The Lake House

by Kate Morton

  Anthony shook his head. He stared up at the sky, more dazzling somehow for his lack of breath. “Bloody hell, Howard.”

  “I told you, I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve got no food, no supplies . . . what are you thinking?”

  “Sophie and I—we’ve got enough. We’ve got each other.”

  Anthony closed his eyes and laid a hand across his chest. The sun made his cheeks burn pleasantly and turned the inside of his eyelids orange. “You know I have to stop you.”

  “You’re going to have to shoot me to do it.”

  Anthony blinked into the brightness. An arrowhead of birds flew black against the brilliant blue of the sky. He watched them and as he did his certainties seemed to crumble. This day, this sunshine, the birds, all of it was outside the sphere of war. It was as if a different reality was taking place just up there, if they could only get high enough to escape this place they called the world.

  Howard was sitting now with his back against the brick wall, inspecting his bruised hand. Anthony went to sit beside him. His ribs hurt.

  “You’re determined to do this.”

  “We are.”

  “Then tell me the plan. You must have one. I can’t believe you’d be stupid enough to take a woman and baby across the country otherwise.”

  As Howard outlined his scheme Anthony listened. He tried not to think about the army and rules and what would happen if his friend were caught. He just listened and nodded and forced himself to believe that it might work.

  “This aunt of Sophie’s—she’s in the south?”

  “Almost at the Spanish border.”

  “She’ll take you in?”

  “She’s like a mother to Sophie.”

  “And what about the journey, what about food?”

  “I’ve been saving rations, and the package Eleanor sent, and Sophie has managed to get some bread and water.”

  “From M. Durand’s kitchen?”

  Howard nodded. “I plan to leave him money in exchange. I’m not a thief.”

  “Where have you been storing these supplies?”

  “There’s a barn on the edge of Mme Fournier’s farm. It’s not used anymore. Shells have torn great holes in the roof and it leaks like a sieve.”

  “A few rations, a cake, a loaf of bread—it won’t be enough. You’ll have to remain hidden for days and there’s no telling what you’ll find as you travel south.”

  “We’ll be all right.”

  Anthony pictured the army kitchen store. The tins of bully beef and condensed milk, the flour and cheese and jam. “You’re going to need more,” he said. “Wait until it’s dark. Everybody will be busy preparing for the push tomorrow. I’ll meet you in the barn.”

  “No you won’t. I don’t want you involved.”

  “I’m already involved. You’re my brother.”

  * * *

  Anthony took a knapsack with him that night, filled with all he’d been able to take. He was careful to make sure he wasn’t followed. As an officer he was accorded greater privileges than most, but he still couldn’t afford to be caught in the wrong place with a bag full of stolen supplies.

  He rattled the barn door when he arrived and then knocked once as they’d agreed. Howard opened it immediately; he must’ve been waiting on the other side. They embraced. Anthony couldn’t remember them ever having done so before. Later, he would wonder whether each had felt a presentiment of what was to come. He handed over the pack.

  Moonlight streamed silver through a hole in the roof and he could see Sophie sitting on a bale of hay in the corner, the baby strapped to her chest in a canvas sling. The child was sleeping, rosebud lips pursed, a look of intense concentration on his small face. Anthony envied the child his peace; even now he knew he’d never sleep like that again. He nodded a greeting and Sophie smiled shyly. Here, she was no longer M. Durand’s housekeeper, but Anthony’s best friend’s wife. It changed things.

  Howard went to her and they spoke quietly. Sophie was listening intently, nodding quickly at times. At one point she rested a small fine hand upon his chest. Howard placed his own on top. Anthony felt like an intruder, but he couldn’t look away. He was struck by the expression on his friend’s face. He looked older, but not because he was tired. The mask of false humour he’d worn for as long as Anthony had known him, the protective smile that laughed at the world before the world could laugh at him, was gone.

  The two lovers finished their tender conversation and Howard came quickly to say goodbye. Anthony realised this was it. All afternoon he’d wondered what to say when the time arrived, he’d run through a lifetime’s worth of well wishes and regrets and seemingly random things he otherwise might never have the chance to say, but now it all evaporated. There was too much to express and too little time in which to do it.

  “Look after yourself,” he said.

  “You too.”

  “And when it’s all over . . .”

  “Yes. When it’s all over.”

  Noise came from outside and they both froze.

  A dog was barking in the distance.

  “Howard,” Sophie called in a frightened whisper. “Dépêchez! Allons-y.”

  “Yes.” Howard nodded, still looking at Anthony. “We must go.”

  He hurried to Sophie’s side, tossed the army knapsack over his shoulder and picked up the other bag from near her feet.

  The dog was still barking.

  “Shut up,” Anthony said under his breath. “Please, shut up.”

  But the dog didn’t shut up. It was growling and yapping and coming nearer, it was going to wake the baby, and now there were voices outside, too.

  Anthony glanced around the room. There was a window cavity, but too high for them to get the baby out. An open door in the far wall led to a small anteroom. He gestured towards it.

  They piled inside. It was darker without the moonlight, and they all held their breath, listening. Gradually their eyes adjusted. Anthony could see fear writ large on Sophie’s face. Howard, his arm around her, was less easy to read.

  The hinge of the barn door jolted and it swung open with a clatter.

  The baby was awake now and had started to babble softly. There was nothing funny about the situation, but the child didn’t know that. He was filled with the simple joy of being alive and it made him laugh.

  Anthony held a finger to his lips, signalling urgently that they had to keep him quiet.

  Sophie whispered in the baby’s ear, but that only tickled and made him laugh with even greater spirit. A game, said his dark dancing eyes, What fun!

  Anthony felt his hackles rise. The footsteps were very close now, the murmur of voices loud and clear. Again, he pressed his finger hard against his lips, and Sophie jostled the baby, her whisper gaining a panicked edge.

  But little Louis was tired of playing, and hungry perhaps, eager to climb down from his mother and confused as to why she wouldn’t let him. His gurgles turned into a cry, and the cries grew louder, and in the blink of an eye Anthony was at Sophie’s side, and his hands were on the child, and he was pulling the small bundle, trying to untangle it from Sophie’s cloth sling, trying to get his hand to the child’s mouth, to make the noise stop, to make it quiet so that they would all be safe.

  But the dog was at the second door now, scratching the wood, and Howard was behind Anthony, pulling him away, pushing him backwards with enormous force, and the baby was still crying, and the dog was barking, and Howard had his arm around Sophie, who was whimpering, too, and the door’s handle rattled.

  Anthony drew his gun and held his breath.

  When the door opened the torch beams were blinding. Anthony blinked and held up his hand from instinct. His mind was a fog but he could just make out two burly men in the dark beyond. One, he realised, when the man began talking in rapid French, was M. Durand; the other
wore British army uniform.

  “What’s all this?” said the officer.

  Anthony could all but hear the cogs of the man’s mind turning and it was no surprise when he said, “Put down the sack and step away.”

  Howard did as he’d been told.

  Baby Louis was quiet now, Anthony noticed, and was reaching up to touch Sophie’s pale cheeks. He continued to watch the child, fascinated by his innocence, its striking contrast with the horror of the situation they were in.

  And into the silence flowed recognition of what he’d almost done, the depravity of his instinct in that awful moment before.

  Anthony shook his head. But it was monstrous! It was impossible. Surely not he, Anthony, who had always been able to trust himself, his control and precision and care, his drive to help others.

  Confused, he forced the thought away and concentrated again on baby Louis. It suddenly seemed to Anthony, that in a world from which all the goodness had been sapped, they ought all to be watching this precious child, marvelling in his purity. Stop talking, he wanted to say. Just look at the little one.

  He was losing his mind, of course. That was what happened in the moments before one faced death. For it was certain they were all going to die. To aid a deserter was akin to deserting himself. Strangely, it wasn’t as bad as Anthony had imagined. At least it would be over soon.

  He was tired, he realised, very tired, and now he could stop trying so hard to make it home. Eleanor would grieve for him, but when she’d adjusted, she’d be pleased, he knew, to learn he’d died trying to help Howard begin a new life. Anthony almost laughed. Begin a new life! At a time like this, when the world was turning to ruin.

  There came a crashing sound and Anthony blinked. He was surprised to realise he was still in the French barn. The officer had opened the knapsack and shaken out the stolen army supplies. Tins of bully beef and Maconochie and condensed milk lay all over the ground—Anthony had made sure to take enough that Howard and Sophie could hide for weeks if they had to.

  The officer whistled lightly. “Looks like someone was planning a bit of a holiday.”

  “I’d have got away with it, too,” said Howard suddenly, “if Edevane hadn’t caught up with me.”

  Anthony glanced at his friend, confused. Howard didn’t meet his gaze. “Bastard followed me. Tried to talk me out of it.”

  Stop talking, Anthony thought, just stop talking. It’s too late.

  The officer looked at the gun in Anthony’s hand. “Is that right?” He glanced between them. “Were you trying to bring him in?”

  But Anthony couldn’t form sentences fast enough, each word was a like a piece of confetti on a windy day and he couldn’t put them together.

  “I told him he’d have to shoot me here,” Howard said quickly.

  “Edevane?”

  Anthony heard the officer, but only as from a great distance. He wasn’t in that godforsaken barn in France any longer; he was back at Loeanneth, in the kitchen garden, watching as his children played. He was tending the garden that he and Eleanor had planted together a lifetime ago, he could smell the sun-warmed strawberries, feel the sun on his face, hear his children singing. “Come home to me,” Eleanor had said that day by the stream, and he’d promised that he would. He was going to get back to them if it was the last thing he did. He’d made a promise, but it was more than that, too. Anthony was going to make it home because he wanted to.

  “I tried to stop him,” he heard himself say. “I told him not to run.”

  As they positioned Howard between them and marched back towards camp, as Sophie wailed in stuttering French, Anthony told himself he’d bought his friend more time. That this wasn’t how it ended. That where there was life there was hope. He’d find a way to explain it all away, to save Howard, to make things go back to how they were. The front was miles away; there was plenty of time to think of a way out of this mess.

  A half-mile outside camp, though, he still hadn’t thought of anything, and he realised he could no longer smell strawberries, only the stench of war rot, of mud and waste and the acrid taste of gunpowder on his lips. He could hear a dog barking somewhere, and—he was sure—a baby crying in the distant night, and the thought came to him before he could stop it, cool and dull and empty of emotion, that if he’d only finished what he’d started back there, silenced that baby, that dear little child who’d barely started to live, who wouldn’t have known what was happening, for whom Anthony could have made it mercifully quick, then Howard would have been spared. That it had been his only chance to save his brother and he’d failed.

  Twenty-eight

  Cornwall, 2003

  It didn’t seem to Sadie there was much point sticking around in London after she’d spoken with Alice Edevane. The key to Loeanneth was burning a hole in her pocket and by the time she arrived back at her flat she’d decided to leave immediately. She tipped a glassful of water over her desiccated plant, gathered her notes, and slung her bag, still conveniently packed from her last stint in Cornwall, over her shoulder. She locked the door behind her and without a backward glance took the stairs by twos.

  The five-hour drive went surprisingly quickly. County after county passed in a greenish blur as Sadie wondered at the evidence Alice had promised she’d find tucked inside the repositories at Loeanneth. It was nearly nine-thirty and becoming dark when she turned off the A38 and headed for the coast. She slowed as she approached the leaning signpost that pointed the way towards the woods and the hidden entrance to Loeanneth; there was a great temptation to follow the forked road. Her impatience to get started was matched only by her eagerness to avoid the awkward task that lay ahead of explaining to Bertie why she was back so soon. She could just picture his querulous expression as he said, “Another holiday?” But there was no electricity at the Lake House, she hadn’t brought a torch, and unless she planned to avoid the village and her grandfather altogether there would be music to face at some point. No, she decided, it was better to be done with the inquisition upfront.

  With a sigh of reluctant determination, she continued along the coast road and into the village, where preparations were underway for the weekend Solstice Festival. Lengths of coloured lights were being strung along the streets, and in the village square piles of wood and canvas had been set down at regular intervals, waiting to be assembled into stalls. Sadie drove slowly along the narrow streets before beginning the climb to Bertie’s cottage. She rounded the final bend and there it was, perched on its cliff-top, warm lights glowing in the kitchen and the starlit sky bright behind its pitched roof. The scene was like something from a family Christmas movie, minus the snow. Which made Sadie the interloping relative, she supposed, arrived from nowhere to scuttle the peace. She parked the car on the verge of the narrow street, collected her suitcase from the back seat, and made her way up the stairs.

  The dogs were barking inside and the front door was open before she could knock. Bertie was wearing an apron, ladle in hand. “Sadie!” he said with a broad smile. “You’ve come down for the festival weekend. What a lovely surprise.”

  Of course she had. Brilliant save.

  Ramsay and Ash leapt from behind him, sniffing Sadie with unbridled joy. She couldn’t help but laugh, kneeling down to give them both some love.

  “Are you hungry?” Bertie fussed the dogs inside. “I was about to have supper. Come on in and butter some bread while I dish up.”

  * * *

  Every flat surface in the kitchen was covered with jars of preserves and racks of cooling cakes, so they ate at the long wooden table in the courtyard. Bertie lit candles in the tall glass hurricane lanterns, and as the little flames flickered and the wax burned down, Sadie caught up on village news. As might have been expected, the countdown to the festival had been filled with intrigue and drama. “But all’s well that ends well,” said Bertie, running a crust of sourdough around his empty plate, “and this time t
omorrow night, it’ll all be over.”

  “Until next year,” said Sadie.

  He rolled his eyes heavenwards.

  “You don’t fool me, you love it. Just look at your kitchen. You’ve cooked up an unholy storm.”

  Bertie was aghast. “Dear lord, touch wood, don’t tempt fate. You mustn’t even say that word. The last thing we need tomorrow is rain!”

  Sadie laughed. “Superstitious as ever, I see.” She glanced across the garden and out to the moonlit sea, the clear starry sky. “I think you’re pretty safe.”

  “Either way, we’re going to have to get an early start tomorrow if we want to have everything set up in time. I’ll be glad to have an extra pair of hands.”

  “About that,” said Sadie, “I’m afraid I haven’t been completely honest about why I’m here.”

  He raised a single eyebrow.

  “I’ve had a breakthrough in the Edevane case.”

  “Well, well, have you now.” He pushed aside his bowl. “Tell me everything.”

  Sadie explained about her meeting with Alice and the theory they’d come to regarding Anthony Edevane. “So you see, the shell shock was relevant after all.”

  “My god,” said Bertie, shaking his head. “What a terrible tragedy. That poor family.”

  “From what I can gather, Theo’s death was the beginning of the end. The family never came back to Loeanneth, the war started, and by the time it ended, or near enough, Eleanor, Anthony and their youngest daughter, Clemmie, were all dead.”

  An owl soared unseen above them, its wings beating the warm air, and Bertie sighed. “It’s a strange thing, isn’t it, uncovering the secrets of people who are no longer with us. It’s not like one of your usual crimes, where the driving force is to arrest and punish the guilty. There’s no one left in this case to punish.”

  “No,” Sadie agreed, “but the truth still matters. Think about the people left behind. They’ve suffered, too; they deserve to know what really happened. If you met Alice you’d see how much of a burden the not-knowing, has been. I think she’s led her whole life in the shadow of the terrible events of that night, but now she’s given me a key to the house and permission to search wherever I see fit. I’m determined not to leave without finding what we need to prove Anthony’s part in Theo’s death.”