The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets (14 page)

After one weekend with
Charlotte, I could not imagine that there had ever been a time when I had not
known her. I became aware of the aura of chaos that surrounded her (she only
had to sit down to upset something — a cup of tea, the marmalade jar, the sugar
bowl — and she never put anything away after she’d looked at it) yet these
aspects of her character, which would in any normal person be considered flaws,
only added to her charm. The reason that she spilt things was because she
gestured wildly whenever she told a story. The reason she never put anything
away was because she was so easily distracted — the sunset over the fairy wood,
or a book she had just noticed in the library, would absorb her completely so
that whatever she had been doing was forgotten. She never stopped talking, and
though she didn’t eat much at mealtimes, her sweet tooth continued to be as
fervent as it had been that afternoon at Aunt Clare’s. While we chatted after
lunch and dinner, I was always aware of her monitoring Mary’s loud footsteps
around the kitchen and pantry, so that a sort of game between the two started
to emerge.

‘Penelope,
I think Mary’s popped out — do you think we could sneak into the kitchen for
something to fill the gap?’ she would hiss at top speed in the middle of a
conversation. She possessed the pastry chef’s flair for detail, making
everything that she was going to eat look mouth-watering to the onlooker. Mary’s
fruit salad, after Charlotte had soused it in brown sugar, squeezed the juice
of a lemon over it and dipped her spoon in honey, seemed positively ambrosial.
Open and shut went the door of the pantry at all hours of the day and night.
There was a nasty moment on Sunday evening.

‘Someone’s
been at my pineapple tart,’ Mary said ominously. ‘There was half of it left
when I put out the lights last night. Not enough for one helping this morning.’

‘Bats,’
Charlotte said solemnly. ‘They’ll eat anything.’ Mary didn’t quite know what to
make of Charlotte.

On Monday morning, before
we set off for the station, I took Charlotte to see Banjo. I found a couple of
squares of cooking chocolate for us to suck, and we leant over his stall in a
satisfyingly horsy way. Charlotte told me that she was not much of a rider, but
she certainly charmed my pony, who was usually very sniffy with strangers, by
filling him up with carrots stolen from Mary’s supplies in the larder.

‘Don’t
you just
adore
the way he crunches them?’ she said, offering him the
carrot like an ice-cream cone. ‘I spent all of my formative years begging my
parents for a pony of my own. I never much liked the idea of actually riding,
but what
heaven,
to groom them and decorate them. I had to make do with
a rather plain-looking rocking horse. Not the same thing at all.’

‘I used
to make my own rosettes, out of ribbons and cardboard from the back of cereal
boxes,’ I admitted. ‘I never won anything myself. Banjo was too strong and too
naughty. At the county show one year he carted me out of the ring when I was
supposed to be performing my individual display.’

‘Couldn’t
you have argued that
was
your individual display?’

I
laughed. ‘Can’t say I got the chance to. I was disqualified.’

‘How
shaming,’ said Charlotte. ‘The
torture
of childhood. Aren’t you glad to
be out of that hell?’

‘I don’t
really feel I
am
out of it. That day I saw Aunt Clare in Selfridges, and
I knocked over their display, I felt about twelve.’

‘That’s
the beauty of being eighteen. You can blame everything on not knowing what on
earth you’re doing. I do, the
whole
time.’

This
struck me as odd as Charlotte seemed to me to be someone who knew exactly what
she was doing at all times. She bit the top off the one remaining carrot.

‘My
mother thinks I should find a rich man to marry. She’s always talking about how
I’ll “come good” once I’ve found a husband. She hates having me at home —
ploughing through the books in her library and kicking my heels up at night.
She thinks I’m lazy.’

Are
you?’

‘Of
course. Any sensible person is. Aren’t you?’

‘I don’t
know,’ I said, thinking of my studies. ‘I never did very well at school. I like
writing, though, making up stories,’ I went on lamely. ‘We weren’t encouraged
to make up anything at school.’

‘School
has nothing to do with anything,’ said Charlotte scornfully. She blew air into
her gloved hands. ‘Shall we have a walk around the garden now?

The
glare of the sun on the snow bruised our eyes.

We walked back across the
field, climbed over the fence, crossed the drive and entered the walled garden
through what is known as Johns’ Gate because at eleven o’clock every morning he’s
always to be found standing there, smoking his pipe, Fido at his feet waiting
for the crusts from his cheese sandwich. He doffed his cap to Charlotte and me.

‘Lovely
day!’ said Charlotte, bending down to pat Fido.

‘Beautiful,’
agreed Johns, nodding at Charlotte — Gabriel Oak to Bathsheba — as he opened
the gate for us.

The walled garden is not
perhaps what you would expect from a house of Magna’s austerity. It is all
curves and romance, and in the snow, especially so. We threaded our way round
the outermost path, crunching our boots in the snow.

‘How
odd,’ said Charlotte. ‘To find such a picturesque garden here. Is it William
Kent? It is, isn’t it?’

‘Um,
yes,’ I said brightly. The name rang a bell, at least. ‘Gosh, Charlotte, how do
you know all this stuff? You’re shaming me by knowing more about Magna’s
history than I do.’

‘People
who live in great houses either know everything or nothing about them. I can
see arguments for both, actually. There’s something very grand about living in
a place this size and not having a clue what year the first brick was laid.’

We
stopped by the little marble Apollo, peering out over the nut garden. Charlotte
put her gloved hands on his feet.

‘The
more you know, the more intimidating it becomes, I suppose,’ she said.

‘When
we were little, all Inigo and I did in the garden was stuff ourselves with
fruit,’ I said. ‘And the yews and the box hedges — they were perfect for games
and hideouts. There wasn’t anywhere in the garden that we didn’t make our own.’
I pulled at the branch of an apple tree and an inch of snow slithered onto the
ground with a soft plop. ‘The ladies from the WI were up here all the time
during the war, picking fruit. Mama stood about issuing orders but she was
never much good at getting her hands dirty. She kept on saying that no war was
going to turn her into a dowdy old woman with rough hands.’

I felt
disloyal saying it, but at the same time, talking like this came as a relief.

Charlotte exclaimed at
everything — at the snaky boughs of the apple and cherry trees still laden with
snow, at Mark Antony, our cockerel, crowing fit to burst from the roof of the
hen house —yet all the while succeeded in creating a strange impression of
having planned everything herself. Her face suited the cold weather; when her
nose shone red and her cheeks glowed pink, she looked like a model from the
front of the knitting patterns that Mary was always sending off for.

I led
us into the fairy wood.

‘Gosh!’
said Charlotte, picking up a handful of snow and moulding it into a ball. We
ducked under the first cluster of branches, then followed the path that weaved
through the wood and would eventually lead us out at the top of the drive. The
world was cast in white and silver
with the occasional burst of colour from
the scarlet berries of the holly trees. I couldn’t have planned a more
spectacular morning if I had tried.

‘I suppose
Harry’s shown you the invitation,’ said Charlotte at last. ‘I tried to persuade
him that you would have far better things to do than hang around with him at
some dumb party of Marina’s — but he just said that anything was worth a try
and you looked like the sort of girl who would get under Marina’s skin. I think
that’s a compliment, by the way.’

I
laughed, embarrassed. ‘I must admit that I’d love to see what they’ve done to
Dorset House.’

‘Harry’s
pretty good company at parties,’ said Charlotte, throwing her snowball into the
air and catching it again. ‘He’s one of those rare characters who improves with
drink.’

‘Do you
think he’s wasting his time trying to get her back?’

‘Who
knows? Being as dedicated to oneself as Marina is leaves so little time to focus
on anyone else. I think she
did
love him, though,’ she added
unexpectedly. ‘I only saw them together a couple of times. He claims he made
her laugh. Girls love that, don’t they?’ There was that regretful tone to her
voice that she had had when she talked about the mysterious Andrew. She cleared
her throat and threw her snowball away. ‘You wait till you meet her! Harry was
never good-looking enough for a girl like Marina,’ she said. ‘Too short, and
way too different. I can’t imagine the Hamilton family settling for someone as asymmetrical
as Harry.’

‘What —
what happened to his eyes? Was he born like that?’

Charlotte
groaned. ‘Oh don’t! I was dreading your asking me that question.’ She bit her
lip and took a deep breath. ‘His eyes are odd because I stabbed him in the eye
with a pencil when I was only two years old. He used to have two blue eyes.
After my attack, one of them turned brown. Aunt Clare was horrified and
convinced that he was going blind, which he wasn’t — though his vision in his
brown eye isn’t entirely twenty-twenty.

I
squirmed. ‘Poor Harry!’

‘But
isn’t it appropriate, for a magician?’

‘He’s
certainly got the right look for the job,’ I admitted.

‘I’m
always telling Aunt Clare that he couldn’t possibly be anything else because
his eyes are too fairground for anything sensible. Would you honestly put your
faith in a banker with one blue eye and one brown? It looks so indecisive,
doesn’t it?’

‘It’s
sort of like Johnnie Ray’s’ story,’ I said eagerly. ‘Dropped on the ground and
losing his hearing as a little boy yet remaining even more determined to
succeed—’

‘Like
Johnnie Ray only not quite as successful,’ said Charlotte drily. ‘Aunt Clare
despairs of him, as you know. She wanted him to be the sort of son who would
make a fortune in the city and buy her a wonderful house in Mayfair. She
considers herself extremely unfortunate that Harry’s ended up the way he has.’

‘My
mother’s terrified that Inigo will bomb off to America and try his luck at a
career in music,’ I said. ‘She’s more frightened of that than of him having to
do National Service.’

‘All
mothers are terrified of their sons, I think,’ said Charlotte. ‘I hope I have
nothing but daughters myself.’

‘My
mother doesn’t think much of me, most of the time. She can’t understand why I’m
not already married. My father fainted when he first saw her.’’

‘No!
Really?’

‘Oh,
yes. It’s one of Mama’s Great Truths. You should only ever stick with a man who’s
prepared to pass out when he first claps eyes on you.

‘Jolly
sensible if you ask me. Andrew never fainted,’ said Charlotte. ‘He wouldn’t
have dreamed of it. Still, he liked me enough to ask me to marry him.’

‘He
what?’

‘Oh
yes. He wanted to marry me.’ She kicked at the snow. ‘It ruined everything.’

‘What
did you say?’ I demanded.

‘No, of
course.’

The
stillness of the morning gave her words resonance; her voice hung thickly in
the frozen air.

‘Aunt
Clare would have gone crackers,’ she said, ‘and I wouldn’t have blamed her. He’s
utterly and totally wrong in every way except for one.’

‘What’s
that?’ I asked her, knowing the answer.

‘I was
mad for him,’ she said simply. ‘Still am. Mad for A the T.’ Then she changed
the subject so fast that it could not have been more clear to me that I shouldn’t
ask any more. ‘Where did your parents meet?’ she asked.