House of Splinters, page 10
She had expected to find the Great Hall ripe with a canine tang, but this dog brought no odour with it. All she could smell was… roses. Roses even though Mrs Knowles had been cooking all morning. It made no sense.
Freddy was stealing across the flags towards the dog. ‘Is it a boy or a girl? What’s its name?’
A vein stood out in Knowles’ temple as he restrained the dog. ‘He’s a foreign beast with a foreign name, young master. I didn’t quite catch what Mr Nathan said. Sounded almost like David.’
‘No, it was Dev,’ his son John said. ‘But most dogs respond to a whistle and “boy”, no matter what. Here, Master Freddy, hold out your hand and let him sniff it.’
Belinda watched anxiously as the pair met. The hound was large enough to knock Freddy clean off his feet but it grew calmer in the presence of the child, as if knowing by instinct to be gentle.
Freddy’s fingers caressed the short, pure white coat. ‘He’s beautiful!’ he beamed.
Belinda shook her head, contrasting these with his first words about Lydia.
Footsteps sounded. She turned her head to see the servants’ door open and the nursemaids coming to claim the children. But something else caught the corner of her eye. There, piled on the oriental rug in the shadow of the staircase. Trunks.
Did Nathan anticipate a lengthy stay?
That was presumptuous of him, especially considering they had a new baby in the house, but as Sawyer had said, this was his childhood home. And it was not as if they could enjoy any other company for months on end. The laws of mourning prevented them from hosting dinner parties or attending balls until the beginning of winter at the earliest. It might be diverting to have a guest.
She handed Lydia to Amy, sorry that the baby had gleaned no joy from her special day. Freddy was in better luck and went to Rebecca full of news about the dog and his brand-new uncle. Sawyer lingered, looking slightly lost.
‘There is to be a special dinner for you all in the servants’ hall,’ Belinda reminded her.
‘Yes, but not for a while yet.’
Of course not. The servants could not eat together until Mrs Knowles had sent up all the food and the men had finished waiting at table. Sawyer was caught between the two worlds. It was horribly awkward.
‘Perhaps Mrs Knowles might need your help?’ Belinda suggested. She had meant it kindly, as a way for Sawyer to pass the time, but when she heard the words spoken aloud, they sounded like a dismissal.
Sawyer dipped a curtsey, refusing to meet her eye. ‘I’ve gowns of yours to take in at the waist, ma’am. You can tell me all about Mr Nathan when I undress you this evening.’ She mounted the stairs. The family staircase, not the servants’ one concealed behind a baize door. She looked pitiful and poor in her plain grey gown beside The Bridge’s antique grandeur.
Belinda felt close to tears, as she often had in these weeks following the birth. If she’d had her own way, she would have made Sawyer Lydia’s godmother in her own right, rather than standing proxy for Mamma. What earthly use was Mamma? Throughout Belinda’s childhood it had been Sawyer who was the steady fixture: soothing and advising. But maids asked their mistresses to stand godmother to their children; it did not work the other way around. It wasn’t proper to bestow honours upon a person in your employ, as if they were your social equal.
The main door opened again. The Bainbridge brothers entered, dishevelled from the wind, carrying their tricorne hats. Upon seeing his master, Dev broke free of Knowles’ hold and bounded over the flags.
Nathan smiled broadly. ‘Here I am, you silly fellow. What, you can’t go an hour without me now? I am sure you have been terrorising the servants and my poor sister-in-law.’ He made Belinda an elegant bow. ‘I beg your pardon again, Mrs Bainbridge. Heaven knows what you must think of me, darkening your doorstep in this manner. I have thrust my dog and all my worldly goods upon your mercy. I see now I ought to have left them at the port and come up alone by post. That would have been the decent thing to do.’
‘Oh! Not at all,’ Belinda said. ‘We are – happy – to have you. I do hope you will be joining us at table?’
‘If I may? That is most gracious of you.’
‘Of course you may,’ Wilfred huffed. Colour grazed the top of his cheeks, as if he had already been speaking in temper. ‘We are not in the habit of refusing our flesh and blood hospitality.’
Belinda baulked, embarrassed. Wilfred was usually so urbane. But it was Nathan who smoothed matters over with a smile and a subtle roll of the eyes in her direction. As if Wilfred’s whims were a burden they carried together.
Mrs Knowles spoke discreetly in her ear. ‘The cold repast is laid out on the sideboard already, madam. John set a third place. I’ve put wine upon the table. Mr Nathan has given a bottle of Champagne to mark the occasion, I thought I would save that to serve with the fruit.’
‘Goodness. How kind of him. Thank you, Mrs Knowles, I thoroughly approve.’ Wilfred was watching her. Belinda itched to get him alone and find out precisely what was going on. ‘Mrs Knowles says we can eat now, my dear.’
He smoothed his wig, straightened his coat and offered her the crook of his arm. She took it. Nathan followed behind them with the dog. She noted for the first time that he was not in mourning clothes like them; his waistcoat was positively gay, adorned with elaborate picture buttons.
The dining-room was another of The Bridge’s ponderous, heavy chambers, burdened by its own luxury. Brocade the colour of tarnished gold hung upon the walls. Curtains swamped the mullioned window, and the air was thick with the smell of furniture polish. It boasted a sideboard, chairs and a grandfather clock made of shining mahogany – but Belinda did not notice them today. Her gaze flew straight to the figure at the head of the table.
‘Oh!’ She felt Wilfred recoil, just as she did.
A low growl rumbled in the chest of Dev behind them.
It was a companion, but not one of the children Freddy played with. This figure was twice their height. A lady in mustard-coloured silk, brandishing a sword.
‘Ah!’ Nathan exclaimed. ‘You have found my mother’s silent companions, then.’
‘Yes, but – ’ Belinda spluttered ‘ – not this one. This was not here before, was it, Wilfred?’
Dumbly, he shook his head. The thing occupied his place, daring him to fight her for precedence. Most of the companions were lifelike, but this one’s face was badly drawn. Her lips were too small, her nose too thin, her cheeks crimson with rouge. The effect was eerily clownish.
But Nathan was not daunted. He waggled his eyebrows playfully at Belinda. ‘That is quite common, for them to appear out of nowhere. The companions move by themselves.’
She gaped at him.
‘They do no such thing,’ Wilfred assured her. ‘Nathan is referring to jokes our mother used to play. If she did not like the guests our father had invited for dinner, she would make her footman set the companions up to surprise them.’
‘She didn’t?’ Belinda gasped.
‘Well,’ Wilfred shrugged, ‘it is a way to rid oneself of unpleasant company.’
‘Why does she carry a sword?’
‘Oh, I think this figure is meant to represent Justice, or something in that vein. Do you remember, Nathan?’
‘No, not I. We never cared for them, did we?’
‘No,’ Wilfred agreed. ‘Here, I will move the wretched thing. Take your seat, Belinda.’
He took the figure away from the table and turned it to face the grandfather clock. It was better to see only the wooden prop and the blank behind, a welcome reminder that the companion was not in fact animate. But how had it got there? She could not imagine one of the Knowleses bringing it in… Unless John shared the same spirit of mischief as Wilfred’s mother? She tried to imagine being bold enough, not to mention popular enough, to scare her own guests away.
Belinda settled in the chair at the bottom of the table, which Wilfred had pulled out for her. Tempting dishes were laid out on the sideboard: all manner of salads and cheese, slices of tongue, pickled fish, a pound cake and a pyramid of salmagundi right at the centre. The dog sniffed the air but retreated beneath the tablecloth at an order from Nathan as he took his newly laid place at Belinda’s side.
What was she to say to him? She did not want to betray her ignorance about his life. If Nathan realised how little Wilfred had mentioned him, he might be hurt – or worse, he might think Wilfred didn’t trust her as part of the family.
Thankfully, the arrival of Creswell with the soup tureen gave her a little time to plan her words. She waited until the bowls were filled and then began, ‘I hope, Mr Bainbridge, that you had a pleasant journey?’ That was surely vague enough.
‘I had a lengthy journey,’ Nathan specified. ‘I always find a voyage is a mixture of heaven and hell, don’t you? Have you travelled much, sister?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I am afraid not. Apart from here and London, I have been absolutely nowhere!’
‘You are forgetting our honeymoon to the Lakes,’ Wilfred put in.
‘Oh, yes. That was a beautiful part of the country.’ She stirred her soup.
An awkward silence fell.
‘As it happens, this is something of a detour for me,’ Nathan recommenced. ‘I had originally planned to set sail for America.’
‘Oh?’
‘Now I am glad that I did not. The news from there grows disturbing. There is trouble brewing – if you will excuse the pun.’
The grandfather clock in the corner chimed. She felt the dog under the table nudge her foot.
‘Oh – because of the tea at Boston! Brewing. Yes.’ She released a polite giggle, but it was the silliest noise she’d ever made. She wished it back at once. She glanced at Wilfred, silently spooning his soup like an automaton. If he was not going to help her, she would just ask outright. ‘And… where was it you were coming from, Mr Bainbridge?’
He dabbed his lips with a napkin, smoothed his fine pointed moustache. ‘Please, you must call me Nathan. We are brother and sister.’
‘Nathan, then.’
Wilfred cleared his throat.
‘I was on the other side of the argument entirely,’ Nathan told her, ‘working for the East India Company – the ones with too much tea to sell. I was on one of their ships at the Cape of Good Hope when I received the letter from my father’s lawyer, informing me that he had died.’
Her stomach lurched. Had Wilfred really put such a personal matter in the hands of lawyers? It seemed unlike him. ‘Yes, I am – I am very sorry for your loss,’ she fumbled. ‘I had forgotten to say that.’
Nathan inclined his head in thanks. ‘I appreciate your sentiment. We were never close. I did not expect any kind of remembrance from my father, and he did not leave me one. Not exactly. But he did ask for a final missive to be delivered to me. A parting blessing in his own hand.’ He glanced ruefully at Wilfred. ‘Or what amounted to one, from the old man. It gave me a sentimental hankering for home.’
Wilfred picked up his wine glass and took a long swig. Belinda returned to the soup – it was expensive mock turtle, but she could taste nothing. Heaven knew she had endured many awkward meals with Mamma, but her mother was a known entity. Between this new Wilfred and his brother, she was not certain where it was safe to tread.
‘Have you worked for the East India Company a long time, Nathan?’
He nodded. His natural hair was tawny, almost autumnal. ‘Many years. If you remember the prisoners being rescued from the Black Hole of Calcutta – well, that is about the time I was thrown into the black hole of the Company.’ He grimaced. ‘But I ought not to gripe about it. India is a remarkable country to have lived in. Still, I…’ He hesitated, reached for his wine glass. ‘I do not know how to explain it. You may accuse me of being unpatriotic, but I have grown weary of our interference there. Seen such abuses of power as I refuse to speak of, in front of a lady.’ He took a deep draught of wine, suddenly resembling his brother. ‘My time there has come to an end. I will not be a part of it any longer.’
Fellow feeling stirred in Belinda’s chest. ‘I quite understand,’ she said eagerly. ‘My father has timber interests in the West Indies. He and my elder brother are there now and have been ever since this banking crisis began. I am – well, I am ashamed of the connection. My mother and I conceived a real horror of the trade, in all its forms, some years ago. She will not even sweeten her tea now. But mahogany plantations are no better than the ones that grow sugarcane! Quite aside from the terrible human cost, there is the damage to the natural land, the beautiful forests that have been felled! It is sickening, to be reliant on such an industry.’ She realised she had spoken a little too warmly for politeness and glanced down at her soup. ‘So, yes – I can comprehend why you might wish to leave such a situation.’
Nathan smiled. ‘Well, brother, I must congratulate you. You have managed to find a pretty wife with sensibility and morals – a rare commodity in these days.’ Belinda felt herself blush. ‘I only pray I will be half as fortunate in my turn.’
Wilfred was in the process of raising a spoonful, but at this he returned it to his bowl. ‘Is that your design then, in coming to England? You are seeking a wife?’
‘I do not know about design, but yes, marriage is certainly an object for me now. It has taken some thirty years, but I am finally coming to appreciate the appeal of domestic ties.’
Ties was the right word, Belinda thought. At least when it came to Mamma.
‘In the end,’ Nathan went on, raising his glass, turning hopefully from Wilfred to Belinda and back again, ‘family is all that matters. Is it not?’
CHAPTER 11
Wilfred stood reduced to childhood in his nightshirt and cap, watching Knowles and his son move Nathan’s trunks into Wilfred’s own room in the west wing. He had offered his chambers up, yet it still felt like being supplanted.
‘Really, this is too kind,’ Nathan remonstrated. He stood at the foot of the bed, looking more like the elder brother in his stylish suit. ‘One of the old guest rooms would have done for me. You know I’m not particular, Wil.’
Wilfred did not know that. He recalled the vagaries of a boy named Nathan; he knew next to nothing about the man his brother had become. ‘The guest rooms are in a devil of a state. Not one of them has been aired since we came down five years ago, and Mrs Knowles says moths have been in the linen up there.’
‘Well, in that case,’ Nathan said, glancing around appreciatively. There, below the pretentious beard: just a flicker of the boy he once was. Wilfred could not decide which unnerved him more: past Nathan or present Nathan. ‘It’s all grander than I remember! A bit of a change from our days in the old nursery, hey?’
‘Actually, I’ve done the place up for Freddy,’ Wilfred told him. ‘I will show you. Sometime tomorrow, perhaps.’
‘I would like that.’
Nathan smiled warmly, open and trusting. The unconscious tribute paid to an elder sibling. Wilfred had even seen it in Lydia; the way she tried to keep Freddy always in her sight, as if he were the most interesting object in the room. Needles of guilt pricked at his skin.
‘I will bid you goodnight, then. My man Hurley will do for your toilette.’
‘Capital. Goodnight then, brother. And thank you again.’
Bowing felt too formal, but there had to be some acknowledgement. Wilfred dipped his head awkwardly and turned, taking his candlestick with him. Knowles followed a few paces behind, bringing all the articles he might need to Belinda’s rooms.
Wilfred watched the candle’s fitful light play over the maroon walls as he walked. How much larger the house felt tonight. A beast grown beyond his control. He did not seem to be striding through it like the master but as a youth again, wondering how he might tame it for his own. The past trod closer than ever, right on his heels.
He supposed there was no such thing as a secret in a house like this. Events could be concealed, but they bled into the walls, a record held in time. The stains on the flags. The boarded up well. The spliced handrail and the newer balusters in the gallery, which did not quite match the others.
‘A bit of a turn-up for the books,’ he said, as lightly as he could. ‘What do you make of Nathan coming back, Knowles?’
‘It is not something I ever expected to see, sir. He did not even return home when the late Mrs Bainbridge passed. I thought Mr Nathan had put The Bridge behind him.’
But Wilfred knew that was the wrong way round. If they were being honest, it was they who had rejected him. ‘I was going to send my brother a banker’s draft. I was going to tell him about our father, of course.’ He sounded defensive. ‘But there has not been an opportune moment. I did not feel any need to hurry – I knew Nathan would not want to attend the funeral, given the way they parted.’
‘He has spared you the trouble of international mail, sir,’ Knowles replied, tactfully bland. It did not assuage Wilfred’s guilt.
‘Knowles… Only you and I were here before. Tell me, what does your wife know about Nathan’s departure?’
Knowles was quiet for so long that Wilfred glanced over his shoulder to check he was still following. ‘Very little, sir. Mrs Knowles understands that Mr Nathan was at loggerheads with the late master.’
‘And this letter Nathan speaks of? Had you any knowledge of that?’
Knowles shook his head. ‘No, sir. Mr Bainbridge must have left it with the solicitor personally. My late master kept to himself a great deal near to his death. But you once asked me about the holy men who visited, sir. Perhaps it was their advice that he should make peace with all his kindred as the end drew nigh?’
That did make sense. Whatever his faults, the old man was not a monster. Now Wilfred had children of his own, he could see how impossible it would be to leave the world on bad terms with one of them. He was a blockhead for not anticipating as much before now.
‘Nathan never was as bad as people make out,’ he conceded. ‘A little wild, sometimes, but no black sheep.’
‘No, sir. As boys I always considered you to be… much the same.’
