Page 91 of The Diary at the Last House Before the Sea

Poor Geoffrey. Audrey chuckled. The ‘squire’ was being dragged into the twenty-first century whether he liked it or not. Though on balance, she thought that he rather approved.

Audrey got slowly to her feet, folded the throw across the back of the chair and tucked her book under her arm. She was re-reading Rebecca and would take it up to her bedroom so she could continue with it when she woke tomorrow with the dawn.

It was funny. She hadn’t read the book for decades, not since she’d fled this house in 1957. But Clara had given her back her old copy and she was remembering why she’d once loved the book so much.

‘Are you all right, Audrey?’ asked Julie as the old woman walked slowly through the hallway.

‘I’m very well, thank you,’ Audrey replied, alarmed to see that Julie was adding yet more ornaments to the Christmas tree which was already festooned.

‘Will you be going to the Christmas fair on the village green?’ Julie enquired, concentrating on fixing a glass snowflake to an inch of bare branch. ‘Everyone will be very pleased to see you.’

‘Possibly,’ said Audrey, gripping the bannister and beginning to climb the stairs. She’d become very popular in Heaven’s Cove once the locals had realised who she was. Word had spread, and her story was proving quite a draw. She’d even been featured in a national publication, in an article that signposted various support groups and helpful information now available to people experiencing domestic abuse. That had pleased her.

She’d thought that Geoffrey would baulk at Edwin being shown in such a critical light. But after thinking about it and speaking to River, he’d simply told her: ‘It’s your story to tell and, anyway, if my father had behaved better there would be no criticism to level.’

That was when Audrey had known for sure that Geoffrey was far more like his mother than his father.

On reaching the top of the stairs, she stopped for a moment to catch her breath. She would have to take up Geoffrey’s offer to set up a bedroom for her on the ground floor before too long, but for now she would push herself.

She was about to go to her bedroom when she had second thoughts and, leaving her book behind, she climbed even more slowly to the next floor. She rarely came up here, but there was something she wanted to see.

Audrey walked along the landing and reached the door to the third floor. The door was no longer locked but she felt no need to go up there.

Clara and River planned on opening up the time-slip rooms to tourists, with her beautiful 1950s clothes as the star attraction, and she was fine with that. It would bring in regular income that would keep the manor going once the money from the diamonds ran out.

Maybe one day she would climb the stairs and walk the rooms that she’d inhabited long ago. But for now she was happier to stay away. Perhaps a few lingering ghosts remained that it was best not to rouse. She smiled at her overactive imagination but passed the door as quickly as she could and walked on to the gilt-framed portrait.

‘Hello,’ she said before glancing around her.

People would be concerned if they heard her talking to a painting of herself. But Geoffrey, River and Clara were still in the garden, and Julie was weighing down the tree in the hall.

‘Look what’s become of us,’ she said to the woman in the portrait. ‘You were so scared and unhappy when you sat for the artist in your fine clothes. You couldn’t see a way out. But I’m here to tell you that Violet and her husband will come up trumps and you will see Geoffrey again. I’m here to tell you that everything will be all right.’

With tears in her eyes, Audrey turned and made her way along the landing, towards the people waiting for her downstairs.

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