The House of Secrets by Sarra Manning (44)

 

Who would have thought that Freddy – Freddy! – would turn out to be such an absolute trooper. Certainly not Libby, but it was Freddy who had held Millicent back when she stood outside the bedroom door to demand entrance. ‘I’ve never known anyone enjoy ill health as much as Elizabeth,’ she’d proclaimed, which was rich coming from her.

He’d also hand-delivered Libby’s resignation letter to Beryl. ‘Burst into tears,’ Freddy reported cheerfully. ‘It’s just as well I’ve grown accustomed to women weeping all over me. Says she’s sorry for being so quarrelsome and wants to come and see you but I told her that you weren’t to be upset, so we agreed she’d leave it a week. Odd little creature, isn’t she?’

Nothing was too much trouble. Freddy even sent Hannah out to the Flask for a bottle of stout and a steak pie every evening and stayed with Libby while she ate. They’d play cards or he’d read one of the aunts’ lurid romances, putting on all sorts of silly voices to make Libby laugh.

Libby suspected that this was Freddy’s way of making amends for how he’d been when it was his child that she was carrying. So diffident, so dismissive, even before she’d got pregnant, even when making love to her. Libby had never felt as if she truly had Freddy’s attention, certainly not his love.

This time she’d been sure that she had Hugo’s love, otherwise she wouldn’t have given him her own poor, abused heart to do with what he wanted. So, despite everything, she mourned the loss of him. Wished that she could hide and nurse her wounds until the end of time even as she knew that this present state of affairs couldn’t last.

‘I can’t stay here,’ she announced to Freddy, some time into her confinement after a doctor had been sneaked upstairs to pronounce Libby quite well though her blood pressure was still cause for concern. ‘Your mother won’t be fobbed off with stories of contagious stomach ailments for much longer.’

‘You can’t be on your own,’ Freddy said. He was lounging in the armchair by the window. The weak winter sun lit up his hair, his features, so he looked impossibly young.

‘I’ve been on my own most of my life,’ Libby said, without heat because Freddy was right. What if she were to be taken ill again in a rented room with no one to hear or care if she cried out? She thought longingly of the white house in Highgate, of the life she’d been planning for the three of them.

Her future had been mapped out and now, in the space of a few short weeks, it was as uncertain as it had ever been.

‘We could get a place together. A small flat in town,’ Freddy suggested because guilt really had made a man of him. ‘I’m still quite flush and my publisher was talking of another book about the scourge of Fascism. I’d have to travel to Germany and Italy but that would be next year. You’d have had the baby by then.’

‘I couldn’t expect you to take on another man’s child, Freddy.’ Libby had been playing patience; she looked up from the cards arranged haphazardly on the eiderdown. ‘What a pity you weren’t this kind to me when we were together.’

Freddy dipped his dark head. ‘When we were together I did a lot of things I’m not proud of, Libs. And then that night in Paris…’ He turned to stare out of the window. ‘It was as if I’d broken you with my own carelessness.’

‘What happened, it wasn’t your fault,’ Libby said, though she had always blamed him a little. It was far easier to have someone to blame than admit that terrible things often occurred for no good reason.

‘What happened after was my fault though,’ Freddy said and he made sure that he was looking at Libby now, so she wouldn’t be in any doubt that he meant every word. ‘It’s just… I’m a coward, Libs, always have been and I thought that if I didn’t have to see you, face you, then I wouldn’t have to face up to my own shame.’ He sprang up from the chair to kneel by the side of the bed. ‘I’d like to make it up to you now, if you’ll let me.’

‘Oh, Freddy…’ It was too late for them now, but Libby could feel her anger, the coruscating anger towards Freddy that was always in the background, lifting away. ‘It’s ancient history. Let it be done now.’

He lifted up her limp hand from where it rested on the quilt and kissed the place where he’d put his ring. ‘I’m happy to do it; to take care of you and the kid. You know that all that nonsense, propriety and such, doesn’t mean a thing to me.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Libby promised because there was nothing to do all day but think. At times she was restless, quite desperate to get up and go outside, and other days, she was so tired that if she could find a comfortable position, propped up with pillows, she’d try to sleep.

When she did sleep, she had such terrible dreams. The baby slithering out of her in a river of thick, black blood, its body still and blue and lifeless.

The baby alive and pink and her heart’s song, only to be snatched out of Libby’s arms by Pamela, her fur coat suddenly transformed into a snapping, snarling wolf that held Libby back.

Hugo walking away down that secret path of theirs in Highgate Woods, then turning to give Libby one final, cold look. ‘You’re a whore. One doesn’t fall in love with whores.’

Then Libby would struggle to wakefulness, panting, her heart racing, the pickle turning somersaults and somehow Freddy was there. Maybe she’d cried out. Maybe he’d fallen asleep in the chair by the window, but he’d get on to the bed, careful not to jar her, one arm around her, the other hand smoothing down the sweaty strands of her hair. It awoke a half-buried memory of being a child, hot and sticky with fever, and her mother performing the same action, murmuring soft words of love.

 

Then one December evening Hannah brought up a letter along with Libby’s supper of a cup of Bovril and a couple of malted milk biscuits. Said that a young boy had come by on a bike to deliver it.

‘Be a dear, Hannah, and shut the door quietly, I’ve got one of my heads,’ Libby said so Hannah wasn’t tempted to linger, then when she was gone, grumbling under her breath, Libby was able to open the envelope.