Page 14 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
‘Mr Hempel, I feel we understand one another too much.’
A wisp of wind that shifted a curl, a rueful smile, a scrunch of skirts… and in a flash he saw that, just like him, she was balancing on the edge of life.Her eyes met his, as pure as confession, the same shade as an exposed blueprint, only misted over a little.She appeared every bit as hesitant as him, the two of them little boats drifting from the pier, both feeling the pull of the current but lacking the courage to untie the rope.
He stopped beneath one of the large oak trees and shoved the parcel at her before he could hesitate.She grasped it in a fumble.‘I made you this.You can call me Johannes, if you like.Mr Hempel feels too formal.’
‘I would like that.And call me Florence.Although perhaps not in front of my mother.She would ask too many questions that I do not have the energy for.’As she was talking, she pulled on the string and pushed back the paper.He caught it before it could drop to the ground.She turned his gift over in her hands, tilting it side to side and top to bottom.
‘It’s a drawing folder.I stiffen one side with card.It’s light enough to carry for a long time, but you can lean against it, if need be.’He took it from her and opened it, then knocked a knuckle against the board.‘I have one that you already saw… and… and… it’s very convenient if you see something you’d like to remember.’He closed it, clasping his hands around it.‘I didn’t know all your initials, so I only stamped the one.I can add more, if you like.’
Her hands remained open and in the same position they’d been in when he’d grabbed the folder, so he shoved it straight back into her grasp.She turned the folder over before lightly tracing theFin the corner.‘I think it’s perfect.Just as it is.’
His heart stammered.There was space after her name for more letters.If she had any middle names.And maybe, in time, for a different surname?A different letter instead of her current M?With an extra bold step, perhaps a little too animated, he offered out his arm once more, and the two of them continued up the drive to the Duke of Osborne’s London residence.
Johannes had only been beyond the gates a few dozen times, and not at all since the launch of Spencer and Co.the year before.Leafless trees, a few sprouting eager buds along their dark branches, threw a dark web over the short gravel drive.It was no more than a hundred feet from the gate to the front door, but the house remained almost completely obscured until they were upon it.He could feel the very moment she saw it for the first time.When it gradually revealed itself, and her step slowed without stopping.When she leant into him, and her breath caught.
The two-storied sandstone villa was one of the oldest houses in the street.Double front doors were set back from the tall portico, flanked by arched windows and crowned by a grey slate roof.When Johannes had followed the duke around and asked impertinent questions, he had thought the place might be a hundred years old, maybe a hundred and twenty.It had been built in classic regency style by one of the earlier dukes of Osborne, who took his parliamentary duties seriously and entertaining during the Season even more so.They moved under the portico, and Johannes clapped the knocker on the door.
‘Who lives here?’Florence asked.
‘No one.I believe they are still looking for the heir to the estate.I wrote to the last duke’s mother to ask if I could show you the ballroom.There are other places in the city that are grander, with ticketed entry, but I thought you might like to see something that was otherwise off-limits.Something special.’
The door opened, and they stepped inside.Florence untied her bonnet and placed it on the sideboard.Thin braids threaded with black ribbon caught the light, the dark fabric beautiful against the auburn of her hair.He helped her out of her coat and passed it to the doorman before divesting himself of his own winter warmth.Then he led the way down the hall.They passed the parlour with all its furniture shrouded in white canvas and sheets and a number of other closed doors.The air shifted as if their presence disturbed it, like they unsettled the cold stillness of a dormant sleep.They continued past the staircase, its carpet lush with inactivity, and down the reception hallway.Johannes took hold of the two handles on either side of the double doors, and turned to Florence, relishing the moment prior to the revelation.But then he paused.Even paler than before, she was worrying her bottom lip with her teeth and twisting her fingers against one another.
‘Is something the matter?’he asked.
‘What happened to him?’she asked softly, her voice cracking at the edge of her words.
‘Happened?’
‘To the duke.His poor mother.She must be heartbroken.’
He was the stupidest man in England.He’d only thought of the house.Of the grand ballroom and the beauty of the design that he wanted to share with her.It hadn’t occurred to him that their conversation might gravitate into death and loss, that it would remind her of her own grief.A cord of jealousy tried to string him up tight, but even then, it could not hold firm.After all, he was here.Her dead husband was not.
Johannes opened the door without theatrics.He took her hands to pull her into the ballroom, walking backwards.He checked the hallways were clear, then shut the door.‘It was a trick,’ he whispered.‘He didn’t want to be the duke anymore.We aren’t supposed to tell anyone, because… Well.For obvious reasons.’
‘He pretended to… to die?’She searched his face.Johannes could only hold her blue gaze and hope his sincerity showed.‘He lied?That is a momentous secret to share with me.What if I go to the papers or gossip?’
‘You don’t strike me as the sort of person to use a secret against someone if they were doing no harm.He was never happy here.Not really.Isn’t that something?To be happy in life, instead of staying stuck?’
Head tilted, she continued her silent evaluation through narrowed eyes.Not for the first time, Johannes weighed the cost of the duke’s decision, both for the man himself and for the weight it placed on others.Finally, she huffed a laugh and shook her head.‘Australia is full of secrets and liars.No one wants to admit their parents or grandparents were convicts, so many people move town and give themselves a new name.If you swear he’s causing no harm, I shall keep your duke’s secret.’
His shoulders relaxed as he exhaled.Hehadbeen right about her.He swept his arm across the grandeur of the ballroom.‘When we first moved into the street, the townhouses weren’t here.Just our little cottage at the far end and Mrs Crofts’s at the other.My sister Rosanna and I would play in the street.We visited all the other houses and met everyone, but the gates to this house were always locked.We couldn’t see anything through the gardens.So one day, Rosie and I climbed the fence.’
He crossed the wide ballroom to the glass doors and peered out into the gardens.Whether to find his own memory or to try and illustrate his story for her… he could not tell.
‘We landed just over there.I fell in a puddle.’He laughed.She took hold of her skirts and followed.‘Rosie landed on both feet.We sneaked through the gardens, hiding behind bushes, but when we came upon the house, it was… I don’t know how to describe it.It was the most astounding thing.’
It had been a rare sunny day, blue skies streaked with white, full of running and laughter and treasure and all the beautiful joys of childhood.Just weeks before baby Garnet had left them, when the world was still a place full of wholes and circles, rather than holes and broken chains.
‘We got caught,’ he said, as he banished a disobedient tear.‘We ran, but the duke was faster.Can you believe it?A duke running after us?He caught us, but he wasn’t angry.He said we could play in the gardens if we didn’t make any noise or fuss.I told him I liked his house.He asked me if I had any questions.And that was it.’Johannes laughed and shook his head at the memory.The duke had barely been an adult himself, but to Johannes he’d appeared as wise as a sage because he knew everything about the house.‘I must have asked him a hundred questions that day alone.Years later, when I started my studies, he’d let me bring my notes so I could work in peace and quiet.It always amazed me that all this was here.Hidden, yet still at the heart of things.A bit like the duke himself, I suppose.I fell in love with houses the moment I saw this one.’
Florence traced the rectangular shape of one of the windows, then stepped back into the ballroom, her skirts whispering across the parquet.‘It was nothing so grand for me.’She turned in a full circle as she inspected the room from ceiling to floor, her eyes darting between windows and carvings before they lingered on the ceiling frescoes and the chandeliers.Yet she seemed to look past all of it, to somewhere far beyond.‘Father had designed a town hall for some small place.I don’t even remember the name.They invited him to the opening.Mama had been unwell and didn’t want to travel.Father took me with him so that she could rest.It was before the railway line had been built, so to get there from Melbourne, it was a full day in the sulkie.I imagine a ball in here would be quite the spectacle.Far grander than the party in the town we went to.But the people danced, and they sang, and they laughed.How they laughed.’And she did, too, a new laugh—at least to him.One that bubbled forth from her centre and echoed against the walls, bouncing off them into infinity.‘The women made cakes and tea, and the children scampered through it all.They had already scheduled half a dozen meetings for different societies.One couple was going to have their wedding breakfast there so they could invite the whole town.And I realised it then… Father had put lines on a page, and they’d come into physical being, but not only that… These people were going to live their lives in the building he had imagined.It was like magic.A magic for mortals.’
While she had been talking, she’d crossed the room, with Johannes pivoting on the spot to keep her in sight, like he was a needle on a compass and she was his north.When she reached the far wall by the main entrance, she spun in a circle.She raised her skirts higher than she should, then placed her heel against the toe on her other foot, and again, heel to toe, heel to toe.She paced the distance of the room by her own feet, muttering to herself as she traversed it.
Johannes had measured this room a dozen times.He could have told her its breadth, length, and width by heart, but instead, he walked at a slower pace beside her.Hands outstretched, as if she was balancing on a tightrope, Florence whispered each ascending number until she reached the other side, then spun, triumphant.‘Forty-one feet!’she called.
Johannes nodded like an imbecile.The warnings from his sister and Benton grumbled a little louder in the back of his mind.She unfastened her folder and beamed with delight when she discovered paper and pencil inside.She dropped to the floor, her skirts billowing, and patted them down with a soft annoyance, then settled the folder against her knee.She examined a plaster moulding, and bent over to move her pencil across the page.
