He took it from her and read it out loud. ‘Think you know who to trust? Look harder.’ Then he glanced up with concern in his eyes. ‘When did you receive this?’
‘A while ago. In an envelope pushed under my door.’
‘Any idea who sent it?’
She shook her head.
‘But ever since then you’ve been wondering who you can trust?’
‘Well, yes. A little bit.’
‘Including me?’
She shrugged but couldn’t meet his gaze as she replied, ‘Not really you.’
He came closer and put a warm hand on both her shoulders. ‘Whoever was responsible, it’s a damn cruel thing to do.’
Self-conscious, she shifted slightly, but then looked right into his shining eyes and felt better. She saw such decency and transparency, she wanted to hug him and then keep on hugging him for a long time. So much about Rangoon felt slippery and unknowable. This thing between them, whatever it might turn out to be, was different and she welcomed it.
‘You’re not alone, Belle. I’m on your side. I promise you.’
And the strength of his look convinced her – but if he was on her side, then who was the one who wasn’t?
24.
Diana, Cheltenham, 1922
In the moment I am losing myself in a memory of Rangoon, Douglas walks into my room again. I blink rapidly and force myself back to the present.
‘How are you today?’ he asks.
I study his impenetrable face. So calm and controlled that I take my cue from him. ‘I’m well, thank you.’
‘Shall we sit?’ he says, indicating a chair. Then he gets straight to the point. ‘Have you thought about Simone’s offer?’
I nod but don’t admit how challenging this decision has been for me and still I’m not entirely sure. I take a sharp breath.
‘So?’ he says.
‘Well … all things considered, I think it might be for the best.’
‘I’m glad.’
I’ll bet you are, I think, but do not say. I try to speak, explain myself, but losing track, break off mid-sentence.
‘I would not send you if you didn’t agree, but you will love the cottage,’ he says as if he hasn’t heard my mumbled words.
‘You’ve seen it now?’
‘Indeed. It’s Cotswold stone, only a few steps from Simone’s, and with a lovely garden encircling it on three sides.’
I smile, delighted by the thought. I do love my flowers.
‘The village is perfect too. Minster Lovell. Quiet. With a river running alongside it. Simone knows a good doctor who will visit you at home. There’s a pub, a mill, a small corner shop, and a wonderful bakery delivers to your door.’
I nod.
He bows his head for a moment and, before he looks up, I notice how thin his hair has become. My darling is entirely bald at the top.
‘But now we need to discuss the conditions,’ he says.
His face is solemn, and I pick up a hint of anxiety in his eyes. He must be worried about these conditions of his.
Outside it’s noisier than before. I rise from my seat and walk over to the open window. A wind is getting up and I see it beginning to lash the trees as if a storm might be on its way. I spot lamps already casting their golden light in the drawing rooms of the houses on the opposite side of the park, even though it’s only mid-afternoon.
‘Diana?’
I turn towards him. ‘Yes?’
‘Come and sit down again, please?’
I do as he bids and stare him in the face. Why is he looking anxious?
‘So, the thing is, I feel the decision we are making is in the best interests of Annabelle. I hope you understand.’
‘Of course.’ I make my voice sound reasonable.
‘It might seem harsh.’
I blink rapidly, worried now.
‘But I don’t feel any contact with you is helpful for our daughter.’
‘Elvira,’ I hear myself say.
‘Diana, it’s Annabelle, you know that.’
Stupid, stupid mistake. I feel momentarily flustered and want to cover my face with my hands. But we all make mistakes, don’t we? I realize he’s waiting for me to speak.
‘Of course. Of course. That’s who …’ I trail off, unable to finish.
His eyes soften for a moment. ‘It’s better if I bring her up alone. The instability, you know, it upsets a child. She doesn’t understand why you don’t care for her.’
I feel the heat pricking my eyelids. ‘I care.’
‘I’m sure you do, but it’s not enough, and we’ve already said it can’t go on like this. I propose to set up a trust for you to be administered by Simone. I do believe this is the best solution, not only for Annabelle, but also for you.’
I bite my lip and scrutinize the floor and I know it’s he who wants me away from here.
‘Being away from here will help you,’ he says, echoing the words in my head. ‘We will tell Annabelle you have gone but that I don’t know where. That you left a note saying it would be better for all of us. And then, at a much later time, when she has all but forgotten you, I will tell her that her mother has died.’
I gasp. ‘That’s the condition?’
He nods. ‘It must be a clean and total break. I want her to grow up free from, well, free from –’
I interrupt. ‘Me.’
His voice takes on a note of resignation. ‘I wouldn’t have put it so bluntly, but yes, I suppose that is the crux of it. You will not be confronted daily by your failure as a mother and neither will she. It really is best she forgets you. Naturally you will revert to using your maiden name.’
It is a statement, not a question.
I think about leaving this house where I grew up. My house. Though it’s his now. The few months we lived here before going to Burma, everything lay before us and we were so happy. I want to tell him how I feel. How I’ve felt for years. I want to give voice to the hurt he’s caused me and the hurt I have caused myself, yet I remain silent. But then, suddenly, as if I have no choice, the question I want to ask slips out.
‘When did you stop loving me?’
His eyes are so sad I can hardly bear to see them.
‘It isn’t about that,’ he says and observes me for the longest time. ‘I never stopped loving you.’
‘But?’
‘No, my dear. You stopped loving yourself.’
‘And that’s what you really believe?’
He stares at me as though he knew I had been referring to the affair he’d had, because after all, how could he if he’d still loved me? After a moment or two he opens his mouth and I wait. He says nothing, but his eyes give him away and it is shame I see. Shame fighting with his pride.
After he has gone I pace the room, hearing the rhythm of the rain beginning to pound on the roof, resounding like the beating of my heart. His decision seems so callous, but I can’t argue with the facts. I’ve been no kind of mother to our daughter but I do want to make her life better. So, will my going do that?
An hour later Wilkes brings me a tray of soft-boiled eggs and toast soldiers, and treats me as if I were the child. She looks at me pityingly and I wonder if she already knows I am to be banished. At least it’s not to the Grange, I think, at least. But never to see my daughter again? I don’t eat the eggs and toast. Instead, I curl up in a ball on my bed, pull the blankets over my head and, cocooned in the darkness, I cry myself to sleep.
25.
Belle stood in the porch outside the hotel in a desultory mood, watching guests arriving and leaving. Two businessmen first, wearing pale linen suits, who both nodded at her as they headed out. They were followed by an overdressed middle-aged matriarch dragging an unwilling child by the hand as she marched into the lobby. It was already mercilessly hot, and Belle knew she really ought to find somewhere to sit beneath a fan, but she felt confused by Oliver’s recent revelations about her father and mother and couldn’t settle. Oliver was proving to be a true friend, but s
he was still no closer to uncovering what had happened to the baby and felt unsure of her next move. After a few minutes she noticed the Indian doorman was watching her with a curious look on his face so she walked up to him.
‘Can I assist you in any way, Miss Hatton?’ he said in a lull between guests needing his help.
She considered it. Could he help her? Guests sometimes forgot the staff were people and a man in his position might well hear gossip.
‘Maybe.’
‘If you do not mind me saying, you do look rather troubled.’
‘I didn’t sleep well.’
‘That is a shame. Would there be something particular on your mind?’
She gazed at him, sniffing air laden with the smell of salt and oil from the docks. ‘Well, yes, there is.’ And, after a momentary hesitation, she went on to explain about her parents and the baby who disappeared in 1911.
During a short silence, his brow furrowed.
‘She would have been my sister, you see,’ Belle added by way of explanation. ‘I’d like to find out what really happened.’
He nodded, and she thought that was that, but then he spoke. ‘My father worked here before me as night watchman. He used to tell a story about a baby he heard screaming one night. Terrible screaming it was. He had been drifting off, I imagine, and the baby’s cries had woken him. For a few minutes he felt disorientated and thought it must have been a nightmare. But the screaming continued. At first, he couldn’t make out where the baby was, but as it went on he realized the cries were coming from somewhere inside the back entrance of the hotel. By the time he ran round there, he saw nothing except a black car accelerating away at breakneck speed. He often spoke of that night. Said it haunted him. That screaming baby.’
Belle stared at him. Could it have been Elvira? Or was she being ridiculous? There might have been several babies staying here.
‘There had been no babies staying at the hotel,’ he said, answering her question before she had posed it.
‘Was it definitely 1911?’
He nodded. ‘Oh yes, I remember it most distinctly.’
‘Did he tell the police or ask the other staff about it in the morning?’
‘He asked, of course, but no one knew anything and if anyone did know they were not saying. Of course, he’d seen the story about the missing baby – it was in all the papers – but my mother convinced him not to involve the police. Worried for his job, you see.’
‘Is your father still alive?’
‘Yes, but he is not well. And I don’t think he would be able to tell you any more than I have. He recounted the story many times. He had no proof, but instinct told him something had not been right. The expensive car racing away. The distraught screams. The time of night it happened. There had been something clandestine about it.’
She nodded and thanked him, her thoughts churning. What if Elvira really had been kidnapped, and by somebody wealthy? At least that might mean she was still alive, though how Belle would ever find her, she didn’t know.
She was about to go back inside when Fowler, the assistant manager, stepped out looking puffed up and self-important.
‘Miss Hatton. You may have friends in high places, but we do not encourage staff to gossip on the doorstep in full view of the guests.’
‘It was quiet.’
He inclined his head. ‘Well, off you trot now. We have some important guests arriving any minute.’
She glanced at the doorman and winked, then turned back to Fowler. ‘Don’t blame him,’ she said. ‘It was entirely my fault.’
‘I don’t doubt that,’ Fowler said, casting her an annoyed look, and then he turned his back on her to greet a newly arrived guest in his usual sycophantic manner.
Later Belle went to the reception desk to see if there had been any post for her. The head receptionist, a smart middle-aged Glaswegian man, handed her an airmail envelope postmarked Oxford. At last this was it – a reply from her mother’s old friend Simone. She took it straight to her room, hopes rising. Much as she liked Rebecca now, Belle wanted privacy to read this and luckily the girl wasn’t there. She unfolded the letter and, scanning the tiny handwriting, devoured every word. Then she read it again more slowly.
Dear Annabelle,
It was a great surprise but also an enormous pleasure to hear from you. How extraordinary that you find yourself in Rangoon. Life can be so strange with all its twists and turns, don’t you agree? But what am I saying? You are still a girl and, although I’m sure parts of your childhood may not have been easy, you cannot have experienced many twists, as yet. Thank you for informing me of dear Douglas’s death. He, like my darling husband, Roger, was a fine man.
Now on to the main topic of your letter. Yes, I do remember when baby Elvira disappeared. How could any of us forget? It was a desperate time for all of us, but most of all for your mother who suffered terribly at the hands of the police. My husband and I were outraged that a woman such as your mother could have been accused in the way she was. Of course, we both did what we could, with Roger going through all the official channels, while I did my best to comfort Diana.
She had been unwell during her pregnancy with a terrible sickness that continued virtually all the way through, but it was after the baby was born when things went so badly wrong. It was as if the birth had drained Diana of life. It worried me. She hardly ate, could not sleep and cried all the time. The baby cried too, incessantly Diana said. Roger gave her something to help her sleep, but her mood remained desperately low. Nothing seemed to help, and I was concerned for her sanity. It is true some women go through a difficult time after giving birth but, Roger assured me, this was far worse. It was as if Diana had completely given up on life. The light had gone from her eyes and all she could see was darkness. Douglas could be a difficult man, stubborn, and I believe he became increasingly so as he grew older. Like so many men, he found emotions impossible to deal with and thought he was always in the right, no matter what, so there could be no arguing with him. I’m sorry to speak of your father like this. At heart he was a good man who did what he could, but he simply did not comprehend how the birth of their longed-for child could have brought about such a drastic change in his wife. Nor did he understand his role in it all.
On the day it happened, as far as I can tell, Diana had been alone in the garden while Elvira slept in her pram. One of the servants spotted your mother kneeling on the grass in her nightdress beside a recently planted flower bed and reported that she had been digging up the earth with her bare hands. This was the reason she was later accused, along with her inability to care for the baby. The police concluded that Diana wanted the baby dead, and when they began digging up the garden they found one bootee exactly at the place where your mother had been digging. She never could give a reason for her actions that day, which to the police was highly suspicious, but to me were a direct consequence of a troubled and distraught state of mind.
The questioning went on for days and then suddenly your mother was let go and your parents left for England in the middle of the night without even packing up the house. I always felt they had been ordered to leave from somebody right at the top. Oh, I almost forgot, there had been an incident with the Governor’s wife. Douglas had dragged Diana, while she was pregnant and feeling unwell, to a dinner at the residence. The Governor’s wife, a stupid, vacuous woman in my opinion, had made a remark in Diana’s hearing about how pregnant women should put up and shut up. Nobody believed in their stories of extended sickness. Diana marched up to her and threw a glass of champagne in her face. Oh, the hue and cry! though privately I thought the woman deserved what she got, but it didn’t do your mother’s reputation any good. Even before the baby she had become regarded as unstable.
After your parents left I realized your mother’s name had not been cleared. The case remained open for a short while and in the end was never resolved. My suspicion was somebody had to know what had happened but had made sure the whole awful affair was hushed up. In m
y opinion your mother was simply a scapegoat.
Anyway, dear Annabelle, that’s all for now. I hope you can read my writing.
With best wishes for your health,
Simone Burton
26.
Diana, Cheltenham, 1922
I wake up with the most terrible headache I’ve ever had. It’s as if someone has beaten me about the head with a cosh. The room is bright, too bright, and when I look about I realize it’s entirely tiled in white and there is a sickening smell of carbolic in the air. I’m not at home.
I am blinded by the light and, as panic grips me, I long to escape back into the dark. Then a thought hits me. A terrifying thought. This must be the Grange. I try to move and find I am bound to the bed, not too tightly but tight enough that I can’t get out. Why has he had me brought here? He promised he would never send me without my permission. I begin to shout Douglas’s name, until I am screaming, but he does not appear. Instead a young woman dressed in blue, who I think must be a warden, walks in and tells me if I’m not quiet I will disturb the other patients.
She walks out again, and I begin to shake with fear. Why have they brought me to the Grange? My head still aches, and my thoughts are spinning so fast I can’t catch hold of them. I try to remember but nothing comes clear. My brain is a fog. Where was I yesterday? What was I doing? I screw my eyes shut in the effort of remembering and try to force the images to return. Then I hear a voice, an actual voice, asking me a question. I open my eyes to see that the young woman has returned and I wince at the smell of body odour as she looms over me.
‘I asked if you could hear me,’ she says, prim, full of self-importance, and clearly looking down her nose at me.
When she tells me I’m in the Cheltenham General Hospital and Dispensary, not the Grange, there’s something I can’t put my finger on and I don’t believe her.
‘Why am I tied to the bed if I’m not at the Grange?’ My voice comes out as a husky rasping sound and my throat feels raw.
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