Henry viewed his conversations with Mr Milson as a form of play, just as his conversations with fishermen about the sea, or the farmers about the harvest, were forms of polite relaxation, a way of drinking in England, allowing its flavours to come to him in phrases, turns of speech and local references. Thus even when he opened the letter which arrived at his London address, having noticed that the handwriting on the envelope was not that of someone accustomed to writing letters, and even when he saw the name Milson as the sender, he was still puzzled by its provenance. Only when he read it a second time did he realize who it was from and then, as though he had received a blow in the stomach, he understood what the letter said. Lamb House in Rye had fallen vacant, Milson told him, and could be had. His first thought was that he would lose it, the house at the quiet corner at the top of a cobbled hill whose garden room Edward Warren had drawn so lovingly, the establishment he had glanced at so achingly and covetously on his many tours of Rye, a house both modest and grand, both central and secluded, the sort of house which seemed to belong so comfortably and naturally to others and to be inhabited so warmly and fruitfully by them. He checked the postmark. He wondered if his ironmonger was freely broadcasting the news of this vacancy to all comers. This was, more than any other, the house he loved and longed for. Nothing had ever come easily, magically like this. He could do what he liked, he could send a cable, he could take the next train, but he remained sure that he would lose it. There was no purchase, however, in thinking, or regretting or worrying; there was only one solution and that was to rush to Rye, thus ensuring that no omission on his part could cause him not to become the new inhabitant of Lamb House.
Before he left he wrote to Edward Warren, imploring him to come to Rye also as soon as he could to inspect the inside of the house whose exterior he had so admired. But he could not wait for Warren and he certainly could not work, and on the train he wondered if anyone watching him would know how momentous this journey was for him, how exciting and how potentially disappointing. He knew that it was merely a house; others bought and sold houses and moved their belongings with ease and nonchalance. It struck him as he travelled towards Rye that no one, save himself, understood the meaning of this. For so many years now he had had no country, no family, no establishment of his own, merely a flat in London where he worked. He did not have the necessary shell, and his exposure over the years had left him nervous and exhausted and fearful. It was as though he lived a life which lacked a façade, a stretch of frontage to protect him from the world. Lamb House would offer him beautiful old windows from which to view the outside; the outside, in turn, could peer in only at his invitation.
He dreamed now of being a host, having friends and family to stay; he dreamed of decorating an old house, buying his own furniture and having continuity and certainty in his days.
AS SOON AS he went in through the door he sensed an air of sombre comfort. The downstairs rooms were small and cosy, and the rooms upstairs stately and filled with light. Some of the oak panelling had been covered with modern wallpaper, but could, he was assured, be easily restored. Two rooms opened onto the garden, which was well tended and decorously planted, if rather too large for his needs. The guest room had once housed George I and would, he knew, be suitable for family and friends. As he walked about the house, opening doors and having doors opened for him, he did not speak, remaining fearful that if he expressed too much enthusiasm someone else with a prior claim on the lease would appear at the front door and loudly insist that he leave.
Nonetheless, when he walked from the garden into the garden room, whose large bay window looked down the cobbled hill, and he caught a glimpse of how he would use this room, how he would work here every day in the summer, basking in its brave, airy properties, its great light, he was forced to let out a gasp. And he could not contain himself any further when he sought to leave the garden room and stood facing the walled garden, the walls full of ancient creepers and an old mulberry tree offering shade and the brick turned russet with age and weather. Walking around the house and garden was like filling in a form, the more ground he covered the closer he came, he was sure, to placing his signature at the end, staking his claim.
The owner was alerted to the name and nature of his prospective tenant and quickly assented to a twenty-one-year lease at favourable terms. Warren viewed the house with a professional eye and listed the improvements which could easily be made over the winter, making the house habitable by the spring. Henry sent several letters, courtesy of McAlpine, to friends and to his sister-in-law informing them of his new house. He added the terms of the lease – seventy pounds a year – in his own hand once McAlpine had left for the day.
STRANGELY, in the months which followed, he felt mainly fear, as though he had embarked unprepared on some vast and risk-filled financial speculation in which everything he owned could be lost. He had arrangements to make now, extra staff to engage, furniture and household goods to buy, an apartment in London to lease or keep. He also had to ensure his financial future now that he had made these steep commitments. But something other than mere arrangements filled him with a vague, unnameable foreboding. It took him weeks to understand what it was and then it came to him in a flash: when he walked into the upstairs rooms of Lamb House, and into the room where he himself would sleep, he believed that he had come into the room where he would die.
As he studied the lease, he knew that its twenty-one years would take him to the tomb. The walls of the house had witnessed men and women come and go for almost three hundred years; now it had invited him to sample briefly its charm, it had enticed him there and offered him its unlasting hospitality. It would welcome him and then see him out, as it had seen others out. He would lie stricken in one of those rooms; he would lie cold in that house. The idea both froze his blood and comforted him at the same time. He had travelled without hesitation to meet his own place of death, to remove its mystery, one of its unknown dimensions. But he would also go there to live, to spend long days working and long evenings by the fire. He had found his home, he who had wandered so uneasily, and he longed for its engulfing presence, its familiarity, its containing beauty.
HE GAINED strength that winter and early spring in the determination of practical matters. When Howells came to London, they spent a long morning together, the fog thick outside, discussing, among other matters, the American market for story and serialization. Howells’s visit and his calm advice, and his intervention on his return to the United States, which resulted in commissions and approaches from editors there, were part of the magic of the season.
Slowly, other things fell into place. Lady Wolseley discovered his new acquisition, and insisted on visiting it and offering advice. She was, he knew, a great and talented gatherer of objects; her taste was practical and she did not baulk at furnishing small rooms and intimate spaces. She knew the dealers and their shops, and over years she had instilled respect and fear in the best of them, while taking the measure of the worst. She had also read The Spoils of Poynton, as it had appeared in serial form, having had it sent to her from America, and she believed that the widowed Mrs Gareth, prepared to lay down her life for the carefully collected treasures of Poynton, was based on her.
‘Not the greed,’ she said, ‘and not the foolishness and not the widowhood. I have never gone in for widowhood. But the eye, the eye that misses nothing, can see how a Queen Anne chair can be restored, or a faded tapestry hung in the shadows, or a painting bought for the frame.’