The Little Shop of Hidden Treasures Part Two: Secret Loves

by Holly Hepburn

  Hope almost brushed his appreciation away – he’d cooked a delicious meal for her and the conversation had flowed naturally all evening, even across the fractures of their sorrow. She’d enjoyed herself immensely. And surely only a monster could fail to be kind to Brodie. But then she remembered how important it had been to thank her own friends and family for their many kindnesses when she’d been adjusting to life after Rob, and instead she smiled. ‘Any time, Will.’

  Chapter Eight

  17th April 1923, Whitby

  It is with a monstrously heavy heart that I write these words, in what will be the final entry of this journal. My situation becomes more intolerable with each passing day and my mind grows ever darker. Soon I shall lose what little freedom I have and it will be too late to free myself from this suffocating prison. I must act now or die a thousand times more.

  I pray that those who love me will understand – I am sorry to visit more misery and scandal upon them but find I cannot bear to contemplate a life without the man I love. Indeed, without him, I have no life at all and so there can be only one desperate course left to plot.

  I do not fear what comes next and yet I am more afraid than I have ever been. Even so, I place my faith in the moon and the stars and trust that they will guide me home.

  Farewell.

  Elenor Beatrice Lovelace

  Hope read the last page of Elenor’s diary three times before it truly sank in that she’d reached the end. The final entry was every bit as devastating as she’d known it would be; pain and desperation bled from every word and she could easily believe that Elenor had thrown herself off a cliff immediately after writing it. And it didn’t matter that Hope had been expecting it – confirmation of Elenor’s anguished state of mind still made for an unbearably sad end to what had been a brilliant life.

  She replaced the journal in its box and slumped back against the pillows. It was late – well past midnight – and she had work in the morning. She ought to at least try to sleep, although she suspected a restful night might be out of the question now. Instead, she reached for her phone and tapped out a message to Ciaran:

  Finished the journal. Poor, poor Elenor – they really made her life impossible xx

  She didn’t expect an immediate reply but the double ticks turned blue almost instantly and the words Ciaran is typing… appeared on the screen. A few seconds later, his response arrived:

  Amazing. Dinner on Friday to discuss? xx

  Hope let out a muted groan of frustration. Hadn’t she known he’d do this? But as much as she wanted to see him, she had no intention of cancelling her trip to Whitby, nor did she want to be watching the clock while she was there.

  Busy then. Saturday? xx

  Moments ticked by as she waited for his reply:

  Ah, you’re a hard woman to pin down. Let me see what I can do. Sleep well xx

  She had a sudden mental image of him then, his dark hair tousled and his grey eyes dancing, and found herself hoping he managed to shuffle things around to see her on Saturday. Placing her phone on the bedside table, she closed the box on the journal and moved it to the top shelf of the wardrobe, where she’d taken to keeping it. She might have finished reading the entries but there was still plenty of work to do before she returned it to Isobel Lovelace. She hoped her trip to Whitby might help pull together some of the loose threads; at the very least it would give her an insight into Elenor’s last hours. And then perhaps she might have something to offer Isobel, in exchange for the privilege of reading the journal, as well as more to share with Ciaran.

  But before any of that could happen, she needed to get some rest. Climbing into bed, Hope turned off the light and lay back in the darkness. As she’d expected, sleep took a long time to claim her.

  * * *

  It was almost four o’clock when Hope met Will and Brodie on Battery Parade. Across the bay to their right, the hulking ruins of the Abbey dominated the East Cliff and in front of them, the North Sea crashed against the harbour wall, gunmetal grey against the sullen and atmospheric sky. Will had said the town was brooding and melancholy, Hope recalled. After today’s visit, she could only agree.

  ‘So, how did you get on?’ he asked, eyeing her with undisguised curiosity. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

  It was a good question and one Hope wasn’t entirely sure she could answer. She’d done her best to follow in Elenor’s footsteps, starting at the hotel she had described arriving at in the penultimate entry of her journal and tracing her path through the town and upwards to the East Cliff. She’d paused to admire the Abbey, shivering slightly as she noted the dark walls and long shadows, like fingers crawling across the land, and moved on to Saltwick Bay, where newspaper reports of the tragedy claimed Elenor had last been seen. There was now a well-worn walking trail but Hope had climbed over the wire fence to stand as close to the edge of the cliffs as safety allowed and tried to imagine summoning up the courage to throw herself off. And she must have looked at least a little convincing, because a white-haired couple stopped to shout at her to come back and the man began to climb the fence to retrieve her. Hope had waved her phone apologetically and said she was taking a photograph of the vicious rocks below, which earned her a disbelieving look and a muttered comment about ‘Bloody daft-as-a-brush tourists.’

  She’d sat on a nearby bench after that and contemplated the sombre grey clouds and roiling waves as gulls soared overhead. And after a while, a sense of acceptance had crept over her. It sounded mad, even to Hope; Elenor was nothing more than a character in a story to her – what was there to accept? But it felt like the last piece of the puzzle had finally slotted into place, after hours of turning it round and round, trying to make it fit. It felt as though the story was complete. Elenor’s story, at least.

  Dragging her thoughts back to Will, Hope tipped her head. ‘I think so, yes. How was your afternoon?’

  He glanced down at Brodie. ‘We had a great time. After the deliveries were done, we had an ice cream on the beach and spent a small fortune in the amusements.’ He ruffled her hair affectionately. ‘Brodie had her eye on a plastic yo-yo and it only cost me five pounds to win it.’

  On cue, the little girl opened her hand to display a neon-green toy that probably would have cost fifty pence to buy. Hope grinned. ‘Sounds like a bargain.’ She took a breath, taking in the salty air and the unmistakeable aroma of fried food. ‘Did you work up an appetite? I’m pretty sure someone mentioned eating chips on the seafront.’

  Will nodded. ‘I did – everyone knows they taste better on the beach. Come on, there’s a decent chippy around the corner.’

  They took their paper-wrapped packages and sat at one of the benches along the harbour wall, burning their fingers on the too-hot chips and savouring the tang of the salt and vinegar. Hope described her walk, making Will tut and shake his head when she told him she’d gone beyond the fence.

  ‘Those cliffs are unstable,’ he said. ‘No wonder the locals thought you were crazy.’

  ‘I wasn’t really in any danger,’ Hope insisted mildly. ‘But it did bring home to me how terrifying it must have been for Elenor. How bad must her situation have been for her to take that final step? And how could her family have driven her to believing it was the only way out?’

  Will glanced uneasily at Brodie. ‘It was a different time. Families had more control back then, especially the aristocratic ones and especially over women. They could easily have made her life a misery. In fact, it sounds a lot like they already had.’

  That was certainly true, Hope thought. ‘Elenor often mentions how scandalized they were by her relationship with Khalid,’ she said. ‘But how much of a scandal would it have been? It was the Roaring Twenties – attitudes were changing and Khalid was a well-respected scholar. Surely it’s possible he might have been accepted into society, with the backing of Elenor’s family.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Will said honestly. ‘Ciaran is the man to ask about that, I suppose. But it does seem
like the family’s reaction was extreme. Maybe Khalid was already married.’

  Immediately, Hope shook her head. ‘That would have broken Elenor’s heart but her family would have been thrilled, because any further relationship would’ve been impossible.’

  ‘True,’ Will conceded. ‘I suppose they could have just been massive control freaks. Unless…’

  He stopped, gazing thoughtfully out to see. ‘Unless?’ Hope echoed.

  ‘Unless there was an added complication – something she didn’t put in her journal.’

  Frowning, she studied him. ‘What kind of complication?’

  Will pursed his lips. ‘Didn’t you say she came back to England because of an illness?’

  ‘An infected mosquito bite,’ Hope said. ‘The same thing that killed Lord Carnarvon, actually.’

  ‘So, what if it wasn’t an illness?’ he replied and gave Hope a sober look. ‘What if it was a pregnancy?’

  Hope nearly dropped her parcel of chips. ‘No,’ she exclaimed, as goosebumps nettled her skin. The thought was almost too much to contemplate. ‘Elenor would never have – she’d never have done what she did if there’d been a baby. Khalid’s baby.’

  He inclined his head. ‘I’m just putting it out there. A mixed-race baby, born out of wedlock, in nineteen twenties England. That’s the kind of scandal no amount of family support could paper over.’

  Hope’s mind raced as she considered the awful possibility that Will was right. Reading between the lines, she was fairly sure Elenor and Khalid had spent the night together on more than one occasion so there was certainly a chance of an accidental pregnancy. And it might go a long way to explaining the extreme actions of Elenor’s family, as well as her belief that things were only going to get worse. But she couldn’t accept that the woman she had come to know through the pages of the journal would take the life of her unborn baby along with her own. It simply didn’t fit with who Elenor Lovelace had been.

  ‘No, I don’t believe it,’ she said decisively. ‘And if Elenor was pregnant, she would have mentioned it in her diary, or at least alluded to it somehow. She can’t have been.’

  Will raised a conciliatory hand. ‘Okay, you’ve read it and I haven’t. It was just an idea.’

  Brodie was tugging at his sleeve and he turned to her, pointing out the colourful boats in the harbour and the two lighthouses at the end of the twin piers. Picking listlessly at her chips, Hope mulled over the grenade he’d lobbed her way and dismissed it all over again. Elenor wore her heart on her sleeve. If she’d known she was pregnant, it would have been there on the page. And it hadn’t been. Hope was sure of that, at least.

  After a few minutes, Will cleared his throat. ‘Brodie bought you a gift.’

  The words brought Hope back from her musings. Mentally regrouping, she smiled at the little girl. ‘That’s very kind of you. But you really didn’t have to.’

  Brodie’s gaze didn’t waver and Will stepped in to translate. ‘I think it’s because you’ve given her a couple of presents now – she decided it was our turn to treat you. And she spotted this in one of the gift shops and thought you might like it.’

  He dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a small paper bag sealed with a tiny sticker. Brodie held out a hand to take it, studied it for a moment, then presented it to Hope.

  ‘Thank you,’ Hope said, as she took the bag and peeled back the sticker. ‘This is very exciting.’

  She felt Brodie’s scrutiny as she opened the bag and slid the contents onto the palm of her hand. A silver keyring in the shape of a mermaid lay against her skin, tail curling into a joyful smile, with a jade-green gem cupped between her outstretched fingers.

  ‘It’s sea glass,’ Will said. ‘Not quite an emerald but Brodie was quite insistent we bought a green one, like Elenor’s ring.’

  Hope held the keyring up, allowing the light to catch on the glass. ‘It’s beautiful. Thank you.’

  Without warning, Brodie reached up to touch a coppery curl of hair that had escaped from Hope’s ponytail. Hope laughed. ‘Are you suggesting my hair is as wild as a mermaid’s?’

  The girl nodded shyly and Hope raised a hand to pull the scrunchie out, letting her hair cascade down her back and dance in the breeze. Brodie gasped in delight and held her fingers up so the strands tickled her skin. ‘Of course, mermaids have magical hair that never tangles,’ Hope said as the girl giggled. ‘I wish I did.’

  ‘It might not be magical but it is beautiful,’ Will said, and Hope glanced across to see him watching her.

  ‘Give it five minutes in this wind and you won’t be saying that,’ Hope replied, grimacing. ‘My mother says the knots used to drive her to drink and she’s very glad it’s not her problem anymore.’

  He fired a rueful look at Brodie’s fine blonde hair. ‘Now that I can identify with.’

  It was another reminder of the steep learning curve he’d been on, Hope thought – even the everyday things must have been a challenge at first. Gently, she disentangled Brodie’s fingers and snared her own unruly curls safely with the scrunchie. ‘Thank you very much for my keyring,’ she said again. ‘I’m going to remember this trip every time I look at it.’

  The little girl’s answering beam was like the sun coming out. ‘You’re welcome,’ Will said, as he gathered up their discarded chip wrappers. ‘But sadly, we’d better think about heading home now otherwise Brodie will fall asleep in the car and will be wide awake at bedtime.’

  Hope tucked the keyring into her handbag and stood up. ‘Surely there’s time for a race along the beach first?’ She swung the bag onto her shoulder and set off at a run for the stone steps that led to the golden sand. ‘Last one down is It!’

  * * *

  Inevitably, Brodie’s eyelids fluttered closed almost before they’d left Whitby. It wasn’t much after five-thirty but, as Will pointed out, she’d spent most of the afternoon wandering up and down the hilly streets of the town, not to mention twenty minutes playing on the beach before Will had finally called time on their game of It. She had to be exhausted.

  ‘I could do with a nap myself,’ Hope said, trying unsuccessfully to hide a yawn. ‘There’s something about the sea air that wears you out, isn’t there?’

  Will nodded. ‘That’s why I suggested we pick up the coffees. I might regret it at bedtime but for now I’d rather be wired than weary.’

  Hope took a sip of her latte and reached for the radio controls. ‘Good shout. I’ll see if I can find us some tunes to listen to.’

  They chatted as the miles passed, occasionally disagreeing about a song or band, but Hope was pleasantly surprised to find there was plenty of overlap in their musical tastes. Will seemed relaxed enough for most of the journey but, as they neared York, she noticed he grew less talkative. His hands tightened on the wheel from time to time, and his eyes strayed to the rear-view mirror more often, checking on the sleeping Brodie. Hope thought she knew the reason for his change of mood but she didn’t know how to respond; should she continue to talk, try to distract him? Or lapse into silence and allow him to concentrate?

  In the end, she decided on the direct approach. ‘It happened on the A64, didn’t it?’ she said quietly, after he’d been grimly silent for several long minutes. ‘The accident that killed Scott and Lucy.’

  He glanced across at her, surprised. ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  She sighed. ‘Iris told me. But I would have known anyway. It’s written all over you.’

  He grunted and checked the mirror again. ‘It’s just up ahead. Brodie doesn’t know it was this road.’ His jaw tightened but his tone stayed even. ‘I don’t want her to be scared every time we go in or out of York.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ Hope said, then paused. ‘You’re doing an amazing job of looking after her. I know you’ve had to learn on the job, as it were, and it hasn’t been easy, but anyone can see she’s in good hands.’

  The ghost of a smile pulled at his lips. ‘Thank you. It helps that she’s such a good
kid. But I worry that it’s just me and her so much of the time – she doesn’t spend much time with children her own age. Even when we go to the park, she doesn’t stray far from my side.’

  Hope frowned. ‘She must be due to start school soon?’

  ‘In September,’ he said, nodding. ‘I tried starting her at a new nursery, when she first came to live with me, but she screamed the place down whenever it was time for me to leave. In the end, her therapist and I decided it would be better to get her settled into life with me over the summer.’

  Once again, Hope’s heart ached. ‘It sounds like the best decision for both of you.’

  ‘Yeah, I think it was,’ he said, with another sideways glance. ‘I’m not sure how it’s going to go at school, to be honest. It’s going to be tough on her and kids can be cruel – they might pick on her for not speaking.’

  Admittedly, Hope’s knowledge of small children was mostly limited to her niece and nephews, and the children of friends, but in her experience they were far more accepting than adults. ‘I imagine they’ll be curious, at least at first,’ she said. ‘But they’ll probably just take it at face value and move on.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Will said, studying Brodie’s reflection. ‘Maybe I should try and make friends with some other parents, to ease her into things. Although I’m not sure where I’d even begin.’

  An idea occurred to Hope. ‘Come to my parents’ party,’ she suggested spontaneously. ‘My nephews will be there, they’re around Brodie’s age, and some of the guests are bringing children so there’ll be plenty of kids for her to hang out with.’

  Will shook his head. ‘That’s very kind but I couldn’t possibly. I’ve never even met your parents – I can’t just crash their ruby anniversary.’

  ‘You’d be my guest,’ Hope said. ‘And Iris is coming – you’ll know her.’

  He threw her a suspicious look. ‘Isn’t she doing the flowers?’