by Joanna Rees
‘We’ll get caught,’ she whispered, smiling up at him, even though she didn’t want the kissing to end.
‘That’s the beauty of roller skates. It’ll take old Jeffers an age to get down the corridor. He could never catch us.’
There was a moment when they both realized what he’d meant by ‘us’ – as in himself and Horace.
‘Do you miss him dreadfully?’ she asked, putting her hand on Archie’s cheek and staring into his eyes. ‘Horace, I mean?’
‘Yes. Especially when I’m here. The whole place is haunted with memories.’
He stretched out his arm and lifted a silver-framed photograph from the small table next to the sofa.
‘There. That’s him.’
Vita wriggled from beneath him so that she could hold the photograph. The similarity between Horace and Archie was quite striking. In the picture, Archie was staring up adoringly at his brother.
‘You’re better-looking,’ she said.
‘Don’t say that,’ he said. ‘Horace was better-looking . . . better at everything.’ She could hear the sadness in his voice. ‘He was so bright and clever. Really the apple of my mother’s eye. And for all this time I’ve just kept thinking that it should have been me. Me that went to war. But I was too young to go. I guess I’ll always have to live with that.’
She wished she could comfort him. Her heart ached that he had shared something so personal with her. She wished she could come clean and tell him about her own family. How she knew what it felt like to be an underling to a superior sibling. That she, too, knew the pain of never feeling good enough. The feeling of knowing that your parents love your brother more, and always will.
For one heady moment she thought about what it might be like to say the words. Let them fly out of her up to the ceiling-rose above. Let Archie be a witness as she unburdened her guilt.
But would he understand? How could she explain the daily torment Clement had put her through, without making herself seem weak? How could she explain how feeble and pathetic her father had always made her feel? How hard it had been to stand up to him? How she’d longed, all her life, to be free? That she’d always known that Anna Darton’s wasn’t the life she was destined to live, but that she’d found out that Verity Casey’s was.
Archie was such a decent man. He’d never deliberately lock someone in a stable with an angry horse, however much they deserved it. And, worse, when Archie still mourned his own brother so desperately, hearing what she’d done quite deliberately to her own brother would be unforgivable. There was no way around it.
But how she ached to tell him who she really was. That his family and hers, under any other circumstances, might have approved of their courtship . . . encouraged it, even. She thought of her father, smoking a cigar in this very room, mixing with Archie’s set. She could almost picture it.
But that would never happen. She could never risk telling Archie anything about the Dartons. As painful as it was, her secret had to stay just that.
90
The Perfect Picnic
Archie procured a picnic lunch from Mrs Hopson and, as soon as they were out of sight of the kitchen window, they held hands as they strolled down the garden and through a gate into a wood. Sunlight came in diagonal shafts through the trees, lighting up the carpet of vivid green grass and wild flowers. Butterflies danced in their path and birds chirruped high in the branches above. Vita sighed and smiled. To be alone like this with Archie, somewhere this beautiful, filled her with a happiness she’d never known. And more than that – a sense of anticipation that made her tremble inside.
‘I want to show you my favourite view in the whole world,’ Archie said as he led her through a tunnel cut into a giant rhododendron bush. He ducked and held her hand until they came through to the other side. Vita gasped as she took in the astounding view. Flawless English countryside swept away from them down into a valley. In the distance a river twinkled in the sunshine. Cows grazed in the field beyond.
Archie walked a little way further, then spread out the blanket from the basket in the dappled shade of the huge hornbeam.
‘When I was little we used to own everything as far as the eye can see, but now it’s only up to that river,’ he said.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she replied, flopping down on the rug and kicking her shoes off.
He opened the wicker hamper he’d been carrying and lifted out a flask. ‘It’s Mrs Hopson’s elderflower, I bet,’ he said, pouring some liquid into a silver cup. ‘Oh, look. Jeffers put in strawberries. He grows them in the vegetable garden. They’re heavenly. Here,’ he said, dangling the strawberry over her mouth so that she had to lean up to reach it.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Vita said. It was delicious. Archie leant over and kissed her luxuriously. She longed to tell him that each kiss felt like a door closing on her past. Like he was layer upon layer of goodness, burying everything bad that had ever happened. Each kiss was a salvation that she grabbed onto.
‘How long has your family had this place?’ she said eventually, breaking away. She leant back and stared dreamily at Archie, as he told her about his great-great-grandfather making a fortune abroad and how he’d commissioned Hartwell from a famous architect of the day.
‘You’re so lucky to have it still. So many beautiful homes have been demolished lately,’ she said, thinking of two stately homes that she knew of personally in Lancashire that had been flattened in the last two years. It was even worse in Derbyshire and Yorkshire. ‘I mean, I can understand why the houses go, but it seems such a shame when such a grand vision is lost.’
He smiled at her. ‘You know, I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about you that doesn’t add up.’
‘Add up? Whatever can you mean?’ she said. She looked down, feeling her heart fluttering.
‘You’re too bright.’
‘You mean for a dancing girl?’
‘That’s not what I mean. You just seem a bit of a mystery to me. That’s all. I mean, why don’t you talk about it, Vita?’
‘What?’
‘Your childhood? Your family? Where you come from?’
‘Because there’s nothing much to tell,’ she lied.
‘Nothing? You’re not nothing. You’re everything.’
‘It’s boring,’ she said. ‘This is what matters now. Us.’
‘But I want to know—’
She silenced him by putting her finger on his lips. ‘Don’t,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t want to be that person. This life – that I’ve made for myself – is the one I want. I’m not like you, with your traditions and family ties. It’s not the same.’
The afternoon grew hotter. When the shade went, they left the picnic spot and Archie led her down to where the river opened out into a lake. She hadn’t seen it from the top of the hill, but the secluded spot, surrounded by trees, was a perfect sun-trap. There was a summer house on the far side of the lake and, below them, a wooden jetty stretching out into the still water. Insects buzzed and the mirrored surface broke occasionally with rippling circles.
‘Come on,’ said Archie. ‘Let’s have a swim.’
‘We haven’t got any swimming costumes,’ she said.
Archie laughed. ‘Well, there’s no one around. Horace and I always used to go skinny-dipping.’
Vita blushed.
‘What?’ Archie laughed. ‘There’s no point in being coy now! I’ve already seen you in your underwear.’
He pulled off his clothes quickly, leaving his underpants on. She watched him run along the jetty, before jumping at the end and diving in boyishly. He surfaced and flicked his hair, his face lit up in a grin. ‘Come on,’ he called. ‘It’s easy.’
‘Don’t look,’ she said, unbuttoning her dress before pulling it over her head. She could feel herself shaking. Was she really going to do this? And if she did, didn’t that mean she was giving herself to Archie?
Yes, was the answer, screaming in her head, but as muc
h as that scared her, she didn’t care. Right now all she wanted was to be with him in the water.
She stripped off down to her slip and tiptoed lightly down the jetty.
‘The best way in is to run and jump,’ he said, treading water, still facing away from her.
She took a dive in and the cool water was instantly delicious on her skin. She surfaced, gasping and laughing.
‘The bottom,’ she said. ‘I can touch it. But it’s muddy. Oh, and slimy!’
Archie filled up his mouth with water and squirted it in an arc. ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ he said. ‘The last of the eels went ages ago.’
Vita did a little wriggle in the water. ‘Don’t!’
Archie swam up to her and pinched her waist, then caught her in his arms.
She felt the cool water and his hot skin, and she moaned as he kissed her. The water sparkled all around them.
‘Oh, Vita,’ he breathed. ‘I want you. I want you so much.’
And she wanted him, too. She thought of Betsy in their bedroom. How she’d described this feeling. How natural it felt to give yourself to someone when they were the right one.
‘I want you too, but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Won’t you think . . . I mean, won’t you think of me differently?’
‘How could it change anything about the way I feel about you? Apart from to love you more.’
She stopped breathing for a moment, watching the sunlight on the drops on his eyelashes, feeling the enormity of what he’d just said. She stared into his eyes, seeing so clearly that he meant it.
‘I mean it, Vita. I love you. I’ve wanted to tell you since I first met you. Is that crazy?’
She kissed him again. ‘No, but . . .’
‘We don’t have to,’ he said, kissing her again, more passionately this time. ‘We don’t have to do anything at all.’
‘We do. I mean, I want to. So much.’
‘Here,’ he whispered, taking her hand and putting it around him, underneath the water. She felt her breath, hot and shallow, as he moved his hand with hers so that she squeezed and massaged him.
‘Come with me to the boathouse,’ he whispered.
91
The Boathouse
Vita was shivering uncontrollably as they entered the boathouse, but not with cold. She was aware that her thin slip was see-through and clinging to her, as Archie moved some wooden chairs out of the way and made a pile of cushions on the floor. She’d picked up their clothes from the jetty and she dropped the pile of them in the corner.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s safe, I promise. No one will find us here.’
He lay down on his side and reached his arm up to her and she knelt down beside him. She could see his hardness, erect against the hairs of his flat stomach, waiting for her. She thought how strange it was that although this was the first time she’d seen a man in the flesh like this, it seemed natural. As if she’d always known his body.
‘I’ve never done this before,’ she said, her voice timid as she lay against him and she stared into his eyes.
‘Oh? I thought you might have – I mean . . .’
She shook her head. Had he really thought that? Is that what Edith meant when she said everyone who came to the club thought the dancers were those sorts of girls.
‘That sounds so rude,’ Archie said, clearly ashamed. ‘I didn’t meant that at all. Maybe we should wait.’
‘No!’ she cried, kissing him. ‘I want you. I want it to be you. Now.’
She looked into his eyes, a drip of water hanging from his fringe.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked her and she nodded, and he pressed himself against her and kissed her deeply.
‘But . . . that doesn’t mean – you see, I’m not that sort of girl,’ she breathed as he kissed her neck.
‘I know. You’re mine. That’s the only sort of girl you need to be.’
And then he was removing her slip and it was as if they had both crawled across a desert to get to one another; the relief felt so intense as their limbs twisted around each other and their naked torsos pressed together.
‘What about . . . I mean, Nancy gave me something, but it’s back at the house,’ she admitted.
‘Oh yes, yes,’ Archie said, as if remembering. ‘I have something. Wait.’
She watched as he knelt up and grabbed his trousers, rummaging through the pockets. He undid a small package, with his back turned to her.
And then he was above her, staring right at her. They kissed for ages and then he pushed into her. She gasped at the sharp pain and then she felt an untightening, a delicious yielding, as if she were a flower opening up for the first time. And then she was lost.
Afterwards they lay together, her head on his chest. She ran her fingers over the springy hairs, delighting in knowing his body. She had wondered what it might feel like, to have given herself to a man, and she felt a grin spread over her face.
Archie leant down and looked at her. ‘That’s a big smile,’ he said. ‘You look like the cat that got the cream.’
‘I feel like the cat that got the cream,’ she said, leaning up and putting her chin on her hands. ‘I feel . . . undone.’
‘Undone?’ Archie questioned, a tease in his voice. ‘And it’s a feeling you like?’
‘It’s a feeling I like very much,’ she said, her laugh dissolving into kisses.
They made love again then, more slowly and with more talking and laughing, discovering each other’s bodies as they connected together. Both of them agreed that they seemed to fit each other perfectly.
Vita could have stayed there forever with Archie, but when the light started to fade, it was time to go back to the house. Before they did, Archie took out a pocket-knife from his trousers and carved their initials in a heart on the floor.
‘There,’ he said and she laughed. They kept stopping to kiss and then giggling, exploring this new knowledge that they were lovers. But then, as the house came into view, Archie stopped holding her hand.
‘It’s like you’re my knight putting your armour back on,’ she told him.
‘I have to,’ he said sadly. ‘I know only too well that everything I do here gets watched. I bet Mrs Hopson and Sally are looking at us right now from the first-floor window.’
Vita shielded her eyes and looked at the house, wondering what they saw. Wondering if the staff could possibly know what had just happened and that everything was different. Everything. She and Archie were in love and she’d given herself to him completely. She had no idea what would happen next, but life would be altogether different.
‘I shall try and look normal then,’ she said, ‘but I don’t really feel it.’
92
Starlit Sky
Back at the house, Vita changed for dinner in her room, but when she looked at her reflection in the mahogany mirror, she blushed, then laughed. She wondered what Nancy would say. Whether she’d approve. Because this certainly felt like the most courageous, daring thing she’d ever done.
But the big question was: what did it mean, now that Archie had told her that he loved her? Surely that changed everything? Anna Darton was dead and gone for good. She was Archie’s Vita now. Nothing else mattered.
They ate dinner together in the dining room, Jeffers serving them formally from silver platters. Vita was impressed that such formality was being observed. Clarissa Fenwick obviously had very high standards. But she’d be able to match them, wouldn’t she? She could convey class and breeding just as well as anyone in Archie’s set, she was sure of it.
Archie made small talk about estate affairs and the village cricket match, but she wasn’t listening. She knew that, with every word, he doing his best not to catch her eye.
After supper he declared that he was off for an early night, pressing a note into her hand:
Don’t for one minute think that you’re sleeping alone. Or sleeping at all. When the clock strikes eleven, meet me in the corridor. Bring the robe from the back of
your door and the quilt from the bed. We’re going to the roof.
Vita lay in a state of nervous agitation, reliving every moment of the boathouse, her ears straining to hear the clock strike.
After an eternity, when the old grandfather clock started to chime, she crept out of the bed and opened the door and looked along the corridor. Sure enough, she saw Archie’s head poke out from the stairwell and he beckoned her to follow him. He put his fingers to his lips.
She gathered the quilt from the bed and followed him along the upper corridor and then to an attic room, where a shaky electric light illuminated the shadowy eaves. At the far end was a hatch and Archie pushed it open; they climbed out onto the flat roof, and he pulled the quilt from her.
It was a perfect night, the sky clear with stars starting to come out. To her surprise, Archie had already prepared for their visit and there was a candelabrum full of flickering candles, along with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
‘We can talk up here,’ he said, twisting the wire on the champagne cork, which flew out and the champagne gushed. There was a distant plop as the cork landed in the fountain in the driveway. ‘You could stay in my room, but Jeffers has the hearing of a bat. He’d be on to us in seconds.’
She snuggled into him, and Archie wrapped the dressing gown around her. She stroked the hair on his chest.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she said, holding out the glass.
‘You’re wonderful,’ he said.
They drank champagne and then they kissed for ages.
‘I just can’t stop,’ he laughed. ‘You’re too kissable. Is it crazy that I love you this madly?’
‘Not when I love you, too.’
He stroked the hair out of her face. ‘In fact I think I can safely say that I will always love you,’ he said. ‘No matter what.’