Freddie said. ‘I’m going to take a look in the attic while the light’s still good. See what I’ve left behind from my misspent youth.’
‘Freddie?’
‘Mmm?’
‘About the crying.’ Veronica felt unable to meet his gaze. ‘I’m sorry.’
He crouched beside her and glanced down the hall towards Bertie’s study. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’ he whispered.
She could feel his presence next to her as he crouched. Affability and warmth emanated from him. She’d always wondered what it would be like when she saw him again. After five long years being married to Bertie, she’d tried not to think about Freddie. It was too painful. She had tried not to regret the way it had all ended between them. It had been for the best. She’d been devastated when she’d learnt he didn’t love her, when she’d discovered he was casually playing her off against other women. But it felt as if her heart hurt even more now he was here than it had ever done in the long absence since she’d wed Bertie.
She tried to swallow down the uprising combination of guilt and love that she always felt when she thought of Freddie. She couldn’t help it. His head was almost level with hers and she risked a glance at him. The kindness in his eyes only served to wound, not to heal. She’d missed him, more than she cared to admit, but she’d have given anything for him not to be here now.
Veronica brought herself back to the present, back to the dire situation she’d unleashed upon herself, and tried seeing things through Freddie’s eyes. To the untrained eye, Bertie’s behaviour looked relatively normal. It was the most horrifically believable act. He’d been playing it for years. Freddie would never believe her if she told him the truth.
Veronica shook her head and looked down at the floor.
‘I can’t force you,’ Freddie said gently, taking her hand. ‘But you know where I am if you want to unburden yourself. You know I’ll always listen to anything you have to say, Veronica. I’m sorry for you. And I’m sorry for Bertie. This departure, it must have hit you both very hard.’
Veronica felt a lump forming in her throat. But it wasn’t tears; it was regret. She’d cast Freddie aside for Bertie. She only had herself to blame. Veronica knew that everything she’d suffered at Bertie’s hands was her comeuppance for leaving Freddie without an explanation. She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing wrong.’
As Freddie ventured upstairs towards the attic, Anna entered the dining room and pushed the door closed behind her.
‘You’re not leaving?’ Anna asked.
‘How can I get away?’ Veronica threw her hands up in the air. ‘How can I go now? Every time I try …’ she trailed off.
Anna sighed and glanced towards the dining room door. ‘I don’t know.’
Veronica pushed out the chair next to her with her foot and gestured to Anna to sit. Anna sat gingerly on the edge, ready to leap up if Bertie entered the room. It wouldn’t do for staff to be seen looking comfortable.
The women sat in silence. Veronica looked at Anna and felt her heart surge with gratitude that she was there. Bertie had hired her on a whim in place of a regular lady’s maid, reasoning that she was untrained and therefore cheap. Over the years, the young Anna had seen and heard too much to ignore and Veronica had been in dire need of a confidante. It had been a shock to both women that they had forged a friendship.
‘The brother’s nice,’ Anna said absent-mindedly. ‘I almost had a heart attack when I caught a quick glance at him in the drive. I thought it was him at first.’ Anna pointed towards Bertie’s office.
‘Freddie’s not been back here in a very long time,’ Veronica said.
‘What will you do now?’ Anna returned to the subject that was plaguing them both.
‘I think I’m going to try to leave on the last day, when the whole village leaves. But I’m going to have to go before anyone notices. I can slip away in all the confusion of the exodus.’
Anna stood up. ‘Cutting it fine. It won’t be easy. But I can run down to the village and tell William he’s needed again. We just have to get through these last few days.’
Freddie rifled amongst the detritus in the attic and found a few things he wanted to take as mementoes but nothing that warranted the uncomfortable train journey he’d just made. Although he did whoop for joy when he found his old cricket bat. He knew he’d left it here. He was sad to see moths had ravaged his comfortable cricket jumpers. He was sure he’d left them in his old bedroom when he’d last been at Tyneham House, but Bertie had obviously seen fit to banish Freddie’s possessions to the attic. He threw them back into the dusty trunks. He’d leave them; along with everything else, except the bat. His old school exercise books and sporting manuals were of no interest to him now. The army was welcome to them. He wondered where everything else was. He suspected Bertie had had a clear-out long before he arrived. There was barely anything left. This was classic Bertie behaviour.
Whistling as he descended the stairs two at a time, he realised the house was eerily quiet. He stopped and listened, twizzling the cricket bat around in his hands as he reached the front hall. There was the faint sound of scribbling in Bertie’s office and Freddie knocked and entered.
Bertie looked up from behind his desk and glanced at the cricket bat. ‘Found something?’
Freddie looked down at his prized bat. ‘I brought two suitcases with me, thinking I’d fill them up. But there’s just this.’
He walked over to the large brown leather chesterfield settee that was situated in front of Bertie’s desk and sat down. He stretched his legs out in front of him lazily and looked around the study. Bertie watched him.
‘Sad to see the old place go?’ Freddie attempted conversation.
‘Absolutely bloody livid,’ Bertie exploded. ‘I had no idea they were going to take the house.’ Small bits of spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke.
‘It’s war, they can do what they like,’ Freddie reasoned. ‘You and I are lucky though. We’re both of us here, still alive, not dying in some foreign field.’ Freddie looked around at the shelves wondering why the account ledgers hadn’t yet been packed away. Bertie obviously really believed he could put the requisition off and hadn’t yet packed the smaller items. ‘We’ve got to make sacrifices somewhere.’
‘What sacrifice have you made exactly?’ Bertie put his fountain pen down on the table and stared at his brother square in the eye.
Freddie narrowed his eyes. I left this house, I stayed away and I didn’t fight hard enough when you stole Veronica from me. There was no point hashing all that up now. She’d made her choice and it hadn’t been him. Instead, Freddie said, ‘I got shot, remember?’
‘Oh yes, the famous bullet that put you out of the war on day one,’ Bertie said, looking down at his papers again.
Freddie shook his head disbelievingly and rubbed self-consciously at his chest. The bullet he’d taken
