Finding Home (38 page)

‘What does it matter now?'

‘It matters to me,' I say. ‘Tell me your story.'

She analyses my face. For a second, I'm worried that I've spooked her. I want to look away, but I force myself not to.

‘All right.' She plops four sugars into her tea. ‘I suppose I should be grateful that you're here and you're interested. That's a lot more than any of the rest of them ever were.' She sighs. ‘You've earned the right to know the whole story.'

I smile encouragingly.
Maybe friends
…

She looks down at her tea, stirring it slowly. ‘Henry and I sent each other little notes,' she says. ‘It started as a silly game – using initials only in case they were ever intercepted. But as time went on, everything got more urgent. We just
had
to see each other, and when we couldn't, we just
had
to tell the other everything.' She smiles. ‘I lived for those notes; for his words spoken from the heart. When he returned from university that last time, we met up in the attic of the house. It was our special place.' She pauses for a moment, lost in the memories. ‘One thing led to another, and all of a sudden, I was pregnant.'

She plops an extra sugar cube into her tea and watches it dissolve. ‘I was so besotted with Henry that I didn't even stop to think that it might be a bad thing. He'd promised me the world, you see. Or at least, Rosemont Hall. He was always writing how we belonged there together and he wanted to grow old with me there. I bought it, hook, line, and sinker, let me tell you. But there was one tiny little detail that never seemed to get sorted.'

‘His father?' I venture.

‘His father.' She sniffs.

‘Henry had been waffling for weeks – promising to tell his father about us. But each letter he wrote me had another excuse as to why he'd kept quiet. I suspected that he was losing his nerve. And until Henry came of age, Sir George could revoke his inheritance. But it was more than that. Henry adored that old devil, who never gave him the time of day. Henry was like a lapdog – always there to lick his father's boots, no matter how often he got kicked.

‘And then the preparations for the party began. I suspected Sir George was up to something – he wrote to Henry as much. Henry thought that the party was the surprise. And then, when the artist turned up, he thought the portrait was the surprise. But I knew – or should have known – otherwise. Because why on earth would Sir George spend every last penny on an extravagant party for the son who was a disappointment from start to finish?'

She purses her lips and stares down at her cup. ‘Henry said his father had “plans” for him, but he was too thick to guess what they might be. I guessed that someone was coming to the party that he wanted to impress. Sir George couldn't afford to have regular servants, but he hired some girls from the village to make it look like he did. I got myself taken on as a temporary servant for the party.

‘You already know about me and some of the other hired girls trying on the costumes we'd found upstairs. It was great fun pretending we were ladies – and I almost told them my secret – that soon I would be Mrs Henry Windham: the real lady of the house.' She shakes her head.

‘Then, when the others went back to work, I tiptoed up the back stairs to the attic. I was still wearing the pink dress I'd tried on – I wanted to surprise Henry by looking like a real Lady of the Manor. Instead, it was me who was in for a surprise.

‘I found that our attic had been taken over by an artist – some Spanish chap that Sir George knew from the war. He was there to paint Henry's portrait, though he never did it. I stood and watched him work for a few minutes and was about to leave when he spotted me. He beckoned me inside and started to fuss over how lovely I looked, and how he wanted to sketch me. I was flattered, of course, so I let him. I had no idea that he was going to do a painting of me. All I was hoping was that Henry would come as he'd promised. I twisted his note in my hand until it was practically in shreds. But when I finally did hear footsteps on the stairs, suddenly I felt afraid. I jumped up from the chair and hid behind the door.'

‘What did you see?' I coax.

‘It was Sir George, not Henry,' she says. ‘He looked around him with his demon black eyes like he half-suspected that someone was watching. The artist took out a canvas and they stood and poured over it together. I remember thinking it odd at the time – the canvas was white and blank – there was no painting on it.'

‘A blank canvas?' I lean forward in my chair.

‘Yes. But Sir George was examining it as carefully as if it was the Mona Lisa. They spoke in low voices, but I heard Sir George say: “It does look good – I'd never even know it was there. But are you sure it won't be damaged?”

‘“Zere will be no damage,” the Spanish chap said. “You know I am zee best.”'

‘What do you think they were they talking about?'

‘I've no idea,' she snaps, dropping the bad accent. ‘But I knew it was something I shouldn't have overheard. And when Sir George finally left, he looked right at the place where I was hiding. It chilled me to the bone. As soon as his back was turned, I slipped out and ran down the back stairs. I can still feel those dark, demon eyes boring into my back as I went.'

She takes a breath and continues. ‘After that, I knew that Sir George was onto us. I'd turn around and there he'd be, watching me. I tried to see Henry, but his father kept him busy, running errands and entertaining guests.

‘I knew the game was up for Henry and me the minute Arabella arrived at the house for the party, looking like some kind of pale, fragile, porcelain doll all dressed up in her finest clothing. I served tea to her and her father while Henry and Sir George were closeted up in the study together. She was so frail and simpering – all huge eyes and sharp cheekbones.' She lets out a snort of disgust. ‘Her father was singing Henry's praises and talking about how he'd pay for a lavish wedding for them. But the look on her face…' She chuckles. ‘It seems like the news came as a shock to her as well.'

‘Anyway, I went back downstairs and told the cook that I was ill. I went home to think – I suspected that if Henry's father wanted him to go from lapdog to pedigree stud hound, he'd do it. I was devastated and angry – I wanted to hurt them. I decided that I had to go back for the party – that, whatever happened, Henry would have to look me in the eye.'

‘It sounds awful,' I whisper.

‘That night, I dressed up in a maid's costume just like Sir George wanted us to. I blended into the background, bringing up the serving trays and filling glasses of champagne. Everyone was decked out to the nines – I've never seen so many sparkling gowns in my life. It was as if the wars had never happened and we weren't in the twentieth century at all.

‘Then, in the middle of the dancing, Sir George silenced the musicians and said he had an announcement to make. Henry came forward, leading Arabella by the hand – a mousey little waif in a green silk dress.' She sniffs. ‘Sir George announced the engagement. Henry smiled at his bride-to-be. He looked contented – even pleasantly surprised. I knew it was all over.' She shakes her head. ‘But I'd come prepared, you see. I'd brought with me every little simpering love note that Henry had ever written to me. I put them on the tray of drinks that I carried into the ballroom. When they made the announcement, I dropped the tray, the notes scattered everywhere.' She chuckles softly. ‘It was less than they deserved, but it certainly disrupted the moment.

‘A quarter of an hour later, Sir George came down to the kitchens. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the pantry. I still remember the stink of his breath against my face.' She grimaces.

‘He had a letter in his hands – the last one that Henry wrote to me. “Whatever you're playing at, it stops now,” he said. He took out the gold cigarette lighter that I'd given Henry and lit the edge of the paper. We stood there together watching it burn. Then he dropped it and ground out the flame with his foot.

‘“It's rubbish,” he said. “Just like you are.” Then he thrust a purse into my hand. “Your train leaves tomorrow at 7 a.m. You'll go to Portsmouth. There's a boat in the afternoon. To New York. You'll be on it.”

‘“No!” I screamed. “Henry loves me. He went along with your silly party, but he won't marry HER.”

‘Sir George laughed in my face. He called me a few more nasty names and pushed me. I slipped and fell to the floor. I knew that if I lost the baby, I'd lose everything. I lay there on the ice cold floor, very still.

‘“You will be provided for if you leave now. And if you don't…” He didn't need to finish the threat. He slammed the door and left me on the floor, shaking. The last ember went out on the paper and everything was pitch-black.'

‘But that's terrible,' I blurt out.

She eyes me like she's pleased that I'm affected, while she no longer is.

‘Terrible?' She shakes her head. ‘So many things in life are terrible.' She takes a sip of her tea.

‘I lay there until I was sure I hadn't lost the baby. Then I changed out of the maid's costume, put on my own clothes, and went home. There was no sign of Henry – he didn't come to try and find me. Most of the guests had left or were leaving. They passed by me as I walked all the way back to the village. That walk is the thing I remember most clearly. The lights of all those fancy cars going past me, but no one stopping to offer me a ride.

‘But by the time I got near to the village, there were lights and sirens going the other way – back towards the house. The sky turned an awful shade of deep red. I didn't know at the time, but the East Wing was burning.'

‘So you didn't start the fire?'

‘Of course not.' She glares at me. ‘I was still stupid enough to cling to the hope that I might live at Rosemont Hall. I loved that house. I'd never do anything to harm it.'

‘Sorry.'

‘I was up all night,' she continues. ‘I didn't want to believe that it was all over, and if it was, I didn't want to let Henry off that easily. I wanted to confront him – make him tell me to my face that he no longer loved me and wanted me to go away. But just before dawn, someone knocked on our door. My sister answered. I heard the words: “constable”, “fire”, and “a few questions”. Sir George had stitched me up.'

‘It's criminal!' I say.

‘It was convenient. There was nothing I could do. I had to think of the baby – I couldn't go to jail for something I didn't do.'

‘Of course not. And the lighter that the surveyor found – that was the one you gave Henry?'

‘Yes.' She shrugs. ‘All those years and suddenly it shows up. Along with you.' She stops talking and stares into her empty tea cup. ‘Anyway – that's it. I left.'

Tears of indignation well up in my eyes. She must have felt so lost in those terrible days after the fire: all alone on a slow boat to America, holed up in steerage with a fatherless baby in her belly and grief in her heart. ‘I'm so sorry,' I say.

She looks up at me, the steel back in her face. ‘The rest is history…' she makes a sweeping gesture with her hand. ‘And now, Amy Wood, you know it.' She begins to lever herself out of the chair with her cane. Captain – I'd almost forgotten he was there – jumps to his feet and crouches behind her, growling in his throat.

‘But that's not the end of the story, is it, Mrs Bradford?' I say. ‘You came back to England, all those years later. Why did you do that?'

With a tetchy sigh, she sits back down in the chair. Captain lies at her feet, eyeing me like I might be lunch.

‘I came back because this is where I belong. But I waited too long. Henry was an old man.'

‘What happened between the two of you?'

‘
She'd
had her claws into him for all those years. Arabella. She hated Rosemont Hall – thought it was too big, too draughty, too empty – the two of them knocking about like old bones. She didn't care if it fell to ruin. It's no wonder that he suffered a stroke.'

‘But when you saw him, didn't he mention the letters that he wrote? Did he ask you why you never responded?'

She shakes her head. ‘It wasn't like that. By the time I returned, he barely even knew me. I guess…' her bold voice waivers for a second, ‘that I must have changed too. I wasn't “Annie” anymore – not the one that he still had in his mind.'

‘You were apart for a long time.' I bow my head, thinking how empty and hollow those years must have been.

‘Yes,' she muses. ‘A lifetime.'

‘But he did leave the house to Jack and Flora.'

‘And do you think he did that out of the goodness of his heart?' She lets out a brittle laugh.

‘No, but…' I hold my breath, recalling Jack's suspicions of blackmail.

‘He extracted his price, believe me.'

‘And what was that?'

‘That Arabella never be told about my daughter, of course. And that I stick around until Arabella died and look after her.'

‘So that's why you did it?'

‘Can you think of any other reason?'

‘Yes.' I smile wistfully. ‘Because Rosemont Hall is your home.'

She raises a bristly eyebrow but says nothing.

‘You had to come back, didn't you? Despite the terrible thing that happened to you, you came back here. Henry loved you – his letters prove that. He didn't think you set that fire. He wanted you to live with him – at Rosemont Hall. But it couldn't be. Sir George hurt him too. Hurt everyone, from the sounds of it.'

‘So?'

‘So you braved the humiliation and the upheaval. The thousands of miles and all the years. You did what you had to do in order to come back to Rosemont Hall. Its heart resonates with yours. You can't just let it go.'