The Resurrectionists Page 8

  Which is what they had intended, after all.

  It had always fascinated Maisie how quickly the telephone could become a locus of anxiety. She had quite comfortably replaced the receiver after talking with Cathy – she had called to make sure Maisie had got home safely – but now she sat staring at it as though it might bite her, wondering if she dared call Sacha.

  Was it a misplaced and perhaps transitory sense of contentment which was leading her to contact him? To be honest, her new-found optimism about being in Solgreve surprised her. Of course, her conversations with Adrian had lifted her spirits; he was so excited about being on tour and working with her father again. Then there was the fact that she had spent a weekend away in good company, and her successful exchange with Reverend Fowler and the other locals at the pub. She now had a conviction that she would be able to survive at least until after New Year’s. And in that positive spirit she had gone to the phone book to look up Sacha’s number – only one Lupus in Whitby – and returned to the telephone to call and invite him over for dinner.

  That’s when it had all fallen apart, really. Because that tiny, doubting voice in her head suddenly weighed in on the issue, saying, “Perhaps he didn’t give you the number because he didn’t really want you to call.”

  It made sense. He’d had ample opportunity to scribble his number down somewhere for her, but he hadn’t done so. Instead, he had told her to look it up. Had he been making it difficult for her on purpose?

  But this was absurd. He had met her once: he couldn’t possibly have formed any kind of prejudice against her, or not enough that he wouldn’t want her to call. Unless he suspected how attractive she found him. Damn, had she been too attentive? Had she mentioned her boyfriend? She should have mentioned Adrian, then he couldn’t have got the wrong idea.

  Maisie sighed and sank back in the armchair next to the phone, gazing at the page of the phone book where she had circled Sacha’s number. The wrong idea? Wasn’t calling him and inviting him to dinner the wrong idea too?

  This had happened once before, two years ago, while tutoring a university student in music theory; he too had been dark, exotic. The warm skin on his arm had always seemed to seek out hers as they sat together side by side at his piano, talking about bigger issues than triad inversions and parallel fifths, indulging in glances and intimations which she convinced herself weren’t dangerous. But in truth she had been well beyond friendly, meeting him for coffee too often, devising too many convenient ways to be alone with him. One day Adrian had simply said to her, “What are you doing with that guy?”

  “He’s just a friend,” she had replied, defensive as only a guilty person can be.

  “If he’s your friend, how come you’ve never introduced him to me?”

  Her intimate friendship, or whatever it had been, ended there. The student had been referred to a colleague and she had snapped herself out of it. It was always smarter to avoid such complex matters of desire. She wouldn’t ring Sacha.

  Five minutes later she dialled his number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, is that Sacha?” Damn her girly voice, damn her stupid unexotic accent.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Maisie here.” Then, to save embarrassment: “Maisie Fielding, Sybill’s granddaughter.”

  “I guessed that part. I only know one Maisie.”

  She laughed. Probably too nervously. “I only know one Sacha,” she replied, suspecting immediately that she sounded like an idiot. “How have you been?”

  “Good. How’s Tabby? Is she settling in okay?”

  “Tabby’s fine.”

  A short silence. Maisie waited for him to ask how she was, but he didn’t.

  “Ah…I was wondering if you’re doing anything on Friday night?” She realised her heart was pounding.

  “Why?”

  “Maybe you’d like to come over for dinner.”

  “Friday night’s not a good night.”

  “Oh.” Should she suggest another night, or wait for him to suggest it? Again, there was too much silence. She had to fill it. “Saturday then?”

  “No, Saturday’s not good either.”

  He had a girlfriend, that was it. Friday and Saturday nights were taken up with his glamorous, long-legged girlfriend.

  “How have you been, anyway?” he said before she had a chance to suggest dinner another time.

  “Okay. I’ve been in York with a friend the last couple of days. Before that I was a bit lonely and homesick but I think I’ve settled down now. And I’ve had a couple of run-ins with the locals like you said but –”

  “Thursday would be all right.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Thursday. For dinner.”

  “Of course. Yeah, sure. Come over Thursday night. Say about six? Six-thirty?”

  “Okay. I’ll bring some wine.”

  “Great. Great, I’ll see you then.”

  “Bye.”

  She put the phone down. She felt vaguely embarrassed, dissatisfied with the tone of the conversation. It had been so clunky. He had been so offhand. Was he socially inept or just rude? She should have worked Adrian’s name into the conversation. She didn’t want Sacha to think that she fancied him. Especially as she did fancy him.

  She needed a diversion, something to get her mind off Sacha. The back room was crammed with piles of boxes she hadn’t even looked at yet. That would be good for a few hours of mindless sorting. She switched on the radio and turned the volume up loud. If there were strange noises outside tonight, she just didn’t want to hear them. Whether it was ghosts, or mad locals, or just ordinary Yorkshire seaside noises, what she didn’t hear couldn’t scare her. With purpose, she went to the back room.

  By the looks of it, her grandmother had saved every piece of correspondence she had ever received, and that included junk mail. Maisie tried to be ruthless, putting aside only personal letters – most of them from Sacha’s mother, Mila, and none at all from her own mother – and throwing out the rest. She tried not to get sidetracked reading things, but it was hard. Sacha, she found out through the letters, was twenty-nine and had once attended a posh school called Aloysius College in London. Which made the fact that he now swept floors in a bakery even more tragic. Maisie told herself to get a grip on reality. What Sacha Lupus did or did not do, and how little he had achieved was nothing to do with her. She had a perfectly wonderful boyfriend back home who, it must be added, was the same age as Sacha and was already going to be an opera star.

  Maisie whittled down the clutter while Tabby sniffed around and was generally in the way. Bits of drawings, paperbacks too yellow and bent to give to a second-hand shop, empty envelopes, loose change, mouse droppings, a live spider (ugh!), pressed flowers between tissue paper, old handkerchiefs and cheap jewellery – all of it went into a stack in the hallway (except the spider which Tabby did not allow to live). Maisie’s nose was itching from the dust, but the satisfaction of finally seeing the floor of the room – an Indian rug spread over bare polished boards – made up for any discomfort.

  So she turned to the violently lurching cupboard and threw the doors open, started pulling everything out. The more she took out of it, the more it leaned to one side, as though the junk had been ballast. Finally, the whole thing tipped over. Tabby skittered away. Maisie crouched next to the cupboard, examining the legs. Perhaps she could knock them both off, or maybe she should just throw it out. It didn’t look like an expensive antique, unless there was something expensive and antique about chipboard.

  As she stood up, she felt something move under her foot, nearly overbalancing her. She looked down, and noticed that one of the floorboards was loose. The one, in fact, that had somehow supported the crooked cupboard for all these years. She took a step back and crouched down again, feeling along the board to see if it was safe. It wasn’t. With a bit of weight on one end, the other end popped up. She picked up the free end and found that the whole board was not secured at all. Just as she was dropping it back int
o place, the light caught something glinting dully underneath between the floor and the stone. She put the board aside and peered into the dark. An iron box, almost black around the corners.

  “My god, buried treasure,” she muttered, and she would have been lying if she had said she wasn’t expecting to find jewels, banknotes, Spanish doubloons. She pulled the box out and flipped up the clasp. Opened it with shaking, eager hands.

  No treasure. A tiny book. Or at least a section of a book. It had a hard front cover but looked like it had been torn apart. She flicked through it and saw that it was handwritten, but realised immediately it could not be her grandmother’s: the first page was headed with a date in 1793.

  “A diary,” she breathed. An old, old diary, locked away in a rusty iron box under the floorboards. She couldn’t wait to tell Adrian. More importantly, she couldn’t wait to read it. She put the board back in place and shifted the fallen cupboard over it, so that she or Tabby wouldn’t accidentally fall through the floor, took the diary to the lounge room and turned the radio down. Outside, gusty rain was driving against the windows. She laid the book carefully aside while she made tea and stoked the fire, then settled in a lounge chair and prepared to decipher the centuries-old scrawl.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Saturday, 7 September 1793

  And so, little book, prepare to become the custodian of all my News. For although I have a perfectly good diary, handsome and leather-bound, which Mme. Bombelles gave me some two years ago, You come from a far more precious, and certainly much more handsome source, than hideous Mme. Bombelles with her chin hair and rolling neck. Who, then, is this precious benefactor, little book? Why, none other than the most beautiful Man who ever did walk this earth in a human form: Mr. Marley, Mr. Virgil Marley, of Fenchurch-street. Not a salubrious Address, you understand, but one of which I am sure I could grow increasingly fond, given its dear inhabitant. He is tall and chestnut-haired, with warm brown eyes and skin like alabaster; but that does not describe the gentleness of his countenance, the slow, warm beat of his laughter, nor the swift intensity of his Mind. He has a little of what Papa would call “la maladie anglaise” or the English condition: that is, he is given to fits of melancholy, but mostly he is charming fun. His favourite jest is to make fun of my English, as though it were very ill, when he knows that it was my first language on account of my Mother being born right here on St James’s Square (and not in Lyon where we live with Papa in general contemplation of the Necessity to “keep an irreproachable conduct”). Why, I hardly have an accent, at least in my ears, which I confess may be biased. Papa would think me monstrous for declaring it, but for Virgil I will gladly never speak French again. No French man can say my name the way Virgil says it – “Georgette” – in such a tone to make me ache, or sometimes only “Gette” which I infinitely prefer to the “George” to which some people shorten it. I dearly hope that I shall see him tomorrow, for there can be less than a fortnight before I must return to Lyon. Aunt Hattie’s friend Mrs. Ariel on Portman Square is hosting a ball: four hundred are expected, and an orchestra is to play. I hope to see him there.

  Sunday, 8 September 1793. Late

  How I am supposed to sleep after such excitement, I do not know. I did indeed attend Mrs. Ariel’s ball and Aunt Hattie accompanied me. She then left me in the company of one Miss Noble, a misnomer if ever there was one, for she is a Sickly and Dull creature who makes conversation only around the topic of her Father’s banking business: how many wealthy clients he has, how much money he makes, &c. I endured her company for an hour, always with my eyes returning to the door in the hopes that Mr. Marley would come. He did not disappoint. In fact, he arrived with two friends: Mr. Edward Snowe, a merry-eyed young man with dark hair, and Miss Charlotte Andrews, a rather round girl with red curls. Edward is a fellow Poet (did I not mention that my Virgil is an excellent Poet? Shame on me for such an oversight!) and Charlotte is his Intended. I made my excuses to Miss Noble and joined them. She seemed hardly to notice I had gone. I suspect any person with ears enough for her vapid chatter would have suited as a companion.

  After introductions had been completed, we withdrew to a card room where a number of older people were playing cribbage. We four found a sofa against the wall behind a bookcase and settled there for most of the evening. We laughed and joked, and we danced from time to time as well, though Virgil insists he is not a good dancer (he is, of course). I don’t know that I like Miss Andrews particularly. She is only recently returned from a year in Italy, and some of the manners of that Country are apparent in her. Mr. Snowe is very nice – Virgil told me his father is merely an apothecary – and he has promised to show me some of his poetry on our next acquaintance. I do hope it will not be long before we are all reunited, because I cannot remember such good company at any time in my life before.

  Monday, 9 September 1793

  This morning Virgil called shortly after breakfast. I sat in the drawing room with Aunt Hattie and her dear friend Mrs. Ariel, and you, little Diary, were close at hand. It was Mrs. Ariel, in fact, who introduced Virgil to us, because his father is a Barrister and a very close friend of hers. Virgil was a terrible tease and read what I had written so far (not aloud, thank goodness!), and said it was all rather dry and colourless. I was a little hurt, but did not want to show it, because if he knew he had embarrassed me it would upset him so. Later, when Hattie and Mrs. Ariel were deep in gossip and not paying attention to us, he leaned very close to me and said, “Gette, you must put colour and fire in your writing, you must say how you feel, what you see, hear and smell. You must pour out your heart. That is why God gave us words.” So, Diary, I have made two vows. The first is to do as Virgil says, and put “colour and fire” in my writing. No more silly nonsense about Miss This and Mme. That and everybody’s shortcomings. I was ever too full of petty criticism. My second vow is that I will hide you far more carefully, because if I am to pour out my heart, then I shall have to regulate very assiduously who may read the fruits of such labour.

  Wednesday, 11 September 1793

  Mama arrived today, and while I was glad to see her, it means there is only a week before we must return to France. Mama seems so serious compared to Aunt Hattie, I can scarcely believe they are sisters. Mrs. Ariel came by and we all sat in the drawing room to read or to talk. Mama asked me to play piano a little, which I did, and unfortunately it sparked an argument.

  I play but three or four pieces very well, for I haven’t the patience to learn new ones. I was in the middle of my second piece – a Mozart sonata – when I overheard Mrs. Ariel address Aunt Hattie thus:

  “Hattie, we really must ask Georgette to play for Mr. Marley next time he is by. I think he already has quite an eye for her.”

  And then Mama’s voice, crisp and firm, “Who is Mr. Marley?”

  I willed my fingers to keep playing without the assistance of my mind as I was concentrating all on listening to them.

  “Mr. Virgil Marley, Annie,” Aunt Hattie said quickly. “He’s the son of a dear friend and has been calling for the last few weeks. He and Georgette have struck up a friendship.”

  “He had best not have designs beyond friendship,” Mama said sternly, and returned to her reading. I felt myself grow hot in the face and neck, but played on. I remain certain that Mama would like Virgil if she met him – he is so very gentle and charming. But it is too sad! She has reminded me that soon I must return home, and that Papa has long favoured the son of one of his cousins as a possible husband for me. I will be eighteen in five months, and marriage is a Fate which I cannot reasonably avoid much longer.

  I wish that Mama had not come, though I know I am terrible for thinking such a thing. Aunt Hattie is a Dear, and has always been quite happy for me to see Virgil. In fact, I do believe that she and Mrs. Ariel were enjoying watching the two of us become close, though it must not have escaped their notice that there is a great difference in Fortune between us. Still, what do I care for money? The only thing that I can imagine chee
ring me at the moment is a visit from Virgil, but I dread him not liking Mama, or Mama not liking him. I am in such a state over this that I can barely think.

  Thursday, 12 September 1793

  The very worst and the very best have happened on the self-same day. I feel afraid that I am so excited by it all I may not be able to constrain myself to write a narrative of the day’s events! Though now I have just heard the church clock-tower ring out three times, and it appears that it is not Thursday at all but Friday morning. For company I have only this candle and the scratching of my pen against the paper. So much has happened since I last wrote, I almost feel like a different girl.

  First, Virgil came by quite early to ask if I could go walking in St. James’s Park. He was shown in as always, and bowed deeply to Hattie and Mama (though he did not, as yet, know who She was). He then turned his attention directly to me, and in that intimate way he has adopted, addressed me as “Gette, my pretty French poppet.”

  Fatal Mistake. Mama’s eyes practically turned silver. They are usually very dark grey, you see, but when she is angry the pupils almost disappear, and her eyes seem to glitter.

  “Sir,” she said sternly, “I would prefer you to address my daughter as Mademoiselle Chantelouve.”

  He turned immediately to her, his eyes grew wide with – I know not whether it was fear or surprise. And instantly he bowed before her again and said, “Madame Chantelouve, forgive me. I did not know that we had the pleasure of your company this morning.”

  But the damage was done. The sad-eyed smile and the gentle flirtations which weaken the silly knees of Aunt Hattie and Mrs. Ariel were more than useless on my mother, who took them as affectations, and saw in them evidence that Virgil was little more than a vain dandy. By the time he plucked up the courage to ask for the pleasure of my company on a walk, Mama had set her mind firmly against him. She declined on my behalf, as I stood speechless and blushing beside the fireplace.