The Secrets of Castle Du Rêve

by Hannah Emery

  As soon as it arrived, the pain disappeared. Victoria straightened.

  ‘Do you want me to get Matron?’ Jackie asked, her eyes wide.

  ‘No. I’ll get her,’ Victoria said. She swung the door open, the smell of the stale hallway carpet hitting her as she moved slowly along the corridor towards Matron’s office. Another contraction, sharp as a knife. Another step. Victoria bit her lip. She needed to stay in control. She needed to act as if the pain was bearable. She needed to stay awake, to tell them that Harry would be coming for her, to watch out for him pull up to the entrance of Gaspings in his red Monza. He must be on his way, because her Queen Victoria postcard would surely have arrived with him by now. As she passed the wide front door, she glanced out towards the expansive driveway, willing him to appear. Another contraction came as she did so, and then another as soon as she had recovered. She banged on Matron’s door, a moan escaping her lips as she did.

  Don’t, she told herself, her body. Don’t lose control. But as the pain engulfed her, and her body began to squeeze with all its force, repelling and straining, her thoughts became fragmented. She saw Harry and the peach shawl she had knitted. She saw an ambulance with pleasant flashing lights. She felt a needle and a gentle pressure on her head, around her mouth. She felt something around her wrists, and the feeling twisted itself around the image of Bev’s raw wrists. Nurse Hammond hovered over her, her face long and calm above Victoria’s, her brown hair frizzing around her hat. She smelt a salty tang as the nurse opened her mouth to say something, saw something dark flicker in her nut-brown eyes.

  Hope, not despair, she was perhaps saying. Or perhaps she was telling Victoria to do something. She wanted to ask, but she didn’t know how. Talking seemed impossible and foreign.

  She heard screaming, although she didn’t know if it was her own or not. She heard men, lots of men, none of them Harry. She tried to flip over, flip like a fish away from the pain and voices and warm oozing of blood between her legs.

  And then she felt herself being lifted away to another world completely. She heard the voice of Nurse Hammond, and she felt the rush of air as the door swung open. She knew her baby had gone, that she wasn’t near her. She saw Harry’s face, and Henrietta’s face, a perfection that had been lost forever. She saw her curled words on the back of the sepia postcard, her final wish to Harry, and tried to say them out loud.

  I am frightened. Come to me. Be with me.

  She saw stars blinking in the distance and was tugged gently by the promise of dreams: of dancing and champagne and Harry in a world that glittered and shone with hope.

  Chapter 21

  Evelyn: 1965

  It was impossible to tell how long it was until Evelyn received the telephone call. Time often stilled or sped up these days. Evelyn was asleep and the ringing beat its way into her strange, hallucinatory dreams. She had been holding Victoria in her dreams, stroking her shining black hair, holding her hand, wiping fat tears from her daughter’s frightened face.

  Poor, poor darling, she’d been saying to Victoria. And then a ringing had begun, easy to ignore at first, but then louder and louder, pounding into the dream, into Evelyn’s head and pulling her from sleep.

  She knew, of course. A mother always knows when they have lost their child, whether they are with them or not.

  She sobbed on the telephone to Matron, who was cold and crisp as ice as she said the words that turned Evelyn’s blood from red to black, from warm to cold. Jack was at an auction in London until tomorrow. He didn’t need to know. Not yet. With pale, trembling fingers, Evelyn pulled some money from the safe and then walked in the stiff, mild air to the train station.

  When she arrived at Gaspings, she closed her eyes briefly and tried to feel Victoria’s presence. She tried to contact her daughter somehow. But there was nothing. Victoria’s soul had gone, flown from the creaking windows, far away into another world. The body Evelyn shuddered and wept over was just that: a body, with pale skin and an upturned nose with a scar across the bridge, and gleaming hair, black as a raven’s wing. The room smelt of metal and blood, not of her floral, alive Victoria.

  ‘Baby was lost too,’ Matron said briskly, as though that was that. A tall nurse handed Evelyn a box.

  ‘Were you kind to her?’ Evelyn asked the nurse, unable to hide the desperation in her words.

  The nurse nodded, tears in her eyes. ‘I collected those things together for you. The other girls here helped me. Victoria was very well-liked. She was special. I’m so very sorry we couldn’t save her.’

  Evelyn fingered through the contents of the box. A peach shawl, badly knitted. A book called The Blue Door. The emerald that Evelyn had pressed into Victoria’s cool fingers on the day that they had left her at Gaspings. A smooth red ribbon.

  Evelyn twisted her long fingers in and out of the peach shawl on the train home. Her eyes flickered shut, her mind hazy and confused, her limbs aching with grief and shock.

  Oh, my darling, she thought as the train puffed towards the coast. If only I could try it all again.

  Only one chance to get things right. It seemed so terribly unfair.

  She remembered when she had seen Victoria holding the mirror that had cost them both so much, her precious, pale fingers curled around the intricate handle.

  ‘Victoria!’ Evelyn had shouted that day, her own voice surprising her. Her words were never loud. In all Victoria’s sixteen years, Evelyn had never really needed to shout. But then, as she saw what was in Victoria’s hands, Evelyn felt as though all her breath had been forced out of her, all her blood drawn out from underneath her skin.

  That mirror.

  The shout was unexpected to Victoria too: so unexpected that she swivelled around in panic, almost dropping the mirror. It slipped slightly from her grasp and she tightened her grip around it, looking up at her mother determinedly, her jaw set firmly against whatever Evelyn was about to say.

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

  Evelyn had seen a flicker of hesitation dart across Victoria’s pretty, rounded face. But Evelyn didn’t need an answer anyway: she’d known that the mirror had been locked away in a trunk with other things that she couldn’t bear to see, and that Jack had probably dragged the trunk out from somewhere because it was in his way, or because he was planning to root through it greedily to find more stock that would make him rich. But just because the things she had tried to forget were locked away, it didn’t mean Evelyn never saw them. She saw them when she was sleeping, drifting across her mind like black clouds. She could not let them haunt her sweet Victoria’s dreams too.

  ‘I found it in the suitcase. I like it.’ Victoria said after a moment. But Evelyn hadn’t processed the words. She’d been moving towards Victoria, trying to peel her daughter’s pale fingers from the handle. The rough feel of the gems against her skin made her heart bang in her chest as she remembered her own mother’s words, words that Evelyn had dismissed as nonsense when she’d brought the mirror with her from the castle on her wedding day.

  This mirror is a legacy of the castle. If it leaves these walls, whoever has taken it will be cursed.

  It might still be nonsense, Evelyn had tried to reassure herself. But even if it was, the mirror had caused Evelyn pain that she didn’t want Victoria to ever feel. It made her remember who she used to be, the dreams she’d had and the nightmare that had instead been her life. She’d never lived in London; she’d never found her parents and she’d never escaped Jack. Victoria must have more than Evelyn had ended up with, and if there was any chance that the mirror might somehow ruin things for her, then Evelyn should take no chances.

  ‘You mustn’t play with that, darling. It’s not safe,’ Evelyn had said, but she’d seen that it was no use. Victoria’s eyes were somewhere else.

  ‘Victoria!’ Evelyn shouted again, desperately. ‘You cannot play with that mirror!’ The shout made something crumble inside Evelyn and weakness had pulled at her, dragging at her body and mind
. Her strength all used up, Evelyn put her hands to her face, the scent of the suitcase – of the mirror and the war and her mother and what could have been – all on her skin.

  ‘Just promise me you will put it away and leave it alone,’ she finished quietly, even though she knew that it was too late. She turned and found herself floating from the room, leaving Victoria behind with her bewitched eyes and her flushed cheeks.

  Too late, too late.

  Do something else. Do something more, whispered a voice inside Evelyn’s mind.

  But what else could have been done? What else, when Evelyn had been so terribly, terribly tired? She floated and floated, until the mirror was far away and she was back underneath her cool, smooth sheets.

  Now, on the train from Gaspings, she stopped thinking of the mirror and thought instead of when she had known that Victoria was going to end up in trouble, a day when a purple, angry storm lingered in the air and the flat above the shop smelt of oil and eggs. She knew that Victoria’s skirt wasn’t fastened properly at the back, that her blouse wasn’t quite straight, that her skin was still warm from being so close to Harry’s. But she didn’t know how to stop it or what to do. She remembered the pull of the new love that Victoria had found and the way she looked at Harry. She remembered the icy day when they’d dropped her off at Gaspings, the Matron’s displeasure at yet another unwed mother. She remembered the nurse who had put together the box of Victoria’s mismatched things and her sorry face lingered in Evelyn’s mind as the train hissed and juddered to a stop.

  Chapter 22

  Isobel: 2011

  Victoria,

  Why didn’t you just tell me? I knew, you know. When Harry came into Clover’s after you’d disappeared and asked if I was Sally, and then asked if my aunt was feeling better, I told him that I didn’t have an aunt, and thought he was mistaken. But because he left without even drinking his tea, looking all sad and confused, I just had a feeling. When the Blythe’s bakery boy came into the Clover’s for a jam tart and asked me where you had gone, and if you’d had your baby yet, everything was suddenly so obvious. I wish you’d told me. I would have helped you.

  Your mother wouldn’t tell me where you went when you disappeared, but she promised me you’d be back home around now, so I’m writing this letter in case you are home already. Anyone who asks, she said, will be told that you’ve been working for an old lady in Lancashire, and that she sadly died this week so your services aren’t needed any more. I can stick to a story. You know I can. A few people have already had their wrists slapped by me for trying to spread gossip about you. I gave the little bakery boy a good shove for telling tales. I haven’t uttered your secret to anybody, Victoria. Except, of course, for Harry, because really it’s his secret too. I thought it might be best if he laid low for a while, just in case your father found out that your baby was his.

  I asked Harry to leave me an address to pass onto you if he did leave, but oh, Victoria, he’s gone without telling me. I’m worried something has happened to him. I tried to stop the gossip from spreading, and I tried to make it seem like nothing ever happened with you and Harry. But I thought I’d warn you that he seems to have gone very suddenly. Maybe, when you return, he’ll come back. There was somebody beaten up at the castle the other night and left in an unbearable state. I haven’t prayed since I was five, but since I heard about that poor man I’ve prayed every second that it wasn’t your Harry.

  I’ve got so much I want to tell you and there is so much you need to tell me.

  Cut me a slice of cake, Victoria, and I’ll see you soon.

  Love, your best friend,

  Sally xxx

  ‘Why didn’t you want me to see what was on your screen?’ Tom asks as Isobel slams the lid of her laptop down. He has obviously been in the shower: his hair is sleek with water and he wears a towel around his waist.

  ‘I felt someone behind me. I didn’t know it was you. The house was silent, so I thought you’d gone to work. I didn’t want your mum to see what I was looking at.’

  Isobel opens the lid again, to reveal the website she’s looked at so many times since Beatrice was born.

  ‘Iris thinks I should make an appointment with the doctor.’

  Tom’s face falls as he reads the print on the screen: that blue, kind print that stains Isobel’s mind. ‘Post-natal depression? I thought you were starting to feel better?’

  ‘I was, a bit. But I don’t suppose it’s as simple as that.’

  Tom had suggested going to the doctors in the early days of Beatrice, and Isobel had considered it. But in the end she’d decided against it. Going to the doctor meant that you were ill, that you weren’t coping, that things were all going horribly wrong. That wasn’t what was happening with Isobel. She was just tired, and things had happened so quickly. That was all.

  ‘I should have gone to see the doctor when you said, right at the beginning.’

  Tom shrugs. ‘You weren’t comfortable with going then, which I totally understood. If you are now, then let’s make you an appointment. You deserve to be happy, Isobel. Let’s get this sorted.’

  Isobel stands and hugs him. He smells of male shower gel, a deep, citrusy, clean scent. His damp skin is soft and masculine all at the same time. He squeezes Isobel into him and she buries her head into his chest.

  ‘Iris told me that you spoke to her when Beatrice was first born,’ she says, her words smothered.

  ‘I did. We were a bit worried about you. I wanted to know how to cheer you up. Actually, I have something to admit.’

  Isobel pulls away so she can see Tom. ‘What?’ Panic roars through her until she sees the beginnings of a smile on his face.

  ‘Do you remember me saying that I was going to pick up some things at Lucas’s flat but then when we bumped into him yesterday he said he hadn’t seen me for ages? I realise it must have looked dodgy. But it was just a white lie to keep you off my scent. I didn’t go to Lucas’s, as you probably gathered, because you asked me about it, but I wasn’t quite ready to tell you then.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  Tom presses Isobel gently back down into her chair. ‘Wait here.’

  She sits, staring at the screen of the laptop, wondering what Tom is rummaging about upstairs for. She hears him open a cupboard and then swing the door shut again. She hears him come back downstairs and into the kitchen. He’s holding a square box wrapped in a carrier bag. Daphne has a drawer especially for carrier bags, mostly M&S and Waitrose. Tom takes the box from the creased green plastic and hands it to Isobel. It’s a blue, wooden box, hand-painted with white clouds.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Isobel says.

  ‘Open it.’

  As Isobel opens the lid, she feels a rush of strange familiarity. She has seen most of the things inside before. She lifts out her map of Vienna that was in the dream box she shared with Iris, her scrapbook of places to visit, a list of the best vintage fairs in the world in her own round handwriting.

  ‘I went to get your things from Iris’s that day and ask her what the dream box you had mentioned was all about. I wanted to do something that would make you feel a bit better.’

  ‘You’ve put new stuff in here, too.’ Isobel pulls out a printout of family-friendly restaurants in London and a box of Viennese whirls.

  ‘I thought I’d make you a new dream box. I’ve been adding things for the past few months. I put in the last couple of things this morning and I think now’s the time to give it to you.’

  Isobel leans forward and kisses Tom. She hasn’t kissed him properly in weeks, and now she can’t even think why not. Something stirs in her: longing and contentment all at the same time. When she sits back again, she tugs at the cardboard box of pastries and takes two out. She hands one to Tom and takes a bite of the other.

  She leans against the hard wood of the dining chair and the smooth pastry crumbles in her mouth, tasting of butter and sweetness. Isobel watches Tom as he chews and thinks of Iris’s words about how he really does l
ove her. But even now there are still flickers of doubt inside her. She wants to ask Tom why things still don’t add up. But an instant before the words leave her mouth, something clicks in her mind, a chance that Tom might be telling the only truth he knows, a hope that he’s not the one with all the answers.

  She closes her eyes and thinks of the opened envelope crammed into a drawer, of the stifling atmosphere of this house, heavy with secrets and lies and doubt.

  Daphne.

  Tom leaves for work ten minutes later, after sitting with Isobel as she phones Silenshore surgery and makes an appointment for the next day. He hugs her before he goes, but Isobel can see in his face that he is still wondering if she might swing back into a frenzied doubt about him.

  But Isobel stays quiet, as Tom unlocks the front door and lets himself out, as he saunters down the driveway, as she hears his footsteps fade into the distance. She stays quiet until the door opens again hours later and Daphne appears in the hallway with Hugh.

  ‘Daphne,’ says Isobel, her voice wavering from the start. She clears her throat. She doesn’t want to sound weak, or like someone on the verge of postnatal madness and horror.

  Daphne bends down to unclip Hugh’s lead and avoids Isobel’s gaze. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Daphne, I feel as though something is happening with Tom.’

  Daphne’s head shoots up and she drops the lead with a clatter on the wooden floor. ‘What do you mean? What’s happened?’

  Isobel swallows, her throat dry as paper. ‘I remember some of the things you said when Beatrice was born. I heard you on the phone the other day, too. I think there’s a secret about him. I wondered if you knew what it was. I don’t want to lose him.’

  ‘You don’t want to lose him?’ says Daphne. She is frozen, statuesque.

  ‘Yes. I’ve tried to ask him about the things I’ve heard and seen that don’t quite add up, but I can’t get much out of him. So I thought I’d ask you. I don’t want to go digging in your lives, Daphne, but I love Tom, and he’s Beatrice’s father. So if there’s something I should know about, then please, please just tell me.’