I climbed out again, blinked into the glare. The clouds were skimming fast across the sky, and the sun was covered now by a bleak white sheet. I noticed then a little nook in the hedge, a raised hillock that I couldn’t resist sitting on, I pulled Mum’s journal from my bag, leaned back, and opened to the first page. It was dated January 1940.
Dearest and most lovely notebook! I have been saving you for such a long time – a whole year now, even a little bit longer – because you were a gift to me from Mr Cavill after my examinations. He told me that I was to use you for something special, that words lasted forever, and that one day I would have a story that warranted such a book. I didn’t believe him at the time: I’ve never had anything special to write about – does that sound terribly sad? I think it might and I really don’t mean it that way, I wrote it only because it’s true: I’ve never had anything special to write about and I didn’t imagine that I would. But I was wrong. Terribly, totally, wonderfully wrong. For something has happened and nothing will ever be the same again.
I suppose the first thing I should tell you is that I’m writing this in a castle. A real castle, made of stone, with a tower and lots of winding staircases, and enormous candle holders on all the walls with wax mounds, decades and decades of blackening wax, drooping from their bases. You might think that this, my living in a castle, is the ‘wonderful’ thing, and that it’s greedy to expect anything more on top, but there is more.
I’m sitting on the windowsill in the attic, the most marvellous place in the whole castle. It is Juniper’s room. Who is Juniper, you might ask, if you were able? Juniper is the most incredible person in the world. She is my best friend and I am hers. It was Juniper who encouraged me finally to write in you. She said she was tired of seeing me carrying you around like a glorified paperweight and that it was time I took the plunge and marked your beautiful pages.
She says there are stories everywhere and that people who wait for the right one to come along before setting pen to paper end up with very empty pages. That’s all writing is, apparently, capturing sights and thoughts on paper. Spinning, like a spider does, but using words to make the pattern. Juniper has given me this fountain pen. I think it might have come from the tower, and I’m a little frightened that her father will decide to go looking for whoever stole it, but I use it nonetheless. It is truly a glorious pen. I think it is quite possible to love a pen, don’t you?
Juniper suggested that I write about my life. She is always asking me to tell her stories about Mum and Dad, Ed and Rita, and Mrs Paul next door. She laughs very loudly, like a bottle that’s been shaken then opened, bubbles exploding everywhere: alarming, in a way, but lovely, too. Her laugh is not at all how you might expect. She’s so smooth and graceful, but her laugh is throaty like the earth. It’s not only her laugh that I love; she scowls, too, when I tell her the things that Rita says, scowls and spits in all the right places.
She says that I am lucky – can you imagine? Someone like her saying that of me? – that all my learning has been done in the real world. Hers, she says, was acquired from books. Which sounds like heaven to me, but evidently was not. Do you know, she hasn’t been to London since she was tiny? She went with her entire family to see the premiere of a play from the book that her father wrote, The True History of the Mud Man. When Juniper mentioned that book to me, she said its name as if, surely, I would be familiar with it, and I was very embarrassed to admit that I was not. Curses on my parents for having kept me in the dark about such things! She was surprised, I could tell, but she didn’t make me feel bad. She nodded, as if she quite approved, and said that it was no doubt only because I was far too busy in my real world with real people. And then she got the sad look that she gets sometimes, thoughtful and a bit puzzled, as if trying to work out the answer to a complex problem. It is the look, I think, that my mother despises when it sets in on my own face, the one that makes her point her finger and tell me to shake off the grey skies and get on with things.
Oh, but I do enjoy grey skies! They’re so much more complex than blue ones. If they were people, those are the ones I’d make the time to learn about.
It’s far more interesting to wonder what might be behind the layers of clouds than to be presented always with a simple, clear, bland blue.
The sky outside today is very grey. If I look through the window it’s as if someone has stretched a great, grey blanket over the castle. It’s frosty on the ground, too. The attic window looks down upon a very special place. One of Juniper’s favourites. It’s a square plot, enclosed by hedges, with little gravestones rising from beneath the brambles, all stuck out at odd angles like rotting teeth in an old mouth.
Clementina Blythe
1 year old
Taken cruelly
Sleep, my little one, sleep
Cyrus Maximus Blythe
3 years old
Gone too soon
Emerson Blythe
10 years old
Loved
The first time I went there, I thought it was a graveyard for children, but Juniper told me they were pets. All of them. The Blythes care very much for their animals, especially Juniper, who cried when she told me about her first dog, Emerson.
Brrr . . . But it’s freezing cold in here! I’ve inherited an enormous assortment of knitted socks since I arrived at Milderhurst. Saffy is a great one for knitting but a terrible one for counting, the upshot of which is that a third of the socks she’s made for the soldiers are far too tight to cover so much as a burly man’s big toe, but perfect for my twiglet ankles. I have put three pairs on each foot, and another three singletons on my right arm, leaving only my left exposed so that I might hold a pen. Which explains the state of my writing. I apologize for that, dear journal. Your beautiful pages deserve better.
So here I am, alone in the attic room, while Juniper is busy downstairs reading to the hens. Saffy is convinced that they lay better when they’re stimulated; Juniper, who loves all animals, says that there is nothing so clever or soothing as a hen; and I enjoy eggs very much indeed. So there. We are all happy. And I am going to start at the beginning and write as quickly as I can. For one thing, it will keep my fingers warm
Fierce barking, of the sort that makes one’s heart contract like a slingshot, and I almost jumped out of my skin.
A dog appeared above me, Juniper’s lurcher; lips pulled back, teeth bared, a low growl emanating from deep within him.
‘There, boy,’ I said, my voice tight with fear. ‘There now.’ I was debating whether to reach out and stroke him, whether he might that way be calmed, when the end of a stick appeared in the mud. A pair of brogue-clad feet followed, and I looked up to see Percy Blythe glaring at me.
I’d quite forgotten how thin and severe she was. Hunched over her cane, peering down, and dressed in much the same fashion as the last time we’d met, pale trousers and a well-cut shirt that might have seemed manly if not for her incredibly narrow frame and the dainty watch that hung loosely around her gaunt wrist.
‘It’s you,’ she said, clearly as surprised as I was. ‘You’re early.’
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you, I—’
The dog growled again and she made an impatient noise, waving her fingers. ‘Bruno! That’s enough.’ He whimpered and slunk back to her side. ‘We were expecting you tomorrow.’
‘Yes, I know. Ten in the morning.’
‘You’re still coming?’
I nodded. ‘I arrived from London today. The weather was clear and I know it’s expected to come in rainy over the next few days so I thought I’d take a walk, make some notes, I didn’t think you’d mind, and then I found the shelter and – I didn’t mean to be a nuisance.’
At some point during my explanation her attention had waned. ‘Well,’ she said, without a whiff of gladness, ‘you’re here now. I suppose you might as well come in for tea.’
A Faux Pas and a Coup
The yellow parlour seemed more down at heel than I remembered. On my
previous visit I had thought the room a warm place, a patch of life and light in the middle of a dark, stone body. It was different this time, and perhaps the change of seasons was to blame, the loss of summer’s brilliance, the sneaking chill that presaged winter, for it wasn’t only the alteration in the room which struck me.
The dog was panting hard and he collapsed against the tattered screen. He, too, had aged, I realized, just as Percy Blythe had aged since May, just as the room itself had faded. The notion popped into my head then that Milderhurst really was somehow separate from the real world, a place outside the usual bounds of space and time. That it was under some enchantment: a fairy-tale castle in which time could be slowed down, speeded up, at the whim of an unearthly being.
Saffy was standing in profile, her head bent over a fine porcelain teapot. ‘Finally, Percy,’ she said, as she tried to replace the lid. ‘I was beginning to think we might need to gather a search – Oh!’ She’d looked up and seen me at her sister’s side. ‘Hello there.’
‘It’s Edith Burchill,’ said Percy, matter-of-factly. ‘She’s arrived rather unexpectedly. She’s going to join us for tea.’
‘How lovely,’ said Saffy, and her face lit up so fully that I knew she wasn’t just being polite. ‘I was about to pour, if only I could get this lid to sit as it should. I’ll lay another setting – I say, what a treat!’
Juniper was by the window, just as she had been when I’d come in May, but this time she was asleep, snoring lightly with her head tucked into the pale green wing of the velvet chair. I couldn’t help but think, when I saw her, of Mum’s journal entry, of the enchanting young woman whom Mum had loved. How sad it was, how terrible, that she should have been reduced to this.
‘We’re so glad you could come, Miss Burchill,’ said Saffy.
‘Please call me Edie – it’s short for Edith.’
She smiled with pleasure. ‘Edith. What a lovely name. It means “blessed in war”, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure, I said apologetically.’
Percy cleared her throat and Saffy continued quickly. ‘The gentleman was very professional, but – ’ she shot a glance at Juniper – ‘well. One finds it so much easier to speak with another woman. Isn’t that so, Percy?’
‘It is.’
Seeing them together like that, I realized that I hadn’t imagined the passing of time. On my first visit, I’d noticed that the twins were the same height, even though Percy’s authoritative character added stature. This time, however, there was no mistaking it, Percy was smaller than her twin. She was frailer, too, and I couldn’t help thinking of Jekyll and Hyde, the moment in which the good doctor encounters his smaller, darker self.
‘Sit, won’t you,’ said Percy tartly. ‘Let’s all sit and get on with it.’
We did as she said, and Saffy poured the tea, conducting a rather one-sided conversation with Percy about Bruno, the dog – where had she found him? How had he been? How had he managed the walk? – And I learned that Bruno wasn’t well, that they were worried about him, very worried. They kept their voices low, sneaking glances at the sleeping Juniper, and I remembered Percy telling me that Bruno was her dog, that they always made sure she had an animal, that everybody needed something to love. I studied Percy over the top of my teacup, I couldn’t help it. Although she was prickly, there was something in her bearing that I found fascinating. As she gave short answers to Saffy’s questions, I watched the tight lips, the sagging skin, the deep lines etched by years of frowning, and I wondered whether she’d been speaking, in some part, of herself when she said that everybody needed something to love. Whether she, too, had been robbed of someone.
I was so deep in thought that when Percy turned to look directly at me, I worried for an instant that she’d somehow read my mind. I blinked and heat rushed to my cheeks, and that’s when I realized Saffy was speaking to me, that Percy had looked up only to see why I hadn’t answered.
‘I’m sorry?’ I said. ‘I was somewhere else.’
‘I was just asking about your journey from London,’ said Saffy; ‘it was comfortable, I hope?’
‘Oh, yes – thank you.’
‘I remember when we used to go up to London as girls. Do you remember that, Percy?’
Percy gave a low noise of acknowledgement.
Saffy’s face had come alive with the memory. ‘Daddy used to take us every year; we went by train at first, sitting in our very own little compartment with Nanny, and then Daddy purchased the Daimler and we all went up by motorcar. Percy preferred it here at the castle, but I adored being in London. So much happening, so many glorious ladies and handsome gentlemen to watch; the dresses, the shops, the parks.’ She smiled, sadly, though, it seemed to me. ‘I always assumed . . .’ The smile flickered, and she looked down at her teacup. ‘Well. I expect all young women dream of certain things. Are you married, Edie?’ The question was unexpected, causing me to draw breath, at which she held out a fine hand. ‘Forgive me for asking. How impertinent I am!’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind. And no, I’m not married.’
Her smile warmed. ‘I didn’t think so. I hope you don’t think I’m prying, but I noticed that you don’t wear a ring. Though perhaps young people don’t these days. I’m afraid I’m rather out of touch. I don’t get away often.’ She glanced, almost imperceptibly, at Percy. ‘None of us does.’ Her fingers fluttered a little before coming to rest on an antique locket that hung on a fine chain around her neck. ‘I was almost married, once.’
Beside me, Percy shifted in her seat. ‘I’m sure Miss Burchill doesn’t need to hear our tales of woe—’
‘Of course,’ said Saffy, flushing. ‘How foolish of me.’
‘Not at all.’ She looked so embarrassed I was anxious to offer reassurance; I had a feeling she’d spent much of her long life doing just as Percy bade her. ‘Please, do tell me about it.’
A sizzle as Percy struck a match and lit the cigarette she’d trapped between her lips. Saffy was torn, I could see, a blend of timidity and longing playing on her face as she watched her twin. She was reading a subtext to which I was blind, assessing a battleground scored with the blows of previous scuffles. She returned her attention to me only when Percy stood up and took her cigarette to the window, switching on a lamp as she went. ‘Percy’s right,’ she said tactfully, and I knew then that she had lost this skirmish. ‘It’s self-indulgent of me.’
‘Not at all, I—’
‘The article, Miss Burchill,’ Percy interrupted. ‘How is it progressing?’
‘Yes,’ said Saffy, recovering herself, ‘tell us how it’s going, Edith. What are your plans while you’re here? I expect you’ll want to start with interviews.’
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘Mr Gilbert did such a thorough job that it won’t be necessary for me to take up too much of your time.’
‘Oh – oh, I see.’
‘We’ve spoken of this already, Saffy,’ said Percy, and I thought I detected a note of warning in her voice.
‘Of course.’ Saffy smiled at me, but there was sadness behind her eyes. ‘Only sometimes one thinks of things . . . later.’
‘I’d be very happy to speak with you if there’s something you’ve thought of that you might not have told Mr Gilbert,’ I said.
‘That won’t be necessary, Miss Burchill,’ said Percy, returning to the table to tip some ash from her cigarette. ‘As you said, Mr Gilbert has amassed quite a dossier.’
I nodded, but her adamant stance perplexed me. Her position that further interviews were unnecessary was so emphatic, it was clear that she didn’t want me to speak alone with Saffy, and yet it was Percy who’d dropped Adam Gilbert from the project and insisted that I replace him. I wasn’t vain or mad enough to believe it had anything to do with my writing prowess or the fine rapport we’d struck up on my previous visit. Why, then, had she asked for me? And why was she so determined that I should not speak with Saffy? Was it about control? Was Percy Blythe so accustomed to ordering the liv
es of her sisters that she couldn’t permit so much as a conversation to be carried on without her? Or was it more than that? Was she concerned about whatever it was Saffy wanted to tell me?
‘Your time here will be better spent seeing the tower and getting a feel for the castle itself,’ continued Percy. ‘The way Daddy worked.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘of course. That’s certainly important.’ I was disappointed in myself, unable to shake the feeling that I, too, was submitting myself meekly to Percy Blythe’s direction. Deep inside me, a small pig-headed something stirred. ‘All the same,’ I heard myself say, ‘there seem to be a few things that weren’t covered.’
The dog whimpered from the floor and Percy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Oh?’
‘I noticed that Mr Gilbert hadn’t interviewed Juniper and I thought I might—’
‘No.’
‘I understand that you don’t want her disturbed, and I promise—’
‘Miss Burchill, I assure you there is nothing to be gained in speaking with Juniper about our father’s work. She wasn’t even born when the Mud Man was written.’
‘That’s true, but the article is supposed to be about the three of you and I’d still like to—’
‘Miss Burchill.’ Percy’s voice was cold. ‘You must understand that our sister is not well. I told you once before that she suffered a great setback in her youth, a disappointment from which she never recovered.’
‘You did, and I would never dream of mentioning Thomas to her – ’
I broke off as Percy’s face blanched. It was the first time I could think of that I’d seen her rattled. I hadn’t meant to say his name and it hung like smoke in the air around us. She snatched up a new cigarette. ‘Your time here,’ she repeated with a stern, slow finality, belied by the quivering matchbox in her hand, ‘would be best spent seeing the tower. Gaining an understanding of the way Daddy worked.’