Some Veil Did Fall Read online

  Copyright © 2014 Kirsty Ferry

  Published 2014 by Choc Lit Limited

  Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK

  www.choc-lit.com

  The right of Kirsty Ferry to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78189-163-6 (epub)

  ISBN 978-1-78189-164-3 (mobi)

  ISBN 978-1-78189-162-9 (epdf)

  For Shaun and James, with all my love. SSOS inc.

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright information

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One

  BECKY

  WHITBY

  November

  CARRICK PARK

  WHITBY

  JON

  BECKY

  ROSSETTI

  ST MARY’S

  THE STUDIO

  CARRICK PARK

  SEB

  WHITBY

  Part Two

  ELLA

  1865

  ADAM

  THE PHOTOGRAPH

  THE DRESS

  August 1865

  JACOB

  CARRICK PARK

  THE WEDDING

  September 1865

  ELLA

  November 1865

  JACOB

  November 1865

  LYDIA

  November 1865

  JACOB

  May 1866

  LYDIA

  July 1866

  THE CLIFF PATH

  CARRICK PARK

  Part Three

  BECKY

  November

  ST MARYS

  About the Author

  More from Choc Lit

  Introducing Choc Lit

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my amazing family who have put up with me talking about writing and who have now learned to simply listen and nod where appropriate. Thanks also to the friends who have read various drafts of this book and who encouraged me to keep going. Huge thanks as well to my wonderful editor who helped me polish the manuscript to within an inch of its life and thanks also to my designer, who designed the most fabulously pink cover I’ve ever seen! Thanks to the lovely Tasting Panel members – Angela, Anna Maria, Berni, Emma, Julie, Liz, Olivia and Sarah. And the biggest thank you of all has to go to the Choc Lit team, who quietly and efficiently took this story from a manuscript to a novel and made it a dream come true. Thank you to everybody who helped me get this far – it means a lot.

  Sudden Light

  I have been here before,

  But when or how I cannot tell:

  I know the grass beyond the door,

  The sweet keen smell,

  The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

  You have been mine before, –

  How long ago I may not know:

  But just when at that swallow’s soar

  Your neck turned so,

  Some veil did fall, – I knew it all of yore.

  Has this been thus before?

  And shall not thus time’s eddying flight

  Still with our lives our love restore

  In death’s despite,

  And day and night yield one delight once more?

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Prologue

  The dream had been so vivid, so real, that Becky wasn’t actually surprised – somehow, it made sense. The residual moments of the dream flashed through her mind and she remembered seeing a room, flooded with light. The windows were large and overlooked parkland. Full-length curtains fluttered out into the room as a summer breeze snaked through the casings. A piano stood in the corner, and she saw her fingers picking out a tune. A piece of paper, ornately decorated and embossed, lay on a desk.

  Then she was in a bedroom. A mirror on a dressing table reflected the fireplace and a four-poster bed. In her dream she had picked up a silver-backed hairbrush and hurled it at the mirror. The mirror had shattered, cracks bursting across its surface, obscuring the reflection as a shadow appeared behind her.

  Then she ran. She ran out of the bedroom, down the stairs, into the hallway and out of the door. She caught the scent of a storm that was threatening to split the sky open and saw a flash of her blue dress, scrunched up in her hands. She saw her feet steadily pounding across the grass and she prayed that nobody would stop her.

  Everybody has secrets. It just depends on how many people discover them. He stood for a while on the edge of the cliff, watching the waves break against the rocks. Then he turned and walked away.

  Part One

  BECKY

  WHITBY

  November

  Becky stared at the crowds milling around the town. She couldn’t help smiling at the fact that so many people had come out, braving the freezing cold and overcast weather in the skimpiest of outfits. Whitby’s Goth Weekend was the perfect destination for a journalist/photographer/dabbling historian; which is how she would probably describe herself if anyone asked. Girls dressed in black lace thronged the streets and men wearing top hats and frock coats walked sedately next to them. It was the sort of event, Becky thought, which made you feel like the odd one out if you were not actually dressed the same as the others were.

  Becky looked around, entranced. Where else, she wondered, would you be able to get so many photographs of fabulous Victorian costumes in the modern world? Bram Stoker had made Whitby scarily famous in his Dracula novel; so twice a year, in April and November, thousands upon thousands of vampire-lovers descended on the quaint little harbour town in North Yorkshire, all dressed in suitably vampiric clothes, to celebrate the Gothic, the undead and the idea of Dracula.

  Becky herself lived in York, on the third floor of a lovely old converted Georgian house. Out of her kitchen window she could just see the spires of the minster and she had long ago learned to duck to avoid the slanting roof in her bathroom. Her flat existed in a constant state of journalistic disarray, and she didn’t even have the excuse of it being a student house-share any more. Those days were long gone and now it was simply her own mess. York wasn’t too far away from Whitby – but on a day like today, it was a world away. And, upon reflection, she did feel completely out of place in her usual uniform of jeans, boots and a sweater. But at least she was warm, unlike some of these lace-covered ladies who must have been shivering in their satins.

  Becky raised her camera and took a close up of a middle-aged couple posing beside an old-fashioned hearse. She walked up to them smiling and passed the lady her business card. Becky Jones, Freelance Journalist. Nothing special there really, but it described her.

  ‘Can I ask you a few
questions?’ she began. ‘For my next article? I’m writing about Goth Weekend for People’s History magazine. Basically, it’s about why you come here, what you do when you’re here, where you get your costumes from? That sort of thing. Our readers love to know the details.’

  ‘Of course!’ the lady answered. ‘Just ask me. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.’

  Becky smiled. ‘Fantastic,’ she replied. If there was one thing she had learnt over these last few hours, it was that these people were really friendly and usually more than willing to chat to her. She already had plenty of notes to work on when she got back to the hotel, safe in the knowledge that one of her most reliable editors would accept her article.

  The lady began to tell Becky how her husband hadn’t been bothered about such things until she had recommended he read Bram Stoker’s Dracula. She’d been a librarian; he, a customer. It was the start of their courtship, she told her. Becky loved that word; courtship. It was so quaint, and the lady was so polite and talkative, Becky warmed to her immediately. It was difficult to associate such a lovely lady with the white-faced corpse-bride she was portraying, but in this town on this weekend, nothing was surprising any more.

  Becky thanked the couple and wandered off into the crowds. The rustle of silk and satin surrounded her and the sombre mock-funeral procession that was parading up the street had more of a carnival atmosphere to it than loss or grief. Becky raised her camera again and snapped the head mourner as he went past. She squeezed herself through a few more people and snapped the trail of mourners at the back.

  One girl in particular caught Becky’s eye as she walked, silently and gracefully, behind the coffin. The girl’s head was bowed and her hands were clasped together. Her golden hair was piled up in an intricate style and her white dress seemed to glide along the ground, a lace train fanning out behind her. Her profile was classically beautiful, the curve of her cheek smooth and pale. Becky raised her camera, trying to frame the girl perfectly in the viewfinder. She pushed the shutter just as someone jostled into her and knocked the camera off kilter. Dammit! Becky stumbled and swore under her breath. She pressed a few buttons to review the picture and discovered that the whole shot was blurred. All that was visible was a fair streak – apparently the girl’s hair – and a white streak – supposedly her dress. Becky looked back at the procession, but the crowds had closed in and the girl had been swallowed up.

  Becky was uncomfortably aware of warm breath on her neck. Her other senses kicked in, prickling at the feeling that someone was standing too close to her. She quickly turned around. A man, somewhere in his early thirties, stood there, his face contrite. He was clasping a paper cup with steam curling out of the top and brown liquid dripping off his fingertips.

  ‘Did I get you?’ he asked.

  ‘Well and truly,’ said Becky. ‘Luckily it was just the photograph that was spoiled.’ She looked pointedly at the paper cup. ‘It could have been all over my camera.’

  ‘I lost my latte,’ he replied.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I need another one.’

  ‘You need a lid,’ said Becky. She turned, annoyed at his stupidity and went to follow the crowds up towards St Mary’s Church. She was sure the girl would head up there. Photographers lurked around the cliff tops constantly, and that girl would make a stunning photograph, set against the sea.

  Becky felt a hand on her shoulder and she swung around. The man was following her.

  ‘Sorry – you know what, I’ve just realised something. It’s Becky, isn’t it? Becky Jones?’ He frowned. ‘If you aren’t her, you look an awful lot like her. Your hair’s a bit longer now though. But we’re going back a few years I suppose. Hair grows.’

  Becky stared at the man. He was tall, a good six inches taller than she was at least, and he had dark brown, tousled hair that seemed to have lost any style it was meant to be in. He was slim and had one of those open, friendly faces that instantly made anyone and everyone confide in him. But the telling thing was his eyes – one dark blue and one bright green, just like his sister’s.

  ‘Jonathon Nelson!’ she said suddenly. ‘You’re Lissy’s brother. Good grief. How long has it been?’

  ‘So you are Becky then!’ Jonathon smiled at her. ‘And if you’ll excuse the terrible yet not unexpected answer,’ he bowed slightly, ‘it’s been far too long. And my friends call me Jon, by the way. I’ll let you call me Jon too. If you call me Jonathon, I think I’m being told off.’

  Becky laughed. ‘All right. Jon it is. Actually, I haven’t seen Lissy for ages. How is she?’

  ‘She’s fine. You know what she’s like, she’s a devil to keep tabs on. She was in Italy last week I believe. Or was it Cornwall? Maybe London? Who knows. She’s around this weekend though, staying somewhere up the coast. She always loves Goth Weekend. I’ll let her know I’ve bumped into you. Do you live in Whitby?’

  ‘No, I’m only here for Goth Weekend but it would be so lovely to see Lissy if she is here,’ said Becky. ‘I think the last time I had more than a fleeting text conversation with her was when we celebrated our A-level results. You were probably well through university by then, though. You moved away after that, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I stayed in Plymouth for a while, then I moved to Sussex. Then I came back here almost two years ago. But I remember when we were kids that you were always at our house. You and Lissy were the world’s most annoying girls. Then from what I saw when I came home from uni, you only got worse as teenagers.’

  ‘No we didn’t!’ said Becky with a laugh. ‘But you, on the other hand,’ she pointed her forefinger at him accusingly, ‘you were just Lissy’s horrible older brother that I had to put up with when I visited her.’

  It was Jon’s turn to laugh. ‘I had a tough life, living with her!’ he said. He shook his head, as if remembering the past and raked his dry hand through his hair, still smiling; the action made his hair even more tousled. ‘Well, anyway, as I clearly need another latte,’ he said, ‘and we’ve clearly got a bit of catching up to do, how about I take you to get a coffee? It might be a bit warmer too.’ Then he seemed to rein himself in. ‘I mean, only if you’re not too busy. Or meeting anybody. Or anything like that?’ He regarded her hopefully out of those strangely attractive mismatched eyes. ‘Are you?’

  ‘It’s very tempting,’ she responded. ‘But to be honest, I really want to find that girl I was trying to photograph before I do anything else.’

  She scanned the area again, seeing the funeral procession winding its way up the steps towards the Abbey; but as the procession came fully into view, Becky could tell, annoyingly, that the girl was no longer at the end of it. She tried to look down the surrounding side streets but all she could spot was a seething mass of general humanity. Nobody stood out of the crowd like that girl had done. She cursed under her breath.

  ‘That’s my fault, isn’t it?’ Jon was contrite. ‘Please, Becky. Let me get you a coffee. I have to now, to make up for it, or I’ll feel bad all day.’

  Becky looked at Lissy’s annoying older brother properly, remembering him as he had been a few years back. Lissy’s father was an Italian millionaire. Jon’s was someone they never talked about. Yet as half-siblings they had still been close.

  Becky tried to sum the adult Jon up in a word or phrase; a little trick she liked to do, trusting her instinct and seeing how close she was to the truth afterwards. The words axe-murderer and psychopath didn’t spring to mind. Clumsy, obstinate and harmless did. Yep. Jon hadn’t changed a great deal after all.

  ‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘The girl’s disappeared so I might as well come with you. Where shall we go?’ She cast a longing glance up to the Abbey and wondered if the girl had somehow clambered up all those steps after all and she had missed her.

  ‘We’ll never get in anywhere to sit down,’ said Jon. ‘The town’s a bit busy today.’

&nbs
p; ‘Just a bit,’ said Becky, putting her camera back in its case.

  ‘We can get some to go and take it back to my studio. I was heading there anyway when we bumped into each other.’

  When you bumped into me, Becky wanted to add, but she refrained. Instead, her interest was piqued at the word ‘studio’.

  Jon must have seen her perk up as he nodded. ‘I’m a photographer,’ he said. ‘That’s what my degree was in and I have a studio just over there.’ He pointed down one of the winding closes that led off the street. ‘It’s not huge, but at least we can sit down in peace and quiet. I just popped out for a breather, to be honest. It’s been ridiculously busy today, which is fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but when you’re a one-man outfit you need a break from time to time. And I desperately wanted a proper coffee that I hadn’t made from instant granules myself. I’ll make sure the place stays shut for another half an hour or so, and then nobody will disturb us.’

  ‘All right then,’ Becky said, finally nodding decisively. ‘You win. I’ll come with you.’ They turned and headed back towards the horde of black-swathed figures in the main street.

  ‘So do you do landscapes or portraits?’ Becky asked.

  ‘A bit of both,’ Jon replied. ‘I make my living out of doing them both, anyway – I couldn’t say which one I prefer. I do wedding photography too.’ He looked sidelong at her, as if wanting to ask the question.

  ‘I’m not married,’ said Becky. ‘Not even close.’ A frown crossed her face as an image of Seb fluttered into her head. ‘I was seeing someone, but he’s an idiot, so no; no wedding photos for me, thanks very much.’

  She shifted the camera bag further onto her shoulder and shoved her hands in her pockets. The wind was starting to bite. She was actually looking forward to the coffee and a warm place to drink it, but she wasn’t going to admit that.

  ‘Just here,’ said Jon. He touched her lightly on the arm and she stopped outside a small café. ‘They know me here and the coffee’s good.’

  Becky followed him in and the warmth and steam enveloped her. Her stomach rumbled as she smelled the hot food and Jon ordered two coffees to take away. There was a low hum of conversation around her, but she took no notice of it; rather, she gazed longingly at the cakes in the display cabinet. She opened her mouth to speak, but Jon was there first. ‘Two ham sandwiches today, please, Lucy,’ he said to the girl on the counter, ‘and a slice of Victoria sponge I think. Oh – sorry, Becky. I didn’t even ask. Is that okay? You’re not vegetarian or anything are you?’