A Season of Secrets (62 page)

He released his hold of her slightly so that he could look down into her face.

‘Before we leave, is there anything you would like to ask me? Anything you want to know?’

‘Yes.’ Already tension and fear were ebbing from a face as fine-boned as Violet’s. ‘I would like you to tell me about my birth-mother, and I would like you to tell me
about the haven that is England.’

Two days after arriving in London from Berlin, Gilbert was on a train travelling north to Yorkshire. In the forty-eight hours that he’d been back in Britain he’d
met the prime minister and had again urged him to rethink his present policy where Nazi Germany was concerned. Neville had thanked him with clipped courtesy and had given his opinion that Herr
Hitler was simply gathering within the Reich the German-speaking peoples who had either been severed from it by the Versailles Treaty or who, like the Austrians, had always considered themselves to
be ethnically part of a Greater Germany.

‘And though he has agreed that Britain must rearm in the light of Germany’s ferocious rearmament policy, his fundamental belief remains the same,’ Churchill had growled when
Gilbert had met up with him at the Travellers Club. ‘He still holds to his conviction that conciliation and the avoidance of anything likely to offend Hitler are the best policy. The end
result of such thinking will, I fear, put our green and pleasant land at great risk. Herr Hitler doesn’t need the language of sweet reasonableness, Gilbert. In order to be reined in, he needs
the language of a mailed fist.’

As the train rattled north Gilbert tried to visualize Chamberlain as a war leader, wielding a mailed fist. His imagination wouldn’t stretch that far. With his slight build, turkey-neck,
reedy voice and desiccated manner, what Neville reminded him of was a counter assistant in a haberdashery shop.

He thought back to the situation he had left behind in Berlin. Though Judith was safer living under the roof of a member of the German Foreign Office than she had been in the house of her
defiantly brave Aryan neighbour, her basic situation hadn’t changed. She was still missing the last piece of paperwork with which to leave the Reich and enter Britain.

Dieter, however, knew exactly the channels that had to be approached – and how, under his guidance, Judith should approach them. ‘She will be in London within a week or two, perhaps
less,’ he had promised Gilbert. ‘Trust me,
Schwiegervater
.’

It was rare that Dieter referred to him as ‘father-in-law’.

Gilbert felt tension run down his spine. The risks Dieter was running in being part of a conspiracy to rid Germany of Hitler were enormous – and what would happen to Olivia, if Dieter was
arrested? He comforted himself that Olivia was a British citizen and the daughter of a member of the British government and that, as she wasn’t an active member of the conspiracy, there could
surely be no question of her being arrested, too.

With his mind a little eased, he turned his thoughts to the person who was never far from them. Carrie.

Because ever since she had been a child he had always cared for her and been fond of her in a fatherly way, it had taken him a long time to acknowledge just how drastically his feelings for her
had changed over the years. Now his emotions had become overwhelming. Carrie, with her sunny nature, inner calm and constant common sense, had become as necessary to him as Blanche had once been.
Did she feel the same way towards him as he felt towards her? Certainly if she did, she would never have shown it. How could she have? He doubted if Carrie had ever done an inappropriate thing in
her life, and she would be even more acutely aware than he had been of the difficulties that stood in the way of a romance between them.

Those difficulties, which had once seemed insurmountable, seemed insurmountable no longer. The twenty-two-year age difference, once huge, didn’t seem so now that Carrie was no longer a
young girl in her early twenties, but a mature woman of thirty-one.

As for the other difference – the yawning gulf of the class difference between them – that was still there, but no one in his family would care about it; people in Outhwaite had been
too long accustomed to Carrie’s betwixt-and-between social status to suddenly take exception to it, if she definitively crossed the line by becoming Lady Fenton; and if his friends in
government found his marriage socially objectionable, then that was just too bad. He didn’t care. He only cared that Carrie wouldn’t suffer on account of people’s snobbishness and
if, in London, she was made to feel uncomfortable, then he would simply resign his government position and live permanently at Gorton, which was, when all was said and done, the only place he
really wanted to be.

That was if, when he proposed to her, she said yes.

By this time tomorrow he would, he hoped, be out of his misery.

As the train pulled into Darlington, which was as close to Outhwaite as the mainline trains went, and as he rose in readiness to step from his first-class carriage to the platform, he suddenly
wondered what Blanche, if she could have seen into the future, would have thought of his being in love with Carrie and wanting to marry her.

Certainty flooded through him.

Blanche, whose affection for Carrie had been so deep; who had loved him with every fibre of her being, and who had always only wanted his happiness, would, he knew, have been happy for him and
would have given them her blessing.

There was no chauffeured car waiting for him at the station. Ever since he and Zephiniah had first separated he had dispensed with a full-time chauffeur at Gorton – and the car kept there
was no longer a Rolls-Royce. It was a dark-green Riley that he drove himself.

His London car was more imposing, and in the capital he was always chauffeured – and would have been chauffeured all the way from Mount Street to Gorton, if his chauffeur hadn’t
slipped on London ice and broken his leg.

He settled himself on the rear seat of a taxi, anticipating the happy surprise on Thea and Rozalind’s faces when he turned up several days before his planned Christmas Eve arrival. It was
going to be a good Christmas. Max was spending it with them and, when he returned to America, Rozalind would be with him, entering her homeland for the first time as Mrs Maxwell Bradley.

Someone who would soon be entering Britain for the first time was Judith, if not by Christmas, then hopefully very soon in the New Year – and by then, God willing, Violet would also be
home, and the only loved ones he would have left to worry about would be Olivia and Dieter.

The next morning, at breakfast, he said to Thea and Roz in as casual a voice as he could manage, ‘I was thinking of telephoning Carrie and asking if she could take some
time off today.’

‘She’s coming over here for part of Christmas Day and the whole of Boxing Day.’ Thea helped herself to another slice of toast. ‘I absolutely insisted she spend as much of
Christmas as possible with us – especially as Lydia Markham is in Madeira and there is no Christmas entertaining taking place at Monkswood. And if she can take time off today, why don’t
you invite her to help us decorate the Christmas tree? Roz and I are going to Richmond this morning, Christmas shopping, but we’ll be back by early afternoon.’

‘And then, when we’ve done the tree, we can all have mince pies and mulled wine in front of the drawing-room fire,’ Roz said, pouring herself more coffee.

Gilbert, aware that Thea and Roz had given him the perfect pretexts for telephoning Carrie and asking for her company, beamed across at them. ‘A wonderful idea,’ he said, rising to
his feet. ‘Absolutely grand.’

‘There’s a telephone call for you in your office, Mrs Thornton,’ Briggs, Monkswood’s butler, said to Carrie.

Carrie, who had been checking the linen cupboard, stopped what she was doing. ‘Thank you, Mr Briggs. I expect it’s the butcher, checking on the turkey and ham order.’

She hurried off to take the phone call, well aware that the local butcher would be vastly disappointed at the size of his Christmas order from Monkswood. Normally, with Lady Markham at home and
guests in the house, the order was huge. This year, with only the staff to be fed, it was considerably smaller.

A few moments later she said into the receiver, ‘Mrs Thornton speaking.’

The voice that responded was not that of the local butcher, and was one she recognized instantly.

‘Carrie?’ Gilbert was always thrown by Carrie being addressed as ‘Mrs’ at Monkswood. ‘It’s Gilbert.’ And then, aware she had never addressed him as
anything other than Lord Fenton, added so as not to bewilder her, ‘Lord Fenton.’

Carrie sat down swiftly, before her legs gave way. ‘Good morning, Lord Fenton. There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

Her mind raced as to what could possibly be wrong. If there had been a Fenton family calamity, then the perpetrator was bound to be Violet. Who on earth was she now consorting with in Germany?
Goebbels and Göring were bad enough, but what if it was now Hitler? Where Violet was concerned, anything was possible.

‘Nothing is wrong, Carrie. I was telephoning to see if you had any free time today? I thought you might like to come over to Gorton and help decorate the tree – and perhaps,
beforehand, we could have a walk with the dogs. There’s snow on the moors, but as yet only a light sprinkling and the sky is cloudless.’

‘That would be . . . lovely.’ Carrie’s heart was beating fast and light. Was Lord Fenton really suggesting they should take a morning walk together? They had done so often in
Richmond, whenever they had met there accidentally. But this time would be different. This time it was something he had given thought to. ‘And I can easily take the time off. With Lady
Markham away, there is nothing pressing for me to do here today.’

He was about to suggest that he called for her in the Riley, but Carrie forestalled him.

‘I’ll come to Outhwaite on the ten o’clock bus, if that is all right, Lord Fenton?’

‘Yes.’ He knew immediately why she had made the suggestion. His calling for her in person would have had Monkswood’s entire household in a fever of speculation, and Carrie
wasn’t to know that, if she fulfilled all his hopes, such speculation would no longer matter. ‘Yes,’ he said, patting his waistcoat pocket where a small satin-padded box lay next
to his heart. ‘I’ll be at the bus stop to meet you, Carrie. And, Carrie, we’ve been friends for far too long for you to continue addressing me as Lord Fenton. I’d much
prefer it if you began calling me by my first name.’

There was a beat of stunned silence at the other end of the line and then she said uncertainly, ‘Yes, Lord Fenton. Of course. If that’s what you would like.’

‘Gilbert,’ he corrected gently.

‘Yes . . . Gilbert.’

Even though he couldn’t see her, he knew she was blushing furiously.

‘This is a lovely surprise,’ she said, as he walked her from the bus to where the Riley was parked outside the Pig and Whistle. ‘I haven’t been on the
moors for ages and ages.’

‘Me neither.’ He smiled down at her – everything all right in his world simply because she was by his side.

He’d left his spaniels in the back seat of the car, and there was an outcry of frenzied barking as the dogs recognized Carrie.

‘Silly things!’ Carrie said affectionately, giving them a lavish fuss before settling down in the front passenger seat.

He closed the door on her, ignored the raised eyebrows of Mrs Mellor, who was on her way to the post office, then walked around the Riley and slid behind the wheel.

‘I’m just back from Berlin,’ he said, turning on the engine and putting the car into gear. ‘Violet is coming home soon, perhaps within a couple of weeks.’

‘For a holiday or for good?’

It felt strange sitting beside him in such close intimacy. She remembered the occasion when he had come to Monkswood for her in a taxi to ask her to stand in for Mrs Huntley, when Mrs Huntley
had had to make an emergency dash to Leeds Infirmary to see her daughter.

Then it had been dark, and they had been seated even closer together in the rear of the car. She had been able to smell the lemon tang of the cologne he used, and had known that if she had moved
her gloved hand by even a fraction, it would have brushed against the back of his.

Today, separated by the gearstick, they were seated a little further apart, but there was no third party with them, as there had been when they’d been in the taxi.

‘For good,’ he said in answer to her question as he drove out of the village. ‘Though I doubt whether she will be at Gorton, or even London, for long. I rather think home, for
Violet, means Hollywood.’

‘I’d much rather think of her in Hollywood than in Berlin.’

‘So would I,’ he said fervently.

He glanced across at her, his eyes meeting hers. ‘The stories about Violet and the Reich Minister for Information and Propaganda, and the commander of the Luftwaffe, are not as they seem,
Carrie. Violet can’t wait to put Berlin behind her – and neither can Olivia, though for Olivia, of course, it is a little more difficult, seeing as how Berlin is her marital
home.’