The Silent Woman: The USA TODAY BESTSELLER - a gripping historical fiction

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Cat started walking with no particular destination in mind. She couldn’t bear the thought of explaining her swollen face to Isobel, who would be quick with questions and even hastier with judgement. Rather than head towards the Carlisle house, she turned the opposite direction, grabbed a taxi, and gave her aunt’s address in Bloomsbury.

Aunt Lydia’s flat – one of four in a neat row, all brick, with a black front door and a half-moon window above – was two streets away from Bedford Square, a wooded park with ample benches to while away a summer day.

This neighbourhood wasn’t as posh as Kensington, but Cat preferred its utter lack of pretence. The front stoops weren’t scrubbed every day, nor were the pedestrians dressed in finery and jewels, but Cat had been happy here. She considered Bloomsbury her home. She walked up the steps to the front and rang the bell. When no one answered, she went down the steps to what used to be the service entrance to the below-street-level kitchen. She lifted a loose piece of flagstone and took the key that lay hidden there. She let herself into the kitchen.

She stood for a moment, taking in the familiarity of the house, letting the comfortable surroundings soothe her. Oh, how she wished she could escape back to this house, with its happy memories of her young adult life, to the time before she so naively married Benton Carlisle. Aunt Lydia had taken Cat under her protective wing after the motor-vehicle crash that killed her parents. Cat’s father was on leave for a week from some secret location where he served as a cryptographer. Her mother had gone to meet his train, and they planned to spend the week at home, together. Cat stayed behind to finish her schoolwork, so she could spend as much time with her father as possible. Until the knock on the door, the policeman with the sad eyes, and the news that changed Cat for ever.

Aunt Lydia had swept in, like an angel, and took Cat under her strong and capable wing. She had stayed with Cat just long enough to arrange the funeral and to see to the handling of the house. There was a small allowance that Cat would receive each quarter, enough money to live on if she stayed in Rivenby, the small northern village where she had lived so happily with her parents. But Lydia had other plans for Cat.

‘You need to figure out what you want to do with your life, darling. There’s no future for you here. Come to London and get yourself sorted out. You need to be around young people, darling. Rivenby will always be here, but you need to see a bit of the world before you settle.’

Cat, too shocked to make any decision on her own, capitulated without question and moved to London with her aunt. Now she stood in the foyer of their home, letting the familiarity sink in. It had been twenty years since her parents died. Once again Cat marvelled at the passage of time. She placed her palm flat on the wall, as if touching it like this would allow her to commit the comfort of the place to memory, as if the memory in turn would become a tangible thing she could keep with her.

She put the key back in its hiding place and went upstairs to the living room that overlooked the street. Now an old sofa covered with a sheet rested against the far wall. The big window flooded the room with light so vivid that its brightness jumped out from both of Aunt Lydia’s works in progress. One of the canvases portrayed Hector the Horse, the beloved character of the children’s books Aunt Lydia illustrated. The other was a still life depicting a large bouquet of flowers arranged haphazardly in an old milk jug that had at one time belonged to Cat’s mother.

The bunch of foxgloves, sunflowers, a stray imperfect rose, along with a handful of desiccated stems and twigs, didn’t appeal in their natural state. The flowers were on their last legs and the design of the arrangement was flawed. But Aunt Lydia used these flaws as the theme of her painting. Cat saw it right away. It gave the work an emotional pull that had successfully marvelled critics and enticed collectors for decades.

A large piece of wood positioned across two sawhorses served as her aunt’s work table. A cup of unfinished tea sat near a jar full of brushes and a box of paints. An open sketchpad lay on the table, revealing a pencil rendering of Hector the Horse arguing with a milkman. Next to it, a mock-up of the book was covered with Lydia’s unique angular scrawl.

An unbidden tear, hot and wet, spilled onto Cat’s cheek. Surprised, she wiped it away. She moved to the window and looked up and down the street before she went to the upstairs bathroom for a cool cloth.

Upstairs, Cat moved down the corridor to the room that used to be her own until her marriage to Benton. It was a dear room, situated in the back corner of the house, with a cosy bed, a dresser, and a case full of books. She and Aunt Lydia had painted the walls sky blue. On a whim, Lydia had painted the sun, with puffy white clouds floating by. She shook her head to clear the nostalgia. The motion caused her eye to throb.

In the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face before she stared at herself in the mirror. The glass was old and warped, but Cat was accustomed to the waves and distortions. When she moved in, she asked Lydia to replace the mirror with a newer one that portrayed an accurate reflection. Her aunt had refused. She explained that looking in the mirror was a stupid way to spend time. Cat remembered laughing at that. The memories didn’t do a thing to lift her mood.

Her eye was nearly swollen shut now and had turned a vivid red. Cat rifled through drawers for something with which to cover it, but Aunt Lydia didn’t wear cosmetics. Cat sighed. Nothing to be done except go home and lie down with a cool cloth on her eye. She would try to disguise the bruising with make-up before dinner.

Aunt Lydia arrived home just as Cat went down the stairs. She carried a large basket of groceries, a bottle of champagne sticking out the top.

‘Cat? What are you doing here? My God, what’s happened to your eye?’

‘Hello, Aunt Lydia,’ Cat said.

‘Catherine, tell me that Benton didn’t do that to you. I swear, if he so much as laid a finger on you, I’ll throttle him myself.’

Lydia Paxton’s hair was once as thick and curly as Cat’s. Now, at sixty-nine years old, the vivid locks had turned a burnished ginger spun with silver threads. She was shorter than Cat, and paid no attention to fashion. Today she wore baggy trousers – probably purchased at the men’s stall at some jumble sale – which were too long. Lydia rolled them up just enough to reveal the bright purple socks and the pink ballet slippers that adorned her feet. She wore a long-sleeved button-up shirt, another reject from some jumble sale, which was now splattered with paint. A network of fine lines sprayed out from the corners of her eyes, the result of a thousand smiles.

‘He did not,’ Cat said. ‘Promise.’

‘Come keep me company while I put away this lot.’ Aunt Lydia held up the grocery bags.

‘Let me help you,’ Cat said. She took one of the bags out of Lydia’s hand.

Cat followed her aunt into the kitchen, trying to concoct a story as she walked, knowing full well that if she told Lydia the truth about being attacked, Lydia would know that Cat was holding something back. She always knew. Cat learned at a young age there was no keeping secrets from Aunt Lydia. Neither spoke while Cat took the items from the wicker grocery bags and put them away. Lydia tended to the kettle. While she waited for it to boil, she turned her attention to Cat and studied her face, letting her gaze linger on Cat’s eye and cheek, which throbbed with pain.

‘What’s happened, Cat? You’re in some sort of trouble. I can see it all over your face.’ The look of concern in Aunt Lydia’s eyes broke Cat’s heart. She girded herself to lie to her aunt, something she had never done.

‘I was attacked in Kensington. A woman grabbed my purse. We scuffled. I didn’t let go. She hit me.’ Cat laughed it off. ‘It was rather ridiculous, actually, and would have been funny if she hadn’t hit me. Now I’m left with a black eye and swollen cheek.’ Cat waited while Lydia digested her words. ‘God knows how I’ll explain this to Benton.’

‘Did you report it to the police?’ Aunt Lydia took a clean linen cloth out of a basket on the worktop and drenched it with cold water. She wrung it out and handed it to Cat. ‘Hold that against it. The cold will help.’

‘I don’t think it would do much good. She didn’t actually steal anything, so I figured there was no sense in bothering the police for nothing.’ Cat took the cold cloth from Lydia and dabbed it on her eye. She winced when the rough cloth touched the tender skin.

‘You’ve gained some weight back, and your cheeks aren’t as pale,’ Lydia said.

‘I’m fully recovered from my influenza, Lyd.’

Aunt Lydia stuck a cigarette in her mouth and left it dangling out the corner. She didn’t light it. She never did. She gazed at Cat through squinted eyes, staring at her with that inscrutable glance that was her trademark.

‘Why are you looking at me like that? It’s just a black eye. People get attacked in London every day.’

‘Maybe. But they rarely get attacked in Kensington. It just isn’t done. And something’s different. You’ve lost that haunted love-is-lost look.’

‘Haunted love-is-lost look? I don’t know what you mean.’

The kettle whistled. Lydia poured steaming water into the pot, grabbed two cups, and set the lot down on the table.

‘I know that things haven’t been good between you and Benton for a long time, Cat. And don’t bother to deny it. You’re a horrible poker player. You wear your feelings on your face for all to see. It broke my heart when you lost your baby, and the two that came after.’ Lydia grabbed Cat’s hand and squeezed it tight, as if she knew she was treading into dangerous territory.

Cat resisted the urge to pull away. That familiar knot of grief, the anguish that she made it her life’s work to hide, shimmied to the surface. It pushed on her heart, contracted her lungs, and threatened to take her breath away. She had loved Benton. He had been her first. She believed he would be her only. They lost three children together, each tragedy adding another brick in the wall that grew between them. After the third miscarriage, Benton had forsaken Cat and turned his love to another. Devastated, Cat waited for him to return to her, return to the love they shared when they first married. That would have been enough for Cat. It was not enough for Benton.

When she was hospitalised with influenza, Benton hadn’t even come to see her. He sent a bouquet of yellow and white roses to her with a trite get-well note written in his secretary’s hand. Why had she ever thought they could rekindle the spark that burnt itself out so long ago? Yet here she was now, desperate for any scrap of affection he might throw her way. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

‘Why do you stay, love? Just answer me that. I don’t know how you handle it in that house. Your husband’s never home. Your sister-in-law is an ogre.’

Cat smiled at the apt description of Isobel.

‘Thank for not saying I told you so. Never once,’ Cat said.

‘He swept you off your feet, love. That’s what men like Benton Carlisle do. Then you marry them, and the prince on the white horse turns into a spoiled child who doesn’t want to get his shoes dirty. I call it a fairy tale in reverse.’ Lydia sipped her tea. ‘How do you share a roof with Isobel and her trained lapdog? I truly believe that house made you ill.’

‘You’re right about Benton,’ Cat said. She met Lydia’s eyes, surprised at her words. The honesty was a revelation. Giving voice to this truth galvanised it into reality. ‘He doesn’t love me. I doubt he’d even notice if I left.’

‘Isobel would notice, though. Let’s be clear about that. And once you leave, she’ll do everything in her power to keep you from returning.’ Aunt Lydia took the cigarette out of her mouth and set it on the table. ‘I’ve never understood the relationship between Isobel and Benton. And that secretary of hers, Marie. Why does she stay? How long has she been with Isobel – twenty years? Remember when you first married, how Marie was so kind and pretty. Now she looks like a startled fawn, facing down a wolf.’ Lydia pushed a lock of Cat’s hair behind her ear. ‘It might do you good to step away and get some perspective.’

The gesture touched Cat’s heart. Aunt Lydia – who was famous for wielding her honesty like a blunt instrument and not caring who she offended in the process – hadn’t spoken to Cat in that tone of voice since her parents’ deaths twenty years ago. They had been sitting at this same table, when Lydia said, ‘You’ve a home here, my love. Get yourself sorted and decide what you want to do with your life. You’re a clever girl. There’s money for university, if that’s what you want.’

Cat had been seventeen at the time. She tried to find a calling, something she was passionate about. Then she met Benton, and realised all she wanted was a family. She had the house; she wanted to fill the rooms with Benton’s children. When the children didn’t come, Cat wanted him. And he had rejected her.

‘Are you listening to me, love?’

Cat pulled herself out of her daydream.

‘I was saying that you could just come here for a few days.’ Lydia was rummaging through a drawer. ‘Here it is.’ She walked back to the table and plunked a key along with a whistle on a heavy chain on the table. ‘I had the locks changed when I replaced the front door. This is for you.’

It was made of heavy brass, attached to a thick chain. The words ‘MET’ where etched across the top.

‘A blast from this beauty will surprise any assailant and effectively summon any policeman who happens to be nearby. Put it on and keep it handy. Why don’t you come and stay here for a few days or a week, as long as you want – no, let me finish before you say no.

‘I’ll set up the guest room for you. You can come and go as you wish and I promise not to bother you. I’ve Hector drawings due next week, so I’ll be working.’ She pushed the key towards Cat. ‘You can get away from those people, have a rest. You can take the car if you want, and go to the sea.’

‘Thank you, Aunt Lydia. I’ll think about it.’ Cat reached across the table and took the proffered key. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘You’d figure something out.’

Cat stood.

Lydia stood too. She placed her hands on Cat’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. ‘You’re still keeping something from me, love. Don’t think I can’t see it.’

Cat remained silent.

‘Ah, well. I’m here when you’re ready. Now I’m going to ask you a question. Don’t answer me. I just want you to think about it. You’ve told me that Benton doesn’t love you. Do you love him? Is that why you stay? I don’t think you love him. Not any more.’

Cat splurged on a taxi, using some of the money from Reginald to pay the fare. The driver took one look at her torn suit and swollen eye and jumped out of the car to help her into the back seat. He didn’t speak during the ride, but when the car slowed at the traffic lights the driver looked back at Cat, concerned etched into the lines on his forehead. She ignored him, leaned back, and closed her eyes.

She thought about her aunt’s offer. What would happen if she just left? Would they even miss her?

By some stroke of grace, the house was quiet when Cat let herself in the front door. She noticed the empty chairs, still arranged in a half circle from the morning’s meeting with Alicia Montrose. Clean cups and saucers remained on the table, next to a stack of neatly folded linens. The silver tea service was polished and ready to be put away, the coffee pot suspended over a small flame, which had gone out ages ago.

Cat heard movement down the hall, so she crept up the stairs, hoping not to see anyone. Once in her room, she reached behind the armoire and pulled out her purse. She added the money Reginald had given her that morning to the growing pile of notes and slipped it back.

She was about to head into the bathroom for a flannel doused in cool water when she noticed that the top drawer of her bureau was opened ever so slightly. Cat went over to it and pulled it open all the way. Her undergarments, which she folded and arranged in perfect rows, were stuffed into the drawer without method, as though someone had taken them out and tossed them back in again. Isobel. Snooping. Again. Cat sighed and made a mental note to find a new place to hide the purse where she kept her money.

She lay down on the bed, the flannel over her throbbing eye. She forced herself to think of something positive, of freedom, of a life that didn’t include the Carlisle house or any of the people who lived in it. This thought brought Cat peace and gave her the smallest glimmer of hope. She whispered, I’m going to leave Benton, as if saying the words out loud gave them weight and meaning. The utterance was a commitment to herself and her future, whatever it may hold. She sighed and slipped into sleep.

Chapter Four (#ulink_5e3c407e-4998-5fea-90f8-44dbc138c5a3)

Annie navigated the stairs as she carried a tray for Mrs Carlisle. She filled the pot to the rim because she paid attention. She knew that Mrs Carlisle had gone straight up to her room for a rest before dinner. She also knew Mrs Carlisle would awaken in need of some refreshment, and that not only would she drink every drop of tea, but she would eat all the toast and marmalade as well. Mrs Carlisle ate like a man twice her size. Despite all the food she consumed, she had the tiniest waist Annie had ever seen. Annie rested the tray on her hip, freeing up a hand, so she could knock on Mrs Carlisle’s door.

‘Come in,’ a muffled voice said.

Annie stepped into the room, took one look at Mrs Carlisle’s battered face, and would have dropped her tray if Mrs Carlisle hadn’t hurried over to help her.

‘Oh, Annie, thank you. I’m famished.’

‘You’re welcome, Mrs Carlisle,’ Annie said. She tried to avoid looking at the older woman’s eye, which was red and swollen, as though she had been in a fight. She put the tray down on the writing table.

‘Please, call me Cat. Mrs Carlisle makes me feel old.’

‘I can’t. Miss Isobel –’

‘Isobel wouldn’t like that, would she? How about you call me Miss Catherine? That’s a little less formal.’ She touched a damp cloth to her face and winced. ‘In case you’re wondering, I was attacked today while I was shopping.’ Annie stepped into the corner out of Miss Catherine’s way, just like Miss Marie trained her to do – while Miss Catherine poured herself a large cup of tea. She added milk and sugar, took two pieces of toast and a large dollop of marmalade before she sat down at the vanity and stared at her reflection in the mirror. ‘What am I going to do? Isobel will have kittens if I come down to dinner looking like this.’

Annie started to giggle, but stopped herself.

‘May I get you a fresh cold cloth?’ Annie moved away from the window and stood with her hands in front of her.

‘Thank you, Annie,’ Miss Catherine said.

Miss Catherine’s bathroom was tiled in white, with a large tub with what Miss Marie referred to as a mahogany surround. A basket full of flannels sat on a table near the tub. Annie dampened one and came back into the bedroom just as Miss Catherine unpinned her hair and let it fall around her shoulders. It took all of Annie’s effort not to stare at the red curls, which shimmered with a life all their own. Annie thought it was the most beautiful hair she had ever seen.

‘Will there be anything else, ma’am?’ Annie asked.

‘I suppose Isobel has you running all over the place.’ She turned around on the vanity stool and faced Annie.

‘Yes, ma’am. Tonight I’m to serve at table. It’s my first time. Mr Carlisle and Mr Sykes are eating tonight, all formal like. And I’m to change into a proper black uniform with a white apron to serve. Miss Isobel bought it for me special.’

‘Thank you, Annie. You’ve been very helpful and I’m sure you’ll do a smashing job at dinner tonight.’

By half past three, Annie had finished setting the table for dinner, the last of her chores. Under Miss Marie’s watchful eye, she aligned the knives and forks to the plates, and arranged the flowers. A roast lamb had gone in the cooker hours ago. Miss Marie hurried around the kitchen, slaving over the gravy, a precise recipe, which consisted of the drippings taken from the roaster seasoned with a concoction of nutmeg, claret, and the juice of an orange. Miss Marie had opened a bottle of claret to make the sauce and sipped on it as she cooked. She poured Annie a small glass and said, ‘Taste this. It’ll put the roses in your cheeks.’

Annie sipped, thought it disgusting, but didn’t let on.

‘I don’t have anything else for you to do at the moment, Annie.’ Marie glanced at the clock. ‘Back down at half past seven?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Annie said. She hurried from the kitchen before Miss Isobel showed up and found something for her to do.

At a quarter past seven, Annie stood before the small mirror in her room and studied her appearance. The black dress fit her properly, giving a sleek profile. Annie double-checked the chignon to make sure it would stay in place for the evening before she put the white cap on. After the hat was secured with pins and she double-checked that her uniform would meet Isobel’s discerning scrutiny, Annie headed downstairs.

She found Miss Marie in the kitchen scraping the drippings out of the roaster, through a strainer and into a saucepan.