The House at the End of Hope Street - By Menna van Praag Page 0,100

“She can’t, not now, I haven’t . . .”

“I know, dear, but she has. I’m certain. I can feel it.”

“But, no, she can’t . . . I thought she couldn’t leave, I thought she had to stay forever.”

“She only had to stay until she was done.” Peggy flicks the kettle on.

“Done with what?”

“With you.”

“But how could she leave, just like that?” Alba protests. “She didn’t say good-bye.”

“I don’t think she knew,” Peggy says, taking a teacup from the cupboard above her head. “I don’t think she had any warning.”

“But she . . . she was my aunt,” she says, the word still feeling strange on her tongue.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Peggy says softly, wishing she at least had a better explanation. She pours water into her cup then carries it to the table and sits.

“She was waiting for me,” Alba says. “Did you know that?”

Peggy nods as she sips her tea. Alba watches as the steam curls into the air in pale blue spirals, perhaps unsurprisingly, quite a different color from everyone else’s.

“I still don’t understand, though,” Alba says. “How did she know I was coming? How did she know to wait for me?”

“The dead understand all sorts of things we couldn’t possibly hope to,” Peggy explains. “They know everything that’s happened and most of what’s going to happen; time is rather different for them than it is for us.” With a twinge she remembers that this will be true for her soon, and she’s sorry for it. She’s not scared anymore, but she would have liked longer, she would have liked to say a proper good-bye to Harry. Seeing the look of longing on Alba’s face, Peggy suddenly knows that a letter isn’t enough. She has to go to him. She has to be with him for as long as she has left. Greer was right. To hell with the house. She’s given it sixty-one years of her life, nearly as many years as Queen Victoria gave to the British Empire. Surely that’s enough?

“It’s more than enough!” Peggy exclaims suddenly.

“Sorry?” Alba frowns. “What’s more than enough?”

Peggy looks at Alba across the table, coming to her senses. “Oops, my apologies, that wasn’t, I was having another . . . What was I saying?”

Alba frowns, a little concerned. There is a look of fierce determination in Peggy’s eyes that she’s never seen before, and it’s a little unnerving. “About the dead understanding,” Alba says. “But I don’t understand how I knew to come here.”

“Oh, my dear, but didn’t you realize?” Peggy says. “It wasn’t a coincidence. You didn’t simply find yourself on the doorstep, you weren’t beckoned by the house, like everyone else. You came because Stella called you.”

Alba is silent, because what can she say? She is loved. Really and truly loved.

—

Peggy is standing in front of her wardrobe, hurling clothes in the direction of a suitcase that lies open on her bed. Mog sits next to the suitcase, eyeing his mistress reproachfully.

“There’s no use looking at me like that, kitty, I’m not changing my mind,” Peggy says, without turning around. “You can come with me, if you like, but I’m not staying. I don’t know how many days I have left, but I’m going to spend every single one of them with Harry.”

Mog emits a little sneeze of disgust.

“I’m not listening.” Peggy discards three skirts she hasn’t worn in twenty years, dropping them on top of the pile at her feet. She thinks of Alba and Stella. She’s already torn up her letter to Harry. Before rushing up to the tower, Peggy had told Alba one more thing, the last piece of family history Stella hadn’t had a chance to tell her niece. Just over forty years ago Elizabeth had come to Hope Street, the only woman to arrive on the doorstep who didn’t stay. Peggy had opened the door before Elizabeth had a chance to knock, startling her so that she stepped back, nearly falling into the flowers.

“Nice to meet you, Beth.” Peggy had smiled, rather enjoying the woman’s shock. “She’s been waiting for you. It’s the door at the end of the corridor.” And with that, she disappeared up the stairs.

Elizabeth stumbled along the corridor, staring at the photographs, just as her daughter would do forty years later. The ceiling came down to have a look at her, the chandelier flickered above her head. The floor softened under her feet and the pipes gently rattled in greeting. That morning Elizabeth had been shopping at the farmers’ market