by Cathy Ace
Wayne’s into football and sponsors the Coach and Horses pub team here in Anwen-by-Wye, AND a team at the Hoop and Stick pub in Mile End. The kid from the pub here belongs to both teams. Mickey James, he goes by. Michael. And the team at the Stick and Hoop wears black tracksuits and those black and blue bobble hats. There you go. Sorted. Someone from that football team left their hat at the Dower House. My money’s on the kid from the pub, even though his dad says he’s back in London. It’s a link, right? And all because Olive asked me to dinner.
I’ve been thinking about it, and Wayne didn’t seem too pleased that I’d noticed that Mickey James was on both teams. And that Toothy Thomas antiques bloke also sponsors the team here in the village, so him and Wayne must know each other, though Wayne came over all vague when I asked him about it. And Wayne Saxby isn’t vague about anything. I noticed.
So that’s good. Right? I got some solid intel, as they say. Tomorrow I’m going to try to find out more about Mickey James, the links back to the East End, and if the bloke, Ian, who works at the Dower House, is part of the football team in the village. If your notes are right, Carol (and I’m sure they are) then he’s happy to kick a ball about with anyone, so I think he might be. He could be another link. A real insider.
One more thing, Carol. If you’ve got any time, and I know it’s not a priority, could you look up some info about an old teacher of mine. Mr Locklear taught the reception class at Mile End Infants. Seems he died in a fire at his home back in the 1990s. I liked him. I remember him as very kind. I didn’t even know he was dead. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a horrible feeling that the fire in which he died might not have started innocently. If you haven’t got the time, don’t worry, I’ll do it myself when I get back. Ta, anyway.
OK. Bed now. I’m knackered. Must be all this fresh air. Up and at ’em in the morning, even though it’s Sunday. Hope you’re all OK. Night night.
EIGHTEEN
As midnight on Saturday became one a.m. on Sunday, Carol Hill lay awake listening to her husband snoring. If she didn’t know better she’d have sworn she’d eaten a plate of bricks for dinner. She couldn’t get comfortable. Wondering how she’d feel in a few months’ time, when the baby was bigger than an orange – which she knew it was, at four months gone – she sat up and decided that going downstairs and walking around a bit was her best option. She didn’t want to disturb David, so she rolled out of bed, as far as she could, then carried her slippers and dressing gown down with her.
Bunty was curled up on the top of the back of the sofa, her favorite spot, but awoke when Carol closed the door to the sitting room, stretched, then wound her way between Carol’s feet as she stubbed them into her slippers. Tying the belt of her dressing gown, Carol silently grieved the loss of her waist and wondered if it would ever return.
Rubbing her tummy and stretching her back, Carol tried to make herself burp, to no avail. A hot cup of tea? She wondered if she could manage it without waking her husband, but, feeling as she did, she decided to give it a go.
Waiting for the kettle to boil, Carol grabbed her laptop from the dining-room table, and set it on the kitchen counter. With Bunty safely at her side, she shut the kitchen door and opened up her inbox. Nothing.
Knowing that when the internet wasn’t available to them, the girls communicated by sending attachments to phone messages, Carol checked that method. She downloaded all the feedback that had been sent since she and David had decided that an early night had been in order.
A steaming mug beside her screen, Carol read everything she’d received and made a mental list of what she’d have to tackle first thing in the morning.
Bunty leaped onto the counter, and Carol pushed her down. ‘You’re not allowed, and you know it,’ she chided. Bunty looked up at Carol with a distinct expression of sulkiness. ‘Understand every word, don’t you?’ said Carol. Bunty mewed that she did.
Bunty rubbed herself against the kitchen door just as Carol belched. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she announced. ‘Let’s try to get some sleep now?’
Bunty agreed it was a good plan and padded up the stairs behind Carol, then assumed her second favorite position on the foot of the bed. Carol knew it was only a matter of time before Bunty worked her way up to the pillows, but she didn’t care. Her indigestion had cleared and she was tired.
NINETEEN
Alexander Bright stripped off his shorts, dropped them onto the floor and stepped into the shower. He’d had a good workout, watching the Sunday morning traffic crossing Tower Bridge from his windows, and was ready to face the day ahead. The idea that he was about to visit a rarely seen, museum-quality collection of odontological wonders excited him more than he’d thought possible.
Impeccably dressed, in a manner suitable for a day motoring to a stately home, and with a small overnight bag and a suit carrier, he made his way, via his personal lift, to the parking garage beneath his building. He’d allowed himself ample time to collect Clementine Twyst and still arrive at Chellingworth Hall for tea, as had been the plan. However, it was later than he’d hoped when he and his ‘hostess’ finally reached the M4, because Clemmie had slept in, then had forgotten all about their arrangements. He’d employed some fancy maneuvers to get her back on track, and put his foot down once he could.
As the London skyline disappeared behind them, to be replaced by the Slough countryside, then the turrets of Windsor Castle, the Aston purred beneath his hands. Clemmie looked suitably impressed, almost leering at him. The sight was made more alarming by the fact that she’d chosen to dress all in purple – to match her hair, he assumed. He wondered how the day would progress. The Wiltshire countryside mounded around them, the cornfields that flashed past were bare and settling down for the winter ahead. The ribboning road was relatively quiet, and, although he knew he should keep an eye open for police cars, Alexander pushed his sleek vehicle almost to her limits in an effort to make up the time they had lost while Clemmie ambled around her London house trying to find cosmetics and accessories he couldn’t imagine she’d need for one overnight stay in her own, other, home.
The drive was painless, until they hit the M32 interchange for Bristol, when everything slowed to a crawl until they were past the M5 junction. It was the first time that they’d talked at any length, Clemmie having been listening to her iPod, and Alexander preferring BBC Radio 4. Lowering the volume on The World This Weekend Alexander watched as Clemmie dropped her ear buds onto her lap and lit a cigarette, which she dangled out of the window.
‘So what about this brother of yours?’ asked Alexander. ‘Is he anything like you?’
Clemmie laughed. Alexander thought he detected a note of cruelty in her tone. ‘Henry? Well, we look nothing alike and we don’t share any interests. Very country is Henry. I can’t stand it there. Nothing to do. No one to mix with, which he doesn’t seem to mind. Totally wrapped up in Chellingworth, is Henry. Otherwise, we’re like two peas in a pod.’
‘Has he a good head for business?’ asked Alexander, thinking about a documentary he’d recently watched about the plight of British stately homes.
Clemmie guffawed. ‘Henry? Oh, do me a favor, dearie. Couldn’t run a knees-up in a brewery. Hopeless at it all. But then, to be fair to him, he wasn’t trained for it. Mother thought that he and I could be allowed to follow our muses, because Dev would do all the business and ducal stuff.’
‘Dev? Who’s that?’
‘Our older brother, Devereaux. Well, half-brother actually. My mother, Althea, was the second wife. Henry and I had an older brother by our father’s first wife. But he died. Of measles, of all things. So Henry had to step up.’ Clemmie flicked her ash out of the window and took a long drag on her cigarette.
‘Must have been tough for you, losing a brother.’
‘I didn’t know him terribly well,’ replied Clemmie. ‘He was away in school when I was young and, by the time I was old enough to get to know Devereaux, he was off traveling the world. Very active, he was. Always yomping about
doing something or other. Father indulged him, of course. Encouraged him, even. Said he had to get it out of his system before he settled down to take the title. But he died before Father did. Father was very upset, of course, and Henry and I were dragged back to the stately pile to be read the riot act. Henry stayed, but I drifted off. No one needs a girl about the place, so I mainly live in the house in London. Mother doesn’t seem to mind, and Henry couldn’t care less. After all, what could I possibly do there?’
Alexander knew enough about the responsibilities of wives, sisters and mothers in the titled classes to believe that there was a good deal that Clemmie could have been doing within the community surrounding her family’s estate, but he bit his tongue. It certainly wasn’t his business to be telling her what she should be doing, and he reminded himself that striking up a friendship with her was merely a means to an end. In fact, he found her quite annoying and living down to his expectations of the worst sort of attitude he’d come across while mixing with those for whom titles, land ownership and a leisurely lifestyle were the norm. He wasn’t at all surprised that she had remained single. He couldn’t imagine any man being prepared to put up with her self-absorption for long. He sighed with irritation, but his passenger didn’t seem to notice because she was reinserting her ear buds as they picked up speed, heading for the Severn Bridge.
Once in Wales, the traffic seemed to disappear, though it immediately started to rain. Alexander pushed on until the turn off onto the A roads which took them through Pontypool, then Abergavenny, out to Talgarth, and finally onto what, to his mind, should have been designated B roads, so narrow and winding were they. Unfamiliar with the route, he took things more slowly, and he listened to Clemmie rattle on about galleries, artists, social acquaintances and parties until he wanted to throttle her. But he gritted his teeth, and pretended he was smiling. It seemed to Alexander that Clemmie spent most of her life in the newly burgeoning East End art scene and a range of converted warehouses and old pubs which now served to attract the hip artsy crowd, like the place they’d eaten the night before, where industrial lighting and whitewash paint seemed to be all the rage.
Negotiating the lavish ironwork gates to the Chellingworth Estate, Alexander steeled himself for what lay ahead. He pulled up in front of the short, bald man who was the ticket seller for the estate. As soon as the man spotted Clemmie, Alexander noted that he seemed to search for a non-existent forelock to tug, then waved the car through.
‘Beastly, don’t you think?’ said Clemmie, sulking.
‘What?’ asked Alexander, wondering if she was referring to the man in the high-visibility vest they’d just passed.
‘All these … you know, people. Plebs. All running about the place. I don’t know how Henry puts up with it. There must be some other way to make some money out of the place. We can’t even use the main body of the house anymore. We have to live in just one wing.’
Alexander resisted the temptation to point out that Clemmie didn’t live there at all, but in a house in London probably valued at millions of pounds and stuffed to the rafters with art and artifacts worth just as much again. Instead, he allowed himself a sweet moment or two of anticipation, as he stayed clear of a minivan ahead of him that was throwing up pea gravel.
As the high, brick-built walls of the Chellingworth Estate disappeared behind them, Alexander allowed himself to enjoy the view. The rain had cleared, giving way to patches of blue sky between fluffy clouds and the sweeping landscape didn’t disappoint. Verdant pastures, strategically placed copses, ha-has to enclose the animals. It was quite idyllic. He’d read up on the history of the Twysts and of the estate. Capability Brown himself had had a hand in the design of the landscape and Alexander felt the touch of genius all about him. Ahead of him, on higher ground, was Chellingworth Hall itself. Of course, he’d seen photographs of it on the internet, but they didn’t do justice to the scale and symmetrical beauty of the place.
As every other vehicle pulled into a driveway that led to the parking area, Alexander negotiated a narrower part of the approach, which he had to share with pedestrians. The car, and its occupants, drew a great deal of interest. As it finally crunched to a stop at the bottom of the stone stairs which led to the front door, it gathered quite a crowd. Alexander opened Clemmie’s door for her, and the two ascended the stairs, to be met, halfway up, by a flustered man in a dark suit.
‘Edward, how lovely to see you,’ cried Clemmie. ‘This is my guest, Mr Alexander Bright. We thought we’d overnight. The bags are in the boot, such as it is in that little beauty.’ She nodded toward the Aston, which had been almost engulfed by a group of men, all of whom were being dragged at by wives and girlfriends.
‘Lady Clementine, what a delightful surprise,’ said the man.
Alexander was immediately sure of three things: the man was well past his prime and probably suffered from some sort of heart complaint, and that he was anything but delighted to see Clemmie.
‘Mr Bright,’ said the man politely.
‘Alexander, please.’
‘Mr Alexander, if I might have the keys, I’ll have your bags brought in and the car moved to the stable block. It will not be accessible to the public there,’ he noted.
Alexander felt a pang of panic every time someone else drove his car, but it was something he’d had to get used to since he so often used valet services. One thing he’d never be able to get used to, however, was the idea that someone would handle all his personal items while unpacking for him, and he’d discovered that it was perfectly acceptable, in good society, to say so.
‘Thank you, Edward,’ he replied, handing over the keys. ‘I prefer to unpack myself. A foible.’
‘I understand, sir,’ replied Edward in a neutral tone.
‘Come on, let’s find Henry,’ called Clemmie as she all but ran into Chellingworth Hall, startling the members of the public who were milling about whispering. ‘Follow me,’ she said, unhooking a thick red velvet rope, allowing the brass end to clang loudly against the brass pole from which it hung. ‘I expect he’s skulking in his private rooms,’ she called.
Alexander carefully replaced the rope and noticed the glances of barely concealed surprise and jealousy as he turned to join Clemmie. Adept as he was at mixing with all sorts of people, he had never experienced this before, and he felt a tingle of anticipation as he realized that he, Alex Bright, from the back streets of Brixton, was about to enter a world that was new and usually closed, to him.
TWENTY
After just one day at the Dower House, Mavis MacDonald could sympathize exactly with how Althea Twyst felt about having members of the public roaming across the Chellingworth Estate. Having always lived in close quarters with others, either during her nursing days, or at her mid-terrace flat in north London, she found it odd that she should feel the presence of hundreds of strangers in a landscape that she neither knew, nor owned, so oppressive.
From its vantage point on a hillock, the Dower House had an excellent view of the hall, as well as the beautiful landscape that comprised the estate. Before the gates had opened that Sunday morning to allow public access, the verdant, gently rolling pastures glistened with dew, and mist wreathed sinuously into and out of the dips and copses. Mavis had been awestruck by the beauty to such an extent that she’d sat at her bedroom window for more than an hour just looking at it all, and allowing it to bathe her with its overwhelming gift of peaceful solitude.
Then the cars had begun to make their way along the winding drive. Then the coaches. Then more cars. Then, possibly worst of all, the people had begun to appear. Satiated on art and architecture at the hall, they began to wander, aimlessly, in the previously unpopulated landscape. Their voices carried in an alarming manner, especially those belonging to small children.
Usually, Mavis adored the sound of a child’s laughter. Indeed, she thought there were few more joyful sounds in the world. But this? Why was this different to hearing the sound of her next-door neighbor’s children playing in th
e back garden? Why was it so much worse than being cheek by jowl with the hordes on the summer beaches?
Mavis couldn’t fathom it. But she knew she felt it.
When she joined Althea for coffee, she had a new understanding of the woman.
‘It must be very difficult for you, having people roam your estate like this,’ she observed as she filled her cup in the morning room.
Althea didn’t look up from her newspaper. ‘Ah, the poor old landed gentry bemoaning the arrival of the plebian crowds?’ she quipped.
‘No,’ said Mavis gently. ‘I mean the loss of the truly profound peace you must feel when it’s just you, alone, with the land.’
Althea’s head came up, a strange expression on her face. ‘You’ve felt the magic already?’ she asked sharply. ‘It usually takes longer. But I’m glad. Henry doesn’t feel it until he leaves it. He doesn’t value it as I do. And I have learned to appreciate it even more in the past few years. I sometimes wonder if this is how heaven will be.’
‘With hell being the days when visitors overwhelm the estate?’ asked Mavis, smiling.
Althea nodded. ‘Precisely.’
McFli yapped his way across the room toward the door.
‘Who is it, my dear wee man?’ asked Mavis, drawing a smile from the dowager.
A knock was followed immediately by Jennifer Newbury’s head appearing around the door. ‘There’s a telephone call for you, ma’am. It’s His Grace, the duke. Shall I bring in the handset?’
Mavis thought it was a very peculiar question. Althea nodded and Jennifer did as she was told.
Althea took the handset and put it to her ear. ‘Speak,’ she said loudly. She paused, listening. ‘Yes, both of us. Very well, at seven,’ she said, then handed the instrument back to Jennifer, who took it and disconnected the line. ‘That will be all for now, Jennifer, but please make sure that my emerald crepe is ready for me to dress at six.’ She paused and thought for a moment. ‘Pearls, I think. Thank you.’