Victoria Holt - The Secret Woman

So he came in this morning while I was preparing his mother’s mid-morning milk and cutting her bread and butter. He sat down watching me, swinging his legs. I knew he had some exciting news to tell and that he was wondering how best to startle me with it. He could not keep it to himself: “My Papa is coming home.”

“Well, are you pleased?”

He regarded the tip of his shoe shyly. “Yes,” he said. Then: “Are you?”

“I shan’t know yet.”

“When will you know?”

“When I meet him perhaps.”

“And will you like him?”

“I daresay that will depend on whether he likes me.”

For some reason that seemed to amuse him; for he laughed aloud, but perhaps that was with pleasure. “He likes ships and the sea and sailors and me …”

“That sounds like a song,” I said.

I began to sing:

“He likes ships and the sea

And sailors and me.”

He looked at me with great admiration.

“I know something else you like,” I said.

“What? What?”

“Bread and butter.”

I put a slice on a plate and gave it to him.

While he was eating it Miss Beddoes came in looking for him. She knew well enough to come straight to my room when he was missing.

Seeing her he crammed the bread and butter into his mouth. “Edward!” she cried angrily.

“He’ll choke,” I said. “That’ll do him no good.”

“He’s no right to come in here … eating between meals.”

She was criticizing me really, not him. I just ignored her and went on cutting the bread and butter. Edward was taken away. At the door he turned and looked at me. He looked as if he was going to cry so I winked which made him laugh. It always did and he would pull his face into all sorts of contortions to try to wink back. It was flouting authority of course and wrong of me, but it stopped his tears — and after all he was a lonely little fellow.

When I took the tray in Monique was sitting up in bed in a lacy bedjacket looking at herself in a hand-mirror. She had heard the news evidently. What a difference in a woman! She was quite beautiful now.

She frowned at the tray though.

“I don’t want that.”

“Oh come,” I said, “you’ll have to be well for when the Captain comes home.”

“You know …”

“Your son has just informed me.”

“Trust you!” she said. “You know everything.”

“Not everything,” I said modestly. “But at least I know what’s good for you.”

I smiled my bright nurse’s smile. I was pleased that at last he was coming home.

May 18th. It seems incredible that I have been here such a short time. I feel I know them all so well. Lady Crediton sent for me yesterday afternoon. She wanted a report on my patient. I told her that Mrs. Stretton seemed to be progressing favorably and there was no doubt that the new diet Dr. Elgin had worked out for her was having a beneficial effect.

“You are quite comfortable, Nurse?” she asked me.

“Very comfortable, thank you, Lady Crediton.”

“Master Edward has a cold. I understand that he went fully clothed into the fountain the other day.”

I wondered who her informant was. Baines probably — I imagined Edith’s reporting to Baines and Baines carrying the news to Lady Crediton. Perhaps our misdeeds were all recorded and presented to our employer.

“He is very healthy and will soon be well. I think a day or so confined to his bedroom and he will be perfectly well again.”

“I will speak to Miss Beddoes. She really should have more control. Do you think Dr. Elgin should look at him when he calls, Nurse?”

I said I thought he might do that but it was not necessary to call him specially.

She inclined her head.

“Mrs. Stretton has had no more unfortunate attacks?”

“No. Her health has improved since the news came that her husband is on his way home.”

Lady Creditons lips hardened. I wondered what she felt about Redvers. I should know when he returned.

“The Captain will not be home until after our house party. I must ask you to take special care of your patient, Nurse. It would be most inconvenient if she were ill at such a time.”

“I shall do my best to keep her well.”

The interview was over. I felt a little shaken. I am not easily overawed; but there was something snakelike about the woman’s eyes. I pictured her smashing the champagne bottle with venom against the side of the ship and saying in a firm voice: “I name this ship The Secret Woman.” How she must have hated having that woman in the house all those years! And what a power Sir Edward must have been! No wonder the Castle was such an exciting place! What emotions must have circulated within its walls! I wonder Lady Crediton didn’t push her rival over one of the parapets or Valerie Stretton didn’t put arsenic in her ladyship’s food. There must have been ample provocation. And now they still lived under the same roof; Valerie Stretton had lost her protecting lover; and I supposed that all passions were spent. They were merely two old ladies who had reached the age when the past seemed insignificant. Or did people ever feel so?

In any case, I thought, I should not like to offend Lady Crediton. There was no fear of my doing that at the moment. She was clearly quite pleased with me.

I fancied she was less so with Miss Beddoes who even as I left the presence was making her trembling way toward it.

I walked out into the gardens. Rex was there.

He said: “You seem to enjoy our gardens, Nurse Loman. I believe you find them beautiful.”

“I find them appropriate,” I replied.

He raised his eyebrows and I went on: “Worthy of the Castle itself.”

“You are amused by us and our ways, Nurse Loman?”

“Perhaps,” I retaliated, “I am too easily amused.”

“It is a great gift. Life becomes so much more tolerable when it amuses.”

“I have always found it very tolerable.”

He laughed. “If we amuse you,” he said, “you also amuse me.”

“I am glad. I should hate to bore you or make you melancholy.”

“I could not imagine that to be possible.”

“I feel I should sweep a curtsy and say: ‘Thank you, fair sir.’”

“You’re different from so many young ladies I meet.”

“I daresay. I work for my living.”

“You are certainly a most useful member of the community. How pleasant to be both useful and decorative.”

“It is certainly pleasant to hear oneself so described.”

“Nurse Loman sounds a little stern. It doesn’t fit you. I should like to think of you as something other than Nurse Loman.”

“You are asking my Christian name, I presume. It is Chantel.”

“Chantel. How unusual … and how delightful.”

“And more suited to me than ‘Nurse’?”

“Infinitely more.”

“Chantel Spring Loman,” I told him and he wanted to know how I came by such a name. I told him about my mother’s seeing it on the tombstone and he seemed to find that very interesting. He took me along to the greenhouses and he talked to the gardeners about the blooms which would be brought into the house during the period of the house party. He asked my advice and I gave it freely. It was flattering that he passed it on to the gardeners and said “This shall be done.”

May 21st. There has been drama in the house these last two days. I think it had begun before I realized it. I noticed that Jane Goodwin, Valerie Stretton’s maid, was worried. I asked her if she were feeling well.

“I’m quite all right, Nurse,” she said.

“I thought you looked … anxious.”

“Oh no, no,” she said, and hurried away. So I knew that something was wrong. I kept thinking about what went on in the west turret and wondering how Valerie felt about her son’s return. Was she eager to see him? She must be. From all accounts he was such a fascinating fellow. His wife was madly in love with him and my dear cool Anna had been ready to fall in love with him, so surely his mother should be happy by his return. I had quickly summed up Jane as being one of those women made to serve others. I doubted she had ever had a life of her own; the center of her existence would be her mistress and friend, in this case Valerie Stretton. So if Jane were anxious I guessed something was amiss with Valerie.

It was about nine o’clock in the evening. I had given Monique her food and was reading when Jane knocked at my door.

“Oh Nurse,” she said, “do come quickly. It’s Mrs. Stretton.”

I hurried to the west turret to find Valerie Stretton lying on her bed and distorted with pain. I thought I knew what was wrong and that it was what I had suspected. I turned to Jane and said: “I want Dr. Elgin at once.”

Jane ran off. There was nothing I could do. I believed it was an attack of angina and had thought “Heart” as soon as I set eyes on her.

I bent over her. “It’ll soon pass. It’s passing now, I believe.”

She did not speak but I think she was comforted to have me there. What startled me was the manner in which she was dressed. She wore high boots; the mud on them had stained the counterpane and her hat had half-fallen from her head. What I noticed particularly was the heavy veil which would have concealed her face. She had been out. I would not have believed that possible if I had not seen her boots and the hat. Why had she gone out dressed like that at that time of the evening?

The pain was passing. Such an attack would last about half an hour, and I knew that this was not a major attack.