Authors: Sarah Rayne
I am getting to know my daughters a little now. Sorrel is open and confiding and I think she will be unscathed by what she has been through, but Viola—Viola has alarming spells of silence and there is sometimes a hardness in her eyes that ought not to be in the eyes of any fourteen-year-old girl. Yes, Viola will have to be very gently handled.
Anthony Raffan has been to visit the girls—I see Sorrel blushing very attractively in his company, which makes me even more determined to talk to doctors about the twins’ condition.
I would like to think I can trace that child, Robyn, as well, but Anthony says she was taken from Mortmain soon after my visit there and he never heard what happened to her. I think he believes she vanished into that evil half-world of brothels and freak shows ruled by men such as Matt Dancy, and I don’t think we shall find her.
Floy has already begun to write Viola and Sorrel’s story; he thinks he will do so as if they are one person, which he says will have a better impact, so his heroine will be fictional. But the story of Mortmain, and the story of Viola and Sorrel, will be real.
He will return to France next week, to the writing of his war articles, and to his help in the Red Cross tents which are being set up to treat the wounded. I have no idea when I shall see him again, or even if I shall see him again.
But we are almost at the start of a new year—1915-—and perhaps the war will end very soon, and then Floy and I can at last be together.
It was not until the evening after the discussion in the white, light-filled house that Harry and Simone walked along the coast path and down a narrow shingled track to a stretch of pale beach. It was cold and sharp and they were both wearing anoraks and scarves, but it was a good kind of coldness.
‘I love it here better than anywhere in the world,’ said Simone, pausing at the top of the narrow path. ‘My mother came here after I went to university—I think she felt free to do what she wanted by then, and Martin had finally turned up. He had worked on a research fellowship in Canada for quite a number of years, but he came back to England when I was eighteen. That’s when they got together, and bought this house. They still spend a bit of the year in Canada, but they’re here for quite a lot of the time. This is where I used to come for holidays and weekends. Martin’s the best thing that ever happened to my mother.’
‘I think you were the best thing that ever happened to her,’ said Harry. ‘I think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, as well—Oh shit, I can’t believe I said that. Give it another twenty-four hours and I’ll start quoting poetry at you!’
‘I wish you wouldn’t be so cynical.’
‘I wish I wouldn’t, as well.’
She turned to look back up at him at that, and quite suddenly smiled. Without realizing he had been going to say it, Harry said, ‘I love your smile.’
‘Did you like Angelica’s smile as much?’
‘No, nowhere near as much,’ said Harry, taking this one absolutely straight. ‘Angelica started out as a means to an end. She was a way of getting close to you. But I got a bit tangled on the way.’
‘So I understood,’ Simone said dryly, and Harry studied her for a moment.
‘I’m not an angel, Simone.’
The smile showed again. ‘I know. I’m rather looking forward to you not being an angel.’
‘Well, I hope you don’t want me to not be an angel out here, because I’d really rather wait until we’re somewhere more private—Is this the path down to the beach?’
‘Yes, it is. It’s usually a bit slippery, so we’ll have to go carefully.’
‘You’d better hold my hand, then.’
They went down the shingled path until they were on the stretch of beach.
‘God, it is steep isn’t it?’ said Harry. ‘Don’t let go of my hand: I don’t want to lose you—’
‘On the slippery path?’
‘Or at all, I suspect.’
‘The sun’s just beginning to set properly now,’ said Simone, after a moment. ‘This is my favourite time of day.’
‘Mine too.’
‘But we’ll have to wait about another ten minutes before we go across to that stretch of the beach, because at this time of the day you find you’re walking straight into the light and it’s quite dazzling.’
Hand-in-hand into the sunset? demanded Harry’s inner voice, but he only said, ‘OK. Let’s sit on this bit of wall for a while until the sun’s a bit lower.’
The wall was warm from the day’s sun. ‘I started to read Floy’s book last night in bed,’ said Simone. ‘It made me cry in places, but it’s an extraordinary piece of work. I don’t want to stop reading it.’
‘It affected me like that as well.’
‘D’you suppose it would ever be possible to get it reprinted? Properly, I mean, so that it could be on sale in bookshops?’
‘It would be nice, wouldn’t it? We can try to find out.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘Simone, as well as the book I brought this for you,’ and reached into his anorak pocket for the padded envelope containing the small, silver-framed photograph he had taken from the mantelpiece of Roz Raffan’s house while no one was looking.
It was an oblong frame, rather old-fashioned, and the silver was slightly tarnished. But the inset photograph showed two people standing close together: one a dark-haired man perhaps in his early or mid forties, thin-faced, with narrow intelligent eyes. His arm was around the woman. She had high cheekbones and a slightly too-wide mouth. It was difficult to know her hair colour from the faded, sepia photograph, but it was possible to see that she had the matt creamy complexion that often goes with chestnut hair.
Simone stared at this for a long time, and then turned it over. On the back, in the spidery writing of an earlier era, was written,
‘Philip Fleury with Charlotte… France. October 1920.’
‘Floy,’ said Simone at last, making it a statement.
‘Yes.’
‘He looks a bit like you.’
Harry had not expected this. He had not seen any particular resemblance between himself and Floy. But before he could say anything, Simone said, ‘And—Charlotte? Was she the “C” in the dedication?’
‘I think so. It’s a reasonable assumption.’
‘Floy’s wife? Were they married to one another?’
‘I don’t know. They look as if they’re very together, don’t they?’ said Harry. ‘But I don’t suppose we’ll ever know if they were married to one another.’ He stood up. ‘The sun’s almost in the sea. It looks quite safe to go down there now. Come with me?’
Simone paused, studying him, and then said, ‘Into the sunset?’
‘Why not?’ said Harry, and held out his hand.
All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious.
A DARK DIVIDING
A Felony & Mayhem “Wild Card” mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First U.K. edition (Simon and Schuster): 2004
Felony & Mayhem print edition: 2010
Felony & Mayhem electronic edition: 2012
Copyright © 2004 by Sarah Rayne
All rights reserved
E-book ISBN: 978-1-937384-44-9
The poem quoted in several chapters, and specifically in Chapter Twenty, by the Mortmain children, is from
A Shropshire Lad
by A. E Housman, and was written in 1896.
You are reading a book in the Felony & Mayhem “Wild Card” category. We can’t promise these will press particular buttons, but we do guarantee they will be unusual, well written, and worth a reader’s time. If you enjoy this book, you may well like other “Wild Card” titles from Felony & Mayhem Press.
“Wild Card” titles available as ebooks:
Ghost Song
, by Sarah Rayne
“Wild Card” titles available as print books:
The Truth About Unicorns
, by Bonnie Jones Reynolds
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