The House at the End of Hope Street

Chapter Twenty-three





Greer’s breasts ache, her skin tingles, her whole body throbs. It’s protesting that it’s lonely, that it longs to be touched again. And it’s betraying her because, right now, she doesn’t want to think of men ever again. And now that she’s firmly set on her idea of adoption alone, she doesn’t need to. Greer hasn’t dressed since the night with Blake, instead remaining perpetually clad in a pair of flannel pajamas she found stuffed at the back of the wardrobe. For the first time since the fiancé, she doesn’t give a damn about how she looks. Which doesn’t matter because she just spends her days staring at the ceiling and muttering, her words floating up to the chandelier and disappearing into the air, unheard.

“Okay.” She places a hand on her chest. “I hereby vow that my body will remain untouched by male hands until I can trust my instincts.” Slowly she sits up to gaze at her magical wardrobe; simply seeing it always lifts her spirits. Its clothes give her comfort. In fact, right now, they are the only things that do. Lately she holds them like safety blankets. Last night she fell asleep in a pile of blue satin ball gowns.

Greer pulls herself off the bed, pads across the floor, and walks in through the wardrobe’s open doors. There she spends the rest of the day, sitting among her clothes, rubbing fabrics across her face. Then, when Greer buries her head in her favorite little black Audrey Hepburn dress, something falls through the air and lands with a thump at her feet.

It’s a book, two inches thick and bound with brown leather. Greer picks it up to find it’s actually a collection of papers, hundreds of dress patterns ripped from magazines, much like the one she found a week ago. Greer flicks through the pictures, wondering if they’re supposed to be a clue to something. But she can’t find a sequence or connection; they seem random, unorganized.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Greer mutters, self-pity clouding good sense. “You want me to make dresses? When I’m nearly forty and will soon have nowhere to live?” She stands. “If I’m going to do anything, I’m going to raise a child. And for that, I need a real job. All right?”

With that, she drops the papers and marches out of the wardrobe.

—

Walking up the path, Edward hesitates. He stops a few feet before the door, glancing up at the dozens of windows above him. It’s a magnificent house, as big as a church, and he can’t believe he never noticed it when he was a student at Trinity. Not that it matters now, because as he rings the bell, Edward’s feeling torn in half. He’s overjoyed Alba has invited him over, having feared after their last meeting that she’d never want to see him again, but now, at some point he’ll have to tell her the truth, and he’s dreading it.

An hour later, after the exchange of a great deal of small talk, Edward sits at the kitchen table with Alba, drinking coffee and eating ginger biscuits. Stella watches them from her favorite spot in the sink.

“Do you want something else?” Alba asks, wondering why her brother seems so distracted. “I could make toast and jam.”

“What?” Edward fiddles with his watch strap. “No, I’m fine.”

“But you don’t seem to like the biscuits.”

“Oh, they’re fine. I’m just a little distracted, that’s all.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing, just work stuff.” Edward shrugs. “It’s okay.”

They shift to talking about their childhood memories: the tree house with two floors the gardener built in a three-hundred-year-old oak, the secret cupboard under the stairs in the south wing they’d both used as a hiding place. They talk about Tilly, who’s not visiting with him because she’s still recovering from the flu, and they even talk about Edward’s late wife, much to Alba’s surprise. She talks about Peggy, and tells her brother a little about Albert, but stops short of mentioning Stella.

“It’s not really work,” Edward blurts out at last. “I’m not fine. I’m sorry, I lied to you. When you asked me about father’s disappearance and . . .”

“And you told me you didn’t know where he was.” Alba waits.

Stella, watching them both, leans forward in the sink. Edward slowly snaps five ginger biscuits in half, one by one, releasing little puffs of dusky orange vapor that float between them. He takes a deep breath. “He was living in Italy—Sicily. Until two years ago we visited him every year in spring.”

“We?” Alba sits up and stares at her brother.

“Lotte, Charlie and I.”

Alba can’t quite make sense of what he’s saying. She hears the words but their meaning—the implications—momentarily elude her. “Why two years?”

“He died, the Christmas before last. Heart attack.” Edward gazes down at his plate, at the discarded biscuits.

“Oh.” Alba’s still confused. “So, wait . . . he didn’t leave us, he only left me.” She grips her coffee cup. “But I thought . . . I even . . . but, how the hell could he do that? And how could you not tell me, after all these years, how could you not?”

“I’m so sorry, Al, I really am.” Edward is on the verge of tears. He wishes he could reel back his words, unsay them, have them disappear. It was too soon, too fast. He should have waited until more time had passed, until he and Alba had a chance to create a less fragile bond, one that couldn’t so easily break. But it’s done now. It’s said. There’s no going back now. “He was cruel, and we shouldn’t have gone along with it. At the time we were angry, we blamed you and Mum for his leaving. We swore never to tell, but now they’re both gone and I wanted you to—”

“And what about Mum?” Alba can hear her voice sounding shrill. “You let her go through all those interrogations, the whole village treating her like a leper, you saw what it did . . . it broke her, it killed her!”

“I know,” Edward says. “I’ve regretted what we did every day.”

“But not enough to undo it? You had, what, ten years to tell Mum the truth. Why didn’t you?”

But Edward doesn’t have a satisfactory answer. It’s something he’s asked himself over and over again. “I’m so, so very sorry. I hope one day you might forgive me.”

Alba just stares at him. “I think you should go.”

“Please,” Edward says, “please . . .”

Alba can hear the crack in his voice. She can see the desperation in his eyes. But she shakes her head. She hears a small sigh from the kitchen sink, but Alba ignores Stella too.

“Now,” she says softly, “leave now.”

Edward wants to beg her to let him stay, to say he can’t bear to lose her again. He wants to weep and plead for the forgiveness he doesn’t deserve. But instead he stands and walks slowly out of the kitchen and out of the house. Alba, her eyes fixed to the floor, doesn’t watch him go.

—

When Alba ventures into the kitchen two days later, the ghost is sitting in the kitchen sink, as if she hasn’t moved an inch. Of course, except for reading, Alba has no idea how Stella otherwise passes her infinite time, so perhaps she hasn’t.

“Don’t talk to me about my brother,” Alba says before she sits down. “Whatever advice you have, I don’t want to hear it, okay?”

“Okay.” Stella shrugs. The problem of Edward will have to wait; she’s got a more immediate issue to address first.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Alba reaches her chair by the stove, frowning at the ghost. “You look like you’re up to something. I don’t like it.”

Stella smiles with exaggerated innocence, then says:

Does it seem reasonable that she should play so wonderfully and live so quietly? I suspect that one day she will be wonderful in both. The water-tight compartments in her will break down and music and life will mingle.

Alba listens to the words from her parents’ favorite book, suspecting Stella is attempting to make some sort of point, but since she hasn’t touched a piano in twelve years and doesn’t play anything at all “wonderfully,” or even well, that point isn’t entirely clear.

“So.” Stella raises her eyebrows. “What do you think of that?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Alba admits.

“You are exceptionally intelligent, talented and will no doubt be successful at anything you choose to put your hand to,” Stella says. “But so far you only apply your brilliance to the study of life’s retelling rather than life itself.”

Alba says nothing.

“My hope is that you, like Lucy Honeychurch, will allow your passion for literature to leak into life,” Stella says. “And for that, you have to act.”

“Take to the stage?” Alba jokes. “How will that help?”

“Yes, very funny,” Stella says. “But I have a feeling that if you don’t do it now—”

“What’s the rush? I’m fine. I’m not even twenty. I’ve got a whole lifetime.”

“So you think,” says Stella. “But if you don’t do it now, with the power of the house behind you, then I’m afraid you probably never will.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“It’s time to face the things you really want. Not just in your fantasies, but in your life.”

“What do you mean?” Alba asks again, hoping that Stella doesn’t know about the Chocolates book but rather suspecting she probably does. Her heart quickens.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Stella says. “That girl loves you. And it’s time to find the courage to love her back.”

It’s time. Alba grabs a summer jacket from the coat rack and sees Florence Nightingale wink at her from the opposite wall. Alba stops. “What?”

“You’re finally doing it, well done.” Florence smiles. “You certainly took your time about it.”

Alba pulls on her jacket. “We aren’t all blessed with the courage of an army, you know. Some of us need to deliberate on the best course of action before—”

“Oh, what rot.” Florence interrupts. “Not acting when one should act is a waste of life. Feelings ought always to be distilled into actions that bring results. Now, go!”

“Okay, okay,” Alba snaps. “I’m going!”

With that she slams the door and runs down the path toward the street. Behind her, the door opens again as the house watches her go. At the window, Peggy smiles.

Alba runs all the way to the library, dashes through the doors and up to the counter, but Zoë isn’t there. Instead Andy sits at the computer with a look of bored resignation. Alba’s heart drops into her belly. If she doesn’t do it now, she might not conjure up the courage again. Maybe a few years down the line, with someone else?

Just then Zoë comes running up from the rare book room.

“I’ve got it, Andy boy, I’ve got it!” Zoë sees Alba and stops. “Oh, hello.”

“What is it?” Alba asks.

”A signed first edition of The Jungle Book. It’s a new donation.” Zoë holds it out as Alba inches forward for a closer look. “Here, you can touch it.”

Alba takes the book with great care, handling it as though it’s the most precious thing she’s ever held. She slowly turns the pages. “The illustrations are so beautiful.”

“They’re painted by Kipling’s father,” Zoë says. “My favorite is Shere Khan.” She leans over the counter to find the chapter. Her fingers brush Alba’s and, for one single, eternal moment, neither one of them moves. Alba stares solidly at the tiger while her fingertips tingle as if she’s just had an electric shock. She can feel Zoë’s gaze on her face and her cheeks are as hot as if she’d just stepped into a pool of sunlight. Alba looks up. It’s now or never. She loosens her hold on the book and lets it settle in Zoë’s hands.

“I liked that book you loaned me, you know. The chocolate one, I mean—”

“Oh?”

“It was very . . .” Alba takes a deep breath, wishing Stella were there to hold her hand. “I’ve been thinking . . .”

Zoë waits.

“Yes, well,” Alba mumbles, “I was thinking, wondering if you still wanted to go for coff—”

“Yes.” Zoë grins. “I’d love to.”