September 1936
The woollen vests had been bought from Harrods; eight of them, enough to last between laundry van visits, with one to spare. Kneeling in front of the open drawer in the nursery Polly held one up and examined it. They were lovely quality, no doubt about that; beautiful soft wool with plenty more wear left in them … Which would be all well and good if Alice hadn’t grown so much.
With a sigh Polly re-folded the vest and put it on the pile on the floor. Who would have thought a child could grow so quickly? She must be two inches taller now than she had been when she’d arrived at Blackwood.
Her brisk hands stilled at the realization that it had been eight months, give or take, since that bleak January Sunday. The earth had nearly completed its cycle through the seasons; of course the child was going to have grown. It might feel like time was suspended, like they were all stopped and waiting, but the world kept turning, just as it always had. She shook her head sadly. Funny how it often took a child to remind you of how things were. That life went on.
Blinking hard she reached for her list and wrote ‘vests, wool. Size 28″’, then shut the drawer and opened the one below it. Luckily most of Alice’s skirts were the kilt variety, which allowed for a bit more growing room. She’d need a couple of new jerseys for the coming winter, and ideally a new best dress for Sundays, though Polly suspected Lady Lennox would rather turn a blind eye to the two-inch gap that had appeared between knee and hem than pay for a new one. Resentment twisted like a knife beneath her ribs. Miss Selina had made sure money was available for things like that, but Polly was prepared to bet that it would be easier to get blood from a stone. The old witch didn’t bother to hide her lack of warmth to the child. Even now.
Blushing with guilt at this private dissidence she shut the drawer with unnecessary force and picked up the pile of outgrown clothes. It was best to strike while the iron was hot and catch Lady Lennox in the Morning Room before Alice finished her lessons. As she went out into the corridor Polly could hear the governess’s voice – reciting poetry, by the sound of it. Poor Alice. Once old Sergeant Major Lovelock’s ankle had healed she had been granted three weeks’ leave for a trip to Europe (it was all right for some) and, freed from the schoolroom, Alice had been as happy as Polly had seen her.Thankfully, since the governess’s return, the ritual of the afternoon walk had been dropped and Alice was allowed to continue helping Patterson in the kitchen garden, which was something. No wonder she’d shot up; a summer of fresh air and useful activity. It had done her good; kept her occupied and put colour in her cheeks. It would do Miss Selina’s heart good to see her.
The breath caught in Polly’s throat. Her hand tightened on the banister.
If only.
She paused outside the Morning Room, balancing the pile of clothing as she straightened her skirt and smoothed her hair. After all these years Lady Lennox still made her feel like the plump fourteen-year-old who had trailed up the drive after her mother, wearing her Sunday dress and a borrowed hat. The balance of power had shifted these days, she reminded herself firmly. She no longer had to be grateful to Her Ladyship for offering her a place. If anything the boot was firmly on the other foot, though Polly hadn’t come back to Blackwood for Lady Lennox’s sake, that was for sure. It was Miss Selina who had asked her, and for Miss Selina that she had agreed.
It hadn’t occurred to her for a second to refuse.
The bond between them was unusual; impossible for anyone else to understand. ‘She takes advantage,’ Polly’s mother had said that long-ago summer, lips compressed with disapproval because she listened to the village gossip, gleaned from newspapers, about the drinking and the dancing, the skinny dipping in the Serpentine and kissing Prince Albert. But her Mam didn’t know about the other things. The vulnerability that lay behind Miss Selina’s apparent confidence. The kindness. The late night conversations, when Miss Selina would invite Polly to climb onto the bed beside her to share the petits fours she’d smuggled out from dinner in her handbag, the times she let Polly use the bathwater once she’d finished, topping it up with more hot and telling her to take as much time as she wanted, to use her Floris talcum powder afterwards and not to feel in the slightest bit guilty that the other maids only got one meagre bath a week. The shared confidences and complaints, the petty grievances that often turned into amusing anecdotes in the lamplit bedroom. The laughter. The knowledge that Miss Selina was on her side (like the time Polly broke a valuable china figurine and Miss Selina told Lady Lennox she had done it herself) and the certainty that she was on Miss Selina’s. That they would be there for each other, no matter what.
All those years ago Polly had never imagined what that might mean.
She took a breath and knocked. Entering the room she saw Lady Lennox seated at her writing desk in front of the window. She didn’t raise her head, but carried on writing while Polly stood there, determined not to be cowed.
She looked at the woman in front of her. Diamonds flashed dully on her fingers as her hand moved across the page, but the rings were too loose now. Years of monitoring every mouthful, watching her figure, Polly thought, and she’d ended up frail enough to snap. Deep grooves were scored on either side of her mouth, giving her a permanently sour expression. Polly felt a sudden flash of pity. All that wealth, all that privilege, but what happiness had it brought her? Her life was bound by strict rules rather than emotions. She was like a plant, tightly staked and rigidly clipped, whose roots had withered in dry soil.
‘Well?’
Polly started, and her pity evaporated under Lady Lennox’s chilly gaze. She held up the bundle of clothing.
‘Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I was just sorting through Alice’s clothing, what with the seasons changing. She’ll be needing some new things, I’m afraid – she’s grown that much. I’ll see what I can do about turning hems down, but all these vests are no good now. I was wondering if I might pass them to my mother, for the WI jumble sale? And I could go into Salisbury on my half day and buy some replacements from Draycott’s, along with a few other bits—’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
Lady Lennox was looking down at the letter she had been writing. Picking up her pen she crossed something out and moved the top sheet aside to scan the one beneath. Polly stood, open-mouthed, feeling both foolish and quietly furious. Lady Lennox screwed the cap onto the fountain pen and laid it down again.
‘I’ve been meaning to tell you.’ Her tone was off hand. ‘We’ve made arrangements for Alice to go to school – Carlton Hall, in Yorkshire – so she must manage with the clothing she has for the time being. I have a uniform list, so when new things are purchased it will be with reference to that, and from the correct supplier and so on. But thank you for your concern.’
‘Boarding school, ma’am?’
‘Yes, Polly, boarding school. I’m sure you can appreciate that Yorkshire is too far to travel each day. The new term starts next week, which is unfortunate timing. We took the decision that it was too soon for Alice to start now, with everything being rather … uncertain.’ It was as if she was referring to rain at a picnic. ‘The Headmistress has been most understanding. Alice will be able to start at a time to suit her. To suit … the circumstances.’
Lady Lennox’s voice trailed away into silence.
‘Does she know?’
She didn’t need to ask. It wasn’t something Alice would have kept to herself if she’d known about it. Polly didn’t know whether to be angry that the poor child was being kept in the dark while everyone decided what to do with her, or grateful that she was being spared the worry. But there was only so much sparing that could be done. Sooner or later she would have to be told the truth.
Anguish squeezed at her insides.
‘No.’ Lady Lennox folded the sheets of paper and slotted them into an envelope. ‘It’s not the right time to tell her yet. It’s in the child’s best interests to keep things … normal … for as long as possible. I think you’d agree she seems happy enough?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ She swallowed. ‘Does Miss Selina know? About the school? It’s just she always said—’
‘Selina wants what’s best for Alice.’ There was an edge of steel in Lady Lennox’s tone and it cut cleanly through Polly’s protest. ‘We all do. Now, I’m sure you have things to be getting on with…?’
‘Have you heard anything?’ Polly couldn’t stop herself from blurting it out, even though she knew it wasn’t her place to ask. ‘Has there been any news?’
Lady Lennox’s face twitched with disapproval. Almost imperceptibly she shook her head. ‘You will be kept informed. For the time being we must carry on.’ Her chilly smile faltered. ‘For the child’s sake.’
Polly retreated, still clutching the bundle of clothing. Going back up the servants’ stairs to the nursery she had to stop to catch her breath, and it was only then that she realized she was crying.
The afternoon sun slanted through the trees and fell onto the face of the Chinese House. Alice could feel it on her back too, warm and luxurious. It was gentler now than it had been a few weeks ago; lower in the sky, Patterson said, now autumn was coming on. Alice had found that fascinating. To her the sun was always just there, but Patterson showed her how it tracked across the sky, so you could tell by looking up when it was time to stop for milk and a biscuit, and when Polly would be expecting her back at the kitchen door. Journeyman gardeners didn’t have fancy watches, Patterson said.
He had shown her all sorts of other things too, signs that the season was changing. The bright green, spiked horse chestnut cases on the trees along the drive were swelling and beginning to fall, and birds (swifts, Patterson told her) circled high up in the sky, getting ready to fly south for the winter. Around the lake the bulrushes had grown fluffy white heads that turned them into sticks of fairground candy floss, and in the kitchen garden everything was ripe and ready, so there was always tomatoes to pick and a basket of beans, peas, apples and plums to take back to the house.
Patterson said that she was a champion helper and he didn’t know how he’d managed without her. Jimmy was useful for heavy work like pruning and digging, he said, but small hands were best for picking fruit and planting seedlings. Alice loved being given jobs to do, but today she had been excused from work and allowed to come down to the Chinese House with paper and her precious tin of pencils, which Polly had defiantly reclaimed after Cousin Archie’s visit. It was Mama’s birthday soon, and Alice wanted to send her a picture. She had mentioned, in the letter that Polly was supposed to have put in the Chinese House, that she had come down here often during the happy week she’d spent alone at Blackwood, so it made an obvious subject.
Alice narrowed her eyes to study the fancy pattern of bars on the windows, then bent her head to reproduce it on the paper. She thought of Mama’s letter – the last clue – and in her mind an image formed as she drew, of another summer’s day in a time before she existed; young Mama stretched out on the wooden boards and music from the gramophone drifting out across the water. It felt like the rest of the world was very far away, Mama had written; we caught fish in the lake and cooked them for dinner one night … The word ‘we’ had jarred in Alice’s head like a stone thrown into water, breaking up the clear reflections that had formed on its surface. Polly must have been there some of the time, she supposed. She must remember to ask her.
Mama’s letters came less often now. It was the post, Polly said. The place where they were was very remote, and it was the rainy season of course, which Polly said might slow things down more. In her last letter Mama had sounded hopeful that Papa’s business would soon be finished, and then they could begin the journey home. Her optimism had cheered Alice up immensely.
It couldn’t be long now. The summer was almost over and autumn was here, drawing the year’s circle closer to its close. It was Alice’s birthday in November.
Mama would be back by then, she felt sure.
In the quiet of the afternoon when Alice had gone out to the garden and Ivy and Ellen sat in the servants’ hall poring over the autumn fashion feature in Peg’s Paper, Polly went to her room.
It wasn’t the same one she’d had when she’d worked at Blackwood before. Ivy and Ellen shared that one now, and Polly had one to herself at the end of the corridor, with damp-blistered plaster and a high up window that held nothing but a square of sky. (All the rooms were half below ground level in the servants’ basement.) She’d had a position as under-housekeeper in a modern house just outside Winchester when Miss Selina’s letter had arrived last December. Sometimes she thought wistfully of the attic room she had given up, which not only had a proper view over the garden, but also a carpet and a central heating radiator and a bathroom across the landing. It was little wonder that no one wanted to work in the big houses anymore. Blackwood felt like the workhouse in comparison to Meadowcroft Villa. Her mother had made her a rag rug for the tiled floor and given her an old patchwork quilt from the farmhouse to keep off the worst of the chill, but it was still like sleeping in a game larder. It hadn’t been too bad during the summer, but winter was a different matter.
She’d hoped she wouldn’t be there for another one.
Puffing out a breath she stooped down to drag a squat black case out from beneath the narrow bed (the legs of which were placed in jam jars of water, to catch the cockroaches. Not that there were many, but the precaution made Polly sleep easier). She lifted the case onto a rickety old table behind the door and opened the lid to reveal a typewriter, with the words Remington Portable picked out in gold above the keys.
She breathed in the metallic smell of oil and ink, running her fingers tentatively across the keys and making the little hammers ripple, like a dog’s hackles rising. That seemed to sum up the mutual mistrust that persisted between her and the machine. It was – apparently – supposed to offer a more efficient method of writing, though Polly failed to see how when it took her a full minute to locate each letter, and the ‘c’ key didn’t work properly. Tucked into the lid of the case was a box of writing paper (expensive, bought from Bond Street) and a ruled exercise book (cheap, bought from Woolworths) and an envelope with Alice’s name on the front in turquoise ink. She took out a sheet of paper and fed it into the Remington’s roller.
The flimsy chair creaked in protest as she sank down onto it, shoulders sagging. Everything she needed was in the notebook. All she had to do was decipher the handwriting and type out what was written, but every time it seemed to get harder, and feel more wrong. For the last week she had been aware of putting it off, hiding behind the flimsiest of excuses (going through Alice’s clothes had been one of them) to avoid having to confront the deepening deception in which she was so enmeshed.
It wasn’t the first time she’d got caught up in a lie for Miss Selina. Typing the last letter to Alice – the clue that she had botched so badly – had brought back the sweaty, palm-prickling torment of that morning eleven years ago, telling Lady Lennox that Miss Selina had been taken badly in the night and wouldn’t be able to travel to Scotland. She’d felt herself going as red as a beetroot and been sure that God would strike her down right there and then, on Lady Lennox’s bedroom carpet. Never again, she’d told herself afterwards. Never again.
And yet here she was.
But what choice did she have? She remembered the little girl who had arrived at Blackwood in the winter, who had been too homesick to utter a word for virtually a whole week. She thought of the evenings when she’d gone up to turn out the light and heard the child sobbing quietly, trying to muffle the sound in the pillow. She thought of her pale little face, pinched with misery, her dark eyes full of anguish, and remembered how helpless she had felt in the face of such distress. Little duck. The truth was Polly would have sworn on the Bible that the moon was made of cheese if it would have made her happier. She hadn’t hesitated before agreeing to go along with Miss Selina’s deception.
Her gaze was drawn reluctantly down to the exercise book. It was all in there; the last bit of the story, waiting to be told, though she couldn’t quite bring herself to open it. Instead she got up and went over to the cheap little chest of drawers by the bed. Her hands shook a little as she pulled open the bottom drawer, moving aside a neatly folded nightdress, a slip and a couple of spare aprons to find what she was looking for.
A little square box of black leather, embossed with gold, and beneath it, an illustrated newspaper. The Sphere, it was called. News, descriptions of political goings-on in foreign places whose names Polly couldn’t pronounce, reviews of London theatre productions; not a publication she would ever purchase herself. She had almost left it lying on the seat in the train back from London, and had only picked it up to avoid having to talk to the creepy-looking man with the waxed moustache who had sat down opposite her.
Everything happens for a reason. That was what her mother always said.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, turning the pages. Amongst all the dull news stories, it had been the photographs that caught her eye: faces that she recognized from the pictures at the Gaumont, but photographed in a way that made her look twice because they’d looked like ordinary people. Beautiful of course, but human. Like friends.
Her interest piqued, she’d read the article. A new film studio was opening, just outside London. Pinewood, it was called – the name similar enough to Hollywood to show that it was going to be as good – and the photographs showed various stages of its construction, and different stars looking around its sets and facilities. There was a lovely one of Anna Neagle, all laughing and relaxed, and Maurice Chevalier standing in the middle of a huge, empty studio. She had decided to take the magazine home for Ellen and Ivy before she noticed the name of the photographer.
Lawrence Weston.
She held the little box tightly in her hand for a moment, then tucked it back into the corner of the drawer to return to later. The magazine she took over to the table. She had kept it, brought it home, but something had stopped her handing it over to Ellen. She hadn’t been sure what she would do with it, or if she would do anything at all, but this morning’s conversation with Lady Lennox had made her mind up. She knew that Selina would never have agreed to boarding school in Yorkshire if there had been any other option. Polly would never forgive herself if she didn’t find out if there was.
But first, the treasure hunt. She couldn’t put it off any longer. Miss Selina had written her story in the notebook for Polly to copy on the typewriter, but she was on her own now when it came to thinking up the clues. She wasn’t good with words, not like Miss Selina, but Alice wasn’t likely to notice if they weren’t as clever as the earlier ones, and there were only two envelopes left to hide. She would apply her mind to that later. Straightening her shoulders she opened the exercise book and steeled herself to flick through the pages of spidery handwriting until she found the right place. With one finger, she began laboriously to type out the shaky words.
My Darling Al-i-c-e …