People often stand in the laneway and look up at the house – people with dogs and muddy boots, guide books and pointed fingers – so there was nothing unusual in that. To venture into the garden and knock on the door, though, is not usual.
Jack, despite his initial surprise, took the interruption in his stride, glancing through the kitchen window and then thudding down the hallway towards the door in that heavy, purposeful manner of his, opening it with characteristic might. He has been in a black mood ever since he returned from his meeting with Sarah yesterday. Not angry, rather sad and frustrated. Naturally I am filled with curiosity as to what went on between them, but thus far he has not obliged me. He made only one phone call last night and that was to his father; they were marking an anniversary of some sort, because Jack said, ‘Twenty-five years today. Hard to believe, isn’t it?’
‘Oh,’ said the woman, taken aback by the opening door. ‘Hello – I didn’t actually … I thought the museum was shut during the week.’
‘And yet you knocked.’
‘Yes.’
‘Force of habit?’
‘I suppose so.’ She collected herself and then reached into her bag to retrieve an ivory-coloured piece of card, holding out a small, fine hand to present it to Jack. ‘My name is Elodie Winslow. I’m an archivist with Stratton, Cadwell & Co. in London. I look after the archives of James William Stratton.’
It was my turn then for surprise, and let me assure you, that does not happen often. While Jack’s utterance of Ada Lovegrove’s name the other night had given me some defence against the return of my past, I was nonetheless momentarily struck. I had not encountered his name in years and had no reason to think that I would ever hear it again.
‘Never heard of him,’ said Jack, turning the card over. ‘Should I have?’
‘Not really. He was a reformer back in Victorian times, improving the plight of the poor, that sort of thing. Are you the person I should speak to about the museum?’ She sounded doubtful, as well she might. There is little of Jack that gives any impression of the guides who usually man the door, foisting their rehearsed patter upon visitors no matter how many times they have spouted it before.
‘In a manner of speaking. I’m the only person here.’
She looked unconvinced but said, ‘I know you’re not usually open on Fridays, but I’ve come from London. I didn’t expect to find anyone here. I was just going to peek over the wall, but …’
‘You want to look around the house?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind?’
Invite her in.
After a moment’s consideration, Jack stepped aside and gestured in that generous, physical way of his, indicating that she should come inside. He closed the door quickly behind her.
She stepped into the dim hall and glanced about her, as most people do, leaning close to view one of the framed photographs that the Art Historians’ Association has hung along the walls.
Some days, when I am in need of amusement, I haunt the entrance hallway, enjoying the reverent comments made by visitors of a Certain Type while they postulate as to the events behind the photo. ‘It was at this time, of course,’ the sensibly outfitted man of advanced years will intone, ‘that the Magenta Brotherhood were engaged in fierce debate with respect to the artistic worth of photography, wondering whether it might in fact be more properly considered a science than an art.’ To which the long-suffering companion beside him will invariably reply, ‘Oh, I see.’
‘Make yourself at home,’ said Jack. ‘In a careful sort of way.’
She smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’m an archivist. I spend my life taking care of precious things.’
‘You’ll have to excuse me a minute – I have a pie in the oven and I can smell it burning.’ He was already backing away towards the malt house kitchen and I left him uttering his expletives to follow our visitor.
She walked from room to room downstairs, an enigmatic expression on her face. Only once did she stop and stifle a small shiver, glancing over her shoulder as if she sensed that she might not be alone.
On the first floor, she hesitated at the window overlooking the woods to glimpse the river, before climbing the stairs all the way to the attic. She set her bag down on Mildred Manning’s table, which disposed me at once to like her, and then took something from within that made me startle. It was one of Edward’s sketchbooks. I would have known it anywhere. The shock was almost physical. More than anything, I wanted to grab her by the wrists and implore her to tell me everything: who she is and how she came by Edward’s book. She had mentioned James William Stratton, a company called Stratton, Cadwell & Co., and a collection of archives. Is that where the sketchbook has been stored all of this time? But how on earth could that be? The two men did not know each other; as far as I’m aware, they never even met.
After turning through the pages of the sketchbook – quickly, as if she had done so many times before and knew precisely what she was searching for – she stopped at an illustration and studied it closely; she then went to the window overlooking the back meadow and stood on tiptoe, craning her neck to see.
The sketchbook was still open on the table and I rushed to it.
It was the one that Edward used over the summer of 1862. I had sat beside him while he made those very lines on that piece of cotton paper: studies for the painting he had planned, something he had been thinking about for years. On the following pages, I knew, were his sketches of the clearing in the woods and the fairy mound and a stone croft by the river, and at the bottom corner of one, in loose, scratched lines, the heart he had penned, and the ship on the wide sea, as we spoke excitedly of our plans.
I wanted nothing more than to be able to turn those pages, to see the other drawings, to touch the memory of those days. But alas, after much experimentation over the years, I have had to accept that my abilities in that respect are limited. I can make a door slam or a window rattle, I can yank the loosened skirt of a nasty schoolgirl, but when it comes to finer manipulations – the pulling of a thread or the turning of a page – I do not have the necessary control.
I need to know what brought her to the house today. Is she simply an art lover or is there more to it than that? It is remarkable enough that after so many years I should have at once a visitor mention the name Ada Lovegrove and now another speak of James Stratton; but for the latter then to produce Edward’s sketchbook from the summer of 1862 is uncanny. I cannot help but think that there is unseen mischief at work.
My young man Jack was curious, too, in his own way, for when she went back downstairs and ducked her head around the door into the malt house kitchen to call out, ‘Thank you’, he looked up over the top of the blackened dish that he was scraping into the sink and said, ‘Found what you were looking for?’
There came then the most infuriating of non-answers. ‘You’ve been very kind,’ she said. ‘Thanks so much for letting me in on a Friday.’
Not so much as a hint as to her purpose.
‘Are you staying nearby?’ he asked as she started down the hallway towards the front door. ‘Or heading back to London now?’
‘I have a room booked at The Swan – the pub down the road. Just for the weekend.’
I shifted closer and concentrated all of my might on sending him my message. Invite her to stay. Invite her to come back.
‘Feel free to drop in any time,’ he said, a look of brief confusion settling on his face. ‘I’m here every day.’
‘I might just do that.’
It was, as they say (when they must because they’ve been denied their heart’s desire), better than a kick in the teeth.
Her visit was brief, but the disturbance sat in the house all afternoon. It left me flummoxed and excited, and so while Jack got on with his inspection of the house – he is in the hallway on the first floor now, running his hand lightly along the wall – I retreated to my spot at the bend of the stairs, from which I distracted myself by ruminating on the old days.