The Room Beyond Read online

  But gosh, those blue eyes of his... like fire and ice at war with each other. She could recall them so easily; the way they’d laughed with hers. If only she could open her eyes right now and find them watching her again.

  Suddenly she was falling. Bumping to and fro against the walls of a deep well lined with black velvet. Down. Down. And then an enormous jolt. She snapped her eyes back open and gripped the edge of the bench to steady herself. The scene in the park came back to her in a mass of colour and jagged edges. Had she been asleep?

  Her throat tightened up. Already she could sense the whispers, seeping from between the fingers of raised gloves: Did you see Lucinda Eden in the park? Fast asleep on a bench and lolling about like a drunk! She’s let herself go since Alfonso left her for that dancer you know. Have you seen the lines on her face?

  Someone somewhere was laughing. Look at that jilted woman, it seemed to cry out. She peered through the haze but found no one she even vaguely recognized. Her throat loosened a little and as soon as she felt the rhythm of her breathing coming back, she raised herself on unsteady legs.

  It was slow going back on the pathway. People were bumping into each other and a myriad of strange faces swarmed at her like flies. A few months ago she would have adored it here; hanging onto Alfonso’s arm, laughing in the sunshine.

  ‘I’m going to get married Daddy. To Alfonso Eden.’

  It felt like only yesterday. Father down at the stables, his face still pinched and sallow after mother’s death.

  ‘If you do Lucinda, it will be the worst mistake of your life.’

  ‘But I love him!’

  ‘No you don’t. You love the idea of him, you love his degenerate ways, you love being able to think of yourself as a rebel by marrying him.’

  ‘How dare you insult me like that!’

  He’d turned his back to her; impenetrable, a fortress of resistance.

  ‘First your brother leaves us for Africa, then your mother... Am I to be the only Hartreve left? The only one to cherish all that we have here?’

  ‘No, of course not. And Alfonso is a huge admirer of yours; he simply adores the prospect of entering the family.’

  ‘I’m sure he does.’

  She’d placed her hands on his shoulders, pressed her cheek against his back.

  ‘He’s a good man Daddy.’

  ‘And do the whores who dance on his stage for him agree?’

  The path had got too frantic, she stopped for breath by the sparkling pond. What was that across the water? Something bright and blue and familiar.

  How right her father had been all those years ago. But to keep sending that damned servant of his, week after miserable week to spy on her, as if her pitiful circumstances were too repugnant for him to face her by himself...

  She touched her face. Her anger had caught at her skin. And there was that thing across the water again. What was it over there? A silvery blue pattern, like dolphins swimming upwards, emerging and then disappearing within the crowd.

  ‘My Venetian Duchess!’, ‘My alabaster bride!’

  Silly things for a man to have called his wife, and yet there was a hollow place now inside her where the luxurious touch of Alfonso’s flattery had once been.

  A group of young men rowed towards her on the water; trim and handsome with limbs much too long for the small vessel they’d hired. They splashed water in each other’s’ faces, laughing at the hilarity of their cramped postures.

  She eased an inch or two forwards but the boat sailed past and they jeered and whooped and fought over the oars without a second glance at her.

  Tears flooded her eyes. Her lips twitched with the urge to cry. And through her blurred vision she could see that blue thing again. It was quite close by the water’s edge now, directly across from her. She brushed the tears away. Alfonso.

  She must have gasped rather loudly because several passers-by paused to offer her their puzzled glances. And of course, he was wearing the blue and silver waistcoat she’d given him last year for their anniversary.

  Something made her want to grin suddenly. He really was the most outrageous looking man, getting fatter by the day it seemed and hardly a hair left on his head. But he had such a comical, amiable face, like a big over-fed baby. The sort of cheeks that women loved to kiss and knead fondly at with their fingers.

  It made her think of the first time they’d met, at Sally Feversham’s party for which she’d told her father all manner of lies to get to. She’d never been to anything like it: lights dimmed to virtual darkness, half dressed women perched on men’s laps and a sweet smoky flavour to the air which left her completely light-headed.

  ‘May I introduce myself princess?’

  Even the voice had been round and jovial.

  ‘Alfonso Eden, manager of The Empress Theatre Soho. But I’m afraid you’ll have to leave soon as I’m already rapidly falling in love with you.’

  He was a little slimmer then of course, never handsome but fuelled with enough charm to more than compensate for his lack of physical prowess.

  He was looking back at her now, open mouthed with surprise from across the water. He raised his hand in a small wave. And then from the midst of the crowd another figure joined him. Petite and feminine, dressed in canary yellow. Betsey. She put her arm through his and then gave him one of her insipid smiles, all sweetness and vulnerability like a little lost fawn. He seemed flustered, looking back and forth at the two of them with coy snatched glances.

  ‘Stupid fool,’ she murmured under her breath.

  ‘There’s a note here for you ma’am.’

  ‘Not now Sarah,’ she said, marching past the maid and into Alfonso’s old office. ‘I’m not to be disturbed for the rest of the afternoon.’

  She threw herself into the arms of the deep leather chair, lit a cigarette and watched the curious fingers of smoke rise up into the air. It wasn’t dark enough in the room, even with its heavy wooden shutters firmly closed. The blasted sunshine had found ways of wheedling itself in through the small joints in the slats, bouncing impishly against the angles of the furniture and lighting up the painted faces in the stained glass panel of the door.

  ‘Idiotic man,’ she spat out at the gaudy display of glass; a crude rendition of a Bacchanalian feast that Alfonso had had commissioned. ‘Ridiculous thing for an office door, really.’

  She rested her head against the side of the chair and waited for the last sliver of burnt tobacco to fall from her cigarette before lighting another. There was a knock at the door. Sarah again.

  ‘There’s someone here to see you, it’s Mr Burke from the grocer.’

  ‘What, again? Wasn’t he here yesterday?’

  ‘I know ma’am but he’s getting awful persistent that you pay him.’

  ‘Tell him to go away. I don’t have time for visitors at the moment.’

  But Sarah peered around the room instead, squinting in the semi-light.

  ‘I know what you’re doing and the money simply isn’t in here. Please just leave.’

  Sarah crossed her wiry arms and stayed exactly where she was. ‘Ma’am I hate to say this but sooner or later you’re gonna have the law on you. You’ve got to pay your bills and Mr Burke, well he’s been coming day after day. We’re getting a bad name for ourselves.’

  Lucinda forced her fingers through her hair, tugging at it aggressively until her scalp hurt. ‘Am I never to be left alone? Am I to be bombarded, constantly? All I have asked for is peace. Am I to be denied that again and again?’

  She pressed her fingers to her temples; a dull tribal thud had started to resonate deep within her skull. ‘Take the money from the box. It’s over there on the second shelf, behind the vase. Found it? Good. Now, please, for mercy’s sake, make sure I’m not bothered again today.’

  ‘Thank you Mrs Eden. Oh, and here’s what came through the door for you this morning.’

  An envelope fell into her lap and she cast her eyes quickly across the note inside.

  Dear Mrs Ed
en,

  We so enjoyed having you to dinner the other night. I do hope your head is better. I owe you an apology I’m afraid with regard to our planned trip to the theatre next week to see Hamlet. Unfortunately a charitable event which I foolishly overlooked has clashed with the outing and I am much relied upon to man the tombola. Although I adore the theatre I’m sure you will understand where my duty lies. Perhaps instead we should have tea together one day?

  Yours sincerely

  Mrs Whitestone

  The headache turned into one of the worst yet: a grotesque kaleidoscope of garish colour and cruel confrontations. She curled herself up as tightly as she could in the armchair, but nothing could stop that miserable hollow thud, endlessly approaching, louder and louder all the time until she longed for it to just take hold of her and complete whatever it had set out to do.

  Snatches of her childhood came back to her. Things she hadn’t thought about for years. Her father proudly leading her along on a new pony. Her mother, cold and far away. And then that time when she’d walloped nanny clean across the face with her old doll Amelia. How she’d cried after that; having to watch Amelia dying on a bonfire, her face disintegrating into ash.

  And yet between those flames dolphins suddenly appeared, blue and silvery, swimming up into the sky towards something garish, canary yellow. Betsey with her insipid smile. And then the whole world was laughing at her: people in restaurants, passers-by on the street, Hamlet in the midst of a soliloquy pausing to hunt her down in the audience, his face wrinkling up in hilarity. Thud thud thud.

  When she woke up it was pitch black in the room. The headache had gone, but in its wake had left her with a strange hollow feeling, as if a part of her brain had been removed. It was eleven o’clock. Downstairs the house was empty but Sarah had left her a meal. She took it to the library.

  Funny that they’d called it the library, because it didn’t have much in the way of books. There were an awful lot of shelves, filled mainly with old theatre programmes from The Empress. She stroked her hand along the grand piano, the best bit of the room. It felt so sleek and glossy, like patting the flank of a prized racehorse.

  The air was stuffy. She raised the window to let in the night, but with it came the pungent smell of a cigar. She leaned out and there was Tristan Whitestone, smoking idly in the street. He was lounging against the railings; such an elegant figure, so perfectly proportioned.

  She glanced at herself in a mirror on the opposite wall and pinched her cheeks. The evening shadows had smoothed out her skin a little and her hair still looked good at least, unadorned and hanging loosely down her back.

  Heart galloping, she tip-toed to the front door and, with just enough of a click to make sure that the still night air was only a little disturbed, she unfastened the latch. The door yawned open an inch or two so that a thin sliver of light poured out onto the street from inside.

  Back in the library she drank whiskey and waited. The smell of the cigar slowly faded away but nothing happened. Not a sound, not one ripple of movement in the air. The minutes passed and soon her pounding heart smothered itself in disappointment. The bottom of her glass peered mockingly up at her.

  ‘You have a funny way of inviting people into your home Mrs Eden.’

  Her eyes darted up and there he was, leaning against the doorframe.

  ‘I didn’t. But now that you’re here you might as well help yourself to a drink.’

  Tristan Whitestone undid the top button of his shirt and found the whisky.

  ‘Nice piano.’

  ‘Thank you. It was given to me by a rich American.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he liked my husband’s theatre and our old piano caved in when an opera singer sat on it.’

  ‘I own you an apology,’ he said.

  ‘How strange, your wife said exactly the same thing in her note.’

  He looked confused.

  ‘Cancelling Hamlet?’

  ‘Now that doesn’t surprise me.’

  She could see the annoyance shifting across his features.

  ‘So, what do you feel the urge to apologize for?’ she asked.

  ‘For the tedious company of my wife and her friends last night.’

  ‘That’s quite unnecessary, I enjoyed myself heartily.’

  ‘For all the wrong reasons.’

  Her eyes lingered on his lips as he pressed the glass to them. He was more dishevelled than when she saw him last and clearly a little intoxicated by that pungent cigar he’d been smoking outside. His eyes were heavy, black rather than blue in this light, and hungry.

  ‘I find it very strange that you should be married to that woman. Is there a good explanation?’

  ‘Our fathers came to an agreement. It got me out of a... a situation during my time in India.’

  ‘And what did she stand to gain?’

  ‘A husband.’

  ‘How romantic.’

  ‘And what about you? Why did your husband run off with a younger woman?’

  She felt her face twitch. ‘Because his brain has rotted away.’

  She’d been right about him; there was cruelty there, like playing with a dangerous toy.

  They both said nothing and the minutes rolled by until she thought she might scream. And yet he seemed perfectly relaxed, languid even, sitting back with his glass balanced against his chest.

  Finally he drew towards her.

  ‘I didn’t come here just to sit in silence,’ he said.

  ‘Is that so? May I ask the genuine intention of your visit then?’

  He clasped her hand between his, pressing his lips gently to her arm. She held her breath and then raised her other hand to his face, following his cheekbones with the tips of her fingers. He pulled her closer towards him, but she drew back.

  ‘Not yet.’

  He let his face fall against her breast. ‘When?’

  ‘When the time is right.’

  ‘You smell of ripe peaches.’

  ‘Go home to your wife.’

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He raised himself up but pulled her against him, greedily kissing her on the mouth.

  ‘Don’t leave it too long,’ he murmured.

  ‘I doubt whether you’ll allow me.’

  ‘Send for me, at work.’

  ‘And where might that be?’

  ‘The Whitestone Shipping Company, Bolter’s Way. How am I supposed to forget about you tonight?’

  ‘Don’t. Think about me all the time.’

  When the front door had closed again with a soft thud she drew her hands up to her hot cheeks. From somewhere in the room there came a gentle tapping sound. It was a moth, fluttering around the lamp on the table. It beat itself ungracefully against the glass, its dusty wings crinkled and distorted.

  ‘Stop that now.’

  She cupped it in her hands, moved swiftly towards the open window but then stopped herself.

  ‘No. You’ll only do it again silly thing.’

  And instead she pushed her palms tightly together, crushing the moth between them.

  After a deep luxurious sleep she awoke to bright sunshine streaming through her bedroom curtains. She pulled down the top sash of one of the windows to let yet more sunshine in, perching herself on the only chair in the sparsely furnished room to brush her hair.

  This room had none of the comforts of the one she’d shared with Alfonso downstairs, but the idea of sleeping there again still made her feel sick. She’d even toyed with the idea of using the room at the very top of the house, with the small balcony looking out over the park, although it was really just a servant’s room.

  She put on a white dress, wrapped her hair in an amber scarf and treated herself to a long satisfied gaze in the mirror. She felt so light today, almost skipping down the stairs like a young girl, sliding her fingers down the cool banister as thoughts of hot tea with toast and honey swam through her mind.

  Sarah was standing in the hallway below. Th
e girl looked distraught, wringing her hands and padding from one foot to the other.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter girl?’

  ‘You’ve got visitors ma’am.’

  ‘Oh damn it. I thought you’d paid Mr Burke. He can’t possibly be wanting yet more money.’

  ‘No, much worse than that. It’s your husband with his... lady friend, in the drawing room. I couldn’t stop them coming in, he’s still got his key.’

  Lucinda felt her fingers form into a tight grip around the banister.

  ‘Thank you. Perhaps you should go out, do a little shopping.’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  The two of them were perched unnaturally close together on a large chair.

  ‘Get out of my house, immediately!’

  ‘Lucinda Lucinda, just calm down my cherub.’

  He rose up, gesturing with outstretched hands in that way he always did, as if trying to coax her into submission.

  ‘My cherub? Is it really appropriate to jest at this present moment? Get out and take that slut with you. I never want to see either of your faces again. Do you hear me?’

  Betsey shot past her, sprinting out into the hallway, Alfonso in her wake, but she clutched at their heels like a tidal wave. Betsey was wearing a lime green ensemble. She gave the outfit a deprecating glare and the girl let out a small scream.

  ‘Betsey my dear, I think you had better go and sit in the carriage.’

  ‘Sit in it? She’d be better suited to pulling the blasted thing,’ Lucinda exclaimed.

  Betsey burst into tears and the door slammed shut behind her. Alfonso gulped, letting the silence settle. There were dark shadows under his eyes. He looked weary.

  ‘Can we... talk, like adults?’ he asked.

  He touched the side of her arm with his hand but she flinched back and his face screwed itself up into a wince. He looked so pathetic that she almost felt sorry for him. There was a stain on his waistcoat, a brownish mark like tea just next to the top button. Something must surely be wrong with her proud, vain husband.