That Summer: A Novel (16 page)

Would it perturb him if his shaving kit were to appear in one of Rossetti’s pictures? Probably not. He’d been painted in as a reveler in Millais’s
Lorenzo and Isabella
and cast as a slightly cranky Roman soldier in Hunt’s
Rienzi
. But Gavin was used to the notion that anything—and anyone—was a potential model for the painting of the moment. Mrs. Grantham wasn’t.

“I will confess,” Gavin said honestly, feeling more than a little abashed, “I’d not been thinking of those objects as someone’s personal property.”

Mrs. Grantham raised her dark brows. “Radical notions, Mr. Thorne?”

He was digging himself in deeper by the moment.

“I was wrong to use your sewing box. But as for the artifacts…” Gavin set down his chalk, trying to sort his feelings into words. “What I ought to have said was I’d not been thinking of them as belonging to this time. To me, they were the possessions of the people who had them in the time when they were made. Putting them into the scene felt like … well, like returning them to the time in which they belonged.”

“Displayed like animals in a menagerie,” said Mrs. Grantham in a low voice, “hung on the wall for all to see.”

“No,” said Gavin emphatically, and his chalk scraped against the page with the force of his emotion. “It’s quite the contrary. I’ve put them back where they’re meant to be. None of those objects were intended to be displayed as curiosities, set on a table against a velvet backdrop. Once they were practical, useful—even that Book of Hours was the object of someone’s private devotions once. We look at those illustrations and think only of the artistry, but someone used that once, to real purpose.”

It was a longer speech than he was accustomed to making, and he felt a bit sheepish, all the more so because it was true and not something he would otherwise have thought to share. Rossetti might go about baring his feelings to all and sundry, but Gavin preferred to put his emotions into paint and paint alone.

But it had been the right thing to say. He had her attention now. “A lady,” said Mrs. Grantham softly, “kneeling at a prie-dieu, her book in her hand.”

Gavin sketched furiously, trying to catch that elusive hint of emotion.
Stay like that,
he wanted to say.
Don’t fade away again into pale reserve.

“When I lift that chalice,” he said rapidly, trying to catch her before she could slip away again, “I wonder whose hands have held it, whose lips have sipped from it. Did they drink in celebration? In despair? It’s not just an object, to be put on a pedestal and admired for the quality of the craftsmanship. It’s the embodiment of the thoughts and feelings of the people who used it.”

“One doesn’t see it with a cup of course,” Mrs. Grantham said, her hands folded tightly in her lap, as though she were afraid of giving too much away, “but in the manuscripts there are so often bits of writing in the margins, little windows into the souls of the people who held and read them. In one book, at the very beginning, someone—oh, centuries ago!—crossed out the former owner’s name and wrote below it:
Non est eius liber, est meus liber
.”

“Non est—?”

“It’s not his book, it’s my book,” Mrs. Grantham translated.

Gavin looked up from his work in surprise. “You read Latin, then?”

The question was a mistake. Mrs. Grantham’s features rearranged themselves into stiff, social lines.

“My father was a vicar.” The answer was a polite evasion. He had accidentally trodden on forbidden territory.

“I envy you that,” Gavin said, keeping his voice carefully matter-of-fact. “My education didn’t stretch to the classics.” Both true and less than the truth. His education hadn’t stretched to much of anything at all. “I should have liked to have learned.”

“It’s not too late,” Mrs. Grantham said, and, for a moment, Gavin thought he was seeing the real person beneath, before she added, her face a study in indifference, “I imagine you haven’t the time for it now, though.”

Gavin made a droll face. “It’s more that I’m afraid I would prove a poor pupil. I’m too big to be caned.” Gavin felt as though he were coaxing a wary bird out of its nest. “Your father’s parish. Was it near here?”

Mrs. Grantham looked out over the glossy vines twining along the slats of the summerhouse, the neat boxwood hedges, and the ranks of almond and apple trees below, and an expression of inestimable sadness crossed her face. “Farther than you can imagine.”

Gavin had the impression that she was speaking of more than a physical distance.

Briskly she added, “It was in Cornwall. At the outer edges of the earth. I doubt you would have heard of it.” She straightened in her seat, saying, with evident relief, “Evie! Did you need me?”

Gavin turned and saw Miss Grantham hurrying down the slope, flounces fluttering in the breeze, one hand holding on to the light shawl that threatened to slip from her shoulders. He had been so focused on Mrs. Grantham that he had failed to hear the sounds of Miss Evangeline’s approach.

“Mr. Thorne.” Miss Grantham ducked her head in greeting. She grabbed at her wrap as it threatened to slip from her shoulders. “I do beg your pardon for the interruption, Mama, but Aunt Jane says we’re to remind you that we’re to call on the Misses Cranbourne at four.”

On the verandah behind the house, Gavin could see a shadowy figure watching. Aunt Jane, he presumed. The one who didn’t like the works of Mrs. Gaskell.

“Is it already that time?” Mrs. Grantham rose with an alacrity that belied her words.

Miss Grantham made a face. “Yes. I tried to make Aunt Jane believe I had the plague, but she was most unsympathetic.”

“You’re short a few boils,” said Mrs. Grantham, but there was a depth of warmth to her voice that Gavin wouldn’t have expected of her. The corners of her lips turned up in a suspicion of a smile.

He wouldn’t have suspected her of having a sense of humor, either, but there it was, hiding away in the corners of her lips, in the light in her eyes.

Gavin wondered what her first name might be. Something mundane like Anne or Jane? Neither suited her at all. Elizabeth, perhaps. Something queenly. Or Ophelia, Shakespearean and tragic. But that wasn’t quite right, either.

His fingers itched to crumple the sketches on his easel and start again. A dozen Mrs. Granthams stared out at him in red and black chalk: Mrs. Grantham cold, Mrs. Grantham haughty, Mrs. Grantham wistful, Mrs. Grantham wary, but nowhere was there the slightest hint of amusement. He felt as though he were looking at a palimpsest, a medieval manuscript overwritten in crisscrossed layers until the original message was all but lost beneath the confusion of text.

This commission might be a more interesting project than he had envisioned.

“It is a very subtle form of plague,” protested Miss Evangeline.

Mrs. Grantham shook out her crumpled skirts. “Come along,” she said to her stepdaughter. “Best to face the inevitable with fortitude.”

“Eliza isn’t inevitable; she’s unpleasant,” complained Miss Evangeline.

“Inevitably,” murmured Mrs. Grantham, and there it was again, that glimpse of wry humor, until she turned to Gavin and the cool composure settled again over her features like a layer of thick-painted varnish. “I must crave your pardon, Mr. Thorne. I fear our time together is at an end.”

More relief than fear, he would have guessed, and wasn’t sure whether to be offended or intrigued. Or, perhaps, just a little bit of both.

“For this week,” Gavin said.

TEN

Herne Hill, 2009

“I should have anticipated that being back there would raise some questions.” Julia’s father’s voice was heavy. “What do you want to know?”

At least he hadn’t hung up the phone. Julia wondered what he was afraid she might ask. All those
tell me about my mother
questions she should have been asking ten years ago? It wasn’t, she realized, that her father had ever actively refused to speak about her mother. It was just that he had looked so unhappy, turned so into himself, when Julia had cried for Mummy in those first, horrible months that they had gotten into the habit of not speaking of her, a conscious absence, like the shiny tissue of a scar.

Julia could understand that, now. But it had been long enough now, long enough that they should be able to speak of her, with more curiosity than pain.

But not now. Now Julia had other fish to fry.

“Nothing too recent,” said Julia, and could practically feel her father’s relief across the line. “I’ve found an old painting and I’m curious about the provenance. We’re talking mid-nineteenth century.”

“Oh, if that’s all…” She heard the creak of a chair as he relaxed back against the cushions. Wicker and chintz, if she knew Helen. “There’s not that much I can tell you. Your mother”—there was that little pause, that little pause that always followed those words, like a hiccup in time—“your mother wasn’t particularly interested in that sort of thing. That was never one of her vices.”

Julia wandered over to the heavy old draperies, twisting a dusty tassel around her finger. “That sort of thing?”

“Lineage. Family pride. ‘Our people are better than your people.’ Your mother believed in taking people on their own merits, good or bad. That her family had been planted in the same place for a hundred years meant very little to her, one way or the other.”

Julia was fascinated by the faint note of fondness in her father’s voice, by this window into her mother. If she pushed too hard, though, she risked having her father clam up again, so she said as matter-of-factly as she could, “So she never said anything about any old family stories or family scandals?”

“Not really.” For a moment, there was silence on the line, silence and a faint exhalation of breath that made Julia think of the stirring of air in old, long-closed vaults, heavy with old memories and old regrets. “Your aunt Regina was the one for family stories, usually of the saltier variety. She didn’t have much respect for sacred cows.”

That lined up with what Natalie had said over dinner that night. “Unfortunately, she isn’t here,” Julia pointed out.

Which really was a pity. From what everyone said, Julia had the feeling she would have liked her tremendously.

Her father took a swallow of something, probably coffee. He was supposed to be cutting down, but he generally managed to get around Helen’s attempts to switch him to decaf or, even worse, herbal teas, which he regarded with the general scorn of the hard-core caffeine addict. “If you want the official family line, you’ll have to ask Caroline. Your mother’s cousin.”

Julia wiped dust from her hand onto her shorts. “Natalie and Andrew’s mother?”

“Was that their names? I remember you played with them a bit when you were little—not so very much. Caroline didn’t approve of our postal code.” Julia’s father’s voice was dry, but there was a real edge underneath it.

Well, then. “They’ve been over, helping me out—Natalie and Andrew, I mean,” Julia clarified. “They came with a friend last weekend to help me go through some of the stuff in here.”

Nicholas Dorrington, who still hadn’t called.

Julia banished the image of Nicholas, sweaty and intense in the back bedroom, and concentrated on the vague static on the phone line.

The cushions creaked again. “If they’re anything like their mother, I’d check the fillings in your teeth when they leave.”

Julia blinked at the acid in father’s voice. “I take it you and Cousin Caroline didn’t get along?”

There was a long, weighted pause. “No.”

Alrighty, then. Julia persisted. “But it’s Cousin Caroline you think I should talk to about the family history?”

Her father sighed. “Caroline had a family tree made up, going all the way back to the Conquerer. Some of it might even be true.” He paused for another swallow of his beverage. “Not that you’ll get anything interesting from her. It was all how great and good and successful the family all were.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm. “If you’re looking for scandal, you’ll have to look elsewhere.”

“Paragons of virtue one and all?” said Julia sweetly. “Now we know where I get it from.”

“Brat,” said her father affectionately. Julia heard the rustle of paper in the background. “By the way, before I forget, it seems I’ll be in London in August for a conference. May I take you out for dinner?”

Family reminiscence hour was officially over.

“Sure. That would be great.” Julia noticed he didn’t suggest coming to the house. “I think I can clear the space on my exceedingly busy social calendar.”

There was a brief silence from the other end of the line, then, “You’re not too lonely out there?”

Julia found herself strangely touched by the gruff question. Her father liked to talk about emotions the way she liked having her teeth drilled. Without Novocain. From him, this was a major expression of concern.

“I’m fine,” she said gently. “Actually, I kind of like it out here.” As the words came out, she realized how her father might take them and added quickly, “It makes a nice break from my real life.”

“All right,” he said, and she was grateful to him for not voicing whatever misgivings he was obviously feeling. She really didn’t feel up to a lecture on the state of her job hunt right now. “As long as you’re managing.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Julia said, and meant it. She was about to say her good-byes and hang up when something else struck her, something she had meant to ask. “Dad, when I was little, did we live in a garden flat?”

Her father was taken aback by the question. “A—well, yes. I guess you could say so. It was really just a basement flat, convenient to the hospital, but your mother put out a couple of potted plants and called it a garden flat. Why?”

The concrete patio, the rickety metal table, the kitten.

“No reason,” said Julia. That odd flash of memory the other day, her mother’s voice, laughing. “I just wondered.”

If that had been a real memory, and not her imagination, then what else did she remember? Voices raised in anger, her father’s hard and clipped, the linoleum floor of the kitchen hard and cold beneath her knees, the sound of crockery smashing.