The Debutante (35 page)

‘That was a long phase.’

‘Too long. Do me a favour and have a look in that book.’ She nodded to the page that was propped open. ‘Does it say one or two carrots?’

Cate read the recipe on the faded yellowing pages. ‘Two. Finely chopped. God, this is really ancient! Where did you get it? From Grandma?’

‘I bid on it. Cost me two pounds!’ She opened the fridge to get some carrots from the vegetable bin. ‘I always like to have a little something from the auctions we do. And this book is such a scream.’

‘You mean it came from Endsleigh?’

‘That’s right. It belonged to the housekeeper, Jo’s mother. Jo was telling me some hilarious stories about her during the war. Apparently she didn’t know anything about cooking. Put some of the family silver into the oven to warm and when she went to take it out it had all melted! Can you imagine?’

‘Yeah, she told me that one too.’ Cate turned the cookbook over to see the cover. It was faded cream with a red title,
An Introduction into the Basic Culinary Arts.
Great!’ she chuckled. ‘The culinary arts, no less. So this must be from just before the war, right?’

‘You’re getting good at this stuff.’ Rachel gave her a smile. ‘I’ll make a dealer out of you yet. How do you like “Deveraux and Daughter”?’

‘Right! And what would Mum say?’ Cate flicked through the pages to see the publication date.

‘It sounds better than “Deveraux and Niece”. Besides, I’m sure she wouldn’t care. As long as we kept it in the family.’ She saw Cate’s expression. ‘Hey, I was only kidding!’

Cate was staring at the flyleaf.

‘You say this belonged to Jo’s mother?’ she asked, without looking up.

‘Yes. Why? What’s going on?’

‘Alice Waites’ was scribbled across the right-hand corner of the page, in childish, uneven handwriting.

Jo’s mother was the same A. Waites who collected the bracelet from Tiffany’s.

And the one person alive who probably knew anything about what really happened at Endsleigh when Baby Blythe disappeared.

Endsleigh,
Devon

19
April, 1941

No news. None. Not a single letter or a telegram.
I pray every day, all day, that you are still alive. I cannot move and cry for hours. I am huge. Vast. Rotund. What if you should see me now? Would you still love me? But God, this awful house is so dreadful and dank! I used to think of it as a haven, a palace by the sea. But now it’s like a prison to me. I want to leave so badly. I want to find you, somehow. We listen to the radio. And of course the news is all so desperate. What if you are alive and you simply don’t love me any more? Irene says fresh air is what I need. Sea walks. If she only knew how I’m longing to drown myself! If I stand on the cliffs and stare down, the water below seems like the churning black in my head. It’s a sin to kill myself. It’s a greater sin to kill a child. So I make myself walk back. But what difference is it if I live in hell now or in the afterlife? My only hope is that you will come and take me away.

B

After a while, Jack decided to stretch his legs. It had been a long drive. On the left-hand side of the nurses’ station, a door led outside. There was a breeze in the air, the sky had brightened and it was a comfortable temperature. A few patients were dotted along the lawns, a couple of men playing boules and a woman being pushed in a wheelchair by a nurse. Jack strode up the hill a way; it felt good to move. Near the back of the house, he came upon a walled-in garden. Here slender birch and eucalyptus trees filtered out the sunlight; the plantings thick, wild and lush, smelling of moist black earth and moss. As he walked closer he could hear the gentle, lulling sound of a fountain. It was built in a far corner, a gargoyle’s head, emerging from the undergrowth with a comical, grotesquely leering face, emptying water into a round marble pool below, filled with flowering water lilies, their blooms a luminous other-worldly white.

He came closer. Along the edge of the pool was an inscription, carved into the stone.
‘The dawning of morn, the daylight’s sinking, The night’s long hours still find me thinking, Of thee, thee, only thee.’
Huge golden and red Koi darted, sleek and fast, just beneath the surface of the dark water. Leaning over, he dipped his fingers into the cool depths.

‘They’re dangerous, you know,’ said a voice behind him.

He turned round.

The elderly woman sitting on the bench behind him was so tiny, that from a distance she almost looked like a
child. In fact, there was something youthful and disarming about the way she tilted her head to one side, surveying him with a pair of startling blue eyes. ‘They like nothing better, you see, than biting the hand that feeds them.’

The Belmont Hotel was located on Queen Street in Mayfair. It was a narrow boutique establishment, so discreet and like every other town house on the street that it was possible to walk right by it without noticing that it was a hotel at all. Only the presence of a uniformed doorman stationed at the front entrance set it apart.

He opened the door as Cate walked in, the foyer opening graciously into an elegant drawing room on one side and a formal dining room on the other. She went up to the concierge at the reception desk. ‘I’m meeting someone in the library,’ she explained. ‘Can you point me in the right direction, please?’

‘I can do better than that.’ He escorted her through the drawing room, where tea was being served, and down a narrow hallway into a smaller, oak-panelled room.

Alice was sitting near the unlit fireplace, staring into the charred recess, lost in her own thoughts.

She looked up as Cate walked in.

‘Would you like any tea?’ the conceriege asked, looking from one to the other.

Alice straightened. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary.’

He gave a little bow and left.

‘I can’t bear to be waited on. I would never tell Jo, but these places make me feel quite uneasy.’

Cate sat down opposite her on one of the wing armchairs. ‘Where is Jo?’

‘My daughter’s out for the day. Sightseeing. London’s too crowded for me. And I don’t want to go shopping—I have everything I need. So,’ she said, folding her hands across her lap. ‘You’re back.’

‘You knew I would come back?’

She nodded. ‘I knew someone would, eventually. I just wondered how long it would take. What is it you want to know?’

‘Your maiden name is Waites, isn’t that correct? Alice Wakes?’

‘Why are you asking?’

Cate took the copy of the old Tiffany receipt out of her handbag and placed it on the table between them.

Alice picked it up, frowning, straining to make it out. Then she looked up. ‘How did you get this?’

Cate ignored the question. ‘You collected the bracelet. That’s your signature, isn’t it?’

Alice’s eyes widened. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘I found it. In an old shoebox.’

‘But where? How?’

‘It was in the locked room. Behind the books.’

‘Books?’ Alice ran her hand across her eyes, trying to place them.

Cate took a deep breath, tried again. ‘Why did Irene buy her sister such an expensive gift?’

‘She had her reasons.’

‘Why?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Wouldn’t understand what?’

‘We did what we had to do,’ she snapped, suddenly furious.

‘Alice—’ Cate’s voice was quiet—‘what exactly did you do?’

The old lady stared at Cate a long time. It was as if something inside her let go, visibly. Her expression softened; she looked overwhelmed, lost. ‘You remind me of her. The blonde hair, the shape of your face. The first time I saw you, it was like seeing a ghost. Which is really saying something. People look at the photographs and think she was beautiful, but there was the way she moved also, the sound of her voice and, well, just the way she was. It took your breath away. If she was in the room, you didn’t notice anyone else.’

Cate was silent.

‘You see, it wasn’t always easy having a sister who was that beautiful. That famous.’ She handed the receipt back to Cate, unable to look at it any longer. ‘I’m not defending her. But I’ve tried to understand.’

‘Who?’

Alice sighed deeply. ‘She hated her so much. In the end, I thought she’d kill her.’

Cate’s blood ran cold. ‘Kill who?’

‘She didn’t, of course.’ Alice turned again, staring into the empty grate. ‘But she might as well have.’

Sitting on a bench in the far corner, propped up against a mass of cushions, he hadn’t seen her at first. Quite elegantly dressed in a pale blue skirt and matching jacket, she had a copy of Le
Figaro,
folded across her lap. Her features were soft yet distinctive with very high cheekbones and a halo of white hair framing her face. And there was something about the tone of her voice, her clipped, slightly affected pronunciation, which belonged to another age. Next to her on the bench was a small canister of oxygen and a mask, presumably for emphysema or asthma.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jack said. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

‘I’ve known those fish a long time. They’re beautiful to look at but really they’re quite vicious characters.’

‘Thanks for the warning.’

‘You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette, by any chance?’

‘Are you supposed to be smoking?’ he asked, nodding to the oxygen.

‘I’m supposed to be dead,’ she shot back. ‘Besides,’ she smiled, ‘I’ve been smoking since I was sixteen and I dread to tell you how long ago that was. It hasn’t killed me yet.’

‘Well …’ he hesitated, feeling for the pack he kept in his jacket pocket, ‘when you put it that way…’

He took them out and handed her one, then fumbled in his other pockets, looking for a match. She leaned forward, waiting patiently. Finally he found some and, striking one, held it out to her.

Inhaling deeply, she leaned back. ‘Thank you,’ she said, savouring it. ‘Fresh air is overrated. Who are you here to visit? Or perhaps you’re a lunatic, come to join our merry little band.’

He laughed. ‘I’m sure I am a lunatic but on this occasion I’m here to see my father. Henry Coates. Anyway, I thought it was a nursing home.’

‘That’s what they call it now. And Henry’s adorable!’ She nodded. ‘Such an intelligent man!’

‘Well, right now he’s asleep. I see you read French.’

‘Of course.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Well, not as well as all that,’ he admitted. ‘Anything interesting?’

She shrugged, sighing.
‘Plus ça change …
The world is always on the brink of disaster. And of course the French are still quite excited about this money thing.’

‘The euro?’

‘Quite. A united Europe. To read about it, you’d think this was the first time it had ever been proposed.’

‘It’s a terrible idea.’

‘Life is a series of terrible ideas.’ She took another drag. ‘One catastrophe after another.’

He crossed his legs. ‘Britain will remain independent.’

‘We have no choice—we don’t even get on with one
another, let alone a bunch of foreigners. But enough. I abhor politics and especially the stale second-rate conversation it produces. Religion isn’t the opium of the masses, rhetoric is.’ Suddenly she began to cough, a deep, painful rasping which shook her frail frame. Reaching for the oxygen, she covered her mouth and inhaled.