The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets (40 page)

‘Sunday
lunch?’ I stuttered.

‘It’s
Friday,’ said Marina. ‘I don’t plan on returning to London until I’ve recovered
from last night. If you show me the telephone, I shall call my man in London
and have him send down a joint. So silly not to make the most of the glorious
spring weather. Sugar and milk?’

I
looked at Inigo who looked away. He wants her here, I thought. He’s captivated
by the whole performance.

‘Black
and no sugar, thank you,’ I said.

After
breakfast, Marina said she would like to take a bath and I showed her up to my
bathroom.

‘Oh,
lavender oil, how charming,’ she said, turning on my bathroom taps. Then, just
as the water spluttered out, the tears were back. ‘Oh, Penelope!’ she wailed. ‘I
love him!’

The
speed with which Marina was capable of switching from happy to miserable quite
overwhelmed me and I blinked a few times, trying to readjust myself. Rocky was
quite right. She
was
exhausting.

‘Do you
think he’ll marry you?’ she asked, sniffing. ‘No! Don’t answer me just yet. Let
me lie in the bath and pretend that he wants to be with me. Don’t ruin my
daydream. Please, Penelope. Say nothing. Say nothing.’

So I
said nothing, and excused myself and rushed downstairs and telephoned Aunt
Clare’s. To my amazement, Harry picked up the phone.

‘Where
have you been?’ I demanded. ‘Your American lady love is here at Magna, using
all the hot water, organising Sunday lunch and weeping every other minute. She
wants you back, for goodness’ sake.’

‘I
know,’ he said simply. ‘Our plan worked.’

‘Your
plan,’ I hissed.

‘I knew
she would come and find you,’ he said. ‘She’s rather predictable like that.’ He
didn’t sound victorious, as I had expected. He sounded half tired, half
something else. Yes, that was it. Half
bored.

‘Nothing
predictable about turning up drunk in the middle of the night,’ I snapped. ‘Isn’t
this your cue to gallop up the drive and whizz her off into the sunset?’

‘I
suppose so.’ I could hear him yawning.

‘You
suppose
so? Aren’t you overwhelmed by happiness and triumph?’ I wanted to shake
him.

‘Of
course I am,’ he said, suddenly sharp. ‘But she made me
suffer,
Penelope.
I’m rather enjoying the idea that she’s having to put up with a bit of pain
now.

‘Oh,
for heaven’s sake! She thinks you love
me,’
I said impatiently. ‘which
was all well and good at Dorset House and the Ritz but it makes me jolly
uncomfortable at two in the morning in the library at Magna.’

‘Did you
look beautiful when she saw you last night?’ asked Harry lightly. It mattered
to him, I supposed. He needed me to keep up the image he had created.

‘No. I
was wearing an awful dressing gown and a torn nightie. I looked a mess,’ I said
smugly.

To my
surprise, Harry laughed. ‘I wish I’d been there.’

‘So do
I,’ I said with feeling. ‘I don’t like the girl, but it’s rather awful seeing
her like this. She
needs
you, Harry.’

‘The
only person she’s ever needed is herself.’

‘Are
you telling me that now she’s left George, you don’t love her any more?’ I
asked in ominous tones.

‘Oh, I
love her all right,’ said Harry grimly. ‘But I hate her too.

‘Please,
Harry, don’t leave me to sort this out alone.’

‘Sit
tight. Don’t let her know that we were only pretending,
please,
Penelope.
For your own sake, too.’

‘If she’s
still here by the end of the weekend …’ I warned him. ‘What will you do?’ He
sounded almost amused now. ‘I’ll tell her this whole thing has been one big act
and I don’t think she’ll forgive you. The one thing I’ve learned about Marina
is that she doesn’t like being taken for a fool. Goodbye, Harry.’

I
replaced the receiver and nearly leapt out of my skin when Mary tapped me on
the shoulder.

‘I
thought I’d do a Queen of Puddings tonight,’ she said thickly. ‘Miss Hamilton
says it’s her favourite.’

Upstairs,
I could hear Miss Hamilton singing ‘The Little White Cloud That Cried’.

‘Lovely
voice she has, too!’ sighed Mary.

Personally.
I thought it rather shrill.
And
she got the words wrong in verse two.
Johnnie would have been horrified …

Chapter
17

DRAMA
IN THE DINING ROOM

C
harlotte
arrived just as Marina descended the stairs after the longest bath in Magna’s
history.

‘I got
the first train I could,’ she said breathlessly. ‘They should name the train
line after us. The Wallace-Ferris Great Western service. I feel I spend more
time on the train than anyone else in the world. We were delayed at Reading. I
nearly burst with frustration. And I
paid
for my ticket! I’m far too
well behaved by half, nowadays. I blame bloody Christopher Jones.’

‘I’d
blame Marina if I were you.

‘Where
is she?’

‘Charming
Inigo somewhere.’

I was
relieved to see Charlotte. With her around, the situation became less
desperate, and more amusing. She was very good at cracking jokes at inappropriate
times.

Against the odds, Marina
had unearthed a set of ancient tongs from the depths of some long-abandoned
cupboard, and had curled her hair, reapplied her make-up and dressed
thoughtfully for her weekend in the country in a tweed skirt and twinset that
would have looked quite dreadful on anybody but her. As it happened, she
defined alluring. Inigo, who had been valiantly struggling through a geometry
paper at the dining-room table, decided to abandon his work in favour of a ‘stroll
in the garden’ with our American guest.

‘Shall
we take a glass of champagne with us?’ suggested Marina.

‘Why
not a bottle?’ said Inigo quickly.

‘You
should get that paper finished by the end of today!’ I called out threateningly
as he popped the cork. Inigo, quite rightly, ignored me.

‘I
shall need something to walk in,’ said Marina, looking down at her feet. Inigo
raced to the cloakroom and found her a pair of wellingtons.

‘Try
these,’ he suggested, handing her my boots.

‘Oh,
Lord! These are men’s boots, surely!’ giggled Marina, pretending to fall over
so that Inigo had to catch her.

‘No, I
think they’re Penelope’s,’ said Inigo. ‘But they’re
huge!’

I could
have slain him.

Half an hour later,
Charlotte and I watched them wandering back to the house, stopping to pick daffodils
en route. Marina appeared to be laughing a great deal, which foxed me as
usually I am the only person who finds Inigo funny.

‘She
doesn’t seem to be missing Harry much at the moment, said Charlotte. We were
sitting on the window seats in my bedroom overlooking the drive, eating a bag
of apples and smoking cigarettes out of the window.

‘It
comes in waves,’ I said. ‘And when it comes, watch out! She’s like a different
girl, terribly humble and afraid and convinced that she’ll never get him back.
Harry wants me to go on pretending for a while longer. He thinks it’s only
right that she should suffer a little bit.’

‘How
disgusting,’ said Charlotte. ‘And he calls that being in love?’

‘It’s
George I feel sorry for,’ I said. ‘There’s something rather sweet about him.
Rocky thinks so too,’ I added unthinkingly. Charlotte was on to me like a shot.

‘Oh,
well, if
Rocky
thinks so,’ she said slyly. ‘Tell me, has he telephoned?
When are you going out for your terribly smart dinner?’

‘I don’t
know. He hasn’t called. I feel a fool, Charlotte.’

‘Give
him time,’ she said. ‘That sort of man is far too important to call when he
says he will.’

‘How do
you know?’

‘Just
do.’

Charlotte
was one of those people who only ever found good in anything. Events that I had
dreaded she had embraced with never-ending
joie de vivre.
She had also
been working far harder than Inigo or I could even dream of— the tips of her
fingers were hard, like dried wax, from hammering the keys of Aunt Clare’s
typewriter. Sometimes, she said, she felt herself typing in her sleep. She
never complained, but more than that, she saw light in everything. She
made
light
of all the right things, and she realised when she shouldn’t, which is one of
the rarest gifts I ever knew in anyone.

‘You
will see him again, you know,’ she said, seeing my thoughtful expression, and
again I thought, isn’t that just like Charlotte? She understood completely that
the only thing that mattered was that I saw him. Never mind kissing him or even
talking to him. She understood the ache that could be eased just with a look or
a smile. ‘Even if things don’t work out, there’s always Johnnie,’ she added,
and unlike the rest of the world, I knew that she was being serious; she simply
could not conceive of a reason why Johnnie Ray. world famous and only in
England for a few nights a year, should want to spend his time with anyone but
us. I loved her for that. And why not? We were young and the world spun for us
alone.

‘I
suppose we should go downstairs and have some lunch,’ I said.

‘Is
Marina eating like a pig?’

‘She
won’t stop. I think it must be a nervous reaction to the horror of her
situation.’ I giggled.

‘Rubbish.
She’s just greedy.’

‘Mary
adores her,’ I said. ‘She calls her Miss Hamilton.’

We
stood up and Charlotte flipped her thick hair out from under the collar of her
blouse.

‘Do you
have a comb?’ she asked and I said I thought so, and crossed the room to my
dressing table. Marina the guinea pig shot out from under my bed so I picked
her up.

‘Look
how tame she is now, Charlotte,’ I said, but Charlotte’s eyes were fixed on
something outside, her jaw open in astonishment.

‘What
is it?’ I demanded. Not Mama back early,
please.
But no. The most
sensational pale silver car was careering up the drive at the most sensational
silver pace.

‘Oh my
God!’ breathed Charlotte. ‘It’s a bloody Chevrolet!’

‘Whose?’
I whispered idiotically. and the word stuck in my throat because who else would
have a Chevrolet in the middle of Wiltshire?

We watched him get out,
take off his hat and march towards the front door.

‘Help!
It’s him! Oh, Charlotte, what on earth is he doing here?’ I whimpered.

‘Come
to find Marina, I’ll wager,’ said Charlotte with glee. ‘Americans can never
keep their noses out of other people’s business.’

Why, oh
why
hadn’t I washed my hair? I ran to my basin and splashed cold water
on my face. Charlotte snapped into action.

‘Put
this on,’ she ordered, hurling a pair of red trousers and a black sweater at me
as the doorbell rang and Fido began to bark.

‘The
trousers are too big!’ I hissed.

‘Hitch
them up with a belt. Too big is always good, it makes you look like you’ve lost
weight.’

‘What
about my hair?’

Charlotte
grabbed the comb from me and messed around with my mop for a few moments.

‘You’ll
do,’ she said. ‘Get those pearls off and for goodness’ sake put some red
lipstick and powder on. Don’t you just hate it when men turn up unannounced?’

‘I can’t
say I have a great deal of experience in this field,’ I gibbered. ‘Suppose he
wants to take us out for lunch? What shall I do? Oh help! Look!’

But it
was too late. From our vantage point, we could see the front door being opened
and hear Marinas voice inviting him in.