The Women of Heachley Hall

by Rachel Walkley

  He nodded and raised the hammer, before pausing, ready to strike. ‘Colourful, aren’t they, those kind of dresses. She wore them in the summer when the weather was good. In the winter, she preferred the clothes of the local women, trousers and woolly tops.’

  Another tile was obliterated and the sound of the harsh demolition ricocheted throughout the hall.

  ‘I’ll email Mr Porter. Ask him for an inventory of the contents prior to clearance. See what he has to say.’ I started to trudge upstairs.

  If only I had thought to question the solicitor in detail before now. I’d been naive and made mistakes. Trudging into my workroom, I flicked open my laptop and composed a sharply worded email to the infuriating Mr Porter. Later, I would head out and hook up to the Rose and Crown Wi-Fi to send it. If there was one person who seemed bent on keeping me from finding out about Felicity, it was her solicitor.

  TWENTY

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Chambers, we’ve no record of Miss Marsters’s possessions.’

  A week after my original call, Mr Craven called me back. Seven days of frantic project planning. Lunchtimes spent at the pub, scoffing Glenda’s mayonnaise drenched sandwiches while sending emails back and forth to confirm deadlines, then back to Heachley to print off contracts or King’s Lynn to pick up more art supplies.

  ‘They have to be somewhere, unless they were destroyed. Who would authorise their destruction and wouldn’t there be written agreement? There might have been important documents in that box: letters, even a new will.’ I huffed. He’d listened in silence to my mini tirade.

  ‘If there was paperwork, I’m afraid it was left at Beechwood with the owners.’

  ‘Owners? Sorry, I don’t understand. I thought Twilight owned it?’

  ‘Yes, it did. Twilight acquired Beechwood Care Homes about a year before its closure. The business was sold to us, but not the building. The property passed back into landlord’s hands after we closed the facility.’

  My fingers curled into a fist. ‘So they could still be sat at Beechwood in an empty building?’

  ‘I’ve no idea if it’s still empty.’

  A red mist descended in reply to his limp remark. I spat out my next question, not caring how rude I sounded. ‘Who exactly owns the place then?’

  ‘Dominion Estates. A property agent, which is in turn owned by an investment company. A decade ago they bought up lots of large houses for the purpose of turning them into nursing homes. They maintain the properties and the facilities, and rent them to specialist care providers. However, our standards of care made Beechwood unsuitable for long-term use. After we acquired Beechwood, we moved the residents to other facilities in our group and closed it down.’

  So why acquire a nursing home if it was substandard? My question bore no relevance to my original request, but I felt sorry for those staff and residents who’d been shuffled off to other places. Felicity might have been one if she’d lived. How would she have coped? The little I’d learnt about her gave me the impression she’d been proud of her independent spirit, and her Indian heritage, too. However, none of those things would have been demonstrated: a frail, mute geriatric was invisible.

  ‘We always have the best interests of our clients at heart. It is necessary to maintain their care to high standards.’

  No, it was necessary for the balance sheet. Take the income of the residents, discourage expensive staff from transferring and close it down. I tapped my pencil on the desk, annoyed, but there was little reason to continue the conversation.

  ‘Do you have a contact number for Dominion Estates?’

  I wrote down the email address and telephone number. It would mean more ringing around and explaining my situation. Why was I so intent on pursuing this lost box of papers and photographs? I’d started and I damn well was going to finish the investigation. Dad had been wrong; I wasn’t stubborn, I was determined. Felicity would have admired my tenacity.

  I scribed another email to a faceless company, pleading for my dear aunt’s precious legacy, all that was left of her long life, which wasn’t a lie, there wasn’t anything at Heachley of hers, nothing. The email sat in my outbox ready to be sent later that evening. I punched up my latest picture and began to tweak the saturation and hue, softening my pencil strokes into a continuous blur. My two-headed monster-cum-alien morphed into a gentler child-friendly beast.

  A few minutes later, I was answering the telephone yet again. The number on the display was one I recognised, but rarely heard from: Mr Porter.

  The silky voice I’d heard months ago hadn’t rematerialised since then. Instead Mr Porter filled the airways with a snappy business tone. ‘I can assure you, Miriam, nothing of value was burnt. The men disposed of non-recyclables, damaged furniture, old mattresses, curtains. Much of it was in terrible condition. They informed me nothing was destroyed—’

  ‘Her books? The tapestries? The Persian rugs?’ I persisted, cutting through his rambling excuses with a razor acerbity.

  ‘The books were sold to a second hand vendor. As for the tapestries, I’ve no idea where your inventory comes from, but those items weren’t listed on mine.’

  My heart hit my breastbone in rapid succession of thumping beats. The list Charles had given me wasn’t complete, he couldn’t remember everything, but he’d taken me around the house, pointing out where furniture and other objects had been situated. Considering the time lapse, he’d a remarkable memory for detail.

  ‘There were various sculptures of deities. Indian artefacts? For God’s sake, they ripped out an antique oven.’

  ‘The proceeds of the clearance was given to me as a lump sum, I’ve no indication of what sold individually.’

  ‘Seriously? You didn’t think to find out?’

  ‘It had taken some time to acquire power of attorney and the nursing home bills were mounting. The clearance provided for nearly five years of fees. I can assure you, the income generated from the sale of Felicity’s stuff was quite generous.’

  Stuff. The word riled, as did his unsympathetic attitude. Somewhere, in amongst her things, her private letters and documents, was the address of my father. How hard had anyone tried to contact her living relatives – me, primarily? Would I have halted the clearance or happily let Mr Porter and his power of attorney take charge of the situation? With a sad realisation, I anticipated I would have shown little curiosity. More regrets. More angst at my lack of interest. The only reason I was sitting on a camper chair in a frigid, empty mansion on a cold winter’s day was because Great-aunt Felicity had insisted I live here for a year and day.

  ‘I want a list of what was sold. I don’t care if you don’t have one and I don’t care this was five years ago. I want to know what happened to her books, her pictures, her tapestries. Just in case when I sell this place and make my fortune, I decide to buy them back.’

  It was a futile reason. Whatever survived would have long ago exchanged hands, perhaps several times. The trail was dead.

  ‘Miriam—’

  I slammed the phone down.

  ‘Miriam—’

  ‘What?’ I snarled, then leapt to my feet. ‘Oh, God, sorry, Charles, I didn’t mean to shout at you.’

  ‘I’ve made you a coffee. Sounds like you need it.’ He stood close to the kitchen door, waggling his thumb over his shoulder and I followed him in. ‘I’ve made a start on the dining room walls. I filled the holes left behind from where the panelling had been fixed.’

  With my palms flat on the granite surface and my shoulders hunched over the worktop, I cried. My tears dropped into the coffee mug, splashing into the dark liquid. I didn’t know why those conversations – both with the care home manager and the solicitor – had upset me. Behind me, Charles hovered, his shoes shuffling on the floor.

  He placed his hands on my arms and turned me around. I unceremoniously sobbed into his sturdy chest. I bunched my arms between us, hugging myself and burrowed my nose into his woollen jumper, expecting a waft of unsavoury body odour, instead, the pullover
smelt of soap and lavender. Another surprise to digest: Charles’s clothes might appear worn to death, but they were fresh and patched up. The sweet aroma tickled my nostrils and I sniffed, trying not to sneeze. Propped against him, leaning into his steady frame, I perceived underneath his ruffled exterior a sinewy brawn packed into a slender build. He’d the physique of man who neither worked out nor sat around watching TV.

  Gently, and with little more than his fingertips, he patted my back. ‘She wouldn’t have wanted you to be upset. It would never have been her intention to see you sad. I’m sure,’ he soothed.

  I put aside my frustrations with the solicitor, because there was nothing I could do – water under the bridge. If Mr Porter wanted to redeem his poor form, he might instigate his own investigation into the integrity of the clearance company he’d employed, but I doubted it. After all, if he was in on a scam, why expose himself? And if he wasn’t, he’d not want to admit to his apparent incompetence. I was starting to hate the man.

  Finished with my ridiculous outpouring and somewhat embarrassed by my need to cry on Charles’s shoulder, I eased backwards and wiped the tears from my hot cheeks. ‘Stupid. I mean, it’s not as if she’s here.’

  He plucked a rogue strand of hair out of the corner of my eye then whipped his hand away as if I’d stung him.

  ‘No, she’s not here.’ He gestured about him as he spoke. ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely if she was? Imagine how proud she’d be of you and your achievements. She’d stand here, in this kitchen, baking her cakes or making a chicken pie, asking about your day.’

  ‘Chicken pie? Yummy.’ I rubbed my belly in a mock display of hunger at the image he created of a busy Felicity enjoying her kitchen – my kitchen.

  ‘She kept hens in the garden.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘She did?’ I took a sip from my mug of coffee – not bad given the tears it contained.

  ‘Lots of eggs and she’d no compunction about eating the hens either. Wrung their necks when needed.’ He strangled an imaginary chicken with his hands.

  I flinched at his dramatic re-enactment. ‘Gosh. You didn’t volunteer to do it for her?’

  ‘Me?’ He laughed, tucking his hands behind his back. ‘I’m a coward. She once asked me to lay snares in the woods to trap rabbits and I called her cruel.’

  ‘Did she do it herself?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. She wasn’t that adventurous. We planted carrots and potatoes instead.’

  ‘Where?’

  He took me out into the frosty garden after I’d drunk my coffee and along by a garden wall towards the back of the overgrown lawn was a long patch of soil covered in dead foliage; the relics of nettles and brambles. Charles kicked about and found a bamboo stick. ‘For the sweet peas.’

  He drove the stick into the hard ground and leaped over the weeds in an animated display of gardening expertise, gesturing here and there, as he suggested rows of onions and lettuces. I laughed at his energetic dance and he grinned back. I couldn’t wait for spring and the rebirth of a vegetable patch.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The last week in January I woke up to a white world. During the night, the sky lowered a blanket of snow and it covered the landscape in brilliant whiteness. I first noticed the extra lightness in my bedroom as I lay waiting for my alarm clock to beep. The alarm was necessary, because without it I could happily waste the morning lying under the warm duvet. Drawing back the curtains and wiping away the veneer of condensation, I pressed my nose to the icy glass. The treetops level with the roof were swathed with a couple of inches of snow; it balanced on the branches and the smallest of twigs.

  I grabbed clean clothes out of my wardrobe. The canvas armoire, which I’d bought off eBay, housed most of my day-to-day wear. Having dressed, I slipped on my pumps – bare feet in Heachley Hall was not advisable due to both the cold and the odd exposed nail jutting out of the floorboards – and I hurried downstairs to the next storey.

  The master bedroom provided the best view of the back garden and I flung open the door and raced to the window. The snow lay two or three inches thick. Sufficient to hide the low lying grasses, but not the long blades of the untended meadow that continued to smother the main terraces. However, even with the tallest fronds sticking up, the whiteout was complete. The rhododendrons had cowered under the weight – their branches bowed – and the snow had been shifted onto the ground. The trees boldly took the burden and without a nudging wind to loosen the flakes, the snow had coated every horizontal level, highlighting each branch like a marker pen. Where the snow hadn’t reached, the frost had managed to paint its own silvery effect.

  I stamped my cold feet on the floorboards. Behind me, the fireplace lay dormant. With the house turning into a perpetual fridge, I decided today I would light all the fires, leave the doors open and heat up the place. The Rayburn did an excellent job of keeping much of the downstairs sufficiently warm. But the first floor remained icy.

  On the opposite side of the house I had a view of the front garden. To my surprise, the lane had been cleared of snow and what remained lay banked against the verges and under the hedges. Tony must have a plough attachment for his tractor and gone out early to clear the lanes around the village. Over the previous weeks, he’d often stopped by to check I wasn’t freezing to death. He’d brought eggs and cheese, sometimes a gammon. Some poor pig had been sacrificed on his farm and I tried to avoid thinking about the real-life world of farming. My meat typically came from the supermarket shelves.

  The snowstorm had long gone by the time I rose and the blue skies had turned the shimmer of whiteness into a tinkling glassiness. Outlined neatly in the frozen bitten snow was the sparkling outline of footprints. They tracked up to the front door, then back to the gate. The postman had made it through to deliver the morning mail.

  I bounded downstairs and scooped up the envelopes on the doormat. Two bills and a postcard from Ruth. She had spent the weekend in York with Mick. Lucky girl. Her life was on the up and I’d not seen her since Christmas, but our regular phone calls kept us close as if she was there, right next to me. I could even imagine her soothing face as she batted away my frustrations at my failure to unearth that infernal box.

  Flicking the card over, I read her delight in finding her book on sale in a bookshop. She’d done an impromptu book signing for the few children present. I tucked the card behind the other letters and pursed my lips at the credit card company names embossed over the envelope windows. More money oozing out of my account. Mr Porter had seen to the utility bills, which didn’t amount to much, with the exception of the heating oil for the Rayburn. He’d not answered my request for more information on the clearance. My patience wouldn’t last forever.

  ‘Hello.’ Charles came out of the living room, shaking dust off his jeans. ‘I’ve lit the fire.’

  Every weekday I came downstairs to a warm room and whether Charles was there or not to greet me, it always felt as if he was somewhere in the house. If there was an opposite of cold comfort, Charles epitomised it.

  ‘Thanks.’ I followed him into the kitchen. He’d finished painting the dining room, including the ceiling and completed the laborious task of gouging out the rotten wood from the window frame and applying wood filler. He planned to paint the frames. He’d also sanded down and revarnished the mantelpiece. As usual he came and went in his unregulated fashion and my constant need for firewood kept him busy chopping wood.

  I laid the letters on the worktop and pointed out the window. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured, shoving his hands in his pockets. His pale complexion seemed whiter than I’d previously seen. He must have walked to Heachley in the thick snow wearing his silly boots. Poor man. I blinked and gazed out the window at the footprints formed in the snow; the postman had left those marks. Where were Charles’s?

  I pivoted on the balls of my toes and faced him, folding my arms across my chest.

  ‘What?’ He slipped his hands out of his pockets and he rocked b
ack on his heels.

  ‘What time did you get here?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not long.’

  ‘So why can’t I see your footprints in the snow?’

  His shoulders snapped backwards as if I’d struck him and he swallowed hard; his Adam’s apple bulged in his neck. ‘I didn’t come that way,’ he stuttered.

  ‘Oh, what other way is there?’ I tapped my foot on the floor. ‘Charles?’

  He gestured with his head. ‘I’ll show you.’

  I followed him to the back door and he opened it. Down the side of the house, leading back and forth to the outbuildings, were footprints. Layered over each other, they’d trampled down the snow into a mushy mess of mud and powdery flakes. Some of the prints led off into the wood. ‘I’ve been chopping wood and lighting the fire.’

  ‘Yes. I know. So you let yourself in by the back door, but where is the path from the front?’

  ‘There isn’t one.’ He shut the door and leaned his back against it. ‘I come through the woods.’

  ‘Every time you come here or just when the weather is bad?’

  ‘Always. It’s the easiest route and most direct.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  He puffed out his lips. ‘I’m sorry. I should have said. I live over there’ – he gestured with a thumb over his shoulder—’the other side of the wall. It’s crumbled in places and I climb over. It saves me coming around the long way.’

  ‘I see. You don’t have a bicycle? Wouldn’t that help?’

  ‘I prefer to walk.’

  ‘In the rain? The howling wind?’

  He guffawed, ‘I don’t think it makes much difference on a bicycle and anyway, the woods give me shelter. It’s a nice walk and I enjoy it.’

  ‘You live towards Docking?’ Could he not say for once?

  ‘Kind of.’

  I walked back into the kitchen and filled the kettle. The urn had been demoted to under the counter and no longer needed. Charles sloped in behind me, a deep frown on his face. ‘I’ll get back to—’