The Winter Folly (36 page)

The car mounted the brow of the hill, to take the gentle curve downwards to the house. It was a blur at first – a purple coat and a pink bicycle, that had toiled so hard up the long hill
and was now preparing to return – but as Alexandra sailed towards it, the small fuzzy shape in front of her resolved: the little bike wobbled, the small face with dark hair whipped up by the
wind became clearer, and the big eyes turned towards her, wide and trusting. Down the hill, Nanny was puffing up towards them.

There was no time to think or to move. For an instant, Alexandra was staring straight into her daughter’s eyes before the car, unstoppable, ploughed forward and took the bicycle under its
wheels, and its little rider with it.

Present day

Janey called Delilah to the phone mid-morning and when she picked up the handset in the hall, she was surprised to hear the vicar on the other end. He hoped he was not
disturbing her.

‘No, not at all,’ she said. John was out all day on estate business. He had thawed enough towards her to return to their bed, but he was still remote and closed off. She had been
staying inside the house, not wanting to bump into Ben. The encounter by the pool kept replaying through her mind and every time she felt a twist of heat inside her, but she wasn’t sure what
it meant. Sometimes it felt like guilt, or shame, and sometimes like something else that she couldn’t yet admit to herself.

‘I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you,’ the vicar said in his friendly way. ‘You asked me to find out about where Lady Northmoor was buried, didn’t
you? I mean, your husband’s mother.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ She sat down on the chair by the telephone table, her attention caught. ‘Have you found her?’

‘No, I’m afraid I’ve drawn a blank there. I can’t find any mention of her being buried. But you said 1974, didn’t you? There is a different death recorded. The name
is Elaine Stirling.’

Delilah gasped and went very still.

‘Hello?’ asked the vicar after a moment. ‘Are you there?’

‘Yes.’ She sounded breathy with the strange excitement that now flooded her. So this was the mysterious Elaine, the one that the old viscount had mistaken her for. Who was she? Had
she been a mistress of his? But the surname was the same. ‘What does the record say?’

‘Well, these things are very sparse, you know. It’s not a medical certificate – there’s no cause of death or anything like that. But it tells me that she is buried in the
churchyard and I wondered if you’d like to come and see the grave.’

‘Yes – I would, thank you. I can come right now, if that suits you.’

The vicar was waiting for her in the churchyard, gazing sombrely at the mouldering, lichened gravestones nearest the church. Hearing her footsteps approaching, he looked up
with a smile.

‘Ah, there you are. You got here jolly fast.’

‘Yes – I’m keen to take a look.’

‘According to the plan of the graveyard, Elaine Stirling is buried in the far corner, under the large yew tree. Let’s go and take a look.’

She followed him as he led the way through the tilting gravestones. ‘We don’t use this graveyard any more,’ he explained as they went. ‘I’m glad – it’s
hard to care for these places: grass to cut, graves to maintain and so on. But there were burials here into the seventies – though most recently it tended to be ashes rather than coffins.
There’s a big crematorium and graveyard over at Holly Park – that’s where most people go these days.’

The grass, she noticed, was particularly lush and green, and she wondered if it was anything to do with the rich source of rot that must have seeped into the soil. Just as she was banishing that
picture from her mind, she realised that the vicar had stopped and was kneeling down to look in the long grass around the yew tree. He pulled away some growth and, after a moment, said,
‘Hello, I think this might be it.’

Delilah crouched down beside him, aware of the tickling grass on her bare skin, and peered into the cool green gloom beneath the yew tree. There was a small stone set into the ground topped with
a tiny marble urn with a sieve-like covering with holes for flower stems. On the gravestone was engraved writing and she leaned closer to read it.

‘Elaine Stirling,’ she read. ‘1969–1974. Oh my goodness, she was only five! Oh no, that’s awful. Look, there’s a line of poetry here. “In one of the
stars I shall be living.”’ Her eyes filled with tears and her throat felt tight. Was there anything sadder than the death of a child? ‘What happened to her?’

The vicar looked solemn as he gazed at the tiny grave. ‘Poor child. And poor parents. How odd that she should die in 1974, the same year you thought Lady Northmoor died.’

She lifted her head to him, staring but hardly seeing him. ‘Wait. You’re right. Lady Northmoor died the same year.’

‘You said there was a possibility that she killed herself. Well, here is a likely motive, don’t you think? Her daughter died at only five years old. Who knows what she
suffered?’

Delilah half heard him but there were thoughts whirling around her head as well. Suddenly she saw the doll she had tucked away in her drawer at home, the pink ballet-dancing doll hidden in the
playroom all this time. The child was born two years after John. She was dead when he was seven. She had to be his sister. There was surely no one else she could be.

Oh my God – Alex lost a child. She lost her daughter. So that’s it. That’s why she did it.

The realisation came over her and she felt absolute certainty. But there was still a puzzle.

How could Alex leave John? How can anyone compound the loss of one by leaving the other? It didn’t make sense, unless she was ill or out of her mind with grief.

She clambered to her feet. ‘Thank you, Vicar, I must go now.’

‘Are you all right? You look rather pale. I’m sorry, I forgot that this little girl must be a family member.’

Something occurred to her. ‘I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but won’t the christenings be recorded? Is it possible to look at the records of those?’

‘Yes . . . it shouldn’t be too difficult. Come and we’ll do it now. I don’t think you look as though you could wait.’

As she drove home Delilah tried to absorb the things she had learned. She knew now that Elaine Stirling was the second child of Nicky and Alexandra – her christening was
in the record – and that she had died at the age of five. After that, there was nothing. No record of Alexandra’s burial and no further events in the family until John’s wedding
to Vanna in 1997.

John had a sister he’s never mentioned
, she thought.
There are no photographs in the house. Nothing. It’s as though she never existed. Why would he hide such a thing
from me? I don’t understand it.

She had a sudden recollection of John saying that his family did not breed many girls. How could he say that when he knew that there’d been a daughter – his own sister?

But, she reminded herself, there was no saying how childhood trauma might express itself. If the family had gone through the horror of losing the little girl and then the mother in just a few
months, perhaps they had coped by wiping out all the memories of the child and never speaking of either her or Alexandra. It was the only explanation she could think of.

‘Alex,’ she whispered out loud. Her mind filled with an image of the other woman, distraught, weeping, wailing, perhaps screaming and tearing her hair. She was running, in hysterical
tears, towards the folly. She was in the grip of madness. ‘Why did you do it? But my God, you must have suffered.’

At home she scanned the family photographs again, looking for new clues, trying to seek out the little girl she now knew had existed. Would she see things she had missed
before? She walked through the bedrooms upstairs and stood for a long time in the nursery, gazing at the rocking horse and imagining a child riding it happily and playing with her doll on the rug
by the fire. She could see nothing. The years must have erased her absolutely. Perhaps the doll had been the only thing left to find. Except there was still the attic, with its mass of jumble.
Something in there might prove that there had once been another child here.

She shook her head, frustrated. What proof did she need? She had the proof – it was in the churchyard under the yew tree and it was printed in the church records. What she did not know was
why. She was afraid to ask John. She did not even know if she dared to tell him of her discovery. He hated and feared the past, and she was frightened of how he might react.

John returned that evening, calmer after a long day, tired out and less agitated than he had been recently. They chatted a little over dinner and Delilah tried to keep the
conversation light, but her mind was so full of what she had discovered, she could hardly think of anything else. She had planned to wait and see how things were between them before she spoke of it
all, but now she realised that it would be impossible to keep back what she knew. Besides, she didn’t want there to be more secrets, and she couldn’t start by keeping them herself.

‘John,’ she said tentatively, putting down her fork. She caught his eye, then quailed a little, looking down and stroking the wood of the table. Girding herself mentally, she went
on. ‘I found something out today and I really want to ask you about it.’

‘Oh?’ An apprehensive air enveloped him at once. ‘What?’

‘You remember how your father once asked me if I was called Elaine? Well, there’s such an odd coincidence. The vicar mentioned a grave to me and we went to look at it in the
churchyard. It’s got the name Elaine carved on it. Elaine Stirling. But she died when she was only five years old. Do you know who she was?’

John stared down at his hands, blinking. Then he looked up at her again, clearing his throat. ‘Yes. That’s my sister. She died in an accident.’

‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea. You’ve never mentioned her,’ she said carefully, trying to keep any note of accusation out of her voice. ‘Not even when I told you
that your father called me Elaine.’

He took a deep breath and released it slowly. ‘You’re right,’ he said. He stared over her shoulder at something on the counter behind. ‘I should have said something. But
. . . it’s hard to explain. Elaine has never been talked about. Ever. You can’t understand what her death did to us. I went away to prep school one term and when I got back they were
gone: Elaine. And my mother. Just like that. I’d left my family alive and happy and when I returned, there was only my father left. And we were not to talk about the others. It was as though
they’d never existed. I had no idea why it had happened – and I missed them so terribly.’

She put a hand out to him, full of pity for what he’d been through. ‘That’s so awful, John. I’m sorry.’

‘I do find it hard to speak about.’ He managed a wry smile as he met her gaze for a moment. ‘I suppose you’ve noticed that.’

‘Can you talk to me about it, just a little? I’d like to know what happened.’

He seemed to pull on some inner reserve of strength and took a deep breath. ‘All right. I know you deserve that. I do remember Elaine, but in odd little flashes: a baby in a pram, a child
on a swing, us running down the hall together. I remember her crying one day – I think I’d pushed her off the rocking horse. I have a mental picture of her sitting on the hall floor
with some dolls around her, and us opening our stockings in the nursery at Christmas. That’s about it. She was sweet, but I suspect most five-year-olds are: angelic, you know, with soft hair
and big eyes.’ He paused and his lips tightened, then he went on. ‘She was killed in a car accident – a hit and run, some rogue driver speeding along the country roads – and
not long afterwards, in an agony of grief, I suppose . . . my mother . . . she . . .’ He broke off, closing his eyes and biting his lip.

‘She killed herself,’ ventured Delilah quietly.

His eyes opened. ‘You know about that?’

‘A few things fit together, that’s all. It makes sense.’

John twisted his fingers around each other, watching them intently as he did so. He seemed suddenly lost in his own thoughts and murmured in a low, strained voice, ‘I can’t
understand how she could leave me. She must have loved Elaine very much. I wasn’t enough to keep her here.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Delilah said, her voice still soft and comforting. ‘I should have guessed there was something strange about that folly when you reacted to it in that
way.’

‘The folly . . .’ He closed his eyes again and shook his head. ‘That wretched folly. So that’s how you worked it out.’

She nodded.

He stared back down at the table. ‘I ought to have told you.’

‘It’s all out in the open now, though, isn’t it?’ She felt a sudden surge of hope. They could mend it all now, and start afresh. The old John would come back, the man
she’d fallen in love with. ‘I mean – I know about Elaine and about how your mother died. You don’t have to hide anything from me anymore. There’s no need to be
afraid.’ She got up and went over to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. ‘You poor boy. You’ve had a terrible time. I want to help you. I can make it better, I
promise.’

He let her hug him, but he was unable to relax into her arms. She longed for him to turn and hug her back and tell her that it was going to be all right now, and that he wanted her to help him
let go of the past and all the pain that went with it. But he remained as stiff as ever.

1974

Alexandra hadn’t known it was possible to suffer such misery and to continue living. If anything could destroy her, it would be this.

She lay in bed for many days. People came, they moved around the room, whispering and sometimes talking to her. They tried to make her eat and drink. They forced her out to the bathroom and
back. She let them do what they wanted. What did any of it matter now?

One day she had walked out of her house. She had had a son, a daughter, a husband. She had had a life. She’d been happy although it was only now she could see how happy. When she’d
come back into that house again, everything had changed.