October 1936
The letter had been left on the nightstand, ready for posting to Polly at Blackwood Park. Rupert glanced at the sleeping face of his wife before slipping it out of its envelope and reading it. Then he carefully refolded it and put it into the pocket of his jacket.
Beneath the letter there was a drawing, done by Alice, of one of the follies in the garden at Blackwood. It had been folded in half to form a flimsy birthday card and inside, in writing that would suggest an author half her age, it said I love you more than anything in the hole world.
Rupert flinched.
As he went to replace it, he noticed the book it had been resting on: a rather battered leather-bound journal. Almost reluctantly he picked it up, running a hand thoughtfully over its cover, down its gilded edge, steeling himself to open it.
He knew what it was and where it had come from. He had bought it himself, at Smythson’s on Bond Street, just before Christmas eleven years ago. One of the first presents he had given to Selina (if one didn’t count the ruby engagement ring) when he had still believed there was hope. Not of a great romance – he had never expected that, nor wanted it – but he had thought that they might make a success of things. He had made a promise to Howard, in the filth and fear of that shell hole at Passchendaele, that he would look after her, and he had been prepared to overlook her waywardness to keep his word. He had known her since she was a child and believed that, given time and a firm hand, she would settle down and make a good wife.
But of course, it turned out that he hadn’t known her at all.
He opened the journal in the middle and flicked back through the pages. Her turquoise handwriting galloped across them, slightly out of control. Like her. On the front page, in the top right hand corner was her name – Selina Lennox Carew (how typical of her to retain the ‘Lennox’). Lower down, in the centre of the page was written
Trip to Burma,
February 1926.
Their honeymoon.
It had been a vindication of his decision to ask for her hand: a woman who would agree to a trip like that as a honeymoon – involving not only arduous travel in basic conditions, but an element of business too – was exactly the sort of wife he needed. In fact, she hadn’t just agreed to it, but suggested it. She had wanted to get away from London, she’d said. So many reminders.
He’d thought she’d meant of Flick Fanshawe.
The journal had been a gift for her to record the trip. He had thought it would provide her with something to do while he was occupied with work, and make an interesting souvenir for their children, their children’s children. In a rare moment of sentimental self-indulgence he remembered imagining some future Carew taking it down from a shelf in the library at Blackwood to be charmed and fascinated by descriptions of a time that would then seem old-fashioned, and places that might have changed beyond recognition. A piece of family history.
Selina had used it for a different purpose. He had looked forward to reading her jottings, but she had kept the journal private and hidden it for years. It was only recently that it had come to light again, and he had read it here, as she slept in her hospital bed. Bits of it, anyway. I am ill with longing, she had written, with missing him. That was somewhat fanciful. The sickness that had racked her on the trip had turned out to have a simple biological explanation.
A discreet cough from the doorway made him shut the book sharply.
‘Mr Carew? Sorry to disturb you.’
It was the nurse with the red hair – he couldn’t remember her name. ‘Professor Tyler would like to see you,’ she said, in the gentle voice they all used now. ‘He’s in his office, if you’re ready.’
She was holding a bouquet of flowers. As he passed her in the doorway he paused to remove the card that protruded from the top. She spoke again, a little uncertainly.
‘I typed the letter for Mrs Carew last night. Did you find it?’
All love and constant thoughts, Theo
Rupert’s lip curled as he replaced the card. At least Osborne was at a safe distance, in Florence, and they were spared his extravagant emotions at close quarters.
‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll see to it.’
Tyler’s office was at the end of the corridor. Rupert was familiar with it now, having had cause to visit several times over the last few months. Unlike the professor’s rooms in nearby Harley Street, which had the reassuring air of a gentleman’s club, this space was unmistakably institutional, although small concessions had been made to comfort. Tyler came round the desk and extended a hand as Rupert entered.
‘Carew. Please – sit down. Drink?’
The Beaumont Nursing Home in Marylebone was the best in London, and Professor Gilbert Tyler was the most eminent man in his field. The days of performing surgery in front of rows of students and spectators might be over, but there was something theatrical about him, something of the dandy in the silk handkerchief in his top pocket and his thin moustache. He poured whisky into two glasses with steady surgeon’s hands and held one out to Rupert.
‘You’ve seen Mrs Carew?’
‘Yes. She’s asleep.’
Professor Tyler smiled. ‘Morphine. Marvellous stuff.’
Rupert remembered. The bliss of oblivion. ‘The x-ray results. Have you had them?’
Tyler took a mouthful of his drink and set the glass down thoughtfully. ‘Ah. Yes.’ He reached unhurriedly for a buff-coloured folder and opened it. ‘Not good news, I’m afraid. As I feared. I performed the second, more radical surgery in … let me see, July? The scars have healed well, which was encouraging, but the cough and those nasty headaches have been a cause of concern, as you know. Rightly so, as the x-rays explain.’
He held up a sheet of celluloid. An incomprehensible pattern in shades of grey and white was visible against the glossy black. It looked like something one might come across on the walls of the Royal Academy under the guise of modern art. Tyler tapped a pale area with his fountain pen.
‘This is the plate of the lungs. The mass here confirms what I suspected. An educated guess says that there is a similar picture in the brain.’
Rupert shifted slightly in his seat. As an officer in the war he had learned to shut down his personal responses and to focus his attention entirely on facts and details. Practicalities. He did that now. The letter in his pocket crackled faintly.
‘Is there anything you can do?’
‘Keep her comfortable. Manage the pain. Nothing more.’
‘She seems to think that she’s getting better.’ He thought of what she’d written to Alice. ‘Going home.’
‘Yes.’ Tyler put the x-ray back into the folder. ‘Experience has taught me that honesty isn’t always the best policy in these matters. It’s a kindness to give hope, even where there is none. Especially where there is none.’
Rupert paused for a moment to allow this to sink in. To make sure he had understood correctly.
‘You told her that the operation had been a success?’
His voice was toneless. By contrast Tyler’s held an edge of impatience.
‘Mr Carew, I am a specialist in diseases of the breast. That gives me, by default, a measure of expertise in the fairer sex. Women’s minds aren’t as rational as ours, as I’m sure you’re aware. Their responses are more … emotional. It’s nature, I’m afraid.’
‘But sooner or later…’
‘Of course. When it becomes unavoidable she’ll have to be told. By then she may well have understood the situation for herself. A natural realization, one might call it.’
‘She has a child.’
Dimly he registered what he had said. Her child. Not his.
‘Yes. How much does the girl know about her mother’s illness?’
Rupert had been holding his whisky glass, watching the surface of the liquid shiver with the shake of his hand. He lifted it now, and took a large mouthful.
‘Nothing.’
Tyler’s eyebrows appeared above the rim of his spectacles. ‘At all?’
‘They’re very close. An only child, you see, and my wife—’ He took another mouthful of whisky to stop himself saying too much. ‘My wife has indulged her. She’s a sensitive child. At the beginning, when it seemed like the first operation would sort things out she thought she might never have to know. A few weeks in hospital, a few more at home to recover…’
He thought of the journal beside Selina’s bed and a pulse of anger flickered in his temple, setting up an echo of pain in his jaw. He rubbed it, hard. How stupid Selina’s plan seemed now. Yet another of the outlandish schemes and childish games she dreamed up – letting Alice miss school to go to the zoo or the seaside or do a scavenger hunt (no wonder she was barely literate) – which disrupted everyone’s routine and kept the child unhealthily dependent.
He should have put his foot down at the beginning, when she’d first told him about the fantasy she intended to spin. He’d agreed, with great relief, that Alice should go to Blackwood to stay with her grandparents; it was much more appropriate than her remaining under his care at Onslow Square. (Not directly under his care, of course, but Selina had dismissed the last nanny two years ago and it was unfair to expect Mrs Winton or the kitchen girls to take on the extra responsibility.) If he was honest, he was glad to be let off the hook so easily. The lie that Selina was accompanying him on foreign business freed him from the duty to visit Blackwood, and the child he had never been able to accept as his own.
He was conscious of the professor’s eyes on him. The unpleasant sensation of being under a microscope.
‘Well, I’m afraid you must think about how to tell your daughter. Might I suggest Mrs Carew’s sister performs the unenviable task of breaking the news? I know she’s been a regular visitor here. Better coming from a woman, I always think. When it comes to these tricky things they’re far more capable than us chaps. More empathy.’
Rupert nodded, and tried to imagine Miranda being empathetic. The conversation had taken on an unreal quality. Dreamlike. He took a mouthful of whisky to jolt him back to full consciousness.
‘Do you…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Would it be recommended that Alice sees her mother? Before…’
‘To say goodbye?’ Tyler leaned back, inhaling deeply, creating a theatrical pause. ‘Sometimes. It depends on the child. You said she was sensitive? And very attached to her mother? In which case I’d suggest not. It would cause unnecessary distress all round, and we like to keep things as calm as possible at this stage. We’re keeping Mrs Carew well sedated. She won’t be terribly aware of what’s going on. I suggest Mrs Atherton goes to visit the child at her grandparents soon and apprises her of the situation. The fact that she’s been there for so long already is a great advantage; I’m sure she’ll take the news far better than you fear. Children are surprisingly resilient. And easily distracted – I prescribe a trip to Hamleys first to buy her something nice. A doll or what have you.’ He smiled. ‘Doctor’s orders.’
Rupert got to his feet and picked up his hat. He hadn’t removed his overcoat when he came in and he suddenly realized how stuffy it was. He wanted to get outside as soon as possible, where the autumn air was laced with frost. The professor stood up, reaching across the desk to shake his hand again. He held on to it for a second longer than necessary.
‘A difficult time, Carew. You have my great sympathy. And support, naturally. Anything I can do to make things easier will be done, you can be assured of that.’
‘Yes.’ He stopped short of thanking him. Professor Tyler’s ‘support’ came at a premium price.
‘And if you have any questions, you know where to find me.’
Rupert paused. Miranda had said something, months ago – at the beginning of all this – that had been playing on his mind increasingly in recent weeks.
‘There was something.’ Looking down at his hands gripping his hat, he saw white bone through the skin. ‘Would it be correct to say that a disease like this can be brought on by … certain types of behaviour?’
He had expected Tyler to ask him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
‘Interesting question.’ He sat down again, steepling his fingers. ‘The suffragettes might have won their battle for the vote, but it’s my belief that they opened something of a Pandora’s Box with their demand for equality and independence. Women may be free to drink alcohol like men, but at what price? They’re free to follow daring fashion, but with what effect? One of my colleagues – an obstetrician – reports a dramatic rise in female fertility difficulties, which could be unrelated to the fact that high-heeled shoes tilt the uterus out of position…’ His expression conveyed his scepticism. ‘In my own field, I think back to the “flappers”’ (Rupert could hear the inverted commas he placed around the word) ‘drinking cocktails, binding their breasts, performing those outrageous dances, and somehow the increase in my workload doesn’t seem so surprising. I’m speaking in the most general terms, of course,’ he concluded with a disarming smile. ‘I’m not suggesting for a moment this is true in Mrs Carew’s case.’
‘No. No, of course not,’ Rupert said, blandly.
He thought about what the professor had said as he walked back along the corridor and went down the echoing stairs. It supported what Miranda had read in the magazine at her hairdresser’s about the fast living of the flapper generation having ‘all sorts of unpleasant consequences’, as Miranda had put it. One doesn’t want to talk about blame, but at the same time it doesn’t do to be an ostrich about these things. Of course she wasn’t to know, but we did try to tell her to be more sensible …
He stood at the top of the steps to the street and applied himself to the ritual of lighting a cigar. One could never tell Selina anything. It was a relief, in a way, to discover that her persistent lack of compliance wasn’t just disrespectful to him, but a danger to herself. He had always suspected as much, and the professor had as good as confirmed that her illness was a direct result of her own imprudence.
He breathed in, lungs warming; expanding as they filled with the comforting smoke. Of course, it brought him no pleasure, and it certainly left him with a lot of problems to resolve. The child, for one. Emilia Lennox had found a school that would take her, in Yorkshire, for which he assumed he would be expected to pay. Being a gentleman, he wouldn’t challenge that assumption. That he had never, in all of the last ten years, alluded to his wife’s flagrant betrayal was a matter of some pride. He had never brought up the subject of Alice’s dark curls and brown eyes, or disputed the face-saving myth that the sole child of their union was a honeymoon baby, because he had understood that doing so would achieve nothing and cause further damage to an already blighted marriage. There was no point in drawing attention to it now. He would maintain his dignity. His decency.
He would have to go to Blackwood, he supposed, to pass on what Tyler had just told him. An unpleasant task. Remembering the letter, he took it out of his pocket and looked at the typewritten address for a moment. And then he tore it in half, and in half again, until it was nothing more than confetti in his fingers.
Going down the steps he scattered the pieces over a metal grille on the pavement, where they fell down to join drifts of rubbish and dead leaves in a coal chute. He looked at his watch. There was time for a visit to Maida Vale before performing his onerous duty. He had bought a flat there some years ago, and installed in it a very obliging widow called Maud Hampson, who, if she had any opinions, was sensible enough to keep them to herself.
Alice sat on the servants’ stairs, just beyond the point where the dim light from the passageway melted into shadow. She was in her nightdress, which she had pulled down over her raised knees to make a sort of tent into which she could tuck her icy feet. She had left her slippers off to make her footsteps soundless.
Downstairs in the servants’ hall the wireless was playing. The programme was called Songs from the Shows, which she liked, but the music meant she couldn’t make out much of what Ivy and Ellen, Polly and Mrs Rutter were saying. The low note of their voices, and the fact that Mrs Rutter was there at all and not in her comfortable little parlour, suggested it was something serious. To do with Miss Lovelock, perhaps? The governess had departed for a trip to London last weekend and failed to return, as expected, on Sunday evening, eventually cycling unsteadily up the drive on Monday afternoon with one wrist bandaged and her beret pulled down over a puffy black eye. Alice had been with Mr Patterson in the glasshouse when Ellen had appeared, bursting with the drama of it all, to say he was needed to take the governess and all her possessions to the station. Alice had only been given the blandest of explanations, of course, but later that night she had crouched on the stairs and heard Mrs Rutter reading out a newspaper article about violent clashes in London’s East End. Alice had struggled to make sense of it. It was hard to imagine Miss Lovelock as a soldier, yet it seemed she had fought in a battle called Cable Street. ‘I always knew she was creepy,’ Ellen said darkly. ‘But I never thought she’d turn out to be violent. Thank God Lady Lennox sent her packing.’
The days had felt untethered since then, without the rigid routine to which Alice had become so accustomed. So far there had been no mention of a replacement governess, which she hoped meant that Mama would soon be home, though no mention had been made of that either. As she strained to catch hold of words beneath the music her hand went to her neck, to the heavy pendant on the chain that hung there. She closed her fingers around the aquamarine, squeezing tightly so that the gold edges of the stone’s mount pressed into her palm.
The treasure hunt was over. The final clue (not a riddle, but a drawing of a dear little tortoise with Mama’s initials on his shell) had led her to the box on Mama’s dressing table where, to her astonishment, she had found the aquamarine pendant: Mama’s most precious thing. For as long as Alice could remember Mama had worn it: every day, with every outfit, hidden beneath her clothes if it didn’t look right over the top, and finding it gave Alice hope that she would be home very soon, because she knew she wouldn’t want to be without it for long. In the meantime, she was awed with the privilege of having it for herself. You can look after it for me, Mama had said in the letter that had been folded in the box alongside it.
The band on the wireless struck up a new tune, which Alice recognized. It was called ‘Someday I’ll Find You’ and Mama often played it at home on the gramophone. She laid her cheek on her knee and hummed along softly in the dark, sliding the pendant backwards and forwards along its chain. She had always assumed that the necklace had been a gift from Papa, though now she wondered why she had ever thought that. Papa gave her rubies; dark and lustrous like drops of blood dripping from her earlobes or glistening at her throat. The necklace was the clear blue-green of the water in the pool in the orangery; the very same colour as Mama’s eyes. It was given to me for my twenty-second birthday, by someone incredibly special, the letter said. Someone I loved very much. He was called Lawrence Weston and he taught me more than anyone else has ever done. Until you came along, my darling.
The song on the wireless came to an end, and in the momentary lull Alice heard a sniffling sound, as if someone was crying. It had been the sound of a motor engine earlier that had piqued her curiosity and brought her to sit on the stairs: she guessed that Dr Pembridge had been called to attend to Grandfather, who had a chest cold, which (Polly said) could be very serious at his age. Alice wondered if, somewhere in the vast house, Grandfather was dying. The idea was intriguing rather than distressing, and she felt mild surprise that anyone downstairs would shed tears for such a cold and distant figure.
Perhaps it wasn’t Grandfather himself that they were sad about, but the future of Blackwood and their own positions. Alice knew that his death would bring changes, but it was as if the house knew it too. It felt different lately. She was used to it now; she was attuned to its moods and heard its whispered voices, and she sensed the tension that vibrated through the still air. The servants moved through the rooms more quietly, their voices subdued. Polly always told the truth – she’s as honest as the day is long, Mama had said in one of her letters – but Alice sensed that she was keeping something back now. Secrets and half-truths seemed to swirl through the corridors on icy currents of air.
Deep inside her the old familiar pain tugged again, like a kite pulling on a string. It had been absent for most of the summer, but as the days shortened and turned colder and Mama didn’t come home it returned to jab her with its bony fingers. She pulled her knees up tighter to her chest.
Suddenly one of the bells in the servants’ passageway jangled loudly, making her jump. Chairs scraped in the servants’ hall and the music got louder as the door opened. From her vantage point Alice could see a square of tiled floor at the doorway and Polly’s feet as she came out to check which bell had rung.
‘Morning room.’ That was where Grandmama sat in the evenings now, because it was smaller and easier to keep warm than the drawing room.
‘That’ll be him leaving,’ Ellen said, moving past Polly. ‘Wait a mo while I fetch Mr Denham…’
Alice got to her feet and scampered back up the stairs. She didn’t mind Polly finding her there – she rather wanted her to – but Denham was a different matter. In his way he was as terrifying as Grandfather.
Her heart bounced around her chest and her blood felt hot and stinging inside her veins, like iodine on a cut. Back in the nursery she went over to the window, folding back the shutter a couple of inches and peering out.
The darkness was thick and enveloping. Looking upwards she could just make out a pale smudge, like a chalky fingerprint on a blackboard, where the moon hid behind the clouds. There were no stars. From far below she heard the faint sound of a motor engine starting up and a moment later headlamps sliced the blackness. The beams swung round as the car began to move.
It seemed bigger than Dr Pembridge’s car, and smarter, just like the car Beechcroft drove them around in at home. Shivering, she pushed the shutter closed again and went back to bed. The sheets felt chilled and slightly damp. She curled herself into a ball, as small and tight as possible around the jab of pain in her tummy. Holding the stone around her neck she listened into the darkness, wishing for the sound of Polly’s feet on the stairs.
It was the right decision to have given Beechcroft the night off and driven himself, Rupert thought. He found motoring surprisingly relaxing and, as he bumped the Bentley up the uneven drive, he was glad to be alone.
The visit had been less unpleasant than he’d feared. Not easy, of course, but Robert, suffering from yet another chest cold, had remained upstairs (which meant that Rupert hadn’t had to bellow the difficult news, to accommodate his deafness) and Emilia had taken it with admirable calm. They had spoken of practical matters: how to manage the coming weeks and what would happen afterwards. Interment in the little chapel at Blackwood would seem obvious were it not for the fact that the future of the house – or specifically, the Lennox tenure in it – was in itself uncertain. Young Archie Atherton was set to inherit, but with the entire estate requiring substantial investment Lionel was making noises about selling. They had discussed it during a visit at Easter, apparently.
This was the only point at which Rupert had detected tears in his mother-in-law’s eyes, but she had not allowed them to fall. He remembered the stoicism she had shown after Howard’s death, when he had been home on leave and made the trip to Blackwood to offer his condolences. She had asked him about Howard’s last moments, and he had given her a much-sanitized version, though there was no way of making bleeding out into a mud-filled shell hole sound like the kind of peaceful end a mother would wish for her son. But she had thanked him. For staying with Howard and being there to ease him to his end. To Rupert’s eternal shame it had been he who had wept, with relief and gratitude that she didn’t blame him for not doing more.
He slowed down to ease the Bentley over the cattle grid where the drive forked to Home Farm. Emilia Lennox had thanked him again tonight, and he wondered if she too heard the echo of that previous conversation. This time he felt no guilty anguish, no thankfulness for her absolution. He had never quite forgiven himself for not being able to save Howard, but his conscience was clear when it came to his marriage. He had done all he could to keep that alive, at least.
The fact was, it had been ill-fated from the start, he could see that now. Occasionally, over the years, he had retraced the chain of events that had led to it, identifying each point at which a path had been taken and a link forged. There was his promise to Howard, of course, and his guilt at the fact that he was still living while his friend was not. Timing too; his return from Burma when pressure was mounting on Selina to settle down, but he had come to the conclusion that none of these things would have precipitated a proposal had it not been for Flick Fanshawe’s death.
That had been the turning point. Seeing Selina’s suffering had unleashed in him some spring of protectiveness that he thought the war had dried up for ever. When he’d collected her from Chester Square on the evening of the funeral he remembered being struck by how lovely she was, her face bare of the dreadful paint she usually wore, her blonde hair gleaming against a sober black silk evening dress. She had held herself very stiffly, rigidly polite and self-contained, until halfway through Part II of the concert programme when, during Vaughan Williams’s Lark Ascending he became aware that she was sobbing, quietly and uncontrollably, beside him.
Immediately he had ushered her out, shielding her from prying eyes, straight into his waiting car. He’d intended to take her straight home but, emboldened, instructed his driver to go to Simpsons in the Strand instead. There he had waved away the offer of his usual table and requested one of the secluded booths at the back. He had never thought of himself as a romantic, but that evening as they talked and he coaxed her to eat, he felt something shift inside him. The burden of guilt, perhaps. If he could look after her, make her happy, he believed it might make his own mind easier.
Bloody fool that he was.
At the gatehouse he stopped and looked in the rearview mirror, but the old house was lost to the darkness. He pulled out into the road and accelerated away, his thoughts travelling ahead, across the dark fields and sleeping towns, to London. Not to the hospital bed where his wife lay or the Maida Vale room where he had spent the afternoon, but to the mansion flat in the ugly red brick block behind Harrods where Margot Atherton lived. He sometimes called there for a drink on the way home from the office, especially if he’d had a trying day; Margot was an extremely good listener. If he gave the Bentley its head he might just make it in time for a nightcap.
Ten years ago that urge to look after Selina had seemed so noble, but he had quickly come to see it as being ridiculously naïve; he had never understood her or been able to make her happy. It occurred to him now that a far more reliable formula for fulfilment would have been to marry someone who would look after him. And that person had been under his nose all along.