by Lulu Taylor
‘I’ve never hurt you!’ Catherine said, her eyes frightened. ‘I would never do such a thing.’
‘But you did hurt me,’ Ralph said. ‘Can’t you see it? You’ve been killing me.’
‘I wish you would stop saying that!’ she shouted, fury crossing her face. ‘Killing you! I would never do it!’
‘Catherine.’ Ralph’s eyes searched her face with something like pity in them. ‘I’ve had to time to think, time to work it all out. I saw you once, back at home. You were mixing your potions and medicines on my old palettes. That’s what you used, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. But I cleaned them, of course.’
‘Not well enough. You must have picked up flakes of my paint and mixed them into the tablets or injected them into me.’
Catherine stared at him in horror, unable to speak.
‘That’s why I’m ill so often. The fatigue, the nausea, the things that you like to call my heart problem. My hearing is failing along with my eyes. That’s why there’s no colour to me. I’m as white as the white lead paint you’ve been feeding me. You’ve already killed me.’
Cressie gasped. Catherine’s hand went to her throat and clutched it. ‘What?’ she cried out wildly.
‘Yes, it’s true,’ Ralph said. ‘You know it is.’ He gave a wan smile. ‘We always knew that white lead is deadly, didn’t we? That’s why I never let you touch it. I’m dying of it. Can’t you see?’ Cressie stared in horror but Ralph’s eyes were fixed on his sister. ‘That’s why you have to let me go.’
The expression on Catherine’s face was awful to witness. There was a moment of horrified stillness, and then she ran out of the room, pushing past Cressie and across the landing into the studio. She slammed the door shut and there was the sound of heavy scraping.
‘What’s she doing?’ Cressie asked, bewildered, looking across at the shut door. ‘It sounds like she’s barricading herself in with the sofa.’ She turned to look at Ralph, who sighed heavily. He looked utterly drained, as though the effort of talking had removed the last of his strength. She dropped the warming pan and rushed over to him. ‘Oh Ralph.’ She hugged him, dropping kisses on his face.
‘Cressie.’ He smiled at her. His hands clasped hers. ‘I’m so happy to see you.’
‘You’ll feel better tomorrow,’ Cressie said, ‘when whatever she’s given you has gone out of your system.’ She gazed at him anxiously. ‘But my darling, is it true what you said, about the lead paint?’
Ralph looked at her, his eyes sad. ‘I fear so. I’ve wondered for a while if I’d somehow been poisoned by it but I was so careful. I had no idea how I might be ingesting it. Then I thought of how much better I’ve felt since I’ve been here and that’s when I remembered seeing Catherine making her remedies on my palette.’
Cressie tried to stifle her fear. ‘We’ll get you the best doctors,’ she said fervently. ‘The best treatments. We’ll make you better.’
He smiled. ‘Yes. I’m always better when you’re here.’
‘You’re not really dying, are you? You only said that to frighten her, didn’t you?’
‘I’m not really dying. I’m sure I’ll get better.’ He sighed, then smiled. ‘We can be together properly now. I meant what I said.’
From behind the door of the studio there was no sound. Cressie went to the bedroom door and locked it, then returned to the bed and curled up next to Ralph.
‘We’ll have to wait it out,’ she said. She had so many questions for him but she knew he was too drained to answer them. ‘Do you think she’ll go in the morning?’
‘I hope so,’ he said sadly. ‘I hope that at last she knows that the lies are over with. I didn’t want to hurt her but in the end I knew I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t.’
She kissed his cool cheek. He was, she thought, as white as he had said: like white lead paint, the same colour that had made her own portrait luminous with life and yet was, at the same time, deadly. The atmosphere outside the house felt suddenly heavy.
‘I think the snow is coming,’ she whispered.
She curled against him and they fell asleep, the house filled with an eerie silence.
PART THREE
Chapter Twenty-Five
Once the children had been given their lunch and Joe put down for his afternoon nap, Emily could begin to concentrate properly on what Cameron Baxter had to say to her.
‘This is very, very odd,’ she said, picking at Carrie’s half-finished ham sandwich. She’d made Cameron his own sandwich and he’d eaten that and was finishing up their cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks with hummus too. ‘So let me get this straight. You’re on the trail of my aunt Cressida.’
‘That’s right. Because of my dad.’
Emily nodded. She’d taken in that part of the story. Cameron’s father had been at school in London in the early sixties before his family had emigrated to Australia and he had been taught there by Cressida.
‘Okay. I didn’t know she was a teacher – but then I don’t know much about her at all,’ Emily said. ‘So he met her in London, you say? Not in Australia?’
‘Oh no, absolutely not,’ Cameron said firmly. ‘It was definitely London. My dad was born in the East End, you see. Post-war London, pretty grim, not many opportunities for kids like him. But your aunt was this incredible influence on him – gave him private lessons and everything. And when she heard he was going to Australia, she even gave him a box of books as a going-away present. Man, he really treasured those books! He’s still got them on his shelves.’
‘Is that why he wants to track her down after all these years?’ Emily asked.
‘Yeah. Well, I told him I was coming on a trip to England and he asked me if I would try and find her. He’s always wondered what happened to her, and when he attempted to find out himself, he drew a blank. He gave me the address of this place but when I looked it up online, there wasn’t a Fellbridge registered here. I guessed it must have been sold or something.’
‘It was, but it was sold ages ago. About fifty years ago. There hasn’t been a Fellbridge here since then.’ Emily frowned, puzzled. ‘Besides, I’m surprised that your father didn’t meet up with Cressida in Australia.’
Cameron laughed. He had a merry face and his teeth looked very white against his tan. ‘Yeah, well, Australia’s quite a long way to go for a reunion.’
‘No . . . I mean, why didn’t you track her down there? She’s lived in Australia for years.’
A look of surprise crossed Cameron’s face. ‘What?’
‘Yes.’ Emily nodded. ‘She went out there in the sixties herself. Maybe your father gave her the idea. She’s lived there ever since. Of course, she might be dead by now. For some reason, she lost contact with the family. I must try and get in touch with my uncle Harry and ask him about her.’ Thoughts of her mysterious aunt had been floating into her consciousness more and more. As Emily connected ever more strongly to the countryside and the house, she had begun to wonder more about her family and what had brought her to this beautiful place.
‘Nah.’ Cameron popped another cherry tomato in his mouth and shook his head firmly. ‘Definitely not.’
‘What?’
‘She wasn’t in Australia. No way. Because Dad wrote to her here. She gave him the address and he wrote to her for years. And she replied.’
‘What?’ Emily frowned again. ‘That’s impossible. Are you saying that she wrote letters from here all through the sixties?’
‘Yep. You got it.’
‘But she couldn’t have. She sold the house to Catherine and Ralph Few in the early sixties. I think the legal papers said 1963. I’ve got them somewhere, in the batch of stuff the lawyers gave me. So she couldn’t have written to your dad from here, because by then she’d left.’
Cameron fixed her with a firm blue look. ‘Well, we’re going to have to part ways there, because I know she did live here. I saw the letters myself. Dated right up to the end of the decade and posted from here. There’s definitely no mistake.’
Cameron stayed into the afternoon and they talked over the mystery the entire time, trying to work out how their differing versions of what had happened to Cressida Fellbridge could be reconciled.
‘I’m not sure how we would find out what we want to know,’ Emily said, as they were out walking with the children, the fresh spring air buffeting them as they went. ‘I suppose online searches are the way to go.’
‘Doesn’t anyone in your family know?’ Cameron asked. ‘Surely you know what happened to your own aunt?’
Emily gave him a bashful look. ‘I’m afraid we aren’t a very close family. My father never talked much about his sister. I just got the impression that there had been some kind of separation. My parents are dead, so I can’t ask them now. The only one’s who’s left is my uncle Harry but he’s in Spain. I last saw him at my parents’ funeral. That was a long time ago, just before I met Will, my husband. Harry still sends me a cheque for ten pounds every Christmas and I send him a card too, but we don’t talk.’
‘Families, eh?’ Cameron said with a grin. ‘Overrated, so they say. Why don’t you give this uncle of yours a ring and see what he says? He might know something.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Emily said, cheered. ‘You’re right. I’ll do that. What about you? Are you heading off now?’
‘I didn’t fancy going anywhere today after the time it took to get here,’ Cameron said, ‘so I booked into the local pub for the night. Thought I’d just see how it goes. I’m footloose at the moment, going where I feel like. It’s my last few days before I fly back to Oz.’
‘Why don’t you stay for dinner tonight?’ Emily offered. And you can be there when I call Uncle Harry.’
‘Great idea, and very kind of you too,’ Cameron said, grinning. ‘Dad’ll be pleased to know that I’ve come close to finding your aunt. He’s always had a sentimental attachment to her. Always wondered what happened to her.’ Cameron winked. ‘Personally I think he had a little crush on her.’
‘I’m sure we’ll find out,’ Emily said. Privately she suspected that Catherine Few had written the letters to Cameron’s father, not wanting to let a young boy down. What other explanation could there be? But they would find out what Harry had to say first.
After the children were in bed, Emily dug out her address book and settled down with the phone. Cameron sat across from her on the sofa in the sitting room, munching on a packet of the children’s crisps. ‘These taste like sawdust,’ he said, making a face. He examined the packet. ‘Organic, all natural, salt and sugar free. That explains it.’ Watching Emily flick through the pages of her address book, he said, ‘How exactly did you get this house then?’
Emily told him quickly about Catherine Few and the bequest.
‘Cressida’s dead then,’ Cameron said flatly, and then looked apologetic, adding quickly, ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean for it to come out like that, I know she’s your aunt. But she must be dead otherwise this Catherine person would have returned the house to your aunt, right?’
‘Or she just assumed Cressida was dead.’
‘She knew enough to know about you. So why not say in her will, “I return this house to Cressida or, if she’s dead, then to her niece Emily”. But she didn’t do that. There’s no assumption that Cressida’s alive, so I reckon she knew Cressida was dead.’
‘How would she know that?’ Emily asked, puzzled. ‘Not even her family know.’
Cameron nodded at the phone in Emily’s hand. ‘So call your uncle. Let’s see what he has to say.’
It was strange tapping in the number from the old entry in her address book and waiting for it to ring. When she heard the beep at the other end to indicate it was ringing, it struck her how easy it was to phone someone and how, really, there was no excuse not to do so. It was dreadful that she had never contacted her uncle in all this time. She thought of Diana too, and the way she told herself that she was too busy to ring her, when the truth was that—
‘Hello, Harold Fellbridge speaking.’ The voice was elderly but crisp and with the patrician tones of a well-brought-up Englishman. It sounded very like her father’s and Emily was surprised by the rush of affection that surged through her.
‘Uncle Harry? It’s Emily. How are you?’ She smiled down the phone, imagining his surprise.
‘Well, well! Emily. How lovely to hear from you. How on earth are you?’
‘I’m . . . fine . . .’ It seemed too much to launch into the story of what had happened lately, especially with Cameron there, so instead she said, ‘Guess where I’m calling you from . . . December House!’
There was such a long pause that she wondered if he’d gone and then he spoke, his voice cracked with emotion. ‘December House . . . our old place in Cumbria? But Emily, how . . . what are you doing there? Have you rented it or something?’
‘No. I live here now. I was left it by a lady called Catherine Few. She said she was sold the house by Aunt Cressida in the sixties.’
There was another pause while he absorbed this, then he spoke again. ‘That’s right.’ Harry’s voice came heavy down the line. ‘I remember it very well. It wasn’t long after our mother died. It was all very sudden. Cressida had been away at the house and one day she pitched up and told us she was leaving England and going to live in Australia.’
‘Just like that? With no warning?’
‘That’s right. She was quite a stubborn character in her way, and very keen on women’s rights and what have you. It didn’t sit well with our father. He was rather an old autocrat, it must be said. He wanted nothing more than to make her stay and keep house for him after our mother died. Cressie wasn’t going to have that. I sympathised with her. He bullied her almost as badly as he did our poor mother. I couldn’t blame her, though I was naturally sad to see her go. We got some letters from her at the start of it all, telling us about life in Australia. And then . . . well, we lost touch with her. No address for her. The last contact we had was when the old man died and we sent notice of her inheritance through the lawyers. She claimed that, I believe.’
Emily frowned as she listened. ‘I see . . . So Cressida told you that she’d sold the house to Catherine Few and that she was going off to Australia. Just like that. And then you never saw her again.’
‘That’s about the size of it, Emily. It was very sad. Much later, when your poor parents died, I tried to track Cressida down in Australia. I should have done it years before. I had no luck at all. There was a record of her arrival, and after that, nothing at all. I simply couldn’t find her. No house purchases, no medical records, no nothing. I managed to find the law firm that had handled her inheritance and the office said the records showed she had come into his office with her proofs of identity – a birth certificate and a passport – in order to claim it and that she had had a bank account for the money to be paid into but there was no more than that.’
‘So you never found her?’ Emily said quietly.
‘No. I supposed that she must have married and changed her name. We have no hope of finding her – if she’s still alive.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Well, well. So you’re in December House. How things do come around in a curious way. Tell me, what’s the old place like? Are the Pendletons still in the farmhouse?’
She talked to him for a while, conscious of Cameron sitting impatiently opposite her, and then promised to be in touch again soon. ‘You must visit us,’ she said, thinking how much she would like that.
‘That sounds a splendid idea. Listen, I’ve had a thought. I’m going to send you something. A surprise. You’ll know when it arrives that it’s from me. I don’t know how long the Spanish post will take. But you’ll know it when you see it.’
When Cameron heard what Emily had learned, he sighed. ‘Well, that’s not much help.’
‘It is a bit. Because it places Cressida in Australia about a year after she sold this house. So she can’t have been answering the letters your father sent – not from here, anyway.’
Cameron frowned. ‘Yeah
, I see that. But it still confuses me. Because those letters look bona, they really do.’ He stared over at her, a serious expression on his face. ‘When I left home, I thought I was going to meet some sweet old lady with a few memories of my dad. But I’m really puzzled now. This is a mystery and I don’t like unanswered questions.’
Emily smiled at him. ‘Nor do I.’
Cameron said, ‘When I get back, I’ll work at it from my end. I must be able to find out a bit more about Cressida if she was ever actually in Australia. We can keep in touch. Meanwhile, you find out about this Catherine Few woman.’
‘My theory is that she’s the one who answered the letters from your father, pretending to be Cressida,’ Emily said with an apologetic look. ‘It’s probably something as mundane as that.’
Cameron thought for a moment and then shook his head. ‘Nah. I don’t know why but I don’t believe that. Sorry, but there is definitely more to all this than that.’
After Cameron left, Emily went upstairs and lay in bed with a book but she couldn’t read with her thoughts in a whirl. These two women – Catherine Few and Cressida Fellbridge – were intimately tied up in her own world, much more than she’d ever realised. Her aunt had only ever been a shadowy figure to her before now, a woman whose name she knew but whose existence meant nothing at all. Now she had a sense of Cressida as a real person, a girl who’d been bullied, who needed her freedom so much she was prepared to go to the other side of the world to find it.
A bit like me coming here. Getting away from my old life. She thought about Uncle Harry and seeing him at her parents’ funeral. Everything had been so terrible then. So uncertain, so miserable. Tom had started smoking weed then, and had drunk too much for a while. But she’d been lucky; she’d met Will, a man who seemed to be the answer to all the insecurities of life. He’d known what he wanted and how to get it. He’d offered Emily love and security, as long as she did things his way. I can’t think about that. The bitter taste of her guilt came to her mouth and she pushed the picture of Will right out of her head, and stared at Catherine Few’s snow painting instead.