‘We won’t.’ But Beth did. She expected everything. Certainly the answer to her dreams.
‘It’s like something out of a movie,’ Sarah said. ‘I hope Frankenstein isn’t lurking inside.’
Beth peered through the gloom. ‘Oh my God, what’s that?’
Sarah flashed her torch at the opposite wall and caught the glint of amber. ‘A stag’s head with glass eyes. Handsome fellow, wasn’t he?’
‘How cruel.’
‘How English.’
‘We should have left it till the morning. We can’t see a thing in this gloom.’
Sarah stepped over a pile of rags, screwing up her nose in distaste and led the way down a long, dark passage, its walls covered with peeling red flock wallpaper, damp with mildew.
‘It smells dreadful. Of damp and old wood fires and something even less pleasant.’
Beth said, ‘At least we’re inside at last, in Larkrigg Hall.’ There was deep satisfaction in her tone.
Their boots echoed mournfully on the bare wooden floors. Austere, dark and empty, it seemed anything but welcoming.
Somewhere in the distant depths of the house a door banged shut and both girls jumped.
‘Oh, lord. Let’s get out of here.’
‘It’s only a gust of wind we brought in with us,’ Beth said, laughing.
‘Nevertheless, we’ll come back tomorrow, in the daylight. OK?’ And when something scampered over her feet Beth felt bound to agree. All in all their first view of the house had been far from encouraging. But she wasn’t in the least bit discouraged. Oh, dear me, no.
Chapter Four
Larkrigg Fell was one of those tracts of land which went unnoticed. Hidden away from all the main tourist routes, its rough grass untrodden save for the foxes and sheep who knew it intimately. It had no dramatic crags or precipitous summits. The stony sheep trod which the twins followed the very next day climbed slowly and lazily, winding between juniper bushes and knuckles of rock that formed knolls and hollows.
The fell had been shaped at the dawn of time by ice overflowing from glaciers formed in the clefts of surrounding mountains, scooping out pockets and tumbling rocks into them as if with a careless hand. One such hollow, deeper than the rest, had filled with water and formed the tarn by which they lingered for a moment before hurrying on to the crest of the ridge where the house stood, a shelter of oak and yew clustered about the rectangular stone building.
But the beauty of this fell lay not in its own topography but in its setting and Beth found herself catching her breath as she let her gaze travel over the panorama of surrounding hills and mountains. Smooth, crisp and green, looking deceptively easy to climb in the foreground but with jagged blue-grey peaks in the far distance. Utter contentment flowed into her heart as if the land itself had opened its arms and embraced her. As if she had come home.
Once in the house at last, that sensation was reinforced.
As they walked from room to room, their footsteps echoing on bare boards, Beth found herself easily setting aside Sally Ann’s superstitions on how everyone insisted this was an unhappy house. Though it certainly looked unloved. There wasn’t a stick of furniture to be seen, and grubby walls showed lighter patches where pictures had once hung.
They stopped in what had obviously been the library, the oak panelled walls and shelving now empty of books but where, oddly enough, a seed box still sat, upturned, in the open fireplace. The windows were netted with cobwebs, the frames black with rotted wood and a piece of ceiling had fallen in one corner, revealing the floor above.
Sarah’s lips curled in disgust. ‘And you say we could do it up?’
Beth cast her sister an anxious glance. ‘Don’t you think it a good idea?’
Sarah examined her surroundings, taking time over her reply. ‘I can see it has potential and I’d have no objection to making pots of money out of it. If someone else did the actual work.’
‘Would you really want to sell it?’
‘Of course. We’d make a killing. Once it’s made weatherproof and tarted up a bit, we could sell it for a fat profit.’ Sarah rubbed her hands together, grinning. ‘You weren’t serious about wanting to live here, surely?’
Beth walked to the window and stared at the glorious view and once again her heart lifted. How could a house be unlucky? She flicked the faded velvet curtains that still hung there and a cloud of dust flew out, making her cough. ‘It seems so much in need of love and care. I feel as if it’s asking me to stay.’
‘You live in a fantasy world,’ Sarah said, rolling her eyes in mock despair while checking she hadn’t collected any dust on her perfectly manicured hands, or on her new boots. Dreams! OK, so we could get the roof fixed, stop the rain coming in, redecorate and stuff. But you wouldn’t get me living here. Not in a million years.’ She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and gave a half shrug, wrinkling her nose at a pile of rags in one corner. ‘Do you think tramps have been in?’
‘How could they get in? We couldn’t.’
‘True.’
Beth returned to her argument. ‘You do so love to exaggerate, Sarah. You like it too, admit it.’ The more Beth thought about it, the more the nut of excitement grew inside her. She’d hardly been able to sleep last night, couldn’t wait to get back here. She’d become entirely gripped by the possibility of restoring Larkrigg Hall, as if by pouring all her energies into the house she could banish for ever her yearning for Jeremy.
And she wanted to do much of the work herself. To clean and scrub and paint, the rest she could learn as she went along. She wanted to live in these hills, be a part of this landscape.
Beth had other dreams too, only it was too soon to mention those yet. First came the task of convincing Sarah. It was vitally important that they didn’t quarrel over this.
Somewhere in a far corner of the house came a distant rustling. ‘Ugh, those mice again,’ said Sarah. ‘We’d be pestered to death with all sorts of weird creatures out here.’
‘We could get a cat.’
‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’
They came to the kitchen, the green-tiled walls and painted shelves empty of their collection of shining copperware which must once have resided there, the pride of some cook’s heart. A solid fuel range, rusty with neglect held one black pan, as if someone had set it down to make a milk drink and then forgotten to return for it. One wall comprised a long built-in dresser and most of the floor was filled with a huge, pine table, not clean and scrubbed as Broombank’s was but coated with filth and littered with dirty newspapers, left there probably because it was too large to remove. Everything else had gone.
Scullery, meat larder, dairy, held nothing but cobwebs and an odd assortment of stone and wooden vessels, used for some long forgotten purpose.
Beth drew in a deep breath. ‘What else could we do? We’re not trained for anything. We neither of us wanted to go to college. Surely we could do something with this house? Make it pay?’
Sarah gave a disbelieving spurt of laughter. ‘How? Like taking in tourists? Yuk.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Good. Skivvying in this kitchen isn’t my idea of fun.’
‘There must be something we can do here to earn our living.’ Beth felt almost desperate for Sarah’s approval. ‘Look at these.’ She pointed to a row of bells on the wall of the passage. When she tapped them, each one gave a different sound. They were labelled parlour, drawing room, library, dining room and bedrooms, numbered one to six. Sarah tried them out too and soon they were ding-donging as merrily as silly schoolgirls.
When their childish humour was satisfied they went on into the next room. But the game had eased the tension between them. ‘You’re running away, that’s all this is,’ Sarah said, half regretting the moment of weakness yet at the same instant fighting against the seductive allure of escape from her own problems, stuffed deep in the recesses of her mind. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
‘Ru
nning away from what?’
‘From Boston, and failure to find either a decent job or a loyal man,’ said Sarah with casual brutality.
‘What if I’m running to something?’ It was astonishing the impact Lakeland had made on her, Beth thought. She really belonged here. Every day that passed brought her closer and closer to her roots. It had revitalised her, made her realise she could start again, build a life with her own hands without the requisite man at her side, even if she wasn’t as captivating or as beautiful as her sister.
The ebony curls sprang wilfully back from Sarah’s brow, chin resolutely tilted, full ripe lips smiling with confident assurance. Even in shirt and jeans she looked elegant and lovely, whereas Beth simply felt dusty and rather unkempt. She pushed the unflattering clip more firmly into place with fidgety fingers. ‘It would be a new challenge. Do us both good.’
‘Hmm, maybe,’ Sarah conceded.
‘We don’t have to go back to Boston. Not yet. Do you want to? Honestly?’ She thought of returning home the following week, of facing the pity in the eyes of her friends, of being that dreadful object, a jilted bride. And she thought of Jeremy with another woman in his arms, and shuddered. It was unthinkable, more than she could bear. ‘I certainly don’t. What is it we have to get back to? Mom and Derry are happy enough for us to take a few months break before deciding what to do next with our lives.’
It was true, Sarah thought. What did she have to return to?
She wondered what Beth would say if her sister knew that she too had once been embroiled in a passionate affair, only with a married man. Oh, she’d fancied Jeremy like mad once, could have taken him off Beth if she’d wanted to. But that would have been too easy. Frank was a greater challenge, and far more exciting. He’d never intended to leave his wife so it had all seemed like glorious fun. But look what the outcome had been? Disaster. Pregnancy and abortion last year, at just seventeen.
No, she didn’t want Beth to know all of that. She didn’t want anyone to know. They’d only condemn her and it took all of Sarah’s courage not to hate herself.
Even so, to stay at Larkrigg would be an enormous commitment. ‘Where would we get the money?’
Excitement tightened Beth’s voice. ‘Derry has arranged an allowance for our stay. He’d lend us more, if we asked him.’
‘He’d tell us not to hurt Mom by staying on here.’
‘No, he wouldn’t. And Mom isn’t like that.’
‘He couldn’t afford to give us much of a loan.’
‘Then we could ask the bank for a mortgage.’
Sarah rolled her eyes in mock despair. ‘Will you listen to yourself? Mortgage indeed. How could we two kids get a goddam mortgage? How would we pay it back, idiot?’
Sarah was always so practical. She saw life as it really was, not how she wanted it to be but Beth’s innate stubbornness took hold. ‘We’d find a way if we put our minds to it. Get a job for a start. Earn our own living.’
‘Oh, sure. Most ways of earning the kind of money I need are either unreliable or illegal.’
‘We could do much of the work ourselves.’
‘Can you see me up a ladder? Or scrubbing floors?’ Sarah pulled a face and made a rude noise.
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘And I don’t see why I should.’
They seemed to have reached an impasse. Beth gazed out over the hump of fells. Swirls of fine mist wreathed the higher peaks, flimsy as the bridal veil she’d never got the chance to wear. She opened the window and let in the sweet smell of damp earth, wild thyme and bilberry. Her longing to stay had become a physical pain in her heart. ‘I feel I have to do this,’ she said, very softly. ‘As if it were my destiny.’ Sarah came and snapped shut the window and Beth’s despair dipped deeper.
‘I thought you wanted a home and a family?’
‘I do.’
‘Presumably it’s this burning need to nest build that makes you want all of this stuff.’ Sarah’s voice was cold and angry. ‘What’s the point of a nest with no man, or babies, to put into it? A person could die of starvation here.’
‘Don’t be silly, we could grow our own food.’
Sarah groaned. ‘I’m talking about sex, not food. Idiot.’
Beth winced. ‘Maybe I just want to do things a different way round. Make the house first and find a man later. You never know, I might be lucky. And I’m too young to think of babies yet. I want to do something useful with my life. As Gran did. Maybe this is it.’ She gave a little smile but it looked more contrite than confident. As if she were still apologising for something, a feeling she hated. Sarah often had that effect on her.
‘You’d be hiding from reality, stuck out here.’
‘What’s wrong with that? And why are you so angry? The change would do us both good. You haven’t been too well lately. A good, healthy life might help you get fit again.’
Sarah turned and strode out of the kitchen and along the passage, running up the stairs on light steps, her tight jeans making her legs look longer, her buttocks firm and round. ‘Can you see me living here?’ She leaned over the banister, adopting a falsely social tone. ‘Do come up, darlings. Afternoon tea is being served in the drawing room.’
Beth couldn’t help but giggle. ‘We don’t have to live that way. I know it’s quite big but it needn’t be a smart sort of house. It’s only a big old farmhouse after all.’ She saw it filled with soft furnishings and chintz sofas, polished brass and bright woolly rugs, dogs and wellingtons in the kitchen, the sound of children’s happy laughter everywhere. Her heart contracted and she hurried up the stairs after Sarah.
But when she reached her sister, Beth discovered that there was indeed a drawing room upstairs. Small and perfectly proportioned with turquoise wallpaper inset with cream silk panels, shredded with age. It seemed somehow out of keeping with the rest of the house.
‘Oh, how lovely,’ she breathed. ‘How elegant.’
Sarah flopped down on a small Edwardian couch that stood in the centre of the room and looked about her. There was a matching chair by the marble fireplace and a walnut desk against one wall, plus one or two small tables and a sideboard still bearing a tray of glasses and a decanter. It was as if the lady of the house might return at any moment and pour herself a small sherry. There were even ashes in the grate as if from a recent fire. ‘Why isn’t this room empty, like the ones downstairs?’
‘Perhaps the bedrooms are all still furnished too.’
Exploration proved this to be the case, although not in the same style as the pretty drawing room. Each room still held a bed, huge wardrobe, chest of drawers, rugs and an occasional chair, most covered with dustsheets, some looked almost lived in with rugs lying about and a glass with a half full jug of water on a bedside table.
‘How marvellous.’ Beth was entranced. ‘I feel like Goldilocks expecting the three bears to turn up at any moment.’ She giggled. ‘I expect downstairs was cleared because prying eyes might encourage unwelcome visitors, burglars even.’
‘In this remote spot? More likely this furniture was considered too cumbersome and old fashioned to remove, or sell.’ Sarah ran her fingers with distaste over a gargoyle decorated mirror. ‘I mean, look at it, solid Victorian at least. Horrendous. And this mirror is cracked. Do you think the seven years bad luck is over by now?’
‘Who cares? I love it. Can’t you just see me sleeping in that lovely Empire bed in the blue room next door? Maybe it would stop me imagining myself lying in Jeremy’s arms.’ Almost before the words were out of her mouth she made a private and very fervent vow never to mention or think of him again.
Sarah roiled her eyes heavenward. ‘Well that would be something. I wouldn’t mind this four poster myself.’ It reminded her of the old Colonial bed at Frank’s house. They’d had some fun in that while his wife was at one of her Ladies’ Guild meetings. And with the memory came a view of the pity in his eyes when she’d told him about the baby. It’d been his idea to get the abortion which he’d re
adily paid for. She’d almost hated him for the casual way he’d dealt with the matter.
But Beth was right, she hadn’t been at all well for some time afterwards. Reaction, she supposed. Yet she’d been too besotted to give him up, even then.
‘Marriage isn’t for the likes of you,’ he’d said. And Sarah had to agree with him. She’d certainly no inclination to take up where they’d left off, not now she’d managed to make the break. Best to make it a clean one and prove she could manage without him.
Yet how could she stay here and vegetate? She had too much living to do for that.
Later, as they walked home, the sheep-cropped turf springy beneath their feet and the mew of a lone curlew circling above them, Sarah said, ‘We’d die of cold come winter. There’s no central heating. And this is England remember. Rain, rain, rain.’
Beth felt a lift of perverse excitement for nothing would stop her now. Not even Sarah’s grumbles. She could win her round, she was sure of it.
‘There are fireplaces in every room, and plenty of wood about.’ The rural dream was growing in her mind. She could see herself feeding hens, making cheese, wearing long skirts and rocking in a chair by the fire with a cat like Nelson asleep on her lap like Sally Ann. It would be so perfect. ‘Meg says it was a big farm once, before much of the land was sold off at the beginning of this century. But there are still twenty acres.’
‘You’ll have me acting as a milk-maid next.’
‘We could be very nearly self-sufficient. Try organic gardening. Keep hens and ducks.’
‘Don’t they need cleaning out?’
‘A goat perhaps.’
‘Goats?’ The grey flecks that radiated from the dark pupils of Sarah’s eyes lit the violet like a summer storm. ‘Are you mad? Goats smell.’
‘OK, no goats.’ Not at first anyway, she thought.
Beth’s own, paler blue-grey eyes were alight with such a merry optimism that Sarah felt the familiar surge of affectionate irritation. Beth might be shy and awkward at times, but once she’d set her mind on something, it was hard to deny her. And she was her sister, for God’s sake, for all she was an impractical romantic and a raving loony. And she was suffering from a blow that would fell a lesser female. She’s stronger than she looks, our Beth, Sarah thought with unaccustomed pride.
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