Chapter 38
38
Olivia was now determined to get to the bottom of the Annie Taylor mystery, although she was nervous as to what she might find. Was resurrecting a blue-eyed siren really such a good idea? She also realised that wherever the woman was in her world, didn’t necessarily mean the same things had happened to her in Seth’s. However, Annie had run away before the universe had apparently cleaved their worlds in two – which they were pretty sure was the April of 1912.
Freda had confirmed Annie was seeing another man and had consequently found herself in the family way. No men had disappeared from the village at that time, so Olivia considered what her friend had suggested: the man was married. Ernest Dunn had seen her with a carpet bag, so she was planning to make a home somewhere, and there had been a handful of possible sightings in various parts of the county for a few weeks afterwards.
Her parents had kept such a strict eye on her that Olivia doubted she could have conducted an affair away from the village. She was meeting this man at night, possibly in the Widow Larwood’s abandoned house… because it couldn’t be at the house of her lover, if he had a wife. She toyed with various possibilities… unless the house and extended buildings were so large that they could find a place to be alone, like, say, a boathouse…
Her insides began a slow merry-go-round. The Larwood house was a dump, crawling with rats, damp and unclean. A gentleman would conduct an assignation somewhere more salubrious. Maybe somewhere that held bedding and lamps, and that gamekeepers were instructed to ignore. There was a married man at Merriford Manor who fitted the bill but she did not want to accept he was a possibility. Someone who had enough money to support a mistress should that be his wont, and who often took trips to the coast…
The thought that Sir Hugo could be behind Annie’s disappearance was sickening. He was an entitled man who generally got the things he wanted, but surely not an adulterer. Although, wasn’t that what the wealthy did? Married for either land or the money, and took a mistress for the thrills? Could he have had another woman all this time, and found excuses to travel to Haven-on-Sea because that’s where Annie and his illegitimate child, or children, now lived?
Olivia couldn’t ask anyone about this directly. These good people had taken her into their home and she must be mindful of leaping to wild and unsubstantiated conclusions. Instead, she began to ask innocent questions about Sir Hugo’s trips to the seaside town, pretending that she was planning a visit there. Did he go often? Had Cynthia ever accompanied him? What sights would he recommend?
That Sunday, when everyone was attending the service at the Merriford Lode parish church, she feigned a headache and cried off. When the house was quiet, she went to Sir Hugo’s study and methodically searched for clues. It felt wrong to be prying through his private papers but she wanted answers. She laboriously leafed through every page of the large crocodile-skin diary on his desk and noted monthly entries that said:
Visit A – Haven
Opening the drawers beneath, she came upon an address book and found two for Haven-on-Sea, which she noted down, before returning everything to how it was, slipping out into the hallway and back to the tower, awaiting the household’s return.
It was quite by chance that Sir Hugo’s next visit to Haven was the following Thursday, so Olivia told Cynthia she was going off for the day on her bicycle. She wrapped up warmly and headed westwards but, once out of sight, circled back for the train station. It was a forty-five-minute journey to the resort and she’d only been on a handful of occasions, the first time being that summer she’d come to live with them all. Although things had changed since the war, and it was no longer unusual to see young ladies travelling alone, she still felt uncomfortable in the carriage and was thankful when an elderly couple joined her.
Once in the town, she asked directions to the first of the addresses. It proved to be an expensive guest house but no one had heard of an Annie Taylor. Perhaps it was where Sir Hugo stayed when he visited.
The second address was for St Walstan’s Lodge, Pebblebank Lane. It took her longer to find this but when she did, she could see that it was, in fact, some kind of hospital. Sir Hugo had written two o’clock by the diary entry so she hung about until ten minutes to and then entered the busy lobby, taking a seat with her back to the desk and burying her nose into a newspaper that someone had abandoned in one of the high-backed chairs.
A plaque on the wall caught her eye, which explained that the building was a sanitorium, founded in 1864. She began to wonder if poor Annie Taylor had ended up here as a patient. Nurses in grey dresses, white aprons and starched caps scurried about and other people started to arrive. Visiting hours must start after luncheon.
It wasn’t long before she heard Sir Hugo’s voice, but she didn’t turn around or let her presence be known.
‘Good afternoon. I’m here to see Andrew.’
‘Of course, Sir Hugo. You’ll be pleased to hear your brother is having a better day than on your last visit. Follow me.’
His brother? She almost dropped the newspaper in her shock.
The pair walked past her and down the wide, vaulted corridor and Olivia remembered Cynthia mentioning a younger brother – one who had been sickly. It would appear that his sickness was of the mind and he had been conveniently squirreled away all these years in a sanitorium.
The pieces of the puzzle slowly fell into place and she realised how mistaken she’d been. Olivia’s guardian had not been secretly visiting a mistress all these years, but a relative he was ashamed of. She had let her imagination run wild again and could only be grateful that she hadn’t flung unfounded accusations out that would have damaged his reputation and her relationship with the family.