The Last Party at Silverton Hall by Rachel Burton

Author:Rachel Burton [Burton, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803287232
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

18

Isobel’s head felt as though it was stuffed full of cotton wool and all the clarity she had gained from her swim had vanished. She couldn’t stop thinking about the photographs. Whilst she’d been swimming, submerged in the salt water for the first time in years, the huge Norfolk sky above her, everything had felt still and insignificant. When Vivien had first taken her to swim in the sea as a child, she’d told her that there was nothing quite like it in the world.

‘I didn’t believe Mrs Castleton when she first told me that,’ Vivien had said. ‘But it’s true.’

And it was true for Isobel as well. Just as Mrs Castleton – her grandmother’s friend who had died before Isobel was born – had gone swimming every day with Vivien, so Vivien swam every day with Isobel. Being in the water this morning had made her feel close to her grandmother again and she’d almost forgotten about the photograph of her grandmother on the beach.

But back in her grandparents’ office, after the stilted conversation with her mother, she wondered again about the significance of the photographs and their connection with the parties at Silverton Hall, which she realised she hadn’t asked her mother about. It had been easy to believe, as she’d floated on the surface of the sea, that her grandmother would never have lied to her, that nobody could have kept such a secret, especially in a small village where everybody knew everybody else’s business, but now she was convinced again that there was something neither Vivien nor Gina had ever told her.

But was it important in the grand scheme of things? Perhaps her instincts when she’d been in the sea were correct. She should leave it alone and concentrate on her own life, the house, earning some money. Vivien was still her grandmother, no matter what the DNA floating around in her body might tell her. She needed to concentrate on something else and the best thing to do was to concentrate on the closest thing to an opportunity she’d come across since she got here – displaying her art at the cafe and finding out some more about this art group.

Of course it matters though, said a small voice in her head. Were the parties at Silverton Hall connected to the photograph of Vivien in her bathing suit on the beach somehow? She wished she could ask her grandmother about it. She wanted to make a pot of tea and sit in the living room and talk to Vivien, ask her why she had never told her any of this before. She closed her eyes and took a breath. What she would give for just one more day.

She pushed the thoughts away. She had too much time to think, that was the trouble. Too much time to mull over the past and go through her grandmother’s things. Perhaps her mother was right. Perhaps the past was something to leave well alone.

Instead of listening to the

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