The House of Secrets by Sarra Manning (17)

 

A month after she’d received his letter, Libby finally sent a parcel off to Freddy in Spain. She hadn’t planned to at all until a postal order had arrived unexpectedly from Freddy’s editor at the Daily Mirror. Still, Libby had reasoned that it did Freddy no harm to wait and had taken her sweet time in assembling the items he’d requested. She also included a letter with the parcel – four terse lines, which were entirely inadequate when it came to giving voice to her pain.

At the time, Libby had thought that the letter was icily dignified but now as she reread it in her head, it seemed childish, especially as she thought about Freddy a lot. But to think of Freddy was to think about the baby and then sadness engulfed everything. Turned her world grey, even though it had been months now since the baby was lost and Libby supposed that it was time to let him go, in the same way that she’d been able to cast Freddy aside. Maybe it was harder because her love for the baby had been pure, unsullied, such a good kind of love, and her love for Freddy had been a bad habit that Libby had had to overcome, like drinking too much or biting one’s nails.

‘You look out of sorts today,’ Hugo said, derailing Libby’s train of thought. ‘Quite sad.’

‘Oh!’ She’d forgotten about Hugo, walking silently by her side through the woods, until he took her hand, not to tuck through his arm, but to hold. Neither of them was wearing gloves and the touch of his slightly roughened hand against hers felt like an intrusion. ‘Not sad,’ Libby assured him with a brightly empty smile. ‘Just thinking.’

‘These thoughts of yours, they looked like they were worth more than a penny,’ Hugo said. Libby hoped he wasn’t one of those people who poked and pried and wouldn’t be satisfied until you’d laid bare your innermost secrets, but he didn’t say any more and instead they talked of whether Edward would make a good king and of Wallis Simpson, his mistress, whom Freddy had told Libby about ages ago, said that it was common knowledge on Fleet Street.

‘I’ve never heard of the woman,’ Hugo said. ‘Though one can’t expect the fellow to live like a monk. And he does seem well-intentioned. A good sort. Cares about the less fortunate.’

It was the third time they’d met to stroll through Highgate Woods. They were halfway through their second lap, walking so briskly that they’d left their huffing shadow long behind them, as Libby told Hugo about Hannah, who was the least fortunate person that Libby currently knew. How Millicent had acquired Hannah from an orphanage, an act of great faith and Christian charity so she insisted, and thought it gave her the right to treat Hannah as slave labour.

‘Most of Hannah’s wages are paid directly to the orphanage, even though I’m sure they’re already funded by wealthy do-gooders. It’s a shocking racket, if you ask me. And Millicent is supposed to pay Hannah some small pittance, but she’s always docking her wages for breaking things,’ Libby said crossly. ‘I do what I can. I give her five shillings a month for my laundry and mending, though I don’t have any mending left. I have to keep ripping seams and poking holes through my jumpers.’

‘Perhaps you could just give her the five shillings?’ Hugo suggested.

‘She says she has her pride and that her mother didn’t raise her to be a beggar. Don’t get me wrong, Hannah can be a perfect pest, but she has no one to stand up for her.’

Libby had asked about Hannah’s people once and Hannah had said that her mother had died of shock in the kitchen of their basement flat in Penge when she’d lost her grip on a pan of boiling water and spilt it all over herself. Her father was a drunk and a layabout. There were no aunts to take Hannah in, just an aged grandmother who’d seen the eight-year-old girl as simply another mouth to feed and so Hannah had been sent to the orphanage to be trained for service and now she was at Millicent’s beck and call morning, noon and night.

‘It’s such a small, mean life for a young girl,’ Libby said to Hugo who hummed in agreement. ‘Even when I’d lost both my parents, I still had Dolly who cared for me in her way.’ When Libby was better situated, she’d steal Hannah away, give her a proper wage, bully her into attending evening classes so she could take her school certificate.

How many turns around Highgate Woods before she’d saved up enough? Then there was rent and a hundred other expenses, but she owed Hannah a debt, Lord knows.

When Libby had come back from Paris, so weak that she couldn’t get out of bed, Hannah had willingly trudged up the stairs with fresh hot water bottles, had sponged Libby down, brought her cups of tea, despite the many other duties Millicent expected her to perform.

‘Hannah has a good heart,’ Libby said now. ‘Though she never stops talking and she’s a terrible gossip. I know things about Mrs Lemmon across the square that I wish I didn’t.’

‘She sounds quite the character, your Hannah,’ Hugo said. ‘We have a constant parade of girls, each one of them worse than the last. My wife can’t seem to keep a maid for much longer than a month.’

‘Oh?’ Libby couldn’t contain her surprise. ‘So you’re still living with…?’

‘Well, yes, for appearance’s sake.’ Hugo gave a short bark of a laugh, devoid of all humour. ‘It’s a big house and easy enough to avoid any awkward encounters when I’ve been banished to the furthest reaches of the second floor. God knows what the staff have been told. Cook looks at me as if I’m an absolute beast.’

His wife, Pamela, sounded an absolute beast herself. ‘A year from now this will all be over,’ Libby said. ‘These months, the sadness, it will seem like a bad dream.’

‘Do you really think so?’ Hugo asked. ‘I wish I could share your optimism because it seems to me that there’s no end in sight to this wretched business. At times it feels as if… well, no need to burden you with fanciful notions.’

‘You’re not burdening me and I’m sure your notions aren’t at all fanciful,’ Libby said and not because it was the polite thing to do, but because she wanted to know what these notions of Hugo’s were. She was curious about what lay beneath his perfectly proper, perfectly controlled exterior. Libby fancied that she’d seen glimpses of the man he really was and she wanted to see more.

‘It’s just… I have this sense that there’s nothing good to come,’ Hugo said heavily. ‘Nothing to look forward to. When I say it out loud, it sounds so childish.’

‘It doesn’t sound at all childish,’ Libby assured him. ‘I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way myself.’

Hugo didn’t say anything else. There was a long pause; silence and sadness shared. They were now doing an unprecedented third circuit, and had passed the detective sitting on a bench and mopping at his forehead with a grubby white handkerchief. Libby decided it was time to talk of brighter things. ‘So, Hannah, goodness, I’ve never met a girl with such a sweet tooth,’ she said. ‘The old ladies rarely go out and Hannah is hardly ever allowed to leave the house, so I run errands for them. Hannah always wants weigh-out sweets from Woolies. Once I bought her some cream buns as a special treat and you’d have thought I’d presented her with a bag full of diamonds.’

‘Oh, you shouldn’t have,’ Hannah had declared. ‘Never even had cream buns on my birthday.’ There’d been a look of utter bliss on her usually forlorn face when she’d bitten into one of the buns and the cream had squirted everywhere. It made Libby laugh to remember it.

Hugo laughed too as if Libby’s forced jollity was infectious and he was just as desperate to set a cheerier mood. ‘Shall we buy her another bag of cream buns?’ he asked.

‘What? Now?’ Libby glanced at her watch. ‘The shops will be closed soon.’

Hugo smiled and shook his head. ‘Not if we’re quick.’

He was still holding her hand, so when he started to pick up his pace, to run, Libby had to run with him, holding on to her hat with her free hand and squealing every time she encountered a puddle and had to jump over it.

When they reached Hugo’s car, they were both red-faced and breathless. Libby thought that their silliness might dissipate during the drive to Hampstead, as that was where they appeared to be headed. But then she’d giggle as she thought of the two of them running towards the gate like children rushing to get home before the dinner gong and Hugo would glance over at her, his gaze warm, and he’d chuckle too.

The cake shop on Hampstead High Street was still open, though there wasn’t much displayed in the window apart from a few tired-looking Chelsea buns.

‘I don’t suppose you have any cream buns left?’ Libby enquired of the diffident girl behind the counter who shook her head.

‘Oh, I think we can do better than buns.’ Hugo pointed at an extravagant confection displayed in a glass case; a large cake liberally heaped with fruit, chocolate curls and piped cream. ‘We’ll take that one.’

They also bought rock cakes for the old ladies, who had more catholic taste in pastries, then Hugo drove Libby the short distance back to Willoughby Square, very slowly and very carefully so as not to jolt their precious cargo.

He handed her out of the car too and even though they were standing right outside number 17 where Mrs Carmichael was known to be an inveterate curtain-twitcher and one of Millicent’s dreary friends might walk past, Libby reached up to kiss Hugo on the cheek.

‘I’ve had such a lovely time,’ she said. She’d been quite shocked when Hugo had presented her with the agreed upon five pounds in the car because she’d completely forgotten why she was with him in the first place. Certainly it wasn’t an ordeal to meet him each week to walk and talk. Hugo was no longer a harsh, judgemental stranger.

Indeed, there were confidences she’d told Hugo about her family, her failed career and fading looks that Libby hadn’t confessed to anyone else. Not even Freddy.

It was something to do with Hugo’s encouraging tone, the steady weight of his arm tucked into hers and especially the way he would look at Libby; as if she were endlessly fascinating, interesting and not the ridiculous, empty-headed creature that Libby imagined other people found her to be.

‘Shall I see you next week?’ Hugo asked, smiling as Libby adjusted her grip on the cake-box, the bag of rock cakes and her handbag. ‘I could take something for you? See you to the front door?’

‘Best not to,’ Libby decided, and it was also best not to think too long and hard about this strange friendship of theirs, only that she was glad of it. ‘I’d love to see you next week.’

She expected that when Hugo leant forward he was going to straighten her hat or the strap of her bag, which had got tangled but instead he kissed her. It was a chaste kiss, just a glancing blow at the corner of her mouth, but it felt monumental. Important. Maybe even a declaration and not simply an affectionate gesture between new friends.

Libby looked at Hugo, a question in her eyes, but he just smiled, stepped away, touched the brim of his hat in salute. ‘Next week, then.’