The Room Beyond Read Free Page B

rain.
     
    As everyone was out she spent the afternoon writing letters, which
included an invitation to Mrs Eden, and making several aborted attempts to
grapple with the garden between hot, sticky showers. The jasmine she’d planted
by the dining room window was beginning to bloom; she loved its sweet scent,
even if Tristan found it too sickly. And the rain brought the perfume out even
more. She rubbed some of the flowers against the dip at the base of her neck.
    She sat alone at the dining table for supper, but although the chops
smelt delicious enough when Mrs Hubbard brought them through, the thought of
actually eating them made her throat want to cave in. She hacked the meat off
the bones and ferreted it away in her napkin to avoid comments.
    At about midnight a slamming door shocked her out of sleep. Footsteps
clattered across the hallway downstairs. Tristan, home at last, probably
heading to the dining room for a smoke before bed. She threw a shawl around her
shoulders.
    The dimmed lights in the hallway filled the air with an amber glow. She’d
learned how to move almost noiselessly through the house now, with only her
shadow anticipating her approach. Downstairs something small and white was
lying on the floor near the front door: a crumpled piece of paper. Tristan must
have unknowingly stepped on it on his way in. It seemed to be a note, written
in a scrawled, impatient hand on what looked like a page torn out from a
magazine.
     
    To dear Mrs Whitestone at number 34. I think I’ll probably come
tomorrow although I desperately need some sleep before I see anyone. Lucinda
Eden.
     
    On the other side of the piece of paper was the remains of what must
have been a table of contents: p.24 French wig making for the stage , it
read.
    The dining room was empty; the chairs uniformly pushed in beneath
the swirling sheen of the long mahogany table. This room had been such a source
of pride to her in the early days, so spacious and tranquil. What marvellous dinner
parties she’d planned for then, with friends and family, little feet running
about perhaps.
    From above the mantelpiece the portrait of herself and Tristan
glowered down at her. The painter had captured Tristan’s likeness so well. In
just a matter of minutes he’d teased the oils into such an uncanny replica of
his features. His expression was demure, princely even, his eyes so commanding.
    And yet the construction of Miranda’s likeness had consumed
countless hours of humiliation. The painter had attempted to flatter her: to
add a little chin where it failed to exist, to widen the eyes, add plumpness to
the lips. The resulting image was of a woman of some beauty, but with features
that had little relation to her own. She could barely bring herself to look at
it.
    Back in the hallway the scent of cigar smoke met her nostrils and
she noticed that one of the drawing room doors was ajar. She stood perfectly
still. The rest of the house was so silent that she could just hear him: his
lips sucking at the sides of the cigar, his mouth drawing in the smoke. His
hair would be tousled now, his eyelids getting a little lazy. She took a step
towards the room, raising her hand softly against the door. Her breathing had
suddenly quickened into short, sharp little gasps. And then her hand fell away,
collapsing limply against her side.
    ‘No,’ she murmured under her breath and, just as deftly as before,
retreated back upstairs to her bedroom, pulling the blankets tightly up beneath
her chin.
     
    The following day was warm again and quite humid by the evening. Mrs
Hubbard’s joint of beef for the dinner party had filled the house with an oily
aroma that sent Miranda racing about the house opening windows.
    The dining table had been set beautifully with the new linen table
cloth she’d bought and their wedding cutlery. She pushed the window open as
wide as it would go and let out a gasp. The jasmine was radiant. Just in the
last few hours it had exploded with even more