‘Well, that’s not going to help,’ Celeste said as she gazed in horror at the mass of black before her. ‘Isn’t that exactly what Mum did too? Her idea about just shutting doors on rooms wasn’t a great one. It doesn’t make a problem go away.’ She took a few tentative steps closer to the black wall as if she were afraid that it might swallow her whole at any moment.
‘We got a quote for the work to be done,’ Gertie said.
‘How much was it for?’ Celeste dared to ask.
‘Six figures,’ Gertie said. ‘I don’t remember exactly. It’s on the desk somewhere.’
Celeste took a deep breath and then remembered where she was and hoped she hadn’t ingested any mould spores.
‘We could just build another wall in front of it or hang a tapestry over it or something,’ Evie suggested.
‘We can’t keep turning our back on things like this,’ Celeste said. ‘We’ve got to make the house safe or the whole thing will crumble into the moat.’
‘The whole house needs attention – not just this room,’ Gertie said. ‘There are all sorts of horrors if you stop and look long enough, only we haven’t had time to do that and we certainly haven’t got any money to deal with the problems even if we do have time to spot them.’
‘I don’t know why Grandma and Grandpa bought such a monstrous house,’ Celeste said.
‘But it’s a beautiful house,’ Gertie said.
‘And you’re a hopeless romantic just like them,’ Celeste said.
‘There’s nothing wrong with that,’ Gertie said.
‘There is if you don’t have the bank balance to go with it,’ Celeste told her.
‘We’ve got to save it,’ Evie said.
‘I don’t think that’s going to be enough,’ Celeste said. ‘We’ve saved all we can save already and it’s just a drop in the ocean. The money’s got to come from somewhere else. From what you’ve both told me, the rose business is only just holding its own. There’s nothing left at the end of the month and we’ve already got three overdrafts as well as the mortgage, haven’t we?’
Gertie nodded. ‘So, what do you suggest?’
‘Well, to begin with, I think we’re going to have to sell something,’ Celeste said.
Evie swallowed hard. ‘You mean the painting, don’t you?’
Celeste nodded. ‘I’m sure you hardly ever look at it anyway, do you?’
‘Isn’t there something else? Anything else?’ Evie asked.
‘To sell?’ Celeste said. ‘Well, unless we start ripping out fireplaces and selling off bits of furniture –’
Gertie sighed. ‘I think Celeste’s right. We’ve got to sell the painting. Mum said as much just before she died.’
‘What exactly did she say?’ Celeste said.
‘She said, “Sell the Fantin-Latour”.’
‘Okay, well, that’s unambiguous enough,’ Celeste said.
Gertie walked towards the wall and tentatively pressed a finger against it.
‘Oh, don’t touch it!’ Evie cried. ‘You’ll catch something horrible and die a slow and painful death.’
‘It’s just as it looks – cold and damp,’ Gertie said.
Evie had backed out of the room and Gertie and Celeste followed her.
‘There’s a card somewhere on Mum’s desk,’ Gertie said. ‘It’s for an auction house in London that specialises in fine art.’
‘I really don’t want to sell the painting,’ Celeste said, ‘but I don’t think we’ve got a choice. Grandpa bought it for Grandma as an anniversary present one year. Do you remember the story?’
The sisters shook their heads.
‘There was a country house in north Norfolk that was selling up. Everything had to go. It was really sad. The auction took place over three days and people came from all over the world to try get a little bit of English history,’ Celeste told them.
‘And that’s where Grandpa bought the Fantin-Latour?’ Evie said.
Celeste nodded. ‘It went for some ridiculously low amount.’
‘Is that where he got the other paintings from too?’ Gertie asked.
‘No, I think they came later. Mum once told me that whenever a new Hamilton rose sold well, Grandpa would buy a painting. A rose painting. It was his way of commemorating the moment. Of capturing a beautiful rose forever,’ Celeste said.
‘Now who’s sounding romantic?’ Evie said with a smile.
‘I’m not being romantic. I’m just saying what he used to do,’ Celeste said. ‘But perhaps we should have all the paintings valued, then. The new ones and the old ones. We might be sitting on a small fortune.’
They’d reached the hallway again and stood beside the longcase clock. By the enormous front door, a barometer hung on the wall. It had been there as long as Celeste could remember and its beautifully old-fashioned face always gave the same reading: Change. No matter what the weather – no matter if it was dawn-to-dusk sunshine or blowing a blizzard, the little hand would be pointing to the word Change. Which was probably about right for the English climate.
‘I really do think we should get them all valued,’ Celeste said again, looking at Evie. ‘What is it?’
‘I just can’t imagine our house without those paintings,’ Evie said. ‘They’ve been here forever. Practically.’
Gertie nodded. ‘I feel the same. They’re so much a part of this place.’
‘I know,’ Celeste said and then she frowned.
‘What is it?’ Gertie asked.
‘I’ve been wondering if there’s actually a painting missing.’
‘Which one?’ Evie asked.
‘That’s it – I just can’t remember,’ Celeste said. ‘But I could have sworn there was another somewhere.’ She tutted. ‘I’m probably imagining it. My head’s so muddled at the moment.’
‘Well, can’t we think about all this selling business for a while?’ Gertie asked.
Celeste sighed. ‘Okay, then, but don’t think about it for too long or this whole place will fall down around us.’
Celeste knew that she should allow herself to enjoy her first evening back home – to take some random book down from the library shelves and find a comfortable old chair to curl up in or take a walk around the gardens and enjoy the sublime warmth of the evening, but it wasn’t in her nature to sit and relax, especially when she knew that there was so much to do – including persuading her sisters to sell the manor. She was just beginning to realise how attached they were to the old place and how difficult it was going to be to make them see things rationally. She felt like she’d been put in an impossible situation: Gertie and Evie had asked for her help and advice, but did they truly want it? Were they really going to listen to her ideas or was she on her own in this?
Are you even sure that you can sell this place even if they agree to? a little voice asked, and she had to admit that she didn’t know the answer to that. She loved the manor as much as they did – she was quite sure of that – but, for her, it was an emotion tied to so many other complicated issues that enabled her to view things far more dispassionately than her sisters could.
She shook her head. She was driving herself crazy already and she’d only just got back. She didn’t have to answer all these questions yet; she just had to take one day at a time, one job at a time. With that in mind, she made her way to the study.
The study was at the front of the house. It was always called the study and never the office because, to their mother, the word office had sounded so rigid and conventional, and she’d wanted her work place to be one of inspiration and pleasure. It wasn’t a large room. Two mullioned windows draped with old damask curtains, which had long ago lost their colour and most of their thread, took up two of the four walls and the other two were given over to floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The dusty old tomes were mostly books about flowers and the history of horticultu
re. Celeste gazed at them now, noticing the dust and the occasional cobweb that had been left to gather. She’d been told that their cleaner, Mrs Cartwright, had had to be let go some months before and her absence showed in every room. It was a big house – far too big for just two or three people – and it was a full-time job keeping it all clean.
A large Victorian walnut partners’ desk stood in the centre of the room and the two matching office chairs still sat facing each other like a pair of opposing generals. Celeste could still remember a time when she herself had occupied half of the so-called partners’ desk but, almost imperceptibly, her mother had moved across the leather writing surface, her paperwork encroaching on Celeste’s space like a determined army. She’d still been expected to do half of the work – more than half, if truth be told – but her mother didn’t seem to think that she needed the same amount of space in order to do it in.
Celeste looked at the desk now. She’d known what she would find there: towers of paperwork and unpaid bills. Her sisters were two of the most hard-working people Celeste had ever known but they were both absolutely hopeless when it came to paperwork. Their talents lay in the garden and the greenhouse, and anything remotely related to paperwork was stacked up and forgotten – frustrating to somebody like Celeste who very much valued order and organisation.
She couldn’t bring herself to sit down at the desk – that would be too formal. Instead, she kind of hovered next to it, scanning her eyes over the papers and envelopes, reaching out when she saw a single piece of paper with her mother’s handwriting on it. Her fingers shook as she picked it up and read it. It was one of her infamous ‘To Do’ lists. It was the usual ordered itinerary of jobs to do around the house and garden, allocated between Gertie and Evie. Celeste’s eyes scanned the page but came to an abrupt halt when she read the final item on the list.
Ring Celeste?
Celeste stared at the words before her. Ring Celeste? So, she thought, the idea had occurred to her mother but the all-telling question mark revealed so much and the phone call had never happened. Had the cancer taken her so swiftly that she hadn’t had the chance to call? Celeste knew that the last couple of weeks of her mother’s illness had been pretty rough; her sisters had told her that Penelope had spent them in her room. So when had she written the note?
‘Was she ever really going to call?’ Celeste asked the empty room. She couldn’t help wondering what her mother would have said to her if she had called and couldn’t help feeling an immense sadness that she would never know now.
She swallowed hard and let the piece of paper fall onto the desk, and that’s when she saw the little cream card that Gertrude had promised her was there.
Julian Faraday – Auctioneer.
There was a London address in some square that sounded very grand, plus a telephone number and email address. So, this was the man who had the power to save them, was it? The man who would take a much-loved painting from a family home and sell it to the highest bidder whether that person was worthy of it or not.
Celeste silently cursed the faceless Julian Faraday and placed the business card next to the telephone on the desk. She knew in her heart of hearts what she had to do but she wasn’t ready to make that call just yet.
4.
Gertie’s strides were quick and long and took her across the moat and around the garden to a little track through a meadow. At this time of year, it was filled with bright buttercups and red campion. Gertie loved the wildflowers but she didn’t have time to stop and admire them this evening because she was meeting somebody.
She followed the River Stour, which gently curved its way through the landscape, and it was just as she was approaching the fallen willow tree that she saw Mrs Forbes. Gertie sighed because, at this part of the footpath, there was no avoiding her.
Keep moving, keep moving, she chanted to herself as the inevitable happened and they virtually collided.
Mrs Forbes was a tall, straight-backed woman who ran an aerobics class in the village hall for the over-fifties. She herself was in her late fifties and had a voice like an army major. She would bellow so loudly at her students each Wednesday morning that you could hear her at the other end of the village.
‘Good evening, Gertrude,’ Mrs Forbes boomed. ‘Going for a walk?’ she asked, meaning, Where are you going?
‘Yes,’ Gertie said, not making the fatal mistake of stopping to talk. ‘Good evening,’ she said as she passed.
Mrs Forbes looked startled but she wasn’t the sort to be easily offended, and Gertie kept on moving for fear of being followed. She couldn’t imagine Mrs Forbes was the following kind but, all the same, she kept looking back over her shoulder until her great bulk was nothing more than a dot in the distance.
She was surprised by how much her heart was racing at the unexpected encounter, and she kept telling herself that she was getting worried about nothing. Mrs Forbes was not a gossip and she probably didn’t even care where Gertie was going. Nevertheless, she still couldn’t quell her anxiety, and after a moment, she realised that it was all part and parcel of what she had got herself into.
Leaving the riverside, she climbed over a stile, careful to avoid snagging the dress she was wearing. She’d chosen a simple blue denim dress with little mother-of-pearl buttons down the front. It was the sort of dress that was pretty enough but wouldn’t draw unnecessary attention to itself. If Evie or Celeste had seen her leaving the manor, it would not be obvious to them that she was heading anywhere in particular. The fact that she had washed and blow-dried her long hair and was wearing it loose, and that she was also wearing rather a lot of mascara as well as lip gloss, was beside the point. What was wrong with wanting to look nice for an evening walk?
It was as she was crossing the next field that a sleek black and white greyhound appeared. It was a beautiful animal but it had seen better days and now moved with a gait that was akin to that of an elderly gentleman. Gertie knew that it was the kind of dog that didn’t need much exercise at all. In fact, it would have been quite content to stay at home all day long, curled up in its favourite chair, but its owner needed an excuse to get out of the house and the dog was as good an alibi as any.
‘Hey, Clyde,’ Gertie said as the old dog approached her, shoving his wet nose into the palm of her hand. ‘Where’s your master, then?’ she asked but she already knew the answer.
There was an old ruined chapel just through the trees and leaning up against one of the knobbly flint walls was a tall man with dark blond hair. He didn’t hear Gertie approach and she had the chance to watch him unobserved for a moment. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a brown-and-white-checked cotton shirt. His face looked drawn and his blue eyes looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept for a week – which perhaps he hadn’t.
‘James?’ she said as she approached.
‘Gertie,’ he said, giving her a little smile. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’
‘Of course I was coming. I’ve never missed one of our meetings, have I?’
He walked towards her, took her face in his large hands and kissed her gently on the mouth.
‘You’re wearing the perfume I bought you,’ he said, stroking her neck lightly with his fingers.
Gertie nodded. It was Penhaligon’s Gardenia which was deliciously light and sweet.
‘I’ve got you something else,’ he said, reaching into his jeans pocket and bringing out a small box.
‘James – you mustn’t keep buying me things!’
‘But I want to,’ he said. ‘Now, stop protesting and open it.’
He handed her a little blue box and she opened it and gasped. It was a silver locket in the shape of a heart.
‘I’ve always wanted a locket,’ she said, her dark eyes bright with joy.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t dare put a photograph in it, though. Well, not of me at least.’
Gertie looked up at him.
‘There’s something in here?’
‘I think you’d better find out.’
Gertie gently opened the locket and smiled when she saw what was inside. ‘It’s Clyde!’ she said with a laugh.
‘I sized the photo down on my computer. Doesn’t he look the business?’
‘He looks very fine indeed,’ Gertie said, just as Clyde approached to poke her with his nose as if he knew he was being admired. ‘Thank you.’
James nodded and smiled. ‘I just wish there was more I could do for you.’
Gertie shook her head. ‘Don’t.’
He took her hands in his and squeezed them. ‘Do you know how much I want to be with you?’
‘Don’t, James!’ she said.
‘I just want us to be a normal couple. I want to take you out to some fancy restaurant –’
‘You haven’t got the money for a fancy restaurant!’ Gertie teased.
‘Okay – a nice pub,’ he said, ‘and get all cosy with you in a corner and tickle you under the table when nobody’s looking.’
Gertie giggled as he tickled her now, but then she sighed. ‘But you can’t tickle me in public whether or not anyone sees us because you’re a married man.’
James groaned and threw his head back to the sky. ‘You don’t need to keep telling me that! I live with the fact every day!’
‘Well, I’m living with the fact too,’ Gertie said. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like for me, do you? Celeste’s back home and Evie was going on and on about that incident at the church.’
‘Ah,’ he said with a sigh.
‘It was horrible having to listen to her when she didn’t know what was really going on. It’s so unfair – Samantha gets all the sympathy and nobody stops to think about what you have to put up with.’
‘Hey,’ James said gently, ‘don’t upset yourself. You know the way things are.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Gertie said, ‘and they’re cruel and unfair.’
‘I know,’ he said.
The Rose Girls Page 3