The Secrets of Castle Du Rêve

by Hannah Emery

  Tom shows Isobel the bedroom that they’ll be having, his gentle hand on the small of her back as he guides her upstairs. The room is big and comfortable. Daphne has put a vase of carnations on the deep windowsill. The dusky, honeyed fragrance of the flowers mixes with the hint of freshly washed sheets. There’s a neat, compact en suite to the right of the bed, and to the left there is enough room for the mahogany crib that is back in its box and ready to be reassembled.

  Tom takes Isobel’s hand and motions for her to sit on the bed. ‘Well?’ he asks. ‘What do you think?’

  Isobel smiles. ‘I think things will work out. It all seems okay.’

  ‘It does. And anyway, we’re just staying here short-term. As soon as we have some money saved up, we’ll buy somewhere of our own. It’s a means to an end.’

  Isobel turns to face Tom. Is it really going to be this simple? She looks at his clear green eyes; his calm, stolid expression. It seems as if it could be. She kisses him and he presses her into him. The warm scent of his musky aftershave, dampened by the rain, envelops her.

  Once Tom’s left the room and Isobel has undressed, she wanders into the bathroom. Daphne has left out a new bar of soap, and after running the peach sink full of warm water, Isobel lathers the smooth bar into her hands and runs them over her face, then pats herself dry with one of the towels that Daphne has left on the bed. When she hangs the towel back on the radiator, she sees that her mascara has left steel-grey scores on it. Her skin is taut and tingling with the scent of the unfamiliar.

  She crawls beneath the tightly tucked duvet, her eyes open and alert in the strange darkness. The window is slightly ajar and the sounds of the sea linger in the room. She turns over and touches her belly. The bed is warm, and she can hear the lull of Tom’s voice below. He’ll be saying positive things to Daphne, nice things about Isobel, about the baby. The rise and fall of his undistinguishable words are comforting, and she feels herself being swept into the tide of sleep. Broken images flit through her mind, pulling her from the day.

  And then suddenly, she is awake again, sitting bolt upright. She swallows and forces herself to take a lungful of air. What has woken her so suddenly? It’s a few seconds before she realises what it was; a moment until she remembers the last image to dart into her subconscious.

  The old lady from across the road, silver-haired, ethereal, staring.

  Isobel pulls the covers up to her chin like a frightened child. The bed creaks. The room is chilly all of a sudden, the open window letting in icy air. Isobel releases the soft covers and swings her legs out of bed. As she reaches the window, she parts the heavy pink curtains and glances out into the inky street below, the ghost of her reflection watching her. The street is empty, the houses opposite in darkness. She shuts the window with a bang and, shivering, returns to bed.

  ‘First baby?’ the sonographer asks as she rubs cool gel onto Isobel’s pale skin. The first few weeks at Daphne’s have passed quickly and quietly, and today is the day of Isobel’s first dating scan.

  ‘Yeah,’ Isobel and Tom answer in nervous unison.

  The sonographer gives a fleeting nod and then turns towards the monitor next to Isobel. ‘Let’s have a look.’

  The screen shows a grey, flitting mass. Isobel strains to see it, to watch the wispy shapes blur in and out of view.

  ‘I can see it,’ Tom whispers, his eyes strangely still as he stares at the jumping image.

  The sonographer frowns as she flicks through some notes, one hand still rolling the scanner over Isobel’s skin. ‘How far along did you think you were?’

  Every muscle in Isobel tightens. ‘I wasn’t sure, but I thought I was about twelve weeks?’

  ‘I think you’re a bit further than that. I’ll take some measurements, but I think you’re about four months.’

  ‘But everything’s fine? The baby’s okay?’

  The sonographer doesn’t answer for a few seconds, squinting at the screen and looking down at her notes and scribbling down letters and numbers that Isobel can’t see. Isobel sees Tom glance subtly at the notes, his face pale with apprehension, and squeezes her eyes shut.

  Everything will be okay, she tells herself, chanting the words over and over again in her mind until the sonographer touches her shoulder and she opens her eyes again.

  ‘So everything’s fine?’ Daphne says that night as she dishes out sausage casserole. Her voice is shaken. It seems she’s been worried too.

  ‘Yes. We were a bit anxious because the woman who did the scan seemed a bit confused at first. But it turns out that was because I’m further along than we thought. I’m due at the end of May.’

  Daphne motions for them to sit at the table. The sweet, fatty smell of the sausages permeates the kitchen and Isobel’s stomach twists with something that is difficult to label as either nausea or hunger. She sits down next to Tom, and as she looks over at Daphne she sees that her eyes have suddenly become blurred with tears.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ Daphne says, turning and moving swiftly over to the Aga. ‘I get emotional too easily these days. It must be old age.’

  Isobel stands up and follows her. The Aga’s dry heat buzzes around them.

  ‘I’m the same. I barely cried before I was pregnant, but now it’s all the time. And it’s over silly things like adverts or songs.’ She holds out her arms and gives Daphne a small, awkward hug. The smell of the house, the polish and fresh flowers, is stronger this close to Daphne. It clings to her, mingling with the faint smell of Hugh and the outdoors. Isobel realises as soon as she puts her arms around Daphne that she probably isn’t the kind of woman who wants a hug from Isobel, that she should have stayed sitting at the table next to Tom.

  ‘We’ll have enough crying when the baby’s here,’ Daphne replies, pulling away and clearing her throat. She runs a hand through her hair. ‘I’ll pull myself together. You two eat and I’ll have something later. You need some time just the two of you anyway.’

  ‘Mum, come and sit with us,’ Tom says, rising from his place at the table.

  ‘No. Eat, Tom,’ Daphne says, her voice clipped with the threat of more tears.

  Tom sits down again, shrugs, and motions for Isobel to start eating.

  ‘I think the baby has got her a little worked up,’ he whispers, once Daphne has left the kitchen.

  ‘Is that really all it is?’ Isobel asks. ‘It seems as if so something’s bothering her. I hope it’s not my being here, or the baby.’

  ‘She’s always like this. But she’s harmless. She means well, and she told me she really likes you.’

  ‘Really? What did she say?’

  Tom shrugs. ‘I can’t remember. Something about you being good for me. So she’s fine with us. It’s just a big thing, having a baby on the way. It’s her first grandchild, so she’s probably feeling a bit anxious or something.’

  ‘Well she’s not the only one,’ Isobel points out, pushing the sausage and tomatoes around her plate, then putting down her fork. She pulls her chair closer to Tom’s, nestling herself into his broad chest. ‘I was so nervous at the scan when I thought there might be a problem. It made it even clearer to me how much I want it all. I know it’s all happened quickly but it feels right, somehow. I do wonder if I’m being a bit naïve, though. Is it going to be much harder than we think?’

  ‘Well, we’ll find out soon, I suppose. It can’t be that difficult, surely, otherwise nobody would ever have more than one.’

  ‘Yes, but don’t forget that we’re biologically tricked.’

  ‘Tricked?’

  ‘Yes! Didn’t you know? We’re tricked into having babies, and then more and more.’

  ‘Ah. So I’ve been tricked? I must admit, I have heard of this type of scenario before. Girl meets boy, falls in love, wants to keep him, has baby in order to do so.’

  Isobel jabs Tom gently in the ribs, through his grey shirt that is still crisp and still smells of his musky aftershave, even though he’s been wearing it all day. ‘Not tricked by me! Tricked by
biology.’

  ‘Biology? Well, this is getting interesting.’

  As they draw together and kiss, the rattle of Hugh’s lead and the slam of the front door as Daphne goes out interrupt them.

  ‘Shall we go after her?’ Isobel asks, pulling away.

  ‘No,’ Tom says. ‘She probably does just want to give us some space. Don’t worry about her.’ He picks up Isobel’s fork and hands it to her, smiling. ‘Let’s eat.’

  The next day, Isobel sits in the small staffroom of Silenshore Castle High School, her head bowed over a mock exam script and the tip of a biro between her teeth.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  Isobel hears the voice, but doesn’t register it for a while. She’s engrossed in the words of the year-ten pupil who describes Seamus Heaney’s poems exactly as Isobel hoped. She peers at the marking scheme on the table in front of her and then returns to the neatly printed script. A* she marks in green. Always green pen, never red.

  ‘Isobel? Are you okay?’

  Isobel turns to Simone, who stares at Isobel with curiosity unsuccessfully masked by a vague attempt at concern. Simone teaches geography and has worked at Silenshore Castle High School since it opened in the late 1980s. She’s not somebody Isobel would normally chat to at work. The only person Isobel has told about the baby is Lucy, another English teacher, who Isobel felt, at the time of conspiratorial whispering, that she could trust. Now, she’s beginning to doubt that she can trust anyone here. As she thinks about all the secrets she’s heard in her time here: people’s affairs and redundancies and broken hearts, it dawns on Isobel that nobody at this school is particularly fastidious about keeping secrets.

  ‘I’m good, thanks,’ Isobel replies now, flipping the script over to reveal another. It’s Cassie’s. This pupil is on an eternal brink of D/C grades. She scans the angular, scratchy writing to look for concepts she’s tried to drum into the class in the past few months: metaphor, symbolism, simile. Some are there. Isobel ticks quickly, then looks back up at Simone.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I hear congratulations are in order?’ Simone’s voice rises in question, her face desperate to know more.

  Isobel smiles and shuffles her papers. ‘Yeah. News travels fast here.’

  ‘I didn’t even know you were seeing anybody,’ Simone steamrollers on. ‘Is he a nice man?’

  ‘He’s amazing,’ Isobel said. ‘It was a bit of a shock, I’ll admit. But we’re really happy about it. I had my scan yesterday and I’m due in May.’

  Simone picks up her mug again and then sits back slightly, disappointment at the lack of drama spreading over her pallid features. Obviously, the version she has already heard of Isobel’s pregnancy from someone else at the school was more thrilling. ‘That’s good. Is he local?’

  ‘Yes. We’re staying with his mother at the moment, actually. She lives on West Street.’

  ‘Oooh!’ comes another voice from behind them. Lily, the music teacher, looms behind Isobel’s shoulder. ‘Are we talking about Isobel’s new man?’

  ‘He’s not that new,’ Isobel points out, picking up her marking again and looking down at Cassie’s answer. ‘I’ve known him for quite a few months now.’

  ‘He’s older, isn’t he?’ Lily asks, going over to the kitchen area and opening the drawer where she keeps her fruit tea bags. She drops one into a mug and the air fills with the floral, sugary scent of raspberries and orange. ‘I’d love an older man. They just have a bit more about them, don’t they?’

  Simone is intrigued by this offering. She puts her mug down again. ‘So he’s older, is he? Has he got any other children?’

  Isobel bristles. ‘No. He was married, but he’s divorced now and he has no children.’

  ‘Married?’ Simone repeats, the glow of satisfaction brightening her features. ‘So there’s an ex?’

  Lily drops her teaspoon into the sink with a clatter. ‘Oh, everyone’s got an ex these days, Simone. It’s no big deal.’

  Simone shrugs huffily. ‘I was just saying. It normally gets tricky with an ex.’

  ‘Tom’s ex doesn’t live round here,’ Isobel says curtly, but she can feel herself colouring. ‘It’s definitely over with.’

  ‘It’s never been really over with mine. Ex-wives are never fully in the past, Isobel. I’m just saying, maybe you should slow down a bit. Do your homework on him, so to speak,’ she finishes as she snatches her bag and pulls the staffroom door open.

  ‘Ignore her,’ Lily instructs in a whisper as Simone disappears. ‘She always wants everyone to be as miserable as her.’

  Isobel rolls her eyes. ‘I know. She’s always the same.’ But that afternoon, as she hands out flipchart paper and stickers to her boisterous classes, logs quiz scores, marks role-plays and confiscates mobile phones, Simone’s words niggle her.

  Tom told Isobel, when they first got together, that his ex-wife, Georgia, was living in Australia, and that he never really speaks to her now. They got married when they were quite young and both ended up wanting different things, so they split up. That’s all. Isobel has never felt as though Georgia is an issue. She seems as though she’s in the past: Tom never mentions her.

  Now, Simone’s words echo in her mind.

  Ex-wives are never fully in the past, Isobel.

  Slow down.

  Isobel doesn’t ever slow down. And there’s no way the baby is going to slow down, either, not for anything. She might ask Tom for a more detailed version of what happened with Georgia at some point. But his answers won’t change how she feels about him, anyway. She trusts him. And not because she’s stupid or doesn’t know him, or needs to slow down, or is desperate. She’s just completely crazy about him. She can’t help it. She’s crazy about Tom, the baby, the whole thing. And she’s in too deep for anything to change her mind now.

  Chapter 10

  Evelyn: 1948

  All morning, the castle had been buzzing with an electric atmosphere. Evelyn was meant to stay in her bedroom, but she just couldn’t. Excitement fizzed up inside of her, making it impossible to sit serenely, like a bride was meant to do.

  A bride.

  Evelyn du Rêve was to be a bride. And after being a bride, she was to be swept away to London, to a life of parties and champagne and, Jack assured her, fame. He would give her everything she had ever wanted.

  After that day when she had met Jack; when the 12.05 train to London had chugged along merrily without her whilst she perched on a stool that Jack pulled out for her, Evelyn had seen him rather a lot. She’d spent hours in the shop with him as he worked, and she’d taken Jack to the castle, where he charmed her parents and looked around in awe at where Evelyn had come from. Jack had proposed after a month, as they sat on the cool rocky beach with a bottle of golden champagne. Evelyn had jumped to her feet and squealed her answer, pleasure bolting through her blood. She drank more, and more, and asked Jack to dance with her. When they had danced, and when there was no more champagne left, he set down an old fur rug on the uneven rocks, and lay Evelyn down beneath him. She closed her eyes and put her hands on his firm, warm skin that was gritty with flecks of sand. He had made Evelyn into a woman, and now she was about to be his wife. She simply couldn’t wait.

  The suitcase that she had packed to go to London on her own was still standing in her bedroom, packed again, but this time with her things, to move into Lace Antiques with Jack, as his wife. And once the wedding was done with, Jack was going to sell the shop and they were going to buy their very own flat in London above a bigger and better antique store.

  Evelyn stepped out of the castle’s front entrance into the crisp January air. Her mother was outside too, arranging flowers around the imposing archway. Evelyn frowned. When her parents had offered to hold the wedding reception at the castle, Evelyn had expected that they would have staff to arrange flowers and set out wine glasses and do all the other things that her mother had seemed to spend all morning doing,

  ‘Mother! What are you doing that for?’
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  Mrs du Rêve glanced away from her work. Her face was drawn, pale. She smiled at Evelyn, but the smile was a flicker of light on an otherwise dark expression.

  ‘I’m just helping out. People never do a proper job of anything these days. Anyway,’ she said, touching Evelyn’s shoulder lightly. ‘Why aren’t you getting dressed yet? Shall I come up and help you? You can’t be late for your own wedding!’

  A flutter of nerves swept through Evelyn as she thought about the day to come. ‘Yes, please.’

  They climbed the wide stone stairs back into the castle together, Evelyn leading the way.

  An hour later, Evelyn gazed at herself in the full-length mirror in her bedroom. She hadn’t wanted to wear this dress. It was her mother’s wedding dress, and it was too short, dotted with strange feathers and not at all what Evelyn had imagined. She’d thought that perhaps she’d have gone shopping with her mother for a grand and elegant gown. But at this idea, her mother had frowned and murmured something about the best shops closing down during the war. Surely there had been some left, Evleyn had wanted to know. But then Mrs du Rêve had appeared with this dress, and all but begged Evelyn to try it.

  It didn’t look so bad, Evelyn supposed. And it might bring her good luck in her marriage: her parents had been so very fortunate since their own wedding.

  ‘All ready,’ she said brightly to her mother, her fingers entwined tightly around a sharp feather on her waist.

  Mrs du Rêve nodded and walked over to Evelyn, putting her arms around her without warning and hugging her so tightly that Evelyn thought her bones might break.

  ‘Mother! What’s the matter?’

  Mrs du Rêve shook her head. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Please, Evelyn. Enjoy your day and don’t worry about me.’

  Evelyn pulled away from her mother, taking in her tight mouth, her eyes clouded with tears. ‘I can’t,’ Evelyn said. ‘Not until I know what’s wrong. You’ve been acting strangely all day. Do you not want me to marry Jack? Do you not like him? Is that it?’