Free Another Heartbeat in the House by Kate Beaufoy Page A

God!’
    â€˜â€“ I looked over and I saw the men in the boat pulling Mama out of the water.’
    â€˜What a cursed fool I am!’ Mr Thackeray’s tone was one of self-laceration. ‘I should not have left her side.’
    â€˜Mr Thackeray! Mr Thackeray!’ I turned to see the children’s nanny staggering towards us, weeping. ‘Forgive me! Forgive me! She took her leave of me so calmly I scarcely noticed she was gone from the cabin, for the baby was fretful, you see, and when I got the child to settle and saw that Mrs Thackeray had not returned, I set off to find her and …’
    Her distraught gaze lit upon Annie, and she fell silent.
    â€˜Fetch Minnie from the cabin,’ instructed Mr Thackeray. ‘Bring her up on deck and keep the children entertained while I tend to Mrs Thackeray. Annie, you must go with Brodie.’
    I expected the child to protest, but she simply regarded her father with solemn, intelligent eyes before reaching for Brodie’s hand and allowing herself to be led away. It was as though the instruction had become routine to her.
    A shout of ‘Ahoy!’ from below announced the return of the lifeboat. Mr Thackeray turned and looked at me gravely. He had regained control of his emotions, and was clearly steeling himself for what was to come. ‘Miss Drury, I am beseeching you with all my heart to show me Christian clemency. Will you help me?’ he said.
    â€˜I am not a Christian,’ I replied. ‘But I should be glad to proffer any service I can. What would you like me to do?’
    Edie sat for a moment with the quire of paper on her lap. Then she went to the bookcase and pulled out the copy of
Vanity Fair
that she had seen there. She had first read the novel a decade ago, and loved it – even though her English teacher had declared that Thackeray lacked the compassion of Dickens. Edie didn’t care. She loved the energy of Thackeray’s writing, the casual cynicism, the lack of sentimentality and the sheer joy he took in heaping ridicule upon the establishment. Above all, she loved Becky Sharp, Thackeray’s vivacious, unprincipled anti-heroine.
    On the title page –
Vanity Fair, A Novel without a Hero
– was a handwritten dedication. It read:
To Eliza, my very dear friend and soulmate, from William
.
    Edie turned to Milo, who was sitting on the hearthrug diligently washing his knitted kitty. ‘Oh, Milo – what fun!’ she said. ‘I think we may have found ourselves a mystery to solve!’

6

    HAD SHE NOT been set a task akin to Hercules’s fifth labour, Edie would have put all her energy into collating the intriguing jumble of papers in the box file. The document that interested her most was the manuscript, which – apart from the first paginated quire or two – did not seem to have been assembled in any particular order. So she decided to spend her days decluttering the house as per her brief, and her evenings reading and sorting through the hundreds of pages of Eliza Drury’s handwriting.
    Today she had scarcely ventured further abroad than the stable yard, just to allow Milo to do his wees. The weather had been cold and horrible and the best place for both of them, she decided, was by the fire in the library. Besides, Milo got plenty of exercise running to and fro along corridors and up and down stairs all day long, following her as she filled tea chests and boxes with stuff that was destined to be dumped. The more serviceable or uncommon items she carted into the drawing room, where they would remain until they went for auction along with the house.
    Toast and Marmite would do her for supper – she could brown the bread on a toasting-fork in front of the fire, the way she and Hilly had used to. It was her second evening in the house, and she thought they were beginning to get on rather well together. She supposed that you would have to get along well with an entity whose nooks