Rumours

by Freya North

‘Surprise me.’

  ‘Rembrandt!’

  ‘But it was I who surprised you – I bought it, girl. Before he was fashionable.’

  She had to speak to Lydia. It couldn’t wait. It wasn’t for the telephone and it wasn’t for tomorrow. She glanced at her watch. God! Time had stopped still for her at Clarence’s but now it was racing away. She’d have to leave in half an hour to make it back to Hertford in time to collect Will. She paced the gardens. Come on, Lydia, come on! She circumnavigated the house, twice. Where are you! She went in through the tradesmen's entrance and called through the house. Finally, she sat on one front doorstep, then another, then hovered by the lions. She really had to go. She’d be late. But she couldn’t leave. So what could she do?

  Xander’s mobile was busy. She phoned his office, for the first time. She knew the lady who took the call must be Mrs Gregg.

  ‘Oh, hullo,’ said Stella. ‘Please could I speak to Xander? Fletcher.’

  ‘He’s on a call,’ Mrs Gregg said.

  Stella could hear his voice, faintly, elsewhere in the office. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I tried his mobile but it’s engaged.’

  ‘If you care to leave a message, I shall ask him to return your call.’ There was no cause for Mrs Gregg to deduce who this was.

  ‘Actually, can you just tell him it’s me – it’s Stella?’

  Mrs Gregg was quiet. So this is what she sounded like, the Stella girl. ‘As I said, Mr Fletcher is on another call, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Please, Mrs Gregg,’ said Stella, and she really was pleading. ‘Xander speaks of you so highly – tells me how he couldn’t do his job without you, how frequently you go beyond the call of duty. Please could you just poke him for me – or hiss at him, or write it on a Post-it and slap it on his head?’

  Mrs Gregg thought to herself that none of those things befitted a woman of her training or experience. Modern office managers might lark about but not her. Nevertheless she couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘Please?’ said Stella. ‘Could you just perhaps alert him that there’s a far more urgent call on the line – mouth Stella at him?’ She paused. ‘It’s about the Fortescues,’ she said. ‘I’m at Longbridge. It’s ever so urgent.’

  Mrs Gregg cleared her throat. And then, for the first time in her working life, she snapped her fingers at Xander. He looked up at once, startled.

  ‘Stella,’ Mrs Gregg announced, ‘on line one. At Longbridge. Urgent.’

  ‘I’ll call you back,’ said Xander and he quit the call on his mobile and picked up the desk phone. ‘Stella?’

  ‘I can’t talk now – Rembrandt’s here and I’ve just seen Lydia driving up and I have to speak to her right away! It means I’m delayed. For the best possible reasons. But I’m going to be late to collect Will. And I was just wondering – I know it’s a tall order. But is it at all possible for you to pick him up? Just bring him back to the office? Just for say, an hour? He’ll be good as gold.’

  It didn’t matter that she was gabbling and what she said made little sense. It didn’t matter that he was frantically busy. Suddenly he was far more flattered than he was put out. He was needed. He’d love to help. ‘Where is Will?’

  ‘Courtyard Arts – it’s just before Port Hill. I’ll phone them first.’

  ‘I know where it is. No problem. Stella – are you OK?’

  ‘Very OK!’ she sang out. ‘Everything is going to be just fine!’

  * * *

  ‘Lydia!’

  ‘Why are you still here?’

  ‘Lydia!’

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘Lydia!’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Miss Hutton. He was an old dog and he’d had a good innings.’

  ‘No! Not Barnaby – but dear Barnaby. But no! Lydia!’

  ‘Good God girl, what? You’re bright red.’

  ‘The Rembrandt!’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘I was at Clarence’s. He has a Rembrandt sketch – on his back wall!’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Last year, the Rembrandt self-portrait I’m pretty sure this was a sketch for, made millions at auction.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘This wouldn’t reach that – but we are talking enough money to mean you don’t have to sell Longbridge! You can sell the Rembrandt instead!’

  ‘What on earth?’

  ‘Your problems are practically solved – everyone’s problems could be solved. Longbridge is saved. Everyone is safe – in the village, in the barns, Clarence, Art, Miss Gilbey. Rembrandt saves the day! I’ve always loved him – always!’

  It wouldn’t be until later that evening that Lydia would be charmed by all of this. Just then, she felt supremely irritated. She just wanted to get inside, have a Scotch and put her feet up.

  ‘Lydia! Trust me! I know Rembrandt!’

  ‘He’s dead,’ she said sharply.

  Stella laughed joyously. ‘I mean – my MA thesis. He’s my hero!’

  ‘He’s not for sale.’

  ‘Everything has a price – and the money you could raise at auction would sweep all your financial troubles away. I promise you.’

  ‘He’s not for sale, girl.’

  Stella did not think before she spoke. ‘Are you mad?’

  Lydia was incandescent with rage and couldn’t speak.

  ‘You’re broke – so sell Rembrandt! Simple!’ Stella couldn’t help but look at Lydia as though she was dense. Lydia had to swallow down splutters of fury.

  ‘Stella Hutton!’

  ‘But Lydia?’

  ‘The bloody thing is not for bloody sale. Now for goodness’ sake will you just bugger off and leave me alone.’

  ‘But you said –’

  Lydia growled, utterly exasperated. ‘It belongs to Clarence. He always liked it. I gave it to him when he retired. He said he couldn’t possibly – retire as well as take it. But I insisted he did both. There.’

  ‘But it’s worth a fortune!’

  ‘It belongs to Clarence.’

  ‘But you’re on the verge of being homeless! You must take it back and sell it – I don’t know – give some money to Clarence. Let him choose a different painting or something. He strikes me as being as happy with a new toby jug as with an old Rembrandt. This is your last chance to save Longbridge!’

  Lydia looked at Stella, who was wild about the eyes, her hair escaping from her pony-tail like a gorgon, her cheeks flushed, her chest rising and falling fast. And suddenly it hit Lydia. Dear Stella, she thought. She felt her strict and steely exterior, of which she was fiercely proud, bend and soften a little with warmth.

  ‘Stella – I have money.’ Lydia could see that this sentence alone held little meaning for the girl. ‘I wasn’t entirely – straight – with you. I am selling Longbridge. But not because I need the money. I want rid of the place purely and simply because I’m old. And I want to be able to make the decision of where I go next, while I still can.’

  This was too much for Stella to take in – the true fact, the honest reason. She sank down to sit next to one of the stone lions, her arm about its back. ‘What do you mean?’ She sounded tearful.

  Creakily, Lydia sat down too, her knees as neatly together as Stella’s were akimbo; the older woman as controlled and steady as the younger woman was in pieces. She tapped Stella’s knee. ‘My dear – I am old. And frailer by the day. And that’s why I don’t want to live here any more. It depresses me. I can’t turn the handles. I can’t bolt the back door. I trip up and down the stone steps. My sight isn’t as good as it was. And I feel the cold – dreadfully. The radiators – they’re my enemy with their dastardly lukewarmness. I don’t like being here on my own. I really don’t. I am at a stage in my life when my distant memories are daisy fresh these days – they haunt me, taunt me with vivid times when the house was full and thriving.’ Lydia left unsaid the words with my children. Her hand was back on Stella’s knee. ‘I have made my decision, Stella dear. I don’t want to feel cold in the su
mmer. I don’t want to take a tumble and not be found until the morning. I do not want to die here. I want to be the first Fortescue who doesn’t die here.’

  ‘The bruised eye. Your arm,’ said Stella vaguely, ‘the sling.’

  Lydia nodded. ‘I have let this rambling old place go – and now you must do the same. Out of the two of us, it is you who needs to sell it for the money, not me. I’m selling it because it’s time.’ She paused. ‘I am out of love with the place. And that’s a very tiring emotion for a woman of my age to deal with.’

  Stella looked at Lydia beseechingly. ‘Couldn’t Verity come back here – with her funny little tribe? They’d look after you.’

  Lydia correctly judged Stella’s tone and answered her with the same sensitivity. ‘What – for me to spend my twilight years watching women knit things with alfalfa while men with pony-tails and plaited beards play pan pipes? It would drive me absolutely bonkers.’ Lydia shook her head. ‘It’s not what they want and it would be as much of a millstone for them as for me. I am old enough to do as I please. One must never sully good memories. One must not allow memories of halcyon times to be overridden by newer ones of bad experiences. One owes it to the people, whether long gone or still here, who formed those memories.’

  Stella looked down to see that Lydia’s hand rested softly upon her knee. Gently, she put her own hand over Lydia’s and let it lie there. It transpired that Lydia was the most modern of all of them.

  ‘There’s a good girl,’ said Lydia, audibly tired. She looked at Stella, kindly. ‘You wanted to do so much more than your job – but really, dear Stella, your job is to look after me. And my wishes are that this old heap is sold and that this bony scrag –’ she jabbed at herself – ‘enjoys her last years in warmth, comfort and without anxiety.’

  Stella spoke, her voice compromised by the lump in her throat. She was holding hands with Lydia now. ‘But where will you go?’

  Lydia began to chuckle. She sighed. ‘I’m going to that nice place where Mercy Benton lives. Summerhill Place. Of course, I remember it when it was the Duggen-Fanshaws’ estate. Mrs Biggins is coming with me. We’re to have neighbouring apartments. Mine’s larger, of course – actually, it’s the largest there. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms. A lounge and a study. My own French doors onto my own private patio and marvellous views over the Duggen-Fanshaws’ parkland. Oh! And a proper sit-in kitchen. Mrs Biggins only has a galley kitchen and she will still be at my beck and call.’

  ‘You’re checking yourself into an old folks’ home?’ Stella was utterly aghast and not a little mortified.

  ‘How very impudent! If you are to call it anything, you can call it Retirement Apartments.’

  Stella looked appalled.

  ‘And it does not smell of pee,’ Lydia laughed. ‘It’s rather jolly – a lovely place. With elevenses and afternoon tea and all sorts of shenanigans laid on for residents. And there’s a buzzer, you see, in the apartment. You press it if you need someone, quickly. And Mrs Biggins – she’s prone to turn a deaf ear to me, wretched woman.’

  Stella rested her head against the lion’s shoulder, then she turned to Lydia and, reluctantly, she nodded.

  Lydia looked at Stella. The girl was quite pale. ‘I should like to take you there,’ Lydia said. ‘Show you how gay it is.’ While her words reached Stella, Lydia quietly wondered why it was so important to her that her choice should meet with Stella’s seal of approval.

  ‘I hope you will be one of my most frequent visitors,’ said Lydia. ‘You. Xander. And Will. There will be shortbread for tea, you know.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Stella felt utterly dazed when she went to Xander’s office. Any other day, she’d be excited, all eyes, keen to ingratiate herself with the infamous Mrs Gregg. But that afternoon she felt drained and her head so full of unbelievable facts that there was room in there for little else. Rembrandt and Summerhill Place in one fell swoop. It had knocked her sideways, all of it. She rang the buzzer to Xander’s office and all Mrs Gregg could see in the entryphone screen was the top of Stella’s bowed head. As she climbed the stairs, Stella tried to shrug off the bewilderments of the day with each footfall.

  ‘Mummy!’

  ‘Hullo, poppet.’

  ‘I made this for you – Mrs Gregg showed me how.’ It was a necklace made out of paper clips.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’ It sparkled and, as Will placed it over her head, it lit Stella a little from the inside. She turned to Mrs Gregg. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For everything. I’m Stella.’ She offered her hand and Mrs Gregg took it.

  ‘Pauline Gregg,’ she said in her bright, telephone voice. ‘And it was no trouble. And young master Will – well, I’ve told him he can come by any time he likes, now that he’s mastered the franking machine.’

  ‘I’m going to work here, when I’m older,’ Will said.

  Stella glanced around. ‘Where’s Xander?’

  ‘He has gone to a meeting with some fish and a cow,’ said Will.

  ‘At Fishers and Co.,’ Mrs Gregg interjected, smiling at Will.

  ‘He says he’ll see us at home,’ said Will.

  ‘He said not to cook, that he’ll bring fish and chips,’ said Mrs Gregg.

  ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Gregg,’ said Stella. ‘Really. You’re an absolute brick.’

  Mrs Gregg liked that very much. It was the sort of terminology she herself employed.

  ‘Can we give you a lift anywhere?’ Stella offered.

  ‘Thank you but no – I’m partial to walking to and from the office.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Stella. ‘Well – if you’re sure? We’ll say goodbye. Come on, Will.’

  Will went over and shook Mrs Gregg’s hand. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘call me any time you need help. But most weekends I play cricket and during the week I’m usually at school.’

  Mrs Gregg nodded most formally. ‘I will certainly do that – most useful.’ She looked at the Stella girl, watching her smoothing her son’s hair, seeing the way she looked at him. Nice hands – clean nails kept sensibly short. A tidy way about her. Polite – and warm. Mrs Gregg felt pleased. Absolutely spot on, Mr Fletcher – very good choice.

  ‘Any time you want me to snap my fingers at Xander, you just let me know.’

  Stella grinned. Another ally in her life, another new person rooting for her and Xander. How lovely. ‘Thank you. I’ll try not to make a habit of it.’

  ‘Come on, Mummy.’

  ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘By the way, Mrs Gregg let her children call her Mum when they were twenty-one, when she gave them the key of the door.’

  * * *

  ‘I’m not allowed to tell you that I’m better than you at reading Beast Quest,’ Xander said, coming downstairs having just read to Will for twenty minutes. ‘Will said, don’t tell my Mum.’

  ‘He says that to all my boyfriends,’ Stella laughed. Fish and chips and a mug of tea had made her feel so much better. ‘I’m sure it’s just because my voice isn’t low enough to do a proper scary beast.’

  ‘Has he met many?’

  ‘Beasts?’

  ‘Boyfriends, silly.’

  Stella put her arms around Xander’s waist. ‘There’s only been you. Since Charlie.’

  Xander knew that already, but for some reason it was nice to hear it again. Just so stabilizing not to play games, to simply embrace good fortune and get on with life.

  ‘Don’t go,’ said Stella.

  ‘I have no intention of leaving,’ said Xander. And he really meant it.

  ‘I have had the most bizarre day,’ said Stella. ‘You really couldn’t make it up.’ She poured a glass of wine for each of them and motioned for Xander to snuggle up close to her on the sofa while she told him all that had come to pass at Longbridge that afternoon. He knew about the Rembrandt – he told her how, when they were young and it hung in the nursery, he and Verity would move around the room mesmerized by how the eyes appeared to follow them. He didn’t know about Summ
erhill Place. At first, it shocked him deeply. It seemed so undignified. But then he laughed and laughed and helped Stella see how Lydia really was having the last laugh of all.

  ‘But we must keep a tight rein on the rumours that will abound from this,’ Stella said. ‘I know Lydia professes not to give a hoot what people think of her – but I do.’

  Xander chinked wineglasses with her.

  Stella sipped thoughtfully. ‘Would you like to stay, Xander? I mean – the night?’

  Xander tucked her hair behind her ears and thought to himself, that wasn’t two monumental things that happened to Stella today – that’s three.

  In the small hours, Stella woke Xander and asked if he’d mind very much sleeping the rest of the night on the sofa downstairs.

  ‘But you’re so toasty,’ he mumbled, spooning close. ‘And you smell so good and I was having such a great sleep.’

  ‘Please? For me?’

  He yawned. ‘And your room is so – I don’t know – calming, warm. Lovely.’

  Stella chuckled. ‘Yours could be too – if you bloody well let Caroline weave her magic up there.’

  Xander groaned. ‘God – is nothing sacred?’

  ‘Not between two women who get on like a house on fire.’

  They talked in the darkness, Xander quietly dissecting himself; working it all out, out loud, how after Laura he didn’t want to be doing with love and all its panoply.

  ‘I guess I claimed self-sufficiency,’ he said. ‘It was easier than being glum. And it warded off Caroline from wanting me to workshop my feelings the whole time.’

  Stella laughed. ‘My poor friends – the hours and hours they politely spent patiently listening to me analysing exactly the same issues over and over again.’

  ‘For a while, though, I believed the myth I put out about myself,’ Xander mused. ‘That relationships weren’t my thing. That love wasn’t to come into my life because it was hassle I didn’t need.’

  ‘Well, I’ll bet you gave the village something to talk about. That grouchy bachelor up Tramfield Lane, you know the one – the one who likes jogging.’

  At this Xander launched at Stella, tickling her furiously and calling her a cheeky cow.