Daughter of Deceit (41 page)

“I see that. And she likes to be with you. It is good for her that you are here.”

“And for me, too, Dolly.”

“Yes.”

“Do you hear anything of Lisa Fennell?” I asked.

“Oh, that girl. She had an accident. Turned out worse than we thought. She married … married Charlie’s son, as a matter of fact.”

“Yes. She wrote and told me.”

“Charlie hardly ever comes to London now. I haven’t seen him for ages.”

Marie-Christine came in and I introduced her.

“I knew your uncle well,” Dolly said. “You’ll have to come and see one of my shows.”

Marie-Christine looked pleased at the prospect.

“Lucky Lucy,”
he went on. “It’s playing to packed houses … so far. Lottie Langdon’s good.”

“She’s Lucky Lucy, of course?” I said.

“Of course. You must come. I’ll see you get the best seats. I am glad you are back in London, Noelle.”

It was right to have come. Marie-Christine was recovering from the shock, and I think she was able to do that better here away from the scene of disaster. She was young and resilient, and had never been especially close to her family. I think I had begun to mean more to her than any of them, even before the tragedy.

She was maturing quickly. I supposed it was inevitable that such dramatic events would have that effect.

I was delighted to see how much she enjoyed
Lucky Lucy.
Dolly came round to see us in the interval, and afterwards took us backstage. Marie-Christine was introduced to Lottie Langdon in all her finery. Flushed and triumphant from the acclaim of a delighted audience, Lottie was very gracious to Marie-Christine, and affectionate towards me.

Marie-Christine was in good spirits, but for me the evening had been too reminiscent of the past. I could not sleep that night. On a sudden impulse, I had a desire to be in my mother’s room. I wanted to be there, as I had on those mornings when she had slept late and I had crept into her bed to talk.

I went down to her room. I lay on the bed and I thought of her.

There was a full moon that night, and it set a silvery glow over everything. I felt that she was near me.

I don’t know how long I lay there, lost in memory.

Then suddenly I was startled, for the door was slowly opening.

Marie-Christine had come into the room.

“Noelle,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“It was going to the theatre,” she said. “It reminded you.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“It must have been a wonderful life.”

“It was.”

“And she was as beautiful as Lottie?”

“Much more beautiful.”

“We both had beautiful mothers.”

I said: “Marie-Christine, what are you doing out of bed at this time?”

“I
heard you leave your room. I peeped out and watched you. I wasn’t going to do anything about it, but you stayed so long, and I thought I had better go and see.”

“You
are
looking after me, Marie-Christine.”

“We are going to look after each other, aren’t we?”

“Yes. For as long as is necessary.”

She came to the bed and lay there beside me.

“I thought you were going to marry my father,” she said. “I should have liked that. It would have made you my stepmother.”

“I couldn’t feel closer to you if you
were
my stepdaughter.”

“I think it would have been very good for you. You liked him very much, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So if he hadn’t died …”

“I am not sure.”

“But if he asked you …”

“He did. I told him I couldn’t just then. I wanted time to think.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Was there someone else you loved?”

“Yes, there was.”

“And he didn’t love you?”

“Yes, he did. But we found we were brother and sister.”

“How?”

“It’s too complicated to tell quickly. We met and fell in love, and then we learned of our relationship.”

“I can’t see how … and why you didn’t know.”

“I’d known his father for a long time. I thought he was one of my mother’s friends. She had a lot of friends. They had been lovers and I was born. He lived in the country with his wife and son. These things happen.”

“With people like your mother, I suppose.”

“She didn’t live according to the laws laid down by society.”

“How dreadful for you!”

“If my mother hadn’t died, it would have been different. She
would have seen what might happen and stopped it in time. But she died … and this happened.”

“No wonder you look sad sometimes.”

“I have been very unhappy. It is hard to forget, Marie-Christine.”

“If you had married my father, that would have been good for us all.”

“Perhaps. But we shall never know.”

“And now you have come back to the house where you lived with your mother. What happened to … your brother?”

“He is married now.”

“So he found consolation.”

“I hope so.”

“Noelle,
you
should find consolation. You could have done with my father. He was miserable about my mother. He was happier when you came. You could have helped each other.”

“It was not to be, Marie-Christine.”

“Well, we have to start from … now. We have come back to this house. It is our house … and it is the place where
she
lived. Everywhere you remember her. This room is just as it was when she was here. That should not be so, Noelle. It’s our house now … yours and mine. We’re going to live here. It’s going to be different from what it was before. There must be no going back to all these memories. We’re going to start on this room. I know this is what your mother would want.”

“What do you mean … you are going to change it?”

“I’m going to get rid of all the clothes in that wardrobe. We’re going to have new curtains … new carpet. We’re going to have white walls instead of pale green. We are going to take the furniture out … perhaps put it in the attic, or even sell some. Everything is going to be new, and when it is finished it shall be
my
room … not hers. Then you will stop remembering and being sad. She will have gone. There won’t be all those things to remind you. What do you think of my idea?”

“I … I’ll consider it.”

“Don’t do that. Say yes, I think it’s a good idea. Because it is. Here in this room … I have a feeling she is telling me what to
do. She’s saying: Look after Noelle. Stop her thinking of the past. Tell her I’d rather she forgot me if thinking of me makes her sad. That is what she is saying to me.”

“Oh, Marie-Christine!” I said, and we clung together for a few moments.

She said: “It’s going to be exciting. I think we’ll have yellow curtains, because yellow is the colour of sunlight, and we’re going to send out all the shadows and bring in the sun. We shall have a blue carpet. Blue and yellow. Blue skies and yellow sunshine. Oh, do let’s do it, Noelle!”

“Perhaps you are right …” I began.

“I
know
I’m right. We are going to start tomorrow.”

It was Marie-Christine who found the letters.

She had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the refurbishing of my mother’s room. She had chosen curtain materials and they were being made. She had decided on the carpet, and at this time she was preoccupied with the furniture.

She was obviously enjoying the task, and I was touched by her desire to do what was best for me.

She was happier than she had been since she lost her family. She was right, too. One should not make perpetual shrines to the dead. It was a way of nursing one’s grief.

She came bursting into my room, her eyes shining. She was brandishing some papers in her hand.

“You know the bureau?” she said. “I was going through it. I thought it was one of the pieces that could go into the attic. Behind one of the drawers there was another little drawer. If you didn’t know it was there, you could have missed it. I just put my hand at the back to see if there was anything stuck there … and found it. There were letters in it. I think they could mean something.”

“What letters?” I said. “My mother’s …?”

“They’re written to her, I think. She must have kept them. She was Daisy, wasn’t she? They’re all addressed to ‘My dearest Daisy.’ “

“You’ve read them?”

“Of course I’ve read them. I think it’s an important discovery.”

“Her private letters …”

Marie-Christine looked exasperated. “I tell you, they could mean something. Here. Read them. They were in order. There is no date on them … but I found them like that.”

She handed them to me.

I read the first one.

Meningarth, near Bodmin My dearest Daisy,

I was astounded to hear the news. I feel very proud, too. I don’t suppose it’s possible, but would you feel like coming back, now this has happened? I understand, of course, how you feel, my darling. I know you hate the place and what you went through here. I know you said you never wanted to see it again. But I have a faint hope that this might possibly make a difference. Won’t it be difficult up there?

You know I want to do everything to make you happy. And there would be the child.

My love to you forever,

Ennis

Marie-Christine was watching me closely. “Read the others,” she said.

Meningarth near Bodmin My dearest Daisy,

I knew what your answer would be. I know about your dreams of fame and fortune. You can’t give up, particularly now there is a chance of its coming true. If you came back here, it would be the end of that.

So you have good friends up there.. They will do everything for you … far more than I can. They are rich and
the sort of people who like to have you around. I’d be a hindrance and you are right when you say it would be the end of all you dreamed of … and the child must have every chance. You couldn’t bring her back here. When you escaped, it was forever.

I thought it might be difficult for you up there. But apparently you are getting through all the difficulties. I thought, because of the child, you might come back to me, but you say because of the child you must stay. I shall try to understand.

My love as ever,

Ennis

There was another letter.

Meningarth near Bodmin My dearest Daisy,

I am so pleased to hear of your success. You are famous now, my darling. I always knew you would get what you wanted. And the child is happy. She has everything she wants … more than she could ever have had here, and you are determined she shall never know the like of what you went through.

You are going on to even greater success. You always got what you wanted in the end.

As always, my love to you and the child,

Ennis

As soon as I had finished reading, Marie-Christine demanded: “What do you think? You are the child he is talking about.”

“Yes, I think I must be.”

“Why does he write like this? Why is he so interested in

you?’

‘He is asking her to go back and marry him.” ‘Noelle, the child he writes about is his.”

“He doesn’t say so.”

“Not in so many words … but at the least it’s a possibility. We’re going to find out, Noelle. We’ve got to. We’re going down there to …” She snatched the letters from my hands. “Meningarth,” she said. “Near Bodmin. We’re going to find Ennis. We’ve got to. Just suppose …”

“That he is my father?”

“And if he is …”

“It’s too late, Marie-Christine.”

“We’ve got to know. Don’t you want to know who your father is?”

“All we have to go on are these letters.”

“It’s a good start. Meningarth can’t be very big, or he wouldn’t have to say ‘near Bodmin.’ And Ennis … well, it’s not like John or Henry. There can’t be a lot of Ennises.”

She was excited.

“We are going to find him. We are going to find the truth!”

“It is probing into my mother’s past … finding out things she clearly didn’t want known.”

“It’s your life. You must know the truth. If she had known what was going to happen, she would have made sure you had the truth. She would want you to know. You’ll see that. It’s just the first shock of reading these letters. Noelle, we are going down to Meningarth. We’re going to find Ennis. We are going to know the truth.”