Empty Nest

by Marty Wingate

  Taken aback at the ease of my entry, I stumbled over a few words of acceptance.

  “That’s lovely,” she replied. “Now, do you have satnav or shall I give you directions?”

  —

  It took me another hour. Once out of Yeovil, the estate was well signed as if it were a National Trust site. I turned down the drive and passed signs indicating the way to the summer house, the stables, kitchen garden, yew maze, home farm, and arboretum. It looked as if Geoffrey Addleton had given up a great deal to come to work in Suffolk.

  A young woman with white-blond hair tucked up under her maid’s cap met me at the door, smoothing out her apron and giving me a smile. “Good afternoon.”

  The lady of the house appeared just behind.

  “It’s all right, Gracie, I’m here. You can bring the tea in any time.”

  Nan Drake put her arm through mine as if we’d been friends forever. She looked to be in her seventies with soft steel-colored hair pulled back into a bun—what hadn’t escaped to curl down her neck. Her arm felt like a stick; although we were the same height, she couldn’t weigh more than my ten-year-old niece.

  “We’re so happy to meet you. Come through now to the small sitting room; Tony is waiting for us.”

  I’d’ve loved to get a closer look at the house—it seemed all gilded frames, pale walls, white crown molding, and marble statues. We turned into the “small” sitting room, twice the size of the library at Hoggin Hall. A bear of a man, dark and hairy, stood up, and said, “Welcome to Monks Barton, Tony Drake, good to meet you.” Turned out he was the cuddly type of bear—his handshake was warm and firm, but not bone-shattering.

  We settled on gold brocade sofas with gilded wood frames at right angles to the fireplace and a plethora of what looked like family photos on the bookshelf. In only a moment Gracie entered carrying an enormous tray with tea and a Victoria sponge.

  Nan gave me a brief history of the house and as she gestured to furniture and paintings, her thin arms floated about as if attached to invisible strings and controlled by a puppeteer from above.

  “Have you ever thought of opening to the public?” I asked.

  The Drakes exchanged smiles. “Our boys have said the same thing. They’ve at last convinced us we should,” Nan said. “Haven’t they, Tony?”

  “Been after us for years,” Tony replied. “We’re letting them sort it all out.”

  “Hoggin Hall is open three afternoons a week,” I said. “We started in late spring—it’s working quite well. We’d be most happy to share our experiences with you.”

  “I’m sure the boys would welcome it, wouldn’t they, Tony?”

  “Lads would be grateful.”

  “Now, tell us, how is Geoffrey getting on,” Nan said.

  “Quite well. You aren’t in touch with him?”

  She shook her head. “Just a note—didn’t he send you a note, Tony, to say he’d settled in well?”

  “He sent us a note to say he’d settled in, not to worry.”

  “How could we not worry?” Nan asked, shaking her head. “After all those years he was with us. Such a dear man. He was like a member of the family—we said that to him, didn’t we, Tony?”

  “Told him he was like a member of the family,” Tony replied. “Lads used to follow him out to the stables every day of their holidays. He put them to work all over the estate. Good man, Addleton.”

  Were we talking about the same person?

  “Here now,” Nan said, standing and selecting one of the framed snapshots. “Here he is with the boys.”

  The photo was certainly Addleton, a few years younger, with three boys standing near a tractor.

  “Of course, he did rather keep himself to himself,” Nan said.

  “Not the most talkative sort,” Tony added.

  Ah, yes, identity confirmed.

  “But he carried out his work with never a problem.”

  “Until last year,” Tony said.

  “Tony.” Nan’s voice held a note of warning. My ears perked up.

  “Well,” Tony said, “she upset the apple cart, Nan—you could see it in him. And I think the man should know.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Nan replied. “They’re divorced.”

  “Divorce or not, you don’t want something like that happening right under your nose.”

  “It isn’t our place,” Nan said, taking up her tea.

  “Started that weekend all those people were here.”

  Nan’s face lit up. “That was a lovely house party, wasn’t it? And no one minded at all that there was no shooting.”

  Tony reached for another slice of cake, and that seemed to conclude the story.

  Their conversation sounded like a stroll down a well-worn path—no need for identifying factors such as proper names or dates, and no chance of changing the other’s mind. Washed of detail, polished smooth.

  But I needed details, and so I made up my own. Geoffrey Addleton was married when he lived and worked at Monks Barton, and his wife had had an affair at a weekend house party. They’d gone through a tumultuous divorce, and Addleton had wanted to get as far away from her as possible. But distance had not helped him recover from it—he still ached for her, and that’s why he was such a grumpy gus all the time.

  It was a cracking good story, and one I would love to hear more of, but it didn’t seem to help my investigation one whit.

  “Do you remember Geoffrey speaking of someone called Freddy Peacock—someone he knew from London, perhaps?”

  “Geoffrey and London?” Nan laughed, making me feel as if I’d asked about Geoffrey going to Mars. “We could barely get him into Yeovil—Geoffrey loves the country, doesn’t he, Tony?”

  “Wouldn’t set foot in a city or town if he wasn’t made to,” Tony replied.

  I persisted. “It’s odd, isn’t it, that Mr. Addleton took a post so far away from Dorset.”

  “Yes,” Nan said, “I suppose it would appear odd, wouldn’t it, Tony?”

  “Damn odd,” Tony replied.

  We were silent for a moment. I finished up my cake as Nan looked thoughtful. “Of course,” she said, “Geoffrey did say to us that there’s no shooting on the Fotheringill estate. Didn’t he say that, Tony?”

  “No shooting—we’ve no shooting here, either, as you heard.” Tony nodded to his wife. “Nan’s a vegetarian, couldn’t do that to her.”

  “All that death on display,” Nan said and shuddered. “And what goes along with it—the need to kill the foxes and the badgers and the predator birds.” She drew an arc in the air as if following a bird’s flight.

  Tony set down his plate. “Why not leave them be, Addleton would say. He would point them out to me, you know—a harrier or a peregrine or a—”

  “Sparrow hawk,” I cut in.

  “Yes, sparrow hawk,” Tony said, nodding. “ ‘Look how silent they are on the hunt,’ he once told me. ‘If you were a pigeon, you’d never know what hit you.’ ”

  “Enough of that, now,” Nan said. “You know, Ms. Lanchester, Geoffrey did say he wanted to move closer to where he came from. That’s another reason he took the new post.”

  Tony grunted agreement. “He applied for our position here all those years ago while he was working up in Cheshire. But he wasn’t from Cheshire, either—he began work in Essex.”

  Yes, I’d heard that from Linus. Had Suffolk been as close as he could get? “Do you know where in Essex?”

  Nan and Tony looked at each other as if searching for the answer in the other’s face. They made thinking sounds and muttered. At last, Nan said, “Near Great Horkesley—do you remember that, Tony?”

  “Mmm,” Tony said. “Near there. He was under gamekeeper or something of the sort. Now, what was the name of that place? Bush Green? Hodges Barn?”

  Nan raised her hand, her arm floating about in the air. “Netherford House.”

  Chapter 40

  Netherford House, I repeated to myself as I bid the Drakes goodbye and got back on
the road. I knew the name—that’s the place where the family had sold up and it became a country hotel. Linus and all his friends had been so sad about it, but Michael—whose family PR firm had represented the hotel—had said the family had come off well. Netherford. There was something else, too—another tiny bit of information that kept just out of reach of my conscious mind and scampered further away when I crept up on it.

  —

  Eight o’clock before I pulled up in front of Turnstone House in St. Ives, home of Bianca and Paul Broom and their brood. It sat smack in the middle of a lovely terraced row and had a view of the sea from the roof, loads of rooms over four stories, and no back garden to speak of. I got my case and my bag out of the boot and was pushed up the set of stone stairs to the door by a fierce, frigid gust of wind. Cornwall—a lovely place in summer.

  I hesitated—should I ring and chance waking baby? Lights shone out the window of the front room, but I couldn’t lean far enough over to see anyone. I opted for a light knock and got no response. A sharp shower sprayed rain on my back. I had reached up to press the bell when through the wavy glass I saw a figure come out of the kitchen. This time, a knock did it.

  My brother-in-law, Paul Broom, opened the door. He was tall and bony with thinning brown hair pulled back into a weak braid that, no matter how many years he let it grow, never reached below his collar. He had a quick smile and used it often.

  “What news from the North?” he said, giving me a sturdy hug and taking my case and bag as I shook off my coat. I didn’t live in the North, of course, but it was our little joke, because I said St. Ives was the end of the earth. And it was, practically.

  I didn’t have time to answer—the door to the sitting room opened and out poured Emelia, Enid, and Emmet.

  “Hello, my darlings,” I said, holding my arms open. They flew at me like bats and clung to my legs, Emmy on one side, Enid and Emmet on the other. Amid a cacophony of “Auntie Jools! Auntie Jools!” and kisses and hugs, I peered at Emelia.

  “Is that lipstick?” I asked.

  “Gloss,” she said, raising her chin for me to see the translucent pink. “I’m almost eleven.”

  “Nana Beryl made jam tarts,” Enid said, her fingers leaving behind a raspberry smear on my thigh to prove her point. I looked down at Emmet, who looked back, mute. He had one arm wrapped round my knee and a thumb in his mouth.

  My sister emerged from the sitting room, smiling, her hair pushed back with a band. She wore one of her maternity frocks with a belt to simulate her waist. Knowing my sister, it wouldn’t be long before her actual waist reappeared.

  Although we were about the same size, Bianca took after Dad with his curly chestnut hair and pale coloring that reddened in the sun, whereas I looked like our mum, blond and able to tan.

  And there, in her arms, the precious bundle.

  I let out a tiny squeal and crept forward. There she was, small, red, and wrinkled, snug in a Thomas the Tank Engine fleece blanket. My heart melted. “Oh, Bee,” I said.

  “We’re calling her Essie,” Emmy said.

  “Are we?” I asked. “But what’s her name, actually?”

  All eyes went to Emmet, who removed his thumb from his mouth and said, “Eh-steh-la.”

  “Estella,” I repeated, my eyes filling with tears. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Here now,” Bianca said, handing me the bundle in a cavalier fashion gained, most likely, from this being her fourth time round. “Here’s your auntie Jools. Say hello.”

  Baby Estella coughed, followed by what I interpreted as a smile. Beryl put her head out of the kitchen to say hello. “I’ll bring in tea,” she said.

  We retreated to the sitting room, Paul brushing stray Legos off the sofa for me. “Well now, Essie,” I said. I touched my little finger to her hand, and she grabbed hold.

  “Eh-steh-la,” Emmet said, crowding next to me. “Eh-steh-la.”

  “Emmet, you’re speaking—well done,” I said to the boy, now three years old.

  Bianca lowered herself carefully into a chair full of squashy cushions. “Jools, he’s been talking for ages.”

  Not so as I could understand. “Estella,” I said. “Didn’t I guess that one?”

  “Did you?” my sister asked vaguely as her husband adjusted a cushion behind her and sat on the arm of her chair. “I don’t remember.”

  It occurred to me at that moment that my sister and her husband had devised a way to make other people think of baby names for them. Start with a mysterious penchant for the letter “e” and watch as everyone round them spent the next several months coming up with suggestions. All they needed to do was choose their favorite.

  Beryl brought in a tea tray and a ham sandwich for me. The first bite—delicious though it was—caused me to remember the sandwich I’d made that morning still in the boot of my car. It was sure to have gone off by now, I thought. I’d toss it in the bin tomorrow.

  —

  Our room assignments created chaos for all but Estella, whose cradle sat at the foot of her parents’ bed for the time being. Beryl roomed with Emelia, because Dad and his production crew were staying in the rustic surroundings of a Boy Scout camp on the far side of Penbeagle, near where the Natural Farmer of the Year lived. I shared a room with Enid, who preferred to leave her bed and join me on the mattress on the floor; Emmet got lonely in his own room and crowded in with us.

  I read We’re Going on a Bear Hunt three times for Emmet and The Queen’s Knickers once for Enid. That story sent Emmet into squeals of hysteria, as he thought “knickers” was a naughty word, and it took ages before I could get him to stop repeating it. We quieted down with a story I made up on the spot about a puffin. It had no beginning, middle, or end, but it put them to sleep, which was the entire point. I extricated myself from between the hot little bodies and crawled into Enid’s bed.

  —

  The two bathrooms had queues the next morning, and so I stayed well away with Estella in my arms.

  “Auntie Jools will change your nappy,” Bee said to baby as she passed by on her way to the shower.

  “She’s only two days old,” I said. “Does she need it?” I got no answer. “Right, you, let’s get to it.”

  Paul left for the gallery, and Beryl departed with two children for primary school and one for nursery school. The house was exceedingly quiet and Estella fell asleep. I put her down and made myself a cup of tea.

  —

  My sister appeared, looking quite like herself. She peeked in at the baby and came to sit with me in the window of the front room.

  “Are you going out to Penbeagle today to see Michael?”

  I’d been completely ready to face him, but now fear seized me. “Yes. Probably. I will. Yeah. I don’t want to just leave you, though. I came to help.”

  Bee ignored that. “When Dad and Michael stopped the other evening—Sunday, when they arrived—I asked Michael why didn’t he bring you down with him, save you the journey by yourself.”

  I cut my eyes at her nervously. “What did he say?”

  “He said”—she paused for effect, watching me carefully—“that I would need to ask you why.”

  “Oh. Was he angry?”

  “The look on his face—like he’d closed up shop.” My sister raised an eyebrow. “So, what happened?”

  “I…it’s just we’ve…a problem. About Gavin.” That didn’t get near describing Gavin’s eyesight, my inadequate explanation to Michael and the resulting argument, but it was all that came out.

  “Gavin?” Bianca almost shouted. “Julia, you aren’t?”

  “No, I’m not,” I said, my face heating up. “It’s only that I was helping Gavin out with something, and Michael got this in his head and I’m not sure what I can do.”

  “I’d say you’d better get it out of his head. You don’t have to tell me the truth”—I heard the hurt in her voice, because I always told her everything—“but you’d better decide who is more important to you: Michael or Gavin.”

&nb
sp; “There’s no question, but…I don’t know how to…my life is a mess, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have a normal relationship. And I look at you, and here you’ve got this perfect life with a perfect husband and perfect children and perfect house…”

  Bee jumped up so quickly I flinched. “Perfect?” she hissed, her face the color of beetroot. “Perfect? I’m exhausted constantly and being pulled in five different directions every minute of every day, and all I can think about is sitting down to a quiet cup of tea, and I can’t even have that at the moment. Yet here are you, not a care in the world, swanning around your estate with his Lordship, seeing Gavin on the side, and expecting Michael not to care that you aren’t capable of making any sort of commitment. Drive him away, Julia—keep driving them all away and see where you end up.”

  I recoiled as if she’d slapped me. I couldn’t speak. She stood over me panting, and crying before turning away and walking over to Estella, who had started to fuss.

  I stood up and walked out, making it to Enid’s room and sitting on her bed where I sat, shaking with sobs I tried to keep quiet. After a few minutes, I got in the shower, welcoming the hot water that beat on me, letting it wash away my pain. I hated it when my sister and I fought. It happened so rarely—just the normal squabbles when we were young and as teenagers a few rounds. We had always been each other’s best friend. Bee, two years older than I was, did enjoy being the big sister. And she was right once again—I was afraid and I was letting fear get the better of me.

  —

  Beryl stood at the bottom of the stairs when I went down; I saw Bee in the sitting room putting Estella in her crib. The three of us stood in silence for a moment. Beryl looked from my solemn face to my sister’s and said, “I’m going down to the shops. I expect this will be settled by the time I get back.”

  The door clicked shut. Bee and I wasted no time. “I’m sorry,” she said as we hugged. “Hormones—I never know what I’m going to say.”

  I shook my head. “No, me—I’m sorry. I don’t know, Bee,” I whispered, partly for the sleeping baby, partly because I didn’t want my voice to break. “There’s something wrong with me. I think, why go through this again when I’ll just make a dog’s breakfast of it, as I’ve done every other time?”