Lucy refused to meet her eyes but uttered a vague reply before mounting her bicycle and pushing off towards the top of the driveway, lamplight scribbling a shaky message on the ground before her.
At the shudder of the front door downstairs Saffy clapped the journal shut. Her blood thrummed warm beneath her temples, her cheeks, the skin stretched taut above her breasts. Her pulse beat faster than a small bird’s heart. Well. She stood shakily, pushing herself up from the ground. That certainly took away some of the guesswork: the mystery of the evening ahead, the alteration of the dress, the young male guest. Not a gallant stranger at all. No. Not a stranger.
‘Saffy?’ Percy’s voice cut sharp and angry through the layers of floorboards.
Saffy pressed a hand to her forehead, steeling herself to the task ahead. She knew what she had to do: she needed to get herself dressed and downstairs, she needed to assess how much cajoling Percy was going to require, then she needed to make sure the evening was a great success. And there was the grandfather chiming six o’clock so she had to do it at once. Juniper and her young man – whose name, Saffy was sure she remembered correctly, was the same as that she’d glimpsed in the journal entry – would be arriving within the hour, the strength with which Percy had slammed the front door foretold a dark mood, and Saffy herself was still dressed like someone who’d spent the day digging for victory.
Pile of liberated crockery forgotten, she waded hurriedly through the paper so she could close the remaining windows and draw the blackout curtains. Movement on the driveway caught her eye – Lucy crossing the first bridge on her bicycle – but Saffy looked away. A flock of birds soared across the distant sky, way over by the hop fields, and she watched them go. ‘Free as a bird’ was the expression, and yet they weren’t free at all, not as far as Saffy could tell: they were bound to one another by their habits, their seasonal needs, their biology, their nature, their birth. No freer than anyone else. Still, they knew the exhilaration of flight. What Saffy wouldn’t give sometimes to spread her wings and fly, right now, drifting from the window to soar above the fields, over the top of the woods, following the planes towards London.
She’d tried once, when she was a girl. She’d climbed out of the attic window, walked along the ridge of the roof, and scrambled down to the ledge below Daddy’s tower. She’d made herself a pair of wings first, the most glorious pair of silken wings, bound with twine to fine, light sticks she’d salvaged from the woods; she’d even sewn elastic loops on the back so she could wear them. They’d been so beautiful – neither pink nor red but vermilion, gleaming in the sun, just like the plumage on real birds – and for a few seconds after she’d launched herself into the air she’d really flown. The wind had buffeted her from beneath, whipping up through the valley to push her arms behind her, and everything had slowed, slowed, slowed, briefly but brilliantly, and she’d glimpsed what heaven it was to fly. Then things had begun to speed up, her descent had been rapid, and when she’d hit the ground, her wings and her arms had been broken.
‘Saffy?’ The shout came again. ‘Are you hiding from me?’
The birds disappeared into the swollen sky and Saffy pulled the window shut, sealing the blackouts so not a chink of light would be seen. Outside, the storm clouds rumbled like a full stomach, the gluttonous belly of a gentleman who’d escaped the frugalities of a rationed pantry. Saffy smiled, amusing herself, and made a mental note to jot down the description in her journal.
It was quiet inside, too quiet, and Percy’s lips tightened with familiar agitation; Saffy had always been the sort to hide when confrontation reared its bitter head. Percy had been fighting her twin’s battles all their lives, something she excelled at and actually quite enjoyed, and which worked very well indeed until dispute arose between them and Saffy, woefully out of practice, was ill equipped to meet it. Incapable of fight, she was left with only two options: flight or abject denial. In this instance, judging by the emphatic silence which met Percy’s attempts to find her, Saffy had chosen the former. Which was frustrating, exceedingly frustrating, for there was a fierce, spiky ball inside Percy, just waiting to get out. With no one to scowl at or take to task, however, Percy was stuck nursing it, and the fierce, spiky ball wasn’t the sort of affliction to shrivel of its own accord. With nowhere to fling it, she would need to seek satisfaction elsewhere. Whisky perhaps would help: it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
There was a moment each afternoon at which the sun reached a particular low point in the sky and light vanished, immediately and drastically, from within the castle. That moment passed as Percy went down the corridor from the entrance hall. When she emerged in the yellow parlour it was almost too dark to see her way across the room, which might have been hazardous had Percy not been able to navigate the castle blindfolded. She edged around the sofa into the bay window, pulled the blackout curtains across the glass and switched on the table lamp. As usual it made no practicable dent in the gloom. She pulled out a match to light the paraffin lamp’s wick but found, with mild surprise and strong annoyance, that after the encounter with Lucy her hand was shaking too much to strike it.
Ever the opportunist, the mantel clock chose that moment to step up its ticking. Percy had never liked that damned clock. It had been Mother’s and Daddy had insisted it was dear to him; thus its tenure was secure. There was something in the nature of its tick, though, that set Percy’s teeth on edge, a malicious suggestion that it took far more joy than a china object should at sweeping aside the passing seconds. This afternoon her dislike verged on hatred.
‘Oh, shut up, you stupid bloody clock,’ said Percy. Forgetting about the lamp, she tossed the unspent match into the bin.
She’d pour herself a drink, roll a cigarette, and then she’d head outside before the rain came, make sure there was sufficient firewood in the pile; see if she couldn’t rid herself of that spiky ball in the process.
SIX
Despite the turmoil of the day, Saffy had left a small portion of her brain free to devote itself to wardrobe rummaging; sorting through the options in her head so that come evening she wouldn’t be waylaid by indecision and forced to make a careless choice. Truthfully, it was one of her favourite pastimes even when she wasn’t hosting a special dinner: she visualized first this dress, with those shoes and that necklace, and then started again, cycling blissfully through the countless permutations. Today, combination after combination had presented itself only to be dismissed because it didn’t meet the final, essential criterion. Which was probably where she ought to have started, only it would have limited so direly the options. The winning outfit was always going to be the one that worked best with her finest nylon stockings: that was, the only pair whose six darned holes could happily be concealed by careful selection of the right shoes and a dress of the right length and persuasion. Cue the peppermint silk Liberty gown.
Back in the order and cleanliness of her own bedroom, as Saffy climbed out of her pinafore and did battle with her underwear, she was glad she’d already made the difficult decisions. She had neither the time nor the focus to make them now. As if deciphering the implications of Juniper’s journal entry wasn’t enough to contend with, Percy was downstairs and she was angry. As always, the whole house glowered with her; the slam of the front door had travelled all the way along the house’s veins, up four storeys and into Saffy’s own body. Even the lights – never bright – seemed to be sulking in sympathy, and the castle cavities were dirty with shadows. Saffy reached into the very back corner of the top drawer and retrieved her best stockings. They were tucked inside their paper packaging, wrapped inside a piece of tissue paper, and she unfolded them carefully, running her thumb lightly over the most recent repair.
The problem, as Saffy saw it, was that the nuances of human affection were lost on Percy, who was far more sympathetic to the needs of the walls and floors of Milderhurst than to those of her fellow inhabitants. They’d both been sorry to see Lucy go, after all; and it was Saffy who was more apt to feel her absence, alone in the house
all day, washing and scrubbing and patching meals together with only Clara or half-witted Millie for company. But while Saffy understood that a woman, given the choice between her work and her heart, would always choose the latter, Percy had refused to accept the changed household with any grace. She’d taken Lucy’s marriage as a personal slight and there was no one like Percy for holding a grudge. Which was why Juniper’s journal entry and what it might portend was so disquieting.
Saffy slowed in her inspection of the stocking. She wasn’t naive and she wasn’t a Victorian; she’d read Third Act in Venice and Cold Comfort Farm and The Thinking Reed, and she knew about sex. Nothing she’d read before, though, had prepared her for Juniper’s thoughts on the matter. Typically frank; visceral, but lyrical too; beautiful and raw and frightening. Saffy’s eyes had raced across the page, taking the whole lot in at once, an enormous glass of water tossed at her face. It was unsurprising, she supposed, given the pace at which she’d read, her confusion at meeting such vivid sentiments, that she couldn’t now bring to mind a single line; only fragments of feeling, unwanted images, occasional forbidden words and the hot shock of having met them.
Perhaps it hadn’t been the words themselves that had so astonished Saffy as much as to whom they belonged. Not only was Juniper her far younger sister, but she was a person who had always seemed emphatically sexless; her burning talent, her eschewal of all things feminine, her just plain oddness – all seemed to elevate Juniper above such basic human desires. What was more, and perhaps it was this which stung most, Juniper had never so much as hinted to Saffy that she was contemplating a love affair. Was the young male guest this evening the man in question? The journal entry had been penned six months ago, before June went to London, and yet the name Thomas had been mentioned. Was it possible that Juniper had met him earlier, at Milderhurst? That there had been more to her leaving than met the eye? And if so, were they still, after all this time, in love? Such a brilliant and exciting development in her little sister’s life, and not a word had been shared. Saffy knew why, of course: Daddy, if he were alive, would be furious – sex too often led to children, and Daddy’s theories on the incompatibility of art and child-rearing were no secret. Percy, as his self-elected emissary, must therefore remain none the wiser; Juniper had been right in that. But not to tell Saffy? Why, she and Juniper were close, and as secretive as Juniper was, they’d always been able to talk. This matter should be no different. She rolled the stocking off her hand, resolving to rectify matters as soon as Juniper arrived and they could snatch a few private moments together. Saffy smiled; the evening wasn’t merely a welcome home, or a show of gratitude. Juniper had a special friend.
Satisfied that the stockings were in good order, Saffy hung them on the bedrail and prepared to take on the wardrobe. Good Lord! She stopped still, turned her underwear-clad self this way and that, glancing back over her shoulder to get a rear view. Either the mirror had developed some sort of reflection disorder or she’d gained a few more pounds. Really, she ought to donate herself to science: to gain weight despite the grave state of England’s pantries? Saffy couldn’t decide whether it was downright un-British or a clever victory against Hitler’s U-boats. Not worthy perhaps of the Churchill Medal for the Maintenance of Beauty in England, but a triumph nonetheless. Saffy pulled a face at herself, cinched in her stomach, and opened the wardrobe door.
Behind the selection of dull pinafores and cardigans hanging at the front was a wonderland of vibrant neglected silks. Saffy clapped her hands to her cheeks; it was like revisiting old friends. Her wardrobe was her pride and joy, each dress a member of an esteemed club. It was a catalogue of her past, too, as she’d once thought during a fit of maudlin self-pity: the dresses she’d worn as a debutante, the silk gown she’d worn to the Milderhurst Midsummer Ball of 1923, even the blue frock she’d made to attend Daddy’s play’s premiere the following year. Daddy had maintained that daughters should be beautiful and they’d all continued to dress for dinner as long as he was alive; even when he was confined to his chair in the tower they’d made the effort to please him. After his death, however, there hadn’t seemed much point, not with the war. Saffy had kept it up for a time, but once Percy joined the ambulance service and started spending nights on duty they’d agreed, wordlessly, to let the custom slip away.
One by one, Saffy swept the gowns aside, until finally she glimpsed the peppermint silk. She held the others clear a moment, taking stock of its lustrous green front: the beading on the décolletage, the ribbon sash, the bias-cut skirt. She hadn’t worn it in years, could barely recall the previous occasion, but she could remember Lucy helping to mend it. It had been Percy’s fault; with those cigarettes and her careless manner of smoking them she was a menace to fine fabrics everywhere. Lucy had done a neat repair job though; Saffy had to hunt along the bodice to find the singe mark. Yes, it would do nicely; it would have to. Saffy drew it from the wardrobe, draped it across the bedspread, and took up her stockings.
The biggest mystery, she thought, spidering her fingers down the sides of the first stocking and easing her toes in, was how someone like Lucy could possibly have fallen in love with Harry the clock man in the first place. Such a plain little man, not at all a romantic hero, scuttering about the passages with his shoulders hunched and his hair always a little longer, a little thinner, a little less kempt than it should be—
‘Oh Lord; no!’ Saffy’s big toe caught and she began to topple sideways. There was a split second in which she might have righted herself, but her toenail had snagged in the fibre and to plant her foot would have risked a new ladder. Thus, she took the fall bravely, whacking her thigh painfully on the dressing-table corner. ‘Oh dear,’ she gasped. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’ She slid onto the upholstered stool and scrambled to inspect the precious stocking: why, oh why, hadn’t she concentrated better on the task at hand? There would be no new stockings when these ones tore beyond repair. Fingers trembling she turned them over and over, running her finger-tips lightly across the surface.
All seemed in order; it had been a narrow escape. Saffy let out the sigh she’d been holding, and yet she wasn’t wholly relieved. She met her pink-cheeked reflection in the mirror and held it: there was more at stake here than the last remaining pair of stockings. When she and Percy were girls they’d had plenty of opportunity to observe adults up close and what they saw had mystified them. The ancient grotesques behaved, for the most part, as if they’d no inkling at all that they were old. This perplexed the twins, who agreed that there was nothing so unseemly as an old person who refused to acknowledge his or her limitations, and they’d made a pact never to let it happen to them. When they were old, they swore, they would jolly well act the part. ‘But how will we know?’ Saffy had said, dazzled by the existential knot at the question’s core. ‘Perhaps it’s one of those things, like sunburn, that can’t be felt until it’s too late to do anything about it.’ Percy had agreed on the problem’s tricksy nature, sitting quietly with her arms wrapped around her knees as she gave herself over to its consideration. Ever the pragmatist, she’d reached a solution first, saying slowly, ‘I suppose we must make a list of things that old people do – three ought to be enough. And when we find ourselves doing them, then we’ll know.’
Gathering the candidate habits had been simple – there was a lifetime’s observation of Daddy and Nanny to consult; more difficult was limiting their number to three. After much deliberation they’d settled on those leaving least room for equivocation: first, professing strong and repeated preference for England when Queen Victoria was on the throne; second, mentioning one’s health in any company other than that which included a medical professional; and third, failure to put on one’s undergarments whilst standing.
Saffy groaned, remembering that very morning when she’d been making up the bed in the guest chamber and caught herself detailing her lower-back pain to Lucy. The conversation’s topic had warranted the description and she’d been prepared to let it slide, but now thi
s: felled by a pair of stockings? The prognosis was dismal indeed.
Percy had almost made it safely to the back door when Saffy finally appeared, gliding down the stairs as if she had nothing in the world to answer for. ‘Hello there, sister mine,’ she said. ‘Save any lives today?’
Percy inhaled. She needed time, space and a sharp swinging implement in order to clear her head and exorcise her anger. Otherwise, she was as likely as not to hurl it. ‘Four kittens from a drain and a clump of Edinburgh rock.’
‘Oh, well! Victory all round. Marvellous work indeed! – Shall we have a cup of tea?’
‘I’m going to chop some wood.’
‘Darling – ’ Saffy came a step closer – ‘I think that’s rather unnecessary.’
‘Better sooner than later. It’s about to pour with rain.’
‘I understand that,’ said Saffy, with exaggerated calm, ‘but I’m quite sure we’ve sufficient in the pile. Indeed, after your efforts this month, I estimate we’re set until approximately 1960. Why don’t you take yourself upstairs instead, get dressed for dinner – ’ Saffy paused as a loud noise sheeted from one side of the castle’s roof to the other – ‘there now, saved by the rain!’
Some days even the weather could be counted on to take the other side. Percy pulled out her tobacco and started rolling a cigarette. Without looking up she said, ‘Why did you ask her here?’
‘Who?’
A hard stare.
‘Oh that.’ Saffy waved her hand vaguely. ‘Clara’s mother was taken ill, Millie’s as daft as ever and you’re always so jolly busy: it was simply too much for me on my own. Besides, there’s no one who can sweet-talk Agatha quite like Lucy.’
‘You’ve done all right in the past.’
‘Darling of you to say so, Percy dear, but you know Aggie. I wouldn’t put it past her to cut out tonight, just to spite me. Ever since I let the milk boil over she’s held a mighty grudge.’