A Season of Secrets (11 page)

‘And is she dead now? And is Effie’s mother and Effie dead now?’ Olivia’s eyes had been wide and dark with fear.

‘Effie’s mother and Effie aren’t dead. There’s no telling as to Effie’s sister.’

‘Then Mama won’t die, either. And neither will we.’ The relief in Olivia’s voice had been vast.

Cook had made them comforting mugs of milky cocoa and given them warm scones sandwiched with raspberry jam. Then, not knowing what else to do, they had sat outside on Gorton Hall’s wide
pillared steps, waiting for the moment when Dr Todd would emerge en route to his car and tell them that the person they loved most in all the world was well on the road to recovery.

Twilight had fallen.

Evening had come.

When the door had finally opened, it hadn’t been Dr Todd who had emerged into the moonlit darkness. It had been Heaton. One look at his face had been enough for them to know the news he
was bringing.

Olivia had screamed and jumped to her feet.

Thea had stood up slowly, her face as still and set as if it had been carved from stone.

Rozalind hadn’t moved. She couldn’t. Movement had been beyond her.

When finally she had followed Thea and Olivia into the house, it had been to the sight of her uncle walking down the grand curving staircase to meet them. Beneath the burning red of his hair,
his face had been grey. He was a man who had been poleaxed; a man who simply couldn’t believe what he was living through was real.

‘I want you to be very brave,’ he had said when he had reached the foot of the stairs and enfolded Thea and Olivia in his arms. ‘Mama would expect it of you.’

Olivia had sobbed uncontrollably.

Thea had said with steel in her voice: ‘I want to see Mama. I want to say goodbye to her.’

‘You can all come and say goodbye to her,’ he had said, ‘but you mustn’t kiss her. You mustn’t run any risk of catching the infection.’ He had looked over
Thea’s head to Rozalind. ‘Violet is in the drawing room with Miss Cumberbatch. Would you ask her to join us, Rozalind? And please tell Miss Cumberbatch the reason why.’

She had nodded, her throat too tight for speech, unable to envisage Gorton Hall without her aunt. Unable even to begin envisaging the effect her aunt’s death was going to have on her uncle
and cousins.

Roz was brought sharply back to the present moment by Thea springing to her feet and saying fiercely, ‘I wish Carrie was here, Roz! It’s so hateful having a friend
who can’t be with you when you need her to be. If she has to be in service, why does it have to be with Lady Markham? Why can’t she be in service at Gorton and here?’

It was a rhetorical question. They all knew exactly why Carrie could never be in service at Gorton.

As Thea walked up the curving staircase with Rozalind she said, ‘Carrie and I have a plan,’ her cat-green eyes narrowing as they always did when she was stubbornly determined on
anything. ‘She has already worked her way up from being a tweeny, via being a housemaid, to being a parlourmaid – which isn’t surprising when you think how capable and
hard-working Carrie is. Her next aim is to be promoted from parlourmaid to chambermaid duties – and because, thanks to us and when she wants to, she can speak without a Yorkshire accent and
is so presentable, that’s bound to happen before very long. Who would you like to have in and out of your bedroom? Carrie, or some of the horrors that our housekeeper at Gorton has employed
over the last five years?’

Rozalind didn’t trouble to answer Thea’s question. Instead, as they made their way to the ballroom to see how the flowers there had been put to good use, she said, ‘And then
what? How is Carrie one day being a chambermaid going to help us see more of her?’

They sidestepped two footmen laden with piles of starched white table linen.

‘Because her final aim is to be a lady’s maid. Lady Markham’s maid has been with her forever, so there won’t be an opening for such a position at Monkswood, but if Lydia
Markham’s maid is allowed to train Carrie – and I’ll make sure Papa asks her if she will permit that – then Carrie can become my lady’s maid. Lady’s maids hold a
senior position. There won’t be any trouble at Gorton – or here – from other members of staff. And Carrie will be with me nearly every minute of the day.’

They paused at the open double doors to the ballroom. Inside, footmen were setting up music stands for the orchestra that would be arriving in a few hours’ time. A professional florist was
supervising the arranging of the Gorton-grown white roses over and around enormous gilt-framed mirrors. Crystal chandeliers, taken down for cleaning, were now being laboriously winched back into
position.

‘And Hal?’ Rozalind asked. ‘How is Hal going to feel about Carrie fetching and carrying, and doing your hair and caring for your clothes?’

Thea avoided Rozalind’s eyes. ‘He’ll understand. He’ll have to. How else are any of us ever going to get to spend time with Carrie? Besides, Carrie doesn’t see
being in service the same way Hal sees it. He thinks it’s demeaning and that it reinforces the kind of class differences he hates. Carrie doesn’t think of it that way. She doesn’t
want to man the barricades and become a socialist and change the world. She wants what she has always wanted. She wants to be in service – and she wants to be in service at Gorton
Hall.’

Rozalind was sure Thea was right about Carrie, but she didn’t think she was right in assuming that Hal would be understanding if Carrie one day became her maid. Far from being
understanding, Rozalind was quite certain Hal would be absolutely furious, and she thought it typical of Thea not to realize this. Whenever Rozalind visited Gorton, which was for a couple of months
every summer, the only spats that ever took place between the five of them were always between Thea and Hal. Though if Carrie went into service at Gorton as Thea’s personal maid, it
wouldn’t just be a spat that would take place between them, it would be an all-out blistering row – the kind of row that could well put an end to their friendship.

Mindful that it was a very special day for Thea, Rozalind didn’t think it a good time to point this out. Instead she said, ‘Hal is going to be here tonight, isn’t he? Reporting
on the ball for the
Richmond Times
?’

Thea, who had seen enough of what was happening in the ballroom to know that it was going to look splendid that evening, turned away from the open double doors.

‘Yes.’ Her voice was taut. ‘It wasn’t my idea – and it certainly wasn’t Hal’s. Papa thought that if Hal attended my coming-out ball in order to cover
it, it would be a scoop for Hal and would help his career. Without a word to me – or to Hal – he put the idea to Hal’s editor, who leapt at it. Why wouldn’t he, when so many
of Papa’s governmental friends are going to be in attendance, and when the Duke and Duchess of York are the guests of honour?’

At the bitterness in her voice, Rozalind’s eyes widened.

Thea stamped her foot. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Roz! It’s taken Hal three years to move from reporting weddings, funerals and lost dogs to reporting on Richmond
city-council matters and now, thanks to Papa, he’s likely to lose his local-politics slot and be given frivolous high-society events instead!’

Appalled at Thea’s depth of feeling, Rozalind sought something to say that would put Thea in a mood appropriate for the specialness of the day. Before inspiration came, Violet, on
roller-skates and undeterred by the carpet underfoot, came whizzing down the wide corridor towards them.

‘Oh,
God!
’ Thea said with deep passion. ‘Keep that wretched child out of my hair, Roz. And if anyone asks where I am, say I’ve gone for a walk.’

Without pausing to put on a hat, she marched off, hands clenched in the pockets of a mid-calf-length navy suit, the heels of her shoes high, her hair cut in the shortest, sleekest shingle that
Rozalind had ever seen.

She headed straight out of the house and down the street in the direction of Park Lane and Hyde Park, the backs of her eyes burning with tears.

She needed to be alone. If she’d stayed another second with Rozalind she would have told her just what the true state of affairs between her and Hal was – and if she told Roz, then
she would also have to tell Olivia and Carrie, and she had no idea how any of them would react.

She walked towards Hyde Park Corner, entering the park at the Achilles gate. Roz would probably take the news with more equanimity than Olivia or Carrie, but then Roz’s relationship with
Hal was far more uncomplicated than Olivia’s and Carrie’s because, unlike Olivia, Roz didn’t have an embarrassingly obvious crush on him. As for Carrie . . .

Thea dug her hands even deeper into her pockets. Carrie and Hal were as close as brother and sister – but that didn’t mean to say that Carrie didn’t expect their relationship
to change into something far different in the near future. It would be what people in Outhwaite, people like Jim and Charlie and Carrie’s granny, were expecting to happen – and why
not?

A marriage between Hal and Carrie would raise no eyebrows. There would be no class differences to overcome. True, if Hal hadn’t worked so hard to better himself educationally,
Carrie’s granny might well have been unhappy at the thought of Carrie marrying him. Mrs Thornton had, after all, been a nanny in the household of a peer of the realm and, in working-class
hierarchy, that counted for a lot. She might well have been unhappy at the thought of her granddaughter marrying a man whose only prospect in life was to one day inherit a tied smallholding.

As it was, though, Hal had made it very clear that wasn’t going to happen. Encouraged by Miss Calvert, he had become a cub-reporter on the
Richmond Times
when he was fifteen. Now,
three years later, he spent most of his time in the council chamber of the town hall, reporting on local politics. As a husband for Carrie he would, in her granny’s eyes, be ideal. And
he’d probably be ideal in Carrie’s eyes, too.

Deep in unhappy, complicated thoughts and, because of being hatless and unescorted in such a public place, attracting many curious glances, Thea strode on towards the Serpentine, her hands still
rammed into the shallow pockets of her suit jacket. Did Carrie expect Hal to propose to her one day? And, if he didn’t, would Carrie’s heart be broken?’

Even more to the point, as Hal was adamant he was never going to ask anyone to marry him, was her own heart going to be broken as well?

The lake came into view, its surface glittering grey and green beneath the hot sun. Shaded by parasols, couples and families strolled along its banks. Having no desire to join them, Thea seated
herself on an unoccupied park bench and, with her face raised to the sun and her eyes closed, considered her dilemma.

She was madly, passionately, violently in love with Hal. Though Hal had not yet admitted that he felt the same way about her, it was, she was certain, only a matter of time before he did so. And
then what would happen? How could they become engaged when the class gulf between them yawned as deep as a chasm and when marriage was something Hal didn’t believe in?

‘Marriage is as old hat as Liberalism,’ he had once said when they were sitting on the river-bank, their arms clasped around their knees.

Olivia and Carrie had been out of earshot, paddling in the shallows with fishing nets, their skirts hitched high. When such moments occurred he would take full advantage of them, pulling her
against him and kissing her swift and hard. They were moments that made her head spin and her heart race; moments when every atom of her being melted with longing. On this occasion, though, he had
made no move towards her. Instead he had merely turned his head to hers, his blue-black curls tumbling low over his forehead, his gold-flecked eyes goadingly provocative, as he’d added,
‘Why would any sane person want to commit to tying themselves to one person for life?’

She’d known then that he knew what her fantasy for their future was, and because he didn’t share it – because he should have been stunned with grateful incredulity for what it
was that she wanted for them both, and because he was so clearly neither grateful nor incredulous – her rage and hurt pride had been incandescent.

‘They do it because that’s what people who love each other do!’ she’d stormed, springing to her feet, uncaring that Olivia and Carrie had stopped trawling the water with
their nets and were staring towards them in consternation. ‘And if you don’t understand that, Hal Crosby, then you’re stupid beyond belief!’

Without even unclasping his hands from around his knees he’d cracked with laughter. Olivia and Carrie had begun noisily splashing their way towards the river-bank. Fearful of what
explanation for her angry outburst Hal, in his present mood, might give, Thea had done the only thing she could think of in order to save her dignity. She’d stalked off, her head high, her
nails digging deep into her palms.

Now, seated on one of Hyde Park’s benches in the glittering afternoon sun, the thought of the endurance test lying ahead of her that evening aroused in her the same level of angry,
frustrated impotence. That her well-meaning father had suggested to Hal’s editor that Hal should attend her coming-out ball in order to write an exclusive account of it was bad enough. What
was infinitely worse was Hal’s editor thinking it a good idea. Coming-out balls, presentations to royalty and all the razzmatazz that went with being a debutante were a red rag to a bull,
where Hal was concerned.

‘A summer-long spree of champagne lunches, seven-course dinners, lavish parties and balls that cost a king’s ransom is a flagrant example of the aristocracy with its feet in the
trough,’ he had said contemptuously.

It hadn’t helped that until now she had always assured him that his views were hers. Trying to convince her father that she didn’t want an official Season had, however, been
impossible. Usually infinitely understanding, on the subject of her coming-out Gilbert had been immovable.

‘I know that, thanks to your friendship with Hal, you like to think of yourself as being outrageously left-wing, Thea, but on this occasion I can’t indulge you,’ he had said
gravely. ‘For girls of your class being presented at court is a rite of passage. It is what Mama would have expected for you, and it is what I expect.’