The Debutante (37 page)

The Underground train swayed from side to side, windows open. Rush hour was over. Cate sat alone in the front carriage, her bag on her lap. Crumpled newspapers blew
through the empty car like urban tumbleweeds. More news of Brussels and the repeal of Section 28 filled the headlines.

Cate looked out into the darkness of the tunnel. Her conversation with Alice had left her feeling hollowed out with frustration and hopelessness. She’d wanted so badly to know the truth. Now she knew and instead of making her feel calmer or resolved, it left her drained and disillusioned. Despite all her glamour and beauty, Baby was disposable.

The train rattled round a bend. Another newspaper floated down the aisle, caught in the wind. It landed in front of her. The sales had started early again this year. And that red-headed actress from
EastEnders
was getting married. Was that the first or second time for her?

Cate stared hard at the picture of the smiling, young actress. It reminded her of something; something she was so sure she’d seen somewhere but hadn’t quite registered. Opening her bag, she lifted out the shoebox. She’d had a feeling that she should take it with her, just in case. But in the end she hadn’t shown it to anyone, least of all Alice.

Taking the lid off, she unwrapped the shoes. Only this time, instead of focusing on the objects, she smoothed out the crumpled old newspaper. On one side were some advertisements—fur storage, slimming girdles and health elixirs. She turned it over.

Like a camera lens readjusting, suddenly what was vague and formless came into view.

Of course. Alice and Baby had been collecting paper that day. Until Baby didn’t come back …

How many times had she held it in her hands yet never made the connection?

The train pulled into a station.

It was a copy of
The Times,
Births and Marriages from 3 June 1941.

Midway down was a six-line entry.

‘Mr Nicholas Warburton and his new bride, the Canadian oil heiress, Pamela Van Outen, were married in a small civil ceremony in St James’s yesterday afternoon. They were joined by the bride’s parents afterwards for a luncheon at Claridge’s before flying via New York to Ontario where they will live.

The doors closed. The train sped off into the tunnel. thick and black.

It didn’t take much to change the course of a person’s life. Just a few lines in a newspaper.

Walking back to his father’s room, Jack found him awake, reading glasses on, looking through the photocopied pages. The writing case was on his lap. He looked up when Jack came in.

‘Dad.’

‘Hello,’ his father grinned, looking at him over the top of his glasses. ‘It’s been a while, son.’

‘Yes, too long, too long.’ Jack reached out, took his father’s hand. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Have you now?’ Henry gave it a squeeze. ‘So, here you are. At last.’

‘Nice place you’ve got here. Do you like it?’

‘It’ll do. And thank you. I can see you’ve brought me a little something to keep me entertained.’

‘Yes, well—’ Jack settled himself back on the corner of the bed—‘I was doing a job in Devon and came across it. Endsleigh. Do you know it?’

‘No, but I can see from this material that it has connections to the Blythe girls.’

‘That’s right.’

‘It’s a nice piece. Good-quality wood and inlay. What is it? Victorian?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you bought it for me?’

‘Actually—’ Jack felt himself blushing—‘I bought it for someone else.’

‘A woman?’ his father deduced.

‘Yes. A woman. She has a particular interest in the Blythe sisters.’

‘And you’re trying to impress her.’

Jack nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘You’ve done this before. I seem to recall a mirror some years back.’

‘Yes, well, this girl’s different.’

‘They’re all different. We’re the ones who stay the same.’

‘Trouble is, the damn thing’s locked.’

His father put down the pages and turned the box over. ‘Let’s see what we can do about that.’ He concentrated, feeling along the bottom of the box. ‘Sometimes these things have a hidden panel … How long have you been here, anyway?’

‘Not too long. I was out in the garden. Chatting to a little old woman.’

‘You’ll have to be more specific. This place is full of little old women.’

‘That’s true.’ Jack smiled. He’d obviously caught his father on a good day. ‘But this one was … I don’t know how to describe it … very unusual. She had very blue eyes and the most extraordinary way of speaking. Like someone in a Noël Coward play.’

‘Ah! Mrs Healy.’

‘Is that her name?’

Henry turned the box over on its side. ‘Was she reading a French newspaper?’

‘Yeah, that’s the one!’

‘She charms everyone. Hand me that letter opener, will you? The one on the desk.’

Jack got the letter opener and handed it to him. ‘Where is she from?’

‘No one’s really sure. She’s been here forever, it seems.’ He slipped the edge of the opener into a tiny
gap in one corner. ‘Was sent here during the war as a suspected typhoid carrier; locked in solitary confinement for years. That was before antibiotics, when people used to be quarantined. I believe she’s been diagnosed as delusional, possibly schizophrenic. Though to be honest she’s always struck me as quite lucid, if a bit affected.’

‘Are you telling me she’s been here for over fifty years? Doesn’t she have any family?’

He shook his head. ‘If she does, they don’t want to know.’

‘That’s shocking!’

‘She’s from another age, Jack. And another class. Out of sight, out of mind.’

‘But she said she was expecting someone?’ Jack got up and held the top of the case steady for him.

‘Yes, they all say that. Mrs Healy is always expecting someone. She has been for years.’

Jack watched as he jimmied the opener along, easing it gently towards the central hinge at the back. The case began to creak, then suddenly the back hinge snapped, falling away in a single piece, leaving the box unharmed.

‘How did you learn how to do that?’ he asked.

‘Old trade secret.’ Henry opened it up. ‘Hello! What’s this?’

When Cate arrived home, she put her bag down in the hallway. It slid off her shoulder, landing on the faded green carpet with a thud. She’d taken such care with the box; the objects inside. But now she simply wanted to walk away from it; to forget the whole thing.

‘Hello! Hello?’

She’d hoped Rachel would be there but she was out. The flat was empty. And not for the first time, it struck her as overcrowded, its interior too dark and and frozen in time. When she first came back from New York it had comforted her. Now it seemed too big and even faintly ridiculous for one person.

She wandered into the kitchen, opening the fridge, digging around among the leftovers, even though she wasn’t hungry. Closing it, she filled the kettle instead, moving mechanically, numbly; switching it on, though the last thing she wanted was a cup of tea. She didn’t know what she wanted, only that it wasn’t here. She couldn’t find it. And she didn’t know where to look any more.

There was a note on the kitchen table.

‘Jack rang while you were out. Left a message, on the machine, which I don’t understand—a private joke, perhaps? He just says, No more excuses, Katie.’

She stared at it.

Read it again.

The kettle boiled.

She sat down.

No more excuses.

It was written on the back of a telephone bill, two months over due.

Closing her eyes, she pressed the moment into her memory, feeling her whole body warm.

Fate could rebuild a heart as quickly as it destroyed it.

Henry took out several stacks of tightly bound letters, wrapped together with string. The paper was brittle and yellow with age, the handwriting bold and distinctive, despite the faded ink. He handed a sheaf to Jack. Some were opened, clustered in groups, and others were still sealed, as if they’d never even been posted.

Jack pushed the string back to see the addresses on the stack that remained sealed, flicking through. Every single one was addressed, to ‘Hon. Nicholas Warburton, Belmont, Mayfair, London’.

‘Good God, Dad!’

‘Yes.’ Henry stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Exactly.’

‘This is private correspondence. From the Blythe sisters.’

‘All except this one.’ He passed an unopened letter to Jack. ‘This one’s got very different handwriting.’

Jack took it, blinking in disbelief. ‘Do you realise what we’ve got here?’

‘Yes, I think I do.’ He looked at his son, his eyes alive with a gleam of excitement Jack hadn’t seen in years. ‘Question is, will that new girlfriend of yours be impressed?’

The Great House
Ontario, Can.

15 September 1941

My dearest girl,
I have not heard from you for so long and this is my final attempt to contact you. I am sending this to your sister because I have tried every other address I can think of and no one, no one I know, will tell me where you are.

I well understand that you’re disappointed in me, perhaps you hate me too much to reply and this letter is in vain, and yet I must try one more time. I never thought I’d have to write this. Please, believe me when I say it has broken me, utterly, to embark upon the actions that I have taken. If there had been any other way, I would’nt have done it. But they found me, my dear one, in an act I won’t pain you to describe. And the penalty this time would not have been avoided. I must leave the country, my love, or go to prison. And the only way was to make an arrangement with the only other woman I knew who would understand and who could take me out of the country in time.

I do not love her. There’s only one woman I’ve ever loved and that’s you. But I cannot go to jail. It’s no good—I haven’t the courage for it.

I am a man not worthy of you. I know this. I have always known it. From the very first time I saw you, weeping in that hotel in Paris, I have felt bound to you. I have never told you how I stood a little, watching you, before I approached. In all truth, I had never seen anyone so beautiful or so completely, so charmingly unaware of it. And when you began to speak and your thoughts came tumbling out in that disarming way they do, I knew without doubt that I had found my soul’s equal; my finer, more perfect self. Even though you were only a child then, it took every ounce of self-control to leave you. As it takes every ounce of self-control to leave you now.