The Midnight Rose (47 page)

“Selina, are you saying Mother may have had Anni’s letters to me intercepted?”

“Please, these are questions you’ll have to ask her, if you dare. Certainly if they were addressed to you and postmarked India, or from anywhere abroad, she surely would have put two and two together? And then, eventually, when you believed Anni wasn’t there anymore, our dear Mother invited the wealthy and beautiful Violet Drumner to cure you of your broken heart and fill Astbury’s coffers.”

“I can hardly believe she would be so manipulative.” Donald shook his head.

“Really? Well, if she did have Anni’s letters intercepted, I would say her behavior was true to form. I mean, Mother’s life has always been very much about Mother, hasn’t it? Sadly, Donald, I wouldn’t put anything past her. At least it’s made me determined to be a caring parent to my children. God knows how Daddy put up with her.” Selina shook her head. “She’s always been a cold fish.”

“If she has done this, Selina”—Donald clenched his fists in despair—“I swear I may well be doing time soon for murder. Has the woman no heart?”

“Enough to keep her very much alive and kicking. To be fair to her, she’s had to make a large sacrifice as well to save Astbury. I’m sure it’s not been pleasant for her to watch your wife take over her beloved home. I heard endlessly at the wedding about the ghastly Schiaparelli rug made of eighteen leopard skins.”

“It is fairly vulgar.” Donald allowed himself a grimace. “But listen, Selina, what on earth do I do?”

“I don’t know, Donald. I doubt Anni will trouble you again now that she knows about your marriage. She has always had such pride.”

“Yes, and the truth is, even though I had so many reservations at the start about marrying Violet, we have been getting on awfully well in the past few weeks,” Donald admitted reluctantly. “I wouldn’t want to hurt her. I swore the day I married her that I’d be a dutiful husband. I may not love her the way I loved Anni, but none of this is her fault.”

Selina reached her hand to his shoulder. “I understand. Well, maybe you should let sleeping dogs lie.”

Donald looked up at her, his eyes full of sadness.

“I think we both know that I can’t do that.”

1 September

Still reeling from Selina telling me that A had visited her in London. And worst of all, that she had written to me. The fury I feel toward my mother if she did, as Selina suggested, intercept her letters, knows no bounds. Until I confront her I won’t know for sure. That will have to wait for now as the most important thing is to find A. Even if she is no longer at the address she gave Selina, I’m hoping they’ll have a forwarding address for her. Have told V I’m going to look at new machinery for the farm. Hate lying to her, but no matter what it takes I must find her . . .

Donald pulled up his car alongside the rectory in Oxenhope, a pretty Yorkshire village nestled up on the moors. His heart beat faster as he climbed out and walked toward the wooden gate. He gazed up at the house, hardly daring to believe that somewhere inside it might be the woman who had haunted his dreams for the past nineteen months.

“Please God, you’re still here,” he murmured under his breath.

Taking his courage in both hands, he rang the doorbell.

A maid opened it a few seconds later. “May I help you?”

“Yes, I’m looking for Anahita Chavan. A friend told me that she was living here.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of that name, sir. It’s the Reverend Brookner and his daughter in residence now. I’ve only been here two months, but I was led to believe that this house has always been his.”

“I see. Is either the reverend or his daughter at home?”

“The reverend is out in the parish, but Miss Brookner is in the garden.”

“Then, may I come in and see her?” He handed her his card.

The maid studied it, then stood aside so that Donald could enter. She led him into a dark drawing room. “Please wait in here and I’ll call for Miss Brookner.”

“Thank you.”

Donald waited despondently for Charlotte to appear. At last, a plain young woman with warm, intelligent eyes entered the room.

“Lord Astbury?” she asked as she shut the door behind her. “Or at least, I’m presuming that’s who you are, if you’ve come in search of Anahita.”

“Yes,” he said, holding out his hand to shake hers. “And you’re Miss Brookner, Anni’s friend?”

“Yes. Please do sit down.”

“Thank you. You know of course why I’m here?” Donald said, sitting down tensely in a chair.

“Yes, I suppose I do.” She looked at him, sadness in her brown eyes.

“Do you know where she is?”

“Yes, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

“Is she well? My sister said she’d been very ill.”

“She was well enough last time I saw her.”

“She told my sister that you’d been most kind to her.”

“I did what I could to help her under the . . . difficult circumstances. But then my father returned from Africa two months ago and, given the situation, it was time for Anni to move on.”

“May I ask what situation you are referring to?” asked Donald.

“My father is a man of the cloth, Lord Astbury, and even though he has sympathy for poor souls who’ve found themselves in trouble, housing a woman in such circumstances under his roof would not have been approved of by his less open-minded parishioners. This is a small Yorkshire village, not London.” Charlotte paused, and then added, “I must say, I’m surprised you’re here.”

“Believe me, if I’d received the letters she apparently sent to me, I would have been here many months ago. Sadly,” Donald shrugged, “I did not.”

“I can confirm she did write to you, Lord Astbury. I myself posted one letter to you when she was upstairs, too ill to move from her bed.”

“I can only beg you to believe that I speak the truth. I didn’t receive a single letter from her for over a year.”

“If I may speak bluntly, after months of Anni receiving no reply, I’m afraid I rather gave up on you. And I told Anni that she must too. She refused, and that was when she decided to go to London to try to find you.”

“Yes.” Donald felt an edge of animosity underlying Charlotte’s politeness.

“You were on your honeymoon, apparently,” she added darkly. “Did you have a pleasant trip?”

“Yes, I—look here, Miss Brookner—Charlotte—I need you to tell me where Anni is, and at the very least I can go and explain that I wasn’t ignoring her letters. I’ve been half out of my mind with worry. I had no idea whether she was alive or dead. I would never have agreed to marry another woman if I hadn’t truly believed that Anni was lost to me.”

“She loved you more than anything and would never hear a word said against you. Even though I often told her that you deserved it.”

“I accept that you think I’m a cad and abandoned her—”

“No, Lord Astbury, I believed that, in the end, your social position would never allow you to entertain the thought of marrying an Indian woman,” said Charlotte with candor.

“But surely Anni must have told you that I’d asked her to marry me before she left for India?”

“Yes, of course she did. But I was hardly surprised that, when it came to the reality of the situation, you changed your mind.”

“That simply isn’t true!” He defended himself. “If you must know, I’m almost certain that it was my mother who made sure I didn’t receive any communication from Anni after she arrived in India. And I agree, it would not have suited
her
if I had married Anni. Or, in fact, if I had sold Astbury, which was what I had been planning to do.”

“So, a few months later, you married an American heiress?”

“Yes, but only after waiting more than a year without any word, and, at that point, I didn’t care who I married if it couldn’t be Anni.” Tears arrived unbidden in Donald’s eyes. “For God’s sake, Miss Brookner, you have to believe me. I’m sorry, I . . .”

Seeing Donald’s genuine emotion, Charlotte’s attitude seemed to soften. She reached out a hand and tentatively patted his. “If I am to trust what you tell me, then it is without doubt a tragic series of events. The sad thing is, I can’t see now how it can ever be put right.”

“I beg you, tell me where she is, and then she and I can make that decision.”

“I swore I wouldn’t—”

“You
must 
!” Donald said insistently.

Finally, she nodded. “I will tell you. I think that whether Anni
wants to see you or not, you should at least have the chance to explain. Even if the past suffering can never be put right, it may help her to know why things happened as they did.”

“Thank you,” Donald breathed, relief washing over him as Charlotte stood up and went to a bureau in the corner of the room. She pulled out an address book and a piece of notepaper, and copied a few lines down onto it.

“She’s living in Keighley, a mill town about forty-five minutes from here. I must admit I haven’t visited her since she moved in. I’ve been rather preoccupied with caring for my father, who came back from Africa a virtual invalid.”

Donald was already on his feet. “I can’t thank you enough for seeing me and giving me this, Miss Brookner,” he said as he tucked the notepaper into his top pocket. “I’ll go and see Anni immediately.”

“And perhaps you’ll let me know how she is?” she asked as she led him to the front door. “I’ve no idea what her circumstances are. She’s so proud, you see. I offered her money, but she refused to take it.”

“Yes, that sounds like Anni,” Donald sighed. “Good-bye, Miss Brookner, and thank you again.”

Donald drove the short distance across the Yorkshire moors and shuddered as he approached the dark industrial mill town of Keighley. Parking his car, he wound his way through the labyrinth of narrow streets, the buildings on either side blackened with soot from the cotton factories. Filthy children sat outside on doorsteps, their feet bare, even though the September night was chilly.

Asking along the way for directions, he finally found himself in Lund Street and walked along it until he found the right number. He knocked on the door and eventually a haggard-looking woman with a baby clutched to her hip and a toddler holding on to her skirts opened it. She surveyed him with suspicion.

“You’re not the new rent man, are you? I said to the last one ’twould be paid on Friday. My old man’s just lost his job at the mill, see.”

“I was told that Anahita Chavan lived at this address,” Donald explained. “Perhaps I’ve got it wrong?”

“No, you ’aven’t, our Anni’s the lodger, but don’t you be telling the rent man. We’re not allowed to sublet, but with seven mouths to feed, needs must. You’re a friend of hers, then?”

“Yes, my name is Donald. Is she in?”

“She hardly ever goes out, keeps herself to herself, does our Anni.
Lovely girl, mind. You’d better come in,” the woman said, and Donald squeezed along the narrow hallway and into a tiny room which he saw served as a basic kitchen. “Sit yourself down there, sir, and I’ll go and call her.”

As the woman left, Donald saw a number of bright eyes staring at him with interest from the doorway.

“What’s yer name, mister?” asked one of the children, a boy of about seven.

“Donald. What’s yours?”

“I’m Tom,” said the boy, drawing closer. “You speak dead posh, and your clothes are fine. Do you own a factory?”

“No, I don’t own a factory.”

“When I grow up, I’m going to own a factory,” Tom pronounced, “and then I’ll be really rich, like you.”

A toddler had crawled into the room and using Donald’s trouser leg as a pulley, she tried to stand, her grubby hands leaving greasy marks behind them.

“Joanna, get off the poor man!” said their mother as she reentered the kitchen. “Our Anni’ll be down in a jiffy, and she says she’ll see you in the front room. She didn’t look too happy when I told her you were here, mind. Right, now, follow me.”

“Thank you,” said Donald.

The woman took him back along the hallway and ushered him into the relative tranquillity of the parlor. As she closed the door, Donald shuddered at this dreadful place. What had Anni been reduced to since he’d last seen her?

The door opened and Anni stood there, her exotic beauty such a contrast to the dreadful drabness of her surroundings. The weight she’d lost made her cheekbones and her huge amber eyes stand out even more.

She shut the door behind her gracefully—as Donald remembered so vividly all her movements had been—and stood by it, not moving.

“Anni, I’m here.” Donald berated himself for stating the obvious at such an important moment, but he was at a loss to know what else to say.

“Yes,” she said eventually, “so you are.”

“I . . . are you well?”

“I’m well,” she replied coldly. “And you?”

“Yes, yes. Anni . . .” Donald sat down abruptly, feeling his legs would hold him up no longer. “I don’t know what to say.” He put his head in his hands.

“No.”

“You have to believe that I didn’t get a single one of your letters from the time you left the ship. I had no idea whether you were alive or dead. I even went to the hospital where you used to work and contacted Scotland Yard. I was desperate. In the end, I simply had to believe you no longer wanted me. And that maybe you had found somebody else in India.”

“So you married someone else?” she said in harsh, clipped tones, so unlike her usual gentle voice.

“Yes, I did,” he agreed despairingly. “If I couldn’t marry you, I didn’t really care who it was. To be blunt, at least my wife’s money could save Astbury.”

“I read in the magazine that your new wife is an heiress. I hope you’re very happy together,” she said in the same emotionless tone.

“Of course I’m not happy!”

“You looked happy in the photographs.”

“Yes, I probably did,” Donald said. “But everyone is told to smile for the cameras.”

There was a silence as Anni gazed anywhere but at him, and he simply drank her in. “What have you come to say?”

“I’ve no idea!” Donald let out a strangled laugh. “I wanted to explain that I’m sure it was my mother who intercepted the letters you sent to me.”

“Donald, even if I’d had no communication from you, I’d have waited an eternity and never married someone else. But what does it matter now anyway?”