The Frozen Lake: A gripping novel of family and wartime secrets. Elizabeth Edmondson

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       Yorkshire

      Perdita Richardson hadn’t expected a letter from her best friend Ursula Grindley, not so near the end of term. Yet there it was, tucked into a tattered old copy of the Couperin Suites by an obliging and well-bribed school maid.

      Letters at Yorkshire Ladies College, where Perdita was a boarder, were considered dangerous items and reading an illicit letter was almost as much of a problem as receiving it, for the young ladies were constantly watched. Twenty seconds in a practice room without playing a note and a teacher would be at the door wanting to know why you were slacking. Hawk eyes bored into you in the library, as you went along the corridor, in the dining room; spies were everywhere in dormitories and common room. The lavatory was a possibility, but there were set times for that, and usually a queue outside the door.

      Perdita broke into a ripple of arpeggios with her left hand while she tucked the letter into her liberty bodice with her right hand. Later, she would contrive to slip it inside her sock, and then, in the afternoon, she would work the frayed lace trick.

      ‘I don’t know what it is with you and bootlaces, Perdita Richardson. Yours are always breaking.’ The brick-faced games mistress suspected a ruse, but couldn’t deny that there was the lace in two pieces, and, on inspection, it had suffered what appeared to be a natural breakage with appropriate fraying.

      ‘I think it’s because my hockey boots are too small for me,’ said Perdita helpfully. ‘It must put a strain on the laces.’

      ‘See you are supplied with a new pair of boots for next term. Go and put in a spare lace. Be back in five minutes.’

      She could stretch that to seven or eight, Perdita thought as she jogged back to the changing rooms. Once there, she tugged off the offending boot, one she’d taken from the lost property box, and pulled on her own boot with its perfectly good lace. Then she sat down on the wooden lockers, plucked the letter from its hiding place in her sock and began to read.

      It started without any preamble – a precaution in case it should fall into hostile hands.

       Very near the end of term, I know, but I had to write to tell you all the news as there’s a terrific to-do going on here. The chief reason is that the family Black Sheep will shortly be with us – in case you don’t know who that is, it’s my Uncle Hal. You never met him – nor did I, or if I did I was a mere puling infant & don’t remember it – because he went off years and years ago, to America! Yes, that one!

      Well, the fuss, you’d think some arch-criminal was on his way. And the point is, I can’t find out that he ever actually did anything very terrible, except to take up acting when he was at Cambridge and then head for London to Go On The Stage! That was before he went to America. I mean, what’s so shocking about an actor, only you know what Daddy’s like, he shouts and rants about ‘Those Sort of People’? He says actors are a bunch of Pansies and then goes red if he thinks I’ve heard – he imagines I don’t know what he means. Musicians and painters are Pansies, too, of course – if they’re men. If they’re women, they’re badly brought up with no allure and probably thick ankles who should have been controlled by their fathers. He doesn’t get any less Victorian as he gets older. He should control his temper, never mind his daughter – all that going red can’t be doing him any good at all.

      I asked Nanny to tell me about Hal. She has a soft spot for him, you can tell that at once. She let out that his brothers called him the Afterthought, because he’s so much younger than they are. He’s thirty-eight, she says, and Pa’s fifty-five, and Uncle Roger fifty-two, so it’s quite a gap, I do see. Grandma must have been awfully old to have a baby when he was born. One thing is, he didn’t come back from America when Grandma died, and that’s held against him, BUT, Nanny says that Daddy didn’t send the cablegram until he knew it was too late for him to get here for the funeral.

       It isn’t only the acting that’s causing all the agitation. It’s money. Isn’t that always the way with my family? Hal got a third of the business when Grandpa died, and that still rankles with Daddy – considering he got the house as well as shares and so on, I don’t think he’s being very fair. Anyhow, they reckoned that being an actor and no good at it – well, no one’s ever heard of him, have they? – he’d have sold his shares, spent the money and be living in penury. Only he hasn’t, they’re all still in his name. There’s some deal brewing, and they need his shares to put it all through. Hence the flap – will he be difficult about it?

      The Grindleys are gathering. Uncle Roger and Aunt Angela have arrived, with Cecy. Uncle Roger’s still being beastly about her training to be a doctor. Aunt Angela says Hal is a nice man, only not in the least interested in sport and shooting and all that. He was clever, too, and you know how suspicious Daddy is of anyone clever, books and plays and things all being a waste of time and not in the real world, meaning lav pans and baths. You don’t know how lucky you are that your family’s money comes from dull old engineering works and not from sanitary chinaware. Nicky knocked a boy down this term because he got so fed up with remarks about things going down the pan. He’s at home, therefore, in disgrace, but he doesn’t care a bit; he hates school.

      Anyhow, that’s not all. Exquisite Eve (my new name for my awful stepmother, don’t you like it?) has set her mind against Hal, don’t ask me why, and says he shouldn’t have just announced he was coming but should have waited to be invited. He’d have had to wait a jolly long time in that case. Aunt Angela says, ‘Rot, it’s his home,’ or words to that effect, but Eve isn’t pleased. Then a cable came from Lisbon mentioning the name of his ship, the SS Gloriana. When Uncle Roger heard that, he cried out, ‘That’s not on the Atlantic run, it’s a P&O vessel and goes to and from India and Australia.’ So that’s got them even more worked up, did he get the letters about the shares that they sent to New York, and what on earth could he be doing in Australia and India? As if no one ever went there before, which of course they do, all the time.

      My stepsister Rosalind will be turning up from her finishing school in Munich. You haven’t met her, but I’ve told you how ghastly she is – well, she would be, with exquisite Eve for a mother. Daddy thinks she’s wonderful, he goes on and on about her poise and beautiful manners and grooming – you’d think she was a horse. Only she isn’t, she’s frightfully pretty in a boring, brittle sort of way, and very affected. She behaves as though the Hall is a leftover from the Middle Ages (she’s got a point there), and treats me like I was some kind of a peasant. Simon can’t take his eyes off her, I never saw anything so soppy, and he won’t hear a word against her. He’s home from Cambridge, and gloomy as usual, he knows that Daddy won’t hear of him joining the army after university; the eldest son has to go into the business, and that’s that. Honestly, my brothers, what a pair, but at least Nicky isn’t at all struck by the fair Rosalind. Just wait till you see her.

      Must finish, or there’ll be so many pages you won’t be able to flush them down the lav, hope it’s a Jowetts, we need to keep the money coming in to pay for Rosalind’s expensive clothes and Eve’s beauty treatments. Oh, and guess what, we’re going to have a dance over Christmas, hooray, but it’s in honour of Rosalind’s seventeenth birthday. It makes me sick. Catch Daddy ever giving a dance in my honour.

      Can’t wait to see you and have a really good talk about it all, xxx

      PS Cecy says she’s been trying to persuade E’s twin (better not mention her name) to come back for Christmas. I hope she does.

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