Facing the Light (41 page)

Today had started very promisingly. She had arranged for the cleaning firm that looked after Willow Court to come in this afternoon for a final dust and polish. The marquee people were efficient and well organized and what was more they could be left to their own devices
and didn't need constant supervision. This, of course, didn't prevent James from strutting around as though it were his idea to have the nine tables in just that formation: a central table seating a dozen for the family, with the others each seating eight people arranged around it. Every table was to have its own theme flower and the guests would be given that same flower to help them find their places. This was the idea of Jane, the pretty young florist in charge of the arrangements for the tent. She had come for a chat and promised to be at Willow Court almost before dawn tomorrow to see to the individual table ornaments herself and hang the baskets from the specially designed brackets, which were even now being put up. These would be filled with freesias, roses, ferns, orchids and small lilies in shades of cream and white and pale pink. It would all look heavenly and therefore Gwen had to make sure that the flowers in the house and the plants in the garden for which she was responsible didn't let the side down.

The begonias were beautiful. Double blooms in every shade of pink and orange you could think of spilling out of the stone urns along the terrace. Gwen felt properly happy for the first time in days. The Quiet Garden was glorious, too, with the late roses looking quite presentable. The hydrangeas were spectacular this year, huge flowerheads heavy with blooms. The dahlias looked better than she'd ever seen them, the lilies were terrific, and there were plenty of Oriental poppy heads, which would be good in the vases as a contrast. If the weather held, it would be all right. Everything she'd laboured over for weeks would work out and tomorrow would be a day for them all to remember with pleasure.

Efe's suggestion for the paintings had put something of a spanner in the works for a while, but thank goodness Mother was being sensible and not sulking about it. After the party was over there'd be plenty of time to talk about
what should happen to the Collection. She made a note to check for dust on the frames later on this afternoon. Even though every picture had been cleaned to within an inch of its life, Chloë's tree-decoration going on in the hall would doubtless be creating dirt of some kind. You couldn't be too careful.

The presents would have to be put under the tree tonight as well. The postman this morning had delivered more parcels from those guests who weren't able to come to the party. Gwen thought that perhaps Alex and Beth could see to the unpacking of the gifts that Leonora hadn't had time to open yet. They didn't seem to have too much to do. She'd seen them walking down to Lodge Cottage earlier and thought how kind it was of them to visit Nanny Mouse, but now they ought to muck in with the rest of the family in getting things ready. And what about Rilla? Gwen felt a stab of irritation. She was hardly ever about. Had she even got up this morning? Typical of her, she thought, not to offer to help when she must see how busy I am.

No sooner had Gwen thought of her sister than she came round the side of the house, almost running. This was unusual. Rilla had never, ever run in her life. Gwen felt a chill come over her.

‘What's wrong, Rilla?' she said, and as she spoke, she suddenly realized that it must have been Rilla who'd made the shortbread in the middle of the night. It was exactly the crazy kind of thing she might take it into her head to do. She said, ‘Are those shortbread circles yours?'

‘Yes, they are. I was going to tell you about them but something's happened, Gwen, which I have to ask you about.'

‘Oh, God, don't tell me. Is it Mother? Is she okay? I knew this news of Efe's was worrying her more than she was telling us.'

‘It's nothing to do with Mother. Well, it is in a way,
but don't worry. No one's ill. Can we go somewhere a bit private? I've got something I want to show you.'

Gwen opened the door which led from the terrace into the conservatory. The room was empty, and she sat down at the table.

‘What is it? You're being very mysterious, Rilla.'

‘Here you are. It's a piece of the wallpaper from the dolls' house roof.'

Gwen watched as Rilla took something out of her trouser pocket. She unrolled a long strip of the familiar paper on to the table, and as soon as she let it go, it curled up again.

‘Where did that come from? How could it possibly …'

‘Douggie got into the nursery. I found him there early this morning.'

‘What were you doing up early in the morning? That's not like you at all.'

‘Doesn't matter now, Gwen. I'll tell you about that later. I hadn't been to bed.'

‘So
that
was when you made the shortbread, though I can't think what for. There's going to be so much food here that we'll be up to our ears in the stuff. Why on earth d'you want to add to it with your shortbread? And why those huge circles?'

Rilla sighed and sat down opposite Gwen. ‘Talk about irrelevant, Gwen, honestly. We've got a crisis here, don't you see? If Mother finds out that the dolls' house has been wrecked, she'll be livid and you know what that means. The shortbread is for strawberry shortcake, for your information. I'm going to see if Mary will let me make it for dessert tonight. I just felt in the mood for baking, that's all.'

Gwen was used to her sister's moods and, apart from raising her eyes to the heavens, said only, ‘Have you seen? There's something written on the back of this. It's very faint but you can read bits of it. Look.'

Rilla picked up the strip of wallpaper and peered at it. ‘You're right,' she said, ‘but the main thing is, what are we going to tell Mother? Do you think we should just run up there now and see if we can somehow glue this damn thing back on in some way that she won't notice?'

‘No, of course not. Don't you remember the time you broke that dish and threw all the pieces away, hoping she'd never notice?'

Rilla laughed. ‘Yes! Bloody silly of me to leave one piece behind, wasn't it? God, she let me have it, didn't she? I'll never forget how she said
it's not the loss of the dish I mind, it's being deceived by my own daughter.'

Gwen smiled in spite of herself at the accuracy of Rilla's mimicry.

‘I do think we might leave telling her till after lunch, though,' she said. ‘It'll wait till then, and at least we can have one meal in peace.'

‘Fine, but I want you there when I tell her, Gwennie. I can't face her alone. I wouldn't know what to say.'

‘All right. We'll get her on her own somehow. She'll be going upstairs for her rest anyway and to get changed for this afternoon's filming. Sean's taking her down to talk to Nanny Mouse.'

Rilla didn't answer. She was holding the strip of paper in her hand, very near her face. Gwen said, ‘What are you doing? What can you see?'

‘The things that are written here are rather strange. The way it's been torn off makes it look as though there's more.'

‘Of course there's more. You can see that it's part of a letter or something. I noticed that there were half-words there at once. Can you actually read any of them?'

Rilla nodded. ‘Yes. There's
didn't touch
and then later on
crying for me
and
Solace. Comfort
. Then here's
glow and shine and leap out
and
fragile
and what's this? Can you read these words?'

Gwen frowned and tried to decipher the very faded sepia ink.
Paint never lies
. ‘That's what it looks like, anyway, though goodness knows what it can mean. Any of it. And who do you think wrote it?'

‘I've no idea,' said Rilla. ‘But it's mysterious, isn't it? The dolls' house roof is quite big, of course. If there's a lot more of this writing …' She left the sentence unfinished. Then she said, ‘We've absolutely got to see what the rest of the letter, or whatever it is, says. We'll have to piece it together otherwise I'll die of curiosity. This little strip on its own is no good at all. It's just mystifying without actually telling us anything.' She rolled the wallpaper up again and put it back into her pocket. ‘I wonder whether it'd be possible to peel off the rest of the paper, and then we could read whatever else is there.'

‘We can't do that before we've told Mother, though,' said Gwen. ‘She'd never forgive us if we did that.'

‘But what if she just wants to patch the roof up again without reading any more? She might care more about the condition of the dolls' house than about reading some faded words on a scrap of paper. If we got it off before she saw it, then at least we'd know what there was to know.'

‘No.' Gwen shook her head. ‘We can't do that. We'll have to leave it to her, but she always wants to know everything that's possible to know about everything, so I doubt very much she'd be able to resist reading the rest.'

‘Yes, you're right, of course,' Rilla said. ‘Are you coming in to lunch now?'

‘I suppose I might as well. This has rather driven other things from my mind. I don't know, whatever you do, nothing ever does seem to go completely smoothly, does it? Don't you find that? You've just dealt with one problem and another three crop up in its place.'

‘Food helps,' Rilla said. ‘Come and have some lunch.'

‘My appetite's left me,' Gwen said. ‘I'm dreading telling her, you know.'

‘Me too,' said Rilla, ‘but that doesn't affect my appetite. I'm starving!' She gave Gwen her hand to pull her out of her chair and linked arms with her as they walked along the corridor to the dining room. ‘United we stand!'

Gwen smiled gallantly. They'd always said that when they were girls. It was comforting that Rilla hadn't forgotten.

*

Silence filled the nursery and Rilla closed her eyes for a moment. When would Leonora speak? Waiting for her to do so was like counting the heartbeats between the flash of lightning and the dreaded clap of thunder. Telling her mother about the damage to her beloved dolls' house was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. All the way through lunch she'd been distracted, working out the best form of words. She'd hardly noticed the food, and everyone at the table seemed shadowy to her. Conversations taking place between Beth and Chloë, Fiona and Douggie, Efe and James, drifted over her head like smoke. Gwen was miles away too, Rilla noticed. She's as nervous as I am, whatever she says. If she wasn't careful, Leonora would cotton on to the fact that all was not well, so Rilla deliberately asked Gwen a question and tried to flash her a warning. Fortunately, she realized what she was being warned about and immediately turned to Leonora and engaged her in animated chit-chat.

Oh, my God, Rilla thought, she's useless at deception. Several times it looked to her as though their mother was about to ask why both her daughters were behaving so strangely, but the meal finished at last. As they were leaving the room, Rilla went over to Leonora and took her arm and tucked it under her own.

‘Mother, would you mind coming up to the nursery with Gwen and me, just for a minute?' she said.

‘Now?' Leonora looked put out. ‘I have to rest, you know. Sean is coming to fetch me at three and we're going to be filming down at Lodge Cottage. Can't it wait, dear?'

‘No, Mother,' said Gwen. ‘It's really important. There's something you ought to see.'

‘In the nursery?' They were on the landing as she said this, just outside the nursery.

‘Yes. Let's go in, Mother, and then Rilla will tell you …' Gwen stopped speaking and opened the door. Leonora stepped into the room with her daughters close behind her. Rilla went straight to the dolls' house and took off the sheet that was covering it. Leonora crossed the room quickly and went to run her hands over the roof.

‘Who did this?'

‘I wanted to tell you before you saw it, Mother. It was Douggie. He got in here early this morning. I've got the strip he tore off … look.'

Leonora took no notice, and didn't answer. Her gaze was fixed on the tear, on the damage. She was breathing rather loudly and Rilla wondered whether that meant anything. Was she about to collapse? Have a heart attack or something?

‘Maybe you should sit down, Mother,' she said.

Leonora ignored her and went on staring down at the dolls' house. On the right-hand side of the roof where Douggie had torn off the paper, there was a snake-shaped white space. When she spoke at last, her voice was falsely bright, as though she were making a special effort not to cry. ‘Matters could be even worse,' she said. ‘Perhaps we could mend it, stick the piece you have on again, if that hasn't been ruined.'

‘Someone's written on the back of the paper,' Rilla said.

Leonora sat down on one of the covered chairs and said, ‘Let me see it, please.'

Rilla handed her mother the rolled-up strip, still tightly curled from being in her trouser pocket for so long.

‘Thank you,' Leonora whispered, her eyes wide. She began to unroll it. Rilla, looking at her, couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her mother was shrinking, becoming smaller and weaker by the second as she stared at the writing. Her mouth was trembling and there were tears in her eyes.

‘Mummy.' Leonora's voice sent shivers up Rilla's spine. ‘My mummy's writing …'

‘Are you all right?' Gwen said, kneeling beside her mother. ‘Get your breath back.'

It was true that Leonora's breathing had become ragged. She blinked and Rilla could see that she was making an enormous effort to regain control.

‘I'll be all right in a minute,' she said, sounding tearful. ‘I will … in a minute.'

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, like a small child, and this shocked Rilla more than anything. Leonora, the Leonora she'd always known, would never wipe her eyes with anything less than a handkerchief. Even tissues were only for dire emergencies. She had a hankie in her pocket, Rilla would have bet money on it.