Facing the Light (3 page)

‘This, I think,' he said, picking out a long string of obviously fake pearls. ‘Never before have I seen this –
pearls which are not round!' He made the sound that was the nearest thing to a laugh he allowed himself.

‘Yes, I love those,' Rilla said. ‘They're from America. Square pearls! They'll do.'

She closed her eyes, and let Ivan rummage around in her earring box. What did it matter, really, when it came down to it? However she was dressed, the whole visit was going to be excruciating. The one thing she tried every minute of her life not to think about, to thrust into the darkest, most secret corners of her heart, was known to everyone who was coming. What if they spoke of it? How would she bear that? Rilla closed her eyes and drew a deep breath to steady her thoughts. Willow Court. So many ghosts, so much pain, and her mother, Leonora Simmonds, monarch of all she surveyed, especially the paintings. Oh, my God, Rilla thought. What did we do to deserve those paintings in our family?

*

Rilla let the sound of Billie Holiday's voice fill the car: blue and velvety and freighted with pain. Sweet, but with an edge of darkness all around it, like a border. From time to time she joined in with the lyrics, filling the spaces in her head with the sound of her own voice. She knew that the landscape was streaming past the window, but she didn't even glance at it. She'd seen it far too many times before, on her way back to Willow Court. Gwen'll be walking round from room to room, she thought, checking that everyone has the right towels. She'll have made sure the paintings are newly dusted. And I'll be in the Blue Room, where Mother always puts me because it faces the back. No view of the lake. Rilla shivered in spite of the heat. She hadn't been down there for years but in her worst dreams she still saw the water shimmering with a sort of fluorescence. No, think of Gwen. That's safe. Tidy and organized Gwen, who wore well-cut trousers in proper material that cost a small fortune but nevertheless
just looked like common-or-garden trousers. Her shirts, too, were the very best, and Rilla knew for a fact that each one cost an arm and a leg, but whatever was the point when the colours were so self-effacing? Apologetic pink, wishy-washy blue, and minimalism's favourite shade, cream, which did nothing for Gwen, did she but know it.

It wasn't that her sister wasn't attractive. She was. She had the figure of a young girl, and not a chubby young girl either. Her dark hair had greyed to the kind of elegant salt-and-pepper others paid a fortune for in salons, and her skin was like ivory. Rilla longed to put her in burgundy and peacock and old gold, but Gwen wouldn't hear of it. Perhaps all her poor brother-in-law had been looking for when he'd pursued other women during the early years of their marriage was a bit of colour. Rilla felt a pang of shame even thinking such a disloyal thought, but that didn't stop it being at least a possibility. James Rivera, who'd probably started life as Jaime, was wasted on her sister. He was handsome and dashing and just Spanish enough to have an exotic surname, but educated in this country, so not foreign enough to scare the horses.

She hardly ever thought about this any more, but in the old days one of the main items of family gossip, whenever two or three of them got together away from Willow Court, was, does Gwen know? Almost from the day her sister married, Rilla could tell James was unfaithful to her. He was always ‘up in London', or ‘away for the night', and there was the occasion, which Rilla had never spoken of to anyone, when she'd seen him and – what was her name? Milly? Molly? Something like that – one of the young girls employed to help with the children in any case, looking flushed and dishevelled, coming out of the gazebo holding hands with James. And he'd seen her seeing them. Milly, or Molly, didn't last
long after that. Gwen
must
know, Rilla thought. She can't not know. How typical of her to say nothing. Rocking the boat was not her thing. Her stoicism appeared to have paid off. Nowadays, James seemed to be as good as gold, though he was rather too fond of alcohol, and Rilla had often noticed her sister's worried frown and pursed lips as her husband helped himself to yet another drink. Order, that's what Gwen was interested in. Order and the Walsh Collection. Thank heavens Leonora had at least one of her daughters to carry on after she'd gone. Being stuck in that enormous pile surrounded by more spooky pictures than you can shake a stick at was Rilla's idea of hell.

And then she was there, at Willow Court. The wrought-iron gates were standing open. The leaves of the scarlet oaks leading up to the house were still green. Rilla's mouth suddenly felt dry. She slowed the car right down. She knew that Leonora and Gwen would have been looking out for her and would be waiting for her on the front steps, and sure enough, there they were, like figures in a tableau. She could see them from quite a long way away: Leonora upright and self-possessed, standing one step above Gwen. Rilla stopped the car and got out as elegantly as she could, conscious of her mother's eyes on her. She ran up the steps to kiss her sister.

‘Darling,' she said, and threw her arms around Gwen, suddenly filled with affection. Perhaps she ought to make more effort to see Gwen on her own. Maybe she should invite her up to London to stay? ‘How super to see you! I'm early, aren't I? Hardly any traffic at all, amazingly enough.'

She went up to the next level to embrace her mother.

‘Rilla!' Leonora was smiling, but she stood quite still as her younger daughter kissed her. Powder smelling like icing sugar, Rilla thought, and soft skin, and somewhere
in her core something that doesn't want to bend, to relax. Something frozen.

‘Mother, you look wonderful. As usual.' And it was true. Leonora's skin was hardly wrinkled at all, and her green eyes undimmed, it seemed. As for the bone structure, well, as Ivan was forever telling her, there was no better basis for beauty than good bones. Rilla knew that any bones she had were rather too well covered, and she waited for her mother to make some sort of allusion to any weight she might have put on since the last time, but no, on this occasion Leonora said only, ‘You look lovely, too, Rilla darling. It's been such a long time since I've seen you. I've missed you, so I'm very pleased you've come down a little early.' Leonora paused, and scrutinized her daughter more carefully. ‘And you do look a little tired, too. Never mind. You can have a nice long rest now that you're here.'

Rilla only just stopped herself from saying, Fat chance! Leonora
did
love her, she realized with the familiar pang of guilt she felt whenever she had to remind herself of this fact. She just found it hard to communicate her affection in a normal way, that was all. Rilla mumbled something about getting her bags out of the boot and taking them upstairs.

‘You're in the Blue Room, darling,' said Leonora. ‘I know you feel comfortable in there. Gwen will help you settle down, and then you've got plenty of time to change for dinner. I shall be dealing with letters in the conservatory, but do come down when you're ready. I'm longing to have a chat, if you're not too tired after such a long drive.' She smiled at Rilla, then turned and went inside, walking as she always did – slowly, and as though people were looking at her. Which, Rilla reflected, they very often were.

She walked to the back of the car with Gwen. Together they took out the luggage and went into the house
carrying one bag each. Tangles of television cable snaked over the black and white tiles of the hall.

‘They're here already, then, are they? The TV people?' Rilla said as she followed Gwen upstairs.

‘Sean Everard – he's the director – is coming tomorrow,' said Gwen, turning her head to talk over her shoulder, ‘but the rest of the crew's here. They're doing what they call “establishing shots”. They're very good, really. We hardly know they're around most of the time. They're staying down at the Fox and Goose, and they have all their meals there too.'

She almost bumped into a man squatting on the landing with a camera over his shoulder.

‘Oh, gosh, Ken!' Gwen said. ‘I didn't notice you there. And I'm very sorry, but I thought it was understood that this part of the landing is out of bounds. I discussed it all with Sean and I'm sure I mentioned it to you.'

Ken said, ‘Sorry, sorry. I was looking for Mrs Simmonds's bedroom. There's a picture in there of some swans, I believe …'

‘Oh!' Gwen relaxed a little. It was obvious to Rilla that if Leonora had said he could be up here, that was different. ‘That's fine, then. Only it's along the other corridor. You turned right instead of left at the top of the staircase. It's easily done.'

‘Right!' said Ken and wandered away. Rilla noticed that they were outside the old nursery.

‘The dolls' house is still in there, isn't it?' she asked.

‘Oh, yes. But Mother's absolutely adamant that they mustn't film that.' She strode along the corridor to the Blue Room with Rilla close behind her. Nothing in it had changed since the last time she'd visited, but Gwen had put buff-coloured roses in a vase on the table by the window.

‘Lovely Buff Beauty, Gwennie, thank you so much.'

Gwen blushed at the childish nickname. ‘You like the
ones that go on flowering all through the summer, I know …' she murmured and put down the bag she was carrying. She turned to go, started saying something like ‘I'll see you later,' but Rilla interrupted her.

‘I'm going to have a look at it. At the dolls' house. Come with me, Gwen, go on. Surely there's time? You don't have anything to do exactly now this minute, do you?'

Gwen hesitated, then said, ‘Oh, all right, then. But only for a moment.'

‘Good.' Rilla stepped out of the Blue Room and looked along the corridor. ‘I'll make sure no one catches us.'

‘Stop teasing, Rilla.' Gwen laughed and sounded all at once much younger. ‘
We're
allowed in the nursery. It's just the TV people Mother wants to keep out.'

‘Can't imagine why … has she said? The dolls' house was Ethan Walsh's crowning achievement if you ask me.'

‘She likes to keep it to herself for some reason,' Gwen said. ‘She's always adored it, and of course it brings back memories for her. I can't stay long, I'm afraid. James will be back from the wine merchant very soon and you're supposed to be unpacking.'

Rilla had always loved the nursery. In the old days, it had been Nanny Mouse's domain, but for the last few years the old lady had been living in a cottage down at the end of the drive by the gates, looked after by a nurse-companion. She would have been sad to see it all quiet and echoey, stripped of toys, its bookshelves empty. It was not the room it used to be; the room Rilla had for years considered the centre of her world. Gwen's grandson, Douggie, Efe and Fiona's son, could have slept there whenever they visited, but Fiona liked to keep him near her still. He was only two and a half. Perhaps when he was older, he'd bring the room to life again.

Gwen opened the door and there was the dolls' house in its usual place against the wall. Rilla smiled. Mother
was not a sentimental person, but when it came to this, which she often referred to as
almost my only link with my mother
, she behaved in ways which could only be described as somewhat eccentric. Okay, Gwen was right, and it had been made for Leonora by her father, and her mother had decorated every room. Perhaps she didn't want everyone in the world peering and poking at it, but still, not allowing the film crew to see it was taking matters a bit far. Also, only older children were actually allowed to play with it. Leonora would never permit toddlers to smear their grubby fingers over the wallpaper, or mistreat the tiny pieces of furniture. Everyone in the family knew that it was still very much Leonora's own possession, and if they thought there was anything at all strange about a woman of over seventy being attached to what was, after all, a child's toy, they never said so.

Making the house had been a labour of love, that was clear. Rilla found it hard to imagine her artistic grandfather, who'd been a bit of a Tartar by all accounts, getting down to child level, as it were, to create this most beautiful residence. Grandmother Maude, who was hardly mentioned in anything written about Ethan Walsh, had decorated it throughout, with exactly the same care that she had lavished on Willow Court. She had also made three little dolls to live in it – exact copies of herself and her husband and daughter. They were tiny rag dolls, but so carefully stitched together that every feature was not only clearly visible, but recognizable too. Ethan was the biggest of the dolls, with a dark moustache and heavy eyebrows over piercing blue eyes. Maude had nut-brown hair drawn into a bun at the nape of her neck, and wore a blouse with a high collar made of lace. The Leonora doll was in a dress cut from the same lilac fabric she wore in one of the portraits, the famous one which showed her sitting on the edge of a bed. The dress was trimmed with the lace Maude had used to make a collar
on the figure of the mother. Each doll had a smile embroidered onto its face in pink silk. When she was a little girl, Rilla often said that you could see they were a happy family.

‘She used to let us look at them at Christmas time,' Gwen said. ‘Do you remember?'

Rilla nodded. ‘That's right. Didn't we have some miniature holly or something that we decorated some of the rooms with?'

‘Wreaths,' said Gwen. ‘They're in a box in the attic, I think. With all the other Christmas stuff.'

‘She didn't let us play with them at all, though, did she?' Rilla could remember Leonora saying,
I can't let you have them for your games, darlings. They're so fragile, don't you see? But you like the new family I've bought for the house, don't you?
‘She gave us our dolls as a sort of distraction, I suppose, but we did love them, didn't we?'