The Lake House

Alice and Deborah meet at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. It has become a ritual: Ever since Eleanor’s passing, the girls meet up once a year to take tea at the Victoria and Albert nearby. Alice is thinking about Sadie Sparrow, wondering if she contacted Deborah too. Alice is worried but figures that had Sadie contacted her sister, Deborah would have mentioned it, what with her husband’s political career and the desire to avoid all controversy and embarrassment. While waiting for Deborah, Alice thinks back on her father and his teaching her to be observant, how he would ask her to remember 10 things about a certain tree and then ask her about those things later. It took Alice a long time to realize that their mother was jealous of how close the girls were with their father. When Deborah arrives, Sadie doesn’t notice anything in her physiognomy that indicates she has received any startling communiques.

The two sisters catch up before Alice brings up the topic she wants to discuss. She asks Deborah about Loeanneth, introducing the subject very carefully, then asks about the night Theo disappeared. Alice remarks how strong their parents’ marriage was, how it survived the loss of a child. Deborah mentions that the night before she got married, Eleanor came to deliver a pep talk and quoted 1 Corinthians. Alice finds that puzzling. They reminisce more about Loeanneth. Alice asks Deborah if she remembers Ben Munro. Deborah says that she does not, and Alice breathes a sigh of relief.

Eleanor died shortly after Anthony in 1946. She was hit by a bus. Eleanor left Loeanneth to Alice. None of the girls wanted the estate. No one had been back there since Theo’s disappearance, but because Deborah was wealthy and Clemmie was dead, the estate reverted to Alice. Alice muses over how fitting it was that she be given Loeanneth, “a place she loved more than any other in the world but that the past rendered out of bounds” (155).

Alice goes home by subway and she thinks about Ben. She remembers how silly and in love she was, and how blind that love made her to his faults as well as her own. She thinks back to the Second World War and the last night she spent with Clemmie before she died in a plane crash (as a pilot for the Air Transport Auxiliary).

They discussed their childhood, briefly mentioning Theo. Clemmie brought up that she had seen the old gardener (meaning Ben, though not mentioning him by name) when he was on his way to France. Clemmie said she needed to talk to Alice about something, which frightened Alice immensely. Alice notices a painting on the wall, left by the apartment’s previous occupant, a painting of a ship in a storm. Clemmie narrated how she was on her way back to the house when she went by the boathouse and heard a man’s voice from within. Clemmie went to the window, but before she could finish telling Alice what she had seen, Clemmie nearly knocked the gin bottle from the table, interrupting the story. Alice used the interruption to her advantage and was able to avoid hearing what Clemmie had witnessed. Clemmie died two days later.

Peter is working on a biography of Alice for the publisher to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Alice’s first book. During his research, Peter notices a discrepancy in two interviews Alice had given in the past. In one interview Alice said she had never written anything prior to her Diggory Brent novels, whereas in another interview she mentioned keeping a journal and writing a novel when she was 16. Not believing that Alice had purposefully lied, he doesn’t know what to make of it.

When Alice gets home, Peter tells her that her sister Deborah called and left a message. Deborah told Peter to repeat her message to Alice verbatim: “She said to tell you that she did remember him, and that his name was Benjamin Munro” (164).

Theo Edevane awakes to the birds chirping outside. It is six minutes past five in the morning. The nanny is asleep. He wonders where the other nanny went. Clemmie walks in to the nursery. He is excited to see her. She lifts him from his cot. She tells him they’re going to go look at the planes.

Eleanor hears a squeak on the stairs, but she is too sleepy to truly be conscious of what she heard. A little later she awakens and remarks how hot it is already, and how it isn’t even seven yet. She remains in bed a while thinking about how she will have to become Mother soon. She thinks about her childhood, especially her father. She remembers how things changed when Anthony came back from the war. Eleanor knows it’s time to get up, but she isn’t quite ready for the crashing of the wave, which makes her remember what her father told her—the tide cannot be held back; it is inevitable. That was the morning he told her he was ill and made her promise to remember who she was after he’d gone: “‘remember to remain good and brave and true.’ The much-loved line from Eleanor’s Magic Doorway” (171). Eleanor brushes the thought from her mind and focuses on what needs to be done. Daisy arrives with breakfast.

Constance is outside Dairy open the curtains, remarking how much she doesn’t like the girl. Constance watches the preparations in action, noting how the estate is already a hive of action, readying for the evening’s celebrations. She remarks how good senility is as camouflage, giving her the ability to quietly observe and pass judgment. She does not like Daffyd Llewellyn at all. She is glad that Nanny Bruen is back. She did not like Nanny Rose or how familiar she behaved with Anthony and Eleanor. She notices Clemmie leaving with Theo.

Clemmie takes the narrow path into the woods. She thinks about how her sisters have left her behind as they have grown older. She remembers not being excited about Theo’s birth, but she cannot now imagine life without him. Near the lake, Clemmie searches for the perfect skipping stone. She thinks about her sisters and life at Loeanneth. She is trying hard not to think about what she saw in the boathouse, the naked bodies. She told Deborah what she had seen. Deborah had comforted her then and promised to talk to Alice about it. The thoughts make Clemmie frown, which makes Theo frown. She realizes how much influence she has over her little brother.

Ben stops mowing because the mower is malfunctioning. He looks up at the house and feels the longing he always does when he looks that way. He reprimands himself for those feelings. He has crossed far too many lines. Even though he could renew his contract and continue working at Loeanneth, he told Mr. Harris that he can’t because of family business. Mr. Harris didn’t ask any further questions. Ben remembers the spot where Alice first read to him. He didn’t think much of her at first, but she’s grown on him. She helped make his adult worries disappear. He rereads the letter she gave him. She has a wonderful way with words. He will miss Loeanneth. He will miss Alice. He remembers what Alice told him about the midsummer party: “the bigger the Midsummer fire, the better a man’s luck in the year to come” (183).

Sadie meets up with Clive Robinson, the surviving officer from the original Edevane case. He tells her that he’s been waiting for her, which startles Sadie because those are also the words the old man says to Eleanor in Eleanor’s Magic Doorway, but Clive meant that he’s been waiting for someone to reopen the case. He still thinks about the case a lot.

Sadie interviews Clive, asking him “why” questions, questions she tends to avoid. Donald once told her that the why of a crime is for “fiction writers and TV detectives” (187), but this case has too little evidence to focus purely on the “how.” Plus, the new map showing the tunnel changes things tremendously, so Sadie is willing to make an exception. Sadie bounces theories off of Clive, ideas about whether Eleanor or Anthony might have lied about something; about Daffyd Llewellyn, whom she learns committed suicide shortly after Theo’s disappearance; and about whether Clemmie had something to do with it. Clive debunks every idea and theory with evidence to the contrary.

Sadie feels close to Clive and, against her inhibitions, shares with him what happened with the Bailey case, how she leaked to the newspapers that she felt her department handled the case poorly, and that the truth was still undiscovered. Clive reveals to Sadie that he has “borrowed” the Edevane Case file from the police archives, stating that it wasn’t doing any good in storage and that it was his case, after all, his responsibility.

Sadie looks at a photo of the family and learns of Nanny Rose and why she fired; the reasons for Rose’s dismissal were vague. Sadie asks Clive if Rose had been a suspect. Clive answers that at the time everyone and no one was a suspect. Clive mentions that many stated that Rose loved Theo as if he were her own son. This makes Sadie excited. Clive says that wasn’t uncommon for the time, especially with so many war casualties making marriage difficult for some. He doesn’t feel Rose would have abducted Theo. Clive mentions that Eleanor felt remorse for firing Rose. Had Rose been there that night watching over Theo, he never could have gone missing because she kept such a watchful eye over him.

The two of them discuss searching the house. Sadie wants to do it the legal way, with Alice’s permission. Clive is suspicious of Alice because of how calm, cool, and collected she was during her interview, and because he later caught her eavesdropping on the other interviews. When he asked her about it, she denied everything, but he recalls her face paled and went white. He doesn’t believe she will give them permission, but if she doesn’t, he knows the man in charge of the keys and watching over the grounds. He could let them into the house.