“So you’re a painter, too?”
“How could I not be when Mama and Walter put pencils and brushes into my fist the minute I could hold them? Anyway, I’m not going to haggle when The Hideaway means so much more to me than its price. I was forced to leave the cottage when I was six, twenty-two years ago. Walter wanted it to stay empty, so Mama could have it if she returned. I’ve always dreamed of living in it again… Will you let me buy it?”
Eleanor twists her hand in Felix’s. Their two palms meet. She feels a wave of sadness that The Hideaway will no longer be hers. But she hides the shadow.
“I’d be delighted… That way, we can keep it in the family.”
“Will you take it off the market? See James with me? Tell him the cottage is sold?”
“Yes, I will.”
Felix’s hazel eyes laugh into hers. “How can I ever thank you?”
“You can keep your side of the bargain.”
“There’s one more condition. That you let me buy you supper.”
Eleanor smiles at him. “Go on then, Mr Mitchell. Twist my arm!”
Happy as Sand-boys
St Ives, Cornwall, Spring 1914
“Mama and Walter met in 1906 when they lived in Oxford.”
Felix settles himself in his chair, his long legs crossed, his slender, paint-stained fingers curled around his beer glass, as he tells Eleanor details of his early life.
“I don’t remember much before we came to live here. Mama loved it because St Ives was full of other painters, with a real sense of artistic community. Walter had more commissions than he could handle, and Mama’s work blossomed. The light here – the five beaches, the way the sea curls around you everywhere you go – there’s something special about St Ives. The three of us were happy as sand-boys.”
A shadow of sadness crosses Felix’s face.
“At least, I think we were. Remember, I was only a child. If Mama and Walter argued, they talked into the night while I slept. They never shouted or threw crockery!”
“But something must have happened.”
Felix drains his glass. He twists in his chair with a rapid, snakelike movement.
“Let’s go and eat. I’ll tell you more when there’s food inside me.”
They cross the harbour, turn into the centre of town and up a narrow street labelled The Digey.
“I rent the top floors in the house called Driftwood, over there.” Felix points to a dimly-lit alleyway. “The attic room has two enormous windows that give me lots of light to work under. I love it, but my landlady likes to know what’s going on.” He grins. “And I don’t always want to tell her… Anyway, I’m bursting at the seams. I moved in three years ago with almost nothing to my name. It’s amazing how much stuff you can accumulate.” He glances at Eleanor. “Aren’t you at Somerville College? Walter told me about your academic success.”
“I was reading for an English degree. But I’ve given it up to look after Mummy. I’ve been working in an antiques’ shop. I’ve had to. We have no money, remember?”
Suddenly she’s gripped by a fierce dread of going home, seeing Jonny again; having to explain who she has found to her mother.
“But my week in St Ives has been wonderful. A real taste of freedom.”
“How long will you stay?”
Eleanor hesitates. For some extraordinary reason she wants to say, “For the rest of my life.” Instead she blurts out, “I’d love to stay another week,” with an honesty that takes her by surprise. “At least, that’s what I’d planned.”
Felix stops in his tracks, his arm brushing her shoulder. “Then don’t vanish back to Woodstock tomorrow. Presumably your mother doesn’t know I’m here? Nor does she know you’ve had an offer for The Hideaway.”
“No.” Eleanor gets his drift. Immediately they became conspirators, playing for a brief window of time.
Felix says with studied nonchalance, “After all, we’ve so much to talk about… Haven’t we, Eleanor?”
It’s the first time he has said her name. With her heart thumping so hard she’s sure he’ll hear it, Eleanor agrees.
The Vanishing
St Ives, Cornwall, April 1914
They eat in a small restaurant overlooking Porthmeor Beach: watercress soup, and poached bream in a delicate sauce. When their plates are cleared, Felix pours the last of the white wine.
“Now for the hard part,” he says. “I’ve never told anyone the whole story.”
“I can’t wait to hear it.”
“The Great War was on our doorstep. Some Cornishmen had already left to fight in the trenches. There wasn’t much money around and certainly none to spare. If you qualified for an old-age pension, you were given five shillings a week. I made a friend of our St Andrews Street lamplighter. He worked a sixty-six hour week, including Sundays, for twenty-four shillings. He had a wife, a mother-in-law and five children to support.
“Although we never had a lot of money, we survived. Lizzie Farrell and her mother found life hard. Mrs Farrell’s eyesight began to fade and Lizzie had to support them both on her dressmaker’s wages. Mama had saved up some money to give her on her birthday, on Friday the 3rd of April. But that morning we woke to an horrendous day. It was pelting with rain, with a thick mist and an evil-smelling fog. A thunderous storm had raged through the night. Five fishing boats had failed to return. People were waiting for news on the quayside. There was pandemonium.
“It was the Easter holidays. After breakfast I dashed out to play with my best friends, twins who lived up the road. At eleven o’clock, one of Walter’s models arrived.” Felix gulps at his wine. “Mama said she’d take Lizzie’s birthday money to her. According to Walter, she left The Hideaway without saying goodbye.”
Felix gives a snort of bitter laughter, but his eyes are full of tears.
“Walter’s model left at one o’clock. I came home for lunch, and then ran back to the twins. We assumed Mama had taken shelter with Lizzie because the weather was even worse.
“Another model arrived at two o’clock and sat for Walter until four. Then she left, and I came home for tea. By that time, the rain had stopped, but the fog hadn’t lifted, and the streets were running with water and dead rats. Chimney pots and tiles had been washed off roofs. All five fishing boats were still missing.
“By six o’clock, Mama still hadn’t come home. Walter decided to walk to Lizzie’s and take me with him. He said he needed some air and exercise but I knew he was worried sick.
“Lizzie and her mother were renting a couple of rooms in a boarding house on Westward Road, off Porthmeor Hill. Walter and I dashed through the streets and climbed the hill.” Felix’s voice is very quiet. “I remember the wind pulling at my hair, the darkness of the sea. The storm lurked everywhere, as if any moment there’d be more thunder and lightning. I clung onto Walter’s hand, struggling to walk. But we were determined to beat the elements.” He drains the last of his wine. “Neither of us had the faintest idea what lay ahead.
“Lizzie and her mother were astonished to see us. They’d been cloistered in their room, working on a trousseau. They hadn’t seen Mama for a week.
“Walter and I stood dripping in the hall. Walter said, ‘But Moira must be here. She left The Hideaway at eleven this morning. She had birthday money for you. If she’s not here, where’s she been all day? And where is she now?’
“Lizzie gave us some tea. She made Walter explain exactly what had happened. Ten minutes later, we raced down to St Ives. Lizzie took me home. Walter went straight to the police station. The search for Mama began in earnest.”
“She’d vanished from the face of God’s earth.”
They are out-of-doors again, above Porthmeor Beach, the sea and sky inky blue, lights twinkling from a ship on the horizon, handfuls of stars trying to compete. Felix walks slowly, his head bent,
his hands thrust into his pockets.
“The police questioned Walter for hours. They asked whether he’d quarrelled with Mama, how he’d spent the day. The fact that he and Mama were not husband and wife didn’t count in his favour. Thankfully, Walter’s models were his alibis. He hadn’t been alone for a single minute. When two policemen brought him back to The Hideaway, he looked shattered. He told me he was sure Mama would be home soon. I knew he wasn’t telling me the truth.
“The police searched every inch of The Hideaway. They found the red purse in the bureau, full of Lizzie’s birthday money. Walter was very relieved, but then he couldn’t understand why Mama hadn’t taken it to Lizzie.
“I sat up in bed, listening to what was going on. I remember Walter shouting at the police, ‘What do you think you’ll find? My beloved Moira’s body underneath the floorboards? Why aren’t you out there, looking for her in the town, on the beaches?’ ‘Because it’s dark, sir, pouring with rain, and we’d be none the wiser.’
“Walter stayed up all night, by the front door, in the street, pacing around, praying for a miracle. The search in St Ives began at dawn. The police made house-to-house enquiries. They swarmed over the beaches, looking for clues. But nobody had seen sight nor sound of my beautiful Mama.”
Felix quickens his pace, and Eleanor struggles to keep up. They reach the bottom of The Digey and turn onto the harbour.
“Walter went to pieces. He couldn’t eat or sleep or work. The police stuck MISSING photographs of Mama all over town. Two days later, I spotted one, plastered to the harbour wall. It said HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WOMAN? I burst into tears and ran home. Walter and I sobbed in each other’s arms.
“Meanwhile, Mama’s aunt, Beatrice, arrived from Newlyn. She and Walter agreed I should stay with her until Mama turned up – or until Walter could look after me properly. I didn’t want to leave him – but I had no choice.
“After a month, the police stopped looking. They hadn’t found a single trace of Mama or come up with the smallest clue. The morning she vanished, she’d worn a mackintosh with a hood. She hadn’t taken an umbrella. The wind was so strong it would have ripped the thing to pieces. The only item we thought she’d been carrying was her red leather purse.” Felix takes it out of his pocket. “Then the police found it, and we had nothing left to look for. It made our dilemma even worse. We knew Mama hadn’t been robbed but it didn’t solve anything else.
“The police decided Mama had left of her own accord and didn’t want to return. Or she’d been murdered, and her body thrown into the sea.”
Felix stands looking at the jumble of fishing boats, securely moored for the night. He holds the purse, turning it over and over in his hands.
“Walter couldn’t prove whether Mama was alive or dead… And I was the most miserable child in the world.”
“The upshot was,” Felix continues, after he and Eleanor have returned to The Hideaway and are in the living room, drinking coffee, “I never lived here again. Because Walter wasn’t my ‘real’ father, Aunt Beatrice became my legal guardian. Walter refused to believe Mama was dead. He chased off to Oxford to ask whether any of her friends had seen her. They hadn’t. He even went to Paris where he was told Pierre Tessier was dead. Nobody had seen Mama for years. Walter blamed himself for her disappearance – and his heartbreaking search nearly killed him.
“One morning, Lizzie told Walter about a woman called Madame Thelma.” Felix’s voice hardens with contempt. “She claimed to be a scientific palmist who could predict people’s futures by looking at their handwriting and photographs. Lizzie persuaded Walter to visit her.
“Madame Thelma looked at Walter’s samples. She said she thought Moira was impulsive and untrustworthy, given to following her heart. She’d probably decided to ‘go abroad in search of adventure and to find her fortune’ that April morning.
“Walter screamed denial. That night, drinking with friends in The Sloop, he stood up to buy another round – and collapsed. He was taken to hospital in Penzance where a doctor told him if he didn’t start eating and sleeping properly, he wouldn’t survive. The warning seemed to bring my poor darling Walter to his senses.”
Felix moves across to the French window, staring out into the darkness.
“He decided to clean up The Hideaway, hang their paintings on the walls – and turn his back on St Ives. It was the summer of 1914. War was imminent, although Walter couldn’t fight. He packed a small suitcase, left his easel, his paints, and his working equipment here, and caught the train to London.”
No Last Goodbye
St Ives, Cornwall, 1936
“He met Mummy in Woodstock three years later.” Eleanor is anxious to pick up the threads of the story. “Daddy was staying at The Bear, on a painting holiday in the spring of 1917. He was sketching the lake in Blenheim. Mummy stopped to admire his work. They started chatting. Mummy claims she fell in love at first sight.”
“Walter told me he had that same headlong feeling. He married Lillian on the rebound, so that someone could look after him, give him stability. After Lillian died, Walter felt so unlucky in love he was sure he’d never find another wife.”
“All those years ago, did you see him before he left St Ives?”
“He came to Newlyn to tell me he was leaving for London. He and Aunt Beatrice decided our separation was for the best. Whenever I saw Walter, I was so upset when he left it took me weeks to recover. We both knew we’d go on looking for Mama until the day we died. I don’t consciously scour the streets and beaches. But somewhere, at the back of my mind, I’m always looking for my beautiful Mama’s face in the crowd, listening for her voice.”
“Why did Daddy stop painting portraits?”
“Walter said whenever he tried to paint someone’s face, the only one he could see was Mama looking back at him. After Lillian died, he decided that nudes were off his menu too… Landscapes were different. He could get lost in them. It helped to ease the pain.”
Eleanor says bitterly, “I hope meeting Mummy helped too!”
“I’m sure it did.” Felix turns to face her. “Anne was exactly what Walter needed. He came to see me that summer, told me he’d fallen in love again. That he wanted to marry and settle down, out of London and away from Cornwall. He said Anne was completely different to Mama, but she made no difference to his love for her.
“I understood and I was glad for him. Walter looked happier than I’d seen him since the day Mama vanished. I knew he’d begun a new life, that he’d pulled back from the brink of despair. I never wanted him to go there again.”
“How often did you see him?”
“Every year, just for a few days. He’d come to St Ives to check on The Hideaway. Sometimes I’d stay here with him. As I got older, it became easier. Walter and I would talk about Mama, reminisce without the tears. He told me a lot about you. When I went to art college, I’d show him my paintings. We’d discuss them, artist to artist. He was always so encouraging.”
“One final question: when did you last see Daddy?”
“In December. I had my first major exhibition at The Portman Gallery. Walter arrived for the opening. By that time, I was renting Driftwood. Walter bought one of my paintings. He wanted to take it back to Woodstock. Then he decided it would be impossible to explain to Anne who it was by and where he’d bought it. It’s hanging in my attic. You’re welcome to have it.
“After the opening, Walter and I ate supper together. We drank a glass of champagne to each other’s success.” Felix hesitates. “I’m glad about one thing, Eleanor. Walter and I, when we parted, were both fulfilled and contented. Neither of us knew it would be the last time we’d ever meet.” He gives Eleanor a wan smile. “We never had to say a last goodbye.”
***
Eleanor stands with Felix at the front door of The Hideaway.
“Tell me one more thing before you go.”
/> Felix turns to look at her, tiredness etched around his eyes and mouth.
“Why all the secrecy? Why in all those years together did Daddy never tell my mother about his past?”
“It’s a very good question.” Felix rubs a hand across his face, as if to soothe his weariness. “Walter and I were very close. I think I was the only person in his life who knew about most of his. But if I’m honest, I don’t think he told me everything either. Something dark and terrible happened between him and Mama. Walter felt guilty. Over and over again he’d say, ‘If only I could turn back the clock, wipe the slate clean.’ He never told Lillian about Mama. And after Lillian’s death, he became very superstitious. He said nobody would want him if they knew about Lillian and Moira. Years later, he told me he couldn’t tell Anne the truth because he’d left it too late.”
Felix runs his fingers through his hair. Standing there in the darkness, he looks thin, anxious, vulnerable. “The hideous irony is that sometimes the better you know someone, the harder it is to tell them the truth.”
After Felix has left, Eleanor climbs the stairs. She’s more aware than ever that the bedroom is the one her father had shared with Moira. And that night, she feels closer to him than she ever has before.
That night, her heart and mind are also filled with memories of somebody else: his slender fingers, his soft hair, his perceptive hazel eyes. The sound of Felix’s soft Cornish voice echoes in her ears.
Next morning at eleven o’clock Eleanor meets Felix outside James’s office. She has bathed in the old tin tub, washed her hair, put on her smartest skirt and jacket, applied a bright coral lipstick, and dusted the sand off her shoes.
The Choice Page 21