The Hidden Years (29 page)

Never mind, she told herself grimly as she struggled with
the heavy bolt. If her unexpected visitor chose to arrive at the front
door, then he or she would just have to face the consequences.

As she pulled the door open, she blinked a little at the
sunlight and then stared in astonishment at her visitor. A tall,
bone-thin woman, with a shock of grey curly hair and skin as sunburned
as a gypsy's, stood in front of her. She must be somewhere in her late
sixties, Liz recognised, as she smiled uncertainly at her visitor and
invited her in.

'Harriet Fane,' the older woman announced, extending her
hand and, to Liz's surprise, grasping her own and subjecting it to an
almost mannish handshake. Her fingers were long and bony, the skin
toughened by outdoor work. 'From Fane Place,' her visitor continued as
she stepped into the hallway, barely giving its dilapidation a glance.
'Live there with m'brother, you know. At least, used to. Buried him
last week. Best thing, really…shot to pieces at Dunkirk.
Should have made an end of him then. That's why I'm here. Heard about
your husband. Never met him, but I know the family…'

Liz listened in amazed confusion. She had heard of Harriet
Fane, or, more properly, Lady Harriet Fane, from Ian Holmes, who had
mentioned during his last visit that her brother Lord George Fane had
recently died. The Fanes were known in the village as an eccentric
couple, whose home, Fane Place, was if anything in even more of a
dilapidated state than Cottingdean. Neither of them had ever married.
Lady Harriet, it was said, lived for her horses and her garden, a
mannish woman who spoke plainly and was inclined to be unwittingly
tactless. The vicar's wife had once told Liz that she felt vaguely
sorry for her.

'Beneath her brusque manner I think she's rather shy. They
live a very isolated life in that huge empty house, and her brother is
confined to bed, and very often in considerable pain. They've no family
to speak of, and very few friends.'

Remembering this, Liz explained a little uncomfortably to
her visitor that they were virtually living in the kitchen, and led the
way there. She was wishing that Edward weren't having his afternoon
rest, feeling that she could have coped far better with her visitor
with his support.

'Smells good.'

Liz gave the older woman a hesitant smile. Edward was a
picky eater, and had to be tempted and coaxed to eat what she
considered to be a good meal. On Monday washdays, in her aunt's
household, cold meat, bread and pickle had been the only meal
available, but this morning Liz had got up early to make a fresh batch
of bread and in the range was a chicken which she was casseroling for
Edward's dinner.

As she invited her guest to sit down and offered her a cup
of tea, Harriet Fane announced, 'Tell you why I'm here. It's about
Chivers.'

Liz waited uncertainly. She had no idea who or what
Chivers might be, and wondered if perhaps it was one of Lady Harriet's
horses who might have escaped.

'Chivers?' she repeated politely.

'Yes—George's batman. Been with him for years.
Virtually kept him alive. Best nurse a man could ever have, George
always said. Can turn his hand to anything. Got to find a place for him
now that George is gone. Heard you were looking for a man…'

Enlightenment dawned. Liz felt her heart sink. It was true
that she had finally persuaded Edward to do something about employing
someone to take over the burden of her heavier chores. Her housewifely
mind hated the deterioration and sheer wastage she saw around the house
and its grounds, especially when she knew that with a little effort, a
little ingenuity and hard work, much could be done to put things right
at a minimal cost. All it needed was a pair of willing, deft hands. She
had hoped that they might find among the men returning home from war
someone with small skill at carpentry and building work, who would not
mind turning his hand to giving her some help in the garden when
necessary, in addition to doing things such as keeping the range
supplied with wood. But what she had had in mind was a young, strong
man…not some aged retainer who would probably turn up his
nose at being expected to help with such menial tasks. And besides, the
wages they could pay would not be very generous. As she remembered this
she gave a small sigh of relief. Quickly she explained the position to
her visitor.

'Oh, that's all right,' Harriet Fane told her, confounding
her. 'Chivers don't want much. George never paid him in his life, I
dare say. No, it's more a matter of finding a suitable billet for him.
Got no one of his own. And one feels a sense of responsibility. Can't
go on for ever. Chivers is a good sort.'

This was, Liz began to recognise, a matter of
noblesse
oblige
. She hunted wildly in her mind for a suitable excuse,
but the only one she could come up with was a weak, 'Well, it's very
good of you to think of us. But it would of course be Edward—'

'Just what your husband needs, my dear. Chivers will do
him the world of good.' Harriet stood up. 'Glad that's all sorted out.
I'll send Chivers round in the morning.'

'In the morning…' Liz stared at her, and
grasped her last straw. 'But your—Chivers—he may
not want to work for us.'

'Nonsense!' Lady Harriet boomed. 'Just what he needs. He's
been moping himself to death since George went. Must go now. Horses
need feeding…'

Totally floored, Liz escorted her back through the house
and watched as she settled herself in an ancient Morris which started
with a cough, its engine rattling the rusting bodywork. After she had
gone she made herself a cup of tea and sat down. Edward would be
furious, of course, and rightly so… but nothing she had been
able to say had been able to deter her visitor.

She waited until after dinner before informing Edward of
what had happened. He was not as annoyed as she had expected, and she
realised as she watched him that there were still many aspects of the
social code which governed the class to which her husband belonged that
she still did not understand. Unlike her, Edward did not seem to think
it in the least odd that the late Lord George's batman should be passed
from one household to another like a parcel. On the contrary, he almost
seemed to be flattered that Lady Harriet should consider them a
suitable household to receive him. Almost as if in doing so she had
bestowed a favour on them. Which, she suspected, she most certainly had
not, Liz reflected grimly.

This opinion was reinforced in the morning when Lady
Harriet arrived with Chivers. He was a small, rotund man, with
baby-smooth skin and a bald head. He could have been any age from forty
to sixty, Liz reflected as she greeted him a little stiffly. She had
been up early trying to prepare a room for him, hoping all the time
that he would take one look at the household and announce that it was
impossible for him to stay.

As she led him through the front door, she saw him
studying the panelling she had been attempting to clean. The raw scrubbed wood was now badly in need of
nourishment. Linseed oil would have been an ideal method of bringing it
back to life, but who could obtain that or anything else in these times
of shortages and rationing?

She had told Edward that, if they were to retain Chivers,
then it must be his decision, and so she led her unwanted companion
through to the clean but bare library, where Edward was waiting for
him. She had lit a fire in the grate but made no other concessions to
comfort. Let him see the house the way it really was… let
him see how they actually lived.

Even so, despite her dislike of the situation she felt she
had been forced into, her aunt's training held sway, and it was
impossible for Liz not to return to the kitchen and prepare a tray of
tea, complete with some of the plain, almost sugarless biscuits that
were all she was able to make with the meagre supplies available to her.

It took Liz just three days to change her mind about
Chivers and to marvel that Harriet Fane had felt able to live without
him.

When the vicar's wife heard what had happened she came
round to Cottingdean and exclaimed enviously to Liz, 'You've got
Chivers, you lucky thing! How on earth did you manage it?'

'I didn't,' Liz assured her, and proceeded to explain.

It was left to Chivers himself to unravel the mystery of
how he came to be at Cottingdean when Liz found him on his hands and
knees, lovingly soaking the hall panelling with something that smelled
suspiciously like linseed oil.

When she said as much he told her calmly that it was,
tapping his nose mysteriously as he added that he was unable to reveal
his sources of supply for the amazing variety of things that had
suddenly begun to appear at Cottingdean. The hole in the stable roof,
which she had despaired of ever having repaired, had suddenly,
magically almost, gone, the rotting sections of the bookshelves in the
library were somehow magically exchanged for new ones…

'Chivers, you're wasted here,' Liz told him admiringly.
'You ought to be running the country.'

'Wouldn't thank you for it, madam,' he told her. He always
addressed Liz as 'madam'; he had never once, as she had originally
feared, indicated that he was aware that she had been born into a lower
class than her husband's.

'It seemed to me, when I heard about all you was doing
here, that this would be a good billet for me. And then you having the
baby put the seal on it, so to speak…'

He didn't say why, and Liz knew better than to ask.
Harriet Fane might have been a rather unlikely fairy godmother, but the
gift she had given them in the shape of Chivers was certainly
priceless…

Suddenly life was becoming a little easier. She found she
was laughing more, singing when she worked in the gardens. She found
there were days, sometimes days at a time when she no longer thought of
Kit.

Her birthday came and went, the occasion marked by a cake
baked by Chivers, and by an astounding collection of unexpected gifts.

And then, one bright sunny morning, just as she was
beginning to feel at ease with her new world, she had a second
unexpected visitor.

This one too was female, and she also knocked at the front
door. But beyond that she was as different a woman from Harriet Fane as
it was possible to be.

Liz opened the front door, unable to help admiring the
soft sheen of the polished panelling, a smile curving her mouth. Her
smile vanished into startled astonishment as she saw the woman standing
there. Tall and slim, she had a smooth, elegant chignon of dark hair.
Her face was perfectly made-up, and if there was a certain hardness
around her eyes then Liz charitably pretended not to notice it. She was
smoking a cigarette, with quick, impatient movements, and her clothes
were obviously new and expensive, as were the gold and diamond wedding
and engagement rings she was wearing.

She looked like something out of one of the magazines
which Louise Ferndean sometimes received from her married daughter:
expensive, brittle, and very, very out of place in Cottingdean's sunny
hallway.

Behind her, drawn up in the drive, was a huge shining
motor car, again obviously new, and as though she sensed Liz's
bewilderment she gestured towards it and said almost acidly, 'A gift
from my new husband. Nice, isn't it? May I come in? I'm Lillian
Chalmers, by the way.'

Liz was mystified. The other woman plainly expected her to
recognise the name.

'I was engaged to Edward's cousin, before he went and got
himself killed…'

She stubbed out her cigarette almost viciously and said
under her breath, 'Probably the best favour he ever did me…
Did you know Kit, by the way? I've been in the States for simply ages,
and I only got to know of your marriage when I came back. Mummy
mentioned it to me, and now that Lee and I are married…
Well, I thought I'd come down here before I fly out to New
York… for old times' sake, you know. Kit had some pretty
wild parties here in the old days. Not that I was invited, of course.
They weren't the sort of affairs a man invites his fiancée to,
especially when he's only marrying her for her father's
money…'

Liz felt her head spin. An odd sense of
deja vu
swept over her, an awareness of being dragged into a dark place of pain
and despair.

'I'm sorry,' she said again. 'I'm afraid…'

This woman had been engaged to Kit, had loved him, she
recognised bleakly. Had been hurt by him…

It was like being frozen into a nightmare from which there
was no escape. The other woman plainly had no idea that she herself had
ever been involved with Kit; she was not directing her poison, her
invective at her personally, Liz realised. She was simply looking for a
way of ridding herself of its taint; a kind of emotional cleansing
before turning her back on her past and walking forward into her new
life.

'I loved him, you know,' she said bitterly as she followed
Liz into the kitchen and immediately lit another cigarette. 'That was
the pure hell of it. I loved him. And for a while he allowed me to
think he loved me too… Just long enough to get me into bed
with him. To him it was all a game. He knew I'd never break it off with
him. It amused him to hurt me… to tell me that he was just
marrying me for the money.'

Liz wanted to cry out to her to stop, to tell her that she
didn't want to hear, that her words were destroying her own dreams, her
precious memories.

Chivers had taken Edward and David into the village. He
had managed to fix an old bicycle basket on to the wheelchair, which
enabled him to push them both. It would be ages before they returned.

'Even knowing what he was… I thought
afterwards, when he was dead, that I'd die too. There seemed no point
in doing anything else.' Her red-painted mouth twisted. 'I even wished
I were having his child. Ridiculous of me. That would have been the
last thing Kit would have wanted. There was a time once, when I
thought… He was furious…blamed me for
it…even though I knew nothing and he was the first.' She bit
her lip and stopped, dragging deeply on her cigarette, while Liz fought
back her own nausea. She didn't want to hear this. It was too
much… She discovered that she was shaking and cold.
Why…? Why had this had to happen? Why couldn't she have been
left in ignorance?