Secrets of Nanreath Hall

by Alix Rickloff

  I remained behind, the ruins throwing long afternoon shadows over the grass. I touched the stones of the stair, the sun’s warmth clinging to the weathered rocks, the moss soft under my palm. The sea stretched away to the west like gray satin capped with froth. How many times had William and I dreamed among these ancient stones, searching the horizon for a glimpse of our futures?

  William had chosen family duty, his fear chaining him to an unhappy path not of his making. Would I have done the same if not for Simon?

  He had burst into my well-ordered life like a cyclone and shown me what could be mine if only I had the courage to reach for it. I had leaped at the opportunity and reveled in my freedom. I had been the wanton in word and deed.

  And yet for all that he’d inspired my own bid for independence, Simon had been unable to take that final irrevocable step. He had spoken of following his dreams, but his family . . . his wife . . . they held a part of him that I could never touch.

  A flock of birds rose from the trees behind me, the breeze carrying the late-autumn scents of burning leaves and cooling earth. They turned and wheeled as one, a cloud of black against the sky. One broke from the flock and darted out over the water, its wings churning madly.

  I loosed a silent prayer, turned my back, and walked away.

  That evening I hugged Minnie and Mrs. Vinter good-bye. She kissed me on the cheek then took my face between her hands. Her smile was as teary as mine. “The trouble with growing wings is the baby bird eventually flies from the nest. I will miss you, my dear.”

  “Thank you. For everything.” I stepped onto the train that would take me back to London. The carriages were crowded, but I managed to find a nearly empty compartment, inhabited only by a chubby woman in glasses with a cheerful face and wispy brown hair flying loose of its pins beneath her wide-brimmed hat. She waved me to a seat. “Come in, dear. Come in. I frowned off a pair of rowdy-looking gentlemen, and a woman with a dog. It’s a long trip, and there’s nothing more distressing than to be trapped for hours with someone boorish or irksome, but you look perfectly comfortable.” She smiled, her cheeks dimpled and eyes like stars behind her wire-rimmed spectacles.

  “Thank you.” I settled myself shyly on the opposite bench, rummaging in my bag for my ticket.

  “You look positively fagged. Cup of tea? I never travel without an extra mug and a vacuum flask. It’s amazing how often one finds it useful.”

  “Thank you,” I repeated, feeling dumb and now overwhelmed as my uncertain future raced toward me through a veil of bittersweet tears.

  She tactfully ignored my embarrassing bout of weepiness as she poured tea from her flask into a mug. “Here you are, dear. Drink up. It can’t be that bad.”

  I wiped my eyes. “I’m sorry. You’re probably regretting your hospitality.”

  “Not at all. I’m a vicar’s daughter from Whitechapel. What I haven’t heard isn’t worth hearing.” She held out a hand. “Forgive my shoddy manners. I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Prue Handley. Nice to meet you . . .”

  The train pulled out with a jerk, the lights of the station passing into a blur of landscape as I raced toward the future. For the first time since I’d learned of Simon’s death, I found myself reaching for my journal. Quickly and almost without conscious thought, my hand moved over the page, trying to catch the joy and the love I’d seen in Hugh’s apple-cheeked face this afternoon. Re-creating William’s almost unwilling affection, coupled with a frail vulnerability that told its own story.

  Without lifting my eyes from my work, I smiled with an almost forgotten joy. “My name is Kitty . . . Kitty Trenowyth.”

  Chapter 33

  November 1941

  The front desk operator summoned Anna from the ward where she’d been chatting with a young soldier recovering from a bout of malaria. “Telephone call. Long distance.”

  “Really?” Her stomach didn’t fall, but a flutter beneath her breastbone chilled her. Could it be Tony? She’d not seen him in ages and her letters to him were barely more than a cheerful recap of hospital news. Nothing of how she felt or the emotions behind them. Those drafts ended in the fire.

  She took the receiver with trepidation. “Trenowyth here.”

  “About time. I’ve been feeding pennies into this phone box for ages.”

  “Hugh?”

  “Of course it’s Hugh. Did you expect the king of Siam? Listen, I can’t chat, so I’ll make this short and sweet. I need you to travel up to London. Just for a day or so. Can you do it?”

  “I suppose so, but we’re awfully busy.”

  “Think of something. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “What are you doing in London?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when you get here.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “Garlant’s on Suffolk Street. Out of the way, but it suits me. Be here day after tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know, Hugh . . .”

  She heard the pips on the line. “Right. Have to go. See you then.”

  “I . . .” But he’d already rung off.

  Two days later, dressed in her uniform and cap with one small traveling bag, her gas mask slung on her shoulder, she stepped off the train at Paddington into the crush of a morning commute. Businessmen heading in from the suburbs of Ealing and Southall shouldered past white-gloved women in last year’s fur collars and smart hats arriving for a day’s shopping. Working women bearing a new brisk professionalism as they headed to jobs in offices, factories, shipyards, and ministries paused to buy a cup of coffee or a paper from one of the warring newsboys shouting the latest headlines—the Times announcing frozen Germans outside Moscow, the Daily Mail crowing over the devastation to Berlin and Cologne by British bombers, the News of the World mourning the loss of HMS Ark Royal in the Med.

  Cabs were impossible to come by. She settled for the 23 bus heading south toward Trafalgar Square then hoofed it the rest of the way. The hotel sat back off the street in a courtyard. Its white painted exterior gone gray and mildewed, the trim a shabby, dingy dust color. One window had been boarded over, and someone had swept up the broken glass into a pile and left it, the broom still standing at attention for their return.

  After that less than stellar first impression, the interior surprised with its modest but tidy decor. Comfortable couches and polished tables in the front parlor stacked with newspapers and magazines, bookcases filled with books for those looking for a weightier read than the latest fashions and gossip. The air was redolent of old leather and dusty heat from an old coal furnace, with just a hint of bay rum cologne and pipe tobacco. A gentleman of middle age, red-faced with a cabbage ear and a few greasy strands of combed hair, sorted mail into the cubbies behind the counter.

  “Pardon me. Would you ring Lord Melcombe’s room and tell him his”—she paused—“tell him his cousin is here to meet him?”

  The man eyed her skeptically but did as he was told, making Anna wonder how often Hugh used this place for less savory rendezvous. “Of course, miss.”

  A few moments later she heard a rush of footsteps on the stairs and Hugh appeared like a blast of fresh air. “Hello, old girl. You made it!”

  “I’ve followed your instructions to the letter and cheesed off Sister Murphy in the process, so what couldn’t possibly wait until my next leave?”

  “It’s a surprise.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on. I’ll take you there.”

  Outside, Hugh waved down a cab. “Ashdown Place.”

  The cab pulled into traffic and Anna sat back, enjoying the luxury of a few moments’ rest. Her bag had been getting awfully heavy on her bad shoulder. “What are you doing in London? I thought you were stationed in Plymouth.”

  “I am. Up here for the past couple weeks on estate business that couldn’t wait. I think Mother is finally coming round . . . either that or she’s dangling a prize in front of me like a carrot to a mule if only I’ll give up this ambulance business. She’s turning over some of her
trusts to my management. I’m up to my ears in lawyers and business managers, all telling me how best to spend what little we have left.”

  “Hugh . . . are you certain? I mean Nanreath Hall . . . the earldom . . . you said yourself it’s teetering.”

  “It’s not as dire as it might have been. Mother’s managed to keep us afloat if not flush. She has me swimming in advice, of course, but there are a few ideas I’ve been batting around on my own.”

  “Are you certain this is what you want?”

  His expression grew almost mulish. A new harshness to his gaze. “He trusted me to keep it going, Anna. He ignored every impulse to toss me aside or have me sent away. Instead, he gave me his name and more important, his love. I won’t let him down.”

  “I thought you hated the whole ruddy lot.”

  “No, I hated myself.” He cut her a sideways glance. “But things have changed, haven’t they?”

  The cab crawled along Euston Road behind a convoy of military trucks.

  “Have you been to see Tony?” he asked.

  Anna dropped her gaze to her hands, tightly threaded together in her lap. “No.”

  “I hope you’re not going to offer me that old chestnut about being unable to see someone you love suffering. That’s a coward’s excuse.”

  “It’s nothing like that.”

  “Besides, I hear he’s improving. The doctors have real hopes.”

  Anna continued to fiddle with her gloves, run a finger along her skirt seam.

  “Look, I don’t know what the two of you argued about, Anna, and I’m not exactly best suited to offering advice, but he’s completely batty over you.”

  “It was nothing, just a silly misunderstanding. Over and done with ages ago.”

  “Then go see him. He needs you right now . . . and if I’m not mistaken, you need him just as much.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you can push people away only so long before they take you at your word and leave. Don’t wake up and find yourself alone, Anna. Not while there’s still a chance for a second chance.”

  Before she had to respond, the cab drew to the curb. They stepped out into a street that had seen its share of the war. Like so many others, it was gray with dust and ash. A Woolworths sat between a newsagent and a run-down cinema. The most upscale establishment was a Lyons on the corner where a pair of middle-aged housewives chatted over a pot of tea.

  “It’s just down here.” Hugh took her elbow as they threaded their way through a crowd of window-shoppers.

  They rounded a corner and continued halfway down until they reached a shop as sad and beat up as all the rest, though the glass in its brightly painted yellow door sparkled with a vinegar and newspaper shine. The shop itself was tiny, barely enough room for Hugh and Anna both to fit, but it was filled floor to ceiling with artwork—sketches in charcoal and pastels, watercolors, oil paintings, even a few choice sculptures in bronze and a few cruder pottery pieces.

  An older man, thick-bodied with the weathered features and large square hands of a farmer, emerged from a back room to greet them. “Ah, Lord Melcombe, so nice to see you again. I have everything as you requested. It’s in the back now. Would you like to inspect it before I wrap it?” His voice still held heavy traces of his Polish ancestry.

  “Thank you, Mr. Burkowski. But first, I wanted to introduce you to Simon Halliday’s daughter, Anna Trenowyth.”

  The man’s pale blue eyes lit up as he shook her hand. “Delightful. I’ve been an admirer of your father’s work for years. Ever since I found a sketch of his up for sale at a gallery in Elsham. A shame he was lost so young, his works forgotten. They were truly masterpieces in their touching simplicity.”

  “Works?”

  “Of course. There were a few years when he was quite prolific. Much of this has been lost to us, but every now and then something turns up. I’ve been collecting what I could.” He led Anna to a corner of the gallery where a series of framed charcoal sketches hung. “He did these while he was stationed with the Fourth Suffolk. Sent them back here to his London dealer. They were supposed to have been part of a larger piece, but then he died, and there were other artists with similar ambitions. These quickly faded from public attention, but I find them so moving, don’t you? Stark and almost crude in their simplicity, but they convey the real tragedy of that war.”

  A woman stood in a doorway, her eyes vacant and heavenward as a soldier fumbled beneath her skirt, his head buried in her chest.

  Two bandaged and bloodied soldiers shared a smoke in a forward aid station over the body of a third, flies gathering in the corners of his mouth and buzzing above his staring eyes.

  A boy cried over the carcass of a dead horse lying tangled in its traces, its head nearly blown off.

  The wall held at least half a dozen, the paper yellowed, some nearly faded with age and neglect, but all vicious in their honesty. Anna cringed, reminded of her own experiences on the teeming roads of France after the invasion; the fear so rife you could smell it in the air, the numb disbelief as lives were changed in a cataclysmic instant, the almost blessed resignation after one’s compassion has been stripped away.

  “Hugh, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything yet. Follow me.” He took her hand and they headed into a workroom. “This was really what I brought you here to see.”

  On a table ready to be wrapped in butcher paper rested a small oil painting. Despite its dark-hued background and smaller size, the portrait pulsed with life; bold jeweled colors rendering the wild tangle of red-gold hair tumbling loose about a pair of bare white shoulders and lips curved in a teasing smile. More delicate hues wrought in perfect detail the curve of a lifted eyebrow and the playful dimple in an otherwise stern chin. The Red-Haired Wanton. The illustration in the catalog hadn’t done it justice. This woman glowed from within, an exhilaration captured in the tip of her head and the mischief in her gaze.

  “It’s an exquisite work of art,” Mr. Burkowski stated with all the pride of ownership. “Not as powerful as his war sketches, of course, but still a masterpiece of color and composition. You can feel his emotion in every stroke.”

  Anna swallowed before turning to Hugh. “But how?”

  “Simple, really. When Tony learned about the painting being put up for auction, he tracked down the buyer, Mr. Burkowski here, and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He would have brought you himself, but well . . . circumstances intervened. I gave him my word I would come in his stead and see to it you and your mother were reunited.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Save it for Tony. He deserves the credit. I’m just the errand boy.”

  “The most wonderful brilliant errand boy ever.” She hugged him around the neck, nearly knocking them both over. Kissed him soundly on the cheek.

  “Who knew the life of an errand boy could be so gratifying?”

  She studied the painting as if she might understand her mother’s choices if only she looked long and hard enough. “Funny how much trouble one little painting caused, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know if trouble is the word I’d use.” Hugh smiled at her, and she finally felt her doubts melt away. The answers she’d sought when she’d come to Nanreath Hall dwindled to nothing. She had found something greater—a family.

  “What do you think, Anna? Let’s take Lady Katherine home where she belongs.”

  May I help you?”

  Anna clutched her handbag as she faced Seacroft Hospital’s very efficient-looking desk nurse. She’d traveled to Leeds on the dawn train after a night of little sleep, wedged between two gentlemen heatedly discussing escalating tensions with Japan, and felt every bit of her grubby dishevelment as she stood before the pristine QA sister in charge. “I’d like to see Flight Lieutenant Lambert.”

  The sister checked her log. “Is he expecting you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Let me call up to the ward.” She lifted t
he receiver and dialed, her stern gaze traveling over Anna’s rumpled uniform as she spoke to the person at the other end. After a few curt words, she hung up. “The flight lieutenant isn’t taking visitors today.”

  “Please, if you tell him it’s Anna Trenowyth, I know he’ll see me.”

  She didn’t look convinced.

  “I have to speak to him. It’s very important.”

  She eyed Anna for a long, hard moment before summoning over a pretty young nurse who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. “Take Miss Trenowyth to see Lambert. He’s just back from therapy. Should be presentable for the public.”

  The nurse nodded and led Anna up the lift to a long room partitioned by screens. “Third bed down on the right, miss.”

  Now that she was here, Anna felt uncertain and afraid. Her heart banged against her ribs and she rubbed her damp palms down her skirt. She swallowed her worry as she traveled down the aisle, letting the familiar hospital sounds and smells wash her into a state of calm. The clank of bedpans and trays, squeak of trolleys, the hushed murmur of nurses and the brave conversation of patients, these things she knew. She paused just outside the curtained screen for a final steadying breath.

  “Knock knock.”

  “Anna? What are you doing here?” Tony sat in a wheelchair, a blanket over his legs. He was thinner, his face gaunt, eyes circled by deep hollows, his usually determined expression marked by defeat. “I told them I didn’t want to see anyone.”

  “I know, but I had to come . . . at least once. To say thank you for the painting. I’ve never received a better or more thoughtful gift. It’s absolutely brilliant.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” He stared out the window, though she wondered if he saw any of the view beyond the glass.

  “Like it? Tony, you have no idea how . . .” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “That’s not the only reason I came. I needed to ask your forgiveness. I couldn’t do it in a letter, and you weren’t taking any phone calls. So I braved Sister Murphy’s scoldings, withstood hours of talk about Tojo and oil embargoes and the plight of Hong Kong, and came up to see you in person. Figured you couldn’t turn me away if I was standing on your doorstep—so to speak.”