CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Once Ben had gone home, Louise returned to the diary. She’d almost forgotten it while he’d been here over Christmas, too caught up in the present to think about the past, but now her eyes kept falling on the desk in the corner, as if something in her subconscious was pecking at her. Maybe Laura’s story would give her hope that she could find her own happy ever after. After all, she’d lived at Whitehaven for more than forty years, and by all accounts she’d been happy there.

She went to the desk and fetched it, noticing as she began to read that the next entry was almost a whole year since previous one.

23rd August, 1954

Alex has sent me away for a holiday. He says the sea air will do me good, that I’ve been working too hard. He’s right. I have been working too hard. Mainly because being someone else is better than being myself. I don’t want to be this wretched creature who mopes around and can’t shake herself out of the doldrums.

I was doing quite well at holding it all together until I opened the paper one morning and saw the news that Jean Blake had given birth to a perfect baby daughter. There was even a quote from Dominic about how smitten he was with his new bundle of joy.

I hate that expression: bundle of joy. I’m certain it’s something Dominic would never say. He’d say something clever, like ‘She’ll be my leading lady forever …’. At least, that’s what I’ve imagined he’d say in my idle dreams, when I block the bleakness of reality out and pretend that everything—opinions, gossip, situations and people—that stop us being together have magically vanished.

In my dreams we live in a beautiful old house on a hill, high above a river. The sun always shines, as it did that wonderful summer. We don’t do exciting things; we just live. And how we live. With laughter and smiles and colour, with intimacy and affection. And with a handful of flaxen-haired children racing round the house and squealing in the garden. Whitehaven is the sort of house that should have children running across its lawns …

Enough.

I can’t think this way any more. These dreams, these vapid wishes, they’re like poison. They seem so warming, so comforting—and they are at the time—but when they’re over they leave me feeling bleak and dissatisfied. They suck the life out of me. No wonder I can’t climb my way out of this pit.

Finally, Alex noticed it was more than just tiredness, that I was low. So here I am on Burgh Island off the Devon coast near Kingsbridge. It really is a marvellous hotel, the only building on the small and rocky island, and at low tide you can practically wade to shore. But it’s the sort of place one should share with someone and I’m here on my own. Alex has gone to Belgium—something to do with expanding his empire—and the only other person I’d want to share it with is rocking his new baby daughter and looking at his wife with new admiration and gratitude.

I’ve been here a couple of days now, and it truly is relaxing. But all the discreet butler service and gourmet cooking in the world can’t soothe my thoughts. They rage so, like the surf against the rocks beneath my window.

Now I hear Alex’s voice in my head, telling me I’m being melodramatic again. Perhaps I am, but what does he expect? He married an actress, for heaven’s sake!

Anyway, I’ve decided I need to get off the island and take a day trip tomorrow. The plan is to do something that will clear my muddled head of its clutter. Whether it’s the plan of a genius or a fool will only be known tomorrow evening, when I’m back here, sorting through my thoughts with ink and paper.

Until then …

As much as Louise tried to ration reading these diary entries, she found she had no self-control any more to put the book away and mull on the possibilities until next time. The diary did not go back in the drawer. The key did not turn in the lock. Instead, it stayed open in Louise’s hands, giving up its truth as her eyes lingered on every sentence.

24th August, 1954

It took some time to get to my destination, mostly because of the winding rivers that insist on dividing up the land in this part of the world. But I hired a car and asked the driver to take me all the way to the ferry at Lower Hadwell. It would have taken much longer by road and I wanted to catch glimpses of Whitehaven through the gaps in the trees as I crossed the river.

The first glint of white stone in the sunshine set my heart fluttering. I knew he wasn’t there, but I feel as if he’s etched into that land now somehow, forever connected. As I am. But it wasn’t just that. It was also excitement at seeing that beautiful place again. It soothed me last time I was there and I was hoping it would do it again. Somehow, although things have gone horribly, horribly wrong, I feel this house has the ability to put things right, bring things to peace, and peace is certainly something I could do with presently.

I took my time walking up the hill then crossed through the gardens until I reached the house. Thankfully, the owners had been very receptive to a visit when I’d telephoned yesterday, but they insisted on dragging me inside and giving tea and scones—all the while grinning at me inanely—before letting me loose to wander the grounds. They wanted to show me the way down to the boathouse, but I insisted I knew the way and hinted I’d appreciate a little solitude. Thankfully, they were far too well-mannered to argue.

It was cool in the woods, with the sun filtering through the leaves. Every now and then there’d be a hole where a tree had come down and tall grass and wild flowers abounded in the sunny patch left behind.

A strange mixture of feelings hit me as I saw the boathouse again after all this time. Longing, for Dominic, but a sense of warmth and nostalgia too. I had to brave the dust and go inside, make my way out onto the balcony and just stand and breathe.

It was here I whispered my words to the river breeze—words of sorrow and regret, words of love and promises, but mostly they were words of farewell.

Once again I said my goodbyes to Dominic. Once again I cried like a child.

But as I sit in my suite this evening, although I feel raw and ragged and puffy-eyed, I also feel as if something inside has come to rest. Whitehaven has given me a gift. It has let me take some of its peace away with me. It is a gift that I will treasure fiercely.

Louise flicked through the remaining pages of the diary. She was almost three quarters of the way through now. Could the final entries provide the answers to Laura’s history? She frowned as she tried to remember snatches from a documentary she’d tuned into late one evening—oh, at least a decade ago—on Laura and her career.

She remembered her buying this grand old house, and then something about a husband. Could that have been Dominic instead of Alex? And, if it had been, how could he have stood to leave his wife and daughter?

She shook her head. It would be dark soon, and it would be a good idea to get back up the hill to the house before night fell. The mystery would have to wait for another day.