15|
A reply to Emily's message arrived on the following day by the early morning post. She found the envelop on the tea tray that was brought to her room by the chambermaid. It was a rather standoffish note, but it met her foremost requirement. Mr Hardy was agreeing to see her; as long as she came to him—and provided she didn't bring her father!
This, of course, posed a substantial predicament. She still didn't have the faintest idea how to solve it by the time she was dressed and waiting for her father's knock at the door to take her down to breakfast.
The knock came within minutes; and rather than wait for her to join him on the landing, he asked f he could come in.
"I think it'll soon be time to move on, Emily," he said after he had closed the door behind him. "Don't you believe that you've learnt all this place can possibly tell you?... Remember, I've forewarned you that coming here might not get you any closer to understanding—"
"What do you propose?—Resume our travels through Burgundy?"
"Truth be told, I'm not much in the mood for travelling from place to place, and seeing the sights, any longer... I shall arrange for tickets to take us straight to Lausanne, provided I can bring forward our bookings at the Beau-Rivage. Your cousin Edith should have arrived there already."
Edith had come to Switzerland to accompany her eldest daughter, Isabella, back home after her year at finishing school. Originally, the Thorntons were to travel to Lausanne a full two weeks later, with her father only staying long enough to finalise her enrolment and see her settled for her own year at Institut Château Mont-Beri. Then he would leave for London, accompanying Edith and Isabella Lennox on their way back.
"When are we going to leave?" Emily asked, taken aback at the prospect of losing her chance to speak with William Hardy.
"As soon as may be... but realistically it won't be before the day after tomorrow."
"But how will you change bookings? There is no travel agent here in Èze, is there?"
"I thought of going into Nice later today... At the height of the season it may be advisable to get telegraphic confirmation of our booking arrangements in Lausanne prior to setting out." After looking at her for a moment he suggested, "Would you like to come with me to Nice for a change of scenery? I shall hire a coach."
Well, that will be one concern—how to get near William Hardy—taken care of. Which left another, and just as weighty, problem; how to make her father allow her to wander the streets of Nice on her own?
As they entered the dining room and were greeted by Mrs Faulkner, an idea struck her. She seized her chance when, halfway through breakfast, their landlady excused herself for a moment.
"Papa, do you think we might ask Mrs Faulkner to accompany us to Nice?" Emily said. "I believe she can go there but rarely, having no ready means of conveyance... And, besides, I'm in need of some small purchases—toiletries and... well... t-things—" Her stammer, although not premeditated, might have gone some way to convince her father that any closer inquiry would be embarrassing for both of them. "—and Mrs Faulkner can advice me on where to find the best shops, all the while you can go and see your travel agent."
"I may be some time," Thornton pointed out.
"After we're finished in town we could meet at one of the fashionable hotels at the Promenade des Anglais—they have tea rooms, don't they?—where it wouldn't matter if one of us had to wait for a while." She gave him a pleading look. "Say yes, papa. Please."
"Of course. Why not," he conceded. "We shall ask her as soon as she returns."
"Are you sure this is all right with you?" Emily asked anxiously. It was a hot humid day, causing them to walk slowly, trying to keep in the shade of the tall buildings. They were heading down a narrow street connecting the Place du Palais de Justice with the flower market. Somewhere here was the address William Hardy had given her as the place to find him during weekdays.
"I understand that you want to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding your mother's disappearance," Mrs Faulkner said, "although I'm convinced that it was a tragic fatal accident. And, except for her aunt and servant, Mr Hardy might have known your mother best during the short time she lived with us... I've run into him every now and then over the years; and he is a gentleman. Therefore I have no qualms about visiting him."
She gave the girl walking next to her a sly look."I daresay you would have found a means of slipping away in any case... At least, by coming with you, I can make sure that you don't get lost." She stopped in front of an entrance lined with brass plaques on both sides, announcing editorial offices of various publications, The Riviera Chronicle among them.
They entered the pleasantly cool, shady vestibule and made their way to the second floor through coloured pools of light on the stairs, streaming in by the stained-glass windows. It made climbing the stairs oddly treacherous. Finally they arrived at a corridor, only lighted by the stairwell behind them and by the second-hand light falling through the frosted glass panels in the doors. Mrs Faulkner knocked at one of them.
From within a male voice called out, "Entrez!"
A slight fair-haired man in his mid-thirties rose from a cluttered desk as they entered. "Mrs Faulkner!" he exclaimed. "What an unexpected pleasure—" His eyes veered to Emily. "—and this is Miss Thornton, I presume?" Another look reassured him that his visitors were not accompanied by anyone else.
"Pray come in and take a seat." He pointed out a small seating area cramped in between the desk, some shelves and the window. One of the seats was already taken by a lady. "Have you met my wife Josephine yet, Mrs Faulkner?"
The women exchanged their 'enchanté's and then they sat. Despite a slight draft from the open window, it was quite uncomfortably warm in the small office room; and the atmosphere was close, with the mixed smells of old paper, stale cigar smoke, and Mrs Hardy's rather cloying perfume. No refreshments were offered. Feeling hot already Emily whipped out her fan and waved it vigorously.
"So, you are Mrs Thornton's daughter," Hardy eventually said. "I can see the likeness in your features, if nothing else... Your mother was quite an extraordinary woman."
Emily cast a quick glance at Josephine Hardy, wondering how much she knew. But Hardy's wife sat by with the glazed look of someone who had already stopped trying to follow a conversation in a language not her own.
"I wouldn't know, as I don't remember her," Emily said curtly. "I wonder what you might tell me about my mother's disappearance from Cap Roux."
"Do you know that your father had me investigated?" When he saw Emily's astonished look, he scoffed. "I heard that question of yours—and variations thereof—for days on end... as if I wasn't devastated already by Mrs Thornton's disappearance and my inability to find her—"
"The poor husband was beside himself," Mrs Faulkner gently pointed out, "and with no body found..."
"He still could have trusted the word of a gentleman!" Hardy interrupted hotly. He wiped his forehead. "I'm sorry, but this still gets at me—even after all this time... I suppose you have told Miss Thornton what happened on that day, Mrs Faulkner?—I'm afraid I may have very little information to add."
Dejectedly, Emily thought that she might have outsmarted her father to no purpose whatsoever. But maybe Mr Hardy could shed some light on Margaret Thornton's frame of mind during her stay in Èze. "How did my mother seem to you in the time preceding her disappearance?" she asked reluctantly.
'Sophisticated', was one of the words he used to describe her; 'dignified' was another. He claimed to have detected a sadness within her that parched her soul. "And little wonder... a gentle southern rose, uprooted and transferred to a harsh northern climate—"
"Don't you think that her sadness might have had other reasons?—that she felt her condition had robbed her of the chance to be where she wanted to be; with her husband and child?"
"She rarely mentioned either of you... which is peculiar, isn't it?" He gave her an appraising look. "Maybe it was the thought of eventually having to return that weighed on her—"
"My parents had married for love!" Emily exclaimed, incensed by his insinuations.
"And you are certain that this isn't just a convenient myth?" he smirked.
"I have it on good authority," she retorted with all the conviction she could muster.
"Her aunt said that Mrs Thornton suffered from low spirits, and that it ran in the family," Mrs Faulkner said. "I am sure that—if it wasn't for that awful accident—she would in time have recovered and resumed life in England... and it would have been a happy life." She rose and nodded at Emily. "I think it may be time to continue with our errands—"
Emily reluctantly followed her lead. She felt that Mr Hardy was still holding something back and she wanted to know what it was. She wondered if there was a means to goad him into owning up.
But Mrs Faulkner's conciliatory manner would very likely prove a hindrance to it. So, for the present, after a few commonplace words of goodbye, they left.
Outside the building Emily searched her reticule. "I seem to have forgotten my fan upstairs," she said. She didn't put much of an effort into her performance, knowing full well that her companion wouldn't be fooled.
Mrs Faulkner sighed. Then she pointed at a chemist's shop across the nearby square. "I shall be in there. Fifteen minutes at the utmost, mind—or I shall come after you!... And, Emily... I believe he was in love with your mother—Please remember to take the words of an infatuated man with a pinch of salt!"
Emily knocked and entered the office in one go. "Did you help my mother disappear?" she brusquely asked. Shocked by her own words she realised that this thought had occurred to her only at this very moment.
Hardy turned around, startled, and then he laughed. He had been picking up her fan from the small coffee table. He held it out to her. "You really are your father's daughter, aren't you?... in all but that sweet face of yours which is all your mother's!"
"Well, did you?"
"No, I did not!" he said with emphasis. "And if you want me to, I shall swear it on my honour as a gentleman... I wished she would have asked me for help—and I would have helped her escape in a wink—but she never did."
"And yet you believe she went away, don't you? Why?"
"After she had received communication that your father would arrive to take her back home, she changed... she appeared more determined, as if she had come to a conclusion. I am convinced that she decided there and then that she would not return to her husband."
"So, you think it was... premeditated?"
"Yes. I am sure she did go away deliberately—" He looked up, his face suddenly bleak. "—and I've been asking myself ever since whether it was to live, or to die."
With her mobile set on 'mute' at work, it was only when Meret had a coffee break mid-afternoon that she saw the text. Jareth had sent her a message.
Exciting news re Emily Th. Call me when you read this.
"What happened?" Meret asked the moment he answered her call.
"We found something at the Thorntons' house at Marlborough Mills today," he said. "If it is what I think it is, you'll be thrilled... I haven't had time to check it out yet, though, so I can't be certain—"
"Just put me out of my misery, please! What is it?"
"We found a couple of notebooks behind a panel of wainscoting we had to replace. It was in the small bedroom next to the music room—remember that one?—and I think that at least one of the diaries might, just might, have belonged to Emily Thornton... The dates correspond."
"Wow!—That's incredible! What a find!" Meret enthused.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Jareth cautioned. "But I thought you'd like to see them—"
"You'd better believe it!"
"Be at my office at six?" he suggested.
"Right, I'll see you then," she said. "Thank you for letting me know."
Two worn books were lying on an otherwise empty desk under the bright light of a work lamp. Jareth stood next to Meret and both were looking down at his find. Apart from the two of them the whole office building was deserted. "Soccer derby", he said in explanation.
The notebooks looked totally nondescript. Evidently by different manufacturers and slightly varying in size—though both roughly octavo—but otherwise both bound in brownish leather, with the barest minimum of embossing. Originally they must have been little more than half an inch thick, but the pages looked warped from damp, and loose sheets or clippings stuck in one of them, adding to its size.
"They are in a surprisingly good condition," Jareth said. "No rodent or water damage, just a few slight mould stains; and while the paper has, of course, gone yellow, the ink hasn't much faded."
"Can I touch them?" Meret asked almost reverently.
"I shouldn't know why not. It's unlikely that they are of any great commercial or historical value." He opened one of them and a double page densely filled with writing came into view. "It looks like a girl's handwriting to me, a nice cursive, still a tad unformed... and—look!—there's a date: 1869... How old would Emily have been that year?"
Meret did a quick calculation. "Fifteen… She would have turned sixteen in October that year." She looked at the open page. "It's surprisingly hard to read if one isn't used to a cursive, isn't it?" she said, disappointed at failing to decipher more than a few words.
"I think it simply takes some getting used to." He turned a few more pages. "Seems like she didn't have much interest in keeping a diary until later in the same year; starting from June there are a lot more entries... Falling in love for the first time, perhaps?"
"The outpourings of a Victorian teenager. Oh joy!" Meret groaned. She felt inexplicably let down. "Couldn't you have found something from a few years further on—when she was in her twenties, or so?" She opened the other notebook. "So what's in this one?"
"Well, actually, I haven't got a clue. It's written in a different—and less practiced—hand, and what's legible seems to consist entirely of weird lists... I haven't got the faintest idea why it was with the other one."
"What will happen with them?—will you keep them?"
"Heavens! No... The building is currently owned by a developer who commissioned us with planning and supervising renovations. Whatever is found on the building site belongs to them."
"So, you will hand the notebooks over to them?"
"Yes. Tomorrow…"
"Already!" Meret exclaimed. "I hoped to have a proper look at them first... Also, I've met a historian who's come across Emily Thornton's name by a different angle. She might be interested, too."
"... which is why I asked you to come here—if you'd only let me finish my sentences, Frederiksen," he said, a little impatient. "We've got a high-resolution scanner here at the office, and I thought you might want printouts as well as a PDF file of the scans."
Even with the modern equipment it took them well over an hour before both books and all the loose pages were scanned, checked, and processed.
Once the sheaves of printouts were sorted and stowed in a folder, Meret said, "Even if it's probably only a teenager's diary full of angsty stuff, it would still be a shame if it got lost again... Maybe you can convince your clients to donate it to the Ashley Library archives—and I will tell my librarian friend Jackie to keep an eye out for it."
"Then I'll see what I can do."
"I have every confidence in your talents of persuasion, Paxton," Meret assured him with a bright smile. She looked at her hands, grubby from handling the dusty notebooks. "How about having a wash and then go grab a curry at a takeaway?—you haven't had dinner either, have you?... This one's on me, of course."