House of Trelawney

by Hannah Rothschild

  Sitting on the edge of her bed, Blaze listened to the familiar noises—the groaning of the pipes and the creaking of the boards—and, over the top of the base notes, Jane shouting at Arabella to do something and Kitto singing a refrain from Don Giovanni. She thought ahead to the sounds of her London life: a single key turning in the lock; one pair of footsteps on the stairs; Radio 4 on a Saturday morning; the long, silent nights. She imagined looking around her apartment: a single cup on the draining board; the imprint of a solitary body on the left-hand side of the bed; one pair of knickers hanging up to dry; a quarter of a pint of milk in the fridge; one umbrella in the hall; one set of keys on the side table; one apple, one banana and one pear in the fruit bowl. If she got cancer—when she got cancer—who would collect her ashes?

  There was a sharp knock on the door. Blaze flipped the lid of her suitcase closed.

  “Come in.”

  Jane opened the door and crossed the room in three great bounds. “You’re not going to believe what’s happened. It’s a bloody miracle,” she said, jumping from foot to foot. Catching sight of Blaze’s suitcase, she stopped.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Oh, Blaze, has something happened?”

  “Now Ambrose is coming of age and the place is getting back on its feet, it’s time for me to go. I can’t squat forever like a cuckoo in your nest.”

  Jane seemed suddenly to deflate. Her shoulders dropped and her head sagged. “Please don’t go. Please. I need you.”

  “No, you don’t. You’ve got Kitto back and all your children. And Trelawney.”

  “Haven’t you enjoyed being here?”

  “Yes, I have.” Blaze surprised herself by the vehemence of her answer.

  “Then stay. I can’t do this alone.”

  “You can. You know you can. Over the last six months you have become a powerhouse. There’s nothing you can’t do. You’ll be running a major company soon.”

  “Don’t go,” Jane pleaded.

  For a minute Blaze didn’t reply; she was touched by her sister-in-law’s entreaty. “Much as I would love to, Jane, I can’t fold my life into yours or put the clock back to my younger days. I won’t be far away, I’ll visit often.”

  Jane came and sat down next to her on the bed and put her arms around Blaze’s waist. The two women held each other close.

  “What were you about to tell me?” Blaze asked.

  “Uncle Tony has a book. Not just any old book. He wants to give it to Ambrose as a birthday present in the hope that he’ll set up a foundation with the proceeds. It’ll be a kind of endowment and the income will go towards Trelawney.”

  A few months earlier Blaze would have found Jane and her uncle’s naivety maddening. How could a book make a dent in the overheads? She smiled at their unworldliness. “Where did this book come from?”

  “It’s the one his father gave him the day he was asked to leave Trelawney and make his way in the world.”

  Like others, Blaze had heard the story hundreds of times.

  “No one ever thought to ask what the book was,” Jane continued. “Even Tony didn’t bother to look at it. It stayed in brown greaseproof paper at the bottom of his cupboard for over thirty years. One day, on an impulse, he unwrapped it.”

  “Don’t tell me—it was studded with precious stones and inlaid with gold?” Blaze said sarcastically.

  “It’s more valuable than that. Tony thinks it might fetch a few million at auction.”

  Blaze laughed out loud. “Oh, come off it. Tony lives like a pauper. If he had anything valuable, he’d have sold it.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Jane produced two clippings and handed them over. Blaze turned towards the window to get a better light. Entitled “The World’s Greatest Missing Treasures,” the first article was from The Times, 27th February 2007, and listed priceless objects or artefacts that many longed to find. At the top was the Amber Room, made by the baroque sculptors Schlüter and Wolfram in the early eighteenth century for the Prussian King Frederick William; when the Russian Emperor Peter the Great had admired it, Frederick gave it to him as a gift. Blaze read on quickly, taking in missing masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, crown jewels, Fabergé eggs, a menorah from the Second Temple and, at number 28, the Landino Dante. The second article had the headline: HAS THE WORLD’S RAREST BOOK FINALLY APPEARED? Speed-reading, she saw that the Landino Dante was “thought to have been discovered in an Irish nunnery, but scientific tests proved it was only a copy. Even so, this rare facsimile fetched £750,000 at auction, bought by the Gates Foundation and put online for all to admire.”

  She put the articles down. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

  Jane leaned over and pointed to the penultimate paragraph of The Times article. “You remember the standards—one from Bosworth and the other from Naseby? If you read the diary of the 17th Earl, he says that he came home with two things: the bloodied standard and a ‘charming tome.’ ”

  “I am not convinced.”

  Jane looked hurt. “Talk to Tony yourself. He says it’s been independently valued by two major auction houses and the world’s leading expert on manuscripts.”

  “I wouldn’t spend the money yet.” Blaze got off the bed and went over to the window. It was nearly six o’clock and completely dark outside. The beams of two torches made a zigzag pattern across the park and she knew it was Arabella and Tuffy returning from an insect-hunting trip.

  “Do you want a hand getting dinner together?” She changed the subject.

  “It’s pretty much done. The guests will be arriving soon.” Jane ran her fingers through her straggly hair, wondering if there was time to wash it. “The best thing about the last few months has been rekindling our friendship. I don’t think I can bear to lose it again. I don’t care if Tony’s book is a fake, or if it’s only worth 20p; I want you to stay with us.”

  “I have to build my own life and I like seeing Ayesha.”

  “Is she going to university?” At the thought of Ayesha, a knot of jealousy tightened in Jane’s stomach. She had yet to reconcile herself to her husband’s illegitimate daughter.

  “She’s behaving mysteriously. Said something about reading History of Art at Cambridge.”

  “Like mother, like daughter. Anastasia never showed her cards either.”

  “Isn’t she coming tonight?”

  “Apparently not.” On an impulse, Jane took her sister-in-law’s hand. “Thank you, Blaze. For rescuing me. Not for the first time.” Silently they both thought back to their childhood when plain Jane Browne had been befriended by the most popular girl in school.

  After Jane had left, Blaze went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and get ready for dinner. She looked back at herself in the mirror. These months in the country suited her. Her cheeks were tanned, her hair softer and the scar on her face seemed less livid, or maybe she was finally getting used to it. She pulled the skin tighter around her jawline and let it go—at least that part of her body was taut and defined. To her surprise, the inexorable onset of ageing didn’t depress her; indeed her spirits felt remarkably, almost confusingly, light. She brushed her hair and put on a thin coat of pale pink lipstick. Coming back to Trelawney had helped her finally to leave.

  * * *

  Waiting until Damian and his assistant were stationed at the bottom of the stairs with their camera turning over, Clarissa made as grand an entrance as she could manage. Wearing a couture ball gown of pink shot silk designed for her in 1956 by Dior, she slowly inched her way down the centre of the Great Staircase. Arabella had offered to hold her arm, but Clarissa preferred to risk injury than share the limelight, particularly as her granddaughter, dressed in a short skirt and heavy boots, was not suitably attired. The assembled guests watched, transfixed, as the Dowager Countess of Trelawney creakily walked downstairs, keeping her gaze fixed on a
n unknown point in the middle distance, her mouth frozen in a beatific smile. It was her gloved hands, flapping awkwardly from side to side in an attempt to maintain balance, that most remembered. They were the prelude to the inevitable tumble that most foresaw and a few prayed for. Clarissa reached the bottom without mishap and, waving regally to her guests, paused dramatically in front of Damian’s camera.

  “You look splendid tonight, my Lady,” the producer said.

  Clarissa agreed wholeheartedly.

  “Tell us, in your own words, about the guests?”

  “Just a few neighbours.”

  “From the village?”

  “Don’t be silly!” Clarissa let out a little laugh. “We don’t ask hoi polloi.”

  “Hoi polloi?”

  “Commoners.”

  Damian couldn’t believe she was saying this on film. He’d get that BMW now.

  Behind him, Ginny snorted. He made frantic hand signals to quiet her.

  “Our nearest neighbours are the Castelrocks from St. Rush. You’ll see Cleo over there.” She pointed to an elderly woman wearing a tiara, a tired dress and a pair of gumboots on her feet.

  “Get the shots,” Damian hissed at Ginny. The camera panned away from Clarissa towards the guests.

  “I notice a clergyman is present.”

  “That’s the Bishop of Truro. Only Jane Austen invited vicars to her parties.”

  “There seem to be a lot of dogs,” Damian remarked, looking at ten or so animals, of different sizes and breeds, running around between the guests.

  “Most of my friends prefer four-legged to two-legged beasts, so it seemed churlish not to ask them.”

  “Who else is here?”

  Clarissa pointed to two old ladies sitting side by side on a bench, both with pudding-bowl haircuts and wearing identical dark green corduroy suits. “That’s Lady June Marchmont and her companion Alice. As you can tell, June’s not the marrying kind; nor, one assumes, is Alice. About six of the dogs belong to them. I drew the line at their bringing their horse. The man over there in the lilac linen suit is my brother-in-law, Anthony Scott.”

  “Is he the marrying kind?” Damian couldn’t resist asking.

  Clarissa ignored the remark. “The slender young woman over there with the tiny husband is a second cousin once removed. The man with a face as red as a tomato is another relation, Windy Swindon. The ludicrously dressed so-called huntsman is a decorator called Barty St. George: he’s a party fixture; people are said to adore him. Over there is Tuffy, who you must have read about; it turns out she is quite the thing in the biographical world.”

  “The biological world—yes I did read about her.” Damian hesitated. “You must be proud of your family, seeing them here after so many centuries?”

  “One is proud of winning a flower show or the Cheltenham Gold Cup; family is a thing you have to put up with. You hope to respect them, even like them, but it’s better not to set the bar too high.”

  “We finally agree on something,” Ginny said, poking her head out from behind the camera. “My lot are shits until they want money.”

  “Tell me about Ambrose,” Damian said. The camera swung round to pick out a young man with one arm around a pretty girl’s waist while the other held a bottle of champagne from which he swigged. Ambrose was wearing jeans, an open-neck shirt and a velvet jacket. He shared all his father’s features—the auburn hair, hazel eyes and pale skin—but, while the effect on his father and aunt was striking, it didn’t work on Ambrose’s face. His mouth was slightly too thin and set in a permanent sneer, his eyes too close together and his hair too thick. He had neither his brother Toby’s gentleness nor Arabella’s enthusiasm, and he had also inherited Jane’s father’s stout figure. None of this troubled the firstborn since he knew, with a deep-seated certainty, that he was better than most.

  “It’s a pity for him, and for the family, that he wasn’t born in the late eighteenth century. I worry whether the boy has the skills needed to navigate his inheritance.”

  “Or lack of?” Damian suggested.

  “Quite.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by a loud banging. Kitto had taken off his shoe and was thumping it against a wooden chest. Once he had their attention he climbed the stairs to a half-landing and addressed his guests.

  “Thank you all for coming to celebrate this wonderfully auspicious occasion, Ambrose’s coming of age. As most of you know, I can take little credit. Jane is the one who deserves the praise. She bore three wonderful children, she brought them up and, most surprisingly of all, she put up with me and with my family.” Kitto paused, his voice breaking slightly. “I would like you all to raise your glasses to Jane: my wife, my friend and saviour.”

  “I thought tonight was about me!” Ambrose shouted. He was already drunk. There was a smattering of nervous laughter at his intervention. Kitto raised his glass and ran down the stairs to Jane, took her hand and kissed it. Everyone clapped. Jane looked at the floor. Clarissa, who disapproved strongly of public displays of affection, tutted. Kitto turned around and ran back up.

  “As most of you know, it’s a huge challenge trying to maintain large houses. My parents were the last generation to have the money to live like Trelawneys. Some of you remember the lavish house-parties, shooting and hunting weekends, the balls and other festivities. Without a huge fortune, that kind of life was unrealistic and, some might say, anachronistic. When Trelawney was at the centre of a large mining or agricultural empire, it was more sustainable, but its use as a sybarites’ den seems hardly palatable. What were my family thinking? Living like kings and queens while England burned?”

  “I think you should stop filming now,” Clarissa said to Damian. Neither the producer nor Ginny had any intention of switching the camera off. The evening was turning out even better than they had dreamed. Damian pondered suitable titles for his new series: The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy? Or maybe The Last Gasp?

  Seeing that the red light was blinking, Clarissa spoke a little louder. “You will not use any material without my permission.” Damian smiled, hoping that the microphone was picking up her angry words.

  “I am hardly innocent,” Kitto continued. “I bought into the rules and way of life. In the name of history or standards—or was it self-interest?—I repeated not only a great mistake, but a cruel and foolish custom. When Jane and I took over the house, I asked my sister Blaze to leave. My parents had done the same to my Uncle Tony. My grandfather and his father followed the tradition too, but that doesn’t justify any of our actions. Simply repeating customs and adopting past traditions are the preserves of the lazy and the unimaginative.” Kitto didn’t look at his mother, but most of the audience did. Clarissa pitied her son. He had learned nothing.

  “The great irony is that the two most wronged people in this room have put these injustices behind them and have returned to save the family’s reputation and the roof,” Kitto resumed. “Blaze is using her business acumen to restore dignity and purpose to Trelawney, while Tony is about to make an extraordinary announcement.” Smiling at his uncle, Kitto beckoned for him to come up onto the landing.

  “Hang on, hang on.” Ambrose pushed Tony out of the way and walked up the stairs. When he was level with his father, he turned to face the guests. “Thanks, Dad, for the speech. Very touching. Thanks, Mum—you put me off mince for life.” He burped slightly and ran his hand over his mouth. “So, as you know, today I’m eighteen. Wahey for me.” He started to clap and looked expectantly at the assembled crowd. Damian panned the camera around and caught people applauding in a desultory fashion.

  Ambrose took a swig from the bottle of champagne and continued.

  “I witnessed first-hand the misery of living here. Of being cold all winter, of the boiler running out, of my mum in tears of exhaustion, of Dad disappearing off to London on a Monday morning. It was fun
living in a house where no one cared if you broke anything, until there was nothing left to break. Then I saw this place for what it is: just the dregs of a former life.”

  The guests looked at each other nervously, wondering if it was some kind of joke.

  “Let me say this in plain English. I don’t want some money-gobbling-shithole-bollocks of bricks. I loathe this house. I detest my family. I’m out.”

  There was an audible intake of breath followed by a muttering. Clarissa sat down heavily on the only available chair. Jane and Kitto reached for each other’s hands. “No!” They stared at the floor, aghast. Tony’s legs wobbled and he leaned against Blaze for support.

  “Jolly nice of Aunt Blaze and Great-Uncle Tony to offer to help. But it’s not necessary. I’ve sorted the whole thing.” Ambrose drained the bottle. “I’ve done what should have been done years ago. I’ve sold the place. Lock, stock and smoking barrel. Signed the deal today.” There was a stunned silence. Kitto stared at his son and then at his wife. Damian whipped the camera round in time to see Clarissa tumble to the floor in a deep faint. Toby pushed past the guests to tend to his grandmother. Ambrose shrugged.

  “I know it’s a bit shocking. We’ve had eight hundred years to get used to being here, but I want to live. Let me repeat that. I want to live. Look at my parents—Dad’s gone a bit loopy and Mum’s totally tonto. It’s not a great advert, is it?”

  “You have no right to pronounce on my life,” Jane said, making her way to the foot of the stairs.