Set in Stone (4 page)

As for Mr Farrow’s two daughters – they could hardly be more different in appearance, or, apparently, in temperament. Marianne! I am hardly exaggerating if I say that she captivated me at first glance, and that her troubled personality served only to heighten my fascination. Juliana was pretty, but Marianne was a beauty – such hair, such eyes, and those fleeting expressions. Lying wakeful in my bed, I could see her as clearly as if she stood before me now. That hair! – rich and luxuriant, tumbling loose over her shoulders; her eyes, dark and fearful when we had met by the gates, had revealed themselves when we entered the house to be deep in colour, between blue and sea-green. My fingers itched for a paintbrush; I longed for paper or a canvas on which to attempt her image. Indeed, if my art materials had not been in my trunk at the railway station, I should have abandoned sleep to set myself the task of capturing Marianne’s likeness, her spirit, her restless energy. And of course I was fully aware that such warmth of feeling from a tutor towards his young pupil was far from appropriate, and that I must conquer or conceal it.

Juliana was so different that the two would hardly be taken for sisters. Smaller in build than Marianne, she gave the appearance of delicacy, even of fragility, and I was not surprised when – after she had bid us
goodnight – Miss Agnew told me that she had been convalescing from illness, hence her father’s wish to revive her spirits through the drawing lessons I was to provide. Her features were fine, her skin pale and flawless; her thin hair – unlike her sister’s springing mane – was dressed close to her head and in coils at the nape of her neck, and shone the colour of ripe barley. She was demure in appearance, even docile. She was, I knew, nineteen years old, but seemed, like her younger sister, to look for guidance to Miss Agnew.

What was I doing here? What should I make of it? My thoughts swung extravagantly one way and then the other. One moment, I could hardly believe my good fortune at securing employment in such a place; the next, I was sure that Mr Farrow would be disappointed in me, that I would prove unworthy of his regard, a dull companion and an ineffectual tutor.

It was impossible; sleep would not come. I flung back my bedclothes and sat upright; then crossed to the window and opened it wide to the night air.

The moonlight was intoxicating. My room faced south; I could see the swell of the Downs against a paler sky; the moon, unbelievably huge, gazed down with cool indifference. I heard a sharp bark, maybe of a fox; the night had a life and an energy of its own. Used to London streets, I revelled in the sense of the unpeopled landscape stretching before me, of meadows and copses and thickets breathing their scents into the night. If I had not been a new arrival, conscious of the impression I must make, I should have found my way out into the grounds, to stand
under the sky again, and stretch my arms to its immensity.

Instead I peered more closely at the gardens before me, trying to discern their outline. I saw shrubberies, clipped hedges, walks; a little farther, beyond an expanse of lawn, I saw the cold glimmer of moonlight on water.

When I awoke in the morning it was from a dream of extraordinary vividness, so that I had to shake my head free of it, and gaze around my room several times to convince myself of where I was, and that the dream was not real but imagined. In it, I had been drawn by the liquid notes of a bird to the water’s edge, pushing my way through branches. I wondered now if the nightingale – for surely it could only be a nightingale? – had been pouring forth its song outside my window while I slept, for I could not have imagined such tunefulness. Of an intensity and sweetness that shivered over my skin, its song struck in me some chord of desperate yearning – for what, I did not know. In the dream I tried to draw closer, not expecting to see the bird itself, for I knew that it was brown and insignificant, and would not show itself in the summer night, but only to drink in more and more of that throbbing, silvery song, ever varying: now a mellifluous fluting, now low, drawn out and melancholy. Cool leaves brushed my face; I parted them with my hands and, as I found myself close to the lake shore, was arrested by the sight of a female
form, dark and cloaked, silhouetted against the water’s pale glimmer. As I paused, hardly breathing, she turned her face to me, and spoke. ‘I knew you would come,’ said Marianne – for she it was. ‘But you should know that such beauty will always give you pain, for you can never catch and hold it.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked her; but she had turned away and was lost in the trees’ shadows, and although I strained for the bird’s note, I heard only silence.

At breakfast, Mr Godwin was visibly disappointed to find me as his only companion; Marianne had already been and gone, and Juliana had not yet appeared downstairs.

‘Will Mr Farrow be joining us?’ he queried, with a touch of petulance.

‘It is his custom to take breakfast alone in his room,’ I told him, ‘and to spend the morning in his study, attending to business matters. We do not generally see him before luncheon. Today, though, he has asked that you present yourself at his study at ten o’clock. If you have questions relating to your employment here, he will answer them then.’

He seemed appeased. ‘I must send for my trunk,’ he said. ‘It is still at the station – I had almost forgotten.’

‘There is no need to trouble yourself,’ I assured him. ‘I have already sent Reynolds with the pony-chaise.’

‘That is most thoughtful of you, Miss Agnew.’

Acknowledging this with a nod, I added, ‘Do please help yourself,’ and indicated the range of dishes on the sideboard.

When we had breakfasted, I conducted him on a tour of the house. He was full of admiration for its beauties; and I must say that, observing his reactions, his exclamations of delight as we turned a corner or opened a door, I contemplated the house with fresh eyes, remembering my own amazement when first I entered. It is a house that invites the visitor to roam through its rooms, to sit and to linger. Constantly it offers small details to delight the eye: a plaster frieze of berries and leaves, a curving door handle that makes the hand want to clasp it, or a pair of wall lamps shaped like snow-drops. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a house in which beauty and comfort combine more harmoniously.

Mr Godwin was full of praise. ‘It seems so solid – so rooted in the earth,’ he remarked, as we surveyed the long, low drawing room, with its fireplace of curving simplicity, its cushioned recesses and Juliana’s rosewood piano. ‘Yet so light and spacious within! Mr Farrow, you say, had a hand in its design, at every stage? Does he have any practical experience of architecture?’

‘He interests himself in such matters,’ I replied. ‘When he inherited his father’s London house, and a considerable fortune from property investments, he saw an opportunity to build a house to his own requirements. An older house formerly stood on this site, but was demolished to make way for the new – only a few of the outbuildings remain. Mr Farrow engaged a leading architect, one whose work he admired, and worked very closely with him throughout. Every detail, interior and exterior, is a part of the whole. Mr Farrow suggested some of the more striking features: the high
central vestibule, the double staircase and the upper gallery. He wanted to make his own mark.’

‘So, Miss Agnew’ – we had paused to look out of the glass doors that opened to the terrace, and to the lawn sloping down to an alder-fringed stream, with the rise of the Downs beyond – ‘evidently, then, you have been in Mr Farrow’s employment for some while? You were with him at his previous residence?’

‘No,’ I corrected him. ‘I have been here for just over a year – some fifteen months. Since March of last year, to be precise.’

‘And did you know the late Mrs Farrow?’

‘I did not,’ I replied. ‘The poor lady died at the beginning of that year.’

‘How terribly distressing for the two girls to lose their mother,’ he remarked, with a sad shake of his head.

‘Yes, a most tragic loss indeed. Now, let me show you the gardens— Ah, here is Marianne!’

Knowing my younger charge as I did, I could assess her mental state at a glance. This morning, coming up the lawn towards us, she looked fresh and appealing in a dress of sprigged muslin, her hair looped back; no one seeing her like this, smiling and at ease, could have guessed at the mental disturbance I knew equally well. As I opened the doors to let her in, I saw that she had threaded three daisies into her hair.

‘Good morning, Charlotte; good morning, Mr Godwin!’ she greeted us. Oh, how I envied her sometimes, her grace, her youthful radiance, and her
captivating smile! However, I pushed such thoughts aside, as unworthy of me. To admire is one thing; to envy, quite another.

‘Good morning, Miss Farrow,’ Mr Godwin returned.

She gave a pretty frown. ‘We cannot stick to this absurd formality, if you’re to teach me drawing every day. I should prefer you to call me Marianne – it is so much friendlier.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mr Godwin, with a small bow. ‘In which case, I hope you will address me as Samuel.’

He did not glance in my direction, not thinking fit to include me in this. As he should have deferred to me for guidance, I felt nettled, and quickly intervened.

‘Your father would wish us to observe the proprieties, Marianne,’ I pointed out. ‘We shall address Mr Godwin by his proper name.’

He gave me a sidelong look, but went on, ‘Miss Agnew is about to take me on a tour of the grounds.’

‘Then I shall join you!’ Marianne announced. ‘We must start at the front – with the North Wind. We won’t be disturbed – Papa is safely shut up in his study.’

‘The north wind?’ said Mr Godwin, holding out both hands, as though to attest that barely a breeze was blowing today.

‘Marianne,’ I said, to forestall her, ‘would you go to your sister’s room and ask whether she wishes to join us?’

She would not, however, be so easily diverted. ‘Juliana is so slow in the mornings! I cannot think how she takes such an age to get up and dressed. And I want to see what Sa— what Mr Godwin thinks of our
Winds. He is an artist – his opinion will be worth having.’

So rational did she sound that I gave way.

‘The Winds are quite a feature of the house,’ I told Mr Godwin, leading the way back through the vestibule, out of the front door, and down the porch steps. ‘Mr Farrow, having decided on the name Fourwinds, so appropriate for this open situation, commissioned the carvings, one for each façade of the house. Here is the first.’

We stood looking up at the stone figure above the entrance. Having lived here long enough for familiarity to dull my responses, I had almost ceased to notice the carved panels that adorned three of its four sides, hardly sparing them an upward glance as I went about my business. Now, standing beside Samuel Godwin as he contemplated the North Wind for the first time, I was reminded how very striking it is. The elderly male figure, with the proportions of a living person, hoary bearded and with eyebrows that jut above piercing eyes, seems to fly through a blizzard beneath louring clouds; but these meagre words cannot do justice to the sculptor’s skill. Mr Godwin drew in his breath sharply and stood for a moment before speaking.

‘What do you think?’ Marianne prompted.

‘Remarkable!’ His voice was low and reverent. ‘Such a powerful combination of styles, classical and – pagan, one might call it. I am impatient, Miss Agnew, to see the other three.’

Marianne glanced at me but said nothing.

‘Who is the sculptor?’ Mr Godwin asked, as we walked round to the east side of the house. ‘Someone very gifted, that much is evident.’

‘His name was Gideon Waring,’ I answered. This was not a subject upon which I was keen to embark; yet I saw no way of circumventing it, with Mr Godwin’s interest keenly aroused, and Marianne so eager to gauge his responses.

‘And is he well known in his field? I confess I am not familiar with his name.’

‘Oh, Gideon Waring is a real artist,’ Marianne said, over her shoulder. ‘An artist in stone. Are
you
a real artist, Mr Godwin?’

‘Well, I . . .’ the young man faltered.

‘Marianne!’ I reproved. ‘Please remember your manners. Of course Mr Godwin is a real artist, or your father would not have engaged him.’

Mr Godwin, looking embarrassed, repeated his question: ‘Is Gideon Waring well known as a sculptor?’

‘Moderately, I believe,’ I began; but Marianne saved me from further elucidation. She came to a halt, and gazed up.

‘Look!’ she directed Mr Godwin. ‘Here is our East Wind.’

From this side of the house, the windows of dining room and morning room overlook a gentle downward slope towards paddocks and, beyond, the lake fringed with reed-beds; but we were all facing the shivering boy-man on the wall above us, naked and huddled: the East Wind, blown in, it seems, from distant mountain peaks that pierce a storm-ravaged sky. Although the
morning was warm and still, with the promise of heat later, the East Wind carving almost made me want to snuggle into an imaginary shawl, and seek the nearest fireplace.

Again Samuel Godwin stood rapt and entranced, much to Marianne’s delight.

‘I see you have fallen under his spell!’ she exclaimed. ‘I am so glad – for I could not take to you as my drawing teacher, if you looked on him with cold indifference. Come – let us see what you think of the South Wind. She has a very different character.’

As we moved on, a flicker of movement caught my attention. The unusual design of Fourwinds incorporates a room between ground and first floor on each side, at the turn of the stair; Mr Farrow’s study, with its oriel window, occupied this position on one side of the house; on the other side, a linen store. At this elevation he was able to look out at us without being observed from below. His eye, so expert at assessing the qualities of hunter or brood mare, rested on the figure of Samuel Godwin. Unintentionally catching my eye in mid-inspection, he gave a curt nod and the merest twitch of a smile. I nodded in return, and he moved away from the window.

Keeping this little exchange to myself, I followed Marianne and Mr Godwin to the rear of the house. Again we all turned our backs on the vista and looked at the carved figure above window-height: a female figure, full and voluptuous, clad in light drapery. Her eyes half closed, she floats on warm currents, accompanied by flights of swallows.