Chapter 30
30
Over the following few weeks, as the dull, cold and wet of a depressing spring stepped aside for a better-behaved summer, Olivia’s melancholy slid slowly away from her without her even noticing. The Treaty of Versailles was finally signed in the June, seven months after the end of the war, by a defeated German nation on its knees. Even Sir Hugo, with three dead sons to avenge, proclaimed the terms somewhat harsh, but it was a full stop to the war, and would hopefully allow everyone to move on and rebuild their lives. She had now blindly accepted that somehow, the wall in the tower connected her to a man living in another version of her world. Perhaps it was na?ve of her, but she needed to believe in something good, and this friendship had dragged her from her destructive introspection. It was certainly beyond rational reasoning but, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had his fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, say in his novels: ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’.
Olivia briefly wondered if there was someone she could take up to the tower at night who would hear Seth’s voice and confirm it was real. Benji was unlikely to volunteer again after the disappointment of before the war, but in the end, she realised that by exposing the truth, she would be opening them up to outside interference. What if journalists got wind of it and this precious secret was taken from her? No, that would not do at all. Seth was the only thing that had brought her any joy since Howard’s death.
She still had moments of overwhelming grief that caught her unawares, like when the memorial cross was erected in the parish church of Merriford Lode at the start of August. The Fairchild surname was chiselled into the granite three times, far more than any other family in the village, and probably the reason Sir Hugo had funded the cross almost in its entirety.
Cynthia unexpectedly gifted Olivia a small selection of pretty, leather-bound notebooks in the mistaken belief that she’d rekindled her writing. It made her feel guilty and so she picked up her pen again, knowing Seth would be pleased. She began to outline a novel during her afternoons, putting every emotion she could dredge up from her harrowing experiences and charting the doomed romance of the two lead characters. Unlike her story inspired by Major Turrell, the ending would be more realistic and art would imitate the harsh realities of life. But each evening, as soon as Seth spoke to her through the wall, she put her pen down and gave him her full attention. Not being able to see his face made it easier to be honest and lay her soul bare. He’d not chosen to share confidences with a child, but now that they were both adults, their discussions were often surprisingly frank because Seth could not see the colour in her cheeks, and nor could she see whether he was studying her in earnest or rolling his eyes at her whimsy. It didn’t matter.
‘I saw you today,’ he said, one evening as they started their night-time chatter. He didn’t sound overly pleased with the announcement.
‘Through the wall?’ She was excited for a moment. If he could see her, perhaps they could meet.
‘No, Olivia Davenport of Windy Acres, Suffolk, blessed with both parents and a sunnier disposition than you.’
‘Oh.’ His Olivia had not lost a fiancé in the war, she’d wager, and said nothing. She was finding her way back, but it would take time.
‘Your family was visiting the manor. I dint realise it was you at first. I ha’n’t seen you for years.’ There was a considered pause. ‘You’ve grown into quite the young lady.’
It hadn’t occurred to her before that he had no image of her as an adult, because she had seen him at nineteen, already a man, back in the spring of 1912, and she doubted he had changed much in the intervening years. She could remember every detail of his dark hair, green eyes and sullen face and, from the day he’d been clearing the pond in the Japanese gardens, more than she had a right to know about his body. The last time he’d seen her was in the summer of 1914, when the Davenports had visited, and she hadn’t even been sixteen. Everything about her had changed, from her height, to her body shape, even her unruly, blonde hair, which she now wore pinned up.
‘And?’ Where was this leading.? Had they held a conversation?
‘Nothing really. Watched you for ages as I was edging the formal lawns, but you dint pay me much attention. Servants are invisible to the likes of you.’ There was a definite edge of resentment to his voice. Had their differing social positions in life now been made obvious to him by the encounter that day?
Olivia felt uncomfortable. Two people making friends either side of a wall had no reason to make assumptions or pass judgement, but she didn’t want to be lumped in with Sir Hugo, who demanded that his housemaids turned to face the wall as he passed. It didn’t make him an unfeeling master, just an old-fashioned one. Servants were ranked lower than children, and were expected to be neither seen nor heard.
‘I can assure you that you weren’t invisible to me when I moved here after the death of my parents. Benji and I would often chat to you in the gardens and I even helped you in the greenhouse. There was no judgement from me.’
‘You were children. That’s different. The Fairchild boys often came into the east wing when I first started working here, stealing cakes from the kitchens and chatting to the housemaids, or popping out to the stables to see the horses and talking with the stable lads. But as they got older, the distance between staff and family became greater. Master Benjamin barely acknowledges me now.’
Perhaps Seth was correct. Benjamin was acutely aware that he would be the next master of Merriford Manor. He could no longer have a relaxed relationship with the men and women he would eventually be in charge of. The same was also true of her, she realised with regret. She’d learned the names of the housemaids when she’d first arrived, perhaps because they were often girls not much older than herself, but as time had passed, and she’d become more like a daughter to Lady Fairchild, she’d had no interest in the duties or lives of the young girls scuttling about. She still hadn’t even sought out Freda to ask about Annie Taylor. Her world and theirs so rarely overlapped.
‘Being honest, without this rum ol’ thing happening through the wall, we’d never have formed a friendship,’ he continued. ‘Gardeners have nothing in common with the daughters of gentlemen. And yet our circumstances have proved, to me at least, that you’re just a young woman and I’m just a man. The trappings of our lives, or lack of them, have let us find out about the things we have in common, without being self-conscious of how we dress, our stations in life or our wildly different expectations.’
‘I wonder what I’m like,’ she mused, almost to herself.
Growing up with her parents around must have shaped her differently to the girl she’d become since their loss. The Olivia that Seth had encountered would have lived through the same war but it would not have broken her in such a way. She would not have volunteered at the hospital and spent so much time with those damaged men. Her war would have been spent at Windy Acres.
It was also in that moment that she realised she wouldn’t have fallen for Howard because their childhoods would not have coincided in the same way. The deaths of the Fairchild boys would undoubtedly have upset her – she’d known them all her life, after all – but his would not have destroyed her. They were the children of two old school friends, who saw each other a handful of times each year and it was unlikely, although not impossible, that Howard would have fallen in love with her. And she almost certainly would not have willingly given her innocence to him in a bluebell wood. But then, she knew nothing for certain about this other version of her. Perhaps she had fallen in love. Perhaps she had lost a sweetheart.
‘We hardly embarked on a lengthy chat about the weather or took tea together, but you seemed nice enough.’ He was still smarting; she could hear it in his tone. ‘You smiled at me and commented on the colourful show of late delphiniums, which was kind. I’m rarely acknowledged by visitors to the house unless they want something.’
Pleased to hear that the Olivia he’d met had been polite, she pondered how much of who we are at our very core is always within us and how much is a result of the things we live through and the people we meet. Were we born kind or unkind, in the same way that our height, intelligence and eye colour were inherited from our parents?
She assumed that this other her had the same dreams, and would want to find love and to marry. It had been her desire since she was about seven years old, even though she knew that motherhood alone would not satisfy her. Olivia had always hankered for a bit of privateering, dragon-slaying or nation-conquering on the side. It was therefore highly likely that this other version of her would find love and lead a happy and fulfilled life. This woman knew nothing about the bond she’d shared with Howard – the annoying, attention-seeking third son of her father’s oldest friend. But she would also not know that there was an attractive, ambitious undergardener at Merriford Manor who had the potential to make her heart race and her breath catch. Because the truth suddenly hit her in that moment; she was jealous of Seth talking to Olivia Davenport.
Every day since he’d reappeared in her life, she’d counted down the minutes until she could sit one side of a brick wall in the east tower and hear his soft, Norfolk accent, because being with him made her feel safe and happy. But was there more to it than that? Was there a reason she hadn’t asked Freda about Annie Taylor? Whilst she was interested to know what happened to Tanner, she certainly didn’t want to track down his sweetheart.
Why had she not realised until that moment that he was stirring up feelings in her that she’d forgotten existed: the dry mouth when you’re near someone you want to impress, the flutter of your heart rate when someone pays you a compliment and, most ridiculous of all, the desire to make yourself look attractive when you’re in the company of that other person?
Why, she belatedly asked herself, did she arrange her hair so carefully, pinch her cheeks to give them colour, and spray herself in lavender before she retired for bed, given that Seth couldn’t see her?
Because she’d just stumbled on the answer, even if she would not admit it out loud.