The Lake House

by Kate Morton

  Anthony meant it when he said money held no interest for him, as did Eleanor, but life could be devious and it turned out they were soon to be very rich indeed. They’d been married for nine months when they stood together on the Southampton docks and bade farewell to his parents and older brothers, who were leaving together for New York.

  “Do you wish we were going?” Anthony said over the noise of the cheering crowd.

  There’d been talk of travelling with the family, but Anthony’s budget wouldn’t stretch to cover the tickets and he’d baulked at letting his parents foot the bill. He felt badly, she knew, embarrassed that he couldn’t afford such luxuries. Eleanor couldn’t have cared less. She shrugged. “I get seasick.”

  “New York’s an incredible city.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I don’t mind where I am, so long as it’s with you.”

  He shot her a smile so filled with love that her breath caught. As they both turned back to wave, Eleanor wondered whether it was possible to be too happy. Seagulls dipped and dived and boys in cloth hats ran along beside the departing ship, leaping over each and every obstacle. “Unsinkable,” said Anthony, shaking his head as the great ship pulled away. “Just think of that.”

  * * *

  On their second wedding anniversary, Anthony suggested they go away for the weekend to a little seaside place he knew. After months spent mourning the loss of his parents and brothers to the icy cold Atlantic Ocean, at last they had something momentous to celebrate. “A baby,” he’d said when she told him, a look of profound amazement on his face. “Imagine! A tiny mix of you and me.”

  They caught an early train from Cambridge to London and then changed at Paddington. The journey was long but Eleanor had packed a picnic and they ate lunch along the way, filling the hours with chatting and reading, the latest spirited game of cards in an ongoing contest, and periods of sitting contentedly, side by side, holding hands and watching through the window as the fields fled by.

  When at last they reached their station a driver was waiting and Anthony helped Eleanor into the motorcar. They set off along a narrow, winding road and in the warm enclosure of the vehicle the day’s travel finally caught up with her. She yawned and leaned her head back against the car seat. “Are you all right?” Anthony asked gently, and when Eleanor said that she was she meant it. She hadn’t been sure, when he first mentioned the trip, how it would feel to skirt so close to the place of her childhood; whether she’d endure the loss of her father and her home anew. Now, though, she realised that of course she would, but while there was no escaping the fact that there’d been sadness in the past, the future was still hers—theirs—to seize. “I’m glad we’ve come here,” she said, resting her palm on her gently-rounded belly as the road tapered to follow the line of the ocean. “It’s been such a long time since I saw the sea.”

  Anthony smiled beside her and reached across to hold her hand. She looked at his hand over hers, large over small, and wondered how she could possibly be so happy.

  It was in the company of such memories that she fell asleep. It happened easily now that she was pregnant; she’d never been so tired. The motorcar’s engine continued to thrum, Anthony’s hand remained warm on hers, and the smell of salt infused the air. Eleanor wasn’t sure how much time passed before he nudged her and said, “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”

  She sat and stretched, blinking into the blue light of the warm day and letting the world take shape again before her eyes.

  Eleanor drew breath.

  For there was Loeanneth, her dear, beloved, lost home. The gardens were becoming overgrown, the house was more rundown than she remembered, and yet it was perfection.

  “Welcome home,” Anthony said, lifting her hand to kiss it. “Happy birthday, happy anniversary, happy start of everything.”

  * * *

  Sound came before sight. An insect was buzzing against a glass windowpane, short, fierce bursts of static anxiety followed by momentary quiet, and another noise sat behind it, softer but more insistent, a ceaseless scratching Eleanor recognised but could not name. She opened her eyes to find herself in a place that was dark except for a dazzling slice of light between drawn curtains. The smells were familiar, of a room closed against the heat of summer, of thick brocade drapes and shadowy cool skirting boards, of stale sunlight. It was her bedroom, she realised, the one she shared with Anthony. Loeanneth.

  Eleanor closed her eyes again. Her head was swimming. She was groggy, and it was awfully hot. It had been hot like this the summer they arrived together, in 1913. The pair of them, little more than children, had lived for a glorious time without the wider world and its rhythms. The house had been in dire need of repairs so they’d set up camp in the boathouse, the cherished play site of her childhood. The accommodation was primitive—a bed, a table, basic kitchen facilities and a little washroom—but they were young and in love and used to living on next to nothing. For years afterwards, when Anthony was away at war and she missed him, whenever she felt sad or alone or overwhelmed, she would take herself down to the boathouse, bringing with her the love letters he’d written home to her, and there, more than anywhere else, she’d be able to touch the happiness and truth she’d felt that summer before the war came along to spoil their paradise.

  They’d eaten every meal outdoors, hard-boiled eggs and cheese from a picnic basket, and drank wine under the lilac tree in the walled garden. They’d disappeared inside the woods, and stolen apples from the farm next door, and floated down the stream in her little boat as one silken hour spun itself into the next. On a clear, still night, they’d dug the old bicycles out of the shed and cycled together along the dusty lane, racing, laughing, breathing in salt from the warm air as moonlight made the stones, still hot from the day, shine lustrous white.

  It had been the perfect summer. She’d known that at the time. The long sunny spell, their youth, this new and all-consuming love they’d found; but there’d been larger forces at work, too. That summer was a beginning for the two of them—their new family, their life together—but it was also the end of something. They, along with the rest of humankind, had stood at a precipice; the rhythms of their lifetime, unchanged for generations, were about to be given a seismic jolt. There were people who’d glimpsed what was coming, but not Eleanor. The future had seemed unimaginable. She’d been happily cocooned in the sublime and heady present where all that mattered was today. But war clouds had been gathering, the future waiting in the wings . . .

  The insect was still thrashing its wings against the leadlight windows and Eleanor endured another wave of grief as the present seeped back in. Theo. The reporter’s questions, the photographer, Alice in the doorway. The look on Alice’s face had been one that Eleanor recognised. It was the same expression she’d worn when Eleanor caught her scratching her name into the architraves of the house, the same as when Cook sent her upstairs as a tot for stealing sugar mice from the larder, as when she ruined her new dress with great splotches of black ink.

  Alice had looked guilty, certainly, but there was more to it than that. She’d appeared to be on the cusp of speaking. But what could Alice have wanted to say? And to whom? Did she know something? She’d had her interview with the policeman, as had everyone in the house. Was it possible she had information about Theo’s whereabouts that she hadn’t yet mentioned?

  “How could she?” came a voice in the dark. “She’s still but a child herself.”

  Eleanor hadn’t intended to speak aloud and the realisation that she had was disquieting. She peered through the dim of the room. Her mouth was dry—an effect, presumably, of the medication Dr Gibbons had given her. She reached for the glass of water on the bedside table and the person beyond it clarified in the gloom: her mother, sitting in the brown velvet chair by the bureau. Eleanor said quickly, “Is there news?”

  “Not yet.” Her mother was writing letters, her pen scratching across the vellum. “But th
e nice policeman, the older one with the poorly eye, told me they’ve received information that might be of assistance.”

  “Information?”

  Scritchety-scratch. “Now, now, Eleanor, you know I haven’t a head for details.”

  Eleanor took a sip of water. Her hand shook and her throat burned. It had to be Alice. She could just picture her second daughter fronting up to the policeman in charge, confidence animating her eager features as she pulled out that journal of hers and proceeded to deliver crisp notes. Observations and theories she was “just positive’ were relevant.

  And maybe Alice really could help; perhaps she had seen something that would lead the police to Theo. The girl had developed an uncanny habit for being where she shouldn’t.

  “I need to speak to Alice.”

  “You need to rest. Those sleeping tablets of Dr Gibbons pack quite a punch, or so I’m told.”

  “Mother, please.”

  A sigh. “I don’t know where she is. You know what that girl’s like. You ought to know; you were just the same at that age, each of you as stubborn as the other.”

  Eleanor didn’t deny the comparison. Neither, if she were honest, could she contradict the description, though “stubborn’ was perhaps a lazy choice. There were plenty that were more suitable. Eleanor preferred to think of her younger self as tenacious. Devoted, even. “Mr Llewellyn then. Please, Mother. He’ll know where to find Alice.”

  “I haven’t seen him either. As a matter of fact, the police were looking for the man. I heard they couldn’t find him anywhere—there was talk he’d taken off. Very peculiar, but then he never was especially reliable and he’s been jumpier than a cat lately.”

  Eleanor tried to sit up. She didn’t have the capacity today to admit her mother’s ancient contempt for Mr Llewellyn. She was going to have to find Alice herself. Oh, but her head was thumping. She cradled it in her hands and Edwina whimpered at the end of the bed.

  Just another minute or two to steady herself, that was all she needed. To stop her thoughts from jumbling, to make her head stop spinning. Constance was simply making mischief; Eleanor knew there was no way Mr Llewellyn would desert her at a time like this. He had been anxious over the past few weeks, that much was true, but he was her dearest friend. He was bound to be in the garden somewhere, taking care of the girls; it was the only thing that explained his absence from her side. And when she found him, she’d find Alice.

  For no matter how muddy her mind, no matter how desperately she wanted to sink back into her bed and hide beneath the covers, to deny the horror of the day, Eleanor was determined to speak with Alice. Her daughter knew something about Theo’s disappearance, Eleanor was certain of it.

  Nine

  Cornwall, 2003

  It had been almost a week since she first stumbled upon Loeanneth and Sadie had been back every day. No matter which way she headed out on her morning run, she always ended up in the overgrown garden. Her favourite place to sit was on the wide rim of a stone fountain overlooking the lake, and this morning as she sat down, she spotted a crude carving in the shadowy contour of the fountain base. a-l-i-c-e. Sadie ran her finger along the cool indentations of the letters. “Hello there, Alice,” she said. “It seems we meet again.”

  They were all over the place, these engravings. On the trunks of trees, the soft wood of the windowsills, the slippery moss-green platform of the boathouse she’d discovered and explored the other day. Sadie had started to feel as if she and Alice Edevane were playing an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse across the decades, a connection accentuated by the fact that she’d been dipping in and out of A Dish Served Cold all week while she played at holidays (for Bertie’s benefit) and tried to sort things out with Donald (she’d left six messages since Monday, made countless other calls, and still heard nothing back). Despite some initial doubts, reading had proved a surprisingly agreeable pastime. Sadie liked the crabby detective, Diggory Brent, and was taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in spotting the clues before he did. It was hard to imagine that the stern-faced woman pictured inside the back covers of the crime novels had once been a junior delinquent, defacing the family home, but it had made Sadie warm to Alice in some inexplicable way. It intrigued her, too, that a writer famous for inventing complex mysteries had been involved, however peripherally, in a real-life crime investigation, particularly one that had never been solved. She wondered which had come first, the choice of genre or the disappearance of a baby brother.

  All week, faced with Donald’s silence, while she battled a deep sense of impotence, Sadie had caught herself brooding on the neglected house and the missing child, intrigued by its puzzle. She would rather have been back in London at her real job, but anything was better than watching the clock count time away, and her interest had not gone unnoticed. “Solved it yet?” Bertie had taken to calling whenever she and the dogs clattered through the front door to his cottage. There was a smile in his voice when he said it, as if he were pleased to see her occupied but guardedly so. Apparently she had not altogether convinced him with her holiday-maker act. She caught him watching her sometimes, a thoughtful frown on his face, and she knew questions about her sudden visit to Cornwall, the highly unusual absence from her job, were damming up behind his lips. Sadie had got good at escaping the house, backpack slung over her shoulders and dogs at her heel, whenever it looked like that dam might be on the brink of bursting.

  The dogs, for their part, were thrilled with the new arrangement. They raced ahead of Sadie, swapping places as they wove through the woods, before veering off the track together, chasing one another into the long grass and sliding beneath the yew hedge to take up yesterday’s quarrel with the ducks. Sadie lagged behind, but then books weren’t light and her backpack was full of them these days, care of her new friend Alastair Hawker, village librarian.

  From the first time she’d met him, he’d been as helpful as his limited collection allowed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t saying much. It was Hitler’s fault. A bomb during the Second World War had destroyed the newspaper records for the years prior to January 1941. “I’m really very sorry,” Alastair had said. “They’re not online but I can order them from the British Library, find you something else to get you started?”

  Sadie had told him that suited her very well and he’d got down to business, tapping keenly on a computer keyboard and flicking through old file cards in a set of wooden drawers, before excusing himself to disappear at a brisk pace behind a door marked Archives.

  “Success,” he said on his return, brushing dust from the top of a small stack of books. “Notable Cornish Families’, he read, turning to the table of contents and running a long finger down the list, stopping at a spot midway. “Chapter eight: The deShiels of Havelyn.”

  Sadie looked at him, unconvinced. “The house I’m interested in is called Loeanneth.”

  “The Lake House, yes, but it used to be part of a much larger estate. I believe Loeanneth was originally the head gardener’s residence.”

  “And the deShiels?”

  “They were local gentry, hugely powerful in their day. Same old story: strength and influence waned along with the family’s bank balance. Some unwise business decisions, a few bad eggs, the obligatory series of aristocratic scandals.” He waved the book. “You’ll find it all in here.”

  Sadie had left with a shiny new library card, her first; a photocopy of “Chapter eight: The deShiels of Havelyn’; and Arnold Pickering’s The Edevane Boy, a rapturously written account of the disappearance she had the dubious honour of being the first to borrow since August 1972. She’d also borrowed a well-thumbed copy of A Dish Served Cold.

  That afternoon, while Bertie was busy baking pear cake, Sadie had set up in the courtyard of the cottage, listening to the sigh and heave of the sea and reading about the deShiel family. It was, as the librarian said, a tale of greatness and decline. Sadie skimmed through the first few hundred years
—the knighting by Henry VIII of some seafaring deShiel who’d managed to pilfer great masses of gold from the Spaniards, the awarding of lands and titles, the various deaths, marriages and inheritances that followed—becoming interested again around 1850, when the family’s fortunes took a sharp turn for the worse. There was the suggestion of a fleecing, something to do with a sugar plantation in the West Indies, and a great gambling debt, and then a fire on Christmas Day, 1878, that started in the servants’ hall and went on to destroy much of the manor house. Over the next thirty years, the estate was carved into pieces and sold off bit by bit until all that remained to the deShiel family was the Lake House and its surrounding acres.