‘She’s – it’s – an oven, Seraphina.’
‘My point exactly! Who’d have thought her capable of such a ghastly temperament?’
Percy was being managed; she could feel it. The affected lightness in her sister’s voice, being cut off at the pass on her way to the back door, then shooed upstairs where she was willing to bet a dress – something wretchedly fancy – had already been laid out for her: it was as if Saffy feared she couldn’t be trusted to maintain civility in company. The suggestion made Percy want to roar, but such a reaction would only confirm her sister’s concerns, so she didn’t. Swallowing the urge, she dampened her paper and sealed the cigarette.
‘Anyway,’ Saffy continued, ‘Lucy’s been a darling, and with nothing decent to roast I decided we needed whatever help we could get.’
‘Nothing to roast?’ said Percy breezily. ‘Last I looked there were eight contenders fattening up nicely in the bird-house.’
Saffy drew breath. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘I dream of drumsticks.’
A gratifying tremor had insinuated itself into Saffy’s voice, travelling all the way down to the tip of her pointed finger: ‘My girls are good little providers; they are not dinner. I will not have you looking at them and thinking of gravy. Why, it’s . . . it’s barbarous.’
There were a great many things Percy wanted to say, but as she stood there in the dank corridor, rain pounding the earth on the other side of the stone wall, her twin sister standing before her, shifting uncomfortably on the stair – hips and stomach stretching her old green dress in all the wrong places – Percy glimpsed the thread of time and all their various disappointments along it. It formed a block against which her present frustration slammed, concertinaing behind. She was the dominant twin, she always had been, and no matter how angry Saffy made her, fighting subverted some basic principle of the universe.
‘Perce?’ Saffy’s voice still trembled. ‘Do I need to put my girls under guard?’
‘You should have told me,’ Percy said with a short sigh, snatching the matches from her pocket. ‘That’s all. You should have told me about Lucy.’
‘I wish you’d just put the whole thing behind you, Perce. For your own sake. Servants have done worse to their employers than leave them. It’s not as if we found her with her fingers in the silver drawer.’
‘You should have told me.’ Percy’s throat ached as she spoke. She fumbled a single match from the deck.
‘If it matters so much, I won’t ask her back. For what it’s worth, I can’t imagine she’ll put up much argument; she struck me as rather keen to avoid your society. I think you frighten her.’
A snap as the matchstick broke between Percy’s fingers.
‘Oh, Perce – now look, you’re bleeding.’
‘It’s nothing.’ She wiped it on her trousers.
‘Not on your clothing, not blood, it’s impossible to clean.’ Saffy held up a crumpled item of clothing she’d brought with her from upstairs. ‘In case you failed to notice, the laundry staff left us some time ago. I’m all that’s left, boiling and stirring and scouring.’
Percy rubbed at the bloodstain on her leg, smudging it further.
Saffy sighed. ‘Leave your trousers for now; I’ll see to them. Go on upstairs, darling, and make yourself tidy.’
‘Yes.’ Percy was looking at her finger in mild surprise.
‘You put on a nice party frock and I’ll put on the kettle. Make us a pot of tea. Better yet, I’ll fix us a cocktail, shall I? It is a celebration, after all.’
Celebration was taking it a bit far, but Percy’s fight had left her. ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘Good idea.’
‘Bring your trousers down to the kitchen when you’re done; I’ll put them in to soak right away.’
Percy clenched and unclenched her hand as she started slowly up the stairs, and then she stopped and turned. ‘I almost forgot,’ she said, taking the typed envelope from her bag. ‘A letter for you in today’s post.’
SEVEN
Saffy hid inside the butler’s pantry to read the letter. She’d known immediately what it would be and it had taken all her efforts to conceal her excitement from Percy. She’d snatched at the envelope, then stood watch at the bottom of the stairs, making sure her sister didn’t suffer a last-minute change of heart and head for the woodpile instead. Only when she’d heard Percy’s bedroom door close behind her had she finally allowed herself to relax. She’d all but lost hope that a reply would ever come and, now that it had, she almost wished it hadn’t. The anticipation, the tyranny of the unknown, was nearly too much to bear.
Downstairs in the kitchen, she hurried into the windowless butler’s pantry, which had once swollen with the indomitable presence of Mr Broad but now contained little more to evidence his reign of terror than the desk and a wooden cabinet of old, impossibly tedious daily records. Saffy pulled the string that fired the light bulb and leaned against the desk. Her fingers turned to thumbs as she fumbled with the envelope.
Without her letter opener, which was sitting in its cradle on her writing desk upstairs, Saffy had to resort to tearing the envelope open. Which she didn’t like doing and therefore did as neatly as possible, almost enjoying the prolonged agony such extreme caution brought. She slipped the folded paper from within – very fine paper, she noted; cotton fibre, embossed, warm white – and, with a deep breath, opened it out flat. Eyes scanning quickly, she drank in the letter’s meaning, then went back to the beginning again, forcing herself to read more slowly, to believe what she was seeing, as incredible joyous lightness of being spread from deep within her body, turning even the outermost tips of her fingers to stardust.
She’d first glimpsed the advertisement in The Times when she was leafing through the lettings. Female companion and governess sought to accompany Lady Dartington and her three children to America for the duration of the war, it had read. Educated, unmarried, cultured, experienced with children. The advertisement might have been written with Saffy in mind. Though she had no children of her own, it was certainly not for lack of desire. There had been a time when her future thoughts had been filled – surely like most women’s? – with babies. It seemed they were not to be had, however, without a husband, and therein lay the sticking point. As to the other criteria, Saffy was quite confident she could claim without immodesty to possess both education and culture. So, she’d set out immediately to win the position, composing a letter of introduction, including a pair of splendid references, and putting together an application demonstrating Seraphina Blythe to be the ideal candidate. And then she’d waited, trying as best she could to keep her dreams of New York City to herself. Having long ago learned that there was no point ruffling Percy’s feathers unnecessarily, she hadn’t mentioned the position to her twin, allowing her mind to fill privately, and vividly, with possibilities. She’d imagined the journey in rather embarrassing detail, casting herself as a sort of latter-day Molly Brown, keeping the Dartington children’s spirits buoyed as they braved the U-boats en route for the great American port . . .
Telling Percy would be the hardest part; she wasn’t going to be pleased, and as to what would become of her, marching the corridors alone, mending walls and chopping wood, forgetting to bathe or launder or bake – well, it didn’t bear thought. This letter, though, this offer of employment Saffy held in her hand, was her chance and she wasn’t about to let a bad habit of sentiment stop her from taking it. Like Adele, in her novel, she was going to ‘seize life by the throat and force it to meet her eyes’ – Saffy was very proud of that line.
She closed the pantry door quietly behind her and noticed immediately that the oven was steaming. In all the excitement she’d almost forgotten the pie! What a thing! She’d be lucky if the pastry weren’t burnt to a cinder.
Saffy slid on her oven mitts and squinted inside, breathing a great sigh of relief when she saw that the pie’s top, though golden, was not yet brown. She shifted it into the bottom oven, where the temperature was lower
and it could sit without spoiling, then stood to leave.
And that’s when she saw that Percy’s stained uniform trousers had joined her own pinafore on the kitchen table. Why, they must have been deposited when Saffy was in the pantry. What luck that Percy hadn’t discovered her reading the letter.
Saffy gave the trousers a shake. Monday was her official washing day, but it was just as well to leave the clothes to steep a while, especially where Percy’s uniform was concerned; the number and variety of stains Percy managed to collect would’ve been impressive if they weren’t so jolly difficult to remove. Still, Saffy enjoyed a challenge. She stuck her hand into first one pocket, then the other, in search of forgotten odds and sods that would spoil her load. And it was just as well she did.
Saffy pulled out the pieces of paper – goodness, such a number! – and laid them beside her on the work top. She shook her head wearily; she’d lost count of how many times she’d tried to train Percy to clear her pockets before putting clothes out for laundering.
But how strange – Saffy shifted the shreds about with her finger, located one with a stamp. It was, or had been once, a letter, torn now into pieces.
But why would Percy do such a thing? And who was the letter from?
A slamming noise above and Saffy’s gaze swung to the ceiling. Footsteps, another slam.
The front door! Juniper had arrived. Or was it him, the fellow from London?
Saffy glanced again at the tattered pieces of paper, chewed the inside of her cheek. Here was a mystery, and one she needed to resolve. But not now; there simply wasn’t time. She needed to be upstairs, to see Juniper and to greet their guest; Lord only knew what Percy’s state was now. Perhaps the torn letter would shed some light on her sister’s foul mood of late.
With a short nod of decision, Saffy concealed her own secret letter carefully beneath her bodice and stashed the pieces she’d pulled from Percy’s pocket under a saucepan lid. She would investigate properly later.
And, with a last check of the rabbit pie, she straightened her dress about the bust, discouraged it from clinging quite so closely to her middle, and started upstairs.
Perhaps Percy only imagined the rotting odour? It had been an unfortunate phantom lately; it turned out there were some things, once smelled, that could never be escaped. They hadn’t been in the good parlour for over six months, not since Daddy’s funeral, and despite her sister’s best efforts a musty edge still clung. The table had been pulled into the centre of the room, right atop the Bessarabian rug, then laid with Grandmother’s finest dinner service, four glasses apiece, and a carefully printed menu at each place. Percy picked one up for closer inspection, noted that parlour games were scheduled and put it down again.
A jolt of memory took her back to a shelter she’d found herself in during the first weeks of the Blitz, when a planned visit to Daddy’s solicitor in Folkestone had been scotched by Hitler’s fighters. The forced gaiety, the songs, the horrid, acrid smell of fear . . .
Percy shut her eyes then and saw him. The figure dressed all in black, who’d appeared midway through the bombing and leaned, unnoticed, against the wall, speaking to no one. Head deeply bowed beneath his dark, dark hat. Percy had watched him, fascinated by the way he stood somehow outside the others. He’d looked up only once, just before he gathered his coat around him and walked out into the blazing night. His eyes had met her own, briefly, and she’d seen nothing inside them. No compassion, no fear, no determination; just a cold emptiness. She’d known then that he was Death and she’d thought of him plenty since. When she was working a shift, climbing into bomb craters, pulling bodies from within, she’d remember the ghastly, otherworldly calm he’d carried wrapped around him as he strode from the shelter out into the chaos. She’d signed up with the ambulances soon after their encounter, but it wasn’t bravery that drove her, it wasn’t that at all: it was simply easier to take one’s chances with Death on the flaming surface than to remain trapped beneath the shaking, moaning earth with nothing but desperate cheer and helpless fear for company . . .
There was an inch or so of amber liquid in the bottom of the decanter and Percy wondered vaguely when it had been put there. Years ago, certainly – they used the bottles in the yellow parlour for themselves these days – but it hardly mattered, liquor was the better for ageing. With a glance over her shoulder, Percy dropped a shot into a glass, then doubled it. Rattled the crystal stopper back into place as she took a swig. And another. Something in the middle of her chest burned and she welcomed the ache. It was vivid and real and she was standing here right now feeling it.
Footsteps. High-heeled. Distant but ticking rapidly along the stones towards her. Saffy.
Months of anxiety balled up like a leaden weight in Percy’s gut. She needed to take herself in hand. There was nothing to be gained by ruining Saffy’s evening – Lord knew, her twin had little enough opportunity to exercise her zest for entertaining. Oh, but Percy felt giddy at the ease with which she might. A sensation similar to that when a person stands right on the precipice overlooking a great height, when the knowledge that one must not jump is so strong that an odd compulsion almost overtakes one, whispering that to jump is the very thing that must be done.
God she was a hopeless case. There was something fundamentally broken at the heart of Percy Blythe, something queer and defective and utterly unlikable. That she should contemplate, even for a second, the ease with which she might deprive her sister, her infuriating, beloved twin, of happiness. Had she always been so mired in perversity? Percy sighed deeply. She was ill, clearly, and it wasn’t a recent condition. Throughout their lives it had been thus: the more enthusiasm Saffy showed for a person or an object or an idea, the less Percy was able to give. It was as if they were one being, split into two, and there was a limit to the amount of combined feeling they could exhibit at any one time. And at some point, for some reason, Percy had appointed herself the balance keeper: if Saffy were anguished, Percy opted for glib merriment; if Saffy were excited, Percy did her best to douse it with sarcasm. How bloody cheerless she was.
The gramophone had been opened and cleaned and a pile of records stacked beside it. Percy picked one up, a new album sent by Juniper from London. Obtained God knew where and by what means; Juniper, it might be guessed, had her ways. Music would surely help. She dropped the needle and Billie Holiday started to croon. Percy exhaled, whisky warm. That was better: contemporary music without previous associations. Many years ago, decades before, during one of the Blythe Family Evenings, Daddy had given the word ‘nostalgia’ in a challenge. He’d read out the definition, ‘an acute homesickness for the past’, and Percy had thought, with the gauche certainty of the young, what a very strange concept it was. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would seek to re-inhabit the past when the future was where all the mystery lay.
Percy drained her glass, tilted it idly this way and that, watching the remaining droplets congeal into a single entity. It was the meeting with Lucy that had her nerves prickling, she knew that, but a pall had spread across all the day’s events and Percy found her thoughts drawn back again to Mrs Potts in the post office. Her suspicions, her insistence almost, that Juniper was engaged to be married. Gossip attached itself to Juniper, but it was Percy’s experience that where rumour nested there was always a shred of truth. Though not in this case, surely.
Behind her, the door sighed as it was opened and a cooler gust crept in from the passage.
‘Well?’ came her sister’s breathless voice. ‘Where is she? I heard the door.’
If Juniper were to speak of private matters it would be to Saffy. Percy tapped the rim of her glass thoughtfully.
‘Is she upstairs already?’ Saffy’s voice dropped to a whisper as she said, ‘Or was it him? What’s he like? Where is he?’
Percy straightened her shoulders. If she expected any cooperation from Saffy she needed to offer an unreserved mea culpa. ‘They’re not here yet,’ she said, turning to her twin and smiling – she hoped ?
?? guilelessly.
‘They’re late.’
‘Only a little.’
Saffy had that look, the transparent, nervy face she used to wear when they were children putting on plays for Daddy’s friends and no one had yet arrived to fill out the chairs for the audience. ‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘I could have sworn I heard the door—’
‘Check under the chairs if you like,’ said Percy lightly. ‘There’s no one else here. It was just the shutter you heard, the one on the window over there. It came loose in the storm, but I fixed it.’ She nodded at the wrench on the sill.
Saffy’s eyes widened as she took in the wet marks on the front of Percy’s dress. ‘It’s a special dinner, Perce. Juniper will—’
‘Neither notice nor care,’ Percy finished. ‘Come on now. Forget about my dress. You look good enough for both of us. Sit down, won’t you? I’ll make us a drink while we wait.’
EIGHT
Given that neither Juniper nor her gentleman friend had arrived, what Saffy really wanted to do was scurry back downstairs, put the pieces of torn letter back together, and learn Percy’s secret. To find her twin in such placatory spirits, though, was an unexpected boon and one she couldn’t afford to squander. Not tonight, not with Juniper and the special guest expected any minute. On that note, it was as well to remain as close as possible to the front door, all the better to catch Juniper alone when she finally arrived. ‘Thank you,’ she said, accepting the proffered glass, taking a healthy sip to signal goodwill.
‘So,’ said Percy, returning to perch on the edge of the gramophone table, ‘how was your day?’
Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice might have said. Percy, as a rule, did not peddle in small talk. Saffy hid behind another sip of her drink and decided it was wise to proceed with extreme caution. She fluttered her hand and said, ‘Oh, fine. Although I did fall over putting on my underwear.’