The Secrets of Whitelea

|Chapter Sixteen|

Chapter Sixteen

The house was dark. The tick, tick, tick of clock hands broke the silence that blanketed the house. Her footsteps were silenced by the rug that cascaded down the stairs. It wasn't until she reached the bottom that her feet made any noise and even then it was the quiet slap slap of bare skin against stone. A floorboard creaked from upstairs and Lizzy froze, fearing that someone would find her out of bed. Not that there was any reason to fear being found out of bed – she'd come downstairs only for a glass of water. There was nothing sinister about her walking around in the dark. Satisfied that the creaking noise was coming from the house resettling itself, Lizzy continued her journey towards the kitchen.

The room was incredibly dark. The lights had all been turned off for the night; not even one small lamp was lit. Lizzy found this unusual as her mother usually kept at least one on all the time in case of situations like Lizzy had found herself in. The sideboard was littered with bowls and plates, ready for the next morning when the chefs would come in again and turn the ingredients on the plates into meals for Anna's tenth birthday. Lizzy began to feel her way over to the cupboard which held the glasses but as her hand brushed the table, she felt something move. Lizzy froze, her heartbeat quickening in pace. She backed away to the door and felt along the wall for the light switch.

With a swoop of relief she found it and clicked the lights on. The room was flooded with harsh lighting that blinded her for a few moments. When she could open her eyes again, Lizzy saw two identical gift boxes sitting side by side on the table. They were silver with a large pink bow tied around the lid. They were obviously a last minute gift for Anna tomorrow. Feeling her heart slow back to its normal pace, Lizzy crept forward and carefully lifted the lid of one of the boxes. Folded inside was a dress, light pink with the top decorated with a sequin flower pattern. Lizzy slid the lid of the box back on and moved to open the other. Like a handcuff, a hand wrapped itself around Lizzy's wrist. "What are you doing?" A voice hissed. Elizabeth was frozen like a deer in the headlights and she turned her head so that her wide eyes landed on the figure of her mother.

"I-I-I w-was getting a d-drink." Elizabeth stuttered.

"And may I ask what you were doing looking at things that are clearly not glasses?"

"I-I was curious." Elizabeth forced herself to calm down and allowed what little confidence she had to fill her body.

"Curiosity killed the cat." Beatrice warned, her eyes narrow.

"But satisfaction brought it back." Elizabeth said, pulling her arm out of her mother's grasp. "Why are you so bothered about me seeing? They're just Anna's presents, aren't they?" Instead of answering, Beatrice stacked up the boxes and began to scuttle out of the room. At the door she paused.

"Go back to bed." She ordered. "I'll talk to you tomorrow." Elizabeth waited until her mother had disappeared from view before shakily making her way back to her room.

Elizabeth lay in bed for a minute, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. She allowed her mind to wander to the dream that she'd just had. She'd almost forgotten what had happened but somewhere in her brain, the memory had been retained. It brought back the same feeling of confusion that she had felt that night. Why had Beatrice acted so strangely? At the time, Elizabeth had thought it unusual – their mother never kept secrets. Now that Beatrice was dead, Elizabeth was beginning to realise that Beatrice had more secrets than they were ever likely to discover. Maybe the dream was a sign of one of them.

Or maybe it was just her mind decided to relive certain memories and torment her already confused brain.

Either way, Elizabeth didn't want to spend much time thinking about it. She had to start moving on with her life, start thinking about Tessa and about Anna and about what they were going to do with everything that Beatrice had owned. There was so much to being a Hamilton that Elizabeth hadn't thought about – hadn't needed to have thought about – until now. Bella rubbed her eyes. She couldn't let it all overwhelm her. That would do her no good. Instead, she forced herself to think about the other less overwhelming issues in her life. That got her thinking about yesterday.