"Camilla your father wishes to see you in his study" her mother announced as Chummy returned home, just wanting to curl up under the covers, sink into her mattress and trying to ease her aching mind. The voice came, disjointed and ghostly from the sitting room whilst her only daughter walked past.
Moments later she was standing in front of her father.
"Camilla," he started, standing straight and awkward in front of her. ""We have decided that you are better occupied at home".
"Pardon?" she asked, head shooting up after, in an almost routine, staring that the floor whilst one parent or another talked at her.
"Your mother and I wish you to be at home as there are tasks here that are capable of occupying you" he replied, annoyed she had questioned his motives. "You are to accompany your mother to the coast tomorrow for the day as she wishes to visit your great aunt Margaret. I understand this is to begin with and I further understand the Vicar requires some assistance for the Carol Concert on Thursday with dressing the Church. We have however decided as a family that only your mother and I will be attending the actual event. You are to stay here with your brother".
"Why?" Chummy asked, voice breaking, confused, scared and her face creasing into a frown.
"Do not answer me back!" he scolded. "You will stay here and you will do as I say! I will hear no more about it!" He waved his hand at her, dismissing her as she felt tears sting.
Quickly she ran upstairs, almost cannoning to the oak table at the top, and into her bedroom, suddenly not knowing what to do with herself. Sit down? Lie down? Cry in frustration?
From somewhere, her eyes lay on the dresser and a thought struck. She began to fumble with the clothing in her top drawer reaching to the back, finding that slip. It was gone. That note. Gone. She'd hidden it; safe, she thought, wrapped up from sight and now it was gone. That was it. Over. They must know and that was the reason for her sudden extraction from the Manor.
What was the address?! 43? 33? She would never be allowed to go the library to find a street map of Poplar without an escort now if there had been whispers on the grapevine; enough to cause clearly her mother, or someone her behalf, to be searching around her room. She felt violated, what little privacy she had invaded.
Raines Road? Why was she in so much of a panic that she couldn't remember a simple address?
Each drawer checked. Had she moved it and not realised, something done in her sleep almost?
"Don't be so foolish Camilla. You know perfectly well what has happened. You're secret has been rumbled".
She was quite glad she was not going to the Carol Service now. Peter would be there but she would not be allowed to peep a single word to him so perhaps it was a blessing. Laying on her bed, staring blindly at the ceiling, watching the chandelier catch the moonlight she had no strength to stop the tears that cascaded down her cheeks.
"Ted? Where are you going?" Chummy asked. It was the night of the Carol Service and she had heard her brother positively bounce down the stairs.
"Out" her brother replied sharply, throwing his overcoat around his shoulders.
"To where?" she replied, stepping out from her place in the sitting room doorway where she had tried to engage with Jane Eyre again. "You know Mater and Pa said we have to stay at home".
"You may have to say at home" Ted replied, straightening his tie in the hall mirror "but I do not. One isn't Pa's unpaid babysitter you know!"
"So where are you going?" she asked, not thinking for a second as she folded her arms that he might answer her properly.
"For a walk with that rather enticing cousin of Robbie Fitzpatrick. Georgina or Grace or something beginning with a G anyhow. Going for a quick canter around the village and see how the land lies, if you know what I mean". He winked at her.
"Gabriella" Chummy sighed not really wanting to know. Glancing at the clock in the hallway it read twenty to eight.
"I'll be back before the old ones are back don't you worry Sissy and we can tell Mummy and Daddy that we played Monopoly and ate our supper like all good schoolchildren!". He squeezed her arm and she sighed as the door closed.
What do now? Sleep? Read again? Anything to take her mind from her sudden separation and her mother's apparent duplicity. Perhaps she would read.
Chummy settled herself in the sun room, instead of being engrossed in Jane Eyre, found herself staring that the stars in the night sky above through the glass roof. Her eyes began to dip out of the lack of sleep that had plagued her these past nights until…..
What was that noise? Chummy was alone in the house, Mrs Green now having left for the night, Ted was off God knows where with some girl and she was alone.
'No just your imagination' she thought. Hill House was otherworldly enough at times without her mind taunting her. She was hearing things, of course she was. It could an animal, anything after all they were in the wilds of the Somerset countryside. Chummy settled back to her book, determined to finish those last few chapters that she had to place to one side as her duties at the Manor overtook her. She tried desperately to concentrate, eyes flashing up occasionally as her thoughts continued to insist that that noise was real.
No! That was a noise. A door creaking. Perhaps Mrs Green had forgotten something or Ted's assignation had turned sour which more likely. Chummy stood up without thinking, unconsciously taking hold of an empty vase from the sitting room, just in case. Heart pounding, the noise was coming from the kitchen and it was feet creeping across the floor. Maybe it was Mrs Green, but surely she would have turned the light on?
He saw the glint of the glass in the moonlight, back to the refrigerator, hoping it was her and not one of her brothers. Just to his side he saw her appear in the doorway recognising the simple grey dress again.
"Camilla it's only me" he whispered.
"Peter?" she replied, turning to find him almost behind her, trying to stop her heart thumping at the voice in the darkness and the inherent fear of an intruder.
"How did you get in here?!" she asked, keeping her voice low even though it was only the two of them together, knowing the back door, front door and cellar door were all firmly locked shut. Chummy tucked away the thought in the back of her mind that she was relieved to find it was only him and not a stranger. That said, though.
He produced a hair pin from his pocket. "Is that mine?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes" he replied. "I found it under my bed. It must have slipped out and I forgot to give it you back". She knew she was missing one; a habit that she counted each one as there had been far too many a time she had stabbed herself in the scalp in the middle of the night having left one in. She still had a confused look on her face though.
"I know its stereotypical but I come from the East End of London. My Dad taught me to pick a lock when I was 11" he replied with a grin, almost proud of the fact.
"Oh!" she whispered, not quite knowing what to say.
"Riley's covering for me. He turned up today and he's pretending I've gone to get some fresh air out of the Church" he offered. "He owes me a favour when I had to pretend he was asleep on the back of a truck when he was up an alley with some Dutch girl in Amsterdam". He looked up and saw her face. "Sorry" he apologised, entirely embarrassed that the words had slipped out inadvertently of their misadventures.
"It's not my business anyway" she muttered, seeing the shame cross his face. Still she thought, it wasn't as though he was up that alley with that girl. He might never have done anything like that and frankly why was she even thinking that about him that way and how he might have behaved before they knew each other?
"I just wanted to say goodbye" he said, having trekked across a field determined to find Hill House, ignoring the tightness in his chest, breathlessness and the aching knees through lack of exercise.
"We already said goodbye" she reminded him, thinking of the time in the kitchen garden just a few days before her sudden absence. "Your address, what is it?" she replied, suddenly remembering her turmoil.
"I thought I put it in the card?" Peter queried.
"You did. Mother found it. What is it?" she asked again urgently, fear mounting that they would be disturbed and not wanting him to ask any more than she had already offered over the loss of the card.
"34 Reeves Road, Poplar".
She nodded.
"Repeat it" he continued, placing his good hand on her elbow, taking a pace forward. The familiarity felt natural.
"34 Reeves Road, Poplar" she echoed.
"And?" he asked again, eyebrows raised.
"34 Reeves Road, Poplar" she said for the third time, sure she now remembered it.
"And you will write to me?" he asked, unconsciously squeezed her elbow.
"Of course, but you are going to have to go!" She exclaimed gently turning him back towards the kitchen door.
"Wait Camilla" he said, turning back, reaching up to brush a strand of hair that had crept in her haste across her forehead. They could barely see each other in the dark of the kitchen. "I know I have to go, but….."
Chummy was stunned into silence by the simple act of affection as his fingertip swept across her skin. "I know" she whispered sadly, deciding the only place to look in her melancholy was the stone floor. "But I promise I will write".
"Good" he whispered summoning up his most convincing smile. "And I am breaking it off with Jean". Peter didn't expect her to answer; he would probably have come to the same conclusion without the appearance of Auxiliary Browne. Even then though, both knew that door was closed before either truthfully realised it could be open.
She nodded, seeing him step towards her again, reveling, absorbing and ingraining in her mind the kiss that followed.
34 Reeves Road, Poplar. She didn't need to write it down again.
FIN