The Girl in the Photograph
Page 29
‘Well have a lovely day anyway. I’ll see you on the other side.’
‘And I hope it goes well tomorrow! Have fun.’
‘I’ll try.’ Ailsa cast a quick glance at the Landseer as she passed it, as she always did, and silently wished Ella a Merry Christmas, wherever she was tonight.
She climbed the extra set of steps that led up to the third floor and headed to one of the little rooms that were reserved for staff. The fact that they had been servants’ quarters meant the rooms were small and functional, tucked away into the eaves, but were perfectly adequate. She let herself in, kicked her shoes off and put her iPad on the desk beneath the window.
Next stop was the bathroom, stripping her work clothes off as she went, and a quick shower before slipping into her pyjamas. It should have been too late to read. It should have been too late to do anything really, except sleep; but, once she had snuggled into the narrow bed, she reached out and grabbed the book she had left on the side table. It was her own copy of Becky Nelson’s biography of the Carrick family. It was slightly tattered and she’d read it many times – but it was like an old friend. Something she could dip in and out of, especially just to settle her mind before bed. And that’s what she intended to do tonight. Chatting to Ned had enthused her all over again about the Carrick Park she wished she could have known better.
Ella Carrick was the most fascinating part of that book – she, like Ailsa, had lost her parents when she was young and been brought up by an aunt. Unlike Ailsa, she had found a place where she belonged, unquestionably. That place, was in Adam Carrick’s heart, and by the side of her best friend Lydia. Ailsa knew that the little girl Ailsa had been would have fantasised over Ella’s life and wished she could have lived it – despite the challenges it must have posed. Ella had managed and managed very well, it seemed. She never tired of reading about Ella and her fairy tale love story; it wasn’t so pleasant reading about what had happened to her and Adam at the end, but the bits leading up to that, and how they eventually realised what they meant to each other, were beautiful.
On a night like tonight, when it was all magical and Christmassy and she was pleasantly tired, the idea of spending just one day with Ella, one Christmas Eve, perhaps, was almost a physical need. How wonderful it must have been! How wonderful to be in the midst of one’s surrogate family and to love and be loved as Ella was.
It wasn’t long before Ailsa found herself yawning and the written words before her beginning to blur together. She shifted position in bed, and her eyelids fluttered. They fluttered again, and, before she even realised it, she was fast asleep, the book discarded on the bed next to her,
It was the sound of the clock chiming twelve that woke her – but when she opened her eyes, she wasn’t in her bed, and it clearly wasn’t midnight that the clock was striking.
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