9 JUNE Tea with Hugh in Mayfair: a celebration. The Blake has sold for 500 guineas! I know we've only been out a few times but he's the man I want to marry. I've never felt this way about anyone. And I'm nearly sure he feels the same.
14 JUNE Hugh to tea here to meet F. and Iris. I couldn't put it off any longer. I didn't want to but he's been asking when am I going to meet them. Iris was on her best behaviour-H. must have thought I'd exaggerated terribly-but when I introduced him to Beatrice -o my God Filly-I couldn't help noticing, she turned quite pale. Tea was awful. And when I said we'd go for a walk on the Heath F. asked if she could come too, and I couldn't very well say no. F. talked-I suppose he was only drawing her out, but why did he have to sound so interested in her boring job?-and I seethed, all the way up to Parliament Hill and back. And then when he kissed me goodbye at the tube he said how much he'd enjoyed it. I shan't bring him here again on a Saturday if I can help it. F. behaved exactly like Beatrice in the story and I could see H. looking at her. But I was so tense and miserable, I can't help wondering if I brought it on myself.
17 JUNE Today I did a very stupid thing. I started searching the house for "The Drowned Man'. To prove it doesn't exist. But not finding it only made me more afraid that it's hidden somewhere, lying in wait for H. Even Iris noticed. I didn't dare ask-one thing the spirits are quite good at is suggesting places to look. The last thing I want. I feel creepy enough as it is.
19 JUNE H. very busy-big sale coming up-won't be able to see me this week. No one is going to die. I just mustn't think about it any more.
28 JUNE H. to tea again with Filly. He came to pick me up and Iris invited him before I could stop her. We had it on the terrace. H. talked about some Russian who only painted coloured squares. F. very quiet but hanging on every word.
12 JULY H. started talking about money. Says he hasn't a bean-spends his salary before he gets it. I'm sure he was leading up to proposing. Tried everything I knew to encourage him without seeming to let on. I'm sure he will.
16 JULY But he hasn't.
19 JULY A perfect afternoon. Long walk with H. and then we lay down in the grass-really passionate at last. We were kissing and he was lying almost on top of me and I could feel the sun shining through his body into mine. It really is like going to heaven. He undid my dress and I thought we were going to make love properly. I didn't care about anyone seeing. I wanted him to. But then somebody's wretched dog came bounding up and H. got all embarrassed and started apologising for being carried away. I wish he hadn't.
25 JULY H. asked me to marry him this afternoon. I'm so deliriously happy. I know I am. I wish we could keep our engagement a secret. Later: I've locked the story in the study. I will never read it or think of it again.
28 JULY Told Iris this afternoon. I hadn't meant to, so soon, but it just came out. So when Filly got home I had to tell her too. She said all the right things but I felt she didn't mean them.
8 AUGUST H. here again for tea with F. We had it in the summerhouse and then he wanted us all to play tennis. I said I couldn't remember where the net was, but Filly went and dragged it out of the conservatory. If I say anything he'll think I'm jealous. I should tell him about the story and how it haunts me. But then he'll want to read it, and he might I must not think about it any more.
12 AUGUST Alone with H. at last. He asked me if something was wrong and I said no, just a bit of a headache, which was exactly the wrong thing to say, because he insisted on taking me home. I keep thinking he's not as passionate as he was a month ago, but I'm so tense and miserable I don't know if it's him or me. I'm sure he loves me. I will not read the story again.
20 AUGUST Filly is acting very strangely. I keep watching her-about Hugh I mean-I can't help myself. Sometimes I think I must be going mad. 25 AUGUST Hardly slept at all. H. very busy again at the saleroom. Tried again to tell him about the story and couldn't.
10 SEPTEMBER Very close and airless. H. stayed late again playing Scrabble. Kept willing Filly to go to bed but she wouldn't, even though I could hardly keep my eyes open-just played on and on until H. realised he'd missed the last tube. He said not to worry about making up the spare bed, he'd sleep on the couch in the library. I wanted to go downstairs with him but he said good-night on the landing in front of Filly. By then I was too angry to sleep. I tossed and turned for hours until I gave up and went and stood at the window and looked at the moon. And I thought, I'll go down to the library and have it out with him. Filly's door was locked and it was deathly quiet. Until I got to the landing outside the study and heard the noise. A squeaking, creaking sort of noise. Coming through the ceiling. I tiptoed up the attic stairs and there they were, on Lettie's old bed, stark naked in the moonlight. He was sprawled along the mattress with his head hanging over the foot of the bed. She was riding him like a horse, straddling him with her hands on his shoulders, lashing his face with her hair. I couldn't move and I couldn't look away. Then her whole body arched and shuddered and she threw back her head and looked straight at me. (The rest of this page, and all the remaining pages in the diary, had been torn out.)
I read through the diary by torchlight, sitting on Anne's bed with the faded white tennis dress floating at the edge of my vision. I could not associate the mother I had known with the woman in the attic, and yet the final scene left me with a nightmarish sense of having witnessed my own conception. It was also disturbingly like one of the fantasies Alice and I had shared. I remained staring at the torn page until a very faint rustling somewhere overhead set the hair on the back of my neck bristling.
Downstairs in the comparative safety of the library, in an armchair beneath the four great windows, I read through it again. I had known, really, since I first read Miss Hamish's letter. Why else would Aunt Iris have turned so violently against Phyllis? (I would not think of her as 'my mother' any more.)
Phyllis had found the diary; had probably been reading it all along. 'Filly is acting very strangely: I saw what must have happened, set out as clearly as an endgame at chess, with Phyllis always one-no two moves ahead… Owe came true, indeed. Anne's record of the closing trap had gone with the torn-out pages. But why had Phyllis put the rest of the diary back in its hiding-place after-whatever she had done to-had done with Anne? It made no sense: after all, she had taken 'The Revenant'.
And there was something else… something that didn't fit. I took out Miss Hamish's letter to check the dates. Somewhere around the middle of September, Anne had written to say the engagement was 'all off'. But the 'dreadful set-to' between Phyllis and Iris hadn't happened for another fortnight or so. Anne clearly didn't tell her friend why she'd broken off with Hugh Montfort. Then Iris had changed her will and died within days of learning the truth. And Anne had last been seen alive in Mr Pitt's office on 26 October.
Miss Hamish. The diary did not once mention Miss Hamish.
How could this be? Unless she hadn't been nearly as close to Anne as she imagined… but no, Anne had left her the estate. For a few wild moments I toyed with the notion of Miss Hamish and Phyllis conspiring to murder Anne, but that was idiotic. Every detail in her letter fitted exactly with my own discoveries, and with Anne's diary, including Mr Pitt the solicitor. And the police would have investigated Abigail Hamish, as the sole beneficiary, very carefully indeed.