I am about to go and find Mrs Yarrow, whom I assume to be the cook, when something catches my eye that I didn’t notice before.
It is a painting, hanging in the shadow of the dark green curtain and no bigger than a place mat on a dining table. The frame, too, is large, so that the print inside is really quite small and delicate, and I have to lean in to see what it portrays.
It’s a little farm scene, a barn surrounded by hay bales and a grey band of sea just visible in the distance. A cow chews on a tuft of grass. Milking pails lie abandoned. A cluster of dark firs borders a simple cottage, its chimney smoking and a full moon hovering over its roof. The landscape is curiously recognisable as that around Winterbourne: we are here, in this place, at some distant, irretrievable point in the past. The moors are unmistakable, their wild desolation, the colour of the earth.
Perhaps it’s instinctive to look for a human face in these things, because I do, but even though I am looking it still comes as a surprise to me when I see her. She is merely a detail, an impression, not really a person; it’s more the feeling of her, looking out at the window, looking right back at me. Her head must be the size of a farthing, if that, with a wisp of dark hair and two green eyes. The artist has made a point of her eyes, the brightest colour in the picture. I think of the girl peering out at me, just as, a moment before, I was peering out at the sea from my own window. I think of us peering at each other, and for an instant the effect is unsettling, because it really appears that she is seeing me, and I her. Not really a person. Not really.
‘Miss Miller?’ There is a knock at the door.
I tie the curtain back, obscuring the print, and go to answer it.
*
I don’t realise I am hungry until Mrs Yarrow puts soup and a sandwich in front of me, a doorstop of cheese and ham. I remember sharing my butter ration with Mrs Wilson at Quakers Oatley after her husband died, and what another world London seems.
Mrs Yarrow fusses about me like a mother, fetching milk, then a pudding of lemon meringue pie with gingerbread biscuits. I haven’t eaten so much in months.
‘Well, I’ve had practice,’ she says, when I compliment her on her cooking. ‘I’ve worked here for the captain for twenty years, and practice makes perfect, as they say.’ She has a West Country burr, is plump and pink-cheeked, and her frizzy brown hair escapes in soft tendrils from her cap. She sits opposite me, her hands in her lap.
‘Are we pleased to have you joining us, miss,’ she says, with such visible relief that it seems almost inappropriate.
‘I’m pleased to be here.’
‘I don’t know how much longer the captain could have coped. Things have been…testing.’
‘Since my predecessor left?’
Mrs Yarrow nods. ‘I’ve been in charge of the children. As you can imagine, I have my hands full enough with the daily running of things. It was really too much. But none of us wants to let the captain down.’
‘Of course not.’
‘It will be good for the children to have proper care.’ Mrs Yarrow shifts in her seat; she has the manner of somebody loose-tongued trying not to tell a secret. ‘All this up and down, here and gone, no consistency, miss, that’s the problem.’
‘It must have been confusing for them.’ I sip my tea.
‘Yes. Confusing. That’s it.’
‘And to have lost their poor mother, as well.’
‘Oh, yes, miss. That were quite a thing.’
I want to ask again after Mrs de Grey; I want her to tell me. But Mrs Yarrow has reddened and her eyes have fallen to her lap. She looks afraid.
‘I must say I feel fond of the twins already,’ I say instead. ‘To be so young and to go through so much.’
‘Ah, but the young are strong,’ says Mrs Yarrow. ‘Stronger than I, in any case. You’ll see what I mean when you meet them.’
She sees me gazing up at the kitchen shelves, at the soup tureens and jelly moulds coated in dust, at the giant mixing bowls and tarnished ladles, at the china plates and casseroles and long-unused tea sets with their chipped edges and mismatched saucers. The space is cavernous, great wooden worktops and a central island around which we sit, but it’s draughty now in the early evening and its size only summons the buzz and activity that’s missing. Once, this would have been the hub of the house. Today, it’s a graveyard: a ghost of times gone by. I wonder if Mrs de Grey cooked here, her hands dusted with flour and her babies crawling round her skirts. Or perhaps she cut a remote figure, closeted away with her thoughts, wringing her fingers, which I picture as studded with jewels. I know how treacherous thoughts can be. That if you are left alone with them for too long, they can turn against you.
‘It was strange how the war brought Winterbourne back to us,’ says Mrs Yarrow, brightening. ‘When we had the children here – the evacuees – it was like old times. Voices everywhere, running feet, excitement. You wouldn’t have recognised this place.’ She gestures about her. ‘We had littluns piled all round this table, sticking their fingers into cake mix, playing hide and seek in the tower, getting up to mischief with the bell box. Bells were ringing all through the house, miss, and we soon found out why! That was just after the twins came along. Madam used to complain that she couldn’t get any sleep because of the noise. She’d go upstairs to lie down in the day, while I took the babes, and she couldn’t rest for all the shrieking. But, now they’ve gone, it does seem quiet, doesn’t it?’ Mrs Yarrow shakes her head, as if at a fond memory. ‘I still think I hear them sometimes, isn’t that a funny thing? It’s a trick of Winterbourne, lots of creaks and knocks where the wind gets in. And the twins, of course, they can cause a racket – they can make enough noise for twenty children. You’ll have your hands full with them, miss.’
‘By all accounts they’re well behaved.’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ agrees Mrs Yarrow, wholeheartedly, as if in swift correction of having spoken out of turn. She slips a finger beneath the elastic of her cap and scratches her head.‘I mean only that they’re tiring for a woman my age. Do you have children, miss?’ The question is so abrupt and unexpected that I glance away.
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry. I didn’t suppose you would, in accepting this station.’
‘You’re right. One day, perhaps.’ I force a smile. It takes an enormous effort of will, but I must manage it because she returns it easily, our awkwardness forgotten.
‘Well,’ I say, changing the subject, ‘I expect you’ll be a veritable mine of information and knowledge for me over the coming days.’
Mrs Yarrow nods. ‘Of course, I’d be delighted. Although,’ she lowers her voice, ‘between you and me, I confess I’m thinking about moving on.’
‘You are?’
‘It’s early days. But I’m getting too long in the tooth for this, miss. Since the last girl left…’ She swallows, an audible, dry contraction. Is it my imagination, or has the cook turned pale, her skin appearing waxen in the fading light, her brow heavy and her eyes deep with some unfathomable terror? ‘It hasn’t been easy. Looking after the children hasn’t been easy. It’s better if I have a fresh start, somewhere new. The captain won’t like it, but he’ll have you. You’ll be the woman of this house next, miss. And you’ll like it. Winterbourne is a special place, a very special place.’
At