A Season of Secrets

by Margaret Pemberton

  Kyle said now, wanting to prepare Thea for a situation she clearly hadn’t yet envisaged, ‘How do think your father’s marriage is going to alter things where your friendship with Carrie is concerned?’

  Startled – and with the threat of tears finally vanquished – Thea turned to face him. ‘Why should it alter things?’

  He hesitated, hating the thought of giving her more distress than she was already coping with, where her father’s marriage was concerned.

  ‘You’ve just said yourself that Zephiniah is a snob. Carrie may be the granddaughter of your father’s old nanny, but she’s still a village girl. And if Zephiniah isn’t going to like you being friends with Charlie and Jim, then sure as God made little green apples she’s not going to like you being friends with Carrie.’

  Thea’s thick-lashed eyes widened. Her mouth opened on a gasp. No power on Earth – and certainly not Zephiniah – could prevent her from being friends with Carrie, and it wasn’t that fear that was flooding her with unspeakable horror.

  The horror was because of what Zephiniah could – and most certainly would – do. She would put an end to Carrie’s happy certainty that she was always welcome at Gorton. And for Carrie, a life without visits to Gorton would be no life at all.

  ‘Oh God!’ she whispered, uncaring that they were in a very public place. Uncaring of the kind of language she was using. Uncaring that she could be overheard. ‘Oh Christ, Kyle! Oh shit! Oh hell!’

  Chapter Sixteen

  On a blowy bright day in mid-March Hal strolled out of the offices of the Richmond Times for the last time, good wishes mixed with envy ringing in his ears. At twenty years old he had achieved the ambition he had set for himself years and years ago when, after long days labouring on the farm, he’d run across the fields to Miss Calvert’s house to receive an education. His goal had been to become a journalist on a national newspaper or on one of the leading London newspapers, either the Evening Standard or the Evening News.

  Today, in his inside jacket pocket, was a copy of a signed contract with the Evening News, a newspaper with a circulation of more than 900,000.

  900,000!

  It was a figure he still couldn’t quite believe, and the numbers sang in his head as he left his parked car in the market place and headed towards Finkle Street and the Black Horse pub. He wasn’t going to the Black Horse for a celebratory pint – though he would, of course, be having a pint. He was going there to tell Rosie, the pub’s most popular barmaid, that he was leaving that evening for London – and that he wouldn’t be returning.

  Unlike his former co-workers on the Richmond Times, Rosie was not likely to wish him good luck and certainly wouldn’t be envious. What she was most certainly going to be was very, very upset – and then very, very angry.

  The Black Horse had originally been an old Georgian coaching inn, and Hal liked the low beamed ceilings, the uneven dark wooden floors and the atmosphere it gave of being a little bit of old Yorkshire.

  There was nothing even vaguely old Yorkshire about Rosie Beck. Rosie was nineteen and as fresh as paint. In many ways she reminded him of Carrie. There was always a smile on her face and a giggle in her throat. But in other ways Rosie was far different from Carrie, for Rosie was ‘fast’ – and she wasn’t too fussed who knew. It was her frank openness that had appealed to him the first time he had chatted her up, nearly a year ago – that and the mesmerizing way she looked to be permanently on the verge of escaping from her clothes.

  She looked to be escaping from them now as he walked into the public bar at what was, for him, an abnormally early time in the day.

  Astonishment showed on her face, and then delight. ‘Blimey, sweetheart! To what do we do owe this pleasure? I wasn’t expecting to see you till this evening.’

  He slid onto a bar stool, glad to see that the other occupants of the bar were all seated at tables. With no one at his elbow, it meant he would have relative privacy when he broke his news to her. He hadn’t wanted too much privacy. Too much privacy and she was likely to do him serious harm.

  ‘A pint of Tetley’s,’ he said, knowing he was going to be in need of one.

  With a happy grin Rosie began pulling his pint. Her dress was made of cheap, shiny red material. The seams were strained around generously curvaceous hips – no way did Rosie fit into the fashionable ideal of a flat-chested flapper – and the neckline was a deep V, revealing a cleavage so luscious that Hal knew he was going to have his work cut out, if he was to remember just why he was there.

  ‘So why are you here before midday?’ she asked, managing to imbue the mundane query with all kinds of erotic possibilities.

  Hal felt a rising in his crotch. He was going to miss Rosie. There were countless men in Richmond who would crawl over broken glass to enjoy what he had been enjoying these last twelve months.

  She pushed his frothing pint across to him.

  He closed his hands around it, grateful for its familiar feel. ‘I have news, Rosie.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ She grinned at him, her eyes sparkling at the thought of a possible treat.

  He took a deep drink of his ale, too fond of her not to care that he was about to hurt her. What else, though, could he do? He couldn’t take her with him to London and he couldn’t promise her that he’d be back, because it would be a lie, and though he was every kind of a heel, he wasn’t a liar.

  In his inside jacket pocket the contract rustled. It was all the encouragement he needed. In the spirit of soonest said, soonest mended, he said bluntly, ‘I’ve got a new job, Rosie. In London. I’m leaving today.’

  She sucked in her breath, speechless with shock. She wasn’t speechless for long.

  ‘And just how long have you bloody well known about this job?’ she demanded, her eyes blazing. ‘A few days? A week? A month? For just how long, Hal Crosby, have you been behaving as if you’re going to put a ring on my finger, when all the time you’ve been planning to leave me in the lurch? And that is what you’re doing, isn’t it? It’s not a case of “I’ve got a new job in London and I’m taking you with me, Rosie”, is it? No, it soddin’ well isn’t!’

  ‘Be fair, Rosie!’ He was genuinely aggrieved. ‘I’ve never said I was going to put a ring on your finger. I’m never going to put a ring on anyone’s finger. And I didn’t see the sense in telling you the job was in the offing, because why would I want a scene like this, if it proved to be all for nowt?’

  ‘All for nowt? That’s what this bloody relationship’s been!’ Her eyes blazed with frustrated fury. ‘I thought you and me were goin’ somewhere, Hal Crosby. I thought you were a cut above what passes for men in this neck o’ the woods. But you’re no bleedin’ different. You’re a manky, minging, clarty . . .’ Running out of adjectives, she wildly looked around for something to throw at him. All that was at hand were bottles and glasses.

  Reading her mind, and having no intention of being a sitting target, Hal relinquished his pint of Tetley’s and slid smartly off the bar stool.

  There were guffaws of laughter from a group of farm labourers hunched around a nearby table.

  ‘That’s right, Rosie lass!’ one of the labourers called out. ‘You tell ’im what’s what. You give him ’ell and come out wi’ me tonight!’

  ‘You sling your hook,’ she shot back at him. ‘I wouldn’t go out wi’ you if you were the last man on Earth!’

  She returned her attention to Hal, but this time her eyes were bright with tears, not rage. She said deflatedly, ‘Are you really going to London, Hal?’

  He nodded. ‘It was always the plan, Rosie.’

  ‘It wasn’t my plan.’

  There was such bleak disappointment in her voice that when another of the labourers sniggered, his mate sitting next to him gave him a silencing shove in the ribs.

  Aware that all the occupants of the Public Bar were now avidly waiting for what he was about to say next, Hal decided his best plan was to ignore his audience and plough on as if it wasn’t there.

  ‘We’d have
run out of steam in another few months, Rosie,’ he said gently. ‘It’s best this way. Look after yourself, love. Be happy.’

  It was as good an exit line as any and, leaving her standing at the pumps, a picture of dejection, he walked out of the bar, letting the ancient oak door of the Black Horse slam shut behind him for the last time.

  Once out in the narrow cobbled street, he pulled the collar of his jacket up as protection against the stiff, chill breeze. Hal wasn’t easily fazed, and he hadn’t been so in the pub. He hadn’t enjoyed his ten minutes in there, though, and he wasn’t looking forward to the next goodbye he was about to make. Carrie’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt in the same manner as Rosie’s had been, but his moving down to London would affect her far more deeply than it was going to affect Rosie. Rosie’s love life would be up and running again as fast as light, but the gap his going would make in Carrie’s life wouldn’t be filled so easily – if at all.

  Of their childhood circle of five, he was the only one living within easy reach of Monkswood. Every time she had a day off Carrie would cycle from Monkswood into Richmond and meet Hal in the cafe in the market place for tea and cakes. Sometimes, if one of his days off coincided with hers, he would drive her to Outhwaite so that she could visit her granny, and they would meet up with Charlie and Hermione, and Jim. His move to London wouldn’t mean an end to her trips to Outhwaite. She would, he knew, still go, catching the bus in Richmond’s market place and getting off it an hour later opposite the Pig and Whistle in Outhwaite’s High Street. She would, though, feel isolated and lonely – how could she not, when he would be 200 miles away in London, as, for most of the year, were Thea, Olivia and Violet, and when Roz was thousands of miles further away, in America?

  She was seated at their usual corner table, dressed in a serviceable navy coat and navy Mary-Jane shoes, her dark-red, modestly plain hat a perfect foil to the heavy wheat-coloured knot of hair coiled low at the nape of her neck. In serviceable clothes that didn’t even give a nod towards fashion and without a hint of powder and lipstick, she should have looked plain and dowdy. She didn’t. She looked as pretty as a picture and as wholesome as a sunny May morning.

  ‘I haven’t ordered tea yet,’ she said as Hal joined her at the table. ‘I didn’t want it to have cooled before you got here. Why was it so important we met up today, and with so little notice? I had to promise I’d do without a day off for two weeks to make up for taking today off.’

  ‘Sorry, Carrie. It couldn’t be helped.’ A waitress approached and he said, ‘A pot of tea for two, and two toasted teacakes and a stand of fancies, please.’

  At least I haven’t had docked the time I’ve arranged to have off at Easter, but that’s because Lady Markham will be on the Riviera and so my taking two days of my annual week’s holiday doesn’t matter too much.’

  ‘Which is important because . . . ?’

  ‘Because Thea, Olivia and Violet are all at Gorton over Easter and because they want me to spend as much time with them as possible.’ Her eyes glowed in happy anticipation. ‘There’s to be a weekend house-party and a ball. Thea said in her last letter that there hasn’t been a ball at Gorton since 1912 when she was six years old.’

  ‘And all this so that the new Lady Fenton can be introduced to the other idle rich of the county?’

  Carrie was too used to Hal’s derogatory remarks about the upper classes to begin a squabble with him.

  ‘All this so that she can meet people in Yorkshire who are her social equals,’ she said tranquilly. ‘It’s no different from you having a cousin from Cornwall move to Outhwaite. What is the first thing you would do? You’d take him to the Pig and Whistle so that he could meet everyone and make friends.’

  He grinned, knowing that when it came to the class divide he and Carrie were never going to sing from the same hymn sheet.

  The waitress arrived with the tea, toasted teacakes and cake-stand. As they were put on the gingham-clothed table, Carrie said, ‘Roz is coming over for the ball. She hasn’t met Lady Zephiniah yet, either.’

  ‘As you won’t be a guest at the ball, are you sure you’ll be meeting her?’

  Carrie stared at him, startled. ‘But of course I shall meet her! How could I not, when I’ll be at Gorton with Thea and Olivia before the ball begins?’ Recovering her equilibrium, she began pouring the tea. ‘I’ve never seen the ballroom without dust-sheets. It’s going to be so marvellous to see all the mirrors and chandeliers gleaming, and all the flowers. Even though it’s so early in the year there are going to be lots of flowers. Hermione says Charlie and his gardeners have been nurturing lilies and peonies for weeks in the hothouses.’

  Hal knew all about the hive of activity that had been taking place at Gorton in preparation for the family’s arrival at Easter because on his journey back from London, after his interview for the job on the Evening News, he’d stopped off at Outhwaite to tell his uncle about his exciting new job prospect.

  Jim had been sanguine about it. ‘London, is it?’ he’d said. ‘I wouldn’t fancy it myself. I reckon it’d be too much like Bradford – noisy and dirty, only an ’ell of a lot bigger. Still, if that’s what you want, lad.’

  ‘It is what I want,’ he’d said. ‘Anyway, I’ve always liked Bradford. If it had ever come to a toss-up between my working on the Richmond Times or the Bradford Telegraph & Argus, I’d have chosen the Telegraph & Argus every time.’

  It occurred to Hal now, as he watched Carrie pour milk into the teacups, that he was going to miss Bradford far more than he was going to miss Richmond. Bradford had one of the finest Mechanics’ Institutes in the country and he regularly attended the lectures given by visiting speakers there. It was also the city where, in January 1893, the Independent Labour Party had been born and its programme laid out.

  The aims of that programme were carved in Hal’s heart. Medical treatment and school feeding programmes for impoverished children. The establishment of public measures to reduce unemployment and provide aid to the unemployed. Welfare programmes for orphans, widows, the elderly, the disabled and the sick. The abolition of child labour. The abolition of piecework and the establishment of an eight-hour working day. Free education up to university level. Housing reform.

  When he thought of how much on that magnificent programme was still to be achieved, impatience roared through his veins. A better day was coming, but it was far from being here yet.

  ‘. . . and so why was it important for us to meet up today?’ Carrie asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  ‘Because I’ve been given a job on a London paper and I’m leaving for London directly we leave the cafe.’

  It was a brutal way of breaking the news, but, as with Rosie, he couldn’t see how breaking it gently would make the end result any easier.

  She stared across the table at him for a long moment, assimilating the news and what would it mean for him, and what it would mean for her. Then she said, not wanting her sense of loss to spoil things for him, ‘I’m so pleased for you, Hal. It’s what you’ve always wanted, and you so deserve it. You must be over the moon – and so must Miss Calvert. You have told her about it, haven’t you?’

  ‘I told her even before I told Jim.’

  Aware that she was dangerously close to revealing how desperately she was going to miss him, she forced a giggle into her voice as she said, ‘And just how did a twenty-year-old Yorkshire tyke get himself a job on a London newspaper?’

  ‘Connections,’ he said teasingly.

  ‘You don’t have any connections,’ Carrie replied, amused despite her pain at the thought of their regular meetings in the cafe coming to such an abrupt end.

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong – and when I dropped a hint of them to the sub-editor who interviewed me, he had a word with the paper’s editor, Frank Fitzhugh, and he then interviewed me. First thing he asked was where my interests lay and I said politics.’ Hal grinned. ‘He told me I was a cheeky bugger and that his political editor would have ten fits if he was assigned
a junior reporter straight down from the outer darkness of North Yorkshire.’

  ‘And what did you say? Did you tell him you were a Labour Party member and went to meetings and rallies?’

  ‘No, because that wouldn’t have impressed him and would probably have counted against me.’

  Seeing her bewilderment, he said, ‘It helps if a political reporter is objective – unless, of course, he’s working on a paper devoted entirely to one particular party, such as the Independent Labour Party’s Clarion.’ He spooned sugar into his tea. ‘What I told him was that I was on personal terms with a government minister – Lord Fenton. Which is the truth,’ he added, as Carrie’s eyes widened in alarm at his taking such a liberty. ‘If Fenton was ever asked, he wouldn’t let me down. He’s not a snob, I’ll give him that. I then told Fitzhugh I was on personal terms with the Third Secretary at the German Embassy. Which was stretching the truth a bit, because I haven’t met Olivia’s fiancé yet, but I will be doing. Olivia will see to that. By this time I could see the cogs in Fitzhugh’s brain whirring away at the thought of having a staff reporter who had inside contacts both in Parliament and at the German Embassy. Then, to put the icing on the cake, I told him I had a family connection, Kyle Anderson, who had recently been appointed attaché at the American Embassy and that I had an “in” with Maxwell Bradley, a Republican member of the US House of Representatives, presently serving on the Dawes Committee. From then on it was plain sailing. How could he not have hired me?’

  Carrie’s eyes were still wide with alarm. ‘But not only have you not even met Dieter von Starhemberg – though I do agree that you will, because Olivia has said repeatedly in her letters that she can’t wait for both of us to meet him – but you haven’t met Kyle Anderson or Max Bradley, either.’ Anxiety for him filled her voice. ‘And what if you never get to meet them? Or if, even if you do, they are so close-mouthed you learn nothing whatsoever from them?’