Виктория Холт: Seven for a Secret

Meg’s eyes were misty with longing. She had been brought up in the East End of London and was proud of it.

“A bit of life, there was up there, Saturday night in the markets with all them flares on the stalls. Cockles and mussels, winkles and whelks and jellied eels. What a treat, eh? And what is there here? Tell me that.”

“There’s the fete and the choral society.”

“Don’t make me laugh! A lot of stuck-ups trying to pretend they’re what they’re not. Give me London.”

Meg liked to talk of the great city. The horse buses that could take you right up to the West End. She’d been up there at Jubilee time.

That was something. Only a nipper she was then, before she’d been such an idiot and settled for a job in the country . that was before she’d worked at Cedar Hall. Seen the Queen in her carriage, she had.

Not all that to look at, but a Queen she was . and she’d let you know it.

“Yes, we could have lived up there instead of being down here. A nice little place. Bromley by Bow, perhaps. Stepney. You could have got something dirt cheap there. But we had to come here. Lavender House. Why, even the lavender’s no better than that we used to grow in our garden in Stepney. “

When Meg yearned for London life she would enlighten me considerably.

“You’ve been with my mother a long time, Meg,” I said.

“All of fifteen years.”

“And you would have known my father.”

She was looking back to the London markets and jellied eels on a Saturday night. She drew herself away from that delectable scene with reluctance.

“He was a one,” she said, and started to laugh.

“What sort of a one, Meg?” I said.

“Well, never you mind!” Her lips turned up at the corners and I could see that she was amused. It must have been due to memories of my father.

“I could have told her, I could.”

“What could you have told?”

“It couldn’t have lasted. I said to the cook we had a cook in those days, a bit of a tartar she was and I was nothing much, kitchen maid, that was me. I said to her, ” It won’t last. He’s not the sort to settle and she’s not the sort to put up with much. “

“What did she have to put up with?”

“Him, of course. And he had to put up with her. I said to Cook, ” That won’t work,” and I was right!”

“I don’t remember him.”

“You wouldn’t have been much more than a year old when he went.”

“Where did he go?”

“With her, I suppose … the other one.”

“Don’t you think it’s time I knew?”

“I reckon you’ll know when it is.”

I knew that that morning there had been a coolness between Meg and my mother, who had said the beef was touch. Meg had retorted that if we didn’t have the best beef it was likely to be tough, to which my mother had replied that it should have been cooked a little longer. Meg was on the point of giving notice, which was her strongest weapon in these conflicts. Where would we get another Meg? It was good to have someone who had been in the family for years. As for Meg, I guessed she did not want the bother of moving. It was a threat to be used in moments of crisis: and neither of them could be sure that, if driven to extremity, the other might not take action, and either one could find herself in a position from which it would be undignified to retreat.

The trouble had been smoothed over, but Meg was still resentful; and at such times it was easier to extract information from her.

“Do you know, I’m nearly thirteen years old, Meg?” I said.

“Of course I know it.”

“I reckon I’m old enough.”

“You’ve got a sharp head on your shoulders. Miss Fred. I will say that for you. And you don’t take after her.”

I knew Meg had a certain tenderness for me. I had heard her refer to me when talking to Amy as ‘that poor mite’.

“I think I ought to know about my father,” I went on.

“Fathers,” she said, lapsing into her own past, which was a habit with her.

“They can be funny things. You get the doting sort and there’s some who are ready with the strap at the flicker of an eyelid. I had one of them. Say a word he thought out of place and he’d be unstrapping his belt and you’d be in for it. Saturday nights … well, he was fond of the liquor, he was, and when he was rolling drunk you kept out of his way. There’s fathers for you.”

“That must have been awful, Meg. Tell me about mine.”

“He was very good-looking. I will say that for him. They was a handsome pair. They used to go to these regimental balls. They’d look a picture, the two of them together.

Your mother hadn’t got that sour look then well, not all the time.

We used to go to the window and watch them get into the carriage, him in his uniform . ” Her eyes glistened and she shook her head.

“Regimental balls?” I prompted.

“Well, he was a soldier, wasn’t he? Cook used to say he was high up in the Army … an officer … Major or something. Oh, but he was a handsome fellow. He had what you call the roving eye.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, he liked looking round.”

“What at?”

She gave me a little push and I could see that she was not going to pursue that line of the conversation, so I said hastily: “What happened to him? Did he go to war?”

“Not that I know of. There wasn’t a war, was there? So he couldn’t go to it. We moved about a bit. They do in the Army. You settle in and then you’re up and off. There’s marching and bands and things like that. It was quite a life.”

“And you went with them?”

“Oh yes. I was with her before she married. A grand wedding, it was . from Cedar Hall. I can see her coming out of the church. It wasn’t the Reverend Mathers then. Now who was it?”

“Never mind. What happened?”

“They went off on their honeymoon … and then we were in quarters wherever the regiment was. Hadn’t been married more than three months when your grandfather died. And there was all that fuss about Cedar Hall being sold up and the Carters coming. Well, I could see it wasn’t going to last. He wasn’t the sort for married life. There was someone”

“You mean after he married my mother?”

“That don’t make no difference to some. They can’t help it, like.”

It was getting very interesting and I was afraid something would happen to stop the flow, that she would suddenly remember my age and that she was talking too much.

“Well, you were on the way and that made a difference too. She couldn’t go dancing around, could she?”

And then? ” I said.

“It went on. You were born but still it wasn’t right. There were rumours. She didn’t want to do anything about it. She was always the one for keeping up appearances.”

“What do you mean, Meg?”

“Well, she knew about this other one. She was jolly, she was. A bit of a flirt. Well, that suited him, didn’t it? She had a husband, though.

He caught them . in the act, you might say. There was a regular scandal. There was a divorce and I think in time he married her. And they lived happy ever after . perhaps. Your mother never got over it. If Cedars hadn’t been sold she could have gone back there and it might not have been so bad. But there wasn’t much left after the sale and debts had been paid. It was shared between her and Miss Sophie.

Miss Sophie bought that house of hers and your mother got this. She had something from your father, of course . but you see how things are. “

“He’s still alive?”

“Alive and kicking, I reckon. Your mother never got over it. She don’t talk about it. If only she could have gone back to Cedar Hall, I reckon it wouldn’t have been so bad. Now, don’t you whisper a word of this. But you asked about your father and everyone has a right to know who they are.”