Will & Tom (20 page)

No use will come from panic. Will takes a breath, and another; then he crouches at the door, bringing his eye to the keyhole. It affords only a partial view of the landing, but he can discern a group of ladies and gentlemen, perhaps half the total staying at Harewood, bidding each other good night. They move apart, one of the ladies making straight for the nursery. It is Frances Douglas, her purpose plain. Will jerks backwards. He tries to swallow; his tongue is coarse and dry and strangely thick, like a length of old dock rope running down his throat. Should he move? Should he hide somewhere? Might this only worsen matters – lead to him being found yet closer to the children? The chocolate silk of Mrs Douglas’s gown fills the keyhole; the doorknob by Will’s ear rattles in its housing as she takes hold of the opposite side.

It is over.

‘For goodness’ sake, Frances.’ Douglas has arrived next to his wife; he speaks in a loving, vaguely exasperated whisper. ‘Now is not the time. They are well. Nurse has seen to them.’

There is a pause a hundred years long; then the doorknob clinks faintly, shifting as Frances lets it go.

‘I can’t help but think of Henry.’ Her voice is fearful and sad but quick as well, as if something she has been holding in among their guests is finally being released. ‘Of the baby. I wish … I wish Edward would not talk of it so
easily
. He cannot understand. How can he understand?’

Douglas’s manner suggests that he has talked this through a number of times before. ‘I know, my love, but Edward—’

‘The coffin. The little coffin, carried to church. How did Henry bear it? How did he not go
mad
? And Henrietta, dear Lord, the poor creature must—’ Frances stops. ‘I try to imagine, John, I try …’

‘Do not try.
Do not
. The other boy survived. And they have their first, Frances. They have their Edward.’

Frances turns; candlelight ripples across the silk. ‘Would you be able to take such consolation, I wonder, if one of our children were to die? If it were George, or Harriet?’

‘That will not happen. The child was newborn. Ours are grown, almost. They are
grown
. There is no danger. Do you hear me?’

Another pause. ‘I merely wish—’

‘Dearest, they would not benefit from the disturbance. Harriet especially.’ Douglas steps between his wife and the nursery; a stretch of snuff-coloured satin replaces the chocolate silk. ‘And besides, as I said, now is really not the time. We should be in our room.’

Frances accepts this – and at once, without resistance or complaint. The couple move away, restoring Will’s view of the empty landing; he hears another door, the one to their bedchamber he assumes, being opened and closed again. Whatever it is that has been binding him in place, strung tautly across his shoulders and along his spine, now lets him fall. He slumps from a crouch to a kneel; his sweat-sheened forehead presses against the nursery door, squeaking a couple of inches down the polished mahogany.

Minutes pass. Will does not move; he barely breathes. He listens keenly to the silence that has settled upon the landing. All seems clear.

Then comes the cough.

Immediately, he is at the keyhole again. The candles are gone, but he can see the tall figure leaning on the banister, watching the stairs below, the toe of one shoe kicking idly at the other’s heel. Tom could be standing at the bar of the Key, or on the balcony at Adelphi Terrace, composing another of his five-page drawings. Will twists the doorknob, thinking to scurry over. As he opens the door, however, he hears a rustle from the stairwell – the sound of an expensive hem being raised, to ease a lady’s ascent. Tom coughs again, straightening up and running a hand through his hair. Will perceives that his carefree attitude is a disguise of sorts, assumed rather than genuine; that this is a
rendezvous
, and for all his self-assurance and charm Tom Girtin is itching with nervous anticipation.

Mary Ann arrives on the dark landing. They exchange a couple of inaudible words before disappearing into the shadows of the south-western corner. It has the appearance of a clandestine meeting, urged by a forbidden love, in the spirit of Shakespeare or some medieval verse play; and it’s just as
fake
, just as staged and scripted. This is what John Douglas was referring to –
now is really not the time
– the reminder that won his wife’s compliance. They knew what had been arranged and removed themselves to prevent its interruption. Tom imagines that he is defying this great family, outfoxing them, yet they are directing his every step, shepherding him into Mary Ann’s bed.

It will end now. Will’s temper flares with a searing brightness. He will give chase and he will have it out, regardless of the intimacies he might disrupt. He will demand that she supply a full account of the Lascelles’ plan. Tom will be shown that they mean to draw him in and consume him entire; to obliterate him, in effect, and divorce him forever from his art; to consign him to their corrupted, frivolous world, which he holds in such disdain. Righteous intention seems to flame out from Will’s brow. His heart breaks into a hard canter. He’s going to confront them, this very minute, and to hell with the consequences.

There is another rustle, this one closer and crisper – not silk or satin but starched cotton. Bed sheets. Will turns. A child is stirring, rubbing at its eyes, mumbling a question. Had he, in his great anger, been speaking aloud? Or moving clumsily, forgetting the need for stealth? It hardly matters now. He steps towards the bed, extending his hands as if to capture a fugitive songbird.

‘No, no,’ he murmurs, desperately kind, ‘do not be afraid, I merely—’

The sound is absolute, pure and shrill, a drill-bit inserted into the ear and whirred around at phenomenal speed. It lasts for longer than one would have thought possible – fifteen seconds? twenty? – followed by shrieks for Nurse, for Mama, for Papa. The girl, for it is a girl, springs out of bed. She is perhaps four feet tall and clad in a white nightgown; she points at the intruder with a fearlessness rather at odds with her frantic squealing.

Abandoning placation, Will scrambles from the nursery and into the corridor that leads back to the eastern landing. The screams continue behind him, with other children joining in. Doors start to open; candlelight rushes over ceiling and walls; bare feet thud on carpets. He all but throws himself down the service staircase, hopping around its tight spiral two or three steps at a time, only to be halted abruptly by the mutter of Yorkshire voices below. Three footmen are gathered at the base of the stairs, on the service floor. Two bear trays, upon which is a cold collation of meats and cheeses; the third is shaking his head, claiming that there has been an error, that Mr Lascelles asked for cakes and sweetmeats instead. Will flattens himself against the wall, waiting for them to finish their dispute and go about their duties.

They do not. The moments squeeze by with excruciating slowness. Noises gather above, and the lambent aura of candles; and it seems certain that he’ll be caught there on the stairs, the obvious culprit, his motives for anyone to guess at. Thief? Kidnapper? Or something worse?

One chance remains. Near to the casket chamber is another narrow staircase, connecting the levels of Harewood’s east wing. Will has never troubled to investigate it, but there must be an opening among the state bedrooms – which, in Lord Harewood’s absence, are left standing empty. If he could reach them and locate this staircase, he’d be able to return to his berth unobserved.

Will steps onto the state floor and enters the grand room that holds the portrait of Lady Worsley. Although not in use, it’s hardly safe: immediately to the right is the saloon, glowing like a bawdy house behind its door. A committed band of revellers is still within, with Beau at its head. Will hears Purkiss bellow and spit, that fine gentleman having evidently been raised, Lazarus-like, for the purpose of further intoxication. As he weaves between the furniture he notices that they are in fact discussing
him
– enacting his mishap on the dance floor of the Crown with thumps, crashes and much raucous laughter. Will bites his tongue – literally bites it, his teeth sinking into the muscle to the point where they seem almost ready to meet. He carries on his way.

The left door opens onto virtual darkness. Clouds have obscured the moon, reducing everything to a two-tone scale: black, and that shade of grey that is closest to black. Outlines are rendered slightly imprecise, rough-edged, lent the burr of a dry-point engraving. One object, however, can clearly be distinguished: a four-poster bed of massive proportions, protruding majestically from a broad alcove in the inside wall like the prow of a royal barge. Will has only to cross the front of the room, he reckons, to reach the next eastward doorway – the next in a line of facing doorways that will run the length of the southern façade. He goes in.

Past the bed, something moves; a form rises, drawing itself upright.

‘Mr Turner,’ says Mrs Lamb. ‘Why sir, you caught me quite unawares.’

*

The witch will give me away again, Will thinks; she’ll stride around that bed, go through to the Worsley room and create a racket that will see me captured, beaten bloody and probably worse. She’s a shape only, both her features and her stance impossible to determine. Her voice is good-humoured, amiable even, but this could easily be deception.

When Mrs Lamb moves, however, it is in the direction Will himself has decided upon. She opens the east door and beckons for him to come over. She’s been eavesdropping, he assumes, and seems, with this gesture, to be making common cause with him. He doesn’t trust it, not one inch; this is the woman who delivered him to Mr Cope and brought his situation at Harewood to a new level of complexity. But her knowledge of this place wholly surpasses his. Playing along might aid his return to the service floor. Will approaches, his eyes growing accustomed to the gloom; and he sees that she’s grinning, a little breathless, as if upon a wild lark.

Beyond the door is an ante-chamber. A corridor runs off it, cutting across the house; at its far end, a figure with a candle waits by a window in the northern façade. Mrs Lamb takes him sideways, into the corner bedroom. She shuts the door behind them, setting it soundlessly in its frame. The room is of similar dimensions to the last, arranged around another looming four-poster, with its second door set in the north-facing wall. He turns, waiting for her to lead them on to the eastern staircase – and sees that she is in fact advancing towards him, readying to act, her silhouette giant against the surrounding greyness. Will makes fists, bracing himself for defence. He has been terribly naive. A damn
simpleton
. That murderous look, shot across the saloon the previous night. The slam of the door an instant afterwards. She means him violence.

The softness of her touch, when it comes, is scarcely less alarming. Disarmed, somewhat perplexed, Will is guided to the lordly bed, sat between the curtains and laid out upon the satiny counterpane. Her fingers close not around his neck but the top of his breeches, whipping them down to the knee-buckles, underthings and all; and then they are
on him
, waking him, working him in a manner both tender and brisk. He stares helplessly into the bed’s black canopy. All control of his thoughts and person is removed. Every sensation but one is shut from his brain.

Suddenly it stops. Will tries to lift his head. The still-room maid is rummaging beneath her skirts, making adjustments and hoisting them up, climbing nakedly atop him – and
joining them
, easing their bodies together just like that. He stays perfectly, rigidly still, legs straight and arms outstretched. Her smell rolls between them, sharp and warm and utterly confounding. She plants a hand on the mattress; the palm sinks in and his head slides after it, off to the side, coming to rest by the ball of her wrist. He can see almost nothing but has a vivid sense of her – of her weight and the arrangement of her limbs. The bottom of her thighs rest on the top of his, engulfing them, the flesh smooth and slightly sticky. Her apron, stiff with sugar, crackles against his chest. Her breath has a gooseberry bitterness; it gusts over his forehead, stirring his powder-caked hair. She begins to move.

It doesn’t last long. Will tenses hard, reeled in very tight; then emits a small, strangled bark as he is released. Mrs Lamb slows, coming to a halt in the space of five strokes. He pants awhile, suffused with a sweet, numbing calm, tiny sparks worming about at the margins of his sight. She looks down at him for a few seconds. He wonders if she can see any more of his face than he can of hers.

‘No shoes, Mr Turner,’ she says, as if nothing unusual has occurred. ‘No jacket neither. Honestly, sir, to what odd tribe do you belong?’

Is she disappointed? Will thinks she must be. He knows very well from tavern talk, from innumerable arguments overheard in the environs of Maiden Lane, that stamina is what’s prized in lovers – and that brevity most assuredly is not. Before any more can be determined, though, she’s off him, reassembling her garments, leaving him lying there, cold and damply exposed. When she touches him next it is to pull him from the grand bed, much as she pulled the breeches down his legs, and bundle him underneath it. He fits easily, sliding on the varnished floorboards. She squeezes in behind with rather more trouble, her head pushed close to his, a heavy breast nuzzling his forearm. Greasy, cinnamon-scented curls pile around his cheek.

‘Madam,’ says Will, fumbling with his disordered breeches, ‘what in the name of
God—
’

‘Someone in the corridor,’ whispers Mrs Lamb. ‘Heard your noise, I should think.’

Will freezes, leaving himself undone, too fearful to be embarrassed. Candlelight licks along the edge of the western door.

‘No cause for them to enter,’ she adds. ‘This is the baron’s own bedchamber, and he in’t at home.’

The light fades away; and the fact of what they’ve done, of where they are, snaps at Will like a dog bite to the buttocks. He starts, thinking to flee, knocking his pate on the bed’s underside. ‘But he’s
coming
back
,’ he yelps. ‘The baron’s
coming back
!’