by Nicola Upson
Josephine hesitated. Her friendship with Archie Penrose was only now recovering from a crisis the year before, when Archie discovered in the most tragic of ways that he had a child, and that Josephine had—with the best of intentions—kept the secret from him. “I don’t want to bother him when he’s in Cornwall,” she said. “This is the first chance he’s had to take Phyllis to meet his family, and he’s waited long enough for some time with his daughter.”
Marta didn’t argue, but seemed deep in thought. “Don’t bite my head off,” she said after a while, “but do you think this Banks woman could be right in one respect? Could it have been murder?”
“Of course not. This is all about boosting her career. As you said, if there were any truth in her story, why would she wait twenty-three years to bring it up? Shouldn’t she have been shouting from the rooftops to get justice for her sister?”
Marta shrugged. “You’d think so, but sometimes things resurface when you least expect them to.”
“All those emotions miraculously triggered by one brief line in a play?”
“So you’re sure there was nothing strange about it at the time?”
Josephine shook her head in exasperation. “I really don’t remember. So much has happened since then—it’s like trying to make out a faded photograph.” The church clock began to whirr into life, and she glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go, or they’ll be starting the second act without a director. We’ll talk about this later.”
“All right, but try not to let it get to you. No one in his right mind would believe you capable of murder just because you write books about it. People don’t kill to make themselves famous.”
“Don’t you think so? That doesn’t say much for my last novel.” She tried to smile but failed miserably. “Anyway, it’s not just the girl’s death, is it? Let’s not forget the deviant love. What if people start looking more closely at my life? At you and me? They don’t have to tie me to a murder to destroy my reputation.”
“But it’s the murder they’re interested in, not your private life.”
It was unlike Marta to say something she didn’t believe simply to be kind, and somehow it made Josephine even more fearful. “Really?” she demanded. “There were two men staying in that house at the time, but I don’t see their pictures in the rogues gallery. It’s obvious what the real crime is here. Lillian Hellman was spot-on about that.” She was on the verge of tears but managed to force them back, angry with herself for feeling so vulnerable. “You have no idea what it was like for those two women once the rumors started, and it absolutely destroyed them. It wasn’t just one girl who couldn’t keep her mouth shut. It was the village, the farmers, the local papers. I can still feel it now—all the hate and the suspicion, the violence that was just below the surface. No one even felt the need to hide it. On the contrary, they wore it like a badge of honor. I couldn’t live through that shame the way they did.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t remember?” Marta said gently, taking her hand. “It sounds to me like everyone suffered that summer.” She didn’t press the point, and Josephine was grateful to her. “And scandal fades, you know. Trust me on that. It’s just a question of holding your nerve.” Marta was such a strong, confident presence in her life that Josephine occasionally forgot how much grief and shame of her own she had lived through. “And do you know what really helped me to hold my head up again? Other than you, of course. It was facing it—going back to all the places that had caused the pain in the first place. People used to whisper about me in these streets, and I thought I’d never be able to come back here, but I was wrong. They’re just streets.”
“What are you saying?”
“I assume the farmhouse they’re talking about is Charleston?” Josephine nodded. “Well, let’s go there. Loppy can get you an invitation—she and Maynard are friends with the Bloomsbury lot, and they’ve got a house just down the road. In fact, didn’t she invite you last week, and you were funny about it?”
“I wasn’t funny about it,” Josephine said defensively. “I just hate that sort of party. And why would I want to go back there now, with all this going on?”
“Because it’s just a house, Josephine. A house where an accident happened nearly twenty-five years ago. You need to remind yourself of that and move on.” Josephine hesitated, and Marta looked curiously at her. “Unless there’s something you haven’t told me. You’re not sure it was an accident, are you?”
“I’ve never doubted it before.”
“But?”
“But now I’ve got over the shock, it doesn’t seem impossible. That’s all. I can’t explain why, but it doesn’t.”
“Then all the more reason to go back. You have nothing to fear from the truth of what happened to Dorothy Norwood—we both know that—so why not try and find out? Play the Mirror at its own game and get to the bottom of it. If I wanted to be cynical, I’d say that’s exactly the way to get people on your side and deflect them from what you really don’t want them to know about. Sleight of hand—it works every time.” She grinned and gave Josephine a kiss. “I’ve got to get back to my script. See you later, and don’t come home without an invitation to Sussex.”
Josephine watched her go, then walked back to the theater, deep in thought. In the green room she found the post she had been too busy to read earlier, knowing now why the handwriting on one of the letters looked familiar. She opened the small, blue envelope, forwarded from her London club. The note was brief and oddly polite, but it helped her make up her mind. “Loppy!” she called, as the actress passed by on her way to the stage. “I never thanked you properly for the invitation. If the offer’s still open, Marta and I would love to come to Sussex at the weekend.”
The actress smiled at her. “You have changed your mind about parties, Josephine? You surprise me.”
“Am I that transparent? No, I haven’t changed my mind. I didn’t tell you before, but I spent some time at Charleston when I was younger, and I’d like to see it again.”
“You were there before Vanessa and Duncan? When the house was even colder?”
Josephine laughed. “It was summer when I stayed there, but now you mention it, home comforts were few and far between.”
“How wonderful! Then you must come and look round. They will all be so pleased to meet you and hear about the old house, and I can introduce you to Grace.”
“Grace?”
“She is the housekeeper, and we are the best of friends. You will love her, I promise. Now, shall we go and smash some clay?”
CHAPTER 2
The house was less forbidding than she remembered it. As soon as they left the Lewes to Eastbourne road, Josephine was struck anew by the utter peace of the place, by a gentleness that the soft colors of a fading summer only served to enhance. Despite the intervening years, the setting felt every bit as remote as it always had. The dusty old farm track was still just that, and several times Marta had to swerve to avoid cracks and potholes in the parched earth. For a while the track skirted a scruff of woodland, but then they were out into open farmland, with barns and other outbuildings visible across the fields. Finally, the house gave itself up to their search, its distinctive, rectangular chimneys standing tall through the trees.
Several cars were parked behind the orchard, where the shepherds’ huts once stood, and Marta pulled up alongside them. “I thought we’d never get here,” she said. “You didn’t tell me it was in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s a farmhouse. Surely you weren’t expecting to find it just off Lewes high street?”
Marta laughed. “No, I suppose not, but how on earth did you get around? Presumably you didn’t have a car.”
“Miss H had a battered old van for deliveries, and we were allowed to borrow it occasionally, but mostly we just walked across the fields to the village.” It was the first time that Josephine had used the familiar term by which Georgina Hartford-Wroe had been known among the girls, and it brought back those days as vivi
dly as seeing her photograph in the newspaper had. “It’s a lot quicker as the crow flies.”
“And you were all so sickeningly fit, of course. I keep forgetting that.”
“Fitter, and much younger.” She got out of the car and looked round, pleased that the countryside could still stir in her the strange mixture of sadness and delight that was her customary response to places she loved. The scene in front of her hadn’t changed, but then how could it, subject to the cycle of the seasons and nothing more? Firle Beacon, the highest point of the downs, rose suddenly out of an otherwise flat landscape, and the dark ribbon of hills formed an austere backdrop to the house, making the green of the trees more brilliant.
“Ready to go in?” Marta asked.
“No, but we might as well get it over with.” She led the way, memory taking her easily to the narrow path that ran alongside the walled garden. The house ambushed you suddenly; she had forgotten that. Even with a generous autumn sun to bring color to its walls, the façade remained a sober, unfussy mixture of brick and flint, and the only adornment was a gabled porch jutting out onto the gravel. The Virginia Creeper that once ran wild across the front had been stripped away, exposing six wide sash windows, all thrown open to the air, and Josephine glanced up at the room that had once been hers—east-facing, so that she woke each morning to a haze of sunlight filtering through the silver branches of the willow tree by the pond.
“It doesn’t look like a house of scandal,” Marta said, looking appreciatively at its solid, simple form. “That must be a great disappointment to the Daily Mirror.”
She was right, Josephine thought; there was a dignity about its lack of pretension. “Perhaps they’ll dig up an old picture,” she said. “It looks much friendlier now than it used to.” The front door stood open, and the contrast continued inside. From the hallway, she could see that the house’s rambling interior remained essentially unchanged since her last visit, but the atmosphere in the downstairs rooms had been utterly transformed. The old, overbearing wallpaper was replaced now by a soft gray distemper that soaked up the light and emphasized the colors of the paintings on the walls. A gramophone record was playing deeper in the house, something by Haydn or Mozart, and Josephine was relieved to find that the party was a more relaxed affair than she had imagined—a handful of guests who all seemed very much at home, talking in small groups and drinking tea.
Loppy waved as soon as she saw them, and ushered them into the dining room, where a round table—hand-painted in delicate pastel shades—was laden with sandwiches and freshly baked cakes. “Ah, Josephine, Marta—you are here at last. Come, have some tea and let Grace get you something to eat.” She beckoned the housekeeper over from the other side of the room, an attractive woman with stylish, well-cut brown hair, whom Josephine would have assumed to be one of the guests had she not been working so hard. “Grace, these are my friends from Cambridge: Josephine—she has created the wonderful play you are coming to see next week; and Marta—she writes scripts for the movies and works with all the best directors.”
The housekeeper nodded and smiled at Josephine. “Mrs. Keynes was telling me you stayed here during the war.” Her voice was light and disarmingly girlish, with the faintest hint of a Norfolk accent. “Is it nice to be back?”
“Very nice, if a little strange after all this time.” She looked round, noticing that the old fire grate and its surrounds had been removed to reveal a large open hearth, big enough for an armchair on either side of the chimney breast. The room was comfortable and welcoming now, with windows on two sides, floral chintz curtains, and an array of brightly colored plates on the mantelshelf, but still she found it hard to shake off the tension she associated with this part of the house in the old days, when angry words across the breakfast table had made the space seem tense and claustrophobic. “I was only here for a summer,” she added, conscious that both Grace and Loppy were hoping to hear more from her, “but it was my first time in this part of the world, and I’ve loved it ever since. I suppose it’s because I associate it with my first real taste of freedom.”
Grace looked at her with interest. “That’s strange,” she said, “but someone else said that to me recently.”
“Really? Who?”
“A woman turned up out of the blue last week. Tuesday or Wednesday, it must have been, because Mrs. Bell and Mr. Grant were still away. She said she’d lived here once, like you, and asked if she could have a look round for old time’s sake. I let her see the garden, but not the house—told her she’d have to write and make a proper appointment if she wanted to come in.”
“Did she give a name?” Marta asked, and then, when Grace shook her head, “Can you remember what she looked like?”
The housekeeper thought for a moment, absentmindedly playing with one of her round, blue earrings. “Fair hair, slim, and about my height. Nice clothes, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Could it have been this woman?” Josephine took the newspaper article out of her bag and showed Grace the photograph of Elizabeth Banks. “She was here with me that summer, and she’s been talking about it in the papers recently.”
“Is that right? We had a couple of people snooping round with cameras yesterday, but I didn’t know why.” Grace scanned the article with obvious skepticism. “Not a bad way to get yourself noticed,” she said. “I suppose it could have been her, but the woman I spoke to was wearing dark glasses, so I can’t say for sure. She wore her hair differently too, but no doubt this one’s done herself up for the press.”
Josephine smiled in agreement. “She certainly wasn’t blonde the last time I met her.”
“I dare say.” Grace handed the article to Loppy, who had been trying to read it over her shoulder. “As far as I know, the woman I met hasn’t bothered writing here like I told her to, but if I hear anything else, I’ll tell Mrs. Keynes, and she can pass it on. Now—what can I get you to eat?”
She filled their plates, then headed back to the kitchen to make more tea, and Josephine retrieved her newspaper. “Are Ronnie and Lettice here yet?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Oh yes. Vanessa took them through to the sitting room. Come, I will show you—it is just across the hall.”
“I can’t believe I’m about to meet Virginia Woolf’s sister,” Marta whispered as they followed Loppy into the next room.
“Hasn’t it crossed your mind that Virginia Woolf herself might actually be here?”
“Of course it has. I lay awake all last night, terrified you might let slip what you think of her work.”
Josephine laughed out loud. “I promise not to embarrass you—not unless I’m really provoked. And anyway, it’s only the novels I can’t stand. When you gave me The Years to try, I thought it was a title, not an estimate of how much time I should put aside to read it.”
As it turned out, there was no need for Marta to worry. Except for Maynard and another man, who were deep in conversation by the window, the Motley sisters were alone in the room. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Ronnie said, looking approvingly at Josephine’s black and white dress. “All this color is giving me a headache.” The house’s unconventional decorative scheme was certainly more in evidence here than it had been in the dining room. A row of wooden panels below the window was painted with flowers that mirrored those in a vase on the table, and the top half of the door had been embellished with a similar design in stronger colors. In theory, it was a strangely modern vision to impose on an old Sussex farmhouse, but the miracle for Josephine was that it didn’t seem more alien. Ronnie looked pointedly at the fireplace surround, which boasted a striking combination of circles and crosshatching. “Those repeating patterns don’t exactly repeat, do they?” she said. “And as for the lampshade …”
Lettice glared at her sister and put her empty plate down on one of the bookshelves. “Have you found anything out about the murder yet?” she asked eagerly.
Josephine looked sharply at Marta, who held up her hands in a protestation of inn
ocence. “Don’t look at me. I haven’t said a word.”
“She didn’t have to. We do read the papers, you know.”
“Then you’ll know the whole thing is four parts gossip and one part speculation,” Josephine said firmly. “And I don’t think we should make too much of it while we’re here. They don’t seem to know anything about it at the moment, and I’d rather keep it that way.”
Lettice looked disappointed. “All right, but if you want us to dig anything up, you know where we are. It wouldn’t be the first time you’d sent us in undercover. I seem to remember we were quite good at it.”
“Who do you think Grace’s visitor was?” Marta interrupted, ignoring Josephine’s stipulation. “It was before the newspaper came out, so she obviously wasn’t just someone who’d read the article and fancied a look at the crime scene.”
“I wish you’d stop calling it a crime scene,” Josephine said as Lettice and Ronnie drifted off in search of more tea. “We don’t know that, and coming back here hasn’t made me change my mind. But my money would be on Faith Hope, having a look round before she wrote her article. That, or Betty herself.”
“If it was Betty, that remark about the house being her first taste of freedom is interesting.”
“Why? I’m sure that was true for most of us.”
“Yes, but she could have meant that it was her sister’s death that set her free.”
Josephine was about to argue with Marta’s stretch of the imagination, but now she thought about it, Betty had always walked in her sister’s shadow. If both girls had lived, it would have been Dorothy, surely, who was the more likely to find success as an actress. Before she could answer, Loppy came back into the room with another woman, obviously their host. “Josephine, Marta—this is Nessa. She has been very keen to meet you.”
Vanessa Bell must have been in her late fifties, but she was still a strikingly beautiful woman—tall, with strong features, long fair hair, and a natural grace to every movement that she made. “Welcome to Charleston,” she said warmly. “It was good of you to make the trip from Cambridge. Maynard was telling me how busy you’ve been with the play.”
