A Cotswolds Legacy

by Nancy Buckingham

  Like the room downstairs, my future bedroom was full of antiques. Delicate pieces in mahogany and rosewood conspired together to produce a sensation of lightness and space, even if a closer look picked out the slightly threadbare Brussels carpet, the worn damask window curtains.

  I could be happy in a room like this, if only....

  ‘I hope you will find everything you need, Miss Royle.’ The wintry voice brought me sharply to the present.

  ‘Thank you. I’m sure I shall.’

  On a sudden impulse I stopped her as she turned to go. If I couldn’t enlist her sympathetic cooperation, at least I could clear the air a bit.

  ‘Mrs. Cass, I’m not sure if you will know this already, but until yesterday I had no idea that my father had been alive until so recently. It was a great shock to learn about it.’

  She didn’t relent one little bit. ‘Yes, Miss Royle, that’s what I thought. Something the doctor said years ago. It seems an odd way of going on for a father and daughter not to know each other. Still...’ and she drew her shoulders up in that already familiar gesture. ‘... it’s not really my place to say so.’

  ‘It is odd,’ I agreed, trying hard to be patient. ‘Very odd indeed! I’m anxious to discover why I was never told I had a father. I’m hoping you can help me, Mrs. Cass. You were close to my father.’

  ‘Only as a housekeeper!’ She spoke sharply, her narrow eyes glaring, as if I’d suggested there had been something more to the relationship. ‘The doctor never confided in me. There’s nothing I can tell you.’

  With that she backed quickly out of the room, shutting me firmly in.

  I unpacked the few things I had brought with me, glad now that I had at least come prepared to stay the night. I changed into my one dress—a green silk I’d brought along with a hotel dining-room in mind, and went to the mirror to tidy my hair. My reflection looked back at me and I studied it. What could there be about my appearance to cause instant disapproval? In my work I was invariably cast as a friendly young American woman, normally attractive to men.

  ‘Oh, to hell with it,’ I thought. ‘It must be them, not me. If they don’t like me, they’ll have to lump me.’

  The house was utterly silent as I went downstairs again. On a hatstand in an alcove a shabby gabardine raincoat and soft tweed trilby caught my eye. I went over to look. There was a nobbly walking-stick propped up beside them. My father seemed to have made little impact upon this house apart from his books, but here was something personal of his, an outward manifestation of the sort of man he was. I fingered the grubby coat, feeling cheated of my birthright, and more than a little sad.

  A curious sensation of being watched made me turn. Mrs. Cass was standing half hidden by the staircase.

  ‘I suppose you’ve been looking round, Miss Royle,’ she said, coming forward.

  ‘Well no. I guessed you’d rather show me the rest of the house yourself.’

  I thought I detected the slightest glint of approval in her impassive eyes.

  My impressions were confused and I found it difficult to visualize the layout of the house. There was a small formal dining-room first, and then we went through to the domestic quarters—a breakfast room which was obviously now Mrs. Cass’s sitting-room, and a kitchen with a scullery beyond. Apart from a fridge there were absolutely no modern amenities, but the whole place shone with cleanliness.

  Finding nothing else to say in its favour, I complimented Mrs. Cass on its spick-and-spanness.

  This time I really did pierce the barrier and manage to please her. ‘My niece comes in to give me a hand three times a week. I couldn’t do it otherwise—not a big place like this.”

  A faint scuffling came from under the table. I looked down and saw a greying black spaniel emerge, blinking, his head held stiffly.

  ‘No Jenner, it isn’t the master.’ Mrs. Cass bent down to give the dog a token pat. The action seemed to have a slightly humanizing effect on her. ‘He was devoted to the master, Miss Royle—followed him everywhere. He wouldn’t leave him, even when....’ Her lips trembled, and I waited for her to go on. ‘Dogs are such loyal creatures, aren’t they? He must have been up there for hours, by the body. The poor old thing didn’t understand, of course…’

  I bent down too and fondled a silky ear. ‘Poor old boy!’ The spaniel sniffed at my hand and started to lick it.

  ‘He seems to like you, Miss Royle. He’s not usually so friendly with strangers.’

  We all three went into the only other room on the ground floor I hadn’t seen so far.

  ‘This was the doctor’s study,’ said Mrs. Cass. ‘He spent most of his time here. Everything is just as he left it. I haven’t touched a thing—except for the cleaning, of course.’

  Except for the cleaning, of course! But the housekeeper’s meticulous scouring had not removed the personality from this room. My father’s presence hung in the air, tantalizingly close. I felt nearer to him than I had ever managed to get before, yet still I couldn’t quite reach him.

  This small room had been his home for many years. I took in his desk; his armchair, pipe rack beside it; and books, ever more books.

  We went upstairs again after that, but nothing we saw there overlaid the impression the study had made on me. My father’s bedroom was anonymous—an austere masculine place.

  Mrs. Cass showed me her own bedroom, scarcely less austere than his. I peeped in from the doorway, not wanting to intrude by entering too far, yet showing the interest that was obviously expected of me as the new owner. On a chest of drawers I saw a photograph of a good-looking army officer.

  ‘Your son?’

  ‘My husband,’ she told me. ‘He was killed in the war.’

  My mumbled apology seemed to satisfy her. More would, I’m sure, have been resented.

  The second guest-room was smaller than mine but quite as adequately furnished. I asked Mrs. Cass if my father had had many visitors to stay.

  She shook her head. ‘Only the one in these last many years.’

  I swung round intrigued. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Young Dr. Hamilton stayed the night when he came to see the doctor about coming to work here.’

  ‘Oh!’ It was a disappointment.

  In an expansive moment Mrs. Cass went on, ‘I had hoped Dr. Hamilton might be going to lodge here. It would have been company for the doctor. But I expect it was for the best the way it worked out. Dr. Hamilton took rooms at the Rectory over at Lechford, though he often spent an evening here.’

  ‘You like Dr. Hamilton?’ I asked before I could stop myself.

  ‘Oh yes, he’s very nice. He and your father got on well together, except just for…’

  ‘Yes?’ I prompted.

  She looked straight back at me. ‘They got on very well together.’

  When Mrs. Cass said she must start getting the dinner and I asked what I could do to help, she turned on me, affronted. The slight easing of tension between us was instantly gone.

  ‘I can manage thank you, Miss Royle. That’s what I’m here for.’ Again the hands were clasped before her, the shoulders drawn up. Then quite out of the blue she announced, ‘I’d like to be giving in my notice, please.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs. Cass!’ I said appalled.

  I didn’t like the woman one bit. I found her grouchy, and the silent way she would appear was almost sinister. But I didn’t want her to leave. Malverton was a big problem until I decided what to do with it. I wanted to hold on to her efficient management of the house.

  ‘But why?’ I asked her. ‘Do you really have to go?’

  ‘It suited me very well,’ she conceded. ‘But things have changed now. It isn’t the same....’

  ‘But you can carry on just as you have always done. I shan’t interfere, you know. Please stay, at least for the time being.’

  She pursed up her lips, considering. Then she nodded. ‘Very well, Miss Royle. I’ll stay—for the present anyway.’ With that she slid away.

  I would have liked to go out and explore
the grounds, but I saw it had started to rain. Unsettled, I wandered about the downstairs rooms again, Jenner close by me. He seemed to have decided not to let me get away for the moment. The study drew me more than any other room, and in a few minutes I was hovering over my father’s roll-top desk, looking through the drawers in a random fashion. Later on, I should have to go through all his things meticulously, sorting out what could be destroyed and what needed to be kept—it was a job I didn’t look forward to. Mostly the drawers were stuffed full of papers covered in appalling writing, a true doctor’s hand.

  It all appeared to be scientific jargon, quite meaningless to me. I flicked through the pigeonholes at the back, but found only the usual collection of old envelopes, paper clips and rubber bands. I felt let down that there was nothing of a more personal nature, though I didn’t know what I was hoping to find. Perhaps some letters that would give me a clue, enabling me to reach a sense of identity with the stranger who had been my father.

  Suddenly I was pulled up with a start. In one of the tiny side drawers I found a scrap of newsprint. Turning it over idly, I saw a photograph of myself. I looked more closely. I remembered it appearing in the Radio Times not so long ago. I had been in a play called Midnight Festival with Raymond Grant in the lead. The picture was for his benefit—I just happened to be in that scene. But Raymond had been carefully cut away, leaving just me.

  So my father had been interested enough in his daughter to keep her photograph. He had known at least what I looked like. And he had known that I was in England, yet he had done nothing about contacting me.

  A slight cough made me jump. Once again Mrs. Cass had appeared without a sound, as if from nowhere. It was absurd, but the atmosphere of the house, the background of mystery, was beginning to get unnerving.

  Chapter Three

  I ate my dinner in solitary state in the dining-room, and later that evening I had a caller. It must have been about ten o’clock. I was wandering around the drawing-room, listening to the soothing whisper of rain outside, glancing desultorily along the bookshelves.

  I heard the doorbell ring, and was puzzled who it could be. Mrs. Cass didn’t seem the sort to have visitors.

  She appeared a moment later. ‘It’s Leeson, the works overseer,’ she said in a voice full of distaste, and I noticed she pushed the door to behind her. ‘I can’t imagine why he should call at this hour. It’s very late.’

  ‘Guess I’d better see him,’ I said crisply. ‘Ask him to come in, will you?’

  She opened the door and beckoned contemptuously with a jerk of her head.

  Not very tall, thick-set and swarthy, my visitor could easily have passed for Italian. His whole bearing screamed dead certainty of his devastating sex-appeal. I’d known too many of his sort! I judged he was around forty years old.

  ‘So you’re the boss’s daughter! Well, well, who’d have thought it?’

  He held my hand in a persistent, caressing grip, much longer than civility demanded. I had to pull away.

  ‘Won’t you sit down, Mr. Leeson?’

  ‘Not Mr. Leeson, please. Call me George. I’m sure you and I are going to be friends.’

  Max had said very much the same thing, but how different in his case! This man did something to my hackles. I decided to steer clear of calling him by any name.

  He made himself quite at home, leaning back comfortably in an armchair. I felt his eyes taking me in. It was the sort of devouring stare an actress is all too familiar with. He looked right through my clothes, speculating expertly about the body underneath.

  As he didn’t tell me why he had come, I asked him directly with a sharpness I intended to be felt.

  ‘I just thought I’d drop in to make your acquaintance,’ he said lazily. ‘I saw you arrive before I left this afternoon, but of course you had other company then.’

  ‘Was there something in particular you wanted to discuss? Something that couldn’t wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘No, but I just thought it would be a good idea for you and I to get to know one another.’ He treated me to a meaningful grin, a leer full of blatant sexiness. ‘I’d have come along earlier, but I’ve been ... otherwise engaged.’

  ‘I believe you are the overseer in the laboratory?’

  ‘That’s right. I’ve been doing it for the last couple of years, and it suits me very well. The doc wasn’t a bad guvnor—he left you to get on with things without interfering.’ Leeson was watching me closely through long lashes. ‘What’s going to happen now, though, that’s the big question? What are you going to do about this set-up?’

  ‘I really can’t tell you yet. I’ve had no time to sort things out in my mind.’

  ‘Very nice little business you’ve got here. Why don’t you go back to London and leave us to run things? You could have a regular cheque to put in the bank.’

  I didn’t bother to point out that I’d had very different advice from Max Tyler.

  ‘It’s possible that I might decide to stay here and help manage the firm myself,’ I told him.

  ‘Now there’s a turn-up for the book!’ His eyes flickered over me again, as if summing up this new situation. ‘You don’t look the business type to me—far from it. I bet you’re all woman underneath. Still ... it might not be a bad idea at that. You could always come to me for a bit of help if you were in difficulties.’

  ‘Or even Mr. Tyler,’ I suggested with pointed irony.

  He agreed reluctantly. ‘But then he’s not always around, you know. And I am.’

  I decided it was time to end this interview.

  ‘You can be sure I won’t hustle myself to a decision. It’s very kind of you to have called.’ My manner made it quite clear that he was to go. I wasn’t an actress for nothing.

  The minute he was through the front door Mrs. Cass appeared again and made a great to-do of slipping the bolts. She went over to the door communicating with the laboratory, and turned the key in the lock.

  ‘Is that door used very much?’ I asked her.

  ‘Well no ... not now, Miss Royle. The doctor was always in and out, and the staff used to come and see him in his study. That’s where he did most of his work, of course.’

  She hung about for a moment, as if uncertain whether to speak.

  ‘I suppose it’s not my place to say so, but you ought to be careful of that man There are Leeson. He’s a real bad lot, that one. several girls I could name that he’s put in the family way. A man of his age ought to be married and settled down. It isn’t right.’

  ‘I got the impression from Mr. Tyler that he is a very reliable overseer.’

  ‘That’s as may be. I wouldn’t know I’m sure. But it’s when he’s not at work he needs watching. His landlady told me—just home for meals, and then out to all hours—up to God knows what!’

  * * *

  I had been lulled to sleep by the gentle murmur of the rain outside my window. But in the morning early sunshine was blazing into the bedroom. I looked out, breathing the fresh clean air, watching the tall dark-green laurel bushes steaming as they dried.

  Soon after breakfast Max Tyler called in. When I mentioned my visitor of the previous evening he didn’t seem at all pleased.

  ‘Leeson has no business to come bothering you. What on earth did the man want, anyway?’

  ‘I rather think he came to spy out the land.’

  Max stared at me. ‘What do you mean by that? What did he say?’

  ‘Well, he seemed mighty keen to know whether I intended selling the business or not.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with him?’ said Max, frowning.

  I grinned. ‘I suppose it’s only natural he should want to know who’s going to be the new boss.’

  Max dismissed this. ‘He’s got nothing to worry about. Whoever it was wouldn’t give him the push—he’s good at his job.’ He gave me a sideways glance. ‘Did you satisfy his curiosity?’

  ‘Go easy,’ I said, laughing. ‘I need to take a good look at things before I decide.’ />
  I had to discover more about my father first. Without understanding why he had remained apart from me all those years, how could I possibly know whether I’d want to pick up the threads of his life, or sell Malverton, go back to London, and forget this disturbing interlude?

  We had strolled out on to the verandah, where the sun had edged round, casting a dappled pattern of wisteria leaves. Max leaned idly against one of the stout wooden posts.

  ‘Aren’t you dying to get back to the bright lights?’

  ‘You’ve got a mighty poor opinion of me if you expect I’ll be bored after one night in the country. But I have decided on one thing.’

  He gave me a sharp glance. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m going to stick around here for a few days. I really only came down to see the lawyer, you know. I wasn’t intending to stay after today. But now that I know what’s involved, I guess I’ll not go back to London for a while.’

  All this was spoken on a sudden impulse. Now that I thought about it, I saw it was the obvious thing to do. There was no urgent reason for getting back to London. The TV part I was booked to play was very small. The producer was a good friend of mine, and when he knew the reason, he wouldn’t hold it against me for standing him up for once.

  I’d drop a line to old Archie Best, the janitor where I had my apartment. His wife was the cleaning woman, and would know where my things were kept. If I sent her a list of clothes I needed, she could mail them to me.

  I suggested to Max we might see things in action this morning.

  ‘Righto,’ he agreed. ‘I’m yours to command.’

  This morning the laboratory had an air of busy industry about it. It appeared to be very well organized, with white-coated workers moving purposefully around.

  There were several woman too, engaged in routine tasks at the benches.

  Apart from the senior operative, Jack Parsons, it didn’t look as if Max knew the work-people by name. He introduced me in a general sort of way as Dr. Drysdale’s daughter.