Secrets of the Lighthouse Read Free Page B

unfamiliar airport and her resolve weakened. She rather wished she were back home in Eaton Court, in spite of having gone to such trouble to escape.
    ‘Ellen!’ a voice exclaimed from behind. She swung around to see a keen, shiny face beaming excitedly up at her. ‘Just look at you! Aren’t you a picture of glamour!’
Ellen was surprised her aunt spoke with such a strong Irish accent when her mother spoke like the Queen. ‘I knew it was you the minute I saw you coming through the door. So like your
mother!’ Aunt Peg looked like a smiling egg, with short, spiky grey hair and big blue eyes that sparkled irreverently. Ellen was relieved to see her and bent down to kiss her cheek. Peg held
her in a firm grip and pressed her face to her niece’s. The woman smelt of lily of the valley and wet dog. ‘I hope you had a good flight, pet,’ she continued breathlessly,
releasing her. ‘On time, which is a boon these days. Come, let’s go to the car. Ballymaldoon is a couple of hours’ drive, so if you need to use the lav, you’d better go now.
Though of course we can stop at a petrol station on the way. Are you hungry? They probably didn’t give you much to eat on the plane. I always take sandwiches from home. I can’t bear the
cheese they put in theirs. It tastes like rubber, don’t you think?’
    Ellen let her aunt drag her suitcase across the hall. She was quick to notice her sturdy lace-up boots and the thick brown trousers she had tucked into shooting socks. Aunt Peg lived in a bog
after all, Ellen thought despondently. Judging by her coarse, weathered hands, she no doubt chopped her own firewood and did all her own gardening as well.
    ‘You’re not at all like Mum,’ she blurted before she could stop herself.
    ‘Well, I’m much older for a start and we’ve always been very different,’ her aunt replied, without a hint of displeasure. The two women hadn’t spoken in
thirty-three years, but Aunt Peg did not look like the sort of person to hold a grudge. Ellen’s mother, on the other hand, was the sort of woman for whom a grudge was a common complaint.
    Lady Anthony Trawton was not a woman to be crossed. Ellen was well acquainted with the thinning of her lips, the upturning of her nose and the little disapproving sniff that always followed. It
didn’t take much to incite her disapproval, but being the ‘wrong sort’ of person was the
worst
sort of crime. Ellen had been a rebellious teenager, unlike her
golden-haired sisters who were paragons of virtue at best and bland at worst. They hadn’t needed moulding, because for some reason they had come out just as their mother had wished: obedient,
pretty and gracious, with their father’s weak chin, fair hair and slightly bulging eyes. Ellen, by contrast, had a wild and creative nature, exacerbated by her mother’s unreasonable
objection to her independence, as if striking out on her own would somehow turn her into the ‘wrong sort’ of person. With her raven-coloured hair and rebellious disposition, she was the
quirk in what might otherwise have been a picture-perfect family. But Ellen was hard to mould; her mother had tried, pushing her every which way through the hole designed for proper aristocratic
young ladies, and for a while Ellen had acquiesced and allowed herself to be pushed. It had been easier to surrender and give up the struggle – a relief, almost. But a woman can only go
against her nature for a limited time before unhappiness overwhelms her and forces her into her own shape again. Ellen couldn’t determine the exact moment when she had decided she had had
enough, but her flight to Ireland was the result of a lifelong struggle for freedom.
    Aunt Peg hadn’t attended either of Ellen’s sisters’ weddings, even though Leonora had married an earl and Lavinia a baronet – anything less would have provoked a
substantial snort from their mother – and her name was never mentioned. Ellen had picked up enough snippets of