The Lake House (12 page)

E
ight

London, June 1911

Eleanor's chance came two days later. A trip to the Festival of Empire had been planned and everyone in Vera's household was suitably excited. “To think,” Beatrice had exclaimed over sherry the night before, “real live tribesmen, all the way from Africa!”

“A flying machine,” cried Vera, “a pageant!”

“A triumph for Mr Lascelles,” agreed Constance, before adding somewhat hopefully, “I wonder if the man himself will be there? I hear that he's a great friend of the King's.”

The Crystal Palace shone in the sunlight as the Daimler pulled up at its entrance. Eleanor's mother, aunt and cousin were helped from the car and Eleanor followed, lifting her gaze to take in the spectacular glass building. It was beautiful and impressive, just as everyone said, and Eleanor felt her cheeks flush with anticipation. Not, though, because she was looking forward to a day spent ogling the treasures of the Empire; Eleanor had something else entirely planned. Their party made its way inside the All British section and a good half-hour was spent agreeing on the superiority of everything within, before moving on to the exotic delights of the colonies. There were blooms to be admired in the floricultural section, athletic figures to be admired in the Overseas Dominions Cadets Camp, the pageant site itself to be thoroughly critiqued. Eleanor, trailing behind, forced herself to nod attentively when required. Finally, when they reached the Mediæval Maze she glimpsed her chance. The maze was busy and it wasn't difficult for Eleanor to separate from her group. She simply turned left when the others turned right, and then doubled back and escaped the way they'd come.

She walked quickly, her head bowed against the terrible possibility of seeing someone her mother knew, past the Empire Sports Arena, towards the Small Holdings, not stopping until she reached the railway entrance on Sydenham Avenue. There, her spirit performed a gleeful flip. Eleanor took out the map she'd borrowed from Uncle Vernon's study and checked again the route she'd plotted in the bathroom the night before. According to her research, all she had to do was wave down the number 78 tram on nearby Norwood Road and it would take her all the way to Victoria station. She could walk the rest of the way from there, through Hyde Park, across Marylebone and into Regent's Park. It was preferable to stick to the parks. The streets of London were like rivers of molten noise rushing through the city, and it was all so fast and furious that sometimes Eleanor could
feel
what it would be like to be hit and knocked down.

Today, though, she was too excited to be fearful. She hurried along the pavement to the tram stop, her heart galloping at the prospect of seeing the tigers and, more than that, with the immense joy of being alone for the first time in weeks. The number 78 tram came trundling towards her. She flagged it down, paid her fare with the coins she'd borrowed from Uncle Vernon's study, and just like that she was on her way. When she took her seat, she could barely keep from grinning. She felt grown-up and intrepid, an adventurer setting out to conquer all obstacles in her path. Ties she'd thought broken were strengthened now, to her childhood, to her life before, to her old self, and she experienced a thrill similar to that she'd relished playing The Adventures of Grandfather Horace. As the tram finally crossed Vauxhall Bridge and slid on its rails through Belgravia, Eleanor caressed the tiger's-tooth pendant on its chain beneath her blouse.

Victoria station was chaos, with people moving every which way, a sea of top hats and walking canes and long swishing skirts. Eleanor alighted from the tram and slipped through the crowd as quickly as she could, emerging onto the street where horse-drawn carriages and coaches jostled this way and that on their way to teatime appointments. She could have jumped for joy not to be on board one of them.

She took a moment to gather her bearings and then set off along Grosvenor Place. She was moving quickly and her breaths were short. London had a distinctive smell, the unpleasant mingling of manure with exhaust fumes, of old and new, and she was glad when she turned into Hyde Park and caught the scent of roses. Nannies in starched uniforms paraded large prams along the red dirt of Rotten Row, and the expanse of lawn was covered with green sixpenny deckchairs. Rowing-boats speckled the Serpentine like ducks.

“Get your mementoes, here,” shouted a street vendor, his stall stocked with coronation flags and pictures of the enormous new peace statue that stood before Buckingham Palace. (“Peace?” her uncle was fond of snorting each time their carriage passed by the enormous statue, its white marble glistening against the dirty black stonework of the palace. “We'll be lucky to see out the decade without another war!” A smug look would settle on his dour face after the pronouncement—he liked nothing more than the anticipation of bad news—and, “Don't be such a killjoy, Daddy,” Beatrice would scold, before her attention was diverted by a passing coach. “Oh, look! Is that the Manners' carriage? Did you hear the latest about Lady Diana? She dressed as a black swan to attend the all-white charity ball! Can you imagine Lady Sheffield's fury!”)

Eleanor was hurrying now. Towards Bayswater Road, under Marble Arch, through the edge of Mayfair and into Marylebone. The sign for Baker Street made her think again of Uncle Vernon, who rated himself something of a sleuth and enjoyed pitting his wits against Sherlock Holmes. Eleanor had borrowed some of the mystery books from her uncle's study but wasn't a convert. The arrogance of rationalism was at odds with her beloved fairy tales. Even now, Holmes' cocksure assumption that there was nothing that couldn't be explained by process of human deduction made her hot under the collar. So hot that as she approached Regent's Park she forgot all about the mechanised river she had to cross. She stepped right out onto the road without looking and didn't notice the omnibus until it was almost upon her. In that instant, as the enormous advertisement for
lipton's tea
bore down on her, Eleanor knew she was going to die. Her thoughts came swiftly—she would be with her father again, she would no longer have to worry about losing Loeanneth, but, oh, what a shame not to have seen the tigers! She screwed her eyes shut, waiting for the pain and oblivion to hit.

The shock when it came took her breath away, a force around her waist as she was thrown sideways, the wind knocked out of her as she fell hard to the ground. Death was not at all as she'd expected. Sound was swirling, her ears rang and her head swooned. When she opened her eyes, her vision filled with an image of the most beautiful face she'd ever seen. Eleanor would never confess the fact to anyone, but for years after she would smile to remember that in that moment she'd thought herself face to face with God.

It wasn't God. It was a boy, a man, young, not much older than she was, with sandy brown hair and skin she had a sudden urge to touch. He was on the ground beside her, one arm beneath her shoulders. His lips were moving, he was saying something that Eleanor couldn't make out, and he was looking at her intensely, first into one eye and then into the other. Finally, as noise and movement whirled around them—they'd gathered quite a crowd—a smile came to his face, and she thought what a glorious mouth he had, and then she promptly fainted.

* * *

His name was Anthony Edevane and he was studying at Cambridge to become a doctor, a surgeon to be precise. Eleanor learned this at the refreshments counter of Baker Street station, where he took her after the altercation with the bus and bought her a lemonade. He was meeting a friend there, a boy with dark, curly hair and spectacles, the sort of boy whose clothing, Eleanor could tell just by looking at him, would always appear hastily arranged, whose hair would never sit quite as it was meant to. Eleanor could relate to that. She took a liking to him at once. “Howard Mann—” Anthony gestured towards the dishevelled boy—“this is Eleanor deShiel.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Eleanor,” said Howard, taking her hand. “What a charming surprise. How do you know this old boy?”

Eleanor heard herself say, “He just saved my life,” and thought what an unlikely scenario it presented.

Howard, however, didn't skip a beat: “Did he now? Not surprising. That's the sort of thing he does. If he weren't my best friend I think I'd have to hate him.”

It might have been awkward, this bantering conversation in an Underground station cafe with two male strangers, but, as Eleanor discovered, being saved from certain death had a way of freeing a person from the usual strictures of what to say and how. They talked easily and freely, and the more she heard the more she liked them both. Anthony and Howard joked around with one another a lot, but their manner was easy and therefore somehow inclusive. She found herself voicing opinions in a way she hadn't done in a very long time, laughing and nodding and disagreeing at times with a vehemence that would have horrified her mother.

The three of them spoke fiercely about science and nature, politics and honour, family and friendship. Eleanor gleaned that Anthony wanted to be a surgeon more than anything in the world, and had done since he was a little boy and his favourite housemaid died of appendicitis for lack of a qualified doctor. That Howard was the only son of an extremely wealthy earl who spent his days on the French Riviera with his fourth wife, and sent money for his son's care to a trust administered by a bank manager at Lloyds of London. That the two boys had met on the first day of school when Anthony lent Howard his spare uniform hat so he wouldn't be given a caning by the housemaster and that they'd been inseparable ever since. “More like brothers,” Anthony said, giving Howard a warm smile.

Time flew and when, during a rare break in conversation, Howard frowned lightly and said to Eleanor, “Not to break up the party, but it occurs to me someone must be missing you,” she was shocked to glance at her father's watch (she'd worn it since he died, much to her mother's annoyance) and realise that three hours had passed since she'd lost her family in the maze. She experienced a sudden vision of her mother in a state of emotional apoplexy.

“Yes,” she agreed grimly. “It's a distinct possibility.”

“Well then,” said Howard, “we should get you home. Shouldn't we, Anthony?”

“Yes,” said Anthony, frowning at his own watch, tapping the glass as if the time it told were somehow wrong. “Yes, of course.” Eleanor wondered whether she imagined the note of reluctance in his voice. “Terribly selfish of us to keep you here talking when you really ought to be resting your head.”

Suddenly, Eleanor was filled with a desperate desire not to part company from them. From him. She started to demur. The day had turned out to be a glorious one; she felt absolutely fine; home was the last place she planned on going. She'd come all this way, she was so near the zoo, she hadn't even seen the tigers yet! Anthony was saying something about her head and the impact of her fall, which was kind of him, but really, she insisted, she felt fine. A little dizzy, now that she tried to stand up, but that was only to be expected; it was very warm inside the cafe, and she hadn't eaten lunch, and—oh! Perhaps if she just sat for a moment longer, caught her breath, waited for her vision to clear.

He was insistent; she was stubborn; Howard was the decider. With a small smile of apology he took her other arm as Anthony went to pay the bill.

Eleanor watched him go. He was clever, and kind, and possessed an obvious fascination with the world and all it had to offer. He was also very handsome. Thick dark-blond hair and sun-browned skin, a gaze that was electric with curiosity and a passion for learning. She couldn't be absolutely certain that it wasn't her near-death experience playing tricks with her eyes, but he seemed to shine. He was so filled with enthusiasm and energy and confidence that he was somehow more alive than everybody else in the room.

“He's something, isn't he?” said Howard.

Eleanor's skin flared. She hadn't meant to be so obvious.

“He's the smartest boy in class, he won most of the academic prizes at our school graduation. Not that he'd ever tell you himself, he's modest to a fault.”

“Is he?” She pretended only a mild, polite interest.

“When he qualifies, he plans to establish a surgery for those who can least afford it. The number of children who go without vital operations for want of the money to pay a surgeon is shameful.”

They drove her back to Mayfair in Howard's Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. Vera's butler opened the door, but Beatrice, who'd been watching from her bedroom window, came flying down the stairs, hot on his heels. “Oh my goodness, Eleanor,” she breathed, “your mother is
livid
!” Then, noticing Anthony and Howard, she regathered herself and fluttered her eyelashes. “How do you do?”

“Beatrice,” said Eleanor with a smile, “allow me to introduce Howard Mann and Anthony Edevane. Mr Edevane just saved my life.”

“Well then,” said Beatrice, without skipping a beat, “I expect you'd better come in for tea.”

The story was told again over tea and lemon cake. Constance, her brows arched and her lips tight, was simmering with unasked questions as to why Eleanor had been in Marylebone in the first place, but she held firmly to her composure as she thanked Anthony. “Edevane?” she asked hopefully. “Not
Lord
Edevane's son?”

“That's right,” said Anthony cheerfully, taking a second piece of cake. “The youngest of his three.”

Constance's smile evaporated. (“Third son?” she was later heard barking at Vera. “
Third
son?! A third son has no business walking the streets rescuing impressionable young girls. He's supposed to join the ministry, for goodness' sake!”)

To Eleanor, though, it explained everything. His easy, unassuming nature, the inexplicable, almost regal air he carried with him, the way they'd met. He was the third son. “You were born to be the hero of a story,” she said.