A Season of Secrets

by Margaret Pemberton

  Thea didn’t reply. She was thinking how much her mother would have loved the sight of the peony-festooned balustrades. ‘Mama always loved flowers,’ she said, not trusting herself to look towards Rozalind for fear that, if their eyes met, she would no longer be able to check the tears that were threatening to fall. ‘And she would have loved presenting me at court.’

  Rozalind said nothing. For once, speech was beyond her. It was now almost five years since Blanche and the baby she had been carrying had died, and time was still not working its magic on those who had loved her. When it had come to Thea’s presentation at court, her Aunt Hilda had presented Thea to Their Majesties, King George and Queen Mary. To say it had not been the same as if Blanche had done so was a major understatement. Today, with the Mount Street house beautifully prepared for Thea’s coming-out ball, the prospect of Blanche not being with Gilbert and Thea at the head of the stairs, welcoming the hundred or so guests, was a reality so monstrous that Rozalind wasn’t sure how any of them were going to cope with it.

  With legs that felt suddenly weak, she crossed the hall and sat down on one of the staircase’s lower treads, the sheer suddenness of her Aunt Blanche’s death jackknifing through her once again.

  It had been such a lovely morning the day her aunt had died. Blanche hadn’t been down for breakfast, but that was nothing unusual, for she always had breakfast in bed. Her Uncle Gilbert had been at the breakfast table, though, and breakfast had been the happily noisy occasion it usually was, when she had just arrived at Gorton for a long vacation and there was so much news for them all to catch up on.

  When her Uncle Gilbert had finally risen from the table he’d said teasingly, ‘I can see the only way I’m going to find peace and quiet today is by taking the dogs for a long moorland ramble.’

  Then, his hands in his pockets and whistling for Caesar and Pluto, he’d left the room, unaware that within hours his life would change irrevocably.

  Rozalind’s plans for the day had already been made, for almost the first thing Thea had said to her when she arrived at Gorton the previous evening was that she simply had to meet Carrie. First, though, they had started off the morning as they always did, by haring up the stairs and running along the corridor to her Aunt Blanche’s bedroom.

  The minute they had tumbled into the room Blanche had set what looked to be a still untouched breakfast tray aside, so that the three of them could perch on her wide bed with its coronet of delicate muslin drapery.

  ‘What are the three of you going to do today?’ Blanche had asked, her flawless ivory complexion unusually flushed. ‘Is it going to be a day on ponies or a day on bicycles?’

  ‘Neither.’ As usual Thea had answered before anyone else could. ‘We’re going to walk down to the river, where we’re meeting with Carrie. Then I’m not sure what we’re going to do.’

  ‘Then off you go, darlings. And don’t kiss me goodbye. I’ve got a headache and I’m beginning to feel shivery. A summer cold, I expect.’

  They had left her and had walked in hot sunshine down to the river-bank and had spent the next few hours with Carrie. Then, on their way home, they had seen Dr Todd’s car speeding towards Gorton Hall. Premonition, well founded, had seized them.

  ‘Shortly after you left the house this morning her ladyship’s ear began bleeding,’ a white-faced Heaton had said to them when they had arrived at Gorton, breathless and alarmed. ‘It’s a major first symptom of Spanish flu, and the minute I was told of it I telephoned for the doctor.’

  ‘Can we see Mama? Where’s Papa? And where’s Violet? Mama is going to be all right, isn’t she?’ Thea, who never, ever cried, had looked close to tears.

  ‘Dr Todd has quarantined your mama in her bedroom. Your papa is with her, as is her maid and Dr Todd, but no one else is to be allowed in the room until the worst is over and your mama is on the road to recovery. Miss Cumberbatch has taken Miss Violet to Richmond for the day. A house of sickness is no place for a young child.’

  At the words ‘the road to recovery’ Olivia had looked reassured.

  Rozalind hadn’t been reassured, though, and she doubted that Thea was. The death rate from Spanish flu was viciously high. Whole communities, worldwide, had been wiped out by it. In the last days of the previous year more soldiers had died from it than they had from the carnage of the war. It killed with mind-numbing swiftness; victims who were healthy in the morning were often dead by the evening.

  All through the autumn of the previous year, when the pandemic had been at its height, Outhwaite had been spared. In the early spring, when the pandemic had peaked, there had still been no deaths from it in their part of the Dales, and by the summer the pandemic had seemed to be over. That being the case, how had her aunt fallen victim to it?

  ‘She visited Effie Mellor’s mother,’ Cook had said grimly when, not knowing where else to go or what to do, they had made their way to the kitchen. ‘She suffers terrible with arthritis, and her ladyship likes to keep an eye on her and take her a basket of whatever there’s a glut of at the Home Farm. When Dr Todd asked Heaton who her ladyship had been in contact with over the last ten days or so, he told him about her visit to old mother Mellor. It turns out that Effie’s sister, who lives in Manchester, was visiting. She’s gone back there now, but Manchester was still recording deaths from influenza right up until the end of April. Dr Todd told Heaton he reckoned Effie’s sister was carrying the infection.’

  ‘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.