Free The Darkest Hour by Barbara Erskine Page B

demonstrate a distinct paucity of funds and all kinds of other remnants of a busy life. The two portfolios, stacked against the wall behind the door had proved, to her intense disappointment, to be empty.
    Lucy looked up as the door opened. Dolly set down her tray in the middle of the newly cleared space. There were two cups and two slices of cake.
    Lucy smiled. ‘I’m amazed that Mr Marston has trusted me with all this. And truly honoured.’
    ‘He must have liked the look of you.’ Dolly slumped down on one of the two straight-backed chairs near the paint-splashed deal desk. She was in her eighties, Lucy guessed, but energetic and fit enough to keep the cottage spick and span. ‘It’s been something he’s put off doing again and again. And if it hadn’t been for that woman he’d have gone on putting it off.’
    Lucy frowned, puzzled. ‘That woman?’
    ‘Charlotte Thingy.’ Dolly grimaced. ‘She’s behind this. Hard as nails, she is. She’s not interested in poor Evie. She just wants the space cleared so she can makeover the cottage. She’s even emptied the upstairs drawers.’ She pointed to the two suitcases under the table. ‘Poor Evie’s personal things. Can’t wait to get shot of them. Not that it didn’t need doing, you understand. Of course it did. But she should have left it to someone who cared. I offered, but oh no, she had already done it. Shoved it all in a great heap. No doubt next time she comes the rest of Evie’s things will all be pushed out here as well.’
    Lucy thought it best not to comment. She reached for her cup. ‘I’m not sure where to start. There is so much more than I expected. This will take me weeks, months, to go through.’
    Dolly nodded. ‘As I said, it’s time someone did it. She deserves some recognition. I was with her here for the last forty years of her life, you know. I looked after her so she could paint. Right up to the end she was working. Her eyes were as good as someone half her age.’
    Lucy looked down at the slice of cake on her plate with an absent frown. ‘I didn’t realise she was still painting. There are so few of her works on the record. What happened to them, do you know?’
    ‘Christopher took them.’ Dolly grimaced.
    ‘Christopher?’
    ‘Christopher Marston. Her other grandson. Mr Michael’s cousin.’
    Lucy gave a secret smile. Christopher obviously did not merit that honorarium of Mr.
    ‘He took the paintings,’ Dolly went on. ‘Mr Michael got the cottage. That was the arrangement.’ She pursed her lips.
    Lucy digested that piece of news with disappointment. So, that explained the lack of paintings and sketches in the house.
    ‘He took her diaries too. Everything he could lay his hands on that wasn’t screwed down,’ Dolly went on. ‘I told Mr Mike but he wasn’t interested. He said Christopher was welcome to them. He said it was what Evie wanted. He said it was the cottage itself that mattered to him because that was where she had been happy. Christopher would have sold it.’
    Lucy was studying her face, noting the anger and frustration there.
    ‘Did Christopher sell the paintings, then?’ she asked quietly.
    Dolly shook her head doubtfully. ‘I suppose so. I don’t know. They were never mentioned again. But I’ll bet madam there,’ she gestured over her shoulder towards the cottage, ‘will want to know where they are once she realises how valuable they were.’
    By ‘madam’ Lucy assumed she meant Charlotte Thingy. She hid a smile.
    When Dolly had removed the tray she worked on for several hours, sorting through the different boxes. The suitcases poignantly contained a selection of clothes, underwear, nightgowns. Lucy could understand Charlotte’s indignation if these were still in place in what must have been the main bedroom in the cottage. She hadn’t been upstairs but it looked as if there wouldn’t be more than two rooms up there. She pushed the cases against the wall. Somehow touching Evie’s clothes was