The Honours Read online

  Delphine wove round the back of Alice, who was cracking egg after egg into a pudding bowl, and presented herself to Mrs Hagstrom. The heat from the range was incredible; it came in waves, a physical thing that pushed against exposed skin. With the flames, the clouds of moisture and the clangs of industry, standing in the heart of the kitchen was like standing on the footplate of a steam engine.

  ‘Ah, Miss Venner!’ called Mrs Hagstrom, the bang-swish-bang of the cleaver hacking her speech into a platter of discrete, confusing clauses. ‘A perfect disgrace, as usual, sauntering in, a whisker before, dinnertime, your skirt splattered, with muck the likes, I’ve never seen. And here I was, thinking your Mother, had forbidden you, from leaving the, house without her, permission. You look as if, you’ve been crawling, through a sewer pipe,’ the cleaver arcing down through another shallot, ‘and surely that can’t, have been your bag, I saw a minute, ago just lying there, on the floor of the gu – ’

  Delphine slammed a lobster on the table like a telephone receiver. Its pincers were tied with parcel string. The lobster and Mrs Hagstrom exchanged bemused glances. The cleaver hung in mid-air. Mrs Hagstrom looked at the cleaver, set it down.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  This, then, was Mrs Hagstrom’s weakness.

  In the laundry room, Delphine handed over the lobster and two crabs – haggled down from four – in exchange for use of the servants’ bath, a change of clothes, and Mrs Hagstrom’s silence. The air in the laundry room was warm and damp and cloying. The crabs were cold from the sea. Mrs Hagstrom put them in a bucket. She stood over the bucket, looking down.

  Ten minutes later Delphine emerged from the bathroom in the scratchy blue housedress Mother had insisted she wear tonight. Her skin felt tender.

  Mrs Hagstrom snatched up Delphine’s hands, inspecting the fingernails.

  She released them. ‘Hmph. That’ll have to do.’

  Delphine held out her muddy clothes. Mrs Hagstrom tumbled them into a ball which she wedged beneath her armpit.

  ‘Don’t think you can go making a habit of this,’ she said. ‘Next time I may be occupied by my duties – which are many and arduous – and you’ll be left to make your own excuses. Now, get yourself to the dining room. What with all these distractions dinner’ll be ash and cinders. Go on, before I come to my senses,’ and she shooed Delphine upstairs.

  Delphine’s belly growled but no one was starting.

  Lord Alderberen tapped his spoon against the rim of his wine glass and kept tapping until everyone fell silent. He set the spoon down. Vapour rose from his tomato and shallot soup, bathing his rumpled bluish face.

  ‘Noble colleagues – if I may say a few words before we begin the evening meal.’ His head bobbed in a steady trickle of affirmation. He looked to Propp, who nodded for him to continue. Lord Alderberen usually took meals in his bedchamber. His presence at the dinner table was both awkward and momentous.

  ‘We have,’ he said, in a voice with the wavering quality of a gramophone recording, ‘all of us, been affected profoundly by the events of last week. But in times of great adversity, we also find cause for great hope. Mr Propp and I have always said that the Society, if it is to be an engine for real change and not yet another cabal of pompous drawing-room philosophers, must demonstrate its efficacy through action. Rarely has this efficacy been demonstrated so resoundingly as on Wednesday, where quick thinking, skill, and grace under fire ensured that Mr Kung reached hospital with a minimum of delay.’

  He lifted his glass. ‘A toast.’

  Everyone raised their drinks. Delphine shrank back in her chair, cheeks glowing.

  ‘To Dr Lansley.’

  To Lansley, repeated the diners.

  Delphine was dumbfounded. No one objected. Even Daddy said nothing. Lansley accepted their praise, circling his glove like a traffic policeman.

  Delphine was about to protest when she caught Mother’s glare.

  Propp gripped the arms of his chair and rose. ‘My dear brothers and sisters, I add only this: you see now why we must work. You see now how very little time we have.’ He regarded the guests with his big, dark eyes. His gaze came to rest on Delphine.

  Under the table, Delphine curled her toes. She refused to look away.

  Propp sat. He picked up his spoon. When he lifted the first spoonful of soup to his lips and blew, everyone else started to eat.

  After dinner, Delphine went below stairs and ate supper.

  Mrs Hagstrom cut up some sandwiches and piled them on two plates: half were goose and half were crab. She laid out some butter and a jar of plum jam and more bread, and strong, hot tea in a big green pot that took both hands to carry. Alice and Mr Garforth and Mr Wightman the blacksmith and Mr Garforth’s assistant Reggie Gillow shuffled onto the long benches either side of the table and began to help themselves. Next to the doorway sat a little black woodburning stove, its seams creaking as it heated up. On a corner shelf, the wireless crooned softly.

  ‘Nice of you to join us this evening, Martin,’ said Mrs Hagstrom.

  Mr Wightman nodded. He was wearing a checked cotton shirt with the cuffs buttoned back and his hair had been combed flat across his dented head. He had been at the Hall a lot recently, undertaking minor repair work on a room in the east wing where the rain got in.

  ‘Ta, Mrs H, this is lovely,’ said Reggie. Reggie had not lost his job over the pheasant business, so either he had been innocent, or – and this was the explanation Delphine thought more likely – Mr Garforth had not had the heart to sack him. The sun had brought his freckles out; they jostled as he chewed.

  Mr Garforth tutted. ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, boy.’

  Alice was beaming. ‘Reggie doesn’t get anything like this at home, do you, Reggie?’

  ‘Just greasy tea and a clip round the earhole.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t watch your manners I’ll make you feel right at home,’ said Mr Garforth. ‘And elbows.’

  Reggie slid his elbows off the table. ‘Sorry, Mr G.’

  Delphine munched on a jammy doorstop and gazed over Alice and Reggie’s heads at framed photographs, pristine against the lime-washed brick. The largest picture showed a pair of dray horses chained one behind the other to a game waggon, on which dead pheasants hung in dozens from long metal bars. She could not see the grass for corpses – they carpeted the ground. A man was looking into the camera with a sullen expression. He had three pheasants in each hand.

  A small, typewritten card tucked into the corner of the frame read: November 1888. Assistant Keeper Mr H. Garforth recovers the last of the weekend’s bag. Over two days’ shooting, six guns (Lord Alderberen, Sir N. Goole, Cpt. B. Hunstanton, Mr M. Rao, Mr B. Khan, Rev. J. S. Coe) accounted for 2,686 pheasants, 80 partridges, 74 hares, 134 rabbits and 1 woodcock.

  Delphine examined the young Mr Garforth. He wore a black coat with a high collar and six brass buttons down the front. Beneath the pushed-back brim of his bowler hat, his face was tanned and lineless.

  The photograph to the left showed a youth in a pith helmet, squatting with his rifle across his knees in front of a felled water buffalo. In the background, amongst tall dry grass, an Indian servant smiled uncertainly. The caption read: Mysore, 1869. The young sahib shows off his first trophy.

  Tucked away in the top-left of the display was a photograph that looked to have been taken in the orangery. The washed-out, blurry image showed a dozen men and women dressed in kimonos, holding fans and parasols; at the front of the group stood a slight man in black evening dress, clutching a katana in an elaborate gilt-iron scabbard. He stood with one shoulder dipped, looking past the camera as if someone had just called to him. Delphine had to squint to read the little card in the corner of the frame: March 1853. The 3rd Earl of Alderberen and servants prepare for the annual Birthday Play.

  Her chest clenched. She stared at the figure at the front of the photograph. His face was a blot of white.

  She had always assumed no photographs existed of Lord Alderber
en’s father. Wasn’t he supposed to have been a recluse? Hadn’t he hidden himself away, because he was deformed, or a vampire, or a lunatic?

  ‘Don’t eat with your mouth open,’ said Mr Garforth, flicking a clot of crabmeat from his whiskers. He was always grumpy at Sunday supper, partly out of tiredness (the walk to church was a round trip of eight miles), and partly because Mrs Hagstrom insisted on tuning the wireless to Radio Luxembourg, which he disapproved of because it carried advertisements for the pools on the Sabbath.

  Delphine swallowed her last mouthful of bread and jam.

  ‘I thought the old Earl didn’t like to go out.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  She pointed at the faded photograph. Everybody turned to look. Mr Garforth peered over his shoulder, craning his neck until his eyes found the picture.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  Mr Garforth took a piece of bread and began to butter it with the easy grace of a barber stropping a razor. ‘That was taken before the fire.’

  Alice helped Mrs Hagstrom clear the plates away. Mrs Hagstrom laid out a coffee cake cut up into fingers, a dish of bourbons and a bowl of oranges.

  ‘So, Henry.’ Mrs Hagstrom took an orange from the pile. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that you might have passed a broom round that grubby cottage of yours since I last came by? Place was like a coalmine.’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  She jabbed her fingernail into the peel and tore off a strip. ‘You’re a man, is what you are, Henry, and a proud one at that, one who’d rather live in squalor than admit he needs help. When was the last time you had visitors?’

  Delphine thought Mr Garforth’s cottage was very tidy, thank you very much. Mr Garforth dunked a bourbon into his tea and looked murderous.

  ‘I’m supposed to have the afternoon off Wednesday,’ said Mrs Hagstrom. ‘I’ll be round with the mop and duster, if only to save you from yourse – ’

  ‘No. Muriel.’ Mr Garforth held up a palm. ‘Can’t let you do that.’

  She ripped off more skin. ‘I insist.’

  ‘That’s very kind, but no.’

  ‘Henry, you can’t go on living as you do.’

  ‘I get by.’

  ‘I’m coming round and that’s that.’

  ‘No!’ Mr Garforth slammed a palm against the table. Delphine’s cake fork bounced off her lap and hit the floor. She ducked under the table to retrieve it.

  The first thing she saw was Alice’s little white hand smoothing Reggie’s thigh. She flushed and began groping about on the cold tiles for her fork, unable to focus. Muffled through a layer of oak, she heard Mr Garforth say: ‘Please. Just leave me be. I’ll tidy the clutter in my own time.’

  After everyone had finished, Mr Garforth took out his pipe while Reggie and Alice and Mr Wightman lit cigarettes. Mrs Hagstrom took a bottle of scotch whisky from the cupboard and poured everyone a glass. She let Delphine have a drop watered down in a mug. Delphine sipped it and felt needling fire across her gums and tongue. Delphine asked for a cigarette and Mr Garforth gave her a look, so she leant back and listened to the wireless and smelt his tobacco, mild and wafting like a hayloft in summer.

  Somewhere behind her head, a maple-cased wall clock tocked dully. Mr Garforth said that, back in the old days, the Hall employed a clockman whose sole job it was to patrol the house winding the various timepieces. Now, Lord Alderberen barely kept enough staff to make dinner.

  ‘He was a good man.’

  It took Delphine a moment to realise that the speaker was Mr Wightman. He gazed at the barred slit of a window on the far wall.

  ‘Shy, maybe. Not mad.’ At this, Delphine worked out who he was talking about. ‘His Lordship’s father never needed tunnels. The village was ailing. He knew we wouldn’t take charity. He invented jobs. The tunnels were just an excuse. His wife had passed. Young Master Lazarus was packed off to India. He became father to all of us. He was lonely.’

  Mr Wightman refilled his glass with whisky. He opened his tobacco tin to reveal a few loose brown threads. Alice nudged Reggie, who took a pack of Player’s from his shirt pocket and tapped one out onto the table. Mr Wightman accepted the cigarette. He struck a match against the white brick.

  ‘Did you know him?’ said Alice.

  ‘Nope. Before my time.’ He touched the flame to the tip of his cigarette. ‘But I lived amongst them as did – my father included. I never heard anyone speak ill of his Lordship. No one had a bad thing to say.’

  ‘I don’t wonder no one had a bad thing to say,’ said Reggie, making a face as he sipped his whisky. ‘They never saw him.’

  ‘Is it true he never left his bedroom for thirty years?’ said Alice. ‘And that he took all his meals through a special letterbox?’

  Mrs Hagstrom hissed. ‘Don’t be so stupid, girl.’

  ‘Father said the letterbox was for letters,’ said Mr Wightman. ‘Correspondence in, instructions for the workers out. He took his meals through a hatch. And it wasn’t just his bedroom. It was most of the west-wing first floor. His Lordship liked his privacy. After the fire, the only person allowed into his chambers was Mr Cox, his valet.’

  ‘I reckon he was sneaking out,’ said Reggie. ‘All those tunnels. I reckon he had a bird.’

  ‘I reckon you’d best keep your opinions to yourself, lad,’ said Mr Garforth.

  ‘All the stories of her Ladyship say she was a remarkable woman,’ said Mr Wightman. ‘A little quiet perhaps but, oh, what a beauty. She was dearer to his Lordship than . . . well, you’ve seen all the portraits. They were all done after the fire. He filled the house with her. All the pictures of him he had taken down and destroyed. That photograph was down the back of a wardrobe for twenty years. It was like he thought if he didn’t exist, she could live.’

  A bell jangled in the adjoining room.

  ‘That’s me.’ Alice finished her whisky and stood. She ducked through the archway. Delphine watched from the table as she fastened her white bib apron in a smudged looking-glass.

  Mrs Hagstrom shook her head. ‘We’re run ragged in this house. So much for giving everyone jobs.’

  ‘Muriel, that’s enough,’ said Mr Garforth.

  She held up her sinewy hands. ‘Well, hang me for being honest. If it weren’t for the dailies, I’d of dropped down dead years ago. Half the Hall’s under dust sheets. For the number of staff we struggle by on, you’d think we were working for the village doctor.’

  Alice returned carrying a silver tray with scalloped edges. On the tray sat a pot of tea, a tumbler of scotch, and a brown glass bottle. Delphine squinted at the label. In Dr Lansley’s familiar, regimented hand she made out the words: tincture of silver.

  Mr Wightman knuckled at his eyes. For a strange second, Delphine thought he was crying.

  ‘That’s the problem with this country,’ he said. ‘Everything’s gone to ruin. All the good men, all the gentlemen and hardworking lads, got nobbled in France. All that’s left are bank managers and soft-bellied Sunday golfers.’ He sucked on his cigarette and it glowed like his forge. ‘The old master lost his wife. He could’ve took the coward’s way out, but he didn’t. He soldiered on. Even in his misery, he was always looking for ways to help others.

  ‘Same with his Lordship. After what happened with Arthur . . . ’ He took a sharp breath and drained his glass. ‘The whole Stokeham bloodline’s cursed. But they fight it. They won’t give in to fate.’

  His hand was shaking as he ground his cigarette out.

  ‘Oh, but you can’t escape your fate,’ said Alice. ‘A fortune teller told my Uncle Jack that he wouldn’t go on holiday this year. He went to Southend just to spite her and got hit by a trolleybus.’

  Delphine imagined the shriek of brakes, the dry thud as Uncle Jack went down. She saw blood, broken teeth. She remembered Mr Kung gasping on the sand, froth pooling in his eyes.

  All at once, her whisky tasted of cinders.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ She was rising, clutching at her colla
r. ‘Thank you. Sorry.’

  The bell rang again.

  ‘Delphine!’ said Mr Garforth.

  ‘I’ve got to go!’ She spilled out into the corridor, unable to breathe. She stumbled towards the stairs. Her lungs tightened.

  In unison, the Hall’s clocks began striking the hour.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE BRAT OF HEAVEN

  July 1935

  Delphine was lying on her tummy in the treehouse, poring over Mr Kung’s crumpled notes. The crabbed Chinese characters were giving her a headache. Some of the larger ones looked like crude little maps. And there was that word: ‘DELLAPESTE’. Did she recognise it, or had she just stared at it for so long that it felt familiar? She slapped the page aside and heard weeping.

  Delphine pressed her face flat to the floor. From somewhere in the surrounding alders and sycamores came the curt, squeaky calls and liquid trills of a goldfinch. She relaxed. She had mistaken birdsong for . . . No. There it was again. Someone was beneath her.

  She slithered from the clubhouse to the crow’s nest. She held her breath.

  She pulled herself up and peered over the rim of the barrel. Diamonds of midday sunlight studded the woodland floor, shifting in the wind. Amongst glossy fronds of hart’s tongue fern, a woman sat with her hands over her face, softly crying. Delphine saw the golden hair against the shoulder of a navy blue prefect’s jacket and recognised Miss DeGroot.

  Over the past couple of weeks, Miss DeGroot had begun affecting a swagger stick. The lion’s head pommel lay beside her in the undergrowth. She had kicked off her chocolate-brown walking boots. She wept without ostentation.

  She dragged a forearm across her eyes.

  ‘If you’re going to stare, at least toss me a peanut.’

  Delphine dropped back inside the barrel. She clamped a palm over her mouth. Perhaps Miss DeGroot had been talking to herself. Perhaps someone was coming. Delphine’s heart squeezed in her chest.

  ‘I know you’re up there. I can hear the boards creaking.’

  Delphine held herself rigid, eyes screwed shut. If she kept still, Miss DeGroot would give up and walk away.