The Winter Folly

by Taylor, Lulu

  Chapter Twelve

  Present day

  London was a shock after so long at Fort Stirling. Delilah was overwhelmed by the city with all its people and the way they seemed to crowd in on each other and on her.

  This used to be my life, she reminded herself. I used to travel every day pressed up against strangers and not think anything of it.

  She remembered her morning commutes, the takeaway coffees, the dash into work with all the thousands of others, the crowded cafes and busy parks, the bars thronged with people in the evening, and then getting the train home late to her tiny flat.

  The country had re-sensitised her to the city: its size, density and frantic pace. It was half terrifying and half exciting; being here felt like being a part of things again. But it was so hot and dusty that she couldn’t help thinking of the cool parkland and delicious gardens of home.

  I’ll be back there soon enough, she told herself. Now that she was away from the house, she felt an odd mixture of relief to be free of it and a yearning to be back. What a strange place it was – it seemed to hold the promise of heaven and hell simultaneously. Most of all, she wished she and John had been able to make up after that silly bad feeling about the folly. If he’d come to London with her, they might have been able to recapture some of the bliss they’d shared before they married. But she knew he wouldn’t have agreed to it. Not with the way things were now.

  ‘Ah, hello, darling.’ Grey kissed her on both cheeks, his neat little beard scratchy on her face. ‘Gorgeous to see you. I’m surprised you could bear to leave that beautiful castle of yours. Or did the plumbing finally defeat you?’

  ‘Hello,’ Delilah said, kissing him back with a smile. The room was humming already, full of people holding drinks and talking while discreetly watching the new arrivals. She’d felt daunted as she came in – it had been so long since she’d been among the fashion crowd – but she’d spotted Grey in his tangerine shantung suit at once, and made for him. ‘Actually, I couldn’t wait to come. It was very nice of Susie to invite me.’

  ‘She’s a sweetheart, isn’t she? She’s over there, holding court. I can’t believe how wonderful this exhibition is. It’s the couture collection of some crazy society woman with more money than anyone needs. It’s going to be sold for charity after it’s been displayed. Susie’s curating it, and then selling it at her auction house, the cunning little vixen. You must see some of the incredible Dior. But it’s the early Alexander McQueen I love.’ He looked her up and down. ‘You look very nice. Lovely to see you glammed up instead of doing your country mouse routine. How’s life?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ She smiled but Grey gave her a knowing look. ‘You know . . . surviving.’

  ‘That bad, eh? You’d better tell me about it later when we have some dinner.’ He put a comforting hand on her arm. ‘Fun first, all right?’

  Delilah nodded. ‘Fun first. I could do with some.’

  It was a taste of her old life: a smart gathering full of well-known faces – actors, models, journalists and designers – with press photographers and gossip columnists prowling among them. Waiters offered them pomegranate and ginger martinis to sip as they made their way round the exhibits, strolling between the glass cases with their faceless mannequins dressed in exquisite clothes.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Delilah said excitedly, ‘look at that original St Laurent Le Smoking jacket. How amazing! It’s beautiful.’

  ‘But that incredible Lacroix . . .’

  ‘Oh, that collection of Chanel – I want all of it!’

  ‘Go to Susie’s auction and buy it, of course. Perhaps she’ll give you a little discount as it’s you.’ Grey glanced over her shoulder. ‘And here’s the woman herself.’

  Susie came up, beautifully dressed in designer clothes and with glossy blonde hair, and hugged Delilah with a cry of excitement. ‘Angel! It’s been too long! You vanished to the country and not so much as a wedding jig did I dance.’

  ‘I know.’ Delilah felt a little sheepish. ‘It was all rather whirlwind and exciting.’

  ‘Is it utter, utter, utter bliss?’

  Delilah paused for a moment and then said, ‘Completely.’ It was what people wanted to hear after all.

  ‘I’m so happy for you, darling, we all are.’ Susie gripped Delilah’s hand to show her sincerity, then said, ‘I’ve got to mingle but look – here’s Rachel to say hello.’

  ‘Delilah!’ Rachel, a shimmering vision in black platform shoes, gold trousers, a Chinese silk tunic top and crimson lipstick, tottered up and put smacking kisses on both cheeks. ‘Wonderful to see you. How is the gorgeous John? And when are you going to have a party at that fabulous house of yours? Don’t you know it’s a duty when you’ve got that much square footage at your disposal?’

  Once she was in Rachel’s orbit, more people approached, and soon she was lost in conversation, telling everyone how marvellous life was and how they must come down and visit very soon. When, hours later, the staff were discreetly hurrying people on their way, Rachel said, ‘If you’re at a loose end, Delilah, Grey and I are doing a shoot in New York next week. The art director’s just been taken ill and I hear they’re looking for a freelance replacement. Are you interested?’

  Delilah paused, tempted. The prospect of using her creative skills again was enticing and for a moment she hungered intensely for the feeling of being at the heart of a shoot, part of a team that buzzed with energy and excitement as it created miniature works of fashion art. But the thought of how John might greet the idea of her going to New York made her hold back. ‘It sounds good,’ she said eventually, keeping her options open. ‘Why don’t you send me an email with the details?’

  ‘Will do,’ beamed Rachel, who had become noticeably friendlier. ‘It would be so fantastic to have you with us! We miss your talents!’

  ‘I just might,’ said Delilah, enjoying basking in Rachel’s goodwill.

  As they walked along the dark Brompton Road, Grey said, ‘You’re not seriously going to do it, are you? John would hate it, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘There’s no harm in thinking about it. Of course John wouldn’t like it but . . .’ She gave him a meaningful look.

  ‘Ah, I see. Let’s go into Gennario’s and have some pasta and you can spill.’

  Over truffle ravioli and Pinot Grigio, she told Grey about how things had taken a turn for the worse. ‘I can’t open my mouth without saying the wrong thing. He’s always been prone to black moods, but it used to be sunshine for the most part and the occasional stormy spell. Now it’s the other way around. My head tells me it’s because of what he’s going through at the moment, losing his father to dementia and managing the estate all alone. But I can’t help feeling hurt by it, and as though I’m making it worse instead of better – when all I want is to help him.’ Delilah played miserably with the ravioli, sliding it around in its pungent buttery sauce. ‘And we haven’t had any luck getting pregnant, which is intensifying everything. We’re both so anxious about it that we can’t relax and enjoy ourselves. I feel that John thinks a baby will help him get over whatever it is that’s torturing him so badly, and that’s why it’s become so incredibly important.’

  ‘Honey, I’m sure you’ll get preggers before too long. It’s really been a short time, hasn’t it?’ Grey said sympathetically. ‘And it can’t be easy for John watching his father disintegrate before his eyes.’

  Delilah nodded. ‘He said it’s as though he’s losing the only person who remembers his childhood.’

  ‘His mother died when he was a boy, didn’t she?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. He hardly talks of her.’ Delilah remembered the photographs in the album, recalling the delicate features, huge eyes and air of vulnerability. ‘I know her name was Alex, and she died when he was a small boy. I think he was at prep school at the time. There’s a picture of him in his uniform holding her hand. It’s heartbreaking, really.’

&nbs
p; ‘Poor guy. He’s not had it easy, has he?’

  ‘No. But I can’t seem to help him. I was so sure I could make him better,’ she said sadly. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I feel so powerless to fight off whatever’s tormenting him.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Grey said, his tone heartfelt. He thought for a moment and said, ‘You know what? Perhaps John’s afraid to love you completely. He might fear in some way that you’re going to leave him, like his mother did.’

  She stared at him across the tea light flickering in a glass holder between them, struck by this new idea. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘It’s a possibility. If you could find out what happened to his mother, perhaps you’d be able to understand how to help him.’

  ‘Really?’ She thought. ‘I suppose that makes sense. I want to know what happened to her myself. I’ve been thinking of her a lot lately – how she coped with the burden of Fort Stirling. Whenever I get another stack of letters requesting this, that and the other, I wonder if she got the same and how she managed it all.’ She frowned. ‘But how I’ll find out, I don’t know. I hate asking John: anything about his childhood sends him into the worst black mood you can imagine. And I can’t ask his father – it wouldn’t be right, even if he could remember. Janey’s only been there a few years. There’s Ben . . . I suppose I could ask him, though his head’s mostly full of facts about plants and growing seasons.’

  ‘Who’s Ben? The gardener?’

  ‘No – John’s cousin. He was away when you stayed. And he is also a gardener.’

  ‘John has a cousin who lives at the house?’

  ‘No, he’s in a cottage nearby. He’s really lovely.’

  Grey flicked a glance at her. ‘Is he now?’

  She felt suddenly awkward. Grey had always had a disconcerting ability to pick up on things she thought she’d concealed. ‘Yes. And he’s family.’

  ‘Oh, well . . . in that case, out of bounds.’ He gave her one of his intense looks. ‘But you obviously get on with him. How old is he?’

  ‘My age.’

  ‘So younger than John. Good-looking?’

  ‘I don’t fancy him, if that’s what you’re implying,’ she said crossly, flushing now.

  Grey made a pacifying gesture with his hand and sipped his wine. ‘Now, now, I didn’t mean to imply you did. I’m glad you’ve got a friend there, that’s all. As for John’s mother – why don’t you just look her up on the internet?’

  ‘I tried that. She’s listed on the occasional database of the peerage, but it says “d.1974”. That means died, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I think so.’ Grey frowned thoughtfully.

  ‘It doesn’t say how. Most history websites just concentrate on the title holders – that means the men, of course.’

  ‘A mystery for you to get your teeth into. You should go down to the local church and ask the vicar if he’s got records of the burials. That’s what they do on the telly.’

  ‘Oh.’ She blinked at such a simple idea. ‘Can I do that?’

  ‘Nothing to stop you!’ Grey put down his fork and smacked his lips. ‘That was delicious. But I can’t resist the tiramisu. It’s amazing here. You must have some.’

  ‘For a treat.’ Delilah ate the last bit of ravioli on her fork, and sat back, thinking. ‘There is one other thing. John absolutely hates the folly up on the hill, and Ben told me that there have been suicides from the top.’

  Grey’s eyebrows lifted. ‘How interesting.’ He leaned in towards her, his eyes bright. ‘Well, that’s it then. That’s your answer. His mother must have jumped from the top and killed herself.’

  As she heard him speak, a sense of cold horror engulfed her. She saw it at once, and it was terrible. A dark winter’s day and the young woman, Alex, shivering in the clothes she wore in the photographs – a short-sleeved collared jumper, a light A-line skirt – climbing the rotten stairs in the folly, her hair whipped up around her as the wind came racing in through the broken stonework to buffet her. At the top, on that jagged edge, she was pausing, sobbing, desperate, her eyes full of yearning for an end to her suffering. And then, closing her eyes, tottering on the brink, she was stepping forward into the void, her fingers splayed out as she plummeted.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She fought down the sick terror swirling around her stomach. ‘Yes . . . yes. I’m fine.’

  ‘You look as though you’re going to be ill.’

  ‘I just . . . it’s so awful . . . Do you really think that’s what happened?’

  ‘It sounds likely, doesn’t it?’

  Bleakness washed over her. ‘What could have been that bad? She had so much . . .’

  Grey shrugged. ‘We all know these days that depression doesn’t bother itself with class, money or celebrity – anyone can suffer. Perhaps she was bipolar and no one knew.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Delilah said, but a heavy weight pressed on her. The cruelty of it was so random, the pain it caused so huge and the waste so enormous.

  Grey lifted his hand to summon the waiter. ‘But we can’t know for sure. It might have been something else entirely. And besides, it was all a long time ago now. It explains why John is prone to feeling blue, though, doesn’t it?’

  Delilah tried to shake off the morbidity that had engulfed her. ‘Yes, it’s only rumour. It might not be true.’ The image was so strong, though, that she couldn’t dislodge it from her mind; she was certain they’d somehow stumbled on the truth. ‘I’m sure he would tell me something like that, anyway. Something so serious and dreadful.’

  Grey fixed her with a penetrating look. ‘Would he, darling? I must say, he doesn’t look like the confiding type to me. More like the suffer-in-silence kind of man.’

  She thought of John’s stormy moods, the closed door of the office, the nightmares he could never explain. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t told me so far. He might never tell me. I’ll just have to find out on my own.’

  ‘Be careful, Delilah.’ Grey held up a finger as if in warning. ‘Childhood trauma is a tricky thing. You mustn’t go dabbling in it.’

  ‘But if what we think is true, then I have to find out, don’t you see?’ She pushed away her plate and leaned towards him. ‘I’ll never understand him unless I do. Besides . . . I want to know. It seems wrong that his mother’s life and death have been consigned to secrecy. Why shouldn’t she be remembered? It seems like the house just swallows up its women and makes them disappear.’ A prickle of fear ran over her fingertips as she said it.

  ‘But sometimes things are secret for a reason. I don’t want to encourage you to rush in where angels fear to tread, that’s all.’

  She returned his gaze with an earnest one. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to cause any trouble. I promise.’

  She stayed the night in Grey’s guest room and lay awake for a while, thinking about John and wondering if he was missing her. This sustained period of coldness between them was horrible. She wanted to ring him and tell him how much she missed him; she craved some reassurance from him that he missed her too, despite the cold way he had said he didn’t need her, and that he still loved her. She desperately wanted him to tell her that he didn’t blame her for the failure so far to get pregnant. After all, she thought, I love him. That counts for everything.

  She dreamed of the house that night: she was running through its many rooms looking for John, but it was hard to see anything other than shapes and shadows in the grey semi-darkness. But the house had grown into something truly enormous and now there were rooms upon rooms, doors stretching away down endless corridors, more than she could ever hope to open. But the strangest thing was the wind. A tornado seemed to be whirling through the house, a rush of air that was so strong it picked her up off her feet and flew her through the rooms. It pushed her harder and harder, and then suddenly she was flying out over the garden, caught in the fierce current that carried her over the woods, her arms spinning and her legs paddling in mid-air as she swayed and tumbled.


  ‘Wait! Stop!’ she was shouting. ‘I have to find John!’ Then she realised that she was going over the folly and that, looking down, she could see the young Alex standing on its top. The white face was upturned to her, watching bewildered as she tumbled overhead, and the instant Delilah saw her, she remembered everything that would happen, and shouted, ‘Oh, please – please! Don’t jump! You mustn’t jump!’ but her voice was torn from her and carried away in the current of air. Even from so high above, she could see Alex’s wide eyes and slender white arms, the puzzlement on her face at the sight of Delilah. ‘Don’t jump! You mustn’t!’

  A horrible noise sounded in her head and she woke, breathless from her dream, to find that her mobile phone was ringing. She scooped it up from where it was charging on the bedside table next to her. John’s name was flashing on the screen and she pressed to accept the call, wide awake at once.

  ‘John? Are you all right?’

  ‘Delilah . . .’ He sounded tired and mournful. The slight slur in his voice made her think he’d been drinking.

  ‘Yes, darling. I’m here. Is everything okay?’

  He sighed down the phone and then after a long pause said, ‘I miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too, darling,’ she said, her heart full of tenderness for him. He was drunk and wanting her, and she wished hard that she could be there to touch him and comfort him.

  ‘I hate it that you’re not here. It’s the first time we’ve been separated and I bloody hate it.’

  ‘So do I. I can’t wait to be home with you.’

  ‘I’m rattling around here on my own. I’d forgotten how bloody awful it is. I need you. It’s lonely here. No – not lonely. They’re all here. The ghosts. God, they’re all here.’

  ‘John, are you all right?’ She remembered her dream. Was the ghost of his mother one of those who were tormenting him? Who were the others?

  ‘Yes. I’m fine. I’m not going crazy. I’m just being suffocated by this place, as usual. If I could burn it down, I would. But I’m too much of a coward for that.’