‘That’s my Amy,’ Jack laughs and squeezes my hand.
My Amy.
I lean in and give him a kiss on the cheek.
‘Anyway,’ he says, kissing me back, ‘the past is the past, and we may never know the whole story. But whatever it is, I’d say that today, you’ve helped to write a pretty important new chapter of it.’
*
Racing too fast, the clock winds down, and suddenly, my time with Jack is over. We leave the house together and he drives me back to the hotel to get my car. He gives me one last, searching kiss in the car park. ‘I’ll call you before I head off to the airport,’ he says, as our lips reluctantly part.
My heart ripping in two, I just smile and nod.
‘And I’ll let you know what Sotheby’s says about the painting.’
‘Thanks.’
‘In the meantime, let’s not tell Gran about your “hunch”, okay? Let’s get the results first.’
‘Of course, Jack.’ My voice quavers.
He touches me on the chin. ‘Come on, Amy, let’s see a smile. Everything’s going to be fine – you’ll see.’
‘Yes, Jack.’ I swallow hard. ‘But I really don’t see how…’
He stops me with another kiss.
‘I will see you soon.’ His breath in my ear makes me quiver all over. But I must stop it. Jack is off to see the solicitor and then back to America. He says I need to trust him – that he’ll come back soon, that we’ll keep in touch… and after that, who knows what might happen?
But I know what will happen. He’ll go. I’ll stay. It was nice – lovely, actually – while it lasted, like the proverbial candle burning at both ends. The end of ‘Jack and me’ is bittersweet. Just like real life.
‘Goodbye,’ he whispers.
He slams the car door. I give him a limp wave and reverse out of the car park. My hands tremble on the steering wheel. Finding what might be a lost Rembrandt has left me completely drained and exhausted (not to mention late for work).
I pull over to the kerb in the village and gather all the Rosemont Hall particulars from the passenger seat and the floor. I shove them in an overflowing rubbish bin by the post office. The photo I took of the house is forever etched in my mind, along with my vision of what it could be if someone took on the labour of love. If.
But that someone won’t be Jack.
And it won’t be me.
*
When I return to the office, my colleagues greet me with their usual pained indifference. Jonathan checks his watch when I enter and gives a little smirk. Patricia fakes a concerned look when I plunk down at my desk.
‘I hope whatever you had isn’t catching, Amy,’ she says.
‘Me too.’ I’m aware that my eyes are red and I look rubbish. ‘But with a bad case of swine flu, you never know.’ I blow my nose loudly for effect.
She looks horrified but I ignore her. Just then, Claire comes in from the back, breathless and smiling.
‘Oh Amy,’ she says, ‘did they tell you my news?’
‘Hi Claire. No… but I’m sure Patricia was just about to.’
She puts her handbag on her desk and sits down. ‘I’ve got a pupillage in Birmingham – with a really top chambers! I gave notice this morning – I’ll be leaving here in two weeks.’
‘That’s great!’ I go around to her desk and give her a hug. ‘Fantastic!’
I ask her all about her new job, and she happily launches into an account of her interviews, the people she’ll be working with, and the crown prosecution work that she’ll be doing.
Of course I’m very happy for her. But I also wonder when this painful spate of goodbyes is going to end. I look around at the others in the office, wishing it was one of them leaving rather than Claire.
After our chat, I sort through my post and emails. I’ve received loads of requests for property details, two viewings have been added to my calendar, and four people want valuations to put their homes on the market. I try to concentrate; try not to think about Jack; try to do my job as best I can.
But inside my chest, there’s a gnawing hollowness that won’t go away. My skin still tingles with the ghost of Jack Faraday’s touch. The phone rings and I forget to answer it. Emails come in and I just stare at the names on the computer screen. Mr Bowen-Knowles comes out, starts speaking to me in his usual nasal drone, leaves me a pile of papers, and I’ve no idea what he’s said.
Late in the day, a large brown envelope is delivered to me by courier. It’s from Mr Kendall’s firm. There’s a compliments slip attached to the top: Mrs Bradford didn’t want these, so Mr Jack said to give them to you. Yours, Ian Kendall, Esq.
I quickly shove the envelope in my handbag. I don’t want any questions – I can’t answer them.
As I’m about to leave for the day, Jack phones. He’s at the airport waiting for his flight. Our conversation is brief, and I feign cheerfulness and bubbly faith. But hearing his voice so far away, the cracks in my heart grow a little wider.
I tell him that I received the envelope from Mr Kendall with the letters inside.
‘Gran was in one of her moods,’ he says. ‘I got another earful about not respecting the family history and Rosemont Hall.’ He laughs uncomfortably. ‘You probably agree with her.’
‘Maybe a little bit.’ I manage a laugh.
‘She took some convincing even to let me get the painting looked at by an expert in London. She thought I was trying to sell it even though it was left to her. I tried to tell her that wasn’t the case – I only wanted to see if it needed restoring or preservation.’ He sighs. ‘I guess Flora and I haven’t been the best grandchildren in the world.’
‘She’s a one-off, your grandmother.’
‘That’s putting it nicely. Anyway, I’d better go. They just put up the gate info. I’ll call you.’
‘Okay.’ I can’t bring myself to say goodbye so I quickly hang up the phone.
I sit at my desk in the empty office staring at the four beige walls. Focus on the present, breath by breath. Focus on the positives: the painting will be delivered to Sotheby’s in London for examination by an expert. As for what that expert will find, I have a pretty good idea. As for what my future holds…
I shudder to think.
- VIII -
Letter 8 (unsealed envelope addressed to ‘A Reilly’)
Rosemont Hall
August 30th 1952
Darling— I married her. Last weekend, in a ceremony in the village church before my father, 120 well-wishers, and a God that doesn’t exist. There really was no choice. Please let me explain…
A fire investigator came from Lloyds – a local man called Wakefield. He immediately questioned my father’s well-rehearsed charade. He found the gold lighter you had given me in the wreckage. But he also found traces of accelerant that he believes started the fire. ‘How could a servant do this without being seen?’ he asked. There was something about him – he was not a man to let the matter lie.
My father instantly confronted me – nearly begged me – such a pathetic thing. He needed the protection of HER father who is a Lord. The family association would place him above suspicion. And he showed me the true state of the estate finances – much worse than I ever could have suspected. All I could think about was that if I didn’t marry, I would have to sell Rosemont Hall. And how could I allow that to happen? Even though I may never see you again – I must try to accept that now – it is still your home. You are the mistress here – your vision haunts every corner of the house.
My father says that you have gone to America – the land of opportunity. He said that if I marry without a fuss, he will give me your address. If only my letters can reach you, then perhaps there is still hope. I believe the insurance man will declare an open verdict – he won’t implicate father directly, but he won’t pay out either. When that happens, you can return and I will have this sham of a marriage annulled. In the meantime, there will be no children – I will make certain of that.
Y
ou trusted me once and I betrayed you. I dare not ask again. But you have only to say the word and once again I shall be yours.
- 39 -
At home, Mum and Dad are in the lounge watching Midsomer Murders. I slip past them into my room and take the brown envelope out of my handbag. Slitting it open, I remove the bundle of letters addressed to ‘A Reilly’. The envelopes each have an American address and a stamp, but no postmark – they were never sent. Nonetheless, each one is slit open along the top. Someone has read them.
As I’m about to open the top letter, I suddenly feel like I’m riffling through someone else’s dirty laundry, or else, ‘poking my nose where it doesn’t belong’. When I read the original letters between ‘H’ and ‘A’, I assumed that both correspondents were deceased. But now that I know the truth, really, I’ve no right to be looking at letters addressed to Mrs Bradford – even if she doesn’t want them.
I retie the letters and set them on top of the bureau. I lie back down on my bed and pick up a book from the bedside table. After a few seconds of staring at the page, I realise that I’m holding the book upside down. How can I concentrate on reading fiction when the truth is staring at me from across the room?
Maybe I’ll just read one or two. I close the book and stand up. After all, someone’s opened them already. Maybe they might contain something important. If I don’t look, I’ll never know – and neither will Mrs Bradford. I take the stack from my bureau and sit on the bed.
It isn’t until five in the morning that I finally turn off the light.
- IX -
Letter 9 (unsealed envelope addressed to ‘A Reilly’)
Rosemont Hall
1st April 1953
My darling—
I now accept that I may never see you again. I curse the long years ahead. Without you here, I hope that the old house crumbles to the ground. It has become a prison, my marriage a life sentence.
Overnight my father has turned old. He walks through the wreckage, tapping his stick like a blind man, cursing and talking to himself. Sometimes, he talks to his last beloved painting – the Rembrandt – as if it’s still hanging there on the empty wall. The insurance man refuses to settle the claim. He thinks that my father has spirited the painting away. He can’t prove anything, but too many questions remain unanswered.
Cleverer still is my wife’s father. He carefully hid the fact that Arabella’s fortune was nowhere near as much as promised. We’ve put every penny into fixing the roof – there’s nothing left over to restore the East Wing.
In spite of everything, there is one comfort that remains for me. My father’s friend, the painter, left behind an unexpected and most precious gift. A framed canvas, almost life-sized, discarded in his attic studio. A picture of a girl in a pink dress – the silk clinging to her body in a way that makes me ache for her. She’s clutching a bundle of letters, and I can see the love shining from her eyes. I had no idea that you sat for him! Perhaps that was the surprise you were so eager to tell me. In any case, the painting is so lovely and lifelike that it has become my fondest salvation and my greatest torment.
I carried it out of the attic and hung it on the stair landing. My father took one look at it and began to cackle like a madman. I’ve seen him stop and stand in front of it, staring like he’s trying to see through the pigment and canvas. Like it somehow holds the key to what his life has become.
Perhaps you think it is cruel of me to have hung up your portrait – and to taunt my wife every time she sees it. But if she minds, she has never said. Every night I give her a sisterly kiss on the forehead and we go our separate ways to bedrooms at the opposite ends of the house. Poor Arabella. None of this misery is her doing.
But be that as it may, I would gladly trade her life for a single moment with you, my love. I suppose that makes me just as much of a demon as my father.
- 40 -
As the sky begins to lighten through the net curtains, I carefully refold each of the letters in turn, barely able to swallow from the lump of tears in my throat. After Henry’s marriage to Arabella, the letters reduced in frequency as Henry’s despair and resignation came home to roost. He never ‘made anything of himself’ without Maryanne at his side – as far as I can tell, he had a job as a minor civil servant at the local council, which would hardly have provided much money for the upkeep of a house like Rosemont Hall. His life seemed to settle into a kind of muted rhythm. He continued to give an account of certain key events – the death of his father; a near-miss for Arabella when she cut herself on a rusty blade and got blood poisoning. This event was not explained in detail, but it leads me to wonder about the depth of her own despair at her marriage.
Some of the later letters went on to speculate about what Miss Reilly’s life might have been like after she fled, and where she might have disappeared to. And why she never sent an answer to the years of love letters she must have received. Henry concluded that her silence was down to her own superior internal strength, and the supposition that her life had in fact turned out well. I sigh. Did he ever suspect that in all the time that followed, she had never received his letters?
And all the while – over forty long years of his marriage to Arabella, the house gradually fell into a worse and worse state. He speaks of the cracks in the plaster, the leaks in the roof, the woodworm, and the gathering layers of dust like they are somehow a comfort to him. It was like the crumbling walls of Rosemont Hall were absorbing his lifelong pain of a broken heart.
My eyes are red and puffy from lack of sleep and deciphering Henry’s tiny, deliberate handwriting. His words of love echo in my head – sometimes poetic, but ultimately futile.
And I even spare a thought for Sir George – a ‘devil’ by all accounts. I reread the letter he sent to Henry that was in the original bundle of letters. It must have been written just before Henry came home from university. There’s a sense of loss in his words, as he speaks of selling off his art, and his grand ‘plan’ for Henry to ‘restore the family fortunes’. In the end, Sir George’s schemes failed miserably and ruined many lives, including, it would seem, his own. And if I’m right about the painting we found, then I agree with Henry’s assessment that his father was a little mad. I suppose that by entombing his beloved Rembrandt, Sir George thought that he could keep it for himself out of reach of the world. Perhaps just knowing it was still there in the house was enough for him. Didn’t Mary Blundell say something about art collectors valuing their treasures more than casual viewers do? Not that I believe that for a second, but then again, I’ve never owned anything anywhere near as valuable or beautiful so as to be able to judge.
And what if Jack and I hadn’t found the painting – would another treasure have been lost forever? Because even if I do end up saving the Rembrandt, I still haven’t saved Rosemont Hall.
I refold the letters and put them back in the envelope along with the lighter, the sketchbook, and the original bundle of letters from my knicker drawer. I get dressed and slip out the back door before Mum can ply me with a breakfast I couldn’t possibly stomach. Half-dazed, I drive to work and park the car. But instead of going into the office, I walk for twenty minutes to the other side of Bath.
I stop in front of a golden-stone facade. Next to the door is a brass plaque with an engraved name. I ring the bell and speak to the receptionist. I’m buzzed in and walk into an immaculately painted hallway with original Georgian coving and staircase. I walk up to the first floor.
Mr Kendall’s office has the warm, comforting look of a gentleman country solicitor’s. There’s a spacious waiting area with bookshelves on one wall, filled with neat, leather-bound law books in tan, burgundy, and green. His assistant is a middle-aged woman with glasses, who greets me when I enter. ‘Mr Kendall is on the phone,’ she says when I tell her my name. ‘But he might be able to fit you in before his next client arrives. Would you like some coffee?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ I sit down on one of the leather chesterfield sofas and thumb through the l
atest Country Life.
It’s half an hour before Mr Kendall is finally off the phone. He comes out of his office and immediately sees me sitting there.
‘Mr Kendall, this young lady…’ his assistant begins.
‘Thank you, Colleen. I’ll see Ms Wood now.’
I stand up. We exchange greetings. He ushers me into his office and I sit down in a comfy leather chair across from his large antique banker’s desk. We make a bit of small talk – about his office, the weather, the local property market.
‘I came to see you about the letters.’ I cut to the chase.
‘Yes, what about them?’
‘Has Mrs Bradford read them? Did she hide them in the hollow behind the painting?’
Mr Kendall sits back in his chair. ‘No. She denied knowing anything about them. And I believe her.’
‘So who put them there? Henry Windham?’
‘More likely it was Arabella.’
My hunch confirmed, I let out a long sigh. ‘Are you certain?’
He steeples his fingers like a wise sage. ‘I was the family solicitor. To many people that means more than just a lawyer. Confidante, therapist – confessor. Arabella and I had tea together once or twice a year.’
‘So she knew then? That all those years her husband was in love with someone else; wanted a life with someone else? That he continued to write love letters to Maryanne Reilly even after they were married? And Arabella made sure that they were never sent?’
‘That’s the gist of it.’ Mr Kendall does his best to sound lawyerly and indifferent, but the sad look in his eyes tells the truth.
‘So Maryanne Reilly – Mrs Bradford – never knew that Henry tried to find her?’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘That poor woman!’ I blurt out ‘And poor Arabella and Henry… and—’
I stop. The past is the past. Henry and Arabella are dead. Mrs Bradford is bitter and unstable. Rosemont Hall will become a golf clubhouse and conference centre if it’s lucky, and crumble to dust if it isn’t. Either way, the walls will forget what they know, and the voices they once heard will fade away.
Finding Home Page 28