The Land of Summer (6 page)

‘I should like to have changed my stays,’ she said as she raised her arms ready for her evening gown to be slipped on, ‘but I am afraid time is against us.’

‘I carned reach,’ the maid muttered in a thick and, to Emmaline, all but indecipherable accent. ‘I carned possibly poot this on yer wi’ yer arms all stook oop like thart.’

‘Have you not dressed a lady before, Enid?’ Emmaline wondered, still with her arms in the air.

‘Nevaire the wonce, miss. Arm scull’ry.’

‘Scull’ry?’

‘Arm a scull’ry maid, miss. All at cud be spared at this time.’

Eyeing the girl, who stood possibly no more than four and a half feet tall, a diminutive figure
now
largely swathed in one of Emmaline’s evening gowns, Emmaline shook her head and reflected on the chaotic organisation of this outwardly grand house. She remembered with deepening nostalgia how well-trained and skilled every member of her father’s household was required to be. No one who stayed at any of the Nesbitt residences could fail to be impressed by the attendant domestic service as well as the high standard of the cuisine. Still, Emmaline sighed to herself, having instructed the maid to stand on a chair in order to gain the height necessary to lower her gown over her head, given her own domestic experience it would not be long before she managed to instil some sort of sense and order into this chaotic household. It certainly was in need of it.

By some miracle Emmaline arrived in thirty-four minutes precisely at the library doors, escorted by Roderick, and only seconds after a gong had been sounded in the great hall, summoning everyone to dinner. Not that it seemed to be a party of any size, Emmaline noted, as she followed the five people she imagined to be the last guests leaving the elegant book-lined room on their way to table. However, when she arrived in the enormous dining room, whose walls were heavily hung with dark wallpaper, it became clear that the total head count was only five, six including herself, a half-dozen that did not, for some strange reason, include Julius Aubrey, Esquire.

As she stood waiting to be assigned a place at the table, Emmaline took stock of the dinner party, which consisted of a short stout bucolic-looking elderly gentleman with a monocle, an extremely tall and thin woman wearing a considerable amount of diamond jewellery, two indifferently dressed middle-aged ladies with large feathers in their hair, and a Roman-nosed cleric with a large, over-red moist mouth and bushy eyebrows who for some reason was clutching a Bible closely to his chest. With no one paying her the slightest attention, Emmaline remained standing until everyone else was seated, whereupon she took one of the two remaining places, the monocled gentleman to her right and the Roman-nosed clergyman on her left. When everyone was finally seated the clergyman immediately arose, whereupon everyone else stood up again except for the monocled gentleman, who ignored the reverend guest, proceeding instead to tuck a highly starched table napkin under his chin and spread it carefully over his chest.

‘Grace,’ the vicar announced.

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ the monocled gentleman said, still attending to the set of his bib. Then he took hold of his soup spoon in his right hand and a fish fork in his left and held them in the vertical position, in the manner of a badly mannered child in the nursery, throughout the longest grace Emmaline thought she had ever heard. While she stood with her head suitably bowed she noticed a silver animal set at the top of her place bearing
her
name card. There was no name on the card, just a question mark.

‘No soup! No fish! Just entrée!’ the monocled gentleman bawled, still with spoon and fork at the ready. ‘And wine, Wilkins! Wine, man! And at the double!’

It seemed little notice was taken of the outburst as butler and staff set about the business of slowly serving dinner, giving both soup and fish to the monocled gentleman, who ate both courses rapidly before attacking the entrée with the same spoon and fork he had raised in the first instance. During all this time no one made any conversation, simply following the example of the monocled gentleman and eating as much and as fast as they could. Despite feeling desperately hungry Emmaline only slowly followed suit, for the food was not just strange to her, it was unpleasant too, being less than hot and greasy with it.

Finally, after consuming his entrée, the monocled gentleman turned to stare at Emmaline in silence for a good while before shaking his head from side to side several times, as if being annoyed by a fly or a wasp.

‘You are?’ he shouted suddenly. ‘You are? Who the devil are you? You are? You are?’

‘I am Emmaline Nesbitt, sir, here at the invitation of Mr Aubrey.’

‘The devil you are,’ the gentleman retorted, his monocle dropping out of his eye. ‘The devil she is!’ he bellowed down the table at the gaunt, heavily bejewelled woman.

‘I was wondering where Mr Aubrey might be, as it happens,’ Emmaline ventured, beginning to ask herself quite where she had landed up. ‘I have not seen him since my arrival.’

‘Where he should be, of course,’ the gentleman snapped, indicating to the butler for more wine for himself. ‘At his work. Where he should be, of course.’

Dessert was taken in silence, and then the tall, gaunt woman nodded for a maid to pull back her chair and rose.

‘Shall we?’ she said generally, and led the ladies from the room, leaving the monocled gentleman and the Reverend to their port, which no doubt they would proceed to drink in silence, Emmaline reflected as she followed the others in their trailing faded gowns into the library.

‘We have met before of course, have we not?’ one of the two feathered ladies asked her.

‘Of course we have,’ her companion agreed, nodding at the gaunt lady.

‘I think not, ladies,’ Emmaline replied as politely as possible. ‘After all, I have only just arrived—’

‘At the Faynes’, one would imagine,’ the first lady said vaguely, patting her grey hair back into some sort of shape. ‘It generally is.’

‘Or it could have been the Cuthbertsons’,’ the second lady ventured. ‘They do hold some excellent soirées.’

‘Perhaps you failed to understand me,’ Emmaline persisted. ‘As I just said, I have only just arrived here.’

‘No, no,’ the first lady corrected her. ‘I am absolutely sure we have met before.’

‘Everyone one meets here one has met somewhere before,’ the second lady insisted, nodding her feathered head at Emmaline. ‘That is simply the way it goes.’

‘This is my first time in England,’ Emmaline tried.

‘Charming,’ the first lady remarked in a vague voice, beginning to drift away. ‘I do so hope we shall meet again one of these fine days.’

‘Goodnight,’ the tall, gaunt lady suddenly said out of the blue, waving one dismissive hand. ‘Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight, all and sundry.’

She rose and swept out of the library, her exit marred only by the fact that the attendant servant failed to get the doors open in time and had to raise and press a silver-buckled shoe against one of them while forcing the stuck one open. To show her displeasure at the delay, the gaunt lady cracked him on the back of his head with her folded fan before disappearing into the faintly illuminated depths of the house. She was followed almost at once by the other two, leaving Emmaline alone in the library, until the faithful if ancient Roderick appeared at the doors to give a significant nod to his charge.

‘I wonder if you could help me?’ Emmaline asked, as she followed him out of the room.

‘If it is in my power to do so, then most certainly I shall, miss,’ Roderick replied, lighting the way
up
the creaking grand staircase with a hand-held candle.

‘I was expecting to see Mr Aubrey at dinner, Mr Julius Aubrey, but he did not appear.’

‘Ah.’

Roderick paused, not to consider the remark and provide a solution, but simply to allow Emmaline to pass through a door he was holding open.

‘Beware,’ he said. ‘There is a step on the other side.’

‘As I said,’ Emmaline continued, following the servant down a long, dark corridor, her skirts whipped up by a sudden draught, ‘I was expecting to see Mr Aubrey at dinner.’

‘So I understand, miss,’ Roderick agreed. ‘From your previous remark.’

‘Exactly,’ Emmaline continued. ‘So I was taken aback somewhat by his absence.’

‘Indeed.’ Roderick paused to open another door for them both to pass through. ‘That is perfectly understandable.’

‘Forgive me. What is?’

‘Your concern at his absence, miss. Since you were expecting the very contrary. Your room, miss.’

Roderick held the door to Emmaline’s bedroom open, waiting for her to enter.

‘I wonder …’ Emmaline began, looking into the dark room, ‘I wonder if you would know the whereabouts of Mr Aubrey, Roderick? As also my maid, the very small maid who helped me dress? Enid, who helped me dress?’

‘Alas no, miss,’ Roderick replied, following Emmaline into the room and lighting two small bedside candles from the one in his hand. ‘It is all but impossible to find even those whose location one assumes one knows in this house. People are rarely where you expect them to be. If that will be all?’

‘Yes, thank you, Roderick. That will be all – except,’ Emmaline said, raising her voice to prevent the servant from finally taking his leave, ‘except if you do happen to learn of Mr Aubrey’s whereabouts, I should be most grateful if you could either tell me or pass a message to Mr Aubrey to say I – to say I would very much like to see him.’

‘Yes, miss,’ Roderick replied, with a sigh and a shake of his head, before closing the door and going, leaving Emmaline alone.

Other than the servants, there was no one at breakfast when Emmaline came downstairs the following morning. Helping herself to some lukewarm over-scrambled eggs from under a cover, she sat down alone at the vast dining table and forced herself to eat. When she had finished and was rising to leave she suddenly caught sight of Julius hurrying past the open door. Still holding her napkin, she ran after him.

‘Mr Aubrey?’ she called down the corridor. ‘Mr Aubrey? Julius? Mr Aubrey!’

In response to the final and loudest summons Julius stopped and turned to stare at her. Seeing
Emmaline
he frowned and waited, tapping one foot on the floor until she caught him up.

‘Something the matter, Miss Nesbitt?’ he wondered. ‘Because I am, as you see, somewhat busy.’

‘Yes, something is the matter as it happens,’ Emmaline replied calmly, which was not at all how she was feeling. ‘I wonder if we might speak?’

‘I am in rather a hurry, Miss Nesbitt.’

Emmaline looked round, and since there were no servants in sight she lowered her voice and said, ‘Emmaline.’

‘I am particularly busy.’

‘It will not take long, Julius.’ Emmaline opened the door to a room behind her. ‘Perhaps we could talk in here.’

She waited, and Julius quickly followed her into a small sitting room where the curtains were still drawn.

‘What exactly is troubling you, I wonder,’ Julius asked in a suddenly concerned voice as Emmaline pulled the curtains back, letting in some wintry sunshine. ‘Are you not comfortable?’

‘No, I am not comfortable, Julius, but that is not my entire point, if I may say so,’ Emmaline said, as Julius leaned down to light the fire with a long taper from the spills jar.

‘It does not surprise me that you are not comfortable,’ he said, still trying to light the fire. ‘There is really very little that can be said in favour of this place, except that it is so uncomfortable that no guests linger here for long, which has to
be
something of an asset, you must agree?’

‘Where were you last evening, Julius?’ Emmaline demanded. ‘I came down to dinner with a room full of complete strangers, and I have to tell you distinctly odd strangers.’ Julius stopped tending the fire for a moment and looked round at Emmaline, smiling slightly, before continuing with his task. ‘First of all, when I arrived you were not here to greet me. I was left to shiver and all but freeze to death for simply an age, and then after – after we were reacquainted you vanished again, and for the entire evening I may say, the whole and entire evening.’

‘My apologies, Miss Nesbitt – Emmaline,’ Julius muttered with his back to her. ‘I had a great deal to do. As a matter of fact, I was wondering, may I call you Emma from now on, when we are alone? I should like that very much.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Emmaline agreed, distracted for a second. ‘But where was I? Oh, yes. As I was saying, Julius, I didn’t even see you at dinner. You didn’t even come down to dinner. Were you not feeling well?’

‘I am perfectly sure I did not miss very much, did I?’ Julius replied, standing back up now the fire was alight and admiring his handiwork. ‘The food is execrable. And the company little better.’

‘I was not even
introduced
, Julius. No one seemed to have an idea as to who I might be.’

‘Personally I would not let that concern you, truly. To my mind they are all as mad as hawks, as Mrs O’Clee keeps observing.’

‘Yes, you may well be right, but put yourself in my position. I had no idea who these people were. They were most unattractive, a most unattractive group of people, not the kind of people whose company I am accustomed to keeping, truly they weren’t. Why, one of them even hit a servant with her fan!’

‘If you have to know,’ Julius said with a shrug, fixing her with a pair of bright blue eyes somehow made bluer by their dark, sad surroundings, ‘your host and hostess are the Earl and Countess of Parham, the two older ladies are second cousins, and as for their friend the Reverend Archibald Welton, well, he is the dullest ditch I ever came across, and you will ever come across too, I hope. I am only sorry I was not there to introduce you, but frankly I couldn’t stand another dinner in their company. I find them intolerable.’

‘I don’t understand, Julius,’ Emmaline replied, puzzled. ‘Why do you have these people here, if you don’t like them?’ She paused, frowning. ‘Except you said these people – these people were the host and hostess?’

‘Which is perfectly correct – that is most precisely what and who they are.’