Page 26 of Happily Ever After
The library door opened and Hugo put his head through the gap. ‘Ah, you’re back,’ he said, seeing me sitting. ‘I just wanted to ask…’ Then he caught sight of his mother, still frozen in an attitude of adoration more commonly seen in religious iconography. ‘Oh! Mother, you’re here too.’
‘Clearly. You sound surprised, Hugo. Thisismy house.’
I watched Hugo take a deep breath. He’d obviously nearly blurted something out that couldn’t be said in the vicinity of his mother, and was now realising that my knowing his clothing secret was going to mean a whole other level of checking before he spoke. Maybe it had just been less confusing when nobody knew and ‘keep quiet’ had been the order of the day.
‘I, err… I just wanted to ask if you’d seen The Master.’ Hugo switched mental gears and went on. ‘I didn’t want him to be still shut into your bedroom.’
As Hugo had watched the cat saunter from my room and follow us down the stairs earlier, this was quite an inspired lie. But then, I told myself, he’d probably had quite a lot of practice at lying about things.
‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘He’s here, under the table.’
‘Oh. Good. I was worried about what he might do on your bed, if he was shut in there for most of the day.’ Hugo’s eyes were wary, fixed on me with a kind of wounded begging. Did he really think I’d gone straight to his mother to pour out his cross-dressing secrets? Was that how he saw me?
‘The Master and I are going for tea now.’ Lady Tanith clicked her fingers in the region of my knees. ‘And possibly an early night. I am feeling a little overwrought just now.’ She clicked her fingers again but the cat resolutely refused to appear. He was sitting in the darkness beneath the desk, his blue eyes narrowed in a cat smile, and the tip of his tail twitching.
Tanith made a ‘tch’ sound, as though she suspected me of having the cat strapped to my leg, and, with a last moue of affection directed towards Oswald’s gigantic face, stalked out.
As soon as the door closed, Hugo let out a long breath. ‘Did you tell her?’
‘No, Hugo, ofcourseI didn’t tell her. I already said I wouldn’t tell anyone.’
There was a look on his handsome, high-cheekboned face, which told me he wasn’t entirely sure, and that he was beginning to realise that someone else knowing his secret wasn’t quite as much fun as he’d first thought. It wasn’t all whispered comparisons of fabric or my opinion of the hang of a particular gown. It was having to trust another person. And he wasn’t completely sure that he could or ever would.
At that point, I knew I could never marry Hugo.
‘I’m sorry, of course you wouldn’t.’ He said it smoothly, confidently, but just too late. I’d seen the doubt.
‘Anyway. What did you want to ask me? Now that your mother has gone?’
Hugo shook his head. That moment of fear, that second of thinking that I’d gone straight to his mother with his secret, had clearly impacted harder than he’d realised it would. ‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh. OK.’ Trying to pretend that I hadn’t seen or understood, I flipped open the first book on my pile and ran my finger down the title page to find the publication date.
Over near the portrait, Hugo sighed and draped himself over the back of a chair. ‘I didn’t realise,’ he said wearily. ‘You knowing. It means I’ve got to be more careful.’
I wanted to tell him not to worry, that his mother wouldn’t always be around. That one day she’d be gone and he’d be free to live his life wearingallof the dresses. But she was still his mother, and it seemed a bit tactless to predict her demise.
‘I’m beginning to understand Jasper a little better now,’ Hugo went on, still in full drape situation. ‘He saw freedom beckoning and he went. When I talked to you about… about the dresses and everything else, I felt a little less isolated, if you see what I mean. As though someone understood, and I’ve never had that before. I presume that my brother wanted the same understanding and he was never going to find it here.’
‘You could go too,’ I suggested.
Hugo unfurled like a weary umbrella. ‘No. You don’t get it, Andi. There isn’t another life out there waiting for me. This, Templewood, it’s the only life I know and I’m afraid I’m stuck with it. What is there for me out there in the world? I’ve no friends, no qualifications apart from rowing for my house at school, and I don’t think there are many jobs out there for men with a lot of upper body strength but no A levels.’
I couldn’t refute that, having taken the only job I’d been able to find for a woman without even upper body strength.
‘Anyway.’ Hugo’s voice was a little stronger now and he seemed to have shaken off the doldrums. ‘I wanted to ask you if you thought I should try the Elizabeth Taylor dress tonight. I mean, now you know, I don’t have to stick to the Marie outfit in case you see me, and it might be a good chance to make sure that the hem doesn’t hang too high. It’s slightly too small, but I can do what I do with the other dresses that don’t quite fit and leave the zip down. It’s fine if I put a stole or a shrug over the top so you can’t see it’s not done all the way up. I thought I might team it with the blue sandals?’
I nodded. ‘Why not? Although the heels on those might be a bit high? For the length?’
‘Mmm. Maybe I should stick to the kitten heels.’ Hugo lapsed into thought for a moment before dragging himself back to the matter in hand. ‘But, Mother being here, I’m always going to have to check, aren’t I? Before I say anything, just in case she overhears. I never had to worry before, when Icouldn’tsay anything.’
‘What did Jasper do?’ I asked, resigning myself to absolutelynevergetting this library catalogued. As soon as I felt I was making any inroads, another drama crept its way out of the woodwork. ‘To get away, I mean.’
‘I don’t… look. We don’t talk about Jasper.’
I remembered that I’d thought Jasper might have been being held captive in the house. It had been less frightening to think of him as the cause of those mysterious noises, rather than ghosts but that whole train of thought now sounded ridiculously overwrought and dramatic. There were no ghosts, only sadness and Hugo’s ephemeral longing for freedom. ‘Your mother does. And she visits him. Where does he live, the estate village? So he’s given up his birthright, but he still lives close by; it can’t really be family rift territory, surely?’
My thoughts about the mysterious Jasper were beginning to form into something uncomfortable again.
