Secrets of Nanreath Hall

by Alix Rickloff

  “I know I shouldn’t have come, but I had no one else I could turn to. I was desperate and well . . . I was afraid if I wrote, you’d refuse me. I thought it better just to sort of . . . turn up.”

  “I’m offended. Of course you come to me. I’m not one to sit in judgment on someone else’s actions. Too many of my own skeletons.”

  “It’s about William, you see,” I said as I took a welcome seat in an enormous armchair floating in throw pillows. “I saw the notice in the paper, but that was all. No one would tell me anything.”

  “Poor Lord Boxley,” Minnie piped up. “They say he’s lost an arm and the rest of him battered till his own mother wouldn’t recognize him, and now they’ve shut him away where none can see him. I’ll wager his wife is relieved or she’d have explaining to do, wouldn’t she?”

  “Thank you, Minnie,” Mrs. Vinter admonished. “I hear the kettle whistling.”

  She scurried from the room under her employer’s gimlet eye.

  “You mustn’t mind her. She talks a lot of rubbish, especially these days. I’ve had the doctor round to see her, but he says it’s nothing time won’t mend.” She heaved a great tired sigh, as if the world had grown too much for even her adventurous spirit. “It will take more years than I can count to mend the world after this mess, I think.” She turned her shrewd gaze on me. “Though some things are for the good. Women working as ambulance drivers, nurses, running canteens for the boys, factory work; why, I even saw a lady tram driver when I was in London last fall. Imagine that. Things are changing, Kitty. The world is a different place now.”

  “It still feels like the same old tired world to me.” I accepted a cup of tea and a sandwich from Minnie, who returned bearing a tray loaded with more food than I could eat in a week.

  “I’ve been worried about you since I heard about Mr. Halliday and your rather complicated situation.” She said this without the usual nervous sideways glance I had grown familiar with since I started showing.

  “I’m fine.” I hastened to add, “Or rather as fine as I can be under the circumstances. Can I ask you a question, Mrs. Vinter?”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “Can you love someone and hate them at the same time? I feel like my heart’s been torn in two. I despise the lies Simon told me, but I can’t despise him. I’m not half certain that I wouldn’t have done just the same even if I had known the truth. He was everything to me.”

  “You can’t turn love on and off like a cold water tap, Kitty. ‘The heart wants what it wants or else it does not care.’ Emily Dickinson wrote that. For an old spinster, she summed it up perfectly.”

  “That’s it exactly. I suppose I should be hiding away from the world, ashamed of the child I carry, but I can’t. Is that wrong of me?”

  “To face up to your choices and make good on a promise, even if it’s just a promise to yourself? That’s never a reason to be ashamed.” She patted my ringless hand. “Now you say you’re here to see your brother. I wish I could offer you more, but it’s as Minnie says. None have seen him since he arrived home. Only the doctor and the vicar, and both tight-lipped about him, as if guarding state secrets. Makes the village uneasy, not knowing what’s what. You should hear the old biddies at the village shop. A coopful of pullets couldn’t cluck as much as them.”

  “He’s alive, though. That has to count for something.”

  “He is, though he may not be the same man who went away to war.”

  “None of them are. But we’re not the same, either, are we? There’s no going back.”

  “No, we can’t go back. We can only hope we never repeat it.”

  As we finished off the last scone and emptied the pot of its last drop of tea, Mrs. Vinter asked, “Are you still painting, my dear?”

  I gripped my hands, my knuckles white. “No, I haven’t been able to since Simon died. My mind just refuses to . . . see things as I used to, and my hands fumble and tremble. I finally stopped trying.”

  For the first time that afternoon, Mrs. Vinter’s lined face sagged in something that looked like defeat. “Ahh, that’s a shame. You were good, Kitty. You were damn good.” I hated the sense of disappointment I saw in her dulled eyes.

  Minnie scurried into the room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “It’s Lady Boxley, mum,” she hissed. “She’s asking to speak to Lady Katherine—alone. I’ve put her in the parlor to wait.”

  We all exchanged wary glances, but of course I followed Minnie out into the hall where I stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Minnie, what did you mean when you mentioned that Lady Boxley would have some explaining to do?”

  “Did I say that, milady? I didn’t mean nothing. Mrs. V is always scolding me for prattling on when I should be quiet and know my place.”

  “But in this case, I want you to speak. Have you seen her with someone? Is that it?”

  She eyed the floor with grim determination, mouth pursed tight.

  “Please, Minnie. I’ll not tell anyone you told me. You’re perfectly safe.”

  She grudgingly nodded, her eyes still on the floor. “Aye, miss. Up at the old ruins. Thought it was His Lordship.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “No, miss. My father would have killed me if I was caught up there with a boy. We slunk off quick and quiet.”

  I tried not to remember my last sight of Cynthia in the arms of the blond officer in St. James’s Park or the tears she shed as she released him with a kiss. Or William’s avoidance of Nanreath Hall in the years since Hugh’s birth. I tried to comfort myself with innocent scenarios and reasonable explanations, but the conclusions I continued to return to were anything but comforting. Still, whatever suspicions I harbored, I couldn’t let Minnie’s doubts continue.

  “Perhaps it was one of Lady Boxley’s brothers come for a visit. She has four of them.”

  She gave a quick sharp jerk of her head. “Does she? I had four brothers, miss. None left but me now to take care of my da.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She shrugged off my pity. “Maybe it’s as you say, miss. Maybe it was her brother up there in the ruins with her.” She opened the door to let me pass into the parlor, her final words spoken under her breath. “But I’d not wager on it.”

  Chapter 31

  October 1941

  This wasn’t Tony. That was Anna’s first thought upon seeing the man lying bandaged and unconscious in the infirmary bed. The same build perhaps, the same thick, dark hair and squared-off chin, but this man lacked the strong angles and handsome lines, the sleek energy pulsing beneath the sun-bronzed skin. This man was merely flesh and blood, a wrapper of skin round a pasty, angular frame too long for his bed, hands large and blunt-fingered across his hollowed chest that rattled as he breathed.

  “I expect our boys to be injured or killed by the damned enemy, but when it’s one of your own pulling the trigger . . . that’s dirty pool.” A young man with thinning brown hair and a bristly mustache stood at the end of the bed. He wore the bars and nervous temperament of a flight commander.

  “What happened?” Hugh asked. Immediately upon receiving the news, he’d driven Anna over to St. Eval, deeming rightly that she’d never make it on her own. She clasped his hand, using his strength to maintain a semblance of calm.

  “Airman Jensen,” the flight commander answered. “He simply snapped. I don’t know how else to put it. Took a rifle to the top of the old church tower and started shooting at anyone who came too close. Said he’d die rather than go up one more time. After he winged two mechanics and a radioman, Flight Lieutenant Lambert decided to play hero. Jensen was one of his crew, you see. He climbed the tower after him. Tried to talk him down.”

  “It didn’t work?”

  The man chewed his mustache, ran a hand through his thinning, pomaded hair. “To a point. He stopped shooting at the men on the ground. Started whizzing off bullets at Lambert. Missed him, thank God. At the last one, Lambert lunged. The stair railing gave way and they both fell. Jensen manage
d to catch himself.” He wiped his brow. “Lambert didn’t.”

  Anna let go of Hugh to take a seat beside Tony’s bed. She took his pulse. Placed a palm upon his forehead. It was clammy and cool, his heartbeat rapid and shallow. “I’m so sorry, Tony,” she whispered. “About everything.”

  Hugh and the young man continued chatting, but Anna watched Tony for some sign he knew she was there, some glimpse of the bottled lightning that was his personality in the silent figure under the blanket.

  “What does the surgeon say?” Hugh asked.

  “It’s not good. His spine’s been damaged, and no way to know how bad it is.”

  “He can’t walk?”

  “Can’t feel or move anything from the waist down. It could be temporary. A bruise that heals with time. It could be permanent if he’s severed the cord. We’re transferring him to Southampton. They’ll know more.”

  Anna’s hand found Tony’s.

  “There’s Lieutenant Brightwell now. He runs our infirmary. I’ll let you speak to him.” The men walked away, leaving her alone.

  A heavy weight sat on her chest. Her lungs struggled against the pressure, her throat closing around a painful knot. Her fingers trembled. Her brain raced. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to stop the dip and swirl of the room. Her ears roared with the sound of her heart, of airplane engines, of bombs, of shrieking metal and dying men, of the raging sea, and the spit of bullets. “Anna! Don’t let me go! Anna, please . . .”

  She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the memory, but Harriet’s voice deepened. The hand holding hers belonged to Tony. “Don’t let go, Anna. Please, for God’s sake . . .”

  She clutched his hand until her knuckles whitened. Her dizziness became nausea. She wanted to be sick. Her brain seemed ablaze with horror. A sputter of engines nearly had her dropping to the floor. Tears slid hot down her cheeks. She must hold on. She mustn’t let go. She was the only thing holding Harriet . . . Tony . . . in this life. She wouldn’t fail them. She wouldn’t let them die because of her. Anna tried to suck in a breath, but her lungs fluttered against her ribs. Cold flooded her body.

  “I won’t lose you. I won’t let it happen again.”

  “Let what happen?” The voice was threaded with pain and soft as a moth.

  “Tony?” Her mind reeled as it fought to return from the teetering edge where all was scorching flame and icy water. “You’re alive.”

  “More or less.” He grimaced through the cuts on his face. One eye was swollen shut. He winced as he sought to shift and failed. “Can’t seem to move my legs.”

  “You’ve hurt your spine.”

  “Have I?” His brow furrowed, as if he were trying to remember. “Someone mentioned that, but everything’s rather vague.”

  “You could have gotten yourself killed. What were you thinking?”

  He swallowed. The pulse in his throat skittered and sweat broke out on his skin. “Mainly that I hoped Jensen was as poor a shot with an Enfield rifle as he is with a Browning machine gun. The man couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a cannon. A rotted railing never even crossed my mind.” His lids grew heavy as he fought to stay awake. “. . . be all right, Anna . . . weeks in hospital, back to flying ops.” His words grew thick and slurred. “You’ll see.”

  “Of course you will. Back to playing the hero, too. The women won’t be able to keep their hands off you.”

  “Only one woman for me. Damned nuisance . . . want to wring her neck, but can’t get her out of my head.” His hand slid from hers as he drifted into unconsciousness.

  “Tony?” Her throat closed, choking off her voice. “Tony, please don’t leave me.”

  “It’s time to go, Anna.” Hugh had returned. He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “The ambulance is here.”

  She rose from her chair as a pair of orderlies moved in. She dug her nails into her palms as they shifted Tony’s limp weight, legs flopping uselessly, swollen, battered face void of color or expression. She tried to follow, but Hugh held her back. She turned her face to his chest and closed her eyes on a prayer.

  “What did the doctor say? Will he be all right? I told him he would. I had to. He was scared, Hugh. He couldn’t feel his legs. But what if I was wrong? What if he’s not all right?”

  “You told him what he needed to hear.”

  “Even if it turns out I lied?” She looked up to see him give a small shake of his head.

  His eyes held both grief and some other more hidden emotion. “Sometimes a lie can be the kindest truth.”

  Anna sat beside Hugh in his little two-seater as they wound their way back to Nanreath Hall from St. Eval. She gripped the handbag in her lap as he took each hairpin curve as if he were competing in a Monte Carlo road race. Normally his terrifying manner of driving would have had her praying to any god who might be listening as she held on for dear life. This afternoon she stared straight ahead, though she saw nothing of the view beyond the windscreen. She trembled, but she wasn’t cold. In fact, heat washed across her shoulders and splashed up the back of her legs, but still her teeth chattered, and every breath she took came wobbly.

  Her eyes ached. Her head pounded with unshed tears. She didn’t cry. She couldn’t. Other than the teeth-chattering chills and a tightness in her chest, she couldn’t feel anything—not anything at all. Not fear or rage or grief or pain. It was as if she viewed life from within a bubble where nothing touched her. She was safe within this cocoon where nothing and no one could hurt her.

  Safe—and alone.

  The car dipped down a hill, slowing as the road narrowed to one lane ahead of the old stone bridge. Her own vision seemed to narrow, as well, black at the edges crowding closer with each shaky indrawn breath. “Stop, Hugh! Stop!” she yelled, throwing a hand to the dashboard as the car swerved and screeched, the walls of the bridge approaching in a rush, before Hugh’s skill pulled them out of the skid, the tires biting into the dirt, the car idling, the silence roaring in her ears as the car skidded to a stop.

  Anna threw herself out of the car, nearly falling before she righted herself and half ran half scrambled down the bank to the creek to fall to her knees at the water’s edge. She splashed her cheeks, hoping to cool them. Dipped her hand in the water to take a drink.

  “Anna?” Hugh had followed her. His shadow fell across her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  She sat back on her haunches, feeling the damp seep through her skirt and stockings. Mud squelched and her hair fell loose from her cap, but she didn’t move.

  “Drink this.” He knelt beside her, handing her his flask. “You need it more than me.”

  She took a sip, letting the whiskey burn its way into her stomach, but still she shook, her mind spinning. “I need to talk to you. I tried earlier, but now I need . . .”

  “Of course. Is it about Tony? He’ll be—”

  “No,” she said abruptly, cutting him off. “It’s nothing to do with Tony.”

  “All right,” he said hesitantly. “Go on.”

  “I wanted to tell you before but . . . well . . . I found something out about your father. I didn’t know whether I should say anything or not. Tony and your mother think I should keep it to myself. They both feel that this could be the straw that shatters you, but you’re tougher than that. You’ve had to be.”

  “A year ago, they might have been right to worry.”

  She met and held his gaze. “But not now.”

  “No,” he said, his face filled with a new pride. “Not now.”

  “I had a look at Lord Boxley’s medical file when I was in London—”

  “Wait.” This time it was Hugh who cut her off. “You don’t have to tell me this, Anna.”

  She stared into the curling eddies of water as they washed against the bank. A stick tumbled and spun on its way past, a bright yellow leaf, a fish jumped. The damp in her stockings seeped through to her knees. Her muscles cramped from sitting so long. “The house . . . this family . . . it’s riddled with secrets. One lie be
gets another until we crumble under the weight of them. I can’t keep pretending.”

  “You don’t have to. Remember when I said I learned about Lord Boxley from the people who knew him best?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  He lifted her chin, his pale gray eyes solemn but always with that hint of sparkle lurking just beyond the surface. “Whatever happened, whatever lies your father or my mother told, it was done to protect us. It was done out of love. I’ve made my peace with it. In time, perhaps you can do the same—cousin.”

  She caught back a swift breath.

  “Oh yes, whatever you might think you know, you’re not shaking me that easily. We’re family, old girl. It’s too late to disavow us now.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice emerged as barely a whisper.

  “No, Anna. Thank you.” He stood and pulled her to her feet beside him. “Let’s go home. I’ve a bus to catch.” Hand in hand, he led her back up the steep rutted bank.

  “Hugh?”

  He glanced back over his shoulder. His smile lacked its usual quicksilver charm, but it was all the sweeter for it. “I think we’re both stronger than we look, don’t you?”

  The next days and weeks were a blur. Anna’s nightmares returned with a vengeance. She sought relief in work, but even the hardest chores and the endless hours weren’t enough to keep the ghosts at bay. Water, fire, and burning, bullet-ridden men filled her mind each time she closed her eyes. Harriet’s cries for help pulled her awake, sweat-drenched and gasping for air.

  “Trenowyth!” It was mid-October, and Sister Murphy cornered Anna as she retrieved her mail. “Where’s Jones? She was due on the wards an hour ago.”

  Anna stuffed the letter from Sophie into the pocket of her apron to read later. “I don’t know, Sister.”

  “Dillydallying with some young man if I know you girls. She better be careful or she’ll end up”—she eyed Anna harshly—“in the family way.”

  Anna forced herself not to punch the QA sister in the nose. “I’m sure she’ll be along.”