Chapter Twenty-four

IN THE SEASIDE SKIES ABOVE RYE, the snow clouds curdled.

Winter was already here. Hélène could feel it in the air as, disembarking from the bus outside town, she and Sybil walked along the coastal path and saw the Marchmont manor house looming ahead.

Hélène crouched down, fixing Sybil’s hat and scarf. A little bundle like this might not have felt the bite of the winter wind coming up from Camber Sands, but Hélène surely did.

‘I’d come down this path every morning, sweetheart,’ she whispered. ‘Aunt Lucy would meet me right there at the bus stop, two days a week. She’d have a bag of sherbet lemons.’ She whispered, ‘I wasn’t allowed sweets. Sir Derek Marchmont thought they were frightfully uncouth. It made me love them even more.’

This wasn’t the only memory that came rushing at her as she lifted Sybil and headed along the coastal path. Out across the harbour, where the boats all lined up in pretty rows, the sky was thick and white. She remembered her childhood. The summers picnicking on Camber Sands, and the winters when the snow lay thick and crisp inland. Happy memories, each and every one of them. She felt a stabbing sadness at the way things had changed.

‘But you’ve got it all too, haven’t you?’ she whispered – and Sybil reached out, with a mittened hand, to tweak her nose. ‘Noelle and Maurice, and all your uncles and aunts. That little back bedroom, with kittens on the wallpaper! And those cakes Noelle makes – when I was a girl, we never had cakes such as those.’

By the time they reached the old Marchmont manor, fat flakes of snow had started to fall. One last memory rushed upon Hélène as she came through the gate into the grounds of the manor, and set Sybil down so that they might walk together, up through the bare orchard towards the house.

‘I remember staying awake, every Christmas night,’ she said, taking Sybil’s hand and directing her to one of the bedroom windows above. ‘As late as I could, right there in the window, in case I saw Father Christmas. It always snowed at Christmas back then. It looks like we’ll have another white Christmas this year as well.’

The Christmas tree in the hall. Chestnuts roasting the evening before. The little tipple of sherry she’d been allowed, ever since she was six or seven years old. What a childhood it had been! They’d given her everything she could have wished for.

Until she was fully grown, and needed them more than ever.

She hadn’t been meaning to come. She’d been trying to make her peace with that, telling herself, night after night, that it was their choice, not hers. In the end, it was Noelle who’d convinced her.

Late at night, after Sybil had been put to bed, she sat with Hélène by the fire, listening to the wireless crackle with the BBC News, and said, ‘Once he’s gone, there’d be no going backwards. Or .?.?. if you set sail for Chicago, there’s no coming home – not while he’s still alive. It’s your path to take, Hélène. Your heart to follow. But one more chance wouldn’t diminish you. To give them one more chance – why, that can only lift you up. It would be for you, not them.’

There were unspoken things in Noelle’s words too.

‘Give them one more chance,’ she’d said – and perhaps we, Sybil’s grandparents, will have one more chance to be a part of her lives. Perhaps you won’t really have to go to Chicago at all .?.?.

She had reached the door to the manor. By rights, she shouldn’t have to knock, but she set Sybil down, dusted the snowflakes from the top of her head, and lifted the knocker. It was brass, and in the shape of a wolf.

‘I made up stories about that wolf,’ she told Sybil, though her daughter only blew a raspberry in reply. ‘I used to think that, at night, he’d come alive and howl up at my bedroom window.’

She knocked.

They weren’t expecting her, of course. That had been a part of the pact that she’d made for herself – so that, even as she disembarked from the train at Rye and waited for the country bus, she could still turn and flee. Now that she was here, she wondered if she ought to have done just that – but, even as that thought formed, there were footsteps on the other side of the door. Instinctively, she bowed down and lifted Sybil.

‘Mama?’ the little girl began.

The snow was turning to a blizzard at her back. She looked over her shoulder, through the grounds, and realised she could hardly see the trees in the orchard.

‘We’ll be inside soon, little one. They’ll have a big fire burning in the sitting room, you can be sure of it.’

The door opened up.

*

It was Lucy who opened the door. Hélène was thankful for that, because she hadn’t been certain if Lucy would be here at all.

‘Aunt Lucy,’ Hélène said – but that was all.

Lucy stepped back, and when Hélène lingered with Sybil on the doorstep, she said, ‘You don’t need to be invited into your own home, dear,’ and Hélène shepherded her daughter inside.

Hélène had been right. Somewhere, here, an enormous fire was crackling. Its heat radiated outwards, filling the reception hall with its homely smell. Sybil, who was at Hélène’s feet – gazing at the ancient oak staircase that wound above – had a look as if she had walked into a different world. Something in it must have unnerved her, for as Hélène stopped and helped her out of her coat, taking off her wet hat and mittens, she tried to scrabble up into her mother’s arms.

‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ Hélène cooed into her ear. ‘This is our family.’

It didn’t feel that way – not to Sybil, and not to Hélène. In the world-that-might-have-been, Sybil would have grown up thinking of this place as a second home. In the summers she’d have gambolled in the grounds, picked raspberries and apples from the orchards. She’d have been bathed in the tin bath in front of the fire, and at Christmas time she’d have laid out her mince pies on the ledge, just the same as Hélène once had.

‘Aunt Lucy,’ Hélène said, ‘this is your great-niece, Sybil.’

Sybil beamed at the sound of her name.

Lucy reached out and touched Sybil’s finger. Sybil, nervous at first, recoiled against Hélène’s bosom, then, slowly, by degrees, dared to reach out and poke Lucy’s fingertip.

‘Well, aren’t you beautiful?’ said Lucy.

Sybil beamed.

‘I never thought to see you here again,’ Lucy said, turning her eyes to Hélène. ‘And your daughter. She’s .?.?. magnificent.’

‘She is,’ said Hélène – and though she wanted to add, and she has been for three whole years, she managed to strangle the bitterness at birth. ‘Aunt Lucy, is my mother here? My father?’

She got her answer to the first straight away – for from the drawing room at the bottom of the hall another figure appeared.

The expression on Lady Marchmont’s face was one of the utmost bewilderment. To Hélène, she seemed a ghost, sailing along the corridor towards her. Once upon a time, Hélène had been Sybil’s age, standing on this very same spot, having tumbled in – ruddy-cheeked and cold – from playing in the snowstorm outside. All of history was here. Hélène had to centre herself, thinking of Noelle, to remember that all of that was a different age: that she was here, now, as a different woman.

‘Hélène,’ her mother ventured, eyes darting into every corner of the reception hall, unable to settle on any one thing, ‘we weren’t expecting you.’

‘I know, Mother.’

‘If you’d said, we could have laid on a spread. We could have .?.?. prepared.’

Hélène said, sadly, ‘That’s why I didn’t send word, Mother. You shouldn’t have to prepare. I don’t want a spread. I don’t want a fuss. I just want to .?.?.’

‘You’ve come to see him.’

Hélène nodded. ‘I have. Is he .?.?. ?’

‘Still with us.’ Her mother instinctively folded her arms across her breast, as if there was something she had to protect – or something she had to hide. ‘He’s been sleeping. Why don’t we .?.?. ?’

She made as if to usher everyone through one of the doors, the one that led to the great sitting room where Hélène used to perform her dances, each year, for her parents to judge.

Hélène looked back through the frosted glass in the door. The whole world beyond was a chaos of white. Fat snowflakes cavorted and danced. This place would look resplendent come Christmas. She could imagine the baubles. She could imagine the lights.

But there’d be no love in this place, not unless they let love in.

There was no going back. Not now. Until there came a gap in the snowstorm, she wouldn’t take Sybil out into it. So she followed Lucy through to the sitting room, and let the memories thunder through her.

*

Some time later, only when she was certain that Sybil had found her feet in this strange environment, Hélène followed her mother to the bottom of the stairs. Looking back, she could see Sybil on the sitting-room carpet, the fire flickering a fandango behind her, and Lucy cross-legged beside her, spreading out the pieces of an old wooden jigsaw puzzle. Hélène had been amazed to see it; she hadn’t imagined, for a second, that all the books and toys of her childhood were still in the old trunk in the second sitting room.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Marie said. ‘I promise. The moment she wants you, I’ll come and get you.’

It wasn’t right, to be this fearful of leaving your daughter with her own relations. But nor was it right to feel so at peace, seeing Sybil play with her own old toys. A mixture of emotions like this could never be explained. It was better that she ignored it.

‘Hélène, before we go up, there’s something I should say.’

‘Mama, I know you feel let down. I don’t need to hear it – not today.’

‘I’m sorry, Hélène.’

‘Sorry?’

The word was almost unimaginable.

‘It’s my fault you’re in this bind. I let my emotions get the better of me. You were always better at that than me. You take after him in that regard.’ Together, their eyes took in the top of the stairs and the doorway on the landing, with the sleeping Sir Derek Marchmont beyond. ‘I hope I haven’t ruined things completely at the Buckingham. You’re still dancing?’

Hélène was too weary to explain. ‘I’m dancing,’ she said.

‘I always loved you, you know.’

No, thought Hélène, I don’t know any such thing.

Nor did hearing it said out loud change anything. She looked back, at Sybil, in gales of laughter at some face Lucy was pulling, and thought: why couldn’t time stay the same? Why couldn’t relationships? Her mother had loved her once, she was certain of this much. But where the love had gone, how it had changed into something else, was a mystery she dared not indulge. She took a step on the stairs.

‘Will he want to see me?’

‘Oh, Hélène, of course.’

They came, together, to the top of the stairs. Soon, Marie had drawn ahead of her, as if she needed to be told the way – though this was the same hall she’d cantered down every morning as a child, desperate to see her daddy as he woke; this, the same hall along which she’d brought him his pot of tea every Sunday morning. There was a photograph framed against the wall: a younger Hélène, sitting on Sir Derek’s knee, with their old cat Smudge sleeping at their feet.

The bedroom door was ajar. Hélène could smell the mustiness as they approached. Some of it was old and familiar – the scent of her father’s pipe, of tar and the peppermints he liked to suck – but there were new hints here, too. The harsh vinegar and carbolic the maid had used to scrub the surfaces. The ash from the bedroom fireplace, so rarely used when Hélène was a child.

She followed her mother inside.

There was her father: propped up in bed, buttressed on every side by pillows, his head lolling to one side.

Hélène lifted a hand to her mouth. He looked already dead.

‘Derek,’ her mother said gently, and went to rouse him. With a hand on his shoulder, she repeated, ‘Derek, you have a guest.’

The old man opened his eyes.

Once upon a time, he had been so big. Now, though his face retained some of its jowls, he seemed to vanish into the bed sheets. Her giant, Herculean father had become a wraith. As he came back into wakefulness, he seemed like a scarecrow coming to life. Marie took his big hand and stroked his dewy forehead.

‘You haven’t been drinking,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring you lemon water.’ She looked up, at Hélène. ‘We fill it with honey. Some days it’s all he takes.’

It was only then that Sir Derek realised there was somebody else in the room.

‘Hélène?’ he croaked.

He picked himself up, and the first of the bed sheets sloughed off him.

‘Get me from this bed, Marie. My daughter .?.?.’

Hélène whispered, ‘You can stay there, Papa.’

‘I won’t,’ Sir Derek began, some gravitas coming back to his voice. ‘I won’t take guests in my bed sheets. I’m a knight of the realm.’

Hélène knew not what to do. She simply stood there as Marie guided him to the rocking chair at the bedside, helped him into a navy-blue jumper.

‘Lemon water,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’

‘Bring my daughter whatever she desires,’ he called after her.

Then there were only Hélène and her father in the room.

‘Well,’ Sir Derek said, ‘pull up a chair, Hélène. Come to see your old father one last time, have you?’ He gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘Yes, well, I shan’t keep you long, my girl – though I’m glad to look on you, once more.’

Hélène whispered, ‘I had to see you, Papa.’

‘Then sit!’ he cried. ‘Sit! It’s been too long. Look at you. You’ve grown!’

She shook her head ruefully at this, but she sat at his side, all the same. The second rocking chair was piled up with books, on top of which sat his Bible, and she gently shifted them aside.

‘They sent for you, I shouldn’t wonder. Told you I was setting off, did they?’

‘Papa .?.?.’

‘Well, it’s right that they did.’ His voice broke. He reached for her hand. She let him take it. ‘I’ve missed you, Hélène. I’ve missed you, and here you are. My beautiful girl. My only, beautiful girl .?.?.’ He stopped. ‘Tell me about yourself. Are you still dancing?’

‘Always.’

‘I remember you dancing, right here in this bedroom. In the drawing room downstairs. In the orchards. I remember coming to see you at the Royal Albert Hall. My perfect Hélène – oh, I’m a sentimental old fool! Nothing could have been better.’

‘I remember that too.’

Memories were safe. In memories, she could ignore the daughter who scampered around downstairs, and live, for a moment, in a different world. So they sat and talked about the first tea dance he’d taken her to. They talked about Christmas dinner, when Sir Derek had invited everyone from the estate, and Hélène had opened the curtains at dawn to see her first pony, Black Magic, standing on the frosted lawns. They talked about the night before the Royal Albert Hall, and how Hélène – sick with nerves – had sat with her father by the fire. They talked about everything, but it was as if time had stood still in 1933: before Sidney, before Sybil, before Hélène had sullied the family name.

A little piece of her thought she could leave it like this. Then he could die, with some pretence at happiness. Something tempted her in the idea.

‘I have a gift for you,’ her father said. ‘My Christmas gift for my daughter. Your mother helped me, in case I don’t live through December.’

‘Oh, Papa .?.?.’

‘Go,’ he said, and waved a hand at the old seaman’s trunk sitting at the bottom of the bed. ‘It’s at the very top.’

Hélène opened up the trunk and took out a parcel wrapped in paper of red and green, with stencils of little Scottie dogs sitting between Christmas trees. This she took back to her chair.

‘Open it,’ her father smiled.

So she did. Inside it was a book filled with portraits, the ones they had taken each year: Hélène at eight years old, with her mother and father in the photographer’s gallery; Hélène aged nine, with her mother and father, down there in the orchard itself; Hélène at ten, eleven, twelve – the chronicle of her young life, and her father always at her side. She flicked to the back. Cuttings from the society pages. Reviews and write-ups of the decorations she’d received. The covers of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar: her own face, smiling back at her.

‘Thank you, Papa,’ she said.

Something seized her. It was the feeling of guilt rushing through her, because there was no doubt that the book of photographs had moved her. But time hadn’t ended in 1933. Time had moved on. It was moving still.

‘I’ve got a present for you too, Papa.’

She stood, smiled at him, and slipped out of the room.

When she returned, she was holding Sybil in her arms.

The old man knew not where to look. There was surprise on his face, but there was horror too. His eyes darted around; he moved as if to lift himself, but didn’t have the strength.

Hélène had not meant to taunt him. She watched him shrinking in his chair and, upon realising there was nothing else he could do, simply slump and stare at her. Sybil must have sensed the change in atmosphere because, at once, she stopped wriggling in Hélène’s arms. She lay her head on her mama’s shoulder.

‘Papa,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to upset you. It isn’t what I came for. Everything I’ve said is true – I wanted to see you again. I don’t want you to go, without telling you I love you and without you telling it to me – and meaning it, Papa, for all that I am. All those things we’ve talked about. All these pictures. They’re still so true. They still happened, and they’re still in here.’ She balanced Sybil in one arm and held her heart with the other. ‘But so is this. So is Sybil. She’s your granddaughter, and she’s the most beautiful thing in the world.’

‘You’ve come to terrorise me,’ he said, quaking in his rocking chair. ‘After everything you’ve done to this family, you’ve come to flaunt it. I gave you everything, Hélène. My whole world was built around it. This manor? What’s this manor to me anymore? It was all for you.’

‘I don’t want it, Papa. I want you to look upon her, all the years you’ve missed – all the years I’ve missed, too, because of what you did – and know that there was love here, all along. There was my love, but there was Sybil’s love too. Oh, Papa, it could have been fantastic. Even after poor Sidney .?.?. We could have made a family, right here, and hang what the world thought. She could have grown up happy and secure, with all the wonderful things I had. And, no, I don’t mean the ponies, and I don’t mean the ball gowns, and I don’t mean this big country estate. I mean you and Mama, and Aunt Lucy, and, by God, Papa, that feeling of home. Sybil doesn’t want for love. Her grandparents cherish her. But there could have been so much more.’

She dared not sit down, for fear of what he might do – and, besides, Sybil had sensed the tension in the room and was clinging on to her more fiercely still.

‘What do you want of me, Hélène?’

She said, ‘Say hello to her, at least. She’s your granddaughter.’

He rolled his head back. For a moment, Hélène wondered if he was having some sort of a fit. But it was only anger – what strength he had to summon it.

‘You know children aren’t allowed in my bedchamber, Hélène. That was the rule when you were small. That’s the rule now.’

She was silent.

Was that it?

The end of the story?

‘We can do the right thing here, Papa.’

‘My house, my rules, Hélène.’

She turned against him. The most surprising thing was: there were no tears. She’d shed them already. She was holding her head up high, whispering sweetnesses in Sybil’s ear, as she crossed to leave the room.

‘It doesn’t have to be like this.’

Those words – she’d never expected them from her father. She dared to turn back around. His face was open. His eyes were on her. He seemed settled. He seemed serene.

‘Papa?’

‘There’s still time for us to make this right, isn’t there? I’m not dead yet. Your mother can summon my solicitor. We’ll rewrite the will. All of this could be yours, Hélène, just like I meant for it. And this girl of yours, she’s being looked after well enough, isn’t she? You said it yourself – she has people who cherish her. Her grandparents. Well, let them. Let her stay where she belongs, and come home, Hélène, come back where you belong. All this business in London and at the Buckingham Hotel – I could make it go away. You’d be comfortable. When I’m gone, there’ll be somebody needed to run the estate here. Lord knows, your mother won’t cope.’ He paused. ‘But you could. Living here, you’d meet a new man in a moment. So many eligible young men, looking for somebody with class like you. They could overlook your past, for a life like this. You could start again. I’d be helping you do it, Hélène – even from the great beyond. Even after everything that’s happened .?.?.’

Hélène took a moment, as the words washed over her. It was the strangest thing – for it wasn’t tears that came to her, but a kind of lightness instead.

For the first time, she knew.

‘Oh, Papa,’ she said, ‘you haven’t heard a word. I could never, ever give Sybil up.’

She turned, left her father alone, and held on to her daughter as she reached the top of the stairs.

But I could give up you.