A Season of Secrets

by Margaret Pemberton

  There had been a time at Gorton when, if she stood very still and closed her eyes, Rozalind had been able to evoke Blanche’s presence and hear, in memory, her low sweet voice. On this visit, for the first time, she failed to tap into any such comforting experience. Blanche’s spirit was no longer in the home she had made so happy. Unintentionally or intentionally, Zephiniah had banished her.

  ‘Miss Violet and Count and Countess von Starhemberg are taking tea on the lawn,’ a butler who was new to Rozalind said to them as they began making their way to the drawing room.

  ‘Thank you, Miller.’ Thea didn’t break stride. ‘We’re going to join them, so will you ask for a fresh pot of tea to be sent out?’

  In the drawing room double French windows stood open, looking out over the vast lawn. In the centre of the lawn Violet, Olivia and Dieter were gathered around a low table spread with a snowy-white tablecloth.

  As they drew nearer, Rozalind was glad to see that afternoon tea at Gorton was reassuringly the same as it had always been. A magnificent silver teapot held centre-stage. On doily-decorated plates were three different kinds of delicately cut sandwiches: egg and cress, ham and cucumber, smoked salmon and mayonnaise. On other plates were iced fancies, fresh scones and Yorkshire parkin. There were four different kinds of cake and, as a final touch, a big bowl of strawberries and a jug of cream.

  ‘Wilkommen!’ Dieter called out cheerily to her as they approached and then, indicating the deckchair next to his own, ‘As they say in English: take a pew. You will not be depriving Thea. She always prefers the grass to a chair.’

  Violet and Olivia had also opted for grass, Violet sitting with her legs crossed as if she was eight, not eighteen, and Olivia lying on her back near Dieter’s deckchair, her head resting comfortably on a small cushion.

  ‘I don’t know who is being mother,’ Roz said as she sank down next to Thea, ‘but don’t bother pouring tea. A fresh pot is on its way out.’

  ‘Have a slice of Schokoladenkuchen,’ Dieter said. ‘It isn’t, of course, as wonderful as German chocolate cake, but it is still very good.’

  ‘You really can’t continue with this ridiculous notion that everything German is superior to its opposite number in England.’ Thea helped herself to a slice of cake. ‘It’s just too pathetically tedious, Dieter.’

  There was amused affection in her voice and Dieter took not the slightest offence. ‘It may be tedious, sister-in-law Liebe, but where chocolate cake is concerned, it is, alas, true.’

  He was wearing white flannel trousers and an open-necked white shirt and his blond hair fell attractively forward across his eyes. Though Nordic-looking men held no special appeal for Rozalind, she could well understand why Olivia had fallen for him so hard, and so fast.

  He said now, as a parlourmaid in a black dress and lacy apron and cap delivered a fresh pot of tea, ‘Germany is where everything is happening, Thea. How can I help that?’

  ‘You can help by not being deliberately provocative, darling.’ Olivia dispensed with her cushion and sat up, resting her back against his long legs.

  He stroked her hair lovingly. ‘But I like being provocative, meine Liebe. It’s fun.’

  He dropped his hand to her shoulder and Olivia covered his hand with hers.

  Rozalind felt her heart tighten. They were so obviously in love, and love for them was so uncomplicated. There had been a time when she had thought it would be like that for her and Max. Now, however, she knew differently. She wondered when she would have the nerve to tell Thea of the decision she had made. It would have to be before they returned to London, and it would have to be before someone else told her first.

  ‘I’ll be mother.’ Thea poured a cup of tea and, knowing how Rozalind liked hers, dropped a slice of lemon into it. ‘Anyone else?’ she asked as she handed the cup and saucer to Roz.

  ‘Me, please.’ Dieter stopped stroking Olivia’s hair and picked up the cup and saucer by the side of his deckchair. Passing it across to Thea, he said, ‘I wasn’t making a joke when I said that Germany is where everything is happening. It’s true. Hitler may not be a name well known in England yet, but in Germany he is filling people with hope.’

  ‘Not here he isn’t,’ Thea retorted tartly, adding milk to his tea. ‘Here he’s seen as a ruffian and a troublemaker.’

  Unperturbed, Dieter smiled across at her. ‘That is because you have not yet met him. To be able to judge his formidable magnetism – all of which is dedicated to the nation’s welfare – you have to meet him.’

  ‘And I have yet to meet the Prince of Wales,’ Rozalind said, deciding it was high time the subject was changed to something less controversial. ‘What chance do I have on this visit, Thea?’

  Thea handed Dieter his cup of tea. ‘Plenty, if you’ll settle for being introduced to him in a nightclub setting, the Embassy Club or Quaglino’s. After that – if you’re still hankering to photograph him – you’re on your own. It will depend on what impression you make on him.’

  ‘Rozalind is dark-haired, and the Prince likes dark-haired young women, does he not?’ Dieter always enjoyed talking about British royalty. They were, as he never ceased telling his wife and sisters-in-law, all as German as he was.

  ‘She’s too tall.’ Violet tilted her head back and dropped a small strawberry into her mouth. There was a beaded headband around her hair, which, unbobbed and unshingled, tumbled waist-length down her back. ‘I’ve been telling her that for years now, but being an American she never gives up hope.’

  ‘And you,’ Dieter said teasingly. ‘Do you never give up hope also, Violet?’

  With her face still raised to the sun Violet closed her eyes. ‘I don’t have hopes,’ she said in her husky, languid voice. ‘I have certainties.’

  Thea rolled her eyes. Olivia laughed. Rozalind wished she had her Leica with her. A photograph of Violet, languorously dropping strawberries into her mouth, her hectic red hair rippling and shimmering, would have been pure Pre-Raphaelite.

  The parlourmaid who had brought out the fresh pot of tea crossed the lawn to them again.

  ‘There’s a telephone call for Miss Duveen,’ she said to Thea.

  Thea looked enquiringly towards Rozalind.

  ‘Who from?’ Roz asked.

  ‘Lord Luddesdon, Miss Duveen.’

  Rozalind gave a heavy sigh. ‘Barty,’ she said wearily. ‘Do me a favour, Thea. Tell Barty I’m in Richmond, or the Hebrides, or anywhere. I just don’t want to have to bother with him right now.’

  Thea helped herself to a scone and rose to her feet. ‘No more gossip about the Prince of Wales until I get back. Understood?’

  ‘How can there be?’ Olivia said reasonably. ‘You’re the only one who knows any gossip worth having, where Edward is concerned.’

  Not denying it, Thea took a bite of her scone and, with long, almost masculine strides, headed back to the house.

  ‘Barty?’ she said minutes later. ‘It’s me. Thea. Rozalind isn’t around at the moment. Can I take a message?’

  ‘Yes, you bloody can!’ he thundered down the phone. ‘You can tell her I ran into Max Bradley at the Cafe de Paris an hour ago. And you can tell Roz he told me the two of them were seeing each other again, and that he didn’t want me hanging around her. If it’s true – and if she’s been so reckless as to involve herself with a married man old enough to be her father – then you can tell her that Bradley need have no fears about me hanging around her, because I sure as dammit won’t be!’

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Thea hung up the phone, her hand was trembling. Though she didn’t want to, she believed every word of what Barty had said to her. Roz might seem full of common sense, but she hadn’t shown any when she’d fibbed her way into Max’s bed within days of meeting him, and she quite clearly wasn’t showing any common sense now. With rising alarm, Thea accepted what she had once thought unbelievable. Violet wasn’t the only person in the family who was dangerously reckless and heedless. In her own way – and where Max was co
ncerned – Rozalind was just as bad.

  When she walked back out onto the lawn all she said in answer to Rozalind’s raised eyebrow was, ‘Barty just wanted to make sure you’d arrived here safely.’

  What she said when, at the first opportunity, she got Rozalind on her own was far different.

  ‘Max has told Barty the two of you are an item again!’ she said explosively, rounding on her. ‘And it’s true, isn’t it? I can see by the expression on your face that it’s true!’

  They were in the bedroom Rozalind always stayed in when visiting Gorton. Olivia and Dieter were in their own room at the far end of the corridor. Where Violet was, Thea neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was that she wasn’t within earshot – and that neither was her father, who was in another part of Gorton entirely, playing host to his weekend guests.

  ‘Yes, it’s true. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you.’

  She was so completely unperturbed that Thea gaped in disbelief. ‘He married another woman little more than a year ago,’ she said finally, as if speaking to someone mentally retarded. ‘He could have married you, and he didn’t. He married someone else.’

  ‘I know.’ Rozalind sat down on the edge of the bed and slipped her feet out of her shoes. ‘He’s explained why.’

  ‘Dear Lord, Roz! What possible explanation could there be? He may have had a longtime understanding with the woman he married in preference to you, but according to you they weren’t formally engaged. And what explanation is there for his being unfaithful almost before his honeymoon was over? If he was already bored with his wife, why didn’t he follow time-honoured fashion and embark on an affair with a married woman? Society understands that. A married woman’s reputation is protected simply by the fact that she is married. Your reputation will be shot to pieces – is probably already shot to pieces!’

  Rozalind reached for her cigarette-case and lighter, saying, ‘For heaven’s sake Thea, stop pacing the carpet like a lion in a cage and shooting questions at me without waiting for answers.’ She took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘First of all,’ she said, ‘Max has known Myrtle all his life. She’s a second cousin. She comes from a political family, as he does. The two of them had an on–off affair throughout most of the years of Myrtle’s marriage. When she was widowed two years ago, it was expected – but unspoken – that after a suitable period of mourning they would marry. Myrtle’s husband was in government. They lived in Washington. She understands all the stresses, strains and complexities that go with being the wife of a politician. Socially, and in every other way, she was a huge asset to Oscar.’

  ‘Her late husband?’

  Rozalind blew smoke into the air and nodded.

  Thea prayed for strength. ‘Let me get this right, Roz. What you are saying is that when it came to making a choice as to which of the two of you he should marry, Max chose Myrtle purely because he thought she would be the most help to him in his career?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And, knowing this, you find his action acceptable?’

  ‘I never said I found it acceptable, but I do find it understandable.’

  ‘Then it’s more than I do!’ Thea, who rarely smoked, snatched Roz’s cigarette-case and lighter from her.

  Rozalind, anticipating what would be coming next, remained silent.

  Thea lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and, with her left arm pressed hard against her body, her hand cupping her right elbow, said, ‘And do you also find it acceptable that, after a brief year of marriage, he should be renewing his affair with you?’

  ‘Actually yes, I do. They both married for reasons other than being crazily in love with each other. I’ve told you Max’s reasons. Myrtle’s weren’t so different. She’d enjoyed being the wife of a respected politician and she wanted to be one again. It’s what she’s good at.’

  ‘And you’re the one who is good at sex? Is that where this is going?’

  Rozalind jumped to her feet and crossed the room. Angrily stubbing her cigarette out, she said with barely controlled patience, ‘Why are you being so nasty about this, Thea? Myrtle is a natural-born Washington queen bee. I have no desire to be one – and, even if I had, I wouldn’t make a very good one. How could I, when my photography is so important to me? I thought you, of all people, would understand.’

  ‘All I understand is that I think you’re being taken advantage of! Even worse is that Max doesn’t seem to have any regard at all for your reputation. Why would he tell Barty that the two of you had got together again? Why would he tell anyone?’

  ‘I don’t know. I imagine it was Barty who made the approach, not Max. He’s been badgering me to marry him for months, and it would be typical of him to gloat to Max that we were on the verge of announcing our engagement. Max was simply putting him straight. And though Barty told you, he only did so out of rage and frustration – and he probably also hoped you’d react exactly as you have done, and that you’d try and get me to break things off with Max.’

  ‘Which you are not going to do?’

  ‘Which I am not going to do.’

  They stared at each other, at an impasse.

  ‘He’s what I want, Thea.’ Rozalind took both of Thea’s hands in hers. ‘I love him. Any way I can get him, I want him in my life.’

  ‘And Myrtle?’

  ‘Myrtle has got what she wants. There won’t be a divorce – and neither will I be sitting at home waiting for Max to spend a few stolen hours with me. I’ve got a contract with Pullman’s, a New York press agency. I’ve been a semi-professional photographer for years. Now, thanks to Pullman’s, I’m a fully professional one. I have family wealth behind me. I can go where I want, when I want. Best of all, when it comes to having love in my life, the man I love with all my heart loves me in exactly the same way. You may doubt this, Thea, but I don’t. Not for a second.’

  Thea took a deep, steadying breath, finally accepting what she so clearly couldn’t change.

  At last she said: ‘Will you tell Olivia?’

  ‘I’ll tell Olivia, and I’ll tell Violet. Where my family are concerned, I’ve no intention of keeping Max in a cupboard. My life is going to be permanently intertwined with his. It may not be a situation anybody wants, but it is a situation I want accepted by the people I love.’

  ‘And Carrie?’

  ‘Of course Carrie!’ Rozalind was indignant. ‘I said family – and, for me, that includes Carrie. We’re seeing her tonight, aren’t we? At Charlie and Hermione’s?’

  ‘Yes. It’s going to be a nice little party. You. Me. Olivia and Dieter. Violet. Jim. Miss Calvert. Hermione and Charlie.’

  ‘But no Kyle, and no Hal?’

  ‘Kyle would have travelled up for the weekend if I’d invited him.’

  ‘And you didn’t invite him because . . . ?’

  Thea flushed. ‘Because Carrie wrote to Hal about the get-together. His driving up for it is a long shot, but still . . .’

  ‘But still you were hoping?’

  Thea nodded, not trusting herself to put her hopes, where Hal was concerned, into words.

  On marrying Charlie, Hermione had never moved into the tied cottage that had been Charlie’s home since the day Blanche had first met him and offered him work. Instead, with legacies left her by her parents, she had bought an attractive double-fronted terraced house that faced Outhwaite’s village green and war memorial. Compared to other local houses it was comfortably spacious. Carrie thought it positively grand. Thea, Olivia and Violet, all of whom had grown up regularly visiting much smaller houses – houses such as Miss Calvert’s pin-neat terraced home and Carrie’s granny’s tied cottage – piled into it without giving it another thought. Dieter, who had never socialized in any private home smaller than, in Germany, a little palace and, in England, Gorton Hall, looked and felt dazedly bemused.

  ‘So nice to meet you, Count von Starhemberg,’ Hermione said, her long nose twitching, her pince-nez hanging from a mulberry-coloured ribbon the exact same sha
de as her silk dress. ‘Möchten Sie lieber sprechen Englisch oder Deutsch?’

  ‘Thank you for your courtesy in asking, Mrs Hardwick. In England, and out of deference to my English family, I prefer to speak in English.’ Dieter clicked his heels, bowed formally and kissed the back of her hand.

  Hermione flushed with pleasure.

  Olivia’s eyes sparkled. She knew her Hermione, and she knew Hermione had only asked the question in order to be able to show off her German.

  ‘So that is why your German is so good,’ Dieter whispered to her as Violet enveloped Hermione in a giant bear-hug. ‘I always thought you began learning it in Berlin, at finishing school. I didn’t know you had been taught it as a child.’

  ‘Actually, I wasn’t. When I was of an age to begin a language, it was the Great War – and the aftermath went on a long time. Hermione might have been capable of teaching German, but even Papa wouldn’t have thought it a patriotic choice. She taught us French instead.’

  ‘Lieber Gott!’

  For a second Olivia thought Dieter was giving vent to an unnecessarily harsh reaction to French having being the preferred choice, and then she saw that Jim had entered the room. Scrubbed up, his curly hair brilliantined halfway into submission and in his Sunday best – a shiny suit and a collarless shirt worn with a remarkably clean red-spotted neckerchief – he couldn’t have been mistaken for anything other than a common workman, albeit a rather good-looking one.

  Aghast, Dieter said weakly, ‘Please tell me I am not expected to rub shoulders with this person also?’

  His shock and horror were so deep that Olivia giggled. ‘Yes, you are, darling. Jim is one of the best friends Thea and I have.’ She frowned, suddenly serious. ‘And think how difficult it is for him, stepping into the same room as you – a German.’