The Frozen Lake: A gripping novel of family and wartime secrets

‘It doesn’t matter much in the holidays, I shall be in jodhs most of the time.’

‘You won’t, however, wear jodhpurs in the evening, nor do I expect to see you in them for meals. I shall see if any of my old dresses could be made over for you, although I fear you’re too tall.’

‘No, Grandmama, really,’ said Alix. ‘That’s too bad. You can’t ask Perdita to wear hand-me-down frocks. She’d look a perfect fright, now she’s fifteen and nearly grown-up.’

‘Fifteen is very far from being grown-up.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Perdita unwisely. ‘Look at Juliet. We’ve been doing Romeo and Juliet this term, and …’

‘I can’t think what your English mistress imagines she’s doing; it’s not a suitable play for girls of your age. Emotion is so bad for girls.’

‘If Perdita’s grown, then of course she must have new frocks,’ said her grandfather. ‘If the freeze continues, a lot of families will be up here for Christmas and into the new year, and that means parties. At least, it always did in my day. Perdita will need a long dress or two.’

‘She’s much too young for that,’ Lady Richardson said.

‘She’s too tall for anything else,’ said Sir Henry, inspecting his granddaughter with a critical eye.

Perdita was used to people talking about her as though she weren’t there, so she tucked into her lamb and green peas and asked Edwin to pass the water. Then she gave Alix a wide smile. ‘Have you got lots of blissful clothes with you? Edwin said you’d got fearfully smart last time he saw you, only I didn’t believe him. It’s ages since you were here, and then it was all tweeds bagging at the back and dull jumpers. I do love the colour of frock you’re wearing, where do you buy heavenly things like that?’

‘I’d offer to let you try all my clothes on, but you’ve grown so, they won’t fit you.’

Perdita sighed. ‘I’m too big all over, you mean. Don’t spare my feelings, I know it.’

‘It’s fortunate that Alix is here,’ said Aunt Trudie, chasing a pea around her plate. ‘She must know all about the latest fashions, and can say just what we should be wearing.’

‘Alix’s clothes would be entirely unsuitable for Perdita.’ Grandmama’s voice was sharp and Alix felt the familiar twinge of alarm come over her. Only, this time, the severe words weren’t directed at her. ‘Don’t put ideas into her head, please, Trudie. London fashions are all very well in their place, but not here.’

Grandmama hasn’t changed, Alix thought, as she waited for the maid to hand the pudding. Not a jot. Then her attention was centred on the plate placed in front of her. Chocolate pudding, wonderful Cook, serving her favourite on the first night she was back.

It was clear that Perdita liked chocolate pudding, too, but there was no need for Grandmama to be so quick with a sharp comment. ‘Not so much, Perdita, please. Chocolate is too rich for you.’

Perdita swiftly took another spoonful. Kind Aunt Trudie distracted Grandmama with a query about flowers, and she was left to consume her pudding in peace.

When she was a girl, Grandmama must have enjoyed things like chocolate, Alix mused as she savoured her pudding. She couldn’t always have been such a puritan. Family portraits hung on the walls of the dining room, and Grandmama was seated beneath a painting of herself when she was a girl, a vital beauty in a pink silk with a bustle, her hair artlessly up, her dress cut low over her white bosom, a fan in her hand. It had been painted by a French artist, and had, Grandpapa had told her, caused a scandal when it was first hung in the Academy summer exhibition.

‘It wasn’t considered at all a suitable picture of the daughter of a Master of a Cambridge college. It was a true likeness, though, that’s just how she looked the night I met her. At a ball.’

It was strange that Grandmama had never taken down that portrait of herself. No one now would recognise the hawklike woman sitting beneath it as being the girl in the painting. Life had emptied her of joy. She’d had tremendous charm, an ancient family friend had once told Alix, memory gleaming in his eyes. ‘When she was a young married woman, she had so much charm she only had to smile at a man to bring him to her side.’

Alix had never been aware of any charm. Her eyes strayed to the picture hanging on the wall at the other end of the table, a three-quarters portrait of a young man in the uniform of an army officer: Jack Richardson, killed in action in 1917. ‘You have his chin, Perdy,’ she said, nodding her head at the painting.

The silence at the table was absolute. What on earth was there in that remark to make Grandmama look like that? Was she still grieving for her youngest son, after nearly twenty years? They all knew he’d been her favourite; perhaps she would never get over it.

Later, when Perdita had gone yawning to bed, Alix and Edwin found themselves alone at last. Grandpapa was in his study, Grandmama had gone to her room, Aunt Trudie was taking the dogs out for a last run. By unspoken agreement, they headed for the billiard room. It was an old haunt of theirs, not least because it was a difficult room for eavesdroppers, being next to the study and only having one door. It was felt to be off-limits to Lipp’s snooping, although, as Edwin observed, one could be sure of nothing where she was concerned.

Alix had spent enough time in the world to know that Lipp wouldn’t be tolerated in any normal household. ‘Other people don’t let themselves be bullied by their servants,’ she told Edwin as he chalked a cue for her.

‘Other people wouldn’t employ Lipp as a maid. What a monster she’s become.’

‘Grandmama’s eyes and ears and feet.’

It was peaceful in the billiard room with its deep, leather-covered armchairs and sofas, the prints and maps on the panelled walls, the soft carpet underfoot, the subdued lighting, and the green baize surface with the red and white balls gleaming beneath the lamp suspended above the table.

Their voices were low to match their quiet surroundings. Outside the curtained windows, in a white world lit only by the sliver of a crescent moon and the chilly sparkle of winter stars, the silence was absolute; within there was only the crackling of the fire and the click of cue against ball.

‘Grandmama hates Perdy,’ Alix said at last. ‘You never told me.’

‘When you’re here most of the time, as I am, you don’t notice it. Though I was a bit taken aback by the way she treated Perdy this evening, I will admit.’

‘She’s much worse than she was with me, and that was bad enough. We have to do something. It can’t be good for Perdy to be the focus of so much dislike, she’ll grow up warped if it goes on.’

‘Perdy’s tougher than you think, or at least she seems to be. I suppose she’s developed a kind of carapace; well, you’d have to, wouldn’t you? Thank God for boarding schools, that’s all.’

‘And to think that one would live to say that!’ Edwin took up a cue and leant over the green surface of the table.

‘What is it about Jack and Grandmama?’ Alix said. Returning after an absence of three years, three years that had taken her to independence and a sense of the strength of her own judgement, she was struck by how complex a woman her grandmother was. She was also struck by the ability Grandmama had to quell and diminish each member of her family. Each living member, that was. ‘There’s some mystery there; it’s more than just years of grief.’

‘I think it’s much, much better not to open that particular can of worms, Lexy.’

‘But don’t you long to know?’

‘Why she was attached to Jack above all her other children? Not really. He was her Benjamin, and for some reason he touched her heart in a way none of the others did. Then, also, he died young, too young to be a disappointment to her, one supposes. No unsatisfactory bride brought home, no making his own way, no setting up a family of his own to take his affection away from his mother. From all I’ve ever heard, he was a wilful man, unpleasant even, judging by how disinclined the locals are to speak of him – those that remember him, that is. You must have noticed that Aunt Trudie never mentions him, and you just try talking about him to Rokeby and watch him clam up.’

‘So he remains our mysterious Uncle Jack,’ said Alix, giving a violent yawn and laying down her cue. ‘Lord, how tired I am. Off to bed, I think; I’ll leave you to turn the lights out.’ She gave her brother an affectionate kiss on his lean cheek.

‘Sleep tight, Lexy. And welcome home.’

TEN (#ulink_88fa35ee-83e7-5419-85a3-8b23f28204c0)

The Great North Road

By arriving early at his office, and working without a break for lunch, Michael wrapped up the last details of the Pegasus designs by mid-afternoon. He wished a Merry Christmas to his colleagues and to Giles Gibson, cycled back to his digs in time to collect his gear and suitcase and caught the four thirty-five train to Waterloo. He took a taxi from the station to Freddie’s flat off Marylebone High Street.

‘Just in time for dinner,’ announced his friend, stacking his cases beside his own suitcases which were already packed and waiting, together with a pile of books, in his small hallway. ‘I thought of getting tickets for a show, but I didn’t, just in case some demanding calculations made you miss your train.’

‘Waste of money buying a seat for me, the way I feel,’ Michael said, smothering a yawn. ‘I’d sleep through any performance. Where shall we dine?’

They walked to Soho, and enjoyed a leisurely Italian meal at Bertorelli’s. ‘Up early tomorrow, old thing,’ Freddie said when they got back to his flat. ‘Long drive ahead of us, and I don’t suppose the roads will be any too good when we get further north.’

So Michael was ruthlessly woken from a deep sleep at seven the next morning and sat down to a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs cooked by Freddie’s man, who came in on a daily basis.

‘Do stop looking at your watch,’ Michael complained, as Freddie checked the time yet again and refused to let him start on another piece of toast.

‘We’ve got to get on, no point in spoiling the run by getting held up this end in the rush hour.’

Freddie was a car fiend, and his big touring Bentley was his pride and joy. Since he loathed driving in a closed car, they had the roof down, and, togged up in leather jackets and helmets, with scarves around their necks, gauntlets on their hands and stout goggles over their eyes, they drove through the heavy London traffic, heading for Potter’s Bar and the Great North Road.

Despite the layers of protective clothing, they were chilled enough to be glad of a stop for coffee at Baldock. Michael had the big Thermos refilled and they were soon back in the car and on their way to Grantham.