1840
Charlotte walked amid the ruins of the party in the plainest morning dress she had. Katie, sleepy and quiet, had helped her dress before Charlotte sent her back to doze in the adjoining dressing room. When she came downstairs the entrance hall was full of light. The servants had risen early, of course, and opened several windows, but the smell of alcohol, food and sweat still lingered in the air. The chairs were still arranged as they had been; the tables still covered in their white cloths, stained with red and white wines, with sauces and food. She walked gingerly around the remnants of a glass, left shattered on the stone floor of the entrance hall.
There was the sound of servants gossiping as they worked in the white salon, and someone was whistling in a distant room. Of course, no one expected her or Ashton to be up before ten. They thought them asleep, high above, in their separate rooms. So she walked quietly, remembering the sounds of the night before, savouring her aloneness. Especially in the ballroom, where so many beauties had twirled in Henry’s arms. Yet all that was left was debris: feathers on the floor from so many headdresses and shawls, crumbs and spills, a piece of torn lace.
A maid came scuttling out of one of the rooms, bearing a tray of wine glasses, and skidded to an absolute halt at the sight of her mistress.
‘Mrs Kinsburg,’ she cried, and attempted to curtsey. ‘You’ll be wanting breakfast.’ There was a slight resentment to her discomposure, a sense that Charlotte was breaking a well-known rule by being up before her time, while the servants claimed the house as their own.
‘I will wait until Mr Kinsburg is up before breakfasting,’ said Charlotte. ‘He will come down at ten, as usual. I will go and sit in his study. If you could ask someone to set a fire there.’
She walked through the rooms slowly, the other servants falling silent as she did so. She smiled at them. One of the footmen rushed into the study after her, and began to make the fire with many apologies. She asked him to open the shutters once the fledgling flames were climbing into life.
She walked around the room, looking at the spines of the books. She couldn’t help but think of them as witnesses of what had passed between her and Henry. She couldn’t help but think of this room as infused with love, somehow. Then, near one of the occasional tables, she paused.
Pinioned beneath the empty decanter and glasses was a sheaf of papers. She came closer and examined them. They were architectural sketches of a domed room, with a plinth in the middle, a wavy outline upon it. She saw the note, in Ashton’s handwriting: Kinsburg tomb. She closed her eyes. So he had continued with the plan. He had even been discussing it with his acquaintances: another huge project, this time to record the details of his life, to leave his heavy-footed trace upon the world. And now she realized what those wavy lines in the centre of the drawing represented: Ashton and her. Beside each other for eternity.
She thought of the diamond, cold and heavy on its chain. How he had undone the necklace the night before, and replaced the stone tenderly in its box. Would it, too, have its place in their mausoleum?
She looked around the study. Ashton was there, as Ashton was everywhere. There was no escaping him. Henry’s kiss seemed like something imagined. What was real was this room, with her husband’s prints all over it; what was real was this cold morning light, this insubordinate fire which did not catch properly, and the drawing of a tomb weighted down by empty brandy glasses.
This place would always be his. But she could find other places.
*
Henry woke with Foi sleeping beside him. His head throbbed and his mouth was dry. He moved, slowly, and sat upright on the edge of the bed, naked. It was only when he pulled a sheet towards him, to cover himself, that she woke.
He could not meet her eyes. It was the quietest he had ever known her, as she slowly dressed and plaited her hair at his looking glass. He pulled his trousers on, and his shirt, then found his wallet. He stood back from her as she put her shoes on. Then he handed her the money.
It was far too much, but she did not protest, despite looking hard at him. There was no pertness about her today, no smart remarks, but no desolation either. He could not pick a single emotion from her inert expression. She went from the room without a word.
He waited for a decent interval before ringing and asking for hot water. The young man who served him was not self-conscious, even though Henry looked for it. He sent the man away, and left himself unshaven. He could not seem to wash the smell of Foi from his skin, from his hands. He went out into the Sunday morning light still feeling rank, and went to church.
Henry took communion, then went home to Russell Square, where he greeted his rather shaken servants with an apology. Polly leapt into his arms and tried to lick his face, and it was only this which made him smile, at last, and think that life might return to normal. The housekeeper told him that Polly had slept outside his room, whimpering, and had refused to leave his door or come down to Mrs Smits’ room. He cradled the dog affectionately and petted her.
He was not hungry, and gave everyone the afternoon off – most, but not all, had been due to take the afternoon anyway. He washed, and re-dressed, dousing himself with cologne, but still could not raise enough hunger to eat even a hunk of bread and cheese. He left his discarded clothes on the bed and the soapy water in its basin to be collected later. He drank some cold coffee which had been made for him before the servants had gone out, but only because his body needed something, and the headache had returned.
He went out onto the squares and streets, where Londoners walked in their Sunday best. He felt that people looked at him, even as he walked, well-dressed, his top hat on and with him swinging his cane in an impression of energy and jauntiness. He simply kept walking, hoping that he might become more inconspicuous, to himself and to others.
He had been walking for an hour or so when he recovered his hunger at the scent of food from a chophouse. He went in, ordered, and was swiftly brought a dish of stew, which he ate hungrily. Warmed, and full, he felt the tension leave his body, a strange kind of security dull his feelings. The night could be forgotten; in the morning he would go to the office, and direct the building work, and answer his letters, and be himself again.
He tipped the cook and went out onto the streets once more. The shops he passed were closed, but he glanced in the windows cheerfully. At a bookseller’s window he scanned the shelves, looking for diversion. At the sight of Poems Chiefly Lyrical by Lord Tennyson he swallowed down his dull shock. He had not expected to see it; nor had he expected to feel his cheerful mood shift and fall sharply. Charlotte had loved the book, and she had quoted lines from ‘Mariana’ to him once: telling how she dreaded the evenings, sitting with Ashton.
But most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping towards his western bower.
He hurried home through the twilight, past churches and shops, couples and families. A light was lit within his house. He went in to find the servants returned, and him expected to dine. The book spine hovered in his mind, gold on blue. He went up the stairs, Polly at his heels, and into his room, where he put his cane down with a clatter and handed his hat to his valet. The man brought him hot water so that he could wash the London grime from his face. Henry watched him go, and sat on the edge of the bed, as he had sat on the edge of another bed, that morning, and watched Foi plait her muddy-blonde hair.
The dinner gong sounded. It was only then, with Polly looking up at him in concern, her tail wagging, that something crumbled within him. Last night had not been a dream: he had lived it, and there was no going back now, and no erasing it with the most fervent of prayers. The clock on his mantelpiece chimed the hour, and he felt the house thick with the ghosts of his family, and his regrets. As Polly leapt onto his lap, he covered his face with his hands.