The Winter Folly (2 page)

‘John!’ she called. He was going steadily up the staircase, one small hand pressed against the wall as he went, his tongue out between his lips as he concentrated on each step. He
was making fast progress, his path keeping him close to the wall where the treads were strongest, and he instinctively avoided the gaps.

She gasped, her hands prickling with fear. He was surrounded by danger and with every step he took, its consequences grew greater. Below him were heaps of fallen stones, broken beams pointing
upwards and worn to spearlike sharpness, rusty nails protruding from them. She imagined him fallen on one, impaled, and a grim nausea swirled in her stomach.

The little boy was higher now; he’d passed the empty first and second floors and was on his way up to the third. She had no choice. She ran to the staircase and began to climb as fast as
she could but her progress was hampered by her need to take care. She was heavier than John – what supported him might not support her. Perhaps he was protected by his childlike faith in his
own safety, but she was not and her imagination painted quick scenes for her: she lay with a broken leg or smashed ankle, helpless to reach him. No one knew where they were, no one would know where
to look. Panic was threatening to choke her and her fingers trembled with adrenaline as she scrabbled for support on the slippery wall.
Damn these shoes!
she thought. Their soles had no
grip, no tread, and she hated them with all her heart. If only she’d been wearing her blasted boots.

‘Stop, John, stop!’ she called.

For a moment he did stop, looking back over his shoulder and smiling at her, his big blue-grey eyes shining with amusement at their funny game. Then he turned back and lifted his little knee
with determination to take the next step.

‘John! Please!’ Her voice broke on the words. She wanted to cry but there was no time for that luxury. She knew she had to stay in control. She went on from step to step, fearing
that at any moment one would disappear from under her. Ahead of her John had reached the fourth floor and was still climbing. She was gaining on him, she was sure, but progress was so painful and
slow. Now he was at the fifth, the staircase ended. He stopped again and looked down at her. The fact she was still coming seemed to propel him onwards and he trotted out across the floor.

She pulled in a sharp breath of panic; the floor was broken in places, and there was no telling where it had lost all strength. At this height the entire front wall of the tower was gone. John
was walking towards the gap, at least thirty-five feet above the ground, where there was nothing to prevent him falling.

She found speed from somewhere, flying up the staircase two treads at a time, making split-second decisions about where to place her weight, hoping that her pace would not give the boards time
to break beneath her. She heard ominous creaking and cracking as she went but there was no time for that now. All she knew was that she had to reach John as quickly as possible.

He was standing at the edge, one little fist on an outcrop of broken stone, looking out over the woods, his red and white figure bright against the black masonry and the dark trees beyond. A
buzzing sensation filled Alexandra’s head and she felt sick and dizzy. The frightfulness of her beloved boy standing on the edge of the tower went beyond the immediate danger and into a more
primal place, a pit where something so awful lurked she couldn’t bear to look at it. She was there, at the top of the stairs, on the landing, stepping out onto the boards. She advanced
slowly, not shouting now but talking sweetly, calmly to the child as she took each shaking step across the black and slippery floor.

‘Now, John, what did Mummy say? This is very silly. Come away now, come back to me. Come on, shall we go home and find Nanny? Shall we go to the nursery for eggs and toast? You know how
you like to dip the soldiers in and give them yellow helmets, and Nanny will let you have your favourite little spoon, won’t she?’

Each step took her closer. In a moment she would be able to reach out and grab him.

He stared up at her, smiling. ‘Neggs,’ he said contentedly. ‘Boil neggs.’

‘That’s right, darling, boiled eggs. Shall we go home and get warm? That’s enough playing for now, isn’t it?’

He nodded his fair head and turned towards her. He looked cold. A bitter breeze was invading the tower and bouncing off its broken walls. It ruffled his soft, straight hair and he gave a little
shiver. He was ready to come home.

She smiled with relief and held out her arms to him. He let go of the stony outcrop and made to come towards her. His stout little shoe landed on a slippery wet patch and he lost his balance,
beginning to topple. He was going to fall backwards on to his bottom, as he usually did when he stumbled, but this time he would not land with a little jolt, none the worse for it, ready to
scramble up and totter off.

She saw his outline against the bare emptiness beyond the absent wall. She knew that he would fall out of the tower. The moment stretched and lengthened as he wavered, his arms held out stiffly,
and then began to fall backwards. His eyes opened wide with shock and surprise. With the speed of reflex, Alexandra reached out, strong and fast, and seized the shoulder strap of his dungarees.
Hold, hold
, she told the little buckle, as it took John’s weight. It was all that was stopping him plummeting to the earth. It held as she yanked him towards her and the next moment
he was safe in her arms.

He was quite still, happy at last to surrender to her, comforted by her warm arms wrapped around him. She buried her face in his hair and hugged him tight, not sure whether she was going to cry,
laugh or scream.

‘Mummy’s here,’ she murmured instead, her hands shaking. ‘You’re all right, my darling. Mummy’s here.’

Present day

Delilah sneezed, once, twice, three times in quick succession. The dust up here in the attics had formed layers of grey wool as thick as a carpet, and she had disturbed so much
that the air had turned smoky with it. It swirled about, tickling her nostrils and coating her throat. The light from the bare bulb illuminated the clouds of motes, along with all the trunks,
boxes, rolled carpets, old pictures, broken furniture and mountains of general bric-a-brac that filled the attics, a series of four on this side of the house, stretching the length of the east
wing.

‘Go up if you like,’ John had said when she’d asked. ‘God knows what you’ll find. Mess around as much as you want to.’

It was the only place in the house that she was allowed free rein. When she’d come to live at Fort Stirling six months ago, she’d imagined that she would begin to feel that it
belonged to her and that she could control and perhaps even reshape it, just as she had other places where she’d lived. She’d had a childlike excitement in exploring the house, and
longed to set her imagination loose on the rooms and restore and refresh them. Everything was new and full of charm then, and she had fallen in love with the lichen-speckled stone pineapples on the
terrace balustrade as much as the Louis Quinze chairs, gilded and spindly, in the drawing room. Every window, every corridor had enchanted her, and she’d felt that she had found her perfect
setting, a magical place where life would be endlessly beautiful and interesting. But gradually, like seeing the set of a play close up, she’d realised that it wasn’t quite as
magnificent as it seemed. The rickety furniture on gilt legs looked splendid but the springs beneath were dropping, the silk damask covering was stained and frayed, and there was black caked into
the golden carving.

Now she was beginning to understand that newcomers were not permitted to change anything in the house. Instead she had the sense that the house would possess her rather than the other way
around; it would tame her and turn her into one of its own, another in a long line of inhabitants, the vanished people who’d walked the same corridors, sat on the same chairs and slept in the
same beds. The thought gave her an unpleasant chill.

Up here in the attics, though, where others rarely came, she could do what she liked. Perhaps here she might feel more like the house’s owner, rather than its inmate.

Delilah began to look through some of the boxes that surrounded her, finding a morass of odds and ends: a collection of broken picture frames, some discarded lamp stands without plugs, bulbs or
shades, puzzling little plastic and wire whatnots that must have been part of something once. She stepped over a stack of chairs, lifted a pile of heavy folded velvet curtains and felt a flash of
triumph. Now, this was more like it. A large steamer trunk, black and edged in studded leather, with a flat lid that locked with two big brass catches. On the top in scratched gold lettering were
the words:
The Viscountess Northmoor, Fort Stirling, Dorset
. Labels, long faded and turned crisp, were stuck on the lid but it was impossible to make them out now. She drew in her breath
with pleasurable anticipation. This was the kind of treasure she was looking for. She rubbed away a layer of dust from the top. Her hands, she noticed, were filthy and her nails rimmed with black.
Her palms felt caked and dry, and she rubbed them across her jeans to get the worst of the dirt off before she opened the trunk. She snapped the catches down, hoping that the central round lock had
not been fastened for there was no sign of a key and she had a feeling she would never find it. But it opened easily enough and she pushed the lid back until it was supported by its leather hinges.
Immediately underneath was a layer of shallow drawers, filled with colourful scraps. There were ties, both knitted and silk, bowties, handkerchiefs, a cummerbund, scarves, belts and fans. Pairs of
long opera gloves were folded into clear plastic bags and she could see pearl buttons, kid, silk and velvet.

‘Bingo,’ she whispered. ‘
Bingo
.’

This was what she had been hoping to discover. Costumes. After all, she had found a setting, a stage furnished with Chippendale and ormolu, Meissen vases and Sèvres china, gilt candelabra
and inlaid cabinetry, marble statuary and vast gold-framed oils, black-and-white marble and ancient polished floorboards. She ate dinner in a perfectly round room decorated with wallpaper printed
in a factory that had been destroyed during the French Revolution, and after dinner she sat back on a soft sagging sofa before an Adam fireplace, John’s spaniel snoozing at her feet, and read
books from the library that no one had touched for a century or longer. But occasionally the art director in her felt there was something missing. Where were the clothes? She wondered what had
happened to the silk gowns, the lace and velvet worn by the women in the portraits around the house. Passed on until they fell to pieces, she supposed. It was understandable that the Regency
muslins and Tudor bodices hadn’t survived, but in the photographs from the last century were opulent furs, smart frocks, evening dresses, large-shouldered tweed coats, chunky black heels,
snake-skin handbags and hats of all varieties. A snap of John’s great-grandmother showed her in a drop-waist dress with a pleated skirt, a long cardigan, a rose corsage pinned to a string of
pearls that dangled past her waist, and a tight-fitting cloche hat over her fashionably shingled hair. Vintage twenties clothes.

She felt a hunger for them, her fingertips tingling with a desire to stroke the fabrics and furs she could see everywhere but not touch.

‘They’re bound to be about. We never throw anything away,’ John had told her idly one day, ‘and there’s been a distinct lack of daughters in my family.’

The comment had taken root in her mind. The clothes must be here somewhere, packed away or left in a forgotten wardrobe to rot gently on their hangers. She longed to find them. She
couldn’t help imagining how she would style some skinny, high-cheekboned models and where she would place them in the house to the best effect. She wondered if she could stage a play or an
opera in the garden, and use the real clothes as her costumes.

Calm down
, she told herself firmly.
You’re racing ahead of yourself. Besides, John would never allow it.

Once he’d seemed to like her ideas for enlivening the place, and opening it up. But she was realising now that he’d never taken any of them seriously.

She pulled out the drawers and put them on the floor. Now she could see what lay within: piles of clothes neatly folded. She began to look through them reverently. They’d been put away
with care – she didn’t want to disturb them unnecessarily. The colours and fabrics were not twenties or thirties, but sixties and seventies: yellows, purples and greens; short-sleeved
knits, A-line skirts, paisley and zigzags and bold prints. They must have belonged to John’s mother – she was surely the only woman living here then. Delilah’s mouth watered. She
had hoped for something older, but this was just the start. She would enjoy these too. Perhaps she’d find some treasures, some designer originals. At the bottom she saw some weighty looking
dark cloth, folded so that she could not see what it was. She pulled it up and out of the trunk, trying not to disrupt the layers above it, and then she could see it was a coat in heavy black wool,
double-breasted with large black buttons and, by the looks of it, short. It would sit just above the knee, she reckoned. The reason it seemed so bulky was that inside was a matching dress, also
black but edged with white around the scooped neckline. It was beautifully made, with perfect seams and a silk lining. The label was not one she recognised but the quality was evident.

Gorgeous
, thought Delilah.
So elegant.

She shook the garments out and sniffed. They smelled of time and dust, of wool left to age in the dark. It was one of her favourite scents. As a girl, she’d thrilled to that slightly
bitter aroma in the old dress shop where the eccentrically dressed owner, a woman with wild grey hair, sat sewing silently as Delilah burrowed into the heaps of abandoned coats or the racks of
evening frocks. She examined the dress and coat, and wondered if they had indeed belonged to John’s mother, whose face she only knew from the water-colour portrait in the drawing room and the
few photographs scattered about the house in silver frames. The photographs showed a young woman, impossibly slender, in the fashions of the late sixties and early seventies, with backcombed dark
hair and large eyes emphasised by a swoop of black eyeliner and false lashes. Delilah smoothed her hand over the fabric, remembering the strikingly pretty face, its pale skin and elfin features
dominated by those huge eyes. She’d been struck by the look of vulnerability in them, and the slight awkwardness in the way the woman faced the camera. How strange to be touching something
that John’s mother wore all those years ago. How could she have known that one day her son’s wife would stroke this dress and think about her?