Page 15 of The Diary at the Last House Before the Sea

Swiftly turning page after page, Clara began to leaf through the diary. Audrey was not a prolific diary writer and had penned only a few lines each day. But she spoke of walks on the moors, spending time with young Geoffrey, and meals with her husband, Edwin, whom, she noted more than once, was an incredibly busy man.

No friends were mentioned and Clara wondered if Audrey had been a lonely woman in her grand house, with only her stepson and busy husband for company. Though there must have been other people in the house, back in the 1950s. Her own grandmother, Violet, for a start, who must have had some sort of relationship with the ‘lady of the manor’ or she’d never have spirited away her diary after her disappearance.

Clara turned another page – now in March – and frowned. There were the usual few lines, in Audrey’s flowing writing, reporting on a walk taken around the manor gardens. But there was something else beneath them. A row of numbers: 159-37 50-21 285-17 76-03.

Clara studied them for a moment but the numbers meant nothing to her.

She turned another few pages and there were the numbers again – different ones this time, but written in the same style: a number followed by a dash and a second number, and then a space.

She flicked through the pages. Numbers were written beneath several diary entries through to July. Were Audrey’s words on ‘number days’ any different from other days when no numbers appeared?

She re-read the diary, from January to the end of June, but nothing leapt out at her. Audrey’s daily entries became even shorter as the year went on, with little mention of her family. But there was a shift in tone, Clara realised. The vibrancy of January was gone by June. Something appeared to be affecting Audrey’s mood. But still the numbers made no sense.

Clara stopped reading and looked out of the window. The sky had cleared and the silvery moon was shining bright. The same moon that had lit up the night sky over Brellasham Manor more than six decades earlier, as Audrey had written these words and numbers in her diary. Time had slipped through Audrey’s fingers, and Clara had the strangest sensation of it slipping through her fingers too. Who knew what lay ahead for any of them?

She gave her shoulders a shake, to anchor herself in the present, and went back to the diary and its tales from the past.

There was a marked change in Audrey’s mood from mid-July, thanks to a grand ball that was being arranged for early September 1957. She sounded happy and excited, and the strange series of numbers, Clara noticed, had stopped.

The dance Audrey was so looking forward to was due to take place in the manor ballroom which was now used for little more than taking afternoon tea. Clara leafed on through Audrey’s animated entries. They mentioned everything from the guest list, and what food and music was planned, to what she and Edwin would be wearing.

She had chosen to wear a dress she already owned but had hardly worn. And as Clara read her description of it – a gown of pale lemon satin with a strapless bodice and a full skirt with chiffon overlay – she realised it was the same dress that Audrey was wearing in her portrait.

Her outfit would be completed, Audrey noted in the diary, with the Brellasham family diamond necklace that Edwin had gifted her on their wedding day.

Clara lay back on her bed and imagined the woman in the portrait, all dressed up for the ball, with diamonds at her throat, coming to life. She must have been so delighted as the ball began. Did she have a wonderful evening?

Clara needed to know and turned the pages until she came to September the seventh.

It’s now two in the morning and the ball is over, but what a marvellous evening we had. It was everything I could have wished for, to see the house so full of life. Such a wonderful change. Geoffrey had fun and Edwin seemed happy, too. I wished that the ball could go on for ever.

Clara smiled, happy to know that the dance had lived up to Audrey’s expectations. But there was no diary entry on September the eighth. The page was blank. Perhaps she’d been suffering with a hangover or had slept all day so had nothing to report.

But the following day’s entry brought Clara up short: Everything is black and broken and it’s partly my fault. Life cannot go on this way so perhaps it’s time.

Time for what? Clara bit her lip, realising that Audrey had walked into the sea around a week later. Something must have happened after the ball to bring Audrey’s mood crashing through the floor. And the numbers were back. More numbers now, scrawled untidily across the following pages, until Clara reached September the seventeenth, the day of Audrey’s drowning.

I’m cruel to leave Geoffrey, she’d written. He won’t understand my actions or that his life will continue well without me in it. But Edwin will care for him, I’m sure of it. That’s the only reason I feel able to leave this life.

Clara swallowed, a lump in her throat. There must have been little to no mental health support for women like Audrey back then. Women who, from the outside, had everything: a family, a magnificent home, amazing balls and fairy tale dresses. Yet, beneath it all, she was no different from Clara, whose mood often dipped although she, too, had a comfortable if rather less grand life.

‘It’s so sad,’ said Clara out loud, still puzzled that the diary had been amongst her grandmother’s possessions.

There was no mention of Violet within its pages, and while she and Audrey might have been friends, that seemed unlikely between the lady of the manor and the housekeeper. Even today, there was a clear delineation between ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’. Her mum had worked for Geoffrey for years but there was still a formality between them which put Clara’s teeth on edge.

Clara groaned because all of this guesswork was getting her nowhere and time was ticking on. She picked up the diary and closed it with a snap, wondering whether to put it back in the bin and leave it there. What was the point in resurrecting such unhappiness? But a scrap of paper fluttered down from the back of the book.

Clara picked it up and frowned. The paper contained nothing but another string of numbers: 49-6 197-23 74-29 224-1 14-33 279-17 199-8 289-2

They were written in the same format as the others in the diary. But these were written by someone else, Clara was sure of it. The figures were smaller and neater, but what on earth did they all mean?

Clara pushed the piece of paper back into the diary and shoved the book into the drawer of her bedside table. She felt as if she’d opened a can of worms, and her head was beginning to ache. She should have listened to her mother and left the diary to rot with the vegetable peelings. At least then it couldn’t mess with her mind.

After switching off the bedside lamp, Clara lay in the darkness. Sleep took some time to come that night but, when it did, she dreamed of a woman in a lemon-yellow dress, sinking beneath a grey sea, her body entwined in strings of numbers that tightened around her limbs.

8

CLARA

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