A Place of Secrets (44 page)

There was a shocked silence after this. Finally Jude muttered, “Mum, that’s awful.”

“Awful,” echoed Claire, then asked their mother in her direct way, “Was Marty pleased
that you were pregnant?”

“He wasn’t,” their mother admitted. “But he was getting used to the idea. I like to think we might have come through it together.”

Jude glanced at Douglas, but he didn’t seem in the least bit piqued by his wife’s dreams of a long-ago lover. Of course, he’d have his own stories of romance—even Douglas and his tortoises and his golf clubs. Other men wouldn’t be so rational;
they would react with automatic jealousy. Lucky Mum. Jude was becoming more and more impressed by her new stepfather.

“That makes me feel funny,” Claire whispered. Perhaps she and Jude wouldn’t ever have been born if Marty hadn’t died.

She noticed that Gran was beginning to doze off. Chantal tactfully withdrew, murmuring something about feeding the dogs. Only Douglas still listened quietly to
Valerie, Claire and Jude untangle the snare of past misunderstandings.

“I was very frightened when I found you were on the way,” Valerie told Claire. “It brought back all the memories, you see, and I couldn’t tell your father, it was too late for that. I was scared of wanting you too much—in case it all went wrong again—and then when you were born, and with your poor leg, well, I got this idea
it was my punishment for having gone wrong the previous time and I was so upset. There was so much anxiety for me…”

“… you forgot there was a little baby that needed cuddling and loving,” Claire said, heavily.

“I suppose that’s it,” Valerie said. “But you were a very irritable little baby. You wouldn’t suck, then you got colic. And the teething was simply dreadful. I never knew a child could
have so many teeth.” She picked up her handbag and took out a tissue to wipe her eyes. The prim way she sat with the bag on her lap was like one of those brave women in the 1940s films who, after tragedy and disappointment, permed their hair, put on another layer of lipstick and got on with their lives. Keep up appearances. That was Valerie and she wasn’t going to change now. Jude felt a little rush
of love for her. Valerie was brave in her own way. “You have to make the best of things,” she’d always said.

To everyone’s surprise, Claire started to laugh. It started off as a bitter laugh, but then it gained pace and volume and became a laugh of relief, and then simply uncontrollable giggles. Jude caught it next, then Valerie. Only Douglas sat, a little bemused, but smiling to show willing.

“Oh dear, I’m sorry,” Claire said, wiping away tears. “It’s not really funny, is it? I’m sure if I hadn’t had Summer and didn’t know what it all felt like, I’d probably have stormed out of the room in a rage by now.”

“You were always good at storming out,” Valerie said. “I never knew such a cross child. I had simply no idea what to do with you. Your father was so much better at it all so I left
it to him. But look at you now—so beautiful and with a wonderful daughter of your own. I’m so proud of you, I really am. But I can’t take any of the credit for it.” And she started laughing again. “I’m sorry, Douglas, you must think we’ve gone mad. Jude, darling, I’m so sorry, I don’t mean you to feel left out.”

But Jude, who had never doubted her mother’s love, merely said, “I don’t. Honestly.
But we’d better smarten ourselves up quickly. I can hear the men coming back!”

Summer opened the door and ran into the room. Then came Robert and Frank with the twins, Max carrying a football, then Jon and Euan, in a deep discussion about something that broke off when they saw the women all pink-faced and flustered. Gran woke up with a start.

“Is everything all right?” Euan asked.

“Oh yes,”
said Claire, and she started giggling again.

“We’ll blame the wine,” Jude said, trying not to follow suit.

Douglas rose to his feet and said, “You’ve had a good turn about the grounds, I hope?”

“Oh yes, we’ve been discussing estate management,” said Robert. “And playing penalties, of course. No, not in here, Max.” He rescued the football and stowed it in an empty coal scuttle.

“It’s getting
dark already,” Euan said.

Robert moved to switch on the lamps, but Summer broke in, “No, Euan promised.”

He looked quizzically at Euan.

“Oh, yes, I did,” said Euan. “Robert, I wonder if you have a lantern. One with a candle, maybe.”

“Alexia might know,” he said. “Or my mother.”

He left the room and returned shortly with both women, Alexia carrying a covered candle holder and a box of matches.
“We used this for that wonderful carol singing, remember?” she asked her husband.

Chantal drew the curtains so the room lay in semidarkness. Euan lit the candle and took it over to the orrery, where he placed it in the center of the sphere.

“Gather round, everyone,” he said in a melodramatic voice, and they all arranged themselves where they could see. Only Gran stayed in her chair, insisting
she could see well enough from where she was.

“This candle is the sun. Stand here, Georgie, you’ll see better. Now you can imagine the six planets—this is the orbit for Mercury here, this is Mars, Earth, Venus and Jupiter, Saturn.” He touched each wooden band of the orrery as he spoke. “All going around the sun. You can see where the light falls on each one, and which part would be in darkness.”

Jude glanced around at everyone’s faces, half lit by the flickering candle, all intent on what Euan was showing them. It was wonderful to see this group of people together—her family, gradually sorting themselves out after the revelation of so many secrets.

In a flash she’d been made to see her mother in an entirely different light. Not just as the selfish, rather worldly woman who found mothering
a nerve-racking, puzzling business and abrogated responsibility first to one husband and now to another, but a rather more vulnerable figure who had never properly found herself after an early tragedy. Jude remembered how Valerie was brought low after Dad’s death, when she and Claire had been forced to mother their own mother. The unexpected bereavement must have split open again the wound made
by Marty’s death. And the loss of the child, too, would have had long-term effects.

She watched Jon and Frank, who, if Jon’s solicitousness of Summer and Claire was anything to go by, were quickly becoming family, too. Then there were her new friends at Starbrough Hall. It was profoundly sad to her that this orrery and the other instruments and all the books would soon be packed up in boxes and
dispatched to her office in London—sad, and yet the Wickhams were pleased with her. She’d done a professional job. She should be pleased with herself: this would be a successful sale for Beecham’s—she felt it in her bones. It was no good being sentimental.

And now she peeped up at Euan, his face shadowed and gypsylike in the candlelight, his eyes glittering midnight blue, with all the charisma
of a magician, showing them the wonders of the universe with a flourish as of an invisible cape. She could hardly take her eyes off him, and then he looked back at her and his eyes crinkled in a smile that was like a secret between them. She narrowed her eyes in return and felt a prickle of energy pass through her whole body. Mark’s face drifted into her mind, but it was mistier than before; she
could hardly remember his features and she let the image float away. But the realization bothered her slightly. She didn’t want to make the same mistake with Euan that she had with Caspar. Euan was very special. It wouldn’t do to hurt him any more than he’d been hurt already. She was hardly listening to the lecture now, but instead quietly peeled away from the group and went to sit by Gran.

“It’s been a very wonderful day,” Jessie told her, patting her hand. “That boy, Frank’s son, he’s a good boy, I can see that. Do you think it’s wrong to hope … for Claire, I mean?”

“Not wrong at all, Gran. But no one has ever been able to tell Claire what to do. Let’s hope he can lure her.” Like a moth to a light, or tickling a trout, she thought, thinking they were the sort of metaphors Euan
might use.

“And what made your mother come out with all that just now, I don’t know. I always thought these things were best forgotten. You should get on with your life. Though … well, this business with Tamsin. I feel better about it now, you know. The thought of it was always like a hard knot here, inside me, but now it’s easier. Perhaps Valerie will feel the same in time.”

Jude squeezed Gran’s
hand in agreement. Then she remembered something and said, “Gran, did you ever have strange dreams when you were little? I mean about running through a forest?”

Gran shook her head. “No.”

“Has anyone else in our family? I mean, going back in time. Your mother, for instance.”

“She never said anything that I can remember.”

“So I was the first.” Why? Why did Esther’s story come out now, two centuries
after her death, whenever that had been exactly?

* * *

It came to her later that night, as she lay in her bed upstairs, thinking about everything that had happened that momentous day. Tamsin’s death. She’d died when Jude must have been five or six, and that’s when the dreams had started. It seemed a ridiculous coincidence, but it was an hypothesis to work on. Running through the forest crying
for her mother. Tamsin and Jessie had had to run from the soldiers. Summer had been lost, though not, she thought, unduly upset by the fact. Someone, a girl, had been there to protect her, to stop her from being frightened. Everyone assumed it was a real girl, but maybe it wasn’t? Esther, Rowan, Tamsin, and other unknown little girls who’d run through the forest, all shadows. She’d probably
never know.

She woke on Friday morning feeling dismal, all the joy of the previous day evaporating like the morning dew. Today the carrier was coming to take away the books and the instruments. Today she must say good-bye to everyone she loved here and return to London.

Robert was in businesslike mode when she arrived downstairs at eight o’clock. Only his irritating tuneless whistle betrayed
his nervousness. It wasn’t every day he sold off the family heirlooms. Alexia had taken Max and Georgie off to a children’s holiday club in the next village. Chantal came down for breakfast at eight thirty, but went upstairs again with Miffy as soon as she’d eaten.

“She’s upset,” Robert said. “Understandable. I expect she’ll keep to her room till the men have gone. I advised her to, anyway. What
time d’you think the van will get here?” he asked.

“They thought about ten, but it depends what kind of run they have from London. Don’t worry, they’ll do all the packing themselves—they’re expert at it. All we have to do is show them where everything is. Oh, and do you want them to use the front entrance or the back?”

“The front, I think. If we open both the doors they’ll have plenty of room
to maneuver. You’re sure they won’t be careless and damage anything?”

“I’m sure,” she said firmly.

The operation, as she might have predicted, went seamlessly, but it was so dreadfully sad to see the orrery and the globe muffled up in packing material, the books being wrapped up and put in boxes.

After the van had gone, she took a last look around the library and could have wept to see the
ghostly shapes of the books left in the dust, the scuffs on the marble floor where the orrery had stood. “I feel like a murderess,” she whispered to Miffy, who had wandered downstairs now the commotion was over. Chantal followed a little later, looking miserable and avoiding going near the library at all. Robert, however, looked more cheerful now that the deed was done. When Alexia returned with the
twins at lunchtime, the atmosphere was almost normal.

After lunch it was time for Jude herself to leave for London. Robert took her case down and fitted it into the trunk. She slipped her laptop and briefcase alongside, and turned to say good-bye to the Wickham family lined up by the steps.

“I can’t thank you enough for having me,” she said, kissing Chantal and Alexia, hugging the twins in turn
and shaking Robert’s hand. “I’ll be in touch again very shortly, of course. We always like to consult clients on every aspect of the sale, so don’t worry about that.”

“And it would be marvelous if you came to stay again soon,” Alexia said. “You’re a very easy guest. And thank you so much for that beautiful picture.”

“That’s all right,” Jude said. “I’d love to come again. Oh, I’ll miss you all.”

As she drove away she could see them all in her mirror, waving, before the vision grew misty with unshed tears.

When she reached the bottom of the drive she did what she suspected she would do all along. Instead of turning left toward the main road to London, she turned right. She’d just see if Euan was in. She didn’t feel they’d said good-bye properly last night.

There was no car in the road,
nor in the drive. She stopped the car anyway, walked up the path and rang the front doorbell of the cottage, waited, but no one came. As a last hope, she tramped around the back and into the field. The caravan was all shut up, as it had been when she had stopped the other day, after Summer had been found. Perhaps, now that his house was nearly finished, Euan hadn’t slept there at all. She couldn’t
blame him, not after the trauma of the last week, knowing Summer had been the last to sleep there.

She trudged reluctantly back to the car, feeling disproportionately disappointed. He hadn’t been warned she was coming; why had she expected him to be there, waiting in case she came? Perhaps he was still staying with his sister, she remembered.

She drove on rather than turning back, to pretend
to the world that she’d meant to come this way all along. When she stopped at a T-junction she leaned against the wheel, dry-eyed but feeling a bit empty. She really had wanted to see Euan. It’s all right, he said he’d call you, she told herself. She pulled out her map and plotted another route to the London road.

“When you’ve got a minute, Jude, could we get together and talk about your piece? I went through it as soon as I saw it yesterday. It’s very good.” Jude had hardly made it through Beecham’s reception on Monday when she encountered Bridget on her way to some meeting.