Solsbury Hill Read online

  Granley took her to the local train and in York she changed to an express that went almost straight to the heart of London. She wore the only suit she had, the suit she’d worn in York with Miles, but had the taxi drop her at a shop in Knightsbridge, near the hotel, where she bought some fancy, high-heeled pumps for the meeting the next day.

  After touring Harrods’ many halls, the buyer took Eleanor to a local stand, where they ate fish and chips in a cone of newsprint. The head buyer was almost as young as Eleanor and her energy was high. She wanted Eleanor to understand that a deal with Harrods was “massive,” that her line was “brilliant,” and that everyone who’d seen it was “keen” and excited as hell. Eleanor was already unaccustomed to such electrified enthusiasm. Though she could hardly believe it was happening, what she’d dreamed of for as long as she could remember, it was odd to have it come at the exact moment when she cared about it least of all.

  She wanted to get back to the house and to Mead, but that night Harrods had planned a dinner at a restaurant in Knightsbridge, where princes and princesses dined, they boasted. She was grateful and gracious, but all through the night looked for a gap in conversation when she might slip away and make it to a late train, but the gap never came, so it wasn’t until midday, the next day, that Eleanor finally made it back to Yorkshire.

  She found Mead in the library and could see that he was not a happy man.

  “Turn your profile to me, will you?” he snapped.

  She stopped in the doorway and did.

  “You ought to be told you look just like her. The pale white color of the skin, the long neck and sloping shoulders, the upper lip, the urgent eyes.”

  “Ought to be told? It sounds like a punishment. Who is it I look like?”

  “Emily Brontë.” It was meant to inflict pain. He went on, “You’ve got that skin that’s sometimes blue, some parts lavender and peach.” He walked over to her, lifted her chin, and moved her face like an object. “Sometimes flushed, sometimes just plain white as ivory. I noticed it the first night I saw you.” He let go of her chin. “Though yours is also like very milky coffee, after some sun on it.”

  “You’re mad,” Eleanor said to him and pulled her face away.

  “I’m mad?”

  “You’re mad at me,” she said.

  “I am not.” He sat down across the table from her.

  She stepped out of her high heels. “I didn’t think about a note till we were on the road. I don’t have any numbers for you.” Numbers all people had, in the modern world, for everyone. “But I asked Granley to tell you. I thought . . .”

  “You suddenly had to go to London, that’s what he told me.”

  “Oh, my.” She started around the table, approached him as you might approach an irate grizzly. “It was nothing to do with Miles. He’s not in London.”

  Mead’s scowl disappeared.

  “Seconds after you walked out, the phone rang and it was my assistant, Gladys.”

  “You have an assistant?”

  She nodded. It sounded as strange to her as it must have to him. “I went in to Harrods for a meeting she’d set for the next day. I stayed the night and then they arranged a dinner and I had to stay another. I tried to figure out a way to reach you but you were already gone to Thirsk, when I came to find you.” Her shoulders said, “What should I have done?”

  He emerged from his man-pout before her eyes.

  “The meeting went pretty well?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “So what is it you do? In New York City?”

  “I make things. Wool clothing with beautiful buttons. I buy old used sweaters—well, not so much anymore, but that’s how it started. It was quirky stuff, at the start. Now it’s a little more polished.”

  “I’d no idea.”

  He invited her to come closer. He unbuttoned her jacket.

  “It was exciting, London. They took me to a small Italian place for dinner last night, a place I guess Diana used to go. And Harrods is massive. Have you been there?”

  His smile was gracious love.

  “They’re buying my things. A line I’ll design for them, for spring.”

  This was a part of her he didn’t know. He unzipped her skirt and it slipped to the floor.

  “I was a young girl when I started this, you know.” She stepped out of the skirt, peeled off her jacket, blouse, and stood before him in the bright colored prettiness of the underthings she wore.

  “You feel like a young girl, right now.”

  “I’m happy.”

  He kissed her bare chest and one finger moved along the lace of her bra. His other hand was wrapped right around her hip and she could feel how lean and strong she’d become from all the walking.

  “You’re not mad at me anymore,” she said.

  “It was a misunderstanding. Truth is, it’s thrown me to be falling this way.” He put the flat of his hand on her belly. “But, I’m happy to . . .”

  He kissed her navel.

  She leaned back against the table and tried to get the problem that she had been working on, the whole train ride home, right out of her mind. She’d decided she had to go into Scarborough and find the boy who’d been her mother’s shadow, once upon a time, but Mead’s hands were warm on her inner thighs and his tongue pressed against the fragile nerves around her hip bone.

  He lifted her onto the table and held her with his hands along her spine, so the lovemaking was tender and deeper than it had been, her head bursting from where he hit her within.

  Eleanor reached for the whisky bottle and a short glass, which wasn’t clean but wasn’t dirty. She poured them a few fingers and took a sip before giving him the rest.

  She took the glass back and refilled it then slid onto his lap sideways, her legs dangling over the edge of the chair. She kissed him.

  “There’s just one last thing I need to do,” she said.

  “There’s something I need to ask you.” He poured a little more whisky and drank some. “I’m the son of a Brontë scholar, and you’ve found material that the world has no idea about, material that would change things for Brontë scholars.”

  “It’s not just the letters,” she said. “There’s the family tree, Mead. It’s not just Brontë family—she’s related to me. She’s my great-great-great-grandmother or something.”

  “I think I’ve missed something.” He pulled a strand of her hair and wound it about her ear.

  “Emily had a baby she left here at the Enswell house. Raised by the Enswells after Emily died. Alice had the tree—she knew all this and she didn’t want to do anything.”

  She straddled him. “I understand it changes something, really, I do. But I don’t think it’s necessary for the world to know. It’ll upset everything for nothing. It just doesn’t matter that much. To me anyway, does it to you?”

  He kissed the hollow at the base of her throat and gazed at her. “You’re right, I know you’re right. Blimey, she’s your grandmother. Alice would be stunned speechless she’d be so proud of you. So what is it you’re going to do? This one last thing you have to do?”

  She rubbed the tip of her nose against his. “I wondered if I might borrow your car for the day, or the day and the night?”

  “Now where are you going?”

  “Scarborough’s not far, is it?”

  “No, not far.”

  “There’s an old address of a man who wrote my mother, and I want to see if he’s there. I’m pretty sure he’s a friend from childhood, and I just want to see if I can find him.”

  “You don’t want me to drive you?”

  “I think I want to be on my own, in case I do find him. Because you’re kind of distracting.”

  He ran his hands all over her bones and flesh and burrowed his face in the side of her neck in a flurry of puppy love till it tickled and she giggle
d and pushed him away. She stretched her arms into his cotton button-down shirt and looked around.

  “It’s done,” she said.

  The shelves were in place and filled with books, some arranged by color. There were wood-framed, clear-glass doors protecting the books from damp and dust and insects. On the floor, an orange and blue floral design in a Persian rug.

  “It is.”

  “Wow, what does that mean for you—what’s next?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose soon, I’m off to face my father. He’s a Scotsman and a scarperer, and I’ve got a home up there I need to investigate, in case he leaves this earth one day. An island with a yurt he’s built on it.”

  “Really?”

  “They call it something else, but it’s a yurt.”

  “Don’t go away . . . ,” she said and kissed him.

  “I won’t go while you’re gone.”

  “I mean, don’t leave this place. I think Gwen wants to turn half of it into a hotel anyway, so we can all live here. Sometimes, anyway.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Promise you won’t leave before I get back.”

  “You’re taking my car.” He reached forward to grab his keys off the table and dropped them onto her belly.

  “Oh, right.” She blushed happy. “Perfect.”

  The roads were paved. Grimstone, Scagglethorpe, a road to Pickering she didn’t take. Even to find her way around Brooklyn, on foot, Eleanor needed a GPS. Scampston, Willerby, a turn onto Spital Road. She was sometimes on the A64, sometimes on a back road, but she’d stopped for a map and every so often pulled over to read it or ask for directions.

  When in the town of Scarborough she found a café where she rested with a dish of something warm to eat, she relaxed into the adventure. She drove along a sandy beach and a beautiful stretch of shore on the North Sea, turned down Queen’s Parade, and drove past a cluster of small hotels directly across from the bay.

  The road turned at the end of the bay, took a left onto Castle Road, and ended at a castle gate. She found a place to park her car and went through the high arching gate, past a sign that announced Three Thousand Years of History. The castle wall ran for miles. The castle itself stood in a sensational spot on the headland between two bays, and as she headed down toward it a guard approached to say the castle was closed for the day, that she should come back tomorrow.

  Melancholy hit her like a wave. She thanked the guard, asked him some questions about the place, questions Mead would have known how to answer. When she walked back to the car, she still felt a mix of dread and sorrow. Dreading time. The grand hopes of the humans who had conceived that castle, and the ones who had taken the time and labored hard to build it, without comfort even at the end of arduous days. The knights who’d fought and died, the babies who’d been hungry and cold and left alone to cry.

  The lady at the reception desk of the hotel she chose on the North Bay was polite, but it wasn’t like where she’d stayed with Mead in Pickering, it wasn’t like the Guy Fawkes Inn, in York. It was synthetic, antiseptic, with artificial flowers and a spray to take all natural smells away. It was for tourists and as it wasn’t tourist season, the place was dead.

  A young man led her up to the room and opened the curtains to show her the view of the sea. “The North Sea with Denmark there and Norway there.” He pointed. “From where the Vikings came,” he added proudly—a strong strapping kid with a shock of unruly reddish blond hair.

  When he left, she felt old. She was not even thirty, but she sat down on one of the twin beds and felt like a traveling spinster. A woman alone on the edge of the world, knowing no one, no one knowing where she was, just a solitary wanderer. What felt exciting not a half hour before, suddenly sank. She felt the drone of sameness and continuity. All the women who’d come to this room might well still be looking for the something that had brought them to this seaside hotel.

  The bed was hard. She pulled off her boots and walked to the full-length mirror that stood in one corner of the large room and looked at herself. Standing in Scarborough on a dingy rust-colored carpet, in a room decorated with teal and rust polyester quilted coverlets and pillow shams, she undid her bun. She looked at herself from all sides and wasn’t sure what she thought. She was thin from the side. Her stomach was flat in the wool dress she wore—a simple black cashmere sheath that fit her nicely—not too loose, not too close to the body. She held both breasts in her hands. She pulled her dress off over her head and then peeled her tights off her legs. For a quick moment, she glanced at her naked self.

  In the nightstand between the two beds was Scarborough’s phone directory and in the lean book, she found the name Garrens. There weren’t as many as she feared there might be, and she began calling. When someone answered, she asked if there was a Martin and when there wasn’t, she asked if they knew a Martin, which without exception led to a curt no at the end of the line.

  It was a waste of time, she realized, as she punched the third in the list of phone numbers into the phone by the bed. She’d picked up the idea from some film: a scene of a woman with one meager clue who makes phone calls from a hotel room. And the one she’s looking for is the last one she calls. Eleanor heard a man answer, saying, “You’ve reached Edgar Garrens.” His voice was high and cheerful. Feeling ridiculous, she hung up without leaving a message. She put on jeans and her thick sweater, slipped her bare feet into Ugg boots, and went out for a walk.

  Across Queen’s Parade, over the rail, and down the side of the hill, she must have looked a bit wild, from out in the country where people climbed and trudged, didn’t bother with paths and roadways. She crossed another road and climbed another rail and dropped onto the beach below. The only person on the sand, she left her boots against a rock wall and headed south.

  The wind was calm. It was nothing like the wind on the moors. This wind was smooth and soothing. It was gentle on her face. And it felt almost warm, where her toes sank into the cold wet sand. Bare under her thick sweater and jeans, she had an urge to dive in, to swim, though the water must be freezing. She wanted to be naked in the North Sea. She rolled up her pants as far as they would go and went in as far as she could bear the cold.

  The bay was not wide and when she got to the end of the sand, she walked on the promenade and then the rocky shoreline. The sea was grittier at this end, with barnacles and weeds. She’d picked up a walking stick and a handful of shells. They reminded her of her buttons, and she put them in her pocket thinking she’d drill tiny holes in the strongest, prettiest ones and sew them on her next batch of clothing.

  It was dark when she got back to the hotel, night falling early in Yorkshire. In the uncomfortable twin bed, she decided it didn’t matter about finding Martin Garrens. He might live in one of the Carolinas or in New York City, for all she knew. She was tired of hunting without a clue. There were four more people named Garrens in the book, but it was embarrassing to be on the prowl, to hear the suspicion at the other end of the line, to have no way of explaining herself.

  Still she dialed the next number on the list. J. Garrens. As the phone rang she glanced and saw it was almost ten o’clock. She was about to hang up, when a woman’s voice answered.

  “Hello,” said Eleanor. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

  The woman cleared her throat.

  “I’m looking for a man named Martin Garrens.”

  “Who is calling?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You have the right number—who’s calling?”

  “My name’s Eleanor. Eleanor Abbott. Eleanor Sutton?”

  There was a long pause. “Well, which one is it?” The woman’s voice was almost playful. “This is a pleasant surprise. Are you in Scarborough?”

  “I am.”

  “It’s late tonight, but might you be able to come for tea in the morning?”

  Eleanor checked out of the small hotel and drove along Marine Driv
e, below the headland. She drove up to the castle and walked beyond the ruins to the castle walls with a view of two beautiful bays and she thought how wise the kings and queens of medieval times had been, to choose this piece of property. Now, there was Luna Park with a Ferris wheel to the right, the harbor below, and a garish strip of awnings along Foreshore Road that looked like Coney Island. She felt the ominous gray of the day inside her, but then the sun popped out from behind the clouds and this seemed like a good sign.

  Mrs. Garrens lived where Craven Street met Albion Road, at the junction, in an ordinary house. The interior was all grays and browns, nothing like the colorful dress, scarf, and shoes Mrs. Garrens wore. There was an umbrella stand and a coat stand and then an unlit staircase up to an even darker hall.

  Eleanor didn’t have a coat and was still wearing yesterday’s jeans, but she slipped off her dusty Ugg boots and left them by the front door. Mrs. Garrens led her into the sitting room where there was a piano with a few framed photographs and a bay window but no view of the bay. On the settee in front of the window, she sat while Mrs. Garrens went into the kitchen to make a pot of tea. It seemed that no matter how recently tea or coffee had been taken, when a fresh moment came, there was more tea poured and with the tea there was always a plate of biscuits.

  Eleanor fidgeted and felt anxious. If she’d felt old the previous afternoon in the hotel, she felt ancient that morning, sitting in a colorless room on a gray day with an elderly lady. She took a chocolate digestive biscuit and nibbled at the edge of it.

  “You came all this way.”

  Eleanor nodded.

  “Have you had a good stay?”

  “I’ve just been here one night. I stayed at a little hotel across from the beach.”

  “The North Bay. Have you visited the castle?”

  “I did. Yesterday the gate was closed, but I went up there this morning.”