The House at the End of Hope Street

Chapter Eight





Because Alba and her siblings were the only guests at the funeral, the village church was quite empty; the vicar’s words bounced off the walls and there was nowhere to look but at the coffin covered with calla lilies. Charlotte had been in charge of the floral arrangements, so everything was extremely tasteful, though Alba managed to sneak in a yellow tulip, Elizabeth’s favorite, at the last minute.

Alba watched Edward cry, silent sobs that floated into the air in gray clouds. She knew he must be thinking of his wife’s funeral a year earlier, and wished she could find the courage to hug him now as she hadn’t been able to then. Charles and Charlotte were the same as always, cold and withdrawn, treating her like an unstable mental patient since her outburst. It probably seemed strange to them, then, that Alba didn’t shed a single tear. But she couldn’t, even for appearance’s sake, because she was so happy at seeing her mother again, and would have felt quite odd crying for a woman who spent the funeral sitting next to her in the pew singing along to every hymn.

It was only when they buried her, when the last clod of earth dropped over the coffin, that Elizabeth Ashby’s ghost disappeared. But she has returned to Alba in dreams so vivid she might as well be awake. And most wonderful of all, her mother is talkative, happy and sane. They walk through the grounds of Ashby Hall, Elizabeth in her poppy-splashed dress, her words shining gold, glistening in the light, every day brighter and closer to the color of Stella’s conversations.

“I’ve always loved these gardens,” Elizabeth says. “It’s where I came to be alone, before you, when I had three young children, when it all got to be too much. Nature is always so peaceful, so perfect.”

“I can’t imagine you five years older than me with three kids,” Alba says. “I can still barely look after myself. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look after anyone else.”

“Well, perhaps one day you’ll feel differently.” Her mother smiles. “When you fall in love you might want children of your own.”

Alba frowns. She wonders if her mother knows more than she’s letting on. They sit in silence, Alba plucking daisies in the grass, then discarding them. She still hasn’t told her mother about Dr. Skinner, about the betrayal and heartbreak, failing her MPhil, losing her scholarship and, of course, her biggest secret of all. She wonders if Elizabeth already knows and she’s just waiting to be told, the way she used to wait for Alba to confess to things as a little girl.

But it’s Elizabeth who speaks first. “You couldn’t have saved me. You do know that, don’t you? I was always hovering on the edge. And when Charles left there were . . . complications that just tipped me over it.”

What? Alba wants to ask. What happened? But she waits. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry you were so sad.”

“I know, love,” Elizabeth says, “me too. But more than anything I’m sorry I wasn’t a better mother to you.” She sighs and, for a moment, she seems about to say something else, but instead she stands and together they walk on in silence, over hills and through woods, stopping to look at flowers: wild roses, honeysuckle and hollyhocks. They follow the tracks of foxes until they disappear, and listen to birdcalls: doves, magpies, sparrows and the distant bleats of sheep. Alba longs to hold her mother’s hand and squeeze it tight. Instead she turns and looks at Elizabeth, at her blue eyes and blond hair, at her smile and her white dress splashed with poppies, staring until the memory is imprinted forever.

—

Peggy has never been a reader. She can’t focus on words floating in front of her on a page, and prefers films. Her knowledge of these, thanks to Harry, is great indeed. Sometimes they watch them in bed on Sunday afternoons, and on special occasions they return to the cinema. Her favorite film to date is Kind Hearts and Coronets and she’ll never forget the day she met Joan Greenwood, who played Sibella.

The actress visited on the occasion of Peggy’s fifty-fourth birthday. She was rehearsing a new play, she said, and wanted to see the house again, to remind herself of details she’d forgotten from her stay nearly twenty years earlier. The house rule permitted residents to return only if they hadn’t stayed for their full ninety-nine days the first time. And since Joan had spent only a month when she was thirty-one, Peggy could allow her back. They sat in the kitchen upstairs, eating slices of birthday cake. At least Joan did, while Peggy just poked at hers with a fork.

“Would you care to talk about it?” Joan asked in her famous drawl, sending a little shiver of excitement through Peggy. How could she unburden herself to a film star? But she spent so much time taking care of strangers that sometimes she just wanted to blurt out everything to passersby in the street.

“It’s just,” Peggy mused, “I’ve been thinking, about things, choices . . .”

Joan waited, sipping her tea.

“I’ve never been in love,” Peggy said. “I’ve never let myself. Because, if I’m not allowed to marry, then what’s the point?” As soon as she said it, Peggy realized how strange it sounded. She waited for the questions about why she wasn’t allowed to marry, or let a man live at Hope Street, but Joan said nothing. Peggy gave a little sigh of relief, knowing that she’d picked the right person to unburden herself to.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m missing out,” Peggy continued. “But then I never want to leave the house. And, if that’s the price I have to pay, I suppose it’s all right.”

“We all have to make choices,” Joan said. “Since we can’t have two lives, only one. But, most of those choices we make fresh every day, not just once. So, if you regret something, if you want to change your mind, you usually can.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Peggy said. “The only problem is when you don’t know what you want.”

—

Alba is bumping along in the backseat of Edward’s brand-new Beetle, gripping the door handle in an effort to squeeze against Tilly’s empty car seat and avoid accidentally knocking into her sister. Charlotte stares stolidly ahead, in a huff because they haven’t taken her Mercedes. She hasn’t traveled at a speed of less than a hundred miles an hour since the day she passed her test, and claims Edward drives more slowly than their dead grandmother.

“Why are we taking this little thing?” Charlotte sniffs, “you’ve got an Audi.”

“It’s in the garage,” Edward says through clenched teeth, “as I told you this morning. Twice.” He glances in the mirror, trying to catch his little sister’s eye, to check he’s not upsetting her.

Drifting away from her siblings’ fighting, Alba closes her eyes and sees Dr. Skinner’s face. She tries to block it out, but can’t. Her defenses are down. Thoughts mill around her mind with a force of their own, pushing into her personal space like unwanted guests at a dinner party. So Alba surrenders to the dark brown hair and brown eyes, the smile that fools you into thinking its owner is pure and true, not a conniving, cunning snake who’d steal your thoughts as soon as look at you. Alba opens her eyes again, staring into the bright sunshine until the image floats away.

“Stop worrying,” Charles says from the front seat. “We’ll make it and, if we don’t, Stone will wait for us.”

“Unless he’s due in court,” Charlotte says.

“Oh, do shut up,” Edward sighs.

And so it goes for the next hour, until they reach London. It’s the first time Alba has ever had occasion to visit their solicitors, the most prestigious firm in the city, but she knows the Ashby family have been clients of Stone & Stone for well over a hundred years; they pioneered one of the first divorce cases in Britain when the seventh Lord Ashby claimed, fraudulently as it turned out, that his wife had been unfaithful with his brother.

As they park and hurry along the streets, Alba lags behind a little, unable to suppress a niggling sense that something is wrong, that she shouldn’t be going with them. When they reach the solicitors’ offices she stops on the pavement with an overwhelming feeling of dread.

“It’s a bloody miracle we’re not three days late.” Charlotte sweeps past the rest of them, striding through the sliding glass doors of Stone & Stone.

“At least we made it here in one piece,” Edward retorts, “instead of ending up in a twenty-car pileup on the M4.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Charles snaps. He reaches the front desk and aims a smile at the pretty redheaded receptionist. “We’re here to see Mr. Stone.” His voice is soft and smooth as golden syrup. “We have an appointment at noon.”

—

Tiago is still visiting Carmen’s dreams, refusing to let her forget him. Sometimes she dreams of the good, sometimes the bad, but it always leaves her shivering in a cold sweat. Tonight she dreams of their first duet. Six months after they met, Carmen had woken early to find him sitting at his piano. She had stood in the doorway watching him, completely and utterly captivated. It seemed to her that he wasn’t sitting at the piano but floating a few feet above it, carried on the waves of his music.

She walked across the room and sat down at the piano beside him. Tiago began to play her favorite piece, Mozart’s sixth quartet, and she played along with him. He shifted to the first of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and still she followed, despite the fact she’d been learning for only a few months. Then Tiago stopped. He began to play a piece of his own. As the notes floated through the air Carmen felt as though Tiago were tying ropes of silk around her waist, tethering her so she’d never be able to leave. That was the night he asked her to marry him; and when Carmen said yes, it was the happiest moment of her life.

A few hours later Carmen sits at the kitchen table, red-eyed and yawning, nibbling her way through a packet of chocolate biscuits, gulping down black coffee. The house is silent and still, so quiet in fact that she’s a little unnerved. Pots and pans sit in the sink, waiting to be cleaned. Carmen glances at the copper frying pan balanced on top, about to topple. With a shiver, she thinks of Tiago, of blood and bones and beatings, worrying about how safe she really is.

Just then the door bumps open and Peggy shuffles in, wrapped in her patchwork dressing gown, her wild white hair even messier than usual.

“Morning,” she mumbles, passing by the table, focusing on the floor.

“Ola.” Carmen looks up, surprised. “Why you up so early?”

Peggy shuffles to the fridge. “I need cream. And coffee.”

“I make it.” Carmen stands.

“Oh, you’re a dear.” Peggy slides into the nearest chair. “Four sugars, please.”

“So, why you up so early?” Carmen flicks the kettle on.

“Give me a moment to join the living,” Peggy says, “and I’ll tell you.”

They sit in silence as the coffee boils, until Carmen hands Peggy a hot mugful. Grateful for the absence of a tarot card, she gulps mouthfuls and then, with a happy sigh, wipes her lips. “Perfect, thank you, pet. Now,” she says brightly, all traces of tiredness gone, “I have a favor to ask. I’ve a chum who runs a choir, an amateur thing. They’ve got some sort of performance coming up, probably just in a village hall full of deaf pensioners. Well, she needs another voice and I told her I know just the one.”

Carmen stares at Peggy with wide, disbelieving eyes. “A serio?”

“Oh yes, entirely.” Peggy grins, taking another gulp of coffee. “Do you think I’d get out of bed before six, just for a joke?”

“But . . . I don’t sing with other people to watch,” Carmen says. “Not yet, no.”

“Oh, I think you can.”

“Your friend, who is she?”

“Well, yes, I suppose ‘friend’ might be stretching it a little,” Peggy admits. “It might’ve taken me a while to find her, but she’s real enough.”

Carmen thinks of that fateful duet with Tiago, scared that if she sings in public again, somehow he’ll hear. Peggy digs into the pockets of her dressing gown and hands Carmen a note. She takes it and slowly reads aloud:

Courage is mastery of fear—not absence of fear.—Mark Twain.

“It came to me this morning,” Peggy says, “but I believe it was meant for you.”

“Who is Mark Twain?” Carmen asks, unconvinced.

“He was a great American writer and lover of my great-great-aunt Anne, or so she’d have us believe. She had an affair with him and with Faulkner. Allegedly.”

“Oh, sim,” Carmen nods, though she doesn’t understand at all. She fingers the note.

“It’s vaguely possible, I suppose. Anyway, she loves to quote them every chance she gets, just to remind us all. You know, dear,” Peggy says, “courageous acts can be a good way of exorcising demons.”

Carmen, hearing the change in her tone, glances up, alert.

“I know you’re running away,” Peggy says, “but you can’t run forever. You have to dig up what you buried. Its spirit is too strong for the house to suppress. I’m afraid you’re going to have to deal with it yourself. And quickly, before it’s too late.”

Carmen looks at the old lady as though she’s seen a ghost. She shouldn’t be surprised that Peggy knows. She doesn’t want to ask, Too late for what? But since those are the only words in her mouth, she can’t speak. It’s a long, dark moment before she finally nods.

—

Greer has caved. She’s said yes to the charming American. He has finally worn her down. Not that it took very much, she has to admit. Now she sits inside her wardrobe, swamped by dresses: silk, satin, velvet, cotton and lace. Plain, colorful, short, long, casual, chic: every conceivable look for every conceivable occasion. And Greer has to pick one. She lies down, closes her eyes, sticks her hand in the air and points. Then she opens her eyes and follows her finger.

The first thing Greer sees is a long, delicate shift dress of green silk. She stands, lifts it carefully from the hanger, walks out of the wardrobe and slips it on. The dress is cut low down her back, exposing her white skin even below the drop of her long red curls. The front is a single column of color that matches and lights up her eyes. Now she needs footwear. She scans the field of scattered shoes that is her bedroom floor and spots a perfect pair of silver slippers. Now she has ten minutes for makeup.

Half an hour later they’re sitting in a black leather booth at the back of Blake’s favorite restaurant. As the waiter pours from a bottle of rather expensive merlot, Blake grins, and Greer feels as though she’s blinking into a lightbulb.

“Well, well, Red,” Blake says, “what a knockout you are.”

“My dad used to call my mum Red.” Greer smiles. “Before he knocked her up. The Philadelphia Story is her favorite film. We both worship Katharine Hepburn. And Cary Grant, too, of course.”

“Of course.” Blake grins. “And what did he call her after?”

“After what? Oh, yes, I see. Nothing. He left. I never met him.”

“Sure.” Blake nods as though he wouldn’t have expected anything else. “My mama left us when I was six.”

“Oh?” Greer asks. She’s touched that they have this in common, together with a love of Katharine Hepburn films. “I’m sorry to—”

“Hey.” Blake shrugs as if to suggest it’s a tragedy he’s long since put behind him, as if he never wakes in the middle of the night, alone and scared and feeling six years old again; as if he doesn’t like to keep his bed populated to avoid this very occurrence. “I haven’t seen her in nearabout twenty years, I can’t even remember her.” He reaches for his glass and takes a gulp of merlot, swallowing down this careless lie. For although he can’t recall her face, and must rely on photographs, he remembers the smell of her, Lily of the Valley face cream and perfume, and how she felt when he clasped her close, burying his face in her breasts. It is a scent that returned to him when Greer stepped into his life and it nearly stopped his heart. It’s the reason he hired her, the reason he asked her out.

Blake puts down his glass and gazes thoughtfully at Greer, his veneer momentarily rattled. “You remind me of her some,” he admits—a half-truth. “So well fixed up all the time. I never seen someone so well dressed come to work in a bar.”

Greer would have been touched by the compliment—had she heard it. But all she can think is that he’s twenty-six. Thirteen years younger than her. Greer reaches for her own glass and drinks, tipping her head back, until it’s empty, then wipes her mouth. “I’m an actress,” she blurts out—as though he’d asked, as though this explains everything. She regrets it the second she says it and waits for the critique of her lifestyle she knows is coming. After all, why would a successful actress work in a bar?

But Blake surprises her. “That’s cool,” he says, once again reminding her how young he is. “I’m a writer. Hey,” he smiles, “maybe I can write something for you to star in.”

“Really? Well.” She puts on a southern accent, a joke to hide her delight. “My, my, that would be simply marvelous.”

Blake laughs. “So, what d’ya wanna eat? I’m figuring on bangers, mash and beer. I think that sounds pretty darn delicious.” He draws out every syllable of the last word, sucking all the juice from the letters, and Greer stares at his lips. She nods, now thinking only of what it might be like to kiss him.

—

“I don’t understand.” Alba sits in the solicitors’ office, a shoebox of letters on her lap. “Why would she leave these to me?”

“Elizabeth didn’t inform us of the reasons why,” Mr. Stone explains. “She only requested we retain them, and pass them to you upon her death.”

“But why me?” Alba asks. “They aren’t mine.” She lifts a letter out of the box. It’s addressed to her mother in a tiny black scrawl. The postmark is dated 1989. Nearly a decade before the divorce of Prince Charles and Lady Di. Three years before her birth. Suddenly she’s afraid to ask any more questions.

“As I say, she didn’t leave us any further instructions,” says Mr. Stone, “so perhaps, if you’ll permit me, I’ll continue with the will.”

Charlotte sighs. Edward shoots her a look. Alba frowns, her welling sense of dread now threatening to overflow. The black smoke of deceit circles the room, as if Mr. Stone had lit a fire under his desk and everything was burning.

Charlotte says, “I think it’s about time we—”

“Don’t, Lottie,” Edward warns. “Not yet.”

“Why not? You can’t keep it from her now, can you? I’m glad she’ll finally know.” Charlotte crosses her legs. “And then we can all drop this ridiculous charade.”

“Know what?” Alba’s lungs are filling with the smoke. The crisp leather chairs and cream carpets are shifting. She’s losing her grip on the box. “What?”

Surprisingly, Charlotte keeps her mouth shut. Edward glares at Charles, who shrugs and says nothing, while Mr. Stone continues reading the will as though nothing was wrong. But all Alba can think about are the letters sitting in her lap, weighing down their paper box until her legs are numb, her fingers white and drained of blood. When it’s time to leave, Alba can’t get up. She stares at Edward helplessly. While Charlotte and Charles wait impatiently in the foyer, Edward persuades Mr. Stone to let Alba stay in his office to read the letters, while they take him out for an expensive lunch.

“Do you know what these are?” Alba asks Edward as he is about to close the door. “Do you know what they say?”

“No,” Edward says softly, “not exactly.”

His words mix together in green and black, the color of truth and lies. His aura is still as gray as it was when his wife died. “But you know something, don’t you?” Alba says. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“It’s probably best this way.” Edward falters, hoping that’s true. “It seems this is how Mother wanted it.”

Alba looks down at the box and forgets to look up again. After a minute of watching her, of wishing he could undo years of lies, Edward gently closes the door behind him.

Several hours later, after a long and liquid lunch, the siblings return to Stone & Stone to find Alba gone. Charles questions the pretty receptionist, who says Alba left an hour ago.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Charlotte sighs. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Go home,” Charles says. “She’ll be there. She probably couldn’t stand another endless bickering trip up the M4, and took a train.”

“Good point,” Charlotte says. “I should do the same.”

“Shut up,” Edward snaps, “and have a little sensitivity. How the hell must she be feeling now, knowing every minute of her life was a lie?”

“Oh, don’t be so bloody dramatic,” his brother says. “She’ll be fine. Let’s go. By the time she gets home, she’ll be fine.”

“She’ll be better than I will,” Charlotte says, “after another three hours in your car.”

“Well, then,” Edward says, ignoring her, “let’s get a bloody move on.”

He doesn’t want to leave Alba alone for long, just in case she’s not okay at all. He wants to invite her to stay with him and Tilly in London for a while, to answer some of the hundreds of questions she’ll have. But he won’t be able to, because Alba isn’t going home, at least not to Ashby Hall. While Edward is unlocking his car, Alba is sitting on the train back to Cambridge, clutching a shoebox to her chest.