ACT TWO.

JulySeptember.

Threescore years and ten the Lesser Threshold takes and holds in trust until the traveller's return. The angel and the lower creature are exempt: the former because he inhabits an unchanging, supermundane vessel, the latter because it has no soul.

Transportation And Its Practice, A. Prentice.

CHAPTER 11.

IN BALANCE WITH THIS LIFE.

July 1935.

Rain fell into the gravemouth, dripping from the wings of black umbrellas. Hunched and shivering beside Mother, Delphine watched it drum the lid of Mr Kung's coffin as men with ropes lowered him into the ground.

Mr Propp began to sing. He stood at the foot of the grave, dressed in black, a fist to his heart. Alice stood beside him, holding a brolly over his shining head. Propp sung in a minor key, in a language Delphine did not recognise. The scale sounded Middle Eastern, full of strange intervals, ululating, mournful.

The stench of grass and wildflowers and wet July earth was stifling. Delphine pushed her shoe against the sodden ground; brown water pooled around the toe. She glanced at Dr Lansley, on the opposite side of the hole. He had a leather glove pressed to his mouth. He regarded the pit with a look of disapproval. He seemed to despise Kung for giving up so easily.

Propp finished his song. He stepped forward and tossed a handful of dirt onto the coffin. It landed in a clod and washed away. Dr Lansley stepped forward, soil balled in glove. A big wedge of earth broke loose beneath his foot. He wobbled. Dirt sloughed into the grave. Miss DeGroot, wrapped in black satin, grabbed his collar and pulled him back.

Everyone took a step away. Dr Lansley stood in the rain, fruitlessly slapping his sopping sleeves, blowing a spritz of moisture out of his thin moustache. One leg of his trousers was painted in mud.

'I'm going for a bloody drink.'

Delphine spent the afternoon on the beach, watching the sea. Warm rain fell, fragrant with heather. It pelted her scalp and her ears and the nape of her neck, and she barely felt it. Spume washed over broken shells. She watched the waves, kept expecting Mr Kung to break the surface, kelp slopping from beneath his bowler hat, a boyish smile on his face as he strode shoreward, ready to reclaim his shoes.

As the tide went out, she walked to the pits she had dug at the mouth of the marshes. She plunged her crab hook into syrupy silt, dragging it around till she felt the scrape of iron on chitin. Most of the time the crabs gripped it with their pincers, clung on even as she lifted them dripping into her bag. It was their tenacity that did for them.

Why had Mr Kung killed himself? And why, if he really was a foreign spy, did she feel so sick and shaken by it?

Her shadow began to lengthen. Chunks of petrified tree jutted from the mud like rotten teeth. She took her bag filled with the day's catches and headed for the tunnel.

Delphine followed the tunnel from the beach to the wine cellar. At the top of the cellar stairs, she pushed a long brass key into the lock and opened the door. Finding out which keys fitted which locks had been a long, risky process.

She stuck her head out and looked both ways. The corridor was empty.

She locked the door behind her and headed left, past the game larder, where woodcock, teal, partridge, goose and pheasant hung glumly. Next door was the gun room. She unlocked the door with a second, smaller key, stepped in and shut it behind her.

A leathery smell hung in the cool, still air. On three walls, shotguns and hunting rifles of various sizes stood vertically in racks. Two locked glass cabinets housed vintage guns: a double-barrelled French flintlock from 1760, a British Navy seven-barrelled Nock volley gun, a mahogany case containing a pair of silver-gilt blunderbuss carbines from the Caucasus. A punt gun with a two-inch barrel ran the length of the left-hand wall. She had read they could take down a flock of geese in a single shot.

She took a shotgun from the rack: a Westley Richards hammerless ejector, barely two years old. She squinted down the sights, stepped and swung, tracking the trajectory of an imaginary bird. The flesh beneath her collarbone ached. Shooting still hurt like blazes, but she was getting stronger. She wiped a smudged thumbprint from the walnut stock, then slotted the gun back in place.

She went over to a set of office drawers. They were supposed to be kept locked. The front of each drawer was labelled with an index card. She slid out the drawer marked '3', opened a couple of cartons and slotted her leftover cartridges into the gaps.

A cough from the hallway.

She cast around for refuge. The gun room was all display cases and empty space. She flicked off the light and as the filament died she threw her back to the wall beside the door. The door opened inwards, hiding her.

'Hello?' A man's voice, hushed, querulous. It was Professor Carmichael.

She bit her lip.

He took a step into the room, pushing the door wide as he entered. She dodged before it could bump her shoulder.

'Hello?' The floorboards creaked as he shifted his weight.

She noticed her spoils bag lying in the middle of the floor. Amongst all the wood and steel and leather, the green canvas was obvious. The thump of a shoe. Another. The far wall filled with his shadow.

'Can I help you?' A woman's voice from the corridor: loud, common. The Professor's soles scraped as he turned. Pressed against the wall, Delphine exhaled thinly.

'I, uh . . . '

'Mr Carmichael.' It was Mrs Hagstrom. 'How did you get in there?'

'Uh, uh, it was open.'

'"Open", he says. So if it's not barred and padlocked that's an invitation for you to come and go as you please?'

'I'm sorry, I '

'"Sorry", is it. That's the song now.' Delphine could hear a whap whap as of a blunt object striking an open palm.

'It's Mr Propp,' said the Professor. 'Pay, uh Miss DeGroot is concerned as to his whereabouts. I was looking for him.'

'In the gun room?'

'Yes.'

Mrs Hagstrom stomped forward and grabbed the door handle. Delphine flinched. She could hear Mrs Hagstrom's panting through the inch of pine.

'And is he in here?'

The Professor audibly sagged. 'No.'

'You're sure?'

'Mrs Hagstrom, may I '

'Mr Carmichael '

'Actually, uh, it's Profess '

'Mr Carmichael.' Mrs Hagstrom inhaled. 'If Mr Propp needs a place to contemplate life's great mysteries, you can rest assured it won't be down here. If he wants to fritter away his days ogling his belly button that's his lookout and his folly, but the moment he comes my side of the green baize I shall be after him with a carpet beater, inner peace or no. Some of us . . . ' she swept him from the room and slammed the door, 'have work to do.'

Delphine heard her sorting through the big ring of keys like a gaoler. There was a reassuring clunk-clack as she relocked the door.

'Now,' said Mrs Hagstrom, her voice clear and strident, 'off with you. Go on! Off! Off!' Delphine listened to Mrs Hagstrom herding the Professor down the corridor. She allowed herself to exhale. So, Propp was off on his travels again.

A blast of damp heat hit Delphine the instant she entered the kitchen. She had sneaked round to the north side, to make it look as if she had come into the house via the servants' entrance, but the ruse was unnecessary; the room was such a commotion of clanking and yelling that she could have entered through the chimney and no one would have noticed. The shelves were heaped with apparatus like a wizard's laboratory: copper pans, tureens, jelly moulds, weights and balances, whisks, ladles and heavy-bottomed pots. At the far end, several geese turned on a spit above the range, dribbling fat that hissed as it hit the flames, while behind them black kettles thrummed with water.

Mrs Hagstrom stood a short distance from the fire. She had her sleeves rolled up. Sweat glued hair to her brow. She bellowed commands without looking up from her work, the thwack of her blade keeping time.

Delphine wove round the back of Alice, who was cracking egg after egg into a pudding bowl, and presented herself to Mrs Hagstrom. The heat from the range was incredible; it came in waves, a physical thing that pushed against exposed skin. With the flames, the clouds of moisture and the clangs of industry, standing in the heart of the kitchen was like standing on the footplate of a steam engine.

'Ah, Miss Venner!' called Mrs Hagstrom, the bang-swish-bang of the cleaver hacking her speech into a platter of discrete, confusing clauses. 'A perfect disgrace, as usual, sauntering in, a whisker before, dinnertime, your skirt splattered, with muck the likes, I've never seen. And here I was, thinking your Mother, had forbidden you, from leaving the, house without her, permission. You look as if, you've been crawling, through a sewer pipe,' the cleaver arcing down through another shallot, 'and surely that can't, have been your bag, I saw a minute, ago just lying there, on the floor of the gu '

Delphine slammed a lobster on the table like a telephone receiver. Its pincers were tied with parcel string. The lobster and Mrs Hagstrom exchanged bemused glances. The cleaver hung in mid-air. Mrs Hagstrom looked at the cleaver, set it down.

'Come with me,' she said.

This, then, was Mrs Hagstrom's weakness.

In the laundry room, Delphine handed over the lobster and two crabs haggled down from four in exchange for use of the servants' bath, a change of clothes, and Mrs Hagstrom's silence. The air in the laundry room was warm and damp and cloying. The crabs were cold from the sea. Mrs Hagstrom put them in a bucket. She stood over the bucket, looking down.

Ten minutes later Delphine emerged from the bathroom in the scratchy blue housedress Mother had insisted she wear tonight. Her skin felt tender.

Mrs Hagstrom snatched up Delphine's hands, inspecting the fingernails.

She released them. 'Hmph. That'll have to do.'

Delphine held out her muddy clothes. Mrs Hagstrom tumbled them into a ball which she wedged beneath her armpit.

'Don't think you can go making a habit of this,' she said. 'Next time I may be occupied by my duties which are many and arduous and you'll be left to make your own excuses. Now, get yourself to the dining room. What with all these distractions dinner'll be ash and cinders. Go on, before I come to my senses,' and she shooed Delphine upstairs.

Delphine's belly growled but no one was starting.

Lord Alderberen tapped his spoon against the rim of his wine glass and kept tapping until everyone fell silent. He set the spoon down. Vapour rose from his tomato and shallot soup, bathing his rumpled bluish face.

'Noble colleagues if I may say a few words before we begin the evening meal.' His head bobbed in a steady trickle of affirmation. He looked to Propp, who nodded for him to continue. Lord Alderberen usually took meals in his bedchamber. His presence at the dinner table was both awkward and momentous.

'We have,' he said, in a voice with the wavering quality of a gramophone recording, 'all of us, been affected profoundly by the events of last week. But in times of great adversity, we also find cause for great hope. Mr Propp and I have always said that the Society, if it is to be an engine for real change and not yet another cabal of pompous drawing-room philosophers, must demonstrate its efficacy through action. Rarely has this efficacy been demonstrated so resoundingly as on Wednesday, where quick thinking, skill, and grace under fire ensured that Mr Kung reached hospital with a minimum of delay.'

He lifted his glass. 'A toast.'

Everyone raised their drinks. Delphine shrank back in her chair, cheeks glowing.

'To Dr Lansley.'

To Lansley, repeated the diners.

Delphine was dumbfounded. No one objected. Even Daddy said nothing. Lansley accepted their praise, circling his glove like a traffic policeman.

Delphine was about to protest when she caught Mother's glare.

Propp gripped the arms of his chair and rose. 'My dear brothers and sisters, I add only this: you see now why we must work. You see now how very little time we have.' He regarded the guests with his big, dark eyes. His gaze came to rest on Delphine.

Under the table, Delphine curled her toes. She refused to look away.

Propp sat. He picked up his spoon. When he lifted the first spoonful of soup to his lips and blew, everyone else started to eat.

After dinner, Delphine went below stairs and ate supper.

Mrs Hagstrom cut up some sandwiches and piled them on two plates: half were goose and half were crab. She laid out some butter and a jar of plum jam and more bread, and strong, hot tea in a big green pot that took both hands to carry. Alice and Mr Garforth and Mr Wightman the blacksmith and Mr Garforth's assistant Reggie Gillow shuffled onto the long benches either side of the table and began to help themselves. Next to the doorway sat a little black woodburning stove, its seams creaking as it heated up. On a corner shelf, the wireless crooned softly.

'Nice of you to join us this evening, Martin,' said Mrs Hagstrom.

Mr Wightman nodded. He was wearing a checked cotton shirt with the cuffs buttoned back and his hair had been combed flat across his dented head. He had been at the Hall a lot recently, undertaking minor repair work on a room in the east wing where the rain got in.

'Ta, Mrs H, this is lovely,' said Reggie. Reggie had not lost his job over the pheasant business, so either he had been innocent, or and this was the explanation Delphine thought more likely Mr Garforth had not had the heart to sack him. The sun had brought his freckles out; they jostled as he chewed.

Mr Garforth tutted. 'Don't talk with your mouth full, boy.'

Alice was beaming. 'Reggie doesn't get anything like this at home, do you, Reggie?'

'Just greasy tea and a clip round the earhole.'

'Well, if you don't watch your manners I'll make you feel right at home,' said Mr Garforth. 'And elbows.'

Reggie slid his elbows off the table. 'Sorry, Mr G.'

Delphine munched on a jammy doorstop and gazed over Alice and Reggie's heads at framed photographs, pristine against the lime-washed brick. The largest picture showed a pair of dray horses chained one behind the other to a game waggon, on which dead pheasants hung in dozens from long metal bars. She could not see the grass for corpses they carpeted the ground. A man was looking into the camera with a sullen expression. He had three pheasants in each hand.

A small, typewritten card tucked into the corner of the frame read: November 1888. Assistant Keeper Mr H. Garforth recovers the last of the weekend's bag. Over two days' shooting, six guns (Lord Alderberen, Sir N. Goole, Cpt. B. Hunstanton, Mr M. Rao, Mr B. Khan, Rev. J. S. Coe) accounted for 2,686 pheasants, 80 partridges, 74 hares, 134 rabbits and 1 woodcock.

Delphine examined the young Mr Garforth. He wore a black coat with a high collar and six brass buttons down the front. Beneath the pushed-back brim of his bowler hat, his face was tanned and lineless.

The photograph to the left showed a youth in a pith helmet, squatting with his rifle across his knees in front of a felled water buffalo. In the background, amongst tall dry grass, an Indian servant smiled uncertainly. The caption read: Mysore, 1869. The young sahib shows off his first trophy.

Tucked away in the top-left of the display was a photograph that looked to have been taken in the orangery. The washed-out, blurry image showed a dozen men and women dressed in kimonos, holding fans and parasols; at the front of the group stood a slight man in black evening dress, clutching a katana in an elaborate gilt-iron scabbard. He stood with one shoulder dipped, looking past the camera as if someone had just called to him. Delphine had to squint to read the little card in the corner of the frame: March 1853. The 3rd Earl of Alderberen and servants prepare for the annual Birthday Play.

Her chest clenched. She stared at the figure at the front of the photograph. His face was a blot of white.

She had always assumed no photographs existed of Lord Alderberen's father. Wasn't he supposed to have been a recluse? Hadn't he hidden himself away, because he was deformed, or a vampire, or a lunatic?

'Don't eat with your mouth open,' said Mr Garforth, flicking a clot of crabmeat from his whiskers. He was always grumpy at Sunday supper, partly out of tiredness (the walk to church was a round trip of eight miles), and partly because Mrs Hagstrom insisted on tuning the wireless to Radio Luxembourg, which he disapproved of because it carried advertisements for the pools on the Sabbath.

Delphine swallowed her last mouthful of bread and jam.

'I thought the old Earl didn't like to go out.'

'What are you talking about?'