Page 10 of The Christmas Retreat
There were only a few Christmas cards on the mantelpiece, because Evie’s habit of moving me from school to school, as her ideas on education changed, had not led to the forging of deep friendships. Then, when I went to college, I met Will on the first day and we were totally wrapped up in each other … until he grew to love computer games more.
I’d slowly lost touch with what friends I’d had, as they married or moved on with their lives and careers, and I’d neverfallen for the lure of social media. I liked living my real life, in real time, not one seen through a lens or a virtual one, which was the total opposite of Will. When I think of the Web, I see it literally as a huge cobweb, people stuck to it like flies while they are mined for information that will lure ever more of them into it.
Since Evie’s initial call telling me about her research into Milly Vane and, now, Arwen Madoc too, I had received the welcome distraction of several texts and emails from her, as she pursued two intertwined trails.
She told me that Arwen Madochadstudied at the Slade School of Art, between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, until she left in 1919. Milly had been a couple of years older and, in the early summer of 1919, moved to Cornwall with her brother, Edwin, where she lived for the rest of her life until she developed MS.
‘Once I knew when Arwen was at the Slade I had Liv track down her birth certificate,’ she told me. ‘It revealed that her father was the London-based Welsh artist Lewis Madoc.’
‘So we have Welsh connections way back?’ I said, interested. ‘I suppose Arwen is a Welsh name, after all, so that figures.’
‘Yes, it’s a version of Anwen,’ she agreed. ‘So then Liv got hold of the death certificates for Arwen’s parents, who both died of the Spanish flu early in 1919, and of Arwen herself, who died in Cornwall in late March 1920, from complications of childbirth.’
‘She must have been very young!’ I said, compassionately.
‘Nineteen. We have my mother’s birth certificate too – no father on there.’
‘I see …’ I said, working things out. ‘So after her parents died, Arwen left the Slade and moved to Cornwall with Milly and her brother.’
‘It seems probable, unless I find evidence to the contrary.’
‘Since we now know the story Granny told you about Arwen being an artist’s model wasn’t true, I wonder if the rest of it was. Was Edwin the father of her child – and if so, why did he abandon her and move back to London, choosing respectability, as Charlotte Vane told you he did?’ I said.
‘I suspect I’ll need to see the contents of Milly’s Memory Box before I know any answers to that. According to Charlotte it was full of photographs and letters. She’s sure it is in the attic somewhere.’
‘That reminds me, Evie,’ I said. ‘Charlotte told you Milly sent two trunks of Arwen’s personal belongings to Granny when she had to move into the residential home. I wonder what happened to those.’
‘Two minds with but a single thought,’ said Evie sardonically. ‘That occurred to me, too. When Mother died, Liv packed up her cottage for me, because I had to fly back to the States right after the funeral to complete my lecture tour. She had anything that looked valuable, or that needed sorting out at more leisure, sent here to the flat. Among them were two locked trunks with the keys missing. She’s sure they will be in the basement lumber room somewhere.’
‘Great – they could contain all kinds of useful things! But I don’t understand why you aren’t down there right this minute, digging like a terrier after a bone?’
‘Because as soon as I realized they were there Ididdash down that damned spiral staircase and fell down the last few steps, badly wrenching my ankle.’
‘That sounds painful. At least you didn’t break it.’
‘There is that,’ she admitted. ‘I sent Liv down to see if she could spot them. She thinks she can see them right at the back,but it’s more packed in there than Tutankhamen’s tomb, so she can’t get at them.’
She sounded frustrated, unsurprisingly.
‘Liv says she’s not going to start heaving heavy furniture and trunks about at her time of life, so it’s stalemate at the moment. I need them up here now anyway, so I’m going to have to lure two strong young men in to fetch them.’
‘Anyone in particular or you going to lay some kind of trail up to the flat from the street?’
‘No need. I think the two Polish builders gutting the house next door will be open to a hefty bribe. Liv is softening them up with her cherry and dark chocolate brownies.’
‘Well, let me know when you get them and if there’s anything interesting in there.’
‘Of course,’ she said. Then, changing the subject: ‘Liv says you haven’t found anywhere else to live yet, Ginny. Aren’t you leaving it a bit late?’
‘Iamlooking,’ I said, although I hadn’t really got down to it. ‘But I’ve been occupied with an idea I had for a new writing project. When I was looking around the studio, I saw the shelf with all my sketchbooks, each dated like a diary, in which I’ve drawn, written and painted my everyday happenings at Wisteria Cottage for each year that I’ve been here. They’ve got all kinds of things pushed between the pages, like recipes, photos and craft notes, and I thought I could add loads more photos, recipes, craft notes and even gardening information, so wherever I move to next, I will be able to come back into this world. Perhaps later I might turn them into a series of small non-fiction books about life in the country.’
‘Good idea,’ Evie enthused. ‘That kind of thing always sells to people who want to live a country life vicariously, withoutlosing any of their city comforts, and your illustrations will make them really special.’
‘I’m going to run the idea past my agent,’ I told her. ‘Sorting the material will give me a project to do until I’ve moved on and can settle to write the next children’s book.’
‘As long as it isn’t just an excuse to wallow in the past,’ Evie said bluntly, and then rang off before I could indignantly refute this idea.
Of course, as usual, she had hit the nail right on the head.
