Page 45 of Happily Ever After
This had become our shorthand for a fashion show, when he’d had a new arrival. Hugo would try it on first, then I’d have a go, and we’d check the label for authenticity, browse the internet to see if anyone famous had worn it recently, and then finish a bottle of wine whilst Hugo slipped into something more comfortable and I quietly despaired of my life choices.
But things were different now. I actuallyhadsome life choices, courtesy of Jay, which I needed to think about, and I wanted to take Oswald’s diaries to my bed and spend an evening combing through the more salacious entries. I wasn’t actually going touseany knowledge I obtained, but if I produced the diaries later with a knowing smile and a wink, Lady Tanith would know that I knew and she may let me hang around the house a bit longer.
Just a couple of days with the diaries, that was all I wanted. Time to skim read. It would probably be all that my nerves and imagination could take but it would mean I was in a position of – no, not power, because that would imply an evil twist that just wasn’t me. I wasn’t going to use the diaries for blackmail or anything like that. After all, who was there to blackmail? Oswald and Caroline were already dead, Hugo and Jasper knew their mother had been… important to Oswald. Any revelations about that relationship that the diaries contained would surely be worth no more than a nod and a shrug? So reading the diaries would be for me. For personal satisfaction, so I would know what all this hunting around the library had been all about. Perhaps I could get to know Oswald a little better too; his enormous visage had been quite a confidante during these weeks amid the dusty tedium; it would be nice to get behind the austere stare a little.
‘Can we do it tomorrow?’ I rolled my eyes at Lady Tanith, who was sitting at the dining table with us, unusually for her. She’d clearly finished whatever she had to do earlier and was choosing to cramp our style instead. ‘I’d rather like an early night tonight, Hugo.’
‘I believe my son is requesting your company,’ Lady Tanith said stiffly. ‘And you are a guest in this house.’
‘I know what Hugo is requesting, Lady Tanith,’ I said, my voice heavy with double-meaning.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Hugo added, very quickly. I hoped he hadn’t thought I was about to dob him in. ‘Tomorrow is fine, honestly, Mother.’ He began collecting plates, noisily, trying to end the conversation.
Lady Tanith raised her eyebrows at me. She was still trying to force Hugo and me together and seemed increasingly annoyed at our lack of evident intentions for one another. Although, even if wehadhad any intentions, I liked to think we’d have been classy enough to keep them from his mother.
‘It’s a date,’ I said, which made him smile and Lady Tanith settle back into her chair with a disgruntled air.
‘Hmph,’ she snorted. Just for one second I was tempted to tell her that it was only a date in the calendar sense but I didn’t, and Hugo, sensing the worst was over, stopped clattering crockery.
‘In fact.’ I stood up. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now. Goodnight.’
Hugo returned my goodnight, with a slightly crestfallen expression on his face. He was obviously looking forward to unveiling his new purchase and my postponing the event was leaving him at a loose end, but it just reiterated my decision. I couldnotmarry Hugo. And Iparticularlycouldn’t marry him knowing that Lady Tanith would only endure me as the mother of the future heirs to Templewood. The position of power she would have over me would be unbearable, and the thought of raising children as supercilious towards me as she was, made me shudder. Although I did grin at the idea of popping babies out in very quick succession and then insisting that Lady Tanith babysit them all.Thatwould sort out her attitude.
Then I sighed. As if I’d leave any child of mine in the care of House Grim. Besides, Lady Tanith would hire nannies to ‘help out’, and then Hugo would fall in love with one of them; I’d read those books too.
As I went up to my room, preceded by The Master, who was now forcing his way into my bed most nights, where he was a great stand in for a hot water bottle so I’d stopped scooping him back out and closing the door on his whiskery face, I thought again about Jay’s offer and my alternatives.
Should I swallow anything that was left of my pride and ask Mum and Dad for the airfare to Canada and join them? They would be only too delighted if I took back everything I’d ever said about hashtag NomadicExistence, hashtag Vanlife, hashtag TooOldForThisShit. They would hand over the travelling empire to me in a few years, I could get my bus driving licence and I could carry on making TV shows about resentful locals, lack of amenities and the trials and tribulations of parking a single-decker bus in public car parks. I’d have money, as long as the TV companies stayed interested, and the whole freedom of the road movement seemed to be growing in popularity again, as early-retirers sold the bungalow and bought a camper van. Yes. I could be a cult figure, and a rich one at that.
Or, I could try to make a go of landscape gardening. I had the feeling that Jay would make an incredible teacher – a frisson crept down my spine at the thought of his fingers and that near kiss – and that I would actually enjoy learning about plants and planting conditions and how to design a garden.
Was sticking to my principles really worth starting again?
Another thought of Jay, with his direct gaze, his messy hair and those long brown legs in shorts. Ofcoursemy principles were worth it.
I got into my pyjamas, then I propped my pillows up, sorted the volumes into date order, and began reading. I started with the earliest, 1968, and read all about Caroline’s gradual slide into frailty, which seemed to be linked to arthritis and maybe some other conditions that Oswald was too delicate to mention. He also tried out some phrases he was thinking of using in his next novel – I could have told him not to bother, he seemed to be the king of the mixed metaphor and obvious description – and talked about the management of the estate in general. It was, in short, not exactly riveting stuff. There wasn’t as much of ‘Oswald’ as I’d hoped for. I wanted emotions, dreams for the future. I wanted high drama, character development and, in short,story. I hadn’t considered that the diaries of a real person, as opposed to, say,Bridget Jones, might just be a catalogue of daily events and a record of milk yields.
I read about the decisions Oswald made: redesigning the gardens, letting out more farmland, finding someone to provide help for Caroline, but nothing of the guilt he must have felt about having to do so.
The first mention of Tanith came halfway through the year. Some old friends had a ward, which I had thought a thing that only existed in fiction – they were guardians for the daughter of a cousin. She had lost both parents; her mother had died very suddenly when the girl was five, and then her father had remarried and moved to South America with his new wife. The girl, Tanith, had been left in the care of Oswald’s friend and he was now looking for a position for her.
I put the book down for a moment, my eyes burning. So Tanith had lost her mother when she was little more than a toddler? Then her father hadn’t wanted to take her with him when he moved continents? She was the product of such cold-heartedness that it made a tear plop onto the diary page. Howcouldher father have left his little girl behind? Her mother had only just died, she must have been bereft and scared and lonely. I had a sudden urge to seek out Lady Tanith and hug her, but I managed to suppress it without too much difficulty. Tanith had had a lifetime of ignoring emotion and I doubted that she’d welcome any outbursts from me.
Wasthiswhy she really wanted the diaries? Because she knew that Oswald would have laid her past bare and revealed her to be, at heart, just a terrified abandoned child, and didn’t want her own children to see what she’d been through? I guessed that being shown to have had a less-than-perfectly upper-class upbringing might let people into secrets that Tanith would rather keep buried. It was why she kept her sons close. Fear of loss must have ruled her life – no wonder losing Oswald had hit her so badly.
Oh God. Poor, poor Tanith. She daren’t have her past exposed, because she would worry that her boys might not understand. That little girl, alone and friendless and brought up by distant cousins… I wiped the back of my wrist over my eyes. Of course. It all made sense now. Those cousins had contacted Oswald, asking if he had anything for the now adult girl. Nothing too menial, a light role which would help her learn to run a household. Oswald considered her to be suitable. But he never ruminated on the possibility of giving up the estate, taking Caroline away somewhere they could be together more. He didn’t consider spending more time with his wife, or agonise on paper as to what would happen to the estate when his son Richard – who sounded a bit ineffectual and more concerned with his city friends than learning how to manage Templewood – inherited.
I wanted emotion from Oswald, outpourings of grief and anxiety! There was no narrative arc, other than that provided by the passing of the year, no character growth that I could see either. Literature had, once again, misled me. He never mused about the background of the companion he was thinking of taking on for his wife. Not one word was written about how fragile she must be, how friendless and lonely, or how much good she might bring to the household. Oswald, in short, had all the empathy of a house brick. It did not bode well for his novels.
But as I read on, the story of Templewood, Caroline and Oswald and their son still managed to absorb me, even without the personal touches I wanted. I got to the end of 1968 and laid the book down with the feeling of anticipation that I’d got used to from reading books which ended on a cliffhanger, preparing me for the excitement to come in the next-in-series. 1969. That was when Lady Tanith had come to Templewood Hall. Perhaps this was where dear Oswald switched up a gear and discovered he had Hidden Passions?
I wriggled myself more comfortably on the pillows and opened the next volume.
* * *
The birds were starting their feeble twittering complaints at the first glimmers of dawn when I put the last volume down. My eyes itched, but I hadn’t been able to stop reading. And now I needed to talk to someone.
Not Hugo, obviously. I couldn’t talk to Lady Tanith, because… because I just couldn’t, and anyway…
