Sarah Hall - The Wolf Border

All about her, the season is surprisingly lovely, unsettled and kinetic, then windless, held. The air is moist and downy. There are flashes of tropical colour on bare twigs. She does not remember Cumbria looking so exotic. The path disperses, broken up by surfacing roots. Moss and columbine. The boulders are occluded, starred with orange and yellow lichen. Ahead, through the low branches, she can see the lake water rustling with light. She breaks clear of the trees, walks along the shore, and sits on a flat rock at the edge of a shingle bay. The wooden island has no reflection today, but floats, like a mirage. She cannot see the folly from this angle. The river-mouth is nearby, rushing and spilling. She breathes in, exhales, tries to relax, to formulate a plan.

Tomorrow she will register with a GP and make an appointment, get the process moving. There will be, at worst, a day or two’s inconvenience. She will buy groceries, stock the cupboards, then take one of the estate’s quad bikes and go into the enclosure. Perhaps she will even call Lawrence, try to sort that mess out. She must, of course, sort it out, though part of her, a faulted, habitual part, would let the aggravation fester, let the gap grow until it is too wide to bridge. She gets up and walks slowly along the lakeshore to the river, where the water is very clear. Fish glimmer in the shallows, dark gold, blunt-headed — trout. The wolves might go for them, once released, straddling the rocks and snapping them out — she’s seen them fish for salmon before. The rich protein in the brain is worth the wet paws, the patient vigil, and many misses. She wonders how things are at Chief Joseph. The same, no doubt, without her.

On her way back to the cottage she snaps a few sprigs of blossom from the trees. Yellow, star-shaped petals, and boughs of willow. She regains the lane a few hundred yards from the cottage. A man is standing further up the track, next to Seldom Seen. He has on dark trousers and a wax jacket. His back is to her. He is looking into the garden of the cottage, as if he has knocked and waited and is now searching the grounds. She calls out — Hello, are you looking for me? — but he is too far away to hear. Without turning, he walks up the lane, rounds a bend, and disappears. The quick confident gait of a local, she thinks. She goes into the porch. There is no note on the door, no sign of why he might have called. Perhaps he was simply passing, and the cottage is not as secluded as she assumed. Perhaps it was sensible to lock the door after all.

*

She arrives at the Hall early, having crossed the estate’s grounds wearing her interview suit, the trousers tucked into her boots, and carrying a pair of passable shoes in her bag. She exchanges the footwear by the ornamental shrubbery under a ha-ha wall, stashing the cast-offs beneath a bush, feeling slightly ridiculous, like a peasant in a folk tale. Pennington Hall is magnificent in the glow of evening, lit up by the setting sun; suddenly the red stone, transported miles west from the Eamont quarries, makes sense. Rachel wonders if it will ever feel natural, approaching such a building as if she has the right.

A moon-faced woman answers the front door, tall and slender, blankly beautiful. She introduces herself, murmuringly, as Sylvia, and offers a hand to shake. The girlfriend of Thomas Pennington, perhaps, though she is very young. She has on a structured, mustard-yellow gown, knee-length, silken, and nude-coloured heels. At once Rachel feels under-dressed.

I’ve mistimed, she explains. The walk from the cottage — it’s quicker than I thought.

Not at all, Sylvia says. It’s a marvellous evening, isn’t it? How clever of you to walk.

The young woman shows Rachel through to an unfamiliar drawing room, a family room, perhaps: pale botanical green, full of flowering plants, its ceiling reminiscent of a cathedral. The Earl is, for once, present, standing by a large, crackling fire. Rachel feels she has intruded, interrupted their privacy. Thomas — it is clear now that she must call him by his first name — greets her as if they have known each other for decades.

Rachel! Wonderful to see you again! And here you are, our most worthy project leader.

He leans in and kisses her, then hands her a flute of champagne, which was sitting amid a galley of others, waiting for the guests. He is dressed with intermediate elegance: slacks, an open-collared shirt, cufflinks, a blazer. The lunar woman lingers by his side, smiling at Rachel.

Settling in OK, I hope, Thomas says. Is Seldom exactly as you need it to be?

I only arrived today. The cottage is very nice. You must let me pay rent while I’m there.

Thomas Pennington swats a hand through the air.

Not at all. Part and parcel of the job. The place hasn’t been used since, oh, goodness knows how long. I really don’t like the idea of unoccupied buildings; it’s such a waste. You’ve met Sylvia, my youngest?

The daughter. Rachel feels immediate relief. They do not look overly similar, other than their stature.

I’ve got her for the holidays. What was Paris going to do with her anyway? Ruin her, Rachel, that’s what. She’d have come back terribly angular and filled with ennui.

Sylvia protests playfully.

Oh, Daddy! You love France.

He shrugs, turns the corners of his mouth downward, and rolls his eyes.

La vie, c’est une chose pareille obscurité .

Stop being naughty, Sylvia insists.

She smiles at her father, fondly collaborative, and links her arm through his. He kisses her hair like an adoring, neuter lover. Under the expressionless, obscuring beauty, Rachel tries to discern her age — twenty, perhaps a shade older, though she could pass for sixteen.

I don’t even like Paris, Sylvia says. Too much stone and no green anywhere. Our city parks are bliss, aren’t they?

The question has been directed towards Rachel, who nods politely, though she would not go so far in praise for a few boating lakes and stretches of shorn grass.

That’s because nature is in the British soul, Thomas says. We must recreate it wherever we can, or we’ll go mad.

Their enthusiasm and positivity is like a miasma. It could be a scene from the back pages of a society magazine, Rachel thinks, or a parody. Father and daughter are clearly used to holding court together; they are mesmerising and faintly sickening to watch — polished, too enjoying of each other for the average family. She cannot imagine such a relationship with a parent. She and Binny could barely manage three sentences without barbs or sarcasm. Sylvia is obviously well schooled in elegance and courtesy, with only enough of the coquette remaining to seem unspoilt. When she raises her glass of champagne, she barely sips. Her colouring — the light English umber and lash-less, crescent-shaped blue eyes — is presumably the dead mother’s.

How about some music, Soo-Bear, her father suggests.

Yes!

She crosses the room to a discreet piece of equipment in a cabinet. She moves with extreme, but sexless, grace. The dress drifts a few millimetres from her hips and chest, its creases flocking and darkening as she moves. A demure but flattering item, the kind of thing lesser royalty might wear. Thomas Pennington asks if Rachel has any requests. She does not — she could not name an album or a band if she tried.

Put on something to annoy you-know-who, he says to his daughter, mischievously.

He seems less restive than previously, as if the presence of the daughter has a calming effect. The kind of man who fares better in female or familial company, perhaps. The older son, Leo, is absent. There are dark rumours, passed on to Rachel by Binny during her stay. A drop-out, a hellion. Talk of disinheritance, though it is hard, given the current show of unity and wholesomeness, to imagine rifts in this family. Thomas raises his glass.