The Lake House

Alice leaves a curt note telling Peter that she has gone out, which Peter finds very odd because it is out of character for Alice. In fact, she has been behaving oddly for a while now, ever since the letter from the police officer and the call from Deborah.

Peter still needs to determine the truth between the two contradictory interviews Alice gave earlier in her career. Alice is a creature of habit and never throws away her journals. Ascertaining the truth means looking through her notebooks. Peter ascends the stairs to do just that but can’t help feeling like a snoop. He reminds himself that it is, after all, all part of his job, and Alice already told him that she didn’t want to be bothered with the project.

Upstairs in Alice’s office, Peter finds the notebooks for the correct dates and discovers that many pages are missing; they have been torn out. He also notices repeated use of the initials BM. Peter spots mail on Alice’s desk and discovers that she has been secretly gathering the mail on her own, something she has never done before. There is another envelope from Sadie Sparrow. Now he really is snooping, he feels, but sits down and reads the letter anyway.

Alice walks through a park on her way to meet Deborah, who had initiated the unconventional request to meet. Alice plans on denying everything. Deborah, on the phone, had mentioned Nanny Rose and how odd it was that she left so suddenly. Alice regrets having mentioned the past at their last meeting. Alice suspects that Sadie has learned of the tunnel. Why else would she continue to ask questions? Alice wasn’t the only one who knew about that tunnel back in 1933. Her parents knew; Grandmother deShiel knew; her sisters and Nanny Rose knew.

Alice remembers the past, back during World War II, and how different things were. All of the Edevane sisters volunteered to help the war effort in one way or another. She remembers Ben and his itinerant nature and how odd and fascinating she found him and his way of life, so different from her own. Ben gave her another perspective on life. She remembers Ben’s childhood friend, Florence, and his desire to help her and her husband, who had fallen on tough times. At one point he confided to her that he would do anything to get the money necessary to help his friend.

Alice’s thoughts turn to Clemmie. She muses how different life could have been had Clemmie been born later. There are so many more opportunities these days for women like her. Alice remembers how much Clemmie changed the summer that Theo disappeared. Alice recalls how Clemmie gave up hope that Theo would return and reflects that if Clemmie gave up hope, then there was no hope to be had.

Alice is walking faster than normal and has to slow herself down. She is near a playground where she and Clemmie used to play when they were younger. It was 1938 and Clemmie mentioned her intention to take flying lessons. Clemmie had really wanted to go join the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, but their mother had hindered her so that she never went. One day a little later, Clemmie told Alice, “‘He’s still alive, you know.’ It turned out that she hadn’t given up hope, after all” (234).

Alice pictures the exact day and finds the exact spot where Clemmie spoke those words. Clemmie mentioned how there had never been a ransom note, meaning that whoever took Theo liked him and wanted to keep him. Alice hadn’t wanted to burst Clemmie’s bubble of hope, but she didn’t believe it was possible. Clemmie theorized that a man had taken Theo, a man who had desperately wanted a son of his own but couldn’t have one, and when he saw Theo, he took advantage of the situation. Alice feels that Clemmie’s theory had a lot to do with Deborah’s troubles of being married for five years without being pregnant, but Clemmie’s theory is also her coping mechanism. She told Alice, “I can live with my own grief when I think of him happy” (236). Alice knew it wasn’t possible, however; the reason there was never a ransom note was because the kidnapping went terribly wrong. It was, after all, exactly how she had planned it.

Alice’s plan coincides with her obsession with Agatha Christie novels. Alice feels she has come up with the perfect crime story. She can’t wait to talk to Ben about it. Her book is going to be about a kidnapping for money. The kidnapper will be a man in desperate need of funds. As a twist, of course, the kidnapped boy will have to die. Ben wants to know why a boy and not a girl. Alice explains that boys are worth more since they are the inheritors and what not. Ben wants to know why the boy has to die. Alice explains that it’s a murder mystery and that she is following the rules of murder mysteries as stated in Mr. Knox’s book, Best Detective Stories. She explains a few more of the rules for him. As Alice explains things to Ben, Ben spies Eleanor. Alice tells Ben not to worry, but she knows that the two of them need to be careful. Ben playfully tells her to get lost and write her masterpiece.

As Alice crosses Kensington Road in the present, she spots an advertisement for Swan Lake and muses how she would like to see it. Alice thinks about the past again and about her mother. She remembers talking to Eleanor about a play, An Inspector Calls. It was the last conversation they had. Ben was wrong, Alice thinks. People change, they leave, they die; places are reliable, not people.

Alice’s thoughts return to Ben and how she used him as a sounding board to discuss her ideas and refine her murder mystery. Eventually the man in her story teams up with a woman who helps him with the kidnapping. When Ben asks why she would do that, Alice responds that it is because of her love for him. However, when the woman takes the boy, she begins to love the child and wants to keep him rather than ransom him back. Alice has the idea that the child dies in the struggle between the man and woman. Pleased with herself, she says, “‘Oh, Ben…’ She reached out impulsively to squeeze his hand. ‘It’s perfect’” (249).

In the present, Alice arrives at Deborah’s house. Alice considers confessing all she knows to her sister, confessing that she knows Ben took Theo, that it was her idea, that she told Ben about the tunnel. Deborah greets Alice at the door; Alice is suspicious that Deborah answers the door and not the maid. Alice presents her sister with a gift of flowers. They exchange pleasantries. Alice braces herself for the confession. Just when she is about to tell Deborah, Deborah interrupts her: She wants to confess. She tells Alice that she knows what happened to Theo, saying, “It was my fault, you see. Everything that happened was my fault” (256).

Sadie goes to talk to Dr. Margot Sinclair, Nanny Rose’s great-niece. Margot is the headmistress of a fancy public school. Before the interview, Sadie discussed her theory of Theo being kidnapped by his biological mother with Bertie, who was a little dubious. Sadie is a few minutes early, and so she waits for Margot outside her office door. When they meet, Margot is the picture of professionalism. Sadie remembers Donald’s disdain for the overly educated. She quickly asks Margot about Rose, as time is short (Margot has another appointment directly afterward), and discovers that Margot’s postdoctoral dissertation was based heavily on her great-aunt’s work in education. After leaving the Edevanes, Rose eventually obtained an education with the money the Edevanes gave her as part of her severance package. She later even became a headmistress. Sadie asks Margot if she knows about a secret pregnancy. Margot does indeed, but Sadie’s assumption is wrong. Rose did not have a boy; she had a girl, and the girl, as Margot confesses, was her mother. Because of Rose’s situation, she had sent her daughter to live with her sister. Sadie’s theory crumbles. Sadie then asks whether Margot knows or believes that Rose could have had an affair with Anthony. Margot does not and explains that Rose’s closeness to Anthony was her caring for the man who was in shell shock from the war. Rose’s father had been through something similar, and so she knew a bit about Anthony’s suffering.

The interview comes to an end, but the fact that Anthony suffered from shell shock gets Sadie thinking about a new possibility.

Eleanor treats herself to tea at the Liberty. She has just seen a doctor about acquiring possible help for Anthony’s shell shock trauma. Anthony has been struggling. They have seen so many doctors. Anthony no longer has any hope that he’ll ever feel better. In fact, he now refuses to visit doctors with her. Eleanor muses about the fact that she told the girls she was traveling to London to visit a dressmaker, and that her girls view her as Mother.

Eleanor sees another woman holding the hand of a young boy, and she yearns for another child, a son. She feels like the queen in Mr. Llewellyn’s story who craved a child so much she made a deal with the devil. Eleanor forces herself to look away. She quickly pays her bill and leaves.

The train station is busy. Eleanor wants to return Anthony’s ticket, not for a refund but so that someone else can use it. Eleanor thinks back on her many experiences at train stations: her first meeting with Anthony, lemonade in the Baker Street Underground, the 1914 morning when she waved goodbye to Anthony on his way to France. Eleanor remembers the difficult discussion they had before his departure, when Anthony said he had to join because “if a man cannot be useful to his country, he is better off dead” (276).

The first letters she received from him were emotionless; they read more like reports from the front than anything else. However, during his Christmas furlough, she got him to open up more about what was going on and his feelings. After that his letters home changed, and she wasn’t sure it was for the better. Then the day came when Howard was killed. Anthony’s letters became very despondent and morose. But in the end, he returned.

The whistle blows. The train is about to leave. Anthony’s first flashback occurred on a normal, peaceful day. Eleanor was playing with the dog, Edwina, but when the dog went off barking, chasing a duck, Anthony snapped and attacked the dog, trying to quiet it, holding the dog’s muzzle firmly shut. His eyes were wild with anger and fear. She was able to pull him back to reality. It was a shock to everyone. She comforted him. Later that night, they talked about what had happened. Anthony was afraid of his loss of control, afraid that he would someday hurt one of the children. He makes Eleanor promise that she will never let him hurt them, even if it means hurting him instead. She promises.