Chapter Six

BACK FROM PETER’S, HETTY entered the kitchen cautiously, like a character out of a James Bond film, scanning it for signs of an alien presence. There were none. Conan the Barbarian was obviously still asleep.

She trod quietly up the stairs, still feeling like a spy, to see if he’d moved from his bedroom. He had. He’d been to the bathroom and left the seat up. Reassured by this sign of life, though not by the sign of carelessness, she tiptoed into his bedroom. He lay like a log, but the water jug she’d left was empty. She refilled it from the bathroom and left.

She was disappointed. She’d braced herself for a confrontation, and it had been denied her. Now the car-boot sale was safely over, she needed to find out how much he knew about Samuel’s dire financial state.

And she wanted to get back to hating him. The trouble with looking after someone, she thought, even in the minor way she was looking after Conan the Barbarian, was that you inevitably started to care about them.

Upstairs, she decided that now was as good a time as any to pick herself a bedroom and move into it. It would be staking a claim. If he found out she had been sleeping on the sofa, it would make her seem more ephemeral, temporary. A bedroom would be territory. Besides, if Caroline’s electrician came as arranged, there would soon be light upstairs. And however dreadful her distant cousin might turn out to be, he was extremely solid and unghostlike, and, as far as she could tell, had the sort of sceptical personality that would scare away anything not made entirely of flesh and bone. She chose the room she had slept in on her first night there, when her mother had been with her.

She hummed softly to herself as she made up the bed and plumped up the pillows, looking out of the window from time to time to see if the electrician had arrived. She ran down to pick a bunch of primroses for her room, put candles, matches and a book on the bedside table, singing throughout. By the time she had finished she realized she had probably been making quite a lot of noise. But, to her relief, there was no sound from her patient.

It was good to feel her voice working its way back to what it had been like before she left home. In the safety of the kitchen, she let her voice soar to the dusty, flyblown beams and reverberate off the greasy, dirt-streaked walls as she washed up, and cleared another corner of old jamjars.

It was only when she heard thudding from the upstairs landing, declaring that the Kraken had Woken, that she remembered the money on the kitchen table. How could she explain six margarine cartons filled with carefully sorted small change, and a cloth bag bulging with banknotes? She piled the cartons in a cupboard, cramming them behind jars of crystallized jam and dried-up Marmite, and forced the cloth bag into a drawer, which was already full of supermarket carriers. She had just stuffed the last bag on top of the money when Connor entered the kitchen.

‘Good afternoon,’ she said brightly, certain she was looking as guilty as sin. ‘How are you feeling now?’

‘Bloody awful.’

He did look ill. All those hours in bed had done little to clear the shadows under his eyes, and nothing to lift the scowl from his features. Although that probably had more to do with personality than jet lag or a strep throat.

‘Shall I make some tea or something?’

She didn’t want to adopt a subservient role to keep him sweet, she’d made that decision last night. But, on the other hand, it might be a good idea to soothe the worst of his ill-feeling away before she attempted to extract information from him. She really needed some potion that would make him tell her everything he knew, but would leave him with no memory of having done so.

‘Thanks. Picked up a bug on the way home. Feel like death.’

‘Shouldn’t you go back to bed?’ Hetty heard her mother’s voice come out of her mouth and hoped he wouldn’t resent it.

He nodded. ‘Needed a hot drink. Go back later.’

‘It’s a bit early in the day for a hot toddy –’

‘No it’s not. If you’d make it?’ His features didn’t lend themselves to asking favours, he was obviously more accustomed to giving orders. But a sore throat was a strong disincentive to barking out commands. ‘Got some duty-free in my bag. Still in the car. Do you need it?’

She hesitated. Her instinct to nurture was almost overwhelming. He looked so ill. But so had Alistair looked ill when he had a cold, and what good had nurturing him done her?

But Connor had more than a cold, and although she knew nothing good about him, all the bad she had heard about him was, so far, only hearsay. There was time enough to be assertive when Connor was in a state to cope. ‘It’s all right. There’s still plenty of whisky. Would you like a bath? It might make you feel a lot worse. But if your muscles are stiff, it’ll help.’

‘Is the bath usable?’

Hetty nodded. ‘I tell you what, I’ll go and run it while you watch the saucepan, then you can drink your toddy while you’re in it.’

She was rewarded by the glimmer of teeth appearing briefly among the stubble and tortured folds of his face. Hetty had a sudden desire to iron him.

Hetty spent the aftemoon waiting for the electrician to arrive, rearranging ornaments in the drawing room, and speaking to her mother, who rang her. After a few minutes Hetty, who had the receiver tucked under her chin and was still playing with Meissen shepherdesses as she talked, realized her mother had just told her she’d arranged something but Hetty hadn’t taken it in. ‘Can you just run that by me again?’

Her mother sighed, and gave her daughter a potted version of what she’d said before, leaving out most of the extraneous detail.

‘So, it’s a ruby wedding, but you’re not sure when?’ Hetty asked.

‘That’s it. She’s going to ring you – not Mrs Graham – the woman with the wedding. You don’t sound very pleased, darling. I thought you needed the house to earn money.’

Hetty thought of Connor asleep upstairs and of his gasped, husky words as he first lay down that Friday night. She decided not to mention him to her mother – she’d only panic. ‘Yes, I do. It’s just we’re not really ready for that kind of event yet.’

‘It may not be for ages. People like to get things organized well in advance.’

‘Mmmm.’

‘She’s going to ring you anyway. I told her you were . . .’ There was a pause while Hetty’s mother realized she’d put her foot in it and tried to pull it back out.

‘Mother, you didn’t!’

‘I didn’t say a word about Alistair, I swear. I just said . . . you didn’t know many people in the area.’

It was Hetty’s turn to sigh. If only that were true!

Hetty, having concluded that the electrician wasn’t going to turn up, took the dogs to visit Phyllis Hempstead – ostensibly to tell her how much money they had made, but also, if she could slip it into the conversation without causing too many fireworks, to tell her about Connor.

‘My dear girl!’ said Phyllis, sloshing damson wine into glasses. ‘Are you telling me that all the time that car-boot sale was going on, Samuel’s godforsaken nephew was asleep upstairs?’

Hetty nodded. ‘He slept right through it. He must be quite ill.’

Phyllis harrumphed. ‘Not ill enough, in my opinion. Have you confronted him about his plans?’

‘I haven’t confronted him about anything. He’s been too ill.’ Hetty, sensing that Phyllis was about to suggest that Hetty turned it into an illness he never recovered from, possibly with the aid of some ancient horse pills they had found, went on, ‘You can’t hit a man when he’s down, can you?’

Phyllis’s nostrils flared disdainfully. ‘Speak for yourself! But I suppose, as you have to share a house with him – temporarily at least – I must leave it to you to behave as you think fit.’

‘Well, yes, and he might send me packing after all, and then where would we be? I only came to house-sit.’

Phyllis sighed, the fight gone out of her for a minute. But only for a minute. ‘You could always come and stay with me, use the money from the boot sale to fight a rearguard action. I can see the banners now, SAVE COURTBRIDGE HOUSE, NO THEME PARK HERE.’

‘I hope it won’t come to that. The enemy within, you know? Far more powerful.’

Shortly afterwards Hetty left, realizing that the damson wine was fairly powerful too.

Connor stayed in bed all Monday, Hetty bringing hot drinks and cold water at intervals. She discouraged him from moving as, a day late, the electrician arrived.

All day Andy had worked with the power turned off, tapping away at the plaster, pulling ancient flex away from the walls, drilling holes with a power drill, and through it all, Connor had slept, oblivious of the chaos. Now, at six o’clock, Hetty was in the hall saying goodbye to Andy when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Her reprieve was over.

She heard footsteps on the upstairs landing and tensed, then relaxed as she heard them turn up the passage to the bathroom. Have a nice hot bath, dear, she urged him silently. Hot enough to make you feel faint and send you back to bed. Just until I’ve had a chance to get rid of Andy.

‘You’ve been absolutely great.’ She took hold of Andy’s arm and walked him a few paces nearer the door. ‘Will you be back tomorrow?’

‘And the next day, love. I’ve a few days’ work to put in yet.’

Oh, God! A few days! She had no chance of keeping his presence concealed that long. ‘But it won’t cost more than we agreed?’

‘Oh, no. Not unless I come across something really dreadful.’ He chuckled in the light-hearted way people do when they’re talking about someone else’s property, not their own. ‘The good thing about these old places, the plaster comes off really easily.’

Hetty tried to join in his cheerfulness. ‘So I’ll see you tomorrow?’ She heard the bathroom door open. Would Connor go back to bed? Or did he feel better now?

‘About eight. You’ll be up, will you?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She’d have agreed to be up at five, or even stay awake all night, if it would keep Andy’s presence secret from Connor.

She opened the door and nudged him further towards it. ‘I mustn’t keep you. You’re an angel to come in your spare time like this.’ She realized she was gushing.

‘That’s OK, love. Anything for a friend of Caroline’s.’ He had his foot well over the threshold, seemed about to go, and then stepped back again. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else wants doing that I can help you with. And if you’ve got any guttering wants seeing to, I’ve got a friend who’s good at leadwork.’

Hetty almost pushed him out of the door. ‘Fine, I’ll bear that in mind.’ At last he was gone.

Connor was in the kitchen when Hetty returned there. The dogs were frisking about him as if he were their dearest friend instead of their temporary mistress’s bitterest enemy. He petted each one briefly, but he didn’t bother to greet Hetty. There was no ‘Hello, how are you?’ Or even ‘What was that man doing here?’ – he just said, ‘How are you going to pay him?’

Hetty fought the urge to say, ‘With my body.’ However tempting, she knew childishness would not help. ‘With cash.’

‘Whose?’

It was a good point. Whose cash was it, stuffed away in a drawer under a bundle of supermarket bags? ‘Well, I’m not planning to go through your pockets for it. Unless you’re offering?’

‘No chance. What did he do?’

‘Started rewiring the house.’

Connor’s eyebrows arched scathingly. ‘Was that necessary?’

‘Yes! It was dangerous. They won’t let us open to the public with wiring that could explode at any minute. They’re funny like that.’

‘Does Samuel know about this?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you think you should clear it with him before you spend vast quantities of his money? Possibly unnecessarily?’

Hetty was aware that perhaps she should have consulted Samuel, but it would have been hard to ask about the rewiring without mentioning money, and he was depressed enough. ‘I didn’t want to bother him. He’s ill and he’s old.’ Although she tried to sound self-righteous, she actually felt rather guilty.

‘So, where are you getting the money to pay for it? Is your mother paying?’

‘No!’

‘Then who is?’

Hetty was getting tired of this – tired and not a little uncomfortable. ‘If it’s not you – and I don’t see you reaching for your chequebook – why worry about it?’

‘I’m just concerned in case you’ve nagged Samuel into paying for things he can’t afford. There’s no point in spending money on the house. It would take far too much to put it in order.’

Didn’t he know about the new roof? Hetty resolved to try and hunt out some bills, so she would know when it had been done. She realized that as he’d arrived in the dark, the new bit of roof wouldn’t have been very noticeable. ‘So you’re prepared to just let it fall down?’

He nodded. ‘When Samuel dies, I shall have it pulled down.’

Hetty felt sick. She hooked a chair out from under the table with her foot and sat on it. ‘You can’t mean that,’ she breathed.

He seemed almost amused at the effect his words had had on her. ‘Selling the reclaimable materials will help considerably with the death duties.’

While Connor had been ill, gruff with jet lag and a debilitating bug, Hetty had clung on to a faint hope that when he was well he wouldn’t turn out as bad as everyone had said. She’d hoped there might be a heart of gold under that unpromising exterior. Now she wished she had stabbed him in his sleep, or crumbled the ancient horse pills into his tea.

‘Surely if the house is in such bad order, it won’t be worth much? And the death duties won’t be all that high.’

Connor shook his head. ‘The site is extremely valuable. To put money into the house itself would just be throwing good money after bad.’

‘Samuel didn’t think so, or he wouldn’t have had the roof done!’ Too late Hetty remembered she hadn’t been going to mention this.

But Connor didn’t flinch. He must have known all about it. ‘Samuel wanted to die in the dry. Doing the roof was a mistake. I’m not going to compound his error.’

Suddenly Hetty felt that anything was better than having the house demolished. ‘I’d heard you were planning to turn the place into a theme park. Wouldn’t the house be one of the main attractions?’

‘It’s not a very big site. Obviously it wouldn’t be up to me. But the feeling is that the developers would rather have the space than the house.’

‘What does Samuel think about this?’

Connor pushed his hand through the thatch of hair that was making it difficult for him to see. ‘He doesn’t think he’ll live to see it. He may be right. I trust you won’t mention it to him?’

So he did have a small sliver of conscience. ‘Of course not. But the whole village knows about the theme park. When he comes home, people are bound to ask about it, especially –’ Just in time she managed to stop herself adding ‘when they know you’ve arrived’.

‘Especially what?’

‘Especially when it’s open to the public,’ she improvised. ‘They’re bound to want to know what’s happening.’

Connor shrugged. ‘He’s knocking eighty. He’s had major surgery. People may not get the chance to ask him. He may never come home.’

All their hard work, their dreams and plans, seemed about to crumble. ‘But supposing he does? Supposing he is dying, and the doctors all think it would be nice for him to end his days at home! Would you want him to come home to a house with no wiring, no light upstairs, no . . .’ Frantically she tried to think of things Courtbridge House lacked that Samuel might miss. He wouldn’t be bothered by the thought that there were no smoke alarms or fire extinguishers. ‘. . . with the place looking uncared for,’ she finished.

‘It doesn’t take vast sums to make a house look cared for.’

Hetty took a breath to protest, but on this particular point she agreed with him. She felt tired and despairing and realized a lot of it was hunger. Her mother’s genes meant it was impossible for her to cook and eat without offering him something, so she pushed aside her animosity and asked if he wanted any supper.

‘Have you any soup? My throat is still a bit sore.’

That was simple enough, in theory anyway. ‘Tinned soup?’

‘Fine.’

That was a relief. Alistair would only touch soup that was home-made or from an expensive carton. She must stop thinking he was the same as Alistair. She had enough reasons to dislike Connor without adding that one.

‘You go and see if the fire’s all right in the sitting room, then.’ What she meant was, ‘Get out from under my feet.’ She had a feeling he understood the subtext perfectly well, but didn’t take orders from anyone.

‘I’ll have a quick bath first. If that’s all right with you?’

She dismissed his sarcasm with a saccharine smile.

While she was alone in the kitchen, Hetty fiddled about with bowls and bits of toast, analysing her feelings. Part of her wanted to run away from the whole situation. Connor’s plan was worse than anyone had thought. No one had imagined that the house would be pulled down, just hedged about by monstrous cafeterias and acres of car park. And no one but her knew about the awful debt.

The other part of her made her want to chain herself to the front door in the path of the wrecker’s ball, and get herself on the Nine O’Clock News. In fact, to do anything to stop him tearing down the house. But what, in reality, could she do to stop his plans, now that he had made them?

She set the tray, poured the soup, and made her way into the sitting room. The fire was obligingly active. Connor and the dogs were snuggled up on the sofa together, making what could have been a cosy picture had the human element not been so fatally flawed.

What a shame Connor had to be Samuel’s heir, she thought as they sipped their soup. If only Samuel had married, or if his younger brother hadn’t died, then the house might have gone to a nice stable person, with a nice wife, keen on keeping the family going.

On the other hand, Connor might be married. He might have the sort of wife who would appreciate a quasi-stately home to live in. Connor might not have mentioned Courtbridge House to her just because he didn’t want to live there. There was only one way to find out. Caroline would have had no qualms about coming straight out with it. But it took Hetty several gulps of hot soup before she could put her question.

‘Are you married?’ In the flickering firelight, his features seemed to register horror. ‘Living with anyone?’ she amended.

‘No. You?’

‘No. So no children then?’

Connor shot her a strange look under his heavy eyebrows. ‘No. You?’

Hetty bit back an irritated ‘Of course not!’ and snapped, ‘No.’

‘Why the curiosity? Or are you just checking out the opposition?’

‘What do you mean, “opposition”?’

‘You want to know about my private life to see if the coast is clear. So you can have a go with a clear conscience,’ he added.

Hetty was too angry to be embarrassed. But she held it back. Any evidence that she objected to his suggestion would only give him more ammunition with which to bait her. ‘What a quaint idea,’ she said eventually.

Connor laughed. ‘Not as quaint as you might think. In my experience women get married either when they’re very young or when they want to have children.’

‘I’m planning on doing it when I’m old. Very old.’

‘So, what are you now? Eighteen?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘Ah. First affair just over, then?’

Hetty went hot and cold. Surely not even her mother would leave that information on an answerphone? No. Calm down. He doesn’t know. He’s just guessing. ‘What on earth makes you say that?’

‘Why else would you be here, looking after a crumbling mansion that’s not your responsibility? If you’re just unemployed, it’s not the best place to job-hunt.’

‘I was at a loose end,’ said Hetty firmly. ‘My mother asked –’

‘Your mother –’ Connor began.

‘What about her?’ Hetty broke in. She was allowed to criticize her mother, and so were her father and sister, but no one else. Only people who loved her.

‘Is an interfering old bag,’ he said mildly.

Hetty waited for the rage to rise to a suitable level for physical violence. It didn’t. He was so matter-of-fact, non-judgemental, as if interfering was something a person couldn’t help being, like having big teeth. ‘She means well,’ she mumbled into her polo-neck.

‘Exactly,’ said Connor.

Hetty finished her soup without any further attempts at conversation. Anything she said would reveal either her youthful naïvety or her curiosity.

‘So, how much is this rewiring likely to cost?’

Hetty told him. Connor raised his eyebrows. ‘Cheap. But still a waste of money.’

‘Not if Samuel’s going to come back and end his days here. Even you wouldn’t want him burnt in his bed.’

‘Nor do I want him spending his last days worried about a debt he can’t pay.’

Which is precisely what he is doing. But if Connor didn’t know that, Hetty couldn’t tell him. Nor could she face telling him how she did plan to pay for the improvements. She shut her eyes. ‘If we opened more of the house, it would pay for itself.’

‘Opening the house is the last thing anyone ought to be doing. Whatever Samuel says.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s a waste of time.’

‘Whose time? Yours? Well if you think anyone is expecting you to put yourself out, think again. We’ll do it.’

‘Who’s the “we”?’

‘Me. Mrs Hempstead, Peter, Caroline – the whole community.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘We had a car-boot sale –’ Too late, she remembered she hadn’t been going to tell him that.

‘You what?’ He seemed to increase in size as he said it.

‘We had a car-boot sale, on Saturday, while you were asleep.’ She lowered her voice in the faint hope that he wouldn’t hear. ‘Everyone in the village did something to help. The WI, the Brownies, the Gardening Group, the Church, the pub, everyone. They all donated things and manned stalls, baked cakes. Bill Winters let us have his field for parking – they all helped because they all care! You can’t just behave as if you live in a vacuum. What you do here affects everyone.’ Her volume increased with her passion. She took a deep breath and went on. ‘Though I don’t suppose you’d care if the whole village went into mourning – if the whole county did. You wouldn’t be here to notice. You’d either be in some godforsaken part of the world earning more bloody money, or in some tax haven living off the money you sell this place for.’

‘Why should you care? You won’t be here either.’

It was rather a mild response after such a passionate speech, but then, she hadn’t really expected him to clap his hand to his head and say, ‘My God, you’re right. I never saw it like that until now.’

‘I care because I’ve lived here for a few weeks. Something I don’t suppose you’ve ever done. And I care about the house, too. It’s beautiful. And although it does need a lot of money spent on it – and I’m sure you’re right in that it would take a lot to keep up –it has so much potential. You could have functions here, open much more of it to the public, let out the stables as workshops, all sorts of things. OK, so you won’t make as much as you would if you sold it to some developer, but you’d be doing some good in the community – providing jobs for local people –’

‘Not as many as I would if I turned it into a theme park –’

‘Not the right sort of jobs! Only for students, or temporary summer labour. But if the house was open more, there’d be jobs for the people of the village. Not just a lot of blow-ins.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘This is a beautiful building. You could make lots of money out of it. But you would have to put some effort in, and you wouldn’t make a quick profit. So you justify selling it by saying it would provide more jobs.’

‘I didn’t. I merely said there’d be more jobs if I sold it.’

‘Comes to the same thing.’ Hetty picked up her soup bowl. She felt exhausted, like a gnat trying to make an impression on an elephant. And angry. It was all pointless. She’d lost her battle for the house before she’d properly begun. Before they’d even opened to the public. She got to her feet, eager to get away from the man she was in danger of hitting with a poker. ‘If you’ve finished, I’ll take your bowl back to the kitchen.’ She snatched it up and stalked out of the room.

She crashed the bowls into the sink and turned on the cold tap. She was buming with unexpressed fury and splashed her hot cheeks with water before burying her face in the roller towel. It smelt faintly of onions and washing-up liquid, and she was regretting plunging her nose into anywhere so malodorous when she heard Connor come into the kitchen. Hetty groaned quietly into the towel. Couldn’t she even have a temper tantrum in private?