Chapter Two
BRACED BY HER encounter in the shop, Hetty walked briskly home and was somewhat disappointed that the house was no less gloomy than when she had left it an hour before. But, reminded of Mrs Hempstead by a packet of streaky bacon she unpacked from her bag, she felt the faint stirrings of her returning spirit, a memory of what she had been like Pre-Alistair.
Pre-Alistair, she had often heard herself described as bubbly and enthusiastic. It always made her cringe, it sounded so like a chocolate bar. But it wasn’t inaccurate. She did rise to a challenge and occasionally get carried away by a new idea. Whether she would have stayed with the firm of management consultants so long if she hadn’t fallen in love with her boss, Alistair Gibbons, she doubted. But she had, and she stayed, until he abandoned her for an older woman.
She was just about to see if she could get Uncle Samuel’s supplementary cooking source, in the form of a two-burner camping gas-stove, to work when there was a knock on the back door. After a few false starts, Hetty got it open. It was the glamorous woman with the sports car.
‘Hi! I’m Caroline.’ The woman smiled. ‘Can I come in? I’ve been longing to get a proper look at the house for ages, and when I heard you were here on your own I thought it was the ideal opportunity.’
Hetty stepped back automatically and Caroline came past her into the kitchen.
‘Here,’ Caroline burrowed in the pocket of her shiny leather jacket and produced a Cadbury’s Creme Egg, ‘I’ve bought you a present. Just the thing for a broken heart.’ Hetty’s descending spirits made it down another couple of notches. This long-legged beauty had heard everything and had come to patronize her. ‘Sorry.’ Caroline did actually look sorry. ‘I wasn’t supposed to say that.’
Hetty sighed resignedly. ‘Does the whole village know?’
Caroline, who had pulled out a chair and seated herself at the kitchen table, shook her head. ‘Shouldn’t think so. But your mother told Angela Brewster, and Angela told me. Not to be gossipy, but she knows I’m an expert.’ She produced another Creme Egg and started to unwrap it. ‘I attract shits like black attracts cat hairs.’ Caroline brushed at her sleek, leather-covered legs, as yet unsullied. ‘But even if she told everyone, no one will remember. They’re all more worried about what you’re going to do while you’re here.’
‘Oh, I’m not going to do anything. I’m just house-sitting until my great uncle’s out of hospital.’
‘How boring! And bad for you, darling. You’ll just die of misery living here if you don’t do something.’ Caroline wiped away a glob of yellow-and-white goo that had landed on her chin. It didn’t go with the image created by the perfectly made-up face, the Hermès scarf knotted casually round her neck, and the large gold earrings that looked imposingly real. ‘Perhaps what I really mean,’ she went on, ‘is I will die of boredom if I don’t do something. My husband – not a shit by the way – is abroad an awful lot and I need something to do to keep me out of trouble. Or so he says.’
Hetty hadn’t yet worked out if this woman was impossibly bossy and interfering – a younger, up-market version of her mother – or irresistibly attractive. But she didn’t seem patronizing.
‘I’m afraid I don’t think I can help you,’ she said, hedging her bets. ‘I mean, the only sort of staff I’m likely to be needing are cleaners, and I shouldn’t think you’d be interested in that.’
Caroline shook her head. ‘Not really, though I am actually quite a good cleaner if I put my mind to it. But I don’t want a job, I want a project.’ The glint in her eyes was unnerving.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I need something to get my teeth into, by which I mean you.’
Hetty let out an involuntary whimper.
‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m not actually a cannibal, I just want to rescue you, cure your broken heart, and send you back into the world a stronger woman.’
Oh God, thought Hetty, looking despairingly at the woman making herself at home at the kitchen table. I come here to escape my mother, only to be hit on by someone even bossier. Talk about out of the frying-pan into the fire.
‘Would you like a cup of tea or something?’ she said politely, taking control of the situation.
Caroline nodded. ‘These eggs are so sickly, I need something. What have you got?’
Hetty rummaged in the box of groceries brought from Hampshire and found some instant coffee. ‘Instant coffee or a tea-bag. Nothing fancy, I’m afraid.’ Caroline was probably a Lapsang Souchong or Rose Pouchong sort of person.
‘Tea, good and strong, please.’
While Hetty made the tea, Caroline got up and prowled around, burrowing into corners, picking things up and putting them down with excited little exclamations. ‘Ugh!’ she said with a clatter. ‘Rat droppings!’
Hetty instantly broke out into a sweat, dropped the teaspoon and tea-bag she was holding and rushed over. ‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘Coffee beans. I spilt them yesterday.’
‘Sorry,’ said Caroline, breathless with relief. ‘I overreacted.’
‘It’s all right.’ Hetty felt pretty shaky herself. ‘They do look very sinister, scattered about like that. My mother and I couldn’t even find a coffee-grinder. And something about this place makes you think the worst.’
Caroline sat down. ‘It’s got huge potential.’
Hetty handed her a mug of tea. ‘You sound like an estate agent.’ Family loyalty made her want to say something nice. The facts forced her to keep quiet.
‘It’s been empty for a bit. The dust is bound to accumulate,’ said Caroline with masterly understatement. She took a sip of tea. ‘Well, will you give me the guided tour now, or shall we get your love affair out of the way?’
Hetty scalded the roof of her mouth and nearly dropped her mug.
‘You don’t have to,’ Caroline went on, seeing Hetty’s distress. ‘Not the guided tour, I insist on that, but the love affair. Although telling people does help.’ She made a rueful face. ‘Believe me, darling, I know. Before I met Jack, I’d had at least three devastating affairs.’
‘Really? I find that hard to believe.’ But Hetty’s hackles were coming down. Stunning Caroline may be, but she was also kind. Looking like a model didn’t necessarily make you a bitch, supposed Hetty.
‘Oh yes. If I hadn’t met Jack when I did, God knows what would have happened to me.’ Hetty, her sensitivities heightened by her own pain, saw a glimpse of real sadness in Caroline’s eyes. Caroline smiled. ‘I’ll go first, if you like?’
‘Of course, everyone knows you shouldn’t stick around a man who hits you, but he was so sexy, and I liked the excitement. I did see sense in the end.’ Caroline ended her confession with a voluptuous yawn. ‘Your turn.’
Hetty had intended to give Caroline the expurgated version – expurgated of the pain, the desolation, the sense of abandonment, of how she felt like an outcast, unworthy of love. She had learnt, since it had happened, that people allowed you to tell them your problems only if you could be amusing about it. Weeks of practice with well-meaning old school-friends, her mother’s cronies, and people she had worked with had honed her story to a witty, well-polished little tale that left its hearers smiling their sympathy. Only her sister had been given an ungilded version.
But because Caroline had been so frank with her she found herself leaving out the jokes and allowing some of her hurt to show. She told Caroline how she, the junior secretary, assigned to the many who did not justify secretaries of their own, was lured into the bed of one of the senior management consultants.
It had started when his secretary was away. Asking her to help him rather than booking a temp (‘Because my work is important and I don’t want it done by some bimbo who’s got her eye on the clock and her mind on her make-up.’) was a huge imposition. She told him so but, having nursed a secret crush on him from the moment she started her employment, did the extra work anyway. He invited her out to lunch as a thank-you for her ‘efficient and intelligent assistance’ when his own secretary got back. Then he had to visit a client at short notice and, rather than cancel completely, persuaded her to make it dinner. So blinded was she by frustrated lust, and his elegant compliments, she didn’t think to query why he hadn’t just suggested taking a rain check and making lunch another day.
‘Of course, it was awfully flattering,’ Hetty went on. ‘And when he suggested spending the weekend at his cottage sometime, I knew what he was asking, and I was glad. I went on the pill straight away.’
‘Were you a virgin?’
She nodded. ‘The last one left in England, I daresay. Someone should have put a preservation order on me.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘I felt I had to. He was bound to have noticed.’
‘Was he nice about it? He didn’t laugh?’
‘Oh no. He told me there was no such thing as a frigid woman, only a bad lover.’
Caroline did laugh. ‘How wonderful! Anyone who can say a thing like that, in all seriousness, has to be a number-one toe-rag.’
Hetty nodded.
‘And was he a good lover?’
‘Oh yes, I think so. Terribly imaginative, always doing things to my feet.’
‘You don’t sound terribly convinced.’
Caroline’s eyebrows gave a disbelieving flick, but she didn’t press the point. ‘So you miss the sex?’ she asked instead.
Hetty shook her head. ‘No, not really. Not the sex part anyway. That never really worked for me, but I miss the cuddling, the closeness.’
Caroline was silent for a moment. ‘So what happened?’
Hetty looked at her fingers, which had clenched themselves round an empty fish-paste jar. ‘I was to join him at his country cottage one weekend. He was in bed with another – older – woman. For some reason he thought that was the best way for me to find out it was all over.’
‘Shit,’ breathed Caroline. ‘What did you do?’
‘Well, I ripped his mother’s antique-linen sheet completely in half, and then I dinged his car a few times.’
‘Oh well done! Was he livid?’
‘He was about the sheet. I bashed his car while he was getting dressed, and drove away before he knew about it.’
‘At least you went out fighting.’
‘Yes. Killed my car while I was about it, though.’ Hetty sighed. ‘Of course I could see his point. She was everything I’m not. Lean and sophisticated, and I’m plump and naïve.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with puppy-fat –’
‘I’m well past adolescence, thank you. What I’ve got is dog-fat.’
Caroline seemed relieved that Hetty was making jokes. ‘What I meant was, there’s nothing wrong with a little roundness over the hips when you’re still young . . .’
‘And I’m not going on a diet for Bastard Alistair anyway.’
Caroline handed her the chocolate egg. ‘Good for you. And you’re better off without him. Aren’t you?’ she asked.
Hetty shrugged and tried to agree, rolling the egg in her hands.
‘I can see I’m going to have my work cut out with you,’ said Caroline. ‘But I’ll have you a raging feminist with a man begging to walk over broken glass for you before you know it.’
‘Does Jack do that for you?’
‘Well, no, but I’m desperately in love with him, so he doesn’t have to. Now, what are you going to do about a car?’
‘My mother will get round to organizing one eventually, but I can easily walk to the shop.’
‘Nonsense, you need a car, living in a great barn of a place like this.’
‘It’s not that big,’ Hetty assured her. ‘Less than a mile between the kitchen and the sitting room.’
Caroline frowned at her. ‘I meant, it’s stuck out on its own. You need to be able to get about. Why don’t you let Jack look out for one for you?’
‘I couldn’t possibly –’
‘Yes you could. He collects cars like other people collect stray cats. Can’t bear to think of them left unbought on the forecourt. Do let him. He’ll be home soon, and it’ll be such a treat for him.’
‘Well, as long as it’s cheap.’ Jack’s stray cars might be pedigrees.
‘It will be, I promise you.’ She glanced at her Cartier watch and got to her feet. ‘Damn! I haven’t time to see the house. If I don’t go now I’ll miss my cleaning lady, and I haven’t paid her for weeks, poor dear.’ She gathered up her outsize leather shoulder-bag. ‘But I’m going to find you someone else,’ she warned, ‘who’ll make you forget all about this Alistair person.’
‘Oh, please don’t!’
Caroline laughed. ‘Well, I won’t if you really don’t want me to, and let’s face it, talent round here is pretty scarce. But really, the best way to get over a man is to find another one. You know what they say about falling off horses and getting straight back on.’
‘Find me a horse and I’ll try my best,’ said Hetty, fixing her new friend firmly in the eye.
‘I really must go,’ said Caroline, chuckling. ‘It’s been super meeting you. I’ll be back, and next time I’ll bring lunch. Have you got a microwave?’
‘No. My mother and I looked last night.’
‘I’ll bring you our old one,’ said Caroline. ‘I’ve got one now that talks to you.’
‘That’s really awfully kind –’
‘Not at all. It’s only cluttering up the place. Mark Twain said there’s no such thing as an unselfish act. If you let me rescue you, you’ll be doing the neighbourhood a service. Not to mention Jack.’
Alone again, Hetty felt exhausted but exhilarated. Caroline was fun, and while it was unlikely she could actually cure a broken heart she could bring one a little light relief.
Hetty went through to the front of the house and found a pile of mail on the doormat. Remembering Samuel’s instructions to open his post, she put the phone bill on one side, for immediate payment, and sorted the rest. Some of it went straight into the bin, the rest in a neat pile.
She drew a breath before opening the first one, she was Samuel’s house-sitter, not his secretary, and ‘Private and Confidential’ usually meant just that. But, as agreed, she found a knife and opened it.
Any letter from any bank made Hetty’s stomach churn a bit. This one, from a private finance house, would have made a hardened embezzler reach for the Remegel. Samuel had obviously taken out a huge loan.
We note that your monthly payment is overdue. May we politely remind you that should your payments be late, the financial penalties stated in your agreement will be enforced. There followed a bewildering calculation, involving APR rates, percentages and deductions, which ended in a horrifying amount. Surely Samuel couldn’t have been paying this much every month?
She rummaged through her bag for the figure the lawyer had jotted on a piece of paper for her, which was the balance in Samuel’s bank account. She realized she had about enough for three payments. Three months’ supply of extortion money. But was it just interest, or was it paying off the capital as well? She would have to find out. But whichever it was she had enough to keep the moneylenders at bay for a short time, but no money for anything else.
What she would have to do was visit the bank and explain the problem. Samuel probably had another account, and she could ask them to release some funds for day-to-day expenses into the account she was authorized to use. Or something. Really, if she’d known what a responsibility it was going to be, she’d have left Courtbridge House to its own devices.
Hetty had washed up the mugs, and was debating whether to penetrate the rest of the house, or pack up her nightie and leave, when there was a knock on the back door.
Who could that be? she wondered, feeling besieged. With her luck it would be someone selling something, patio doors or – here she was forced to smile – house insurance. She wanted it to be Caroline, come back for her tour of the house.
On the doorstep was a man – tall, broad-shouldered but slim. Not exactly handsome, but kindly, with dark eyes, eyebrows and eyelashes, and a lot of dark hair. He wore a huge Aran sweater, faded jeans, and Timberland boots.
Before he even had time to say hello, two small brown dogs pulled their leads free of his grasp and shot into the house. Hetty and the man followed them to the door of the sitting room, which they scratched at urgently. Hetty opened it hurriedly and both dogs leapt on to the sofa and started digging in it, woofing delightedly as they tossed cushions on to the floor with their back legs. A moment or two later they flopped down contentedly and wagged their tails, panting happily and grinning at Hetty and the man.
‘Do your dogs always do that?’ Hetty asked in wonderment.
The man laughed. ‘No, never. But these aren’t my dogs, they’re yours. Or rather Samuel’s.’
‘Oh my God,’ breathed Hetty.
‘I’m Peter Lassiter. I live the other side of what used to be the estate, beyond the wood. I’ve been looking after Samuel’s dogs for him. When I heard you were here on your own, I thought you might like them.’ He hesitated, observing Hetty’s confusion. ‘If you don’t want them, I can easily take them away again.’
‘No,’ said Hetty. ‘Don’t do that. I’ll be glad of their company, but I know more about cats.’
‘These’ve got minds of their own, but fortunately they mean well and don’t chase poultry or anything embarrassing.’
‘What sort of dogs are they?’
Peter Lassiter regarded Hetty gravely. ‘Small brown ones.’
Against her will, Hetty smiled. ‘I see. What are their names?’
‘Talisker and Islay. After Samuel’s favourite single malts.’
‘Ah.’
‘Well, that’s me and the dogs introduced . . .’
Hetty took the hint. ‘Oh, sorry. I’m Hetty Longden.’ She flapped her hand vaguely, not sure if she should offer it or not.
He took it anyway. His was large, warm and callused, enormously comforting. ‘Hello.’
Hetty smiled. He was nice, this man. And while she was far too bruised to dream of seeing him as anything but a friend, Caroline would no doubt see him as a horse to get back on to after her fall.
‘Would you like some coffee or tea or anything?’
‘I would,’ said Peter. ‘Very much.’
‘I’ll go and make it,’ said Hetty.
‘Would you like me to get the fire going while you do that?’ asked Peter. ‘The house gets dreadfully damp if you don’t light fires every day in winter – up until early summer, really.’
‘I’d noticed. And I’d be very grateful if you’d light it. We have central heating at home and I wasn’t ever a Girl Guide – or even a Brownie, come to that.’
He laughed sympathetically. ‘I’m sure Caroline could teach you how to light fires with dried orange peel. She’s the local Brown Owl.’
Hetty, her hand on the kitchen door, turned round abruptly. ‘Not the Caroline I’ve met? Blonde, terribly glamorous, drives a sports car?’
He nodded. ‘The very same. You should see her in her uniform – black tights, skirt six inches above the knee. She gets a lot of support from the fathers at Brownie events. Particularly if they involve running.’
Hetty found herself smiling. ‘I’ll bet.’ A hideous thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘Did she send you round?’
‘No, I haven’t seen her this morning. They told me in the shop you were here,’ he repeated.
Hetty forgot her manners. ‘And did they tell you I was suffering from a broken heart?’
‘No. Are you?’ His heavy eyebrows rose in sympathetic inquiry.
Hetty could have kicked herself. The one person her mother hadn’t actually told, and she went and told him herself. She nodded. ‘And foot-in-mouth disease.’
‘Why don’t you make the coffee and I’ll get the fire going? I promise I won’t ask a single awkward question.’
She dried the mugs and made coffee, carrying it, with a packet of ginger nuts, into the sitting room. The dogs, Talisker and Islay, were curled up on the sofa. Peter was crouching in front of the fire, which was already roaring, adding lumps of coal. He’d drawn back the curtains and Hetty looked around. The room, brightened by the fire and the daylight, looked a lot better than it had the night before, when she and her mother had peeped in and, put off by the smell of damp, retreated.
‘There’s a lot of dry wood in the shed,’ Peter said as she entered. ‘And plenty of kindling. Have you found it?’
‘I haven’t found anything.’ She could only just find space among copies of Horse and Hound and The Field on an occasional table for the tray. ‘We got here quite late yesterday, and I haven’t had a chance to explore yet.’
‘I’ll give you a guided tour if you like. I’m a friend of your uncle’s. I used to chop wood and things for him.’ He took the offered mug but declined the packet of sugar and the teaspoon.
He seemed quite content to drink his coffee and watch the flames in silence, but Hetty was too much her mother’s daughter not to need to make conversation with people she didn’t know well.
‘So, what do you do?’ Not a very imaginative opening, but it was the best she could do. It would be just her luck if he turned out to be unemployed and go all depressed on her.
‘I’m a cabinet-maker, wood-turner, bodger, forester, whatever.’ He smiled a kindly, heart-warming smile, not looking at all depressed. ‘I make most money doing fitted kitchens. I live behind the stable yard, across the big field. There’s a spinney. Do you know where I mean?’
‘Erm – not really.’
‘It was one of the lodges for the house. Your uncle used to let me use the old smithy as a workshop. I did odd jobs around the place for him in return.’
‘Oh. But you don’t use it any more?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I’ve got my own purpose-built workshop now. But I carried on doing the jobs after I got it.’
‘That was very kind.’
‘Not really. I liked – like him.’
Hetty struggled with the thought of Alistair doing odd jobs for an old man because he liked him, but couldn’t make the leap of imagination. ‘It’s still kind.’
‘I’m very glad you came to house-sit. I didn’t know what relations Samuel had and I was starting to worry about the house.’
If this was a round-about way of asking Hetty for her credentials, Hetty wasn’t offended. He had a right to know. ‘I’m hardly a relation at all. Samuel’s some connection of my mother’s, but although she told me how exactly I wasn’t concentrating. Some cousin a few dozen times removed, I think.’
‘But there’s a nephew?’
Hetty nodded. ‘Another sort of far-off cousin, actually, but Mum couldn’t get in touch with him. She tried terribly hard, but he’s somewhere unpronounceable in Russia, or somewhere.’
‘So you got lumbered?’
‘It’s not that, exactly. But I was . . . at a loose end, available.’
‘It must be a huge shock for you. Or do your parents have a house like this?’
Hetty shook her head. ‘A four-bedroom bungalow overlooking a golf course. I was only living with them temporarily . . .’ She faltered and went off in a different direction. ‘So, do tell me about the house. If I’ve got to live here, I’ll need to know as much as possible.’
He hesitated as if wondering how much to say. ‘You’re only here until Samuel’s back, aren’t you? It might only be for a month or so.’
‘Well, for Samuel’s sake I hope so. But at his age, he might take a while to recover.’
‘I know, but . . . just living here could be problematic enough. You know it’s open to the public?’
Hetty nodded. ‘At Easter.’
‘And Easter’s early this year.’
‘I know that too.’ She smiled inquiringly. ‘There’s nothing important about the house I ought to know, is there? It’s not haunted, is it?’
‘I really don’t think it’s haunted.’ Peter sounded very down-to-earth and reassuring on this point at least. ‘And Samuel had the roof done last year, or most of it anyway . . .’
‘So, what is it?’
Peter sighed and stretched his long legs towards the now blazing fire. ‘Did you know that this nephew – or cousin – plans to turn the house into a theme park?’
‘Mrs Hempstead mentioned something in the shop.’
‘It would be the most terrible desecration.’
Hetty didn’t like to contradict him, and she had her share of interest in history and heritage, but given the state of the house the idea of turning it into a theme park might have its good points. ‘It would bring a lot of jobs into the area.’
‘Not the right sort of jobs! It would employ hundreds of teenagers, about two of whom would be local. But there’d be no jobs for anyone else – craftsmen, tradesmen, housewives,’ he added.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes! Connor Barrabin – Samuel’s heir – known locally as Conan the Barbarian, for obvious reasons, stands to make an absolute packet, while the village gains nothing.’
‘How do you know that’s what he wants to do? Did he tell you?’
Peter shook his head. ‘I’ve never actually met him. He’s been working abroad lately, and his visits to Samuel never seem to coincide with mine. Can’t help wondering if that was just coincidence. Anyway, Samuel told me his nephew felt the house should be turned into a theme park. Samuel had been approached by developers you see, and he consulted this nephew, who said he should go ahead.’
‘Oh. But Samuel didn’t – doesn’t agree?’
‘Oh no. He loves the place. He wouldn’t have bothered having the roof done if he didn’t.’
‘It would be sad to see it as a theme park. I remember coming here as a child for a wedding. I was a bridesmaid. It reminded me of the pictures in “Beauty and the Beast”.’ She paused. ‘And that was then. It’s gone badly downhill since.’
‘You can’t blame Samuel.’ Peter obviously thought she had been. ‘It costs a bomb to keep up.’
‘Perhaps that’s why his nephew thinks it should be sold.’
Peter shuddered. ‘I very much doubt it. He just wants to make a packet out of the place, never mind what Samuel wants.’
‘But presumably he won’t have much say in the matter until he actually inherits?’
Peter shook his head. ‘Samuel seems to respect his opinion. And recently he’s been coming to visit a lot more. Checking out his inheritance no doubt.’
‘Or keeping an eye on his elderly relative?’
Peter’s expression softened. ‘You have a less cynical attitude than I have, and you may be right. But somehow . . .’
He didn’t finish his sentence, so Hetty couldn’t grill him further as to why he was so convinced Samuel’s nephew, whom she would now always think of as Conan the Barbarian, was a Philistine, out to make a fast buck from his heritage. She sighed and, remembering the loan repayments, thought the missing nephew probably had justification for feeling as he apparently did.
‘I shouldn’t have burdened you with all that,’ said Peter. ‘There’s nothing you can do. I don’t suppose you can even open the house on your own.’ But his eyes were giving quite another message. They said clearly, ‘Please contradict everything I’ve just said.’
He’s got nice eyes, she thought. I would like to tell them what they want to hear. ‘Oh, I’ll certainly do my best to open. After all, it may be for the last time.’
He looked at her very intently and took hold of her hands. ‘It’s hard for you to understand, but this house, restored and running as a proper tourist attraction, could be the saving of this village.’
Hetty stifled a sigh. Peter obviously didn’t have the full picture. He didn’t know about the loan sharks. Lovely though the house was, it might indeed be better for Samuel if he were to get rid of it and live on the money in peace.
‘I haven’t been here long enough to know what I can do, or what is for the best. But I promise I won’t abandon the house’ – she would have crossed her fingers if he hadn’t been holding them – ‘without telling you first.’