The Silent Tide (46 page)

‘I was right then. It
was
you who’s been sending me everything about Isabel. Why? I don’t understand.’

‘It was indeed me. Come, sit down for a moment.’ She scooped up some books from a chair for Emily to sit, then herself sat down behind the desk.

‘But how . . . ?’ Emily asked.

The woman folded her hands on the desk in a calm pose. ‘I’m not sure where to start.’

Emily smiled. ‘My granny says always to start at the beginning.’

That’s good advice if one is sure where the beginning is. Well, let me see.’ She regarded Emily thoughtfully for a moment. ‘You may not know this, but I’m on the circulation list for the minutes of your editorial meetings, and I noticed your name next to Hugh Morton’s biography. The biography itself wasn’t exactly a surprise. I knew there would have to be one sometime, and then Lorna warned me it was happening.’

‘Lorna? You know Lorna?’

‘Good gracious, yes. You’re surprised. I thought you’d see more of the connections by now.’

Emily felt more and more confused. ‘I’m sorry, can we go back a step? I still don’t know who you are.’

‘Oh, goodness, haven’t I introduced myself ? I’m Lydia Hardcastle.’ Emily recognised the name only vaguely, possibly from some typed list, but certainly not in relation to Isabel. She obviously looked blank, because Lydia said, ‘Perhaps it will help you to learn that my maiden name was Barber.’

‘Lydia Barber? Then you’re . . . ?’

‘I’m Isabel’s baby sister.’

‘Little Lydia?’ Emily struggled to accept this. A small girl in a pushchair, far away in time – that was Isabel’s sister, not this cultured mature woman sitting across the desk in the offices of a modern publisher.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lydia sighed. ‘I know it’s a big thing to take in. There’s a great deal to explain, and I must ask you to be patient.’

‘Patient?’ Emily couldn’t help bursting out. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve been waiting long enough. It’s quite creepy and stressful, you know, being sent anonymous packages.’

A shadow fell across Lydia’s face and Emily saw she’d hurt her, but it was difficult to regret her words. These last few months had indeed been stressful in a number of ways, and now here was Lydia, whom she had to remember was Isabel’s sister. Suddenly the secrecy and the tension were too much. ‘Why, for goodness’ sake?’

‘Please give me time to explain,’ Lydia said. She seemed sad now, diminished, and Emily felt sorry for her outburst. Lydia Hardcastle must have been having a difficult time, too, dismantling her life here, coming to terms with retirement.

They were both silent for a moment. Lydia glanced round at the chaos as she struggled to find the right words. ‘Do you have the time for this now?’ she said. ‘All I have to do is continue packing.’

‘I’m fine,’ Emily said. ‘No meetings till eleven. And this is important.’

Lydia settled back in her chair and said hesitantly, ‘Have you read any of the material I sent you?’

All of it. Except today’s bit. I’ve only glanced at that quickly.’

Lydia looked relieved. ‘And what did you think about the story so far?’

‘What did I think?’ Emily considered this. Pictures rose in her mind of a young woman, bright, ambitious, full of vitality, whose life changed dramatically after marriage and having a child. An ordinary story, the story of many women, she supposed, though each story must be utterly individual. ‘It was very sad,’ she admitted. ‘Life didn’t turn out as she expected.’

‘Most of us can eventually say that,’ Lydia murmured. ‘Nothing else? ‘I suppose I wondered who it’s important to. Isn’t Jacqueline Morton trying to suppress all memory of Isabel?’

‘Yes,’ Lydia said promptly. ‘She is.’

‘I suppose I can see why. From what I’ve read, Isabel felt oppressed, but Hugh clearly loved her. Even though he probably slept with Jacqueline. Why did Jacqueline hang about like that? It must have been so demeaning.’

‘I agree. Love, I imagine. What else did you glean?’

‘Nothing else,’ Emily said, then paused. ‘I suppose there has to be something, doesn’t there? Something I haven’t read yet. Is there any more?’

‘Not of the memoir, I’m afraid.’

Emily must have looked disappointed because Lydia said, ‘But we do know something of what happened next.’

‘We? Do you mean you and Jacqueline?’

Lydia said quietly, ‘No, I mean Lorna and I.’

‘Lorna?’ Somehow this had been the last person Emily had expected Lydia to say. Lorna, so quiet and compliant, so much under Jacqueline’s thumb.

Lydia looked steadily into Emily’s eyes. ‘When Jacqueline told Lorna about the biography and who was writing it, we despaired at first. It was plain that Jacqueline had Joel Richards exactly where she wanted him.’

‘I think he is a little frightened of her,’ Emily said, feeling she ought to defend Joel, even though Lydia had just confirmed her own suspicions.

‘I think so too. It seemed my sister would never have justice.’

‘Justice? That is a very strong word.’

‘When you learn the whole story, you will understand. Lorna has ambivalent feelings about Isabel. and in her way, she's fond of her stepmother and doesn't want to offend her. Despite all this, she's passionate, absolutely passionate, that her real mother is not just wiped out of any account of Hugh. She wants the truth to be told.'

'What truth exactly?' Emily asked, but Lydia had more to say.

'Lorna felt she couldn't speak out publicly, and she would never let me do it, so eventually we came up with the idea of providing you, the editor of the book, with Isabel’s story, and you could pass it on to Joel. I say it was our idea, but I suppose it was mine, originally. When I saw those meeting minutes with your name, I wanted to come and speak to you in person, but I couldn’t think what you would say. You’d probably have thought me mad , coming along with a garbled story about righting a wrong from long in the past.’

Emily considered this. ‘I might have thought you a bit odd.’

‘Quite. So I left you Isabel’s copy of
Coming Home
on a whim, as a sort of teaser, if you like. And then when Lorna first met you, she liked you very much, saw you as a person of integrity . So we agreed. We’d feed you Isabel’s story bit by bit. I already had the file for
Coming Home
in my office. I called it up from the archive some time ago to help with my own research about Isabel.’

‘And Isabel’s memoir, where did that come from?’

Ah, now that is intriguing. It nearly didn’t survive, you know. Lorna found it after her father’s death, together with the wedding photograph. She was deeply troubled by the account and shared it with me. Did you find it interesting?’

‘Of course, how could I not have done?’ Lydia and Lorna’s plan had been a clever one. Emily had become every bit as fascinated as they’d hoped. She looked down at the envelope in her hand.

‘You haven’t had a chance to read that bit, of course, ‘ Lydia said.

‘No.’

‘Well, when you have, let’s talk again. I’m not leaving here for another couple of weeks.’

Emily nodded. She stood up to go, then hesitated.

‘Information overload,’ Lydia said, smiling. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘There’s something you ought to know,’ Emily said. ‘I’ve been passing all this information on to Joel, but if you intended me to get him to put it all into the book, then I’m afraid that you’ll be disappointed.’

Lydia’s expression darkened. ‘That’s what I feared might happen. How we handle that is one of the matters that we must talk about.’

‘There’s another thing.’ Emily looked down at the envelope. ‘You said this was the final part?’

‘It was all that we found,’ Lydia said quietly. ‘I’m sorry. Those are probably the last words Isabel wrote.’

‘Oh.’

‘But there is something else you can see.’ Lydia went to a filing cabinet and opened the top drawer. From one of the files she took a sheaf of paper.

‘I typed this myself,’ she said , giving it to Isabel. ‘It’s based on a conversation I had with my Aunt Penelope before she died ten years ago, a very old lady of ninety-five. It was she who found me a job in publishing, you know. She thought it would make up for something. I’d only known the barest details before of what she told me, but she wanted me to hear it all. She still felt guilty, she said, all those years later.’

‘Guilty? What of?’

‘You’ll have to read it to find out. It’s quite a story. Read it, and then we’ll talk again about what to do next.’

She came round the desk to shake Emily’s hand.

Lydia, Emily thought, meeting the woman’s warm gaze. It was still difficult to accept that it was her. She already liked the woman immensely; felt there was a connection between the two of them. It was astonishing when you thought about it. Here she was, forging her career, meeting a woman whose work as an editor was nearly done. And like a presence between them was someone else again – Isabel, a young woman whose career, whose very future, had been thwarted.

Isabel

As good as her word, Penelope telephoned halfway through January. Reginald, she told Isabel, was attending the wedding of his eldest daughter in Hampshire, so she was at a loose end. They arranged that she should pick Isabel and take her to stay overnight at the beach house, which was nicely warm in winter, Penelope assured her. There was some talk as to whether Lorna should accompany them, but in the end Lily Catchpole offered to look after her, so it was with a rare sense of freedom that Isabel found herself riding beside Penelope in her sleek blue-black car through the wintry countryside. They turned down the narrow road across the marshes to the little seaside town and along the lane to the lonely white-painted house behind the sand dunes.

Once inside, Penelope set about making coffee in the kitchen, whilst Isabel sat stroking Gelert’s rough coat.

That hound’s too big for this house,’ Penelope grumbled, pushing past him to take down cups from a cupboard, but her tone was affectionate.

Isabel thought how different Penelope was here, more relaxed and talkative. Who’d have thought it, her elegant perfumed aunt with her love of good clothes and city entertainments, at home in this desolate setting with only the sound of the waves, the sough of the breeze across the marshes and the cries of the seabirds for company.

‘I have Gelert,’ Penelope said, when Isabel commented on this. ’We get along together very well when he isn’t under my feet, don’t we, my good dog? Perhaps we could walk him along the beach, if you feel up to it.’

The tide was high and they walked by the great waves of an iron-grey sea. The air was cold but still, so that their voices bounced off the cliffs, crisp and clear – not that either spoke much. Penelope walked in front, her head bowed as though under some burden. Isabel shoved her hands deep in her coat pockets in an effort to keep warm and laughed at the dog’s comic forays into the sea. And all the while her sense of trepidation grew. Her aunt had brought her here for some reason, but what that was had yet to be revealed.

They walked along the concrete promenade and past the empty pier until they came to a wilder part of the beach, not much visited. Here the brown earth edges of the cliffs were crumbling away and great dead branches of trees lay on the ochre sand where they’d fallen, to be bleached clean by the merciless sea.

‘It’s like a graveyard of trees,’ Isabel remarked at one point. It was the first time either of them had spoken for some time.

‘Once or twice it’s been a house that’s collapsed,’ Penelope said. She brushed the sand off a tree trunk and they both sat down on it, looking up at the eroded cliff whilst Gelert ran about before coming to flop down at their feet. ‘Everything and everybody is ultimately washed away by the tides of time. And our labours are as naught.’

Isabel glanced up at her aunt in surprise at her bitter tone. She was astonished to see tears in Penelope’s eyes, though the woman did her best to hide them.

‘Ah, I’m sorry,’ Penelope said. ‘I was thinking of Pamela.’ She brought a packet of cigarettes from her coat pocket and lit one, before saying, ‘I know you’re wondering what this is all about.’

‘I suppose I am.’

Penelope sighed. ‘As you know, I went to visit your mother in hospital before Christmas. She’d written to tell me that she was ill again and wanted to see me.’

‘I wish she’d let me know, too.’

Penelope laid her hand briefly on Isabel’s arm. ‘It’s very difficult for her. She’s a fighter, your mother. But you must let me continue.’

She continued, hesitant at first, then her words flowed more freely.

‘Pamela and I for a long time have had little to say to one another. There are things about the way I am that horrify her. And in my turn I’ve found her and your father hard and unforgiving. Although we’re sisters, we do not have much in common these days.’

‘But you were once close? That photograph of when you were children,’ Isabel said, remembering. ‘Your square fringes. You looked so alike.’

‘We did, didn’t we? Despite being nearly three years apart. Yes, there was a time when we were close. We had to be. It was always us against the world, especially at school. I remember speaking to you once about your grandmother,’ Penelope said. ‘I’ll start by telling you about her. It’s a way into the story, if you like. Her own father died young, and being the only child, she was left the family farmlands. Where we were brought up, that was the manor house. Not the original one, of course, but built on the site of the original. What she ought to have done was marry some local landowner who’d look after the place, but instead she followed her heart. Our father was the younger son of a Norwich businessman. He wasn’t a bad man, but nor was he a wise one. He inherited none of his own father’s acumen. After he invested in some bad business ventures, my parents ended up selling the farmland to get them out of debt. Then in 1916 he was called up, just in time for Passchendaele. He died of injuries sustained in his first week at the front. My mother was left a widow with a tiny pension and two small daughters, and had to beg her husband’s family for handouts. The point of me telling you all this is to make you understand about our upbringing. Mummy was always very strict and proper. Although we were never allowed to tell anyone, she worried all the time about money. That was what made things worse, her pride. She was an awful snob. We were never allowed to mix with local children out of school; their parents thought we were stuck-up, and of course that meant our lives were miserable. We were thrown onto our own company a great deal. You can imagine how all this affected us – the secrecy, the isolation.’