‘Sometimes, Nina, I wish I could just run away and leave them all behind.’
Nina had already been surprised when Eleanor appeared at her door again. She was even more thrown now. ‘You don’t need to tell me anything, Eleanor. I don’t want to pry —’
‘I know you don’t. I also know you don’t go around telling everyone around here our business. That means a lot to me, Nina. Thank you.’
Nina was struck again by Eleanor’s dignity and grace. By something else, too. Her sadness. There was something very sad about the other woman.
‘Is there anything I can do until you all get back?’ Nina expected her to say no. She was surprised when Eleanor hesitated and said, as it happened, yes, there was something they hoped she could do for them. Nina listened as Eleanor explained.
‘Be your caretaker? But how can I, when there’s nothing to take care of? The Hall won’t be open, will it?’ She was puzzled. ‘I thought you were going to ask me to move out.’
‘Of course not. You’ve just moved in. This will only be a short trip away, while we, well, while Henry – I won’t go into it. But we will be back. And it would give us great peace of mind to know you were keeping an eye on everything in the meantime. Airing it, arranging cleaners, that kind of thing. We’d pay you, too.’
‘Eleanor, no!’
‘Nina, we would. It’s a job, so we’d pay you for it.’
‘You’re already giving me cheap rent.’
‘If you won’t take payment, then we won’t take your rent.’
‘But Gracie said you were in financial diffi—’ She stopped, embarrassed.
Eleanor gave a brief smile. ‘Gracie says a lot of things that she doesn’t quite understand. Please, Nina, think about it. A caretaker’s role in return for rent-free accommodation.’
It was so tempting. So incredibly tempting. Work had slowed down again. Money was as tight as ever. And as exciting as Tom’s promising cricket career was, it was also expensive – the equipment, the uniforms, the travel. One day, years off perhaps, if he turned professional, all his costs would be covered, but for now, it was her responsibility. Three months of rent-free accommodation could be just what she needed to help get her through this tight patch. Give her some breathing space …
‘You’re definitely coming back?’ she asked. ‘It won’t be for long?’
‘Of course we’re coming back,’ Eleanor said. ‘We’ll be away three months at the most. Please, Nina, would you just consider it?’
Nina knew she should think about it first. Talk it over with Hilary, with her parents, look at the whole situation with a careful eye. But Eleanor was standing there, waiting, that sad, secret look in her eyes. There seemed to be no way she could say no.
So she said yes.
Time moved faster from that day. Nina agreed the terms with Henry and Eleanor, even signing a contract to keep it formal. A sign announcing the Hall’s temporary closure was erected at the front gate. A full-page article appeared in the local newspaper. Gracie finally stopped crying and spent her days choosing what to pack instead, running each item past Nina for her approval. ‘I’m not taking everything,’ she informed her during one of her many daily visits. ‘Just my favourites. We’ll be back so soon there’s no point taking masses of suitcases with us.’
The day of the Templetons’ departure felt like a strange dream to Nina, as they all gathered on the front steps of the Hall. She felt as if she was a head of state, moving from one to the other saying goodbye, Tom following behind her.
Audrey was first in line. She gave Nina a feeble hug. She still hadn’t spoken a word.
‘Good luck, Audrey,’ Nina said. ‘I hope things get better soon.’ There was no reply.
Hope was next. Nina hesitated before holding out her hand. ‘Goodbye for now, Hope.’
Hope’s voice was as sardonic as her smile, her handshake perfunctory. ‘It’s been a pleasure, Nina.’
Spencer shied away from her hug and shook hands instead. He did hug Tom, though. Very quickly.
Eleanor and Henry were next.
‘Thank you again, Nina, for everything,’ Eleanor said, kissing her cheek.
Henry kissed both her cheeks and then hugged her. ‘We couldn’t do this without you, Nina. Thank you.’
Gracie was last. Nina held the little girl close, smoothing down a fly-away lock of her hair. ‘I’ll miss you, Gracie.’ She meant it. ‘You’ll write to me, won’t you?’
A forlorn nod. ‘All the time. When I’m not writing to Charlotte, that is.’
Their bags were in the car. There was nothing for the Templetons to do now but leave.
‘See you in three months,’ Nina called, as their car turned in a slow circle and made its way down the tree-lined drive away from the Hall.
PART TWO
November 1993
Dear Nina
Hello from London!
I promised I’d send you a postcard as soon as we got here, and here it is! It was a very LONG flight and we are all tired. We are staying in a hotel at the moment until we find a house but Mum has told me not to worry about that. It is very cold, hardly daylight at all, but it feels SO Christmassy already and the shops look beautiful with all the lights.
I will write again soon once we have somewhere to live. Please say hello to Tom for me. I MISS you both already!
Love Gracie xxxxxxxxxxx
January 1994
Dear Nina
Thank you so much for your thorough detailing of the situation with the window shutters. Please do go ahead with the lowest quote regarding the repairs. I will arrange for funds to be deposited into the account this week.
This letter also comes with news that I hope won’t prove difficult for you. We find ourselves in the situation where we need to extend our stay here in London. Is it a huge imposition to ask you to continue in your role as caretaker for another three months? Either myself or Eleanor will phone you shortly to discuss this further, but we do hope it might suit you too.
In haste, but with gratitude, as ever,
Henry
March 1994
Hello Nina!
THANK YOU for your wonderful letter. Yes, I was SO sad at first to hear the news we’re staying here for another three months. I haven’t told Mum and Dad but I’d already packed, so I had to spend another whole day unpacking again.
That is wonderful news about Tom being picked for the state junior team!!!! (Please excuse all the exclamation marks.) You must be SO proud of him. I wish we could all have been there to cheer him on again. Does this mean he is now famous??? Can you please send photos of him and of you next time? I want to stick them on my bedroom wall.
Apart from the fact we’re not coming back to Australia yet, my other bad news is I have to go to a local school. Mum has decided to go back to teaching full-time, rather than just teach Spencer and me. She said it was because she wants to stretch her learning muscles again, but I also heard her fighting with Dad about money they owe, so it may be because of that as well. Dad is working hard. I think so, anyway. He’s not here much. The new job he has means he visits lots of big old houses full of antiques in the countryside. Audrey is still not talking (Charlotte is disgusted about it. She says it has nothing to do with the stage fright any more, it’s all about getting Mum’s constant attention), but she has started going to school again, a different one than mine, luckily. Otherwise she’d be writing notes to me all day, like she does at home, and I wouldn’t have time to try and make friends. Spencer says she’s probably the ideal student, never answering her teachers back. Hope is still with us unfortunately (please don’t tell Mum I said that) and still spending lots of time in her bedroom, though it’s not as nice as her room at Templeton Hall. Our whole house is NOWHERE near as nice as Templeton Hall. But it’s only for a few more months so I am trying not to get too sad about it.
I miss you Nina. Please write back soon.
Love from your friend,
Gracie xxxxxx
August 1
994
Dear Nina
I know Henry has written formally to ask you to continue to take care of the Hall for us until the end of the year, but I just wanted to add my thanks. As you know, we’d hoped to be returning by now, but life is always unpredictable, isn’t it? Fortunately, things appear to be settling down a little now. I have taken a short-term teaching contract at a local school and am enjoying it more than I expected. The children are as stimulating as always, in their different ways, although I’m sorry to say Audrey still hasn’t recovered her speech. I had hoped a change in scenery would help her, but sadly not as yet. Gracie misses Australia very much, but is slowly settling into London life, I think. Spencer at least seems happy to be here. Henry’s work is going well. Hope also seems to be in much better health. I’m glad to say Charlotte is having the time of her life in Chicago.
Thank you again, Nina. I hope you know how much we appreciate your understanding.
This comes with all best wishes to you and Tom from all of us,
Eleanor
November 1994
Dear Nina
I’m sorry not to have written for so many weeks. We’ve had to move again. We’re in a new part of London and I don’t like it. Spencer has started misbehaving all the time and this week he broke Mum’s favourite cup and he said it was an accident but I was there, and it looked to me like he pushed it off the table.
Audrey still isn’t speaking and hardly ever leaves the house except to go to school. She still writes a lot of notes though. Mum has tried to get her to see a doctor but I said to her what’s the point? If she doesn’t talk to us, her own family, she’s hardly going to talk to a doctor, is she? Charlotte rang to talk to her last week (to tell her off, from what I could gather – she still thinks Audrey is making the whole thing up) but Audrey just listened for a few minutes and then hung up on her. Charlotte was furious about that, as I’m sure you can imagine!
Dad is so busy all the time, we barely see him any more. He is now working with another friend of his, cataloguing the contents of three stately homes. Right up his street as he said, but they are all a long way from London so he doesn’t stay here at night much, once a week at the most. I asked Mum if she missed him and she just laughed, which I didn’t think was very nice of her.
At least it’s the Christmas holidays soon so I’ll have a break from trying to understand algebra and physics. But I wish I was back at Templeton Hall with you.
Love Gracie xxx
March 1995
Dear Nina
I feel like we covered so much when we spoke on the phone yesterday but I wanted to put it in writing once again how much we appreciate your flexibility and good humour regarding our ever-changing situation. I know you went to pains to tell me that continuing our arrangement for another year suits you and Tom as well, and I hope you are being truthful.
Would you please reconsider our offer to move into the Hall itself though? It seems very unfair to ask you to extend your caretaking for a second year and yet still be crammed into the small apartment when the whole Hall is there at your disposal. Please take your pick of any of the bedrooms and treat the whole Hall as your own home. But if you truly do prefer to stay in the apartment, we will of course understand your decision.
You did make me laugh with your stories of the more persistent visitors. Yes, I’m sure you did get as big a surprise as they did to find you in your pyjamas feeding the chickens! Please do feel free to put up another sign at the front gate, and as usual, charge it to our account. I do apologise again for that difficulty with the last cheque we sent you. Please rest assured Henry has rectified that and there should now be sufficient funds in the account to cover all your expenses.
I hope you’re enjoying that lovely late summer weather. It’s very cold here at present.
With warm wishes to you and Tom,
Eleanor
December 1995
Happy Christmas Nina and Tom!
With love from all the Templetons in England.
Henry, Eleanor, Audrey, Gracie, Spencer (and Charlotte in Chicago) xxxxx
January 1996
Happy New Year Nina and Tom
We will see you this year, we promise! It doesn’t feel like more than two years since we saw each other but then sometimes it feels like it’s five years, if that makes sense??
That is wonderful and amazing news about Tom getting the scholarship to that school in Melbourne!! He must have written an incredible essay. As Spencer said when Mum told him, ‘That’s not fair. How come he got brains as well as the cricket stuff?’ You will miss him during the week, won’t you, but I’m sure he’ll come home most weekends. I asked Audrey if she had ever known anyone who went to that school and she wrote me a note to say it was the private boys’ school in Melbourne, and that it shows Tom is super smart if he got an academic scholarship there. But you must know that already. I hope he knows we are all very proud of him. I’m going to send him a congratulations card today. Charlotte’s just been home for a visit – her first since she went to Chicago, can you believe it? (Between you and me, she’s got a bit fat but she said she doesn’t care, the food in America is so great it’s worth it.) The good news is Audrey has actually started talking a little bit again, but only to us, her family, so far. She doesn’t say much, hello and good morning and please and thank you, and when Charlotte was here she went completely quiet again, but I think she did it deliberately to upset Charlotte, and let me tell you, it worked! I am fine at my school. Not deliriously happy, but fine.
The other big news is that Hope has a boyfriend! I don’t know where she met him – a drinking den, Spencer said, but I think he was joking. If anything, I think it was in one of those AA meetings. (That is short for Alcoholics Anonymous, in case you didn’t know.) I heard Mum telling Dad about it. (It was nice to hear them talking for once. Lately they only seem to fight on the phone to each other.) Mum said she doesn’t believe in miracles any more, but if she did, this would be one. She’d been about to kick Hope out again, had even packed up all of her things. Hope went off, in tears and still a bit drunk and was gone for hours and Mum had started phoning the police and the hospitals, when Hope turned up again. I couldn’t hear a lot of what she said to Mum, but she seemed to be making a lot of promises and saying that this time something felt different to her too, she really was going to try, that something had ‘shifted in her thinking’. She’d seen a sign outside a church hall or something and gone in and started talking to this man and he’s become her mentor, if that is the right word. I saw him drop her off here the other night (his name is Victor) and he seemed very old to me, but she is definitely much happier and seems to have stopped drinking again and the best thing of all is she spends a lot of her time at his house rather than with us.
Sorry this has mostly been about Hope. She’s been all we’ve talked about here lately. I’ll write again with more news about the rest of us soon.
Love Gracie
xxx
FAX TO: Nina Donovan
FROM: Henry Templeton
DATE: August 1996
Dear Nina,
This fax idea is a marvellous one, thank you for thinking of it. And may I say again in writing how grateful Eleanor and I are that you have agreed to stay on for a third year. Life has taken some unexpected twists and turns since we arrived back, but please let me assure you that we have absolutely no intention of leaving you in the lurch, responsible for the Hall and its grounds for the term of your natural life, if you’ll pardon my colonial pun. I have all sorts of positive leads or irons in the fire or whatever the terms are these days, so Eleanor and I are both still optimistic that we shall be Australia-bound again very soon. We are all missing our Australian life very much, as I’m sure you would imagine, Gracie in particular, of course.
Please don’t hesitate to write to me – sorry, fax me – at this number should any problems, no matter how small, arise and we will be back to you as swiftly as possible.
Yours grateful
ly, as ever,
Henry
FAX TO: Nina Donovan
FROM: Eleanor Templeton
DATE: October 1996
Dear Nina
Thank you for your most recent fax to Henry. I’m sorry if I appear over-controlling, but from now on could you please write directly to me at this fax address as well as Henry on any matters to do with the Hall?
I also apologise again on behalf of us both for not warning you prior to the arrival of the valuation expert. I can understand that you might have thought he was pretending. I wasn’t aware Henry had been in touch with a local firm, or indeed that he had considered selling the contents of the Hall. You were well within your rights not to let them in. Henry has telephoned the head office in Melbourne and they now assure us we won’t be charged for what they called a wasted journey.
I’ll also arrange separately for a shipping company to pack the ornaments, vases, crockery and smaller items of furniture as outlined on the fax attached.
I will call you soon to answer the many questions I’m sure you have. Thank you again, as ever, for all you do for us.
Eleanor
London, February 1997
Dear Nina
I wish you were here. I know I probably write to you too much but you feel like a Dear Diary except unlike a Diary you write back to me. Nina, it’s been so horrible here lately. Mum said I had to learn to keep family talk to myself, to stop broadcasting it to everyone, but how am I supposed to keep news like this to myself? Mum and Dad have split up. I don’t know yet if they are going to get divorced.
He’s going away for good and he won’t say where, and Mum won’t tell me where either, but he’s my father and I should know, shouldn’t I? Hope and her boyfriend have moved into a new house a few streets away and Spencer has started spending all his time there. He says it is much more fun, but I’m worried. He’s only thirteen and I’m sure he’s smoking or drinking or both (even though Hope and her boyfriend don’t do either of those things any more). Mum’s teaching full-time in a different local school and we have to go to the same one now, and I keep being teased and Spencer won’t stick up for me, not when he’s got a whole cool gang that he hangs out with. All the girls my age knew each other for years before I arrived and no one talks to me. Except for one girl, but she is so weird I can see for myself why no one talks to her either. I asked Mum if she would please be able to teach me at home again, but she got upset and told me to stop wishing all the time that things were different and that it’s time I accepted that life isn’t always sunny and carefree. I know that, but I just wish it was more cheerful.
At Home with the Templetons Page 24