I glanced at Freddie, who was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, squinting at the plane, then sliding his eyes to Linklater, then to me. Both Jeremy and I nodded to him, and Jeremy drew himself up straight. Freddie nodded back, stiffened his spine, and walked over to the plane and began kicking at the tires.
“Not sure about these, David, not sure at all,” he said.
David looked down from the cockpit, frowning.
Linklater was taken aback. “What’s wrong with ’em?”
“Well, they’re … they’re not really well reinforced, are they?” Freddie was beginning to dip into some of the knowledge Raines had managed to cram into us.
“The tires are perfectly fine,” Linklater reassured David. “I’ve never had a problem.” He looked at Freddie. “What do you know about it?”
Freddie’s eyes widened, and he looked panicked.
“Oh, Freddie knows so much about these things,” I gushed, hurrying to stand beside him. “Don’t you, Freddie? He’s so very clever about it, even I can understand what he’s talking about!” I tittered like an idiot. Jeremy’s face was a mixture of horror and bafflement. I ignored that and patted Freddie on the arm. “Go on, Freddie, tell him. How do you know they’re not strong? It’s something about the color, isn’t it?”
“Y-yes! Yes! You can tell by the color. See how they’re grayish?” Freddie grinned, pleased with himself. “See, we use carbon black in our tires. Makes ’em much stronger. Less likely to burst under pressure, and they last longer.” He kicked at the tire again.
“And didn’t you say that tires like these are all right on a light aircraft but would be trouble for something heavier?” I prompted.
“That’s right.” Freddie nodded. “You use an unreinforced tire on something like a passenger plane, and you’ll have ’em bursting up and down the runway. And passengers won’t like that.” He and I both solemnly shook our heads. “No siree. Not at all.”
“Oh,” said Linklater, now bending down to poke at the tire.
“Why don’t we go somewhere and talk about it some more?” Jeremy suggested.
“Yes, I’m sure there’s plenty more Freddie can say about it,” I added, patting Freddie on the arm. “He really is so clever.”
Freddie puffed his chest out a little and grinned.
“All right,” Linklater agreed. “How about a round at the pub? We can wet the head of David’s new baby.” He reached out and patted the plane’s nose. Then he glanced at me, and his face fell. “Oh. Um—” He brightened. “There’s a Lyons Tea House just across the street,” he recalled.
My answering smile was as brilliant as it was false. “How lovely!”
* * *
I sat for over an hour in that teashop. As my unwanted cup of Earl Grey cooled before me, I worried and wondered about what was happening in The Noisy Cricket. Was Freddie keeping himself together? Or had a succession of pints undone him? At least Jeremy was there and could rein him in, if necessary. But what if he intervened too late? What if he didn’t offer the encouragement Freddie needed? What if Freddie couldn’t properly answer any questions? What if Linklater refused to even discuss the tires?
Then I started to think: What if Freddie succeeded? Would my troubles be over?
No. Not by any means.
The income I’d received from Vandemark before Porter left had only been a few hundred pounds. Barely enough to cover taxes on Hensley, let alone basic upkeep. There would be nothing left over for repairs or even for me to live on comfortably. I’d been so consumed with the idea that Vandemark Rubber needed to be saved, I’d failed to consider any of this. Just keeping it from going under wasn’t enough to make me independent—the company needed to expand. We needed more orders. Large ones. And we couldn’t just rely on tires alone forever. What if cars and airplanes no longer needed them? Diversifying was a key to prosperity. I’d learned that from studying Porter.
Agitated, I beat a teaspoon against the starched tablecloth. Two elderly ladies at the next table glared at me, and I dropped the spoon with an apologetic smile. I tried to take a sip of my tea, but it had overbrewed and was bitter, which at least seemed to fit my mood. This waiting! This helplessness! Being shoved aside so the men could manage things! I dug my nails into my palms and pursed my lips.
A waitress in a frilly bonnet came bustling over. “Are you finished, miss?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I believe that gentleman is here to collect you.” She nodded toward the doorway, where Jeremy was waiting. To collect me. Like a hat left at a theater cloakroom.
“Thank you.” I paid for my tea and joined him. “Did you enjoy your drink?” I asked hollowly.
“I would have enjoyed it more with you there,” he answered. “Freddie has news.”
Outside, Freddie was waiting by David’s car, beaming and hopping up and down.
“Astra!” he cried, throwing his arms wide. “I’ve done it! I’ve actually done something! Linklater’s going to order our tires. We’re saved!”
* * *
I should have been pleased—and I was—but it was hard to be excited when the very thing I’d done all this for was still out of reach. And Linklater’s dismissive behavior toward me and the way I had been shut out of everything made me feel a little sour. Still, I let Freddie have this triumph, even if he had exaggerated it a bit (Linklater had only agreed to try out the tires, and if he liked what he saw, would put in an order). Freddie had done well. Even Laura was willing to allow him one cocktail before dinner.
“I couldn’t have done it without you—especially you, Jeremy!” Freddie toasted, lifting his glass to me, Laura, and Jeremy.
“Don’t get too sloshed—you’ve got calisthenics in the morning,” Laura warned.
Freddie sighed, then shrugged. “Best make the most of it, then!” He downed his drink, then darted inside to turn the radio on. When he returned, he grabbed Laura around the waist and began dancing her up and down the terrace. “C’mon, Laurs, let’s show ’em all the Hoosier Hop!” he urged. Laura laughed and protested simultaneously.
“Suppose I ought to make sure I get those new tires fitted on my plane,” said David. “And then she’ll be perfect.”
“Will she?” I asked.
“Of course! She’s an absolutely top-notch plane.”
“You’re pleased with her, then?”
“Very.” He frowned at me, confused.
“And have you told Joyce that?”
David was taken aback. “Well, I—of course I thanked her for the plane,” he finally answered.
“Your flying terrifies her, but she bought you a plane because she knew you would love it. She did over the house so you two would have a comfortable place to start your lives together. She’s planning the local fete. She’s doing everything a wife is supposed to do, but all you do is complain.”
“What’s got your back up?” he demanded.
I turned slightly, so I was fully facing him. “Women work hard, David, but we get almost no credit. Give your wife some credit now and again.”
He opened his mouth as if to answer, but Jeremy shook his head.
“I wouldn’t,” he warned him. “She’s absolutely right, and you know it.”
David blinked at the pair of us and then, without another word, went back inside.
I released a lungful of air in a rush, then turned to Jeremy. “Could you please make me one of your gimlets?”
“I think you could use one double strength,” he observed, mixing one up and handing it over.
“I wouldn’t mind,” I admitted, taking a sip. “I suppose I was a little harsh.”
“No, no, that was exactly what he needed,” Jeremy reassured me. “I thought you’d be happier tonight, though.”
“I know. I shouldn’t be sulking. I got what I wanted. Nearly.”
“Freddie nearly got it,” Jeremy corrected, making a drink for himself. “You spent the day playing the giddy goose. I never thought I’d see that.”
“And I wish you hadn’t, but what was I supposed to do? Do you really think Linklater would have listened if I’d talked about reinforcing tires?”
“We’ll never know now, will we?” He shrugged. “If you want to be in business, and make a success of it, then be in business. Don’t stand by and leave it up to Freddie to get things done. Engage! You’ve just shown me how good you are at it.”
“Oh, that’s easy for a man to say,” I snapped. “Everyone assumes that men can do anything, and they listen to you. They see a woman and all they think is that she’s a pretty face or entertainment or a brood mare.” I took a good swig of my drink.
Jeremy regarded me quietly for a few moments. “Women fly around the world and set world records. They serve as MPs and cabinet ministers. And they run businesses. They work hard. Don’t tell me all men think women are useless creatures. We don’t. But they have to prove they’re not useless, just as men do. No one ever won the day by staying well behind the front lines. Think of your ancestor, fighting alongside the Conqueror. Get out there and be bloody, bold, and resolute.”
I set my empty glass aside, crossed my arms, and stood in silence, thinking. Jeremy patted me on the shoulder and left me to it. He was right, of course. I’d known it even before he spoke. I couldn’t just rely on Freddie. I needed to act for myself.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Humber heaved itself over the hill, crawled up the semicircular drive, and stopped at Hensley’s front door. Arthur slowly climbed from behind the wheel and opened the door so Alice and I could alight.
I stared up at the house, at its red brick facade glowing in the midafternoon sunshine. The swing my father had hung from the weeping willow drifted in a lazy breeze. I half expected to see my mother at the door, smiling and welcoming me home.
But of course there was no Mother. There was no one. The tenants had left, and as I stepped inside, the silence seemed to press down on me. Even the presence of Alice, following close behind, couldn’t lighten the atmosphere.
Divorce. The chorus girl from Rio Rita had apparently not been the first, or the last. The fed-up wife had taken the children and gone home to her mother. The husband had gone off to wherever men go when they’re abandoned by wife and mistress, facing bad press and a damaging settlement. Was it their unhappiness that seemed to hang in the air like a mist? A miasma of misery that now infected my home? Or was it the sense of betrayal I still felt toward my parents? The knowledge that my blissful, carefree life here had been bought and paid for with secrets, lies, and the hiding away of inconvenient people?
I moved through rooms, past furniture draped in cloths that made bulky ghosts of innocent tables and armchairs. In Father’s study I uncovered the desk and chair and sat. I skimmed my fingers over the gleaming ash-wood surface—no heavy walnut for him! “A woman’s desk,” Edgry had sniffed, when he saw it that day he brought the ledgers. Was that really only a little more than a year ago? It smelled faintly of the beeswax furniture polish Mother scented with lavender.
I thought. About things I had never wanted to think about.
* * *
The morning after our trip to the factory, I’d sat Freddie down for a serious talk. Convinced him that the company needed to branch out and grow.
“That’s all right,” Freddie agreed, “but we’ll need money to do it, and I haven’t got any. I’d scare it up if I could, but my family hasn’t got anything left to sell.”
And who did have ready money? I tried probing David and Laura, but neither of them were eager to sink cash into an uncertain company, even for a friend. A talk with my lawyer suggested most people were being cautious now, and no wonder: every day seemed to bring some new calamity. The world was heaving. Banks were collapsing, countries rebelling or falling more deeply into disturbing extremism. Businesses failed. People clung to whatever they had, and who could blame them?
So any investment in Vandemark would have to come from the inside. Freddie had nothing, but I did.
Could I? Could I really face giving up the dream I’d clung to the past year and sell Hensley? My home? The last place I’d seen my parents? The place where I’d grown up, scraped knees, learned to ride and garden, cried and laughed? Could I bear to let it go, relinquish its memories and secrets to someone else? Wouldn’t that be a failure on my part? Or perhaps it would be a strange sort of triumph because doing so would set me on the path to true independence. Because I’d be selling on my own terms, to start my own life. My grown-up life.
I’d mentioned the idea to Freddie, who seemed pained at the sacrifice.
“I could try talking to some people,” he suggested, though clearly even he knew that would get us nowhere. “Or—or maybe we don’t need to expand right away. We can see how Linklater’s order goes—maybe we’ll get lucky there and he’ll buy more than we expect. And it’s not … you’re not in such dire straits, are you? Really? Would your aunt really toss you out? Have I ruined things for you so badly? Can’t I fix it?” His distressed face reminded me a little of Dandy’s when he sensed I was upset.
“Oh, Freddie, that’s sweet of you,” I said earnestly. “But it’s not just the trouble with my aunt—which isn’t all your doing, believe me. We need to get ahead and strike while the iron is hot.”
He nodded slowly. He’d already known all that. We sat there, looking at each other for a little while, and then he patted my shoulder and said, “I guess you want to be alone for a while and think about things.”
“Yes, Freddie. Thank you.”
I sat for a long time in the gloom of the library at Wotting Park, turning things over and over in my mind. The thought of selling Hensley didn’t horrify me enough to shout, “No!” immediately, as I once had. But I couldn’t shrug it off and say, “Yes” either.
It was a relief, really, when I looked up and saw Jeremy in the doorway, head cocked, watching me.
“Puzzling me out?” I asked, gesturing for him to come in.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he responded, taking a chair near mine. “You seemed quite far off, just now.”
“I was. Miles away. In Leicestershire.”
His face was sympathetic. “Dreaming of home?”
“Not dreaming. Thinking.” I sighed and looked out the window.
“I hope I didn’t upset you yesterday,” he said quietly.
“No, of course not.” I turned back to face him. “I’ll never be upset with you for being honest with me.”
“And I promise the same,” he said solemnly.
I studied his face. Did he mean that? Would he see it through, once he knew the whole truth? I had to risk it. It had to come out sometime if we were to move forward together. And these secrets and emotions were all starting to wear on me.
“There’s something I want to tell you,” I said quietly. “Nobody outside my family knows it. There’s a man I’m responsible for. His name is Raymond. He lives in a home called Rosedale. I don’t know if he’s the son of some vanished aunt or a secret brother, but I know that he’s my responsibility.”
Releasing that into the world lightened me somehow. Secrets are such heavy things. I watched Jeremy absorb what I’d just said. Heard Aunt El screeching, “Tainted blood!”
There was no judgment, only concern on his face. He reached out and took my hand, lacing our fingers together. I drew in a shuddering breath.
“I feel like my life used to be so clear,” I said softly. “Everything seemed simple and straightforward. There was no question what would become of me. But now…” I shook my head. “It’s all become so uncertain. There’s so much confusion; so much puzzles me. I feel like there’s so much I don’t understand, and what I thought I knew was all wrong, and I’m sailing through a mist, hoping I don’t wreck on the rocky shoals.” I looked at him, yearning for him to know. Would he think I was talking nonsense?
He squeezed my hand and said quietly, “I understand.”
And I said, “I have to go back to Hensley.”
; * * *
And here I was. Visiting my own, lonely house.
I stood and walked over to the window, looking out at the garden. “I hope heaven is like this!” Father used to say.
Well, Father, is heaven like this?
Probably not: it was impossible to ignore the signs of neglect. There were weeds in the paths, and the bushes were overgrown. The morning glories around the windows sagged, needing water.
Without tenants or more money, this place would fall to pieces. Autumn and winter were coming, with their freezing rains and battering winds. Slates would loosen, water would seep into cracks, turning them into dangerous fissures. Could I really watch that happen?
What would I do here, anyway? Live by myself, rattling around? Alone, with only my ghosts and memories to keep me company? A house needed life in it! Would I be like Alice, so desperately grateful for even a reluctant guest?
Dear Alice: she’d been so excited when I’d telephoned and asked if I might come and stay for a day or two (Bellephonica was too ill to object).
“It’s been such a dull summer—you’ve no idea how happy I am to have you here to brighten things up a little!” she’d gushed as soon as I stepped off the train. “I made an embarrassing number of jam tarts!”
I had smiled and asked if she wouldn’t mind an excursion to Hensley. Her answering smile had been sweet, and she’d clasped both my hands and said, “Oh yes, my dear girl, of course!”
I heard her come into the room behind me, and turned.
She sighed. “Still a lovely place. But quiet.”
“Too quiet,” I agreed, finding it more oppressive than ever. I heaved one of the windows open, so I could at least hear the birds and air out the room, which had the close, neglected feeling of Uncle Augustus’s study.
“You seem troubled,” she observed, taking my hand.
“I am,” I confessed. “I’m thinking that I’ll have to give this place up. My home, and all its memories with it!” Tears smarted and my throat swelled. It felt like something had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart.
A Bright Young Thing Page 29