Sara Alexander - The Secret Legacy - The perfect summer read for fans of Santa Montefiore, Victoria Hislop and Dinah Jeffries

Autumn and winter trundled by, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that Mr Benn and Mr George were not impressed by my work. There was nothing major I could pinpoint about the shift in our day to day lives. A wave of frustration drew in, a little snatched remark here, an almost imperceptible roll of the eye; the toast being over-done, under-done, too early, not early enough. The minutiae of small failures tripped into an impressive collection, the way insignificant disappointments ferment into resentment between lovers till they can no longer bear to be together but cannot define exactly what pressure has pushed them apart. All three of us knew that I would not be working there much longer.

One morning in early May, the bell rang of a Saturday afternoon, a surprising sun casting boastful rays across the black and white tiles of the wide hallway, as if it too had joined in to celebrate my imminent termination of employment. I knew it would be my final weekend here, and I would, against my better judgement, give the owner of New Piccadilly Café a call after all. I turned the latch and opened the door.

Upon the step stood a man and a woman. She had a mane of strawberry blonde locks cascading in defiant curls past her shoulders. They bounced over the deep purple of her full-length woollen cardigan. Her long red chiffon slip beneath danced on the spring breeze by her bare feet, slipped into simple roman sandals. His beard was a thing to behold, waves of thick blond tuft with streaks of red. A wide-brimmed leather hat perched on his head at an angle. His heavy leather boots stamped a few times upon the mat, scraping off imaginary snow or the memory of yet another wet day. At once they reminded me of the painting in the window. Only this splash of color and verve came with its very own halo surround, courtesy of the bitter white sun.

I noticed I was staring just before they did, and stepped aside to let them in. The woman flashed me a wide smile, flicked the hair off her face and removed her shoes, before floating into the front room where Mr Benn had insisted I light a fire. She wrapped her arms around him, and I pretended not to notice when she kissed him on the lips and sat on his knee. So did the gentleman who accompanied her. He, rather, shook Mr George’s hand, who then nodded for me to open the wine.

I filled four glasses with prosecco and handed them out. Mr Benn and Mr George carried on talking. The man and the woman thanked me. I returned to the tray and lifted the small bowl of nuts Mr Benn had asked me to prepare. As I placed them upon the low table before the fire the woman reached out her hand. ‘Santina, aren’t you?’

I nodded, wanting to avoid conversation.

‘Henry,’ she began, turning to the man who had accompanied her, ‘this is Santina, darling. Oh she’s a pip. You’re like a Mediterranean stroll in the sun – you know you’ve found a beauty, don’t you, boys?’

Mr Benn and Mr George smiled, one lip each.

‘Santina, it’s a pleasure,’ she continued, whilst I squirmed. ‘We’ve heard a great deal about you. How exquisite to have a slice of Positano right here in North West London. Henry, darling, it fills me with a great deal of hope. It’s like a ray of sun through the fog.’

‘That’ll be the morning sun actually doing what it’s compelled to do,’ he answered, ‘quite naturally.’

The woman rolled her eyes and jumped up from Mr Benn’s lap.

‘Quite right – I’m not thinking straight at all – thank God for that! Who’d live a life through logic’s narrow lens, for crying out loud?’

‘I’ll drink to that!’ cried Mr George, and the four of them stood and clinked.

‘Go easy with the wine, Adeline,’ replied Henry, who I assumed was her husband. Though in this house, when guests appeared, it wasn’t always clear who belonged to whom. The boundaries I had become accustomed to back home were the suffused haze after a spring shower.

The woman’s hand slipped down to her abdomen. ‘Good heavens, I almost forgot! Yes, we’ve got some marvellous news, haven’t we?’

‘Indeed,’ Henry replied, catching my eye as he did so.

‘I shall be creating more than paintings this year, gentlemen!’ she cried, flinging her arms up at such a speed that she almost lost half the contents of her glass onto the Persian rug under-foot. ‘I am now producing humans also!’

It was hard to follow the conversation with accuracy, especially since I hadn’t been allowed into or out of it. I could understand that the willowy figure before me was pregnant. As she stood up it became so obvious that I wondered how I hadn’t noticed before.

‘Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Crabtree!’ cried Mr George.

‘That’ll be all, Santina,’ Mr Benn said, with an unnecessary hand wave, adding to all the other spoken and unspoken gestures tracing my paper-cut scars.

I shut the door behind me and went upstairs to pack.

The next morning Mr Benn and Mr George called me to the back parlor. I found Mr Benn by his grand piano, looking out toward the glass doors that led to their garden. He was puffing on a thin cigar. The smoke reached me in sorrowful swirls.

‘Santina, my dear. It will come as somewhat of a surprise, to me more than anyone, that we can no longer offer you employment.’

I gave a mute nod, unsure whether to express regret or surprise. Neither surfaced as it happened.

‘However, there are others in our circle who are more than willing to welcome you into their home and have you offer the tireless support you have given us, up till now.’

I glanced over at Mr George, but he was looking off toward an invisible horizon behind me.

‘Mr and Mrs Crabtree are keen for you to start with them right away. The Major, for that is how you must address him from now on, has assured me that he will, like us, arrange your papers for America after your first year.’

He left a pause here, which I knew he expected me to fill with grateful acceptance. I was happy that we were parting company with relative grace. Or, if not grace, at the very least that smooth veneer of some such, which I had intuited was an impeccable British habit. That evening they walked me down the hill toward the heart of Hampstead village to my new home.

Adeline and the Major’s house snuck into a slice of land between larger old brick homes at the convergence of two narrow lanes. Its layout was more warren than house, with low-ceilinged rooms leading onto one another in a maze of unexpected connections. Tudor beams hung crooked with age. Persian rugs overlapped one another in most of the rooms. A huge hearth stood in the main living room flanked by two sofas of different shades of velveteen violet. There were masks upon the wall, Indian gods and goddesses forever mid-chase, flaunting their half-clothed bodies or leering at the spectator. I’m ashamed to admit that I avoided looking at the one which hung by my bedroom door, so full were its wooden carved eyes of malice. Its pupils were painted red and black, and hair hung in sad curls, almost touching the wooden floorboards below.

At the far end of the house, squeezed in along one length of the courtyard garden, was Adeline’s studio. Small glass panes lined the upper section along the entirety of one side, letting in shafts of light from over the garden wall, which backed onto Christchurch Hill. The roof was formed of skylights, bathing the anarchic space in a wash of light. Several easels flanked the space, with unfinished canvases upon them, bright with moments of intense inspiration or drying paint. The floor was speckled with memories of Adeline’s expressive explosions. Even in her condition, she would hide away for days at a time, refusing food and rest. It frustrated the Major a great deal, but I suspected that her artistic endeavors overtook both their lives with a ferocity neither could tame nor understand, both succumbing to its seduction with varying degrees of resistance.