The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds [32]
‘Do take a seat,’ he said, ‘and I’ll arrange some tea.’ Having pulled the servants’ bell, he sat down on the sofa opposite the seat on which she’d perched. He stretched his long legs in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and pushed his fingers through his hair, passing tantalisingly beside but not finding the bit of vegetation she’d seen at the door.
‘So, you’re Dr Allen’s daughter,’ he repeated.
‘Yes, I am.’
The door opened. A servant entered, a woman. An old woman, white-haired, raw-handed, ruddy streaks in her face from the cold day and the kitchen fire, she looked at them quickly and curtsied.
‘Ah, Mrs Yates.’
Mrs Yates nodded her head slowly, looking across at her master and his young female guest. Hannah, shamed, stared down at her knees, plucked her skirt straight with brisk, matter-of-fact fingers, attempting an unconcerned composure. She hadn’t thought of them being seen by anyone.
‘Yes, as you see, we are entertaining this afternoon. So tea, please, and et cetera. Plenty of et cetera, if you’d be so good. Skating has sharpened the appetite.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Mrs Yates backed out of the room. Tennyson smiled at Hannah. He looked as if he were about to say something. Hannah sat with her head very erect, her neck stretched as long, as much like Annabella’s as possible, and waited. But Tennyson didn’t say anything. Instead, his gaze wandered to the fire. Fortunately Hannah had prepared some questions.
‘How are you finding the area, Mr Tennyson?’
‘Oh, very well.’ He looked back at her. ‘Pleasant enough.’
She blushed.‘Have you visited Copt Hall?’ she asked.
‘No, I can’t say that I have.’
‘I understand it is where A Midsummer Night’s Dream was first performed, for a wedding. It is a beautiful house in the forest. You can walk quite easily . . .’
He woke up at that, leaned forward with widened eyes. She felt that stare inside her; it buzzed against her spine. ‘So they were all here, were they? Hermia and Lysander and the others were all lost in these woods. Puck appearing on a branch. Oh, I am pleased you told me that.’
Her stomach empty, her body light and thin, Margaret stood in the forest and looked up at bare, spreading branches and thought of Christ’s body hanging there, hanging from its five wounds. The thorns, like those thorns over there, wound round Him in a tight crown must have infested His head with pain.And the wounds of the nails, driven into His poor, innocent body by the hammering of Sin. They held Him up. He hung from them.This thought enlarged suddenly - they were how He hung in the world: it was His wounds, His pain, that connected Him to the world. She felt this in herself, that at her points of contact with the world she was in pain, that her soul was pinned to the wall of her flesh, suffering, suffocating for release. She knotted her fingers tightly together, swaying in the strength of this thought. She breathed hissingly through her teeth, grateful for this illumination, and wanting more.
Abigail sat on the rug by the fire playing with her dolls and half-listening to her parents’ talk. The heat from the fire reddened her left cheek, made the skin feel tight, her clothes dry and crisp. If she didn’t move, it made a white light shine in a corner of her head. She knew that sitting there made the rest of the room seem dark and cold like cold water, and she liked that. Her dolls’ bead eyes gleamed in the firelight as she bowed them towards each other and made them talk. ‘No, don’t say that, Angelica . . .’
‘One consequence of course might very well be the renewal of my lecturing,’ Matthew said.
‘Might be,’ Eliza stroked the top of her husband’s head as she passed, then sat down beside him, ‘if it all succeeds in the way you imagine.’
‘If!’ he repeated. ‘If!’ Eliza could be cold towards his enthusiasms until he was proved correct.
‘Well,’ she said slowly, teasing, ‘one never can tell.’
‘Oh, yes, one can. Primo, there are several