Turning the Stones (21 page)

I excused myself and wandered a little way along a hedgerow, looking for a place to make water out of sight. I spied a convenient copse of hawthorn, where I hoisted my petticoat in privacy. But as I emerged from the trees I detected a quiver in the air that suggested the presence of some creature nearby. My imagination bypassed a benevolent explanation and rushed at once to the hair-raising conclusion that I had likely stumbled into the province of a wrathful bull. I fled to the safety of the copse and peeked out from the bushes at the surrounding swards.

There was no sign of a bull – but my eye did light on a queer sight in an adjacent field. Its far reaches had a blackened appearance, which I took at first for a crop that had gone to
mould or been burned in a frost. In fact the darkness was due to an infestation of birds – crows, surely. Curiosity drove me from my hiding place then and I skirted the field to gain a closer look. Yes, they were crows, an enormous number of them, hundreds even, standing in an eerie silence. They gave the impression of having been called to muster and seemed to be waiting tensely for a proceeding to commence. I saw that their collective gaze was directed towards a shallow gully, where four crows stood apart. One of these four was cowering before the others in a scene that smacked of menace. It seemed to suggest that a trial was in session or that, in fact, a sentence had already been passed. But my presence had disturbed the birds. One of them looked in my direction with a croak and the next second the entire flock rose as one and beat away into the sky with a great uproar of wings.

I hurried back to report what I had seen – the others must have noticed the birds blotting the blue of the sky – but as I came into our encampment I had a change of heart. Crows were not a good omen. Better not to draw attention to them. One preferred to believe that everything would go well for Eliza at Weever Hall.

‘There you are, Em,’ Mrs Waterland said. ‘I was beginning to think you had absconded.’ She stretched slim arms above her head and her cascading bangles tinkled melodiously. ‘Isn’t it a glorious day? Baron von Boxhagen has chosen a perfect time to visit our little corner of England.’

Eliza was lying curled on her side with one arm draped across her face. She yawned from beneath her armpit and rolled up to sitting. I had rectified her eyebrows with the pincers in preparation for her appearance at Weever Hall, but she retained
even in repose the fierce, beetle-browed expression which she had inherited from her father and had never been inclined to banish.

‘Do you not think that von Boxhagen is a very comical name?’ she chortled.

There was a jangle of jewellery as Mrs Waterland began to brush invisible smuts from her skirts. ‘May I remind you, my love, that the baron has a very uncomical fortune. I will thank you to take him seriously.’ The violent movement of Mrs Waterland’s hand was at odds with the serene lake of her face, but Eliza seemed unaware of her mother’s displeasure.

She insisted on saying, ‘It is only that his name sounds like carpentry. And anyway, if he is so well off why does he bother to be a dull old botanist?’

‘A botanical artist,’ Mrs Waterland corrected. ‘Like Cousin Arthur, the baron is an investigator of natural philosophy.’

‘I am sure there is very little philosophy in Nantwich.’

‘His father was acquainted with Sir Henry Broome, Eliza. That is the connection, as you well know.’ There was a note of steel in Mrs Waterland’s voice.

‘Well, I hope the baron proves more amusing than our cousin. Arthur does lecture one so in the most dusty manner.’

Mrs Waterland said with a hint of weariness, ‘The point about friends and relations, child, is not that they should delight us, but that they should be of use to us.’

I said in my mollifying way, ‘I dare say we are all looking forward to Lady Broome’s dance.’

‘Oh, the dance,’ Eliza groaned. ‘I suppose I must play the charmer as usual.’ Her sigh suggested Helen of Troy exasperated by the magnitude of her beauty.

‘I wonder, my love, is that possible?’ Mrs Waterland mused. She waved away a fly and looked off to one side, her face thrown into green shadow by the brim of her bonnet. ‘You have made very slender progress as a siren.’

For three seasons Eliza had been produced at public assemblies and every private social in the county without attracting interest. No matter how rigorously Mrs Waterland polished her, Eliza could not be brought to a shine. She affected not to care about her failure as a belle and continued to direct her devotion towards Johnny, or to the idea of him, since he was seldom at Sedge Court, but her mother, as you must know by now, cared very much.

*

Half an hour later we found ourselves turning down a lane that led to Lady Broome’s estate – a sprawling collection of farmhouses, farmland, gardens and a park, surrounding the manor house. Eventually the blue slate roof of Weever hall came into view and we passed through a wrought-iron gateway on to a wide drive that bisects an endless lawn. The lawn looked as if it had been ironed flat. There was a fountain in front of the bulky red-brick mansion hurling water.

As we approached the house we heard a loud bang that sounded like a pistol shot. I was severely jolted by the report. It seemed to reverberate from a reach far beyond the lawn and filled me with inexplicable terror.

We craned towards the windows of the chaise to see what had happened and glimpsed a gentleman rushing from the house, his coat flying. He stumbled along for a few yards and then fell to his knees and seemed to scrabble about in the grass.

‘I do believe that is Cousin Arthur,’ Mrs Waterland remarked.

A few seconds of anxious silence passed and then Mr Paine staggered to standing apparently intact. He was shortish and of a stringy make. He returned Mrs Waterland’s wave and converged with us at the entrance of the house. He was dressed in an informal frockcoat that was, I noticed, nicely cut. I estimated him to be about forty years of age. I thought that his features, eyes wide-set and thin lips placed very low on a long face – sheep-like, to be candid – did not match his character, which was reputed to be cerebral.

‘We heard a bang,’ Eliza cried.

‘Quite. A test, you see.’ Mr Paine grinned. He held up a grass-stained ivory ball and a measuring stick. ‘I shot a billiard ball from a window upstairs, but the experiment has come out imperfect, I must admit.’

He waded into a monologue about angles and percussion, but it was cut short by Lady Broome’s butler, who conducted us into a marbled vestibule and handed us over to a footman in flashy gold livery. We followed the man upstairs in an obedient crocodile, passing through lances of dusty sunlight that struck the portraits of Broome ancestors ascending along the walls. The footman conducted us to an unwelcoming corridor on the second floor where the air was simultaneously clammy and stifling and showed us at last into an apartment. He drew the curtains in the tiny parlour to reveal old-fashioned leaded windows. We peered out of them and I was dismayed to see that yet more crows were about, convening around the chimney pots. The crows aimed black looks in our direction. With a sound like a page being ripped from a book, Mrs Waterland flung open her fan.

‘Are you certain,’ she said, ‘that Lady Broome intended my daughter and me to be lodged here?’

‘Quite certain, madam,’ the footman replied with a bow.

‘Because we are rather accustomed to the view from the south-facing windows.’

The footman said oozily, ‘I am sorry, madam, but the house is full and this is the only apartment we are able to offer you.’

At that moment, porters arrived with our luggage. Downes immobilised them with her frosty stare and they bobbed about in the corridor, while the mistress decided whether to escalate the situation.

The footman enquired in a mildly threatening tone, ‘Shall I convey your displeasure to her ladyship?’

Mrs Waterland retracted her fan and said with sudden nonchalance, ‘Oh, there is no need at all to trouble Lady Broome with such a trivial matter.’ She dismissed the man with a smile and said no more about it, but we all knew that our inferior quarters reflected Weever Hall’s opinion of us.

*

I woke the next morning feeling out of sorts. I had been plagued by patchy dreams … a red haze … the sound of a shot and awful screaming seagulls. It was early and Eliza was still asleep. I got up and laid out her morning costume, although she was not due to coincide with the baron for several hours, and then wondered if I might dare to slip into the gallery where the Broome curiosities were displayed. I was very inquisitive about them.

Weever Hall is designed in the shape of an
H
, the bar of which is the long gallery connecting the two sides of the house where Lady Broome’s late husband installed the souvenirs of
his expeditions to the East Indies and the Americas. The understeward had indicated its location the day before as Downes and I and other visiting servants were being shown the backstairs and covert corridors that allow us to move from one wing of the house to the other without being noticed by our betters.

I recalled the circuitous route to the gallery without difficulty and minutes later entered it from the northern end. Pointed windows along the eastern wall let in a blush of morning light and I paused at one of them to take in a view of flat fields populated by cattle at graze. The mild countryside could not have been in greater contrast to the exotic preserves surrounding me. From the gallery’s vaulted ceiling hung all kinds of stuffed creatures – birds and monkeys, a sea creature shaped like a kite, a shark with the head of a hammer, and two extensive serpents. Colossal armoires facing the windows teemed with oddities and kickshaws – fragments of stone, sinister carvings, ceremonial daggers, filigree caskets, branches of red coral, leather puppets on sticks and a cabinet devoted to metal automatons. There was an assortment of old-fashioned chattels in the gallery, too, Jacobean furniture and moody paintings in extravagant gilt frames, which I dare say the Parliamentarian Broomes had once confiscated from Royalists. I paused at a cabinet to gaze with appalled interest at two blackened skulls lolling in an open-weave basket decorated with shells and tassels. As I stared at the tassels, which were constructed, I realised with horror, from wiry human hair, the murmur of voices came to my ear.

My retreat was cut off by the sudden appearance of Lady Broome herself. She was dressed in a wrapping gown secured
by a twisted girdle, and her amber hair was packed into a gauze cap. She did not look absolutely pleased to be abroad before breakfast and she stifled a yawn as I curtsied. Her companion by contrast gave the impression of being an early riser. He was attired in a plain but expensive riding coat and a tawny wig that did not make a fuss about itself. He was handsome in a hearty, big-boned way and had the glow on his cheek that arrives after stiff exercise. Had he walked to Nantwich from London? I wondered. I had read that Bavarians – for surely the gentleman was the Baron von Boxhagen – like to propel themselves on foot and think we English soft for our reliance on horses.

Lady Broome stared down her fox’s nose at me and said, ‘Mrs Waterland’s girl, is it? You are out of place, wench.’

I apologised for the intrusion and mumbled something about the fame of the curiosities and my eagerness to see them. To my surprise, the baron said, ‘Does the collection answer your expectations?’

I replied, ‘The gallery intrigues, sir. How could it not?’ I could not help adding, ‘Though to tell the truth, it is difficult to sustain the heights of amazement when so many objects compete for attention.’

The baron turned to Lady Broome. ‘You see, dear lady, how the girl expects the collection to excite her emotions. This is typical of a lower order of thinking.’

It was pointless to protest that he had misunderstood my observation, since he was determined, I saw, to use me as a spring to his opinion.

He said, ‘Gone are the days, Lady Broome, when we gaped at marvels like foolish girls and village yokels. In our reformed,
scientific age, specimens must be collected in a spirit of enquiry and presented according to the rules of taxonomy. Allow me to insist, dear lady, that you clarify this mish-mash.’ He dismissed the curiosities with a flick of the wrist.

Lady Broome said, ‘You are very rational, sir.’

‘Of course. Rationality saves us from chaos.’

I wanted to interject, But does not chaos belong to the world as rightfully as order? I was thinking of storms and fire and the meanderings of human minds, but I did not have the temerity to put this question to the baron and he and Lady Broome continued their conversation as if I no longer existed. He glanced about, coolly displeased with the arrangement of the gallery, saying, ‘I urge your ladyship to relinquish this childish idea of the marvellous.’

Lady Broome gazed up past the creatures hanging on their wires – they stirred very faintly – into the rafters of the smoked ceiling. She said, ‘My husband witnessed many strange things on his travels, do you know? He saw people who walked on fire and others who could make rain. Even magicians who cast spells.’

‘Dear Lady Broome, there is no magic in the world but legerdemain tricks.’ The baron’s gaze rested on my bosom. ‘Cosmic order is the true proof of God.’

‘Of course,’ Lady Broome added hastily, ‘you will find no superstitions at Weever Hall.’

*

At Mrs Waterland’s request, Lady Broome had invited the baron to take coffee in the breakfast room. The room looked on to a long garden where the evening’s entertainment was to take place. In the distance carpenters hammered at a low stage,
for the dancing, I supposed, and an engine watered the lawn. At the baron’s entrance, which was briskly made, Lady Broome sprang forth with introductions. My presence went unacknowledged and the baron made no mention of having encountered me earlier. With my netting to hand, I took up a perch slightly behind Eliza’s shoulder.

A gnomic footman tiptoed about serving coffee from a loud silver kettle on the sideboard, while opening pleasantries were worked through and then Lady Broome offered that she must attend to the preparations for her soirée. As soon as the door had closed behind her, the slog of the conversation got underway.