A Map of the Damage

Henry received the note at just past seven on the clock, pushed noisily under his door by an enthusiastic Foi, who hummed loudly to herself as she did so. Henry found himself tiptoeing to the door, sure that she was there and waiting for an excuse to speak to him. As he leaned over to pick up the note, he heard the unmistakable sound of her heavy-footing it back down the corridor and realized he was holding his breath. He smiled, and only stopped when he opened the note and read who it was from.

Ashton Kinsburg was to pay an impromptu visit to the building site that morning, and he hoped that Mr Dale-Collingwood would join him for dinner.

Henry said every curse that his memory held. Not only had he fought long and hard to clear his mind of Mrs Kinsburg, but also to calm the annoyance he felt at her husband’s interference in the project, for Ashton’s letter outlining various concerns had been followed by almost identical letters from other committee members, clearly incited by him. Henry itched to write to Kinsburg and tell him that he, Henry, was not open for business. The plans had been approved long ago, the foundations were being dug, the walls would soon be raised, and no consultation was required. Although, if Kinsburg wished, Henry would be happy to consult him in due course about the colour of the drapes.

Another option was to invoke the gentleman clause. Showing offence at the interference. Brandishing the long-forgotten duke in his background. It was hardly possible that they would have him taken from the building site – hardly possible, but just. And it did matter to him. A building such as this, which would surely stand, unshaken, for centuries; a kind of palace that he was building. A tribute to all the architects that had gone before him, particularly the masters of the Renaissance; an equation of balance and symmetry which would hold as the disorder of time crumbled his bones. But above all, his own monument, or, he thought, perhaps it will be the railway station which is my monument.

He laughed, and rubbed his prickling eyes. He was slightly pained by his own vanity. He had long been a relaxed man, with an eye for detail. Now detail was all that he saw, his mind thronged with detail upon detail from joins in wood to the shape of a clock hand. Mrs Kinsburg’s appearance in his life had been a moment’s distraction; a shadow across the sun. Now he was in the full glare of the committee’s attention, and working for his life and his place in eternity. This was what he told himself.

A knock at the door brought one of the manservants with water and a fresh shirt. Henry washed, was shaved, and dressed, and he did not eat breakfast. He went out into the London streets in a daze, and walked for half an hour before he thought of hailing a cab. ‘My head is full of marble samples,’ he said to his clerk of works, Brokes, when he arrived, and the man laughed awkwardly, trying to keep in favour with him.

The pattern of the new Club lay before him, men swarming over the site, horses departing every moment with carts full of rubble and London clay. Under bright blue skies the small patch of the City of London was alive with effort and labour. Henry went to the lodge, and was brought tea, ‘strong, please’, was all he said, and he took the chair that Charlotte had taken weeks before, drawing up his small table before it. He unfurled scrolls of paper and looked upon the decorative scheme he had worked on the night before, that of the Dining Hall. Mirrors would be key in such a building, of course, for the Mirrormakers’ Club depended on seeing the glory of glass. He carefully considered his designs for coffering, the neoclassical motifs, the amount of gold leaf that would be required.

His mind was so engrossed in the drawing, and in considering each implication of each detail of the design, that he noticed nothing else around him, save occasionally the cup of cooling tea beside him, which he drank, and then another, brought to him by an indulgent housekeeper who interpreted the wave of his hand. It had always been so, ever since he was a boy: the intellectual focus of drawing and designing, of calculating, took him outside of time, making the clock hands move faster than anything else.

‘Mr Dale-Collingwood, sir.’ It was one of the foremen on the site, his cap in his hand. ‘Mr Brokes said you should come quick. We’ve found something that you’d like, he said.’

The man seemed resolute and cheerful, so Henry came without agitation, save the slight irritation of leaving his drawing. He and the man walked the lines of the footprint until they came to the south-east corner of the building, where Mr Brokes stood, looking down, surrounded by a group of labourers who had downed tools. They were standing on the edge of the outline of the building, Henry noted in the back of his mind: one day, this would be the moat, a passage running the perimeter of the basement, protecting it from damp.

‘What’s this?’ said Henry, and followed Brokes’s pointing hand. One of the labourers down in the pit lifted a large stone chunk in his burly arms. They had scraped the dirt off it, and one of them had tenderly poured a bucket of water over it, so it was damp. On the face of the stone Henry could just make out the figure of a woman, decisively carved, of evident antiquity.

Mr Brokes, who Henry knew was an antiquarian of sorts, gave a laugh of astonished joy. ‘It’s Roman, I’d say, Mr Dale-Collingwood. Likely something to do with a local deity. Harry here found it when he was digging.’

‘And hauled it out like a lump of rubbish,’ said the labourer, putting it down with more tenderness than he’d evidently recovered it with. ‘Is it worth any money?’

‘Not to you,’ said Brokes. Henry had to admire the man for asking, and felt in his pocket for some coins to slip him later. Not in sight of the other men, otherwise they’d be turning up at the lodge every five minutes with shards of pottery and clay pipes. London had lived many lives; she gave up her layers of stories to those who laboured for them. The men who recovered her occasional treasures deserved something for their effort.

‘We can keep it in the building when it is up,’ said Henry. ‘For now, Harry, take it to the lodge, will you? And I will arrange for it to be stored somewhere.’ He gave the man a meaningful look as he passed, hoping that it signalled to him he would have payment for his trouble. ‘And don’t drop it. She’s survived this long, and we don’t want her haunting the place if we break her altar.’

There was a hallooing from near the road. In that moment, Henry loved his workforce, troublesome as they sometimes were, for they had that habit of signalling like a pack of hounds. He always knew when something was afoot on the site. He turned to see Ashton Kinsburg picking his way over the earth, his eyes fixed on his boots.

‘Mr Kinsburg,’ boomed Henry, as loudly and authoritatively as he could. ‘Pray, don’t come any further, sir. We can speak in the lodge. The site is dangerous.’

Kinsburg stopped and looked at him, frowning. ‘I think I can find my way well enough,’ he called.

Henry shrugged and turned away, knowing that he was rude to do so but unable to feel sorry or careful about it. He was aware of tension in Mr Brokes, who had sweat breaking out on his face even in the chill morning air. He had taken off his hat and was looking between Henry and Kinsburg.

Ashton arrived and was given an account of what had been discovered by the now uncomfortable Mr Brokes, as Henry stood, focusing on a distant point, attempting to radiate superiority and efficiency. Eventually Brokes excused himself at a nod from Henry, who eventually made himself look at Ashton. As always, he found the rich man’s visage as smooth as an egg at first sight; but at second, in the daylight, he saw the vertical lines in his forehead, indicating a constant frowner. Grey eyes, a high forehead, topped by a luxuriant spruce of black hair. Henry fought the urge to touch his own curly, slightly thinning thatch; a gentleman had no business having such luxuriant hair, he thought, almost like a lady’s. And today Ashton had the habit of running his right hand through it repeatedly. He had never seen him do that before.

‘Are you satisfied with the site?’ said Henry brusquely, but his words were lost on a gust of wind and he had to repeat them.

Ashton looked around, taking his time before replying. ‘Yes. It looks very orderly. Are you running to time?’

‘As much as possible. Perfection never quite runs to time,’ said Henry. ‘The marble samples provided by the quarries in Belgium and Italy are not quite as I wished them. The alabaster from Staffordshire is exactly what I wanted, however. And I have secured excellent craftsmen for the scagliola.’

‘I can see your design now: those audacious pinks, yellows and deep greens,’ said Ashton, with a smile.

Henry said nothing, annoyed that Ashton could remember so clearly elements of the design of the Stair Hall. He must have committed the design to memory.

‘I am working on interior sketches of the Dining Hall,’ Henry said, just for something to say. ‘If you remember, the committee asked for small adjustments.’

‘I was planning to take tea in the lodge. Just informally, perhaps you can show me.’

They went without another word, Henry hoping that the dinner invitation had been forgotten, but he suspected that Ashton Kinsburg was the kind of man who forgot nothing. Henry rambled on about the Dining Hall interior, not showing the drawing, and trying to be as inexact as possible. They were drinking their last mouthfuls of tea before Ashton spoke.

‘You haven’t replied to my dinner invitation,’ he said. ‘It would just be a brief dinner. My London house is not open at present; my wife is in the country.’

Henry tried not to exhale with relief. ‘The invitation slipped my mind, I am sorry to say. I am so engaged with the details of the building. And I must decline, due to a prior engagement. Forgive me, I hope my absence this time will be remedied at some point in the future.’

‘You should come and stay with us at Redlands. I have done much to it; you would hardly recognize it as the house of my fathers. Two new wings. I’d be interested in your opinion of it.’

‘I have no opinion on domestic architecture. Civic buildings are what concern me these days.’

‘No opinion?’ Ashton gave a short, rather surprising, high peal of laughter. ‘I have never met a man of taste and knowledge who had no opinion, Mr Dale-Collingwood. If you think to be polite, do not mind it – I can take a frank opinion.’

Henry said nothing, sure only that Kinsburg would not wish for his frank opinion about anything.

‘You do not like me, do you, sir?’ said Ashton. Henry felt his heart thunder to life in his chest, at the danger of it. All at once the site outside, so busy and productive under the blue and cloudless sky, seemed at threat. He could find no answer and was clearing his throat when Ashton continued.

‘But I like you, very much indeed. And whatever wrong impression of me you have, I am determined to clear my name of it. You simply do not know me yet, and if I am reserved – well, that is a reserve of a gentleman who is most often concerned in business. But this is not business, Mr Dale-Collingwood; this is pleasure. And as I like you, I am determined you will like me.’

‘I have never said . . .’ Henry trailed off. He had dealt with awkward situations before – relaxed, with valour – but this was different. It was unnerving.

Ashton tutted under his breath, as though addressing a spaniel dancing at his feet, and all at once Henry saw him in his house, with acres of grounds and a plethora of dogs and possessions and paintings and gilt, and a wife. The man had everything, even the freedom to come here and interrogate him, and he could not be older than two-and-thirty.

‘Come now,’ said Ashton. He was trying to be soothing but it did not come off well to Henry’s ear. ‘I am a friend to you, sir. We are all in awe of you, and of your accomplishments. You are just as much of an artist as your painter friends, but also an engineer, a technician. There is no honour I would not lay at your feet. But you are tired.’ He sought Henry’s gaze, until at last Henry had to give it to him. ‘You are tired. Where is the affable fellow I met last March, so relaxed that he would unroll his plans on a table without ceremony and with confidence?’ He paused. ‘I have heard of your losses. You do not have to be at this site every day. You may come and visit us at Redlands. There is no luxury that we do not have.’

His face was just inches from Henry’s; his eyes grey and unblinking, cold and yet filled with a kind of concern that Henry had never seen before.

Ashton seemed satisfied, and their conversation returned to normal matters, the younger man showing such a cool distance that Henry half-wondered if he had dreamt Ashton’s intensity. Mr Kinsburg left soon after.

When Ashton wrote, giving possible dates for his visit to Redlands, Henry tried to ignore it. So often, he told Peregrine, obligations evaporated when one merely ignored them. But Ashton persevered. He did not pay another site visit, but he wrote each week. Brief letters, barely covering even one half of the folded page, which he sent sealed. His black writing slanting, large, jointed like insects’ legs. That matter we spoke of; I would be grateful if you could give it your attention as soon as possible.

‘I say, old chap,’ said Peregrine. ‘Do you think he loves you?’ Only Peregrine could say things like that.

The pile of letters built up in Henry’s office, for he took them there rather than leave them around his room at his club. It was business correspondence, after all. Peregrine cautioned him – hardly necessary, for Henry knew the danger of angering a patron. But he kept distant, and continued with the work. Heavy rain had delayed the digging. None of the committee came to London. With satisfaction, Henry worked on, unencumbered.

Then, the letter which tipped him into decision came. On a Tuesday morning, with a sigh, Henry pierced Ashton’s latest letter savagely with his letter knife. His eyes ran over the phrases, neat and polite, asking him when he would come to Redlands. Then, beneath it, another hand. So different from his: lighter strokes, looping forms showing a hand that had long been disciplined but in which individual character was struggling to break out.

My husband begs me add a few words here, to tell you how much we wish to see you here at Redlands.

It would be a great favour to both of us if you would come here, and give your thoughts on my husband’s works. Yours etc, Charlotte Kinsburg.

He put the letter down. He felt his tiredness engulf him. He kept it at bay so often, and yet his grief always seemed to be waiting for him. In this moment, he dearly longed to be able to speak to his father and seek his advice.

He made a flying visit to Peregrine’s nearly completed ultra-Gothic folly, and showed him the letter. ‘He solicits her to his cause now,’ he said. ‘Will you come with me?’

Peregrine read it in the shadow of the pointed porch while Henry studied it. Arches within arches.

‘Do you think he forced her to write it?’ said Peregrine, only half-jokingly, for there was sorrow in his face. ‘You look awful, by the way. You have been shutting yourself away with your difficulties.’

‘I am quite well. He may blame her if we do not go. It is simply the matter of ordering a carriage, if you will let me know when it is convenient for you.’

‘Oh, Henry,’ said Peregrine. ‘Very well. But if we go, when we return, you must open the Russell Square house. These things cannot be put off for ever.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN