Beatrice Read online

  On the first floor were the bedrooms – five of them. Sarah had to make the beds, but she didn’t mind because it gave her a chance to make tiny forays into this magical world of privilege. She especially loved Lady Voyle’s room, with all the perfume bottles and trinkets on her dressing table, and its rich odour of sensual fabrics and clean linen.

  On the second floor – the attic – were the staff bedrooms, one for Sarah and one for Rachel, the housekeeper. Lady Voyle had been almost apologetic when she had shown Sarah to her bedroom, but to Sarah it seemed immense. She loved the view best of all: a tiny window looked out onto the roof, over which she could behold the sparkling, glittering night-time panorama of London. It made her catch her breath. At night, before she went to bed, she would repeat to herself again and again, ‘I did it, I did it, I did it,’ pinching her arm to make sure it wasn’t a dream and that she really had escaped Southampton.

  Sarah hated her home because her mother resented her. Betty Quigley always blamed Sarah for ruining her figure, and for making more domestic work. After Sarah was born Betty never let her husband touch her again. Sarah’s father was a meek man at home and chose to stay away as much as possible, spending every daylight hour working down at the docks and, as a result, he was made foreman. Sarah was left on her own to face her mother’s biting temper. She couldn’t wait to get away from her.

  At the Voyles’ house everyone was nice to Sarah. Rachel was very kind and patient, and explained things carefully to her. She praised her often, and Sarah began to feel more and more comfortable.

  Lady Voyle considered herself a bohemian, ‘One of the people’ she liked to say. She painted, often going on trips to Italy and France, and when she returned she would set up small private viewings of her watercolours in one of the living rooms. Lady Voyle was Sarah’s first contact with art. When she noticed Sarah spending more time looking at her paintings than cleaning, she gave her a sketchbook and a set of pencils; it didn’t even occur to her to tell her servant off.

  Sir Eric was a politician. At home he was quiet, polite, and happy to leave Lady Voyle in charge of domestic affairs. Sarah hardly ever saw him during the day because he was always out, and every evening, religiously, he would head off to his club.

  Rachel told her that the Voyles were a very old family with good breeding, which was why, she claimed, they treated their staff so well. Rachel had worked for a terrible nouveau riche family; never again, she said. But the Voyle household was a pleasant one, full of charm, good manners and peace, apart from the hourly chime of the grandfather clock, and the cherry trees scraping the kitchen window on windy afternoons.

  The Voyles had two children – twins and both boys – who had spent the past seven years away from home at boarding school. Both sons had just entered the hallowed grounds of Oxford University in the footsteps of every Voyle male before them.

  Sarah had met the twins briefly during her first weekend in Hampstead when the two boys had come down from Oxford to visit their parents. Anthony introduced himself stiffly and shook her hand rigorously before letting it go. He was taller than the other boy, and had short, dark hair, and a long, fine nose. The other one, Jonathan, was talking to his mother; he merely glanced over at her and continued laughing and chatting, his golden curls flopping all over his forehead, and his green eyes sparkling, while he thrust his hands into his jacket pockets.

  ‘Did you meet the boys?’ Rachel asked her later, as they were eating their own meal after the family had gone out.

  ‘Yes . . . they’re very different,’ said Sarah.

  ‘And not just in looks,’ said Rachel. ‘I’ve seen them both grow up, and they’ve turned into lovely young men, although it’s Jonathan who’s the real charmer. He’s always coming in here and distracting me while I’m trying to work – making me giggle and such like.’

  ‘What about Anthony?’

  ‘Oh, he’s a little more aloof – it’s Jonathan I know better.’

  At Christmas the twins were due back for the holidays. Sarah was cleaning the stairs with a hard brush. She turned as Jonathan burst through the front door, hallooing and full of Christmas cheer. She was hot and out of breath with rosy cheeks and rising chest, her eyes were bright and her hair was loose and falling in curls about her face. Tendrils stuck to her temples, and perspiration clung like dew to her forehead. Jonathan was taken aback.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Sarah Quigley. We met—’

  ‘Oh yes . . . of course— Where is my mother?’ His confusion made him suddenly rude.

  ‘In her room.’

  He brushed past her as he went up the stairs. A little too hard. What he really wanted to do was reach out and touch her with his hand. He bit his lip.

  Sarah had not gone home for Christmas because Lady Voyle needed her, she said, for all of the extra dinner parties she had arranged. Rachel did all the cooking, but Sarah had to do all the legwork – vegetable preparation, cleaning, washing-up. She did not mind. Christmas at home was dull. She could not bear another year of her father’s forced cheer, as her mother moaned about the size of the turkey and the price of everything. She pictured him as he valiantly put up the tiny plastic tree while his wife berated him about the inferior quality of the decorations. Here she was an outsider, she could watch others enjoy Christmas.

  On New Year’s Eve the Voyles went to a party and Rachel had gone home to spend the evening with her family, so Sarah was on her own in the house. She cleared the dinner plates, washed them, and prepared the potatoes for the following day, leaving them in a pot of cold water. Then she swept and mopped the floor, wiped the table and sat down to enjoy a glass of champagne. Lady Voyle had left an opened bottle for her – it was half full. Sarah looked at the clock – five minutes to twelve. She had never drunk champagne before. She closed her eyes and imagined a different life.

  Disturbed by a tap on the window, she looked up and saw Jonathan standing there, with a tipsy grin on his face. She opened the door.

  ‘I was thinking of you,’ he said. ‘On your own here on New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t leave you by yourself. Who would you kiss when the clock struck twelve?’

  What was she supposed to do? She had never had a boyfriend; she had never even kissed a man, apart from her father – and now this attention from a young, clever, rich, but most of all, handsome man who was interested in her. All of a sudden she felt incredibly dizzy, the champagne made her sway. As she lunged towards a chair, Jonathan moved quickly, sweeping her off her feet.

  He filled up her glass with one hand, while, with his other arm, he held her tight around her waist.

  ‘Let’s toast the new year in,’ he said. ‘Five, four, three, two, one. Happy New Year!’

  He leant forward and kissed her: hard, needy, immediately pushing his tongue into her mouth. The girls in Oxford did not go all the way. He wanted all the way.

  They were on the floor, her clean floor. Her skirt was still on. She had not said one word. She looked at his face; his eyes were closed. He was beautiful.

  Afterwards he carried her up to her room. He wanted to see her naked and took off her blouse, her skirt and all her underwear. She lay still, breathless, watching. He stood in front of her and took all of his clothes off. Then he bent over her, scooped her up, and pushed inside her.

  ‘You’re so sweet,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘You smell so sweet . . .’

  She said nothing, but gasped suddenly as she felt him in her, as she remembered what his naked body had looked like.

  Every night after that Jonathan went to Sarah’s room. It was their big secret. Every night Sarah went all the way.

  The third day after new year was a Wednesday and Sarah’s day off. Jonathan watched her from his bedroom window as she left the house, smothered in a dark green coat, gloves, hat and scarf, scuttling like a tiny beetle down the icy road. The sight of her touched him and without thinking he ran down the stairs, grabbed a coat and slipped along the icy pavement until he caught her up.r />
  ‘Jonathan! What are doing here?’

  ‘I’ve been watching you, Miss Sarah Quigley. Where are you off to on such a freezing cold day?’

  ‘I’m going up to the Heath for a walk.’

  ‘Oh, how boring! And how cold! Let’s do something far more interesting, my sweet Eliza Doolittle.’

  Sarah blushed. She didn’t know why he was calling her that, but he sounded so affectionate. She looked back nervously at the house, could anyone see them? Meanwhile, Jonathan had hailed a black cab. He held the door open for her; she got in feeling like a princess.

  The taxi flew into town. They got out at Victoria Station and walked down to the Thames. It was freezing; a cold wind bit into them, and the river churned dark and swollen beside them. There were very few people about, since it was still the holiday season. Jonathan walked behind Sarah and thrust his frozen hands into her coat pockets. She could feel his body pressed against her back. He was so tall, he could rest his chin on the crown of her head.

  ‘I am going to take you to see some art.’ He spoke loudly against the wind.

  He led her to the Tate Gallery. Once inside, the paintings became a blur; Sarah was dizzy with emotion.

  There was one room where Jonathan called the work pre-Raphaelite. She did not ask him what the word might mean – she just nodded and looked. Jonathan talked and talked about the artists. It was the most he had ever said to her – she was his audience. They stopped in front of a painting of a beautiful young woman, bathed in a celestial light. Her eyes were closed. She looked to Sarah as though she were praying, no, more than just prayer – pleading. A dove delivered a flower into her hands. Sarah read the label by the painting: ‘Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Beata Beatrix’.

  ‘Who is she?’ she asked.

  ‘Dante’s lover.’

  Jonathan said it as though she should know who he meant. She felt stupid, but she did not care – here she was in the Tate Gallery, looking at paintings with a stunning young man. He wanted to talk about art with her.

  They ate tea in the steamy restaurant in the Tate Gallery. Sarah had never been so happy.

  Then the Christmas break was over. Jonathan went back to university and everything went back to normal. But there was something Sarah had not thought about, and now she was worried. The possibility of pregnancy had never been mentioned in their nightly trysts. Sarah had thought that if she washed well afterwards nothing could happen. But now she started to feel sick – it could not be true. She would wait a few weeks until Easter, then Jonathan would be home and he would know what to do.

  The Easter break arrived and the twins came home. But with them came two girls – Harriet and Charlotte. Charlotte was Jonathan’s girlfriend; she was petite, blonde and bubbly.

  ‘What do you think of the gals?’ Lady Voyle asked while Rachel and Sarah were laying the table. ‘Nice gals, don’t you think? Well raised, intelligent. They are both studying English literature at St Hilda’s. I really admire gals who decide to educate themselves before they even think about marriage.’

  Sarah was dumb with shock. She did her work like a robot.

  ‘Are you all right, Sarah?’ asked Lady Voyle, noticing her servant’s stricken face. ‘You look very tired.’

  During the day Jonathan ignored Sarah. He went out with Charlotte, taking her into town to shop in Kensington, or to a lunchtime concert or an art gallery. Every day when they left the house, Jonathan helped Charlotte on with her coat, gave her a gentle peck on the cheek, and opened the door for her. They walked down the street arm in arm; she was so small she could rest her head on his shoulder. In the evenings, the family dined together. There was much giggling and touching of hands between Jonathan and Charlotte. To all outward appearances it seemed that Jonathan had completely lost interest in Sarah.

  But he could not stop looking at her, furtively, incessantly. Sometimes after breakfast there would be a small square of paper under Jonathan’s cereal bowl, which Sarah would find and shove in her pocket. As soon as she could she’d rush to the toilet and take it out with shaking hands. The messages were brief: ‘Behind the greenhouse, twenty minutes’ or ‘In the basement, half an hour’. Concocting ever more ridiculous excuses each day, so that she began to sense Rachel was becoming suspicious, Sarah would sneak off to meet her lover. That’s what he was to her – her lover. He was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her, and she found it impossible to be sensible, or work out exactly what she was doing. Blind with faith in him, or in something intangible which she was sure existed between them, she would stumble down the basement steps and find Jonathan hiding between the rows of bottles.

  ‘I’ve missed you, darling,’ he would say, as he began to unbutton her top. ‘I love you, I love you . . .’ he’d chant softly. Here was her chance to speak, when he was tender and caring, caressing her and telling her he loved her, until his body arched and he came inside her.

  Then he would become detached and it would be too late. The expression on his face changed perceptibly. It made her shiver.

  After he had gone Sarah would cry, alone in the dark, shoving her fingers into the ancient dust which had gathered between the bottles.

  Once, before he could leave, she caught his hand, and in shaking whispers asked him, ‘Are you ashamed of me?’

  Jonathan turned, his face a picture of concern, ‘Sarah, dear sweet Sarah,’ he said. ‘Of course I’m not ashamed of you. I love you – but you see I made a commitment to Charlotte before I met you and I have to let her down gently. It would be cruel . . .’

  Sarah nodded. He was so noble.

  ‘It’s you I want. You know that don’t you? And one day we’ll be together. You’re an angel, that’s what you are. I’ve never met anyone so good, so unselfish.’

  Sarah remembered her mother saying that the only way a woman could keep a man’s interest was by being demanding and self-centred, ‘To keep ’em on their toes’ she had said. But why should her mother be right? She let go of his hand; she let him go back.

  Sarah never mentioned the baby. And Jonathan never talked about marriage. After two weeks he went back to Oxford with Charlotte wrapped around him. Sarah began to expand, and her limited wardrobe started to be a problem. Rachel teased her about helping herself to too much steak and kidney pie, but at times she looked at Sarah anxiously.

  Sarah knew she was running out of time. She went to Oxford. By now it was May, but still cold. She sat all day opposite Christ Church College watching for Jonathan. She was shivering by the time she eventually saw him with a group of friends, laughing and carefree.

  ‘Jon! Jonathan!’ she called.

  He looked over at her and his face clouded. He crossed the road, his hands in his pockets. His friends stared at her.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he demanded.

  She recoiled as if he had slapped her. What had happened to him?

  ‘I have to talk to you,’ she stuttered.

  ‘Sarah, I can’t talk to you here, go home. We’ll talk next weekend.’

  ‘Please.’ Her voice quavered.

  ‘Oh, come on, then,’ he said. ‘Since you are here, we may as well get a cup of tea. I’ll see you later!’ he shouted over to his friends who drifted off.

  Jonathan took Sarah to a cafe. He ordered tea and scones while Sarah took off her coat.

  ‘Goodness, Sarah,’ he said, ‘you have put on weight.’

  She started to cry.

  EITHNE

  Pearls should stay in their shells. Hide under a bush. Hide your light, your beauty, your irresistibility.

  They dragged the lough, but Beatrice had not sunk to its bed. They searched the bogland, but she was not buried underneath the peat. They looked painstakingly in the woods, in every thicket, but the trees did not yield her up. Maybe there is a place we cannot see and that is where Beatrice has gone. Like Avalon, or fairy country. Beatrice believed in the fairies. Maybe she is away with the little people.

  When I was thirteen I s
aw the film Picnic at Hanging Rock. It made a huge impression on me. It is set in Australia on Valentine’s Day, at the turn of the century. A group of schoolgirls go for a picnic under Hanging Rock with two of their teachers. There is a strange energy in the mountain and some of the girls are drawn to the rocks. They dance in a circle, they take their clothes off and then they just disappear. No one can find them.

  That film still haunts me. Is that what happened to Beatrice? Did the landscape just take her, digest her beauty and swallow her whole?

  Leo comes into the room bearing a mug of steaming tea. I get down from my windowseat.

  ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ I say.

  ‘You were deep in thought,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘I wasn’t really, just looking at the lights.’

  I go towards him, he puts down the tea, and we embrace. I kiss him.

  ‘How did it go today?’

  ‘Great,’ he says. ‘I got the commission for the Tullamore bypass.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ I screech. ‘Leo, why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘I knew you were out walking. You didn’t have your mobile, did you? I sent a text.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, my battery must have run out.’ I am hugging him. ‘This is brilliant. I can’t believe they went for it.’

  ‘The Arts Officer said it was the clear favourite. Apparently they loved the concept of the elemental forces – you know, all that stuff I wrote about Tullamore being the centre point of Ireland and drawing in the wind, the rain and everything. The sculpture itself is going to be quite simple really, just big, very big!’

  ‘I’m so excited,’ I say. ‘I wish you’d come in and told me straightaway. I hate the way you can be so calm.’