The Silent Tide (24 page)

There was a vase in one of the cupboards; she brought it out and arranged the flowers, then returned to her desk and shifted a pile of magazines to make room for the vase.

Under the magazines was a slim cardboard box she’d not noticed before. It was quite pretty, decorated in a sort of Orla Kiely pattern and tied with thick green ribbon.

This is a day of surprises, she thought, setting down the vase and picking up the box.

There was no label or anything on it. Gently she pulled the ends of the ribbon and it slid undone with a silken sigh. The lid came off easily. Inside was something flat and rectangular packed in tissue paper.

She took it out, carefully unwrapped it and stared.

‘Sarah?’ she said, hardly moving.

‘Mmm?’ Sarah looked up.

‘Did you see who left this here?’

‘Sorry, no. What is it?’

‘Liz?’

‘What?’ Liz peered over the partition. ‘A photograph?’ she said, unimpressed. ‘No idea. You are popular today. Who’s it of?’

‘Extraordinary,’ Emily whispered. It was a framed wedding portrait in black and white. The man was instantly recognisable as Hugh Morton – Hugh when he was young and handsome. But the woman? It wasn’t Jacqueline. This woman’s hair glinted bright, she had a lively expression in her large dark eyes. They both looked so happy. She knew, she was absolutely sure, that this was Isabel.

‘Who keeps sending you this stuff!’ Sarah exclaimed, coming to take the photo from Emily. ‘It’s weird.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Emily replied. Someone was trying to tell her something. Something important, but as to who and what she couldn’t guess.

She was about to pack the photo away again when she saw a big envelope at the bottom of the box. She picked it up and read her name on it in printed capitals. She withdrew from it a sheaf of paper, which she unfolded to find it was photocopies of some handwritten documents, letters, perhaps, or a diary , not immediately easy to read. How odd . She turned the envelope over, but there was nothing else written on it, and there was no covering note or anything . Had the whole thing been left by the person who sent the flowers? Again, there was no clue. She sat down and tried to make out the first line of the handwriting. It was a little faint, but she thought the first words read . . . is writing his book, so I shall write mine. How peculiar.

She read on:
When his is published, everyone will think it’s about our marriage, and they may be right, but it’ll be from his point of view. I must tell my side of the story or I’ll be erased , made invisible. It feels that this has happened already. Maybe if I write everything down I’ll be Isabel once more, not this ragged empty thing that has no life.

Isabel.
This was Isabel’s writing, why had she not realised? There had been examples of it in letters in the
Coming Home
file , handwritten alterations to the typing, her signature. But it had been small and neat and flowing there . Here she’d taken less care, though when Emily turned a page, she saw it was tidier, the sentences less rambling, as though the author had been getting into her stride. Emily read the first few lines again . The initial word must be Hugh, of course.
Hugh is writing his book, so I shall write mine
. What book was he writing? Of course, it could be any, as there was no date anywhere that Emily could see, but since Isabel died so young it was likely to be
The Silent Tide
she was talking about. So if that book was inspired by Isabel, after all, it seemed that she wasn’t a willing accomplice. She had another story to tell, and here it was.

That evening, Emily had a yoga class so she left the flowers on the desk but slipped the photocopied pages into her bag to read . The box with the photograph she locked in a drawer.

Much later, she fetched the pages and started to read. It was a fascinating account. Isabel described how she had left home and found work at McKinnon & Holt, then how she’d met Hugh and fallen in love. Once again Emily heard the voice of this girl she’d never met, but who felt so close as she read her story.

Isabel

The parish church where Isabel and Hugh were married was out of its place and time. St Crispin’s had once been surrounded by countryside, having been built in the fourteenth century to serve a small feudal community. Now, clutching the skirts of its graveyard close for protection, it towered selfconsciously above a sea of red roofs. Which included the Barbers’. Until the occasion of Isabel’s wedding, however, no Barber had ever entered St Crispin’s through its damp stone porch and wormy oak door. The whole family was there today. Ted and Donald slouched in the front pew, hair ruthlessly trimmed and plastered down, freckles almost scrubbed off. Lydia bounced on the seat beside them, crumpling her dress of pale blue, chosen to offset her fairness. Their mother Pamela, with one hand clutching Lydia’s dress to stay her, wore a new suit with a nipped-in waist, and her nerves were ratcheted to snapping point. At the back of the church, Isabel impatiently waited with her father and her bridesmaid, Vivienne, for the service to begin.

Isabel had endured this morning’s preparations with a growing sense of hysteria that finally released itself in shrieks of anger after her mother accidentally stabbed her with a hairpin as she tried to fix the veil. Now she stood quietly enough, if pale. She tried to forget the fact that everyone would be staring at her by focusing all her attention on the back view of her darling Hugh, who stood elegantly attired in morning suit at the altar rail with his best man, James Steerforth, beside him. Finally the little vicar found the right page in his book, turned and nodded to the organist. The old pipe organ began to cough out a ragged march tune and the congregation rose to its collective feet. Isabel’s father pulled her forward.

When they reached the front, Vivienne helped lift her veil, and her father gave her away with a gruff ‘I do,’ then she found herself staring into Hugh’s bright face, and suddenly nothing else mattered any more.

‘I require and charge you both . . .’ The vicar’s voice was astonishingly deep and resonant. ‘Hugh William, wilt thou have this woman, Isabel Mary . . . wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour her, and keep her in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?’

If there was a silence, it was probably only the length of the breath Hugh drew to say, ‘I will,’ but to Isabel it was too long. He sounded anxious, she thought, not himself at all, but when it was her turn to say the words she too could only muster a hoarse whisper. She caught a movement behind Hugh, in the front row: his mother was leaning forward to catch her answer.

Then there was a pause while the best man fumbled with the ring. Finally Hugh had it and pushed it firmly onto her finger. How strange it felt, with Hugh still holding it and his breath warm on her face as he made his vow. And now they knelt together and she was pronounced to be his wife and the atmosphere lightened. Lydia chattered through the prayers and had to be taken outside, an old man at the back had a coughing fit, and soon all were singing ‘Praise to the Almighty’ and it was over.

Walking back down the aisle, the sea of people – on her side, at least – came at last into familiar focus. Aunt Penelope and Reginald stood alone in the pew behind the Barbers, then came several empty rows before she saw with delight Stephen, Berec, Trudy and Trudy’s bearish husband, Redmayne. There was Audrey, chic in navy and white, with slim, aristocratic-looking Anthony beside her. On Hugh’s side of the church, though, there were some she’d never seen before. Then she noticed Joan Steerforth standing with the other couple, Victor and Constance. And though she avoided catching the woman’s eye, she glimpsed Jacqueline standing with a dark, very correct-looking man of around forty dressed in the uniform of an Army officer. This must be the mysterious Major Michael Wood MC, home on leave. That he really did exist came as something of a relief.

It was Hugh who had suggested the hotel in a nearby town for the reception; Hugh, too, who was apparently paying the greater part of the bill. Her father was furious about this, though, as he acknowledged to Isabel, it would have been a cup of tea and a piece of cake in the church hall for everyone otherwise.

Her parents still seemed a little bewildered by the speed of the marriage, and nervous around Hugh. He was exactly the sort of man her father disliked: urbane, highly educated, someone who had never really had to worry about money. ‘Easy officer material’ was how she’d heard him disparage other such men, which Mr Barber, despite his corporal’s stripe, had never been. Since Hugh was marrying his daughter, Mr Barber was forced to button his lip, but Isabel guessed his feelings all the same. As for her mother, Pamela Barber could meet Hugh as her social equal, but she was ashamed of the dreary house and the view from their living room of the next-door neighbour’s washing. It was no good Isabel telling her that Hugh didn’t care about these things. Her mother had seen him noticing, hadn’t she?

‘He’s a writer, Mother, he notices all kinds of things.’

‘To put them in his books, no doubt,’ her mother murmured. ‘And Mrs Morton, I can’t possibly receive her here.’

Isabel felt her mother was right on this point, and in the end her parents and Hugh’s mother met for drinks the evening before the wedding in the lounge of the hotel where she and Hugh were staying and where the reception was to be held. The occasion did not go badly, exactly, but none of the parties enjoyed it. Isabel was stiff with anxiety – and with good reason. Her father remained silent nearly the entire time. The mothers were as wary as cats, Pamela Barber perched on the edge of her seat, displaying a miserable dignity, Hugh’s mother stiff-backed and tight-lipped in the chair opposite.

‘I believe my grandfather was a first cousin,’ Mrs Barber murmured when Hugh’s mother mentioned some genteel East Anglian neighbours, and Hugh’s mother raised her eyebrows in reluctant appreciation.

Later, Hugh was to say, ‘I think they both relished the battle, don’t you?’

On one thing only did the mothers warmly agree.

‘Of course,’ Hugh’s mother said, as though Isabel wasn’t present, ‘there’ll be no need for Isabel to continue working. Hugh will be able to make her perfectly comfortable; we’ve my husband’s family to thank for that.’

‘It’ll be a relief to see her settled, I must say,’ Mrs Barber said. ‘She’s very spirited, I think you’ll find, but a house and, one hopes, children, will do her the world of good.’

Isabel’s father made a rare interjection in a growled, ‘Spirited, I’ll say,’ at the same time as Isabel breathed, ‘Oh, Mother!’

‘I’ll order another round,’ Hugh said, getting up. ‘Same again for everyone?’

Since her job was a subject that she and Hugh were still discussing, Isabel felt more and more agitated, but all she could say to the mothers without seeming rude was a meek, ‘I love my work. It would be hard to give it up. And it does enable me to make sure Hugh’s books are published well.’

‘I’m so proud of him,’ Hugh’s mother purred, glancing at her son over at the bar, and Isabel tried not to dwell on what Hugh had told her – how disappointed his mother had been that he hadn’t taken up the Law like his father, or medicine. ‘I’m expecting great things, you know. And it’s so important for a man to have a good wife. I always made sure I put my husband’s needs before my own, Mrs Barber. And I’m sure he knew and appreciated that.’

Isabel’s father made a harrumphing noise, which he turned into a cough.

‘You must miss your husband very much,’ Isabel’s mother said, casting hers an anxious look.

‘Every day, Mrs Barber, every day’ Her hooded eyes did indeed look moist. If it was an act it was a very good one.

After the wedding, they returned to the hotel. The reception took place in the shabby grandeur of a large room at the back that opened onto an orchard garden. Isabel swallowed two glasses of sweet sherry in quick succession to bear her up whilst she shook many hands and accepted many compliments on her appearance. Then the photographer ushered them out into the garden. The grass glittered with raindrops from a recent shower. A fresh breeze blew threatening clouds across the sky.

Vivienne secured the bride’s flyaway veil and tucked a stray lock of hair back under the headband, then Isabel clutched her husband’s arm and smiled and smiled for the camera, until her mouth quivered with the strain.
This is the happiest day of my life,
she told herself.
They’ve always told me it would be. I must treasure every moment.

When the rain started up again there was a general move indoors. The table was now spread with a buffet of sandwiches and salad, and everyone bustled up to help themselves, the bride taking only a lettuce leaf and some chicken, being too overwrought to eat. Isabel’s mother had made the two-tiered cake in the centre, though she could be heard lamenting its likely awfulness given the shortage of ingredients, which spoiled it for Isabel.

It was overwhelming, she found, being the centre of attention for the first time in her life with everyone telling her how beautiful she looked. An old schoolfriend named Susan came up and congratulated her with a tone of envy; Susan whom she’d once known well and whom her mother had insisted she at least invite, since Isabel had passed over the poor girl for bridesmaid in favour of Vivienne, whom Isabel had only known ‘for five minutes’, as Mrs Barber put it. Finally Susan moved on to talk to Mrs Barber, and with Hugh having abandoned her to speak to the Steerforths across the other side of the room, Isabel was briefly on her own. Suddenly she was starving. She snatched up an egg roll that even the twins had missed and ate it hungrily whilst she looked round the room. She was glad of the respite.