The Emerald Comb (11 page)

She lay back on the bed, and imagined what was happening now in Miss Georgia’s room. Would Georgia be able to satisfy him? In time, Agnes supposed, she would, assuming she enjoyed lying with him. What if she didn’t? Agnes smiled, and dashed away her tears. Well then, Bartholomew would come back to
her
. And as long as she could continue to avoid a pregnancy, there was no reason their affair should not continue. The sponges soaked in vinegar had done the trick so far. She silently thanked her mother for passing on her wisdom.

Georgia was sitting on the edge of her bed, wearing a long white nightgown. Her hair was loose and had been brushed over her shoulders. Her hands were tucked under her thighs, and her back was rounded, her shoulders drooped. She looked like a child, sent early to bed for some misdemeanour.

As Bartholomew entered she looked up and smiled shyly at him. ‘Should I be in the bed already? Agnes said…’

‘Come here to me,’ he said, holding out his hands to her. She rose, and took a step towards him, but stopped short.

‘Have you been drinking very much brandy?’

What was she, his mother? He bit back a retort. ‘Only one or two more, after you left. To keep your uncle company. He will be lonely when we leave. Come, kiss me.’

‘He wants nothing more than to live alone again,’ she said. She held out a hand to him, but did not step any closer.

He caught her hand and pulled her roughly to him. Leaning over her, he covered her mouth with his, and brought his other hand up to her breast. It felt small and soft beneath the nightdress. Not like Agnes’s firmer, more rounded breasts. Damn it, she was his wife, and he would make himself desire her, and she him!

She leaned back, and turned her head to the side to escape the kiss.

‘I can taste the brandy on you.’ She pushed him away. ‘Oh, Bartholomew, oh, that taste, I am sorry, I think…’ She ran to the washstand at the side of the room and leaned over the bowl. ‘That taste, it makes me feel….’ She retched into the bowl, then stood straight, and brought her hand up to cover her mouth.

‘You are not well,’ he said, flatly.

‘I am sorry. What must you think of me, pushing you away on our wedding night? But, that taste… I don’t think I can… Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps if you don’t drink any brandy…’

He stared at her. So she was turning him away, on their wedding night! She was dictating how much he should drink, within hours of becoming his wife. He opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. She was so young. Give her time.

He turned on his heel and left the room, without another word. Walking fast along the corridor, he passed the door to his own bedchamber and went up the servants’ stairs.

Up on the top floor was a woman who would not turn him away, brandy or no brandy.

Chapter Eight: Hampshire, May 2013

A week or so after moving in, Thomas began attending the reception class at the local primary school. He looked so adorable in his uniform – grey shorts, white polo shirt and bright blue sweatshirt emblazoned with the school logo of an oak tree under a rainbow.

With Thomas out of the house from nine till two, I had more time each day, both to get on with work on the house, and to explore the local area. On one meander through the village, I turned right up a lane just beside the White Hart. The lane soon petered out into a bridleway, sheltered by high hedgerows of hawthorn, bramble and the occasional oak tree. The hawthorn was in full bloom and its sweet scent mingled with birdsong filled the air as soon as I was out of the village.

A wooden sign marked the start of a footpath, which led over a stile then along the side of a field planted with rape, its uncompromising yellow flower making the day feel warmer and sunnier than it actually was. The ground rose gradually then, after another stile on the far side of the field, more steeply, up a small hill. The hilltop was covered with low gorse and bramble, a wide chalky path winding its way to a quartet of benches surrounding a triangulation point.

The view in every direction was stunning. To the south you could see North Kingsley and further away, Winchester, red-brick and sprawling. To the east, the M3 motorway, emerging from a cutting and heading purposefully London-wards. To the north, farmland and gently rolling hills as far as the eye could see. Same to the west, the view broken only by the railway line, fighting its way out of the Winchester housing estates and business parks into open countryside. North Kingsley’s own little station, from which you could board a slow train north to London or south, via Winchester, to the coast, was tucked in a valley at the foot of the hill, a couple of miles away from the village centre.

The story goes, so Steve, the landlord of the White Hart had told me, that when the railway was being built, the Irish navvies camped up here. Since then the hill, previously unnamed, had been known to locals as Irish Hill. Not on the OS maps though, where it just appeared as an oval-shaped handful of close-packed brown contour lines.

I liked Irish Hill. It looked like a good place to come to think. I sat down on the west-facing bench watching a train speed southwards, not stopping at North Kingsley.

Simon always took the fast train from Winchester whenever he went to London. I wondered what time he would come home today. Usually he’d be home by seven. At least, that had been the usual before we moved here. These last couple of weeks he’d returned after nine, most nights. He’d phone me around six –’ ‘keep my dinner warm, Katie’, or ‘don’t bother cooking for me, I’ll grab something on the way home’. I didn’t know what was keeping him out so long. When I asked he muttered about working late, or going for a drink with a team-member who’s leaving, or train delays. If I asked for details he was evasive.

A bird of prey was circling overhead, making use of the wind currents up the side of the hill. I wondered what type it was. Maybe a buzzard, or a red kite. Now that we lived in the country I felt I should know such things, so I could point them out to the children. Maybe I should buy a book on birds.

It crossed my mind to wonder whether Simon was having an affair. It’s the clichéd, obvious conclusion to draw when one’s husband is late home and cagey about where he’s been. But Simon? Would he really? I shook the thought out of my head and watched the bird, yes I think it
was
a red kite, circle higher and higher on the thermals. Another one joined it briefly, then dived downwards and alighted in a tree near the bottom of the hill.

Who was she? Someone from his work, perhaps? I imagined going through his pockets, checking his phone for texts, inspecting his shirt collar for lipstick marks. That’s what the cuckolded wife is supposed to do, isn’t she? But Simon, my Simon – surely it wasn’t something he’d ever do? We had a strong marriage, even if things hadn’t been easy lately, and he’d been in an almost continual bad mood, what with the stress of the house move, and the worries about his mother’s health. We’d always been totally honest with each other. Maybe I should just sit him down and ask him straight out?

I leaned forward, arms on knees, and hung my head. There were some tiny purple flowers amongst the grass and clover beneath the bench. I picked one and looked at it closely. So beautiful, so delicate. If I asked Simon straight out, that would be admitting I suspected him and didn’t trust him. Which, if I was wrong, would undermine our relationship. I couldn’t risk that. I’d have to find proof before confronting him.

I twirled the purple flower between finger and thumb until the stem crushed and the flower head dropped to the ground. It was time to go. Thomas needed to be collected by two, and Lewis and Lauren finished school an hour later.

I spent the afternoon cleaning the house while the kids bounced on the trampoline we’d erected in the garden, and climbed in the old beech tree. Simon rang to say he’d not be back until after nine again; he was held up at work with an urgent problem. Either he really was working too hard or he was hiding something. Thomas was in bed, the other two children were playing in their rooms already washed and pyjama’d, and my laptop had finally turned up in the last box we’d unpacked in the study. There was time to immerse myself in my family history. At least it would take my mind off worrying about what Simon was really doing.

I had stacks of notes on the St Clairs, and piles of birth, marriage and death certificates. It had cost a small fortune sending off for all those certs but I treasured them, and relished every new snippet of information I discovered. One day I would write the whole lot up as a book, and get it properly bound. It would be my gift to my children. Here’s who you are, and where you came from. From your mum’s side, anyway. Your dad doesn’t know who his own parents were, and isn’t even interested. The idea of not even knowing the names of your parents unsettled me. It would be like building a house with no foundations on quicksand – nothing beneath you to hold you up.

‘It’s not like that at all,’ Simon had said, when I discussed this with him, years ago when he’d first told me he was adopted. ‘Who you are has nothing to do with who your birth parents are. Sure, they might have passed on genes for ginger hair or chubby ankles but who you are – who you
really
are – is down to your upbringing and your life experiences. For which I have my wonderful adoptive parents to thank.’

Still, if it was me, I’d want to know names if nothing else. So I could go backwards into the past and find out where I came from.

I sorted the certificates into date order. Birth and death certificates are like the book-ends of a life. They define an ancestor’s period. Born there, on that date. Died then, in this place. Before you’ve established those basic facts, ancestors are ghost-like beings. They must have existed, else you wouldn’t be here, but you know nothing about them. Tracking down their births, marriages, deaths, entries on census forms gradually makes them take shape. It adds flesh to the bones, so to speak.

The earliest certificate was Bartholomew and Georgia’s marriage certificate from 1838. It showed Bartholomew St Clair, occupation ‘Gentleman’, of Sussex Square, Brighton, marrying Georgia Holland, on 15
^th
May, 1838. Georgia was just seventeen, and a ward of her uncle, Charles Holland of Brunswick Terrace, Brighton. The wedding was witnessed by Charles Holland and a Henry Harding.

I peered at the signatures of the couple. How wonderful to see my great-great-great-grandparents’ own handwriting! Bartholomew’s backward-leaning scrawl; the style of a man of business who was used to writing a lot. Georgia’s elegant copperplate; a lady’s handwriting, perfect for genteel correspondence with her friends, still showing signs of the schoolroom she had so recently left. Only seventeen when she married! Bartholomew was thirty-three.

I’d ordered the birth certificates of all of Bartholomew and Georgia’s children. They’d had four children – Barty, the eccentric old man who’d inherited the house and lived here till the 1920s; William, my great-great-grandfather, and, between the boys, two daughters who’d died in childhood, Elizabeth and Isabella. I put all the certificates into date order.

Then there were the death certificates. Those for the little girls were so sad. Elizabeth had died aged just three of ‘a fever, eight days duration’, and Isobella died aged ten of consumption. I looked closely at the dates. William, my ancestor, had been born only two weeks after the death of Elizabeth. Had his birth been a comfort to Georgia, I wondered – had the arrival of a new baby somehow helped her get over her loss? I couldn’t imagine losing a child. These days if a child dies it’s a tragedy, something a parent never really gets over. But back then it was sadly all too common.

My research was interrupted by Lauren thundering down the stairs, a sniffling Thomas close on her heels.

‘Mum, Lewis says there are ghosts in this house! He’s made Thomas cry!’

I sighed, picked up Thomas and went up to sort them out.

‘Lewis, what have you been saying to Thomas?’

Lewis was sitting on his bedroom floor surrounded by mounds of Lego. He looked up at me, all wide-eyed and innocent. ‘I said nothing, Mum.’

‘Well, why’s he crying, then?’

‘Dunno. Maybe he’s tired. You should put him to bed.’ Oh great. Now my own eleven-year-old is giving me parenting tips.

‘I would, but how’s he going to sleep if you’ve been filling his head with ghost stories?’

‘He started it. He said he’d heard wailing in the night.’

‘Thomas?’

He sniffed and buried his face against my neck. ‘Ghosts were going woo-woo last night. I heard them.’

I hugged him close. ‘Sweetie, it was probably the wind. Sometimes it gets in the chimneys and goes woo-woo. I heard it too.’

‘I’m frightened of the wind going woo-woo in the chimley. Can you stop it getting in?’

‘No, sweetie, I can’t. But it’s only air.’

‘Ghosts are only air too,’ said Lewis, unhelpfully.

I glared at him and shook my head. ‘Lewis, pick up all this Lego. Why on earth did you tip it all out anyway?’

‘I’m trying to find all the bits of my Star Wars MTT tank.’

‘Your what?’

‘The one I got two Christmases ago from Granny and Granddad.’

Oh yes. The one that cost about eighty quid. He made it once, threw out the box, then muddled the pieces in with all the rest of his Lego. The instructions got torn in a fight with Lauren.

‘Well, good luck with that. I’ll be hoovering in here tomorrow so make sure you’ve picked it all up by then. Come on, Thomas. Time for bed.’

I carried him out of Lewis’s room and into his own. I pulled his jumper and T-shirt off over his head, tickled him, and tried to blow a raspberry on his tummy. He pushed me away.

‘Will the wind go woo-woo in the chimley tonight, Mummy?’

‘It might do, sweetie. The weather forecast said there’d be more strong winds tonight but then tomorrow it’ll get better and we’ll have some sunshine. That’ll be nice won’t it – just in time for the weekend. I want to take you all for a walk up a hill I’ve found. You can see for miles from the top.’

‘I don’t want the wind to go woo-woo tonight.’ His bottom lip trembled.