A Season of Secrets Read online

  Carrie tried to feel sorry about not having been with him, but she’d enjoyed herself so much she couldn’t quite manage it.

  ‘Before I came home Lady Fenton introduced me to Mr Heaton,’ she said as the cows headed up the narrow tree-lined track towards the farm buildings and the summer sky now smoked to dusk. ‘Mr Heaton is the butler. She told him I was Miss Caroline Thornton, that I was a guest of Miss Thea and Miss Olivia and that I would be at Gorton Hall every day until mid-September.’

  Instead of being impressed, Hal forgot about his bad mood and hooted with laughter.

  Carrie punched his shoulder. ‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded hotly. ‘Mr Heaton was very nice to me. Everyone was very nice to me – apart from Thea, but that was only in the beginning. And Lady Fenton is like the Good Queen in a fairy story. She’s . . .’ Carrie struggled to find words that would do Blanche Fenton justice. ‘She smells of roses, and she talked to me as if I was a grown-up. Apart from Granny, I think she’s the most special person in the whole wide world.’

  ‘You’re barmy.’ Still chuckling, Hal fastened a rusting iron gate behind them so that if the cows decided to head back to the meadow they wouldn’t get very far. ‘And you’re not the only one. My Uncle Jim says Lady Fenton isn’t right in the head, and that her having you up at Gorton every day is proof of it. I know you don’t want to go there, getting above yourself, because you told me you didn’t.’

  It was true. She had. But that had been yesterday. It had been before she’d fallen under Lady Fenton’s spell, and before she’d known she was going to be best friends with Olivia and possibly a friend of Thea’s, too. It had been before she’d sensed that, where the Fenton family was concerned, she had started on a long and very special journey.

  Chapter Two

  ‘I knew Lady Fenton would look after you,’ Ivy said, undoing Carrie’s plaits by candlelight. ‘She has a kind heart for such a young woman.’

  Carrie, kneeling with her back to her, twisted her head around. ‘Don’t young women usually have kind hearts, Granny?’ She was wearing a nightdress that had been made out of one of Ivy’s old ones, her hands cupped around a beaker of warm milk.

  Realizing she had spoken without thinking and not wanting to give Carrie a gloomy view of human nature, Ivy said hastily, ‘I’m sure they do, pet lamb. It’s just more noticeable when they are as high-born as Lady Fenton.’

  ‘You mean when they are a viscountess?’

  Ivy began brushing Carrie’s hair. ‘Lady Fenton wasn’t born a viscountess, Carrie. Her father is the Earl of Shibden and so, where the hierarchy of the peerage is concerned, she married beneath herself when she married a viscount.’

  That anyone could be regarded as having married beneath them when marrying a viscount was beyond Carrie’s understanding.

  Seeing her bewilderment, Ivy laid the brush down. ‘Let me explain, lovey. Top of the pile, after royalty, are dukes and duchesses – and there aren’t a lot of those. A degree lower in rank are marquesses and marchionesses. A degree lower still are earls, and an earl’s wife is called a countess.’

  ‘And then there are viscounts and viscountesses?’

  Ivy nodded. ‘All those ranks, including that of baron, who is a rank below viscount, are peers of the realm and sit in the House of Lords – or can if they wish. It’s something you should know, if you are going to go into service – and I’d far prefer to see you in service with Lord and Lady Fenton than working in a Bradford woollen mill or,’ she added, ‘working on a farm.’

  Carrie, sensing a slur on Hal, said defensively, ‘Hal is very clever, Granny. Even though he misses a lot of school when his dad needs him to help on the farm, he always makes up for the time he’s missed, and he’s always top of his class. Miss Calvert has told him that if he works really hard he could win a scholarship to a grammar school.’

  ‘Has she indeed? If he went to a grammar school he’d have to speak a lot differently than he does now – and how would the Crosbys be able to kit him out with suitable clothes?’

  She spoke crossly and that was because she was cross, though not with Carrie, but with Miss Calvert. As far as she was concerned, putting an unobtainable idea into a child’s head was a cruelty. Though Hal Crosby’s parents were a step up from being agricultural labourers, their tenant farm wasn’t the magnificent Home Farm, where all the fresh produce for Gorton came from, but a three-field farm on the edge of the estate that was, in Ivy’s eyes, not much more than a glorified smallholding. Hal, a year older than Carrie, would in two or three years’ time be required by his dad to work alongside him from sun-up to sun-down. Going to a grammar school was, for Hal, as remote as pigs flying.

  The next morning Jim Crosby called for Carrie in the pony-trap. It was a blisteringly hot day and although there were lots of things she wanted to play with in the playroom, she hoped that today Thea and Olivia would want to play outside.

  ‘How’s tha getting on wi’ yon posh lassies?’ Jim asked as he clicked the reins and they trundled off down the lane in the direction of the road leading out of Outhwaite towards Gorton. ‘Did you ’ave your tea wi’ ’em?’

  ‘Yes.’ Carrie only answered his second question, as she didn’t think the first one was anything to do with him and, if she had answered it, she knew her answer would have been all round the village before the day was out.

  Jim pushed a flat cap to the back of his head. He was still a young man and the hair that sprang free was as dark and as curly as Hal’s.

  ‘It’s a rum do, you goin’ every day, specially if you don’t tek tea in t’ kitchen. You can’t be a tweeny there when you’ve bin treated as a ruddy guest!’

  ‘I will be a tweeny. Granny’s promised me.’ Carrie wished Jim would keep his troubling opinions to himself and also that he wouldn’t swear. When her father had been alive, he had never sworn in her presence. Her granny wouldn’t have allowed it.

  Jim shifted the lame leg that made him unfit for army service, yet didn’t detract from gypsy-like good looks, into a more comfortable position. ‘And ’ow long is this lah-di-dahing going to carry on for?’

  They were almost out of the village now and the hedgerows were thick with the frothy white blossom of meadowsweet and late-flowering foxgloves.

  Watching a bee busily gathering pollen, Carrie said, ‘Till the harvest is in and school starts again. Granny said Lady Fenton, Miss Thea, Miss Olivia, their governess, Miss Violet and Miss Violet’s nanny will be leaving for London at the end of September and won’t be back at Gorton until Christmas.’

  ‘Did she?’ Jim gave a crack of laughter that reminded Carrie of the way Hal laughed. ‘Well, for once your granny is wrong. Her ladyship won’t be going back to London this year. Not wi’ zeppelins raining bombs dahn on it. This year Lady Fenton is going ter be keeping Miss Thea, Miss Olivia and Miss Violet safe out of harm’s way, up ’ere in God’s own country.’

  ‘God’s own country’ was the way Jim always referred to Yorkshire. It was an expression Carrie liked. It made her feel that being Yorkshire-born was something special and something to be proud of.

  As the horse continued to trot along the lane Carrie wondered if Jim was right about Lady Fenton and her children not leaving Gorton Hall at the end of September, as they usually did; and if he were, if it meant her visits there would continue right up until Christmas and possibly into the New Year.

  As the river came in sight Jim said, ‘If they do stay on, not much’ll be ’appening at Gorton, not even at Christmas.’

  ‘Why not?’ It seemed to Carrie that though Jim was only an odd-job man, he knew far more about the goings-on at Gorton than her granny did.

  ‘Because there can’t be weekend parties and such when there’s no valets or footmen to tek care o’ folk. Even the gardeners are in Flanders now, fighting for King and country.’

  ‘Doesn’t it bother you, that you aren’t with them?’ she asked curiously.

  His face darkened. ‘Have you bin listening to village talk, Carri
e Thornton?’

  Though Outhwaite had plenty to say about Jim Crosby, the only talk Carrie ever heard was from her granny, who quite often said Jim was like all Crosby men, in that he was too good-looking for his own good. To Carrie this sounded like a compliment, but she knew it wasn’t, because of the way her granny said it.

  Deciding it was safest not to tell Jim her granny’s opinion of him, she said, ‘No, I haven’t. And Granny won’t have either, because she doesn’t like gossip and, if she ever hears any, she never repeats it.’

  ‘Then she’s the only woman in Outhwaite who doesn’t.’

  He still sounded bitter and, knowing she had somehow put him in a bad mood, Carrie stayed quiet.

  Jim stayed quiet too, but as they neared the bridge he said suddenly, ‘There’s folk who don’t believe being born lame is any reason not to be fighting, but what’s a chap to do, when the War Office don’t agree wi’ ’em? They say I’d be an ’andicap to the rest o’ the lads, and though I’ve told ’em I’m as nimble as any bloke wi’ two legs the same length, they won’t wear it. They won’t tek me, and there’s an end o’ it.’

  Wishing she hadn’t asked her innocently thoughtless question, Carrie said, ‘I’m sorry, Jim. I didn’t know that if you were lame you couldn’t be a soldier.’

  Jim shrugged. He wasn’t particularly tall or broad-shouldered, but he was whippy and strong, and all his life he’d never been shy of joining in any fight that was going – as many pub landlords, clearing up after a fracas in which he had been involved, knew to their cost. That he couldn’t now take part in the biggest fight in all history, but had to stay home with elderly men – and men like Armitage, Lady Fenton’s pacifist chauffeur – was something that rankled so deeply there were times when he could hardly breathe for humiliation and disappointment.

  Aware that Jim was no longer in a talkative mood, Carrie concentrated on enjoying the novelty of riding in the pony-trap, which was far more comfortable – and far sweeter-smelling – than Hal’s father’s donkey-cart.

  To her surprise Jim didn’t take her to Gorton the way they had gone the previous morning, when he had reined in at a side-entrance close to the front of the house. Instead he approached the house from the rear, reining the horse in at a far less impressive entrance.

  ‘I don’t think this is the right door, Jim.’ Her voice was uncertain. ‘There won’t be anyone to meet me here . . .’

  ‘This is where I was told to drop you, so forget about being little-miss Lady Muck and be on your way.’

  Still feeling doubtful about it, but not seeing any other option, Carrie jumped down from the trap.

  As she did so the door flew open and Olivia, her lion’s mane of hair flying around her shoulders, came hurtling out to meet her, her eyes alight with welcome. ‘I’ve been waiting ages for you,’ she said, grabbing hold of Carrie’s hand. ‘If you and I decide now on what we want to do today, Thea will have to agree to it, because two against one always wins.’

  ‘If you say so, Olivia.’ Carrie’s voice was full of laughter as Olivia began pulling her at a run towards the house. And then, remembering she hadn’t said goodbye to Jim, she turned her head in order to do so and was rewarded by the sight of him staring after her wide-eyed.

  Knowing his bewilderment was because she hadn’t addressed Olivia as Miss Olivia, and because Olivia had so clearly not expected her to, giggles fizzed in Carrie’s throat. Not many people took Jim Crosby by surprise, and that she had done pleased her enormously.

  ‘I’d like to do something completely different today,’ Olivia said, hurrying her along a grey-carpeted corridor. ‘Something Thea and I have never done.’

  Carrie waited for her to tell her what that might be, but Olivia simply said, ‘So what shall we do, Carrie?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ For once Carrie was at a loss. ‘I don’t know what it is you’ve never done. What is it you would like to do?’

  They were climbing some stairs now. It was a narrower staircase than the royal-blue carpeted staircase, but the walls on either side were still hung with lots of different-sized paintings in heavy gilt frames.

  ‘I’d like to do what you would be doing if you weren’t here.’

  Carrie thought for a moment and then said, ‘That’s easy. I’d be with Hal and we’d be bilberry-picking or watching the vole pups.’

  ‘Who is Hal?’

  ‘Hal’s my friend.’

  As they began climbing a second flight of stairs Olivia said, ‘And what are voles?’

  Slightly breathless, Carrie said, ‘Voles are tiny furry animals with chubby faces. They live in burrows in the river-bank.’

  As they reached the top step she could see the playroom door. Remembering how long the corridors she’d walked down yesterday had been to reach it, she appreciated the less-splendid route Olivia had taken.

  Before they reached it the door flew open and Thea stepped out into the corridor, saying imperiously, ‘I’ve decided what it is we’re going to do. We’re going to do what Rozalind does. We’re going to take photographs.’

  ‘Rozalind is our cousin,’ Olivia said to Carrie. ‘She’s American and lives in New York. When she last visited she took lots and lots of photographs, and Papa rigged up a darkroom so that she could develop them.’

  ‘And I’ve found the Box Brownie she left behind.’ Thea looked very pleased with herself. ‘And so we’re going to do the same thing.’

  ‘No, we’re not.’ Olivia both looked and sounded mulish. ‘Today we’re going to do what Carrie and I want to do. Today we’re going to look for vole pups.’

  Thea sucked in her breath, her eyes flashing fire.

  Aware that a row was about to take place, Carrie said pacifyingly, ‘We could do both things. We could look for the vole pups and then photograph them. Think how special a photograph of vole pups would be – and these voles are water voles. I don’t suppose anyone has ever taken a photograph of water voles before.’

  Thea hesitated and Carrie knew she had caught her interest. Remembering the copy of The Wind in the Willows she had seen sitting on one of the playroom’s bookshelves and hoping to clinch things, she said, ‘I expect you know that Ratty in The Wind in the Willows isn’t a rat, but a water vole. Think how wonderful it would be if we took a photograph of our very own Ratty. I bet even Rozalind would be impressed.’

  ‘You’ve read The Wind in the Willows?’ Having assumed Carrie to be illiterate – or nearly so – Thea was surprised.

  ‘Yes, and I’ve read The Railway Children, Black Beauty and all of A Child’s History of England by Charles Dickens.’

  Forced into reassessing her opinion of Carrie, Thea said, ‘The voles. Where would we find them?’

  ‘There’s a burrow in the river-bank, about a quarter of a mile down from the bridge where the water is slow. It’s hard to spot, but Hal finds it straight away every time.’

  ‘Hal?’

  ‘Hal Crosby. He lives on a small farm this side of Outhwaite.’

  Olivia and Thea looked at each other and Carrie was aware there was a problem. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Is it Hal? Do you not want him to come with us?’

  ‘We’re not allowed so far from the house unaccompanied.’

  Carrie looked at Thea disbelievingly. The river was far further from her home in the village than it was from Gorton Hall, and yet she’d been playing on its banks and paddling in its shallows unaccompanied ever since she was six years old.

  ‘Does that mean we can’t go?’ Olivia’s disappointment was deep. ‘I did so want to see the voles, Thea.’

  ‘We could go if we could find anyone to take us. Tom would have been ideal, or William Beveridge.’ Thea looked towards Carrie. ‘Tom was a footman, and the last one of our footmen to enlist. William was one of the gardeners. The two of them enlisted together when the fighting began at Ypres.’

  ‘There’s Armitage,’ Olivia suggested doubtfully.

  Thea gave a rude snort. ‘Can you really see Armitage, in hi
s dove-grey uniform and gauntleted gloves, escorting us a quarter of a mile down the river? Mama would never ask it of him. She’d know how insulted he’d be.’

  And it would have to be a man who came with us,’ Olivia said to Carrie. ‘Maids would be no use on a river-bank looking for voles.’

  ‘Then let’s ask your mother if Jim Crosby can take us.’ To Carrie it was the perfect solution. ‘He’s Hal’s uncle. Hal won’t mind having Jim with us, and Jim won’t mind spending his morning down by the river.’

  Jim, who had been mucking out a horse box when he had been given his new instructions, hadn’t minded at all. Over the last few months he’d become accustomed to doing jobs that weren’t rightfully his. Stable-work was one instance. Gorton Hall’s grooms and stable-boys were nearly all now with the 7th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment and the lad who should have been mucking out the horse box had been blown to kingdom-come three weeks ago in the same battle in which Carrie’s father had lost his life.

  Being good with horses, Jim enjoyed stable work, but he’d chuckled as he left the yard, more certain than ever that the gorgeous-looking Lady Fenton was barmy. Who’d ever heard of an odd-job man being asked to nursemaid the daughters of the house on a river-bank while they took photographs? Even barmier was that they were going to do so with Carrie Thornton and, if he could find him, his nephew Hal.

  If Carrie had felt it a little odd having Jim ferrying her to Gorton and back every day, she found it downright disconcerting riding in the pony-trap alongside Thea and Olivia. It became even more disconcerting when Jim tracked Hal down and he, too, squeezed into the trap, carrying with him a distinct smell of cow, and with mud and bits of straw on his boots.

  ‘So what’s all this then?’ he asked chattily, as if riding in the Fenton pony-trap was nothing out of the ordinary. ‘Where are we jaunting to?’

  Seeing Thea and Olivia were too dumbstruck by his grubby appearance to answer him, Carrie said, ‘We want you to take us to the burrow so that we can take photographs of the vole pups.’