5. Clara
5
‘Don’t you think it’s odd, River and Bartie both arriving back at the manor after years away?’ asked Clara.
‘What did you say?’ called her mother, who’d just walked from the sitting room into the hallway of their cottage.
Clara repeated her question at top volume and then winced. Good grief, she was turning into a loud Netherway. She’d be bellowing like Michael next. During his infrequent visits from Canada, he could be heard wherever he was in the house.
‘It’s not odd, at all,’ said Julie, poking her head back around the door. ‘It’s rather lovely.’
‘Yes, of course it’s lovely for Geoffrey, and all that. But neither River nor Bartie has been to the manor for ages and then they both turn up together on the same day, and Geoffrey was being a bit shifty when I spoke to him in the library.’
‘I’m sure he wasn’t being shifty. Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘He was, Mum. There’s definitely something going on.’
Julie pursed her lips. ‘Honestly, Clara, you seem determined to assign some ulterior motive to what’s simply a wonderful family reunion that Geoffrey’s keen to share with us all. Speaking of which, I’ll need to sort out the tea and biscuits for tomorrow’s get-together.’
‘What get-together?’
‘The get-together for everyone who’s working and has worked at the manor.’
Clara puffed out her cheeks. ‘Well, he hasn’t invited me.’
Julie frowned. ‘You should have received an email about it. Check your junk folder.’
Clara pulled her phone from her pocket and there, lying unseen amongst the junk emails was one from Geoffrey requesting – rather forcefully, Clara thought – that she be at the manor at 10a.m. tomorrow, prompt.
She looked up at her mother. ‘Yeah, I’ve been invited too but it’s not very convenient. I’ve got a lot of work on tomorrow.’
‘A lot’ was pushing it, and the work was likely to be tedious – sorting travel arrangements for a business team heading to Switzerland for a conference. But Clara was grateful for any income at the moment. Freelancing had been her only option after giving up her permanent job to move back to Heaven’s Cove, but it was proving very hand-to-mouth.
Julie’s mouth had set into a firm line. ‘It’s a good job the get-together won’t last long then,’ she said in a tone that brooked no dissent. ‘Anyway, you need to come along or River will think you’re snubbing him, and you used to be such good friends.’
Clara felt sure River wouldn’t give a monkey’s whether or not she was at tomorrow’s event, which was probably some celebration hailing his miraculous return. But a part of her was curious to know more about River’s life since he’d left Heaven’s Cove, and Bartie was likely to be there, too, which might liven up the proceedings.
‘So, are you coming?’ asked Julie, adding ‘Good’ when Clara nodded. ‘Right, now that’s sorted’ – her mother pointed at a bulging carrier bag near the fireplace – ‘can you sort through that stuff quickly because it’s almost time to eat.’
Clara knelt down on the carpet, in front of the TV, and tipped the bag out onto the floor. The contents of her grandmother’s bedside table cascaded around her.
‘Like I said, it’s all rubbish,’ said Julie, coming back into the room carrying cutlery. She winced at the mess. ‘I tipped the drawers into the carrier when we were clearing out her bedroom, and I have no idea why you want to go through it.’
‘We can’t just throw it all away without checking it first,’ said Clara, rocking back on her heels. She did want to go through her gran’s belongings but she was surprised by the extent of the pile in front of her. Who knew a couple of bedside drawers could contain so much? The floor was strewn with what looked like old receipts, plastic toys from the insides of Christmas crackers, and random nails and screws.
‘The problem,’ said Julie, placing the knives and forks on the table at the back of the room, ‘is that your grandmother, just like you, couldn’t bear to throw anything away. Fortunately, I’ve not inherited the hoarding gene.’
That was true enough, thought Clara, starting to go through the pile. Her mother had few qualms about throwing things out and had become more ruthless since discovering Marie Kondo, whom she worshipped as a guru.
‘This stuff has been cluttering up my attic for far too long,’ said Julie, placing salt and pepper pots on the table. ‘Mum, God rest her soul, passed away almost three years ago now and yet her things are still taking up too much space in our small home.’
Clara wrinkled her nose. It had been quite a while since Gran had died and she supposed it was fair enough to have a good clear-out. However, her mother had applied a different level of ruthlessness when it came to disposing of her father’s possessions. His clothes, his watch, the books he loved – they’d all gone to the charity shop within a few weeks of his death.
They’re simply ‘things’ which won’t bring him back, her mother had insisted when Clara had baulked at getting rid of his favourite jumper. We have our lovely memories of your father, and that’s all that matters.
She was right. And Clara understood that her mother was so grief-stricken she couldn’t bear to be faced with constant reminders of her lost husband. But Clara had still squirrelled away his glasses and they sat in the drawer of her bedside table, their lenses smudged with his fingerprints that she would never wipe away.
‘You should sit in the chair while you’re doing that,’ said Julie, going back out to the kitchen. ‘All that kneeling will destroy the cartilage in your knees.’
Clara glanced at the old armchair where her father had always sat. It was daft but she still couldn’t bring herself to sit there. It felt wrong, somehow: an acknowledgement that her father was gone for good.
Clara sat back on her heels. ‘I’m fine on the floor, thanks, Mum.’
‘You what?’ her mother yelled, sounding as if she had her head in the fridge.
‘I said I’m fine on…oh, never mind.’
‘One word from me and you do exactly what you want,’ said Julie, returning with two glass tumblers. ‘Oh, did I tell you that Michael rang yesterday to tell me he’s been promoted? He’s such a clever boy and doing so well out there. I always knew he’d be successful.’
Clara nodded, only half listening as her mother outlined Michael’s many attributes for the umpteenth time. She needed to sort through this pile before dinner was ready.
Five minutes later she was beginning to agree with her mother that Gran had been a dreadful hoarder. The haul from the drawers included plastic cutlery, yellowed with age, receipts going back more than a decade, a passport that had expired in 2012, two ancient packs of cards, and a tube of sticky cough sweets.
Clara groaned and adjusted her position on the floor. Her knees were starting to ache but she wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction of moving to a chair.
‘Food’s ready,’ her mother announced, coming into the room with a steaming casserole dish even though it was still baking hot outside and more the weather for salad. ‘Have you finished sorting through your gran’s things?’
‘Just about,’ said Clara, starting to scoop the remainder of the pile back into the carrier bag. ‘Sorry, Gran,’ she murmured, but her mother was right. This was nothing but a pile of old tat destined for the bin.
She paused when her hand brushed against something soft and, pulling aside a half-empty pack of tissues, her fingers closed around a drawstring bag made of purple velvet.
‘Come on, Clara. You can finish that later,’ her mother called from the table.
‘Won’t be a sec,’ said Clara, opening the bag and pulling out a small book. It was bound in white leather, its pages edged in gold, and there was embossed lettering on the front: Daily Diary 1957.
Clara didn’t realise that her grandmother had kept a diary. She did a quick calculation in her head. Violet Netherway would have been thirty-two years old in 1957 and working at the manor house as the housekeeper, just as her mother had done before her.
Waiting on the Brellashams truly was a Netherway family tradition, thought Clara. She smiled ruefully, aware of her mixed feelings about the ways in which the two families had become intertwined. Netherway women had shown how independent and assertive they were, as well as ahead of their time, by insisting on keeping their own surname after marriage. Her own father had been sparky enough to take on the Netherway name in honour of his wife. Yet they’d all spent decades fetching and carrying for a family who didn’t always appear to appreciate their subservience and hard work.
However, as Clara often told herself, her mother was happy with the arrangement, and her father and grandmother had been too, so it was pointless being chippy about it.
Though maybe her gran’s diary would paint a different picture of life at the manor. Clara opened the first page, keen to read Violet’s thoughts. But Violet Netherway wasn’t the name inscribed inside. Written, in large looping letters, was Audrey Brellasham.
Clara snapped the book shut. Was this really Audrey’s diary and, if so, how did it come to be in her grandmother’s possession, hidden beneath a pile of old junk in her bedside table?
‘Clara, your food’s getting cold,’ called Julie, irritation in her voice.
Clara got to her feet and went to the table. ‘Sorry, I got distracted. Guess what I’ve just found in Gran’s belongings.’ Without waiting for her mother’s reply – because she’d never guess in a month of Sundays – she told her: ‘Audrey Brellasham’s diary.’
Julie blinked and stopped ladling beef stew onto Clara’s plate. ‘What do you mean, Audrey Brellasham’s diary?’
‘I mean it’s a diary from 1957 and it’s got Audrey’s name written inside it so I presume it’s hers. Look.’
‘No,’ said her mother forcefully, as Clara went to open the book. ‘Please put the diary down and leave it, Clara.’
‘Why? Don’t you want to know more about the kind of woman Audrey was? No one ever mentions her. Well, Geoffrey did briefly today but only after I commented on the photo of her in the library.’
‘You spoke to Geoffrey about his stepmother?’ Julie frowned. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’
‘Why not? I understand that it must have been traumatic for him when she died but that was almost seventy years ago now, and this diary might contain her final words.’
Beef stew splattered across the table as Julie waved the ladle in Clara’s face. ‘I meant what I said, Clara. Step away from the diary. Now!’
Her mother looked so panicked, Clara placed the book on the table, unopened.
‘What on earth’s the matter, Mum?’
‘You shouldn’t be reading someone’s diary, that’s all.’ Julie pushed it across the table, out of Clara’s reach. ‘Reading someone else’s diary is very wrong. It’s a gross betrayal of trust.’
‘It’s wrong if they’re alive. But Audrey has been dead for so long, I can’t see that it would do any harm.’
Julie placed the ladle carefully into the casserole dish and swallowed hard. ‘You have no idea what harm that diary could do. No idea at all.’
‘Then tell me, Mum,’ said Clara gently, alarmed by her mother’s outburst. ‘How can I understand if I don’t know what’s going on?’
‘It’s not what’s going on now, it’s what went on in 1957.’ Julie breathed out slowly as if she was coming to a decision. Then, she gave a slight nod. ‘It’s not something your grandmother ever spoke about but the fact is she almost went to prison after Audrey Brellasham went missing.’
‘What, Gran? Prison?’ Clara’s jaw dropped at the thought of gentle Violet Netherway, an upstanding member of the local community, facing jail. ‘What did she do?’
‘Absolutely nothing but that didn’t stop suspicion falling on her when a diamond necklace went missing at the same time as Audrey. She was accused of theft.’
‘Why would someone suspect her of stealing the necklace?’ asked Clara, sinking onto a seat.
‘She was at the manor house, serving up a meal to Edwin, when Audrey went into the sea, so they couldn’t pin that on her. But afterwards, when search parties were trying to find Audrey, your gran was seen by a maid going into the woman’s bedroom and coming out with something in her pocket.
‘Before he joined in the search, Edwin decreed that no one should go into his wife’s room, and your gran always denied being in there. But the police were involved for a while and, though she was ultimately exonerated, mud sticks, doesn’t it? It happened a few years before I was born but your grandfather told me she’d had a dreadful time with it all. She almost lost her job but Edwin relented when the police dropped the case.’
‘Poor Gran,’ said Clara quietly.
‘Poor Gran, indeed. The whole thing was totally ridiculous. She’d hardly have stuck around here, cooking and cleaning for the Brellashams, if she’d had tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of diamonds stashed away. We’d have all been living it up in the Bahamas.’
Clara agreed that they would have, biting down her anger that such an unfair accusation had ever been made. Violet Netherway had given years of her life to making the Brellashams’ lives more comfortable. She’d continued working after getting married and having a child, even though that wasn’t the done thing back then, and yet that was how they repaid her.
‘The maid was mistaken, of course. I doubt Mum was anywhere near Audrey Brellasham’s bedroom,’ continued Julie as the stew grew colder beside her.
‘Unless she went into Audrey’s bedroom for the diary.’
Julie stared at Clara, blinking rapidly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She must have taken Audrey’s diary. How else would it have ended up in her bedside table?’
‘But why would she—’ Julie stopped mid-sentence and shook her head. ‘None of it makes any sense. It didn’t then and it doesn’t now, and all I know is that Audrey Brellasham’s diary will drag everything up again so you need to leave it well alone.’
‘OK, Mum,’ said Clara gently, reaching across the table to pick up the diary which she placed back into its velvet bag. ‘Perhaps I should give it to Geoffrey.’
‘No. Absolutely not. That man has suffered enough. He was only a young boy when his stepmother drowned and I don’t want this diary dredging it all up again for him. Or reminding him and other people in the village about the dreadful rumours about my mother and the Netherway family.’
Clara weighed the book in her palm. It felt heavy with secrets.
‘So what do we do with it?’ she asked.
‘We throw it away, with the rest of the rubbish in that carrier bag, and pretend that it was never found.’ Julie got up from the table and held out her hand. ‘Give it to me, please.’
When Clara handed the diary over, Julie went out of the room and, after a few moments, Clara heard the lid of the kitchen bin clang shut.
‘That’s done,’ her mother declared, coming back into the sitting room, a flush staining her cheeks pink. ‘Now, let’s eat our meal and talk about something else.’
She ladled out lukewarm stew and Clara, noticing a faint tremble in her mother’s hands, changed the subject to River and Bartie’s return.
Clara couldn’t sleep. The clock at Heaven’s Cove church had just struck three chimes to mark ten forty-five, its sound carrying faintly on the wind, but Clara was still wide awake.
Her mother had retired to bed early, after a bizarre evening spent making small talk and never mentioning the elephant in the room – or, rather, the diary in the bin.
Clara had stayed up a little later but had now been tossing and turning in bed for almost an hour as sleep eluded her. There were too many thoughts racing through her mind: thoughts of River and Bartie’s return, her grandmother’s ordeal regarding the missing necklace, and Audrey Brellasham’s final written words.
After another five minutes of not sleeping, Clara got out of bed and padded to the window. Navy clouds were scudding across an inky sky, and a pale moon was peeping from behind them. Dark water glinted through the trees and a bat flitted past, making her jump.
Clara shivered as moonlight cast shadows across the grass. Were there ghosts in this cottage, which was built at the same time as the manor? Spectres of ancestral Netherways, perhaps, who were for ever tied to this place?
Fortunately, she’d never felt spooked in her home. But Brellasham Manor was another matter.
Clara often caught a shadow at the corner of her eye when she walked through the elegant rooms of the stately home. The manor definitely felt haunted – still inhabited by the souls of people long gone. People like Edwin, Geoffrey’s father, and Audrey, whose bedroom remained out of bounds behind a perpetually locked door.
River was still breathing but he seemed like a ghost, too, back in the manor house that he’d left behind so long ago.
Clara’s mind spooled back through the years. She’d known that River’s mother, Lucia, had been thinking of leaving Brellasham Manor for good – just as Audrey had done, though Lucia was planning a less tragic exit. River had taken her into his confidence and sworn her to secrecy, and it was a secret she’d kept. But when their departure came, it had been swift and unexpected.
He’d promised, if he and his mother left, that he would keep in touch but there had been no letters or photographs from his new life in Australia. Nothing but a postcard a few weeks after he’d gone, with no return address, that said: Dear Clo (his nickname for her at the time), Probably best not to keep in touch now I’ve moved on. I really hope you have a good life. R.
The brusque finality of it still made her heart hurt. I really hope you have a good life. As if he cared. He had disappeared, and Bartie had soon followed suit. Clara, an emotional fifteen-year-old with a crush on eighteen-year-old Bartie, might have thought she would miss River’s cousin the most. But, in fact, it was shy, awkward River whose company she most craved.
Clara did her best to banish both men from her thoughts and turned from the window. She should go back to bed and try to sleep, but she couldn’t stop picturing Audrey writing in the diary that was now lying in the kitchen bin.
Perhaps her mum was right and it was best forgotten. But Clara wanted to find out more about Audrey, whose perfect life had ended in such tragedy. A woman who had seemingly been almost airbrushed from the Brellasham family history ever since. Didn’t her voice deserve to be heard?
Opening her door quietly, Clara walked down the stairs, switched on the hall light and went into the kitchen. A potent smell of old meat and decaying vegetables hit her nose when she opened the bin. The diary was nowhere to be seen so she put on the rubber gloves beside the sink and pushed her hand into the mess.
‘There must be better things to be doing late at night,’ she murmured, her nose wrinkling as her hand slid deeper through the squelchy rubbish. ‘Sleeping, for a start…aha!’ Her fingers had found the diary.
The velvet bag was ruined, its nap stained and smelly. But the diary inside was clean when Clara took off her gloves and slid it into her hand. Pushing the book into the pocket of her dressing gown, she reburied the bag deep in the bin and tiptoed upstairs to her room. Then, she got into bed and placed the diary on the duvet next to her.
Clara felt horribly conflicted. She knew she should listen to her mum and put the diary back in the bin, before her actions were discovered. But another voice was calling from across the years. Was that fanciful? she wondered. Perhaps she really was becoming obsessed with a dead woman.
Clara pulled back her shoulders, tucked away her guilt for disobeying her mother, and picked up the book. Then she opened the diary and began to read.