by Rachel Hore
As the days and weeks passed, Audrey, too, was becoming a little friendlier. At first she was sharp with Isabel and disdainful, which puzzled the girl, for she was keen to prove her worth.
She’d discovered from Audrey herself what the bet was that Audrey had had with Trudy that first day.
‘Stephen obviously likes you, I could tell it straight away.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Isabel pinked up as she caught the insinuation. ‘Anyway, he’s married.’
‘You are such an innocent.’ Audrey sat, arms folded, one manicured finger resting against her cheek.
‘I’m not, and you’re wrong about Stephen.’ Isabel stuck her nose in a file to hide her upset. She didn’t understand why Audrey put her down all the time.
It was Trudy who took her aside one day and pointed out how irritating it must be for Audrey to have someone like Isabel, younger and more ambitious, foisted on her.
‘She thinks you want her daylight. Don’t try so hard. Nobody likes a pushy girl.’
Isabel suddenly saw the situation in sharp focus. She thought about it on the bus home. She must tone down her enthusiasm. What was required of her, she decided, was humble obedience . Not, however, subservience . There was a fine line to be drawn, especially with Audrey. She remembered from school how that worked, when she’d wanted a favour from an older girl or been put in charge of younger ones. Fawning was despised. Being spirited but respectful was what brought results. From then on, Isabel made sure that she did everything Audrey asked her, and did it well, but she did not offer to do anything she regarded as being beneath her dignity, such as making tea for young Jimmy Jones. Nor did she openly aspire to tasks that implied she was getting ‘above herself. This meant being furtive about her reading. But with Christmas only a few weeks away, all this effort might be for nothing. Oh, how she longed to be allowed to stay at McKinnon & Holt.
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Chapter 5
Emily
The autumn fog rising off the Suffolk marshes was so dense that Emily, glancing up from her novel, couldn’t make out the station signs. ‘Where are we?’ she asked the woman opposite her on the train. ‘I reckon it’s Ipswich,’ came the reply.
‘Oh, that’s me!’ Emily cried, snatching her coat down from the rack.
Hurrying from the train, she followed the crowds across the bridge and through the ticket barrier. Someone from Stone House was supposed to meet her, and she waited by the entrance to the station, uncertain of what to do next, the world being practically invisible in the fog. Minutes passed. The concourse emptied of people and vehicles, and silence fell. She wondered what had gone awry, if she’d got the wrong date or time, or had been forgotten. She was searching her bag for the letter with Jacqueline Morton’s phone number when a timid voice said, ‘Excuse me, but are you Emily?’ Emily turned to see a short woman with pale blue eyes regarding her anxiously. She must have been about Emily’s mother’s age, or maybe older, it wasn’t easy to tell because she was enveloped from head to knee in a dark green cagoule.
‘Yes, I’m Emily. You must be . . .’
‘Lorna, Jacqueline Morton’s daughter,’ the woman said in an apologetic tone, putting out her hand. It was a gardener’s hand, the skin roughened and callused. Lorna Morton, Emily thought, might once have been pretty in an English rose way, with her round face, pink cheeks and puzzled blue eyes with feathery lashes. Wisps of silvery hair were escaping from her hood. She had a sweet, gentle way about her that matched her soft voice.
‘Thank goodness you waited,’ Lorna said as they walked across the concourse. ‘I’m sorry I was so late, but the fog’s even worse out where we are – just awful – and then I couldn’t see to park.’
‘I should have offered to take a taxi.’
‘Oh, it’s no trouble, really. The car’s here somewhere. I do hate . . . Ah, here it is.’
Lorna, nervous, took some time edging the tiny vehicle into the traffic, then it was nose-to-tail through the town before they finally escaped onto a dual carriageway, where she kept to the slow lane, turning off after a few minutes onto a narrow country road. Here the fog lifted briefly to give glimpses of ploughed fields on either side. They negotiated the twists and turns for several miles, Emily hardly daring to make conversation in case she distracted Lorna from the tortuous business of driving. She learned, however, that the fog had come down in the night, and that Lorna’s mother was still fit at eighty-five and liked to get out to see friends as much as possible, but would probably have to miss a concert in Ipswich that evening if conditions didn’t improve. Lorna worried that Mother did too much.
There’s been an awful lot to sort out recently,’ Lorna said. ‘And she’s insisted on doing most of it all herself.’
‘The will and things?’ Emily wondered, never having had to deal with such procedures herself.
‘Mother always says being an author is like running a small business. There’s so much paperwork. And neither of us is computerish. At least all the filing is in good order. She’s always been strict about that.’
‘What will happen to the papers? The letters and manuscripts, I mean?’
Lorna eased the car round a tight corner. ‘She’ll explain everything when you meet. That’s probably best.’
Emily thought of the points for their meeting that she’d jotted in her notebook. She’d also brought Coming Home with her, which she’d now read and enjoyed. It was a story about a young man taken from the country life that he knew, the prospect of life as an academic, to fly planes in the RAF, and how he returned to find that everything had changed, including the girl he’d loved. She sensed that it had a ring of the autobiographical about it, like many a first novel.
They drove on, as through some shadowy netherworld, London and civilisation worryingly further and further behind. The road descended sharply into thick drifts of fog, so Lorna slowed down to a crawl. ‘Not long now,’ she remarked, and a few moments later, they passed a village sign, wreathed in mist, then – the air grew momentarily clearer – houses, a village Post Office, the great flint shoulder of a church. Soon after that, Lorna drove between a pair of white posts and along a bumpy drive where delicate winter branches of trees lined the grassy verge on either side. Where the drive dipped, the mist surged in a sinister fashion and the sense of passing into another world intensified. Finally the car lurched to a halt, alarmingly close behind another vehicle, something black and sporty-looking.
‘Here we are,’ Lorna said with relief. They both got out. The air was chilly, with the scent of bonfires.
Lorna led the way past some outhouses, two with stable doors. ‘Are there horses?’ Emily asked, shivering.
‘Not in our time,’ Lorna said, her voice coming across pale and wistful. ‘I would have loved to learn to ride, but it wasn’t something my parents did. Come on. We’ll go via the kitchen, if you don’t mind. I must see that lunch is all right.’
She opened a heavy door and led Emily into a square utility room, then on through another door into a farmhouse kitchen. There was a rugged wooden table in the middle, one end of which was piled with clutter – a radio with a broken aerial, cook books, magazines and sewing. Pots and pans hung above a fireplace that was completely filled by a huge old Aga. A crowded wooden dresser of similar vintage to the table took up one wall. Though cramped, the room was homey and warm, and smelled of something savoury and delicious. A grey cat was curled up in a basket by the stove. It stirred for a moment at their entrance, then settled back into sleep. It was wasted with age, its ragged coat barely disguising the ridge of its backbone.
‘This won’t take a moment,’ Lorna said. She’d peeled off her cagoule to reveal an untidy ensemble of cord skirt, flowery blouse and jumper. Taking up a thick cloth, she opened one of the doors of the stove, inspected the contents of a pot and gave it a stir. ‘That’s all right,’ she said, pushing it back. ‘Let me have your coat. I’ll take you through.’
The kitchen must have been Lorna’s domain, for in it she w
as a different person from the nervous chauffeur, more relaxed, the evidence of domestic interests all around. She changed again, however, as they passed into the main part of the house. She trod softly and wore a furtive look. Emily sensed why. This big light hall belonged to someone else. It was colder than the kitchen and painted white and pale blue.
Lorna tapped on a door at the far end of the hall and waited. At the sound of a voice, they entered a spacious drawing room with book-lined walls.
‘Emily’s here, Mother,’ Lorna Morton announced. Emily walked across an acre of blue carpet to where an old lady was rising with effort from a chair by the fire.
‘How do you do?’ Jacqueline Morton said.
‘Very pleased to meet you.’ Emily took the outstretched hand, which felt as light and strong as a bird’s wing. She thought how regal and commanding the woman was in her navy-blue suit, the gold buttons of the jacket complementing her earrings and necklace, how composed. Her hair, scooped into a pleat behind, gleamed an expensive creamy white. Wide-spaced eyes of faded blue examined Emily. Finally her thin lips curved in a smile. genuinely bi‘
‘Do you know Joel Richards?’ she said, indicating the young man who’d stood up from the sofa. He looked oddly familiar, though she couldn’t think from where.
‘I don’t think so,’ Emily said brightly, as he came forward. ‘Hello.’
Joel Richards was tallish and broad-shouldered. His reddish-brown hair, though long, was neatly trimmed, as was the trace of a beard. Hazel eyes met hers and there was warmth in them. He was smartly dressed in a soft-brown suit and collarless shirt.
‘Hi, Emily,’ he murmured with an easy charm. His accent had a northern tinge, pleasing to the ear. A firm hand enveloped hers. His eyes said, Do I know you?
‘Joel,’ said Mrs Morton, ‘was talking about Duke’s College in London. They hold some of Hugh’s manuscripts.’
Duke’s, that was Matthew’s college. And Emily suddenly knew where she’d seen Joel before.
‘Weren’t you at the poetry launch in Frith Street last Friday?’ she asked him. She remembered how he’d stood on his own, surveying the room. How he’d given her that same small, secretive smile.
‘That’s it. I thought I’d seen you somewhere,’ he said, his face lighting up. ‘Tobias Berryman is a friend of mine. He took me along as we were having dinner together later.’
‘Oh, you know one another – how simply marvellous,’ Mrs Morton said with a touch of sarcasm, bringing everyone’s attention back to herself.
‘And this is Hugh’s study.’
Mrs Morton opened the door off the hall with an air of reverence, as though they might be interrupting the great man at his desk. There was, of course, no one there, though the foggy daylight gave the room an eerie atmosphere. A big, leather-topped desk lay before the window, a sheaf of papers splayed across it, a fountain pen lying by the blotter.
‘These are all first editions.’ Mrs Morton was showing Emily the bookcase. The volumes were in many languages and the majority, Emily gauged, were The Silent Tide. She spotted a copy of the novel whose title she’d forgotten, the one her teacher had made her read, about the writers on an island retreat, then noticed one even more familiar. It was an exact copy of the little book she had in her bag: Coming Home.
Mrs Morton was now opening the top drawer of one of several large metal filing cabinets at the back of the room to show Joel some of the files. ‘The correspondence with Kingsley Amis, yes, here . . . the letters about the honour Hugh really had to refuse . . .’ she was saying. Emily would have liked to ask why Hugh Morton refused it, but Mrs Morton had forgotten her.
Emily edged Coming Home off the shelf and examined it quickly. There was no inscription in this copy, no mention of any Isabel. She toyed with the idea of showing her own book to Hugh’s widow, but something stayed her, the not-knowing who Isabel was. She watched Jacqueline and Joel together, and how Jacqueline seemed to trust him.
Joel had already told Emily how he had introduced himself to Hugh and Jacqueline once at a literary party in London the year before he died. He’d admired all Morton’s novels and had felt compelled to meet the great man and tell him so. Jacqueline added that when Joel wrote to her in sympathy after her husband’s death, she remembered the young man who’d spoken so charmingly to her husband and who’d impressed her by his knowledge of the books.
said, sitting down again. or like Joel had visited Stone House several times since Morton’s death, but he didn’t seem to mind being made to do the tour with Emily today. So far they’d politely marvelled at the impressionistic oil painting of Hugh Morton in the hall, and the table in the breakfast room where the great man had sometimes worked on sunny mornings, his beloved Persian cats sleeping close by. In the dining room they had studied several photograph albums of awards ceremonies, of the Mortons holidaying in various exotic locations with other distinguished literary figures, Jacqueline cool and elegant in headscarves or shady hats. The number of such pictures had dwindled as the years had gone by.
After they’d finished in the study, Lorna served sherry in the drawing room and Emily took out her notebook to consider her list of questions.
Could Joel tell her a little about what else he’d written? Did he have an agent? Was there an outline for the proposed biography? How long did he think the book would take to complete, and so on? ‘I’m sorry to bombard you, but my boss is going to want to know all this,’ she told him.
Nervous under this questioning, Joel spilled his sherry while placing his glass on the side table.
‘I do have an agent,’ he said, wiping his fingers on a tissue Emily gave him. He named someone Emily hadn’t heard of at a small, but reputable firm.
Emily knew that Hugh Morton’s books were notion-ally looked after by one of the bigger literary agencies, but that Jacqueline made all the decisions. She wasn’t surprised that the agent in question wasn’t there today.
‘I’m a freelance writer,’ Joel was telling her. He mentioned several important commissions he’d had: writing the official history of a big City firm; ghostwriting the bestselling memoirs of a senior business figure. He’d also scripted a TV series about the 1950s that was in the process of being filmed. ‘That’s when I became very interested in Hugh Morton. I’ve always admired his novels.’
He must have been paid reasonable money for some of these, Emily thought. Parchment wasn’t going to be able to offer more than a modest advance for this biography, and the thought worried her.
‘Joel really understands dear Hugh,’ Jacqueline Morton broke in. ‘He recognises how central he is as an English writer, don’t you, Joel?’
‘I certainly feel Hugh’s reputation is ripe to be reevaluated. The Silent Tide was actually a very modern book. The character of Nanna, for instance . . .’
‘Joel thinks Nanna is a woman for her time,’ said Mrs Morton, interrupting once again, ‘in the way of Tolstoy with Anna Karenina.’
The pair of them regarded Emily as though daring her to challenge this. Emily hesitated, wondering if they really wanted her opinion. Anna Karenina was a favourite novel of hers and nothing to her mind compared with it, but Nanna in The Silent Tide was a powerful symbolic figure. She said, ‘I do see what you mean. Zara Collins is perfect to play her, isn’t she? Have they consulted you about it?’ she asked Mrs Morton.
The old woman’s expression hardened. ‘They had the courtesy to show me the script,’ she said, ‘but they’ve not listened to any of my concerns. Too much has been left out, but what can one do?’ She sighed. ‘I’m sure the series will be very popular, but it’s certainly not what Hugh would have envisaged.’
‘At least it means a new generation will buy the book,’ Emily said. Lily Catchpole e McKinnon
‘I do hope you’re right.’ Now Jacqueline looked coy. ‘There are some, do you know, who used to tell me that I was Hugh’s principal inspiration for Nanna.’ She gave a light laugh and sat back in her seat. ‘Ridiculous, of course, but people will say th
ese silly things.’
Emily and Joel smiled politely. Emily thought the idea most unlikely, but Mrs Morton was clearly charmed by it.
‘I can assure you,’ Mrs Morton went on confidingly, ‘that our marriage was a much happier affair than Nanna’s.’ She glanced at a large black and white photograph hanging on the wall near her chair. Emily leaned forward to see it better. It was of a family group. Hugh was instantly recognisable. Jacqueline must have been in her prime, a young mother, dressed a bit like Jackie Kennedy. A baby boy sat straight-backed on Jacqueline’s knee and another boy of three or four leaned against her. Standing behind the seated grown-ups was an older girl peeping over their shoulders at the camera. From her shy expression, Emily supposed her to be Lorna. What a perfect family they appeared.
Emily looked back at her notebook, where she’d been jotting down Joel’s answers. Finally she asked Jacqueline Morton, ‘Um, the source material. I mean, you’ve given Joel full access to the papers, haven’t you?’
Mrs Morton appeared irritated by this question. ‘It’s important to me that a full and accurate record of Hugh’s life and work is presented,’ she said, emphasising each word, ‘and I will be supporting Joel in every way I can. There’s something I wanted to ask you. I assume he’ll be able to look at anything about Hugh’s books in Parchment’s archive?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Emily said, making a note of this. ‘I don’t know what there’ll be, but I’ll find out.’ Being so new, she hadn’t had a chance to think about where ancient files might be kept, but there must be a system.