The Memory Palace. Christie Dickason

she and Harry were betrothed, which could well have been true. She also lied and swore that the marriage had never been consummated – for, who but Harry and she could ever prove otherwise? Particularly as the lack of issue was commonly taken as sufficient proof in such cases. Zeal’s guardian, who, by her marriage, lost all interest in either her or her fortune (now squandered by Harry, in any case), had been happy to testify that she had married against his wishes, as indeed she had. In the end, there had been almost excessive grounds for voiding the marriage and rewriting two years of her life.

      As always, her head began to throb at this point. Now came the part she could consider only sideways.

      Annulment meant that the marriage had never been. Therefore, if, as it had been ruled, Harry had never been her legal husband, then he had never had the right to spend her fortune. He had, nevertheless, gone through it all (and, of course, he really had been her husband all along).

      Almost worse, she had never been Lady Beester, no matter what she had believed at the time. She had not had the legal right to fall in love with Hawkridge, nor to delight in its gardens or the charming irregularity of its outline or the ornate chimneys, the unexpected hens’ nests, the dusty cupboards full of other people’s lives. She had had no right to feel full and warm, as she moved about the house, her house now, aflame with domestic purpose.

      Orphaned at six, she lived thereafter with relatives, with guardians or at boarding school. At Harry’s Hawkridge, she thought she had finally found her proper place on earth. She still felt as if she had missed a step in the stairs and wasn’t at all where she had thought she was, and was sick with the shock and unexpected pain.

      Outside the little office window, birds were beginning to shout out their territorial claims. The sky had just begun to lighten. Not much night left. She put one of her pillows over her head to muffle the birds and tried to think how to set about building a new house.

       10

      Sir Harry and the carriers returned an hour after what would have been sun-up if the sky had not been a chilly grey. The weather, as well as erosion of novelty, led to a thinner audience than the day before. Also, the smokehouse needed tending and there was the autumn ploughing, bread to bake, the butchering of a ewe that had crippled itself, and arranging warm lodgings to see them all through the winter.

      The carters brought flat stones to place under the feet of the tripod to keep them from sinking into the mud. But when the ox began to drag Nereus along the track of planks, the dolphin’s nose dug into the ground and acted as a brake.

      Once she had grasped the principle of Wentworth’s method, Zeal left the men grunting and puffing in their effort to roll the old god onto his other side. Back in the office, she began to list all the different building parts she had envisioned with such delight the morning before, and the stuffs needed to make them. This morning, however, she found the work tedious.

      She had imagined a house built of brick.

      Therefore, I know I will need bricks. But will it be less costly to buy them or to hire men from Southampton to enlarge our own kiln? Need…dear Lord…how many thousand? How do I work it out?

      I’m not sure I can do this alone, after all, she thought. Do you suppose Master Wentworth knows about houses, as well as about New World Indians?

      The carters reached the forecourt. Unable to keep her mind on her great purpose, she went out to watch the final lifting of the old sea god onto the cart. On the firm footing of the forecourt the sheer legs and pulleys worked perfectly. The surrender was easily achieved by only three men.

      Amphritite was next. Her fishing line had vanished during the night. As she stood on relatively dry ground, the traitorous nymph, unlike her father, yielded easily to her abductors.

      ‘We’ll be done by evening, after all.’ Fox sounded greatly cheered.

      Zeal returned to the office. Then she had to confer with Mistress Margaret in the bake house kitchen about collecting more urine for soap making. She could not help walking back to the ponds. Unlike her sister, Panope resisted until just before dinner. After dinner, although the carters had begun to get the measure of both subjects and terrain, they shifted only Galatea, Psamanthe and the last three nymphs on the near side of the ponds. Eight more waited on the opposite banks. Harry left in a vile temper for a second night at Ufton Wharf, where the barges were moored, at his expense.

      Unhappily, Zeal examined the muddy track that the ox’s hoofs had churned up across the grass of the paddock.

      By the third morning, the battle had lost all novelty for the estate residents. Also, a slow, depressing drizzle had begun to seep down from the sky. Wherever she was, however, Zeal could still hear Sir Harry shouting from his shelter under the rear portico, and the curses of his workmen out in the rain. She felt paralysed by his presence. Life on the estate was frozen so long as he was still here. More than anything, she now wanted him gone for good.

      The rain stopped in mid-afternoon. A warm clammy wind blew down the river valley and tugged dying leaves from the trees.

      ‘Only two more to go,’ said Sir Harry as they left for yet another night at Ufton.

      Fox said something under his breath.

      

      Mid-morning the next day, shouts and splashing sent her running out to the ponds.

      Only one nymph remained – Thetis, mother of heroes and nest guardian. The muddy berm where she stood, at the far end of the pike pond just above the weir, was too narrow to give the feet of the sheer legs a firm base. When the statue finally toppled, the leather loop holding the sling to the lifting rig snapped. She now lay on her back with an arm raised in mute protest, her right hand snapped off at the wrist.

      Young Fox was searching among the lily pads, ducking his head under the surface, then lifting it to gasp and splutter.

      ‘Mind the pike!’ a boy warned. ‘They’ll bite your fingers off! They nearly ate my baby brother’s whole foot!’

      ‘Farewell at last?’ Zeal asked, in the early afternoon. ‘Or will you be back when you suddenly remember something else you want to give your new bride?’

      ‘Your manners have not improved with time.’ Harry swung up into his saddle, then leaned back down to her. ‘I have influence in London now, mistress, so don’t challenge me.’ He turned and kicked his horse so savagely that she had to jump back out of the way of its swinging rump. ‘And when you get around to draining the pond, I want that hand!’

      Zeal resolved to have the fish man rescue it as soon as Harry had gone.

      As his cart passed her, Fox made a sign against the evil eye.

      When the last cart had gone, she went to the ponds and scuffed her foot on one of the bare mud patches on the banks. Hawkridge felt deserted. There was too much raw empty air around the ponds.

      She watched the fish man groping in the mud of the pike pond.

      The duck’s nest lay smashed on the side of the bank.

      The day had chilled. The sky was turning a purplish-black.

      There’s a storm coming, Zeal thought as she turned back towards the office, carrrying Thetis’ wet marble hand. If Nature weeps for the sorrows of men, the present sky must reflect my desire to give Harry a black eye. Nature was not usually so sympathetic nor obliging, no matter what the philosophers might say.

      In her ignorance of what was to come, she found the thought entertaining.

      

      The news reached Hawkridge long after dark. A short time later, Sir Richard came out of the night, looking both irascible and miserable. Zeal went to meet him.

      ‘Trust him to wreck a man’s sleep!’ he said as he handed over his horse. ‘Well, my dear. What a business! Best get it over and done with.’

      Mistress