‘All right.’ She shrugged, baffled.
‘I’m going to start by referring you to James Feeney, whom we met today.’
‘What about him?’
‘Neither Matthew nor Mr Feeney was honest. Did you notice how uncomfortable Matthew’s companion was?’
‘I noticed him looking uncomfortably at you,’ she admitted.
‘He couldn’t get away from us fast enough, could he?’
‘He certainly seemed keen to get to his train.’
‘I wish I were mistaken, but his train was not headed to Bristol, Alex. It was headed back here . . . to York.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘So . . . what?’
‘Matthew explained that Feeney had worked for the family, made a point of telling you that he was based in Bristol and would not be able to join you for dinner, et cetera.’
‘Just being polite, surely?’
He shook his head. ‘Feeney works at your father’s club as a waiter. I saw him. I was served by him last night.’
She bit her lip. ‘Am I supposed to be deeply suspicious now?’
The tea arrived on a tray. They both gave in to a tense pause while the woman laid out the cups and saucers with the small jug of milk. ‘Sugar’s on the table,’ she gestured, unnecessarily.
‘Thank you,’ Harry replied for both of them. After she’d left them, he continued. ‘Matthew lied to your face about Feeney. Meanwhile Feeney was leaping between dagger gazes and a pleading look to me because he was so nervous I would say I recognised him from the club. He was the waiter who knew when Matthew was returning home.’
‘So you think I should challenge Matthew over his lie, about something that doesn’t concern or particularly interest me?’
He watched her carefully and sipped his tea. She read gloom in his expression, as if an internal battle were being waged behind his gaze.
‘What is it, Harry? For heaven’s sake, just say it! I doubt anything about Mr Feeney can harm me.’
‘Alex, I say this without judgement. James Feeney is your husband’s lover.’
He didn’t apologise, he didn’t change his tone, nor did he soften it as he spoke the accusation. He didn’t look away in either embarrassment or polite graciousness. Instead, Harry held Alex’s gaze as though their lives depended on it, as if to support her through the interminable moments of shock that pulsed like tiny sparks of electricity, finally igniting into a whispered response that was explosive despite its hushed tone.
‘Are you mad? What is this, Harry? You must be determined to leave me not only in despair at loving someone I can’t have but also making sure you pollute any chance I have of rekindling friendship with my absent husband.’
He shook his head, expression filled with regret. ‘Would you have preferred me to leave you, knowing this awkward information, withholding the truth I’d learned?’
‘That’s a disgusting accusation. You know nothing about Matthew!’
‘I know what he’s hiding.’
‘Why would you presume such a thing without proof, without —’
‘I have proof.’ He covered her gloved hand.
She snatched it away so fast she nearly left the toffee-coloured suede glove behind. ‘What proof?’
‘I’m going to tell you everything but only if you stop snarling at me.’
‘Do you blame me?’
‘I hate being the conduit but I also can’t imagine you living in ignorance for much longer that your husband has a proclivity for men.’
She swallowed, knowing he was right. Somehow, very deep down in the private, darkest place where she stored her anxiety, Alex knew Harry was right about everything because it made so much sense.
‘Poking my nose into another man’s business makes me hardly recognise myself. If not for you in the midst of this, I wouldn’t have spared it another frown. I don’t care about Matthew’s leanings. I care about you and how profoundly you might be affected should his secret come out. And it could. If I can work it out in a few hours, so can someone else if Matthew or his friend gets sloppy.’
‘And they were sloppy today, I’m guessing?’ she said in a tight voice.
‘Let’s just say the lies caught up with them. Matthew didn’t expect you to be in Harrogate. And he might still have got away with it had I not already met Feeney.’
‘Tell me,’ she said, not looking at him, staring at her untouched tea instead.
__________
Harry watched as Alex’s expression turned from guarded to hostile, but as he explained that he’d left Harrogate and gone to the terraced house in York inhabited by James Feeney, the cast of her face shifted to dulled. She listened without interruption until he had nothing more to say.
‘So he wasn’t in London?’
He shook his head, almost guiltily. ‘He was in York last night because I am now certain I saw him, standing in the window of Feeney’s house. They obviously thought they’d spend Feeney’s day off in Harrogate, where presumably they didn’t anticipate they’d see too many people they knew in the winter. I suspect Matthew would have had an answer anyway for any unexpected meetings. What he couldn’t be prepared for was me.’
Eyes, round like the dark truffles he suspected she would carefully fashion for her salon, glistened in the shadowed refreshment rooms. ‘You challenged this man Feeney and he did not deny it?’ she qualified.
‘Those weren’t my words,’ he replied as gently as he could. ‘I said he admitted it.’
‘I want his exact words, Harry. There’s no point now in trying to shield me.’
‘All right.’ He was cornered. ‘I drove back to York fast to find Feeney at his home. I threatened him with exposure if he didn’t give me the truth and I believed him when he said, and I am quoting him accurately now: “Matthew and I have been lovers since we were seventeen, when he was expelled from his first school over our relationship. Not even his time while he was sent away to university could break our hearts.”’ Harry cleared his throat. ‘Um . . . now I’m summarising . . . he said that Matthew’s family had done everything in its collective power to separate them. According to Feeney, he too was sent away – to Cornwall, I gather – but they were in touch by letters throughout those years, “yearning for each other” were his words.’ He watched her eyes narrow with pain but she didn’t look away from the source; her shredded mind was thinking about Chetwin and his strange manner during their phone call after she mentioned Feeney. So he’d known about this relationship . . . it was likely why Matthew had been sent to bring back an agreement of marriage from ‘the Frobisher girl’. Matthew’s aloofness and couched words, his reinforcement there was no other woman for him, was how he hid without lying to her face; she was his shield.
‘He said Matthew coached him through a couple of difficult years, begging him to be patient until he could work out a way for them to be together and out of his family’s reach. Actually, the word he used frequently regarding the family was its “influence”.’
She looked into her lap. ‘So I was the escape route?’
He waited until she lifted her gaze to him again before nodding. ‘Feeney’s explanation was that in marrying you – a perfect bride that the family approved of for a most suitable marriage between excellent families – it took all the heat off Matthew. His father is said to have thought he had “come to his senses”.’
Alex frowned slightly at his loading of that phrase and Harry lifted a shoulder.
‘Feeney laughed at such a ridiculous notion – as he put it – and explained to me that you do not and cannot snap out of homosexuality. He actually admitted that both of them would opt to be different if they could but in the way that someone can’t help having poor eyesight, or be good at art, or brilliant at sport, some people are predestined from birth to want to share their lives with their own sex.’ He reached for her hand again. ‘To be honest, Alex, I felt then and continue to feel a helpless compassion for him . . . for both of them, to tell the truth.’
‘I’m n
umb,’ she admitted. Furrows wrinkled her forehead and she shook her head slowly as if trying to make sense of it. ‘I’m also dim. It was staring me in the face and yet I couldn’t see it. Such treachery . . . I can’t imagine ever feeling more betrayed.’ She swallowed a sob.
He closed a hand over hers. ‘You know how we feel about each other?’
She didn’t answer but he knew she was paying attention.
‘That’s how they feel. I’m sure you can accept that Matthew does love you – I suppose like I love Bethany – and that he wouldn’t ever wish to hurt you, but the danger of discovery is too terrifying, the love he has for Feeney equally overwhelming. He’s as trapped as you.’
She groaned her distress.
‘Alex, with you he found genuine friendship. Feeney says he’s jealous of you at times, not so much that you have Matthew but that he enjoys your company so much.’
‘That’s very cold comfort, Harry.’
‘Of course it is, and you’re in shock, so it’s understandable that you can’t make a lot of sense of this. You need some quiet time. Maybe stay with Charlotte or rent somewhere for a while – go to Scotland, have some space to work it all out and find some balance so you can view it all a fraction more objectively.’
‘It’s hard to be objective when I know he set out on a mission to woo me with a hidden agenda to hide his double life behind our marriage!’
‘This is trauma speaking, Alex. Matthew can’t help it.’
‘I can’t believe you’re defending him,’ she breathed, her anger flashing bright in her eyes despite the low light of the railway kiosk. ‘I can’t be rational about this.’
‘Well, you must try, especially if you’re going to survive it and keep your family name from being dragged through the mire. Perhaps you might view it this way. You can’t help being beautiful, can you, in the same way that you can’t help wanting to work with chocolate? It’s not an ailment, it’s not even a condition, it’s not a state of mind . . . it’s simply who you are, am I right?’
Harry watched her let out a silent breath. ‘Yes. I can’t imagine being any other way. As for beauty, that’s for others to judge. I don’t dwell on it.’
‘Fair enough, but your looks, pretty or plain, are yours whether you like them or not, agreed? You don’t choose the colour of your eyes, or hair, the set of your mouth, the shape of your ears?’
She nodded miserably. ‘So?’
His voice softened further.
‘I don’t think we choose whom we love either. We choose whom to spend our lives with, we choose whom we marry, who our friends are, but love . . . that’s not under our control, or I would not be regretting coming to York.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘Because now my life will be a constant regret.’
‘Matthew will never grant me a divorce. He made that plain.’
‘Don’t hurry any decision. This needs time to sink in and for you to consider your position. I told you all this so that you don’t walk around constantly asking the universe what you’ve done wrong in your marriage. It was a sham from his proposal . . . from the way he set out to court you and trap you.’
‘I made it easy. I was looking for a way out of a forced marriage.’
‘At least I can leave knowing your husband will never physically hurt you, never see you go without . . .’ Harry held up a hand. ‘I know it’s not enough, but there are worse marriages, Alex.’
‘Like the one you’re headed towards?’
It was his turn to shrug. ‘It will be similar. Affectionate, mostly well-suited companions.’
‘Except in all the areas that matter,’ she finished for him and he nodded sadly. ‘Do you have to leave tonight?’
‘No, but I have to leave, Alex.’
‘Stay another evening. I can’t bear the thought of you gone.’
‘It’s not as though we can see one another.’
‘I’ll find a way, I promise.’
‘Matthew —’
‘I don’t care about how Matthew feels about you. I just don’t. I doubt very much he’d risk exposing me as immoral, given what I can accuse him of.’
‘Just be careful. This is dangerous knowledge and in the wrong company it could hurt both of you badly. I saw in the army how bigoted people can be. Truly, Alex, be very careful . . . it can be prison for Feeney and Matthew – worse, even – if caught out by the more hysterical margin in society.’
‘I hear you, Harry. So you’ll stay?’
He gave a lopsided half smile that was sad rather than amused. ‘Yes.’
She stood. ‘Thank you. I’ll reach you at your accommodations.’
‘Let me walk you home.’
‘No. I need to think this through and it’s best I’m not seen again with you this evening.’
At the station concourse they reluctantly parted company, with Harry politely lifting his hat before pecking her cheek like an old friend. She realised she’d not told him about Kitty, but maybe that was for the best now. Alex watched him turn to make his way back up onto the Lendal Bridge, not realising as she walked in the opposite direction that their lives were about to become more dramatically entwined and complicated.
23
Alex arrived back at her home having used the walk to ride out the full shock of Harry’s revelation; she hid behind a façade of calm as Norma welcomed her back but now in the quiet of her bedroom her composure crumpled and fell away as she let the emotion of the day spill. Remembering the heights of her lovemaking with Harry and the depths of her disappointment at having their few remaining hours snatched away by Matthew . . . and now this . . . this new crisis deepened the drama of her life.
She would now have to be complicit in Matthew’s lies, to protect him from the law as much as herself and her family’s name from his indiscretions. If she were thinking clearly right now, she would admit that Matthew had surely been discreet these last few years. She had not so much as suspected such dark subterfuge, but at the back of her distraught mind she also knew that it would only take one person to discover his secret for the walls to be torn away. It could be anyone – someone Matthew had wronged, someone she had forgotten to invite to a gathering, someone who was simply jealous of their wealth or standing. If any person with any sort of grievance, real or imagined, got a whiff of Matthew’s leanings, all their lives would be in tatters.
Alex wept at the thought of Matthew being handcuffed and led away. She imagined how Minerva would never recover; she’d take to her room ill, believing herself unable to be seen out again in fine company for fear of the whispered sneers behind hands. Her poor father, meanwhile, would spend more and more time away from them, feeding the ducks and wondering what he had done to deserve so much grief in his life.
Through the tears came the acceptance that Harry was right. If in just a couple of days in York he could work out the relationship between Matthew and Feeney, then it was plausible that other people they knew well could stumble onto the truth also. It would be out of their control then; nothing would stop that revelation moving through society with the speed of fire touching kindling. Alex could not permit that to occur.
Her tears subsided while she sat on the edge of her bed. She stood at last, moved to the window to look down upon the front garden and the large, wondrous yew tree. She palmed away the last of her tears. She would cry no more and she would take control. And with that resolve came the enlightenment she needed. It was up to her alone to solve the dilemma; she needed to show the strength to shore up all defences around her marriage if she was to have any chance of them all surviving this potential catastrophe.
First she would confront Matthew with what she’d learned, force him to admit his homosexuality so that they were moving forwards together and based only on truth. Then, she would demand that Feeney depart York immediately. She would personally see to it that he leave the county and go either north or far south. She didn’t care which, but he had to be well away from Matthew’s easy
reach and from now on she would be more engaged in the whereabouts of Matthew’s meetings and travel plans.
‘If I have to give up the man I love, then you must do the same, Matthew,’ she murmured to the window, rehearsing the only line that made sense to her at this time.
And then she and Matthew would take a holiday. Her plans for the chocolate salon would be put on hold, his business interests would wait while they spent some months somewhere warm and healing, rediscovering their friendship and all the points at which they could find comfort in each other. It was the only way. They had to save the marriage in order to save Matthew and thus both their families.
Duty. She shook her head, hating that she couldn’t just leave Matthew to his mess and rush into the arms of Harry, stop him marrying Bethany, and escape to a place that was remote enough where they couldn’t be found easily. Stop daydreaming, Alex! She heard her mother’s disapproving voice. The voice was right; happy ever after with Harry was nothing more than a fairytale. She had a crisis to solve.
Alex startled at the sound of a slamming door downstairs; she heard the housekeeper’s voice above the din of men’s and recognised Matthew’s before they became muffled. They must be in the library, she figured, she could still hear them: angry, raised voices. Her mouth opened in shock as she was sure that was the placating sound of her father’s voice over the top of others.
Alex wasted no more time wondering, striding to her door, pulling it open and dashing down the hallway to skip down the flights of stairs. She paused for just a heartbeat to glance at the painting that Harry had admired and then she hurried on into the reception hall, where she found the housekeeper looking frightened and uncertain.
‘Who is here, Norma?’
The poor woman seemed unable to answer.
‘Go to the parlour and make some coffee. I’ll take care of this. Do it now, please.’
The Chocolate Tin Page 32
