A Map of the Damage by Sophia Tobin

Author:Sophia Tobin [Tobin, Sophia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471151675
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

1940

DINING HALL, THE MIRRORMAKERS’ CLUB

‘What is disturbing you?’

Jonathan was standing in the doorway of the Dining Hall, and he turned at the sound of Livy’s voice. He was watching Bill trying to put together the long mahogany table lying before him in twenty pieces. Livy had seen a design for it: a special table to be put out when the committee of the Club dined alone. Bill was standing with his hands on his hips, looking at it as though it were an immense jigsaw puzzle. The underside of the piece was rougher than the top: unvarnished, bare, imperfect wood.

Jonathan wore a faintly disgusted expression, as though he were looking at a maimed animal. ‘I’ve only ever seen it complete, when I’ve dined on it,’ he said. He wore the same look he had given to the section of bare wall in the hall, when its marble lining had cracked.

‘You only want perfect things,’ she said.

‘I have standards, that’s all.’

She saw that he had been trained to expect the best, in himself and others. His money and education made him well-groomed, gentlemanly. And yet, some underlying part of his character always seemed to be tugging at him – to make him slouch, rather than standing tall; to make him unkempt. Some deep shame underlay his disgust at the imperfect. She touched his arm.

‘Perhaps you will see it again one day, in its splendour,’ she said. ‘There’s been a delivery for you.’

Jonathan turned to look at Livy. ‘What?’

‘A trunk, from Redlands. Delivered by one of your servants. A Mr Simmons, Peggy said. I didn’t see him.’

His steps quickened. ‘Is he here? Has someone given him a cup of tea?’

‘No. He went. She said he seemed keen to be gone.’

She turned away from the disappointment in his face, and went on ahead of him, walking briskly. Past the clock, its pendulum keeping time in stately fashion.

*

The battered trunk stood in the corner of the Document Room, where Peggy had directed the servant to leave it. There was an envelope tied to the handle, and Livy watched as Jonathan untied it and opened it, barely containing her impatience. His expression darkened as he read it.

‘The papers are unsorted. My wife says she looked in the attic and found it, and she also emptied one of the bureaus into it. She says that she doesn’t have time to look through it. We must do it. When she has time, she will go through the archived family papers and look for mentions of the diamond.’

‘Please,’ said Livy. ‘Open it.’

He crouched down and unclipped the heavy brass latches.

The trunk opened silently, revealing piles of papers and ephemera. A small wooden box, decorated with flowers of inlaid ivory, lay in the centre. The scent the trunk released was musty and faintly floral. Completely unfamiliar to Livy. The scent of Redlands, she thought. Of Jonathan’s other life. Even, at a stretch, of the world Charlotte had inhabited. She breathed it in: tried to pin the memory of the scent in her mind.

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