The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

  Funny how often you came into my thoughts. Talitha Orr —the luckiest girl in the world, the girl who won Archie. Whenever I saw your photograph together in the paper. I would search your faces for some flaw, some sign that you were not as happy as everyone said you were. I searched in vain. Even after I read of Archie’s death, I envied you. Isn’t that strange?’ To envy a widow as young as you. But at least you had him for a while, even if your time together was short. All that changed when I met Penelope and I realised how awful it must have been for you. To lose your husband and be landed with a house like Magna … The weight must indeed be great. And your letter was so sad. You have held yourself back for so long. The idea that I have haunted you is so ridiculous to me. So futile. You are far too young to live like this. Life is long and full of possibility if you set yourself free.

  A great house is a remarkable thing, but all great houses are built for men, by men. Any house, great or small, ceases to seem real when the people you love are no longer there. Free yourself because you are too young not to.

  Yours with great affection,

  Clare Delancy

  PS Penelope is such a dear girl. My son once said that he is not good enough for her. Perhaps you could persuade Penelope that this is not the case?’!

  I liked the exclamation mark. I placed the letter back in its envelope and put the envelope back in the box, but as I was doing so I noticed one more thing. Another photo. It was one I had never seen before, although it was of Inigo and me, sitting together, laughing by the pigeon house. I flipped it over. 11 July 1941 (21st birthday) Mama had written. Penelope and Inigo. She had drawn a rather wobbly heart shape in pencil next to our names. For some reason, it was this, above everything that had happened and everything that I had seen, that filled my eyes with tears.

  Inigo and Rocky arrived at the Dower House later that afternoon. Rocky looked tired but still impossibly glamorous. I wanted to run into his arms and wait for him to tell me that everything was going to be all right, because somehow just having him in the same room made everything better. It was always the same with Rocky. First you were knocked sideways by his height and his charm, then by that unmistakable kindness. He poured Inigo and me a stiff drink.

  ‘I don’t think any of you guys should go near the big house for a few days,’ he said, giving me a look. ‘There are still men out there trying to work on saving as much stuff as they can, and I think you should leave them to it. I need to go up to London for a few days, but I can be back here by the weekend. If you want me to, I can take a look at the insurance for you, get the papers worked out. It’s a complicated business, but I can help you, if you want me to.

  ‘All my records,’ said Inigo dully. ‘I suppose it was impossible to save any of them.’

  Rocky lit a cigarette and said nothing. Later that evening, I took Mama’s box to her bedroom. Neither of us mentioned it. We didn’t need to.

  Rocky took care of everything, despite having to spend most of his time in London. New furniture arrived for the Dower Hose in vans from Peter Jones — smart, modern sofas, an American refrigerator and even a television set.

  ‘You can’t let him pay for all this stuff, Mama,’ I gasped. ‘It’s too much.’

  Mama agreed with me and tried in vain to send it all back.

  ‘I suppose it must give him pleasure,’ she said. ‘Helping other people.’

  I couldn’t disagree with Mama. Rocky was the only true philanthropist I had ever met. It was what made people suspicious of him. It was hard to believe that he only ever wanted the best, for everyone. Of course, in our case it made matters easier for him that he was madly in love with Mama.

  ‘I expect he’ll want to marry you,’ I said, testing the idea out for size.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Penelope,’ said Mama, frowning. ‘Not everyone thinks the way you do. He’s just a very generous man.

  ‘Indeed,’ I added wryly. ‘so you don’t mind all this American stuff? The new cooker, and the ‘fridge?’

  ‘It’s not ideal,’ sighed Mama, ‘but Mary tells me the washing machine it a marvel.’

  The first few days after the fire were nothing like what you might imagine them to have been. I envisaged tears and drama, delayed guilty regret from Mama, sinking despair from Inigo and me as we realised that our childhood and our home had gone for ever. I was quite wrong. Rocky was careful not to overwhelm us with details, but he let us know that we would be receiving enough money from the insurance to keep us living quite happily at the Dower Hose for the next few years. I didn’t ask him any questions. Above everything that had happened, I was aware only of his kindness. Watching Mama and Rocky was like watching the unravelling of a fascinating, slow-moving film. I felt, much of the time, that Inigo and I should be passed a paper bag of popcorn when he arrived for dinner, their friendship was such a delicate, butterfly-ish thing. Rocky bought Mama presents, not always expensive gifts, but sweet little things that he thought she might like — a bag of sugared almonds from Fortnum’s, a sweet-smelling candle from a shop he knew on the Portobello Road. He was the least sentimental man I knew — he had a practical answer for everything — yet when Mama talked, you could actually see his face softening, mark his eyes smiling. He found her fascinating and frustrating in equal measures (which of course she was) but he was not afraid to challenge the frustrating part, much to Inigo’s and my delight. He pulled her up on things — her views on America, her petulance at dinner one night, her criticism of Inigo’s love of music — and she actually listened to him. In return, she teased him, she made him laugh with her outrageous impression of Mary and her tales of life in the village during the war. It took me two weeks of observing them both to realise that they were the perfect combination. It took Mama a great deal longer than that to admit it. Almost more than anything, I felt grateful that Rocky understood me. One evening, as I lay on my bed reading an article about the joys of Spain in Woman and Beauty and wondering if Harry had ever been there, I heard a light knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ I said.

  Rocky stood awkwardly in the door. ‘Hey. kid,’ he said.

  I put down the magazine.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘I was wondering,’ he said. ‘Not that it’s any of my business of course, but what happened to your magician?’

  ‘Oh, he’s not my magician,’ I said lightly. There was a pause.

  ‘Ah,’ said Rocky. ‘As long as you’re all right with that?’

  ‘Oh, quite fine, thank you,’ I said.

  Rocky didn’t believe me, of course, but he knew when to leave me alone. I wasn’t quite fine about Harry. I had never known hurt like it, the constant, persistent ache, the continual dull longing. I lay awake at night scribbling into my notepad and driving myself crackers with memories of how cavalier I had been, how presumptuous, how ridiculous not to recognise that I had been falling when I was, and now it was too late.

  One evening Rocky came to dinner smelling of Dior Homme and I nearly passed out.

  ‘Are you feeling quite well, Penelope?’ asked Mama.

  ‘Yes,’ I muttered.

  It wasn’t until nearly three days after the fire that Rocky suggested that Mama went with him to look at Magna for the first time. He took with him a hip flask and a handkerchief, but she needed neither. On the same day. I went up to London to see Aunt Clare. She had written a letter to me asking if I would pay her a visit as soon as I could. She didn’t mention Magna in the letter. Everything will work out right, you’ll see, Penelope, was the closest she came to mentioning the fire. I wondered why on earth she wanted to see me so urgently; for a fleeting moment I wondered if it was something to do with Harry.

  Aunt Clare answered the door, which was unheard of.

  ‘Penelope!’ she said, kissing me hello. ‘Do come in. We’re quite alone, which is something of a novelty, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is rather,’ I agreed. ‘Where’s Phoebe?’

  ‘Oh, I gave her the day off She’s not hers
elf at the moment.’

  Has she ever been?’ I wondered.

  It was a curious fact that I had never spent any time at Kensington Court between eleven in the morning and tea time. Sitting in Aunt Clare’s study at midday on a sunny morning felt wrong, somehow. It felt like a different place entirely.

  ‘No tea, I’m afraid,’ she said, reading my thoughts. ‘Would you like something stronger? I’ve rather taken to gin at this time of day.’

  I grimaced, thinking of the stage door of the Palladium. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  Aunt Clare poured herself a large gin and tonic and sat down. ‘Now. How is your mother?’

  ‘I laughed. ‘Uncommonly well. Surviving beautifully without Magna. She’s free, just as you said she should be.’ I felt the heat rising in my face. ‘I read your letter to her.’

  Aunt Clare didn’t give me the thrill of looking remotely surprised.

  ‘I found it. Mama was never much good at keeping secrets. I’m amazed she managed to keep her communication with you to herself for as long as she did.’

  ‘She’s a great believer in fate, isn’t she? She felt that your becoming friends with Charlotte was too much of a sign for her to ignore.’ She crossed the room to her writing desk and pulled out an envelope addressed to Clare Delancy in Mama’s trademark peacock blue ink. ‘Don’t open it yet,’ she said, her voice strange. ‘Open it when I’m not here.’

  ‘When I get home?’

  ‘No. When I’m gone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Aunt Clare sat down. She held out her hand to me and I sat next to her, a sudden dread filling up my soul. ‘I may not be here much longer,’ she said. She spoke lightly. without difficulty. ‘I’m dying, Penelope.’

  Everything went blank. Blindly. I pulled my hand away from hers and found myself standing up, though my legs had turned to jelly. ‘How— What do you mean?’ I whispered.

  ‘Oh, it’s something I’ve known about for quite some time,’ said Aunt Clare. ‘Nothing anyone can do for me now, or so they say. Once it takes a hold, et cetera, et cetera. Still, I’ve had longer than they predicted last summer. But these past few weeks have been — difficult. I don’t want to wilt away here. I always said that when it got to this stage, I would go abroad. Paris, perhaps. The Tuileries in spring cannot be bettered.’

  ‘It’s not true. It can’t be!’ I crashed down onto my chair again and in that instant I knew that it was true because I found that I had started to cry.

  ‘Oh, dear girl,’ said Aunt Clare. ‘Please don’t cry. Really, you mustn’t. I’ve had a wonderful life. No one could ask for more. Don’t cry.’ She was beside me, her hand over mine.

  ‘Does Charlotte know?’ I sniffed.

  ‘No. She knows nothing except that I am thinking of moving to Paris for a few months. I didn’t want her to be thinking about it when we were working together. I needed her to be fresh and alive and aggravated with me when I asked too much of her. I didn’t want her to think she was working with a dying woman. My book is all life, all new limbs and adventure. Oh no. It wouldn’t have suited to have told Charlotte.’

  ‘But surely she should be told — she’d want to say goodbye—’

  ‘She wouldn’t. Not Charlotte.’’

  I knew she was right.

  ‘She hated me at times, for pushing her so hard to finish the book. But I had to push her — you can see that now, can’t you? We had to finish what we’d started before it was too — well, too late, I suppose.’

  ‘And you did,’ I said. ‘You finished it.’

  Aunt Clare nodded. ‘It never mattered to me if it was going to sell five copies or five thousand,’ she said. ‘I wrote the book for me, and for the people I love — after all, a little self-indulgence never did anyone any harm. As it happens, I think it’s done my Charlotte a great deal of good. She was a stranger to discipline before I got my hands on her.’

  ‘I had never heard Aunt Clare refer to Charlotte as hers. I swallowed. ‘And Harry?’ I asked.

  ‘Harry’s known from the start.’

  I was so surprised I stopped crying. ‘What?’ I blinked.

  ‘I told Harry because I couldn’t not. He knows me too well. I wouldn’t be able to hide it from him as I could from Charlotte. And I knew it wouldn’t change us, and that’s what made it all right. We still argued. I continued to despair over Marina. He still refused to get a proper job. But he spent great chunks of his earnings as a magician on me. On doctors, specialists. Nothing that’s come to any good, but he’s tried. That’s the only thing that matters. He tried.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He’ll join me in Paris,’ said Aunt Clare evenly. ‘If I ask him to.

  ‘You will, won’t you?’ I begged. ‘Say you will!’

  ‘I will, I promise you that much.’

  ‘He’ll be lost without you,’ I whispered. ‘He needs you. To —to tell him he’s being silly. to keep his feet on the ground—’

  ‘I think I’ve trained Charlotte rather well in that department, ‘said Aunt Clare.

  ‘If only he weren’t still so in love with Marina.’

  ‘Oh, he’s not.’ Aunt Clare’s reaction was instant. ‘Not at all. He never has been in love with her. He just thought he was.’

  ‘But what’s the difference?’ I felt angry all of a sudden. Why did Aunt Clare always talk in riddles like this? Why did she have to be dying? And why did she have to go to Paris to do it?

  ‘He’s only just working that out for himself,’ she said quietly. ‘I regret that your mother and I will never be friends.’ There was real sadness in her voice now. ‘But it all worked out as it should, of course. I got to live, and now she wilt too.’

  I reached out for Aunt Clare’s drink. ‘Don’t you think it was a terrible thing? To destroy a house like Magna?’

  ‘Far more terrible to go on living there. Debt is the terrible thing, Penelope. It swallows you whole. But …’ She turned to me, her eyes wicked, full of fun. ‘Harry will have a nice surprise when I’m gone.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Oh, I sold a piece of china I never believed was worth anything for the most extraordinary amount the other day. Well — enough to keep Harry in smokes for a while, as he likes to put it. Christopher Jones spotted it when he was here for my reading. He nearly burst’ with the excitement. Said he’d never seen a piece its equal in such wonderful condition.’

  ‘What? And in the meantime, let him think he’s poor as a church mouse?’

  ‘Of course!’ exclaimed Aunt Clare, ‘I can’t have him thinking he’s got money to spend. He might lose his mind and start thinking he can afford Marina Hamilton again.’

  ‘And what was the piece?’ I asked her.

  ‘Oh, you won’t remember it. It was an ugly thing, really. The little milkmaid that used to sit right here—’

  I laughed, in spite of everything. I laughed.

  I only stayed another ten minutes. I imagine Aunt Clare didn’t want me to have to sit around and make conversation with her now that I knew it would be the last time. I didn’t want to either. She saw me to the door.

  ‘Aunt Clare, does Phoebe know? Your — your secret?’ I asked, hating myself for sounding trite.

  ‘Oh yes, she’s known all along.’

  ‘I see, That would explain her misery.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Aunt Clare. ‘She’s naturally like that. Always has been. And worse than ever now that Harry’s left.’

  Harry. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t about to saunter through the door clutching his magic bag, humming a jazz tune and making snide comments about Johnnie Ray. I wanted to see him so much, I almost felt capable of conjuring him up, as a traveller in the desert sees water.

  ‘Just one thing,’ said Aunt Clare.

  ‘Anything,’ I said, meaning it.

  ‘Look after Charlotte for me. I know she’s still infatuated with that Andrew boy. He’s not right for her but she’ll take her time realising it. There wi
ll always be part of her that loathes me for keeping her away from him. But you see, Penelope, sometimes experience knows best.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘She’s mentioned Christopher rather a lot since you introduced them. You know, he hasn’t changed a bit since the day I met him. Still such a pretty man, and still quite unaware of it.’

  ‘Charlotte claims he irritates her.’

  ‘Well! Need we say more?’

  I took a taxi to the Ritz and sat at the bar to read the letter Aunt Clare had given me. It felt like the right place to read it and just being there made me feel that Harry was with me too She had asked me not to read it till she had gone. But that was impossible. And Aunt Clare knew that as well as I did.

  Milton Magna, Westbury

  2 March 1955

  Dear Clare

  I hope you don’t think it queer that I am writing to you.

  What am I saying, of course you do. (Typical Mama, I thought. Her letters always read like this — a stream of consciousness, utterly unplanned.)

  My daughter Penelope has become friends with your son and niece, and apparently you spoke of knowing of Archie and me, and of Milton Magna. Oh, I can’t think what I’m doing, sending this to you — perhaps I read too much into the coincidence of their meeting, perhaps I am seeing it as a sign. At any rate, I am here, with the draught whittling through the window, writing to you.

  You were the one woman Archie spoke of with any affection, the only person to have moved him before he met me. How I hated you for it! Just after we first met I asked him if he had ever considered marriage before, and being Archie, he just couldn’t resist being honest. He told me about the evening of your strange encounter— how you had met outside the Opera House and had talked for hours. Just talked. He said you were older than him, and married with a son, and yes, rather beautiful. He said that if you hadn’t been married, perhaps he would have seen you again. How wretched I felt hearing those words! How sophisticated and worldly and intimidating you seemed, how untouchable. You became my one demon, my own private Rebecca. I feared Archie bumping into you more than anything else in the world.