The Secret Woman

by Victoria Holt

  ***

  My father came home that year. He was changed, more remote than ever without my mother’s softening influence. I realized that the future I had looked forward to could never be. I had always known it could not be ideal without her but I had had dreams of joining my father, becoming his companion as she had been; I saw now how impossible that was.

  He had become very silent and he had always been undemonstrative, and I had not the power to fascinate him that my mother had had.

  He was leaving India, he told me, and was going to Africa. I read the papers and would know that there was trouble out there. We had a large Empire to protect and that meant that there would always be trouble in some remote spot on the globe. He had no desire now for anything but to serve the Queen and the Empire; and he was grateful—as I must always be—to Aunt Charlotte, for making it possible for him to feel at ease as to my welfare. In a year or so I should go to Switzerland to finish my education. It was what my mother had wished. A year there, say, and then we would see.

  He went off to join his regiment and take part in the Zulu War.

  Six months later we heard that he had been killed.

  “He died as he would have wished to die,” said Aunt Charlotte.

  I did not mourn as I did for my mother. By this time he had become a stranger to me.

  ***

  I was seventeen. Aunt Charlotte was now my only relative, as she was fond of telling me, and I relied on her. I was beginning to think that to some extent she relied on me; but this was never mentioned.

  The household seemed to have changed little in the ten years since I had first walked through that gate in the red wall, but life had changed drastically for me, though not for the inhabitants of the Queen’s House. They were nearly all ten years older, it was true. Ellen was now twenty-five; Mrs. Buckle had had her first grandchildren; Mrs. Morton looked almost exactly the same; Miss Beringer was now thirty-nine. Aunt Charlotte seemed to have changed less than any of us, but then I had always seen her as the grim old woman she appeared to be at that time. There is something timeless about the Aunt Charlottes of the world; they are born old and shrewd and stay so until the end.

  I had discovered the reason why Redvers Stretton was at Castle Crediton. Ellen had told me on my sixteenth birthday because I was, as she said, no longer a child and it was time I started learning something about life which I couldn’t from a lot of worm-eaten old furniture. This was because I was increasing my knowledge considerably and even Aunt Charlotte was beginning to have a mild respect for my opinions.

  “He’s got a sort of right to be up at the Castle,” Ellen told me one day when we were sitting on the seat looking across the river to that pile of gray stone, “but it’s what you might call a left-handed right.”

  “What on earth is that, Ellen?”

  “Ah, Miss Clever, you’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”

  I said humbly that I would. And I heard the story. You had to learn about men, Ellen informed me. They were different from women; they could do certain things which while deplorable and not exactly right were to be forgiven if performed by men, whereas if a woman had done the same thing she would have been cut off from society. The fact was that Sir Edward was a very manly man.

  “He was very fond of the ladies.”

  “The ships you mean?”

  “No, I don’t. I mean flesh and blood ladies. He’d been married to Lady Crediton for ten years and there was no child. It was a blow. Well, to cut a long story short. He took a fancy to his wife’s lady’s maid. They say he wanted to know whose fault it was, his or his wife’s that there weren’t any children, because what he wanted most of all was a son. It was a bit comic in a way…if you can think of anything so sinful as being comic. Lady Crediton found that at long last she was going to have a child. So was the lady’s maid.”

  “And what did Lady Crediton say to that?” I pictured her seated in her chair, hands folded on her lap. Of course she would have looked different then. A young woman. Or comparatively young.

  “They always said she was a clever woman. She wanted a son the same as he did, for the business, you see. And she was nearly forty. It was the very first and that is not the best time for having children, not first ones at least.”

  “And the lady’s maid?”

  “She was twenty-one. Sir Edward was cautious. Besides he wanted a son. Suppose Lady Crediton was to have a girl and the lady’s maid a son. You see, he was greedy. He wanted them both. And Lady Crediton, well, she’s a strange woman and it seems they came to terms. The two babies were to be born at about the same time and they were both going to be born in the Castle.”

  “How very strange.”

  “Well, there’s nothing ordinary about the Creditons,” said Ellen proudly.

  “So the babies were born?”

  “Yes, two boys. I reckon if he’d have known Lady Crediton was to have a boy he wouldn’t have had all the scandal. But how was he to know?”

  Even Sir Edward didn’t know everything, I pointed out ironically, but Ellen was too carried away by the story to complain of my disrespect this time.

  “So the two boys were to be brought up in the Castle and Sir Edward claimed them both. There was Rex.”

  “He was to be the King.”

  “Lady Crediton’s son,” said Ellen, “and Valerie Stretton’s was the other.”

  So he is the other.

  “Redvers. Valerie Stretton had the finest red hair you’ve ever seen. His turned out fair but he’s more like Sir Edward than like his mother. He was brought up with Master Rex; the same tutors, same school, and both brought up for the business. Young Red, he wanted to go to sea; perhaps Mr. Rex wanted it too, but he had to learn how to juggle with the money. So now you know.”

  Ellen then went on to talk of something of greater interest—to her—than the Creditons’ “goings-on”: her own relationship with the fascinating Mr. Orfey, the furniture remover who would one day marry her, when he could offer her the home he considered worthy of her. Ellen sincerely hoped he would not wait too long for she was no longer so young and she would be content with one room and as she put it “Mr. Orfey’s love.” But Mr. Orfey was not like that. He wanted to be sure of what he called a settled future; he wanted to put the money down for a horse and cart of his own from which he would expand.

  It was Ellen’s dream that one day a miracle would happen and the money would come from somewhere. Where did she think? I asked her. You never knew, she replied. Aunt Charlotte had once told her that if she was still in her employ at the time of her death there might be a little something for her. That was when Ellen had hinted that she might find more congenial employment elsewhere.

  “You never know,” said Ellen. “But I’m not one to like waiting for dead men’s shoes.”

  I listened halfheartedly to an account of the virtues of Mr. Orfey, and all the time I was thinking of the man I had met—long ago now, the son of Sir Edward and the lady’s maid. I could not understand why I continued to think of him.

  ***

  I was now eighteen.

  “Finishing schools,” snapped Aunt Charlotte. “That was your mother’s nonsense. And where do you think the money would come from for finishing schools? Your father’s pay stopped with him and he saved nothing. Your mother saw to that. When he died I believe he was still paying off the debts she incurred. As for your future—it’s clear that you have a flair for this profession. Mind you, you have a lot to learn…and one is always learning, but I think you might be fairly promising. So you’ll leave school after next term and begin.”

  That was what I did and when a year later Miss Beringer decided to get married, the arrangement from Aunt Charlotte’s point of view was ideal. “Old fool,” said Aunt Charlotte, “At her time of life. You’d think she’d know better.” Miss Beringer might have been an old fool but her husband wasn’t a
nd, as Aunt Charlotte told me, Miss Beringer had put a little money into the business—that was the only reason why Aunt Charlotte had taken her in—and now that man was making difficulties. There were visits from lawyers which Aunt Charlotte did not like at all, and I supposed that they came to some arrangement.

  It was true that I had a flair. I could go to a sale and my eyes would alight as if by magic on the most interesting pieces. Aunt Charlotte was pleased, though she rarely showed it; she stressed my errors of judgment which were becoming rarer and lightly passed over my successes which were growing more and more frequent.

  In the town we became known as Old and Young Miss Brett and I knew that it was said that it was somehow not nice for a young girl to be involved in business; it was unfeminine and I should never find a husband. I should be another Miss Charlotte Brett in a few years’ time.

  And it was borne home to me that that was exactly what Aunt Charlotte wanted.

  Three

  The years were passing, I was twenty-one. Aunt Charlotte had developed an unpleasant complaint which she called “rheumatics”; her limbs were becoming more and more stiff and painful, and to her fury her movements were considerably restricted.

  She was the last woman to accept illness; she rebelled against it, was impatient with my suggestion that she should see a doctor and did everything she could to continue with her active life.

  Her attitude was slowly changing toward me as she relied on me more. She was constantly hinting at my duty, reminding me how she had taken me in, wondering what would have become of me if when I was orphaned she had not been at hand. I became friendly with John Carmel, an antique dealer who lived in the town of Marden some ten miles inland. We had met at a sale at a manor house and become friendly. After that he was constantly calling at the Queen’s House and inviting me to accompany him to sales.

  We had not progressed beyond an interested friendship when his visits ceased abruptly. I was hurt and wondered why until I overheard Ellen say to Mrs. Morton, “She gave him the order of the boot. Oh yes, she did. I heard it all. I think it a shame. After all Miss has her life to lead. There’s no reason why she should be an old maid like her.”

  An old maid like her! In my cluttered room, the grandfather clock in the corner ticked maliciously. Old maid! Old maid! it jeered.

  I was a prisoner in the Queen’s House. One day it might all be mine. Aunt Charlotte had hinted as much. “If you’re with me,” she had said significantly.

  “You’ll be here! You’ll be here!” Why did I imagine the clock said these things to me? The date on the old grandfather was 1702, so he was old already. It was unfair, I thought, that an inanimate piece of furniture made by a man lived on and we had to die. My mother had lived for thirty years only, yet this clock had been on earth for more than a hundred and eighty years.

  One should make the most of one’s time. Tick, tock! Tick, tock! All over the house. Time was flying past.

  I did not believe I should ever have wanted to marry John Carmel, but Aunt Charlotte was not going to give me the chance to find out. Strangely enough when I thought of romance a vision of a laughing face with tip-tilted eyes came to my mind. I was obsessed by the Creditons.

  If the time came, I promised myself, that I wanted to marry, nothing and nobody should stop me.

  Tick, tock! mocked the grandfather clock, but I was sure of this. I might be like Aunt Charlotte but she was a strong woman.

  ***

  I was in the shop and on the point of fixing the notice on the door “If closed, call at the Queen’s House,” when the bell over the door tinkled and Redvers Stretton came in. He stood smiling at me. “We’ve met before,” he said, “if I’m not mistaken.”

  I was embarrassed to find myself coloring. “It was years ago,” I mumbled.

  “You’ve grown up in the meantime. You were twelve at the time.”

  I was ridiculously delighted that he remembered. “Then it must be nine years ago.”

  “You were informative then,” he said, and briefly he looked round the shop at the circular table inlaid with ivory, and the dainty set of Sheraton chairs and the tall slender Hepplewhite bookcase in a corner. “And you still are,” he added, looking back at me.

  I had recovered my calm. “I’m surprised that you remember. Our meeting was so brief.”

  “But you are not easily forgotten, Miss…Miss…Miss Anna. Am I right?”

  “You are. Did you come in to see something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then perhaps I can show you.”

  “I’m looking at it now, although it’s extremely uncivil of me to use that word when describing a young lady.”

  “You cannot mean that you came to see me.”

  “Why not?”

  “It seems such an extraordinary thing to do.”

  “It seems to me perfectly reasonable.”

  “But suddenly…after all these years.”

  “I am a sailor. I have been very little in Langmouth since our last meeting or I should have called before.”

  “Well, now you are here…”

  “Should I state my business and depart? Business? Of course you are a businesswoman. I must not forget that.” He wrinkled his eyes so that they were almost closed and gazed at the Hepplewhite bookcase. “You are very direct. So I must be. I’ll confess that I did not come in to buy those chairs…or that bookcase. It was merely that as I was driving past that long red wall of yours, I saw the inscription on the gate, The Queen’s House and I remembered our meeting. Queen Elizabeth once slept over there, I said to myself, but what is far more interesting is that Miss Anna Brett sleeps there now.”

  I laughed. It was a high-pitched laugh—the laughter of happiness. I had sometimes imagined I should see him again and that it would be something like this. I was becoming speedily fascinated by him. He did not seem quite real; he was like the hero of some romantic tale. He might have stepped out of one of the tapestries. He was, I was sure, a bold adventurer who roamed the seas; he was elusive for he disappeared for long periods. He might walk out of the shop and I might not see him for years and years…not until I had become Old Miss Brett. He had that quality which Ellen would describe as “larger than life.”

  I said: “For how long will you be in Langmouth?”

  “I sail next week.”

  “For what part of the world?”

  “To Australia and the Pacific ports.”

  “It sounds…wonderful.”

  “Do I detect signs of the wanderlust in you, Miss Anna Brett?”

  “I should love to see the world. I was born in India. I thought I should go out again but my parents died and that changed everything. I came to live here, and it looks as though this is where I shall stay.”

  I was surprised at myself offering so much information for which he had not asked.

  He took my hand suddenly and pretended to read my palm. “You’ll travel,” he said, “far and wide.” But he wasn’t looking at my hand; he was looking at me.

  I was aware of a woman standing at the window. She was a Mrs. Jennings who often came to the Queen’s House and bought very little. She was an inveterate looker-round and an infrequent buyer. I suspected it was curiosity to get her nose into other people’s houses rather than an interest in antiques which made her visit us. Now she would have seen Redvers Stretton in the shop. Had she seen him holding my hand?

  The bell tinkled and she came in.

  “Oh, Miss Brett, I see you have someone here. I’ll wait.”

  Such alert eyes behind her pince-nez! She would be asking whether that Miss Brett had an admirer because Redvers Stretton was in that shop with her and did not appear to be buying.

  Redvers looked momentarily dismayed, then with a faint lift of the shoulders said, “Madam, I was on the point of departure.”

  He bowed to me and to her, and lef
t. I was infuriated with the woman, for all she wanted was to ask the price of the bookcase. She stroked it and commented on it and hunted for signs of woodworm merely to chatter as she did so. So Redvers Stretton from the Castle was interested in an antique. He was only home for a short time she believed. There was a wild one, very different from Mr. Rex who must be a great comfort to his mother. Redvers was another kettle of fish.

  “Anyone less like a kettle of fish I never saw,” I said with asperity.

  “My dear Miss Brett, a figure of speech, but that young man is by all accounts wild.”

  She was warning me. But I was in no mood to be warned. I was late back at the Queen’s House and Mrs. Morton told me that Aunt Charlotte was waiting to see me. I found her peevish. She was lying on her bed; she had had a sip of laudanum to bring her relief. I was late, she reminded me, and I told her that Mrs. Jennings had been to inquire about the Hepplewhite and had kept me.

  “That old busybody. She’ll never buy it.”

  But she seemed satisfied, which was more than I was.

  I was becoming obsessed by that man.

  ***

  Two days later Aunt Charlotte announced her intention of going off to a sale. It was too good to be missed and although she was scarcely fit for it she decided to dose herself liberally and set out. She would take Mrs. Morton with her for she would need someone in attendance as she was to be away for two nights; travel for one afflicted with her infirmity in addition to the discomfort of hotel bedrooms was well nigh intolerable. It would have been far more satisfactory if I could have accompanied her, but obviously we could not both be away…for business reasons. If that absurd Beringer had not made such a fool of herself by getting married I could have gone and Beringer have been left in charge. Aunt Charlotte disliked Miss Beringer more since her marriage even than before.

  She left in due course and I continued to hope that Redvers would call in again at the shop. I wondered why he did not because he had come in for the purpose of seeing me and had seemed to take the excuse of leaving with alacrity. Why, since he had come in in the first place.