Read Another Heartbeat in the House Online
Authors: Kate Beaufoy
Another Heartbeat in the House
TWO WOMEN LIVING A HUNDRED YEARS APART. ONE HOME THAT BINDS THEM TOGETHER.
When Edie Chadwick travels to Ireland to close up her uncle's lakeside lodge, it is as much to escape the burden of guilt she's carrying as to break loose from the smart set of 1930's London.
The old house is full of memories â not just her own, but those of a woman whose story has been left to gather dust in a chest in the attic: a handwritten memoir inscribed with an elegant signature...
Eliza Drury
As she turns the pages of the manuscript, Edie uncovers secrets she could never have imagined: an exciting tale of ambition, hardship, love and hearbreak â a story that has waited a lifetime to be told...
Contents
To Mrs Patterson
I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life.
Jane Austen
AMONG THE WORST
things that happened to Edie Chadwick during the year that began with the reign of Edward VIII and ended with his abdication were the death of her West Highland Terrier, the duplicity of her friend, Hilly, and the publication of a hugely successful novel,
Jamaica Inn
.
Jamaica Inn
should have been a triumph for Edie. Instead, it was a triumph for Hilly. Throughout 1936 Edie watched as her erstwhile best friend rose starrily through the ranks of the Curtis Brown literary agency: Hilly got a mention in
The Bookseller
magazine, Hilly got a salary hike, Hilly got her own author list, and just last month Edie had heard from a mutual friend that Hilly had got engaged to a hotshot American publisher.
And then, two days after Christmas, Edie's little dog, Mac, had died.
A framed snapshot of the terrier sat amongst the paraphernalia on Edie's dressing table. The frame had been a gift from Hilly, but â since it had been purchased at some expense in Asprey â it would have been imprudent to consign it to the bin. It had originally contained a photograph of Edie and Hilly with their arms around each other's shoulders, smiling half at each other, half at the camera; but after Hilly's act of perfidy, Edie had cut out her friend's face with a pair of nail scissors and shut the Kodachrome scrap in a drawer of her bureau. Her initial impulse had been to set it on fire and stamp on the ashes, but someone had told her that if she closed a drawer on a picture of a person and did not open it for a year, some harm would befall the individual before the twelvemonth was up.
Three hundred and sixty-four days had passed since she had turned the key in the lock. In five hours' time she could tick off the three hundred and sixty-fifth. Six months had elapsed since the publication of Miss du Maurier's swashbuckling bestseller, three weeks since the abdication of the king, and a mere four days since Edie had buried her beloved doggie under his favourite tree in Hyde Park.
By-laws forbidding interments meant that the funeral had had to be conducted at dead of night, so Edie had telephoned one of the few friends she knew who owned a car and begged him to help her transport the remains. Because he had been en route to a white tie event, Ian had taken the precaution of protecting his evening garb with a pinafore purloined from his charlady before setting to and digging the grave; and even though he had been running late and had mud plastered all over his patent leather shoes, he had sat by the graveside with Edie for an hour after he'd set down the shovel, sharing nips of remedial brandy from his hip flask.
She hadn't spoken to anybody else about Mac's death. The only person who would understand her awful, raw grief was Hilly, because Hilly had known Mac since he was a puppy, when Edie had found him dumped in a bin outside the Gargoyle club. Edie wished more than anything that she could pick up the telephone now and dial her friend's number. But the last time she'd done that â a year ago to the day â Hilly had given her the news about the du Maurier manuscript. Had that fateful telephone call been scripted, it would have been called
THE BETRAYAL
, and it would have gone like this:
Lights up, left, on an old-fashioned office in Covent Garden. The room is furnished with filing cabinets and shelves crammed with books and manuscripts. Upstage, a large window, the reverse (street) side of which bears the legend
HEINEMANN PUBLISHERS.
On the wall is a calendar: the date reads:
TUESDAY 31 DECEMBER 1935.
Centre is a desk at which
EDIE,
a pretty girl of twenty-three or twenty-four, sits. She is wearing a French navy dress with white cuffs and a Peter Pan collar. Beside the desk is a dog basket in which a West Highland Terrier
, MAC,
is sleeping.
EDIE
picks up the telephone and dials
.
Lights up on an identical scene, right, minus the dog. Bookshelves, desk, filing cabinets. The reverse of the window bears the legend
CURTIS BROWN LITERARY AGENTS.
The telephone bell rings.
HILARY, also in her mid-twenties, nattily dressed in a tailored suit, picks up the receiver.
HILARY: Good morning. Curtis Brown Literary Agents.
EDIE: And a gud morrrrning to ye, lassie! I'd like tae send ye ma epic novel of Robert the Brrruce. All ma frriends say it's a stirrring tale of â
HILARY: Hello, Edie. How are you today?
EDIE: Urgh is how I am. I was at the Caribbean Club last night â
HILARY: That explains the hangover humour.
EDIE: â and this morning a manuscript landed on my desk that's easily as long as
Gone with the Wind
. Nine hundred and something foolscap pages, Hilly! If it had arrived a month ago I could have made masses of Christmas decorations.
[HILARY
sighs
.]
EDIE: What's up?
HILARY: I'm busy, Edie. What can I do for you?
EDIE: I hear Miss du Maurier has finished her novel?
HILARY: How do you know?
EDIE: Bush telegraph.
[
There is a long pause
.]
EDIE: Well, what are you waiting for? Send it straight off to me.
HILARY: I can't do that, I'm afraid.
EDIE: You promised I'd get first look!
HILARY: It's been sent to Gollancz.
EDIE: Gollancz? But they publish literary heavyweights!
HILARY: They're branching out.
EDIE: You're kidding. Tell me you're kidding, Hilly! Daphne's home is with Heinemann! We're family; we published her first three novels.
HILARY: She's signed with Gollancz, Edie.
EDIE: You mean you've sent out a contract?
HILARY: Miss du Maurier was emphatic that no one from Heinemann be consulted.
[
There is another long pause
.]
EDIE [
shaken
]: This is pretty bloody unsporting of you, Hilary. You know how hard I've worked on Daphne's behalf.
HILARY: There's nothing sporting about the publishing business, Edie.
EDIE: But you're my friend!
[HILARY
abruptly hangs up the telephone. Fade lights stage right.
EDIE
sits motionless. Then she thumps the receiver back on its cradle, scoops up
MAC
and buries her face in his fur
.]
BLACKOUT
CURTAIN
That was the last time the two had spoken, for that day Edie had gone home after work and locked Hilly's photo in the drawer.
Now New Year's Eve had come around again, and Edie was getting ready to go out. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror told her that the past twelve months had taken their toll on her looks. She had all the attributes of a rejected slush-pile heroine; violet shadows under her eyes, a nascent furrow between her brows, a downcast droop to her mouth. Even the record she'd selected at random matched her mood: Duke Ellington's âClarinet Lament' sobbed over the gramophone.
Edie located her clutch bag, checked in the mirror to make sure the seams of her stockings were straight, re-pinned a few stray tendrils of hair and touched up her lipstick. A smidgin of powder, a dab of scent, and she was ready to go. Just as she put the stopper back in her perfume bottle, the doorbell rang. She opened the window to see Ian on the street below, dressed â as he had been the last time she'd seen him â in evening garb.
âMay I come up, darling?' he called. âOr are you on your way out?'
âNowhere important. Let yourself in.'
Edie located her latchkey, stuffed it into the old mitten she reserved for this purpose, and chucked it out of the window. Then she shifted a pile of books from the sofa to the floor to make room for her guest. Less than half a minute later, Ian was at the door.
âYou smell nice,' he remarked as he kissed her cheek.
âArpège. You gave it to me for my birthday. What brings you here?'
âMy date's husband has annexed her for the evening,' said Ian. âWhere are you off to?'
âThe Gargoyle.'
Ian's eyes went to the Nubuck wedges she was wearing. She'd teamed them with a dress of maroon crêpe and a woven raffia belt.
âIs that why you're wearing those horrible clothes?'
âIt's infra dig to dress up for somewhere like the Gargoyle.'
âEven on New Year's Eve?'
Edie pulled on the beret that matched her shoes. âI have galoshes, too,' she said, indicating the rubber overshoes by the door.