Page 48 of A Summer Scandal

The plan for the day was for everyone to be hard at work in their studios, business as usual, except with an open-door policy for visitors to wander in and see what they were up to. Barty was spending the day with them on cake duty, perched on a chair at a trestle table just outside the birdcage entrance doors. It had been his idea: an elder statesman of the community acting as the welcome committee to sweeten them up.

‘And the carrot cake is rather excellent, even if I do say so myself,’ Barty said, preening in his Hawaiian shirt and fedora.

‘Someone’s coming,’ Lucy said, squinting along the pier back towards dry land.

‘God, there is as well,’ Violet said. ‘Quick, stations everyone!’

They all scattered, leaving just Keris, Barty and Violet in the shop.

Barty put his arm around Violet. ‘Curtain up, then.’ He gave her shoulders a bolstering little squeeze. ‘Bonne chance, darling.’

Violet nodded, a lump in her throat as he headed outside to welcome the first of the open-day visitors.Bonne chance. It was the exact same phrase her Grandpa Henry had used in his letter willing her Swallow Beach Pier.

It was just after eleven in the morning, and Violet was almost drunk on delight. There had been a steady flow of visitors all morning, and none of them had seemed especially resistant to the new use of the pier. Perhaps it was because many were friends and acquaintances of Barty’s from his numerous clubs; his nude drawing class were particularly appreciative. Mavis, the Rubenesque life model, went so far as to become Lucy’s first booking of the day after half an hour spent lying on the chaise in the photography studio.

Violet turned over the corset she was working on, threading the scarlet ribbons methodically through the eyelets down the back as an older woman came in and walked across to Vi’s worktable, her weight borne on a stick painted red and white like a barber’s shop light.

‘I see the rumours are true,’ she said, leaning against the table, eyeing Violet keenly. ‘Good God. It’s as if she’s come back to haunt us.’

Vi looked up and smiled, and the woman leaned in closer for a good look at her face and then backed up a little, as if she wasn’t keen on what she saw.

‘I don’t think she’d have wanted you to come here,’ she said quietly, her gaze locked on Violet’s. ‘Monica knew, you see, in the end. She knew that for all its beauty, this pier can be a cruel mistress.’ She spread her hands to the sides, moving them up and down like weighing scales. ‘It gives, it takes away.’ She picked her stick up again from where she’d rested it. ‘There. I consider my debt repaid.’

Startled, Violet opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again because the woman turned her back and walked away, clearly in no mind to elaborate or explain. What on earth had that been all about? Her mind raced. It was obvious that the woman had known Monica; Violet laid her work down carefully and headed to her doorway just in time to see Barty touch his hat at the woman as she passed his table on her way out.

‘Who was that woman, Barty?’ she asked, walking outside to stand beside him, turning her face up towards the warmth of the sunshine.

‘Why?’ He lifted the brim of his fedora and looked at her over the top of his sunglasses, his eyes guarded. ‘Did she say something to you?’

Violet frowned. ‘I think she knew my grandmother.’

Barty lowered his hat, preventing Vi from being able to read his expression. ‘She’s certainly old enough,’ he muttered. ‘Got a good ten years on me, in any case.’

Violet caught the tang of dislike on his words. ‘Who is she?’

‘Her name is Hortensia Deville.’

Well, there was a name Violet wasn’t likely to forget. ‘I got the impression she isn’t very fond of the pier.’

Barty sighed. ‘Possibly not. She did sell it, after all.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘Really? She was the woman who sold the pier to my grandparents?’

Vi scanned the far end of the pier, wondering if it was too late to run and catch up with Hortensia Deville. But then … what would she say if she did? What did she actually want to know?

‘She said something like the pier can be a cruel mistress. What do you think she meant by that?’

‘Violet, indulge me, I’m a very old man,’ Barty said, even though his Hawaiian shirt and Ray-Bans suggested otherwise. ‘I strongly suggest that you put that woman well and truly out of your mind. Hortensia’s always had a theatrical bent; played a bloody good Lady Macbeth in the local am-dram production in the eighties, mind you.’ He paused. ‘And that notwithstanding, she dabbles in the occult.’

‘What?’ Violet squeaked. ‘In what way?’

‘Oh I don’t know.’ He batted the air and Violet got the distinct impression he was being deliberately vague. Then he laid his hands on the table and pretended to shake it. ‘Is there anybody there?’

Violet folded her arms, squinting against the bright sunlight. She wasn’t stupid; Barty was trying very hard to make light of it, but there was something about his posture, the stiff set of his shoulders and his refusal to look her in the eyethat made Violet’s gut feel as if there was a python writhing slowly in there. Something wasn’t quite right here, and it was obvious that Barty wasn’t going to let her in on what it was.

She smiled at a couple of teenagers coming towards her, and then belatedly realised that one of them was Charlie, Lucy’s son.

---