Account Rendered & Other Stories

by Marjorie Eccles

  I looked at my watch and sighed. Daniel was late, but he never did have much sense of time.

  Impatient, never one to sit still for long, I seized my coat and climbed out of the car to stretch my legs, took a few paces forward and nearly jumped out of my skin when something dark and sinister flapped up out of the harsh, wind-blown grass right at my feet with a hoarse kok-kok-kok. But it was only a moorcock, disturbed by human presence, more scared than I was. It flew away on a clatter of wings, and I turned up my collar and wrapped the folds of my coat around me, leaned against the car bonnet and looked down into the dip of the valley, a prospect of home that was never far from my mind when I was in London, where I presently lived, worked and quite often felt I couldn’t breathe. The air here was like champagne. I filled my lungs deeply.

  And as my gaze drifted back again to the house, a woman came out and took the flagged path to the side gate set into the high stone wall surrounding the garden, scarf flapping, hair whipped back from her face. Two tall, lightly built golden salukis pranced beside her, with long fringed tails and silky ears laid back by the wind. Stylish animals, a mirror of her own taut elegance.

  Cluny.

  Younger than I’d expected when I’d first met her, she was still a stranger to the community after two years, contemptuous of opinion. It seemed to me those hounds, exotically foreign to the Yorkshire moors, just about summed up her abrasive, take-me-or-leave-me attitude. But that same sharp mind and acid wit made her stimulating to be with—sometimes, anyway. If you didn’t take offence at the occasional barb aimed in your direction. As I watched her striding effortlessly through the heather and bilberries, I tried to suppress my misgivings. I’d only stayed a few times in the house since Grandpa had married Cluny van Doelen, and never since his death.

  * * *

  The work of my grandfather, William Brereton, had once been featured in a glossy magazine under the heading ‘Heirlooms of the Future’, alongside another entitled ‘Thomas Chippendale—Heirlooms from the Past’. The article pointed out the differences between the two men’s work—no ornate, rococo carving or wide-bottomed Georgian chairs for William, no Chinese latticework: a Brereton design was simple, honest and unadorned—apart from the minute bee, his trademark, his signature, which appeared discreetly somewhere on every piece. But solid craftsmanship, and an instinctive feeling for line and form linked the two men. Also, they were both Yorkshiremen, self-made. And, like Chippendale, William Brereton knew the value of his work. Those who bought from him weren’t over-charged, but they didn’t buy cheaply. If the two men had ever met, they would have had a great deal in common, said the writer.

  But Chippendale had been dead for over two and a half centuries, and my grandfather for barely two and a half months.

  He’d died by breaking his neck in a fall down the stairs on a January day, missing his footing and tumbling from top to bottom because he wasn’t accustomed to using a walking-stick, and hadn’t placed it squarely when he began to descend. He’d been alone when it happened, a fit and able 78-year-old, and the worst of it was that the stick had been nothing more than a temporary measure to help him over a bout of lumbago caught by sitting too long in a draught.

  After his body was taken away, Magda told me that Daniel had seized the stick that lay next to William on the floor, and as though it were entirely to blame for the accident, snapped it across his knee like firewood, and hurled it into the heart of the flames leaping in the great open fireplace. It was a quite uncharacteristic fit of rage, but then, Daniel had worked for the Old Man for fifteen years. William had been a stubborn, unyielding old cuss at times, but there’d never be another like him.

  Magda Lutz was William’s housekeeper. She’d looked after him for over fifty years, ever since the loss of his first wife (and with pressed lips had continued to do so since his second marriage). Since his death, she’d been bereft, wringing her hands and uttering woebegone mittel-European lamentations. What was to happen to her now that she was left alone at the mercy of the second wife?

  Cluny herself, returning from a visit to the vet with her dogs to find her husband dead, had wound a scarf round her head, called for the salukis, who accompanied her everywhere like familiars, and gone out again into the bleak, iron-grey afternoon, taking the pathway beside the beck, straight down to the house where Stephen Baines, a lawyer working in the firm acting as William’s solicitors, lived. Well, William had been twenty-five years older than Cluny, and had long passed man’s natural span, and his dying was bound to cause her problems, legal and otherwise. Twelve months ago, a heart condition had been diagnosed, and he’d semi-retired and handed his business over to Daniel. He had died possessed of little more than his house and contents, and he hadn’t left a will.

  As for me, I grieved for him and wondered why he’d thought it so important for me to have that portrait.

  This oil painting, handed to me at the funeral by Magda, who insisted that William had told her he intended me to have it, was the only thing I had to remember him by, but I’d never had expectations of a great inheritance from him, anyway. His furniture might have been sought after by those in the know, but it hadn’t brought him a great deal of profit. He’d despised commercialism and had never taken on board the principle of diminishing returns. As far as he was concerned, he quoted what he estimated a fair price for each individually designed piece, and from then on it took as long as it took, regardless of time or money. In the absence of a will, his estate would pass naturally to Cluny. I had no problems with that. All the same, there were one or two small family treasures I’d dearly have loved as keepsakes. And it had been surprising, and had rather hurt me if the truth be known, that he hadn’t thought to leave me something he’d made with his own hands. Just a chair, perhaps, or a small table, would have been nice.

  Instead, I’d found myself in possession of the painting. A portrait I hadn’t seen before. Hadn’t even known existed.

  * * *

  The feeling grew, as I waited, shivering beside my car, that this impulsive visit of mine probably wasn’t the best idea I’d ever had, and I might even now have climbed back into the driving-seat, turned and headed back to London, if the four-by-four hadn’t appeared on the horizon and a moment later screeched to a halt beside me.

  Daniel leaped out. ‘Zoe!’ Two strides and I was enveloped in the old, familiar bear hug. I breathed experimentally. It was OK, my ribs seemed intact.

  He overtopped me by a head. His open, good-natured face beamed and I smiled up at him. Daniel Souter had a natural charm, he was the sort you instinctively liked and trusted, and because he was laid back and good-humoured, people were apt to underestimate him. I’d never make the same mistake. There was a lot more to Daniel than you might think at first sight, much more than a personable face, humorous brown eyes and dark tousled hair. I’d known him a long time, right up until I’d moved away and become a PA to a media person.

  His hands stayed on my shoulders, big, shapely hands accustomed to lifting huge pieces of furniture and heavy planks of wood, yet capable of wielding a fine chisel or an adze with tremendous skill, and sensitive enough to draw and execute the precise designs he conceived. That combination of artistry, practicality and love for his subject was what had first endeared him as an eighteen-year-old to William, who’d recognized him as a natural heir to his own craft and had taught him everything he knew. But he’d always had his own ideas, and had gradually moved away from the strong, plain, almost monolithic Brereton designs, into making his own creations, something altogether lighter and more flowing. William had let him have his head, knowing that these sorts of skills were something beyond his own abilities.

  ‘Come and sit inside, where it’s warmer,’ he said, adding truthfully, if not tactfully, ‘your nose is turning blue.’ He slid the door of the Discovery open for me. I needed no second invitation. The fitfully bright, blowy afternoon indicated that spring might just conceivably be on its way to this part of the world, but you didn’t argue wit
h March winds like this, not up here on the moors. Enough was enough, even when it was champagne. I settled in the warmth and we half-turned to face each other.

  ‘Good to see you, Ms Kennedy. Looking very—Londonish.’ I was suddenly awkward with the hairstyle that had cost me an arm and a leg, the knots of gold in my ears, my short-skirted designer suit, all things I took for granted nowadays, but which might, very soon be things I could no longer afford. ‘What time are you expected at the house?’

  ‘Around tea-time.’ I hadn’t said precisely. Better to arrive in my own time, I’d decided, thus pre-empting any fuss.

  ‘First things first, then. Tell me about the painting.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ve had it professionally valued, as you suggested. It’s beautifully executed, they say, and has a lot of appeal, but it’s unattributable to any one particular artist, so it would fetch less than if it had been by someone well-known. Plus the fact that portraits apparently aren’t too popular, I don’t know why. They wouldn’t commit themselves, especially since it’s been messed about.’

  ‘Someone’s been having a go at cleaning it,’ the precious young man at the art gallery had tut-tutted when I’d taken it in, only that morning, on, my way here, ‘and that’s not the original frame. Nice enough, but new. Takes off the value.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Daniel said, when I repeated this, ‘the old frame was falling apart, so the Old Man made a new one. I guess the object was to make it look presentable, not to preserve its possible value as an antique.’

  ‘They still think it might fetch five thousand, even six, all the same. Always assuming I wanted to sell it—which of course I don’t.’

  ‘Five thousand? That all?’

  ‘It’s more than I thought—and it doesn’t matter anyway, I don’t intend to sell it.’

  ‘OK, OK, just a thought, not serious!’ He grimaced slightly and stared through the windscreen, over the coarse, tussocky grass, permanently bowed down by the prevailing wind. ‘But it isn’t a joke, not really, is it, Zoe?’ he said gently. ‘There’s something all wrong about that portrait. I mean, about why he particularly wanted you to have it. And don’t tell me you don’t feel the same.’

  He’d been aghast when William, normally a conscientious man, had died intestate, unable to believe that he’d treated me in what Daniel regarded as a very shabby manner. There wasn’t even the excuse that the Old Man had felt there was no hurry to make his will. At his age it couldn’t have escaped him that time was fast running out, and that in the absence of any legal documents, everything of which he possessed when he died would go to Cluny, whom he’d met and married only a couple of years before. Daniel’s hope, although slight, had been that the painting might turn out to be extremely valuable and would help remove some of the guilt he personally felt at having done better out of the Old Man than I had—never mind that the business at the time of the handover hadn’t been looking too healthy, William’s way of running it having left precious little in the coffers. And for me, his only living relative, nothing but a mediocre painting. If indeed it had been his wish that I should have it. There was only Magda Lutz to say it had.

  ‘I’m not ungrateful to him, Daniel,’ I said. ‘I shall treasure the portrait—if only because it obviously meant something to him.’

  ‘I can vouch for it that it did. He said so when he was making the frame. He thought she had a look of you.’

  Actually, the ingratiating type at the auction house had said the same thing, but I’d put that down to his general smarminess, though it was true that I’d felt an uncanny frisson myself when I’d first seen the face in the portrait, an unexpected recognition I found difficult to explain. ‘And does she?’

  I recalled the portrait of the young woman in the plum-coloured costume, her face framed by a high fur collar, the blonde curls of an Edwardian fringe peeping from under the brim of a matching velvet hat. A composed, heart-shaped face, clear hazel eyes, a closed smile and an air of poise and self-containment. Whereas me—well, I had fair hair, too, but otherwise I had only grey eyes, a nose I preferred to think of as retroussé . . . No way could I be said to look like her.

  Daniel evidently agreed with me. ‘Not really. She looks a bit po-faced to me. Well, OK, then, maybe there is a bit of a resemblance. Something about the chin.’

  ‘Too sharp, you mean.’

  ‘Firm.’ He grinned. ‘Determined. Or stubborn—if we’re being honest.’

  Knowing exactly what he meant by that, but not wanting to pursue it, I refused to rise to the bait. ‘Do you really think we might be related? Who is she, I wonder?’

  ‘Sophie in a Velvet Hat, by someone who for some reason gave it a title, but didn’t sign his name. But that’s what you’re going to try and find out, aren’t you? Isn’t that why you’re here?’

  I might have known he’d see right through the excuses I’d made to Cluny about collecting the rest of my stuff still remaining at the house. ‘Partly. But I do want to pick up my things as well.’ I took a breath. ‘I’m coming back, Daniel. I’ve got a new job, in Leeds, and I’m looking for a place to live.’

  For a moment, his eyes blazed. ‘Leeds?’

  ‘Why not? City of opportunities. Exciting place nowadays, they say.’

  ‘Is that what you’re looking for, excitement?’

  ‘No, I just think it’s time to come home.’

  We faced each other, unspoken tensions again between us. He’d never wanted me to go away, and I hadn’t forgotten why. It would have been so easy to let myself feel the same way, but I’d needed to try my wings, I’d been eager to feel the taste of freedom before being sorry I’d never experienced it. What that had actually turned out to mean was the disastrous, intense involvement with Murray, my then boss, which had all ended in tears, as I’d realized too late it was bound to. I’d got over that now, as one does, in the end, and here was Daniel, still unattached. There’d been one or two flings, I’d gathered, but nothing serious.

  Of course, I’d known Daniel too long to expect to be swept off my feet by him. But I’d grown up since those early days, when heady romance seemed everything; I’d learned the value of truth and steadiness . . .

  ‘I thought you’d never do it,’ he said softly, ‘find where your priorities lie.’

  Suddenly, he reached out and, not taking his eyes from my face, put his big warm hand over my still-cold one. A flood of sensations washed through me, a painful awakening of something long dormant, so unexpected that I felt totally disorientated. I didn’t know what to say, and clutched wildly at the only safe option I could think of, ‘Yes, well—going back to Sophie—I must admit she intrigues me. Though if Cluny won’t let me look through the papers, old photos and things that Grandpa left, I don’t see how I can possibly find out who she was.’

  Not only Sophie, but the rest of my family too, was the thought never too far from the back of my mind.

  While William had been alive, the rock in my life, the one person who was always there, it hadn’t seemed to matter how little I’d known of my background. My mother had been embittered by her divorce, and reluctant to speak of the past in any shape or form to a young child, and William only ever referred to my grandmother as his lost wife, as if she were a pair of spectacles he’d carelessly misplaced. It wasn’t until he died and Magda handed over the portrait that I began to question whether all families were like this—and to realize how urgently I wanted to find out more about my own.

  I reached for the door. ‘Time to be making tracks.’

  ‘Hang on. I asked you to meet me here before you go to the house because I think there’s something you should know first, Zoe.’ He was suddenly very serious.

  My heart plummeted. I knew what he was going to say. I’d been expecting it, it was what I’d feared ever since Grandpa had died. ‘Cluny’s going to sell Ingshaw,’ I said flatly.

  I was surprised by how much I disliked this, I who’d left my home for the delights of London and had sworn never to return, not per
manently. Well, I’d changed my mind about that, but I hated the idea of Ingshaw not being there to come back to whenever I wanted, or needed, it.

  Of course Cluny would sell, as soon as she legally could. She’d be short of money, and she had no allegiances to the place. I thought guiltily of the portrait and what it was worth. Did I have a moral obligation to hand it back? But I’d offered it once, after the funeral, and she had given it one cursory, rather denigrating glance and said take it by all means.

  ‘Whoa, steady! No, it’s not Ingshaw, though I’m sure she’ll put it on the market like a shot as soon as she can. Trouble is, there aren’t many people about who’d be willing to buy a house with business premises attached to it.’

  ‘Which would mean you moving out?’

  ‘Unless I can raise the cash to buy it myself, and use it as a showroom and for extra office space. Fat chance of that.’

  I suppose having to move an established business and find new, more expensive, premises just like that entitled one to feel gloomy.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with the house. Prepare yourself for a shock. It’s Magda.’

  ‘Has Cluny given her the sack?’

  ‘It hasn’t come to that, not yet, though it might well do, especially if Magda carries on as she is doing. No, Zoe, it’s something else entirely.’

  * * *

  Inside the house, the hall was dark and unwelcoming at first sight, without the bright fire that had always been kept burning in William’s day. I tried to avoid looking at the foot of the stairs, where his body had crashed down on to the richly coloured encaustic floor tiles. Tried not to believe that his tall, upright figure would appear at any moment. The steep staircase down which he’d fallen, with its Turkey-patterned carpet, rose directly opposite the front door, branching off either side at the top. On the landing, a Victorian stained glass window of immense gloom and ugliness cast a dull, yellowish light downwards. There was a plate rack filled with blue and white china. A tall Satsuma vase with peacock feathers and pampas grass stood sentinel at the foot of the staircase, several murky looking pictures of no distinction hung on the walls. It looked as though not a thing had been moved since the day it was first placed there, maybe a hundred years ago.