‘You will do it for money then,’ she said. ‘Sir Howard will give me another shilling for you to entertain his daughter.’
‘Working for our betters will not make us like them,’ I said, ‘and it won’t earn us respectability.’ But they were protests that I muttered to myself because she was right – I would do it for the money. I even took the bonnet from her and put it on, tying the strings under my chin.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We are late.’
We left the house, my mother taking care to push the key under the thatch on top of the porch, and set out on to the road that edged the village green. We passed St Cuthbert’s and took the road that headed past the Sunningdale Farm and the old orchards and followed it until we turned on to a smaller track that split from the main road and followed the edge of a small stream. After a while the stream became wider and shallower, the muddy banks speared with green shoots, and I looked across the ford to see the grand house up on the slope.
Haughten Hall was the kind of square red brick house with long windows that you would usually see in larger towns but in a place like this, it could be the centre of attention and rose high above the common as if it owned it. The name of the place was unfortunate because the local schoolchildren called it ‘Haughty Hall’, and would pretend to bow as they passed it, giggling as they ran by, their noses high in the air.
I had passed Haughten Hall many times before when I had taken the cart track up on to the common, but I had never crossed the ford and been to the house itself and, as I followed my mother up the long sloping driveway and marble steps, I felt that it was a place that I didn’t belong. I feared that I was about to have dogs set on me.
A woman a bit younger than my mother let us in. She was in the ‘family way’ as my mother liked to say, her belly so swollen that I could not help but stare, the swelling itself looking almost painful, and I fancied that she must have been expecting twins or a whole litter of piglets.
‘Thank you, Dora,’ said my mother, but her words sounded like formality rather than gratitude and I gathered that the woman must have been some kind of housekeeper or maid although her dress had been let out so much I could not tell whether it was a uniform or tent.
‘That’s alright, Mrs Ryland,’ she answered, ‘but as you are now so well acquainted with Sir Howard, the back entrance might be better next time.’
‘Of course,’ my mother said quickly. Then she added, ‘It must be so hard for you coming all the way to the front door in your condition.’ But as Dora walked ahead of us, my mother grabbed my arm and pulled me close to her. ‘That is your fault!’ she hissed. ‘If you will make yourself look like a tinker, we will be treated that way!’
We followed Dora as she panted up the stairs, and waited on the landing as she knocked lightly on one of the doors, opening it before she got a response.
‘Smile!’ whispered my mother although she herself only managed to bare her teeth.
‘Good morning, Agnes.’ A large man stood up from the desk. He was the one that I had seen before with his daughter in the motorcar or the Caldwell church pew but now he was closer, I saw he was a little older than my mother, although his hair was still fair rather than grey and he had the strong shoulders of those who take to walking in the country. He wore a faded tweed suit and I fancied that he had not dressed up for our visit the way my mother had, and I liked him the better for it.
‘Good morning, Sir Howard,’ my mother said, elbowing me in the ribs. When I did not say anything, she added: ‘And may I present my daughter, Nell.’
Sir Howard left the desk and came over to us. ‘So glad you could make it,’ he said and I saw that his words seemed to send a shiver of warmth through my mother as if she believed he actually meant them. Sir Howard looked me up and down, his eyes lingering a little on the bonnet, but he did not mention it and just gave a little nod of approval. ‘Hello, young lady,’ he said, with a kind of bounce to his voice, and I felt my face warm because he must have thought me much younger than my fifteen years.
My mother and Sir Howard began to talk the way that adults do, about little things that do not matter – the flowers that were coming out in the garden and the level of the stream – but I lost track of their conversation and started to look round the room. It was a large room with a high ceiling and a long window with a view that stretched across the common, but these were things that I barely noticed because every space on every wall was hung with a grand oil painting. There was one in a golden frame over the fireplace – a girl with long flowing hair leading a white horse, the scene painted in a sort of romantic style, the kind of thing that would usually belong in a gallery or museum. Then another painting on the far wall – the same girl peering into the stream, the reflections of the yellow irises mottling the water. The other paintings were smaller, but there were many, mostly portraits with the girl holding flowers, hand mirrors or doves in her silk-covered lap. Each and every painting was of one subject alone, the girl I had glimpsed so often but never met: Iris Caldwell.
On the desk there were a couple of photographs in silver frames – a portrait of Iris in a short dress kneeling next to a bucket and spade, a roughly painted scene of a pier and beach huts behind her, and another portrait of no more than her head and shoulders, her hair loose and a bouquet of irises clutched beneath her chin, her eyes cast down as if she were admiring them. This romantic pose with the bouquet reminded me of a picture I had seen before, although I could not think where.
‘Do you like them?’ I jumped for it was not the voice of my mother or Sir Howard, and I felt as if the pictures themselves had spoken.
I turned and I saw Iris herself sitting on a chaise longue in the corner of the room. My face warmed because I knew she must have seen me marvelling at the paintings. She stood up and I saw that she was smaller than I had thought, her limbs thin and willowy. She wore a dark blue dress of quite a childish fashion, the hem swishing around her shins as she moved, and I thought it the type of thing that my mother would have thrown out a few years back when she realised that I was becoming a woman and my ankles should be covered.
‘Do you like them?’ Iris repeated as she came to stand next to me. ‘I saw you looking.’ She spoke in the same way as her father – every sound drawn out and every letter sounded, but there was a little twist in her words as if she was joking with me.
‘Yes,’ I said, for I did not know what else to say.
She smiled and I noticed that she had to raise her head to meet my eyes and I suddenly felt big and clumsy next to her.
‘My mother wouldn’t even let me have my portrait sketched at the village fete,’ I said, suddenly conscious of a laziness in the way I spoke.
She laughed, and I realised that there was something about her face that made me want to look at it, as if there was something familiar about it that I could not place, but I put it down to the times that I had seen her across the church pews and the portraits that I had gazed at just moments before.
‘I am Iris,’ she said, ‘and you must be Nell.’ She offered me her hand but it seemed to wilt from her sleeve, the way a lady offers her hand to a gentleman, and I was not sure whether to shake it or kiss it.
‘Why don’t you girls go to the library?’ said Sir Howard, breaking away from my mother’s chatter. He smiled at me warmly, little creases forming in the skin around his eyes as if his whole face was smiling. ‘You can get acquainted while Agnes and I discuss Iris’s lessons.’