The Land of Summer (7 page)

‘How can they be? Unless they were acting as such in – in your absence?’

Julius blinked as if quite unable to understand what Emmaline had just said, frowned, and then folded his hands behind his back, bending his tall frame forward towards her.

‘You believe this to be
my
house?’ he asked,
his
eyes widening. ‘You thought …’ He paused to shake his head slowly. ‘You thought this was where
I
lived. Where – where
we
were to live. You imagine I would live like this?’

‘You seem affronted, Julius—’

‘No, no, not in the least affronted, Emma. No, you misunderstand me, I am
horrified
that you should have been so mistaken.’

‘There is no cause to be. It was a natural mistake. No one made me any the wiser, do you not see? Mr Ralph brought me here, and never once did he mention that this was not your residence. I was never told anything to the contrary, and even you, Julius – even when you and I were finally reacquainted—’

‘Yes,
reacquainted
, we were reacquainted, yes.’

‘You never explained to me that this was not your house,’ Emmaline concluded. ‘You simply abandoned me and – and disappeared.’

‘I know, I realise now I was most remiss to abandon you in that way, but there is so much to do – there still is, alas – and the Parhams are full of the joys of spring, except when it comes to making decisions, at which point they chew the cud like so many beasts in the field.’

‘Perhaps if you could explain to me what exactly this work is that you do here, Julius …’

‘I am here to try to restore and redesign the interior of the entire house and to supervise the works. The plumbing is non-existent, the walls bulge with damp, and yet all must be made good within the year. It is an impossible task. And by
the
way, you might do well to remain in here until lunch time. At least you will keep warm, and there is quite an interesting small library for guests behind that glass that you might enjoy.’

Having indicated a glass-fronted bookcase Julius went, leaving Emmaline to examine the contents of the shelves. Most of the books seemed to concern the history of minor military regiments or extended journeys across obscure parts of the world, which could be of little interest to anyone except the most dedicated of travellers. Finally, and more or less out of desperation, she settled on
An History of the Peloponnese
because it was at least illustrated with some fine line drawings, but thanks to the dullness of the text and the warmth now generated by the fire in the little sitting room she was soon fast asleep, so fast asleep in fact that she missed hearing the gong for lunch and consequently the entire meal itself, which could only have been a blessing.

Having now identified the situation in which she found herself placed by Julius, Emmaline was discovered at last by Roderick, albeit a little too late for any lunch. With the old servant’s help Emmaline once more went in search of her errant fiancé, whom they finally found in what her escort informed her was the State Drawing Room.

Julius was sitting looking handsome, elegant but disconsolate on the top of a small ladder surrounded by a sea of furniture covered with
vast
dust sheets. He was holding a palette of colours in one hand, and a cigarette in the other.

He took no notice of Emmaline when she arrived in tandem with Roderick, continuing to sit and smoke and stare, first at the wall in front of him and then down at the small palette in his hand, until Emmaline dismissed the manservant and walked over towards the ladder.

‘Good afternoon, Emma,’ Julius called down to her. ‘I trust you enjoyed your morning, and all the rest of it? I apologise if I seem preoccupied but I am having a great deal of trouble mixing this particular colour. May we converse later, perhaps?’

‘When might be a good time?’ Emmaline wondered in return. ‘If you could just tell me when you might be free.’

‘I would imagine the answer to that would be never, would not you?’

Realising that silence and tact were her only possible weapons, Emmaline moved away from the ladder and looked around the vast apartment. She had thought the rooms in her own home were ample enough, yet never in her life had she seen a reception room as enormous as the one in which she was now standing, nor had she ever seen furniture so massive. Even under the dust sheets it was obvious that the two grand sofas lined up along one wall could seat ten or twelve people in a row, and the room itself could accommodate well over a hundred guests with ease. The salon was unutterably grand
in
conception, set with four enormous marble pillars that supported a domed roof decorated with a faded mural depicting the Creation, and its walls hung with immense formal portraits of crowned and robed men and heavily bejewelled women that from the way they had been framed appeared to have been painted directly on to the walls. Yet like every other room she had seen in the house it was in a bad state of repair, the paint peeling or in some places practically non-existent, the drapes badly frayed and moth-eaten, and the plaster cracked and broken, or at the very least discoloured.

‘I certainly do not envy you your task, Julius,’ she could not resist calling up to him after she had walked round and inspected the entire room. ‘Where would a person start?’

‘This is hardly a task,’ Julius replied from on high. ‘It could be more readily compared to one of the labours of Hercules.’

‘Are you thinking of restoring the paintwork to the original colour, perhaps?’

‘I might be, and there again I might not.’

‘Might I perhaps make a suggestion?’

‘And what might your suggestion be based on?’

‘If you remember the ballroom, our ballroom at home?’ As soon as she said ‘home’, Emmaline felt a stab of homesickness. ‘The ballroom at home – yes – and how at one point you admired the colour with which the walls had been painted?’

For the first time since she had entered the room Emmaline found Julius looking down at her with some interest.

‘I did, did I?’ he asked, a little uncertainly.

‘Yes,’ Emmaline replied, made vaguely uncomfortable by the concentration in his gaze.

‘If you say so, then it must be so,’ Julius murmured, once again staring at his palette. ‘The point being, your point being?’

‘I chose that colour,’ Emmaline informed him, careful to keep the pride out of her voice. ‘We had the ballroom repainted only last year, and because I – well, because Papa thinks I have a good eye for colour, and because Mama was not happy with the previous selections, I ended up choosing the colour.’

‘Now, let me see.’ Julius now held up his palette as if to try out the shade he had in mind against the remains of the existing colour. ‘Are you suggesting you might do the same here, with the same degree of success? Make a suggestion as to the correct colour?’

‘Only if you would welcome such a suggestion, and were unable to decide yourself, Julius,’ Emmaline replied. ‘Or if you were in two minds about one shade or another.’

Julius shook his head, but said nothing. He continued to sit staring at the wall, and then at his palette, then back at the wall.

‘Here!’ he said suddenly after some minutes. ‘Catch!’

Emmaline found the small wooden palette
flying
down her way and just managed to catch it before it fell to the floor.

‘None of those colours are right,’ he said, sliding down the ladder to walk over to the fireplace, where, mercifully, a large log fire burned. He lit a fresh cigarette, blew some smoke upwards in a plume, watched it disperse, and then took another deep pull. ‘And it has to be plain painted paper – anything else would be completely wrong. We need a clean, firm line. Patterned paper would just be so entirely wrong in a room this size.’

‘What do you mean?’ Emmaline asked, looking at the palette. ‘When you say a clean line, do you perhaps mean to lighten the colour, and make the room somewhat less – less daunting? Because if so I think you may be right. The room does need warming up.’

‘The whole place needs warming up,’ Julius interrupted from the fireplace, his back to her. ‘I have never been in such a cold, unwelcoming house.’

‘Then blue – all of these blues – you are quite right to reject them. Blue is such a cold colour for a room, particularly a room this size.’ She knew Julius was looking at her now, but she refused to meet his eye. ‘Perhaps what the room needs is a warmer paint altogether – may I?’

She was standing by a worktable where Julius had placed his pots and brushes among samples of various papers and fabrics, and she gestured to it as if seeking permission to try mixing up some colours.

‘What?’ he asked with a look of disbelief. ‘You want to—’

‘It’s all right, Julius,’ Emmaline assured him, interrupting him deliberately to stem any immediate objection. ‘I won’t make a mess.’

‘Oh.’ Seemingly at a loss for words, Julius hesitated. ‘Oh, very well,’ he muttered, returning to the fireplace, where he lit another cigarette. ‘
Very
well.’

When she had finished preparing her mixes Emmaline put samples of those she considered the most suitable on a clean wooden palette and took them over to Julius, who now sat stretched out in a large dust-sheeted chair.

‘They’re only suggestions, but they might be something to work on,’ she said, offering Julius the palette. ‘This kind of peachy mix has warmth.’

Julius stared at the samples in the silence which seemed habitual to him when working, yet Emmaline noticed that he kept hold of the palette, not discarding it or consigning it to the fire as Emmaline had half expected him to do, just tapping it slowly on one knee as he continued to consider her work.

‘This is what you would choose?’ He stared around. ‘I see. In that case, you should know how to achieve this effect.’ He smiled at her suddenly. ‘Which of course you don’t, because the light in your ballroom at home was quite different from the light here. If we applied this colour to these walls, because of the way the light plays you
would
find that it would come out a baby pink, not an apricot. To achieve your colour,’ he leaned forward and pointed, ‘we will have to use
this
one.’

Emmaline stared first at his choice of colour, and then at him.

‘But – but that looks brown.’

‘Precisely. Until we put it up on the walls, when the light will turn it into a beautiful apricot. You will see. But first we must apply two coats of white distemper, and then probably two or three coats of this brown, and go on building on and on until this lovely colour you have chosen is reached.’

‘I can’t quite believe this—’

‘No, of course you can’t, because you have not studied the light in here. But you are right – it will be a lovely colour on which to work.’

Emmaline spun round, half pleased that he had approved her choice and half disbelieving that he was right about the method that must be used to achieve it.

She turned back. ‘There is something else that I wanted to ask you, if you don’t mind?’

‘Of course. Please ask me anything you wish.’

‘You seem very different from the person I met in America. Is it because I – well, is it because I disappointed you, once I was here? Because if this is so I will quite understand.’

Julius stared at her, astounded.

‘Disappointed? Gracious, no, and I am only sorry that I could have in some way given you that idea.’

‘I was wondering whether or not you might wish to discuss the reasons – the reasons for my being here at all,’ Emmaline replied, staring at the top of Julius’s head of luxuriant hair. ‘In England, in my being in England, here.’

‘Well, I thought it might be obvious,’ Julius said, looking away. ‘It is because I was so taken by you that I—’

‘I am here at your express invitation,’ Emmaline persisted, clasping her hands tightly in front of her. ‘To fulfil a specific wish. Perhaps proposal might be better.’

‘There is no need to be too frank – an understanding is what we have, I will agree. An understanding of a certain nature.’

‘Julius,’ Emmaline went on, taking her courage now firmly in both hands. ‘We are engaged to be married.’

‘That is a fact I had not forgotten, Miss Nesbitt.’

‘Until such a time as we are duly married,
Mr
Aubrey,’ Emmaline said quietly, ‘I need to know where and how I am to live. I trust I shall not be expected to spend the rest of my days here, as that would not be in the least satisfactory.’

‘I see.’ Julius raised his eyebrows, then sat back in his chair. ‘As it happens I shall be returning to my house shortly, once I have finalised my intended designs for this place and had them approved, and when I do you can rest assured you will be provided with suitable accommodation locally until – until you take up residence
at
Park House – with me. Now, if that will be all?’

‘I should be grateful for a little more detail, Mr Aubrey.’

‘Perhaps, but that is all the information and
detail
that you require.’

‘I need a personal maid, Mr Aubrey.’

‘You will have everything you want when we return to Bamford, Miss Nesbitt.’

‘But until that time, sir—’

‘Until that time, madam,’ Julius told her, looking at her with sudden sympathy, ‘I suggest you try to manage. If you must know, I intend to leave here in the morning. And now I should continue with my endeavours. Thank you.’

‘Very well, Mr Aubrey,’ Emmaline replied, as she saw the far door opening and a servant hovering. ‘Thank you. Perhaps I shall see you at dinner tonight with all the other strangers?’

‘Perhaps you will,’ Julius agreed, but then he smiled suddenly, and leaning down he touched her cheek with a suddenly tender hand. ‘Perhaps you will,
Emma
.’

Chapter Four

SHE HAD ALWAYS
wondered about the beautiful little hand mirror he had made her a gift of, which Emmaline had appreciated not just for its delicate inlay and the warmth that the old silver-backed glass gave to her image in it, but also for the note that had come with it, written in a sloping artistic hand.