1839
‘I believe you’re enjoying this,’ Peregrine said, as they rattled down the lanes of Hertfordshire. Dressed splendidly, wearing a waistcoat depicting knights on horseback – having embraced the Gothic nature of his latest project – he was nevertheless looking carriage-sick, rather than valiant. ‘And why did Kinsburg insist on providing the carriage and driver from the George? Does he not know you are a gentleman too? I swear you could have provided us with a cleaner ride.’
‘He insisted that he would convey us this last part of the journey, at a time of his choosing,’ said Henry. ‘And it seems fine to me, but I travel better than you, perhaps. If it helps, once we’re on his land the road should be in perfect order. I’m sorry to put you through this. I could have come alone. I believe I’ve overblown the whole thing.’
When he’d fixed on a date, Henry had felt a sharp stab of despair, which dulled into calmness over the next few days. He would see Mrs Kinsburg again. And it was highly likely that she would disappoint him. The mild romantic infatuations of youth had often left him untouched within a short time, for he was good at seeing things in the round. Prettiness faded, he knew that, and he told himself that, beneath sweetness, often other things lay. The sudden rush of feeling, of connection, that had occurred on the day of the accident would be revealed as a temporary, fleeting thing, as human and as intangible as a trick of the light. No one to blame, he thought soothingly, least of all her. And yet, he put his hand in his pocket, and it closed over the fragment of letter he had cut from Ashton’s: a small piece of this woman, something she had touched.
‘It’s best that I’m here,’ Peregrine said, with a dry glance in Henry’s direction. ‘Is this land all his? Kinsburg’s? I haven’t seen any gold glinting in the distance yet.’
‘It’s all on the inside,’ said Henry, with a brief smile. He felt fully in control of himself; and he had arranged himself so that every line of his body seemed to tell of relaxation. But beneath it all, it were as though he had drunk a glass or two too much of champagne and might behave unpredictably. Only he was aware of it, and he knew that he did not betray himself by the slightest movement as they traversed the deep, hollowed-out lanes beneath trees, the acres of neatly cultivated land. He thought of the house awaiting him in Russell Square, under dust sheets and empty of life. It was an absence, rather than a presence, in his life, and he dreaded returning to it. ‘I wish every day could be so picturesque as this,’ he said. ‘Look at that sky: perfect, blue, cloudless. And these fields.’ He touched the sketchbook in his pocket. ‘If we weren’t moving, I’d try and draw it.’
‘You’d be bored in no time,’ said Peregrine. ‘Besides, these people have no need for buildings. There is but one in this vicinity. You and I would have to fight over the yearly alterations. Oh, look at you. Don’t go all misty-eyed over the idea of a simple life. You came from that, remember? And you ran from it, to the city, as fast as you could.’
‘Perhaps I should not have. Been . . .’
‘What? A country clergyman? I don’t think so. A schoolmaster? Or perhaps you would have found a home in business, with your connections. Don’t even toy with the idea, Henry. You and I both know you love your work. Creating balance, and worth, and harmony, and you are doing the job that the good Lord put you on earth to do, so don’t start getting sentimental at one glance of a haystack.’
Before long, they were approaching Redlands, and were at the lodge house. And then, carefully, but definitely, the driver pulled them up. After a moment or two, Henry leaned out of the window.
‘What’s amiss?’
The driver turned and touched his hat. ‘Begging your pardon, Mr Dale-Collingwood. Mr Kinsburg asked that we arrive at four, or as near to as we can. I had measured the distance from the inn to here, and done a run more than once, but I’m a bit ahead of myself today. My watch here tells me so.’
Henry settled back into the carriage with a mystified frown at Peregrine, who had heard it all.
‘What kind of man is so pernickety about time?’ snapped Peregrine. ‘It’s bad manners, is it not, to keep us waiting this far from the house? I’d bet he’s on the roof leads with his telescope.’
‘He likes to control things,’ murmured Henry. ‘That is all, I suppose. He has taken it a little far, rather.’ And he inspected his fingernails.
They sat there for a while, the horses shifting gently, and a soft breeze of early summer moving through the trees. Henry looked at his pocket watch. ‘We should be on our way soon, Perry,’ he said.
And, as if at his words, their horses – two finely matched chestnuts – set their hooves upon the surface of the two-mile drive, moving at a brisk trot down that road, the trees evenly spaced either side, so that now the carriage fell into sunshine, and now into shadow.
*
‘I am unwell,’ Charlotte said. ‘Dearest Ashton, I am unwell.’ She bit her lip: the ‘dearest’ had been too much.
‘Our visitors will be here soon,’ he said.
‘I know they will, and I know that it is my duty to ensure their comfort,’ she said. ‘If you would but let me rest during tea? I can then be fresh for dinner. Barbara would like to be the hostess at tea, you know that. She has arranged some of her very best dainties.’
His expression was impenetrable. ‘What has tired you so much?’
She sprung on this hope. ‘It is the planning. Mrs Alton has been wonderful, and the staff most obliging, but I have felt the need to create our very best menus, as you asked for, and it has taken much study, and much thought over ordering of provisions, and stocking the ice house. I have supervised the selection of the flowers, and arranged them myself: thirty arrangements. And I have overseen every detail, from the bringing out of the first service and the polishing of the silver, and the arrangements of the tables, and the seating plan.’ As she spoke, she saw his expression fade and sour. Her husband did not care for problems.
‘Enough,’ he said. ‘You have over-tired yourself for two visitors? Arranging the flowers, when you simply could have left instructions? I do not understand it.’
Charlotte put her hands behind her. For the last arrangement she had removed her hot hands from her gloves, and they were speckled with a small number of thorn pricks. Ashton saw the gesture, reached around and pulled her hand out, and inspected it. A deep sigh escaped him, a signifier of his misery.
‘Cover them,’ he said. ‘Charlotte, you are the mistress here, and you have been for some years now, which makes this even more mystifying. Pray, behave as though you are worthy of the role. If you have injured yourself with overexertion, it is no fault of mine. You must appear to greet our guests. It would spoil the whole effect if not. They will be here very soon.’ The shadow of displeasure aged his young face. He could not look at her, but she could sense that he was actively trying not to be harsh. ‘Go and check that Thomas is ready,’ he said. She nodded, pressed a kiss to his warm cheek, and went.
*
Charlotte’s son was looking out of the window when his mother arrived. Isabel sat nearby, playing with her dolls, ignored by her brother. She was judged too weak to attend this weekend, with her usual feverish aches and pains, but Charlotte knew that, although Ashton did not wish his little girl to be ill, it hardly mattered to him whether she attended: his son and heir was the central concern. Charlotte touched her daughter’s hair, and they exchanged a smile. But it were as though Isabel knew why Charlotte was here: she looked towards her brother, standing at the window. He had not turned at his mother’s approach. He was dressed as a miniature version of the master, in trousers and a waistcoat and jacket to match his father’s. Charlotte couldn’t help but remember that, when she had met Ashton, she had noticed that he was fully aware of what kind of power his wealth and good looks gave him. He had transmitted the same deep confidence, bordering on arrogance, to their tiny son.
Charlotte felt a dull storm cloud around her, the vapour of nausea, so it was with effort that she approached Thomas, and smoothed out his jacket. She crouched to adjust it around his neck, her dress spreading out around her, pale cream with richly embroidered flowers and leaves.
‘Do not dirty your gown, Mama,’ said Thomas, a little frown on his face. He took her hand and played with it absently. ‘Nurse told me about my sister Loveday,’ he said.
Charlotte rose, and as she did so the floor seemed to tilt; a strange dizziness came to her. She winced with it, as the nurse came forwards, full of excuses. ‘He asked about Miss Loveday, madam. It was not I who told him of her.’
Thomas was tugging on his mother’s hand. ‘Do not worry, Mama, do not worry.’ Charlotte looked back at him. ‘For surely, I am as good as my sister? As a son I am better than both Loveday and Isabel.’ His twin did not even murmur or look up.
He gave her the sweetest smile. Charlotte disengaged herself from his hands and stepped backwards. ‘All of you are precious to me. Let us not speak of it. Are you ready to receive our visitors?’
The boy had frowned again, deeply this time, and his bottom lip stuck out. ‘You are not being tender to me. You have not told me I am better than my sisters. You tell me now.’
She looked at him.
‘Or I will tell Papa.’
She gazed at him: her son. Remembered the days of the twins’ births. Pain that had hummed around her body like clouds of flies in the August afternoon.
‘Mama?’
Charlotte adjusted the fingerless lace mittens she had selected from her room on the journey up through Redlands to the nursery. She pressed one hand to her face now: smelt the trace of lavender. She looked down at her son and smiled.
He spoke again. ‘Papa is best to me. Papa buys me things. My sword, my pony, my globes.’
His nurse decided to intervene. ‘And yet Mama oversees your food and your clothes. Mama orders you the fire that keeps you warm in the evenings. And your favourite pudding.’
He looked a little troubled now. He took Charlotte’s hand again, and pulled her a step or two to the window. From a distance, a black carriage trundled across the horizon. ‘Look,’ he said, suddenly excited. ‘They will be here very soon.’
Charlotte stared at the carriage. ‘Yes, my dear.’
He frowned again. ‘I have been watching for them all afternoon, and now that you have distracted me, they have come. You have ruined it.’
‘If you are not a constant watcher, Thomas, that is hardly my fault,’ said Charlotte, and immediately felt guilty at her sharpness. She put her hands on his shoulders, and gently moved them up a little. ‘Stand up straight when you meet them.’ He shook her hands off him. This movement of rejection shook her, and she leaned forwards and embraced him. But his little body was stiff in her arms and when she took his face in her hands she saw there only his sullenness, the anticipation of speaking ill of her. She kissed him on the forehead. ‘Say whatever you wish to your father,’ she said. ‘But hurry down now. We must greet the visitors.’
*
‘What a monstrosity,’ murmured Peregrine, as the carriage pulled up.
‘Oh, come now,’ said Henry, as the door was opened and the steps let down. ‘It is not as bad as all that. He’s just added an extra half a mile of frontage onto it.’
And here was Ashton, dressed more flamboyantly than Henry expected, in a vivid yellow waistcoat beneath his black frock coat. He seized Henry’s hand and shook it, half-bowing as he did so, and this burst of almost youthful enthusiasm drew Henry up. But Ashton was now greeting Peregrine, and then leading both men towards the grand entrance of the house, where his son stood, shifting on his feet with excitement.
‘My son and heir, Master Thomas Kinsburg,’ cried Ashton, throwing out his arm and directing the men there. Henry glanced at Peregrine; he felt foolish paying obeisance to a child, but both men managed encouraging remarks for the small boy, who had clearly been primed by his father and prattled on about his home surely being the greatest building in England. Henry bit his lip and did not dare glance at Peregrine during the course of this, but was glad when, after several minutes, the child was taken off by his nurse, and his father returned to his normal manner of disengaged archness.
And then there was Mrs Kinsburg.
She had stood back, a pale shape in the vast, dark doorway. One might have mistaken her for a servant, with her preference for the shadows; or had he spent too long poring over plans, and straining his sight? But when she came forwards, Henry saw what an astonishing production she was: the hair, plaited intricately and lying in loops over her ears, a band of the finest lace over the top. Her dress was cream-coloured, adorned with pink roses and green leaves, the many layers of stiff petticoats beneath making her skirt an exaggerated dome. She wore fingerless lace mittens. Her face was free of artificiality; the slight line of pink at her cheekbones was from where she had pinched them. At Ashton’s direction, she came forwards, and she brought the scent of lily of the valley with her. She did not look directly at them: never once did her eyes meet Henry’s, and he was glad of it.
It seemed to Henry that he and Charlotte were frozen for a moment in a tableau: her curtsey and his bow. It was clear that Peregrine and Ashton saw nothing. But he felt – she felt – it, though neither of them signalled to the other. The grey stone of Redlands; the shimmering green of the hills beyond them; a sky so blue it was unearthly. And, just for Henry and Charlotte, the opening shaft of light, as everything suddenly became bright. He had seen it in paintings, felt it pierce his heart. Chiaroscuro: a shaft of light through shadow.