Secrets and Sins, page 1
SECRETS AND SINS
LIZZIE LANE
To my husband Dennis, who sometimes wonders if he’s living alone. That’s what it’s like being married to a teller of tales.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue
Historical Note
More from Lizzie Lane
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
1
CHRISTMAS, 1913
The main defect of the papier-mâché angel was that its nose had broken off. Lydia Miller, whose nose was perfect, eyes dark grey, and complexion as clear as northern light, decided that nobody would notice, seeing as the place for a Christmas angel was on the top of the tree.
‘Now, where are the wooden animals?’ she muttered to herself.
The wooden animals were brightly painted and, although not perfectly shaped, looked pretty in the light of the candles.
Determined they would take their usual places on the tree, she delved further into the large tin box in which they were kept, far deeper than she usually needed to go.
The tin box had her father’s initials on the lid and the address in Dresden where he’d been born. Although a bit battered on the outside, the inside of the box was divided into neat layers from the top to the bottom.
She’d never removed the bottom panel before because everything she’d wanted had been on the top. Today she found herself struggling to dislodge the final division even though the wooden animals had never been there before.
There was no real need to struggle on, but once Lydia had set her mind on doing something, she rarely gave in.
Gripping the tin layer with one hand, and forcing her fingers beneath the gap at the edge of the metal, finally produced a result.
The wooden animals, no more than three inches in size, had fallen through the gap. She picked them out one by one, placing them to one side with the angel and the other decorations. Her attention strayed to the only other item at the bottom of the box. At first glance, it looked merely to be a piece of pale-blue silk, shimmering slightly in the pale wintry light.
On reaching in and touching it, she realised the silk contained something firm.
Leaning back on her haunches, she placed the package on her lap. Once unwrapped, she found herself looking at a book – not a book to read, but a diary or journal. The cover was of burgundy leather. The initials EJM were engraved on the cover. Her mother’s initials.
Fingers shaking, she opened the cover. The pages inside were crisp and clean, unwritten on except for the first page.
This is the journal of Emily Jane Miller. Today the doctor confirmed I was expecting a child. My husband will be overjoyed. I myself am quite petrified.
Lydia felt her throat tighten. It was as if she had known she would die in childbirth. Tears sprang to Lydia’s eyes as she caressed the pages lovingly. Her mother’s journal, but with nothing written in it except for those few cryptic – and rather prophetic – words. Her mother had died giving birth to her.
She lifted her head to look at where the chill light of a December day filtered through a round window. Finding the journal had put an end to her task of seeking out Christmas decorations. Finding this journal was much more important, a small link between the mother she had never known and herself.
She reflected on the words her mother had written, wondering whether she had felt any joy at her predicament, or purely fear. There was no way of knowing and no one to ask, certainly not her father. However, there was Aunt Iris.
She hugged the journal to her breast and vowed never to part with it. Up until this moment, the only memento of her mother was a small, grainy photograph in an oval frame, given to her by Aunt Iris.
‘You’re very much like her,’ Aunt Iris had proclaimed. ‘The same grey eyes, dark lashes and glossy dark hair. You can have it,’ she’d said. ‘Just don’t let your father know that I’ve given it to you. You know how he is.’
‘Yes. I know how he is.’
Her father had never got over the death of his wife. It was sometimes as though he denied she’d ever existed. Just mentioning her name would cause him pain. He kept no likenesses of her, no mementoes of their lives together.
‘As though he’s still in mourning,’ Aunt Iris had sighed.
The small oval frame with its picture of a lovely woman who looked so like her own reflection, Lydia had hidden in her writing bureau.
She ran her fingers over the smooth leather, tooled with her mother’s monogram on the front, presuming her father had given it as a present to her mother. It struck Lydia instantly that he must never know she had it. Everything to do with her mother brought him too much sadness, even any celebration of Lydia’s birthday, which just happened to fall on Christmas Eve.
Closing the attic door behind her, she made her way down the sweeping staircase. Halfway down she stopped and looked out of the huge window that filled the landing with light. The view was good enough; the rear garden with its mix of flower beds, vegetables and fruit trees.
Her father was a good man, a good doctor and a good father. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her or talk about – with the exception of her mother, and more specifically her mother’s passing. Although she would like to, she must not mention the journal. The wound left by her mother’s death was still raw.
She carried on down the staircase of the grand old house that she and her father called home.
Doctor Eric Miller’s house in Kensington was spacious, and the furniture well cared for and imposing. Large armchairs sat like sentinels either side of the fireplace and the polished surface of the Sheraton dining table that could easily seat fourteen people reflected the sky outside the French doors that opened on to the parapet above the rear garden.
Spacious consulting rooms took up one side of the front of the house where certificates gained at universities in his native Germany lined the walls.
He had arrived in England in the early 1890s following in the wake of Emily, the love of his life, whom he had met at a lakeside hotel in Austria.
Doris the parlour maid occupied one of the attic rooms at the very top of the house and Mrs Trinder the cook occupied the other. Discarded trunks, chests and furniture were stored in the attic space at the rear of the house, where the eaves swept low, diminishing the height of the attic ceiling.
The housekeeper Mrs Gander had a room on the first floor at the opposite end of the house to that occupied by Doctor Miller and Lydia. A locked door separated her realm from that of the family and was reached by the back stairs that went on up to the attic. It was obvious to all including Doctor Miller that Mrs Gander was in love with her employer. Locking the door that separated them had been his idea.
It was not a large staff, but the Millers were comfortably off and the doctor was ambitious. He lived and breathed the medical profession, and was pleased when his daughter decided to become a nurse. He would of course have preferred her to become a doctor, but Lydia had not attended a suitable university. Women did not become doctors unless they were exceptionally well educated.
With the journal tucked under her arm, Lydia hurried along to her room where the walls were duck egg blue, the curtains white and scattered with daisies. Soft muslin drapes rather than heavy lace gave her privacy from the outside world during daylight hours.
She sped quickly to her writing bureau, unlocked it and hid the journal behind a secret panel that sprang open when she pressed an inlaid flower. The small cavity was just big enough to hold the journal as well as the picture in the oval frame. Her father would never know that she had it.
With something akin to reverence, she shut the bureau lid.
My mother’s journal, she thought, laying her hands flat on the glossy walnut surface of the panel. I actually have my mother’s journal.
The sudden decision to tell her father that she had found it flashed into her mind. He knew nothing about the photograph Aunt Iris had given her, but the journal was not a likeness; it was just a thing.
With that in mind, she breezed off down the stairs. At this time of the day he would be in his study completing medical notes of the patients he’d seen that morning.
Perhaps she might indeed have told him about what she had found if she hadn’t heard excited voices coming from the front parlour.
‘Will you look at the monstrous thing? Rumbling and spitting like a train without r
Lydia stopped at the sound of Mrs Gander’s voice and headed to the parlour instead, curious as to what could possibly be so monstrous.
The smell of freshly applied beeswax polish and lavender from the muslin bag hanging from Mrs Gander’s waist greeted her.
The housekeeper was standing with her hands on her hips, her elbows forming sharp angles. Thin as a stick and as tall as a church spire, she wore a pinched look on her face that was made more squashed by the ties of an old-fashioned lace-trimmed cap fastened in a big bow beneath her chin.
Doris the parlour maid was with her, peering out of the window from behind the thick lace curtain. A feather duster poked out from beneath her arm and her large backside was stuck out behind her.
Mrs Gander was first to notice Lydia, jerking upright like a wooden doll. ‘Oh, Miss Lydia. You startled me.’
Doris heard and let the curtain drop, pretending to dust the window ledge before moving aside.
Curious to see what all the fuss was about, Lydia took her place at the window and looked out. Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Oh, my word!’
The car’s burgundy bodywork gleamed almost as much as the brass headlights perched like birds of prey on either side of the windscreen.
‘It’s got a roof,’ she murmured in a voice full of wonder. ‘How splendid! Whose motor car is it?’
‘It belongs to Sir Avis Ravening. It’s been sent to fetch your father,’ declared Doris. She said it imperiously whilst flicking at pretend dust and sweeping away a scuttling house spider.
Lydia took one more look at the car before heading for her father’s study.
Her father was closing the study door behind him. Mrs Gander had gone ahead of Lydia, holding his hat, scarf and Gladstone bag as he shrugged himself into his coat.
‘Is it true?’ she asked, breathless with excitement. ‘Are you going to ride in the motor car?’
He looked into the striking face of his daughter, wincing because he could see so much of Emily in her. He coughed as though clearing his throat. The loss of his wife cut deeply at this time of year.
‘The prime purpose of the motor car is to take me to the man who owns it. Sir Avis Ravening is getting on in years and not feeling too good. He’s also very rich and very modern minded – a little eccentric some say – to the extent that he sold off his horses and carriages and bought one of the very first motor cars. I believe this one outside is his third.’
‘It’s a fine car. Does he live far away?’ Lydia asked.
‘Belgravia.’
‘Will it take long to get there?’
He shook his head as he attempted to sidestep his daughter and reach for the door. ‘I’m not sure. Not too long I think.’
‘Quicker than by carriage?’
‘So I am told, but noisier. A bit smellier too.’
When Mrs Gander opened the front door, Lydia took the opportunity to peer at the beast waiting outside.
‘It smells dreadful,’ she said wrinkling her nose. ‘Not so nice as a horse. And it is noisy. Still, it looks like fun.’
‘I don’t like it,’ said Mrs Gander. ‘It’s shaking the windows enough to make them fall out of their frames.’ She shook her head as if she were as shaken as the windows.
Lydia’s father laughed at his housekeeper’s comment. ‘If that happens I shall add a little extra to my bill to cover the cost of replacing them.’
Lydia dogged his footsteps all the way to the front door. ‘Is Sir Avis very ill?’
‘I won’t know that until I get there.’
‘Do you think it advisable for a trainee nurse to be in attendance?’
Eric couldn’t help grinning. His daughter certainly had a way of getting round him.
‘Do you by chance happen to know any?’
‘She comes highly recommended,’ said Lydia brightly. ‘And she speaks German. Just like her father, the doctor.’
‘Does she now?’ said her father, still smiling while in the process of donning his hat.
‘And she’d love a ride in a motor car. She’s never been in one before.’
He looked down into the dark grey eyes. His face was serious, his voice a dark brown timbre.
‘They frighten some people.’
‘They don’t frighten me,’ she said with a confident jerk of her chin. ‘I think they’re going to replace horses, so we might as well get used to them. Don’t you agree?’
‘Wait and see.’
He was no prophet, but even he could see that the streets of London were changing. Electric trams running on rails had already replaced those pulled by horses and people who could were buying horseless carriages.
Lydia had inherited the creamy skin, dark grey eyes and brandy brown hair of her mother. She’d also inherited the same stubborn streak, the same laugh, the same liveliness. When she wanted something, she persisted until she got it. At this moment, she was determined to have a ride in the motor car.
‘I’ve never been in a motor car,’ she repeated.
The words hung in the air, pleading without really asking. Those dark grey eyes looked up at him, willing him to say yes. Her voice was as pure as silver.
Eric felt something inside crack open. Suddenly he wanted to indulge her and the black mood that usually descended on him at this time of year receded. He couldn’t control the twitching at the corners of his mouth.
Lydia was astute enough to sense he was weakening. Now, she decided, was the time to persist.
‘I needn’t accompany you into the house. I could sit outside and wait in the car; or on the pavement if I have to.’
‘You would stay shivering in the cold outside?’
She tossed her head so that her hair fell exactly as her mother’s in the picture Aunt Iris had given her. ‘Well, only if you brush your hair back from your face,’ he said with a frown. ‘It looks untidy. Extremely untidy. Moreover, wear a hat. A big one that hides all that hair.’
He turned his back abruptly, busying himself with his gloves and seeing that all was in order in his Gladstone bag.
Lydia swiftly pulled her hair back, tucking the long strands behind her ears.
‘I need a hat,’ she yelled at Mrs Gander, excitedly. ‘I’m going for a ride in a motor car.’
2
On arriving at the elegant house in Beatrice Square, Belgravia, Lydia tilted her head back so she could see all the way up the front of the building. It looked very grand; the pillared portico twice the width of their own house. The broad front door, with eight panels of gleaming black paintwork, opened as they both alighted from the car.
The wind sent a flurry of crisp brown leaves dancing along the pavement. More leaves blew down from the trees standing behind green-painted railings in the middle of the square. The bare branches creaked and scraped against each other, the sound attracting Lydia’s attention.
Beneath the trees, a flower seller sang out that she had ivy, mistletoe and snowdrops for sale.
‘Can we buy some snowdrops?’
‘No.’
‘We have time. I can run over there and…’
‘I said no. I meant no. I am here to be of service to a sick man and you are here as a nurse. Remember?’
Lydia recognised this as one of those times when her father was focusing entirely on his work. When he did that, nothing else mattered.
The door of the house opened. The man who appeared had clearly once been taller than he was now. Age had bent his back, and whitened his hair, a pair of bushy white eyebrows almost meeting over a prominent nose.
‘Doctor Miller, I presume?’ He bowed stiffly from the waist, his head lowered so that his firm jaw scraped the starched collar of his shirt. ‘My name is Quartermaster and I am Sir Avis’s butler. I’ve been asked to give you every assistance.’
