One Secret Summer (42 page)

JULIA

Hayden Hall, November, 1997

The air in the little chapel at Hayden Hall was thick with the scent of lilies. The florists were putting the finishing touches
to the displays. Lady Barrington-Browne walked around with the two assistants, making sure that everything was perfect, just
so. Across the courtyard, in the bedroom where she’d stayed the previous night, Julia pulled back the curtains and looked
out of the window. The morning mist had lifted and the red and gold oak trees that lined the view all the way to the horizon
were slowly emerging into view. Through the patchy, misty sky, she could see flashes of blue. Somewhere in the distance, a
border of clouds was hovering, massing thickly. Lady Barrington-Browne, who never left anything to chance, had been listening
to the weather forecast all week. A thirty per cent possibility of rain, she’d announced cheerfully the evening before. As
a result, there were enough umbrellas on hand in the hallway of the house to shelter every single guest. Quite how or where
one got a hundred and fifty umbrellas from was anybody’s guess, but that was just the way things were done at Hayden.

She turned from the window and looked down at her dress. Her fingers trailed over the delicate roses at the waistband. It
still felt like a dream and not just because she’d never expected to get married in a place like Hayden Hall. She’d never
really expected to get married at all – and certainly not to Aaron. She thought back to the conversation she’d had with Lady
Barrington-Browne, almost a year ago.
Love, hate … practically the same thing if you ask me. I’m always mixing them up.
Was it true? She tried to remember what she’d seen in him the night he’d come
round to her office and that fragile line between love and hate had slowly and subtly been crossed. Most women looked at Aaron
and saw only the exterior – six feet two of rugged, blond good looks. Julia saw that too, was deeply attracted to it, but
it was the other, hidden stuff that was the real pull. For all his confidence and self-assured exuberance, there was a quieter,
more troubled Aaron lurking within – that was what she loved. She sometimes wondered what he saw in her. He admired her –
he’d said so often enough. When good food and wine had loosened his tongue, he’d let slip the fact that he thought her much
cleverer than him. That she’d go further than he ever would; that she was the brilliant one, not him. Listening to him, despite
the embarrassment she felt whenever someone praised her too loudly or too long, she’d experienced a deep thrill of pride.
There was no one else to share her achievements with, no matter how small. Aaron was all she had. There was a sudden lump
in her throat, and for a moment the room lurched in tears. Harvey would give her away.
And you, Dad,
she whispered to herself.
And Mum.
She had to steady herself; it was her wedding day, she kept reminding herself sternly. Not a good time to cry.

‘Julia?’ Diana’s voice interrupted her. She rapped on the door and walked in without waiting for an answer. ‘Ah, there you
are. Harvey was wondering where you’d got to. Did you have something to eat?’

Julia shook her head. ‘I’m fine. Just not … not very hungry.’

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Diana regarded her in alarm.

Julia shook her head clumsily. Her throat was thick with emotion. ‘N … nothing,’ she said, tilting her head backwards so that
the tears wouldn’t spill. Diana’s hairdresser had spent an hour doing her make-up that morning. The last thing she wanted
was to walk into the chapel on Harvey’s arm looking like a raccoon.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Diana said briskly. There was a moment’s awkwardness. ‘I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes, shall I?’
she said, turning to go. ‘I’ll send someone up to get you. Everyone’s beginning to make their way across.’ She hesitated for
a second.
‘You look lovely, Julia,’ she said, her voice suddenly gentle. She was gone before Julia could blink.

It was cool inside the chapel. As they walked slowly up the aisle, Julia was only dimly conscious of the muted sounds of conversation
and people getting to their feet. Harvey’s arm was a solid, reassuring presence. Ahead of her, turning nervously every few
seconds to check on their progress, was Aaron. She saw Dom turn and smile at her. There was a swell of music and the sound
of chatter falling away. She felt herself being passed from Harvey to Aaron as they reached the altar. The priest’s voice
broke the silence; the smooth, mellifluous baritone held everyone’s attention as the service began. Julia heard very little.
‘You may kiss the bride,’ she heard the priest say, smiling at them both indulgently. There was the brief pressure of Aaron’s
lips and then a loud burst of applause as they both turned. Through a blurry double veil of tears and lace, she could see
a few of her old school friends dabbing their eyes. In the front row, Dom’s grin threatened to split his face. To his left
sat his mother, resplendent in a glorious hat that obscured everyone on either side. She felt Aaron nudge her towards his
parents. There was a kiss on either cheek from Diana, a hug from Harvey … and then everyone came forward, crowding round.
There were a dozen people from work, various aunts and uncles and one or two others whose names she would not remember. One
of the bridesmaids tripped over her train – she was led, howling, from the chapel. The other three kept running up to touch
her dress or hide shyly behind their mothers. The photographer, a young woman with a thick wad of gum wedged somewhere at
the back of her mouth, came and went, snapping away. Julia kept catching sight of Aaron’s head as he too was passed from one
set of congratulations to another. Rafe and Maddy were there, Rafe’s blond head towering over most of the other guests. It
all unfolded dreamily in front of her; as though it were happening to someone else.

At last they were summoned from the chapel to the Great
Hall for the wedding lunch. She held Aaron’s hand tightly as they walked across the yard. No sign yet of rain, she overheard
Lady Barrington-Browne say. The gardens shimmered in the late morning sunlight. It seemed to her that she was the only one
who saw the beauty of the early winter light, the pale gold of leaves and the green grass that was slowly fading to silver.
She disappeared along with the others under the archway, smelled the damp mossy air of the short passage before emerging into
the light. Gold, silver, incense and light – that was how she would remember it always, the most important day of her life.

Across the spectacular foyer where the guests had gathered for a pre-lunch drink, Maddy watched Julia being passed from one
set of relatives to another, just as she’d been a few months earlier. Julia and Aaron’s wedding was altogether a very different
affair. Julia looked lovely, Maddy thought enviously. She was wearing a slim-fitting ivory dress and elegant heels; her dark
hair had been smoothed off her face and swept up into an sleek chignon. The high emotion of the day was caught in her normally
reserved face. Yes, she looked lovely. Maddy, on the other hand, looked terrible. She held a glass of sparkling water in her
hand. She was four months pregnant and felt like a whale. ‘I look fat, don’t I?’ she’d asked Rafe as she struggled with the
zip on her dress earlier that morning.

‘No, you don’t.’ It was Rafe’s standard response. He didn’t look up from the newspaper he was reading.

‘I
do
,’ she hissed, annoyed at his lack of interest. She was being childish but she couldn’t stop.

‘Champagne, ma’am?’ A waitress suddenly appeared at her elbow, breaking into her thoughts. Maddy looked at her – a teenager,
a tiny slip of a girl – and felt the slow burn of panic begin to set in. She had once been that slim – but not any more.

She shook her head. ‘Oh, I’d love to, honey, but I can’t.’ The girl looked at her, puzzled, but said nothing and passed on
to the next guest instead. Maddy looked around the room. Rafe was over in one corner, talking animatedly with Aaron and two
older, distinguished-looking men whom she assumed were Aaron’s colleagues. She watched Aaron and Julia exchange a private,
loving glance. No one had so much as looked in her direction. She felt out of place and out of sorts. She looked around for
the toilets. They were across the room. She put down her glass and walked towards them, passing Rafe on the way.

‘Hello, darling,’ he said, putting out a hand absently. ‘Where’re you off to?’

‘Nowhere. The toilet, I mean.’ She crossed the room quickly, her high-heeled shoes marking out a quick staccato on the parquet
flooring. She opened the door and locked it behind her. It beckoned to her – gleaming white porcelain, shiny taps, fluffy
white towels … everything she needed to make herself clean again. She tucked her hair behind her ears and knelt down. It took
her a few attempts to get started, but once she did, it was over in seconds. She leaned back on her haunches, dizzy with effort.
Her eyes were smarting and there was a soft ringing in her ears. But she felt lighter, free of the nervous worry that was
beginning to plague her. She stood up, rinsed her mouth and flushed away the evidence of her distress. It was all over. Everything
nice and calm. Everything under control. For now.

It wasn’t in her nature to be impressed by such things but now, looking around the exquisite interior of Hayden Hall, Diana
grudgingly had to admit she was impressed. With Julia. She thought back to the conversation they’d had after coming back from
Mougins in the summer. Although she shouldn’t have been surprised when Aaron announced it, the news that he and Julia were
engaged had still come as a shock. She’d barely recovered her breath when Julia followed up with the news that
they intended to have the ceremony at Hayden Hall. ‘In November,’ she’d added.

‘Hayden Hall? Are you sure?’ Diana asked her, surprised. Yes, of course she knew the girl was friendly with Dominic Barrington-Browne
… but to
that
extent?

‘Of course I’m sure,’ Julia said shortly. ‘Dom’s my best friend. It was his idea.’

Diana’s eyes narrowed. ‘Oh. Well. It’s a beautiful setting. It’s very generous of them.’

‘Very.’ Julia’s chin lifted a fraction. They’d stared at each other, but it was Diana who was forced to drop her gaze first.
She’d been forced to admit there was more to the girl than the accent that jumped out at you like a barking dog and the quiet
watchfulness with which she seemed to endure the world around her. She’d never quite grasped what it was that Aaron saw in
her – now she realised that underneath the quiet exterior there was something altogether tougher to be had. Julia was obviously
no fool; one didn’t get to Oxford on a wing and a prayer, certainly not from a background like hers. It was clearly not the
privileged upbringing that Diana’s own sons had had. But she’d never given Diana much of a chance to see beyond the prickly
defensiveness. Now Diana wondered if it hadn’t been a ruse all along. The girl was smarter and more ambitious than she’d guessed.

And now here she was, married to Aaron, her son. Diana shook her head in disbelief. She still couldn’t get over the speed
at which everything had happened. In the space of a few months, two of her boys were married. Taken from her. Just like that.
Worst of all, she hadn’t even had a chance to get to know the women they’d chosen beforehand. Maddy had been a fait accompli,
practically presented after the fact. Now Julia was, too. That only left Josh. Her stomach gave a sudden, horrid lurch. She
looked around her, almost furtively. No, Josh hadn’t come, not to this wedding either. Nor, thank God, had Rufus. It had been
over a decade since she’d seen the two of them together; she wasn’t sure she had the stomach for it, not now.

DIANA

London, Christmas Day, 1997

Diana walked around the dining table putting the finishing touches to the place settings, then stood back to admire her work.
The table was beautiful. There were sprigs of holly at each place, a huge wreath of Christmas flowers in white, red and green
at the centre; sparkling crystal wine and champagne glasses off which the light bounced and scattered in every direction;
starched white linen napkins and the beautifully embroidered tablecloth she’d received from her mother on her wedding day,
almost thirty-five years earlier. She folded her arms suddenly and ran her hands up and down them, hugging the memory to herself.
What was it her mother had said? Something about gifts often outlasting their recipients or the occasions for which they’d
been bought … exactly the sort of bizarre, straight out of left-field thing her mother could be counted upon to say. She shook
her head slightly. What a time to be thinking about her mother, she thought to herself with a frown. She hardly ever did that,
least of all at Christmas. It was one of her small triumphs to have conquered the ghost of Christmases past. Christmas in
the Pryce household had always been an unhappy time, fraught with tears and tension. There was something about the forced
jocularity of the festive season that brought out the worst in her parents and therefore in herself. If it hadn’t been for
Harvey and Rufus next door, she didn’t know what she’d have done.

There’d been that one Christmas, the worst she could remember … her mother sitting in her bedroom upstairs, drinking herself
into oblivion as quickly as possible; her father preoccupied in his surgery at the end of the road with last-minute patients,
delaying the moment when he had to come home to a drunk wife and a silent, tearful daughter. She’d gone round to the Keelers’
as soon as she could, taking with her the
single present that her mother had somehow managed to buy. She was still in her nightie, she remembered. Dot, Harvey and Rufus’s
mother, opened the door. If Dot had ever found it strange that the girl who lived next door spent more time in their home
than in her own, she never said a word. She treated Diana as if she were simply one of the family. ‘Come on in, darling,’
she’d said, giving Diana a hug. Diana could still remember the warm, faintly perfumed feel of Dot’s arms, more comforting
and familiar to her than her own mother’s. ‘Boys are upstairs, pet. Cocoa or milk?’ It was a ritual that they performed nearly
every holiday.