When Jolyon’s carriage departed in a spray of gravel, Elsie was left despondent. The place felt even bigger, emptier without him. She wandered around her room and the summer parlour but found nothing to do.
Grey clouds bubbled up outside. Wind lashed at the trees. Even the light within the house was subdued and grainy. All she could hear was the tick of the clock, the groaning of the walls and a maid, brushing a hearth somewhere on the first floor.
She did not like being alone in this house: she felt it was watching her. Sensing her movements within its walls, as she felt the baby flutter inside her belly.
It was no good. She needed company, no matter how dire. After two hours of boredom she padded down the maroon corridor, past the ghastly marble busts, towards Sarah’s room.
Knocking once, she entered to find Sarah curled up on her bed with a book and Mrs Holt’s cat, Jasper. The room was remarkably like her own – only, as Jolyon had said, mirrored. The trees waving outside Sarah’s windows were a treasury of gold and bronze; Elsie’s side had the coppers, the burnt reds.
‘Oh! Mrs Bainbridge. I did not expect you.’ Sarah placed a mark in her book and rose, embarrassed, to her feet. Jasper merely watched her – he did not forfeit his spot on the bed. ‘I’m sorry. Did you need me?’
‘Yes. As a matter of fact, I am going to explore the house. I want you to join me.’
‘Explore?’ Sarah’s brown eyes widened. ‘Why, are we – I mean . . . I suppose Mrs Holt won’t mind?’
‘Mrs Holt? What has she to do with it? This is my house. I can do as I like.’
‘Yes. I suppose you can.’ For a moment, Sarah’s wide mouth sagged. Perhaps it occurred to her, as it did to Elsie, that she had been pushed out of the inheritance. But then a happier thought seemed to inspire Sarah, for she smiled and said, ‘This house has belonged to my family for a long time. It is the only part of them I still have. A connection. I would like to explore ever so much.’
Elsie held out her gloved hand. ‘Come along, then.’
Sarah hesitated. Elsie suddenly remembered exposing her coarse hands the night they had first arrived: palms the colour and texture of pork rind. She tried not to let the consciousness show on her face.
‘What are you afraid of?’
With a quick release of breath, Sarah stepped forwards.
They started at the very bottom of the house. The Bridge was, in fact, much larger than they had imagined. It seemed to twist into itself. Leading off the Great Hall, across from the fireplace Elsie had warmed herself at that first night, they found a drawing room panelled with dark wood up to shoulder height. Blue-grey paper covered the rest of the walls; its shade reminded Elsie of dead cornflowers. It was a cold room, full of marble urns and tapestries.
‘Why would you withdraw here?’ she asked. ‘I’d wager there are workhouses decorated with more warmth.’
The drawing room connected to a vast, powder-pink space filled with instruments. A mottled harp leant against the window, as if pining to get out. One of its strings had snapped. Elsie ran her eyes up the rose-coloured curtains that blocked out the daylight. The ceiling was scalloped, like the white icing around the top of a cake.
Sarah flew towards the grand piano, opened it and pressed a key. A plume of dust rose up with the note. ‘I can play the piano,’ she said. ‘Just little pieces. Mrs Crabbly used to like them. I will play for you tonight.’
It was a testament to how dreary Elsie felt that she actually looked forward to it.
Next came a card room, decorated in green. A stuffed stag head loomed over them from the wall, his antlers casting shadows like the branches of a tree.
‘How macabre.’ Elsie wrinkled her nose.
‘Do you really think so?’ Sarah gazed up at the mounted head. The fur was dirty. Each light brown eyelash was carefully separated, revealing the ebony marbles encased within the sockets. ‘There’s beauty in it. Ordinarily this fellow would be rotting, but instead he is here, still majestic. Preserved forever.’
‘Stuck in The Bridge for the rest of his days? I can’t envy him that.’
The stag marked the end of the wing; there was no escape but back through the music room and drawing room. When they returned to the Great Hall, the red-haired maid emerged from the green baize door on the servants’ side.
‘Helen!’ The maid pulled up sharp at the sound of Elsie’s voice. ‘It is Helen, isn’t it?’ She nodded dumbly and her legs bent in a curtsy far superior to Mabel’s. ‘Helen, now that the funeral is over, I want you to turn the pictures on the second storey. And anywhere else, for that matter. Miss Bainbridge and I want to look at the portraits. Can you do that for me?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Excellent.’
Curtsying again, Helen turned and went back through the baize door. They heard her feet through the walls, climbing the spiral staircase. Elsie and Sarah ascended the wider, carpeted steps reserved for the family.
‘There was sawdust here earlier,’ Elsie said, watching carefully. ‘It seems to have gone.’
The first floor started off well, with a honey-coloured parlour adjoining a billiard room in the west wing. But as they made their way to the east wing, Elsie felt a nauseous chill take hold of her. Some sixth sense told her what they were about to see.
‘Oh, look, Mrs Bainbridge! How darling!’ Sarah dashed forward, leaving her leaning on the door jamb. ‘Look at the little nursery!’
A child might have played there only yesterday. It was spotless. The flower-patterned paper showed no signs of age and the carpet, a bright chintz of red and yellow, had been beaten and washed. A rocking horse stood proud and gleaming in the centre of the room, little dapples of white across its rump. Sarah pushed it and giggled as it bumped on green castors.
Elsie looked around. The horse was not the only toy. Dolls were arranged round a miniature table set out for tea. On the floor beside them was a wooden Noah’s ark, complete with animals. A high screen sat in front of the fireplace. Within range of the heat hung a cot trimmed with swathes of lemon fabric. It was joined by an iron bedstead covered in a patchwork quilt for an older child. Her throat closed up.
‘There is a schoolroom beyond,’ said Sarah.
‘I think I have done enough exploring for the day.’
She drifted back to the gallery and looked down on the Great Hall. The grey and black flags danced before her eyes. Dear God, she couldn’t do it. They might as well ask her to go to Oxford and sit an exam. She could not be an ordinary mother to an ordinary baby.
All those toys, the memorabilia of childhood. Perhaps it was different if you grew up happy, with memories of your father dandling you on his knee and your mother kissing your tears away. But for Elsie there was nothing but fear. Fear for the baby. Fear of the baby.
Jolyon had turned out all right, she reminded herself. But it was easier with Jolyon being a boy. What if Rupert’s baby was born a girl? She could not love a daughter that looked like her. She could not bear to glance upon a mirror of her past without being sick.
‘Mrs Bainbridge?’ Sarah crept to her side. ‘Are you unwell?’
‘No. Just . . . weary.’