She is clad in a simple blue silk dress with pearl buttons not much larger than teardrops, which she found in town. The material is vintage, worn daylight-thin at the hips, but all the same delightfully slippery smooth, with hand-stitching around the cuffs, so petite as to be the work of children and almost invisible to the eye. The sort of thing for which the skills have been all but lost. She has tied her hair with a velvet ribbon, combing it unfussily behind her ears in a blatant impersonation of Evelyn in her student days.
A maid, a different one to earlier, meets them in the long, glass-walled reception room. She leads them outside onto the same terrace as before, where, despite the nippy air, a square table has been spread with a crisp white cloth. A candelabrum stands in its centre, candles doggedly alight despite the evening breeze. The maid invites her to sit, pulling back a chair and then, beside it, another for Sola, on which additional cushions have been thoughtfully placed.
‘Where ees he?’ Sola asks loudly, adjusting the padding under her behind to prop herself forwards, so that her ribs press against the table edge.
‘It is his house, he will arrive when he is ready,’ Evie says.
‘Think you we can make heem love us?’
‘I do not know what you are referring to.’
‘Oh Maman! You know why we are ere exactement, you can try to pretend le contraire, but y’aren’t foolin anyone.’ She turns to the dog on her lap and, squeezing its cheeks, asks mischievously, ‘Does she, Toto?’
Despite the chilly evening, the atmosphere around the table possesses a balminess that caresses the skin and the candle flames waver only when they talk across them. It is like they are under an invisible glass dome, the sort of thing Daniels placed over his cakes to protect them from the air. The effect is intriguing and she cannot see how it has been achieved.
The maid brings a fruit drink for the child and pours iced water from a jug into Evie’s glass. Evie gazes across the lake towards the lights on the far shore. Oh how wonderful it would be to be invited to stay, for this to actually become their home. Can she indeed make this man love her and could she love him in return – like a father? Perhaps there is enough of Evelyn in her programming to make her side happen, whether she wills it or not.
Evie hears voices and turns to face the house. Maier emerges onto the step above the terrace and pauses. He looks back inside. Dimly, through the glass, a second figure can be seen making its way laboriously across the unlit room.
So it is not going to be just the three of them – she should have realised that from the fourth place setting. Despite the enveloping warmth, a chilly sense of foreboding swells – that she has been assuming too much – and before she can shake it off, the figure, a woman, reaches the doorway and, helped by Maier, raises her foot over the threshold.
Evie abruptly stands. Her chair scrapes on the boards and, as she lurches back from the table, crashes onto its arm.
‘What ees it Maman?’ Sola begs. The dog stares up at her, baring its teeth, the fur on its shoulders standing on end.
Despite the commotion, neither Maier, nor the woman he is escorting down the steps, look her way. The noise remains trapped within the bubble of air.
As the woman descends, one stair at a time, she leans heavily on a pencil-thin stick, her elbow supported by Maier. Reaching the decking, she straightens, lifting her head to reveal a weary face with lips drawn tight.
Evie’s body is in shadow but her neck and cheeks are lit by the candlelight. It takes the woman several seconds to focus on her. ‘Who is this?’ she mutters.
‘I thought you two should meet,’ Maier says nervously. His voice is audible to Evie with her strong hearing, despite the muffling effect around the table. ‘Evelyn,’ he continues, ‘this is… Evie.’
Evelyn stares, absorbing what is being presented to her, and a shudder passes through her. She leans hard on her stick, the tendons in her neck prominent as her body sways.
‘Je think Maman, that thees was not part of le plan,’ Sola murmurs, without yet understanding what she is witnessing.
Evie falters too. The legitimacy of her existence has been snatched away in a heartbeat.
Did Matthew know? Did he lie to her all these years or was he lied to himself? And why did Maier not say earlier that his daughter was alive? Evie realises as she thinks it that she herself said nothing to reveal the misapprehension. But from Evelyn’s point of view, it must be far worse – presented with a replica of her younger self with no opportunity to prepare. The theatrics of the introduction are insensitive at best.
‘What have you done?’ Evelyn asks of her father, while continuing to stare at Evie. ‘Is she yours?’
This accusation blindsides Maier and he is momentarily lost for words.
‘Did mother know? Where have you been hiding her all this time? Is this to mock me?’
‘No… no I mean, she is not that,’ he answers, stumbling. ‘I would never have done such a thing,’ he adds, horrified, or at least feigning it. ‘To your mother or to you.’
‘Then what?’
‘She arrived today unannounced. Until then I knew nothing about her.’
‘She arrived out of the blue, and you just let her in?’
‘How could I turn her away?’
‘And where exactly did she arrive from?’
‘From Matthew,’ he says.
Evelyn trembles. ‘I see,’ she mutters. ‘So this is to mock me.’
‘Evelyn, I had no idea,’ Evie murmurs, desperate to make amends for the appalling misunderstanding that she herself is at the heart of, while inside she seeks to adjust to the altered circumstances. It is not as hard as she might have imagined. She was written to believe she was Evelyn, but this was only ever an artifice which even early on proved unsustainable, and ever since she has been no more than playing a part. And not even one she has been very good at. Finding Evelyn alive may finally allow her to be herself.
Evie steps away from the table, emerging from the cocoon of warmth around the dining area into the night’s chill.
‘Where did he find her?’ Evelyn asks, her voice suddenly loud.
‘Let us sit down and talk and all will begin to make sense,’ Maier says, sounding slightly desperate, his magician’s reveal not having gone as well as he’d hoped. He tries to take Evelyn’s arm but she shrugs him off and, one step at a time, traverses the remaining yards unaided. The maid materialises from the shadows and pulls back a chair and Evelyn seats herself, wincing as she settles.
Maier rights Evie’s chair and she feels the shawl of warmth surrounding the table wrap her back around as he slides it in. He takes the remaining one for himself and unrolls his napkin, gazing at his elderly daughter and her youthful doppelgänger.
‘Enough games,’ Evelyn mutters. ‘Tell me who this is.’
‘It would be polite to ask her yourself, rather than pretend she is not there.’
Evelyn glares back. Her breathing is quick and shallow and her hand grips the table edge, dragging deep creases into the cloth.
‘Tell her, Evie,’ Maier says, ‘who you are.’
‘Who I am?’ she stammers.
‘How you know Matthew will do, as a start,’ he says gently. ‘We’ll take this a step at a time. There is a lot to absorb.’
Evie looks over to Evelyn, her look full of compassion and regret, ‘I am Matthew’s wife.’
Evelyn breathes in sharply and her knuckles whiten. ‘And what interest is this to me?’