Martha had extravagantly booked herself a seat in first class, and the carriage was almost empty this early in the morning, except for a couple of businessmen tucking into their full English
breakfasts. The restful journey made me even less inclined to get to work, but after I changed trains at Stockport I ordered a cup of Earl Grey to try to wake myself up, and pulled Martha’s
dossier out of my bag.
Not for our features editor the clinical efficiency of a PowerPoint presentation. It looked as if she had scooped the contents of her recycling bin into a manila envelope: the dossier bulged
with cuttings, Post-it notes and torn-out notebook pages. On top of the bundle of papers, held together by a straining red rubber band, was a memo in which Martha provided a full list of questions
for me to ask, stressed various points of history that I should touch on in the feature, instructed me in how to address a duke and duchess (including her recommendation that one should curtsey,
but she would leave this to my discretion) and, highlighted in bold, the hot tip (as Martha saw it) that the duchess, the former Bibi Wishart of Marin County, California, had been in her previous
life a textile designer, which necessitated as many gushing comments as possible on all fabrics within the Seaton Hall estate.
Compliment the curtains!
exhorted a scribbled note in the
margin. Underlined three times was her final comment:
Think Romance! Her Grace intends to hire the house out for weddings.
Instead of feeling, as Ticky had suggested, annoyed by Martha’s micro-management from afar, or affronted at her assumption that I wouldn’t know how to behave, I felt grateful and a
bit sad. Looking at all the work she had put into the trip made me feel guilty that I was the one who was getting the benefit. Of course I owed it to her to conduct the visit as she would have done
(though I drew the line at actually curtseying). The memo also revealed that I would be collected from Buxton Station by a driver. I marvelled at the luxury and felt another pang for Martha.
Usually press trips were an undignified bunfight in which a large group of journalists would be herded from the train into a rackety minibus, the seating on which operated under an unspoken but
rigid hierarchy. At the front sat the broadsheet journalists, holding themselves apart from all of us by virtue of their importance and influence, and a certain studied
ennui
that spoke of
the many more important matters that weighed on their minds, which we lesser hacks could not possibly understand. In the middle seats sat journalists like me, from small, specialist magazines of
limited and dwindling readership, clinging on to the last vestiges of former glory. We had prestige, thanks to the historical reputation of our publications, but no power. And we were glad of the
day out; at least, I always was. At the back of the bus, like the naughtiest schoolchildren, sat the freelancers; usually of a certain age, they were here for one thing only: free stuff.
Overexcited by the proximity of so many others in comparison to their solitary working-from-home existences, they talked loudly of former trips, the superiority/inferiority of the lunch/tea that
had been provided for us, their glory days as features writers for now defunct publications, and the poor state of current heritage journalism. They were to be avoided as much as possible, since
they would almost certainly try to pitch a feature to you if you showed the slightest weakness and also because everyone, from the editor of the
Sunday Times
Home section downwards,
superstitiously feared that their lowly career prospects might be catching.
There were no such indignities on this trip. I was astonished to be collected not just by a car, but one driven by a chauffeur in a peaked cap and a uniform. I felt like a heroine in a 1930s
novel as the car hummed smoothly through the country lanes towards Seaton Hall, although I suspected my ancestors in the thirties would have been found scrubbing pans in the scullery rather than
swanning around in motor cars. As we swung through the gates of the estate, the Delaval Arms, where I’d be staying tonight, could be seen across the park, a low stone building that had once
been a hunting lodge. It was a full five minutes along a wooded drive before the Hall itself came into view, but it was worth the wait.
Seaton Hall had, as do all the true country houses of England, a history that spanned the centuries with a combination of elegance and eccentricity. It had begun its existence as a Saxon hall,
built for defence and warmth rather than beauty, its only windows high slits in the thick stone walls. This was the view that greeted me: forbidding and yet beautiful, with a heavily studded wooden
door set deep within the Derbyshire stone. I knew that beyond this hall the house had been added to extensively: there was a Georgian wing, and a Victorian Gothic addition, not to mention a poor
attempt, sneered at by Pevsner, at a Palladian walkway on the eastern side. But the mishmash of styles had been saved by the continuity of the local limestone, which gave the building, the dossier
said, an overall appearance of harmony. None of this could be seen as we proceeded up the drive; only the ancient hall was visible, presenting a façade that must have hardly changed for
hundreds of years. I imagined that the door might open to reveal a rush-strewn floor, the duke and his retinue eating off trenchers and throwing the bones to a pack of rangy wolfhounds by the light
of a roaring fire.
But when I stepped out of the car, the door was opened by someone who could only be Lance Garcia, running excitably towards the car in a distinctly twenty-first-century manner.
‘Aurora Carmichael?’ he asked, flinging his arms around me while I stood stock-still in surprise. ‘OMG, I am
so
glad to see you. Bibi wanted you to get the whole
aged-retainer-opening-the-door experience, but I said, “Bibi, this girl is
British
, she is not going to be impressed with a butler like we tragic Americans, she’s probably met a
million butlers working for
Country House
,” am I right?’
‘Hello, you must be Lance,’ I said, stepping backwards to see him properly. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer the butler question as really it was only rich Americans and
investment bankers who had them these days. Most posh British people were too impoverished to afford one.
‘The very same,’ Lance said, leaning into the car and instructing the driver to drop my overnight bag at the Delaval Arms. With a crunch of gravel the silent chauffeur drove
away.
As I followed Lance up the wide stone steps to the open door of the Hall, I had the opportunity to admire his Californian ensemble, as exotic and unlikely in this environment as a bird of
paradise in a henhouse. His long, lean legs were clad in lemon-yellow denim, and his feet tripped up the steps in vivid-green Converse. A checked shirt peeped out from under his lime V-necked
jumper, and a silver skull ring flashed its diamante eyes on the smallest finger of his left hand. I suspected that Ticky might be right about the duchess’s San Francisco nephew.
‘Are you ready?’ asked Lance, hesitating for one moment to maximize the suspense. I nodded. He beamed as he pushed open the door to a vast hall, the uneven flags of the floor not
covered in rushes, but buffed to a dull shine by the wear of generations and lit by a low-hanging iron chandelier which blazed with real wax candles. Although it was still morning outside, the
narrow slits of the windows allowed in only a glimmer of light, so the candles lit up the room just as it must have been when it was first built. It was magical.
I stopped on the threshold to stare. Holly and ivy had been wound around the wooden staircase, which led up to a carved gallery that stretched across one wall. Enormous mirrors, spotted with
age, hung on the walls and reflected the lights endlessly, as if we were in a series of candlelit chambers instead of just one room. It was not grand in the embellished, fussy style of Versailles;
it was sparsely substantial, feudal, imposing. On the bottom step stood the duke and duchess, smiling in silent greeting, and in evident satisfaction at my reaction.
‘You love it, right?’ said Lance, linking my arm with his and giving me a squeeze. ‘I said to Bibi, “You have
got
to give her the full candle experience the second
she walks through the door,” and now I’ve seen your face I know I was totally right, right?’
‘Totally,’ I echoed, entirely forgetting in my awe that I was meant to be admiring the textiles and addressing my hosts in the correct manner.
The duchess stepped towards me, extending her hand graciously. ‘Miss Carmichael?’ she asked, in a cut-glass voice that did not betray the faintest suggestion of her American
background.
‘Your Grace,’ I said, bobbing my knees and lowering my head completely involuntarily. Somehow the combination of her grand manner and the imposing hall made me feel instantly
subservient; perhaps some dormant servile instinct had been awakened, or perhaps the unseen hand of Martha had stretched across the miles to push me downwards into a curtsey.
The duke appeared next to her and shook my hand too, with hearty bonhomie rather than condescension. Now that they were closer, I could see that both of them were older than I had first thought;
the candlelight had flattered them both into seeming much younger. He was probably in his early fifties, with a slightly receding hairline and a florid complexion set off with a mustard-coloured
cravat. His tweed jacket could have belonged to his father’s father and, judging by the frayed leather patches on the elbows, probably had. His red trousers were spattered with mud and what
looked like a dog’s pawprint.
The duchess seemed to have stepped out of an entirely different story; her accent may have lost any American inflection, but her appearance loudly announced her origins. She could have been any
age from thirty-five to sixty, as she had that slightly immobile face that spoke not of youth but of cosmetic assistance. Her blonde hair was highlighted and blow-dried and not one strand dared to
wave out of place. Her manicure was immaculate. Although I had to admire her dedication to her appearance out here in the wilds of Derbyshire, I unkindly wondered if she knew that such grooming
instantly excluded her from full membership of the aristocracy, despite her title. She would have to get a bit of dirt under her nails to truly belong here; to buy some of her clothes from
agricultural shows, like the Duchess of Devonshire, instead of from Net a Porter. As someone who did not fit into this world myself, an observer rather than an insider, I was finely attuned to
others who had got it a little bit wrong, and I felt an instant sympathy for her that even her condescending ways could not extinguish. The duchess’s shrewd eyes picked up on this
immediately, one outsider recognizing another, and her welcoming smile froze into a rictus of distaste; clearly she preferred her guests to be awed rather than sympathetic.
Lance’s not fitting in, however, did not count. He was not trying to blend in; nor to suggest that he belonged here in any way. He was a thrilled and awed tourist and his enthusiasm was
contagious. While the duke and duchess stood stiffly like paper cut-outs from a book, Lance whisked me through the hall.
‘Now you spoke to Martha, right? I loooooove Martha, she is entirely amazing. Devastated not to meet her. The piece you’re doing is romance, romance, romance, right? And what better
day to do it than Valentine’s Day?’
‘Yes, absolutely,’ I said, glad to have been forewarned. The duke and duchess had restored the house, which had been allowed to fall into disrepair by his disreputable father, at
vast expense. Now they had to pay for it and they planned to do that by offering Seaton Hall as a venue for weddings and other large events.
‘So I thought we’d start off with the chapel – which I have done out in some darling little lights – and then some pictures in the walkway, which we’ll need to have
finished before the light begins to go, and we’ll finish off with more shots and an interview with Sacheverell and Bibi in the hall. Right?’
Just as he was whisking me out of the door at the far end of the hall, the duke cleared his throat.
‘I say, Miss Carmichael, we haven’t even offered you a cup of tea. Shall I ask the kitchen to send one up?’ he called, his voice ringing in the empty room.
Lance sighed dramatically and exchanged a look with the duchess. ‘Darling, there is no time for tea,’ the duchess said, supposedly to her husband, but with a warning look in my
direction that left me in no doubt I should not even think of saying yes. It seemed clear to me that I was a means to an end to her; she wasn’t about to waste time offering me refreshments
when there was work to be done.
‘Oh no, thank you, I’m fine,’ I said quickly, and the duchess offered me a tight smile before leading the duke away up the stairs. ‘I love the curtains!’ I called,
far too late.
‘For a country that is so totally obsessed with tea,’ confided Lance, leading me through the door to the Palladian wing, ‘it is
beyond
impossible to find a skinny soy
chai latte anywhere around here. Sometimes I don’t know how Bibi stands it.’
‘How long has she lived in England?’ I asked.
‘Oh, years,’ said Lance, dragging me through the Victorian Gothic revival wing far too fast – I had no time to look at the imitation fan-vaulting on the ceiling, let alone the
crenellated thrones that, although they looked medieval, had (said Martha’s dossier) in fact seated a mere two generations of Delavals. ‘Bibi came to St Martin’s for fashion
school when she was twenty and never left. Now you’d think she was born here, am I right? That accent! Uh-mazing, just like Madonna.’
I murmured a non-committal sound of polite agreement; now was not the time to debate Madonna’s mastery, or lack thereof, of the English accent. In any case, I barely had the chance to say
anything as Lance rattled through the schedule he had set up and told me how he saw the feature taking shape. I made a few feeble attempts to interject with Martha’s instructions, waving the
dossier at him as if I could club him into submission with its sheer weight, but although Lance would leap willingly on each idea, he subsequently flattened it in minutes. Since he had been, as he
told me, a regular visitor to the house over the five years of restoration, it was impossible for me to deny that he had a far better knowledge than I of how to show it to its best advantage. I
wondered if Martha herself would have been able to resist his bulldozing excitability – perhaps she could have steered him towards her own ends, but I doubted it. Even she, I felt, would have
realized, in the face of Lance Garcia, that the dossier I waved had now turned into a flag of surrender.