The Honours Read online

  Mother slammed against the wall, withering. Delphine looked to Philip, who stood dumbly in the doorway. Philip blinked, took a step forward.

  ‘Mr Venner, I . . . ’

  Daddy shut his eyes. He ran a hand through his slick silvered hair, whispering.

  ‘It’s almost gone now,’ he murmured. He stepped over Mother as he had stepped over the clock, carrying her coat down the corridor to the kitchen. When he opened the door Delphine heard the hail noise again, but louder; the oily smell grew stronger. Mother was on her feet, scrambling after Daddy, pleading, shrieking operatically. She grabbed at his back; he bore her like a rucksack as he walked out of sight.

  Delphine felt a cold weight in her belly. She walked to the stairs. Her legs felt gluey and she had to grip the bannister. Philip was saying something but it was far away and muffled. The picture of Grandnan and Grandpapa was gone, leaving a dark rectangle of wallpaper. She staggered towards her room. The door was open. Perhaps she had made a mistake. Perhaps everything would be fine.

  A shifting, aquatic glow lit the space. The room felt bigger than she remembered. Her bed was gone. There were splinters on the floor. Her books were gone. Her model castle was gone. In the carpet were four dents left by the legs of the toy chest. There was no basket. There was no Hannibal. There was no Nelson.

  She stumbled to the window. The fields around the village were blue and still. Down in the back garden was a huge bonfire. She saw the outlines of mattress springs, picture frames, a bike wheel. All around, the snow had melted and where the grass had not been scorched away it shone a lustrous bottle green. Smoke formed a solid, curling pillar. Daddy slung Mother’s cream coat into the flames, where it shrivelled. He dropped to his knees and gripped his head, shuddering.

  No. He was laughing.

  Delphine turned away, dazed and sickened. Her body felt light as a seedpod. She walked out of her room and down the stairs and picked up her suitcase. She walked out of the house to the car, opened the back door and climbed inside. She took out the brushes in their brown paper parcel. She lay down on the back seat and hugged them to her chest.

  *Delphine saw the title, Murder On The Orient Express, and realised she had read it in a brief fit of grown-upness two months before. She had powered through three whole chapters before skipping to the end (the novel’s primary focus, she had discovered, was not murder, but talking).

  *Great Uncle Shipton had claimed he got the clock after agreeing to referee a swimming contest between four sailors – usually a Dutchman, a Swede, a Norwegian and a Finn. The race was to run from Aalborghus Castle, across the Limfjord, and back again. The first man to touch the castle wall would win an antique clock. On the morning of the contest, Shipton and a crowd of spectators watched the sailors plunge into the freezing waters. Four heads bobbed as they crossed the narrow channel. Presently, there were three. Then two. Then one. Then none. Some time after midday, the organiser turned to Shipton and asked if he wanted to declare it a draw. Shipton agreed, and received the clock in recognition of his good sportsmanship.

  CHAPTER 2

  O QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS

  March 1935

  Nothing lifted Delphine’s mood, not even the monster. Brawny shanks, conch ears, wings like a ripped corset, lips drawn in an endless howl – everything she wanted in a Hell fiend, except life. In its granite throat was a robin’s nest. As the car rolled through the wrought-iron gates of Alderberen Hall, the little bird watched from behind a row of lichen-freckled fangs.

  Delphine scraped an index finger round her nostril then wiped it on the seam of the leather seat. She sat hunched, her jaw tight. Mother had made her wear a bonnet with a bright green ribbon; she could feel it balanced on her head, conspicuous as antlers.

  Beyond the car, the estate spread dew-soaked, teeming. Tall Scots pines twisted out of a flat expanse. In the glassy morning light, she could almost believe she was on the savannah. Chickweed strafed the thickening grass in great creamy splashes. The road swung through a blackthorn thicket spattered with white blooms. They entered the woods.

  Through Philip’s open window she smelt the sour sweat of nettles. Ferns lashed at the running board. A branch clattered against the windscreen. She caught a flash of dark red behind a rotten log. When she looked again, it was gone.

  The woods thinned. Beeches lined the road, their branches hacked back to ugly stumps. Bracken gave way to grass. The driveway began a gentle curving descent.

  She saw a boating lake with a little hill beside it. On top of the hill sat a dome of black brick rather like an igloo. Huge shadows rolled across the lawns. All at once she was looking at Alderberen Hall – vast, brilliant – sunlight blazing off the golden stonework of its east and west wings.

  A fawn lifted its head at the rumble of the motor. It bounded away, beech trees chopping its movement into a zoetrope flicker. Delphine lined up a shot with her imaginary hunting rifle, picturing a second, invisible head in front of the first, aiming for the eyeball, holding her breath. Pinching.

  ‘Pow,’ she whispered. The fawn kept running, oblivious.

  Mother shook a pill into her palm from a brown glass bottle. She put her hand over her mouth, as if receiving bad news.

  Ahead, Alderberen Hall fattened, gaining detail. Heavy mullioned windows were set in walls of faded golden stone. Six classical columns stood over the entrance. The Hall was symmetrical, its east and west wings reaching forward like the paws of the Sphinx.

  Philip switched off the engine and let the car coast the final few yards. Wheels crackled on gravel and stopped. Delphine got out. She waited, hands clasped over her tummy.

  Mother took Philip aside. She stood close and spoke quietly. Delphine realised she was being excluded and edged closer, indignant.

  ‘We’ll send for you when we need you,’ Mother was saying. ‘Philip, I . . . the family appreciates your loyalty and discretion over these past few months.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Venner – ’

  She took his hand in both of hers. ‘I know we can trust you.’ When she let go, he glanced down.

  ‘Oh, I . . . ’ He took a sharp breath. ‘Thank you, Mrs Venner.’

  ‘Take your aunt on a daytrip somewhere nice. Borrow the car, if you like.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Venner. Thank you, Mrs Venner.’ Philip seemed unable to lift his head. His cheeks were pink. ‘Uh . . . uh, so . . . ’

  ‘What is it?’

  He kneaded his hands, his voice tailing off. ‘I was just . . . I mean, so I know . . . to be ready, like . . . for, uh . . . Will . . . when will you be wanting me to pick up, uh . . . Mr Venner?’

  Mother turned away.

  ‘We will send for you when we need you.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Venner.’ He began backing towards the car.

  ‘Philip? Our cases, please.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, Mrs Venner.’

  As he unlocked the boot, Delphine wandered along the front of the house. Between the blocky east and west wings ran a long façade of smutted mustard-yellow brickwork. Up close, its palatial grandeur congealed into the grubby functionality of a sanatorium. A row of black-barred windows filled most of the – she fancied fatal – drop between the two storeys. Ivy clung to the brick in sickly clusters, too brittle to climb down.

  ‘Delphine!’ Mother’s voice was sing-song but her eyes flashed with warning. ‘Let’s not keep our hosts waiting, dear.’

  A maid stood in the doorway, one elbow propped against the frame. She was young and slight with white-gold hair. Mother turned to wave off Philip. The maid eyed the two suitcases out on the gravel. She trudged over and grasped the handles.

  ‘Where’s the rest?’

  Mother’s smile tightened. ‘We have all our luggage.’

  ‘I see.’ The maid straightened up, baring her teeth. She was stronger than she looked. ‘This way, please.’

  Mother turned to Delphine and mouthed ‘Come on!’ before following the maid through the double doors.

  Delphine hung back, scrap
ing surly arcs in the gravel. When was Daddy going to come? Why hadn’t they waited till he was ready? It was horrible how Mother wouldn’t let her see him. Delphine spat into the white dust. Mother was a beast.

  Above the entrance, stout columns rose towards an architrave crusted in bird mess. As she craned her neck to follow them, she felt a surge of vertigo. She turned away.

  ‘Delphine!’ Her name echoed from the corridor.

  Lawns spread ripe and unbounded. The distant treeline hung like an unresolved chord. She could run.

  ‘Delphine!’

  Then she saw him.

  A figure was crossing the lawn – an old man with white side-whiskers and high, knotty shoulders. She couldn’t understand how she had missed him. His jacket was clay green against the sun-blanched green of the grass, the blood-dark green of the woods. In his right hand swung a shotgun; in his left, mole carcasses on a string.

  He stopped. The dead moles swayed and came to rest, nuzzling his filthy boots. He coughed into splayed fingers, examined them distastefully. The hand dropped away; he glanced about with a sudden wary vigour.

  Delphine held her breath. The man looked towards the Hall.

  She stepped backwards across the threshold.

  ‘Lord Alderberen is in bed, owing to his dyspepsia,’ the maid was saying, her little voice resonating as the corridor opened out around her. ‘Wait here in the Great Hall and I’ll see who’s about.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mother stood in the middle of a chequered marble floor, like the last piece in a chess game. ‘Are you sure he’s well enough to be receiving guests?’

  ‘Oh yes, ma’am.’ The maid shot a wistful look towards the domed ceiling. ‘It comes and goes. Always seems to flare up when he’s got visitors. He’s a martyr to his dyspepsia.’

  ‘Can’t they do anything for it?’

  ‘You’d have to ask Dr Lansley about that,’ the maid called, retreating through a side door with their cases. ‘He knows everything that goes on here.’

  A slam boomed through the Great Hall.

  Mildly buoyed by Mother’s irritation, Delphine looked around at portraits of dull ancestors, the grand staircase and the crimson carpet that flowed like lava from the landing above. At the top of the stairs was a painting of a wan young lady with sad eyes and buttery hair. Above the painting, an alabaster frieze showed bulls trampling a phalanx of spear-wielding hoplites on giant ostriches. Electric lights glared in brass fittings. The whole place smelt of polish and hospitals.

  ‘Don’t wander off again.’ Even with her voice lowered, Mother’s rebuke rang off the walls. ‘Come here. And don’t look at me like that. You’re still in disgrace.’

  Delphine began walking to Mother across the chessboard tiles. She stopped. In the light from the tall portico windows, Mother looked angular and old. She had lost a lot of weight. Her head looked like muslin stretched over a pine-cone.

  ‘Come here now.’

  Delphine lifted her right foot. She held it over the boundary between one square and the next. She looked at Mother.

  ‘Please, Delphine.’

  Delphine did not move.

  ‘Now!’ The word resounded emptily, a thunderclap.

  Delphine thought of Mother crumpled on the floor, of how Daddy had stepped over her, and felt a sickly, creeping scorn. She withdrew her foot like a knife. Mother blinked. Delphine turned away.

  Her chest was pounding. She stared at the oak-panelled wall and waited for the tide to come crashing back in. Seconds passed. The expected slap to the back of the head did not come. Mother was not going to correct her.

  Fear gave way to a numb, terrifying freedom.

  ‘Mrs Venner?’

  Delphine turned and saw him: a tall man in hunting tweeds, around Daddy’s age, with oily black hair and a narrow moustache. He began descending the stairs, smoothing a gloved hand along the polished bannister. His slicked-back hair, receding at the temples, gave the impression he was moving at speed.

  Mother’s jaw worked dumbly. At last, she nodded.

  The man stopped two steps from the bottom. He held out his palm. A wire ran from his ear to a large battery hanging from his belt. Plugged into the top of the battery was a microphone the size of a digestive biscuit. Mother crossed the floor and placed her hand in his. The man bowed.

  ‘Dr Lansley, Lord Alderberen’s personal physician,’ he said, almost shouting. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

  Mother smiled. Delphine folded her arms.

  ‘Very nice to meet you,’ said Mother.

  Dr Lansley kept hold of her palm. Her wedding ring caught the light and sparked.

  ‘I hear the Earl is unwell,’ Mother said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The maid said his dyspepsia – ’

  ‘Yes, yes. Alice gets overexcited, silly thing.’ Dr Lansley placed two fingers in the small of Mother’s back and began guiding her away from the stairs. ‘Nothing to worry about – some boiled milk and a good night’s sleep and he’ll be quite restored, I’m sure. Now, would you care to take the guided tour?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Doctor, ah – ’

  ‘Please, call me Titus.’

  ‘We’ve only just arrived. Delphine needs to unpack her things. She has private study to be getting on with.’ She turned to Delphine. ‘Don’t you, dear?’

  Delphine scowled.

  Dr Lansley faced Delphine, as if noticing her for the first time. His head had a slight rightward kink, weighed down by the deaf aid, but he was not old – his eyes were ravenous, alert, and beneath his slick dark hair his posture shivered with the concentrated tension of a mousetrap. He looked her up and down.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hello,’ said Delphine.

  He held her gaze a moment longer, then turned back to Mother.

  ‘Well, we’ve got a lot to get through but since we’re on the subject of families I suppose this is as good a place to start as any.’ He took Mother’s hand and led her across the Great Hall, their footsteps sarcastic applause. Delphine watched them go. Mother shot a look over her shoulder. ‘Now this fellow is Sir Robert Stokeham – good chum of Pitt the Elder, apparently.’

  Dr Lansley stopped before a gilt-framed portrait the size of a billboard, lit on either side by electric lamps. As he continued talking, Delphine edged towards a doorway. ‘Look how they’ve composed the scene around him: the matchlock, the faithful gundogs, the quill and documents lying oh-so-conveniently in the background. You can just imagine, can’t you? “Yes, do come in, I’m just cleaning my hunting rifle and – oh look, what’s this on the desk? A frightfully important letter from King George the Third? How scatterbrained I am!”’

  The Doctor’s whinnying laughter faded as she entered a long corridor lined with south-facing windows. She walked in and out of the light, enjoying the cool lakes of darkness.

  Why had Daddy insisted they come to this stuffy old place? Surely, if he wanted to get better, the best place for him was home. She stopped beside a door, tried the handle. It was locked.

  Pinned to a corkboard beside the door was a typewritten timetable:

  S.P.I.M. ACTIVITIES

  Monday:

  9 a.m. – morning orientation

  10 a.m. – breakfast

  11 a.m. – true work (M) / hidden steps (F)

  12 a.m. – luncheon

  1 p.m. – archery

  2 p.m. – true work (M) / hidden steps (F)

  4 p.m. – wakefulness drills

  5 p.m. – dinner

  6 p.m. – private study time

  9 p.m. – discussion

  11 p.m. – supper

  There were similar lists for Tuesday to Friday, with minor variations: ‘surgery’ on a Wednesday afternoon, ‘fencing’ instead of ‘archery’ on Tuesday and Thursday, and a 6 a.m. slot on Friday called ‘dawnbath’.

  Delphine followed the corridor until it opened onto a spacious music room. Her sandals slapped against worn, waxed boards. Sunlight from four windows conve
rged on a dusty harpsichord. On a stand above the harpsichord’s double keyboard sat some handwritten sheet music: The Shadowed Way – Sequence 15. The corner of the page was initialled: I.P.

  Mother had forced Delphine to take piano lessons. Just thinking about the tak-tak-tak of the metronome made her throat tighten. She rested an index finger on middle C. The key colours were reversed: the majors ebony, the sharps and flats ivory. The key sank; a nasal, spidery twang died beneath the lid.

  She entered a wider, longer corridor. As far as she could tell, she was in the west wing, heading north. On her left were tall windows, on her right, white statues of men in laurel wreaths and togas, pottery fragments, a bull’s head in alabaster. She came to some double doors. She listened at the keyhole. Nothing. She tried the door knob. The door opened.

  The room was thick with the sweet, rank stench of dead flowers. Huge drapes smothered the windows. As her eyes adjusted she saw a billiard table, a leather sofa and a globe the colour of autumn. She could taste the dust in the air. She approached the fireplace. A deep rug swallowed her footsteps.

  She wondered if Mother had missed her yet, if she was pacing the hallways, calling. Delphine looked at the oil painting over the fireplace: a Venetian plague doctor in leather overcoat, wide-brimmed hat and white beakmask, gazing down upon a sea of corpses. She did not know much about art,* but something in the mask’s dark sockets made the hairs at the top of her spine rise.

  On the mantelpiece sat a glazed earthenware jug. It was shaped like a puffy, leering face, the eyes rolled back, the skull hanging wretchedly open. Beside it, bracketed to the wall, was a gun.

  Delphine walked over for a closer look. It was a duelling pistol – a flintlock, with a rounded walnut grip, a cleaning rod slotted under the barrel. Duelling pistols usually came in pairs, and she glanced round for another, but it seemed to be the only one. The manufacturer’s name was incised on the iron plate beneath the hammer: Dellapeste.

  In her belly, she felt the flint fall, the flash of black powder, the musket ball thudding into the heart of her arch foe. She lined up candidates and shot each in turn: Mrs Leddington (through the left bosom), Eleanor Wethercroft (headshot). Then, though she was not sure why, she shot Dr Lansley (kneecap, making him bow) before reloading and shooting him again (headshot, point-blank).