Defiled Earth and other tales Read online

  I called my house staff back from their enforced holidays, but restricted their hours to the mornings. This meant that their paths would never cross Cyprian’s and I had the rest of the day with her to spend as I pleased.

  We talked for hours while walking in the woods or the gardens, learning of each other’s manners and ways. She told me all she knew of Neverwhere. Of scabrous mountains, adumbral forests and vast plains where the citadels of the Lamia lay littered like sequins on an emerald garment. She knew this from the voices she sporadically heard in her moments of reverie. Voices that whispered in the still of the night, when all was quiet. When she spoke of these things, she would lapse into a wistful mode and I could tell that a large part of her wished she were there.

  “Sometimes it is as if the land of shadows calleth me,” she said one warm afternoon, “telling me where I belong; reassuring me that my kindred are waiting.”

  “Do you ever think you’d like to return?” I said, realising I might be setting myself up for a disappointment.

  “It is unlikely. I am bound to thee by the laws that governeth such things.”

  “But, if you could go, would you?”

  “My heart would surely break in two for leaving thee, my Lord. And yet ...”

  I let her leave the sentence unfinished and kissed her instead, my questions and reservations left to sink into a dark lake of denial.

  On our return to the house we were greeted with the insistent sound of the doorbell. Cyprian had learned to flee the lower floors of the house when visitors called and whisked herself upstairs without a word from me. I wasn’t expecting anyone, so I was ready to send whoever it was on their way, or even ignore the bell altogether. But once I had looked through the door’s spy-hole, all thought of a dismissal was evaporated. I saw my aunt Elizabeth waiting on the steps, mouth pursed in irritation. She was the polar opposite of her sister, Clarice, in both mood and outlook. So I knew I was in for a difficult time.

  I opened the door gingerly, saw a suitcase next to her, and a taxi on the drive.

  “Charles,” she said. “So you haven’t left the country after all.” Her tone was, as usual, condescending. “Now be a dear and take my case indoors, I need to pay the driver. I won’t be needing his services now I know I shall be staying.”

  “Staying?” I said. “I had no idea you were coming.” But she marched briskly to the cab and didn’t hear my response—or chose not to.

  Inside, I dropped her heavy case on the hall floor with a thump.

  “Aunt Elizabeth,” I said, “it’s lovely to see you but this is most unexpected and, to be honest, inconvenient -”

  “Inconvenient? I’ll tell you what’s inconvenient—not taking any calls, nor replying to my messages.”

  Dam. I forgot I’d disconnected the phone.

  “So you will kindly forgive me,” she continued, “if I seem a little distraught under the circumstances. I thought some accident had befallen you, and when I heard that you’d dismissed Mrs Halfin and Bradshaw I began to fear the worst.”

  Who on earth does she get her information from? And why does it end up so twisted in the retelling?

  “I haven’t dismissed them at all,” I said “they’d just taken a well-deserved break.”

  She pulled at the fingers of her red, leather gloves, taking them off and shoving them in her handbag. “Well, that dolt of a friend—Osmond—Oswald, whatever his name is -”

  “Oscar.”

  “Yes, that’s the one. He said you weren’t on speaking terms anymore and that he’d not heard from you in a fortnight. I have to say, he got quite shirty with me. No manners, your comrades-in-alcohol. You can see I had no choice but to book the next train up here and see what mess you’d got yourself into this time.”

  I sighed. “It’s a long story, but nothing for you to get het up about.”

  “Well, het up or not, are you going to make me a cup of tea or do we have to conduct our conversation in this hallway cavern?”

  I rustled up a cup of Darjeeling and took it to Elizabeth in the sitting room. She was at the window, staring reflectively at some distant point on the horizon.

  “The garden’s in good shape,” she said at once, without turning her head.

  “Yes, Bodmin’s taken good care of it.”

  “At least there’s something you haven’t let go to rack and ruin. Did Mrs Halfin warm the pot before pouring?”

  “I made it myself,” I said wearily.

  “What? You’ve taken to doing the servant’s work now?”

  “I gave Mrs Halfin the afternoon off.”

  Elizabeth looked at me narrowly. “Can’t you afford to pay her anymore?”

  I knew where she was heading with this and attempted a diversion. “I take it, you’ll be staying the night?”

  “I’ll be staying as long as it takes to find out what’s been going on, and whip this place back into shape. And, by the way, don’t change the subject. I’ll come right out with it—I and the family are concerned that you’re mismanaging the estate.” She turned to look at me. “I heard from your cousin Bart. He said that the pheasant shoot had a poor year and you made a loss.”

  Damn Barty and his telegraph mouth. I’d told him to keep the estate finances under wraps.

  “It wasn’t as bad as all that,” I said and poured myself a whisky from a nearby decanter. I knew it wouldn’t be the only one I’d be downing tonight.

  How Elizabeth and Clarice had been born of the same mother I would never know. Clarice’s charity was matched equally and oppositely by Elizabeth’s disdain for the lower classes and what she deemed to be the great unwashed. The thought of the family finances draining down the plughole was a matter of shame to her—and her claims weren’t exactly groundless.

  “Have you only come to chastise me, Elizabeth? Or do you have a loftier purpose in mind?”

  “I’ll have less of your sarcasm, young man. It’s a long time since my last visit and I mean to examine this dereliction of your duty, and the neglect of the estate. Once I’m satisfied that that you’re running things in a stewardly manner I’ll take my leave. I’m spending the Autumn at Le Touquet, but you can be sure I’ll be stopping by again to check that things are running smoothly.”

  I sat through another half hour of her invective, though I didn’t take in the majority of what she said. My mind kept wandering back to Cyprian. Where was she now? What was she doing? I imagined her running through the fields, breathing in the summer evening air, revelling in her freedom. Or was she ensconced in the attic, wrestling with her conflicting emotions? I perversely wished she was very conflicted. That would mean I really did hold a place in her Lamian heart. I toyed with the notion, a delusional man enjoying the fantasy of his obsessive thoughts. They were a balm soothing the carborundum grind of Aunt Elizabeth’s words.

  She’d stopped speaking, which caught me on the hop. “Pardon?” I said.

  “I asked you,” she said, “what time dinner was being served?”

  “Oh ... Um. Shall we say eight o’ clock?”

  “Far too late. I’ve travelled all the way from Lymington, with only second-class standard offerings of what they call food to sustain me, and you intend to leave me starving until eight?”

  “Very well, I’ll bring things forward an hour for you.”

  This attempt at appeasement was greeted with a harrumph from the old dragon, but I gained some respite by carrying her case to a bedroom and leaving her to unpack.

  Straight away, I sought out Cyprian. Since arriving, she seemed to have developed a sense of where I was and what I was doing. She appeared at the top of the staircase, a questioning look on her face. I took her by the hand into another bedroom and sat her down on the divan.

  “Look, Cyprian, things are going to be a bit fretful over the next few days,” I said.

  “She is thy kin, yet I sense there is no love betwixt thee.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. Anyway,
the thing is she’s come to nose around, and I’m going to have to think of a way to cut her stay short. But it means that until she leaves, you’re going to have to make yourself scarce.”

  She shook her head, irritation showing in a flare of her nostrils. “Thou art master of this house. It should be she who doth learn her place and show due respect.”

  I could tell she found the contorted relationships of a gentrified family difficult to appreciate. It was certainly a far cry from the patriarchal society she would have come from. It was almost genetically ingrained in her. God knows she’d had precious little time to learn these things before she was summoned to this world.

  “It’s not as simple as that,” I said. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, though. I’ll make a pretence of having to attend a meeting tomorrow morning, but you’ll come with me. The house staff will be around, so they can keep her amused and we can spend some time together.”

  A quaint, eager look flashed in her eyes. “What about Mandrake’s rule? I cannot stray from the borders of this house.”

  “Mandrake’s hardly in a position to raise an objection now, is he?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Our elopement; I’ll call it that—for it’s what I felt it to be, went without a hitch. Elizabeth was happy to be left alone so she could glean whatever information she could from Garstang and the other staff. I was confident they would be professionally discrete—in my favour. Over two decades or more they had come to know her idiosyncrasies and lack of social grace and would cover my tracks—even if they did disagree with my management of the estate. Nonetheless, I took the time to ensure that all documents and accounts were placed out of harm’s way in the study safe.

  Cyprian met me in the garage and we left, unobserved, by the back road, leaving behind a blue cloud of smoke from my Triumph convertible.

  As we raced down the country lanes I could hardly keep my eyes off her. The exhilaration was plain in her laughter and the way she tipped her head back, letting her hair trail in the wind like a platinum-blonde banner. I’d given her some sunglasses and insisted she dress more modestly for the sake of appearances. This she complied with, easily accepting any minor restrictions as a fair barter for her anticipated freedom.

  She had been both my bane and my panacea. But today, I wasn’t going to let a shadow be cast on our idyll. Indeed, those hours were the most precious to me in the weeks of our brief communion.

  They proved to be the last we would enjoy.

  I drove us to Holkham Bay, a retreat at which our family had spent many a summer. As we walked on to the beach, the warm sand beneath our toes radiated upwards and blended with the glow within our hearts. The sea breeze carried a salty tang and the cry of gulls as they swooped over the wave crests.

  “I hath never seen such a wondrous body of water,” she said to me. “What is it?”

  “It’s called the sea. It separates our island nation from the continent.”

  “I never imagined there could be so much water in one place. How far doth it extend?”

  I watched as she looked out to the horizon, a slender hand shielding her eyes from the sun. “It’s some fifty or so miles to France, but the North Sea covers a vast area.”

  “Doth the water fall off the edge of the world?”

  Her ignorance was quaint to me and I laughed. After a brief geography lesson and a failed explanation about the globe, gravity and our place in the solar system, she was left bewildered and amazed.

  “What thou sayest, it maketh me to feel so ... small.”

  We were lying on the sand. I turned to her and removed her sunglasses, if only to take in her exquisite features once again. “I would like to show you more,” I said.

  She replied with a kiss, apple-sweet and sublime. “Wouldest thou show me all the wonders of this world?” she said.

  “Will you give me the opportunity?”

  “There is nothing I desire more.”

  We walked in the sun after that, explored the rock pools on a small bluff at the westernmost extent of the beach and bought ice creams from a vendor in the carpark. Cyprian drew stares from the bathers and sandcastle-builders as we strolled through their midst. She walked as a goddess, oblivious to their wonderment.

  By early afternoon we were hungry. We drove to a nearby village and I chose a secluded pub in which to nestle ourselves.

  “Wilt they have cooked all the food?” she said after I had read the bar menu.

  “I’m afraid so. Unless you eat the oysters of course. They serve those live.”

  “Doth they taste as the fish of the sea?”

  “Kind of. Why don’t you try them?”

  I ordered two plates of the molluscs, but after Cyprian devoured them in a matter of a few minutes I had to order more.

  I can’t say it was a delight to watch her eat. She was still wearing the sunglasses, but I could imagine her eyes darkening as she swallowed the shellfish. I didn’t have to imagine the barely concealed guttural noises as she downed one after the other. Thankfully, the nearest patrons were on the far side of the bar and paid no attention.

  I looked at my watch. “Damn, it’s three o’clock already. I told Elizabeth we’d be back an hour ago.”

  We stayed another hour. I predicted that Elizabeth’s ire would not grow proportionately with the passing of time. She would be mad anyway—might as well give her a reason to be. I resolved to announce her marching orders to her as soon as we got back. She’d set herself up as matriarch for too long. It was time to bring her reign to an end.

  ~ ~ ~

  On our return, Cyprian told me she wanted to spend some time in the forest. I had no problem with this. We were both going to have to get used to her choosing her own course of action, but we would also have to decide how she could exercise restraint. I believed we could overcome whatever obstacles lay before us. At the centre of our plans was the certainty we wanted to be together—and that is all that mattered.

  I entered the kitchen and grabbed a cool lager from the fridge. Across the hall I could hear Elizabeth’s curmudgeonly diatribe being vented on poor Mrs Halfin. I couldn’t make out the words but I was sure Mrs Halfin would welcome my intervention.

  I breezed into the sitting room, bringing Elizabeth’s monologue to an abrupt end. “Good evening to both of you,” I said, in the jauntiest manner I could muster. “Doing some overtime, Mrs Halfin?”

  The house keeper looked at her feet. “Miss Fabersham asked me to stay on to prepare an evening meal, sir.”

  “And what time do you call this?” Elizabeth said to me.

  I looked at my watch. “Time for my shower, I think. Tea at six is it Mrs Halfin?”

  She looked at Elizabeth, then back at me. “It should be ready by then, Mr Renshaw, sir. Yes.”

  “Good,” I said. “Pour my aunt a sherry and I’ll be down in twenty minutes.”

  I pivoted on my heel and jogged upstairs before Elizabeth could compose a retort. This was unheard of behaviour in front of her.

  It felt good.

  I spent my time in the shower, letting the powerful jet of water wash the salt from my skin. Once refreshed, I threw on some slacks and a cricket jumper, and made my way downstairs. I popped my head round the kitchen door, where Mrs Halfin was pulling out some Yorkshire puddings from the oven. The smell of roasting meat filled the air and my mouth was instantly watering.

  “Smells good, Mrs H. Are we ready to serve?”

  “Yes sir,” she replied, “but if you don’t mind, I’ll take my leave now. Fred will be wondering why I’m not home and, more importantly, why his meal isn’t on the table.”

  “Yes, of course. Look, I’m sorry about my Aunt and her impositions. You take the whole of tomorrow off, OK? Where is the old buzzard, by the way?”

  “Thank you, sir. I believe she’s still in the sitting room,” she said, stifling a giggle.

  I crossed the hall and found Elizabeth looking at a letter.

  �
�We need to talk,” she said without looking up.

  “We certainly do,” I replied.

  At this, her eyes shot up to meet mine. “I beg your pardon?”

  “We need to talk about boundaries, Elizabeth. A mutual understanding about where each of our responsibilities lie, and what constitutes an infringement.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I think you do. You just don’t want to acknowledge it. Let me make myself clear. This house and estate were left to me in my father’s will. It was dependent on me remaining to live in it and my supervision of all its affairs.”

  “That’s where -”

  “Let me finish. You’ve spent the last ... God knows how long, snooping around, expressing your disapproval at every opportunity and generally over-stepping the mark. All because you received nothing from my father when he died. And you know why?”

  For the first time in living memory, Aunt Elizabeth was unable to form words. Her eyes were bulging and her chin was aquiver.

  “Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because he couldn’t stand the sight of you or that flock of vultures you call your extended family.” I said this very calmly, but the words were steel. “Now I think you have overstayed your welcome. Tomorrow, a taxi will pick you up from here, take you to the station, where you can travel by the most direct route to your maison in Le Touquet, there to stew in your own acid juices.”

  She tilted her head and swallowed, but then something passed across her face. Something that looked like triumph. “I suppose,” she said “that you’ll want me to keep quiet about this?” She held up the paper in her hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “Why, it came in the post this morning. I took the liberty of opening it this afternoon seeing as you were so late back. I thought it might need urgent attention, considering it said first class on the envelope.”