6
TORCHWOOD HOUSE - THE GROUND FLOOR.
A smiling lady dressed in black approaches Ianto through the darkness - Mrs Alice Harkness. Ianto is still stunned that he got a job in the house of the elite Torchwood House itself … the family responsible for all the schools and orphanages for wayward children in the area. After all, he was one himself not so long ago.
"How do you do, my dear? What a long and tedious journey you must have had of it. John is quite the slowest driver in the county. You must be cold to the bone."
"Are you Mrs Harkness?"
"Indeed I am; come and warm yourself in here." Mrs Harkness leads Ianto up the dark corridor and into a cosy parlour. Leah, a young maidservant, follows. "Your poor hands must be quite numb; here, let me help you."
Mrs Harkness undoes the buttons on Ianto's coat. Ianto is taken aback, unused to motherliness of any kind. "Leah, make a little hot port and cut a sandwich or two."
Leah eyes Ianto with great curiosity. She hurries away.
"Draw nearer the fire. John is taking your trunk up to your room." She encourages. Knitting apparatus lies abandoned on a fireside chair. Mrs Harkness moves it and gestures for Ianto to sit. "I've put you at the back of the house; I hope you don't mind. The rooms at the front have much finer furniture but they are so gloomy and solitary I think."
Ianto can't help noticing that every surface is covered in lace, embroidery, or fine crochet. The whole room is an advertisement for Mrs Harkness' skill at handicrafts – and testament to the hours she has spent alone. "I'm so glad you are come. To be sure this is a fine old house but I must confess that in winter one can feel a little dreary and alone. Leah is a very nice girl and John and Martha good people too, but they are servants – and one cannot talk to them on terms of equality."
"Am I to have the pleasure of meeting Miss Harkness tonight?" Ianto asks.
"Who?"
"Miss Harkness - my pupil?" Ianto prompts, confused by the woman's expression.
Alice laughs softly "Oh you mean Miss Sato; Mr Jack's ward. She is to be your pupil."
"Who is Mr Jack?"
"Why, the owner of Torchwood."
"I thought Torchwood Hall belonged to you."
Bursting into laughter the woman flaps her hand "Oh bless you child, what an idea. To me? I am only the housekeeper."
"Forgive me …" Ianto is now openly confused.
"There is a distant connection between Mr Jack and I – my husband's father was a Harkness, cousin to Jack's father - but I'd never presume on it. Heavens, me, owner of Torchwood?" She continues to laugh. A bashful smile is playing on Ianto's lips. Mrs Harkness is beginning to thaw him.
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Mrs Harkness is carrying a lamp across the great hall; the only light. Ianto can perceive grandeur looming out of the darkness; Jacobean fireplace, coat of arms, head of a stag. Very gloomy, eerie. His breath is vaporising in the cold.
"We shall have a cheerful house this winter..." she says hopefully.
As Ianto follows Mrs Harkness up the stairs, light is thrown on portraits of dour, craggy, long dead ancestors.
"With Miss Sato here - and with you - we'll have quite a merry time of it." She is definitely trying too hard.
Dark heavy drapes, another striking portrait. A dark, voluptuous woman in an 18th Century gown, ruby lipped, one full breast exposed. Ianto glances away, taken aback by the woman's bold expression and her nakedness.
"I'm sure that last winter – and what a severe one - if it didn't rain it snowed and if it didn't snow it blew a gale - last winter I declare that not a soul came to the house from November to February." Mrs Harkness leads Ianto through the wood-panelled darkness as she talks "I got quite melancholy night after night alone. When spring finally came I thought it a great relief that I hadn't gone distracted."
She opens the door to a small but delightful room. "Here."
Ianto looks in: a fire burning, a lamp lit by his bed, a soft quilt, pale chintz curtains.
"OH" he is utterly speechless. His eight years of physical discomfort and hardship are over.
"Good night, my dear. I hope you'll be comfy."
"Thank you." Ianto gasps.
Mrs Harkness can see how affected he is - and how hard he is trying to button it down.
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Next morning Ianto opens the curtains. He draws his breath in at the sight of the grounds. They are beautiful.
Ianto enters a magnificent room. Mrs Harkness is dusting.
"What a beautiful house." He says softly as he does not want to startle her.
"Mr Jack's visits here are always unexpected. He doesn't like to arrive and find everything all swathed up, so I keep it in constant readiness. Now, come and meet Miss Sato. Did I mention she was Japanese?"
Toshiko Sato, an exquisitely dressed child of eight, is chatting animatedly to Ianto and Mrs Harkness. At her side is Sophie, her nurse - a desperately shy and lonely girl.
Toshiko gushes in French "Sophie has been crying because no one understands. Nobody can speak to us except for Mr Jack and he has gone away. I speak Japanese and French, poor Sophie only French"
"Would you ask her about her parents? Mr Jack's neglected to tell me anything about her." Alice asks.
"Where did you live Toshiko, before you came to Torchwood?" Ianto asks in Japanese.
Toshiko lights up as she realises she is with someone who will challenge her "With Mama - but she is gone to the Holy Virgin now."
"Her mother has passed away."
In French Toshiko continues "Mama used to teach me to dance and say verses. When gentlemen came to see her I used to dance for them or sit on their knees and sing. May I sing for you now?"
"Well - that would be lovely." Ianto smiles then turns To Mrs Harkness to say in English "Toshiko is going to show us her accomplishments."
Toshiko adopts a lovelorn pose. She sings an operetta song; a forsaken lady plotting vengeance on her lover. Her high voice warbles with pretended emotion. The effect is rather weird. Ianto and Mrs Harkness watch, open-mouthed.
"How very …..French..." Alice splutters.
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Mrs Harkness is finishing a coat. Ianto is showing Toshiko pictures of little objects that he has sketched. Toshiko names them in English.
Ianto gives Toshiko a sketch of herself.
"Me! It is me!" Toshiko squeals with glee.
Mrs Harkness shakes out the finished coat and puts it round Ianto's shoulders, departing before Ianto can protest. "Here. For you."
Ianto is delighted at the kindness of the gift.
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Ianto holds a candle, the coat around him; the moaning sound of a gale outside. He holds his candle up to the portrait of the voluptuous woman.
He stares at it curious, both as a boy and as an artist. He brings the candle close, to see how the brushwork has achieved the effect of flesh. He hears a low, knowing laugh in the darkness behind him. He is startled.
"Who's there?"
His own huge shadow is the only thing that moves. he hears the laugh again. he follows it through the darkness, alert with fear. A door clicks shut at the end of the corridor.
To his relief Ianto sees Mrs Harkness approach with a lamp.
"Who sleeps up here?"
"No one. This part of the house is quite empty, except for you and me." Alice shrugs.
I heard someone." Ianto insists.
"You can't have done."
"A laugh. Someone laughed."
Mrs Harkness flounders for a second.
"Oh - that must be Grace Poole. She likes to sit up here with her sewing. Rather an eccentric soul." She shouts sharply "Grace? Grace!"
A door opens. Ianto sees a broad-faced woman with slow, intelligent eyes. She looks as if she has just woken up.
"Mister Jones has heard a laugh."
Grace looks at Ianto with sly curiosity. She leaves the sewing room and opens a door through which a flight of steep steps are revealed. Grace climbs them and disappears.
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Ianto is on the turreted roof, looking up at the cawing rooks - and down at the view; a white, frosted wilderness.
Ianto senses a presence behind him. He quickly turns. Mrs Harkness is coming through the rooftop door. "I thought I might find you up here. I've been waiting to pour our tea."
"I'm not in need of tea, thank you."
Mrs Harkness approaches, concerned. "What is it, child? You've been here three months now and I'm worried that the position is not enough / to occupy your …"
"Oh, Mrs Harkness, no. I'm so thankful to be at Torchwood. Please don't think I'm so ungrateful as to be discontented." Ianto says quickly.
"But it's a quiet life, isn't it? This isolated house; a still doom for a young man..." she argues.
Ianto looks out at the view once more. "I wish a lowly man could have action in his life, like a gentleman. It agitates me to pain that the skyline over there is ever our limit. I long sometimes for a power of vision that would overpass it. If I could behold all I imagine... I've never seen a city, never spoken with men. I've never even seen a town of any size. And I fear my whole life will pass, without ever having..."
Mrs Harkness' troubled look makes Ianto fall silent. Mrs Harkness looks as if she is about to say something – then puts on her practical face, the moment of intimacy gone. "Well now - exercise is a great cure for anything, they say. I have some letters to post; will you take them?"