Hore - A Gathering Storm

Rachel Hore worked in London publishing for many years before moving with her family to Norwich, where she teaches publishing at the University of East Anglia. She is married to writer D. J. Taylor and they have three sons. Her previous novels are The Dream House , The Memory Garden , The Glass Painters Daughter , which was shortlisted for the 2010 Romantic Novel of the Year award, and A Place of Secrets , which was picked by Richard and Judy for their book club. A Gathering Storm is her fifth novel.

Praise for Rachel Hores novels: A Place of Secrets

Rachel Hores intriguing Richard and Judy recommended read... is layered with a series of mysteries, some more supernatural than others

Independent Sumptuous prose, deft plotting, lush settings, troubling personal histories, tragedy, heady romance and even a smattering of eighteenth-century scientific wonderment mark Hores fourth novel as her most accomplished and enthralling yet Daily Mirror The Glass Painters Daughter

Fans of Possession and Labyrinth will recognize the careful historical research Hore has undertaken and enjoy the seamless blend of past and present narratives into one beautiful story Waterstones Books Quarterly The Memory Garden

With her second novel, Rachel Hore proves she does place and setting as well as romance and relationships. Tiny, hidden Lamorna Cove in Cornwall is the backdrop to two huge tales of illicit passion and thwarted ambition... Clever stuff Daily Mirror Rachel Hore knows the tricks of her trade and keeps the pages turning by adding a hint of a past mystery, too. Cleverly done Now Pitched perfectly for a holiday read Guardian The Dream House

The Dream House is a book that so many of us will identify with. Moving from frenzied city to peaceful countryside is something so many of us dream of. Rachel Hore has explored the dream and exposed it in the bright light of reality, with repercussions both tragic and uplifting, adding her own dose of magic. Its engrossing, pleasantly surprising and thoroughly readable Santa Montefiore I enjoyed it enormously and was genuinely disappointed when I got to the end, having read deep into the night to finish it because I couldnt put it down! I was completely drawn into the plot. I thought it a wonderfully evocative and cleverly woven story Barbara Erskine

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2011.
A CBS Company.

Copyright Rachel Hore 2011

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. and 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

The right of Rachel Hore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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ISBN 978-1-84983-288-5
eBook ISBN 978-1-84983-289-2

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

Typeset in Palatino by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire

For my brother David

South London, March 2000

Slipping into the chapel, softly as a wraith, Beatrice found a seat at the back. Aimless organ music was playing, but she hardly noticed, for she was putting on her spectacles and examining the Order of Service the usher had given her. There was a photograph of Angelina on the front, and the sight of it tugged her straight back into the past.

It was a picture she remembered well, a snapshot Beatrice herself had taken in Cornwall, on Carlyon beach, just before the war, when Angie was seventeen. Angies mother had framed it and kept it on the grand piano in Carlyon Manor. From it, Angelina gazed out across the years, laughing, beautiful, and bathed in sunlight.

As Beatrice stared into those luminous eyes she felt a hot lava of longing and resentment rise inside. She laid the card face down beside her on the pew. She thought shed mastered these feelings long ago, wrestled them down during many nights of torment. Now she knew that she was wrong: beneath the veneer of good sense, the passions of the past still raged. She closed her eyes, trying to collect her thoughts. She should never have come. But there was someone she needed to see.

Beatrice opened her eyes and looked around. The pews in the crematorium were nearly but not quite full. As her gaze wandered over the rows she noticed they were filled mostly with people of her own generation, the women proper in hats, the old men florid or shrunken inside their dark suits, some, the old war-horses, with medals glinting. There was no one she recognized. Finally, she allowed herself to look towards the front, sitting up a little straighter, craning her neck. At the top of the aisle was the coffin, piled high with blue and white flowers, but her eyes slid over this. Her pulse quickened.

For there they were. It must be them, though it was difficult to be sure from behind. A middle-aged woman with frizzy hair tinted blonde and tied back with ribbon, her crushed-velvet coat of midnight blue cut in a flamboyant style. The man in a crow-black overcoat, his dark hair, Beatrice noticed tenderly, streaked with grey. It was astonishing, she thought, that Tom must be getting on for sixty. And between them, a girl of perhaps sixteen, who kept turning round to look at everything, so that Beatrice had plenty of opportunity to study her pointed chin, her turned-up nose and the lively expression in her stubby-lashed brown eyes. Lucy, it was.

And now the congregation was rising to its feet as the minister, his white robes flying, hastened to the front, and the organist started the first hymn. Beatrice grasped the back of the pew in front for support and tried to focus on the words. But she found no strength to sing.

The comforting words of the liturgy washed over her. She hardly noticed them, so intent was she on watching the small family in the front row. Lucy stroked her fathers arm but he barely acknowledged her. There was something lonely about the way he stood, shoulders hunched, head bowed.

And now everyone was sitting down again and Tom was moving to the lectern, so that she saw his face for the first time. So absolutely like his fathers. It was the pallor of his skin, the steady way he pushed on his spectacles, his quiet demeanour as he contemplated his audience. But when, finally, he began to speak, his voice was utterly his own, deep and so low she had to strain to catch the words. And what he had to say astonished her.

My mother Angelina Cardwell, Tom said, was one of the most beautiful... and here he smiled at his wife and daughter in the front row... and certainly the bravest woman I have ever known. That didnt sound right. Shed never thought of Angie in that light before. Beautiful, yes, but brave? What did he mean?... a difficult life, she heard him continue. The tragic deaths of her brother and mother, her husbands health problems... The volume of the words ebbed and flowed in that soft bass voice. It was, I know, a disappointment that I was her only child, and I was always aware of how precious I was. He glanced up at his audience. Many of you will know how she struggled in her later years with illness. This too she bore with great courage, never more so than after the death of my father. Beautiful and brave she was, but I also valued my mother for her loyalty. She was a devoted mother and wife and, as all the letters Ive received since her death bear witness, a warm and loving friend. I was proud to be her son.