Anna tries a different tack. Perhaps, if Eleanor needs distracting, Anna may benefit from the distraction. “I saw Tolly Hyde in Los Angeles,” she ventures.
Eleanor’s face brightens immediately. “Did you?” she exclaims, happier than anything Anna has yet seen today. “How is he? I haven’t seen him since he left for Hollywood.”
In Anna’s mind, her sister’s eagerness for news does not bode well. “He seems to be doing well.” She is cautious in her reply. Eleanor could easily have gleaned as much from the news.
“It doesn’t seem that long ago that he was here and Mummy was planning our wedding.”
Anna blanches. “It got that far?” she queries, panicked.
“No!” Eleanor scoffs. “Of course not. But you know what Mummy is like. Besides, I’d already met Jacob.”
Anna takes a few breaths to calm her wildly beating heart. “What do you mean, you’d already met Jacob?”
But they have arrived at Eleanor’s home. She hovers to one side, her back pressed into an over-large Mexican Orange Blossom bush, as Eleanor unlocks the door.
When her sister asks, “Are you coming in?”, she breathes a sigh of relief. She feels like she is on the precipice, about to discover the fabled city of El Dorado.
She can hardly contain herself as Eleanor bumbles around her kitchen, putting on the kettle and laying out cups. It is an oddly domestic scene, one very un-Eleanor like. She is not used to seeing her sister like this, but she supposes Eleanor and Jacob must use their kitchen. They cannot eat up at the Hall every night and Larkford is too far from Bridgetown for takeaway delivery drivers. She remembers Eleanor telling her about Jacob re-fitting the kitchen. One of the estate workers could have done it, but Jacob had wanted to do it himself. It looks good. Classic. Oak shaker cabinet fronts and a white quartz worktop. Now she thinks about it, a sleek, glossy look would not have fitted the character of the cottage. She blinks at herself. It must be age. There is no other excuse for her pondering interior design choices. She has never noticed people’s kitchen cabinets before.
She calms her impatience and waits as Eleanor makes two mugs of tea and carries them through to the sitting room. Her sister places them on coasters on a coffee table, and that too is strange. Anna’s home is furnished in wipe-clean, flat-packs – the only things she could get up the stairs. It is like Eleanor has moved into another world, one where you own coasters because your furniture will stay with you for life.
When they are finally settled on the sofa, Anna tries again: “You said you’d already met Jacob. What did you mean?”
“Just that,” Eleanor is annoyingly vague. “From the moment I met him, it’s like we were locked in this dance together, slowly moving closer.”
Anna is frustrated. It’s very poetic but doesn’t really tell her anything. But then her sister says, “It wasn’t really fair to Tolly.”
“Why not?”
Eleanor draws a deep breath and exhales. “Because I knew he liked me. And I knew I wanted Jacob. But I thought I couldn’t have Jacob, so I took Tolly instead.”
“But Tolly broke your heart!” Anna is struggling to make sense of Eleanor’s words.
“Tolly never broke my heart because he never had it. Jacob already had it. I was hoping eventually Tolly would replace Jacob, but there wasn’t enough time. I’m not sure there ever would have been enough time.”
“Because he left?”
Eleanor nods. “It rather forced things to a head.”
“But everyone,” by which Anna means the entire family, “thinks Tolly broke your heart and Jacob mended it.”
Eleanor dips her head. “I didn’t lie. They just assumed and I let them. It was easier. It’s not very flattering, though. Not one of them could imagine I might turn down Tolly Hyde.”
Anna thinks she might faint. “You turned down Tolly Hyde?”
“Yes,” Eleanor says. “It broke his heart. But don’t tell Mummy.”
Breathless
Anna feels like she might vomit. She, too, had turned down Tolly, convinced she was being noble and protecting her elder sister from further distress. And now she finds out it was all unnecessary. Her heart aches for Tolly. Except here lies another wrinkle in the tale. He’d had his heart broken by Eleanor and then again by his co-star. And now she’d added to his unhappiness too.
Eleanor clears her throat. “What is this all about? You’ve never asked about this before?”
And Anna capitulates. “I think I’m in love with Tolly Hyde.” It is the first time she has said the words aloud. The first time she has allowed herself to admit the truth. And it feels immeasurably good to do so.
Eleanor laughs. “You and half the world.”
“Except you,” Anna points out. “And that comment is not helpful.”
