Black Rabbit Hall (32 page)

Lorna

‘I suspected the moment I saw Amber naked in the dressing room.’ The shadow of Mrs Alton’s cane lengthens in the evening sunlight falling through the window, like a black line drawn across the wooden floor. ‘Her slip of a figure had noticeably filled out. And, of course, there they were, undressed, stinking of each other, and it all …’ she closes her eyes briefly ‘… started to make a dreadful sense. Amber couldn’t possibly have gone back to London.’

What? No, she’s heard it wrong. Lorna sinks to the single iron bed, bandaged tightly with white sheets, like something from a wartime field hospital. A faded cloth doll, with black stitches for eyes, a bead dangling off one, rests against the pillow. She picks it up. It lolls forward in her hands, stuffing sprouting from its neck. ‘You’ve lost me. Sorry.’

Mrs Alton leans forward in the wooden chair, touches the powdered tip of her nose lightly with her index finger. ‘Oh, I do hope not.’

Puzzled, uneasy, Lorna looks around this plain, monastic room at the top of the east tower – the school desk, the chest of drawers, a row of dog-eared paperbacks along a solitary shelf – and begins to feel the breath of the past blowing icy cold on the back of her neck.

‘Of course you’re not Endellion’s sister, twin or
otherwise,’ says Mrs Alton, after a long sigh, hands meeting each other on the top of the cane.

‘Sorry? You mean … But why would Dill lie?’ stutters a disbelieving Lorna.

‘Endellion is incapable of subterfuge. She repeats what she’s been told, unquestioning thing that she is, quite the opposite from you in every way. And she was told there was a twin.’

Lorna’s head starts to thump, her mouth dry. No, she cannot take this in. She must leave. The woman is obviously quite mad.

‘Endellion was born six weeks early, a scrap of a thing, two days before you, which was enormously helpful to all concerned.’

‘But … Peggy …’ The Ps. She can see those Ps now, marching across the paper. ‘Peggy Mary Popple’s name is on my birth certificate.’

‘Indeed. The doctor was quite happy to fudge that. Old friend of the family. Loyal as a dog. Died never leaking a word. He and Hugo covered their tracks perfectly. Left you quite untraceable, Lucian’s and Amber’s reputations wholly unblemished.’

Lucian? Lucian and Amber? Lorna’s breath is coming fast. She’s hyperventilating. No. Not possible. Just not possible. It is too much to believe one thing, then be asked to believe another, to keep ripping up the story of your life and starting again.

‘Peggy offered to bring the baby up as her illegitimate baby girl’s “twin”. We couldn’t let her do it, of course, far too risky.’ She nods to herself, reaffirming her own conviction. ‘But it planted the seed.’

Lorna grips the doll tighter, pressing it to her belly, the pale room darkening at the edges of her vision.

‘Don’t look so aghast. It was an … administrative detail, and it helped everyone enormously. It really did. Peggy was ostracized in the village. She fully expected to be sacked from Pencraw too. Instead we offered her security for life – her and Endellion – and in return she saved the Altons from … irreparable disgrace.’ She winces, imagining it. ‘She also gave the baby – forgive me, you – a half-decent provenance. Obviously, if it had ever got out that it was born of incest …’

Lorna clamps her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, God, tell me that was the lie.’

‘It was, yes.’ Mrs Alton jolts suddenly, bringing her hand to her cheek as if someone has just slapped her. ‘I did come clean to Lucian, after Hugo died. But by then it was all too late. Life sets hard as concrete, Lorna. It sets terribly quickly.’

Lorna cradles her head in her hands, lets out a small moan. They sit in silence for a few moments, lost in their own dark worlds, gulls wheeling at the window, the buzz of masonry bees in the ivy.

‘Not one of us, but a decent couple, the doctor said, plagued by miscarriage, thrilled with you,’ Mrs Alton says eventually, as if trying to add a more cheerful spin. ‘The wife promised to bring you back to Cornwall regularly so you had some knowledge of your Cornish roots. Amber drew much comfort from that, I believe. Oh dear. Lorna, I fear I have quite overwhelmed you. Please say something.’

But she cannot. For the disparate parts are coming
together like bits of a space station locking soundlessly in the airless black: the Cornish holidays, the photographs at the bottom of the drive, her mother’s absurd insistence on knowing her ‘cultural heritage’ while not bothering to educate Louise. So her mother had tried. Despite all her anxieties about the adoption she had still tried to do the right thing. Something brittle deep inside Lorna softens and gives. How strange, she thinks, that by finding my birth mother I discover the true nature of my adopted one too.

‘Of course, they weren’t told you were from Pencraw. Goodness, no. But I fear there was gossip.’ She sighs. ‘There is always gossip.’

As Lorna sits on those tight white sheets, the bed in which she was born, her mind starts to work backwards, pulling events together, sequencing each stitch, seeing how Mrs Alton’s lie is the dark metallic thread running through it all. Her rage starts to rise then, her dark eyes flash. ‘Why fabricate such a cruel, cruel thing, Mrs Alton? Why?’

Mrs Alton blinks several times, in quick succession, adjusting to Lorna’s anger. ‘I thought it would end things between Amber and Lucian definitively and we could all get on with our lives.’

‘
Get on?
’ she repeats, disbelieving, fury cracking her voice.

‘Lorna, you must understand. Pencraw meant everything to Hugo, and its fate was far from certain. Something had to be done. Toby was not capable of inheriting the house. Pencraw would have been safe with Lucian. Hugo knew it too. That’s why he didn’t ask too many questions. They even look similar! And they got on so well. He
wanted
Lucian to be his.’ The shadow of the cane starts to tremble. ‘As he lay dying on the terrace – a heart attack, brought on by sheer grief over Barney’s death two years before, I’m quite sure of it – I made a solemn promise to keep the house going, whatever happened, and I have honoured that. I have honoured that at least.’

‘You shouldn’t be here!’ shouts Lorna, standing up, railing at the injustice of it all.

‘Lorna, I can live here as long as I wish. In the absence of a resident owner, or one of competence, I manage this house. Hugo’s will was unambiguous.’

‘But Toby is the heir!’

She frowns. ‘Yes, and that is the flaw in the system, the reason so many estates have been run into the ground over the years, family fortunes that took centuries to build lost in months by some … liability of an eldest son.’

‘He was just a messed-up kid! He needed help!’

‘You are not a schoolteacher for nothing, I see.’

‘How could you? How could you cheat Toby like that?’

‘Lucian put Pencraw Hall in Toby’s name many years ago, weeks after Hugo died. Toby wasn’t cheated, not in the end.’

‘Then where
is
Toby?’

Mrs Alton’s mouth tightens.

‘Where is he?’

Mrs Alton looks away.

Lorna recoils in disgust. ‘Well, it’s no wonder no one wants to return. You’ve turned Pencraw into a house of horrors! A house with its heart ripped out! Like – like a piece of taxidermy! Nothing is worth what you’ve done.
Nothing
.’

Mrs Alton is mushroom-pale. ‘My dear, I thought if I explained it, you’d understand.’

‘I
do
understand,’ she says, the anger turning into something else, something calmer, colder. Her hands stop shaking. Her eyes are dry. She’s got what she came for at Black Rabbit Hall: her story, for better and for worse. Yes, the past has dropped over her, like a lobster pot. But she can crawl out from underneath it now. She is free, and very much wishes to go home. ‘I have to leave, Mrs Alton. I don’t belong here.’

‘Oh, but you do!’ Her fingers travel to her necklace, swivel the pearls faster and faster until Lorna fears they might fly off and scatter across the floor, like loose teeth. ‘Fate has brought you, returned Lucian to me in your form. You are to stay, Lorna. You
must
stay.’

She almost laughs then. ‘
Stay?
After everything you’ve done? Are you mad?’

‘It’s the builder chap, isn’t it? Jon? Tom?’ gabbles Mrs Alton, spraying panicked spittle. ‘The plumber. You can bring him too, if you wish. Have a wing! The whole house! Or would you prefer the estate cottage?’

‘Mrs Alton, please …’ There is something bizarrely childlike in the woman’s inability to grasp the effects of her own actions. ‘Stop it.’

To Lorna’s horror, the old woman’s eyes fill with tears.

Outside she hears the sound of a car coming up the drive, hard braking on the gravel. ‘I’m sorry to leave you upset,’ she says quietly.

Without warning, Mrs Alton lurches forward, jettisoning herself off the chair, hands paddling, a woman drowning. ‘But I am your
grandmother
!’

The word, even though she was anticipating it, dreading it, punches with its unique grotesque force. For a moment neither of them speaks. In the horrified hush they hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs, faint, getting louder. They both look to the door, wondering who will burst in. Knowing they haven’t long.

Lorna pulls away. ‘I had a grandmother, Mrs Alton, the best anyone could ever have. I do not need another.’

‘Then just sit with me for a while.’ Mrs Alton clutches the back of the chair, making it rattle from leg to leg. ‘Please. Hold my hand. No one ever holds my hand.’

Lorna glances down the stairwell, dark as the mouth of a cave. For her own sanity, she must leave this room. Walk away from it, step by step. If she can just get to the bottom of the staircase, where it widens and opens, where there is light.

‘Can you forgive me? I beg your forgiveness. I am dying, Lorna.’

Lorna hesitates, hand on the doorknob. Oh, God. What to do? How can she ever forgive this woman? She closes her eyes, heart racing. Tries to think, hears the footsteps pounding up the stairs. What would Nan advise? The most decent person she ever knew. No, she never gave the wrong advice.

‘Lorna.’ Mrs Alton’s voice is a pathetic whimper now. ‘Don’t leave me shut away in this ghastly place alone.’

Lorna turns and walks back into the room.

Seconds later, there he is, arms spread wide, a giant in the narrow doorframe.

‘Jon!’ Lorna’s flight is visceral, instinctive. She runs into
those arms, buries her face in his shirt, her legs almost folding beneath her with relief.

He cups her shoulders, eyes searching hers. ‘Are you okay?’

She nods, blinks back her tears, so many different feelings – joy, sadness, emotions that have no name but spread like hot water in a cold bath – tunnelling along their locked gaze. ‘A lot’s happened,’ is all she can mutter, the frenzy of her thoughts stilling beneath the weight of his hands.

‘I know.’ He picks a strand of hair off her hot cheek.

Mrs Alton coughs, reminding them of her presence. Jon peers over Lorna’s head to the pale lady gripping the back of a chair with swollen fingers.

‘Mrs Alton?’

She nods, eyes still wide with surprise.

‘Are
you
okay?’ he asks gently, beginning to sense the conversation that has torn up the air in this strange little room.

‘I – I feel rather tired.’

‘Come on, love. Let’s get you downstairs, shall we?’ Jon takes Mrs Alton’s trembling thin arm, helps her down the staircase, easy now, one step at a time, settles her into the armchair in the modest living room at the bottom of the east tower, tucks a tartan blanket over her lap and pours a knock-out glass of sherry, all of which she accepts without a murmur of complaint or pulling rank, as if she has been waiting a very long time for a young man to take charge. Her chin drops to her chest, eyes slowly closing. Jon turns to Lorna, who is witnessing Mrs Alton’s compliance with growing amazement. ‘Now can I get you a drink?’ he asks.

It is like the first night they met, the noise and crowd of the party fading away. And she replies, as she did then, ‘Yes, please. I’d like that very much.’

Wine appears from the cellars in dusty bottles – swung like rolling pins in Dill’s tiny hands – vintages fragrant with honey and blossom from Mediterranean summers long ago. Dill, Alf, Doug and Louise circle them in the drawing room, chirping like excited birds, then seem to spirit away into the rest of the house, leaving Jon and Lorna alone with the wine, potted shrimps, crackers and cake, the sound of Alf’s laughter and the dog’s excitable bark the only clue that anyone else is in the huge house at all.

Lorna laces her fingers with Jon’s. Surprisingly, it is night now, a glossy black sky, pierced by stars, pinholes of light. The temperature has dropped with the sun, and the late August air, billowing through the open window, is spiced faintly with autumn, the sweetness of harvest.

Jon circles his hands around her waist, pulls her towards him. Warm breath circulates in the closing space between their mouths. The moment shivers, raw, hesitant. There is so much to say that Lorna doesn’t know where to start. The intensity of the last few hours has left her mute.

‘Shall I build a fire?’ he whispers.

She nods – he knows what she wants before she knows it herself – and watches, mesmerized, as Jon kneels down and builds a perfect pyramid of logs and kindling in the fireplace. He strikes a match and blows, big bellows breaths that make the flames leap and dance, her heart just the same.

Soon the fire is raging, smoke pooling in the corners of the inky room, the crackle of the flames a primal sound that calms something deep inside Lorna, connects her to a
precious place where the present is most alive, the past and future as wispy as dreams. They sit on the rug, Lorna cradled inside his legs, his chin on her head, a perfect fit. And slowly, tentatively at first, Lorna starts to tell Jon what she has been told, threading it all together once more, living it again – but from a safer distance now. When she has finished, they sit quietly, the hush broken only by the spit of the fire and the faint tick of a clock. Jon bends down, kisses the soft baby skin beneath her ear. ‘You are extraordinary, Lorna.’