it.’ She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice and failed.
He tucked into the food with gusto. ‘Will it be the Blue Room I am in, tonight?’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘I assume no one else is staying here?’ The guest rooms were on the top floor of the building, along with the flat the Hollidays had in peacetime.
‘Oh, Mr Whitewood,’ Mrs Holliday said. ‘We don’t stay up there now. It’s closed up. Of course, I check things, and keep the rooms aired, but it is far safer to stay down in the basement shelter, what with night after night of the bombing. It would be unwise to sleep up there.’
He swallowed a mouthful of toast. ‘That’s rather overdoing it, don’t you think? After all, we should carry on as usual, shouldn’t we?’
Livy watched him. It seemed to her that he really rather wanted to sleep in the Blue Room now, solely because Peggy had told him that he couldn’t. She could see the tiredness on the housekeeper’s face as she worked out how to pacify him, and it angered her.
‘You’d do best to listen to Peggy’s advice, sir,’ she said. ‘The upper rooms are closed off for a reason.’
He put down his knife and fork. ‘I’ll sleep in the Blue Room,’ he said.
‘Very good, sir,’ said Peggy, with something like sadness in her voice.
Staring at his face, Livy thought of the portrait Woman and Looking Glass. There was something about the line of his face, something about the way the shadows fell on it, which reminded her of the painted face she returned to again and again. Bill had assured her that the painting was safe in its current position: ‘it’ll only be damaged if the whole building comes down’ was his reassuring phrase, but after every long night of bombing it was the first thing Livy checked, and the anxiety was growing within her.
Jonathan ate on in silence, and the others sat quietly with him. Darkness was falling, the early darkness of an autumn evening with the lights kept off. The Stair Hall seemed to contract in the fading light, the coloured marble walls fading into shadow, and as the light dwindled the occupants finally left it and went into the basement.
Mr Whitewood was looking with curiosity around the basement vaults that had been adapted as their living quarters when they heard the wail of the air-raid sirens.
Bill came running down the stairs. ‘Planes!’ he called. ‘I’ll put the electricity off.’ Then he saw Mr Whitewood. His hand went to his tieless throat. Livy felt a sudden pang of affection for him, entwined with pity. A sudden reminder of the old life had left him exposed, dressed in his overall with his collar button undone. ‘Sir,’ Bill said.
It was then Livy remembered Woman and Looking Glass, and the tension she felt tipped over some invisible line. In that moment, it became simply unbearable. She rose suddenly from her chair.
‘What is it, dear?’ Peggy had paused in the middle of the washing-up, her face kind, softened like someone regarding a startled animal.
Livy stared at her. ‘Woman and Looking Glass,’ she said.
‘We said to you, dear, it’s perfectly safe where it is. There’s no glass near it. What’s this sudden fret? You’ve been fine about it for weeks.’
‘I’ll just get it,’ Livy said.
‘What’s all this?’ Whitewood extinguished his cigarette. ‘Did you mention Woman and Looking Glass? Presumably it was sent to safe keeping with the treasury?’
Livy glanced at him. ‘No, it’s upstairs in the hall. I have to get it.’
The first distant thud shook the ground beneath their feet.
‘Not now. Tomorrow.’ Mrs Holliday turned away to stow the plate. ‘We need to go into the shelter and shut the doors. Quickly.’ She glanced at their guest. ‘She is suffering from shock, sir, she has these sudden fits about things.’
‘It can be moved tomorrow,’ Whitewood said firmly. ‘I understand your concern, so we’ll do it first thing. I really can’t think why it wasn’t sent to Sussex with everything else. Don’t go,’ he said as she moved across the room. ‘Can’t you hear them?’
But with exasperation Livy shook off their words. ‘I’m going to get it.’ She went past Bill and out towards the stairs.
Whitewood watched her go. Then he looked at Mrs Holliday. ‘Is she quite right in the head?’ he said. He unclenched his hand, and put his cigarette lighter down on the table with a clatter, harder than he’d intended to.
*
Livy’s eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness of the Stair Hall. As she came out of the green door from the basement she could see reasonably well in the gloom of the vast space. Searchlights, or bomber’s moon, she was not sure.
The first detonation took her to her knees on the stone floor and she curled up like a netsuke. Just for a moment; just as she waited to see if the building would fall down on her head. The sound was so vast that she assumed they had taken a direct hit; the noise in the room was inseparable from the noise in her head. She covered her ears but it was there, nonetheless. She thought how the reinforced basement shelter had protected them, all these nights.
Then there was a brief space between noises and she got to her feet, her legs as unsteady as a calf’s. Why did she think of that? Sickly, she was made of marrow. More light – our lights or theirs, she wondered. The retort of ack-ack guns into the sky. She was on her feet again. The moonlight shone in from the demi-lune of grating beneath the dome. It cast sharp ornamental shadows of the grillwork, black tendrils cutting through the white gaze of the moon. She put her hand out and touched the column of a lamp as she passed, unlit of course in the blackout, but the moonlight glanced off its ormolu frame.
She stumbled towards the painting. But then something made her turn and look behind her; a shadow moving out of the shadows. It was Whitewood, running towards her, his hands up as though he wished to push her forwards. She remembered his slow, careful walk from the front door; the way he held his cigarette; the sardonic turn of his mouth. She had not thought him capable of moving at this speed. His mouth was moving but she could not hear his words.
The room was filled with the sound of planes, of bombs, of war: the roar of it, the scream of it.
She landed against the far wall, Whitewood behind her. She felt his hands on her shoulders pulling her around the corner and pushing her forwards against the wall. The press of the cold marble against her face. His body was over hers, his arms either side against her shoulders, holding her still. She was not trembling and she was glad of it in that moment; almost proud. She turned her face amid the roar of the bombers. She saw the chandelier, suspended from a metal chain below the dome, the Victorian crystal shrouded by white sheets. The demi-lune glass blew in; a flying piece of debris sheered the metal chain and the chandelier fell. It bounced off the first flight of steps and lurched onto the floor with hideous momentum. As it hit the stone it exploded, glass flying through the gaps in its shroud. And in that moment Whitewood raised his hands and covered the sides of her face with them. He pressed her against the wall. She felt the warmth of his breath in her hair, noted it, as though from a distance. She closed her eyes.
It seemed like hours that they stood there, until the bombers moved away, until the bombs were distant thunder; a brief respite until the next wave came. His grip on her loosened, and then he released her and stepped away; one step. She turned and looked at him, feeling the grind of broken glass under her heels. His face was black, white and grey in the moonlight.
‘Can you hear?’ he said, or that was what she thought he said, because she could just see his lips moving; her head was ringing. She shook her head, as though coming up from water and trying to clear her ears of it. He put his hands to her shoulders again, a gesture of reassurance.
She was trembling now, but her legs felt strong again. She stared at him, his face white in the moonlight, saying words which she could not hear. And she felt the vast emptiness within her, as wide and without foothold as the space of the Stair Hall, filled with immense and flickering violence.
She took hold of his face and she kissed him. Without looking into his eyes. Without knowing why. Reaching out as she had for the wall, for something solid, for something which could be touched which would not hurt her. His clean-shaven face was surprisingly soft, the smell of him the smell of cigars and the slight mustiness of unwashed wool.
He froze under her touch for a moment, and then his lips parted beneath hers. As he pushed her back against the cold marble, his hand covered the back of her head, cradling her skull against the stone.