The House of Storms Read online

  In their happy absorption they almost missed their last train and had to run to Templemeads. Hot and breathless, they collapsed on a carriage bench just as it pulled out. But a cooler breeze began soon to play through the open carriage windows. This, Ralph felt sure, as Marion leaned against him and the train picked up speed as he stared out at the shadow-pooled landscape of the west, was the beginning of a much longer journey.

  XXII

  INVERCOMBE’S GARDENS HAD CHANGED. Fir trees ruffled their golden-plumed boughs as Weatherman Ayres, secretly testing and recalibrating his weathertop for the coming of the Proserpine, inflicted quick rains and flurries of cold and midday mists on the valley, which often spilled down across the shore and caused confused circlings amongst the migrating geese and avocets. Cissy, too, was uncharacteristically irritable, chiding her undermaids about the blooms of damp which had appeared on the walls of the peacock room before retreating to her study to try once again to compose the letter of her resignation. Decisions, she decided, were simple things. What was hard were the deeds which brought them into place.

  One way or another, Ralph was also leaving. He’d already been fitted for the clothes of a Senior Apprentice, and had been a reluctant interviewee to a fawning contributor to a periodical call the Highclare Alumni Gazette. Every morning now, and again after luncheon, the west’s previously unreliable post system bore him requests from strangers for alms and references, and more papers to endorse. He was set to leave for Highclare on a Fiveshiftday, the first day of October, and he knew that he and Marion would have to leave for the Fortunate Isles before that date.

  The Isle of Pines was by far the largest and heavily populated in the archipelago, but for that reason it interested him the least. Hispaniola, too, and even Arawak were too civilised for their purposes, both as students of natural history, but also as fugitives. It was the smaller islands where there was less cultivation of sugar cane which would demonstrate more precisely the supreme mechanism of Habitual Adaptation. Eel Island. The Isle of the Holy Spirit. Crooked Island. Ragged Isle. The names rang out to him, although proper data on the flora and fauna of these lesser islands was impossible to find. All he’d discovered in Bristol and in Invercombe were confused generalities about lizards and pineapples and giant turtles, then rubbish about boiling lakes and chackcharnis—which were red-eyed elves—and birds smaller than your thumbnail. It was confusing, but it was also encouraging. Here, he was sure, lay untouched natural landscapes just waiting to be catalogued and explored.

  He found that Marion now was both diffident and different. After all, she was leaving a far more substantial life behind than his had ever been. She had less time to spare now to help with the cataloguing, and their love-making faded. She felt uncomfortable, he knew, about the deceit she was inflicting on her family. Still, it was strange and exciting to open the pages of the Bristol Morning Post, and to scan together the advertisements promising a new life. They settled on the Verticordia, which was offering Good, Simple Berths for a departure on the very last day of September. She was bound for Penn Island, which was one of the smallest of the Antilles, although they both agreed that they would only stay there for a few shifterms before moving on. Being a ringwright was a peripatetic occupation in any case. They talked of travelling island to island, and of Ralph really acquiring the skills of his trade, studying out on the deck with dolphins leaping at the prow, although their aim was always to prove and perfect the theory of Habitual Adaptation. Ralph agreed that it was better that Marion make the journey to Luttrell and withdraw the necessary cash to buy their tickets from the shipping agents.

  It was useless now to attempt to finish organising their summer on the shore either in his notes or through the reckoning engine, and in any case he was too distracted. He wandered the gardens. He strode the shore. He walked the roads. He visited the Temple of the Winds. The weather was so variable. Surely Weatherman Ayres could do better than this? He took a detour up around Durnock Head one morning, hoping to be able to look down on Clarence Cove. It had rained heavily in the night, and the earth clotted his boots, although the sky had since hollowed and the view from here was absolutely sharp. Rather to his surprise, a couple of the undergardeners were at work up here. For some reason, they were diligently removing a portion of drystone wall.

  As he paused to chat with them, Weatherman Ayres came briskly over the edge of the hill, wiping a handkerchief across his forehead. ‘Well—and I thought you’d be busy with packing.’

  Ralph smiled and shook his head. There was another gap, he now noticed, in the wall in the next field along. Together, they formed line a which led towards a small track which wound around the side of Durnock Head to the Luttrell back road.

  ‘What should I call you now, technically, by the way? It can’t still be just Master, can it?’

  ‘I like Ralph. That’s what I always tell people.’

  ‘Always, eh?’ The weatherman worked his lips. ‘Then you’re off to that academy, just like Marion’s brother.’

  ‘That’s right. Although,’ he felt compelled to add, ‘Highclare and a local Mariners’ Academy are probably a little different.’

  ‘I’m sure they are.’ Hands on hips, squinting, Weatherman Ayres studied the rolling landscape, which was mottled now in browns and darker greens. ‘And when exactly, if you’ll pardon me for asking, is it that you’re leaving?’

  ‘My mother’s picking me up next Fiveshiftday.’

  ‘Quite late to be leaving for a first year, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well,’ Ralph said, wondering exactly where this conversation was going. ‘This isn’t my first year. Well, it is, but I’m already a year late, if you see what I mean.’

  Weatherman Ayres, although for some reason still looking rather doubtful, nodded. And you know what they say about Telegraphers?’

  ‘What?’

  That you should never trust them with a secret, because they’ve probably heard it already.’

  Ralph grinned. He hadn’t heard that one.

  ‘And when you leave, and when you get to be in charge of your guild up in London, you’ll remember how we do things here in the west?’

  ‘I will. I promise. Although I’ll be back to Invercombe many times before then. I promise that as well’

  ‘Sure you will, lad.’

  The weatherman wiped his brow again, sniffed, and walked away. As Ralph left the men to their peculiar work and gave up on his search of Clarence Cove, he thought again of his and Marion’s plans, the times and meeting places, their journey to Penn Island in the Fortunate Isles aboard the Verticordia in that decent berth. It certainly wasn’t his intention to permanently sever all contact with England. He imagined that he’d probably telephone his mother after a few shifterms, and that she, eventually, would be understanding. After all, wasn’t she an independent spirit herself? After two or three years, his theory of Habitual Adaptation proved and perfected, he and Marion would be able to return home on their own terms. Then, he would be quite willing to study the tenets of his guild and assume his responsibility as greatgrandmaster. In fact, he would welcome it. His mother would be at his side again by then, and so would Marion. From that exalted viewpoint, Ralph was sure, he’d be more than-ever grateful for the things he’d learned about the ways of the west.

  XXIII

  IT WAS THE LAST DAY of September, and the end of Marion’s old life. That morning, after prayers and breakfast with the other undermaids, she picked up her brush and bucket and went as usual to clean the grates. Ralph had taken to sleeping in later, and his mother was away, and the house seemed cold and deserted. As she bent down in the west parlour to pull out the ash tray, a wave of nausea came over her, and she was lucky to make it as far as the cloakroom by the best stairs before she threw up, even though she knew that using guests’ facilities was against all the rules. Marion rinsed her mouth and looked at herself, framed in the clarity of this ornate mirror. This, she told herself, is the life you’ve made. She returned to her duties,
brushing and burnishing the grate, although today she found herself lingering over the polishing, breathing the deep, ammonia smell.

  ‘Penny for them, eh?’

  It was Cissy Dunning, and Marion stood swiftly to execute the light curtsey which it was necessary to give senior servants when you were in the main part of the house, although her head swam a little as she did so. ‘Sorry, Mistress. I didn’t hear you coming.’

  ‘I wish everyone could always keep as busy as you do. You’re feeling all right, by the way? You look a little—’

  ‘I’m fine, Mistress. But thank you for asking.’

  ‘Well. That’s good.’ Cissy kneaded her hands. A clock pinged. Another bonged. Soon, it would be eight in the morning. ‘I suppose Master Ralph’ll be packing today. And I just wanted to say that I have no objection to you helping just as soon as he’s up and you’ve finished with that grate.’

  ‘Thank you, Mistress. But I have a half day. I thought I’d probably go home.’

  ‘Of course. And—well, I know that this is a difficult time for you. I do understand that. If you need to talk, now or later, you will come and see me, won’t you?’

  Marion nodded. ‘I will, Mistress. And thank you.’

  Cissy smiled, hesitated, then turned away. Sighing, Marion returned to the grate.

  By eleven, when she had run out of duties and excuses, there was still no sign of Ralph emerging from his bed. Balling her apron into a laundry basket, she headed down the back corridor, eased open the east door and ducked through the flapping washing to the path which led towards the main gate. The wind moaned. The sky churned. She was leaving Invercombe without warning or notice. She was the very worst kind of undermaid.

  Ralph awoke from some complex and unremembered dream. He rang for breakfast to be brought up to him, and picked at it before putting it aside and getting dressed. Noon, but only the weathertop seemed clear—gold-etched; a collage cut from a different painting. This was the day. Marion already had the tickets for the Verticordia, which departed Bristol for Penn Island on tomorrow’s morning tide, and they would meet at nine tonight at Luttrell Station to catch the last train.

  There were two tasks of packing, and he started with the easier one, albeit with far more items, for the journey to Highclare he would never take. The new cases his mother had ordered for him smelled sweetly of leather and shop displays. Shirts and jackets. Ties and sports gear. It seemed important that the Ralph who was heading to Highclare should have everything he needed. His gaze settled on a big pelican’s foot shell on the mantelpiece. Lifting it, he wondered why it was that gastropods always unwound their shells clockwise. He put it to his ear, and smiled, and laid it on top of his shirts before buckling up his cases. Then it was all done; folded and sorted in the way which his mother had taught him through their long European journeys from hotel to hotel, and far better than could be accomplished by some ignorant porter or maid.

  He dragged out a loose canvas bag from the space beneath his bed; it was something he’d found down in the house’s cellars, and perhaps even Master Turner might be expected to travel with something better, but it would have to do. What, anyway, could Ralph possibly bring with him to the Fortunate Isles? His clothes were either too smart, too small, or worn out and ruined. His books—well, he was coming around to his mother’s point of view that they were purely information, and he knew that, once he started choosing, he’d be unable to stop. The shells, the feathers, the leaves, the driftwood, yes, they had all been recorded—or, if they hadn’t, it was too late. Yesterday evening, and after days of wrestling with the decision, he’d filled this same canvas bag with his father’s stones and carried them down to the shore. The tide had been pulling out, and he’d thrown them far out across the restless water towards the cloud-swirled hills of Wales. He saved the numberbead with his father’s message until last, but he’d held it so many times now that the information had almost drained. Apart from a faint echo, it was just another stone. He, after all, was becoming the real John Turner.

  Ralph opened up the bag. He flipped in a few punchcards, although he knew they were riddled with errors. At the end of the day, even bringing his hard-won notes seemed essentially pointless, when there was a new world to study out in the Fortunate Isles. He gazed at a neat annotation Marion had made. He couldn’t even remember the day they’d written this, or the particular rockpool. It was all drowned in a gleaming generality of seawater, and then of Marion leaning over to look at what he’d written. Shouldn’t we say this as well? He’d never stayed in a single place for this many shifterms before, or experienced the sense of time passing so vividly. And now it was gone. All of it. Almost at random, and somehow angrily, he stuffed in a few notebooks and clothes. The whole house was dark and quiet apart from the sound of the wind’s booming. Cloud-shadows, each one darker than the one before, careered across the sky, and the sea beyond looked dangerous and unwelcoming. There were no ships out in the channel. Where was everyone? Even in his preoccupied state about his own plans, Ralph sensed that something odd was afoot. But he must speak to his mother.

  The temperature within the house was dropping notch by notch. Even downstairs within the shelter of the telephone booth, the air felt inexpressibly cold as his image in the mirror faded, and that of his mother, who always answered calls herself when she was at any of her houses, took his place. She was at their London townhouse, and the air seemed considerably warmer there, and bore faint wafts of polished woods. She was still wearing black, but in a way which was so restrained now that you scarcely noticed it. He imagined it was already becoming the colour of the season in tearooms and salons.

  ‘How are things going with your packing?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m pretty much done.’

  ‘What’s that sound?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just the wind.’ Ralph had imagined that lying to his mother would be the most difficult of all the things he had to accomplish today, but he felt extraordinarily calm.

  ‘Is it as cold as it seems there? I wish I’d put on a cardigan just to speak to you, darling. But I always did wonder just how much of the summer’s good weather at Invercombe was down to that weathertop, and how much was just sheer luck. There’s something about Weatherman Ayres, haven’t you always thought—a little secretive, a touch shady?’

  ‘… I suppose.’

  ‘Anyway, I should be down there by tomorrow lunchtime. If you could tell that to Cissy and cook. I thought we’d drive about halfway back in the afternoon, perhaps stop for a meal somewhere around Oxford.’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘And I know, darling, just how difficult this is for you. And I don’t mean Highclare, where I think you’ll actually cope extremely well. But this is an enormous break in your life. Everything that’s happened this year—your father dying.’ She paused. Ralph could hear the distant rumble of London traffic. ‘And I know how fond of the house you’ve become. And that maid.’

  Ralph nodded.

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to say anything. I know it’s useless me telling you at a time like this that I understand. You feel as if you’re the only person ever to experience these feelings, and in a way you are, because that’s how life works. But things move on. Time never stops. Sometimes, indeed, you have to leave something behind for a while before you can appreciate how important it is to you.’ Or isn’t.

  Ralph blinked and shivered, unsure whether he’d really heard that last phrase. And his mother was dimming from him now, greying and receding like a misting mirror. She looked oddly distorted as well, less than the real woman he knew she was. In fact, a kind of wraith. Then he realised what it was: in the meeting of hot and cold air within this booth, a fog was forming.

  He said, ‘I’m not sure this line is going to hold much longer.’ A sweat of condensation was gathering on the dialling handle underneath his palm. ‘Or even that this is safe.’

  She chuckled. ‘But I just wanted to say, darling, that there are times when I feel as if I’ve been
a bit negative about the life we high guildspeople must expect to live. You know—visits, people. But it’s also quite marvellous and privileged and thrilling. You hold influence, Ralph. You hold power. And that will never fade …’

  There, though, the conversation ended, and Ralph left the booth and re-entered the gloom which had gathered inside the hall. Any other day, and he’d certainly have gone up to Weatherman Ayres to enquire about this weather, but he sensed that he wouldn’t be welcome. Perhaps it was just autumn. Perhaps it was just the house. Perhaps he was simply missing summer.

  He flicked through the morning’s post. More papers to endorse, although he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Then he noticed something familiar about the handwriting on a smaller envelope and slit it open. It was from Doctress Foot, explaining all the new insights which Habitual Adaptation had given her into her collection, and how she’d do whatever she could to promote it against the forces of silly unreason, by which Ralph wondered if she didn’t mean her husband. He smiled. It was race to have an ally. In a PS, she mentioned a hitherto-unheard of species of beetle. Brown-backed and stubby-antlered, it was reported to be rampant in the cane fields of Arawak, where it was gleefully consuming all the new sugar cane shoots. Surely here, she suggested, was good evidence of a fresh adaptation of a species to a new environment? It was an interesting thought, but to Ralph this beetle’s appearance sounded too sudden. More likely, he thought, it was the work of man rather than unalloyed nature. He laid the letter back on the silver tray and went into the library. It was too dark now to read properly without turning the lights on, but he sat down for the last time in his favourite chair.