Secrets of Nanreath Hall

by Alix Rickloff

  At least the rumors kept Anna from dwelling on her row with Tony. She shouldn’t have spoken to him like that. Harriet’s death wasn’t his fault. She rang him to apologize, but the clerk who answered the phone was singularly unhelpful and she’d been too ashamed to leave a message. She would find him at the pub one evening or cycle to the airfield at St. Eval on her next afternoon off and grovel in person. Hopefully, it would be enough to make amends. She might not agree with him, but she’d come to rely on his being there when she needed him.

  Her shift over at seven, Anna went in search of Hugh. He’d not been on the wards at all today and no one she asked knew where he might be. She climbed the stairs and turned onto the corridor leading to the gallery and the family’s private quarters. By now she felt easy strolling the long, pillared room with its walls of Trenowyth ancestors, and no one from the hospital questioned her right to be there.

  Rain washed the long windows, blurring the grounds and sending a cold draft over the creaking floorboards. With no lamps lit, the space was dim and she shivered in the cardigan she’d thrown over her uniform. Another long, dreary winter lay on the horizon. Would the New Year show a turn in the tide for the Allies, or would the war drag on endlessly?

  She pushed her dismal thoughts aside as unhelpful. Instead, she began comparing faces as she passed beneath the rows of portraits; noses and eyes, the tilt of a head, the strength in a jaw. She touched her own cheek and chin, smoothed a hand over her curling red hair pinned viciously into a neat victory roll beneath her veil.

  As always, she paused before the portrait of Lady Katherine, as if seeking a connection between this silent, staring young woman and herself. Was she the only one to notice the way her mother’s lips curved in a smile of flirtatious excitement, the sparkle of secrets in her eyes? Or the way her body looked to escape the prison of her frame, as if she couldn’t wait to be caught up in her lover’s arms?

  Forgive my love.

  Had Lady Katherine forgiven Simon’s betrayal?

  She had left her home and family for him, though they could not wed. She had borne him a child. She had worn his locket until her death and passed it to her daughter to carry forward.

  Was that Anna’s answer?

  She tucked her locket beneath her blouse and over her heart.

  “Back to lurking about the gallery like a skeleton at the feast, Miss Trenowyth? I’d hoped we’d turned you from that habit. It’s disconcerting. I feel as if you’re sizing us up and finding us lacking.”

  Lady Boxley stood in the far doorway. In a stylish aubergine suit with a jaunty ribboned hat perched on her blond hair, and handbag clasped in her gloved hands, she appeared to be just arriving home.

  “I’m sorry. I know it’s against the rules.”

  Her Ladyship waved off Anna’s apology. “You’ve earned the right to a few concessions on our part. Freedom to wander the gallery is hardly an onerous request.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I don’t remember much about my mother, but here I feel . . . close to her in a way I never have before.”

  Lady Boxley’s heels tapped across the floorboards as she joined Anna in front of the painting. She gave it a quick, disparaging glance and sniffed. “A nice sentiment, but proximity doesn’t always bring happiness.” She paused, her gaze uneasy. “You discover things best left buried.”

  Anna sucked in a quick breath of realization. “You knew all along.”

  Lady Boxley’s face took on a pinched, shuttered expression as she ran an agitated hand up and down her strand of pearls.

  “You knew Simon Halliday was married,” Anna badgered. “That’s why you didn’t want me to go to London.”

  “Of course I knew,” Lady Boxley finally snapped. “Simon Halliday was a cad of the first order. Kitty only found out about the wife after it was too late. Then he died, and Kitty was left with you. Life moved on.”

  “That’s when she came back to Nanreath, isn’t it? She needed help, and all of you turned her away.”

  “William was unwell. Frankly, he was dying, though no one would admit it.”

  Generations of Trenowyths watched from every corner of the gallery in seeming curiosity as Anna left her post beneath Lady Katherine’s portrait to pause in front of the nearby painting of the late Lord Boxley. “Was that the reason, or was it because you were afraid my mother knew the truth about Hugh’s paternity and would tell your husband?”

  For a moment Lady Boxley’s face was wiped clean of all expression, the color draining away to leave her ghostly white. She swayed, laying a hand on the back of a chair to steady herself, and her hand touched her chest. But the weakness lasted only moments. As if a metal rod was inserted into her spine, she straightened, her chin lifting in defiance, her eyes crackling with—amusement?

  “Is that what you thought?” she asked mildly. “That I drove Kitty off to prevent her from exposing my infidelity?” A dark smile hovered on her lips. “You do have a rather sinister view of me, don’t you?”

  Anna frowned. This was where Lady Boxley was supposed to explain her actions in a tearful pleading confession. Not take a seat on one of a pair of sofas and beckon Anna to sit opposite her on the other. Not clear her throat with businesslike composure as she folded her hands across her handbag, eyes grave but far from horrified or guilt ridden. Anna felt as if the bombers had struck again and the floors beneath her had shifted under her feet.

  “I found the pictures that you tried to hide. And the information in Lord Boxley’s military record confirms he’s not Hugh’s real father.”

  “I wondered where those pictures had gone. I should have known it was you.”

  “So you admit it?”

  Lady Boxley heaved a tired sigh, her shoulders rounding, as if she bore up against a great weight. “I sent Kitty away when she came home. That much is true. But I sent her away on her father’s orders, not my own. The old earl had always been a stickler for society’s hidebound proprieties. Kitty’s affair with Halliday put all he held dear at risk—his position, his reputation, his connections. When she left, he cut off all communication. It was as if she never existed.”

  “Yet, her portrait remains.”

  “I returned it to the gallery after the late Lord and Lady Melcombe died. Despite its unfortunate subject, it’s a Balázs. His works carry a hefty price tag. I wasn’t going to let a potential source of future revenue molder away in Nanreath’s leaky attics.” She clasped her hands in her lap, her diamonds winking. “As for William, he guessed long before Hugh was born that he wasn’t the father. He chose to overlook it.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense.”

  “Perhaps it doesn’t to you, but times were different. Pride and shame in equal measure kept William silent, and since to divorce me would have been a financial as well as social disaster for the earldom, he did the only thing he could do under the circumstances—he ignored his suspicions. In the end, it turned out for the best.”

  “But Hugh was the heir. He stood to inherit everything and yet . . .”

  “He didn’t bear one drop of Trenowyth blood?” Her smile tightened, as if she were in pain. “William was wounded in the war—I’m sure whatever report you unearthed in London explained just how extensive those wounds were. He would not—could not—sire a child of his own. Hugh was all he had. If it was discovered he was a bastard, the earldom would have passed out of this line of the family to a distant second cousin. So for all those reasons, William ignored what he couldn’t change, and Hugh became the earl in due course.”

  “Does Hugh know?”

  Until now, Lady Boxley’s manner had been one of almost relief, but at mention of Hugh, her gaze hardened with its old animosity. “Don’t be absurd. I only told you to make you understand what’s at stake. My son must never find out. You see how he is; he drinks, he smokes, he runs around with a string of cheap women. All to prove he is still the man he was before he lost his leg. Would you add to his despair by telling him that man was a fiction all along? It would d
estroy him.”

  “Doesn’t he deserve the truth?”

  “What good would it do now?” She clutched her bag, and a flash of real sorrow knifed her expression before she was once more a mask of complete self-control. “Eddie is dead, Miss Trenowyth. As is William, Lady Katherine, Simon Halliday. Everyone involved in this story are naught but ghosts. I would leave them where they are; in their graves. I would have you do the same. For your sake. For Hugh’s.” She stood up, signaling the end of their conversation. “As I said before you went to London, the past is over and done with. We can only move forward as best we can. I tried to do what was best for my son just as Kitty thought she was doing what was best for you when she left you with the Handleys. That is all a mother can do. Muddle through and hope she’s not made too big a hash of things. That you turn out well despite our failures.”

  Anna looked upon Lord Boxley in his frame; stoic and stiff upper lip as he prepared for war. She glanced at Lady Katherine, forever young and beautiful and poised to make the biggest choice of her life.

  “Will you tell him?” She had never heard such vulnerability in Lady Boxley’s voice.

  Suddenly unable to stomach this house and its generations of Trenowyths all watching her with what seemed malicious curiosity, Anna rose from the sofa. When had life become so complicated? When had the truth become the enemy and the falsehood the friend? When had right and wrong grown so muddled?

  “I don’t know.”

  “Anna?” Lady Boxley’s use of her Christian name caused her to pause at the door. She turned back to see a fleeting look of entreaty pass over the older woman’s face. “I would have thought you of all people would realize that digging up old pains only brings new sorrows. Hugh has grieved enough this past year, don’t you think?”

  Turn it off, Nurse. I can’t take any more bad news.”

  “With allies like these, what’s the point? These Russian blokes are as worthless as the bleeding French.”

  “Russian bear? More like a Russian bunny rabbit.”

  The men’s grumbling prompted Anna to snap off the wireless.

  “How about a nice game of bridge?” she asked, shuffling a deck of cards.

  The men groaned. One stared out at the soggy lawn with longing in his eyes. Another put a record on the gramophone. The first sentimental bars of “London Pride” broke the dismal sound of the wind speckling the windows with rain. It had been pouring for close to a week. Even Anna was beginning to grow bored—and moss. Hugh’s decision to visit a friend in Exeter had put any decision to speak with him on hold. Part of her was relieved. Part of her wished for it simply to be over and done with. She changed her mind at least twice every thirty seconds.

  “If nothing else, the foul weather’s keeping the bombers on the ground. Let’s be thankful for small favors,” she chirped, hoping to lighten their mood—as well as her own. A Ping-Pong ball crossed her bow. They obviously weren’t buying what she was selling.

  “Heard Portsmouth got it last week. And Bristol night before last.”

  “Aye, the ports is getting it the worst. Them and those poor bastards at sea. Blighters running convoy duty are sitting ducks out there.”

  “What of them boys up St. Eval way? Aren’t they supposed to be keeping the Jerries at bay?”

  “Ha. I heard they’re close to packing it in. Lost near half a flight over the past weeks.”

  Anna picked up a tray of glasses and set them on a trolley for delivery to the sinks downstairs. Cleared away lunch. Tried to hide her shaking hands as she began her twice daily round of ashtray emptying. Tony would be all right. He had to be all right.

  “What ho, chaps! What’s the latest from the front?” Hugh leaned against the door frame dressed in official-looking khaki, a white-trimmed cap perched on his head at a rakish angle, his usual cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  “Sir!” The men straightened from their various poses of ennui to welcome Hugh. “Where have you been?”

  “Thought you’d copped it in that jalopy of yours.”

  “Or ran off with that blonde you told us about.”

  Hugh processed down the passage between the beds like a commander inspecting his troops. All eyes followed him like a roomful of lovesick puppies. “Been away, but I’m back now, so you all have to shape up—or else. That means you, Harris.” He offered a lighter to a tall, gangly boy with a bad case of stomach ulcers fumbling in the pockets of his robe.

  The boy laughed and accepted the light, puffing at his gasper with a sigh of gratitude.

  “Where’s Rollins?” Hugh asked.

  “Sent back to his unit, sir.”

  “And that chap with the eye . . . what was his name . . .”—he snapped his fingers—“Stewart.”

  “Him, too.”

  “Bloody shame. Hell of a good bridge player.”

  “Garrett’s still here.”

  “Of course he is. Never known a chap to have so many illnesses. What is it this time, Garrett? Bubonic plague with a side helping of foot rot?”

  The men laughed, including a blushing Private Garrett.

  Anna closed the lid on her box of medicines and set it back on the waiting trolley. “Is that a St. John’s Ambulance badge you’re wearing?”

  Hugh did a model’s turn in front of her. “It is. You’re looking at the brigade’s latest driver. I’m headed for training tomorrow.”

  “When on earth did this happen?”

  “Remember that meeting in London I scuppered out on?”

  “Your mother was in a fume over it.”

  “I ended in a pub, nursing a pint when in walks an old friend of mine. Apparently, he was invalided out of the navy with a steel plate in his head—not that you could have told the difference. He was always a bit of a clod. Anyway, we got talking and the next thing I know he’s telling me about his work with the ambulance brigade. Got me thinking. I made a few calls and voilà . . .”

  “I thought you went to Exeter to visit a friend.”

  “I did. I just didn’t happen to mention he worked as a district first aid superintendent.”

  Anna grabbed the trolley and headed for the dispensary. “What does your mother say about it?”

  He finished one cigarette and immediately lit another. “When she found out what I intended, she tried to persuade me to get posted to a nice cozy billet in East Dull and Boring, pushing files or answering telephones; something suitably dreary and away from any whiff of danger. But the way things are going, nobody’s safe and there’s nowhere to hide, so I may as well be doing something worthwhile. I’ve been stationed in Plymouth. The city needs drivers. I need to be busy.”

  “I think it’s perfect. You’ll do splendidly.”

  The back corridor where the dispensary was situated was dark; two bulbs had burned out and never been replaced. The air smelled of carbolic and sweat. A sister and an orderly passed them on her way to the wards. A VAD waxed the floor. “Can we find someplace private?” Anna asked.

  “Of course.” Hugh led her to a side door. “What’s going on?”

  The terrace was chilly in the gray of a rainy afternoon. Or was that Anna’s own nervousness lifting the hairs on her arms and at the back of her neck? The boom of the ocean mingled with the deeper distant sound of explosions. Another convoy. Another ship lost to the U-boats prowling the seas off the coast. No matter how many coastal patrols were sent out from St. Eval, it was never enough to keep everyone safe.

  Now that she was faced with it, she felt clumsy and indecisive. Should she speak? Banish the ghosts that plagued Nanreath Hall like a fog or hold her tongue for the sake of Hugh and let the dead keep their secrets?

  “What’s the problem, Anna? Not to rush you, but I have to pack my kit. I leave in a few hours.” Hugh was already checking his watch, anxious to be away.

  Inside, a phone rang. Footsteps sounded as someone hurried to answer it.

  “It’s about your father, you see,” she began.

  The terrace doors opened behind her
. A veiled head poked out. “Trenowyth? It’s a chap by the name of Johnson on the line. Says there’s been an incident at the airfield. They want you there right away. Flight Lieutenant Lambert’s been injured.”

  Chapter 30

  December 1916

  Lady Katherine, I would say this is a surprise, but I woke this morning with the most delicious premonition that you were coming to see me today.”

  It had been so long since I had been called by this name that it took a few moments before I acknowledged her greeting. But her patchouli-scented hug was exactly as I remembered it, as were her clacking beads, her expressive hands, and her shrewd knowing gaze, which summed me up from the top of my felt cloche to the tips of my scuffed half boots, pausing only briefly at the rounded swell of my stomach.

  “Minnie! Come greet Lady Katherine after all these long years away.”

  Like Mrs. Vinter, her maid of all work Minnie looked exactly the same, though there was a grayness to her tired complexion I instantly recognized. “I’m sorry for your loss, miss. He seemed like a nice man.”

  Her awkward compassion touched me, and I blinked tears from my eyes as I hugged her tight, feeling the give of her ribs and the narrowness of her shoulders. “Thank you, Minnie. He was nice—very nice.”

  We entered the small sunroom where amaryllis bloomed in the windows and a cat curled lazily on a couch. Don Giovanni played on the gramophone. I half expected my portfolio to sit open on the table, pages of drawings scattered for Mrs. Vinter’s critique, just as if the past three and a half years had never happened.

  “Minnie, bring those scones, and we’ve last summer’s preserves, and tea of course,” she said, her pleasure infectious. “You’ll need it after traveling all day and in this nasty weather. It’s been a terrible wet autumn. The cold goes right to my bones. Not as spry as I once was.”