The Summer of Secrets

by Tilly Tennant

  Will led them through the grand but damp entrance hall, past the doors of disused rooms to his favourite sitting room, where a small fire burned in the enormous grate. It was early June, but in a room this big and shaded from the sun, the extra heat was welcome.

  ‘I’ve found what I could,’ he said, gesturing to a pile of paperwork on a leather-topped desk. ‘I’ve read through some of it but I must admit I don’t know how useful it will be.’

  ‘Might there be more?’ Cesca asked as she moved to flick through the top few sheets. At first glance, there looked to be a lot of lists and household reports and not much else and they didn’t go back nearly far enough. ‘Anything older?’

  ‘I’ve yet to find it if there is,’ Will said.

  ‘Perhaps I could help you to look?’ Kristofer said.

  Will looked him up and down. The appraisal was so brief, so subtle, that anyone not paying attention would have missed it. But Cesca didn’t. What was Will’s problem today? He could be aloof but this was something else entirely.

  ‘I’d rather handle it myself,’ he replied. Kristofer gave an amiable nod.

  ‘For sure. Ask any time if you change your mind.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Will said. ‘I appreciate that.’ He turned his attention to Cesca. ‘Do you need space to work, or will you be taking everything back to your office?’

  ‘We actually wondered if we could take a look around first,’ Cesca said.

  ‘What on earth for?’ Will asked, looking from her to Kristofer and back again. ‘What would that achieve?’

  ‘Kristofer has offered to help and I thought it might be useful for him to get some background.’

  ‘I can’t see that the colour of my ancestors’ bed sheets will have any bearing on the case,’ Will said.

  Cesca tried not to let her mouth drop open. On the phone earlier, he’d been far more receptive to the idea of visitors and had expressed no misgivings at the suggestion that they might do some detective work of their own. Granted, she’d only mentioned looking at old paintings and documents and such, but she still didn’t see why he’d suddenly become so closed.

  ‘Of course, if that’s a problem we wouldn’t dream of imposing,’ Kristofer put in, seeming to finally sense the tension. ‘I should explain that I’m a writer, and a natural mystery seeker. A house like yours…’ He smiled and stretched his arms. ‘It is too incredible for me to resist.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t go rampaging through it, however,’ Will insisted, managing very well to resist the effects of Kristofer’s infectious enthusiasm. ‘I’m more than happy to take Cesca around, and she can bring any items she feels are pertinent to the investigation down to this room for you to inspect. I hope you won’t be offended by my decision, but please understand that this is my home and not some curio.’

  Kristofer threw an uncertain look at Cesca, who gave a tiny nod.

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Kristofer will be OK with that, won’t you?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ Kristofer said, digging his hands in his pockets and wandering over to the fire.

  ‘Shall we?’ Will turned to Cesca and she followed him from the room.

  * * *

  Despite being puzzled by his attitude today, a frisson of excitement zipped through Cesca as Will led her up the stairs that she’d been denied access to before. And even as she mulled over the possible reasons for his strange mood, it seemed to change. She’d known him to be cautious in his dealings with others before, even cold, but she’d felt at their last meeting and during subsequent phone calls that he was thawing, at least towards her, and what she’d heard from Harper and Pip seemed to suggest the same was true for others. Today, so far, he’d been the same man she’d met at her first visit. But now, as they took the stairs, he seemed to relax again.

  ‘I’m afraid that, for the most part, the upper floors of my house will not be somewhere customers would pay vast sums of money to stay – unless they had booked a ghost tour, in which case they would be delighted.’

  ‘I’m quite partial to a ghost story myself,’ Cesca said, gazing at the dusty portraits as they climbed. ‘And I’m even more partial to an old ruin. Not that I think your house is an old ruin,’ she added quickly.

  ‘I think you might find it falls very comfortably into that category,’ Will said, and as she shot him a sideways glance, she could see a rare smile pulling at his lips.

  ‘Doesn’t it drive you mad?’ she asked.

  ‘Living here? Sometimes. But it means a great deal to me.’

  ‘Have you ever tried to get money to renovate?’

  ‘My father paid a substantial deposit to a company who promised to start work. The family coffers were almost empty after that.’

  ‘And what did they fix?’

  ‘Nothing. They took Father’s money and disappeared.’

  Cesca was thoughtful for a moment. It seemed the Framptons had had their share of rotten luck. Perhaps there was some truth in the story of the cursed treasure after all. ‘I think Harper Woods’s fiancé is a builder, isn’t he?’

  ‘The wrong sort, or so I believe. Not a specialist in this type of renovation.’

  ‘But he might know people who are.’

  ‘I very much doubt he’d be disposed to extend the hand of friendship to me, even if it meant business for him or his cronies.’

  ‘You don’t much like him.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s keen on you either.’

  Will let out a surprisingly soft chuckle. ‘I’m sure he isn’t. I’ll try not to lose any sleep over it.’

  ‘There must be more of you,’ Cesca pressed. ‘Your family, I mean. Couldn’t they help to restore the house? There’d be something in it for them, after all.’

  ‘Ay, there’s the rub. The family split not long after the end of the First World War. Many of us are estranged from one another and many of us have no clue where the others currently reside, even if we had a desire to reunite. If I’m honest, I rather like it that way.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Do you always ask this many questions?’

  ‘No. But you intrigue me.’

  He stopped at the darkened door of a room, hand resting on the doorknob as he stared at her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That was probably a bit inappropriate. Mouth saying what brain should probably be keeping in, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, composed again. ‘Your directness is refreshing. Too many people say what they don’t mean, or don’t say what they do. It’s the reason I prefer my own company; I think exactly what I mean.’

  The door to the room swung open, and he reached for a chunky old Bakelite switch to fill the space with yellow light. The window at the far end was obscured by a heavy velvet curtain. A four-poster bed stood in the centre of the room, its mattress stripped bare. Dark wooden furniture lined the walls stacked with leather-bound notebooks, old paintings, jewellery boxes and what looked like a hundred Christmases’ worth of biscuit tins. It smelt like centuries of history. Cesca breathed it in like the best perfume. The passing of time – here was something she could make sense of.

  ‘I keep the daylight out to stop the paintings fading,’ Will said.

  Cesca nodded and stepped forward to inspect the nearest sideboard. ‘May I?’ she asked.

  ‘Be my guest.’

  Gently wiping the dust from an oil-painted canvas, she picked it up and held it to the light. ‘This is Silver Hill House,’ she said. ‘It’s fabulous.’

  ‘Painted in 1887, I believe.’

  ‘You know them all?’

  ‘Most of them. I have plenty of time for study.’

  Cesca looked at him. There wasn’t a flicker of emotion on his face, and yet she saw the whole of his loneliness clearly for the first time. A king locked in his castle, unable to understand the sun that shone down upon it. He’d said he was happy here, disengaged from the outside world, but how much h
appier could he be as a part of it? He’d once told her he wanted a wife and a family, but how could he ever find that shut away in this house looking at old paintings? She loved history, and she loved ancient treasures more than most, but even she knew that the real world was something to be embraced too.

  ‘Could you sell some of them?’ she asked.

  ‘Perhaps. However, I suspect they’re not terrifically valuable to anyone outside the family.’

  ‘But they might be of great interest to a collector, or to a museum or gallery. I could find out for you.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said mildly. Something told Cesca that if she did come up with a buyer, he wouldn’t be that keen to sell after all. She set the painting down.

  ‘Do you have more that show the stolen jewels being worn?’

  ‘There are some with jewellery, but I don’t know if any of it belongs to the cache or not. Perhaps you could tell me if you recognise anything.’

  He strode over to where she stood and began to root through the canvases lying in the dust.

  ‘Blast!’ he said, leaping back and shoving his thumb to his lips. ‘Old nail,’ he said, by way of explanation.

  ‘Let me see…’ Cesca stepped forward and before he could argue pulled his hand towards her. He made to yank it back, but he stopped suddenly and stared at her.

  Cesca’s pulse quickened, caught in his gaze while everything else faded.

  Another second and it was over. She tore her eyes away and brought his thumb up to inspect, her heart thudding.

  ‘It doesn’t look too deep.’ She looked up at him again, her own words echoing strangely in her ears as if she was outside herself.

  His hand languished in hers. Imperceptibly, drawn by something she couldn’t understand, she moved closer, her eyes never leaving his…

  But the spell was broken by a loud sneeze from down below. Will shook himself and moved away.

  ‘I’d better… painting…’ he mumbled.

  Cesca’s hand dropped to her side, but she could still feel the memory of his skin in it. ‘Kristofer…’ she said quietly. ‘I should check he’s OK.’

  ‘Oh,’ Will said, seemingly his remote self again, ‘I’d quite forgotten about your friend. I’m sure he’s capable of standing in a sitting room for half an hour. Unless you think he’ll fall into the fire or something. I thought you wanted to have a look at the house.’

  She did. She wanted desperately to explore Silver Hill’s old rooms, to have them whisper secrets to her. But suddenly she couldn’t trust herself to be alone with its owner. Something had just happened – and it was almost supernatural in its intensity. She had no idea what it was, and she had no idea whether she liked it or not. Perhaps it was better that she didn’t find out.

  Chapter 19

  Greg was playing cricket with Josh in the garden. Allie could hear the thwack of the ball on wood, their cheers and laughter from the front of the house as she got out of the car. It was nice, hearing them like that – it felt like it had been a long time. Almost nice enough to make her forget, if only temporarily, that it was a sound she would soon lose. Almost, but never really, because it was the only thing she’d been able to think about since Greg had made his threats – threats she knew he would have no qualms about making good.

  Perhaps she wouldn’t go through and interrupt them just yet. She owed as many days of happiness to Josh as she could still manage before his world was torn apart and this might be one of the last. Besides, she was tired and her head pounded.

  The front door clicked quietly behind her as she closed it. Shedding her jacket at the coat rack in the hall, she made her way swiftly up the stairs and lay on her bed, the sheets cool and the room shaded as the sun moved around the house. The day had started off murky, but now the cloud had broken away in chunks to reveal flashes of blue and daggers of sunlight.

  She closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come, as stubborn now as it had been overnight. Sooner or later, sheer exhaustion would take her and she’d fall into oblivion; she longed for it with all her heart. Not now, though. The sounds of Josh and Greg still playing drifted up through the open window. Once, she would have gone to sit in the garden with a drink and laughed along with them. They would have finished their game and she would have brought snacks out – breadsticks and hummus, little triangles of ham and bread, sweet cherry tomatoes and lush green salad, strawberries and cream. A garden picnic Josh would call it, his favourite summertime treat. Greg wasn’t home often, so they’d make the most of every moment.

  Allie squeezed her eyes tight, tears oozing from the corners and gravity taking them down into her ears as she lay on her back. She wiped them away. Tears wouldn’t make things better, and tears were for people who deserved pity. Not for her then, who was so spineless she couldn’t do the one decent thing that had been asked of her. Not only was Harper still blissfully ignorant of Shay’s betrayal, but Allie would now have to lie to Greg about it too. He would find out; he was bound to in a village as small as theirs. If only they’d moved to Germany when he’d asked, taken the plunge and made a new life there together instead of stubbornly insisting that she wanted to stay in England, that they could make a long-distance marriage work. Perhaps they’d be out in a garden in some suburb of Düsseldorf or Frankfurt or Berlin now, laughing at cricket and eating a garden picnic.

  Suddenly, she was aware that the sounds from outside had stopped. Then Josh’s footsteps echoed on the stairs, followed by Greg’s.

  ‘Go and get changed,’ she heard Greg say. ‘If we’re quick we can catch the last showing and get pizza afterwards.’

  He appeared at the bedroom door, clearly not expecting her to be there. She bolted up on the bed, rubbing her eyes clear.

  ‘You’re going into Salisbury?’ she asked.

  ‘Change of scenery,’ he said stiffly, marching over to the wardrobe and pulling a pair of fresh jeans and a shirt out. ‘Josh wanted to see that new sci-fi film and you did say I had to make up for missing swimming the other day.’

  Allie nodded. ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘He’ll like that.’

  ‘I’d ask you to come but…’

  ‘I know.’

  There was silence as he went through to the bathroom and she allowed herself to sink back into the pillow. A few moments later he emerged, drying his hands on a towel.

  ‘You went up to Silver Hill Farm?’

  ‘You know I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told her.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘What else do you want me to say? Are you looking for gory details? Because I don’t have any. I told her, and I left it at that.’

  ‘How did she react?’

  ‘How do you think she reacted? I didn’t stick around to see it; didn’t think that was fair.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘For once, it seems you thought about someone else’s feelings. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.’

  Allie sat up to see he was buttoning his shirt, watching her thoughtfully as he did.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘I know it’s probably tough for you to move out immediately and it would be hard on Josh. So take a couple of weeks if you need it. Find somewhere suitable to live, somewhere appropriate for Josh to visit. I’ll help you get it kitted out and make it habitable. There’s no point in being a bastard about this – at least for Josh’s sake.’

  Allie blinked at him. Was she supposed to fall at his feet at this point and thank him for his infinite mercy? Was she supposed to argue that she could manage without his help? Or was she simply supposed to accept his offer of a reasonable middle ground? There was no doubt that his help would make life a lot more bearable, but it was just another way in which him having the moral high ground gave him all the power.

  ‘OK,’ was all she could think to say.

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ he said. He gave her a tight smile, the first that looked almost genuine in a long time. ‘Get some sleep,’ he said. ‘You l
ook like death.’

  Hardly likely to happen, she thought bitterly, but as she watched him leave the room, the beginnings of something she hadn’t felt in a long time fluttered in her breast. Was it hope?

  * * *

  It had been a strange day, running the tearoom without Pip; Shay had done a great job with the animals, and had even been uncharacteristically chatty with the visiting children, which had made Harper smile with pride. How she could have doubted him was beyond her – in her hour of need he’d stepped up to the plate in every conceivable way, solid and dependable and happy to help. As they closed up, he’d even taken the mop from her and finished the floors, ordering her to go and get a bath and promising to treat them to a takeaway from a nearby Chinese restaurant.

  The air was fragrant with warm spices, orange sauce and scented candles as Harper’s phone rang.

  ‘That’ll be Pip,’ she said, leaping up from the sofa and picking her way across the foil-carton-strewn floor where the remains of their meal still languished. They’d been too full and lazy to move any of it and, having followed it with the remainder of their bottle of wine, they were now in the early stages of foreplay. Shay smoothed away a frown as Harper made an apologetic face and took the call.

  ‘Hey!’ she said brightly. ‘How’s everything? You got there OK? Esther is well? You’ve seen her?’

  ‘Steady on,’ Pip said, sounding relaxed and cheerful at the other end of the line.

  Harper felt the tension drain from her. Pip wasn’t good at hiding emotions, so this was a good sign.

  ‘We’re having dinner and then we’re going to catch a show,’ she said. ‘Something or other at the Royal Court – I forget what it is but Esther says it’s supposed to be a triumph. Which means I’ll be asleep by the interval.’

  Harper made out a hiss of disapproval from what must have been Esther in the background, and then Pip giggling.

  ‘You’re OK though?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I can’t talk for long but I wanted to let you know everything is fine; I know how much you worry.’