The Silent Tide (50 page)

‘No, of course not,’ Emily soothed. ‘But scholars such as our Cambridge expert have made the connection, as he points out in his report. Isabel gave up her work when she became a wife and mother, and by all accounts she found this very frustrating.’

‘I think you’d best show her, Emily,’ Lorna said in a low voice.

‘Show me what?’ Jacqueline demanded.

Time seemed to still in the room as Emily reached into her bag and brought out a folder. She laid it on the table and slid out Isabel’s memoir. She placed it before Jacqueline.

Joel made an impatient sort of noise, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

Jacqueline examined the first page and her face changed. ‘How did you get this?’ she asked Emily in a quavery voice.

‘I gave it to her, Mother,’ Lorna said.

‘You?’

‘I found it in Daddy’s study. You sent me to look for something once after he died. It was under some letters in a drawer.’

‘You took it? Your father’s private papers?’

‘It wasn’t just his, and it certainly wasn’t ever yours. It’s mine, now. Neither you nor Daddy have ever remembered me in this. And I don’t care if you’re angry, you have no right to be. I read it all – I’ve read it many times now. And then I thought about what to do . . . I knew Joel wouldn’t be the right person to give it to.’

Joel’s face was a confused mix of emotion.

‘So I worked out a way of giving it to Emily.’

‘Lorna!’ Jacqueline was astonished. ‘You – you traitor!’ In her weakened voice, this didn’t sound as devastating as it might, but it still upset Lorna.

‘Mother, please, it’s not about taking sides. It’s about writing the truth, the truth about Isabel. You and Daddy would hardly ever talk to me about her, and if you did it was to say something unpleasant. Why do you still hate Isabel so much?’

‘Lorna, she abandoned you. What kind of mother would do that to a child?’

‘But why? Why did she abandon me? No one ever explained. When I read those pages I began finally to understand.’

‘I’m sorry, but I read them, too, years ago, and they confirmed my opinion of her. Your father was so upset by finding them that I insisted on him sharing them with me. I wanted to destroy them then, but he wouldn’t let me.’

‘Destroy
them? Would you have done that after he died if I hadn’t found them first?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jacqueline admitted.

‘It’s my turn to confess,’ Joel broke in. ‘Emily showed them to me. I should have told you, Jacqueline, but . . . they didn’t seem important.’

Jacqueline gave him an icy glare.

Joel rushed on. ‘Emily didn’t know at first where the memoir had come from. I had no way of testing its veracity.’

‘I guessed that would be his reaction,’ Lorna told Jacqueline. ‘You’ve been so black and white about Isabel he was too nervous even to ask you about it.’

‘It wasn’t that . . .’ Joel started to say.

‘I think it was,’ Emily said softly. ‘You didn’t want to have anything to do with it, did you? You knew Mrs Morton wouldn’t like it. And since she’s paying you for part of this project . . .’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Joel replied. ‘That wouldn’t have influenced me.’

‘Please.’ Jacqueline’s tone was so heartfelt that everyone was silent. ‘There’s no need to quarrel. It’s true that I’ve given Joel money. Publishers’ advances are not generous, Emily. It’s also true I was not keen for Joel to dwell on Isabel. She made my husband and me deeply unhappy, not to mention Lorna here.’

‘I don’t remember her, so how could she have made me unhappy?’ Emily was surprised at the passion in Lorna’s voice, at her courage in finally speaking out.

‘No, but you felt the lack of her, Lorna. How was I to deal with Isabel objectively? I felt it better not to speak of her much at all.’ The pain in her face was so obvious that for the first time Emily felt a little sorry for her.

‘I suppose I disappoint you,’ Jacqueline said to Emily.

‘Not exactly,’ Emily lied. ‘I don’t want to be tactless, but I could see from Isabel’s papers that you and she weren’t close.’

‘I tried so hard with her, but she resented me so much.’

‘She saw you as an interloper, didn’t she?’ Emily said quietly.

Jacqueline sighed. All her harshness was gone now. ‘She thought I was trying to get between her and Hugh, but I wasn’t. Lorna, I always had a soft spot for your father. Ever since I was very young. But we both married other people. Hugh didn’t realise he loved me until after the failure of his marriage and Isabel’s death.’

Emily wondered if Hugh and Isabel’s marriage could be said to have failed exactly, but could hardly say this to Jacqueline.

But Lorna, gentle, obedient Lorna, was speaking. ‘He never loved you in the way he loved Isabel, did he? That’s what you couldn’t get over.’ Emily was shocked by this brutal accusation. Jacqueline flinched, but quickly recovered.

‘He did love me,’ she said, ‘but in a different way to how he loved Isabel. I was determined to be strong and reliable, the sort of wife he needed. The woman behind the man. A helpmeet. Isabel was never that.’

‘Perhaps she would have been, if she had lived,’ Lorna persisted.

‘I doubt it. She was too selfish.’

‘You mean she wanted to be her own person, too? You’ve read what she wrote, how depressed she became, especially after having a baby. And as for Granny, Isabel makes her sound a real tyrant.’

‘Hugh’s mother never liked her, no. And of course Hugh always felt that Isabel should have called a doctor, the night that she died.’

Joel cleared his throat. ‘I’ve written all about this, in my chapter about the marriage.’

‘Yes,’ Emily put in, ‘but from Hugh’s point of view. You don’t put Isabel’s feelings into it. Evidence from her account would give a more rounded picture.’

‘I’ve told you before. This book is about Hugh, not Isabel. It’s not surprising that I should write it that way. Hugh would not have your twenty-first-century perspective, Emily. Isabel was an unusual young woman for the times. Hugh was simply out of his depth with her.’

‘I don’t think she was that unusual,’ Emily countered. ‘She didn’t match up to society’s expectations of women, that’s for sure, but—’

‘Oh, all this is fiddle-faddle,’ Jacqueline interrupted. ‘None of you really understands. It’s all more personal than that.’ She looked sad now, sad and diminished, as though Lorna’s rebellion had breached every one of her defences. ‘I’m the one who lived through it, and I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday.’

Emily was surprised to see her eyes shining with tears. Jacqueline’s haughty demeanour had worn thin, whether from age or grief, or both, and Emily at last glimpsed the vulnerability beneath.

‘I wish you would explain, Mother,’ Lorna said, her hands palm-upturned on the table. ‘Then we might all understand. I need so much to understand.’

They all waited for Jacqueline’s answer.

After she said, ‘I’ll tell you my side of the story if that satisfies you, but I will not have it all raked over in the book. I simply will not.’

She glared at each of them. Joel, unnerved, started shuffling papers. Lorna rubbed her face tiredly. Only Emily looked directly back at her and nodded.

Jacqueline closed her eyes and began to speak, hesitantly at first.

‘Hugh and I were happily married for fifty-eight years.’ She stopped for a moment, and her lips moved soundlessly, but then she gathered strength and went on. ‘I’d known him since I was a child, and there came a time when I must have known I loved him. I wasn’t a fool, though. Even as a teenager, I could see Hugh didn’t return my feelings, but this didn’t stop me hoping that he would change. I lost that hope for a time after he fell in love with Anne. He was different with her, so devoted. It was so painful for me, as though I was invisible to him. It was soon after this that I met Michael and he was so courteous and attentive that I was flattered. No one had treated me in that way before – you know, made me feel special. And so I married him. Too late, I saw the kind of man he was. There was nothing bad about him, don’t get me wrong, but he was not, shall we say, comfortable with intimacy. That side of things was, well, not successful. With Michael away at the war I had plenty of time to dwell on this and I came to the conclusion that he had married because he thought he ought to, that he had a position to keep up. I didn’t mind playing to that, and he was away so much that at first I didn’t find it a great strain. Until the end of the war, after Anne was killed in that air raid, and I saw more of Hugh again. Of course, I was married, and anyway I could see that his feelings towards me were unchanged. To him I was just a friend, but I thought I could be happy if I just saw him from time to time.’ She paused before saying, ‘And then he met Isabel.

‘From the first time I saw her, at a party Hugh held in his new flat, I knew she was wrong for him. She was too interested in talking to the men. Had nothing to say to the ladies there and hardly a word for me. I couldn’t say anything to him, though, he was obviously smitten by her. I thought she was one of those bright, pretty sorts who have no thought for anyone but themselves. I’m sorry, Lorna, but there it is. I suppose I was seeing her in a jealous light, because I liked her better once I got to know her, and after they were married I came to see she was unhappy stuck in Stone House with Hugh’s mother glowering at her all the time. What was difficult was that Isabel kept me at arm’s length. She knew she needed my help with you, Lorna, but she wasn’t grateful, oh no. Poor Hugh. All he wanted was a peaceful household so he could get on with his work, but peace was the last thing she gave him.

‘I did my best to help. If I was in London and Hugh was up for a few days, we might do something together, just for company – go out to dinner or to the theatre. It didn’t do any harm, though some people had nasty minds. Again, I can assure you that nothing untoward went on.

‘Emily wasn’t sure she believed her.’

‘I wasn’t unhappy with this situation. I could tell that Hugh was starting to rely on me – oh, in all sorts of ways – and I liked that feeling. On a practical level, you see, I kept the household going for him. My being there settled old Mrs Morton, too. I knew how to stay calm, and they appreciated that very much. Especially when Isabel took to her bed, which she sometimes did, and wouldn’t get up to deal with Lorna. Poor Lorna, there were times, dear, I found you red in the face and exhausted from all your crying.’

‘I don’t think Isabel could help it,’ Emily murmured. She was shocked by Jacqueline’s resentful tone, her jealousy of Isabel after so many years, but there was no stopping the woman now. It was as though she’d forgotten she had an audience.

There did come a time when I became terribly sorry for her. Her mother was ill and Hugh was so angry with her about his own mother’s death. He simply wouldn’t see reason about that – it was the grief, you see. But nothing could forgive what Isabel did next. Her aunt was partly to blame, of course. Sowing ideas in Isabel’s head, I’d say, vicious ideas, particularly about me and Hugh. It was Penelope who helped her leave. She had this holiday house on the coast. We used to take you to the beach there, Lorna, until Isabel died. Anyway, we were originally told that they’d spend the night there, and that Penelope would bring her back the next day, but when the time came she telephoned from somewhere in the town to say she wasn’t coming home. And that’s the last we heard of her for nearly a fortnight. You were quite distraught, Lorna, I have to say. You kept asking for Mama and I had no idea what to tell you.’

‘I wish I could remember,’ Lorna whispered, ‘but I don’t. I used to look at the photographs in Daddy’s album and think that I did remember her, but now I realise that the photographs became my memories.’

‘What do we remember of people we’ve lost?’ Joel suddenly said, so sadly that Emily wondered whether there was a whole side of him she’d never even begun to know. ‘Today we’re surrounded by photographs and videos to remind us of everything that happens, but it’s still hard accessing our actual memories of how people we loved looked and sounded and felt.’

Emily’s thoughts flew to Matthew. She had a very clear picture in her mind of him sitting in his dressing gown, his hair sticking up, waving a piece of toast about as he explained a point. The memory made her immeasurably sad and she almost missed what Joel said next.

‘But you heard from Isabel again, didn’t you?’ to meet you, then e McKinnon

‘Once more,’ Jacqueline agreed. ‘It was ten days later.’

‘The thirty-first of January nineteen fifty-three. The night she died,’ Joel said and she nodded.

‘What happened?’ Emily whispered.

Jacqueline fiddled with the papers in front of her, then she closed her eyes and continued.

‘I was staying here because after she’d left there was no one to look after Lorna, and of course I was the first person Hugh turned to. Anyway, early evening the telephone rang and it was her. Hugh answered the phone. I . . . I couldn’t help hearing their conversation. It seemed as though she’d decided to come home and she wanted Hugh to drop everything and leave that moment to get her. We hadn’t eaten yet, and the weather was atrocious, so this made me angry. Why should he be at her beck and call all the time? I could tell that he was prepared to go out at once, but I didn’t see why she couldn’t wait until the next morning, so I interrupted him and said so. I still think it was completely reasonable under the circumstances, and in the end, that’s what was agreed. He told her that he’d fetch her as soon as seemed sensible the next morning and ended the call. It was the last time he ever spoke to her.’

She was silent again, gathering her thoughts.

Emily eventually asked, ‘How did you feel, about her coming back, I mean?’

‘How did I feel? What did that matter? I could see that Hugh had mixed feelings, for he wouldn’t settle all evening. He was relieved that she wanted to come back, he confided in me, but worried, too. Worried about how she’d be. When we went to bed that night, we had no idea of what terror would await us in the morning.’

She paused and Joel took up the tale. ‘Let me explain. Several natural phenomena came together that awful night. Powerful northerly winds caused a tremendous surge of seawater funnelling round from Scotland into the North Sea. This heavy sea, followed by an unusually high spring tide, caused devastating floods along the east coast. Several hundred people were killed. It was declared a national disaster.’