She turned back to Edmund and saw the alarm on his face. ‘You saw him driving that day?’ he said. ‘It was definitely his Rolls?’
She wanted to say yes, but all she could remember of the accident was the darkness and a pair of dazzlingly bright headlamps. ‘I didn’t actually see him,’ she said, ‘it was dark, but I know it was him. I just do.’
Alarm had now changed to doubt in Edmund’s expression. ‘He wouldn’t leave you in the road though, would he? He’s a rogue through and through, but to knock his own sister down and drive off, well it beggars belief.’
‘My brother is capable of anything,’ she said. ‘And anyway, Julia told me what he’d done.’ She caught her breath, realising what she’d just said. ‘Julia! She knows the truth. She came here and told me that he did it, and that he refused to stop.’
When Edmund didn’t say anything, just stared at her, as though assessing her mental state, she said, ‘I know what you’re thinking, that I have a screw loose, but I swear Julia was here. I didn’t dream it. It was real!’ Her voice sounded loud and shrill, almost hysterical. But she needed Edmund to believe her. ‘Go and ask her if you think I’ve lost my mind.’
‘I don’t think anything of the sort,’ he said soothingly.
With a rush of impatience, she waved her arm in the plaster cast at him. ‘Please don’t use your doctor’s bedside manner voice on me. I’ve had quite enough of that from everyone else while lying here all these weeks.’
His expression softened. ‘That’s the Hope I know and love.’
‘But you don’t believe me, do you?’
‘I don’t know what to think for the simple reason I can’t believe Arthur could be that callous. And why would Julia come here and betray her husband? Why not tell me? Or the police?’
Hope felt the strength of Edmund’s gaze intensify as he studied her face. She in turn took in the face of the man she had been so sure she had lost. Lines that had not been there before her accident were etched around his bloodshot eyes and either side of his mouth. He looked exhausted.
‘It’s a medical fact,’ he said evenly, ‘and quite common, for the brain to play tricks on a person when unconscious. In this instance you might want to believe it’s Arthur who did this to you because he’s always been such a disagreeable brother.’
Her certainty wavered. Could Edmund be right? After all, it did seem extraordinary that timid Julia would have the courage to say anything remotely negative about her husband, never mind accuse him of running Hope over.
‘What about the letters?’ she tried. ‘Don’t you think that might be something Arthur would do? Just to cause trouble. It’s what he did when we were children. He enjoyed taunting us and inflicting cruelty on anyone, or anything, that was defenceless.’
‘I promise you, Hope, that if it is him, he’ll pay for it. I’ll make sure of that.’
To her dismay, his reassurance brought on another bout of uncontrollable weeping and he took her in his arms. She had been warned that her emotional state would be up and down in the days and weeks ahead.
‘When can I go home?’ she asked, when her sobbing subsided.
‘Unfortunately, it’s not for me to decide.’
‘But you could persuade the doctors here that I’m well enough to leave, couldn’t you?’
He kissed her, first one soft kiss on her left cheek, then her right. ‘Only if I’m convinced you’re well enough to be at home. And there’ll be no work for you for the foreseeable future. You need a proper rest. Doctor’s orders!’
‘But I’ll go mad if I have to lie here much longer, or if I don’t have anything to do.’
‘No debate, Hope. Your typewriter is out of bounds until I say so.’
‘What about the letters I heard you and Annelise talking about, the ones the children from round the world have sent me? That wouldn’t be too arduous replying to those, would it?’
‘Hope, you have no idea how many there are. There must be at least ten large sacks of mail stored at the post office, as well as the ones already at the house.’
Even as Hope balked at being told what to do, the exhaustion she felt made her doubt she would cope with responding to one child’s letter, never mind a sack of them.
‘I’ve just realised something,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’
‘That I didn’t dream about the bags of fan mail, they’re real. Which means maybe I didn’t dream that Julia was here, she really was.’
‘If it puts your mind at rest, I’ll check with the nurses to see if they know whether she visited or not. Would you like to see Annelise now?’ He stopped abruptly. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘It’s Annelise,’ Hope said slowly, ‘something she told me . . . something . . . ’ Her words ground to a halt as she tried to catch hold of a thought that was as insubstantial as a dust mote.
‘What about Annelise?’ he asked.
The thought danced away from her, and Hope shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t force it, darling. Everything will slip into place in its own time.’
‘You speak as though I’m suffering from amnesia.’
‘Not at all. It’s just a matter of giving yourself time to sift through the mixed-up contents of your head.’
‘That sounds very patronising, you know.’
‘Yes,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s a comment I’m sure I’ll live to regret.’
I’m sure I’ll live to regret . . .
The dust mote danced back towards her and Hope tried again to snatch hold of it. Annelise. It was Annelise who had used those words, or words very similar to them, about living to regret something she had done. What was it?
Oh, it was so annoying! Why wouldn’t her brain work properly? Normally she had a mind like a filing cabinet and could instantly locate any fact or date she needed, but now she felt as if the cabinet had been ransacked and all the information she had stored away so carefully was thrown on the floor.
She watched Edmund leave the room and ignoring his advice not to force things, she cudgelled her brain to think straight. And then it came to her. But surely she was wrong. That had to be something she dreamt. Annelise wouldn’t ever be so careless as to get herself into a mess like that, would she?
But the moment the door opened, and Hope saw Annelise she feared the worst. There were dark shadows beneath the girl’s eyes, her skin was ashen, and she had lost weight. She also looked sick with worry. Instinct told Hope that the change in Annelise wasn’t purely due to fretting about her. She surmised also that Edmund, despite being a doctor, had not put two and two together. Or had he been keeping this from her?