“The summer seemed to go well, and I thought that everything was a success. Then the whispers seemed to reach you. There was nothing behind it, not on my part, I swear, but you know what small towns are like. I remember the first time I saw uncertainty in your eyes, and I didn’t know what had put it there. I started to think that perhaps you were regretting it all. That you were homesick for Shanghai and wanted to go back. Then I realised that you thought I had just married you for your money, and that I was in love with Belinda. That I was meeting her in secret. That I needed money. I know how it went. Drip, drip, drip. Never anything out loud, nothing direct. But it was enough for you to stop trusting me. I watched as the love drained from you and I could do nothing.”
She was astounded. “Why didn’t you stand up for yourself? Tell me it was untrue.”
At this he looked ashamed.
“I tried, but it was hard, without sounding as if I had something to hide,” he said quietly. “I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was annoyed that I should have to defend myself. What we had, it was so new, I didn’t want to crack the surface. The facts were true enough. I had not spoken of Belinda to you, before we married. I should have, but I simply didn’t think of her. You were there, I loved you from the start, that was all I thought of. I did meet with her when we returned to Sancreed, a number of times. I lunched with her, I talked with her. We were friends for a long time, I had to explain to her what had happened.”
“But you didn’t explain to me!” she said sharply. “You were engaged to someone and broke it off to marry me!”
“Belinda and I were never engaged!” he said. “Everyone thought I would ask her to marry me, but I kept putting it off. Finally I realised why. That I didn’t love her. She is a good, kind woman, but she wasn’t right for me. I took that trip to the Continent to see if I could clear my head, far away from Cornwall. Work out what I wanted. I realised very quickly that I did not at all want to marry Belinda. And then I met you.”
“My money…”
“Every penny you left me is still intact, Juliana. I spent none of it. None of it mattered to me, when you were gone.”
Her heart seemed to have stopped. All she wanted to do was believe him. Jumping to her feet, she walked to the window, breathing out a mist as she leant her head on the cool glass.
“But all the work on the house, rebuilding the estate,” she murmured. “Fancy said… she suggested that you had just been waiting for enough money to begin. That you needed the body to be mine so that my will could be proved.”
She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly together on the windowsill. Little fool, she told herself, her heart plummeting inside her. Stupid to listen to Fancy, to believe her so easily. What had that woman done to her?
“Did she?” Adrien said, his mouth tight. “Well, she could have saved herself the trouble. The money I used was all mine. Some old stocks of my father’s turned up trumps, just after the funeral. Completely unexpected. The mines had been running down for years until someone found a new vein there, even bigger than before. And after the War, even more valuable. I didn’t see why I should tell anyone. It was just money, it meant nothing without you. So I made the repairs, rebuilt the house. Threw myself into it. The only thing I didn’t touch was the boat. I couldn’t bear to look at her. But everything else was fair game. Anything to keep my head clear, to stop me from missing you. I locked up your room so I wouldn’t have to look at it.”
Juliana turned around and walked back over to him, oddly light-headed. He looked up at her, his face exhausted in the clear light from the window.
“Why have you been locking your door at night?” she asked. “I know that you were being thoughtful in giving me space. But why lock it? It makes me feel that you are pushing me away.”
He looked helplessly at her.
“That was the last thing on my mind, Jules! I thought you would feel more secure if you knew you were safe and alone. That I wasn’t going to make any unwanted… demands on you.”
She stood on the carpet and looked at him as her head cleared at his words. How difficult it was proving, to understand another human being. It should be so simple. Speak, and listen. Hear, and respond. And then in reality it was anything but.
“Did you truly miss me when I disappeared?” she asked, needing to hear him say the words, reaching to cup his face in her hands. He closed his eyes at the touch of her cold fingertips on his skin.
“You have no idea what I went through,” he muttered, putting his hands up to lay them over her own. He looked at her fiercely, pulling her down onto his knee. Without having to think, her arms went around his neck, and it felt like the right thing to do. This was something she remembered in her bones; the feeling of his arms around her waist, his hair under her fingers.
“I went through hell, Juliana. A different one to you, but hell all the same. Don’t let’s go back. We have another chance.”
He kissed her for a long time, and she kissed him back and enjoyed every moment of it. Finally he broke away and sat back, stroking her hair back from her face. Her skin was rosy and her grey eyes huge with joy. She smiled at him, enjoying the sight of his gaze clear of doubt and thought.
“I’ll tell Fancy she has to move out,” he said, his hands tight on her waist. “I won’t have her making mischief again.”
Juliana doubted that it was just mischief but was wary of simply kicking Fancy out, despite badly wanting her gone. There was Miss Berkley to think about, for one thing, still recovering from her illness that winter. Hendra would not be free for some time. And there were Jamie and Damaris to consider too. Their desperate clinging to each other had touched her heart.
“I don’t think we can do it immediately,” she replied cautiously. “Hendra is not available for her, not at the moment. And frankly, I worry about Jamie and Damaris. They really value their home here, Adrien. I would hate to take that from them. Perhaps we should wait for a while, for their sakes? Let things settle a little. I don’t care about her any more. She can’t hurt us unless we let her.”
“Whatever you want,” he murmured in between kisses. “Just love me again, Jules.”
***
From that moment it seemed that a bad spell had been broken. The days passed happily, one after another, forming a regular rhythm. Adrien still slept in his dressing room, insisting that they take things slowly, but he no longer locked the door. They met in the bathroom when brushing their teeth; Adrien ran her bath for in the evening, and they sat together on the window seat and talked. Adrien scheduled his work for the mornings as much as possible, and sometimes Juliana would accompany him on his visits, riding on Hester, with whom she had re-established a close bond. After he had finished, they would spend the rest of the day together, taking long walks to explore the surrounding countryside, and visiting friends. They took tea one afternoon at Hendra, entertained by Arnold Berkley and his sisters, drinking pale straw-coloured tea and eating dainty iced cakes. Adrien showed her over Hendra and its gardens, and she began to understand Jamie’s attachment to the place.
One beautiful golden morning he took her on the promised trip to the south coast. They drove in the Alvis up over the moor, past the Gallows Tree and on south to Marazion. He stopped the car for a moment atop a green hill, surrounded by fields of daffodils, the pickers gay in linen smocks and head scarves as they picked the golden blooms. Juliana could imagine the dainty, fragrant stems being unpacked in the busy markets of London, taken back to enliven cramped, drab accommodations, breathing their gentle spring magic into stressed and busy lives.
Out in the bay Juliana saw for the first time St Michael’s Mount, sitting high above the smooth water. It was high tide, and the isle was surrounded by water lapping lazily around the circumference, looking for all the world like a castle from one of Grimm’s tales. They took their picnic basket and sat in a tiny cove tucked away from the villages and roads, empty of all but themselves. The breeze was scarcely that, just a gentle breath of warm air, quite
unlike the brisk gusts they had left on the north coast. The sand was dry and warm to the touch, and the sunshine a treat after all the rain. They ate cold chicken sandwiches and tiny pork pies, still warm from the oven, followed by blackberry jam tarts. There was a surprise of a half-bottle of chilled white wine, and a flask of rich coffee. After, they lay together on a blanket, half-asleep in the sun, having overeaten and enjoyed every bite.
“Let’s have a paddle,” she suggested finally.
“Must we?” he murmured, his head in her lap. “I’m terribly comfortable right here.”
“I insist,” she replied, pushing him off. “I’m still not used to having all this lovely water so close to me. Come on!”
They took off their shoes and ran down to the water, leaving a trail of footprints behind them that gradually filled with water and melted back into the surrounding sand. Juliana walked behind Adrien and smiled at the sight of him with his trouser legs rolled up out of the way of the water. There was something about a man paddling in shallow water that left him defenceless. She caught him up, taking his hand and pulling him down for a kiss.
“You still haven’t told me much about how we actually met. I just know that it was in Paris.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and looked down at her fair head, tousled from the breeze.
“I had been at the Louvre,” he began. “I was walking back to my hotel when I saw you, on the steps of the Lotti. The rain had started falling, but you were standing there, alone. You had no umbrella. Everyone else was hurrying by, but you just stood there and looked about you, and didn’t seem to notice the rain. I was stunned. And without thinking I walked up to you and asked you to have lunch with me.”
“Did I say yes?” she asked.
“You laughed and said that your maid had read your fortune that morning and it was a good day to do something foolish and impulsive. So I took you to lunch and you impressed me with your appetite. You ate like a trencherman. Then we walked about in the rain and talked all afternoon. And by the time I left you back at your hotel, I was in love with you and I knew I was going to ask you to marry me.”
Juliana was shocked.
“My maid? I had a maid?” she questioned.
“Darling, you were a very well-brought-up young woman from a good family. Girls like you did not travel halfway around the world on their own, let alone wander about Europe going to lunch with strange men whenever you felt like it. She went back to Shanghai when we married; she didn’t want to stay in Europe. And you refused to get another.”
She pursed her mouth as she considered this, and Adrien couldn’t help but kiss her again.
“You mentioned before that my father had died,” she said later. “Was that why I was travelling?”
He nodded.
“You told me that after the funeral you felt that it was the right time to leave Shanghai for a while, and try something new. Too many memories there for you to be happy, for a while at least.”
They had found a wooden bench nestled in the dunes and were sitting side by side, arms around each other.
“We married quickly?” she asked.
“I asked you at the end of our third day together, in the Luxembourg Gardens. You said yes without hesitation. We married two weeks later. Not at all the usual thing, but we were so happy, we didn’t want to wait.”
“That all makes me sound very impetuous,” she said, frowning. “Lunching with a strange young man on a whim, then agreeing to marry him three days later.”
“I suppose you are,” he said with a smile.
“Was,” she corrected. “I don’t think I am impetuous any more. I couldn’t afford to be. Perhaps I shall begin again.”
“I have a surprise for you at home that might help with all your questions,” he said with a grin. “I had all your personal possessions packed up when you … disappeared, but they were kept in the tower. You didn’t ask about them, so I didn’t remember about the trunks being there, but I asked to have them taken to your room. There are definitely letters and photographs and personal items, as well as your clothes. They might give you some answers.”
Two enormous steamer trunks, bound in metal and with the name J P Gladwell on the sides, were on the carpet in her room as Adrien had said. They were free of dust, someone had cleaned them carefully with a damp rag, but were still locked. The keys Adrien dug out from his desk and handed over to her.
“I’ll leave you alone,” he said as she circled the trunks warily, wondering just what secrets might be folded up there. “I think you’ll enjoy some privacy. I’ll call you for tea at four thirty.”
Left alone, she ran her fingers over the cold metal straps, stroking the gummed paper that bore the names of ships and shipping lines and different ports. There were still traces of chalk marks from customs sheds, and a few shreds of rope caught under metal grommets.
Sitting back on her heels, she took a deep breath and slowly unlocked the lids. Opening them both, she found the first filled with clothes; all excellent quality and all made to measure. Despite having been made several years before, they had been at the forefront of style then and had not dated much. Some were too much, especially for the country. She could not foresee ever needing a sequin-spangled evening gown here, for instance. But some of the pieces would do beautifully, and solve the problem of her insufficient wardrobe in one fell swoop.
The clothing took up the whole of one trunk, and a good portion of the second. It was under the layer of underclothes and some ridiculously fancy nightgowns that she found something more interesting. A crocodile jewel case, opened with the smallest key that Adrien had given her. Her eyes were wide as she rifled it. A number of heavy carved bangles in ivory and jade, cinnabar and jet. Hair combs and pins, necklaces, bracelets. All things she would love to wear. She laughed at the find, giddy at the discovery of such beautiful items. Right at the bottom, in a black velvet case, was a diamond brooch, in the shape of a lotus. Carved on the back was her name, and a date. Her birthday. She would have been eighteen. She pinned it on her sweater, admiring the flower on her breast in the mirror. The cold of the jade bangles was heavy on her wrists as she tried things on, playing like a small girl at her mother’s dressing table.
Under the crocodile case were boxes of letters. The letters were tied in small piles, using different-coloured ribbons. She looked through them, reading some but unable to put faces to the names written long ago. There were letters from her father to her at school, and correspondence between school friends during holidays. Some were from relatives, some from acquaintances. But all had been important enough to her to keep, sorted neatly and tied up carefully, and to bring with her from one continent to another.
There was also a small case of photographs, mainly studio portraits of family, judging by the inscriptions, and a variety of snapshots of school and parties and friends, many in delightfully exotic settings. She tried to think of China, where she had grown up, but all she could bring to mind was the streets of Chinatown near Soho, where she had occasionally wandered on her days off.
A couple of snapshots of her and Adrien were there too. In Cornwall, and in Paris. Some wedding photographs, their faces so impossibly young and happy that her throat constricted. Whatever had happened afterwards, they had genuinely been in love when they married. Pushing them aside, she found her Brownie there too, and she pulled it out with joy. She would buy some films the next time she passed by Minnie Sercombe’s shop. She had seen some the other morning, by the picture postcards in the corner. There was so much in Cornwall that she wanted to photograph; and it would give her something else to fill her time. She was so entranced by the contents of the trunks and her plans that the gong ringing out took her completely by surprise.
She came downstairs in an apologetic rush, nearly ten minutes late. She had been grubby about the hands, and her skirt had seen better days after hours of kneeling on the floor, and she had felt obliged to brush herself and sponge her hands clean before descending to eat
. As she sat down and took her cup, she became aware of Fancy’s angry gaze. She looked down to see the diamond lotus flower still sparkling on the breast of her cardigan. She had removed the bracelets and the pins but had forgotten the brooch.
“Where on earth did that come from?”
Fancy was accusatory, looking only at the diamonds. Adrien looked over and saw the brooch. His face froze for a moment, his eyes fixed on the delicate flower, then he looked up and smiled, relieved.
“We should clean up the boat, too.”
Chapter 10
The next day dawned pale and grey, the wind whipping up and the clouds thinning on the horizon as Juliana peered from the bathroom window. She half-dressed, then sat at her dressing table in her slip and brushed her hair. In the fresh Cornish winds, without the dirt of the London air, her hair seemed to be growing thicker, and was definitely much messier. As she brushed, her right leg caught on something under the table’s edge and a sharp pain tore through her thigh.
Her cry from the bedroom caught Adrien’s attention. He poked an untidy head round the door.
“Everything okay, Jules?” he asked.
He raised his eyebrows. Juliana turned from her dressing table.
“Nothing awful,” she replied. “But I caught myself on something sharp, under the dressing table. It’s bleeding rather. I think there’s something stuck in there,” she said.
She turned a little green. “I’m not very good with blood, you know…”
“I do know. I remember well. Right, swing that leg over here and let me see,” he ordered.
Juliana presented her leg, which was bleeding freely. There was a large wood splinter that had lodged itself nastily under the skin above her knee. Adrien vanished into the bathroom and came back with a needle that he held for a moment over a burning match.
“This is going to hurt,” he warned.
“I won’t look, you can be sure!”
Despite the pain, she was able to distract her attention by gazing at the dark head bent over her. He had been caught mid-ablutions—she had not yet seen him before shaving, and his hair was far from its usual sleekness. She peeked at him shyly. He caught her looking at him as he turned his head, and his cheeks flushed; he waved a nasty splinter of oak at her without meeting her eyes.
The Dead Woman Who Lived Page 16