The play fizzles out after Polly’s arrival, not that anyone other than Ned knows yet that Polly has arrived. Thomas is still missing after the impromptu interval – according to James he is locked in the library having a heated discussion with his father – and I don’t much feel like chivvying the actors on now. It’s a shame after all their hard work but really no amount of rehearsing could make this group put on a successful play so perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. We were fools to think that anyone would want to see our little play, however much joy it had brought us over the summer.
I ask Ned to take Polly to the servants’ hall and to tell Mrs Derbyshire to meet me there. Surprisingly, he does as I say without asking questions. Perhaps he has worked out what is going on, perhaps he is as appalled as I am. Maybe she has even told him. I don’t have time to think about that though.
Instead I help clear up the teacups and make sure Prunella’s guests are all right. Lady Prunella herself looks sad and subdued – no wonder really, the play has been a disaster and now Thomas and his father have disappeared. The guests start to disperse, calling greetings to each other and saying they would see each other again at His Lordship’s party next week.
Next week.
My mouth is suddenly dry at the thought that a week from today I will be on my way to America.
And that’s when the idea comes to me.
*
‘She can come to America with me,’ I say. Hearing the words come out of my mouth for the first time feels like a shock, but not as much of a shock as the one I have given Mrs Derbyshire, who looks horrified.
‘America! What’s America got to do with anything?’
‘I’m leaving,’ I confess. ‘On the night of the party, next week. I’m leaving with Mr Everard, with Thomas.’ I hate having to tell someone the secret. The more people who know, the harder it will be to escape on the night, but it’s the only way I can think of to get Polly as far away from her husband as possible. She can’t go on living like this, not now.
We sit in Mrs Derbyshire’s parlour, Polly asleep in the armchair. We are trying to keep our voices low so as not to wake her, but Mrs Derbyshire’s shock is hard to keep quiet and she takes a moment after my revelation to compose herself.
‘I thought I could deal with him,’ Polly had said before she fell asleep. ‘I thought I could change him, calm him down, make him the man he was before we got married. But I couldn’t. It’s when he drinks you see, but now he drinks all the time and so…’ She’d paused.
‘When did this start?’ I’d asked. ‘Did you know he was like this when you married him?’
‘No. It started on my wedding night,’ she’d said. ‘Of course I didn’t know,’ she’d snapped at me. ‘Do you think I’d have married him if I knew?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I’d said. It was a stupid question.
‘No, Annie,’ Polly had replied, reaching for my hand but not meeting my eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.’
I’d squeezed her hand back.
‘It started on my wedding night,’ she’d said, her head bowed as though she had something to feel guilty about. ‘I was such a fool.’
‘None of this is your fault,’ I’d said.
‘I’d thought it was so romantic, falling in love with a solicitor who I bumped into at the Easter fair. I never told you how we met but it was literally that. I bumped into him and stumbled. He helped me up and offered to buy me a lemonade. We started talking and he seemed so interested in me. He was so handsome and clever and funny and when he asked if we could meet again I said “yes” without thinking. It never crossed my mind why he would want to marry a maid, someone so far beneath his social class.’
I’d realised then that it had never occurred to me either and perhaps it should have done. Perhaps I would have been more wary of Thomas if I had thought more about Polly’s situation. I’d looked over at Mrs Derbyshire and wondered what she had thought about Polly’s marriage at the time. Whatever it was, she had kept her opinions close. I’d wondered then if she had regretted that.
‘Of course it’s obvious now why he wanted to marry me,’ Polly had gone on, still not lifting her head. ‘Me with no family or connections, nobody to ask awkward questions or keep an eye on me. He thought he could do what he wanted with me.’
‘Well,’ I’d replied, ‘he didn’t reckon on your family back at the house then did he? We’re always here for you, always here for each other. You know that.’
‘And what about his mother?’ Mrs Derbyshire had asked. ‘She lives with you. Does she know?’
Polly had smiled wryly. ‘If she does she certainly doesn’t let on.’
Nobody knows Polly is here yet. Ned had the good sense to install Polly in a quiet part of the servants’ hall and then immediately went to fetch Mrs Derbyshire without telling anyone else or making any fuss. He is still loyal in a way. He hasn’t told anyone what he knows and the thought makes me feel that slice of guilt all over again.
I’d have given you a good life you know, Annie. Don’t forget that.
Am I making a terrible mistake? Am I getting those ideas above my station that my mother always warned me about? Will Thomas abandon me in New York or at some point on the journey? But the thought of staying in Cranmere and marrying Ned fills me with more fear than either of those options. I have to trust Thomas.
‘And how are you getting to America?’ Mrs Derbyshire asks me now, her voice measured and quiet again.
‘By ship from Liverpool,’ I reply.
‘And Thomas Everard is paying for all this, is he?’
‘It’s not what you think…’ I begin.
‘But you have been meeting him in the kitchen garden every night, haven’t you?’
‘You know?’
‘I didn’t come down in the last shower, Annie,’ she says, her voice resigned. ‘I’ve seen more than one maid… well, you know.’
‘I promise you it’s not like that,’ I say. ‘Thomas isn’t like that.’
‘He hasn’t taken advantage of you?’
I shake my head. ‘No, not even a little.’
Mrs Derbyshire purses her lips and looks down at her hands in her lap.
‘Does he love you?’ she asks.
‘He says so. I believe him.’
‘And do you love him.’
‘Yes.’ I pause. ‘Does everyone know?’ I ask.
‘No, just me.’
Just you and Ned, I think.
‘I don’t blame you,’ she sighs. ‘I don’t blame you wanting other opportunities. You’re an intelligent young woman, Annie, and you shouldn’t be stuck in service for the rest of your life. You don’t want to end up like me.’
I open my mouth to protest but she stops me by raising her hand.
‘And you shouldn’t be stuck here married to Ned either,’ she goes on. ‘That’s no life for a woman like you. So I don’t blame you to want to escape. But why the secrecy?’
‘So as not to hurt anyone,’ I say. ‘Particularly Lady Prunella.’
‘Ah yes, running off with His Lordship’s daughter’s fiancé. You’re going to cause quite the scandal at Haverford, Annie Bishop,’ she says, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.
‘You’re not going to stop me?’ I ask. One of the risks of this plan of course was Mrs Derbyshire turning on the whole thing, telling Mr Prentice or even His Lordship and stopping it completely. But I have to get Polly away, quickly, and so I had to take the risk.
I had to tell Thomas that we’d need another ticket, more paperwork. I wasn’t even sure if he could get it all in just a week.
It feels as though the plan is unravelling before my very eyes. But then I look over at Polly’s sleeping form in the chair and I know I can’t leave her behind to her fate at her husband’s fists.
‘I’m not going to stop you,’ Mrs Derbyshire says. ‘And I’m not going to tell anyone.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’m not doing it for you,’ she goes on. ‘I’m doing it for Polly. If you can’t take Polly with you for whatever reason you’ll have to stay and help her some other way. She came to you. You can’t abandon her.’
‘I know.’ I’d known from the moment Ned brought her to me that afternoon.
‘So I suggest you speak to Mr Everard as soon as possible as he’ll have to procure more papers for Polly.’ She stopped then and looked at me. I couldn’t read her expression. ‘I’m assuming they are false papers that you’re travelling on.’
I look away. It’s something I’d tried not to think about. ‘Well I’m travelling under a false name so yes. I assume so,’ I say.
‘I see. Well if Thomas loves you he’ll be able to do the same for Polly.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘You should ask him where he’s getting them from. We both know money can buy you anything and, as Mr Prentice puts it, the Everards are richer than Croesus, but you need to be able to trust each other. He should tell you the truth.’
I sit for a moment, not saying anything. She’s right of course and a lot more switched on about everything in the world than any of us give her credit for.
‘Well, you’d best get on,’ she says. ‘You’ve got a lot to do and the girls will want you soon. I’ll look after Polly.’
*
Polly goes home that evening. We don’t have any choice; her husband will be expecting her. I feel as though we are sending her into the lion’s den but I know it’s only temporary. I know Thomas will help us.
I’m sure he will.
Won’t he?
I arrange to meet him at the top of Ringbury Hill. I wonder if he has ever climbed it, if he has gone there with the girls on one of their afternoons out. I try not to think about what he does when he is not with me. Ringbury is the highest hill in Cranmere – higher than the hill that Haverford House stands on – and the views from the top across the moors are spectacular. They make you feel as though nothing really matters. But I’m not meeting him here for the views; I’m meeting him here for privacy. I can’t afford prying ears to overhear. If Ned hears my business that’s one thing, but Polly deserves her privacy and I still don’t know how much she told him when she arrived on the afternoon of the play.
I leave Thomas a note in the usual place, inside the front cover of a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost in His Lordship’s library, and hope that he sees it in time.
The next afternoon I slip out of the kitchen door, that same kitchen door where my parents met all those years ago, and wonder how many more times I will walk across the yard, and down to the lake. Not many surely. And as I walk I think about my mother, about the little house in the village where she lived, where I grew up, and the grave where she is buried alone, because all we ever had to remember my father by was his name on the war memorial. I think again about the two young people who met at the kitchen door, and about who they became – the war that tore them apart. Is this my destiny too? Will there be another war as Andrews predicts? If so would it be safer to stay here, in the country, away from everything?
Safe.
I’m halfway up the hill when I turn and look back towards Haverford, which you can see from a completely different perspective up here. I think about everyone I have known there – James and Andrews, Mr Prentice and Mrs Derbyshire, Williams, Polly, Lucy, Cook. I will miss them all, just as I will miss Cecily and Prunella, and even His Lordship.
But I don’t want to be safe. I don’t want to be like Mrs Derbyshire.
I want something else.
And besides, I have to try to do this for Polly.
I take a breath and carry on climbing.
Thomas is there waiting for me when I get to the top.
‘The view from here is incredible,’ he breathes.
‘Have you not come up here before?’
He shakes his head and holds out his hand, taking mine in his. ‘I’m glad I’m here with you,’ he says.
‘Thomas,’ I say quietly and I watch as a momentary look of concern crosses his face.
‘You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you?’ he asks.
‘No, not at all.’ And I realise I’m not. That my doubts have blown down the hill all the way back to Haverford. ‘But will you tell me where you got the tickets and papers from? Because I’m assuming they’re false.’
He looks away for a moment and then meets my eyes again. ‘False name, false papers,’ he says. ‘I know people.’
‘What people?’
‘People who mostly use their skills for the good, for getting people out of Europe and into America.’
‘Jewish people you mean?’ I ask, thinking about what Mr Everard Senior’s beloved Hitler is doing in Germany.
He nods once.
‘You can’t really talk about this, can you?’
‘Not really. It’s not that I don’t trust you it’s…’
‘Can you get more papers,’ I interrupt. ‘For a friend of mine.’
‘To travel with us?’ he asks. He looks pale and tired. ‘It’s very short notice.’
I take both his hands in mine and, as we stand on the top of Ringbury Hill with the sun beating down on us, I tell him everything – about Polly and her solicitor, about how sure she’d been, and about the bruises, the cuts, the ‘accidents’ she kept having. And I tell him about what happened on the afternoon of the play, while he was arguing with his father.
‘And you’ve been carrying this around with you all summer?’ he asks.
‘I couldn’t tell you,’ I reply. ‘Until she asked me for help, it wasn’t my story to tell.’
‘I understand.’
‘Thomas, the thing is, I can’t leave her behind to this awful fate. If she can’t come with us, I’ll have to stay until I can think of something else. I know it sounds like another excuse as to why I don’t want to come with you but that’s…’
‘I understand,’ he repeats. ‘Leave it with me.’
We walk back down the hill hand in hand and I ask him what happened on the afternoon of the play, where he went and what he was talking about with his father.
‘He wants me to stop acting, to join the family business.’
‘What will you do?’
‘As he says.’
‘Really?’ I’m surprised. I thought he would be back on the stage as soon as we arrived in New York.
‘You see, he has also banned me from marrying any English girls, so if I am to marry you I need to please him in some other way or we will be penniless.’
I stop and turn to him. ‘We’re really getting married?’ I ask. It still all seems unbelievable to me.
‘Only if you want to, Annie. I’ve told you before, you owe me nothing. I’m helping you get out of here but after that, the choice is yours.’
‘And I’ve told you before,’ I say. ‘Of course I want to.’
*
I don’t see Thomas again for two days. By the end of the second day I’m starting to worry. I can’t tell Polly anything until we have the papers as I don’t want to get her hopes up and I start to wonder what I can do if Thomas doesn’t come back.
‘Do we need an alternative plan do you think?’ I ask Mrs Derbyshire.
‘Give him time,’ she replies. ‘And try to calm down. Mr Prentice is starting to ask questions.’
‘What about?’
‘About why his most trusted, grounded member of staff is starting to act like a frightened bird.’
‘I’m not…’
‘Please, Annie, for Polly.’
She doesn’t need to say any more and, thankfully, Thomas comes back the next day. I check Paradise Lost for messages and find a thick envelope tucked into the cover. I put it into my apron and at the first opportunity I hide in my room to read it.
He has Polly’s papers and I feel myself exhale properly for the first time in days.
He hasn’t let me down.
*
It is Mrs Derbyshire who explains the plan to Polly. I, apparently, have been going into the village far too often and Mr Prentice is asking questions about my well-being – the housekeeper made the foolish mistake of telling him I had visited the doctor with ‘women’s problems’, but Mr Prentice is not a man to be put off by something like that.
‘I’m fine,’ I find myself telling him with a fake smile every time I see him. It’s obvious to everyone that I’m not fine, but Mr Prentice at least doesn’t ask any more questions.
‘What’s going on with you?’ James corners me in the servants’ hall to ask me one afternoon.
For a fraction of a second I almost tell him, but he’ll know the truth soon enough and I can’t risk it. I feel as though too many people know already.
‘Nothing really,’ I say instead. ‘I’m just nervous about this party. It’s been a long time since Haverford had so many guests.’
‘Tell me about it,’ he replies and launches into a litany of moans and complaints about the amount of work expected of him, which I half-listen to only because it distracts him from asking about me.
On the afternoon of the day before the party the guests begin to arrive, bringing their servants with them who crowd the servants’ hall with luggage and hats and bags and chattering voices. It feels almost too much, and I’m thankful that there is no spare bed in our room for one of them.
Katy and James are delighted by the distraction of all the visitors and an excuse to stop working for a while but Andrews gulps his tea and disappears back to the garage.
‘There’ll be cars arriving,’ he says. ‘I should be there.’ But I know he hates crowds of people, and small talk. I’m not much in the mood for it myself.
‘Where is Mrs Derbyshire?’ Mr Prentice asks me as he tries to create order out of the chaos. ‘She should be here.’
She should, but she is visiting Polly to discuss a scheme that seems less and less likely with each passing hour. I no longer believe that in a few days’ time I will be somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean. It doesn’t seem real. I can barely think about it and I’ve packed nothing. I should go and do that now while Katy is otherwise engaged.
‘I’ll go and look for her,’ I tell Mr Prentice as I rush up the stairs.
I feel sick by the time I reach my room, but I know now is the best time to put those things that are precious to me into my box, the box I arrived at Haverford with five years ago.
What a lot has happened in that five years.
I pack a few clothes – Thomas says I won’t need much and he will have some clothes for us that are suitable on board the ship – and my father’s copy of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, wrapped in the blanket I brought it in. I look at my meagre possessions. It’s not much to show for five years.
But what I do have is my savings and they are much less meagre than my possessions. I tuck them away inside a woollen stocking because if Thomas lets us down, that is all we will have. At least I have our papers – the ones that Thomas left in the copy of Paradise Lost. I tuck them inside my Shakespeare, but I’m not sure whether I will be able to go through with this on my own if Thomas doesn’t turn up for any reason.
There is one thing left to do. This isn’t something that is part of the plan; it isn’t something that I’ve discussed with Thomas. But it is important to me. I must write to Lady Prunella. Leaving with the person she still believes is going to ask her to marry him without saying anything feels wrong. Perhaps writing the letter is wrong as well but Prunella will be hurt either way. The least I can do is to tell her how sorry I am.
I don’t have much time and the letter is shorter than I want it to be, but it says what I need it to say – that Thomas and I fell in love, that it took us both by surprise and that he has offered to help me move to America. I tell her how sorry I am, how much I have enjoyed working for her and how I know that she will find her own happiness one day too. I don’t tell her anything about Polly. That is nobody else’s business.
About half an hour later Mrs Derbyshire comes into the room without knocking. I have just put the letter into an envelope, which I stuff into my apron pocket. I just need to find the right time to leave it for Prunella where she will not find it until after I am gone.
‘Polly will meet you by the disused boathouse at half past ten tomorrow night,’ the housekeeper says.
‘The boathouse where the girls used to swim with Daniel?’
‘What other disused boathouse do you know?’ she snaps. She’s had enough of all of this; I can tell. ‘I suggest you tell your Mr Everard to meet you there as well.’ She pauses and looks at me. ‘And that, my girl, is all I’m having to do with this. It’s in your hands now.’ She turns to go.
‘Mrs Derbyshire,’ I say tentatively.
She turns back to me.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Not just for this but for everything.’
She nods. ‘You make sure you look after yourself and Polly. And write to me, won’t you, once you’re settled. Let me know how you get on.’
*
The day of the party goes by interminably slowly. There is much to do but I find myself unable to concentrate on any of it and instead seem to get in everyone’s way. I have no idea which of the visiting servants belong to which of the visiting guests so I smile and nod and try to disappear out of Mr Prentice’s line of sight as much as I can. Mrs Derbyshire finds me jobs to do that will keep me busy but out of everyone’s way. She knows how nervous I am by now.
‘Am I doing the right thing?’ I ask her quietly.
She squeezes my arm gently. ‘It’s a little late to think about that,’ she says. ‘Focus on what’s ahead, Annie. Don’t be driven by fear.’
And so I imagine New York harbour, the Statue of Liberty and the life that I could live when I get there. That image gets me through the afternoon.
As I help the girls get ready for the party they both ask, more than once, if I’m all right.
‘You seem very distant, Annie,’ Lady Cecily says. ‘It’s as though you’re miles away.’
‘I’m sorry, my lady,’ I reply. ‘The last few weeks have been quite exhausting in the servants’ hall. Mr Prentice has been so worried about this party.’ Not to mention the fact that my mother has died and I’ve fallen head over heels in love with someone I shouldn’t have done.
They both smile then, thinking that they understand, knowing what Mr Prentice can be like.
After they are dressed and ready, after I have tidied their rooms and prepared the beds and fires for later, my work for the evening is done. I take my time, trying to fill the hours as best I can as the sounds of the guests arriving and the beginnings of the party drift up the stairs. I can hear Mr Everard Senior holding forth in the hallway and I wonder where Thomas is, what he is doing. Is he ready to leave? Is he too watching the hands of the clocks move towards half past ten?
Eventually I go down to the servants’ hall and sit with the other valets and lady’s maids who are playing cards around the big table. They all know they have a long night ahead of them, waiting for the party to end and their employers to need them again. I join in the card game and laugh along at the jokes but my mind is elsewhere.
At ten o’clock I slip away quietly. I don’t think anybody notices. I creep back up the stairs to Lady Prunella’s room and take the now-crumpled envelope out of my apron pocket and prop it up on the dressing table next to her hairbrush. I think about how she will have to get herself ready for bed tonight. I wonder how she will feel, how she will react. And then I wonder if she will come up here early and see the letter before Thomas has left the house and I snatch it up again. For a moment I think about getting rid of it altogether, of burning it in the kitchen stove, but in the end I leave it on her pillow, under her eiderdown, where she won’t see it until she goes to bed.
Then I slip up the servants’ staircase to my room, change quickly out of my uniform and into the clothes I wear on my day off. I take up my box and take one last look out of the window. It is dark now but I can see the glint of the lake in the moonlight. I have to move quickly, before I lose my nerve.
Back downstairs I go, tiptoeing through the corridors by the kitchen so that nobody in the servants’ hall sees me and calls out to me. I walk out into the yard, where Thomas Everard first came to see me as I read David Copperfield, a book I never did finish. As soon as I am away from the house and yard I start running. My breath comes in gasps as I near the lake and turn towards the old boathouse. It’s dark and the ground is uneven. I throw up a prayer of thanks for the moonlight that lights my way and hope that I don’t trip.
I am the first one to arrive and presume I’m early. I have no real way of telling the time though so I put my box down and I sit on the wall to wait.
After a few moments I hear a footstep behind me and I turn, expecting to see Thomas. But it is Ned who stands behind me.
‘What are you doing here?’ I whisper.
I see him smile in the gloom.
‘I knew it would be tonight,’ he said. ‘I knew you’d run away while everyone was distracted by the party.’ He slurs his words and I wonder if he is drunk.
‘Ned, I’m not…’
He sighs. ‘I know you think I’m stupid, Annie, but I’ve got eyes and ears and the ability to work things out. You’d be surprised by all the things I know.’
‘Have you told anyone?’ I ask, my heart beating hard in my chest now. Where is Thomas? Where is Polly?
‘It doesn’t really matter who I’ve told or not told, because you’re going to stay here with me. Live that good life you know I can give you.’
‘Oh, Ned,’ I reply. ‘I can’t stay here with you. It would suffocate me. I couldn’t love you like you deserved. I wouldn’t be the wife you deserved and you’d resent me.’ I think about what Mrs Derbyshire told me, how I wouldn’t be happy staying in Cranmere.
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ he replies. ‘Let Polly go with Everard. God knows she needs to escape.’
‘She told you?’
‘She did. We’re old friends me and Polly. I tell you what, Annie, I’d make a better husband than that bloody solicitor she married.’
‘I know you would, Ned,’ I say, trying to keep my voice calm. ‘You’ll be a great husband one day.’
I turn to look over my shoulder then, searching the darkness for Thomas and Polly. Something about that makes Ned angry.
‘Stop looking for them!’ he shouts, grabbing my upper arms tightly so I can’t move them. I can feel his fingers digging into my flesh and know they will leave bruises. ‘Look at me!’ he shouts into my face. I can smell the beer on his breath. You could set fire to it he’s that drunk. I don’t know if it’s the shouting, his hands on me or the smell of alcohol that does it but suddenly I’m very afraid of him. I have no idea what to do, or what to say but then I hear footsteps, running.
‘Get your hands off of her,’ a voice shouts, breathless. It’s Thomas. He’s still wearing his evening suit and doesn’t seem to have any luggage with him, which makes me think something has gone horribly wrong.
‘Thomas,’ I whisper.
‘Don’t even say his name,’ Ned shouts, but his grip on my arms has loosened as he turns to look at Thomas, and I am able to wiggle free. Thomas catches my eye and looks as though he is about to speak when he is struck in the side of the face by Ned’s fist. The drink doesn’t seem to have harmed his aim. I watch as Thomas’s nose explodes and blood drips down his evening shirt.
‘Don’t come any nearer,’ Ned hisses at him and Thomas holds up his hands. I want to rush up to him, see if he’s all right, try to stem the bleeding, but I also don’t want to upset Ned any more than I have to.
It is then that I hear more footsteps, more running.
‘Ned, what are you doing?’ Polly asks. She is standing beside me holding a box very similar to mine. I wonder if it is the box she first arrived at Haverford with. It is all she has. Everything else was Stephen Mather’s.
Ned turns to her. ‘You go with him,’ he shouts, gesticulating wildly. ‘You go to America with him and leave Annie here with me.’
Polly opens her mouth to say something but Thomas gets there first.
‘I’m not going anywhere without Annie,’ he says. The words are firm but simple and something inside me unravels then. Despite the chaos and the noise, despite the fact that we will alert somebody in the house if we carry on like this, I know then that Thomas will always have my back.
But the words have antagonised Ned even further and he turns to Thomas.
‘Fight me for her,’ he snarls.
‘I’m not going to fight you for her,’ Thomas replies calmly. How can he stay so calm with blood streaming down his face? I feel Polly’s hand slip into mine and I squeeze it.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ I whisper to her, even though I have no idea if that’s true.
‘What I will do,’ Thomas goes on, ‘is set you up in whatever business you want. Gardening yes? And enough money for a house of your own and…’
‘No,’ Ned shouts at him. ‘How dare you try and buy me off, how dare you…’ He starts to make his way towards Thomas, stumbling now as the drink starts to slow him down. He swings a fist wildly, ready to land another punch.
What happens next changes all our lives forever and plays out before my eyes as though in slow motion. Ned is caught off balance, and as he tries to right himself, the heel of his boot catches on the edge of the one of the boathouse steps. We watch as he loses his footing and falls backwards. It looks as though it happens slowly but at the same time I don’t think any of us can help him. We can’t get to him quickly enough. As he lands I hear the crack of his skull hitting the wall and then there is nothing as he lies there completely still. The silence that surrounds us is the loudest thing I’ve ever heard.
After a few moments, Polly starts to cry quietly beside me. Her hand is still in mine but I feel frozen as though I can’t move. I certainly can’t speak.
‘I was late,’ Thomas says into the dark silence. ‘I’m sorry. This is my fault. I should have been here before you got here. I should never have let that happen.’
I find my voice. ‘You’re still in evening dress,’ I say inexplicably, as though that is the biggest problem we have.
‘I couldn’t get away,’ Thomas replies. His voice has a strange faraway note to it. ‘Everything we need is already packed and on board the ship. I’ve told you that.’
I watch then as Thomas runs down the steps towards Ned’s inert body. His fingers feel for something on Ned’s neck and after a moment he pulls away.
‘No pulse,’ he says quietly.
‘What happened?’ Polly says between sobs. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘He was waiting for me I think,’ I say, my voice sounding slow and croaky. ‘He knew about tonight, about us leaving for America. He wanted me to stay. He wanted me to marry him and…’ I pause. I can still feel the throbbing in my upper arms where his hands had been. He said he wouldn’t be like Polly’s husband but I wonder if that was true. He’d hurt me when he’d grabbed me. He’d terrified me when he shouted in my face. Are they all like that? Will Thomas turn out to be violent in the end?
‘We can’t leave him here,’ Thomas says and I watch him for a moment as he works out what to do.
‘We have to go,’ Polly says. She is trying to pull herself together, but I can hear the fear in her voice. ‘Stephen will get home from the pub. He’ll see I’m not there and come looking for me.’ She pauses. ‘We have to go,’ she says again more loudly.
‘You already have all the papers you and Polly need to get on the ship and to travel to America, don’t you?’ Thomas asks.
I nod, glancing towards my box, which is still by the wall.
‘Take Polly,’ Thomas goes on, ‘and walk into the village to the war memorial. My friend is there with a car. His name is Clark. Tell him that I’m all right but there’s been an accident and I’ll be delayed. He’ll take you to Liverpool and tell you what you need to do when you get there.’
‘And what about you?’ I ask. I can’t keep the fear from my voice anymore.
‘I’m going to get rid of a dead body,’ he says. How is he so calm?
‘And you’ll meet us in Liverpool?’
He turns to me then and walks slowly back up the boathouse steps. He holds my arms and his fingers are in exactly the same place that Ned’s had been only a few minutes ago but Thomas’s feel soft and gentle. I don’t flinch from him.
‘No, Annie, I’m not going to make the ship. I’ll meet you in New York.’
‘But…’ I begin. How can I go without him? How will Polly and I survive alone?
‘Do you trust me?’ he asks.
I nod. I have no choice not to.
‘Then go, quickly. I’ll send word somehow, I promise. I’ll send someone to meet you in New York. Everything is going to be all right.’
He kisses me then and, as he slowly pulls away he turns to Polly.
‘Will you be all right?’ he asks.
‘As long as I get away from the man I made the mistake of marrying I’ll be fine,’ she replies. She pulls herself up to her full height and I realise that, however scared I am, I have to do this for Polly. If she can do it after everything she’s been through, so can I.
But I know that what has happened tonight changes everything.
I had wanted the lying to stop and thought that once I left Haverford the pretence would all be over. But as Polly and I run towards the village clutching our cardboard suitcases I realise that after tonight I will be lying for the rest of my life.