She rests her forehead lightly in one of her hands and says nothing for a minute. When she lifts her head she looks straight at me and speaks in a low, quivering voice. ‘It’s just so different to how I thought it would be, Grace.’
She appears so feeble I am immediately sorry for having spoken sternly to her. ‘What is, ma’am?’
‘Everything.’ She gestures half-heartedly. ‘This. This room.
This house. London. My life.’ She looks at me. ‘I feel so ill-equipped. Sometimes I try to trace back through my mind to see where I made the first wrong choice.’ Her gaze drifts toward the window. ‘I feel like Hannah Hartford, the real one, ran off to live her real life and left me here to fill her place.’ After a moment she turns back to me. ‘Do you remember last year, Grace, when I saw the spiritualist?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Tremors of misgiving.
‘She didn’t read for me in the end.’
Relief, short-lived as she continues.
‘She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She intended to: sat me down, had me draw a card. But when I gave it to her she slid it back, reshuffled and had me draw again. I could tell by her face it was the same card again, and I knew which one it was. The death card.’ Hannah stands and paces across the room. ‘She didn’t want to tell me, not at first. She tried my palm instead, wouldn’t read that either. She said she didn’t know what it meant, that it was foggy, her vision was foggy, but she said one thing was sure.’ Hannah turns to face me. ‘She said death was hanging around me and I was to watch my step. Death past or death future, she couldn’t tell, but there was a darkness.’
It takes all the conviction I can muster to tell her she’s not to let it bother her, that it was just as likely a ploy to get more money from her, to make sure she came back for further readings. After all, it’s a safe bet in London these days that everyone’s lost someone they love, especially those seeking the services of a spiritualist. But Hannah shakes her head impatiently.
‘I know what it meant. I worked it out myself. I’ve been reading about it. It was a metaphorical death. Sometimes the cards speak in metaphors. It’s me. I’m dead on the inside; I’ve felt it for a long time. As if I died and everything that’s happening is someone else’s strange and awful dream.’
I don’t know what to say. I assure her she isn’t dead. That everything is real.
She smiles sadly. ‘Ah then. That’s worse. If this is real life, I have nothing.’
For once I know the perfect thing to say. More like a sister than a maid. ‘You have me, ma’am.’
She meets my eyes then and takes my hand. Seizes it, almost roughly. ‘Don’t leave me, Grace, please don’t leave me.’
‘I won’t, ma’am,’ I say, touched by her solemnity. ‘I never will.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
And I kept my word. For better and for worse.
RESURRECTION
Darkness. Stillness. Shadowy figures. This is not London; this is not the morning room at number seventeen Grosvenor Square. Hannah is vanished. For now.
‘Welcome home.’ A voice in the dark, someone leaning over me.
I blink. And again, slowly.
I know the voice. It is Sylvia, and I am suddenly old, tired.
Even my eyelids are perished. Dysfunctional. Like a faded pair of Roman blinds with worn-out cords.
‘You’ve been asleep for a long time. You gave us quite a scare. How do you feel?’
Displaced. Left over. Out of time.
‘Would you like a glass of water?’
I must nod, because a straw is in my mouth. I sip. Lukewarm water. Familiar.
I am unaccountably sad. No, not unaccountably. I am sad because the scales have tipped and I know what’s coming.
It is Saturday again. A week has passed since the spring fair. Since my episode, as it is now known. I am in my room, in my bed. The curtains are open and the sun is shimmering in off the heath. It is morning and there are birds. I am expecting a visitor. Sylvia has been and prepared me. I am propped like Miss Polly’s dolly against a stack of pillows. The top sheet she has folded over neatly to form a wide smooth strip beneath my hands. She is determined to make me presentable. Bless her, she has even brushed out my hair.
There is a knock.
Ursula leans her head around the door, checks that I am awake, smiles. Her hair is pulled back today to reveal her face. It is a small round face to which I am unaccountably drawn.
She is beside the bed now, head inclined, looking down at me. Those large dark eyes: eyes that belong in an oil painting.
‘How are you?’ she says, as everybody says.
‘Much better. Thank you for coming.’
She shakes her head rapidly from side to side; don’t be silly, her gesture says. ‘I’d have come earlier. I didn’t know until yesterday, when I called.’
‘It’s as well you didn’t. I’ve been in rather large demand. My daughter has been installed since it happened. I gave her quite a scare.’
‘I know. I saw her in the foyer.’ She smiles conspiratorially. ‘She told me not to excite you.’
‘God forbid.’
She sits on the chair near my pillows, rests her carry bag on the floor beside.
‘The film,’ I say. ‘Tell me how your film is coming along.’
‘It’s almost ready,’ she says. ‘The final edit’s done and we’ve almost finished the post-sound and the soundtrack.’
‘Soundtrack,’ I say. Of course they are to have a soundtrack. Tragedy should always play out against music. ‘What sort?’
‘There are a few songs from the twenties,’ she says, ‘dance songs mainly, and some piano. Sad, beautiful, romantic piano, Tori Amos-style.’
I must look blank, for she continues, scrabbling for musicians more my vintage.
‘There’s some Debussy, some Prokofiev.’
‘Chopin?’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘Chopin? No. Should there be?’ Her face falls. ‘You’re not going to tell me one of the girls was a Chopin nut, are you?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘It was their brother—David—who played Chopin.’
‘Oh, thank goodness. He’s not really a major character. He died a little too early to affect things.’
This is debateable, but I don’t debate it.
‘What’s it like?’ I say. ‘Is it a good film?’
She bites her lip, exhales. ‘I think so. I hope so. I’m afraid I’ve lost perspective.’
‘Is it as you imagined?’
She considers. ‘Yes and no. It’s difficult to explain.’ She exhales again. ‘Before I started, when it was all in my head, the project was full of unlimited potential. Now that it’s on film, it feels bordered by limitations.’
‘I suspect that’s the way with most endeavours.’
She nods. ‘I feel such a responsibility to them, though; to their story. I wanted it to be perfect.’
‘Nothing’s ever perfect.’
‘No.’ She smiles. ‘Sometimes I worry I’m the wrong person to tell their story. What if I’ve got it wrong? What do I know?’
‘Lytton Strachey used to say ignorance was the first requisite of the historian.’
She frowns.
‘Ignorance clarifies,’ I say. ‘It selects and omits with placid perfection.’
‘Too much truth gets in the way of a good story, is that what you mean?’
‘Something like that.’
‘But surely truth is the most important thing? Particularly in a biopic.’
‘What is truth?’ I say, and I would shrug if I had the strength.
‘It’s what really happened.’ She looks at me as if I might finally have lost my marbles. ‘You know that. You spent years digging into the past. Searching for the truth.’
‘So I did. I wonder if I ever found it.’ I am slipping down against the pillows. Ursula notices and lifts me gently by the upper arms. I continue before she can debate me any further on semantics. ‘I wanted to be a
detective,’ I say. ‘When I was young.’
‘Really? A police detective? What changed your mind?’
‘Policemen make me nervous.’
She grins. ‘That would have been a problem.’
‘I became an archaeologist instead. They’re not so dissimilar when you think about it.’
‘The victims have just been dead longer.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It was Agatha Christie who first gave me the idea. Or one of her characters. He said to Hercule Poirot, “You would have made a good archaeologist, Mr Poirot. You have the gift of re-creating the past.” I read it during the war. The second war. I’d sworn off mystery stories by then but one of the other nurses had it and old habits die hard.’
She smiles, then starts suddenly. ‘Oh! That reminds me. I brought something for you.’ She reaches into her carry bag and pulls out a small rectangular box.
It is the size of a book but it rattles. ‘It’s a tape set,’ she says. ‘Agatha Christie.’ She shrugs sheepishly. ‘I didn’t realise you’d sworn off mysteries.’
‘Never mind that. It was a temporary swearing-off, a misguided attempt to shed my youthful self. I picked up where I left off the minute the war ended.’
She points to the walkman on my bedside table. ‘Shall I put a tape in before I go?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Do.’
She tears off the plastic packaging, removes the first tape and opens my walkman. ‘There’s one in here already.’ She holds the cassette to show me. It is the tape I am currently recording for Marcus. ‘Is it for him? For your grandson?’
I nod. ‘Just leave it on the table if you don’t mind; I’ll need it later.’ And I will. Time is closing in on me, I can feel it, and I am determined to finish before it comes.
‘Have you heard anything?’ she says.
‘Not yet.’
‘You will,’ she says firmly. ‘I’m sure of it.’
I am too weary for faith but nod anyway; her own is so fervent.
She puts Agatha in place and returns the walkman to the table. ‘There you are.’ She puts her bag over her shoulder. She is leaving.
I reach for her hand as she turns, clutch it in mine. So smooth. ‘I want to ask you something,’ I say. ‘A favour, before Ruth . . .’
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Anything.’ She is quizzical, has detected the urgency in my voice. ‘What is it?’
‘Riverton. I want to see Riverton. I want you to take me.’
She tightens her lips, frowns. I have put her on the spot.
‘Please.’
‘I don’t know, Grace. What would Ruth say?’
‘She’d say no. Which is why I’ve asked you.’
She looks toward the wall. I have troubled her. ‘Maybe I could bring you some of the footage we shot there instead? I could have it put on video—’
‘No,’ I say firmly. ‘I need to go back.’ Still she looks away.
‘Soon,’ I say. ‘I need to go soon.’
Her eyes return to mine and I know she will say yes even before she nods.
I nod back, thanking her, then I point to the cassette box. ‘I met her once, you know. Agatha Christie.’
It was late in 1922. Teddy and Hannah were hosting a dinner at number seventeen. Teddy and his father had some business with Archibald Christie, something to do with an invention he was interested in developing.
They entertained so often in those early years of the decade. But I remember that dinner particularly for a number of reasons. One was the presence of Agatha Christie herself. She had only published one book at that time, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but already Hercule Poirot had replaced Sherlock Holmes in my imagination. The latter was a childhood friend, the former a part of my new world.
Emmeline was there too. She’d been in London for a month. She was eighteen and had made her debut from number seventeen. There was no talk of finding her a husband as there had been with Hannah. Only four years had passed since the ball at Riverton and yet the times had changed. Girls had changed. They had liberated themselves from their corsets only to throw themselves at the tyranny of the ‘diet plan’. They were all coltish legs, bound chests and smooth scalps. They no longer whispered behind their hands and hid behind shy glances. They joked and drank, smoked and swore with the boys. Waistlines had slipped, fabrics were thin and morals were thinner.
Maybe that accounts for the unusual dinner conversation that night, or perhaps it was Mrs Christie’s presence that had them speaking along such lines. Not to mention the spate of recent newspaper articles on the subject.
‘They’ll both be hanged,’ said Teddy brightly. ‘Edith Thompson and Freddy Bywaters. Just like that other fellow who killed his wife. Earlier this year, in Wales. What was his name? Army fellow, wasn’t he, Colonel?’
‘Major Herbert Rowse,’ said Colonel Christie.
Emmeline shuddered theatrically. ‘Imagine killing your very own wife, someone you’re supposed to love.’
‘Most murders are done by people who purport to love each other,’ said Mrs Christie crisply.
‘People are becoming more violent on the whole,’ said Teddy, lighting a cigar. ‘A fellow only has to open the newspaper to see that. Despite the ban on hand guns.’
‘This is England, Mr Luxton,’ said Colonel Christie. ‘Home of the fox hunt. Obtaining firearms isn’t difficult.’
‘I have a friend who always carries a hand gun,’ Emmeline said airily.
‘You do not,’ said Hannah, shaking her head. She looked at Mrs Christie. ‘My sister has seen too many American films, I’m afraid.’
‘I do,’ said Emmeline. ‘This fellow I pal around with—who shall remain nameless—said it was as easy as buying a packet of cigarettes. He offered to get me one any time I like.’
‘Harry Bentley, I’ll wager,’ said Teddy.
‘Harry?’ said Emmeline, flashing wide eyes rimmed with black lashes. ‘Harry wouldn’t hurt a fly! His brother Tom, perhaps.’
‘You know too many of the wrong people,’ said Teddy. ‘Need I remind you that hand guns are illegal, not to mention dangerous.’
Emmeline shrugged. ‘I’ve known how to shoot since I was a girl. All the ladies in our family can shoot. Grandmamma would have disowned us if we couldn’t. Just ask Hannah: she tried to dodge the hunt one year, told Grandmamma she didn’t believe it was right to kill defenceless animals. Grandmamma had something to say about that, didn’t she, Hannah?’
Hannah raised her eyebrows and took a sip of red wine as Emmeline continued. ‘She said, “Nonsense. You’re a Hartford. Shooting’s in your blood.”’
‘Be that as it may,’ said Teddy. ‘There will be no hand guns in this house. I can imagine what my constituents would make of my possessing illegal firearms!’
Emmeline rolled her eyes as Hannah said, ‘Future constituents.’
‘Do relax, Teddy,’ said Emmeline. ‘You won’t have to worry about firearms if you go on like that. You’ll give yourself a heart attack. I didn’t say I was going to get a hand gun. I was just saying that a girl can’t be too careful these days. What with husbands killing wives and wives killing husbands. Don’t you agree, Mrs Christie?’
Mrs Christie had been watching the exchange with wry amusement. ‘I’m afraid I don’t much care for firearms,’ she said. ‘Poisons are more my thing.’
‘That must be disquieting, Archie,’ said Teddy, with a rare show of humour. ‘A wife with a penchant for poison?’
Archibald Christie smiled thinly. ‘Just one of my wife’s delightful little hobbies.’
Husband and wife regarded one another across the table.
‘No more delightful than your own sordid little hobbies,’ said Mrs Christie. ‘And a lot less needy.’
Late in the evening, after the Christies had left, I pulled my copy of The Mysterious Affair at Styles from under my bed. It had been a gift from Alfred, and I was so absorbed with re-reading his inscription that I barely registered the telephone ringing. Mr Boyle must have
answered the call and transferred it upstairs to Hannah. I thought nothing of it. It was only when Mr Boyle knocked on my door and announced the Mistress would see me that I thought to worry.
Hannah was still dressed in her oyster-coloured silk. Like liquid. Her pale hair was pressed in waves about her face and a strand of diamonds was pinned around the crown of her head. She was standing with her back to me and turned as I entered the room.
‘Grace,’ she said, taking my hands in hers. The gesture worried me. It was too personal. Something had happened.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Sit down, please.’ She led me to sit by her on the sofa and then she looked at me, blue eyes round with concern.
‘Ma’am?’
‘That was your aunt on the telephone.’
And I knew. ‘Mother,’ I said.
‘I’m so sorry, Grace.’ She shook her head gently. ‘She took a fall. There was nothing the doctor could do.’
Hannah arranged my transport back to Saffron Green. Next afternoon the car was brought round from the mews and I was packed into the back seat. It was very kind of her and much more than I expected; I was quite prepared to take the train. Nonsense, Hannah said, she was only sorry Teddy’s upcoming client dinner prohibited her from accompanying me. I watched out the motor-car window as the driver turned down one street and then another, and London became less grand, more sprawling and decrepit, and eventually disappeared behind us. The countryside fled by, and the further east we drove the colder it became. Sleet peppered the windows, turning the landscape bleary; winter had bleached the world of vitality. Snow-dusted meadows bled into the mauve sky, gradually giving way to the ancient wildwood of Essex, all grey-brown and lichen green.
We left the main road and followed the lane to Saffron through the cold and lonely fen. Silvery reeds quivered in frozen streams and grandfather’s beard clung like lace to naked trees. I counted the bends and, for some reason, held my breath, releasing it only after we had passed the Riverton turn-off. The driver continued into the village and delivered me to the grey-stone cottage in Market Street, wedged silently, as it had always been, between its two sisters. The driver held the door for me and set my small suitcase on the wet pavement.