Connie opens the back door of the orphanage and steps into the chilly passage. It is just after dawn. She stands still for a few moments as she always does, absorbing the atmosphere of the old place. There’s the familiar clatter of pots and pans and the breakfast smells floating from the kitchen, the pounding of a hundred pairs of feet on the wooden stairs as the children come down from their dormitories to morning prayers, snatches of their whispered conversations, bursts of laughter. These are the things she hears every morning. But today, there’s something else in the air. Something unusual.
She can feel it as she walks down the echoing passage towards the front of the building: a sense of excitement, of pent-up tension. Then she sees what it is and a chill goes right through her. Her father is speaking to Mrs Noakes, the housekeeper, beside the front door. She can only see his back, his silk smoking jacket, his flowing chestnut hair. He is bending forward, peering at something in the housekeeper’s arms. Mother is there too, keeping herself to the shadows.
Mrs Noakes is staring up at Connie’s father, hanging on his words, her mouth open, her eyes wide with excitement. As Connie walks closer, her heart stands still. The housekeeper is holding a bundle that wriggles and squirms in her arms.
‘Yes, Mrs Noakes,’ Connie can hear her father’s words now, his voice smooth, reassuring, ‘As I said, the baby was here when I arrived, a little before daybreak. It was just lying there, quite peacefully, on the step, the poor little mite. It must have been left in the night, just like the others. A gift from our dear Lord.’
‘That poor, poor mother,’ breathes the housekeeper, ‘I can hardly bear to imagine…’
Connie is rooted to the spot. Into her mind’s eye steps a young woman – a teenage girl; the picture is blurred because she has no idea what the girl’s features might be like, but she is dressed in thin, cheap clothes, wrapped in a shawl, her face pinched and pale. She is walking along the High Street in the dead of night, cradling a bundle in her arms. The baby is crying; the girl’s cheeks too are wet with tears. The little town is quiet and dark; the gas lamps would have gone off hours ago. The girl creeps along the front wall of the orphanage and hesitates near the front steps. There is a narrow porch in front of the entrance. She holds the baby to her for one last, agonising, precious moment before laying it down on the step inside the porch. Then, she walks slowly backwards down the steps, and turns to run back the way she came, tears streaming down her face.
The baby starts to cry, the high-pitched sound breaking into Connie’s thoughts.
‘Here, let me take the little one back for a moment, Mrs Noakes,’ her father says.
‘It’s wonderful that God guides those poor unfortunates to our door, Ezra,’ Mother whispers, her eyes nervous, flicking towards her husband for approval.
Connie steps forward. ‘Can I see?’
She peers at the tiny face, swaddled in shawls, as her father rocks it to and fro in his arms. The baby is perfect in every way, with its little face crumpled, its chin dimpled. But as she looks into its eyes, a bolt of recognition goes through her and she takes a step back.
The baby quickly responds to the calming motions and its cries gradually slow and die down.
‘You’ve got such a way with newborns, Reverend Burroughs,’ says the housekeeper, admiration shining in her eyes. He smiles, and inclines his head in gracious acknowledgement.
‘Here, take the baby up to the nursery, Mrs Noakes,’ Ezra says gently, handing the baby back. ‘I need to go and take prayers. The children are waiting for me.’
‘Of course, Reverend.’
‘Oh, and Mrs Noakes, I will take care of the paperwork myself this morning. I’ll deal with this one personally, just as I have with the other foundling babies.’
Then he frowns and wheels round to face Connie.
‘And you need to come along to prayers too, Constance. Right away. No need for you to be lingering here.’ His voice is sharp now.
Connie starts at his change of tone and looks up at his face. She sees the look in his narrowed eyes, and suddenly, in that moment, everything falls into place.
Sarah pulls off the road and parks up on the High Street in front of the old house. She switches off the engine and sits in her car, listening to the steady drum of the rain on the roof, taking deep breaths. She needs to steady her nerves, to empty her mind of everything that has happened over the past two days. Of the stress and the anger, and of Alex.
She knows she’s delaying things, not quite ready to face anyone yet. As she sits here, parked in this anonymous place, nothing is final. She’s spoken to no one about it, at least not to anyone who matters to her. She isn’t quite ready to drive on to her father’s house yet, to tell him what has happened, to face his questions and his sympathy.
She fumbles in the glove compartment, groping for the comforting feel of the smooth cigarette packet. The one she keeps for emergencies. This surely must count as one of those.
‘Shit.’ She remembers, now, taking it out when the car went in for a service.
In the wing mirror she spots a newsagent’s shop in a row opposite. She gets out of the car and, without stopping for her coat, rushes across the road and into the shop.
The middle-aged woman behind the counter eyes her curiously.
‘I saw you parked up opposite. Have you come to look at the house, love?’
Sarah stares at the woman, trying to focus on what she’s saying.
‘The old house?’ the woman probes. ‘The one you’re parked in front of. I just assumed… I saw them put up the sign this morning.’
Sarah slips the change into her purse and takes the cigarettes. ‘I’m just passing through.’
‘Oh.’ The woman doesn’t look convinced. ‘Dreadful mess the place is. Good job it’s being sold. That’s what I say.’
Sarah lights up as soon as she’s back on the pavement and takes a long grateful drag, savouring the sensation of nicotine creeping through her veins. She crosses the road and is about to get back into the car but something stops her. It would be good to stretch her legs, to get some fresh air and calm herself down. Dad won’t be expecting her just yet.
She’d managed to hold her anger in check as she’d driven through London, around the North Circular, along the Westway and out onto the M4. Once on the motorway, though, she’d been so overwhelmed by the sheer physical force of her feelings that she’d turned the car stereo up to maximum volume and simply screamed. And as she screamed, she’d pushed her foot to the floor and watched the speed of the car rise through the seventies, eighties, nineties and beyond.
It was only when she’d realised the car in front was slowing down and had to slam on the brakes that she drew back, shaking and sobbing.
There must have been an accident up ahead. All three lanes were blocked, the traffic hardly moving. The next junction was signposted Weirfield, and something deep inside, curiosity, a niggling memory perhaps, compelled her to take it. She’d pulled off the motorway, but was still trembling as she’d swung onto a side road, not sure of the way.
She’d found herself driving through the outskirts of the little town of Weirfield-on-Thames and had hardly recognised the place at first, it had changed so much. As she drove through the town centre, she slowed down out of mild curiosity, trying to remember where the orphanage had been.
The site is now covered by an estate of neat modern houses. Anyone who doesn’t know would be unaware of the austere red-brick building that once occupied a half-mile plot. But Sarah knows. She remembers driving past it as a child, before the motorway took the traffic away from the through road.
Now she stares at the rusting front gate of the old house. She doesn’t remember noticing this house when the orphanage was here, but it must have always been its neighbour, tucked away behind those tall hedges, shaded by great cedar trees. She notices the For Sale sign, half-hidden in the unruly hedge.
She peers over the gate at the house, dark and brooding, its roof glistening in the rain. It looms over the garden. It’s unmistakeably Edwardian; three storeys with twin bay windows either side of a solid front door with a stained-glass window. There are no lights on inside and judging by the state of the lawn, no one lives there.
The cigarette is burning down between her fingers and rain is seeping through her thin sweater. No one’s going to notice if she pops into the garden and finishes smoking it on the porch.
She lifts the rusting latch. The wrought-iron gate has dropped on its hinges and as she eases it open, flakes of rust and green paint rub off on her jeans. She steps into the wet garden and pauses on the flagstone path beneath the dripping cedars. Mingled smells of damp grass and mouldy autumn leaves rise to meet her. She hesitates, taking in the shabby paintwork, the missing roof tiles, water spurting from broken guttering, then takes a few steps up the path.
Greying net curtains hang limply in the bay window. A sign on the front wall, half-obscured with moss, pronounces Cedar Hall.
A sudden gust blows a shower of raindrops down from the trees. Sarah hurries onto the front porch and takes another drag on her cigarette. A note is fixed onto a plastic milk crate with a clothes peg. One pint only from now on please is scrawled on it in spidery writing.
‘Can I help you?’
Sarah jumps and spins round. A man in a raincoat is approaching, holding an umbrella. She can’t see his face in the gathering dusk. A pang of guilt makes the blood rush to her cheeks.
‘I… I was just having a quick look,’ she stammers. ‘I saw the For Sale sign.’
‘Excellent. It’s doing its job then.’
He holds out a hand and comes closer. Sarah quickly drops the cigarette on the step and grinds it with the heel of her boot.
‘I’m Jonathan Squires, of Country Squires, the estate agency in town. I just popped over to check if the sign had gone up, as a matter of fact. I can see we need to clip the hedge a bit.’
His handshake is warm and firm.
‘I’m Sarah Jennings.’
‘Would you like to have a look inside while I’m here?’
‘Oh no, I was only passing through.’ How can she explain that she’s not interested in the house when here she is, standing on the front porch?
He flashes her a bright white smile.
‘It would really be no trouble at all, Mrs Jennings, if you’d like to take a peek. I was going to have a check around inside anyway. You’ll have to excuse the state of the place though.’ He moves towards the front door, concentrating on a large bunch of keys.
‘Old lady who owns it had to go into hospital suddenly. It’s only just coming onto the market. No one’s had a chance to have a proper clean-up yet.’
Before Sarah has time to find an excuse, they’re standing inside the dark entrance hall. She shudders. It’s as cold as the grave.
The man fumbles on the wall beside the door and clicks the light on. A single bulb spreads a sickly glow around the room. Sarah takes in the parquet floor and wooden panelling and the smell: mould and cat pee. She can see the man properly now. Close up, he looks older than she’d first thought. Fine lines score his face and she wonders if his luxuriant dark hair is quite natural.
‘Do you have a place to sell yourself?’ he asks, his voice casual. ‘I take it you’re on the move?’
She focuses on his face, concentrating on keeping her eyes steady and her mouth from contorting. She tells herself she must try to appear normal, even if she feels far from it.
‘Yes, probably, quite soon,’ she says, her voice unnaturally bright.
He smiles, a professional smile, still probing. ‘Is it in the area?’ He shakes his umbrella and slips it into an oak stand beside the door.
Her fists clench involuntarily. She’s not going to tell this man that her life has imploded. That only a few hours ago she walked out on her husband with just three suitcases and a couple of tea chests to show for fifteen years of marriage. How can she talk about it to this stranger before Alex himself knows – even though she owes him nothing? Panic washes over her at the thought that she’ll have to face this type of conversation soon. People will ask, and she’ll have to tell them. How on earth will she deal with that?
‘Mrs Jennings? Are you all right?’ Jonathan Squires’ eyes are on her face.
Her cheeks are hot now. She looks away. ‘Of course.’
‘You were saying… about your own property? I’d be very happy to come and look. Do a free, no-obligation valuation.’
‘That’s kind of you, but actually it’s not in the area. It’s in London. Primrose Hill.’
‘I see.’ He raises his eyebrows approvingly. ‘I take it you have children?’
Sarah clears her throat. ‘No, as a matter of fact we… I… don’t.’
From the flicker of surprise in his eyes, she understands in that second he has reappraised her. He must be wondering if he’s misjudged the situation, thinking she’s a waste of his time after all. What would a childless, thirty-something woman want with a huge semi-derelict place like this?
He moves quickly towards a door and switches on another light.
‘Here’s the living room. The old place needs a bit of updating, of course. No central heating, I’m afraid. Try to ignore the décor… and the furniture.’
He gives a short, derisive laugh, nodding at two brown armchairs, shiny with age, either side of an enamel gas fire. A couple of faded portraits hang side by side on one wall. One is of a man with a square-set jaw and wild eyes, his white hair swept back from his face, and the other of a mousy-looking woman. On a veneer coffee table are some china cups and a plate covered in crumbs. It’s as if someone has left in a hurry. Again, that smell of cats, this time mixed with stale food and town gas.
Mr Squires follows Sarah’s gaze.
‘They weren’t coping very well, Miss Burroughs and her sister. When the older sister died, a few months ago, Miss Burroughs tried to carry on alone, but she’s well into her nineties now. Of course, she couldn’t manage. She had a fall, you see. That was the last straw.’
‘Poor lady,’ Sarah murmurs, her eyes resting on a large leather-bound Bible open on the sideboard.
‘Well – let’s move on,’ Jonathan Squires says briskly. ‘Come on through to the dining room.’
He strides in front of her across the hall and opens another panelled door. Sarah follows obediently. What a fraud she is, letting him think she might be interested in the house. Why didn’t she just say she wanted to stand on the porch and smoke her fag out of the rain? It’s too late now though, she’s just got to go along with the pretence.
‘Once again, needs a bit of work,’ he goes on. ‘The two Miss Burroughses lived here their whole lives. Their father, old Ezra, was superintendent of the orphanage next door. That got demolished back in the seventies or eighties, I believe. Look, there’s a picture of it there. Grim-looking place, wasn’t it? Started out life as a workhouse, apparently.’
A shiver runs through Sarah. Above the fireplace hangs a black and white photograph.
Cedar Hall, Weirfield, Berkshire – Orphanage and County School – 1910.
She stares at it. The building is just as she remembers, a forbidding edifice, acres of brick and square blank windows, but in the photograph it appears to be occupied, unlike the carcase of a building in her mind. In the photo, children in white pinafores sit on the front steps. A horse and cart trots past on the road.
A memory surfaces, of driving past it in her father’s car on their way to London.
‘There it is, Joan,’ her father would say to her mother in a teasing voice, slowing the car so the building loomed above them, ‘my alma mater.’ And Mother would stiffen in the front seat and retort in a scandalised whisper, ‘Don’t talk like that, William. It’s no joking matter.’
Sarah would press her face to the glass, staring up with wide eyes at the blind windows. ‘Can’t we stop and have a look round?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sarah. It’s far too upsetting for Dad. I don’t know why you insist on coming this way, William,’ her mother would snap, staring ahead rigidly.
One day though, when it was just Sarah and her father, he did stop, and they walked around the outside of the dilapidated building. There were padlocks and chains on the front door and some of the windows were shattered. He led her down an alley at the side and lifted her up to look through a high window. All she could see through the dusty glass was an empty room, as big as her school hall, with a pile of chairs and tables stacked in one corner. It looked neglected and dirty, with torn curtains at the windows and piles of bird droppings on the floor.
‘Can you remember it here, Dad?’ she’d asked as he let her down.
He laughed and took her hand. ‘Not at all. I was only a baby when I left.’
She would often lie awake as a child, staring into the darkness, thinking about that empty hall, imagining it full of children. In her mind’s eye, they looked exactly like the orphans in Oliver Twist, dressed in rags and pitifully thin. The thought that they had no homes to go to would bring tears to her eyes.
‘It was quite a place, wasn’t it?’ says Jonathan Squires, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Oh, and here’s a photograph of Miss Burroughs and her sister.’
On the sideboard stands a framed sepia portrait of two fresh-faced teenage girls in floral pinafore dresses, their hair cut short. They are in a greenhouse, surrounded by plants. The shorter of the two holds a watering can and is smiling. The other is serious, staring straight at the camera, a garden fork in her hand. Sarah peers at the inscription:
Connie and Evie. Cedar Hall, 1935
‘That’s the conservatory they’re standing in – it’s at the back of the house. I’ll show you through there now, if you like. Of course, it’s deteriorated quite a bit since that photo was taken.’
He ushers her through an old-fashioned kitchen, past a butler sink, an enamel gas cooker on legs and a dresser stacked with crockery. This room smells different: of cooking grease and mouse droppings.
The conservatory runs the length of the house; slatted wooden shelves line the walls, a few plants wilt in earthenware pots, and on the wall the withered remains of a vine. The pull of the past feels strong here, perhaps because of the photo of the two girls, the contrast between how it once was and what it looks like now.
‘Just one more room downstairs. I forgot to show you the office.’
Squires shows her back through the kitchen into a large square room at the side of the house. Unlike the other rooms this one is carpeted, lined with bookshelves, and at one end stands an oak bureau. Sarah’s eyes are drawn to the ornate marble fireplace and above it, a painting of an exotic landscape. Snow-capped mountains fade into a pale sky. In the foreground a small white church nestles incongruously among palm trees.
She peers at the title written in golden letters on the frame:
St John the Baptist Church, Kandaipur
She really wants to leave now, but feels obliged to follow the estate agent through the rest of the rooms, up the solid staircase to the first and then the second floor, into each of the bedrooms. Her eyes skate over each. They all look the same: lino on the floor, faded floral wallpaper, wooden bedsteads and heavy furniture. The bathroom contains an iron bathtub, corroded with age. Sarah nods and makes polite noises as he opens each door.
‘I should be making a move,’ she says as they head downstairs.
‘You haven’t seen outside. Let me show you the outbuildings.’
‘No… no. Thank you, but it’s quite all right. I must be getting on.’
‘Of course, but don’t hesitate to give me a call if you’d like to come back. There’s an old coach house and stable in the backyard. There’s a room above it too. The whole block could be done up. It would make a delightful annexe, should you need additional accommodation.’
He slips her a card. ‘Do let me know if you’d like to take another look.’
Back in the car the stress of the last few days and the pain of the morning hits Sarah afresh and she has to take a calming breath to stop it from overwhelming her. She starts the engine and lets it run for a few minutes while the heater clears the windscreen.
Once she’s on the road, driving through the outskirts of Weirfield, although Alex and the pain he has caused her are constantly in her thoughts, that crumbling old house, and its hidden memories, forces itself back repeatedly. A strange, tingling feeling creeps over her as she thinks about those dingy rooms frozen in time. She can’t get the faces of those two girls in the photograph out of her mind, and soon she’s thinking about them instead of Alex, wondering what their lives in that old place had been like.
It’s dark as she drives along the main road towards Henley. Rain lashes the windscreen, twigs and leaves dance in the beam of the headlights. She senses the wide river nearby, knowing it is there between gaps in the houses and woods that line the road.
Dad will be waiting for her now, watching from his kitchen window for her headlights.
‘I might need to stay for a couple of days, Dad. I hope that’s OK?’ She hadn’t explained why she was coming when she’d phoned him earlier, and he didn’t ask.
‘Of course. Stay as long as you like. I’ll make up the spare room.’
‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll do it when I get there.’
‘It’s no trouble, Sarah. No trouble at all. I’ll cook something nice for supper. One of my stews.’
He’d moved to the house when Sarah’s mother had died five years ago. Sold up the old family home in Bristol and bought himself a bijou cottage with a river frontage beside the Thames. Sarah had been surprised; it wasn’t an obvious place to retire. She’d worried that he might be lonely.
He seems busier now than ever before, though. He’s made friends at the local pub, joined the history society and the chess club and started walking with the Ramblers. He tends his vegetable plot, and has a small rowing boat moored at the end of the garden. He often potters about on the river, fishing half-heartedly.
He appears on the drive in an old knitted sweater as Sarah pulls up. When she gets out of the car, he puts his arms around her and she can’t hold back the tears. He says nothing, just hugs her and strokes her hair until the sobs subside.
‘Come on inside, Sarah, darling. It’s chilly out here. The kettle’s on.’
She follows him into the bright kitchen and sits down at the familiar square table. He puts a mug of hot tea in front of her. She takes a deep breath.
‘It’s Alex, Dad. He’s in some sort of trouble.’
‘Trouble? What do you mean?’
‘The police have been at the office going through the paperwork for the past two days.’
His face drops as she knew it would and he sits down opposite her.
‘Good God. What on earth for?’
‘I’m not sure. They questioned me too.’
‘What did they ask you?’
‘They were asking all about the new company Alex has set up. You know he did that recently to fund the expansion of the business. I told the police I don’t know anything about it. I haven’t had anything to do with it. They could see that once they’d checked through the paperwork. But until they’d done that they kept on questioning me. They were very thorough, Dad.’
Her father’s face is drained of colour. He suddenly looks his age, his eyes puffy and sunken. She feels his hand on hers on the table.
‘Poor you, darling. How stressful for you. Why didn’t you call me? I could have driven up to help you, given you some moral support.’
‘I didn’t want to bother you with it, Dad. And anyway, they asked me not to contact anyone other than a solicitor.’
‘Did you do that?’
She shakes her head. ‘I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. It didn’t seem worth it. I just wanted to get the whole thing over and done with.’
‘Alex is in New York, isn’t he? Does he know?’
‘Not yet. He arrives home tonight.’
She glances at her watch. His flight will have landed by now. She pictures him strolling through the airport, his raincoat slung over one shoulder, a couple of duty-free bags in the other hand, oblivious to what awaits him.
‘They’re going to meet him in the arrivals hall and take him in for questioning.’
‘Good God! I’m stunned, Sarah. I don’t know what to say.’
They sit in silence. The nightmare of the past two days comes back to her; the humiliation of watching the team of strangers rifling through files in the office, removing boxes of papers into the Transit van parked behind the building, while she’d sat there helpless, her stomach clenched with nerves.
‘Did the police mind you coming down here?’ Dad asks, breaking the silence.
‘They didn’t need me there any more. I couldn’t face staying, to tell you the truth.’
There’s a long pause but from his expression she knows he wants to say something.
‘Don’t you think…’ he says finally. ‘Don’t you think that perhaps… well, perhaps Alex might have wanted you to be there?’
‘Oh, Dad.’
She can’t answer him. At the moment, she can’t voice her anger. She can’t tell him that it’s not just the police investigation that made her walk out. There’s something else, something she’s finding hard to believe herself.
Dad is shaking his head, puzzled. ‘Are you sure there’s not been a mistake? Alex seems so, well, so straight down the line.’
She shakes her head and stares at the table. ‘What an absolute idiot I’ve been,’ is all she can mutter.
‘Don’t say that, Sarah. It’s not you who’s to blame.’
They sit there without speaking for a while. ‘What about the restaurant? Is someone looking after it?’ he says eventually.
‘No, I had to close up for a couple of days. Cancel all the bookings for the weekend. Tell the staff not to come in. I made up some story about a power failure…’
She thinks about how she’d phoned through the list of clients, smoothed things over, apologised and cancelled all the food orders from the suppliers. She’d done it all in her usual efficient way, in her professional voice, amazed that she was able to speak without betraying her feelings. It occurs to her now that perhaps that’s what she’s been doing in her own life too: smoothing everything over on the surface, refusing to accept anything is wrong. She’s been doing it for a long time.
‘I can’t go back there, Dad,’ she says suddenly.
‘But it’s your whole life, darling,’ her father says gently. ‘Think carefully.’
‘I know it’s my whole life, Dad, but I can’t go back there, not after this. I can’t work with him now.’
‘It’s your business too, Sarah. Surely something can be sorted out.’
‘I can start again.’
Her father looks troubled and gets up to take the casserole out of the oven. He sets it on the side, lifts the lid and sniffs. The kitchen is filled with delicious smells of beef and garlic. When he turns back towards her, she sees tears in his eyes.
‘Please don’t worry about me, Dad. I’ll be fine. I’m s. . .
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