The House of Secrets, page 4
Zoe refrained from pointing out that she always had a bit of colour to her face. Her ruddy complexion, inherited from her father, was at odds with her wide-set blue eyes, delicate features and fair hair that had never lost its baby fineness. Also, being cursed with permanently rosy cheeks meant that no matter if Zoe was struck down by illness, even when she had literally been hammering at death’s door, she always looked in rude health. One of her ex-boyfriends had mockingly called her Heidi because he said she looked like she should be tending a flock of Alpine goats. So Zoe smiled weakly. ‘I feel better. Honestly, that’s all behind me now.’
Amanda squeezed Zoe’s arm. ‘I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I’m absolutely fine,’ Zoe said. She ran one freezing cold hand along the curved wood of the staircase. ‘Even if I am losing the feeling in my fingers and toes.’
They took the hint, or else the three of them couldn’t wait to hurry back to their centrally heated houses. Zoe and Win waved them off from the front door. It was bitterly cold outside, but only marginally less cold inside.
‘We should go to bed,’ Win said, but he didn’t have a lascivious glint in his eye as though he wanted to make a start on christening every room in the house, which Zoe was grateful for because that was the very last thing she wanted to do either. ‘We’ve got no telly, we can’t unpack anything other than essentials and I think there’s a real danger of hypothermia if we don’t warm up soon.’
Getting ready for bed was an adventure too. Or at least that’s what Zoe told herself as they hunted down the boxes that contained duvets, pillows and bedclothes, and blew up their air mattress because they’d decided not to risk their proper, comfortable bed getting trashed if the roof suddenly caved in. Then there was a frantic search for the holdall Zoe had packed with all their essential bathroom kit.
Zoe bagsied the bathroom first. The water had a strange brackish taste when she cleaned her teeth and she had to hop from one foot to the other to try and keep warm, which made putting on her pyjamas tricky. Then she pulled on her thick woollen hiking socks, her baggy sick-day cardigan and scurried into the large back bedroom, which was lit only by the camping lights, desperate for that moment when she could dive into bed, though she’d have sold one of her kidneys for a hot water bottle.
‘It’s all yours,’ she said to Win, who was peering into one of the cupboards built into the recesses on either side of the fireplace. ‘I think Ed was right about silt in the pipes. The water tastes foul. What are you looking at? Oh God, is it mouse droppings?’
‘No.’ Win sounded distracted. ‘Pass me a light, will you?’
‘Is it a spider’s nest?’ There wasn’t much to choose between spiders and mice. Probably, spiders were the better option, but not by much. Zoe handed Win one of the torches they’d brought upstairs. ‘Here you go.’
Win shone the torch on the top shelf of the cupboard then stretched up to grab at something. ‘It’s been pushed right to the back,’ he grunted.
‘What has?’
He didn’t answer but with torch tucked under one arm, he groped with the other hand then pulled at something that came away from its resting place in a cloud of dust that made them both sneeze.
It was a suitcase. Scuffed brown leather covered in old-fashioned labels from far away places. Paris. New York. Los Angeles. Zoe had seen similar luggage selling for stupid amounts of money in the chicest vintage shops of West London.
‘What on earth is it doing here?’ she asked, squatting down to peer at the case. There was a tag tied to the handle, the handwriting erased by time.
‘Should we open it?’ Win asked but he had already snapped open the clasps and lifted up the lid before Zoe could tell him that they should drop it off at the vendor’s solicitor. Still, she leaned closer, intrigued, even though she recoiled slightly from the cloying smell as Win took out a parcel wrapped in tissue paper, which disintegrated beneath his fingers. He shook out the folded fabric that was nestled inside.
It was a bottle-green dress cut on the bias. Zoe reached out a hand to gently touch the material. It was made of rayon or crêpe, one of those old fabrics slightly rough to the touch, and there wasn’t enough Febreeze in the world to get rid of the dank stench that had permeated it over the years.
‘Dead people’s clothes,’ Win said. ‘Amanda was right. Never not creepy.’
‘But you can’t help wonder who wore the dress, and why it’s been left in a suitcase in a deserted house,’ Zoe said, her head already full of stories of an unknown woman in a dark green dress. ‘It’s like the start of a novel.’
‘Not one I’d want to read,’ Win muttered, and in a way he was right. Zoe wanted to shut the case and stash it at the back of the cupboard again but another part of her, a much larger part, was suddenly consumed by curiosity to see what was inside a large cardboard box, the lettering on it faded, but still distinguishable from the time it had held cakes from Maison Bertaux on Greek Street in Soho, where Zoe had stopped for a coffee countless times herself. Now Zoe could imagine a woman in her pretty green dress, staring at the pastries on display in the window, thinking about what would go best with a pot of tea, then opening the door, greeting the girl behind the counter. She had to know what happened next.
‘Let’s open the box,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s do it.’
Win laughed. ‘Hang on, Pandora.’
‘All the best adventures start with a mystery, a puzzle. And we both agreed that we were going to treat this, the house, as an adventure,’ Zoe said as she lifted the lid off the box and scrunched up her nose as she dislodged more dust.
Inside there was a yellowed, folded-over copy of The Times dated 17 December 1936, which Zoe quickly discarded in favour of a treasure trove of theatre memorabilia, curling up at the edges, colours faded: programmes, playbills and a handful of identical black-and-white photos. Headshots of a pretty young woman, her hair swept up to one side. She had impossibly doe eyes, an enigmatic smile playing around her lips, her features smoothed and bleached out by the flattering lighting and overzealous retouching. ‘Elizabeth Edwards – Contact: Withers & Withers Talent Agency, Greek Street, London W1 Telephone: GERrard 2853.’
‘Elizabeth Edwards, who are you?’ Zoe murmured as Win pulled out the next item in the suitcase. A diary. Not a large desk diary or a tiny appointment book that would fit into a handbag, but somewhere in between. It bulged temptingly with random pieces of paper and card, lists and letters, stuffed between its pages. ‘Now, this does feel a bit like snooping.’
It did but Zoe had already taken the black leather-bound book from Win. She let it fall open at a yellowed page covered in dense spidery writing in smudged and faint pencil, impossible to decipher any of the words in the dim light of the room. The next page simply had a couple of appointments noted down and a to-do list, just like the to-do lists that Zoe typed into the Notes section of her phone every Monday morning then promptly ignored.
Did the diary belong to the enigmatic Elizabeth Edwards? Zoe flicked to the start, hoping for an address, a clue, instructions on how to light the boiler. Instead, a letter fluttered to the floor. The paper was worn thin, soft as feathers, but written in a different hand to the crabbed scrawl of the diary, this script graceful and looped. As Zoe squinted down, words floated up at her.
It’s impossible to love you the way you wish to be loved.
I don’t believe that I’ve ever managed to give you one single moment of the true, pure happiness that you deserve.
If only I were a better man, but I’m not and you always knew that, old girl.
Zoe shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. ‘You’re right,’ she said to Win. She scooped up the discarded letter and slotted it back into the diary. ‘I’d hate it if someone read my diary.’
‘You don’t keep a diary,’ Win pointed out, as he gathered up the theatre keepsakes and put them back in the box. ‘Or if you do, you’ve managed to hide it from me for the last ten years. Is it full of dark secrets?’
‘The very darkest. All those torrid reminders about dentist appointments and birthdays.’
‘Anyway, that’s all there is, just more clothes at the bottom.’ Win was already unfolding the tissue paper to reveal a heart-stopping collection of tiny woollen garments. Booties, a little hat, a cardigan fastened with cherry buttons, now brittle and cracked, everything hand-knitted and yellowed with age.
Zoe put a hand to her mouth to force back the sobs that immediately rose up.
When would it stop hurting?
She kept quiet, even as she saw the pain on Win’s face. His expression grave and intent as he stroked the little hat with one impossibly gentle finger.
‘It’s a sign. An omen. We should never have bought this house.’ He pushed the clothes away. ‘I should stop putting off the inevitable,’ he continued, his voice now loud and hearty. ‘Time to brave the Arctic wastes of the bathroom.’
‘Do we need to talk about this?’ Zoe wanted to touch Win’s hand, the same hand that had touched those tiny clothes made with such care and love, but even that small gesture was beyond her.
‘I didn’t mean it about the house. I just got spooked. It’s the lack of lighting in here. It makes everything seem sad when there’s nothing to be sad about.’ Win still looked as if he was in pain but he stood up, walked away from her. ‘I’ll meet you in bed in five minutes, all right?’
‘All right.’ Zoe could feel Win’s eyes on her as she kept her head lowered and placed everything carefully in the suitcase.
Win sighed from the doorway. ‘So, we’re good then, Zo?’
‘Better than good.’ Zoe forced herself to raise her head and look Win in the eye though now she was glad of the muted lamplight. ‘This is our fresh start. Our new beginning. I couldn’t be happier.’
5
Libby
As Hannah, Mrs Morton’s maid of all work and general dogsbody, moved from bedroom to bedroom lighting meagre fires and taking away chamberpots because the elderly ladies of the house couldn’t be expected to use the privy in the middle of the night, she must have informed the residents of 17 Willoughby Square, Hampstead, that Libby was heading into town.
It could be the only reason why, as Libby was taking out the pin curls she’d slept in and surveying the sparse contents of her wardrobe, there were constant taps on the door and plaintive entreaties to be allowed in.
The ancient aunts, Alice and Sophie, wanted a quarter of humbugs, a jar of potted meat, two balls of black wool and if Libby happened to be passing a bakery late in the afternoon, a bag of stale buns. Mrs Carmichael also wanted wool, a pair of size nine needles, a packet of digestive biscuits and a bottle of Milk of Magnesia. Little Miss Bettany sent a note asking for denture cream and a small jar of Bovril, and Potts, though he was perfectly able to toddle to the shops under his own steam, demanded a bottle of gin. Even Hannah, after sneaking the kettle up the stairs so Libby could wash in lukewarm water, presented Libby with a sad collection of farthings and ha’pennies and a request to ‘pop into Woolies and get me a half pound bag of weigh-out sweets, Miss Libby, but no Brazil nuts or toffees, please. They play havoc with my back teeth.’
It was quite clear that the old and infirm residents of the house were hungry and cold. Mrs Millicent Morton, landlady and Libby’s mother-in-law (though the older woman believed that no woman could ever be good enough for her precious Freddy), ran a tight ship.
Libby had had nowhere else to go. She’d given up her digs in town before she’d got married and when she’d come back from Paris, broke and broken, Millicent had grudgingly offered her lodgings, which Libby had grudgingly accepted. Beggars couldn’t be choosers but that didn’t mean Libby liked her living arrangements, or Millicent, who ran a teetotal house and refused to even countenance the idea that her darling son had done a runner.
It was little wonder that relations between the two women were strained, not that they’d been particularly chummy before.
It was also hard to feel warmly towards a woman so mean-spirited and penny-pinching that she’d halved the week’s coal delivery and had recently decided that the entire household should embrace vegetarianism. ‘Meat is so hard to digest,’ she’d explained when Libby had defended her right to the occasional rasher of bacon. ‘It lies rotting in one’s gut and excites passions. I can’t have that. This is a respectable house.’
Not that there was anyone in the house who had any passions worth exciting. They were all too cold and miserable to give in to their baser lusts. Libby shivered on the threadbare rug in her bedroom. It had been Freddy’s old room, his model aeroplanes still suspended from the ceiling, the bookshelves crammed with tales of derring-do. She tugged on her best dress over her goose-pimpled flesh. The dark green frock she’d been married in. It had been snug then, she’d been four months along at that point though no one was meant to know – she’d couldn’t even eat the smoked salmon sandwiches Freddy’s editor at the Daily Herald had provided for the wedding breakfast for fear she’d rip the seams. Now it hung off her, but Libby added a belt and by the time she’d carefully combed out her hair and applied a little make-up, some rouge, mascara, lipstick, she was quite pleased with the end result. She was still a little faded at the edges, but she looked much better than she had. Felt better too.
Thankfully she’d stopped bleeding, that terrible pain in her side had quietened down – some days it disappeared entirely – and though she’d had to spend a week in bed after she’d returned from Brighton, now Libby fairly skipped down the stairs to the dining room.
It was hard to skip or make any sudden movements when every surface was littered with what Millicent called her ‘objets d’art’. Ugly figurines, old-fashioned frames containing old-fashioned photographs of stiff people in old-fashioned clothes, decorative plates on stands. It was all so Victorian; the house dark and dreary, every window hung with heavy drapes, so it was difficult to see where one was going in the gloom of a February day. At least in the morning room the fire was lit and Hannah was just bringing through the teapot and toastrack as Millicent sat at the head of the table, a peevish look on her sallow face, her tone querulous.
‘I’m convinced that people have been helping themselves to coal,’ she announced, and the little old ladies – the two aunts, Mrs Carmichael, and Miss Bettany (who hadn’t uttered one word the whole time that Libby had been in residence) – quivered where they sat. ‘I’m sure that your rooms are quite warm enough without having to take extra so others must go without.’
‘Goodness, Millicent, please tell me that you haven’t been counting how many pieces of coal there are in the bucket,’ Libby said as she took her seat on Millicent’s right.
Mrs Morton shot Libby a look of quiet, seething fury as she did every time Libby called her by her Christian name. ‘Of course I don’t,’ she said with wounded dignity. Libby calmly took a piece of toast and waited and she hadn’t even counted to ten in her head before one of Millicent’s bony hands pressed against her black bombazine bosom. ‘Must you always be so strident, Elizabeth? Especially when my heart has been palpitating wildly. I barely slept last night and when I did I had such strange, unsettling dreams about my poor late Arthur, then I lay there fretting about poor Freddy. Of what might have happened to him. Something terrible somewhere foreign and how would I ever know? I suppose you haven’t heard from him?’
Libby continued to calmly spread butter on her toast, thickly enough that Millicent gave an unhappy whimper at her profligacy. ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said. ‘He could by dead in a ditch on the road to Seville for all I know.’
She’d only said it to be spiteful because Millicent was so tiresome but the thought of Freddy dead, or even ill or injured, brought her no pleasure; the traces of her love for him still lingered. Millicent clutched her chest again and her sharp features softened as if she were about to dissolve into tears. ‘Dead,’ she echoed. ‘Dead on a dusty road where those heathens will step over him. Not even give him a Christian burial.’
The argument had gone on long enough. ‘I’m sure Freddy is alive and well,’ Libby said. ‘Probably halfway through writing his novel and he’s all but forgotten his own name.’ She paused to take a bite of toast. ‘Now, back to the coal. If any has gone missing, it’s sure to be one of the gentlemen. They come and go at such odd hours. Who can say what they get up to?’
There were three salesmen who rented rooms and disappeared for days on end as they plied their trade (one of them, a Mr North, had once cornered Libby on the stairs and asked if she’d be interested in doing some modelling for his camera club) then would return to change the tenor of the house with their heavy tread and the foul stench they left in the privy.
Peace was restored. Now Millicent and her geriatric paying guests could happily complain about the men and their inconsiderate behaviour. By the time Libby rose from the table, the ladies were preparing for a long morning spent in the drawing room, the only room where the fire was lit during the day, and were chattering about the new King. How handsome he was. ‘So nice to have a young man on the throne,’ Aunt Sophie said. ‘Though really he should be married by now. What good is a king without an heir?’
