The Honours Page 4

  Delphine reached for the gun. Her elbow nudged the jug. Its face turned away and, as she grasped for it, the whole thing pirouetted off the edge of the mantelpiece, struck the hearth and broke apart with a chime.

  She looked at the brown chunks. Amongst them was a key.

  Tingles spread from the nape of her neck down her spine and up to her scalp. She stooped and picked up the key. The head was club-shaped. She glanced around for a locked cupboard or chest. A lacquered Chinese cabinet stood behind the billiard table. She tried the key, but it was too big. She was wondering whether to return and try the locked doors in the corridors, when she heard footsteps.

  They were heading north, coming up through the statue gallery. She recognised the loud, reedy voice.

  ‘These two are Minerva and, uh, Bacchus,’ Dr Lansley was saying, ‘which reminds me, your throat must be dry as a, ah yes. We’ll take cocktails in the orangery shortly. The light this time of day – ah!’

  ‘I’m not sure I – ’

  ‘Now at the end of the west gallery is the smoking room . . . ’

  Delphine scurried to the ashy hearth and began sweeping the shards of broken jug into her bonnet. The footsteps drew nearer. As she reached for the last thick sliver, she noticed a slit in the patterned wallpaper. It ran from the floor to just above head height, forming a rectangular outline. She walked up to it and pressed. It gave slightly. She pressed harder. It was a door.

  And it was locked.

  She ran a hand down the pink embossed fleur-de-lis wallpaper. Her fingertip snagged a keyhole. Mother and Dr Lansley were at the double doors.

  ‘The Society holds a symposium on the last Saturday of every month. You mustn’t feel obliged to attend.’ The door knob began to twist. Delphine slotted the key into the hole and tried it. It would not turn. Of course it wouldn’t. ‘Please understand – I admire Lord Alderberen’s forbearance immensely. Immensely. But we live in a country full of those willing to take advantage of a generous nature.’ The doors started to open.

  ‘He’s been very kind to us, yes,’ said Mother.

  The door stopped. ‘Oh, I . . . I didn’t mean to imply . . . Not you, of course.’

  Delphine jerked the key the other way. A tumbler clucked and a hinged section of wall swung out.

  Dr Lansley stepped into the smoking room, facing Mother. ‘I’m talking about a lot of the . . . creative types who’ve arrived since Lord Alderberen opened his home to the Society.’

  ‘Yes. Gideon and I were honoured that Mr Propp thought to invite us.’

  ‘Gideon?’

  Clutching her bonnet full of broken earthenware, Delphine stepped through the doorway.

  ‘My husband.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She plucked the key from the lock then tugged the lip of the door. She pulled her hand clear just in time. The door shut with a click.

  ‘What was that?’ said Mother.

  Delphine stood in the darkness, her back to the wall. The air was warm and thick with dust.

  ‘I said “Oh, I see”,’ said Lansley. ‘And is . . . your husband coming to stay also?’

  ‘I thought I heard a noise.’

  Delphine held her breath.

  ‘Oh, you will do. Alice, I expect, or Mrs Hagstrom, our housekeeper. We get by on a skeleton staff – Lord Alderberen is rather . . . particular when it comes to domestics. Now, this also serves as the card room. What’s your game? Bridge? Oh Hell? No, don’t tell me – let me guess.’

  Her eyes began to adjust. A faint thread of light picked out the door frame. To her right was a narrow passage. It continued for the length of the wall, curving round the fireplace, fading to black.

  The tingle spread down the back of her neck again, stronger. She felt like a ghost. She set down her bonnet, closed her fist around the cold brass key.

  Behind the chimney breast, the passage waspnecked. Delphine exhaled and squeezed through. Mother and Dr Lansley’s conversation faded with the last of the light.

  The passage smelt of dry rot and the acrid smack of rat urine. Rough beams scraped her shoulders; something yanked at her cardigan and she gasped. When she reached into the darkness behind her, her hand closed round a three-inch splinter, talon-sharp. She took a step back, unsnagged the loop of wool, continued.

  A pipe near her head gurgled and clanged. She tore through a sheet of cobwebs, finding a dead-end. She felt the wall. Wooden rungs like pick-axe handles poked out at two-foot intervals. They formed a ladder leading up. Delphine lifted her head and strained her eyes at the flat and fathomless black.

  ‘Pow,’ she said. The word rang slightly, as if there was an opening. ‘Pow!’ she said, louder. The way it echoed suggested a hollow space above. She tucked the key into her sock, gripped the first rung and began to climb.

  The going was easy, with a wall to lean back on if she got tired. She climbed one-handed, keeping the other over her head, flinching with each rung, convinced she was about to dash her brains out against the ceiling.

  The ceiling never arrived. Soon, she could hear she had emerged into a second enclosed space. Gripping the ladder, she leaned out, dangling a toe in the air. Her stomach clenched, but her chest surged with warmth. She imagined stepping into a void, falling, breaking her neck, her mangled body lying undiscovered for decades. ‘The Venner Vanishing’ would become one of the world’s great unsolved mysteries – competing theories would abound: kidnapped and sold into slavery in Yemen to settle the Earl’s gambling debts; dragged by vengeful spectres into one of the Hall’s many ghastly paintings, where she can still be seen, selling matches in a Spanish marketplace; slain by the infamous ‘cursed jug’ of the Stokehams, which also disappeared on that fateful, terrible day. Then, in the year 2000, a citizen of some queer, barely human future would poke around the ruins of this ancient house, whirring and puttering with his electronic devices. A needle on his chromium instrument panel would swing towards the wall. He would locate the hidden doorway, spring the lock with a special magnetic ray, and there, crumpled in the dusty cavity, the bones of a little girl.

  She felt pleasantly giddy. Her sweaty palm slipped from the rung and she fell.

  She hit the floor and stumbled forward, grabbing at the walls. She pulled herself upright. From farther up the passage, she thought she heard scuttling – in her shock, she nearly stepped backwards into the hole. Her legs shook and her brow pounded with heat. She had fallen all of two inches. She was alive. And she could hear voices.

  She followed the noise along the new passageway, which felt smaller and stuffier. She could not make out words, just muffled rhythms and inflections. A question. A rapid follow-up question from the same person. A short answer. A loud retort. Somebody was very angry.

  The passage turned ninety degrees to the left. Either her eyes were adjusting, or it was getting lighter. She wiggled her fingers in front of her face and saw movement.

  Another dead end. The voices were close. She could almost hear the words. To her left, dark red light leaked from behind a wooden slat. She prodded the slat. It moved. She poked it again. It slid easily between two runners. She pushed it all the way to the right; light streamed through a hole the size of a shilling. She stood on tiptoes and looked through.

  She was peering into a windowless box room. In a bed lay a very old lady.

  An electric nightlight threw tortoiseshell shadows across the walls. The old lady was almost completely bald, save for a fine white cowlick that trailed across the pillow. Her eyes were closed. Blue veins forked across her scalp.

  Delphine felt a cold thrill. She was looking at a corpse.

  The corpse inhaled – a sudden, hungry action with one, two, three catches, like the snagging of ratchet teeth.

  Delphine slapped the slat back into place, her heart thudding. She could still hear the rhythms of an argument. Squinting against the gloom, she found a second slat on the opposite wall. She drew it back and pressed her eye to the hole. Nothing. She inserted a finger. Something rough. She tapped gently:
wood, hollow. The back of a wardrobe, perhaps.

  She felt cheated. Wardrobes and old ladies were dull, dull, dull – they were practically the same thing, if you went by smell. What was the point in building a secret passage if all it led to was furniture and death? She was about to retreat in disgust when she noticed a glow at shin-level.

  Delphine lay on her side and nudged open a third slat. She saw the backs of two blue-stockinged feet in low-heeled slippers. The right slipper tapped the carpet.

  ‘If I may s – ’

  ‘No, you may not. Please, just shut up.’

  Both voices were male. Her view was framed by the legs and underside of a leather club chair. The springs creaked as the occupant shifted his weight. She could see the manufacturer’s label and a dropped matchbook behind one of the legs. On the far side of the room, grey pinstripe trousers terminated in a pair of black patent-leather shoes. The shoes plodded in and out of sight, pacing the floor.

  The man in the chair sighed – a pained, faintly bovine sound that ended in a rattle.

  ‘Christ’s sweet tree. The whole thing’s a bloody mess.’ His diction was crisp and deep.

  The black shoes stopped at the opposite end of the room. They pivoted to face the chair.

  ‘War comes.’ The second male voice was slow and purring. Her forearms prickled. She could not place the accent – to her ear, the owner of the black shoes sounded vaguely Russian.

  ‘You are willing it to come,’ said the man in the chair.

  ‘It is inevitable.’

  ‘No!’ The slippers stamped in unison and Delphine flinched. ‘War is never inevitable! That is an excuse, and you, you of all people . . . God! They were willing to talk.’

  ‘Talk?’ said the black shoes. ‘Of course. Negotiate? No.’

  Delphine’s head was swimming.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ said the man in the chair. ‘Ivan? I said what are we going to do? We can’t fight an entire people. When they find out what you’ve done we’re finished.’

  ‘So you do think they plan invasion?’

  ‘I do now, yes! Of course I do now. You’ve given her the perfect casus belli. They’ll have no choice.’

  The patent-leather shoes covered the distance to the chair in three strides. Delphine almost cried out – for a mad instant, she thought they would crash through the wall. She bit her lip.

  The foreigner’s voice was hushed, urgent: ‘This. This is your flaw. Innocence. You think family will save you. You think justice will save you. No. Justice is shield of glass. We must have wisdom.’

  The slippered feet splayed. She heard the man in the chair take three grating breaths.

  ‘But how can I go on if I trust no one?’

  Creases appeared in the foreigner’s polished toecaps as his heels rose from the floor. The club chair creaked with extra weight.

  ‘My dear friend.’ He spoke in a whisper, but impossibly loud, as if his lips were at her ear. She felt chill and limp; all she wanted to do was surrender. ‘You may trust me.’

  He stayed on his toes a moment longer, then sank. He began walking away.

  ‘What about Lansley?’ said the man in the chair. ‘He’s going to have kittens.’

  ‘We must not tell him.’

  The man in the chair laughed. ‘Oh no, I quite agree. We’re not going to tell him anything. You’re going to explain to the Doctor exactly what you’ve done and how you propose to keep our heads from rotting on the bloody tips of ten-foot pikes.’

  The shoes stopped, side-on. ‘We continue visits. We say nothing.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing. We behave normal, we smile so nicely. If they mention child, we offer to help with search.’

  ‘And when they find out we’ve got the girl right here, under our bloody roof?’

  Delphine felt a horrible electric thrill.

  ‘They must not.’

  ‘You’re riding a tiger,’ said the man in the chair. ‘Easy to start, damned hard to stop. The longer we wait, the worse it is. No, look, you’ll just have to go cap in hand and tell them you made a mistake. You were mad. You were drunk – your youthful body couldn’t handle the nectar. You’re terribly, terribly sorry. Here she is, and no harm done.’

  One black shoe tapped the floor. ‘It is too late.’

  ‘It’s not too late if you act now.’

  ‘I will not give them child.’

  ‘It’s not your choice to make!’

  ‘And yet,’ said the foreigner, ‘I choose.’

  ‘I’ll take her. I’ll choose for you. What do you think of that?’

  ‘No. I do not think you will.’

  ‘But we have so much to teach each other. You heard the things they said. They still respect England. They respect us. We can stop this war before it starts.’

  ‘Lazarus. They are monsters.’

  The chair creaked. ‘Was my father a monster?’

  Silence. Delphine blinked. It was as if time in the room had stopped.

  ‘Your father is dead,’ said the foreigner. ‘God rest his soul.’

  Delphine heard a rustling above the chair, the sound of a match being struck. Seconds later, she smelt the soft aroma of pipesmoke. The blue stockings slid out of the slippers.

  ‘What about the new Britannia? What about everything the Society was created to achieve? Is that just all . . . what? We just give it up, do we?’

  ‘No. We give up nothing. We go on as planned. They do not suspect us.’

  The man in the chair grunted. ‘Let me send the child away, then.’

  ‘No. I must keep her in my sight.’

  ‘Why? We could . . . ah!’ The pipe clattered on the carpet and bounced underneath the chair, spilling tobacco. Delphine gripped the slat, ready to close it. Springs groaned; the man above grunted; four pale fingertips appeared, grasping impotently. ‘Oh, hang it all.’ The fingers withdrew. ‘Look at me. I can’t pick something up when it falls at my feet. It might as well be in China.’ He took a breath, and Delphine heard the catch in his throat. ‘When we’re out there, I feel like anything is possible. I feel hope. But each time we return home I sink deeper into decrepitude. The journey’s too much. This body is dying. I can’t afford the luxury of brinkmanship.’

  The patent-leather shoes stepped into view, close and huge. Before Delphine had time to pull away, pinstripe-trousered knees were touching the carpet and a big tanned hand was reaching for her. Behind thumb and forefinger appeared a face: white moustache, plump cheeks and huge grey eyes.

  She was paralysed.

  The hand swallowed the pipe and withdrew like a sea monster. The man stood.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Luxury you cannot afford is cowardice.’

  Delphine snapped the slat shut, stumbled to her feet and began hurrying back along the passageway. The walls amplified her breathing till the very house seemed to be gasping for oxygen. The blackness was total. Something round and smooth brushed her calf – she choked down a yell. She groped at the void ahead until her fingers found the top rung.

  She had to get out. She had to find Mother.

  Midday sun flowed through the orangery’s domed glass ceiling, trapping everything in a net of shadows. Mother and Dr Lansley were sitting on black lacquered chairs, sipping dark green cocktails. A bronze cherub had its bow aimed at Lansley’s temple. About its shoulders, a climbing plant hung leathery and dead.

  Delphine marched up to the little wicker table.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  Dark bars split Mother’s face into segments. She looked Delphine from crown to toe.

  ‘You’re filthy.’

  Delphine glanced down. Her blouse and skirt were caked with dust. Thick clumps clung like fur. She began slapping it off.

  Mother wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh. Don’t do that here.’ She flapped a hand. ‘Whatever happened? Did you fall?’

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  Dr Lansley grasped the thin stem of his glass between gloved thumb and
forefinger. He lifted the drink to his lips, tinting his keen features a queasy, corpse-bloat green. He sipped. His jaw muscles tightened.

  ‘Mother.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ She sat back in her chair. ‘Well. Go on, then.’

  ‘I mean in private.’

  ‘In that case, you’ll have to exercise a little patience. Perhaps if you ask the Doctor politely he’ll have the maid show you to your room. I’ll come and speak with you when the three of us are done.’

  ‘This is a matter of – wait, what?’

  Mother placed her glass on the table with the confident finality of a grandmaster capturing a rook with a pawn.

  ‘You heard me perfectly well.’ She flashed Dr Lansley a smile. ‘I’ll talk when the three of us have finished. Mr Propp has been telling me about his dances.’

  A shadow at the window turned. Delphine jolted the table with her thigh, sloshing green liquid into the wickerwork.

  Mr Propp was a short, tanned, round man. A silk robe parted about his paunch like theatre curtains, fob watch glinting in the pocket of his waistcoat. Delphine’s gaze followed grey pinstripes down to polished black patent-leather shoes. He took a few steps forward, walking with a rocking motion, until his bald head came into the light. He smiled, lifting the tips of a vanilla-white walrus moustache.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, in a purring, vaguely Russian accent.

  And there were the eyes: huge, grey, unreadable.

  *Daddy’s latest work was a triptych entitled Trial Of The Profligate. The three panes showed, respectively, a manacled angel taunted by centurions, a club-footed beggar woman admiring her (male) reflection in a full-length mirror, and an empty bird cage. Though, at first, Daddy’s canvases, with their thick, childish lines and botched perspectives, had left Delphine baffled, guilt had hardened into a keen aesthetic eye, and she now recognised them as masterpieces. He stored his works at the studio in London where he painted and often slept. They had been some of the only family possessions to escape the fire.