Read A Hidden Life for Free Online

forced you to do that. You have a duty to look after your daughter and not farm her out to someone else. How do you know you won’t scar her for life if you leave her with other people during her infancy?
Lou blinked and made an effort not to think about her grandmother, but that was impossible.
    Earlier, she’d felt frozen. All the way back to London on the train, she couldn’t get her head round what had happened at Milthorpe. Her thoughts seemed to come up against a wall of ice and fall away to nothing. Now, Lou noticed that she’d spilled a little tea on the table. She dipped her finger into the liquid and traced a pattern with her finger on the yellow Formica. That’ll have to go soon, she thought, I can’t live with that colour much longer. She took a deep breath and considered what Constance had done.
    She’s disinherited me, Lou thought, and the word with its echoes of Victorian novels frightened her a little. It was a final word, a harsh one. It meant – what did it mean? That Constance didn’t just not get on with me, that she didn’t just like or love me less than Nessa and Justin, but that she hated me. It wouldn’t have been enough for her to give me less, she had to give me something which everyone could see she thought was rubbish and which would tell them that I was less than nothing in her eyes. Not even as much as Mum, whom she’d never liked and who’d got fobbed off with glass and china when Ellie had walked away with an armful of jewellery worth a fortune. She’s punishing me, Lou decided.
    What about Milthorpe House? Did she care about the house? Beyond its financial worth, what did it really mean to her? Apart from the insult, would not setting foot there ever again truly matter? Lou had never considered what would happen to the house when her grandparents were dead. You couldn’t imagine Constance not being there, and now that she was gone Lou realized that the place she carried always in her mind was more important than the bricks andmortar; more important than the garden and the land surrounding the property.
    The best days of her childhood were spent there, but all the best memories were of her grandfather and no spiteful bequests could take them away. Grandad was always in the hall to meet her when Dad drove her up there for the day, or to stay overnight. Fresh flowers everywhere meant that the hall was filled with fragrance. Constance saw to that, making sure that Alfie, the gardener, and his son, Derek, kept everything up to scratch so that she could fill the vases with whatever was in season. The roses were best of all:
your grandmother’s pride and joy,
Grandad called them.
    The best room in the house was Grandad’s study.
    â€˜What on earth do you find to do up there?’ Constance often asked, and Grandad would say, ‘All sorts of things, darling. Isn’t that right, Lou?’
    She’d nodded, and once or twice she’d noticed Constance’s lips tightening in disapproval. Sometimes she gave a not-quite-silent sigh. She was, Lou understood now, jealous. How astonishing! Grandad worshipped his wife. He was in awe of her. The story about how he was struck dumb by her beauty when he first saw her
(He just stood there staring at me with his eyes popping out of his head and blushing like a rose)
were common family currency. As was the tale of how Constance fell in love with him too, so completely that she didn’t listen to anyone who advised her against this hasty match, but married him in spite of her family’s disapproval. She told this part of the story now as though she’d made a mistake; as though her life would have been different and better if she’d heeded her parents’ wishes.
    By the time Lou knew Constance, she was the one who ruled the house and Grandad did exactly what she told him to in almost every department of their lives. She was the one who decided who to invite to