by Erica James
She was about to turn away from the window when she saw Isabella in the garden below. Annelise watched her walk across the lawn, then disappear through the archway in the hedge. She knew exactly where Isabella was going; she was following the path that led to the churchyard where Elijah and her mother were buried. She went there every time she came home. It was a pilgrimage for her.
Isabella may not have known the woman who had given birth to her, and given her own life in the process, but she had a tangible connection, a gravestone she could touch, a place where she could lay flowers. Annelise envied her that. She had nowhere close at hand where she could go to mourn the passing of her parents.
Thanks to the meticulous records kept by the Nazis, Annelise knew that her mother had been sent to Ravensbruck, where eight months later she had died of typhus. Her father had been sent to Buchenwald to work in the infirmary of the camp, but died two years later of hypothermia. He had been forced to stand naked in the snow for disobeying an order.
In Oxford Annelise had been encouraged by Rebecca Hoffman, a friend and colleague at St Gertrude’s, to observe the Sabbath, the Jewish holy day. Rebecca had invited her to join a group to celebrate Shabbat. She had accepted the invitation in the hope that she would feel some kind of connection to the people and the ritual, but mostly she had wanted to feel connected to her parents. But she had felt nothing, other than that she was an outsider, as though she were a spectator watching a performance that had no relevance to her life. Rebecca had sympathised, saying it was the lack of familiarity that had made Annelise feel the way she had, that regular attendance would change how she felt.
It was thanks to Rebecca that everything did indeed change for Annelise, just not in the way she could have foreseen.
Forever saying that Annelise didn’t go out enough, Rebecca one day insisted that she accompany her to Blackwell’s for the launch of a new book – The History of Jews in Italy – written by Professor Harry Knoller, a Fellow in Politics at Merton College. Reluctantly Annelise had agreed to go.
Her friend had been adamant that they arrive early for the event and had grabbed two seats on the front row. From the moment the author of the book had started speaking, Annelise could see that he was an immensely charismatic man who enjoyed the sound of his own voice. He spoke eloquently and with searing conviction, and it was obvious that he wanted his audience to be in no doubt that he possessed a ferocious intellect.
From her front row seat, and being in such close proximity to the speaker, it was impossible to avoid his gaze as it swept around his audience. More often than she was comfortable with, Annelise found his powerfully searching gaze settling on her. It made her wish she were seated at the back, safe from his scrutiny.
In his mid to late thirties, he had a full head of wavy dark brown hair, a narrow face and blue-grey eyes behind tortoiseshell-framed spectacles. He wore an open-necked shirt and a tweed jacket, which she noticed had a button missing. He looked every inch the college professor, but there was something overplayed about him. His performance, and that’s exactly what it was, reminded Annelise of a play she had seen Isabella in. The leading actor had been hamming it up something awful, to the point that his character was wholly unconvincing.
As thought-provoking as she’d found the talk, Annelise had no wish to join the long queue to buy Professor Knoller’s book, but Rebecca wasn’t leaving empty-handed. They joined the queue until finally, in a gush of breathy admiration, Rebecca had her chance to request the great man’s signature.
‘What about you?’ he said, pointing his fountain pen at Annelise, ‘don’t you want a book like your friend?’
‘No thank you,’ she said. ‘I have enough to read at the moment.’
He considered her answer for a few seconds. And then: ‘What did you think of my talk?’
‘It was interesting.’
‘Interesting,’ he repeated. ‘Is that all?’
‘What’s the answer you would rather I gave you?’
‘The same as any academic would want. I want you to tell me that I’m sensationally brilliant, that my thought process is unique, and it had you on the edge of your seat, hanging on my every word.’
‘If you need somebody to worship at the altar of your cleverness, I suggest you look elsewhere. After all, brilliance is not in short supply here in Oxford. And sadly, nor is sycophancy.’ In any other situation she would have been appalled to hear herself being so extraordinarily rude, but she couldn’t stop the condemnation pouring out of her.
But he just laughed. ‘A straight-talking undergraduate, that makes a refreshing change.’
‘A straight-talking Junior Fellow,’ she corrected him. ‘And really, we mustn’t monopolise you anymore, you have many more people queuing to buy your book.’
‘Won’t you tell me your name?’ he said.
‘No need. Our paths won’t cross again.’
She had been wrong. Three days later he appeared at the main entrance to St Gertrude’s while she was checking her pigeonhole for mail.
‘At last,’ he said, leaning against the stonework, ‘I’ve tracked you down.’
As startled as she was, she kept her expression indifferent. ‘Which raises the question, how did you track me down?’ she enquired.
‘I remembered your friend’s name from signing my book for her and asked around. May I take you for lunch?’
‘I was planning to eat in hall.’
‘Is that an unbreakable plan?’
Before she could reply, he said, ‘Please say yes, I’d like the opportunity to prove that I’m not always an arrogant buffoon.’
‘Whatever my opinion of you is, I wouldn’t have thought it would matter to you very much. If at all.’
‘Come on, you know what it’s like for us narcissistic academics, we need everybody to love us.’
She couldn’t help but smile. And with that, she allowed him to take her for lunch. And for dinner the day after, and to bed the following week. Only then did he tell her that he was married. By then it was too late.
So when Isabella had spoken about an unhappy and neglected husband straying in search of emotional comfort, Annelise knew all about that.
But Edmund? Surely he wouldn’t do that to Mums? No, Isabella was wrong about him. They must just be having a private disagreement over something. Perhaps Edmund had been trying to get Hope to ease back with her workload, worried that she was overdoing it and would make herself ill again?
From downstairs Annelise could hear the telephone ringing. It rang and rang, and when she realised nobody was going to answer it, she went to do it herself. She reached the hall just as the telephone stopped ringing.
She was about to go back upstairs to her room and do some work on the paper she was writing, when the telephone rang again. She picked up the receiver. ‘Island House,’ she said.
Seconds passed. Then came a voice, a man’s voice: ‘Is that who I think it is?’
Her heart leapt.
‘Harry? Is that you?’
‘The one and only. Are you missing me?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Liar.’
She smiled to herself and pressed the receiver against her ear, as if that would bring him closer to her. ‘Are you missing me?’
‘Of course I am. I want you here with me. How could you think otherwise when you know I’m crazy about you?’
Her body absorbed his words like a sponge soaking up water. But she made light of it. ‘I’m glad to hear that,’ she said.
‘See, that’s what I love about you,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘you’re always so cool and distant with me. And always ready to put me in my place.’
‘Somebody has to,’ she teased.
There was a rustling sound in her ear, followed by a silence, and then Harry was cursing under his breath.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
/>
‘It’s Miriam,’ he said in a low rasp, ‘home earlier than she said she would be. I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll see you when you’re back. I’ll book us a room, usual time and place. Be good without me and don’t let some ardent young tyke steal you away from me!’
As he hastily rang off, she whispered into the receiver in her hand. ‘I love you, Harry. I love you more than you’ll ever know.’
Just a few moments ago she had been elated at the sound of his voice, that he had somehow found the telephone number for Island House, but now, as she climbed the stairs up to her bedroom, her heart felt as though a heavy weight was pressed against it.
She was tired of being his mistress, of making do with snatched moments behind his wife’s back. On the one hand she lived for those moments – to hear his voice and to see him – but on the other, it simply wasn’t enough. Isabella had said work was like a drug for Hope, an obsession; well, that’s what Harry was for Annelise.
For six months she had waited for him to keep his promise that he would leave his wife. Every conversation they ever had, she waited for him to say the magic words, that he had asked Miriam for a divorce. She knew better than to push him, to force him to make a choice. Do that and she would lose him.
She had told Isabella earlier that she wasn’t the marrying kind, but it was a lie. She wanted to marry Harry, to be his wife. And for that to happen she had to be patient. And careful.
Chapter Seventeen
Island House, Melstead St Mary
October 1962
Hope
Stanley had left a short while ago and Hope was now upstairs trying to work in what had been, a very long time ago, her childhood bedroom. She and Edmund slept in the main guest suite further along the landing. This room was her private space, her sanctuary. But try as she might to work, she just couldn’t concentrate. Twenty-four hours ago this book had seemed to be writing itself. As most of her books did.
Her writing day usually started after an early breakfast when she would sit at her desk, her fingers poised over the typewriter. All she had to do was close her eyes and magically the words and ideas would flow. On her desk, next to the typewriter, would be a thermos flask of coffee, which she drank from until it ran out and she stopped for a short break to eat lunch. Afterwards, and switching to a thermos of hot tea, she would return to her desk until six o’clock. She hated for her routine to be disrupted and people knew better than to interrupt her with anything trivial.
But since reading that anonymous letter yesterday afternoon, she had written no more than a couple of pages. She simply couldn’t think straight. Inside her head there was a clamour of voices vying to be heard. All telling her that of course Edmund was running around with every woman in the village, that it was glaringly obvious that the women would be falling at his feet in their droves. He was an attractive man. Intelligent. Thoughtful. Charming. And very caring. She was a fool to believe that he would have remained interested in her after all these years. Of course he would have strayed! And straight into the arms of someone so much more interesting and beautiful than she was. Didn’t this confirm what she’d always feared, that she would lose Edmund? She was cursed! Always to be denied happiness, never to have peace of mind.
She sighed and clasped her elbows as she sat back in the chair. She had always been plain. Even as a child. A dull withdrawn child who had lost herself in roaming the lanes and meadows in search of wildlife to draw. Sometimes she would drag her younger brother, Kit, along with her.
She thought of Kit now. Could she confide in him about that anonymous letter? She shook her head. She couldn’t bear for him, or anyone for that matter, to feel sorry for her. Poor old Hope, they’d think. Poor old pathetic Hope, so wrapped up in her work she had been blind to what had been going on right under her nose.
And yes, she knew she was guilty of putting all her energy into her work. But it gave her so much pleasure. And let’s face it, she earned far more money than Edmund ever would as a GP in a small village. Would that be his excuse? That she had diminished him?
Unclasping her hands from her elbows, she stood up and opened a window. She then pulled out one of the desk drawers, and from the back of it took a packet of cigarettes, a lighter and a small enamelled ashtray, the sort that had a lid and could be carried around in a pocket or handbag. When she had the cigarette lit, she inhaled deeply on it, filling her lungs and letting the nicotine flood through her before exhaling and watching the smoke escape out of the window in one long stream. She had taken to smoking to calm her nerves – to prevent another downward slide – pretending to Edmund that it was no more than the occasional cigarette. The truth was, it was a lot more than that, but she kept that from him, knowing he would be cross with her.
But what right did he have to be cross if he was cheating on her? And on their own doorstep? Didn’t he stop to think of what Annelise’s reaction would be? The poor girl would be devastated. She had always been so fond of Edmund.
Hope shuddered with horrified disgust. Oh, it was all so sordid! How could he have cheapened himself, and their standing in the village? Scandal about a husband and a wife, it was the stuff of every gossiping tongue. Were they all talking about them in the village, and worse, laughing at Hope behind her back?
How could she face everybody this evening at the party? She felt sick at the prospect. Perhaps she could cry off, claim she had a bad headache. God knew she suffered enough of them. But why should she miss celebrating Evelyn and Kit’s twentieth wedding anniversary? She had done nothing wrong. It was Edmund who should be hiding. And hanging his head in shame!
For the briefest of moments she contemplated confiding in Evelyn. They had known each other since childhood, and Evelyn was one of the most down-to-earth people Hope knew. But she was Edmund’s sister, so how on earth could Hope tell her an anonymous letter was calling her beloved brother an adulterer?
Or did Evelyn already know what Edmund was getting up to?
Chapter Eighteen
Meadow Lodge, Melstead St Mary
October 1962
Evelyn
There seemed no escape from the bedlam going on around her; every which way Evelyn turned, somebody was pestering for her advice or opinion.
Right now one of the caterers was complaining that the oven didn’t work. She was a young blonde woman with a waxy complexion and the affected manner of somebody who was used to working in far better surroundings. Well, that wouldn’t be difficult, the kitchen at Meadow Lodge was practically a relic from the last century. Not like those swish kitchens she’d heard about on the new estate in the village. Breakfast bars were all the rage there, along with Formica counter tops and stainless steel sinks. It was a far cry from the antiquated appliances she made do with here – a refrigerator that conducted its own orchestra of hums, rattles and buzzes, a washing machine that leaked, and a moody oven that played up at will.
Pip and Em were constantly on at her to modernise Meadow Lodge, claiming that they might not keep losing the girls who came to clean for them if she did. Gone were the days of obliging and reliable housemaids; now Evelyn had to make do with a turnaround of young married girls from the estate who liked to earn a bit of pin money.
She and Kit could well afford to splash out on new appliances, but the trouble was Evelyn had little time, or inclination, for anything of a domestic nature. She was the sort of person who once she was used to something was resistant to change it. Although she wasn’t bad at fixing things if the situation was dire enough. As it was now.
‘I’m afraid it’s a temperamental beast from the days when Noah was kitting out his ark,’ she explained while on her knees and thrusting a lighted match into the back of the cavernous oven. ‘One of these days I shall get around to replacing it. I think the problem is something to do with the pilot light. There, that’s got it.’
She shut the door carefully. ‘It helps not t
o slam it,’ she said to the waxy blonde, ‘despite how tempted one might be. And keep an eye on the temperature. The longer it’s switched on, the hotter it gets.’
The woman regarded Evelyn and the oven with a sceptical eye. ‘In that case, I can’t be held responsible if the canapés don’t come out as they should,’ she said primly.
‘I’m sure everything will be absolutely delicious,’ Evelyn replied, seizing her chance to escape so she could go and change.
Parties used to be so much easier to arrange in the old days, and by ‘old days’ she meant during the war. Back then everything was in such short supply people were grateful for whatever they were given. Some of the best parties she had ever attended had been at Bletchley Park. They had been spontaneous get-togethers with just a few bottles of sherry and whisky to share, along with a plate of hastily made sandwiches, provided they could get hold of any bread or fillings. Nowadays expectations were so much higher.
Why, oh why had she agreed to let Kit organise this party? And why was she letting a condescending caterer intimidate her?
It was because she was not herself. Since yesterday afternoon and reading that anonymous letter she had been in shock. Who on earth could have sent it? The handwriting on the envelope was unknown to her, and the only clue she had was that the postmark was Bury St Edmunds. It wasn’t much of a clue though.
She had barely slept the previous night, unable to stop thinking that somebody was out to cause trouble for her. But who? And why? Did the sender of the letter plan to blackmail her? Was that it? Would there be more vile letters?
The worst of it was she didn’t dare share the letter with Kit. If the seed were sown in his mind that Pip and Em weren’t his children, he would never be free of the doubt. He would forever be left to wonder. What man wouldn’t? And Kit was such a worrier.
Their roles had been very clearly defined before they were ever married. Her job had always been to reassure and encourage Kit. Growing up without a mother – and a father who was distant while coping with his grief – had left Kit with a lack of self-belief and the need to prove himself.
