It was Bessie. Tabitha and Fairclough sat up, facing the window, the curtain pulsing softly. Before either could say another word, Eloise burst in. She seemed entirely unperturbed by the sight of her sister in bed with Fairclough. She ran towards the window then crouched, peeking out from behind the curtains. Wrapping herself in the bed sheet, Tabitha joined her. The pair looked down onto the garden.

  Valentin was standing on the lawn. He was barefoot, shirtless. The wind had picked up, making a scratching sound as it passed through the desiccated branches of the palm.

  ‘Put that down, you stupid ass,’ Bessie said, fastening the belt on her dressing gown and striding towards him.

  ‘Get back,’ Valentin shouted, a heavy-looking pistol at his side.

  When Bessie was about ten yards away, he raised the pistol and fired into the air, a dry crack, his arm recoiling awkwardly at the force.

  ‘He’s been up all night,’ Eloise whispered.

  Fairclough pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms and came and joined them crouching at the window.

  ‘Some girl has been blackmailing him. Threatening to tell his wife.’

  ‘About the affair?’ asked Fairclough.

  ‘No, she claims she contracted the French gout.’

  ‘French gout?’ asked Tabitha.

  ‘You know, the Great Pox.’

  ‘I’m not sure I do.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Tabitha, syphilis.’

  ‘He has a wife?’

  ‘One would never guess from the way he carries on,’ Eloise said.

  Down on the lawn Bessie was moving slowly closer to Valentin.

  ‘Now you listen to me, Valentin.’ She was side-on to him, squinting. ‘That thing is not to be played with. You put it down at once.’

  Valentin shut his eyes and placed the pistol to his temple.

  ‘Oh, you, stupid, stupid ass,’ Bessie said, the last of her patience vanishing. She was only a few steps away. She turned full-on to him. Valentin’s breath was shallow and fast, his body militarily straight. When Bessie was a step away, she dropped her shoulder and hurled herself at Valentin, sending him backwards with a jerk. There was a crack from the pistol as they fell to the grass. Eloise and Tabitha ducked below the window. There followed a long silence over which birdsong slowly asserted itself, the sound of the wind in the palm tree, the soft sounds from the sea beyond.

  When they raised their heads above the window they saw Bessie and Valentin lying on their backs. Bessie let out a deep wheezing groan as if badly winded. She had one hand pressed against her ear. There was blood trickling down her wrist and into the sleeve of her dressing gown. She rolled awkwardly onto her side, dragged herself up on one knee, then stood, a finger hooped through the pistol’s trigger guard.

  Valentin lay perfectly still. It was only after a few moments of looking very hard that Eloise observed the faint rise and fall of his chest.

  November

  A slanted pillar of light fell through the hallway, dust motes, amber and ash-white, revolving in the beam. Charles stood before the mirror in his morning coat, framed by a pair of parlour palms. Beside him Claude was in church parade dress: dark blue forage cap, patrol jacket, trousers with their broad yellow stripe.

  ‘At least an inch taller, I would say,’ Claude said, laughing.

  Charles tugged him down by the flap of his jacket.

  ‘What are you, Papa, five foot three? Five foot four?’

  He nudged his father and received a sharper push in return, which sent him stumbling away from the mirror. Charles’s face remained dead straight despite Claude’s laughter. The horseplay stopped as Hettie came downstairs. She stood between them, pinning a piece of heather to Claude’s jacket.

  ‘There’s one there for you,’ she said to Charles flatly. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be with you today.’

  ‘It’s fine, Mama, you should rest.’

  Charles checked his pocket watch as the clock in the hallway released a brief flutter of chimes.

  ‘Any sign of the others?’

  ‘Upstairs,’ said Hettie.

  ‘What time are we to be there?’

  ‘Eleven, I think,’ said Claude.

  ‘Then there’s time for breakfast,’ said Charles, who shouted up the stairs, ‘For God’s sake, do hurry along, Tabitha.’

  *

  Back at her desk, Hettie could hear voices in the hallway, then someone moving quickly on the floor above. She opened the edition of Science and Health. It was signed by Lady Victoria, whose own edition it had once been, and dedicated ‘To Henrietta Wright, with love and in remembrance of all her healing work here in Manchester’. She had gone to the Bloodless Surgery after reading about it in the Evening Chronicle. Lady Victoria had been there, and her assistant, Miss Coutts-Fowlie, who had shown her into the reading room. The large, spare, rented space, none of the plush or gilt of the entrance hall, had just one table with a pair of chairs. Lady Victoria welcomed her like an old friend, taking her hand, inviting her to sit. Hettie had described her symptoms. The tiredness, the nausea, the pain in the legs and pelvis. Her loss of appetite. Lady Victoria had listened, hands spread on the table, head inclined as if she were absorbing Hettie’s words into her very being. It could all be overcome, Lady Victoria assured her. She told her about her own healing, the righting of her spine and lungs, ‘in India’, she said, and then, ‘Do you know India?’

  Lady Victoria and Miss Coutts-Fowlie knew of Charles. They seemed determined to inform themselves of the entire city, as if the undertow of their healing work was a vast reconnaissance of what passed for society. Lady Victoria nodding attentively, Miss Coutts-Fowlie noting down a name or an address of what she called the ‘sympathetic faithful’, those who might contribute to the Bloodless Surgery or to the building of the Third Church planned in the south of the city. In the months that followed her first visit, Hettie had gone with them to the prayer meetings in Blackpool and Rochdale, to the lectures by Bicknell Young, the dapper former Mormon from Salt Lake City who had been miraculously healed in Chicago at the height of his career as a baritone and afterwards devoted his life to the Mother Church.

  It was Bicknell Young who convinced Hettie she had it within her power to heal. ‘The divine mind does not labour,’ he said, adjusting his tie in the mirror, as they stood in his dressing room at the Albert Hall. He turned round to face her. ‘It knows.’ Lady Victoria and Miss Coutts-Fowlie, whose guest she had been, nodded in agreement. Then Lady Victoria said, ‘We must give Mr Young some time to prepare. Thank you for receiving us so graciously.’ He had given a low bow, then taken each of their hands in turn and kissed them. There were thousands packed into the auditorium. People were being turned away outside. They had taken the train back to Manchester together that evening, Miss Coutts-Fowlie reading the passages of his lecture she had transcribed from their seats in the stalls close to the stage.

  Hettie had begun her own healing with Esme. She had contracted polio at five. Her right leg was withered, she dragged it when she walked but took great pains to try and disguise it. There were other symptoms too, which had followed her out of girlhood. Esme would sit beside her on the bed, having been relieved of her duties for an hour each afternoon. They would close their eyes. Hettie saw bog cotton trembling in the breeze, a vast white wave spreading across the moor. After an hour of prayer, she would ask Esme about her symptoms.

  ‘And your legs? What can you feel?’

  ‘A tingling, here.’

  Esme touched the top of her thigh.

  ‘Stand for me.’

  In August, when Eloise and Tabitha were away in Cornwall, Hettie had collapsed in the hall outside her bedroom. Dolly asked if she should call a doctor.

  ‘I’ll be fine in a moment. Please.’

  She felt very weak as she looked down at her hands on the worn pink runner. She began to pray; Miss Baker Eddy, the bog cotton dotted across the moor moving in the breeze. Eventually she found the strength to crawl back to her bedroom. She spent the week there, insisting Charles did not call a doctor, sending her meals back to the kitchen, subsisting on prayer alone and little sips of water. In the morning Claude would come and refill the decanter.

  ‘Please, Mama,’ Claude said, ‘you are not well, a doctor could –’

  ‘Pray with me.’

  ‘Mama, please.’

  *

  At breakfast, Charles held the newspaper out in front of him like a man playing an accordion. He was moving backwards from Monetary & Commercial. When he reached the front page he froze, his mouth a grim rictus, his lips very pale. Eloise reached and took the newspaper from him. The headline: MILITANTS CAUSE HAVOC. She began to read aloud from the article: ‘The Cactus House at Alexandra Park containing a collection valued at over £50,000 was last night attacked … Begbrook, a fine mansion near Bristol … the pavilion of the Tennis Club at Catford … ’

  ‘Is this the first you’ve heard of it, Papa?’ Claude asked.

  Charles thumped the breakfast table with the flat of his fist, then got up and left the room without answering.

  ‘So much for those fabled powers of oratory,’ said Eloise.

  *

  ‘Yes, well, ask him to call as soon as he can.’ Charles hung the earpiece back on the brass hook.

  ‘Any word?’ said Claude. Charles shook his head.

  ‘You cannot cycle to your own wedding, Tabitha, I forbid it.’ Eloise was holding the train as Tabitha made her way downstairs.

  ‘It was only a thought,’ said Tabitha, her lower half now visible to Charles and Claude in the hallway.

  ‘Damn silly one,’ Charles called up, returning to the telephone.

  ‘Your poor dress would be ruined,’ said Eloise.

  ‘I could change there, I’m sure.’

  ‘No, it’s all arranged, Benzie will drive us in,’ said Charles.

  Benzie had tied a white ribbon in a V on the bonnet of the waiting landaulet. Hettie hovered at the door, rubbing her shoulders against the chill. She waved stiffly as they pulled away.

  They had been driving for only a few minutes when Charles said, ‘Benzie, turn left down here.’

  ‘Where are we going, Charles?’ asked Eloise.

  ‘Won’t be long.’

  ‘Oh, Charles, it’s her wedding day.’

  ‘Quick glance.’

  ‘Charles, please.’

  ‘Eloise, we’ve plenty of time.’

  At the entrance a park-keeper and some children were standing by a man selling newspapers. Benzie turned in at the lodge and drove on past the propagating house and the bandstand, the black road sparkling from the recent rain.

  ‘You know the way from here,’ Charles said as they passed the sunken bowling green.

  The glass was shattered in almost every window, leaving the painted wooden frame starkly exposed. Men were milling about in front, policemen and wardens in brown jackets, while others stood gazing up at the wreckage.

  ‘Awful,’ Benzie said.

  Charles turned and looked at him as if an item of furniture had spoken. He glanced back at Tabitha, the train of her wedding dress carefully folded on the seat beside her. A policeman, clearly someone senior, approached the car. Charles lowered his window.

  ‘Hello, Peacock.’

  ‘Ah, Wright, hello.’

  He was tall man with a downturned mouth, a soft wattle of skin drooping over his collar.

  ‘Residents in the houses over there were woken around four. A pipe we think packed with explosives, blew the railings clean off.’

  Peacock gestured to a mangled twist of iron a few yards away. Men in cloth caps were pushing broken glass into piles with a shushing sound.

  ‘Neighbours thought it had been snowing when they opened their curtains. Still awaiting a report on your cacti.’

  ‘Anyone injured?’

  ‘No word yet from Cobbald,’ said Peacock, who then added gravely, ‘We know he kept somewhat irregular hours.’

  ‘If I can be of any assistance.’

  ‘Good of you to look in,’ Peacock said.

  Charles nodded to Benzie who started the engine. As they began to pull away Peacock was approached by another officer who said something to him then pointed at the car. Peacock walked back towards them. He tapped on the passenger window.

  ‘Miss Wright.’

  Eloise felt Tabitha stiffen.

  ‘May I offer you my congratulations?’

  ‘Congratulations?’

  Peacock looked at her for a long moment, then pointed at the train of her dress.

  ‘He’s a lucky chap.’

  The rain had left dark marks along the ribbon on the bonnet. There was damp confetti in the gaps between the landaulet’s seats.

  ‘Do you think those people out there are thinking how on earth did that old girl manage to land herself such a handsome young lieutenant?’

  ‘You’re not that old, Aunt Eloise. Anyway –’ Claude looked out of the window at the floating canopy of black umbrellas – ‘you’re not quite my type.’ There was a brief silence then he said, ‘It’s very kind of you to see me off.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure – the chap they put me next to at lunch was awfully dull.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘You promise you’ll take care of yourself, won’t you?’

  Claude laughed. ‘It’s a weekend camp at Caerwys, parading, marches, suppers with my brother officers. Very little can go wrong.’

  In the stables at the barracks the geldings were restive, snorting and chomping in their stalls. There was wet straw spilled across the cobbles, a steaming pile of manure by the gate where Benzie had parked. A boy in a waistcoat walked past, a strong smell of beeswax and lanolin coming from the saddle he carried over one arm.

  ‘I hope I’ll see you before too long.’

  ‘Come to Paris next year.’

  ‘I should like that.’

  ‘There are people there … ’

  Claude seemed to colour slightly.

  ‘I must go, Aunt Eloise.’

  She squeezed his elbow. He snapped a brisk salute. A man wearing a combination of civilian and military dress, horse tack slung over his shoulder, smiled at Claude as he made his way into the barracks, mouthing something Eloise couldn’t make out.

  The landaulet moved along the wet streets. The tree trunks seemed much thicker than Eloise remembered, monstrous almost, rupturing the pavements, their foliage dense even now in early winter, as if the villas of her girlhood and their overgrown gardens were in the process of being reclaimed. Lichens dappled the coping stones, mosses flourished where the house names had been cut into their posts.

  ‘She wants the place back, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Who’s that, miss?’

  ‘Nature, all these mansions, with their pretty gables and painted gates.’

  Benzie nodded.

  ‘I wonder if it’ll all be forest again one day or a swamp.’

  ‘Oh, I should think so, miss,’ said Benzie, ‘one day.’

  It was very quiet back at the house. In the drawing room Hettie was sitting under blankets in a chair by the fire, like an animal in the early stages of hibernation.

  ‘Did Claude get away safely?’

  ‘Oh yes, all fine.’

  ‘Did he look very dashing?’

  ‘Very,’ said Eloise.

  ‘How was the service?’

  ‘Mercifully short. Fairclough wore a black frock coat with a white boutonnière.’

  ‘Did they give you anything to eat?’

  ‘There was a lunch, duck. Tabitha sent the leftovers and most of the wedding cake in a motor taxi to the Mission.’

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘They decided to take a turn around the botanical gardens.’

  ‘I’ve something for you.’

  Hettie rose from her chair and made her way to the back of the room. She returned with a cardboard tube. Inside was a copy of the Christian Science Sentinel, on the cover two women set against Greek columns, beneath them an address in Boston to which all correspondence should be directed.

  ‘Really, I mustn’t deprive you.’

  ‘I ordered two. Should you enjoy it, you’ll be able to pick a copy up in the United States. I hope you will.’

  ‘Yes, well, thank you,’ Eloise said, taking the magazine. She pictured Bessie tossing it from the window of a moving motor taxi.

  ‘The house will be a good deal quieter without you and your sister. I didn’t imagine I would outlast you both, but there you go.’

  She gave a faint smile which seemed to take a great deal of energy and concentration and which left her looking depleted.

  ‘Do look at it closely,’ she said. ‘All manner of marvellous things in there. Yesterday I read of a man who was suffering from oesophageal cancer. Do you know why?’

  Eloise shook her head.

  ‘Because he believed in the material world. It’s an illusion, you see. All of it. Do you understand?’

  Eloise nodded. It seemed to please Hettie.

  ‘I knew you would.’

  Hettie made her way into the hall then up the stairs, pausing for breath.

  ‘You leave tomorrow?’ she said over her shoulder.

  ‘Yes, for –’

  But before she could finish, Hettie had turned her back.

  ‘Arizona,’ Eloise said.

  It presented itself in her mind as blocks of colour and unadulterated light. She looked around the room and tried to fix it as it was, the clocks, the piano, the ammonites on the mantelpiece. It had begun to rain, lightly, at the window, on the rose stems trained beside the glass.

  At 19.00 C Squadron attached to the III Corps left its reserve billets at Lamotte-Warfusée on the Amiens–St Quentin road heading for the front at Estrées. At 23.55 Lt Wright led a patrol to the south of Tincourt Wood. Lt Wright was accompanied by two men, Sgt Maguire and Pte Reynolds. As far as can be ascertained, the patrol lost their way and encountered a German picket where they came under sustained fire. Lt Wright received wounds to the abdomen and shoulder. Sgt Maguire remained with him until dawn when he was ordered to return to lines and fetch help. A search party was sent out but regrettably no trace of Lt Wright or Pte Reynolds was found.