Victoria Holt: The Secret Woman

An old maid like her! In my cluttered room, the grandfather clock in the corner ticked maliciously. Old maid! Old maid! it jeered.

I was a prisoner in the Queen’s House. One day it might all be mine. Aunt Charlotte had hinted as much. “If you’re with me,” she had said significantly.

“You’ll be here! You’ll be here!” Why did I imagine the clock said these things to me? The date on the old grandfather was 1702, so he was old already. It was unfair, I thought, that an inanimate piece of furniture made by a man lived on and we had to die. My mother had lived for thirty years only, yet this clock had been on earth for more than a hundred and eighty years.

One should make the most of one’s time. Tick, tock! Tick, tock! All over the house. Time was flying past.

I did not believe I should ever have wanted to marry John Carmel, but Aunt Charlotte was not going to give me the chance to find out. Strangely enough when I thought of romance a vision of a laughing face with tiptilted eyes came to my mind. I was obsessed by the Creditons.

If the time came, I promised myself, that I wanted to marry, nothing and nobody should stop me.

Tick, tock! mocked the grandfather clock, but I was sure of this. I might be like Aunt Charlotte but she was a strong woman.

I was in the shop and on the point of fixing the notice on the door “If closed call at the Queen’s House”, when the bell over the door tinkled and Redvers Stretton came in. He stood smiling at me. “We’ve met before,” he said, “if I’m not mistaken.”

I was embarrassed to find myself coloring. “It was years ago,” I mumbled.

“You’ve grown up in the meantime. You were twelve at the time.” I was ridiculously delighted that he remembered. “Then it must be nine years ago.”

“You were informative then,” he said, and briefly he looked round the shop at the circular table inlaid with ivory, and the dainty set of Sheraton chairs and the tall slender Hepplewhite bookcase in a corner. “And you still are,” he added looking back at me.

I had recovered my calm. “I’m surprised that you remember. Our meeting was so brief.”

“But you are not easily forgotten, Miss … Miss … Miss Anna. Am I right?”

“You are. Did you come in to see something?”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps I can show you.”

“I’m looking at it now, although it’s extremely uncivil of me to use that word when describing a young lady.”

“You cannot mean that you came to see me.”

“Why not?”

“It seems such an extraordinary thing to do.”

“It seems to me perfectly reasonable.”

“But suddenly … after all these years.”

“I am a sailor. I have been very little in Langmouth since our last meeting or I should have called before.”

“Well, now you are here …”

“Should I state my business and depart? Business? Of course you are a businesswoman. I must not forget that.” He wrinkled his eyes so that they were almost closed and gazed at the Hepplewhite bookcase. “You are very direct. So I must be. I’ll confess that I did not come in to buy those chairs … or that bookcase. It was merely that as I was driving past that long red wall of yours I saw the inscription on the gate, The Queens House and I remembered our meeting. Queen Elizabeth once slept over there, I said to myself, but what is far more interesting is that Miss Anna Brett sleeps there now.”

I laughed. It was a high-pitched laugh — the laughter of happiness. I had sometimes imagined I should see him again and that it would be something like this. I was becoming speedily fascinated by him. He did not seem quite real; he was like the hero of some romantic tale. He might have stepped out of one of the tapestries. He was, I was sure, a bold adventurer who roamed the seas; he was elusive for he disappeared for long periods. He might walk out of the shop and I might not see him for years and years … not until I had become Old Miss Brett. He had that quality which Ellen would describe as “larger than life.”

I said: “For how long will you be in Langmouth?”

“I sail next week.”

“For what part of the world?”

“To Australia and the Pacific ports.”

“It sounds … wonderful.”

“Do I detect signs of the wanderlust in you, Miss Anna Brett?”

“I should love to see the world. I was born in India. I thought I should go out again but my parents died and that changed everything. I came to live here, and it looks as though this is where I shall stay.”

I was surprised at myself offering so much information for which he had not asked.

He took my hand suddenly and pretended to read my palm. “You’ll travel,” he said, “far and wide.” But he wasn’t looking at my hand; he was looking at me.

I was aware of a woman standing at the window. She was a Mrs. Jennings who often came to the Queen’s House and bought very little. She was an inveterate looker-round and an infrequent buyer. I suspected it was curiosity to get her nose into other people’s houses rather than an interest in antiques which made her visit us. Now she would have seen Redvers Stretton in the shop. Had she seen him holding my hand?

The bell tinkled and she came in.

“Oh, Miss Brett, I see you have someone here. I’ll wait.”

Such alert eyes behind her pince-nez! She would be asking whether that Miss Brett had an admirer because Redvers Stretton was in that shop with her and did not appear to be buying.

Redvers looked momentarily dismayed, then with a faint lift of the shoulders said, “Madam, I was on the point of departure.”

He bowed to me and to her, and left. I was infuriated with the woman, for all she wanted was to ask the price of the bookcase. She stroked it and commented on it and hunted for signs of woodworm merely to chatter as she did so. So Redvers Stretton from the Castle was interested in an antique. He was only home for a short time she believed. There was a wild one, very different from Mr. Rex who must be a great comfort to his mother. Redvers was another kettle of fish.

“Anyone less like a kettle of fish I never saw,” I said with asperity.

“My dear Miss Brett, a figure of speech, but that young man is by all accounts wild .”

She was warning me. But I was in no mood to be warned. I was late back at the Queen’s House and Mrs. Morton told me that Aunt Charlotte was waiting to see me. I found her peevish. She was lying on her bed; she had had a sip of laudanum to bring her relief. I was late, she reminded me, and I told her that Mrs. Jennings had been to inquire about the Hepplewhite and had kept me.

“That old busybody. She’ll never buy it.”

But she seemed satisfied, which was more than I was.

I was becoming obsessed by that man.

Two days later Aunt Charlotte announced her intention of going off to a sale. It was too good to be missed and although she was scarcely fit for it she decided to dose herself liberally and set out. She would take Mrs. Morton with her for she would need someone in attendance as she was to be away for two nights; travel for one afflicted with her infirmity in addition to the discomfort of hotel bedrooms was well-nigh intolerable. It would have been far more satisfactory if I could have accompanied her, but obviously we could not both be away … for business reasons. If that absurd Beringer had not made such a fool of herself by getting married I could have gone and Beringer have been left in charge. Aunt Charlotte disliked Miss Beringer more since her marriage even than before.

She left in due course and I continued to hope that Redvers would call in again at the shop. I wondered why he did not because he had come in for the purpose of seeing me and had seemed to take the excuse of leaving with alacrity. Why, since he had come in in the first place.