The Dust That Falls from Dreams (29 page)

R
osie stood in St John’s Church reading some of the memorial plaques that were left over from the previous building, and the one to the two Pitt brothers. The new edifice had not existed long enough to have become sanctified by time. It had not settled into its foundations or soaked up the necessary centuries of prayer, although it had received a good start during the war. The church was empty now, but Rosie remembered how there had always been mothers and sisters praying here, and comforting each other.

She knocked on the door of the parish office at the western end of the church, above which hung the royal coat of arms, a relic of the former building. She had been hoping to speak to the priest, but it was the curate who answered her knock.

He was a nervous and slightly effeminate young man of the kind who has always been able to find refuge in the Church, and was much admired for his skill at skating on the Tarn when it froze over in winter. His flamboyance and panache were extraordinary, and Mr McCosh had often remarked that it was indeed a pity that one was quite unable to earn a living by it, because otherwise the curate would have been wealthy indeed. Off the ice, the young man reverted to his normal epicene self.

‘Ah, Miss McCosh,’ he said, upon seeing her, his discomfort quite visible. ‘Can I be of any service?’

‘I had been hoping to see…’ began Rosie, but then realised that he might take this as a slight. ‘I had been hoping to ask a question, a theological question. I wonder if you could help.’

‘I will if I can, of course. Shall we sit in the nave? And shall I make you a cup of tea? We have a small stove in the office.’

Sensing his awkwardness at being alone with her, Rosie said, ‘It’s such a lovely day. Shall we sit outside?’

They sat on a bench and watched the traffic go by.

‘It’s awfully noisy with all these motor vehicles,’ said the curate. ‘I do think it was much pleasanter when we just had horses.’

‘And the dog carts,’ said Rosie. ‘We used to buy fish from the dog carts. The dogs were simply enormous, do you remember?’

‘I do, I do,’ said the curate, mopping his forehead.

‘On the other hand,’ said Rosie, ‘I do sometimes like the smell of the petroleum. It’s aromatic, isn’t it?’

‘It does indeed have an aromatic quality,’ said the curate hopelessly, ‘but I also very much like the smell of horses. What was it you wanted to ask me?’

‘I wanted to ask a clergyman about communicating with the dead,’ said Rosie.

‘Communicating with the dead? Spiritualism?’

‘Not necessarily spiritualism. You know, communicating with the dead in general. Planchette, Ouija, mediums, all of that.’

‘Yes?’

‘Is it allowed? By the Bible? By the Church?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he said. ‘Some people don’t even think it’s possible, because strictly speaking the dead are supposed to be fast asleep until Judgement Day. For some reason, these days people assume that you go straight to Heaven or Hell, but it doesn’t really matter in this case because trying to communicate with dead people is strictly forbidden in the Bible. I’ll just go and fetch one.’

He retreated into the church and returned shortly with his own Bible, a gift from his parents at confirmation, and flicked through it rapidly.

‘Deuteronomy 18, beginning at verse 10,’ he said. ‘ “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.” Necromancy is getting in touch with the dead. And there’s another passage, let me see, Leviticus, I think. Ah yes, here we are, 19, verse 31. “Regard not them that hath familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them.” And then there’s 20, verse 27. “A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a
wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones.” ’

‘Gracious,’ said Rosie, thinking of poor Madame Valentine subsiding to the ground plumply, with a series of little shrieks, whilst being stoned to death. ‘You must admit, the Old Testament is awfully extreme and peculiar in places. There’s a bit where it says that if you are cutting wood and the axehead flies off the handle and kills someone accidentally, you have to flee to the city, and that’s why there are three cities. Did Christ say anything about it? About communicating with the dead? I would really like to have a more up-to-date opinion than Leviticus and Deuteronomy.’

‘I don’t think Our Lord said anything about it. Not as far as I know. However, it is definitely forbidden, and always has been.’

‘But why? It’s such a comfort.’

‘I don’t really know why,’ admitted the curate, ‘but I have heard it said that it’s because there is no way of checking whether the communicating spirit is really the one that you hoped to speak to. What if they are demons, or mischievous spirits? You know…impostors.’

‘Surely there are ways of telling?’

‘Perhaps there are. I can only tell you what the teaching is. You may remember that in
Faustus
, Helen of Troy is really a devil doing an impersonation of her. That’s always been the worry.’

‘Have you ever tried it?’

‘No, Miss McCosh,’ lied the curate, who had been devastated by the loss of his younger brother, and had, coincidentally, also gone to see Madame Valentine. He forgave himself with the thought that he had to do the right thing by his congregation, whatever his own errors.

From that time on Rosie gave up receiving messages from Ash, and the others persisted without her, bringing back the news of the séances, which Rosie doggedly tried to ignore.

O
ne evening not long after the episode of the dog at the Tarn, Rosie went into the morning room, to consult the family Bible, which lay open upon the Book of Romans. She read briefly that all is vanity, before closing it, and then closing her eyes.

She opened the Bible again, put her finger on the page, and opened her eyes. She read the verse upon which her finger had settled. It was the verse that Fairhead had quoted: ‘For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.’

She read it several times, and it seemed to her that it could not have been a coincidence that this particular passage had appeared so opportunely before her eyes, even though she knew perfectly well that a book tends to open naturally at a page where it has previously lain open. She reflected for a moment, and then returned to the drawing room, where Daniel was anxiously pacing up and down with his hands behind his back.

‘I will marry you,’ she said.

Daniel had already asked her many times, almost to the point where she began to feel that she was being nagged, and on each occasion she had temporised and prevaricated. At this moment, however, because she believed in divine intervention rather than in chance, she felt herself absolved from her vows to Ash. It was, in its way, a liberation, and for a moment she enjoyed the relief of it. She had been contemplating a life of spinsterhood, not because so many of her marriageable contemporaries had been killed, but because she and Ash had made promises that were binding forever. She could hardly recall anything that Ash had said on the subject of what she should do in the event of his death, because in her own mind she had bound herself to him in perpetuity. She had
told him so many times, and she had told herself the same thing for so long, with such vehemence, that it seemed inconceivable that she should ever be attached to another. In her own mind she was married to him, and always would be, but just now these words of St Paul had come to her at a pivotal moment. If she had read on she would have found that he was elaborating a metaphor about the marriage of Christians to Christ.

As for Daniel, he was in love. He had a general feeling about the right time in life to do certain things, an urge to settle, to make something of himself, to relax into domesticity after all the excitement and turbulence of war, to know the sweetness of the marital embrace and the pleasure of having children that one can love and of whom one can be proud. In truth, in that frame of mind he might have chosen any respectable and reasonably attractive young woman. He might have settled on one of the other sisters, and prospered if he had done so.

He had not been able to stop thinking about Rosie, and he could not prevent himself from imagining vividly what it might be like to share a bed with her. Everything about her kept him awake. He lay in bed, sweating and turning, his brain whirling with all the things he wanted to say to her. His impulse upon seeing her was to clasp her to his breast and kiss her neck. In the daytime he would suddenly go into a dream and stop doing whatever it was that he was engaged in. The sky seemed bluer than before, the taste of water more metallic, the thrill of flying more thrilling. His friends remarked, ‘Got a spring in your step, old boy. Nice to see.’

It is often given to people to believe that they are in love, and it is only later that they say, ‘Oh, I was obsessed…It was nothing really…I was fooling myself…I made a mistake…’ This is how nature deceives us into the higher vocation of caring for children. In the case of Daniel Pitt, it is true that some of his love for Rosie consisted of sympathy. There was something about her obvious sadness and persistent distress that made him want to protect and comfort her. He was the kind of man whose heart goes out to the wounded, who feels that the natural role of a man is to be a protector and consoler of women. His mother had brought him up with firm ideas about the sanctity of womanhood,
but he had had no sisters, had been to boys’ boarding schools, and then spent his life in adventure. He had no great understanding of women, or of the ways in which they are different from each other. He knew that he loved them in general, that they were attracted to him, and that he wanted this one in particular to be his Beatrice.

Rosie, on the other hand, had already known a very great love, a love that was not temporary, and it was not temporary because its object was no longer there to disillusion her. Her beloved had become an angel, perfect and pristine forever. Even as she said ‘I will marry you’ to Daniel, her little burst of happiness and relief had turned sour in her mouth, and when he had clasped her to his chest, muttering joyful endearments, she had inhaled his fragrance of tobacco and cologne, and remembered that Ash had been much stockier, and smelled only of cologne.

S
hortly after a séance with Madame Valentine, when the whole tribe was gathered at The Grampians, Christabel arrived, accompanied by her friend Gaskell.

Christabel was a very tall girl with a large nose and a florid complexion. She had stiff golden hair that settled at her shoulders, and typically wore long blue dresses and a slightly old-fashioned bonnet. She moved with lovely physical grace, and had triumphed in every athletic event at school. Her father greatly admired her Amazonian nature, and said to her, ‘My dear lass, I do believe you may be the ideal woman. A beautiful lassie who can run as fast a horse and throw a javelin is an ideal to which few men may aspire. I should have named you Penthesilea. Do let me encourage you to take up golf. You’d become a champion in no time.’

‘Daddy, we’ve played golf hundreds of times. And I am hardly beautiful.’

‘Of course you are. You know there is a kind of person who does not seem beautiful at first sight, but the moment you know them, they are transfigured. You are beautiful after two or three minutes. Everybody says so.’

‘Who is everybody?’ she demanded.

‘Everybody.
Tout le monde
. The common crowd, the aristocracy, even the King himself, no doubt, were he to meet you. And I say so. And the other girls are quite similar, don’t you think? All beautiful after a minute or two? Sophie’s adorable, is she not? But hardly a conventional beauty. Have you found a young man yet?’ ‘They’re all dead,’ she said, adding, ‘I think I might enjoy being a spinster.’

‘Every woman needs a man to torment. She needs someone to upset her, someone to disapprove of, someone whose pleasures she can prevent.’

‘I’ll just disapprove of you, Daddy.’

‘Quite right, lassie,’ he said. ‘I shall approve of you forlornly whilst you disapprove of me.’

Christabel had brought Gaskell home for the first time. Like Christabel, she was tall, but she was much less slender and graceful. Today she affected a monocle, wore tweed plus fours and brogues, with a khaki shirt and tie, like a man dressed for a day’s shooting. Her hair was shiny chestnut, cut quite short and plastered into place with brilliantine. She was smoking fragrant Abdullas from a remarkably long cigarette holder with a silver stem and a meerschaum mouthpiece. Her low drawl as she introduced herself struck Mrs McCosh as alarmingly sensual.

‘What an unusual name, for a girl,’ said Mrs McCosh, immediately suspicious of this extraordinary creature, who was obviously a bohemian of some sort.

‘It’s not her real name,’ said Christabel. ‘It’s her
nom de plume.’

‘Nom de brosse
?’ suggested Ottilie. ‘Daniel, what would it be?’

‘Well,’ said Daniel, ‘by analogy with
plume
, it would have to be
pinceau
. That’s an artist’s paintbrush.
Une brosse
would be for decorating, really.’

‘I mostly use a palette knife,’ said Gaskell.

‘Nom de couteau
, then
.’

‘Knife?’ enquired Christabel.

‘Well, you can say “
couteau de palette
” if you want to go the whole hog.’

‘I love whole hogs,’ said Sophie brightly. ‘It’s so satisfying to have the whole thing, and not a mere leg or a sliver of tripe.’

At tea, as Millicent bustled in and out, Gaskell was interviewed by the family, and she explained that she had been a war artist, but was now having to find a new career.

‘A war artist!’ exclaimed Mrs McCosh. ‘You were at the front? Were you allowed there?’

‘Mother, there were lots of women at the front. Who do you think the nurses were?’ said Ottilie.

‘Oh, I wasn’t there just as an artist. I was also driving ambulances for Lady Munroe. I took a great many photographs, and now I’m working them up.’

‘Lady Munroe!’ exclaimed Mrs McCosh.

‘An ambulance driver! That must have been utterly exhausting and terrifying,’ said Ottilie.

‘Well, you were at the Pavilion, weren’t you,’ replied Gaskell. ‘You must have seen some equally terrible things, and got just as tired.’

‘It really doesn’t compare,’ said Ottilie admiringly. ‘I was never under fire, if you don’t count the metaphorical batterings of the matron. And the amorous assaults of the doctors. And the Mahommedans hoping for another wife to add to the collection. The danger you must have been in!’

‘I rather enjoyed it, to tell the truth. These days I find myself constantly wondering if I will ever find anything else quite as important to be doing. I don’t miss being shelled and sniped at. Or the rats. Or the stench. But I do miss doing important things.’

‘She’s got a bullet wound,’ declared Christabel proudly.

‘Tell me, where does your family come from?’ asked Mrs McCosh, determined to guide the conversation towards more important topics.

‘Northumberland,’ replied Gaskell. ‘We have a modest estate near Hexham, on the River Allen.’

‘An estate!’ exclaimed Mrs McCosh.

‘Much fallen into decay, I’m afraid. Nearly all the staff left and never came back. All three gamekeepers got killed. How does one start again from scratch? It’s difficult. One simply doesn’t have the cash any more.’

‘The answer is mechanisation,’ said Daniel.

‘You can’t mechanise gamekeeping,’ said Gaskell drily.

‘I mean the general work on the estate.’

‘Well, we had a sawmill, but nobody knows how to repair it and keep it going.’

‘I’d know,’ said Daniel.

‘Daniel has an immense gift for engineering,’ said Rosie.

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Gaskell. ‘I’ll ask Daddy what he thinks.’

‘What are you going to do when you’ve used up all your photographs?’ asked Sophie, her mind wandering back to the conversation at its earlier stage.

‘I want to paint portraits. Honest portraits. All the wrinkles and malice and vice showing in the face.’

‘And blue flesh instead of pink,’ said Christabel, ‘just like corpses.’

‘Gracious,’ said Mrs McCosh, ‘that will never earn you a living. Can’t you paint lovely things like Sargent?’

‘They are lovely,’ said Gaskell with sincerity. ‘I am always astonished that he’s mastered so many styles. I do like his Impressionist paintings. And of course the portrait of Lady Agnew is just inexhaustibly wonderful.’

‘Impressionist?’ queried Mrs McCosh. ‘You mean those paintings where the artist has apparently lost his spectacles, and all is somewhat blurred?’

‘Gaskell doesn’t have his kind of talent,’ said Christabel. ‘She’s got a different kind altogether. She sees the beast within.’

‘I have no beast within,’ said Mrs McCosh.

‘Neither do I,’ said Rosie.

‘I’m sure I do,’ said Fairhead.

‘Silly man, no you don’t,’ chided Sophie, ‘you are all kittens and fluffy bits. Fairhead bared his teeth and growled at her. ‘I’m horripilated,’ she said.

The family warmed to this exotic and entertaining creature and she was invited to stay for supper, which naturally led to her being put up for the night in the old head footman’s room, now that there were no footmen. It was neat and comfortable, but it was on the top floor, up a carpetless staircase. Millicent dusted the room and made it up in a hurry, and stole some flowers for it from the vase in the dining room.

After everyone had retired, Mr McCosh remarked to his wife, ‘What wonderfully fascinating green eyes she has! I haven’t seen such green eyes in all my life! What a lovely melancholy voice! What alabaster skin! What a lovely woman altogether!’

‘My dear, she is utterly mannish, neither one thing nor another. Quite the strangest creature. And she has a monocle! Outlandish! Even men don’t wear monocles any more. Her eyes are very remarkable, I do concede.’

‘She’s an artist,’ said her husband. ‘And she’s from the North. And she plays golf. And she shoots. She could help you with your campaign against the pigeons. And those wondrous green eyes! Like emeralds!’

‘I can see you are quite in love.’

‘I love only you, my dear.’

‘Hush, I hear flying pigs,’ she said, cupping her hand to her ear.

That night Mr McCosh woke up. He had heard creaking on the stairs, and thought it might be a burglar, but soon he returned to his dream about getting a hole in one on a heavily bunkered 400-yard hole sited inside the oddly attenuated old hall of Eltham Palace whilst Gaskell and Christabel danced a foxtrot on the green.