She lifted out the bundle, set it down on the bed, and began, very cautiously, to unwrap it. The object had been placed inside the waist of the gown, with the rest of the fabric folded around it. Not liking to reach inside, and trying not to stand too close, Cordelia began to lift the gown away. But her hands were seized by a sudden tremor; the thing slid out very suddenly, and before she could stop it, rolled off the edge of the bed and smashed to fragments. All she retained was the impression of something like a distended electric light bulb, with long thin tubes or spikes of glass at both ends. There was one of the broken-off glass spikes, with a needle-like wire emerging from the end of it… and part of another; and a small square of thin dark metal, curved like a curling leaf,… and a third fragment of glass tubing, connected by wire to another metal square, the same size, but flat, and silvered like the back of a mirror.
Her curiosity was blotted out by the realisation of what she had done. They could lose the income, and the house; and Harry, for all his loyalty, was the last person she could tell. She must wrap up the fragments, put everything back in the box, and pray that nobody ever opened it again. As she moved to drape the gown over the bed, she saw that it was, undoubtedly, the gown that Imogen de Vere was wearing in the portrait.
And now she would have to sweep up all of the broken glass, and bundle it up in the gown… which she found she was holding so as to measure it against herself; it looked exactly her size. Though terribly crumpled, it was only a little musty. And the jagged edges would tear the velvet… no; she could not. The packing had been so flat, when the lid came off; it had surely never been disturbed. She draped the gown across the bed and unfolded one of the pieces of paper. The Times. Friday, 3rd December, 1896. Which would have been, from her recollection of her uncles narrative, either just before, or shortly after Henry St Clair's things had been seized by the bailiffs.
But he would never have treated the gown with such contempt, assuming Imogen had left it at the studio. This was de Vere's work… all the more reason not to do his bidding. That green dress she had not worn for ages would do perfectly well to wrap the fragments. Meanwhile, it struck her that the safest place for the gown would be in the closet in Grandmama's room, which she had not entered since the day Papa had caught her wearing the veil; nor, so far as she knew, had anyone else. But if Uncle Theodore happened to go up to his room, two doors along from Grandmama's… she decided to hide the gown in her own closet for the time being, and wait until the coast was clear.
When she had swept up the glass and got the lid back on the box, she came downstairs and established that her uncle was dozing in his study. Then, without quite knowing why, she went back up to the first floor and let herself quietly into her grandmother's room.
Dust swirled as she crossed the floor and drew open the curtains. The stale, musty air was still warm from the previous day's heat. The furniture seemed to have shrunk; the swing mirror no longer towered over her. A faint odour of camphor greeted her as she opened the closet door, along with a vivid memory of playing at ghosts with Beatrice. Several dresses hung from the rail, all in sombre colours, and all "sensible", like the stout shoes on the floor. Imogen, she reminded herself, had arrived here in the clothes she stood up in. What had happened to the magnificent wardrobe she must have had at Belgrave Square? Her jewels? Books, letters, keepsakes? De Vere must have sold or destroyed everything else.
As she wandered about the room, Cordelia was struck by the realisation that her habit of thinking of Imogen de Vere and Grandmama as two separate people was in no way fanciful. Whether or not he had caused the illness-"his spittle burned like acid", she recalled Uncle Theodore saying-Imogen de Vere had died to the world, and perhaps even to herself that night, and woken as Grandmama, condemned always to wear a veil… which Papa must have returned to the bottom drawer of the press, for there it was, laid out exactly as she had seen it last.
Breathing again the scents of camphor and some sort of salve or balm, mixed with the faintest hint of another fragrance, Cordelia felt a sudden powerful urge to put it on, and for the second time in her life, she drew the black veil over her head and turned towards the mirror.
The verse about seeing in a glass darkly came to her. No wonder she had given herself-and Papa-such a fright. Her dress looked strangely incongruous below the veil, as though her own head and shoulders had been replaced with those of another person whose outlines could be glimpsed, in the stronger light from the window, floating in a black mist of gauze.
A floorboard creaked in the corridor outside. She drew off the veil and held her breath, listening, but there was no further sound beyond the faint thudding of her heart, and when she opened the door cautiously and looked out, the corridor was empty. Feeling that it would be safer in her own room, she folded the veil and carried it upstairs, where she hid it away in her closet, beside the emerald green gown.
The mantel clock chimed the half-hour. The clouds had sunk even lower, merging into a uniform, leaden grey like the underside of a fog-bank which hung, seemingly motionless, just above the treetops across the lane. If he had arrived on the six o'clock train, he would surely be here by now; there would be at least another hour to wait.
Why could he never be on time? She would have run all the way from Bloomsbury to Victoria rather than sacrifice an hour in his company. Suddenly angry, she slid down off the window-ledge and made for the stairs. She would walk as far as the village, just in case, and then circle back to the stream, where she could at least bathe her feet in cool water.
The light beneath the trees was very dim; there was still not a breath of wind. She had gone about a hundred yards when she heard the sound of voices, and stopped beneath the deeper shadow of an oak.
Harry and Beatrice appeared at the next turning, some thirty yards away. They were walking slowly, close together and deep in conversation. Should she wave, or call out? As they approached, still without seeing her, though she was dressed in white-the same creamy-white sleeveless dress she had worn that first afternoon-Cordelia began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. They had come within a few paces when she stepped out into the middle of the lane.
[Here the typescript broke off at the foot of a page.]
PART TWO
Hatherley. Descendant anxious to trace family history. Would anyone with any information about the early life and antecedents of Phyllis May Hatherley, granddaughter of Viola Hatherley, born Marylebone, London, 13 April 1929, married Graham John Freeman (1917-1982) in Mawson, South Australia, on 4 May 1963, died 29 May 1999, please contact her son, Gerard Freeman… *** c/o Lansdown and Grierstone
Commissioners for Oaths
14A Bedford Row
London WC1N 5AB
12 June 1999 Dear Mr Freeman, I am writing in reply to your advertisement in this mornings Times. I am afraid I am not equipped to reply by fax or email as you suggest, and hope that you will be able to decipher my arthritic handwriting! I hope, too, that you will accept a strangers condolences on the recent death of your mother. To come straight to the point: in 1944 I was moved, due to the upheavals of the war, to St Margaret's School in Devon to complete my education. My new form mistress (who believed in order above all things) did not allow personal preference to determine the seating arrangements in her classroom. Desks were assigned alphabetically by surname, and so I was placed next to a girl called Anne Hatherley, who soon became my closest friend. Anne Hatherley and her younger sister Phyllis (whom I never met, though we once spoke on the telephone) were brought up in London by their grandmother, Viola Hatherley, and their aunt Iris, Violas unmarried daughter. I felt certain, therefore, as soon as I saw your advertisement, that your late mother and my dear friend's sister must be one and the same person. To make doubly sure, I re-read some of Anne's letters this morning, and established that Phyllis's birthday was the 13th of April. Anne was born on the 6th of March, 1928, and since Phyllis was just a year younger than her sister, the dates match perfectly. Viola Hatherley died just after VE Day, and Anne was of course obliged to leave school immediately and return to London. I remained at home in Plymouth, but Anne and I wrote constantly for the next four years, and saw each other whenever we could. Her Aunt Iris died in the autumn of 1949, and soon after that Anne's letters abruptly ceased. I never heard from her again. I shall, of course, be only too pleased to help you in any way I can. Do please write to me by sealed enclosure, c/o my solicitor, Mr Giles Grierstone, who handles all of my affairs, including my correspondence. I wonder-and I do hope you won't be offended by this-whether you would mind providing him with formal proof of your own, and your late mother's identity, including, if possible, photographs. Anything you send him will be treated in the strictest confidence. Though you do not mention Anne in your advertisement, I do hope you will be able to tell me what became of her; I have never ceased to wonder. Yours sincerely