by Taylor, Lulu
She needed to know more.
‘Your father will never tell you,’ Nicky said, when she told him how she felt.
‘I know. But there is someone else who might help me.’
Nicky looked surprised. ‘Really?’
‘I told you that my aunt Felicity came to look after me when my mother died – she told me it was brain fever that killed her. She often came to stay to mind me during the school holidays until I was old enough to look after myself, or I went to stay at her cottage. We were never exactly close but she was kind to me in her way. I think she was fond of me.’
‘And you think she can help?’
Alexandra nodded. She held Elaine clasped to her chest where she had fallen asleep. Her dark hair was longer now, and she had a definite look of Alex in the shape of her eyes and the bow of her lips. ‘She’s the only one left who can.’
‘Then you must invite her to stay,’ Nicky declared.
‘No, no. I don’t want her overwhelmed and besides, she’s getting on. I’ll go to her. I’ll take the baby.’
She wanted to act while she still had the conviction it was the right thing to do, so she sat down and wrote the same afternoon.
‘Come in, my dear, come in.’
Aunt Felicity looked much older than Alexandra had remembered: her hair was still thick but now completely iron-grey, and her face had the soft crinkled texture of scrunched crêpe paper. She gazed down through her glasses at Elaine, who was clutching at Alexandra’s hand and trying to balance on two tiny feet. She had recently refused to be put in her pram any longer, insisting on walking despite the fact that she was barely able to yet. ‘Now, who is this lovely little thing?’
‘My daughter, Elaine,’ Alexandra said proudly.
‘Of course. You wrote to me with news of her arrival. She’s beautiful. Such lovely hair. Let’s get you both inside.’
She followed her in, feeling how strange it was to be back in Aunt Felicity’s cottage after so long away. Alexandra had last been here as a girl and now she was twice married and a mother, but nothing inside had changed a bit. They sat and drank tea, talking politely of everyday things and watching Elaine play. At last Aunt Felicity fixed her with a steady gaze.
‘Now, Alexandra, tell me why you’ve come to visit me after so long. Naturally I’ve heard that your life has been quite eventful since I saw you last. It must be five years since your marriage – your first marriage, I mean.’
Alexandra flushed slightly, reaching to stop Elaine from pulling some volumes out of a small bookcase before she answered. ‘Yes. You’re right. I should have visited before now.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ Aunt Felicity replied.‘I’m quite happy in my own company and I can’t pretend that I am close to my brother. He is not an easy man, as you know. I haven’t been to the Old Grange for quite a while.’ Her usually composed features slipped into sadness for a moment and she said, ‘Gerald was not a natural father, I know that. You had to bear a lot. I often prayed for you, if it’s any comfort.’
Alexandra was astonished to hear her aunt talk so frankly. They had never had such openness between them before and she hastened to grasp it. ‘He always seemed so angry with me, but I never knew why. Now, after what happened with Laurence and Nicky, he wants nothing to do with me.’
‘I knew that marriage was a mistake,’ said her aunt, shaking her head sadly. ‘I should have done more to stop it. I didn’t perhaps realise to what extent your father had arranged it. You must be patient, Alexandra. Eventually he will come to accept that what happened was for the best, in terms of your leaving Laurence. You are happy now with your beautiful children.’
‘But Laurence is dead and I think Father blames me for it.’
‘He is angry that things didn’t work out as he wanted and he is no doubt sorry for whatever part he played in it. But I’m sure he doesn’t blame you for the accident.’
‘But it means I can’t ask him what I need to know,’ Alexandra persisted, worried that at any moment her aunt would stop being so candid. ‘And that’s why I’ve come to you. Because I thought you might be able to tell me about my mother.’ The words began to come out in a rush. ‘You see, I find I’m thinking of her more and more but I have so few memories of her. I don’t really know what happened.’
Aunt Felicity sat back in her armchair, her expression serious. ‘I can guess that Gerald has never spoken to you about it. I can’t say I’m surprised. My brother is not an emotional man. That is to say, he has never understood sentiment and I think it is probably fair to say that he certainly never understood women. He’s not really a man who should have married but once he did, he had very fixed ideas about what a marriage should be. I’m afraid that your mother was not a woman who could easily live with what he demanded.’
Alexandra stared back, desperate to absorb every vital word. Here she was, at last, on the brink of a revelation. Someone was going to tell her something, finally, that would explain the darkness of her childhood and the mysteries that had always surrounded it. If Nicky was right, and her mother had done that awful thing, then perhaps Felicity could tell her why.
Aunt Felicity said, with a touch of her old stiffness, ‘You’re very like your mother, Alexandra. Tender-hearted with paper-thin skin. All your emotions, your heart, are close to the surface. You are so easy to hurt, Alexandra, just like she was. Those raw feelings of yours . . . sometimes I think they’re a curse rather than a blessing. You experience life in such a heightened way that it’s almost too much for you at times. Your father doesn’t understand such things. He thinks you can learn to control your emotions, and should be forced to be tougher and stronger. He doesn’t realise how easy it is to break someone who has so little protection, so little between them and the outside world. The truth is, he sees it as feminine weakness and he hates it.’
‘Is that how he felt about my mother?’ whispered Alexandra. Elaine had sat down on her plump nappied bottom and was playing with some wooden carved figures she’d found on a low table. She babbled to herself as she thumped them on the floor.
Aunt Felicity watched her as she spoke. ‘Yes, I think so. He was infuriated by her. He couldn’t love her in the way she needed him to, and I’m afraid it made her very ill. I don’t know if I could say that it killed her but her unhappiness made her very vulnerable. I’m afraid that she did not have the strength to fight when the illness came.’
Alexandra stared straight into her aunt’s eyes and said bluntly, ‘Nicky told me that he heard she killed herself.’
Felicity drew in a sharp breath and the look in her eyes told Alexandra that she was right. Her aunt said quickly, ‘Her mind was disturbed, Alexandra, you must believe that.’
‘You said she had a brain fever.’ It came out in an accusing tone. ‘How can I believe anything you tell me?’
‘I meant it metaphorically, to make it easier for you to accept. She was not herself. She was in the grip of something terrible. Nothing else would have made her do it.’
‘She jumped from the old folly, didn’t she?’
Her aunt looked away, unable to meet Alexandra’s gaze.
Alexandra felt tears prick her eyes. She reached down and scooped up Elaine, pulling her soft, sweet-smelling warmth onto her lap, resting her cheek against the little girl’s silky hair. ‘Why?’ she asked, in a whisper. ‘Why did she do it?’
‘That I can’t say.’
‘Can’t – or won’t?’
‘Can’t. I don’t know, Alexandra. No one does. I don’t believe your father knows why either. But she caused him great shame and he found that very difficult to forgive. It was hidden from you, to protect you from that shame.’
‘Did he drive her to it?’ asked Alexandra, her voice raw with the need to know the truth.
Felicity closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again, her old coolness was back. ‘I would not presume to judge,’ she said, ‘and neither should you. You must forget it and hope that one day you and your father w
ill be reconciled. That’s the only way. Now, let’s talk of something else.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Present day
Whenever Delilah thought about her husband, it was with a rush of misery. After their row, he had slept the night on the sofa in the snug and had avoided her ever since. What was happening to them? Were they falling apart?
She wondered if he had seen her in Ben’s arms. It had only been for a moment but she could feel it now if she closed her eyes and conjured up the sensation of his strong embrace, the warmth of his chest and the sweet aroma that came from him. Then he had let her go. He’d asked her why she was crying and they’d spent a pleasant half an hour chatting about the camellias before she’d gone back into the house, but she sensed that there was a growing alliance between them against John. What was awful was that now she wanted it.
For the first time, she wondered if her marriage had been a mistake. John had been so awful to her lately and it seemed that despite all her efforts and all her love, her marriage was crumbling. The thought filled her with a deep sadness.
Can I still save it? she wondered. Do I have the strength? Can I fix him?
But, more than that, she wondered if she still wanted to.
Outside, the weather was murkier than it had been for the last few days, with heavy whitish-grey clouds pressing down on them, and Delilah had to get away for a while to clear her head. She drove to town, ostensibly to do some shopping and have a coffee somewhere, but she asked in a cafe for directions to the local library and went there instead.
Inside, she asked how to go about doing local research. A friendly lady in rimless spectacles showed her to the computers and the reference section.
‘If you’re looking for local papers further back than the last ten years, I’m afraid we haven’t yet got all the records on the computer,’ she said apologetically, taking Delilah to the microfiche system and a stack of folders that contained copies of local newspapers. ‘We will be doing it eventually but it takes time, so this is all we’ve got till then.’
‘Of course. Please don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll manage.’
Left to herself, Delilah took the folder marked with the year she was interested in, and started looking through the old newspaper editions. Each had been photographed and then turned into a kind of negative that only became visible when put on a light box. It was slow work and she began to wonder if she was wasting her time. After all, she didn’t know for sure whether what she wanted would even have been in the local paper. She was tempted to start picking out films at random to illuminate but she resisted. If she did that, no doubt she’d skip the one she wanted. So she kept ploughing on, one after the other, scanning the headlines for anything that seemed relevant to her search. The hands of the clock were ticking around to library closing time when she suddenly found what she had been looking for.
‘Bingo!’ she said as she read the headline. She increased the size so that she could read more easily. Inquest hears of tragic death in Dursford Reservoir.
The article reported that, just as Mrs Urquhart had said, a Lieutenant Laurence Sykes had driven off Dursford Bridge in his car and drowned in the reservoir. His car had not appeared to have a fault and his blood had been free of alcohol or any other dangerous substances. He had been briefly at Fort Stirling that evening, visiting his estranged wife, Mrs Alexandra Sykes, but the footman there reported that the lieutenant had been normal when he’d left. A verdict of death through careless driving was recorded.
Delilah sat back, rubbing her eyes. She felt as though she had been staring at the light box for hours and the outline of her vision was blurred.
But she had wasted her time. There was hardly any mention of Alex. It was exactly as Grace Urquhart had said – but had she ever doubted her? What reason would anyone have to make up that story?
It had been so strange that another piece of the jigsaw puzzle should fall into her lap like that, filling out her image of Alex a little further, helping her see a flesh-and-blood person instead of the fatness of the photographs. Alex looked so young in the pictures Delilah had found, it seemed extraordinary that she’d been married twice. She must have been practically a child when she married Laurence Sykes. What had happened to make her run off with John’s father? Unless she had been the kind of woman to marry for the house and the title. She wouldn’t have been the first.
But Delilah couldn’t think it of her. Not when she recalled her wide blue eyes with their childlike vulnerability. ‘The beauteous Alex’ was how she’d been described in the visitors’ book, and Delilah felt it was true – she’d been a gentle spirit. So why had she taken such a terrible step? The first husband had died tragically, but years before Alexandra, so Delilah couldn’t see that the two events could be connected.
Her imagination began supplying stories for Alex: her husband was unfaithful, he had hundreds of affairs under her nose and she couldn’t stand it . . . Or some of the guests brought hallucinogenic drugs to their parties and persuaded Alex to try some, and under the influence she attempted to fly from the top of the folly . . . Or . . .
None of them quite worked. None were convincing.
She felt restless, her curiosity unassuaged, and turned back to the microfiche with the sudden thought that there might be a local report of Alexandra’s wedding. She decided to start looking from the month after Laurence Sykes’ death – surely they would not have married sooner than that – but throughout the next few months there was nothing about the Stirlings at all. She realised that the library was closing in a few minutes so she broke her rule and skipped forward a year. Then, at last, she saw something. It was a tiny piece but it said that Lady Northmoor had attended a coffee morning in aid of the village hall, accompanied by her one-year-old son, the Hon. John Stirling, who had charmed everyone. There was a grainy picture that was almost impossible to make out but it seemed to be a woman holding a baby.
‘How annoying,’ she said out loud. She wanted to see Alex with little John.
‘I’m so sorry but we’re closing.’ The librarian was back, a sympathetic but firm expression on her face. ‘You’ll have to finish there today.’
‘Okay. Thanks. It’s been really useful,’ she said, switching off the light box and returning the film to the folder. ‘I’ll be back.’
‘Good. We’re happy to help.’
It was only in the car on the way home that it occurred to her that she should not have spent her time looking for the evidence of Laurence Sykes’ existence. She should have skipped forward in time and looked at 1974, to search for anything she could find about Alexandra’s death. She felt cross with herself. She’d let her encounter with Grace Urquhart divert her from discovering what she really wanted to know.
I’ll come back as soon as I can and look again, she promised herself.
When she got home, she felt hot and sticky. A headache pounded behind her eyes, brought on from peering into the white light and reading blurred text. She went upstairs and got changed into her bikini, slipped a loose Indian tunic over the top, scooped up a towel and strolled down to the pool. Its unheated waters usually looked icy and uninviting but today the cool sparkle of turquoise looked refreshing. She took off the tunic and plunged in, relishing the shock of cold that juddered her body and made her heart pound. She swam strong and hard for several lengths, revelling in the feeling of being shut off from the world in her own private place, concentrating on pushing through the water and breathing at the right time. After twenty minutes’ hard swimming, she came to halt, holding on to the grainy concrete edge of the old pool and wiping water out of her eyes.
‘You’re a good swimmer.’
She looked up. Ben was there, smiling down at her.
‘Oh – thanks! I’m all right, a bit out of practice.’ She felt vulnerable in the water, barely dressed, while he stood there looking. ‘I’m going to get out now, I think.’
She swam to the shallow end and climbed up the steps. Ben had come round and was w
aiting for her, holding out her towel. As she emerged, dripping, from the water, he opened the towel to wrap round her and said, ‘Let me.’ The next moment he’d enveloped her in it and his strong arms were closing around her. She could feel his body close to hers, and the sensation of her naked wet flesh so near him sent a tingling bolt right through her. He began to rub gently, drying her arms and back. It gave her a feeling of uncomfortable pleasure, a physical enjoyment that her mind could not bear.
‘Ben,’ she said in a half whisper that seemed to break over his name.
‘I’m right here,’ he said softly.
He was, she knew that. It was part of the problem. Easy, attractive, pleasant . . . he was always there to remind her how life could be away from the storms and difficulties of her marriage. But she wasn’t ready to give up on John yet, even if the desire to surrender to Ben’s arms was growing with every moment. The atmosphere between them had changed to something unmistakeable: the way he was so close to her, the way he was touching her. This was no act of pure friendship. There was nothing cousinly in it. A crackling tension surrounded them. She didn’t know what to say, but only felt dimly that she needed to cling on to reason and not give in to what her body was telling her she wanted.
‘Delilah—’ he said in a low voice.
She put up a hand to stop him. ‘Don’t,’ she said pleadingly.
‘You must have guessed—’
‘Ben, I mean it,’ she said, more strongly. ‘Please don’t say anything – not yet. Not something we might both regret.’ She looked up and saw the expression in his eyes. It made something inside her tighten and a line of electricity course down her spine and into her fingertips.
