Wild Wood

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  Jesse’d been prepared to argue, and if Rory had been anything but kind, she would have. But something’s shifted. A good cry, just what the doctor ordered. Her mum used to say that. “So, you have a plan?”

  Rory nods. “Alicia’s said we can use the library. That’ll be a good place to work.” He flips the sun visor down and points the car toward the ominous west. Directly ahead, the hills are clothed in a haze of gold, and Hundredfield’s keep is a stone finger on the brow of its distant, fortified hill. A sign? A warning?

  Jesse doesn’t know, but if Rory has a plan now, so does she. She closes her eyes against the glare. Mack’s a nice man. I’ll take him up on meeting the rector. And then, the phone books will be at the library a bit later in the week. And Helen. Maybe I should try to speak to her more formally. Jesse frowns.

  “Anything wrong?”

  She opens her eyes. He’s watching her. “No. I’m good.”

  But she’s not. Not really. Helen worries her. It’s not often someone dislikes you on sight.

  “Licia?” Rory pushes the front door open. Hundredfield has that feel: empty.

  “I’ll go up to my room, if it’s okay. I got a couple of books from the library. About the borders.” That’s an economical lie; they’re both about Jedburgh. The girl at the front desk had been right. There’d been shelves of information about the town where she was born.

  “I’m cooking tonight. Take your time.” Rory waggles the paper-wrapped parcel from the butcher. “Better get organized if we’re going to eat before midnight.”

  Jesse stares around uncertainly. “Did Alicia say there was another way upstairs?”

  Rory strides to the far end of the hall and throws back a pair of doors. “Here you go.”

  Ahead, a monumentally carved staircase rises to a landing before it splits into two flights. Jesse whistles. “Just shouts ‘look at me.’ ”

  “That was the twelfth earl for you. Always more money than sense, until both departed around the same time.”

  Jesse stares. Earl?

  “These are some of the Gothic ‘improvements’ Alicia talked about. So, up to that first landing and take the right flight where the stairs split. Next landing up from there you’ll find a door straight ahead; that’s your corridor.”

  “You know this place well, don’t you?”

  “I do indeed.” A polite smile. Back to the cool young doctor.

  Behind her, the doors echo closed as Jesse begins to climb. Rain-dimmed light slants across the stairs, catching gilded picture frames, picking up painted eyes that stare as Jesse passes. Elizabethan grandees in silks and ruffs hang beside dark-eyed girls in the lace of Stuart times, and generals and admirals in uniforms of red and blue and gold keep company with Victorian beauties in jewel-bright satin. Some look like Alicia, eyes and nose and jaw—a few prettier, some not—but too many seem to sneer as Jesse climbs to the landing.

  What am I, a peasant? What would you know? Resolutely turning her back, she comes to a wide door. Here it is. Her corridor. She’s quite glad to leave the company of all those dead, grand people.

  Jesse turns the handle, steps through. And stops.

  Someone’s crying. Softly.

  Perhaps the hairs on her neck and arms will sit down if she waits for a moment.

  No.

  The sobs are louder. Utter misery.

  Jesse looks at her bag. The door to her room is thick—she can go inside and just read.

  But it’s impossible not to be curious.

  She’s in someone else’s very, very old house, and what she’s hearing could be—what, a ghost?

  Once, Jesse would have thought that absurd, but things are different now. Someone drew the sketches of this place. And if not her, then . . . automatic art, like automatic writing?

  Jesse Marley scowls. Ridiculous!

  So, it can’t be a ghost.

  What, then?

  The sobbing stops.

  Jesse listens so hard, pain blooms between her eyes.

  Not there now. Definitely.

  She closes her eyes. Really, really concentrates, doesn’t even breathe.

  Her ears sing like crickets.

  Silence.

  It’s almost a relief as she tamps down that small flicker of regret, of curiosity. And opens the door to her room.

  There!

  She doesn’t close the door. She leaves it open and follows the sound, those wrenching sobs, all the way to the end of the corridor. Another door. Alicia’s door.

  This is all too personal.

  Jesse turns back.

  “Who’s there?”

  Floorboards creak.

  It’s hard not to sound snoopy, but she says, “Hi, Alicia. Just thought I’d let you know we’re back.” A lie, but kind.

  The door is wrenched open and Jesse tries not to gasp. Alicia’s face is ravaged and her nose is red; she’s been crying for a long time.

  “Here.” Jesse fumbles to extract Rory’s tissues from her pocket. “It’s the day for it.”

  “What?”

  “Tears.”

  As she blots her face, Alicia mutters, “Apologies.” And blows her nose fiercely.

  “Look, I know how you feel.” Jesse hovers in the doorway. It does not occur to her that she should not speak the truth.

  “You don’t. You really, really do not.”

  Uncertain what to do, what to say, Jesse toughs it out. “All right, I’ll match you, and raise you. Trust me, I can.” It was meant as a bit of a joke.

  Alicia’s eyes flare open. There’s fury there.

  Jesse takes a step back. She mumbles, “Oops. Thought it might help to laugh.” She says humbly, “I keep feeling I should apologize for even being here, but I don’t know what to say and I don’t know how to say it. I’d like to make things better if I can.” That ends with a wobble.

  Alicia softens. She hesitates but says, “Come in.”

  Now Jesse’s having trouble holding herself together as she ducks her head and walks into Alicia’s bedroom. It’s lived-in, and shabby, but the grace of furniture passed down through generations and a mantelpiece crammed with photographs is charming.

  “It’s untidy. Sorry.” Alicia drops into a window seat, folds her arms around her torso. “I haven’t been here for six months.”

  “Rory said that.”

  “Did he?” Alicia’s back to cool.

  There’s a pause neither knows how to break.

  Jesse clears her throat. “This is similar to the room I’m in. But it’s bigger. They’re both lovely.”

  “It was my parents’ room.” Alicia points at the largest photograph on the mantelpiece.

  The black-and-white image of a young couple dancing together is in a silver frame. She in a filmy dress—all tulle skirt and lace bodice—he so classically handsome in white tie and tails. The girl in the picture is a version of Alicia, though her face is beautiful as she laughs with delight.

  “That was the night of their engagement. The last real ball Hundredfield ever had. They were so happy then.” Alicia’s eyes fill with tears.

  Jesse thinks about taking the other girl’s hand. And doesn’t. But she sits down beside her. And murmurs, “Don’t talk if you don’t want to.”

  “It’s been so long since I’ve even said their names.” Alicia stares out through the window. “It wasn’t a very good marriage, in the end, though I didn’t know that for a long time. No one said anything. I never even heard them raise their voices.” Perhaps she’s talking to herself.

  Jesse would like to say she knows about the silence of marriage.

  “Pa liked a certain way of life, you see—all the good things.” Alicia waves a hand around the room. “He’d been born to it. Land was more important than money then, and you never run out of land, do you—place like this. And they’re not making any more.” A sharp laugh.

  Jesse’s not sure what Alicia is saying.

  Alicia sighs. “The thing is, no one ever taught them how to manage; other p
eople had always done that. Estate people, stewards, housekeepers. It was vulgar to talk finance, I suppose. And after the war, when Pa came back and things where so different, I guess he couldn’t face it. Just went on spending because that’s what you did. He sulked if he didn’t get his way. Tricky.” Her voice fades.

  Silence rests on the air.

  “Are they, that is . . .” Jesse doesn’t know how to ask if Alicia’s parents are still alive.

  The other girl gets up, goes to the photograph, picks it up. It’s as if Jesse isn’t there. “In the end, Ma must have seen it coming, I’m certain of that.” Alicia swings around. And hesitates. “Did I say they were together when it happened?”

  Jesse shakes her head.

  “Maybe that was something good.” Alicia puts the photograph back carefully. “But I don’t know why she even got in the car. It was a storm, you see, and they were coming back after a party last winter, just after Christmas. Daddy had insisted they leave, though they could have stayed the night. And of course, it was dark.” Alicia trembles a breath. “Pa crashed through the rails on the bridge and into the river.” She gestures down there. “The car wasn’t found until the next day, so no one knows if they could have been saved. I wasn’t even here.”

  Away to the far west, the sky is burning as day subsides into night.

  “Do you ever feel you’ve disappointed someone—someone important?”

  “Yes. Doesn’t everyone?” Jesse thinks disappointment is a tame word for some of the things she’s done.

  “But what if it’s your ancestors?”

  Jesse says the wrong thing. “They’re dead. How can you disappoint someone who’s dead?”

  Alicia turns away, her shoulders hunched. “By betraying their trust.”

  “Hey.” Jesse gets up, and this time she takes Alicia’s hand. “It’s okay. It will be okay. Time heals all.” And other awkward clichés.

  “Time is the enemy when the past won’t lie down and die. There’s the roof, you see.”

  “Okay.” Jesse tries not to look confused.

  “What I mean is, it leaks, and it needs replacing. There’s just miles and miles of it, here and on the keep. Then there’s the flashing and the windows, and the plumbing, plus the ceilings in the upstairs rooms. That’s before you get to the damp in the cellars. That has to be fixed before it destroys the stone—no foundations and no damp course in the fourteenth century, so that’s become a twentieth-century problem—and”—Alicia stares at her elegant, happy father, her radiant mother—“well, Pa stuck his head in the sand about Hundredfield. Ma tried to get him to concentrate on what had to be done, but he thought it would all come right in the end. Always the optimist, Pa. And he’s gone. And I have to sort it out.”

  Jesse thinks about the size of the castle, all the buildings. And the keep. “So, what now?”

  There’s a pause. “Now?” Alicia squares her shoulders. “I think we should see what Rory’s doing. Did he talk about making béarnaise?”

  “Not precisely, but he seemed keen to get dinner happening.”

  “It’s his party trick, and it’s always a disaster. Absolutely no idea, that man, about a good sauce.”

  Alicia sweeps from the bedroom, head held high.

  For a moment, Jesse can see the train held in that long-fingered hand, the skirt trailing over the boards as she goes. Fanciful nonsense.

  Maybe not, if you’re the daughter of an earl.

  Before she leaves the room, Jesse stares at the photographs. These are the Hundredfield family, the portraits on the walls in modern form. And Alicia’s parents, so in love and untouched by time; the best of it. How lucky Alicia is to know she’s their daughter.

  Jesse stares at the earl—that handsome face, dark hair, dark eyes.

  Her real parents—were they ever such enchanted beings?

  Who do I look like? Can you tell me?

  23

  ALICIA BRINGS peas to the table in a silver bowl as Rory sharpens the carving knife. He looks at her red eyes, goes to say something. And changes gear. “Shall I?” He nods at the fillet of beef.

  Alicia’s inspecting the contents of the sauceboat Rory’s put on the table. “You know, this actually looks okay.”

  Rory snorts. “Learn to trust, Alicia. Enough, Jesse?”

  Jesse takes the plate as she sits. “More than. Thanks so much.” The conversation is as polite as an old-fashioned play.

  Alicia asks brightly, “So, what did you think of Newton Prior, Jesse?”

  “I’m not sure.” It comes out awkwardly.

  “Interesting answer.” Rory offers a roasted-tomato salad.

  “I didn’t mean, um—the village is lovely, of course, but . . .”

  “Don’t let it get cold.” Alicia offers the sauce dish.

  “Carrots?” Before she can reply, Rory dumps a heap on Alicia’s plate.

  “Did you meet Helen?”

  Jesse swallows. And coughs. “Yes.”

  “And Mack. We had lunch at the pub.” Rory’s watching them both.

  Alicia says cheerfully, “That must have been nice.”

  Or not. Jesse says nothing.

  “What was the but, by the way?” Alicia nods encouragingly.

  “Silly as this sounds, I think it was the archangel. He just seemed, I don’t know, grumpy or severe. Or something. Lame, I know.”

  Alicia nods. “It’s his eyes. I could always feel them on my back when we went to church, as if I’d done something wrong. Mummy understood, Daddy didn’t get it. Kid’s imagination, I suppose. I was always worried about something.” She eats, lost in the past.

  Rory says, “And did that work?”

  “What?” Alicia snaps back into focus.

  “Worrying.”

  Chewing, she shakes her head.

  “It’s a habit, that’s all. Never change anything by worrying. Trust me, I’m a doctor.” He smiles at his own joke.

  Alicia says carefully, “I think that depends, Rory. It can be constructive, sometimes.”

  Jesse stares at her plate with great interest. They’re doing it again.

  “Really?”

  Alicia fires up, cheeks pink as her eyes. “Yes. Really.” She puts her knife and fork down deliberately. “Jesse, apropos of what we were talking about before, I’ve made up my mind. It’s time Hundredfield went to a good home. And before you say anything, Rory, the roof’s failing again.”

  Rory murmurs, “This house is not a dog, Alicia.”

  She says passionately, “After the war, people pulled buildings like this down or let them fall down. I will not let that happen to Hundredfield. I just can’t. It’s my responsibility.”

  Rory’s face quirks agreeably. “Of course, there’s one easy way to solve the problem.”

  Alicia makes an effort. “And that would be?”

  “Let someone else’s money fix the place. Marry an heiress. Or heir, I mean. There. Simple.”

  “Long time since I did the Season, Rory. No one swept me away then, and they haven’t since. Think I’m a bit of a dud in the suitor department.”

  The smile is gallant, but Jesse sees the glance Alicia flicks at Rory when he’s not looking.

  Jesse asks brightly, “The debutante Season? Were you actually presented at court?”

  “Presentation finished at the end of the fifties, but there’s still the London Season, even if no one calls it that anymore. Balls, Ascot, Glyndebourne, charity fashion parades. Honestly, opera? All that singing and prancing about. And me, marching up and down in sequins and chiffon in someone’s idea of a ball gown. I just felt bloody ridiculous.” Alicia squirms with the memory. “Poor Ma. She tried very hard and it cost a great deal of money we didn’t have, but I’ve zero talent in the social arts; still can’t dance to save myself, and small talk?” She rolls her eyes. “London. Drove me crazy. And now, look at me. Welded to the place.”

  Rory laughs. “Never your forte, Alicia, useless chat. So, what are you going to do?” He gestures at the cei
ling.

  “Can’t fix it, can I?” Alicia’s tone is just a bit truculent.

  He leans across and grasps one of her hands. “A second opinion’s always good.”

  “Oh, Rory, what’s the use?” Abruptly Alicia gets up to clear the table.

  Jesse jumps up to help, scoops the plates one-handed. “My turn.”

  “You’re a guest.” A minor tussle ensues. Jesse wins and heads for the sink.

  Rory interrupts, “All right. What have you got to sell, apart from the land?”

  Alicia stares at him. “Nothing. Most of the good stuff went years ago—Ma’s jewels, a lot of the silver. Even some of the portraits are copies.”

  “There’s the fourteenth-century armor in the hall—what about that? And the state furniture in the great rooms?”

  Her face pales. “I will not sell what’s left of the heritage of this place just to fix a roof.”

  “Well then, what’s in the attics? Or the cellars? A place like this, there could be long-lost, oh, I don’t know, things stashed away.” Rory pauses, then says quietly, “You cannot just turn your back and walk away.”

  “Ah, but I have.”

  “Six months in London? That’s not walking away. That’s thinking time. You needed it. But this is different, Licia. This is serious.”

  At the sink, Jesse tries not to clatter. British restraint. When it’s gone, it’s gone.

  “It’s not tens of thousands of pounds I need, Rory, it’s millions. You know that. Anyway, why should you care what happens to Hundredfield? It’s not your home.”

  “I was born here too, just like you. That’s why we both come back.”

  That statement deflates Alicia. She plumps down on a chair. “Look, I’ve thought about this. I chickened out when I first talked with the National Trust.”

  “You didn’t tell me you had.”

  She just looks at me. “But if I don’t gift the estate soon, it’ll be too far gone and—”

  “Hundredfield should stay in your family, Licia. It’s what your parents would have wanted.” Rory’s quite heated.

  She flares back, “No, it’s not. Dad was going to sell half of the land because he couldn’t see a way out, and neither can I, now. Half won’t do it, either. I should have listened years ago, I should have paid attention.” Sudden silence.