The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (138 page)

Belle frowned. The clerk had said he’d bring the bill to her here, so why . . .

Her heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t the clerk. Behind the commercial travellers, a woman was jumping up and down, waving to catch her attention. She was in her thirties, slender and elegantly dressed in a tailored travelling costume of sea-green serge, with her cloudy light brown hair pulled haphazardly back. There was a determined look on her narrow, arresting face as she fought her way through the throng.

Belle stood up. It couldn’t be . . .

‘Thank
heavens
I’ve found you!’ cried her aunt Sophie, giving her a breathless kiss on the cheek, then throwing herself into a chair. ‘Captain Palairet told me you were here, so I came at the gallop. Literally. He lent me his dog cart.’

Belle’s head was reeling. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you, of course,’ said Sophie. ‘My God, Belle, I don’t know whether to kiss you or box your ears! Not even to send us a wire! People dropping like flies from the ’flu, and no word from you for
weeks
. Your poor mother’s been out of her mind with worry.’

Belle’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, God. God. I didn’t think.’

‘Clearly not,’ said Sophie with a wry twist of her mouth.

‘I don’t – I mean – I thought you were in France, on some sort of war work.’

‘I was. I am. But I come over now and then. And when I do, I go straight to Berkeley Square.’ She pressed her lips together and frowned. ‘You can’t imagine my shock when I found no-one at the house. Just a black wreath on the door.’

Belle swallowed. She’d been so caught up in her own concerns that she hadn’t given a thought to Mamma and Papa, or Sophie and Ben . . .

‘Anyway,’ Sophie said briskly. ‘I went back the next day, and this time there was a maid, and a lawyer making an inventory. He told me where you were, and – well, he filled me in on the rest.’ She blinked. ‘Poor Sibella. Poor silly, unhappy, darling Sib. We had our ups and downs over the years, but we always stayed in touch. We shared secrets. We . . . Well. You’re going to have to tell me all about it.’

Belle wondered where to begin.

‘I don’t mean now,’ said Sophie. ‘You look all in.’ She glanced at the package of letters in Belle’s lap. ‘Ah, good, so they sent them on.’

‘I only got them yesterday afternoon,’ Belle said defensively. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t read them yet.’

‘Probably just as well. Oh, everything’s fine at Eden,’ she added quickly, seeing Belle’s expression. ‘And as soon as I knew that you were too, I sent them a wire. But be warned about that package; it contains several increasingly irate notes from me, telling you to contact them
at
once
.’

Belle’s hands tightened on the package. ‘Was Mamma very worried?’

Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘What do you think?’

‘I can’t believe it never occurred to me. Not even when I was getting better. It was just . . .’ She fought back a rising tide of tears.

It never occurred to you, she added silently, because you felt safe at Cairngowrie. Because you’d run away from the rest of your life.

‘Don’t take on,’ said Sophie. ‘After all, you did have an excuse. That handsome Captain Palairet told me how ill you’ve been.’ She studied Belle’s face with concern. ‘My poor little Belle,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m so glad I’ve found you.’

‘Oh, Sophie,’ said Belle, and burst into tears.

Sophie took charge of everything. Somehow she found a better hotel on the edge of town, and organized the move. ‘No sense rushing off to London,’ she said. ‘Not when you’re at such a low ebb.’

Somehow she persuaded the proprietors at the new hotel to ignore the Public Meals Order which prohibited meat on certain days of the week, so that by two o’clock they were sitting down in their new suite to a very respectable luncheon of beefsteak and champagne. ‘My private supply,’ explained Sophie, raising her glass. ‘These days I never travel without it. “In victory you deserve it. In defeat, you need it.”’

‘Who said that?’ asked Belle with her mouth full.

‘Napoleon. Now drink up.’

An hour later, they were sitting over coffee. Feeling better than she had in days, Belle leaned back in her chair and watched her aunt giving orders to the maid.

Clever, independent, acid-tongued Aunt Sophie; always so well-informed and in command. It was only when Belle looked more closely that she noticed how her aunt’s cheeks had thinned; how the lines had deepened at the sides of her mouth.

Belle felt a stab of concern. ‘How’s Ben?’ she asked when the maid had gone.

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Sophie. She spoke calmly, but Belle saw how her jaw tightened. ‘He’s on Special Services. Whatever that means. All very secret, and behind enemy lines.’

‘It sounds dangerous.’

‘Oh, I’ve no doubt it is. He calls it “taking risks”. As if that makes it more acceptable.’ She got up to poke the fire. ‘His next leave’s in a fortnight. November the eighteenth. We’re supposed to meet in Paris, but he hasn’t written to confirm. In fact, he hasn’t written at all for the last six days.’ She put down the poker and sat down again, her face taut with anxiety. ‘What I can’t forgive is that he volunteered. If he survives, I shall kill him myself.’

Belle made no reply. Nothing she could have said would have given any reassurance.

‘Still,’ said Sophie, pressing her knees with both palms, as if to tamp down her anxiety, ‘I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about you. You and Captain Palairet.’

Belle glanced down at her coffee. ‘How did you guess?’

‘The way he talked of you. Or rather, the way that he didn’t. He’s very self-contained, isn’t he? Not the sort of man to wear his heart on his sleeve. And yet I got the impression . . . that inside, he’s shattered.’

Belle’s eyes grew hot.

‘Is it that you don’t care for him?’ Sophie asked gently.

‘No. It isn’t that at all.’

‘Then what?’

She took a ragged breath. ‘I just – I had to leave him. That’s all.’

‘Why?’

She shook her head. ‘There were reasons. Things – things I did. When I was younger.’

‘Good God, Belle, you’re only twenty years old! Just how—’

‘I couldn’t tell him, Sophie. It would always have been between us.’

There was a silence. Then Sophie said, ‘Whatever it is, sooner or later, you’re going to have to tell someone.’

Belle did not reply.

Sophie sighed. ‘Very well. Don’t tell me. But could I suggest that if you can possibly bring yourself to do it, you should write and tell your mother? She’s the family expert on secrets.’

Belle stared at her. ‘Mamma?’

‘Heavens, yes. When we were younger, her whole life was one huge secret. It’s how we survived.’ A corner of her mouth lifted. ‘Even now, I don’t think she’s quite broken the habit. Sometimes it drives your father wild.’

Belle didn’t want to think about home. Especially not now, when she’d caused so much needless worry by not getting in touch.

‘So you left him,’ said Sophie, returning with characteristic single-mindedness to the subject under discussion. ‘It’s a risky thing to do, Belle. And I know. I walked out on Ben once.’

‘
What?
But – you’ve always been so happy.’

‘Oh, this was before we were married. He was a groom at the time. Desperately unsuitable.’ She shook her head. ‘Leaving him was the biggest mistake of my life. Well, one of the biggest. I’ve made quite a few in my time.’ She glanced at Belle, and her honey-coloured eyes were bright with concern. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think you ought to go rushing off to London when you’re feeling like this.’

‘You don’t understand. I—’

‘Just listen to your aunt, and pretend for a moment that she knows best. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to stay in Newton Stewart for another few days, to give you time to think. Perhaps you’ll reconsider and go and see him. Sort things out.’

Belle thought about that. She thought about Cornelius Traherne, who would be staying in Galloway for a fortnight. She thought about Adam’s face as he’d stood in the rain watching her go.

She said yes.

For three days they stayed in Newton Stewart. The weather closed in, and Belle remained in the suite and read her letters, and let Sophie cosset her like an invalid.

The earliest letters dated from mid-September, when she’d been staying with Dodo at Kyme.
Your father is as usual doing too much
, wrote Mamma,
although heaven knows he can at last afford to slow down. But old habits die hard. He’s planting out the whole of Bullet Tree Walk with new stock from Trinidad, and only ratooning Orange Grove
. . .

The first note of alarm crept in about a week later.
I don’t like the sound of this new influenza
, wrote Mamma.
I know I’m being ridiculous, but I’m keeping the twins on the estate. They’re furious, they’ve only just joined the Falmouth Wolf Cubs, but there we are
. . .

Then a gap of two weeks.
Belle, are you all right? It’s just that it’s been so long since you wrote, and we hear such dreadful things about the epidemic in London. Although at least the authorities there recognize that it
is
an epidemic, unlike the Governor over here, who pigheadedly maintains that ‘the danger is grossly exaggerated’. Meanwhile, seven thousand have died. Your father’s issuing emergency rations to the field workers, and we fumigate the twins’ room with carbolic nightly. Grace McFarlane died last week.
Grace!
The most powerful obeah-woman on the Northside! Poor Evie is very much affected – perhaps more than she would have expected – and you can imagine how deeply this death has shocked the country people. If the fever can take a Mother of Darkness
. . .
But I’m wittering. Write soon and reassure us that you’re well
. . .

By mid-October, the anxiety was no longer concealed.
Belle, what’s
happening
over there? Please
please
write and tell me you’re safe. Here the ’flu’s still raging, the hospitals are overflowing, the schools and churches shut to prevent infection. I worry terribly that your father will go down with it, as he spends his days riding all over the parish, directing the relief efforts. (He sends his love, but is too busy to write.) Your aunt Sophie will be in London soon, and she’s sworn to track you down. If anyone can, she will. I can’t remember if I told you, but she’s now rather high up in something called the Graves Registration Commission
. . .

The final note was dated 28th October. It was smudged, disjointed, and obviously written in haste.
This terrible, terrible epidemic. If I believed in a god, I’d be on my knees begging him to keep us all safe and well. Rebecca Traherne is dead. They say it was the ’flu, but I think she died of grief, for it was only a few days after she got your wire about poor Sibella. Captain Palairet wrote to her and told her how you cared for Sibella at the end, and I know that poor Rebecca was deeply grateful to you. I think it eased her mind to know that her daughter died with a friend by her side. I’m proud of you, Belle. Although I could have wished that you’d found time to send
me
a wire, as well as poor Rebecca
. . .

Belle put down the last letter and sat staring out of the window. It had stopped raining at last, and above the grey tiled roofs of the little town the sky was a pale, washed-out blue.

Not as blue as Jamaica, she thought. Never as blue as that.

Her poor mother. Always so strong, so practical. And yet in that last letter she’d sounded isolated and fearful.

Belle shut her eyes. If only she’d thought to send her a wire. If only she hadn’t been so absorbed in her own concerns . . .

Sophie came in, and Belle collected herself with an effort.

Sophie wasn’t fooled, but she pretended not to notice, and rang for the maid to order luncheon.

Belle shuffled the letters into a pile. ‘Mamma says you’re something high up in the Graves Registration Commission,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t even know what that is.’

Sophie made a face. ‘Not many people do.’ She stooped to put another log on the fire. ‘It was set up in the second year of the War, and I sort of stumbled into it a few months ago.’ Brushing off her hands, she curled up on the sofa opposite Belle. ‘I’d been approached by an old colleague from a charity where I used to work. He wanted to trace the whereabouts of his nephew’s grave, and couldn’t afford to go to France himself, so I said I’d do what I could. Someone put me in touch with the Commission.’ She opened her hands.

‘Did you find the nephew’s grave?’ asked Belle.

‘It turned out there wasn’t one. He’d been blown up, poor lad. Nothing left.’ Her face became thoughtful. ‘Half a million graves, Belle. Another half a million men missing, but with no known grave. And back home, all the mothers and brothers and sisters wondering where to lay their flowers.’ She shook her head. ‘People have this deep need to know where their loved ones are buried. Even if they can’t visit it, they need a mark on a map, or a photograph. Something. Anything.’

Belle had never thought about that. ‘And you,’ she said, ‘what do you do out there?’

Sophie gave her crooked smile. ‘Well, for quite a lot of the time, we hare about the countryside, planning cemeteries and planting shrubs.’

‘Shrubs?’

‘I know it sounds ridiculous, but it makes a difference. There are people who are paid to take photographs of graves for those back home, and believe me, it’s much more of a shock for the relatives if all they see in the background is mud and shattered tree trunks, compared to a tidy patch of grass and a viburnum bush. But of course, I don’t do much gardening myself. Mostly, I register the graves.’ Her smile faded. ‘All those names. Carved on little wooden crosses made from bits of packing case; scrawled on scraps of paper tucked inside old bottles. Sometimes I feel as if I’m playing a sort of game of Russian roulette. Whose name will I find this time? Will it be someone I know? Will it be Ben?’

Belle leaned forward and covered her hand with her own. ‘You miss him terribly, don’t you?’