The Hidden Girl (21 page)

Hannah waved as Tiggy and Frank walked off.

She waited for them to say goodbye to Elvie, but their daughter was strimming the weeds and long grass with her back to them, apparently oblivious to their departure.

That morning Hannah carried the empty vinyl boxes into the sitting room, to pack the books. The strimmer continued to whine outside.

She unpacked shelf by shelf, lifting each fragile old volume down, careful not to damage its spine. The wooden shelves underneath were thick with two-and-a half years’ worth of dust. She’d have to clean them thoroughly.

When she reached the fourth shelf, she pulled out a set of six brown leather-bound books from the far end.
Accounts
, they said on the front.

‘Wow!’ Hannah muttered, flicking through. Each page was written by hand.

She realized, in astonishment, that she was looking at Tornley Hall’s household accounts reaching back decades. This would be a goldmine of information about the house. Each book held ten years’ worth of accounts. The writing was done in copperplate, with a page for each month. Household receipts were stuck in the back. Outgoings were listed separately in various columns:

She sat down on the sofa. This was fascinating. A suit for Peter, shoes for Olive? In the incoming column was one large sum on the first of each month, which appeared to be some sort of salary or income. She noticed, as she checked the later decades, that the sum only increased by a tiny amount each year. By the 1980s it looked quite paltry. That was interesting – Peter and Olive must have been broke, by the end. There was no evidence of any other money coming in.

Pleased to have more documents to add to her history of Tornley House, Hannah stood up to make some tea.

Through the window she caught Elvie’s eye and motioned the offer of a drink, but Elvie shook her head. Her eyes had a blankness in them. She was a few years older than Hannah, but her skin was smooth like a child’s, as if unmarked by time.

After her tea Hannah started packing again, and forgot about Elvie as she became immersed in her own plans.

Only three more days now.

A frisson of excitement ran through her and she allowed herself to enjoy the thought of what might come after Barbara’s visit.

By midday Hannah had cleared out the right-hand bookshelf. It was as she was shutting the last box of books that she heard the noise outside change to a heavy growl.

Through the window she saw neat piles of cut long grass and raked leaves at the edge of the lawn. Elvie was now criss-crossing it on the sit-on mower. Strips of pale-green stubble appeared behind her. If she did have learning difficulties, as Tiggy had suggested, had she always lived here, with her parents?

At twelve o’clock Hannah took Elvie a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich.

‘Thank you,’ Elvie said in a deep voice, her eyes on the ground. Both words were said in a monotone.

Half the lawn was now cut and tidied.

‘Wow, you’ve done an amazing job – thanks, Elvie.’

Elvie examined her sandwich with great interest.

‘Is cheese OK? I’ll see if Will bought any biscuits later on.’

At the word ‘biscuit’ Elvie glanced at Hannah, then quickly away.

It was only a second of eye contact, but it was enough to disarm Hannah.

‘OK, see you later!’ she said, walking off, wondering what had just happened.

Was she mistaken, or had Elvie’s eyes been filled with absolute fury?

Before starting on the left-hand bookshelf, Hannah carried some of the packed boxes upstairs to the attic to store them till the bookshop clearance. It was hard work, so she had a rest on the landing. The lawnmower stopped outside. She watched Elvie shaking grass seed onto bare patches in the shorn lawn. Then she picked up a hose and watered it. It wasn’t the right time to mow a lawn, with the snow just gone, but it was better than leaving it. The grass was green and muddy, but the shape was, at least, neat and defined. Elvie had done a great job.

After her breather, Hannah carried on up to the loft with one of the boxes.

There was a sound as she entered. Out of the skylight, she saw Frank and Tiggy driving away from their bungalow in a blue van that said ‘Mortrens’ Flowers’ on the side, a trailer on the back. The metal gates scraped back behind them. Hannah opened the window properly to see the smallholding, now that the snow had gone. There was some machinery outside now, and some tools; and she could see the washed-out colours of flowers growing inside the polytunnels. She considered Tiggy’s offer. She couldn’t imagine walking in the gate and just taking flowers, as Olive had done. Olive had brought a cake each time. Maybe she should do the same. It would take some time to understand this countryside exchange of help and produce. But it was a kind offer. She must remember to mention it to Barbara.

Dust tickled her nose. She took her hand away from the open skylight to scratch it.

With a creak, the skylight fell shut heavily.

Hannah jerked back to avoid it trapping her hand, and tipped awkwardly against the wall. There was a sharp scratch on her back.

‘Ow!’ She touched it under her T-shirt and found blood on her finger. What was that?

A screw was sticking out of the wall. Below it was an empty screw-hole, and on the floor beneath a plastic handle and an identical screw. Hannah now saw a rectangular line running around the wall panel. The handle must have been here at some point. Tentatively she pulled at the remaining screw.

The panel opened silently. It was a door.

A smell of damp and cold rushed out. Hannah peered in. Ahead of her were the sloped eaves. Through them she could see the lines of roof tiles. Light shone through the few loose ones that their surveyor had reported. Hannah stuck a hand into the loft space and fumbled for a switch.

A dim light came on.

She stuck her head in.

It was a cupboard, a big one. The space was very narrow – it was only three feet or so tall before it hit the sloped roof – but it appeared to run the whole length of the house. Each end vanished into darkness as the low-wattage light ran out.

This was useful. It would give them plenty of storage space, if they ever converted the loft into a room.

Hannah was about to turn out the light when she saw a large grey shape at the far end.

What was that?

Testing the joists first, she crawled carefully into the cupboard, spitting out the dust she disturbed from the eaves.

It was a mound covered by a grey blanket.

She touched the edge. Stiff.

Hannah gripped it with a thumb and forefinger and pulled a corner.

The face of a young boy appeared.

‘Ooh,’ she said, trying to sit upright. It was a painting. Gently she lifted the blanket, blinking away more dust.

The portrait was the first of many unframed canvases. There were lots of them, all piled together.

Hannah took the painting of the boy and crawled out in reverse, to view it in daylight.

Although it was dirty, she could see that it had been painted in the vibrant colours of the Pre-Raphaelites. The boy was about eight years old with sad, soft eyes and dark hair. He looked Arabic. He wore a deep-ruby velvet hat with tassels, a billowing gold shirt and bright-purple velvet pantaloons. In the background were pyramids and palm trees.

Who had painted these? Hannah returned to retrieve a few more.

They were all warped to some extent, presumably with age and damp, and had the same naive style. Some were portraits, others landscapes, but all were set in exotic locations: the Acropolis against a hill, with a sunset of deep scarlet and orange; a Turkish dancer throwing a turquoise veil in the air.

They weren’t badly painted, but the leaden nature of the limbs suggested an amateur hand. In the corner of one Hannah found black squiggles, and held it to the light.

‘Ol . . . ive . . . Horse . . . borrow,’ she mouthed. More faded squiggles on the back looked like dates – ‘1945’ in this case.

Olive! Hannah sat back. Had she done these on her travels? This was fascinating. She’d have to invite Tiggy for tea next week, to find out more.

The last painting in her retrieved pile was another portrait. This time of a woman’s upper body. She had Mediterranean colouring, wore a Spanish headdress and carried a fan.

Her red lace dress revealed a voluptuous cleavage. ‘Goodness me, Olive!’ Hannah said quietly.

Like the other paintings, the image was sentimental, yet the woman’s face was not idealized. Her brown eyes stood out, but not for their beauty; there was a wistfulness in them.

Hannah sat back. Olive looked cheerful and fun-loving in her photographs. Yet there was a sadness in the expressions on the faces of all these paintings. Nobody smiled.

Maybe a life of friends and family and travel had not been enough. Olive had been unmarried. In those days there would have been no other way to have a child. Maybe a life without children had been a sadness to her, as it had been to Hannah. She felt a connection with her predecessor across the decades.

She headed downstairs with a few paintings, making Olive a silent promise: one day Tornley Hall would hear a child’s voice again.

Hannah propped up three of the paintings on the mantelpiece in her bedroom. There was something quite kitsch and cool about them. Perhaps when the studio was built, and the dining room was ready for Will’s musician clients, they could have the best six cleaned, framed and hung in there. They were part of the history of Tornley Hall, after all.

Hannah checked the clock. Half-one. It was time to box up the rest of the books.

Outside, she saw the lawn was finished. Thank God. It was done. Elvie had clearly been too shy to say goodbye.

A wisp of grey flew past the window.

Hannah watched it. Before she registered what it was, an acrid smell drifted into her nostrils.

Smoke.

‘Oh my God!’

She ran downstairs. A quick search revealed that the fire, at least, was not in the house.

Outside, the smoke was thicker. It billowed from the side of the house. She raced to the side-lawn.

A bonfire was raging near the wall. Elvie stood next to it with a spade.

Beside it was a wheelbarrow of branches and rotten leaves. Hannah scanned the garden. Some of the bushes had been cut back.

‘Elvie!’ she called. ‘This is amazing, thank you.’

Her neighbour regarded her briefly, expressionless over a mountain-slope of shoulder. That look in her eye again. Her stillness was unnerving.

Elvie threw on more leaves and Hannah backed away, not wanting another awkward conversation.

She looked round the garden. It was completely transformed. Barbara was going to see an amazing space for a child on Thursday, not a forest of weeds.

Should she tell Elvie to stop?

Hannah turned. Bugger it. There were only three days left. Elvie seemed to be enjoying the work, anyway.

Hannah left her, and went to pack more boxes of books.

In the end Elvie stayed till five. Without a word to Hannah, she vanished through the wall. Hannah’s guilt had kicked in late afternoon when she’d caught Elvie pruning hedges at the far end of the lawn and realized that she had been working for eight hours straight.

She had brought more coffee and sandwiches, but left them on the step, rather than walking over to Elvie.

Each time, they’d disappeared a minute later. She suspected she could leave twenty coffees and sandwiches, and they too would disappear.

What her neighbour had done was impressive. Clearly Frank and Tiggy’s daughter was skilled in horticulture. She’d even weeded a flower bed near the house, next to the one Laurie had done.

Hannah strolled between the borders, re-evaluating the space. This area at the far end of the front lawn would be perfect for a play-area. Her parents had already offered to buy a trampoline and climbing frame out of their retirement pot. She’d begged them not to tempt fate, then felt bad as their faces fell, desperate as they were to know how to help their daughter with an experience so far removed from their own, of effortlessly producing Hannah and her two brothers in three successive years.

Deciding to go for a walk and ring Will before it got dark, Hannah took her phone down to the lane.

Dax entered her thoughts. She hadn’t seen him since that weird day on the beach, when Will arrived back. Was he staying away on purpose?

Ten minutes later she reached Dax’s terraced cottage. There was no sign of life, so she kept going, until the skinny hedgerows gave way to a barbed-wire fence around a field. There was a bray – and there across the field was the little donkey. Hannah checked her bearings. So, this must be Madeleine’s farm. If she stood on tiptoe she could see the farmhouse across the field. A high-pitched squeal from the barn was just audible. One gable of Tornley House lay diagonally opposite, in the distance behind a tree.

The donkey certainly looked happier now anyway, its ears pointing forward. She picked some long grass and held it out at the fence.

‘Hello,’ she called. ‘I’m sorry they took you back. I did try. Were you OK?’

The donkey came over, its head nodding.

She patted its velvety nose, sensing it was pleased to see her. It took the grass and she scratched its ears, then carried on down the lane till she reached the entrance to Madeleine’s farm. The long driveway had no sign. It was just a functional, muddy working farm. She imagined Madeleine, who looked in her sixties, trying to run this alone. The screeching of machinery from the barn was much louder here.

Across the fields the sun was dipping into the horizon. Feeling better for the fresh air, and ready to do some painting, Hannah returned past the cottages. Their pink walls had turned a pretty burnished-rose colour in the dying light. The door of the cottage next door to Dax’s opened. A fit-looking woman in her late thirties walked out. She wore jeans and a white T-shirt, despite the cool evening air. Her peroxide hair was pulled back in a pony-tail and she had hard-worn skin with premature lines. She started when she saw Hannah, then nodded hello and turned up the lane towards a car.