The Secret Woman (5 page)

“You never know,” said Ellen. “But I'm not one to like waiting for dead men's shoes.”

I listened halfheartedly to an account of the virtues of Mr. Orfey, and all the time I was thinking of the man I had met—long ago now, the son of Sir Edward and the lady's maid. I could not understand why I continued to think of him.

***

I was now eighteen.

“Finishing schools,” snapped Aunt Charlotte. “That was your mother's nonsense. And where do you think the money would come from for finishing schools? Your father's pay stopped with him and he saved nothing. Your mother saw to that. When he died I believe he was still paying off the debts she incurred. As for your future—it's clear that you have a flair for this profession. Mind you, you have a lot to learn…and one is always learning, but I think you might be fairly promising. So you'll leave school after next term and begin.”

That was what I did and when a year later Miss Beringer decided to get married, the arrangement from Aunt Charlotte's point of view was ideal. “Old fool,” said Aunt Charlotte, “At her time of life. You'd think she'd know better.” Miss Beringer might have been an old fool but her husband wasn't and, as Aunt Charlotte told me, Miss Beringer had put a little money into the business—that was the only reason why Aunt Charlotte had taken her in—and now that man was making difficulties. There were visits from lawyers which Aunt Charlotte did not like at all, and I supposed that they came to some arrangement.

It was true that I had a flair. I could go to a sale and my eyes would alight as if by magic on the most interesting pieces. Aunt Charlotte was pleased, though she rarely showed it; she stressed my errors of judgment which were becoming rarer and lightly passed over my successes which were growing more and more frequent.

In the town we became known as Old and Young Miss Brett and I knew that it was said that it was somehow not
nice
for a young girl to be involved in business; it was unfeminine and I should never find a husband. I should be another Miss Charlotte Brett in a few years' time.

And it was borne home to me that that was exactly what Aunt Charlotte wanted.

The years were passing, I was twenty-one. Aunt Charlotte had developed an unpleasant complaint which she called “rheumatics”; her limbs were becoming more and more stiff and painful, and to her fury her movements were considerably restricted.

She was the last woman to accept illness; she rebelled against it, was impatient with my suggestion that she should see a doctor and did everything she could to continue with her active life.

Her attitude was slowly changing toward me as she relied on me more. She was constantly hinting at my duty, reminding me how she had taken me in, wondering what would have become of me if when I was orphaned she had not been at hand. I became friendly with John Carmel, an antique dealer who lived in the town of Marden some ten miles inland. We had met at a sale at a manor house and become friendly. After that he was constantly calling at the Queen's House and inviting me to accompany him to sales.

We had not progressed beyond an interested friendship when his visits ceased abruptly. I was hurt and wondered why until I overheard Ellen say to Mrs. Morton, “
She
gave him the order of the boot. Oh yes, she did. I heard it all. I think it a shame. After all Miss has her life to lead. There's no reason why she should be an old maid like her.”

An old maid like her! In my cluttered room, the grandfather clock in the corner ticked maliciously. Old maid! Old maid! it jeered.

I was a prisoner in the Queen's House. One day it might all be mine. Aunt Charlotte had hinted as much. “If you're with me,” she had said significantly.

“You'll be here! You'll be here!” Why did I imagine the clock said these things to me? The date on the old grandfather was 1702, so he was old already. It was unfair, I thought, that an inanimate piece of furniture made by a man lived on and we had to die. My mother had lived for thirty years only, yet this clock had been on earth for more than a hundred and eighty years.

One should make the most of one's time. Tick, tock! Tick, tock! All over the house. Time was flying past.

I did not believe I should ever have wanted to marry John Carmel, but Aunt Charlotte was not going to give me the chance to find out. Strangely enough when I thought of romance a vision of a laughing face with tip-tilted eyes came to my mind. I was obsessed by the Creditons.

If the time came, I promised myself, that I wanted to marry, nothing and nobody should stop me.

Tick, tock! mocked the grandfather clock, but I was sure of this. I might be like Aunt Charlotte but she was a strong woman.

***

I was in the shop and on the point of fixing the notice on the door “If closed, call at the Queen's House,” when the bell over the door tinkled and Redvers Stretton came in. He stood smiling at me. “We've met before,” he said, “if I'm not mistaken.”

I was embarrassed to find myself coloring. “It was years ago,” I mumbled.

“You've grown up in the meantime. You were twelve at the time.”

I was ridiculously delighted that he remembered. “Then it must be nine years ago.”

“You were informative then,” he said, and briefly he looked round the shop at the circular table inlaid with ivory, and the dainty set of Sheraton chairs and the tall slender Hepplewhite bookcase in a corner. “And you still are,” he added, looking back at me.

I had recovered my calm. “I'm surprised that you remember. Our meeting was so brief.”

“But you are not easily forgotten, Miss…Miss…Miss Anna. Am I right?”

“You are. Did you come in to see something?”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps I can show you.”

“I'm looking at it now, although it's extremely uncivil of me to use that word when describing a young lady.”

“You cannot mean that you came to see
me
.”

“Why not?”

“It seems such an extraordinary thing to do.”

“It seems to me perfectly reasonable.”

“But suddenly…after all these years.”

“I am a sailor. I have been very little in Langmouth since our last meeting or I should have called before.”

“Well, now you are here…”

“Should I state my business and depart? Business? Of course you are a businesswoman. I must not forget that.” He wrinkled his eyes so that they were almost closed and gazed at the Hepplewhite bookcase. “You are very direct. So I must be. I'll confess that I did not come in to buy those chairs…or that bookcase. It was merely that as I was driving past that long red wall of yours, I saw the inscription on the gate,
The
Queen's House
and I remembered our meeting. Queen Elizabeth once slept over there, I said to myself, but what is far more interesting is that Miss Anna Brett sleeps there now.”

I laughed. It was a high-pitched laugh—the laughter of happiness. I had sometimes imagined I should see him again and that it would be something like this. I was becoming speedily fascinated by him. He did not seem quite real; he was like the hero of some romantic tale. He might have stepped out of one of the tapestries. He was, I was sure, a bold adventurer who roamed the seas; he was elusive for he disappeared for long periods. He might walk out of the shop and I might not see him for years and years…not until I had become Old Miss Brett. He had that quality which Ellen would describe as “larger than life.”

I said: “For how long will you be in Langmouth?”

“I sail next week.”

“For what part of the world?”

“To Australia and the Pacific ports.”

“It sounds…wonderful.”

“Do I detect signs of the wanderlust in you, Miss Anna Brett?”

“I should love to see the world. I was born in India. I thought I should go out again but my parents died and that changed everything. I came to live here, and it looks as though this is where I shall stay.”

I was surprised at myself offering so much information for which he had not asked.

He took my hand suddenly and pretended to read my palm. “You'll travel,” he said, “far and wide.” But he wasn't looking at my hand; he was looking at me.

I was aware of a woman standing at the window. She was a Mrs. Jennings who often came to the Queen's House and bought very little. She was an inveterate looker-round and an infrequent buyer. I suspected it was curiosity to get her nose into other people's houses rather than an interest in antiques which made her visit us. Now she would have seen Redvers Stretton in the shop. Had she seen him holding my hand?

The bell tinkled and she came in.

“Oh, Miss Brett, I see you have someone here. I'll wait.”

Such alert eyes behind her pince-nez! She would be asking whether that Miss Brett had an admirer because Redvers Stretton was in that shop with her and did not appear to be buying.

Redvers looked momentarily dismayed, then with a faint lift of the shoulders said, “Madam,
I
was on the point of departure.”

He bowed to me and to her, and left. I was infuriated with the woman, for all she wanted was to ask the price of the bookcase. She stroked it and commented on it and hunted for signs of woodworm merely to chatter as she did so. So Redvers Stretton from the Castle was interested in an antique. He was only home for a short time she believed. There was a wild one, very different from Mr. Rex who must be a great comfort to his mother. Redvers was another kettle of fish.

“Anyone less like a kettle of fish I never saw,” I said with asperity.

“My dear Miss Brett, a figure of speech, but that young man is by all accounts
wild
.”

She was warning me. But I was in no mood to be warned. I was late back at the Queen's House and Mrs. Morton told me that Aunt Charlotte was waiting to see me. I found her peevish. She was lying on her bed; she had had a sip of laudanum to bring her relief. I was late, she reminded me, and I told her that Mrs. Jennings had been to inquire about the Hepplewhite and had kept me.

“That old busybody. She'll never buy it.”

But she seemed satisfied, which was more than I was.

I was becoming obsessed by that man.

***

Two days later Aunt Charlotte announced her intention of going off to a sale. It was too good to be missed and although she was scarcely fit for it she decided to dose herself liberally and set out. She would take Mrs. Morton with her for she would need someone in attendance as she was to be away for two nights; travel for one afflicted with her infirmity in addition to the discomfort of hotel bedrooms was well nigh intolerable. It would have been far more satisfactory if I could have accompanied her, but obviously we could not both be away…for business reasons. If that absurd Beringer had not made such a fool of herself by getting married I could have gone and Beringer have been left in charge. Aunt Charlotte disliked Miss Beringer more since her marriage even than before.

She left in due course and I continued to hope that Redvers would call in again at the shop. I wondered why he did not because he had come in for the purpose of seeing me and had seemed to take the excuse of leaving with alacrity. Why, since he had come in in the first place.

Perhaps he had already sailed.

It was the evening of that day after Aunt Charlotte had left. I had shut up the shop, come back to the Queen's House and I was in my room when Ellen came running up to say that a gentleman had called and was asking to see me.

“What does he want?”

“To see you, miss,” Ellen smirked. “It's Captain Stretton from the Castle.”

“Captain Stretton from the Castle!” I repeated her foolishly. I looked at my reflection in the glass. I was wearing my gray merino which was not very becoming, and my hair was untidy.

“I could tell him you'll be with him in ten minutes, miss,” suggested Ellen conspiratorially. “After all you wouldn't want him to think you were rushing.”

I said rather tremulously, “Perhaps he has come to see some piece of furniture.”

Ellen said: “Yes, miss. I'll tell him.”

She was gone; and I rushed to the wardrobe I was using and took out the light navy silk which my father had brought me from Hong Kong. It had been made up by the local dressmaker and was certainly not in the latest style—for I had had it some time—but the material was lovely; it had a niching of velvet at the neck which I had always thought becoming.

So I hastily changed, straightened my hair and ran downstairs.

He took my hands in his free and easy way which might have been unconventional but which I found charming.

“Forgive my calling,” he said, “but I had to come to say good-bye.”

“Oh…you are going?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I can only wish you bon voyage.”

“Thank you. I hope you will think of me while I'm away and perhaps pray for those in peril on the sea.”

“I hope you won't need my prayers.”

“When you know me better you'll realize that I need them more than most.”

When you know me better! I should have guessed at the state of my feelings when a simple phrase like that and its implication could delight me. He was going away, but when I knew him better…

“You strike me as being very self-sufficient.”

“Do you think any of us really are that?”

“I think some of us may be.”

“You?” he asked.

“I have not yet had the time to discover.”

“You have always been cosseted?”

“Hardly that. But you have just made me realize that I have never exactly been on my own. But what a profound conversation! Won't you sit down?”

He looked round him and I laughed. “That's how I felt when I first came here. I used to sit on a chair and say to myself, Perhaps Madame de Pompadour once sat here, or Richelieu or Talleyrand.”

“Being less erudite such a thought would not occur to me.”

“Let us go into my aunt's sitting room, that is more…habitable. That is if you have time to stay for…a little while.”

“I'm sailing at seven in the morning.” He gave me that quizzical look. “I should leave before that.”

I laughed as I led the way up the stairs and through our cluttered rooms. He was interested in some of the Chinese pieces which Aunt Charlotte had recently bought. I had forgotten how she had to make room for them in her sitting room.

“Aunt Charlotte bought rather lavishly on this occasion,” I said. “They belonged to a man who had lived in China. He was a collector.” I felt I had to go on talking because I was so excited that he had come to see me. “Do you like this cabinet? We call it a chest-on-chest. The lacquer is rather fine. See how it is set with ivory and mother-of-pearl. Heaven knows what she paid for it. And I wonder when she will find a buyer.”

“How knowledgeable you are.”

“Nothing compared with my aunt. But I'm learning. It takes a lifetime though.”

“And,” he said gravely, studying me, “there are so many other things in life to learn.”

“You must be an expert on…the sea and ships.”

“I shall never be an expert on anything.”

“Who is? But where will you sit? This is perhaps more comfortable. It's a good sturdy Spanish chair.”

He was smiling. “What happened to the desk you had from the Castle?”

“My aunt sold it. I don't know who was the buyer.”

“I did not come to talk about furniture,” he said.

“No?”

“But to talk to you.”

“I don't think you'd find me very interesting…apart from all this.”

He looked round the room. “It's almost as though they're trying to make a period piece of you.”

There was a moment's silence and I was suddenly aware of all the ticking clocks.

I heard myself say almost involuntarily: “Yes, I think that is what I fear. I see myself living here, growing old, learning more and more until I know as much as Aunt Charlotte. As you say, a period piece.”

“That mustn't happen,” he said. “The present should be lived in.”