Dinner was excellent and the conversation flowed naturally. In the library afterwards, they sat over coffee. Juliana sat on the settee and sipped at her cup. She watched them all as unobtrusively as she could, and listened to their conversations.
Adrien was smiling, but there was a touch of anxiety in his eyes. She wondered what had put it there. Perhaps he was simply anxious for the evening to go well. He was laughing at something Jamie had said, and for a moment Juliana considered the younger man. He was light-hearted and gay, very hail-fellow-well-met, unlike his sister, who was pleasant and charming, but held herself in reserve. Both seemed very much at home.
Fancy sat on the opposite side of the room, apparently content to ignore everyone. She had once been a very pretty woman. The lines of her round face were good, her deep-set eyes a pleasing blue, and she knew enough to replace the fresh colour of youth with a judicious application of paint. But Juliana could see how years of discontent had left their mark. Her small, well-cut mouth should have dazzled, but instead it turned down in an unattractive pout, and her forehead bore the imprint of her frown. When she smiled, the movement rarely reached her eyes, which gazed out in icy disdain.
When she talked it was to complain, mainly about modern life and its expenses. Sylvia sat alongside, but it was clear from the faraway look in her eyes that she was not really listening. Juliana listened to Fancy’s complaints with some puzzlement. Money was not an issue here. She could tell from a quick glance that every item she had seen from Fancy’s wardrobe was good and expensive. The frock she wore at the moment was extremely simple in line, but Juliana knew how expensive such elegant simplicity was. This was not the picture of a thrifty widow, but Juliana realised that perhaps no one else would see what she did.
Jamie interrupted her thinking as he handed her a plate of petits fours. She chose a florentine, and bit into it carefully. Jamie was a bit of an enigma. He lived and worked on his own in a city, for a pathologist of all things; he was self-sufficient in many ways, and yet she had seen the boylike yearning in him for attention from his mother. Strange that he should look for it still, when his sister had clearly no intention of bothering at all. If Damaris cared for her mother at all, she made no outward sign of it. She was polite and well-behaved, but Fancy might have been a distant aunt for all the familial love her daughter showed her.
“Settling back in, Julie?” Jamie asked, nibbling some marzipan. “Must be a bit strange for you. So much to take in.”
She nodded, then turned to him.
“Do you always call me Julie?” she asked.
“Do you mind?” he asked anxiously.
“Not a bit. I like it. It just sounded a bit odd.”
Jamie stretched himself out beside her, reaching towards the fire with his feet, folding his arms behind his head.
“Juliana seemed like such a long name for such a small person,” he teased her. “I really can’t remember when I started, but it suited you.”
“How about me?” asked Margaret, sitting on the arm of the sofa and swinging her legs over in a movement that caused Fancy to roll her eyes on the other side of the room. “How come I ended up as Mags? You might have chosen something a bit nicer!”
“It’s because you are so divinely beautiful, Mags,” he said with a mock drawl. “You need to be kept down, otherwise you’ll get too big for your boots.”
Margaret picked up a cushion and began to thump him with it. Jamie curled up, shielding himself from the onslaught with his arms. Juliana joined in the laughter, shaking her head at their ridiculousness, then noticed Adrien, who was standing by the window. He had turned and was watching them, with an odd look on his face, as if he was outside in the cold, looking in to the warmth. She was about to beckon him over when his face and eyes turned blank, and he turned to look out onto the terrace through the half-opened window. He lit another cigarette and the moment passed.
“You can blame your sister for that,” chipped in Damaris, sitting on the footstool at her brother’s feet. “Remember how she used to call you Maggot? She had that awful lisp and could never manage your name properly.”
They were all laughing over this when Fancy, who had made sure she had the chair closest to the fire and had been ignoring the fooling around, glanced over at the happy group and her lip curled. She gestured to Adrien, who had moved from the window and was winding up the gramophone.
“Since we are all here now, and have dined, Adrien, perhaps you can answer the question that we are all dying to ask?” she stated coolly.
Adrien swung towards her, his eyebrows drawn together over his eyes and the same look of concern on his face that Juliana had noticed earlier. Fancy ignored him and, swinging her dainty shoes up onto the stool Jamie had brought for her earlier, she waved casually at Juliana.
“This is Juliana, obviously. So who is buried in the village?”
There was a stunned silence. Juliana felt a little sick at what was happening; she did not know to what Fancy was referring, but she felt the dismay that flickered around each of the occupants in the room. A dark look crossed her husband’s face, and she knew that whatever Fancy had brought up was not something Adrien had wanted to discuss. This was what he had balked at telling her that morning, she had no doubt. She had a nasty feeling that her earlier wonderings were going to be explained.
“You told us she was dead!” Fancy continued, unabashed. “Now you turn up with her again and tell us it was a mistake?”
“Fancy!” said Adrien sharply. “This is not the time!”
Fancy looked at him curiously, her peculiarly round eyes lazy in the firelight. There was a nasty silence, through which Juliana thought that the pounding of her heart must be clear to everyone. It beat so hard in her chest that it hurt.
“I don’t see why not,” replied Fancy, with a little malice. “After that rigmarole you put us through, I think an explanation is due. And from the look on your wife’s face, not a moment too soon.”
Fancy gestured around the room, pointing longest at Juliana herself, and Juliana saw that she was right about one thing. Everyone there was longing to talk about what had happened, but it had taken Fancy to bring the subject up so crudely. She saw Sylvia looking at Adrien with concern, as the man grasped the back of the chair as if to snap it in two. Margaret glared at Fancy with a look of disgust.
“It’s perfectly all right to admit that a mistake was made,” Fancy continued. “And that it took Andrew Fenton, on his one trip per year up to the city, to find your wife. What I can’t understand is why you didn’t find her yourself. Your club is right there on Portman Place, for goodness’ sake.”
Juliana saw Adrien wince, and without thinking, she stood up abruptly, walking over to the coffee tray and pouring herself another cup. She thought that she might be sick, she certainly felt it, but the unkind way Fancy was needling Adrien roused an unexpectedly fierce response in her breast. Turning to the room at large, she offered a refill.
“More coffee, anyone?”
It was not subtle, and her voice was not even, but the simple question calmed the atmosphere. Jamie jumped to his feet and brought Damaris’s cup over, looking down at her with some admiration.
“Nicely done, Julie,” he murmured, so quietly that only she heard him.
She did not answer him, but nodded her thanks. Margaret joined them too, refilling her mother’s cup with a steady hand and a set to her jaw that told Juliana just how little she liked Fancy. Only when they were all seated again did Juliana speak directly to Fancy.
“Mr Fenton’s meeting me was pure chance, Mrs Evans,” she said firmly, seeing Fancy’s mouth twitch at the use of her surname. “I was not selling flowers on the street corner, whatever you might think.”
Fancy’s mouth curled, but she was beaten to another catty remark by the quiet voice of Sylvia.
“Exactly what I was thinking, Juliana,” she said, leaning over and calmly taking another sweet. “Good Lord, Fancy, it may be a while since I’ve been up to London, b
ut even I remember how busy it gets.” She turned to Juliana. “One of the main reasons I avoid the place. Can’t bear the crowds.”
Margaret chipped in here, with a falsely sweet smile across the room. “For all that, Aunt Fancy, you would have had a better chance of seeing Juliana than anyone. I mean, your dressmaker is nearby. And you shop on Regent Street. You were there just the last time you went up. Remember those lovely dress lengths you brought back from Liberty?”
Fancy looked annoyed and opened her mouth, but Jamie got in first.
“Forgive me, Adrien,” he said, hesitating, “but perhaps we should talk about it after all. The cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it?”
Adrien looked angrily at the younger man and opened his mouth to reply, but Jamie held up his hands in a conciliatory fashion. Juliana noticed how red they were, and realised that he had scrubbed them so hard to rid them of the odour of formaldehyde that they were chapped.
“If it was the fault of anyone here, what happened three years ago, then it was mine,” Jamie said.
There was an instant outburst from almost everyone in the room, but he turned away to look into the fire. “I was there when Dr Medbury made his examination,” he said roughly, swallowing hard. He avoided Juliana’s eyes and looked instead at Fancy.
“Adrien didn’t decide anything, Mother,” said Jamie. “The coroner, the chief constable, Medbury—they all made the decision. Adrien fought them, right up to…”
He didn’t continue. Fancy looked cross now, and Jamie caught sight of the frown on her face. He looked pleadingly at her.
“Adrien was forced to accept the conclusion,” he continued, his voice still harsh. “It all must have been some ghastly coincidence.”
He was having to make an effort to be calm, his shoulders shaking a little. Damaris saw it, casting a scowl in her mother’s direction. She threw her arms around her brother, and the two brown heads gleamed in the light of the fire. Juliana saw the tender look that passed between them, and it warmed her.
“Jamie’s right,” Damaris said, holding him tightly. “It wasn’t Adrien’s fault. And it wasn’t yours either,” she said, shaking her brother gently. “Just a horrible mistake.”
Gratitude flared in Jamie’s eyes. Juliana turned from one person to another, a desperate chill settling over her. Whatever it was that Adrien had not told her, it had clearly been important. Sylvia saw her confusion and chimed in.
“Adrien? This was not the best time nor manner to bring the subject up”—at this she turned to Fancy with a look on her face that showed exactly what she thought of such behaviour—“but I don’t think we can just leave it here. Not now. I know how distressing it all is, but I think it would be better to explain everything to Juliana.”
There was a tone in her voice over the last phrase that Juliana fancied held more than a touch of reproach. Not for Fancy, though, this time. For whom? Adrien, she thought. What else had he not explained about the accident? What examination had Jamie been talking about? Was this the reason she had not been found earlier?
Adrien looked around the room wildly, as if hoping to see sense on someone’s face, but all that was reflected back was a general agreement with Sylvia’s statement. He tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat and instead he turned on his heel and walked outside, slamming the door behind him. Fancy raised her eyebrows but said nothing; the others looked down in embarrassment. Juliana was shocked. Sighing, Sylvia sat down beside her.
“You must excuse him, Juliana. He has been under a great deal of strain.”
Juliana turned to her. “I don’t understand. Whose body are you all talking about? Why should that have affected what happened here?”
There was a silence, and then Damaris spoke. “There was a huge hunt up and down the coast for you, after you vanished,” she began, carefully choosing her words. “No trace of you turned up, apart from what was found that first day at the cliff. It was generally agreed that your body had been taken out to sea by the Vellan.”
“The Vellan?” Juliana had never heard the name before.
“It is a local current,” added Mags. “Extremely strong, and when something gets into it, it rarely gets back out. Three weeks later, one of the fishermen found a body in his nets.”
Juliana was aware that they were all watching her. All except Fancy had sympathy on their faces. Damaris continued.
“There was a post-mortem done. Poor Jamie had to help out—the pathologist needed an assistant, so it was logical they would ask him. From what was found, it seemed to be you. And so she was buried in the family plot, and we all grieved.”
Not Fancy, I’ll bet, thought Juliana. She was probably doing a jig.
“I see,” she replied.
This explained some of Adrien’s shock; the way he had been so dazed when they had met in the lawyer’s office. It was not just that she had been missing, but that to him she had been dead. She wondered what turns his life had taken in the intervening years. It was a long time. She herself had built an entirely new life for herself. Had Adrien moved on, found someone else? Had he perhaps been ready to move on completely, when his plans had been ruined by her reappearance. Was that why he had not spoken of it to her?
“Thank you for the explanation,” she said, finally finding her voice, although it was rough as Jamie’s had been. “Some things make more sense now.”
Sylvia patted her hand, then tactfully dispatched Margaret for more coffee and asked Jamie and Damaris to put some Bach on the gramophone. Fancy said nothing, just stared into the fire.
“Be gentle with Adrien,” Sylvia said. “I know this is disturbing for you; it cannot be otherwise. You have every right to be angry. But your husband suffered greatly too, and this has all been equally upsetting for him.”
Juliana nodded, then pulled her wrap over her shoulders and followed Adrien out of the French windows to the garden. She found him out on the terrace, staring out to sea. The wind had fallen, and the smoke from his cigarette rose straight up into the night. He was not crying, as she had feared, but his face looked tormented.
“You should have told me,” she said coldly.
He did not reply, so she reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. He flinched, silent beside her, taut as a bowstring as she put her hand on his arm. His flesh was like stone under his dinner jacket.
“But I can see why you found it difficult,” she said, pulling him round so that he had to look at her. “This whole affair has been difficult, for both of us.”
He looked down at her, his eyes still damp, but with a hard edge. She realized that the look was not for her, but for himself.
“Adrien, mistakes were made,” she continued. “There doesn’t seem to have been much that you could have done about this one. Apart from telling me—that goes without saying!”
“I tried to, this morning,” he said. “I realised that with all the bustle of the last week, you and I had not had much time to talk about what happened. Then it hit me, what the misidentification of that body had really done. I couldn’t say the words. I wasn’t brave enough to watch your face.”
“Jamie said that you didn’t make the decision. That other people did, and that you had to accept it.”
He flung the remains of his cigarette over the edge of the terrace, and the red ember tumbled slowly into the darkness below. He leaned back against the balustrade, arms folded, hands tucked under his elbows, as if trying to keep himself together.
“I should have known,” he said. “I should never have accepted what they told me.”
She shook him now, annoyed at his lack of foresight. What she really wanted to do was slap some sense into him. Surely he had known that someone would bring it up, sooner rather than later. Time was not a luxury they had, not with so many reunions, with everyone knowing that she had come back. Even if they did not fully believe that she had lost her memory, someone was going to talk about the reason the search for her had been called off so quickly. And knowing Fancy as he did,
had he not realised that she would enjoy creating tension like this? Obviously he was guilty of gross misjudgement. The scene that had just played out had done so because of his reticence.
“No, you couldn’t have known,” she replied, chilled through. “From what Jamie said, you had no reason to think anything other than what everyone else decided. Hunches aren’t proof. There was a body. I had gone missing. I think what was decided was logical.”
He turned suddenly and gripped her arms above the elbows, hard. His eyes looked down at her so intensely she had to look away.
“But you were still alive; hurt, and on your own. And I thought you were buried down in the churchyard. I walked to your grave, every week, and put flowers down and then walked away. Do you know how that makes me feel now?”
“No, I can’t,” she said, a burst of anger driving out the chill. “But I had to actually live through it. And you are going to have to get used to that. Please don’t hold my arms so hard, you are hurting me.”
He dropped his hands and sat down abruptly on the balustrade. He stared at her, his eyes finding hers and then blinking away, like he had been caught looking at a stranger and was embarrassed.
“You have changed, haven’t you?” he said slowly. “I can’t imagine you being so pragmatic over something like this before…”
His voice was brittle.
“I don’t know if I’ve changed,” she replied, rubbing her arms. “I only know how I feel now. And I don’t bear anyone any ill will over what happened. Yes, I might have been found sooner if this other poor soul had not washed up. But it’s all over and done with.”
She took a step forward and this time reached out and pushed his hair back from his forehead, looking at him hard. He no longer looked distant. He was fighting a deluge of emotion, but it was emotion that she could not comprehend. She knew what he had been unable to tell her. And yet he was worried still, she could see it. She frowned at him.
“Don’t brood any more,” she said finally. “There’s nothing to be done now by moping.”
The Dead Woman Who Lived Page 8