Amy Snow (28 page)

The woman looks at me for a long while without speaking and the silence does not seem strange, here, in this echoing, somber passage.

“So you are Amy Snow.”

I nod. I suppose I am.

“Aurelia's little Amy.”

“Yes.”

Ambrose settles us in the drawing room. The walls are covered with portraits of gentlemen and, strangely, detailed pictures of large, colorful moths. The furniture is old but beautiful. We are served glasses of Madeira, even though I am hungry more than I need wine. I find myself tongue-tied for the first time in a long while. It was one thing to feel confident and at ease when I was surrounded by friends, but this cold, dark vortex of a house seems to have sucked away all evidence of my recent blossoming. Here I feel anxious all over again.

“Miss Snow. I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Vennaway four years ago. She has asked me to keep a letter for you and to allow you to stay in my home whenever you should alight here. I take it then that she is dead?”

“Yes. In January. I have been in Twickenham.”

“No doubt. I am sorry to hear it. She was one of life's originals. I do so like an original. Tragedy all round. What is life if not one great long shambling tragedy?”

It takes a while for me to realize that she actually expects an answer.

“Well, I . . . I hope there may be some periods of happiness and stability at least, along the way, Mrs. Riverthorpe.”

She curls a lip. She is still waiting for an answer—a better one.

“Um . . . I cannot say it is one long tragedy, madam. Certainly it is shambling. And I'll grant you it contains tragedy and in no small measure. But it contains other things also, I gladly believe.”

“Such as?”

A cold draft blows in through the door, which has been left ajar. I look out at the cavernous hall for inspiration. “Why, friendship. The beauty of nature. Great literature. Happiness, even if just in small patches and in the oddest places.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “You believe in all of that, do you?”

“I must. Why would anyone carry on if not? How could one keep one's spirits?”

“So you believe not what you believe but what you
need
to believe. Would you say that makes you a fool, Miss Snow?”

“On the contrary, I should say it makes me extremely practical.”

She barks a short laugh, and I realize I have not had a debate like this since losing Aurelia, although Aurelia was vastly more charming in her delivery. I do not relish Mrs. Riverthorpe's manner, and yet I remember that she is Aurelia's friend and that she must have qualities beyond rudeness and scorn to recommend her.

“We shall return to the matter at another time, Miss Snow. Let me explain something of what your stay here is to be. Aurelia has decreed that I am not to give you her letter until you have been here three weeks. Today is April eighth, therefore on the twenty-ninth of April you will be free to leave, although you may stay longer if you choose, I'm sure I do not care. This is a large house and there is no need for our paths to cross if we do not wish it.”

I can feel my shoulders slump and I haul them back to the vertical. It would not be mannerly to display my true feelings, but my heart sinks at the prospect. I tell myself—not for the first time—that three weeks is not a
very
great deal of time. Only, as I stare around at the pictures of men and moths, at the unlit fire, black with coal dust, at the thin light filtering through murky glass, it feels like forever.

“That said, I require you to join me tonight—I have people coming for dinner—and tomorrow afternoon for cards. There is a tedious ball on Friday and an archery meet at Tuke's on Sunday—you shall attend both. Aurelia has charged me with exposing you to Bath and making you a little more sociable while you are here. I can see at once I will not succeed, but there we are. How are you to decide whether to loath my world if you do not experience it? Beyond Sunday, if you wish to keep out of my way and use my home as a sort of free hotel, you may. Or you may continue to accompany me, providing I have not found you too tedious.”

Between my warm reception when I arrived in Twickenham and this yawns a vast chasm that my mind cannot ably bridge. I look down at my hands, clasped in my lap. “I see. Er, thank you.”

She barks again. “Oh fiddle, you think me rude and strange; you've traveled a long way and you'd far rather have some kind words, a thoughtful gesture, and a soft gaze. But kind words are worth less than nothing in this world, so I've grown unpracticed at them, and as you can see, my face isn't designed for soft gazes. Never stopped men aplenty gazing on it though. And they did a lot more than gaze, besides.”

Her steely gaze is pinned upon me and I look away. The gaping hall, the maw of the fireplace, Mrs. Riverthorpe's wicked smile . . . my eyes light on one after another without relief.

“What have you to say for yourself, Amy Snow? What d'you make of it all?”

I hope she cannot read my mind. “I make very little, as yet, ma'am. I do not know why Aurelia sent me here, so I shall do as you say and wait for my letter. I am grateful to you for any help you have given my friend. Beyond that, I make nothing. I have been here but five minutes.”

“Ah, you're one of those who needs time to make something of something, are you? Me, I know exactly what to make of a thing the moment I encounter it. Take you, for instance: timid, downtrodden, wearing a new frock. Loyal to a capricious friend who's too dead to be much use to you now. Forced to live when you'd rather hide. Too polite to tell me what you think and longing to escape to privacy so you can start the long, arduous process of working out what you make of it all.”

I bow my head stiffly—she is uncanny.

“But you have the advantage of me, madam,” I finally retort, my sense of justice aroused. “You knew Aurelia, therefore she must have spoken of me. Your instincts have been primed. I never heard of you until two days since and her only comment about you was an apology.”

The moment the words are out of my mouth I long to snatch them up and stuff them back in.

But she barks for a third time and nods. “That is like her, the minx, and well done, Miss Snow. It's true, I have heard some stories of you. Well now, I expect you'd like some lunch before you unpack, would you not?”

“Madam, I am famished. And I hope I do not upset you by observing that the offer of lunch seems remarkably like a thoughtful gesture.”

“Haaaaa!” she crows. “You are wrong, Miss Snow, all wrong. That suggestion required no imagination whatsoever, only a basic knowledge of biology. Do not convince yourself that I am all tenderness under my feathers or you will be sorely disappointed. I shall see you at five for dinner. Explore all you wish, make free of the house. I have no secrets. Or rather I have a great many, but they are so scandalous that everyone knows them.”

After an awkward repast, spiked with challenging conversation, I escape with some relief to the privacy of my room. It echoes softly, and a little sadly. I try not to think of my room at Mulberry Lodge. This is perhaps more grand but, to my tastes, less pleasing in every particular. It has the strange proportions of an isosceles triangle; the eaves swoop so steeply that even I, short as I am, bump my head more than once whilst I unpack. The colors are somber—brown and gray and burgundy—and the view is of the street. I do not wish to be pessimistic before my time here has properly begun, but I cannot imagine ever relishing rest or solitude in this pointed prism. I stand my books on top of a chest in a vain effort to feel at home.

Once I have stowed my clothes in a tall, creaking wardrobe, I explore the house as invited, trailing without enthusiasm from room to room. It is a very strange place. Not only is there a tower and a great many cranium-defying eaves but it is dusky and baleful and I cannot relax in it. It feels somehow . . . unwholesome. Every room is decorated with pictures of moths. There are sketches of men, too, not all of them clad.

One room appears to be a sort of study devoted entirely to moths. Drawn to the bookshelves, as I always am, I find only moth-related titles such as
The Life Cycle and Habits of the Moth
;
Rhoperosera: A Study
and, interestingly,
Moth and Man
. I cannot imagine what could fill so many pages on the subject but doubt I shall muster sufficient curiosity to read them and find out. There is a glass case filled with pinned moths, but strangely they are almost all of the same small, brown variety and so do not present a varied collection. Why
moths
, I wonder, frowning; they strike me as an unusual decorative motif. Perhaps Mrs. Riverthorpe has an interest in lepidoptery. She does not seem the sort but then she is surprising in every particular.

•  •  •

At five, wishing I could be almost anywhere else, I present myself for dinner as commanded. Mrs. Riverthorpe takes one look at my emerald-green dress, carefully chosen to honor the occasion, and bids me change at once.

“Don't you have anything more . . . ?” She flaps her hand in a manner that suggests my appearance is unbearably dull. She herself is clad in scarlet poplin that clings to her figure or, more accurately, her bones, dipping astonishingly low over a thin and wrinkled bosom. The effect should be disturbing, but her iron self-assurance goes some way to carrying it off or, at least, making it clear the dress is here to stay.

“I don't wear these clothes because I am old and unaware that they are out of date, you know,” she says suddenly. “I kept up with the fashions until they refused to keep up with me. I cannot abide these hideously demure dresses of today, designed to cover us up as if we never had a lustful thought, never had a breast or a shoulder or an elbow. We are
women
, not oranges!”

I had not before considered my beautiful green dress with its round collar and long, full sleeves in quite that light. I wonder if perhaps she is a little mad.

Smoothing down my lovely skirts, I decide that I will not change to please her. “They suit me very well, Mrs. Riverthorpe.”

“Yes,” she sniffs, “I daresay they do.”

A knock at the door prevents further discussion. There are three other guests, making me an awkward fifth in the party, and they are the oddest combination of society imaginable. As the drawing room fills, I can feel myself shrinking. They all talk across each other, apparently trying to be very impressive and clearly vying for Mrs. Riverthorpe's attention.

There is Mr. Pierpont, a gaunt, eagle-eyed gentleman of around seventy who speaks endlessly of his glory days as a competitive rower, and Mr. Freeman, a flamboyant young dandy who flirts shamelessly with Mrs. Riverthorpe all night. His contribution to the wider conversation consists only of tales of his drinking exploits. Since the third guest is Mrs. Manvers, active in the Bath Temperance Association, my own conversation is reduced to platitudes as I try desperately not to cause offense to any party.

•  •  •

It is not an enjoyable evening and afterwards I cannot remember what we ate or how the wine was; all I remember is the sensation of tiptoeing over broken glass. To be alone in my room again is an improvement, but not a great one.

I have given up a great deal to come here, I reflect, kneeling on the window seat, shivering and gazing down over the silent street. It was always easy to follow Aurelia's wishes when I had nothing of my own. It is quite another now that I have—
had
—beloved friends with whom to pass my days. And more than that! A gamboling hound, a conservatory, a river, and a garden (even if they weren't precisely mine). And hope. From those first shivering February mornings in Twickenham, I felt hope. That is what is most starkly missing here. Mrs. Riverthorpe strikes me as too jaded to see hope as anything but a nuisance. I believe she would give short shrift to love, too.

I creep reluctantly into a bed that is almost clammy with cold and stare into the dark, wondering why on earth Aurelia should send me
here
. The most likely explanation I can conjure is that it is to acquaint me with Frederic Meredith. I vow that I will ask Mrs. Riverthorpe if she knows him as soon as I next see her. I remain more puzzled than ever about his role in Aurelia's story now that I know about Robin. As my eyelids droop, I think about what I know of him. A gentleman—of course. Handsome—of course. Wonderful dancer. A man about whom she wrote extensively for more than two months, then mentioned two, maybe three times throughout the rest of her life. I shake my head tiredly.

If you wanted to create an enigma, Aurelia, you have done it.

It seems almost foolish to close my eyes and give myself up to sleep in such an unsettling atmosphere. I try hard to remember that I am seventeen years old and do not believe in ghosts or vampires.