A Season of Secrets

by Margaret Pemberton

  She was being her usual bossy self, but Hal didn’t feel irritated. He felt unspeakable pain that not only would he not be falling in with the plans she had made for them in a few hours’ time, but he would never be falling in with any of her plans ever again.

  He spoke tautly, knowing there was no easy way of doing what needed to be done. ‘There’s going to be no Hyde Park and no Lyons Corner House, Thea. Whatever there has been between us has come to an end.’

  She stared at him in incredulity. ‘I’m sorry, Hal. I don’t think I heard you properly. For one silly moment I thought you said everything between us has come to an end. Come back into the house, darling. Taking the milk-train is silly. We can both get a few hours’ sleep and then go into the park, and perhaps take a boat out on the lake.’

  He shook his head. ‘You didn’t mishear me, Thea, and I’m not teasing. Tonight has shown me I’ve been a fool thinking that, for us, class doesn’t matter. It does.’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t!’ At the realization that Hal was only fretting about something that didn’t bother her in the slightest, she felt wild with relief. ‘If I looked to be smiling and happy tonight, it was only for Papa’s sake.’ She hugged his arm. ‘I couldn’t care less about balls like tonight’s, and being a debutante and wearing a tiara. None of it matters to me.’

  He shook his head. ‘Some things matter to you, Thea love. I know, because you told me they did only a few hours ago.’

  There was something odd in his voice; something she had never heard before. She let go of his arm, terrified by his lack of physical response, suddenly feeling as if she was standing on the edge of a precipice.

  ‘What did I tell you?’

  She tried to think of their last conversation, but couldn’t get her mind into gear. It was too frozen with fear.

  Fighting the temptation to take her in his arms, Hal dug his fists deep into his trouser pockets, certain that for both their sakes the decision he had come to was the right one.

  ‘You told me not to go down into the ballroom because I hadn’t – you thought – the correct clothes, and because I didn’t know the correct etiquette. You said it would make me feel uncomfortable, but what you really meant was that it would make you uncomfortable, because although you say those things aren’t important to you Thea, they are. I’m never going to be able to fit into your world – because I sure as heck don’t want to – and you’re never going to fit into mine, no matter how hard you try.’

  He looked beyond her, to where Barty was standing a few discreet yards away. ‘Does the offer of a lift still stand?’ he asked, a rasp in his voice, as if he was about to come down with a cold.

  As Barty nodded and walked up to the car, Thea felt as if she was in a horrendous nightmare. How could what was happening be real? How could a few carelessly spoken words have had such a catastrophic effect? Hal had to stay in love with her. He was all she had ever wanted. All she ever would want.

  Barty began cranking the Sunbeam’s starting handle, and That said with hysteria in her throat, ‘You can’t mean what you’ve said, Hal! It’s too monstrous! We’re supposed to be battling against class and snobbery, not allowing them to ruin our lives!’

  The Sunbeam spluttered into life. Barty opened the low-slung driver’s door and got behind the wheel. Hal walked round to the other side of the car, a pulse throbbing at the corner of his implacably set jaw.

  Thea knew what that pounding pulse signified. She had seen it before, but never in relation to herself. It meant that his mind was made up about something and that no power on Earth was going to make him change it. As a child he’d vowed that he was never going to follow in his father’s footsteps as a tenant farmer. Later he’d vowed that, against all the odds, he would get himself an education. Later still he had set himself the goal of becoming a journalist on the Richmond Times. Once his mind had been made up he had never deviated from the decision he’d taken and, feeling despair so deep it threatened to choke her, she knew he wasn’t going to deviate from his decision now.

  It had started to rain. Hal opened the passenger-seat door and slid into the seat beside Barty, his dark curls tightening into damp corkscrews. Noisily Barty put the Sunbeam into gear.

  ‘Hal!’ she shouted as the car began pulling away. ‘Hal!’

  He didn’t turn his head and the Sunbeam didn’t come to a halt. Instead it rounded a rain-slicked corner into Park Lane and vanished into the darkness.

  Thea swayed slightly. It was over. In telling Hal not to go down into the ballroom, believing she would be saving him from embarrassment and humiliation, she had destroyed her happiness with her own stupid, careless hands. And it had all been for nothing. Hal had been neither embarrassed nor humiliated, and she had been the world’s biggest fool ever to have imagined he could be.

  Tears of anger and loss spilled down her cheeks. The anger was with herself, for being so thoughtlessly foolish; and with Hal, for having reacted as he had. The pain she felt was unspeakable. How could she live with it? How could she possibly survive it?

  ‘Come along, honey.’ The deeply concerned voice was Rozalind’s. ‘People are watching.’ She tilted an umbrella so that it sheltered them both. ‘Whatever your quarrel with Hal, it sure looked a humdinger.’

  They turned to face the house, and Thea drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

  ‘We love each other, Roz.’ It was the first time she had admitted it to anyone, and the circumstances under which she was doing so hurt like a knife wound. ‘We love each other, and he won’t fight to make things possible for us. He thinks that now he’s broken things off, I’ll forget about having a social conscience, and that by the end of the Season I’ll be engaged to someone who, if he hasn’t already inherited a stately home and thousands of acres, will one day.’

  The belief that Hal thought her so shallow made her feel sick with rage.

  Fiercely she brushed her tears away. ‘And he’s wrong, Roz.’ There was steel in her voice. ‘He’s wrong about everything. I’ve gone along with tonight for Papa’s sake, but here it ends. I’m not going to live a life that revolves brainlessly around the social Season. It would bore me to tears.’

  Rozalind quirked a sleek eyebrow, genuinely interested. ‘Then what are you going to do?’

  As the departing guests streamed past them on the porticoed steps, Thea came to an abrupt halt. ‘I don’t know, Roz. Not yet.’

  She stood quite still amid a sea of jostling umbrellas. She was intelligent and articulate; there were surely a hundred and one things she could do that would make a difference to the world.

  Gritty determination flooded through every vein in her body. With absolute certainty she knew that she was going to do something exceptional with her life; something absolutely extraordinary. She knew something else as well.

  One day she would get Hal back – and, when she did, he would be hers forever.

  Chapter Ten

  SEPTEMBER 1924

  It was a blissfully warm afternoon and Carrie and Olivia were seated in deep grass close to the vole place on the river-bank. Although Olivia had been at Gorton Hall with her father and Violet for the last fortnight, it was the first time within those two weeks that Carrie had had a full day off and had been able to meet up with her, and it was the first time they had met since before Thea’s coming-out ball.

  Hungry for gossip, Carrie said impatiently, ‘I want to hear absolutely everything, Olivia.’

  Olivia took off her lavishly flower-decorated straw hat and sent it spinning into the grass. ‘What do you want to know first?’

  ‘I want to know who Thea danced with. Who you danced with. Who the Prince of Wales danced with. What the Duchess of York wore. If Hal was able to dance with anyone. If—’

  ‘All right. All right. I get the picture.’ Deciding to keep her most momentous news until last, Olivia said, hugging her knees, ‘Let’s start with Thea. She danced with everyone. Or, rather, she should have danced with everyone, but she seemed to get bored with danci
ng once supper had started. After that I only caught a couple of fleeting glimpses of her, and neither time was she dancing. As for whom I danced with . . .’ Try as she might she couldn’t hide the excitement she was feeling. ‘I’ll tell you all about my knight on a white charger in a minute, but before you ask, he wasn’t the Prince of Wales. He was much, much taller. And no, the Prince of Wales didn’t dance with me.’

  ‘But he did dance with Thea, didn’t he?’ There was anxiety in Carrie’s voice, for she knew that if Prince Edward hadn’t danced with her, Thea would have been devastated.

  ‘He did. They foxtrotted, and Thea seemed to simply float around the ballroom, but that’s because Prince Edward is such a superb dancer it would have been impossible for her not to have looked as if she were floating. She didn’t scoop all the royal honours, though. The Duke of York danced with me, and with Papa’s permission he danced with Violet.’

  ‘With Violet?’ Carrie was enraptured at the thought of Violet, who wasn’t sixteen until September, dancing around a London ballroom in the arms of a royal duke. ‘What about Rozalind? Who did she dance with?’

  ‘Goodness, Carrie, I don’t know! I was too busy dancing myself to notice.’

  Carrie’s face fell and Olivia said contritely, ‘I did see her dance a quickstep with Barty Luddesdon.’ And then, because Carrie couldn’t be expected to know who he was, she added, ‘He’s the Marquess of Colesby’s eldest son.’

  Carrie sucked in her breath. ‘So he’s an earl? Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Roz was to fall in love with him? What is his title, Olivia? What is he the earl of?’

  ‘He’s the Earl of Bicester. It’s a courtesy title.’

  ‘But if they fell in love and married, Roz would be a countess?’

  At the thought of her American cousin becoming a countess and one day a marchioness, Olivia giggled. ‘Yes, she would. But it’s not likely to happen, Carrie. They only danced together, for goodness’ sake. One dance doesn’t mean an engagement.’

  ‘Maybe not, but all engagements have to begin somewhere.’

  Olivia shrugged, too engrossed in her own fast-burgeoning love life to be interested in Rozalind’s. ‘Roz will marry an American billionaire, not an impoverished English earl.’

  ‘Is Barty Luddesdon poor?’ Carrie was all concern.

  ‘In comparison to an American billionaire he is, but not in any other way.’ She tilted her head a little to one side, regarding Carrie with amusement and deep affection. ‘Why on earth are you still wearing your boater, Carrie? And why is it so drab? Give it to me and I’ll liven it up for you.’

  With her mind still on Thea’s coming-out ball, Carrie handed over a boater trimmed only with a narrow band of serviceable burgundy braid. ‘What about Hal?’ she asked. ‘I’ve only seen him once since June, and I couldn’t get him to tell me anything. Is that because it was all very horrid for him?’

  The tall grass around them was thick with buttercups and Olivia plucked one and began weaving its stem in and out of the burgundy braid. ‘It wasn’t horrid for him at all. He had a wonderful time. He wore white tie and tails. Can you imagine Hal in white tie and tails? The most amazing thing was that he didn’t look at all uncomfortable in them. Looking at him, you would never have known he was a working-class Yorkshireman who had never before set foot in a London town house, let alone a ballroom.’

  ‘And did he dance?’ With all her heart Carrie wished she had been able to see Hal in white tie and tails, looking no different from all the great and grand people he must have been surrounded by.

  ‘Goose! Of course he didn’t dance. For one thing, how could he? I don’t suppose Hal can even waltz. And he wasn’t there as a guest. Papa had only arranged the white tie and tails for him so that he wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb.’ She held the boater aloft. ‘I think the buttercups should go all the way round it, don’t you?’

  Carrie didn’t answer her. She still had her mind on other things. ‘Why didn’t Thea return to Gorton with you and your father and Violet? The Season is more or less over now, isn’t it? Who is chaperoning her?’

  Olivia picked another buttercup and began threading it through the braid on the boater. ‘The same person who presented her at court, Aunt Hilda, my mother’s cousin. I don’t think Aunt Hilda is very happy about it. She thought she’d be back in the Welsh Borders by now, but Papa has estate matters to attend to here and, as Thea didn’t want to come back to Yorkshire, what else could the poor woman do but stay on in London with her?’

  At the thought of Thea not wanting to come back to Yorkshire, a frown puckered Carrie’s forehead. She had taken it for granted that, after spending all summer in London, Thea would be eager to return to the Dales and Gorton Hall. If she had been Thea, she knew she would have been.

  Reading her thoughts, Olivia said darkly, ‘You’d hardly know Thea these days, Carrie. She’s become unbearable. She bites people’s heads off for the slightest thing. Roz says it’s because she’s had a row with Hal, though if Roz knows what the row was over, she isn’t telling – and Thea isn’t, either. I always thought sisters were supposed to confide in each other, but Thea barely speaks to me these days. I can only imagine that, now she’s “out” and I’m not, she thinks I don’t count.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not true, Olivia.’ Carrie was accustomed to smoothing the stormy waters that often arose between Thea and Olivia and she said placatingly, ‘Thea is just being Thea. A first London Season must be so exciting for her, and I don’t suppose she’s realized that, now she’s going to things you aren’t invited to, it means she isn’t speaking to you very much.’

  Olivia didn’t look convinced, but neither did she look too unhappy about it. As she handed Carrie the buttercup-bedecked boater, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glowed. ‘I’ve got something to tell you, Carrie. Thea already knows part of it, but she doesn’t know the whole of it. No one does. You will be the first person I’ve told – and the only person I’m going to tell.’

  Carrie put the boater on top of her wheat-gold hair. It was coiled into a bun at the nape of her neck – the only style allowed for servants at Monkswood. Despite the addition of the buttercups, in comparison to Olivia – who hadn’t followed fashion by cropping her hair, and whose mahogany-red mane was worn carelessly loose – Carrie looked very prim and proper.

  She looked even more prim and proper as she said in alarm, ‘You haven’t let someone kiss you, have you?’

  ‘I most certainly have – and it was wonderful, Carrie. Absolutely blissful!’ Olivia hugged her knees even tighter to her chest. ‘He’s German. His name is Dieter von Starhemberg, and he’s a count and a junior diplomat in the German Foreign Office. As soon as he saw me at Thea’s coming-out ball he asked me to dance, and he would have scored out every other name on my dance card and danced with me the whole night long, if it wasn’t that it would have attracted Papa’s attention.’

  Carrie didn’t know whether to be filled with admiration or alarm. Some of the maids at Monkswood, who were no older than Olivia, had followers and thought nothing of being kissed, but that Olivia had behaved as a Monkswood kitchen maid or housemaid had behaved astounded her.

  ‘Does Count von Starhemberg live in London?’ she asked apprehensively. ‘And is he very old? He sounds old.’

  ‘Of course he’s not old!’ Olivia was outraged at the very thought. ‘He’s twenty-one. And he doesn’t live in London. He lives in Berlin.’

  Carrie’s relief was vast. ‘Then how come he was one of Thea’s guests?’

  ‘Strictly speaking, he wasn’t. Thea doesn’t know him from Adam. Dieter’s father and Papa went to Eton together, and when Dieter’s father told Papa that Dieter was in London in June, it was Papa who invited him.’

  Carrie was wondering what Viscount Fenton would say and do if he was ever to find out the liberties that his friend’s son had taken with Olivia, when Olivia said, ‘And that’s not the part of things that Thea knows. What Thea knows is that I’m going to fi
nishing school.’

  Grateful that Olivia had apparently changed the subject, and not unduly surprised by the news – the majority of girls of Olivia’s class and age spent a year at a finishing school – Carrie said with interest, ‘One of Lady Markham’s daughters is at a finishing school in Switzerland. Is that where you are going?’

  Olivia unclasped her hands from around her knees and stretched her arms rapturously high above her head. ‘No!’ she said gleefully. ‘I’m going to Berlin, Carrie! And when I’m there I’ll be able to see Dieter all the time!’

  Later, when a very unhappy Carrie had set off back to Richmond by bus, Olivia was still just as euphoric. Carrie hadn’t thought the Berlin finishing school a good idea at all, but as Olivia took the shortcut across the fields to Gorton, she shrugged away Carrie’s concerns. Carrie was a village girl and couldn’t be expected to understand the kind of sophisticated London world that she and Thea now spent so much time in. That Carrie had actually asked if Hal had danced with anyone at Thea’s coming-out ball showed how innocent she was.

  Not for the first time over the last few weeks, Olivia thanked her lucky stars that her father had decided against a shared coming-out ball for herself and Thea. As her seventeenth birthday had been in August, it had been a distinct possibility, but it hadn’t been something either she or Thea had wanted. Olivia having now asked if she could go to finishing school to fill in the time until next year when she, too, would be presented at court seemed highly sensible, whereas if she had already been presented it would have seemed very odd indeed.

  ‘Hey up!’ a familiar voice shouted to her from the nearby lane. ‘Do you want a ride?’