The Daughter's Promise (ARC)

by Sarah Clutton

  The consequences do not matter.

  She looked up. Outside the window, across the fence, Dan was talking to Pete and holding a large garden implement in his hands. Annabelle was standing next to him, nodding at whatever was being said.

  Sylvia let the diary drop back into the seat. It fanned out, then snapped shut, and the quote was gone. No, Lillian, she thought. Consequences matter. Sometimes they’re the only things that matter.

  Seven

  Willa

  At the junction on the dirt road, Willa stopped the car. Her GPS announced that she had arrived at her destination. To her right she could see a lighthouse looming out of the paddocks on the clifftop like a white mirage. Behind it, from where she sat in the hire car, she could see the blue of the ocean, but much larger was the endless blue sky intermittently broken up with streaks of white cloud. Gum trees clung to the hills in the distance, but mostly the land had been cleared for crops. On her right, a field of what looked like long bright green grass swayed in the breeze, different from the grass of the surrounding paddocks.

  She looked left. Trees blocked her immediate view on the ocean side, but further along the road, on the other side, she could see a sprawling house painted dark grey. This must be the grand neighbouring house Hamish had found on Google Maps.

  She wriggled in the seat, her back still stiff from the twenty-four-hour flight from Heathrow to Melbourne, then the second flight across Bass Strait into Launceston airport. She could barely believe she was actually here, when just days ago, the mere thought of this journey had felt like a distant impossibility. Something inside her was changing.

  She indicated left, then wondered why she’d bothered. The road was deserted. She slowed the car to a crawl. Adjacent to the beautiful big house there was a pebbled laneway. Willa admired the large iron gates and some beautiful deciduous trees planted at the entrance.

  Ahead of her, the dirt road came to a dead end. She drove a little further, and after she had passed a battered old hedge, the most delightful sight emerged. A tiny wooden church was perched just a little way back from the cliff edge, suspended above the ocean, surrounded by a wild, colourful garden.

  She drove closer. A white hatchback was parked on the edge of the road. She pulled in next to a pedestrian gate that gave access to the large house and turned off the ignition.

  The little church was white, although dull and shabby. The iron on the steeply pitched roof was rusty in patches, and a dormer window jutted out from the roofline. Its pretty square-panelled style contrasted with the traditional lancet windows below, and she wondered if it had been added later.

  Willa got out of the car. The thump of the door closing made her cringe. She was comforted by the raucous call of seagulls that started a moment later, breaching the silence. Would she attract attention? That was the last thing she wanted. She wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow, when the lawyer was bringing her to view the place. But she had wanted to come alone, to see this strange home that she now owned, or soon would when she signed the documents.

  The lane remained deserted and she walked across towards the little church, almost holding her breath. Along the front entry, ornately carved bargeboards were attached to the gables. There was one large gable for the main building, and a smaller pitched roof below it for the entry porch, which had identical gables and bargeboards. Around the front and the rear of the building, overgrown garden beds were awash with flowers – pink dahlias, green and purple artichoke flowers, red geraniums, blue and white agapanthus, garlic plants and yellow lilies. Huge lilac allium heads danced and swayed. At the end of the front flower bed, a single, beautiful maple tree arched over the front of the garden and threw shade across the steps. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Willa had the urge to laugh. The place was beautiful.

  Wind whipped at her hair and she brushed it from her eyes as she wondered if she was brave enough to walk through the gate and peer into the church windows. She looked around. In the distance she heard the sound of a low-powered motor starting: garden machinery. It whirred loudly then died down, the engine revving repeatedly. To Willa it was the comforting sound of neatly clipped civilisation.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the wind rustling through the long grass on the road’s edge and the melodic notes of a wren or a finch as it whistled and twittered in the large elm trees inside the boundary fence behind her.

  She turned in a slow circle, taking in the glorious endless inky blue of Bass Strait in front of her, then the little church and its garden, then over the lane where the lighthouse now loomed in the distance, and across the spectacular formal gardens of the house behind her. The setting was unbelievably glorious.

  A noise startled her. She spun around to see a woman locking the front door of the church house. She had a box at her feet, and when she’d finished with the key, she picked up the box and began walking towards the road. Willa fled back to her car. She fumbled with the key and started the ignition. When she looked up, the woman had stopped in the middle of the road near the white hatchback and was staring at her. Her hair was drawn back in a long greyish-blonde ponytail. She was tall and slim in exercise clothes, and Willa felt sure she had seen her before. The woman from the newspaper article.

  A sudden unsettling sensation grew in Willa’s chest. There was something about the way the woman moved, the angles of her face, that chimed at her consciousness. She put her car into gear and indicated to pull out. The woman walked towards the hatchback and opened the back door, putting the box inside. Willa drove past her to the lane’s dead end, then turned the car around and drove back, keeping her eyes glued to the road. She glanced towards the woman, who smiled and raised her hand in a friendly wave. Willa tried to smile back, but she wasn’t sure if it had shown on her face. She kept driving, turned right at the junction and headed back down the dirt road, dust flying behind her. The woman’s smile was warm and familiar. Willa was filled with a worming sense of unease. When she reached the main road, she turned right, drove past a roadside strawberry stall, a few ugly brick houses and some farmland. She just needed to keep driving.

  At the next junction was a sign: Sisters Cove Beach 1 Kilometre.

  She turned and drove down the narrow, winding coastal road, past little beach houses clinging to the side of the hill and a hand-made archway decorated in colourful ceramic tiles that announced: Welcome to Sisters Cove Beach. As she rounded the corner, she slowed down and pulled into a parking bay. She felt steadier now, and she took some deep breaths as she closed her eyes. Everything is all right. You are strong and capable.

  After a minute or so, she opened her eyes. Below her, a gleaming white patch of beachfront meandered across the base of a semicircular cove. Inside the cove, a sparkling half-moon body of azure water stretched out to the headland, where the deep blue of the ocean rejoined it. She spotted a single windsurfer and two swimmers. It was like a postcard.

  Willa started the car back up and continued on down the winding road cut into the side of the hill, past the jostle of beach houses that had been built at odd angles, scattered across the hillside. The car park at the bottom was half full. She got out, and was hit by a gust of wind. Sand whipped around her legs, and the sound of the ocean and the smell of the salt air combined to make her shiver. She was alive, and healthy, and here she was at the prettiest beach imaginable.

  Thank you, Lillian Brooks, she thought. Thank you. Whatever your intentions were.

  * * *

  ‘I’m afraid she didn’t give me any clues at all.’ The solicitor glanced across the car at Willa, then turned his attention back to the road.

  ‘Really?’ said Willa. ‘Is that even legal? To leave your house to a stranger and not tell them why?’

  ‘Yes, completely legal… of course.’

  Ian Enderby seemed on edge, and Willa wondered why. Perhaps she had lost her knack. Her Australian-ness. Her ability to put people at ease. She used to have it. In the last two years, though, people had bee
n different around her. Nervous and cautious; not knowing what to say and not wanting to say the wrong thing to make her grief worse – as if that were even possible. But Ian Enderby didn’t know about Esme. Perhaps he was just an uptight lawyer.

  ‘Here we are.’ He turned left at the same junction on the dirt road that Willa had stopped at yesterday. He drove down the road confidently and parked in the driveway of the little church.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Willa, after a moment of silence.

  ‘Yes, it’s certainly unique. It used to belong to the neighbouring house – Merrivale.’

  ‘That would make sense, I guess,’ said Willa.

  ‘They were both built in the late 1800s, I think. By a wealthy merchant and his wife who were quite religious. Lillian took ownership of The Old Chapel in the 1970s. But she lived in it all her life.’

  ‘Was it rented to her family before then?’

  ‘Yes. Her father was the head farmhand for Merrivale before his accident, so I guess it was part of the package.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Willa, wondering what accident he was talking about. But it didn’t feel polite to ask. Instead she said, ‘When was it deconsecrated?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Ian.

  They both stared at the little church for a while, and then Willa got out and took in the sight of the incredible garden again. She walked a bit further in through the long grass and noticed an old, greying wood heap and a raised timber compost bed with a rake and shovel leaning up against the side. Behind the compost bed, a mottled grey headstone was poking out of the long grass. She wandered closer and bent down to inspect it. The writing had almost been worn away by age and weather, and it was spotted with black dots that looked like spreading algae.

  Maisy Elizabeth

  Beloved daughter of Thomas and Edith Dalrymple

  4 August 1902–12 September 1904

  Sleep on Sweet Angel

  Pain swamped her.

  ‘Apparently she came off the back of a cart being pulled by her dog.’ Ian had arrived beside her silently. ‘Lillian told me about it when I came out to finalise the will.’

  Once, Willa would have revelled in the poignancy of this snippet of history; stood soberly beside Ian inside a shared little puff of imagined sorrow. Perhaps even taken a photo to show Hugo. Now she just felt angry. What idiot would put a toddler on the back of a dog sled? Poor, poor Maisy.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ Ian asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Willa. She took a deep breath. You’re fine. Keep it together.

  Inside, it was dark and the smell was musty, with a chemical undertone of some sort. The lawyer turned on the lights and Willa walked into the centre of the cramped living area, admiring the dark old antiques mixed with a few mid-century pieces. Along the sides, artworks covered the walls – colourful semi-abstract depictions, thickly painted, mostly of women, mostly close-up. There was a harmony to the works, a boldness, but also an eerie sadness. Willa wondered if they were all by the same artist.

  ‘Would you like some time alone in here?’ Ian asked her.

  She smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’

  When he left, she wandered towards the back and poked her head into the bedroom, which was filled almost entirely by a double bed. There was barely room for the old French armoire that must have stored clothes. Behind the bedroom was a tiny bathroom. Willa inspected it by the dingy light of the single narrow window. Yellow-speckled wall tiles and beautiful mosaics in yellow, brown and orange on the floor dated it to the 1950s or so. A pale-yellow bathtub tiled to match the wall, and a matching free-standing porcelain sink completed the picture. A daddy-long-legs hung from the corner of the ceiling. The room smelled damp and old.

  In the kitchenette, she ran her hand along the Formica bench top and stared through the grimy window into the garden and across the lane to the imposing grey house.

  ‘You’re invited for a cup of tea with the neighbours if you feel up to it.’ Ian stood in the doorway, smiling.

  ‘Oh,’ said Willa. She wondered if the tall, slim woman in the exercise clothes lived across the road. She felt suddenly unsettled at the idea of meeting her in person.

  ‘The neighbours are one of the two parties I told you about, who have offered to buy this place from you.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Of course, if you’d prefer not to linger, that’s absolutely fine too,’ he said. ‘You’re probably feeling quite jet-lagged still, so it’s completely up to you.’

  Willa stared at him, not really thinking about what he was saying. ‘Did Lillian Brooks have any children?’ she asked.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ said Ian.

  ‘Had you known her long?’

  ‘Well, I grew up around here. I knew her a little. We’ve both lived in or around this area our whole lives. Apart from when I was in Hobart for a few years, at university.’

  ‘Do you think the neighbours knew her well?’

  ‘Yes, very well. She and Annabelle Broadhurst grew up together. Dan, too. They were neighbours for decades.’

  ‘Annabelle and Dan – they’re who’s invited us for tea?’

  ‘Yes.’ He turned and looked out into the garden, then raised his hand in a wave and stepped backwards.

  A woman burst through the exterior doorway and stood at the entrance. She was wearing a flowing bright purple blouse that showed off her ample bosom. It was teamed with ankle-length cream pants and fabulous expensive-looking purple leather loafers. ‘Hello, Ian! How lovely to see you again!’

  Willa watched as the short, round little woman reached upwards to the solicitor and offered her cheek for a kiss. Then she turned to Willa.

  ‘You must be Wilhelmena! How lovely to finally meet you. We’ve all been absolutely agog to find out who the mystery woman is that’s inheriting this old wreck. I’m Annabelle!’

  The woman was beaming through her bright-pink lipstick. Her large blue eyes sparkled with welcome. She looked as if she was in her fifties, with a soft, pretty face and greyish-black curls that stopped at her shoulders.

  Willa was momentarily mute.

  Annabelle made no move to come into the house, and eventually Willa remembered her manners. She crossed the room and held out her hand.

  ‘Yes, hello.’

  Annabelle pulled her downwards for a hug, and Willa was overwhelmed by a comforting floral scent.

  ‘Well,’ said Annabelle, looking around. ‘Do you like it?’ She flung her arms out wide.

  Willa smiled. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Annabelle, frowning. ‘Aren’t you funny.’ She took Willa by the arm and guided her towards the door. ‘Shall we have a cup of tea at my place? It’s not so smelly and the garden is much less likely to be full of snakes.’

  ‘Oh. Right,’ said Willa. She thought of the long grass she’d just walked through in the garden. The warm log pile, a perfect hideout for snakes. She’d been away from Australia for so long, she hadn’t even thought of it.

  As they neared the door, Ian cleared his throat.

  ‘Now, Annabelle,’ he said, ‘why don’t you go ahead and put the kettle on while I just finalise a few things with Wilhelmena here. We’ll be over shortly.’

  Willa smiled at him gratefully and Annabelle laughed.

  ‘Oh, of course! No need to rush. The cake is still cooling,’ she said.

  Willa watched her walk back across the road. As she moved through the garden, she leaned down and broke off some dead flower heads with quick, efficient motions, barely breaking her stride.

  ‘Wow,’ said Willa.

  ‘She’s quite something, isn’t she?’ smiled Ian. ‘Heart of gold.’

  Willa smiled too, and picked up a book that was sitting on the side table. Identity and the Artists of Early Tasmania. She flicked through it, admiring the photographs of ink sketches – men and women in heavy old-fashioned clothing, loggers standing next to ancient felled trees holding long saws, bark huts, dogs and children playing in the bush.

  ‘
I wish I knew who Lillian was,’ she said after a moment.

  ‘It is unusual. Perhaps the mystery will be solved when you go through her things. She left you the lot, apart from some named items that have already been distributed, and a sum of money for her goddaughter.’

  ‘How old was she?’ asked Willa.

  Ian looked into the distance for a moment and seemed to be thinking. ‘Early sixties, if I recall correctly from the paperwork.’

  ‘Well, that might make sense.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘She would have been young, and unmarried.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When I was born. I was adopted, you see. At birth. I was born in Launceston General Hospital. I believe…’ Willa took a deep breath and looked back out through the window towards the ocean. ‘I believe Lillian Brooks was my birth mother.’

  Eight

  Annabelle

  ‘Are you a gardener, Wilhelmena?’ asked Annabelle. She leaned forward and filled the woman’s teacup from the pot, then turned the handle of the milk jug towards her.

  ‘Not really,’ said Willa. ‘But sometimes, when I see gardens like yours, I wish I was. And please, call me Willa.’

  ‘Willa. Okay, I will,’ laughed Annabelle. ‘I inherited the bones of this garden. Dan’s Aunt Constance was a keen gardener.’

  They were sitting on the veranda in the wicker lounge chairs, with elegantly patterned scatter cushions propping them up. Ian was sitting across from them, but all the chairs were angled out for the best view over the gardens. The old rhododendron tree reached across in front of Annabelle, the last of the vivid pink blooms providing a pretty frame to the flower beds just beyond their feet.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’ asked Willa.

  ‘More than twenty years now. When Constance moved into a retirement village, she let us move in. She and Andrew – he was Dan’s uncle – they didn’t have children. Dan was Andrew’s closest relative, so he inherits eventually.’