The Winter Secret

by Lulu Taylor

  ‘Fine, Mrs R. I’ll have the flat ready and waiting.’

  It was late afternoon and Buttercup was putting her bag into her car, ready to be on her way, when Phil appeared out of the darkness, muffled up in a coat and scarf against the icy wind blowing across the yard.

  ‘BC?’

  She jumped, her mind elsewhere, then smiled when she saw him. ‘Phil, hi. How are you?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said gruffly. ‘You off somewhere?’

  ‘Christmas shopping in London.’

  ‘I wanted to have a quick word with you if I can.’

  ‘I’m actually just about to leave – will it take long?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ He stared at her, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his eyes hardly visible in the light from the courtyard lamp. ‘It’s about that poor Polish girl. Carol told me what happened. It wasn’t right,’ Phil said gruffly.

  ‘I totally agree, and I asked my husband to reconsider but I’m afraid he was a bit upset.’ She hesitated, then said quickly, ‘I’ll try again when he’s home, no doubt he’ll have calmed down by then and will be in the mood to be more generous. I’d love to have Agnieska back, and you know Charles . . .’ She trailed off, wondering suddenly if any of them knew Charles. Least of all me. She finished weakly: ‘ . . . his heart’s in the right place.’

  Phil stared at her for a moment longer, his shoulders hunched, then said, ‘If you say so.’ He turned on his heel and marched away into the darkness. Buttercup watched him go, before climbing into the car to start her journey.

  On the way out of the gates of Charcombe, she noticed that, for the first time in a long time, the lights of Fitzroy House were on.

  So Ingrid was home at last.

  London was already dressed for Christmas. The lights were up: frosted peacock feathers glittered down Bond Street, ethereal blue angels hovered with outstretched wings around Piccadilly. Oxford Street and Regent Street flashed with Disney figures and blockbuster film promotions. Shop windows were crammed with candy canes and snow and gift-wrapped boxes.

  Buttercup reached the flat late in the evening, had a cold supper and went to bed. The next morning, she headed out early to do some Christmas shopping and returned to the Westminster house in the afternoon in a taxi loaded up with her bags and boxes. One of the security guards took charge of them and carted them all upstairs in the lift while Buttercup took the stairs so that she could call in at the office on the way. Rose was there, sitting at her desk and staring at her screen, tapping on her keyboard.

  ‘Hi, Rose.’

  Rose looked up and smiled. ‘Hi, Mrs R. You went out first thing?’

  ‘That’s right. I needed to do some shopping. I’ve got half a dozen godchildren to buy for.’

  ‘Let me know if you want anything wrapped or sent.’

  Buttercup came into the office and put down her handbag so she could slip off her coat. ‘You make my life so easy, Rose, do you know that? All the little things people usually struggle with – even like finding the tape and the scissors, or getting the time to do the wrapping – you take all of that away from me.’

  Rose smiled. ‘That’s my job.’

  Buttercup sat down in the black leather chair in front of Rose’s desk and fixed with her a candid look. ‘Can we speak openly here, without being overheard?’

  ‘Yes. We’re not bugged, if that’s what you mean. At least, I don’t think so. Say whatever you like.’

  Buttercup wondered if Rose’s cheerful demeanour, so different from the nerves and trepidation she had shown last time, was a defensive technique. Maybe she had already decided not to help but was just playing along. She said: ‘I’m sure you remember our telephone call. Things have changed a bit since I last spoke to you, and I’d really like to get more of an idea of what’s in my file, and exactly how many people are reporting on me. You see, I don’t believe any longer that it’s all for the sake of my security. To be frank, I think the kidnap story is rubbish.’

  ‘Okay,’ Rose said slowly. ‘That’s what I’m told.’

  ‘Do you believe it though?’

  ‘I think . . . maybe they’re being a bit over-protective.’

  ‘Just a bit.’ Buttercup leaned towards her. ‘And I’d like to get to the bottom of it so I can persuade Charles that he doesn’t need to worry about me quite so much.’

  Rose looked doubtful, rubbing her fingertips nervously over her keyboard and pursing her lips. ‘Like I said, I don’t deal with any of that. Elaine takes care of it.’

  ‘There must be quite a lot of paperwork. So where does she keep the files?’

  Suddenly agitated, Rose leaned across her desk, frowning. ‘You want me to access the files and give them to you to look at?’

  ‘Bingo.’ Buttercup smiled at her. ‘You’ve got it in one.’

  Rose exhaled a long breath, shaking her head and frowning behind her spectacles. ‘Mrs R, that’s sackable stuff, you know that. I’d have to open Elaine’s locked filing cabinet.’ She glanced over at a shiny black padlocked cabinet in the corner of the room. ‘That’s top secret.’

  Buttercup followed her gaze. So that’s it. Everything is in there. ‘Do you know the code?’

  Rose said nothing.

  ‘You do, don’t you?’

  She bit her lip and looked guilty. ‘Elaine once had to tell it to me, when she needed me to get something for her while she was abroad with Charles.’

  ‘And she hasn’t changed it?’

  ‘She has. She changes it every week. Then she sends herself an email with the combination in it.’

  ‘So it’s in her email folders?’

  ‘It should be. And I know her password.’

  ‘Great.’ Buttercup looked at her intently. ‘I want to look in the cabinet. Will you open it for me?’

  ‘I want to help you.’ Rose sighed and pushed her glasses back on her nose. ‘But if I get found out, I’ll be sacked.’

  ‘It’s a risk, I can’t pretend it’s not. But I won’t tell, I promise you that.’

  ‘They’ll know it was me. It couldn’t be anyone else.’

  Buttercup could see that Rose was becoming less keen to help her, more scared of the consequences. She knew her chance was slipping away. ‘Rose, please, I’m begging you. You know that Charles is monitoring me. I think he might have people actively spying on me – and not only for my protection, like he says. I’m beginning to feel like I’m not in control of my own life, and it’s eating away at me. I’m beginning to suspect everyone, even Charles himself. Maybe even my emails are being read. Who knows how far it could go? I just need to know what’s actually going on. That’s all.’

  Rose shifted uncomfortably. ‘I don’t want to get involved with the boss’s private life. I’ve already told you more than I should.’

  ‘I don’t know what else to do, Rose. I’m powerless. Everything is hidden from me. And listen to this: I barely know what phone network I’m on, and I’ve certainly never seen a bill. I’ve never taken our car to be serviced and rarely put petrol in it. I’ve never been in our cellar. I don’t know how many rooms there are in my own house. It’s not normal! It might sound like I’m just a bored rich wife, but it’s much more than that. Gradually, I’m being closed in. And I think people are watching me all the time, even sabotaging my attempts to get a job, and I don’t know why! It’s beginning to drive me mad: sometimes I feel like I’m paranoid and other times I’m sure I’m right. Please, Rose. I need to know what’s going on.’

  Rose stared at her desk for a while and then said in a low voice, ‘All right. I’ll do it. Jacob said I was an idiot to get mixed up in this, but I can’t just stand by and do nothing. I can see that there is some weird stuff happening, though I don’t know any details. So I’ll open the cabinet for you.’

  Five minutes later, Rose had the combination for the cabinet, and she went to the padlock, Buttercup following. Now that the answers were so close, she could feel her heart racing. Rose took hold of the padlock and tu
rned the dials. One by one they fell into place and when they were all in a line, the lock clicked obediently open.

  Rose pulled the top drawer open; it was full of hanging files, each one carefully labelled and full of paper. Though tidy, it was bulging with information. Buttercup began to read the labels, her heart pounding and a sick feeling in her stomach.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ she whispered. ‘This is unbelievable.’

  Rose said nothing, blinking behind her glasses.

  ‘I mean . . . utterly unbelievable.’

  With shaking hands, Buttercup began to leaf through the files, so she could read every label: ‘BR – phone records’; ‘BR – internet history’; ‘BR – medical history’; ‘BR – childhood info’; ‘BR – credit card’; ‘BR – social circle’; ‘BR – employment’; ‘BR – horse riding’ . . . Each file bulged with paper and there were dozens of them.

  Buttercup turned to Rose, her eyes wide, trembling with shock. ‘But this is all about me!’

  Rose nodded, also looking astonished. ‘I had no idea there was this much. I looked in the other drawer. It’s kind of . . . a bit too much.’

  Buttercup turned back. It was worse – much worse – than she’d thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘Be careful, be careful!’ quavered Xenia, standing at the door of her bedroom and watching Agnieska anxiously as she dusted the top of the chest of drawers. ‘Don’t break anything.’

  ‘You have much things,’ Agnieska grumbled, lifting up another photograph frame to wipe underneath.

  It was true that the room was full of ornaments and bibelots. Every surface had something on it: enamelled picture frames, porcelain snuff boxes, silver trinkets, jewellery cases – empty, mostly. When Xenia left Charcombe Park, there had seemed to be little that remained from the great load of possessions that had been assembled over those years when they had lived in grand style. Roomsful of furniture had been sold or thrown away. What was left that was precious from those days she kept here, in her bedroom, and whenever Agnieska was in there, she found it hard to keep away, just in case. Now that she knew that Agnieska had broken an antique plate at the big house, she fretted all the more that something might get damaged.

  Agnieska picked up the crystal star, one of Mama’s many awards for Delilah, and began to polish it.

  ‘Be careful!’ cried Xenia. ‘Don’t drop that. And be careful of the other ones, too – they are all real, you know!’

  Agnieska put the star down, turned to her and put her hands on her hips. ‘It’s okay!’ she said firmly. ‘Don’t watch me. Go away.’

  Xenia murmured and then, obediently, went back downstairs. The rest of the house was furnished from a mail order catalogue, along with a few pieces of what had remained from the big house – but she had left an awful lot behind. Much of it was too imbued with unhappy memories. She kept only the things that reminded her of the good times, and of Mama. She had no qualms about letting go of the rest. The great kitchen table had been dragged outside by two village men and, at her request, put on the bonfire in the garden, along with mouse-infested mattresses and all the broken bits and pieces wanted by nobody. She had been glad to see it burn to ashes.

  Xenia went downstairs to find Petrova and make a cup of tea. She drank gallons of it as the weather turned colder outside. She liked to pull the curtains shut, have the lamps lit and the electric heater on, and make herself a cosy nest in which she could keep warm and comfortable while she watched the television. Sometimes she felt she could never feel cosy enough, after the years in the great house, that grew draughtier and draughtier as it fell apart. Trying to keep her and Mama warm had been an endless task.

  ‘Mama, we must go, we must find somewhere else!’ she would say as they shivered under blankets in the drawing room, huddling close to the fire. She would build a barricade with chairs and old curtains to keep the heat in and when the cold was at its worst, they would put their mattresses there and sleep in front of the fireplace.

  ‘We can’t leave,’ Mama insisted. ‘He’ll come back. He promised. How will he find us if we’ve moved away?’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Xenia would say. How could she refuse? Instead she devoted herself to keeping them going, but it grew ever harder. The money was all gone, only Mama’s residuals from her films kept them fed and clothed, with running water and electricity. Xenia was far too proud to apply for benefits, though she must have been eligible for something.

  She took great pleasure in the cottage, weather-tight and warm, and the purring cat who curled on her lap and whose presence kept her from shouting too loudly at the television.

  But Agnieska’s presence brought her comfort too. She liked the sound of the other woman moving around, humming and singing to herself as she worked, the distant buzz of the vacuum cleaner. No one had spoken to her firmly or said the words ‘go away’ to her in decades, yet somehow she didn’t mind, knowing that Agnieska did not mean to be unkind – quite the reverse.

  They had taken a shopping trip together, which had not been exactly straightforward, as Xenia had felt that Agnieska drove far too fast and dangerously, and had called out instructions from the back seat, which Agnieska simply ignored, probably because she had not understood them. By the time they arrived at the supermarket, Xenia had been extremely tense and she had begun shouting as soon as they got out of the car.

  ‘What did you think you were doing, you silly girl? You nearly killed us on the roundabout, I saw that bus even if you didn’t – and my eyes are failing me! You went far too fast . . . !’ She was quaking with fury.

  Agnieska fixed her with a clear grey gaze, put her hand on Xenia’s shoulder and said quietly, ‘It’s fine. Not fast at all. And we are here. Everything is okay.’

  Xenia had taken three quick, gulping breaths and forced herself to be calm. She was right. They were there. Agnieska had stayed with her all the way around the supermarket, helping her reach things, opening the fiddly plastic bags for the vegetables, listening calmly while Xenia complained that there were no sensible paper bags, and pushing the trolley when it got too heavy. Then after the checkout, she loaded the car, took Xenia to the bank and to the chemist, waited while she went to the library to get some large-print crime novels and some audiobooks, then drove her home and helped unload the car.

  It had been a relief when it was all over, and an even greater one to see Agnieska drive away in the car, knowing that she would fill it with petrol and check the tyres and do all the things Xenia found so difficult.

  When Agnieska had finished, Xenia came out to see her in the hall.

  ‘What are you doing over Christmas, Agnieska? Are you going back to Poland?’

  ‘No, not this year. My mother comes here. Christmas with my family and my sister, and my husband’s sister too.’

  ‘But when the school holidays start, you’ll be too busy to come here until January?’ Xenia said, worried. She had got so used to seeing Agnieska once a week that she didn’t like the thought of being alone for the three weeks of Christmas and New Year.

  ‘I still come,’ Agnieska said with a shrug. ‘My mother will look after children.’

  ‘Oh, good. Excellent. Here’s your money, and thank you.’

  ‘Bye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Xenia watched her go, comforted. Then she turned back to the warmth of her little sitting room, the early evening game show she enjoyed so much, and a doze.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  1952

  They had only been at Charcombe Park for a week or so, and Mama was still recovering from her journey, when Grandmama arrived to visit from her house in Paris, bringing with her some family portraits for the new house. Papa sent their new car with a driver to collect her from the station and when it drew up, hurried out to kiss her hand and offer her his arm. Her maid got out too, loaded down with bags.

  From her bedroom window upstairs, Xenia got her first glimpse of her grandmother: a stooped woman in a long coat with a w
ide fur collar that sat over her shoulders like a shawl, moving slowly with the help of a silver-topped walking stick. Steely grey curls emerged from under a hat with folds in it, like a turban, and two emerald-green feathery sprays pinned to it. Xenia knew she must go downstairs at once, and she checked her reflection in the mirror on the way out, tucking a stray curl behind her ear, then ran along the corridor, only slowing when she reached the first-floor landing, where a grand and gracious staircase led down to the hall. She could hear voices from the drawing room as she approached, then she knocked and went in.

  Grandmama sat in pride of place on the white and gold sofa, her coat gone so that her blue brocade dress could be seen. Around her neck were ropes of pearls, and a blue sapphire brooch with a great tear-drop pearl hanging from it glittered at her breast. Her face was lined, collapsing around the jowls, and her small blue eyes – so like Papa’s – blazed out of its soft, powdery whiteness, staring at Xenia as she came in.

  ‘Oh, here is Xenia,’ said Mama, who was sitting on another sofa nearby, looking pale and nervous but still elegant in a green suit, a string of pearls at her neck. ‘Say hello to your grandmama.’

  Xenia stopped in front of the old lady, curtseyed and said politely, ‘How do you do, Grandmama.’

  ‘How do you do.’ A smile flickered around the thin lips. Her voice was deep and a little cracked with age, but still strong. It had the faintest hint of a foreign accent in the well-accentuated English. She looked over at Papa who was standing by the fireplace. ‘Well, mon Paul, she doesn’t look like you or Natalie.’

  ‘A mixture of us both, I think.’ Papa smiled. He seemed stiff but also, Xenia thought with surprise, a little afraid.

  ‘You may sit down, child.’

  Xenia went and took her place on a neat little armchair opposite the fireplace.

  ‘The tea will be here in a moment,’ Papa said, his gaze flicking to the door. ‘I’m sure you would like some, Mama.’

  How funny. She is his mama! It was almost impossible to imagine this old lady as a young woman and Papa as a baby. It seemed to her sometimes that grown-ups had always been old and she would be eternally young. Papa is all grown up and still afraid of his mother. Although I can see that she is rather frightening.