Hal grinned cheekily across at Thea and, carefully not addressing her as Miss Thea, or even by name, said, ‘Is that right? You ’ave a camera?’
Jim made a muffled sound that Carrie strongly suspected was one of suppressed mirth.
Thea, quite obviously wishing she’d never agreed to Hal accompanying them, said stiffly, ‘Yes. I have.’
‘Can I ’ave a look at it?’
‘Certainly not!’ Thea’s outrage was so deep Carrie half-expected her to box Hal’s ears. ‘You’re here to show us where the voles live, and that’s all!’
Instead of being suitably apologetic, Hal laughed.
Jim made another muffled sound. Thea flushed a deep angry red. Olivia giggled. Carrie, exasperated beyond all endurance, punched Hal so hard he half-fell off the narrow seat.
Regaining his balance, he said in mock reproach, ‘Steady on, Carrie, ’ow d’you expect me to find the burrow for you if you knock me into the middle o’ next week?’
She glared at him, wishing she’d never thought his coming with them was a good idea.
The bridge was now a fair distance behind them and Jim said, ‘Whereabouts d’you want dropping off, our Hal?’
Hal squinted across the wide expanse of rough meadowland separating the lane from the river. Looking back to the bridge to gauge the distance, he said, ‘Anywhere here will be grand.’
As Jim reined in the horse and the trap rocked to a gentle halt, the girls looked at each other. Thea put into words what they had all suddenly realized. ‘Mama thought Mr Crosby would be with us on the river-bank, but he can’t be, can he? He can’t leave the pony-trap unattended in the lane.’
‘That don’t matter.’ Hal, oblivious to the conditions under which Thea and Olivia had been allowed their trip to the river, jumped down from the trap.
Olivia followed him.
Thea looked at Carrie, hesitated for a moment and then said, ‘Come on, Carrie. Mr Crosby has a good view of the river from here. We’ll be in sight all the time.’
She jumped down from the trap, the Box Brownie tucked under one arm. Carrie, not seeing that she had much choice, jumped down after her.
As they began walking through deep grass in Hal and Olivia’s wake, Thea said disapprovingly, ‘I know I thought it a good idea for your friend to come with us, but you didn’t tell me how smelly he was, or that his jacket would have been used as a dog-bed.’
Carrie came to an abrupt halt, her face white. She knew that in giving Thea a piece of her mind she would ruin everything for herself; that afterwards she would never be invited to Gorton again, never again play in its wonderful playroom and, though she wouldn’t miss Thea, she would miss Olivia. It was a lot to lose, but she didn’t care.
‘How dare you talk like that about Hal?’ She fought the urge to grab fistfuls of Thea’s chestnut ringlets and tug on them hard. ‘All Hal smells of are the cows he looks after for his dad. If you had to look after cows and only had cold water from a yard pump to wash in, you’d smell of cow! And his jacket is shabby because it’s years old and wasn’t new when he was given it!’
Angry tears scalded the backs of her eyes. ‘Not everyone lives in a house as big as a palace with nannies and governesses and maids. Most Outhwaite children work in the fields before they go to school and afterwards – and often with nothing more than bread and dripping to eat!’
Knowing that she’d ended all hope of ever being invited to Gorton again, and had probably also ended all hope of one day being taken on as a tweeny, tears of another kind mixed with her tears of anger.
Not wanting Thea to see them, she began running after Olivia and Hal, knowing she’d have to tell them that their morning of vole pup-watching and photography was almost certainly not going to happen now.
Catching up with them, she said unhappily, ‘Thea and I have fallen out. She didn’t say so, but I don’t think she’s now coming to see the voles – and I don’t think she’ll be letting me travel back in the pony-trap, either.’
Hal raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you telling us the two of you ’ave ’ad a barney?’
‘Yes.’ Carrie hadn’t the faintest intention of telling him what the barney had been about. ‘I don’t like her, and she doesn’t like me.’
‘Doesn’t mean to say the three of us can’t watch the voles. Olivia still wants to watch ’em, don’t you ’livia?’
Olivia, who often fell out with Thea and didn’t see anything odd in Carrie having done so, nodded her head. As if to show where her loyalties lay, she moved a little closer to Hal’s side. From being initially alarmed by him, she now wanted to be friends with him. There was, though, Thea to think about. If Thea returned home without her, there was no telling what kind of explanation Thea might give their mother and it would probably be one that would get her into trouble.
She looked towards the pony-trap. Jim Crosby was leaning against the side of it, smoking a cigarette, one foot crossed carelessly over the other and Thea was striding towards him.
‘Come on, ’livia,’ Hal said impatiently. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘I want to see if Thea is going to tell Mr Crosby she wants to go home and that he’s not to wait for us.’
‘She can tell ’im what she wants, but Uncle Jim takes ’is orders from your ma. He won’t budge an inch until you’re in the trap as well.’
All three of them looked towards the pony-trap. As Thea reached it, Jim nipped his cigarette out and put it behind his ear in order to give her a hand up. Though it was hard to tell from the distance they were at, it didn’t look as if Thea said anything to him. She simply seated herself in the trap. Jim, lighting up his cigarette, once again leaned nonchalantly against it.
‘There. See.’ Hal clinked a couple of marbles around in his jacket pocket. ‘Now can we get goin’?’
Olivia nodded, eager to do so. She could never remember a more interesting morning. She was with two new friends – friends who, for the very first time, weren’t family members. She was down by the river and unsupervised by an adult, for although Jim Crosby was keeping an eye on their safety, he couldn’t be said to be supervising them. Best of all she wasn’t just pretending to do something, as when she and Thea played at being pirates or princesses. She was really doing something. She was an explorer, about to see little creatures most people had probably never heard of.
Unlike Olivia, Carrie was far from happy. As all three walked quietly and carefully to the edge of the river, all she could think of was how disappointed her granny was going to be when she told her that she’d fallen out with Thea, and that Thea wouldn’t want to see her any more.
Hal interrupted her thoughts by signalling for her to drop onto her tummy. She did so, pulling Olivia down with her. When they had all wriggled forward far enough to see over the thickly foliaged bank, they lay still and waited.
Seconds turned into minutes and then, just as Olivia felt she couldn’t stay still a moment longer, there was movement.
Even though she had experienced the sight several times over the summer, Carrie felt her throat tighten as two bright little eyes peeped from a tangle of reeds a yard or so to their left. Beside her, Olivia gasped.
Carrie squeezed her hand, willing her to remain silent.
As the water vole emerged from the foliage covering the mouth of the burrow, to be followed by a troop of tiny pups, it was all too much for Olivia. ‘Oh,’ she whispered on a long drawn-out breath. ‘Look at their pretty little faces, Carrie. Aren’t they just the sweetest things you’ve ever seen?’
The pups scrambled and half-fell into the water and Carrie nodded, temporarily forgetting the huge disappointment she was feeling. Here, lying in the deep grass, with the hot sun on her back and the vole pups to watch, she was happy.
It was happiness that lasted until they finally rose to their feet and began heading back to the pony-trap. As they approached it, Jim, once again seated, picked up the reins. Thea didn’t acknowledge any of them, not even Olivia, and as Carrie climbed into the tr
ap her heart was heavy with the certainty that she was doing so for the last time.
Jim dropped Hal off at the bridge and then, with Olivia chattering about what a wonderful morning it had been and Thea still silent, they returned to Gorton.
When Jim reined the horse in, Carrie wondered what she ought to do. Should she just get out of the trap, as if nothing had happened between her and Thea? Should she stay in it and ask Jim if he would take her back to her granny’s? Or should she get out of it, say goodbye to Olivia and begin walking home?
It was Thea, getting out of the trap first, who solved the problem for her. ‘Jim will take you home,’ she said abruptly, standing on the gravel and looking up at her with an inscrutable expression in her narrow eyes. ‘And then tomorrow we’ll take a picnic with us when we go to see the voles. I hadn’t understood about Hal, but I do now. I think he’d like a picnic. I’ll ask Cook to make a seed cake.’
Chapter Three
OCTOBER 1917
Two years later Carrie wasn’t only best friends with Thea and Olivia, but friends with Violet, as well. Violet, now eight, was as eager to be independent of Nanny Erskine as Thea and Olivia had been at the same age. Thea and Olivia, however, hated Violet tagging along with them, and whenever Violet escaped Nanny Erskine it was generally only Carrie who spent time with her.
On a mellow Saturday morning Carrie stepped out of Gorton Hall to find Violet sitting glumly on the magnificent flight of stone steps fronting it.
‘Do you want to come down to the village with me to post the officers’ mail?’ she asked, coming to a halt beside her.
For more than a year Gorton Hall had served as a convalescent home for wounded officers, and Carrie – now regarded almost as family at Gorton – had taken it upon herself to act as their postwoman.
Violet’s pretty heart-shaped face brightened. ‘Are you going in the pony-trap or are you bicycling?’
‘Bicycling.’
‘Goody!’ Violet sprang to her feet.
Like Thea and Olivia she had red hair, but whereas Thea’s hair was a deep chestnut and Olivia’s was the colour of pale marmalade, Violet’s tumble of waves and curls was a true fox-red.
‘Just like Papa’s hair,’ Violet had once said to Carrie. ‘And my eyes are the same colour as Papa’s, too.’
Her eyes, a deep golden amber, were as distinctive as her hair, but Violet didn’t mind being distinctive. Being distinctive was something she actively aimed for.
She said now, as they made the long walk round the side of the house to the bicycle shed, ‘Papa is coming home on leave soon, did you know?’
Carrie moved the pile of envelopes she was carrying from one arm to the other. ‘Yes. It’s going to be a very special few days.’
A year ago, after suffering a wound on the Somme at Flers–Courcelette that had rendered his left arm near useless, Lord Fenton had been appointed to a staff job behind the lines. Until now his leaves had always been spent in London, and Blanche and the children had always joined him there at their town house in Mount Street, just off Park Lane. This time, though, Gilbert Fenton was going to be spending his short leave at Gorton. Carrie, who had only ever seen him from a distance and then not since before the war, was looking forward to his arrival almost as much as his children.
Once in the bicycle shed, Carrie took the spare bicycle that had been bought with Roz in mind and put the letters into its pannier. Seconds later, with Violet close behind her, she was skimming down the long drive leading through Gorton Hall’s parkland to its main gates and the lane beyond.
On the far side of the bridge the lane divided, one arm continuing south, following the line of the river, the other arm leading straight into Outhwaite.
Violet, oblivious that at eight years old she was enjoying a freedom her older sisters hadn’t enjoyed until Carrie and Hal had become a part of their lives, was singing ‘Tipperary’ at the top of her lungs, the patriotic red, white and blue ribbons tied to her handlebars streaming in the breeze as she freewheeled down the hill into the centre of the village.
The post office served as a general meeting place and there was a small group of women outside it, most of them wearing shawls against the autumn nip in the air.
‘Mornin’, Carrie. Mornin’, Miss Violet,’ they said in unison as Carrie and Violet dismounted from their bikes. Someone else added that it was a lively morning – ‘lively’ being the local expression for the turn in the weather signifying that summer was well and truly over.
Inside there was a queue. Carrie, needing to buy stamps, joined it and immediately sensed an odd atmosphere. Instead of the usual buzz of friendly conversation, there was a tense silence.
The cause appeared to be a young man in the queue, to whom people were carefully not standing too close. With only a rear view of him, Carrie wasn’t sure who he was, though she rather thought it was Charlie Hardwick, the son of a local cow-man.
The woman in front of Charlie – if it was Charlie – was being served, and Effie Mellor, the postmistress, was doing so tight-lipped, all the while shooting her next customer nervous, covert glances.
It occurred to Carrie that if the young man wasn’t Charlie – Charlie had been one of the first of Outhwaite’s young men to enlist – then he might be a pacifist. The women of Outhwaite were hard on pacifists. Armitage, Gorton Hall’s chauffeur, rarely ran the risk of being publicly name-called by them and seldom ventured into the village. In contrast, the officers at Gorton kept what contempt they felt, if they felt it, to themselves.
The woman at Effie’s counter turned away from it and was so disconcerted at having to pass the young man that she dropped her post-office book. It fell at his feet and, clearly hesitant because of her attitude towards him, he made no move to retrieve it. Because it would mean moving closer to him, neither did she.
Ever helpful, Violet darted forward, scooping the book up and handing it over. In doing so she bumped into the young man. With a sunny smile she turned to apologize.
Her smile froze. Her eyes widened in horror. Then she screamed, backing away from him so fast that she fell against the woman whose book she had retrieved.
It was as if a trigger had gone off.
‘See what you’ve done, Charlie ’ardwick?’ the woman with the post-book shrieked. ‘You’ve scared little Miss Violet ’alf to death!’
‘You should be in ’ospital!’ someone else shouted. ‘Somewhere you won’t be able to frighten folk!’
Other voices gave the opinion that Charlie had no thought for others; that he should be wearing a balaclava.
Puzzled and alarmed, Carrie’s immediate concern was for Violet and she grabbed hold of her by the hand, pulling her close.
Charlie’s immediate concern was to be free of the cruel abuse. Heedless now of whatever it was that he had come into the post office for, he turned blunderingly away from the counter, desperate to escape.
Carrie sucked in her breath, her eyes widening, her jaw dropping. Charlie’s face was a face no longer. Many of the officers recuperating at Gorton had facial burns and injuries. None came close to Charlie Hardwick’s monstrous disfigurement. One eye was now much lower than the other, the eyelid distorted and puckered. He had no eyelashes. No eyebrows. His nose was missing and, on a face once pleasant and homely, every inch of skin was leprously white and shiny, the scarring so raised and tight that all facial expression was impossible.
For a fleeting instant his eyes met Carrie’s, filled with an agony beyond all bearing. Then, with a low moan, he pushed past her and, as the woman who had said he should be wearing a balaclava hastily got out of his way, made a desperate dash for the door.
It banged behind him, and once again there was a clamour of voices.
‘It would’ve been better for him if he’d bin killed.’
‘He’s no right walking the streets, giving folk nightmares.’
‘He won’t be doing so for much longer. He can’t get work – and no wonder. First time I saw ’im I thought I was going t
o faint.’
With Violet clutching hold of her free hand tightly, Carrie bought stamps. Then, moving along the counter so that the woman behind her could be served, she stuck the stamps on the envelopes, her fingers unsteady, her legs like jelly. What she had seen had frightened her just as much as it had frightened Violet, but she didn’t want Violet knowing that.
Taking her by the hand, Carrie led her outside to where a bright-red pillar-box stood. Normally posting the officer’s mail was a happy occasion. Violet liked hearing the envelopes drop inside the letter-box, and Carrie enjoyed thinking of the pleasure with which the letters would be received. Today there was no joy in it for either of them. All both of them wanted was to get back to the normality of Gorton Hall.
As they straddled their bicycles Violet said in a stunned, scared voice, ‘Will the monster-man always be in the village, Carrie? Because if he is, I don’t think I’ll come with you to the post office any more. I don’t want to see him again. He frightened me.’
With her foot down hard on a pedal, ready to push off, Carrie said, ‘He isn’t a monster-man, Violet.’ Her voice was unsteady. ‘He’s Charlie Hardwick. He used to play in the village cricket team, and he once rescued Miss Mellor’s cat when it had climbed a tree it couldn’t get down from.’
She had been trying to make Violet feel better, but for some reason that she didn’t understand her words only made her feel worse.
The minute they returned to Gorton, Violet fled in search of her mother.
Carrie went up to the playroom and was glad, when she got there, to find it empty. She didn’t go in search of Thea and Olivia. Instead she pulled a chair up to the table that had once been used for jigsaws and was now covered by a huge map of Belgium and northern France.
The map had been Blanche Fenton’s idea. Blue crayoned lines indicated the last-known British positions, red lines the German ones. To say that the lines gave only an overall general idea was an understatement, but the girls gleaned what information they could from newspaper reports and from information Lord Fenton gave Blanche whenever he had one of his all-too-rare leaves.
A Season of Secrets Page 3