The Secrets of Castle Du Rêve

by Hannah Emery

  ‘I know. I owe the castle a lot. Like I said when we first talked at the school fair, something has always pulled me to it, although I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was.’

  ‘I like to think it’s because you somehow knew I was there. That’s why you felt you wanted to go through the gates,’ Isobel blurts out, then laughs at her own openness.

  ‘You’re probably right. At least that’s one mystery solved.’ Tom says, reaching out for Isobel’s hand across the plates and lacing his fingers through hers.

  Chapter 4

  Victoria: 1964

  Victoria would never have even met Harry if it weren’t for the rain.

  He didn’t have any interest in antiques, she realised later, and he certainly didn’t need to buy any that afternoon. He only ducked into Lace Antiques because of the fat drops of salty rain that began to drum down on him without any kind of forewarning.

  Victoria was sitting behind the counter, staring into a mirror that she’d found that morning. Her father always told her not to touch his things, that he’d box her ears if he found out that she’d been rooting and touching potential money-makers. But the morning had been so very long, and the customers who had come into the shop had been frustratingly indifferent to what was out on display. So Victoria had decided to move some of the objects around a little, and then, before she knew it, she was on her hands and knees in the corner, where some stock she’d never seen before was tossed into an old brown suitcase.

  Once she had fiddled with the brittle clasp on the case and opened it up, Victoria had found a strange old doll with shimmering black hair and a cracked red smile. There were some discoloured white beads too, which Victoria hung around her neck, the thick, salty fragrance of the case clinging to them and permeating her dress. It was no wonder these things weren’t on the shelves. She leant further into the case, almost pulled in by its intoxicating scent. Something silver glinted in the corner and she reached for it.

  You’re like a magpie, her mother had said once, a long time ago. All that glitters is not gold, darling. You’ll end in trouble if you go for everything that sparkles.

  As Victoria tugged the cool, metallic object out of the cavernous case, she saw that it was a beautiful hand mirror, its back encrusted with deep-blue sapphires. She sat back on her heels and turned the mirror over in her hands to see her reflection, then over again to see the glittering dark case, then over again to stare at herself: her pale skin, opaque with youth, her black hair and heavy fringe that sat above her eyes like the brim of a hat.

  It was moments after Victoria stared at her unblinking reflection, as a thunder cloud trawled through the sky like a pirate ship, that the shop door swung open, and Victoria fell in love.

  Frederick, the shop cat, showed an instant affinity to the man at the door, purring and wheedling around his legs. Victoria, gazing down at Frederick in a moment of panic that he would cover the man’s trousers in unappealing grey cat fuzz, noticed that the man was wearing beautiful brown suede shoes, which the rain had threatened to ruin.

  You can tell everything about a man by his shoes, Victoria had heard somebody say once, though she couldn’t remember who. Everything.

  Victoria looked at the shoes and tried to work out the Everything that had been promised. But when all she could see was the tightly wound laces, the faint pattern of rain on the sides of the shoe, the water that was seeping up from the heel, she moved her gaze upwards, where it was drawn, all at once, to the man’s exquisite face.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, moving forwards and scooping Frederick up in her arms.

  ‘I was just wanting a little shelter, I’m afraid. I wasn’t expecting such an onslaught of rain.’

  An onslaught. What a wonderful expression to use.

  Frederick yowled and attempted to wriggle from Victoria’s grasp. Not wanting to seem intimidated by a small grey cat, she grasped him with all her might. But Frederick, his sights set firmly on freedom, unleashed his claws as he scrambled out of her arms and over her shoulder. She yelped as his claw ripped through her yellow dress and into her white, soft skin beneath.

  The man took a step forward immediately, his face all the more attractive for its air of perfect concern.

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.

  Victoria sniffed. ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ she said, only just managing to ignore the bolt of pain that was coursing through her. ‘It’ll soon stop.’

  The man pulled out the chair from behind the counter. ‘Here. At least have a little sit down.’

  Victoria smiled as she took the offered seat. ‘Are you really sure there’s nothing you need to buy?’

  The man shook his head. ‘I feel quite guilty now, coming in here and upsetting your day. I have an important meeting today, and I didn’t want to arrive looking like something washed ashore, so I thought I would just nip in here to stay dry.’

  ‘Where do you work?’

  ‘I’m a lecturer of English Literature at the University. We have an author coming in later to discuss some talks we want him to give to some of our prospective students. I admire him, so I wanted to make a good impression.’

  ‘Who’s the author?’

  ‘It’s Robert Bell. Do you know him?’

  Victoria stood up, forgetting her wounded shoulder and her weakness from moments before. ‘Robert Bell! He’s one of my favourites!’

  ‘You read Robert Bell books? Well, you really aren’t what you seem, are you?’

  Victoria grinned. ‘I like mysteries. I read them all the time.’ She rushed over to the counter and retrieved a tattered copy of The Blue Door from its place underneath a pile of receipts.

  The man grinned: a wide, wonderful grin that showed off a broad set of teeth, his left canine slightly crooked, the rest in perfect white rows. ‘You know, I don’t think there’d be a problem with you coming along to one of the talks if you wanted to. I think you’d enjoy it. I could arrange for you to attend as a visitor, if you’d like?’

  ‘I’d love to!’ Victoria said, wondering if she would sit with the man, wondering if he might offer to take her for a cup of tea afterwards, wondering if her father would let her say yes if he did. He wouldn’t, she knew it. She would have to keep it to herself, somehow.

  ‘Well, as soon as the talks are arranged, I’ll come back here and tell you when they’ll be.’

  Victoria nodded, knowing that her life as she knew it was gone, and in its place was one where all she thought of, dreamt of, was this man who stood before her with his white teeth and his rained-on suede brown shoes.

  ‘Forgive me,’ the man said, holding out his hand and offering to shake Victoria’s. His hand was firm, strong, warm around hers. She wanted to hold it forever. ‘I didn’t tell you my name. It’s Harry.’

  ‘I’m Victoria.’

  ‘Ah. Like the Queen,’ Harry smiled.

  Victoria smiled back. ‘Yes. Just like the Queen,’ she said, pleased with her tone of voice and aware, somehow, that it was a different tone to any she had ever used before.

  ‘Well,’ Harry said after a few seconds, ‘I’d best be going. But it really has been excellent to meet you.’ He looked up out of the front window of the shop. Through the clocks, the candelabras, the stacked picture frames, the glass case of twinkling brooches, the sun could be seen glowing through the clouds. ‘It’s dried up as quickly as it arrived,’ he added.

  Victoria, suddenly remembering her injured shoulder again, touched it and winced. Harry winced with her.

  ‘Get that seen to,’ he said kindly as he opened the door. The hum of the crowds on the promenade beyond, the shouts of excited children on their holidays, the screams of seagulls merged with the monotonous ticking of clocks in the shop for a moment.

  Then the door swung shut and he was gone.

  Lace Antiques was a small, narrow shop with a sloping floor and walls that were crawling with paintings, clocks and bowed shelves. A fine layer of velvet dust lay over the top of almost everything in the shop.
Victoria didn’t like cleaning, her father was too busy at auctions to clean, and her mother was always too tired to clean. And so the layer of dust remained.

  Behind the counter, which was piled high with yellowed pamphlets about Silenshore, more clocks (really, it sometimes seemed as if clocks were all Victoria’s father bought) and a small cracked bowl of garnets that her mother placed there to bring the business success, was a white door. The white door led to the stairs up to Victoria’s parents’ flat, which, like the shop, was veiled in dust, tangled belongings and a brooding quiet that threatened to build into a sudden storm at any minute.

  It was an hour after Harry left the shop, leaving a chest-tightening scent of cigarettes and rain behind him, that Victoria heard the white door behind her edge open. It wouldn’t be her father behind the door because he was at an auction, probably bidding for some useless clock at that very moment. That left only her mother.

  Victoria didn’t turn around, but continued staring in the mirror she had found before Harry arrived. She was trying to work out what he might have seen when he looked at her. How strange that the image seen through Harry’s eyes could have been so very different to what Victoria saw in the mirror before her. She wondered if he’d seen the faint scar on the bridge of her nose from when she’d tumbled downstairs as a baby, or the way her black hair flicked up ever so slightly on the left side of her temple, or the green flecks in her bright-blue eyes. She wondered if he had thought she was beautiful. The way he’d looked at her when he was in the shop made her sure that he did. But now that he’d gone, that certainty had vanished with him.

  Victoria raised an eyebrow and inspected the impact the movement had on her features. If she saw Harry again, she would remember to raise an eyebrow. It looked quite good.

  ‘Victoria!’

  The shout was unexpected, so unexpected that Victoria swivelled around in panic, almost dropping the mirror. It slipped slightly from her grasp and the jagged sapphires on the back scraped across her fingers. She tightened her grip around it and looked up at her mother, who was staring at Victoria in horror.

  ‘What are you doing with that mirror? Where did you get it from?’

  Victoria hesitated. She’d had the story all planned for her father. A customer opened the case and got the mirror out. I was just about to put it back. But her mother was different. She hadn’t expected her mother to even come into the shop, and she certainly hadn’t thought her mother would notice the mirror, because her mother never really noticed anything.

  ‘I found it in the suitcase. I like it.’ Victoria said.

  But her mother wasn’t listening. She was trying to take the mirror, trying to unpeel Victoria’s fingers from its rough, glittering handle.

  ‘You mustn’t play with that, darling. It’s not safe.’

  Victoria thought of Harry, remembered how she could somehow smell his skin, remembered the way he shook her hand. He did think she was beautiful, she was suddenly sure of it again. And the mirror, the whole morning, was now a part of Victoria’s time with Harry. She didn’t want it to end, any of it. She didn’t want it snatched from her hands, treated like a childish game and nothing more. She wasn’t a child: she was sixteen, and if she was going to be trapped in this shop all day every day for the rest of her life then she should be able to touch whatever she wanted to.

  ‘Victoria!’ her mother shouted again, giving up on wrestling with Victoria’s tight grasp. ‘You cannot play with that mirror!’ Her hands crept up to her face, and Victoria watched as her mother suddenly seemed to wilt. The fight in her had gone as suddenly as it had arrived. ‘Just promise me you will put it away and leave it alone,’ she finished quietly. She turned and disappeared behind the white door again, as smoothly as a ghost, leaving the mirror behind.

  Sleep was out of reach for Victoria that night. Her mind was bright with the image of Harry, and she tossed from one position to the next, wondering when he might return to the shop. She replayed their conversation over and over again in her mind until the black night had turned into a blue dawn. He hadn’t said he would be back the next day, or even soon. It all depended on Robert Bell, the author, and when he arranged to give the talks that Harry would invite Victoria to.

  Robert Bell, thought Victoria as she heard the clatter of the milkman’s bottles break through the silent morning, please, please arrange to do your talks soon.

  And as the milkman clinked his way down the winding hill of Silenshore, and the birds began to sing, and the blue dawn turned into a pale-yellow morning, Victoria finally fell asleep.

  Since they had left school last month, Sally Winters had come into the antique shop every Tuesday to see Victoria. Sally worked at Clover’s Tea Rooms at the other end of Silenshore, near the promenade, and Tuesday was her day off. Normally, when the door swung open with Sally’s rather forceful push, Victoria would do a quick mental run-through of all the things she wanted to talk to Sally about, all the things she wanted to ask Sally about the week that had just passed. But this Tuesday, the day after Harry, Victoria yelped and jumped up as soon as she saw Sally through the glass, scurrying over to the door and ushering her in.

  Sally’s silver-blue eyes widened in wonder at the tale of Harry. She sighed when Victoria had finished talking, her slim face drawn down in disappointment that she wasn’t at the centre of this thrilling new romance.

  ‘Is he handsome?’ she asked without waiting for a response. ‘I wish I could meet someone handsome. I hate working at Clover’s. Do you think Harry has any nice friends who would like to meet me?’

  ‘I’ll ask him,’ Victoria said. She turned to the mirror, which she had brought downstairs with her when she had opened up the shop. ‘Do you think,’ she said quickly, ‘that I should start wearing my hair up more often? Do you think it makes me look older?’ Victoria tore off her red headband and gathered her black hair in her hands.

  ‘A little, perhaps.’ Sally frowned. ‘How old is Harry?’

  Victoria shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, exactly. In his twenties, I think.’

  ‘Twenties? Wow, Victoria. I bet he’s nothing like the boys from school.’

  Victoria grinned. ‘You’re right. He’s nothing like them at all. I have a special feeling about him. I feel so excited all of the time.’ She poured two cups of tea from the teapot that she’d also brought downstairs. Every Tuesday when she visited Lace Antiques, Sally always stayed for a cup of tea served in one of the beautifully fragile china cups that had been collected by the shop over the years. Victoria had bought an orange sponge cake from Blythe’s Bakery across the road yesterday and had already sliced a piece each for Sally and herself.

  They sat chatting about Harry for a while, the cake and cups between them on the counter, the sweet tang of orange in the air, until Sally stood up from her stool and brushed down her striped dress, yawning as though everything was a terrible bore. ‘I suppose I’d better be going. Mum’s given me so many jobs to do at home that Tuesday rarely feels like a day off lately.’

  When she’d waved Sally off down the street, Victoria poured herself another cup of tea. She had chosen the blue cup, the one with the very fine crack around the base, finer than a hair. Using the blue cup took a certain amount of bravery; it could split and break at any moment. But today felt like a day where it wouldn’t split. And feelings were everything. Whenever Victoria felt something, it was usually right. And that is why, when Harry didn’t come through the door of Lace Antiques that day, or the next day, or the day after that, Victoria couldn’t quite believe it.

  Surely the Robert Bell talks have been arranged by now, Victoria thought on Friday. Her mother had been in bed all week, and her father rarely bothered to work in the shop, so Victoria had spent three days waiting for the door to open and Harry to saunter in. She couldn’t remember if he was the sauntering kind, but she thought that he might be.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked Frederick the cat. ‘Do you think he’ll ever return here?’

  Frederick glanced a
t her regally, then began licking his pristine grey coat. Victoria touched her shoulder where Frederick’s claws had dug into her when Harry had been there. The mark had gone, she had seen that morning as she had dressed; the final speck of dried blood had been brushed away to reveal brand-new skin. It was, quite simply, as though nothing had ever happened.

  Suddenly alive with frustration, Victoria took one final look at the unmoving front door, burst out of the back of the shop and flew up the narrow stairs and along the landing to her mother’s bedroom. She swung the door open, stagnant air rushing from the room in a bid to escape.

  ‘Are you getting up today, Mum? I need to leave the shop. I need to go out somewhere.’

  There was a murmur from the bed, from beneath the mound of knotted blankets and pillows.

  ‘Mum?’

  It was quite normal for Victoria’s mother to spend days, sometimes weeks, in bed. Mrs Lace did not live, she slept. Sometimes, she would get dressed and float down to the shop, stinking of perfume, long strings of pearls rattling around her slender neck. But then Victoria’s father would storm home and shout something, or worse, smoulder silently and then push past them both. Silence meant the worst, because silence was normally followed by a storm. Storms were followed by the pearls being hung up in an upstairs cupboard, the perfume fading, and Victoria’s mother returning to her bed for a week or so.

  ‘I heard you, darling. I’ll be down later, perhaps.’

  Victoria stood in the doorway of the bedroom. The air was heavy with sleep, with heavy breaths and dreams and sweat. Her mother’s bony body was motionless in the middle of the bed somewhere. Victoria gazed at the dressing table to her right, from which makeup and jewellery spilled. She wandered over and touched a lipstick. Her mother still did not move. Victoria picked the lipstick up, twisting the base to reveal a shock of pointed red wax. She stared at the lipstick for a moment before twisting it back down and replacing the lid with a quiet click. Clutching it, she turned around.