It had not been a popular appointment amongst the rest of the staff, that I did know. Even Mrs Scrivens had asked my mother in no uncertain terms to reconsider. Annie had quirks of character that others found perturbing – peculiar distraction, incessant whispering, suspicious furtiveness. My mother, determined to honour her obligation, was unmoved by the housekeeper’s appeal. As the war progressed and the household staff steadily depleted, Mrs Scrivens had little choice but to promote Annie to upstairs work, to which she applied herself with quiet diligence. Over time, the housekeeper’s opinion improved, and Annie learnt to subdue some of her more unusual behaviours. Yet I still found there was something strangely unnerving about the young maid, an otherworldliness to her that I could never quite put my finger on.
Behind me someone attempted to stifle a coughing fit. The vicar finally drew his dreary sermon to a close, casting a stern look over his flock. Upstairs the ancient organ wheezed into life, and we rose as a single body, apparently rallied by words of faith. I opened the leather-bound hymn book, my gloved fingers fumbling through the flimsy pages until I had found the one required: ‘God Is Working His Purpose Out’. I snorted.
Around me, voices blended – my own did not join them. I sensed rather than saw my mother’s disapproving frown. I sneaked a glance down the aisle. Annie Burrows was staring into the open pages of her hymnal. She too was silent.
We remained standing to accept the vicar’s parting blessing, before shuffling from our pews, filtering out into the aisle, queueing for the arched doorway to the rear. There was a murmur of polite conversation as neighbour greeted neighbour, but I chose to fix my eyes on the uneven flags beneath my feet.
When at last we reached the vicar, I hung back while Mother stepped forward to proffer her thanks and my father made some intelligent observations on the sermon. I skirted round them and ducked out into the porch, pressing through the mingling crowd, until I managed to free myself from the throng. I sidled down the path, averting my eyes from the freshly domed grave of Private Tom Whittaker, who had clung onto life long enough to make it home. A wreath of white roses had been laid upon the heaped earth and the tips of their petals were now beginning to brown and curl. I fought to quash a sense of envy that at least his family would be able to set fresh flowers down whenever they wished. A strip of ocean kept me from Gerald’s graveside. It grieved me to think of his resting place languishing unadorned.
I hurried on, eager to leave the post-service conviviality behind me. Chippings crunched beneath my feet as I moved through the silent congregation of lichen-covered headstones, their platitudes faded, their inhabitants forgotten. I was not the only one to have disengaged from the churchgoers: Annie was crouched before a modest headstone lying in the shadow of the cemetery wall. I knew whose it was, for I had stood beside it myself a decade ago, paying my respects to her father.
Jim Burrows had died saving my little sister Lydia from the devastating fire that had engulfed Haverton Hall all those years ago. It had been deemed miraculous that he had succeeded in finding her when all other attempts had failed, lowering her to safety from an upstairs window before succumbing to the flames. In the end though, his sacrifice proved to be in vain: her smoke-charred lungs were so badly damaged she died a few weeks later, but we were always grateful for the precious extra time that his bravery had granted us. However devastating those days had been, as we watched her suffer each painful breath, they had afforded us the opportunity to hold her, kiss her, cherish her – to say our final goodbyes. Annie’s father had been there one minute and gone the next, with barely a body left to bury. How much more difficult it must have been for Annie and her mother to come to terms with such abrupt loss. I often wondered about their regrets, the things they might have said, if they had had but a chance. Instead, all they had was a gravestone. I looked away as I passed by, affording Annie her privacy. It seemed we both sought comfort from the dead.
I broke off from the path and headed to the far side of the church. Our Marcham family mausoleum was Grecian in design, a mini-pantheon. Truth be told, it was far too grand for the size of the graveyard, towering disproportionately over the humble headstones that surrounded it. Its stone walls were weathered, blackened by rain and frost, and the paint was beginning to flake from the wrought iron gates that barred the door. I had seen those gates opened twice in my life: once when I was eight to witness my grandfather being laid to rest, and two years later, when poor Lydia had been entombed.
It had been built for my grandmother. I had never known her, but a magnificent portrait hung pride of place on the staircase and as a child I had been quite captivated by her magical radiance. Thinking of her now, it struck me how tragedy had stalked my family. She too had died well before her time, when my father was still a boy. My grandfather would never speak of her accident, but I remember the yearning sadness that dulled his eyes on those rare occasions her name was mentioned and how his grip would slacken on his ever-present Dublin pipe as she entered his thoughts. I never quizzed him, but I did summon the courage to ask my father about her, late one evening when he had come up to the nursery to bid me goodnight.
A keen horsewoman, she had been thrilled when my grandfather had presented her with a new hunter, but tragedy had struck on their very first outing. Skittish in unfamiliar countryside, the horse bolted and in a moment of madness, before my grandmother could regain its head, it took on an impossible fence. They tumbled to the ground together in a horrifying mêlée of flailing limbs and terrifying screams as my grandfather looked helplessly on. He carried her back to the hall as grooms tried to catch the traumatised horse, still stumbling about the field. In her last agony-laden hours, my grandmother made him promise not to punish the animal, a promise that was forgotten as the final breath slipped from her parted lips.
My father vividly recalled the harrowing cry that had sounded through the house, a feral keen of mourning. He remembered too the rage and the fury; my grandfather rampaging through the Hall, retrieving his shotgun from the gun room and his ominous journey to the stable block. My father had raced after him, fearful of the impending catastrophe, as the grooms cowered from my grandfather’s path. Only Jim Burrows, then little more than a boy himself, had stood his ground, blockading the horse’s stall.
No one knows what passed between them that day, but when at last my grandfather emerged, the gun broken over his arm, the cartridges in his hand, he was ashen. The hunter wasn’t destroyed, but he was swiftly sold. From that moment on, my grandfather demonstrated an almost deferential respect for the young groom, and they could often be found in quiet conversation, despite their disparity in both age and position.
I always thought it strangely fitting it was Jim Burrows that plunged into the flames that night to save Lydia, though tragedy would result for both our families. It was as if the fates of the Marchams and the Burrows were inextricably entwined. And now some would say I owed Annie Burrows my life, but I chose not to dwell on that.
A large yew tree grew to the front of the mausoleum, below which stood a simple bench. The seat planks were split with age and still greasy from the overnight shower, but I drew my coat around me and sat down anyway, impervious to the damp. Perhaps it was macabre of me, but I always found great solace here, sitting in quiet contemplation of those who had passed: my grandmother, my grandfather, Lydia, and now Gerald.
My fingers were drawn once more to my locket. I fumbled with the intricate clasp, until it fell open into its two hinged ovals. I had no interest in the image captured in the right-hand side, a representation of myself I no longer recognised – youthful, optimistic … happy. Instead, I focused my attention on the pale photograph contained in the left. It was a studio portrait, at first glance stiff and formal, but if you looked closely, as I always did, you could see in the eyes a glint of humour, bright enough to shine through the shadow cast by the peaked officer’s cap, and the neat moustache failed to conceal an upward curl of the mouth that hinted at suppressed laughter. I felt the familiar ache in my chest and snapped the locket shut, wiping at the warm trickle in my nose.
‘I saw her come this way. She has taken to sitting under the yew tree when she’s here.’
‘And how has she been?’
I jumped to my feet. The pompous tones of Dr Mayhew had every inch of my body preparing for flight.