Some Veil Did Fall

by Kirsty Ferry

  He turned and raised a jar of instant coffee up. ‘One for the road?’ he asked.

  Becky nodded and clicked to save her work onto a USB stick. ‘Oh, I think so,’ she said. She watched Jon putting the coffee into the mugs and noticed that he looked a little pale and unsettled for some reason. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘I know that instant coffee may not be your favourite, but if it’s all you’ve got …’

  ‘Ha! No, that’s fine. I’ve got a percolator in here, but it’s too much hassle for a quick one,’ Jon said. He brought two mismatched mugs out and headed to the sitting area.

  It was really dark outside now, and the town was shiny with the earlier rainfall. The lights glimmered off the rooftops and he sat down, gesturing to Becky to join him. She did so gladly and took a mug from him.

  ‘I had a visitor downstairs,’ Jon said, ‘when I left you here before.’

  ‘I know,’ said Becky. ‘I heard the bell ring and you left me to work up here!’ She smiled at him, not quite understanding why he seemed so uneasy.

  ‘Hmmm. It was Seb,’ replied Jon, looking straight at her. ‘Said something about Chrissie telling him you’d met a photographer? Seb said that he was a journalist as well, and that it wasn’t hard to trace a photographer in Whitby. He’d tried a couple of others, but thought I was the most likely candidate.’

  ‘God! What did you tell him?’ asked Becky, her heart somersaulting.

  ‘I said I’d never heard of you,’ replied Jon. ‘I tried to put him off the scent but I don’t think he was fooled. He went away eventually. I just thought I’d better tell you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Becky. ‘I know he can’t harm me, he’s just annoying, but honestly! Ugh.’ She shuddered. ‘The top and bottom of it is that he doesn’t think I’m capable of doing my job on my own. We used to work together until I went freelance. He’s annoyed at what I’ve achieved because he always thought he was better than me. And he’s not!’ She shook her head and stared into her coffee mug. There were a few blobs of milk floating on the top, she realised, but so what. She looked up again at Jon. ‘I’m just as good as he is,’ she said quietly, ‘despite what he thinks.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jon. He reached out and squeezed her hand, looking directly into her eyes; she could tell he was sincere. ‘I know.’

  ‘Well,’ said Becky, ‘let’s hope that he goes and torments some other poor photographer. I honestly don’t even know now what I saw in him originally.’ She drained her coffee, suddenly wanting to be away from the little flat. It felt tainted, somehow, that stormy evening. Seb had a lot to answer for. ‘Thanks for the loan of the laptop. I got a few bits done, and I’m so pleased you put the writing slope up here as well. Have you finished for the day?’ She looked at her watch and realised with a start that it was almost six o’clock.

  ‘Yes, that’s me done. Chased the last few people out and told someone to come back tomorrow.’ Jon smiled. ‘I had someone ask if they could wear your dress; “the one that girl’s wearing in that photo.” I said forget it, the dress belongs to the girl in the picture and she won’t be lending it to anyone.’

  ‘Ha ha! Thanks,’ said Becky.

  ‘I mean it!’ said Jon. ‘It’s yours now. Do you think I could ever let anyone else wear it after everything that’s happened this weekend?’

  ‘Ah, that’s so sweet of you!’ said Becky, delighted. ‘I’d love to know more about the dress. I’m wondering why it was so special and why they had her painted in it.’

  ‘Maybe it was a wedding dress?’ suggested Jon. ‘I suppose when we get the dates from Lissy, if it matches up, then we might know.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Becky. ‘So – if it was a wedding portrait, would they do one of her husband? Wouldn’t it be on the opposite wall?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Jon. ‘A lot of the wedding portraits I’ve come across have just depicted the bride. The pairs of paintings you see tend to be for couples who are a little more established. Well, Lissy said so. She might be lying, she might just be more interested in the brides’ clothes rather than the grooms’, so she may be deliberately trying to throw me off track.’

  ‘So it’s not really worth looking for a wedding portrait of Adam then?’ Becky felt deflated. ‘I guess, logically speaking, if it was in the possession of Carrick Park, it would be on the wall. So unless it’s in a portrait gallery or a private collection, we will never know. Damn.’ She frowned. ‘But there’s no harm in checking around the hotel is there? There might not be a wedding portrait but there might be something.’ She looked up, a question in her eyes. ‘I’m game if you are.’

  ‘I’m definitely game,’ said Jon. He stood up, collecting the coffee mugs. ‘Time to take you back to the hotel then, I suppose.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Becky. ‘I do love this little place though. Despite Seb hanging around earlier.’

  ‘Well, you know the offer is there for you to use it any time,’ said Jon. ‘I’ll give the place a good airing, though, to get rid of his residue. That’s what they do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe scatter some garlic cloves around as well?’ said Becky. ‘He just sucks the life out of everything for his own gain. He’s worse than a proper vampire.’

  ‘The only problem with the garlic,’ said Jon, ‘is that it would stop most of my customers coming in.’

  ‘Good point,’ said Becky. She gathered the papers together from the writing slope and slid them back into the compartment. ‘If it’s all right with you, I’m going to take this back to the hotel.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ said Jon. ‘I’ll just rinse these out and be back in a second.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Becky. She tidied up her workspace and closed the laptop down, then slung everything into her bag. ‘Ready when you are.’ She couldn’t help but check her phone again. She relaxed; no calls and no texts. She hoped that meant Seb had given up.

  CARRICK PARK

  They drove most of the way back to Carrick Park in silence. Becky stared out at the dark moors, imagining herself in Ella’s position. A girl who hated riding and relied on lip-reading would have been terrified to be out on a night like this. As Becky considered it, the sky lit up with a flash of lightning and rain began to pelt down on the car. She watched it run down the windows in silvery rivulets and thanked her lucky stars that she lived in the twenty-first century and had transport. At least they were sheltered from the weather, unpleasant as it was outside.

  ‘It’s not the most pleasant of drives when it’s like this, is it?’ asked Jon, looking sidelong at her.

  ‘What? Oh, yes. I was just thinking that. You must have been reading my mind,’ Becky replied. She saw the glint of his teeth as he smiled.

  ‘Yes, you’re doing that frowning thing again,’ he said. ‘Not far now, anyway.’ He indicated and the car pulled off onto the little road that led to the hotel.

  Eventually they drove through the gates and saw the hotel lit up in front of them.

  ‘A welcoming sight,’ said Becky. ‘I’d like to see it properly in the daylight, mind. That’s two dark nights we’ve had here and an early morning that was still a bit grim.’

  ‘It probably hasn’t changed much from when they were here; well, the exterior, at least.’

  ‘I wonder what the invitation was for,’ mused Becky. ‘A summer evening and a dinner party; it said it was a celebration, didn’t it? It doesn’t really matter. It’s the people I’m interested in. I imagine the weather was a lot nicer than it is now, though.’ She felt a shiver like a wave of laughter flutter across her body and an image of a sky appear that was as stormy as the current evening; only she was shown a deep, velvety indigo sky and the shapes of the trees she saw shadowed against it indicated they were in full bloom.

  ‘Or maybe not,’ she said quietly. Overlaying the images was again a deep sense of happiness and joy. Whatever the e
vening had meant, it had been important to Ella. Becky didn’t want to probe too much. If she was meant to find out, she would.

  Jon parked the car and they got out, hurrying into the hotel, ducking unsuccessfully to avoid the heavy rain. They ran in through the main doors laughing at the state of each other and headed straight up the stairs. Ella’s portrait seemed strangely like an old friend now, and Becky silently greeted her as they passed on their way to their rooms.

  Becky was clutching the writing slope and as she shouldered her way into her room, she felt a deep sense of satisfaction that it was, at least for now, back where it belonged. She placed it carefully down on the dressing table and stepped back to admire it. Well, it might not have been in the bedroom originally, but it was part of the house. As an afterthought, Becky pulled the photographs out and placed Jon’s enlargement of the couple on the mantelpiece.

  ‘You’re back as well, Ella,’ she said to the picture. ‘We need to find out where this photograph was taken. Leave it with us, we’ll have a look around. We’re going to look for Adam’s picture as well, so don’t worry about that.’

  Becky had arranged to meet Jon at seven-thirty and go back down to the dining room with him. She checked her watch; she had a good hour. Plenty of time to have a hot bath and relax.

  As she lay in the warmth of the water, feeling the gritty texture of the bath salts on her skin, she was aware that in the very next room, perhaps only separated by a wall, Jon might be doing the same thing. All right, it wasn’t particularly likely that he would be using rose bath salts, but he might be submerged in water just as she was. It gave Becky a pleasant feeling to imagine this and without thinking she placed her fingertips on the tiled wall, almost feeling the thrumming of the water running through the pipes and filling Jon’s bath. She removed her fingers and lay back, closing her eyes against the steam. She tipped her head back, soaking her hair and washing the storm-damp of Whitby out of it.

  She remained in the bath for longer than she probably should have done, and it was with great reluctance that she crawled out of her steamy cocoon and, wrapped in another huge, white, fluffy towel, wandered into the bedroom again. Once more, she dressed; a little less formally today in beige chinos and a soft, white, cashmere sweater, and pulled her hair back into a loose bun. She made sure she had the original photograph in her handbag and checked her phone once more, just to make sure Seb wasn’t hounding her. She exhaled with relief when she saw that there was only another message from Lissy, saying she would meet them the next day. Mite be some good stuff she had added at the end. Translating it quickly, Becky assumed she would be running on Lissy time and they shouldn’t expect to pin her down to a particular hour. Good stuff, Lissy had said; Becky hoped so.

  Seven-thirty saw her leaving the room, and also saw Jon leaving his room. She felt her face split into a stupid grin when she saw him, and was pleased to see that expression reflected back.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Jon.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Becky.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Good. Let’s go.’

  They walked along the corridor towards the staircase and Becky drew the photograph out of her bag.

  ‘I’ve got the picture,’ she told Jon.

  ‘I can see that,’ he replied. They were passing Ella again and Becky stopped, remembering that she wanted to study the date on the picture. She read the gold title; the black, cursive script small and difficult to see. Lady Eleanor Carrick, November 1865. Becky’s lips quirked into a smile. If it was her wedding portrait and she was indeed the E.C. Dunbar who had married A.J. Carrick in the third quarter of 1865, it all fitted together rather nicely.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, suddenly remembering. ‘Lissy texted. She’s coming tomorrow, definitely. But she didn’t mention a time.’ She relayed the gist of the message to Jon who rolled his gaze heavenwards and nodded.

  ‘That’s typical Lissy,’ he said. He paused in front of the portrait and tilted his head slightly.

  ‘What do you see?’ asked Becky, hardly daring to ask.

  ‘Her hair; it’s practically in the same style as the photograph. It’s nice.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Becky made an exasperated sound. ‘I thought it was something exciting. It was probably a fashionable style in 1865. “The styles tended to reflect their dresses”, remember? You told me that yourself. See, she has it pulled back behind her ears, and there’s a little twist around at the back.’ She didn’t wait for his reply. Instead, she turned away and headed down the stairs. ‘Come on, let’s try and locate this mantelpiece before dinner.’

  Once downstairs, Becky stood in the hallway and concentrated on the layout of the house. ‘I didn’t notice a mantelpiece like that in the dining room,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘but that’s not to say it wasn’t there originally.’

  ‘Well, you thought that room is where the piano was, didn’t you say?’ replied Jon.

  ‘That’s the impression I got,’ replied Becky. ‘What if the dining room and the bar were once one big room; it felt a lot bigger than it looked last night to me. And as we say, there was no mantelpiece in the dining room area. If the place was to be refurbished as a hotel, surely the sensible thing would be to … aaaah! That’s it. After I saw the piano last night, didn’t we sit down by a fireplace in the bar?’

  Jon frowned, trying to remember. ‘Yes, I think we were by a fireplace. I brought the drinks over – and I saw it from the bar when I turned around. Good call. Why didn’t we notice the coat of arms on it last night?’

  ‘I suppose I had other things on my mind,’ said Becky. ‘Right, let’s head that way now and see if we can settle it.’

  Becky gestured for Jon to lead the way and she followed him, clutching the photograph. Her heart was beating fast, which was, she knew, ridiculous. It was, it seemed, a foregone conclusion that the coat of arms would be the same one; but for her to feel that she was standing in the same place as Ella had been that day … she fully expected Ella to rush at her like a whirlwind and was trying to prepare herself for it.

  They walked into the bar area and Jon wandered over to buy drinks, somehow knowing that Becky needed to be alone for this. Becky herself headed straight across to the fireplace. The room was fairly empty. It was a Sunday night after all, and Becky assumed that most people had gone home, ready for work on Monday.

  Ella pressed in on her as she approached the fireplace, but surprisingly, it didn’t bother her as much as she had feared. Instead, Becky stood in front of the mantelpiece and ran her fingers lightly over the coat of arms in the centre, tracing out the C in the middle. This was it, she was positive. Satisfied, she watched for Jon coming over with the drinks and smiled at him in greeting.

  ‘I think we have the mantelpiece,’ she said. ‘Look.’ She beckoned to him and showed him the coat of arms. He leaned over and studied it. Then he stood up and took something from the mantelpiece itself.

  ‘Certainly looks like it,’ he said, holding up a photograph and matching it to the plasterwork.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Becky, pointing at the photograph. ‘Where did you get it from?’

  ‘This? It’s the enlargement I did,’ said Jon. ‘You brought it down, didn’t you? I got it from the mantelpiece.’ He nodded to it. ‘You must have put it there when you looked at the coat of arms.’

  ‘No,’ said Becky shaking her head slowly. ‘It’s not. I left that in my room. I just have the original picture with me.’ She lifted it up and showed it to him. ‘What’s going on?’

  It was a strange echo of the past; they stood in almost the exact same positions as Ella and Adam had done in the original picture and Becky knew she had just asked the same question that Ella had asked Adam at the moment the photograph had been taken. What’s happening?

  One of the logs popped and flashed as a flame burst through it, sp
litting the wood as if emulating the light of that distant flashbulb. Jon jumped and swore but Becky just stared at him. ‘It’s on my mantelpiece in my room,’ she repeated. ‘The photograph was there.’ She looked at the mantelpiece beside her, confused and lost somewhere between her world and Ella’s. She raised her eyes and stared into the mirror above the fireplace, feeling for a bizarre moment there would somehow be four of them reflected in it; but it was worse than that. There was someone staring back at her from the other side of the room, but it was not Ella. It was not even Adam or an ethereal image that might have been Lydia: it was Seb.

  ‘What the hell is he doing here?’ Becky said. Her face had suddenly gone all white and pinched, and seemed to reflect a queer combination of fear and anger.

  She was looking across the room and, for a moment, Jon thought she had seen one of the ghosts of the people they had encountered; in the flesh, as it were. He followed her gaze and saw a young man, as solid as they were and recognised him as the person who had come into the studio asking about Becky earlier.

  Becky turned back to Jon and flashed such a look of hatred at him he was shocked.

  ‘Did you tell him anything?’ she asked. ‘Did you say anything at all about me?’

  Jon shook his head. ‘No, nothing. I wouldn’t have done that.’

  She shook her head as if she disbelieved him and looked away, staring back at Seb.

  Jon felt about the size of the cashew nut that he spotted under the table. He took hold of her arm and shook it, trying to get her attention. ‘I didn’t, I promise,’ he said uselessly. Becky pulled away without acknowledging him and folded her arms.

  Jon watched Seb saunter over to them; a little, sneering smile on his film star perfect face.

  ‘Bex,’ he said, completely ignoring Jon. ‘I knew I’d find you soon enough.’