The Echo of Twilight by Judith Kinghorn

Author:Judith Kinghorn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-11-22T16:06:49+00:00

After four days—spent mainly in bookshops or wandering about, or sitting in cafés watching people—I returned north. Ottoline was waiting on the platform, huddled in fox fur, smoking a cigarette and breathing fumes into the frosty night air. As I stepped down from the train, she said, “I feel as though you’ve been gone for absolute months.”

We walked to the motorcar. I wound the starter handle. Then, juddering, we turned out of the empty station and headed down the narrow lanes toward Birling. It was a particularly dark night and the headlights didn’t seem bright enough, but Ottoline was in ebullient spirits. “So,” she said, “tell me all.” Just as though I’d had a rendezvous with a real lover.

“Well, I went to the A.B.C. . . . ,” I began.

“No, no, no!” she said, cigarette still in hand and ash falling. “I want to know who you are now. Mrs. . . . ?”

So I told her.

“Mrs. Gaskell?” she said. “Isn’t that . . . a little literary?”

Of course it was a literary name. But I couldn’t very well be Mrs. Stedman. Almost everyone at Birling knew that name, and there was one already, somewhere in France. It wasn’t until I had been on board the train and heading back to Northumberland that I’d given my newly married name any thought. And the inspiration was right there on my lap, in the form of Sylvia’s Lovers.

“No, I’m afraid you can’t be Mrs. Gaskell,” said Ottoline, more to herself than to me.

We turned off the road and into the driveway. Snow was beginning to fall, and as we drew to a halt and Ottoline pulled on the hand brake, she said, “We need to think fast.”

So we remained seated inside the car, and when Rodney emerged from the house, peering at us from a distance from beneath a large black umbrella, Ottoline simply smiled and waved at him, and he returned inside. She said, “Is there no one you’ve been romantically involved with—apart from Ralph?”

It was strange for me to hear her say the name; strange for me to hear anyone say the name. I said, “Yes, there was someone. But I really don’t wish to use his name.”

She turned to me. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s his name?”

“Morton. Stanley Morton. But there’s already someone posing as his wife.”

She clapped her hands. “Perfect! That makes it all the more justifiable . . . He’s still alive, I presume?”

I nodded.

“A cad?”

I nodded.

“In France?”

“So I believe.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll have you widowed in no time.”

I wasn’t sure about that last comment. As much as I resented Stanley, I didn’t wish him any harm. After all, he had a son. I said, “You do mean pretend, don’t you?”

“Good gracious, I’m capable of many things, Pearl—but not murder.” She lifted my hand: “Ah, I see you managed to find yourself a ring. Good. Now try this.” She handed me another ring, a ruby set with small diamonds. “Ah, quel dommage . . . I thought it might fit.

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