The Secret Keeper

  ‘Of course not, Lady Gwendolyn.’ It was always a subject round which to tread lightly.

  ‘All very well for a dull sort of girl to hitch her wheel to a man’s wagon, but consider yourself warned, Dorothy—men enjoy a bit of sport, and they all like to catch the brightest prize; but once they do? That’s when the fun and games end. His games, her fun.’ She rolled her wrist. ‘Go on then, read the rest. What does it say?’

  ‘There’s a party to celebrate the engagement this Saturday evening.’ That news brought a mildly interested grumble. ‘Dumphee House? Tremendous place—Henny-Penny and I went there for a grand ball once—People had taken off their shoes by the end and were dancing in the fountain … It is being held at Dumphee House I suppose?’

  ‘No.’ Dolly scanned the announcement, ‘it would appear not. They’re having guests to an invitation-only party at the 400 Club.’

  As Lady Gwendolyn launched a rowdy tirade against the low tone of such places—‘Nightclubs!’—Dolly drifted. She’d only been to the 400 once, with Kitty and some of her soldier friends. Deep down in the cellars next door to where the Alhambra Theatre used to stand in Leicester Square, dark and intimate and deepest red as far as the eye could see: the silk on the walls, the plush banquettes with their single flickering candles, the velvet curtains that spilled like wine to meet the scarlet carpets.

  There’d been music and laughter and servicemen every-where, and couples swaying dreamily on the small shadowy dance floor. And when a soldier with too much whisky under his belt and a rather uncomfortable swelling in his trousers, leaned against her and whispered wetly of all the things he’d like to do when he got her alone, Dolly had spied over his shoulder a stream of bright young things—better- dressed, more beautiful, just more, than the rest of the club-goers— slipping behind a red cord and being greeted by a small man with a long black moustache. (‘Luigi Rossi,’ Kitty had said with an authoritative nod, when they were drinking a nightcap of gin and lemon under the kitchen table back at Campden Grove. ‘Didn’t you know? He runs the whole shebang.’)

  ‘I’ve had enough of that now,’ said Lady Gwendolyn, squishing the butt of her cigarette into the open tub of corn ointment on the table beside her. ‘I’m tired and I’m not feeling well—I need one of my sweets. Oh, but I fear I’m not long for this world. I barely slept a wink last night, what with the noise, the terrible noise.’

  ‘Poor Lady Gwendolyn,’ said Dolly, putting The Lady aside and digging out the grande dame’s bag of boiled sweets. ‘We have that nasty Mr Hitler to thank for that, his bombers really are—’

  ‘I don’t mean the bombers, silly girl. I’m talking about them. The others, with their infernal—’ she shuddered theatrically and the timbre of her voice lowered—‘giggling.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dolly. ‘Them.’

  ‘A ghastly lot of girls,’ declared Lady Gwendolyn, who was yet to meet any of them. ‘Office girls, at that, typing for the ministries— they’re bound to be fast. What on earth was the War Office thinking? I realise of course that they must be accommodated, but here? In my beautiful house? Peregrine is beside himself—the letters I’ve had! Can’t bear to think of such creatures living amongst the heirlooms.’ Her nephew’s displeasure threatened to bring a smile, but the profound bitterness at Lady Gwendolyn’s core quickly smothered it. She reached to grip Dolly’s wrist. ‘They’re not entertaining men in my home, are they, Dorothy?’

  ‘Oh no, Lady Gwendolyn. They know your feelings on the matter, I made sure of that.’

  ‘Because I won’t have it. I won’t have fornication under my roof.’ Dolly nodded soberly. This, she knew, was the Great Matter at the heart of her mistress’s asperity. Dr Rufus had explained all about Lady Gwendolyn’s sister, Penelope. They’d been in-separable when they were young, he said, similar enough in looks and manner that most people took them for twins, even though there were eighteen months between them. They’d gone to dances, country house weekends, always the two of them together—but then Penelope committed the crime for which her sister would never forgive her. ‘She fell in love and got married,’ Dr Rufus had said, drawing on his cigar with the story-teller’s satisfaction at having reached his punch line: ‘And, in the process, broke her sister’s heart.’

  ‘There, there,’ said Dolly soothingly. ‘It won’t come to that, Lady Gwendolyn. Before you know it the war will be over and they’ll all go back to wherever it is they came from.’ Dolly had no idea if that was true—for her part, she hoped it wasn’t: the big house was very quiet at night, and Kitty and the others were a bit of fun—but it was the only thing to say, especially when the old lady was so worked up. Poor thing, it must be terrible to lose one’s soulmate. Dolly couldn’t imagine life without hers.

  Lady Gwendolyn fell back against her pillow. The diatribe against nightclubs and their ills, her rich imaginings of the Babylonian behaviour within, memories of her sister and the threat of fornication beneath her roof—all had taken their toll. She was weary and drawn, as crumpled as the barrage balloon that had come down over Notting Hill the other day. ‘Here now, Lady Gwendolyn,’ said Dolly. ‘Look at this lovely butterscotch I’ve found. Let’s just pop it in and put you down for a rest, shall we?’

  ‘Well, all right then,’ she grumbled, ‘just an hour or so, though, Dorothy. Don’t let me sleep past three—I don’t want to miss our game of cards.’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ Dolly said, posting the boiled sweet through her mistress’s pursed lips.

  With the old girl sucking away furiously, Dolly went to the window to pull the blackout curtains shut. Her attention fell, as she unlatched the curtains from their ties, to the house opposite and what she saw made her heart leap.

  Vivien was there again. Sitting at her desk behind the tape-crossed window, still as a statue but for the fingers of one hand, twisting the end of her long strand of pearls. Dolly waved eagerly, willing the other woman to see her and wave back, but she didn’t, she was lost in her own thoughts.

  ‘Dorothy?’

  Dolly blinked. Vivien (spelled the same way as Vivien Leigh, lucky thing) was quite possibly the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. She had a heart-shaped face, deep brown hair that gleamed in its Victory roll, and full curled lips painted scarlet red. Her eyes were wide set and framed by dramatic arched brows, just like Rita Hayworth’s or Gene Tierney’s, but it was more than that that made her beautiful. It wasn’t the fine skirts and blouses she wore, it was the way she wore them, easily, casually; it was the strings of pearls strung airily around her neck; the brown Bentley she’d used to drive before it was handed over like a spare pair of boots to the Ambulance Service. It was the tragic history Dolly had learned in dribs and drabs—orphaned as a child, raised by an uncle, married to a handsome wealthy author named Henry Jenkins, who held an important position with the Ministry of Information.

  ‘Dorothy? Come and put my sheets to rights and fetch my sleep mask.’

  Ordinarily, Dolly might’ve been a bit envious to have a woman of that description living at such close quarters, but with Vivien it was different. All her life, Dolly had longed for a friend like her. Someone who really understood her (not like dull old Caitlin or silly frivolous Kitty), someone with whom she could stroll arm in arm down Bond Street, elegant and bouyant as people turned to look at them, whispering behind their hands about the dark leggy beauties, their careless charm. And now, finally, she’d found Vivien. From the very first time they’d passed each other walking up the Grove, when their eyes had met and they’d exchanged that smile—secretive, knowing, complicit— it had been clear to both of them that they were two of a kind and destined to be the very best of friends.

  ‘Dorothy!’

  Dolly jumped and turned from the window. Lady Gwendolyn had managed to get herself into a frightful mess of purple chiffon and duck- down pillows, and was scowling, red-cheeked, from its centre. ‘I can’t find my sleep mask anywhere.’

  ‘Come along then,’ said Dolly, glancing once more at V
ivien before tugging the blackouts together. ‘Let’s see if we can’t find it together.’ After a brief but successful search the mask was discovered, pressed flat and warm beneath Lady Gwendolyn’s significant left thigh. Dolly removed the silver turban and propped it atop the marble bust on the chest-of-drawers, and then rolled the satin mask onto her mistress’s head.

  ‘Careful,’ Lady Gwendolyn snapped. ‘You’ll stop me breathing if you hold it over my nose like that.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Dolly said, ‘We wouldn’t want that now, would we?’ ‘Harrumph.’ The old woman let her head sink back so far into the pillows that her face seemed to float atop the rest of her, an island in a sea of skin folds. ‘Seventy-five years, all of them long, and what have I got to show for it? Deserted by my nearest and dearest, my closest companion a girl who takes my money for her trouble.’

  ‘Now, now,’ Dolly said, as if to a pouty child, ‘what’s all this about trouble? You mustn’t even joke about such a thing, Lady Gwendolyn. You know I’d care for you if I wasn’t paid a penny.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the old lady grumbled, ‘Well. That’s enough of that.’

  She pulled Lady Gwendolyn’s blankets up, nice and high. The old woman adjusted her chins over the satin ribbon edging and said, ‘You know what I ought to do?’

  ‘What’s that, Lady Gwendolyn?’

  ‘I ought to leave it all to you. That would teach my scheming nephew a lesson. Just like his father, that boy—out to steal everything I hold dear. I’ve a good mind to call in my solicitor and make it official.’ Really, there was nothing to say in the face of such comments; naturally it was thrilling to know Lady Gwendolyn held her in such high esteem, but to seem pleased would have been terribly coarse. Brimming with pride and pleasure, Dolly turned away and busied herself with straightening the old woman’s turban.

  It was Dr Rufus who’d first made Dolly aware of what Lady Gwendolyn was thinking. They’d been having one of their lunches a few weeks ago, and after a good long chat about Dolly’s social life (‘What about boyfriends, Dorothy? Surely a girl like you must have dozens of young men chasing her round the block? My advice? Look for an older, professional fellow—someone who can give you everything you deserve’), he’d asked about life at Campden Grove. When she told him she thought it was all going well, he’d swirled his whisky so that the ice cubes tinkled and given her a wink. ‘Better than well from what I hear. I had a letter from old Peregrine Wolsey just last week. He wrote that his aunt was so fond of “my girl”, as he put it—’ at this Dr Rufus seemed to drift into his own reverie, before remembering himself and continuing—‘that he was worried for his inheritance. He was awfully upset with me for putting you in his aunt’s path.’ He’d laughed then, but Dolly had managed only a thoughtful smile. She’d continued to think about what he’d said for the rest of that day and all through the following week.

  The fact of the matter was that what Dolly had told Dr Rufus was true. After a rather shaky start, Lady Gwendolyn, widely reputed (not least by her own account) to disdain all other human beings, had taken quite a shine to her young companion. Which was all to the good. It was just a terrible shame Dolly had been forced to pay such a high price for the old woman’s affection.

  The telephone call had come in November; Cook had answered and called out to Dorothy that it was for her. It stung to remember now, but Dolly had been so excited to be wanted on the telephone in such a grand house, she’d hurried down the stairs, snatched up the receiver and put on her most important voice: ‘Hello? Dorothy Smitham speaking’. And then she’d heard Mrs Potter, her mother’s friend from next door in Coven-try, shouting down the line that her family was, ‘All dead, the lot of ’em. Incendiary bomb—no time to get out to the Andy.’

  A gulf had opened up inside Dolly in that moment: it felt as if her stomach had dropped, leaving a great swirling sphere of shock, loss and fear in its place. She’d let go of the phone, and stood there in the enormous entrance hall of number 7 Camp-den Grove, and she’d felt infinitesimally small and alone and at the whim of the next wind that might blow. All the parts of Dolly, the memories she had of different instances in her life, fell like a deck of cards, landing out of order, the images on them fading already. Cook’s help arrived right then, and said ‘Good morning’, and Dolly wanted to scream at her that it wasn’t a good morning at all, that everything had changed, couldn’t the stupid girl see that? But she didn’t. She’d smiled in return and said, ‘Good morning,’ and taken herself back upstairs to where Lady Gwendolyn was ringing her silver bell furiously and flapping about in search of the eyeglasses she’d lost.

  Dolly didn’t speak to anyone about her family at first, not even Jimmy, who’d heard, of course, and was desperate to console her. When she told him she was all right, that there was a war on and everyone must suffer their losses, he thought she was being brave; but it wasn’t courage that kept Dolly quiet. Her feelings were so complicated, the memories of the way she’d left home so fresh, it just seemed better not to start talking for fear of what she might say and how she might feel. She hadn’t seen either of her parents since she’d gone to London: her father had forbidden her from making contact unless to say she was going to ‘start behaving properly’; but her mother had written secret letters, regularly if not warmly, her most recent hinting at a trip to London to see for herself ‘the fancy house and the grand lady you write about so often’. But it was too late for all that now. Her mother would never meet Lady Gwendolyn or step inside number 7 Campden Grove or see the great success Dolly had made of her life.

  As for poor Cuthbert—Dolly could hardly bear to think of him. She remembered his last letter, too, every word of it: the way he’d described in tremendous detail the Andersen shelter they were building in the back garden, the pictures of Spitfires and Hurricanes he’d collected to decorate inside, what he was planning to do with the German pilots he captured. He’d been so proud and deluded, so excited about the part he was going to play in the war, so plump and ungainly, such a happy little baby, and now he was gone. And the sadness Dolly felt, the loneliness at knowing herself to be an orphan now, was so immense she saw nothing for it but to dedicate herself to the work she was doing for Lady Gwendolyn and say no more about it.

  Until one day the old woman was ranting about the lovely voice she’d had when she was a girl, and Dolly had thought of her mother, and the blue box she’d kept hidden in the garage beneath Father’s tyre pump, filled with dreams and memories that were now nothing more than rubble, and she’d burst into tears, right there on the end of the old lady’s bed, nail file in hand.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Lady Gwendolyn had said, small mouth falling open to register the same amount of shock she might have felt if Dolly had taken off her clothes and started dancing round the room.

  Caught in a rare unguarded moment, Dolly had told Lady Gwendolyn everything. Her mother and father and Cuthbert, what they were like, the sorts of things they’d said, the times they’d driven her mad, the way her mother used to try and brush her hair smooth and Dolly had resisted, the trips to the seaside, the cricket and the donkey. Finally, Dolly had recounted the way she’d flounced out of home when she left, barely stopping when her mother called to her—Janice Smitham who’d sooner have gone without food than raise her voice in earshot of the neighbours—and ran out wielding the book she’d bought for Dolly as a going-away present.

  ‘Harrumph,’ Lady Gwendolyn had said, when Dolly finished speaking. ‘It hurts, of course, but you’re not the first to lose your family.’

  ‘I know.’ Dolly drew in a deep breath. The room seemed to echo with the sound of her own voice of moments before, and she wondered if she was about to be let go. Lady Gwendolyn did not like outbursts (unless they were her own).

  ‘When Henny-Penny was taken from me I thought I’d die.’

  Dolly nodded, still waiting for the axe to fall.

  ‘You’re young, though; you’ll make a go of it. Just look at her across the road.’

/>   It was true, Vivien’s life had turned up roses in the end, but there were a few marked differences between them. ‘She had a wealthy uncle who took her in,’ said Dolly quietly. ‘She’s an heiress, married to a famous writer. And I’m …’ She bit her bottom lip, anxious not to start crying again. ‘I’m …’

  ‘Well you’re not entirely alone, are you, silly girl?’

  Lady Gwendolyn had held out her bag of sweets then and for the first time ever offered one to Dolly. It had taken a moment to realise what the old woman was suggesting, but when she did, Dolly had reached tentatively inside the bag to withdraw a red and green gob- stopper. She’d held it in her hand, fingers closed around it, aware that it was melting against her warm palm. Dolly had managed a solemn whisper: ‘I have you.’

  Lady Gwendolyn had sniffed and looked away. ‘We have each other, I suppose,’ she’d said, in a voice made fluty by un-expected emotion.

  Dolly reached her bedroom and added the newest copy of The Lady to the pile of others. Later, she’d take a closer look and pull out the best pictures to glue inside her Book of Ideas, but right now she had more important things to take care of.

  She hopped down on all-fours and dug about beneath her bed for the banana she’d been hoarding since Mr Hoskins the greengrocer ‘found’ it for her under the counter on Tuesday. Humming a little melody to herself, she crept back out of the door and along the corridor. Strictly, there was no reason to be creeping at all: Kitty and the others were busy stabbing at their typewriters in the War Office, Cook was standing in line at the butcher’s armed with a handful of ration cards and a foul tem-per, and Lady Gwendolyn was snoring peacefully in her bed—but it was so much more fun to creep than to walk. Especially when one had a whole glorious hour of freedom ahead.

  She ran up the stairs, pulled out the little key she’d had cut, and let herself into Lady Gwendolyn’s dressing room. Not the poky little closet from which Dolly selected a flowing coverall each morning to clad the great lady’s bod; no, no, not this. The dressing room was a grand arrangement in which were housed countless gowns and shoes and coats and hats, the likes of which Dolly had rarely glimpsed outside the Society pages. Silks and furs hung side by side in huge open wardrobes, and bespoke pairs of little satin shoes sat prettily upon the mighty shelves. The circular hat boxes, stamped proudly with the names of their Mayfair milliners—Schiaparelli, Coco Chanel, Rose Valois—towered towards the ceiling in columns so high a dainty white stepladder had been furnished to enable their retrieval.