Secrets of the Heart

24

Clutching her knitting-bag. Maud collared Agnes in the kitchen after breakfast. ‘Was someone here last night?’

Agnes explained that it had been Andrew.

‘Tiens. What the neighbours must think with all these men popping in and out…’ Maud peered at her. ‘You don’t look as though you enjoyed the visit.’

With an effort, Agnes continued to clear the dishes. She would have given a lot to be quiet, and to be alone. ‘To be honest, Maud, I didn’t.’

‘Oh, well, that’s that.’ Maud searched in the knitting-bag. ‘Did I tell you I wrote to Julie Andrews over a month ago? She hasn’t replied.’

Agnes deposited a crust into the bin. ‘What on earth did you write about?’

‘I wanted to know exactly what she felt when she fell in love with the Captain.’

‘Maud, Julie Andrews is not Maria von Trapp.’

Maud extracted her knitting. ‘You mustn’t be so literal, Agnes.’

Agnes placed a plate in the rack. ‘Maud, I thought you should know that Andrew asked me to marry him and I’m thinking about it.’

‘He did what? Maud almost screeched and Agnes steeled herself. ‘If that means he wants you to leave here it’s out of the question.’ She added the sly rider, ‘Your uncle would turn in his grave.’

Agnes was arrested in the act of running hot water into the sink. ‘Don’t worry. You know what I feel about the house and I suspect… I have an awful feeling that Andrew might lose the farm. If he did, living and working here might help him get over it.’

‘That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say.’ Maud brightened. ‘That gives you a clear choice. Have him if he comes here. If he won’t live here say no.’

Agnes wiped her hands and sat down opposite Maud. ‘Actually, there is another reason why I have to consider Andrew’s offer.’ Reluctantly, she confessed her pregnancy. Maud was thunderstruck and there was no trace of French in her retort. ‘Good God, that’s not what John would have meant by an heir.’

Agnes could have sworn there was a glint of satisfaction in Maud’s eyes at this latest proof of her stupidity.

‘You’ll be calling it one of those silly names – Jack, Sam, Millie – that everyone calls their children these days.’ Maud looked scared, out of her depth, triumphant and fascinated, all at the same time. Agnes traced the grain of the wood on the surface of the table and waited. A couple more seconds of further reflection had Maud modifying her position. ‘Oh, well, quite a few Campions have been born the wrong side of the blanket. Perfectly respectable ones. These days, it is perfectly respectable. Your generation don’t know how lucky they are. You indulge yourselves and keep the baby to boot.’ A thought struck her. ‘I don’t suppose this means you’ll think again about selling the house?’

Agnes put her head into her hands, retched and tried not to think about her body. ‘No, Maud.’

Maud observed the all too obvious signs and embarked: ‘I suppose you’re going to be endlessly sick and no help to anyone?’

‘Looks a bit like it. Duggie says it’ll wear off soon. I’m just taking my time, that’s all.’

Maud’s gaze drifted to the window. ‘Maria would never have allowed herself to get pregnant before marrying.’

Having recently been shown a photograph of the real Maria and the Captain, Agnes rather thought this might have been the case.

Maud picked up the abandoned knitting. ‘It will give us something to do,’ she observed.

‘Maud, did you enjoy being married?’ Agnes looked up from the shelter of her hands.

Maud sighed heavily. ‘My generation did not have any other choice.’

‘How you must have disliked having me foisted on you.’ Agnes had seen the photos of Maud standing in the front door to welcome the new arrival. Her hair was arranged in little sausage waves and she wore a shirtwaister floral frock and pearls that had long since been sold. She looked faded and middle-aged, and her expression suggested that she just wanted to get life over.

‘I did… and I didn’t. You were a lot of trouble.’

There was a lot of buried history contained in the remark and neither woman wished to dig it up. ‘About the baby -’ Agnes hazarded but Maud cut in.

‘Bea’s telephoning and I don’t know who. She’s very secretive these days.’

It struck Agnes that Maud was rattled. She went and sat down beside her. ‘Is anything wrong?’

‘Of course not.’

‘How is Freddie?’

Maud yanked at her ring. ‘I haven’t seen much of him lately. Busy, busy. Bridge and things. He has a full and interesting life but he’s very nice to me.’ There was a tiny pause. ‘Freddie’s a fine man, the best, actually.’

Agnes went in search of Bea. She walked down the kitchen passage, past the rooms whose original uses she had researched so minutely under the tuition of her uncle: one for vases, another for shoe-cleaning, another for baskets. Imagine, such luxuries of space, such opportunities to build a domain around your polishes, brushes and dusters. A maid might have felt a sovereign of the trug and the pannier. She might have enjoyed her sole discretion in arranging the silent vases and jars. She might have chosen this one for the blue delphiniums, another for the buttery rose, and that one for the lily. In its absolute autocracy, the house was fashioned around little kingdoms in which its slaves could rule.

Bea was washing clothes in the laundry room. ‘Feeling better, dear?’

‘Much.’

Bea nodded. ‘Being miserable is so flattening, isn’t it?’

Agnes let down her guard. ‘I seem to have spent a lot of time being miserable, Bea. Do you suppose Misery spots someone and says, “Aha, someone to live off for life ”?’

Bea sent her one of her looks. ‘Nothing that middle age won’t put right. I’ve discovered you must keep busy. It works.’

‘Yes, I agree.’ Agnes watched Bea’s small pink hands chafe the clothes in the suds and suddenly realized that she was washing her new bits of underwear. ‘Bea. You mustn’t wash my clothes.’

‘They’ll be nice and soft by the time I’ve finished, and you don’t have the time.’

‘But, Bea…’

Bea wrung out a white cotton bra. ‘You mustn’t take away my role. There, it looks lovely.’ The reproof was mild but effective.

‘Maria would have approved, would she?’ Agnes could not resist saying.

Bea put her head on one side. ‘Now, Agnes, you know perfectly well that Maria is far too busy singing and running up mountains to have an opinion.’

Agnes dropped a kiss on Bea’s cheek, and inhaled scrupulously clean, powdered elderly lady. ‘Please don’t think I’m trying to take away… anything.’

Bea seemed mollified. ‘I’ve told you, you’re still young, Agnes.’

‘Here, let me.’ Agnes helped her to drape the washing over the pulley. ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’

‘No, dear.’

Agnes hoisted the pulley up to the ceiling and hitched the rope around the cleat. ‘Sure?’

‘Freddie’s a great traveller,’ Bea turned the subject. ‘Intrepid, even. He’s been to Karnak and he might be going back there at Christmas. I’d love to go with him.’ She picked up a pile of laundry she had ironed earlier and pushed Agnes towards the door. ‘Enough of all that. I want to give you some hot milk. Then we must think about lunch.’

How had she managed, Agnes asked herself, to avoid so many daily acts of keeping clean, fed, of soothing relatives and disentangling their sticky demands? Occupied with work, she had missed the flow of unobtrusive existence in the background.

Dickie from the BBC phoned to say that the transmission date for the Hidden Lives programme had slipped to October. Apparently the chief honchos were not so hot on historicals ‘just at the mo’. Plus, a couple of hot alternatives had come in on the Princess’s manicurist and the leader of the opposition’s milkman.

‘Just take it on the chin, sweetie. OK?’ said Dickie.

He did not suggest a spot of lunch, which was the normal procedure, and she took it to mean that her ratings were slipping.

After lunch Agnes went to bed, and staggered down an hour later to make herself a cup of weak tea. There was no sign of life in the kitchen but someone – Bea – had washed up a single cup and saucer and placed it on the sideboard. The afternoon sunlight shone harshly on the stained wooden draining-board and made it obvious that it was rotting at the edges.

‘You’ve been there a long time,’ she informed it. ‘Hang on a bit longer.’

As she went upstairs, she heard a heated exchange coming from Maud’s bedroom. Alarmed, she knocked and went in.

Maud was sitting bolt upright on the bed, her huge eyes fixed in an expression of such fury that Agnes recoiled. ‘Get her out of here,’ Maud ground out.

Agnes wheeled around. Bea was standing by the window in her heavy winter coat, which was far too hot, her handbag crooked over her arm. ‘Are you going out, Bea?’

‘I’m waiting,’ Bea announced, nervous but confident. She was making a point of occupying the space she stood in, and Agnes suddenly perceived how Bea normally appeared shrunken in the presence of her sister.

‘I can see that. But what for?’

‘I’m waiting for Freddie.’

‘You’re going on one of your expeditions?’

‘I’m waiting for Freddie,’ said Bea, ‘because we’re eloping. I’ve just told Maud who is, as you can see, a little upset. I’ve told her there’s no need.’

Agnes was so stupefied that she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘The whole point of eloping is its secrecy.’

‘It doesn’t alter the fact. I can say a tree is a pond, but it does not change its essential condition,’ continued this new, astonishing Bea. She checked the drive outside and transferred her handbag from one arm to the other. ‘Your underwear is all ironed, Agnes. I think you’ll find it’s nice and comfy.’

Maud cried, ‘Freddie’s mine. He belongs to me. He was going to marry me.’

‘I’ve put a shepherd’s pie in the fridge and you must promise me that you will eat it.’

‘Agnes, tell her she can’t.’

Bea ignored her sister and peered through the window. ‘I can see his car,’ she said, ‘so there isn’t much time.’ She approached the bed, but not close enough to be within reach. ‘I’ve been keeping this quiet, Maud, because I didn’t want to upset you so soon after John and everything else. Or put dear Agnes in a difficult position. But Freddie…’ a clear, happy note crept into her voice ‘… he loves me and I love him in return. He’s been very lonely since Alice died and I want to look after him. That’s what I’m good at.’

Maud pushed ineffectually at her skirt. ‘Help me. Don’t just stand there.’ Agnes did as she was bidden, and as Maud was hauled unsteadily to her feet, she said, ‘Freddie can’t possibly prefer you.’

Bea’s smile was one of quiet, earned triumph. ‘But he does. I do see your point of view, Maud, and I’m sorry for your disappointment. Ah, there he is.’

‘He’ll spend the little money you’ve got.’

‘I certainly hope he does. We want to enjoy ourselves.’ Bea leaned forwards, tapped at the window-pane and mouthed, ‘Just coming.’ She turned back to the two women. ‘We’ve made such plans, you know.’

‘Freddie…’ Maud launched herself towards the door but Agnes caught her arm.

‘Maud, don’t make it worse. It’s obviously quite decided between them.’

‘She’s stolen my -’

‘No I didn’t.’ Bea kissed Agnes. ‘Do take care and…’ she gestured at her collapsed sister ‘… I hope she isn’t too difficult.’ She patted Maud’s arm. ‘I’d better say I’m sorry because I am in a way, but not enough. It’s funny how things turn out. I thought Flagge House would be home for ever, but it’s only a stop-over after all.’

Agnes followed Bea into the passage and helped her negotiate the stairs. ‘Bea, you’re walking a bit oddly. Have you got a bad hip too?’

‘Oh, that,’ said Bea, and hauled up her skirt to reveal a wad of banknotes tucked into the top of her lisle stockings. ‘A little precaution I always take.’

In comforting Maud, who would not be comforted, Agnes witnessed a rage that was terrifying, she told Andrew when she phoned him to tell him what had happened and that it would be impossible to make any decisions at the moment.

Maud knew that she had no options left. ‘What will I do?’ she sobbed, lonely, humiliated. ‘What can I do?’

When Agnes went upstairs to investigate Bea’s room, she discovered Bea’s possessions, neatly bagged up and piled by the window. Every shelf was wiped, every corner brushed. The room was immaculate – but for the large crack that appeared to have spread across the ceiling since Agnes had last been in there.