The midnight carousel, p.8
The Midnight Carousel, page 8
Just when Maisie thinks that the situation couldn’t get any worse, Sir Malcolm bursts in, back from his meeting. She experiences a rush of dread. Her situation in this house is so precarious that the last thing she needs is his witnessing this chaos. It wouldn’t surprise Maisie if he banished her from the household for bringing such trouble here.
‘What in damnation is going on?’ he demands, his voice like thunder.
Maisie is overcome by a sensation of light-headedness. An image appears, the frightened face of a little boy sobbing as he spins around on the carousel.
Soaring
9
November 1918
Maisie’s face is lit red, white and blue as she takes a peek at Chicago’s Armistice Day fireworks through a crack in the curtains. So many casualties, all that death marked by tubes of colourful gunpowder. The inadequacy of the gesture isn’t so surprising, really, given that she alone still prays for Billy to be found safe. Though she will turn twenty-one in a couple of months, Maisie feels the ache of that terrible afternoon as acutely as she did at sixteen.
After less than a month, the police stopped searching, and rumours of what might have happened to the boy turned to dust. Even Billy’s parents gave up on ever finding their youngest child dead or alive, sold the tailoring business and moved out east. But Maisie will never lose hope.
Perhaps he was taken by a childless couple wanting a family of their own, she tells herself, and is living a wonderful life somewhere safe. If she wills a happy outcome, it will be so. Occasionally, she slips up, catches herself assuming harm has come to him. Dear Lord of the Water, please care for Billy’s soul, she murmurs, wondering why the charms failed to keep Billy safe. Did she lay too few pebbles? Were they in the wrong place? Then she retracts the prayer by throwing ten stones in the lake, the ripples disrupting the words.
He will be found.
Unable to shake the drama of that day, Maisie and Sir Malcolm have tacitly agreed to remain as inconspicuous as possible, closeting themselves at Fairweather in the years after the disappearance. To her relief, she wasn’t thrown out of the house after Billy’s disappearance, but she feels like she’s been on very dangerous ground ever since. Fortunately, they keep to themselves, seldom crossing paths. He resides mainly in the drawing room, almost never venturing to the city any longer for meetings, and barely sleeping, especially during the past few weeks. Meanwhile, her focus is directed towards household tasks like dusting and polishing and darning, spending any spare time reading or playing card games like Solitaire alone. The rooms they don’t use are closed up, with the furniture covered in dust sheets, and a musty smell pervades the house, as though no fresh air ever enters.
Though she does make a point to go outdoors for a walk every day, her route never takes Maisie beyond the boundaries of the estate, and certainly nowhere near the carousel, which would only rekindle memories of the party. As far as she knows, the machine has lain undisturbed all these years.
This self-imposed solitude was made easier when America joined the war a couple of years ago. With so many men called up, and civilians encouraged to do their bit, socializing hasn’t necessarily been expected. And now the Spanish flu looms as a threat. The infection has already claimed Eric’s cousin, the Hutton-Bellamy nanny and Mrs Papadopoulos’s two brothers-in-law over the past few months, all healthy adults between twenty and forty years old, and Maisie is playing it safe. It takes her straight back to the time at Jesserton when the scarlet fever wiped out a third of the household.
Trying to stem the rising tide in the city since September, Health Commissioner John Dill Robertson has also been cautious. Eric grumbles about smoking being banned on the streetcars; Clara can’t understand why everything fun is closed – the movie house, the skating rink; and Peggy Mae alternately laughs and frowns as she reads aloud from the Chicago Tribune. ‘Lord knows I don’t have the prettiest face, but I’m not covering it with a mask in public,’ she groans. Or she declares: ‘It’s like that too-big-for-his-boots commissioner thinks we’re criminals – reporting when we’re sick, telling the police to make sure we stick to his rules.’
Minutes after the fireworks reach their grand finale, Clara walks into the bedroom with a pile of fresh laundry. It’s late for any staff to still be at the main house, and Maisie watches the maid move to the mahogany bureau, fumble with the bottom drawer, drop a stocking. Clara opens her mouth, snaps it shut, blushes and hurries to the door, without saying a word to her. This is strange, for usually the girl chatters away non-stop these days.
‘Is everything all right, Clara?’ Maisie asks.
Clara jumps as if stung by a wasp, and turns around.
‘Well, ma’am, since you asked . . .’ She clutches her apron. ‘My mother is sick, and I need twenty cents to buy the special elixir from Madame Rose.’
Maisie tries to disguise her dislike of Madame Rose by offering a sympathetic smile. The one time they met, the woman was holding court in the kitchen, impressing the staff with a tale of how she foretold the downfall of the Russian royal family through the study of a clump of tea leaves. ‘Darjeeling, mind you,’ she’d claimed, waggling a bony finger. ‘None of the cheap garbage.’ Dressed top to toe in crimson silk with a yellow canary feather in her straw hat, she gave Maisie an uneasy feeling of pretending to know more than she actually did.
‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ Maisie says. ‘But are you sure it will work?’
She stops short of saying that Madame Rose is probably peddling snake oil.
‘Why, yes, ma’am, I am. Only I haven’t received last week’s wages. Or the wages from the week before.’
Maisie frowns. ‘Are you saying you haven’t been paid? For two whole weeks?’
Clara reddens, looks at her feet.
‘I am, ma’am, and I wouldn’t have troubled you except that Sir Malcolm suffers from a lot of migraines lately.’
She’s correct of course. Sir Malcolm’s alcohol intake has rendered his presence in the house ghostlike: the back of his head disappearing into the study, a shadowy figure hovering in the hallways late at night. Though she’d rather not have to deal with this problem, her ambiguous status as unofficial lady of Fairweather House leaves Maisie little choice.
‘All right, leave it with me.’
Before she loses her nerve, Maisie hurries downstairs and heads to the drawing room. Aunty Mabel’s favourite song, ‘Kiss Me, My Honey, Kiss Me’ drifts along the dark hallway, the lights dimmed by habit to conserve electricity. ‘May I have this dance please, madam?’ she would ask whenever Maisie caught her humming the melody, and they would waltz around until the room spun.
She knocks softly. Her heart is pounding so loudly that she can hear it above the music. There’s no answer. Perhaps he’s fallen asleep. Perhaps another time would be more convenient.
Glad of the reprieve, she’s about to return to her bedroom when the song fades to silence. It’s now or never. Screwing up her face, screwing up her courage, she knocks again, louder.
Muffled swearing, then a bellow: ‘Enter.’
Maisie forces her hands to rotate the door handle. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Sir Malcolm,’ she says, stepping into the room.
He looks startled to see Maisie. Reclined on the couch in his pyjamas, he levers himself to half sit up.
‘What do you want?’ he asks.
Remember you’re doing this for Clara, she thinks. ‘There seems to be a little problem with the wages.’
Sir Malcolm shifts on the couch, looks away.
‘Well, I can’t give them what I haven’t got.’
So it isn’t just Clara who hasn’t been paid. Maisie’s heart sinks.
‘What do you mean?’ she blurts out.
The words hang between them, insolent.
Maisie shifts from foot to foot, wishing she could take them back, but also hoping that Sir Malcolm will explain. He reaches for his cigars and lighter, lights up and puffs. The darkened shadows under his eyes confirm his poor sleep lately. Loud noises from the drawing room wake Maisie in the middle of the night, and there have been fewer sightings of him in the daytime over the last few weeks, but she’s been too preoccupied by her own thoughts to pay much attention.
Sir Malcolm gulps the remainder of his drink, leans back on the couch again and studies Maisie’s face, still puffing.
‘All my savings are gone,’ he admits after a while. ‘There was a nice little nest egg after selling up Jesserton. Then I decided to follow Hugo’s investment portfolio.’
With Sir Malcolm preferring seclusion, Hugo rarely visits the house now, although the brothers speak frequently on the telephone. Voices travel, and, while Maisie tries not to listen in on the conversations, her ears prick up at any mention of Nancy. The week after the party, Nancy suffered a miscarriage, caused in part, perhaps, by the shock of Billy’s disappearance. Maisie can still picture the woman’s face soaked in perspiration the afternoon of the party, and how devastated she seemed. Despite some glimmer of hope over the years, the Randolphs are still childless, and, even though she and Maisie have never got along, Maisie is awash with sympathy for her.
Sir Malcolm puffs away on his cigar until finally he speaks again.
‘It wasn’t my brother’s fault, of course. He had been telling me for a while about his successes with shares in ammunitions, so I thought to do the same,’ he explains. ‘But I hesitated and bought at the top of the market, instead of doing so when Hugo advised me to. Then the war looked like it was ending, and weapons manufacture was scaled down before I could move. I lost the lot last month.’ He looks sheepish. ‘Duke did warn me that I should spread my investments, but it seemed like I was on to a sure thing.’
Sir Malcolm exhales loudly as though relieved to have confessed his blunder, a plume of smoke rising to the ceiling. The situation must be serious because he never discusses money with Maisie. Or he’s more inebriated than he appears, and has no idea what secrets he’s divulging. It gives Maisie the confidence to press on.
‘Is there nothing left?’ she asks.
She still can’t grasp how someone could let so much wealth slip through their fingers. Investing sounds an awful lot like gambling if a person’s fortunes can turn so easily.
‘All there is, is what you see. The house, the car, our possessions.’
It’s somewhat reassuring that Sir Malcolm refers to ‘our possessions’, because it hints at some affection towards Maisie. Her feelings for him are similar. While she’s appreciative of everything he’s done for her, there’s more to it than that. Rubbing along together over the past eight years, she’s grown used to his gruff manner, and is reassured by his gentle strength.
‘Will you sell it all?’ she asks, not daring to ask the question on her tongue, which is ‘What will become of me?’
This concern, which has always lurked in the back of Maisie’s mind, rises to the surface whenever there’s trouble. Achieving some sort of security of her own might help. For a while now, she’s been wondering how she will occupy her time once the world returns to a semblance of normality. The restlessness to do something meaningful has returned, but Maisie is lost as to what direction to take. Should she find a job? Take a leaf out of Mrs Papadopoulos’s book and start a business?
Sir Malcolm shrugs, gives a hollow laugh. ‘And go where?’ He stubs the cigar out and stretches his right hand over to the gramophone on the side table. ‘Hugo has been awfully decent and offered to help out, but a chap can’t scrounge off his younger brother forever,’ he says. ‘No, Maisie, I shall have to continue trying to find a way to start from scratch. I’ve been looking into a few things – a mortgage, for example – but it’s not easy, at my age.’
There’s a click, click, click as the needle makes contact with vinyl, and the first bars of ‘Kiss Me, My Honey, Kiss Me’ sail into the smoky room. Sir Malcolm falls back, eyes closed, with his thumbs pressed to his temples as though the thought of it all is overwhelming.
Maisie departs from the room quietly. Her mind begins to spiral. She never wants to experience the poverty of Canvey Island again: the wrenching hunger, the constant cold with only rags for clothes, sleeping on bare earth in a leaking shack, and no firewood for heating. But how will Sir Malcolm make any money when he can’t concentrate long enough to solve the problem of the servants’ wages? If he doesn’t muster the wherewithal to forge a way out of this situation, he leaves everyone – the staff, Maisie, himself – at risk of destitution.
No, she can’t allow it.
Her monthly allowance sits unspent in a jar, saved up by Maisie as a safety-net against an uncertain future. This is the type of emergency it was meant for. For now, there are ample coins hoarded to cover the late wages, as well as another week paid in advance to make up for the delay.
Clara’s eyes shine when she’s handed the small envelope. Maisie wants to tell her not to waste it on Madame Rose’s so-called remedies but stops herself. What business is it of hers how other people spend their money?
‘We’re picking apples today, Clara, so wrap up warm,’ Maisie instructs her.
Realizing that if the servants’ wages were neglected, the tradespeople are probably owed money too, Maisie has an idea to harvest their winter crop and offer it in trade to Mrs Papadopoulos. She can cancel the dress from the seamstress, use fallen branches instead of coal to light the fires, forage for sea creatures as she did on Canvey Island, but milk, cheese and eggs are staples that cannot be replaced. It won’t solve their problems long term but will buy them some time. Enough time for Sir Malcolm to pull himself together, she hopes, and for Maisie to show him that she cares and will do everything in her power to help.
* * *
The wind skimming off the lake snaps at Maisie’s face the next morning as she twists apples from their stalks, throwing them on to old sheets as Clara sorts them into large bundles. Working in tandem, they strip ten trees of their harvest within three hours. Arnold joins in at lunchtime, his strong arms tugging twice as fast as the women’s, so that by the time Mrs Papadopoulos arrives mid-afternoon there are thirty-two bundles of fruit waiting by the front door.
‘You not sleep well?’ Mrs Papadopoulos asks as she approaches Maisie.
‘Just tired after picking all these apples,’ Maisie lies, hoping her voice is light enough to mask her desperation. ‘I thought you could offer fresh apple juice to your customers. We could barter, if you like? Milk, cheese and eggs for apples.’
Mrs Papadopoulos examines her face with dark eyes. She’s the kind of woman who doesn’t miss a thing.
‘Let’s see fruit.’
Impressed by the quality of the produce, Mrs Papadopoulos cancels the Fairweather debt, offers a month’s supply of whatever Maisie wants and reserves the rest of the crop for further payment down the line. Maisie shakes on the deal, relieved that they won’t starve for now at least. She couldn’t bear to relive the twist of her stomach craving its next meal.
Picking apples day after day in the chill of winter is back-breaking work. She would have thought nothing of it on Canvey Island, but her body has become softened to outdoor labour, and she can continue only by ignoring the scream of her muscles, and the blisters on her feet. Tree by tree is relieved of its burden until the final row is left – the strip of orchard near the place where Billy disappeared. It’s four years since Maisie has ventured to this part of the grounds.
She braves the view, taking stock of the landscape. There it is, strangled by bindweed, which creeps up the poles. The carousel, older, dirty, reclaimed by nature, sits waiting, a flash of bright colour against the slate winter sky. Two dozen horses frozen in time are poised to gallop to faraway places. Lapland. Camelot. Timbuktu. Up to the moon and back again. Even in this state, it takes Maisie’s breath away.
Who wouldn’t fall under its enchantment?
It doesn’t feel nearly as bad to be here as Maisie’s imagination had led her to believe. Her mind whirls into a wild plan; there might just be a way to keep them from ending up on the streets after all the fruit is picked.
* * *
Maisie finds Sir Malcolm in the study, poring over a newspaper, his hand poised over a china cup that appears to contain tea but is probably bourbon, because his expression is glazed as he glances up.
‘Yes?’
She ignores his sullen tone. ‘I was wondering if you have a moment to discuss a way to make money.’
He folds the newspaper, careful to smooth out the wrinkles. ‘What are you proposing, Maisie?’
‘It’s the carousel,’ she replies. ‘That afternoon the local children came over was wonderful before . . .’ Her voice tails off. Before the tragedy.
‘Before the Wadham boy went missing,’ Sir Malcolm finishes the sentence.
She feels tears stir at the corners of her eyes as the image of Billy’s sad face in the moments before he vanished pops up. This was a terrible idea. She can’t go through with it.
‘Yes,’ she whispers. She takes a deep breath. ‘I was going to suggest we open up the carousel and charge for it, Sir Malcolm, add a few games like hoopla or hook-a-duck, but even talking about it brings back bad memories.’
Sir Malcolm’s mouth pinches. They have never properly discussed that fateful afternoon.
‘Life can be brutal, we both know that,’ he says with a sigh. His sullenness is replaced by a softer look in his eyes than Maisie has ever seen there. ‘Terrible things happen every day, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it.’ He leans back in his chair. ‘I had been half thinking to sell the carousel, to be honest – it’s just been sitting there for all these years, and the proceeds would certainly be useful. But perhaps doing something positive with it might help offset the bad associations. Something good that other people will enjoy, like the time we had at the Clacton funfair.’
Maisie inwardly smiles at the thought of that happy day.
‘But do you think people would want to come here?’ she asks, now racked with doubt about her own idea. ‘After what happened?’
