‘It just won’t be the same for me without Mrs C,’ Mrs Tanner said.
‘We completely understand,’ Tom said. ‘Will you stay until we find a suitable replacement and help them learn the ropes?’
‘I can give you a month,’ Mrs Tanner said. ‘After that I’d like to be free to go.’
We couldn’t really argue; if we didn’t find a suitable replacement for Mrs Tanner in that time, we’d have to close the house up until we could.
What surprised me the most was the money Isadora left to me. I hadn’t expected anything, but her remaining assets were to pass into my name. That was a few million pounds and the penthouse flat she owned in London.
‘But why has she left these to me?’ I said to the solicitor.
‘It wasn’t my place to ask,’ the man replied.
Tom didn’t make any comment about it; he had enough money and wealth of his own and I suppose it didn’t matter which of us inherited Isadora’s money because we were married and owned half of what the other had anyway.
We went back to London after a few days and advertised for a housekeeper in The Lady.
‘Darling, I don’t like the idea of having to close the Manor down,’ Tom said a few days later. ‘I know it isn’t ideal, but what if you move up there with Melody and Tina? At least then the other help can remain and we can replace Mrs Tanner with the right person without rushing into anything.’
‘But. We’d be apart a lot.’
‘Initially, but I can limit how often I go into the office once things are settled. I can work from the Manor. My father did that sometimes. We can keep the flat as my base when I’m here.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘It would help me a great deal if you do this,’ Tom said. ‘You know the Manor means a lot to the family. It’s never been closed up before. I’m not sure from a security point of view how good an idea that would be. I also spoke to the insurance company and if the property is empty for a long period then we wouldn’t be insured.’
‘Can’t they change the policy?’
‘No insurance company will cover a permanently empty property.’
‘I’ll ask Tina if she’s willing to move and live-in with us,’ I said. ‘If she isn’t, we may have to find a nanny from Surrey instead.’
‘Wonderful!’
Once Tom had his answer, he began to make immediate arrangements for me to move to the house.
‘We have a month,’ I said. ‘So, no immediate rush.’
‘Let’s go up there this weekend anyway. I think I’m feeling strong enough to tackle Mother’s personal things now.’
Chapter Thirty-One
We travelled to the Manor as planned, and Tina came with us to look after Melody so that we could be free to sort out Isadora’s personal effects.
‘I ordered some boxes,’ Mrs Tanner said. ‘Are you sure you’re up to doing this?’
‘Yes. I have to,’ said Tom.
Mrs Tanner gave him a sideways look. She had been even more distant since the funeral. Maybe she felt awkward because she was leaving us and just wanted to go as soon as possible.
Mrs Tanner was showing Tom the accounts on the computer and they were going through all of Isadora’s paperwork to make sure that the solicitor had everything he needed for probate. Tom reached over Mrs Tanner to pick up a stapler and the woman visibly jumped.
Tom exchanged a look with her then that I couldn’t interpret. It threw me to see the expression that crossed Mrs Tanner’s face as Tom stared at her. His face was blank and guarded. She looked … upset.
‘Everything all right?’ I asked. The strange exchange between them ended as Mrs Tanner appeared to gather herself with an indifferent shrug.
‘Erm … yes. I think you have everything you need now,’ she said.
***
Later that day the boxes arrived flattened and Mrs Tanner left a roll of brown tape in the bedroom with them. She had stripped Isadora’s bed, a massive white four-poster that imposed itself far into the room even though it was against the back wall.
‘Her favourite sheets have been washed. I put them in that box over there for you,’ Mrs Tanner said.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
Mrs Tanner hurried away. We started with Isadora’s jewellery because it had been left to Melody in the will. It was all there and after we did the inventory, I placed the valuables safely back into their individual boxes and we stacked them up on Isadora’s dresser. As Isadora’s executor, Tom was obliged to list anything of value, this included the jewellery left to Melody. It would all be dealt with during probate.
Clearing her clothing was easy. We kept a few favourite items but everything else was packed in boxes to go to the charity shops.
Tom coped well. He stopped at one point when he found his mother’s engagement ring. His expression was … confusing. Cold, almost. I think he was trying to put on a brave face. He opened the box and looked at it for a long time, then he handed it to me.
‘Some time ago Mother said she wanted you to have this. I suppose she already knew she was ill.’
It was a huge diamond surrounded by emeralds in an expensive white gold setting. I took the ring.
‘I’ll keep it for Melody,’ I said. I didn’t want to wear Isadora’s ostentatious ring. It wasn’t me, but it had to stay in the family.
I placed it with the other things that we had for our daughter.
‘She said to tell you, you were like a daughter to her,’ Tom said.
My eyes watered. Isadora had her faults but I’d rather she was alive and with us. I rubbed the tears from my eyes and continued packing clothing into a box.
One minute we were working together and sorting everything out in a calm manner and the next moment everything changed.
Tom opened the box of bedding and stared inside. ‘We’ll burn this,’ he said.
‘Why?’ I said.
Then I saw Isadora’s ‘favourite’ bedding. It was purple satin not dissimilar to the set I’d bought in Harrods. I felt my face flush with the memory. Not of buying the bedding but of everything I’d done afterwards and the memory of making love to Ewan was firmly in my mind.
I winced. I tried to hide my face from him, but it was too late, Tom had seen the expression of pain that crossed my face and guessed what it meant. His hand shot out, connecting with my cheek, and I found myself on my back in the centre of Isadora’s room. White hot pain radiated through my face and eye. My hand pressed against it as I lay there stunned.
Tom towered over me. As imposing as he’d been in that awful dream I’d had. In one hand he grasped the purple satin bedding while his other hand clenched into a fist.
For the first time in almost twelve years of marriage I saw an expression on my husband’s face that made me truly believe he wanted to kill me.
I tried to scream but no sound would come out. But my primal instincts kicked in and I struggled up into a sitting position and back-pedalled on my bottom until the door of Isadora’s bedroom was pressed against my spine.
Tom didn’t move but he watched me with a predatory expression. It was cruel, as though he enjoyed seeing me afraid. I’d never seen such a horrible expression on his face before.
Then Tom’s face changed. He glanced down at the bedding in his hand and dropped it to the floor as though it was something so repugnant he couldn’t bear to touch it. He looked back at me and gave a mortified cry. He fell to his knees and crawled towards me, tears pouring down his face.
‘Oh my god; Oh my god …’ he said over and over again.
‘Don’t touch me!’ I said. I pulled myself to my feet.
Tom reached me as he crawled still on all fours and threw his arms around my waist and held onto me, even though I struggled to free myself. ‘I’m so sorry!’
‘You hit me,’ I gasped. ‘Let go of me, Tom, I’m scared!’
‘I didn’t mean to!’ he said. ‘She used to, used to put this on the bed … whenever she … had a lover coming. I saw the b
edding and I … lost it.’
‘I said, let go, Tom!’ I said. ‘If you don’t, I’ll scream!’
Tom climbed to his feet and backed away from me. He held his hands out in a placating manner that was supposed to reassure me.
‘I’m sorry, Charlotte. I don’t know what came over me!’
I reached behind me and turned the door handle, but I couldn’t pull it open without looking away from Tom.
‘I won’t hurt you. Oh God, I’m so sorry—’
‘You hit me!’ I said. ‘You hurt me you bastard!’
He took a step towards me.
‘Stay away from me!’ I shouted.
‘Shhh! Charlotte, Mrs Tanner is out there.’
‘Then stay away!’
My throat was dry as I struggled to open the door with weak and trembling hands. My legs felt weak under me and I was on the point of collapse. I’d never been struck by anyone and the shock of it brought rushes of hot and cold into my face and neck. All I wanted to do was get Melody and leave.
Then Tom crumpled to the floor again. He buried his head in Isadora’s plush carpet and cried like a baby.
The wind went out of my sails as I watched him. Not big and scary now but a man who had suffered a terrible trauma.
‘Charlotte …’
I moved back into the room and towards him, but I was ready to flee at any moment if his mood switched again.
‘You’ve no idea what it was like growing up in this house,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘But … I loved my mother.’
It sickened my heart to hear his words. It was too awful to contemplate, and I just couldn’t reconcile the woman he’d described with the one I thought I knew. I found myself sitting down on the floor with him and wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders. I was shaking still, but I told myself that his reaction had everything to do with the recent loss of his mother. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. How many women justified their husband’s violent behaviour in the same way, I wondered? But I wasn’t an abused wife. This had never happened before: I wouldn’t let it happen again.
Who knew what harm Isadora had done him throughout the years without realizing? She was so controlling, and Tom had been so dependent on her. Until recently he had been under her thumb – we both had – and by the end the cracks were beginning to show. Seeing Tom fall apart like this made me realize how bad things must have been for him growing up with an absent father and a mother who had multiple affairs. It explained a lot about their relationship.
‘I never got a chance to tell her what I really thought of her,’ he said.
The tears were drying now, but Tom was trembling, shaken by his own overreaction. A dam of grief had burst inside him, making him lose his sanity for a short time.
He looked up at me and gasped. ‘I’ve bruised you!’
He wiped his face with the back of his hand. ‘I’ll go and get some ice …’
He went into Isadora’s bathroom and swilled his face; by the time he came out he didn’t look like a man who had just admitted his mother had abused him. Or had cried so hard that I thought he’d never stop. He looked – normal. Composed.
A jolt of fear burrowed up inside me again.
‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘I’ll get ice and try and take the swelling down before it gets worse.’
I was emotionally raw and so I didn’t object. I sat at Isadora’s dressing table and looked at the damage while he was gone. He’d managed to hit me right on the cheekbone. Not only was it swelling and bruising but my eye was blossoming into a fierce blue-black shiner.
Tom came back in with a tea towel wrapped around ice cubes. He pressed it to my cheek.
‘Ouch!’
I took hold of it because his hands were still shaking.
Tom sat down on the edge of Isadora’s bed. ‘I’m going to redecorate this room,’ he said.
I looked at him and frowned, unsure why he’d even bother.
‘We’ll move into it then. I couldn’t possibly sleep in here while it reminds me of her so much.’
I stared at Tom and resisted the urge to shake my head. He couldn’t be thinking straight. Why would he ever want to be in this room after all that Isadora had done in here?
He continued to talk while I was still trying to reconcile his violent outburst with his complete breakdown, followed by this cold calm. He needed help and if I was any kind of decent wife, I’d make sure he got it.
Tom stood then and continued to clear Isadora’s personal things into a box. He found her passport and looked at the picture inside, then he tossed it on top of the boxes of jewellery.
It was as if nothing unusual had happened.
Chapter Thirty-Two
In the days that followed, I hid my bruised eye and cheek as best as I could under make-up and told Mrs Tanner and Tina that I’d slipped from the dressing stool. Tina accepted this information and offered advice on how to reduce the bruising, but Mrs Tanner studied me for a while and then shook her head, as though she didn’t believe the explanation.
All of Isadora’s possessions, except the jewellery and her passport, were sent out in boxes to the charity shops. The purple satin bedding, however, remained. Tom stuffed it back in a box and took it to store somewhere else in the house. I never wanted to see it again.
‘When Mrs Tanner leaves,’ he said, ‘we’ll burn it on the garden fire.’
I tried to understand his erratic behaviour. What had happened to him was private and Tom had to now come to terms with his admission to me. He promised again that he would get counselling and because of this I chose to forgive him for hitting me. That wasn’t the same as forgetting. It was an effort not to flinch if he made any sudden movements. Learning to trust him after something like that would not be easy.
Tom went back to London on the Monday morning – it was a relief to have time away from him after everything. I was exhausted and my emotions ran riot as I replayed what Tom had done.
I made the excuse to stay behind with Tina and Melody, because I needed to spend some time with Mrs Tanner. She was going to show me all of the Manor books, the staff wage records and all of the expenses that were relevant to running the house. The plan was that I would take over everything until we found a reliable housekeeper. By the end of the week, when Tom returned, my cheek and eye were mostly healed and I had a good handle on the daily running of the Manor.
‘Mrs Carlisle is very capable of doing this now,’ Mrs Tanner said. ‘And I’m happy to take phone calls if you have any concerns. I’d like to leave sooner if you don’t mind.’
Her request was abrupt, but Tom immediately said she could leave as soon as she wished. They exchanged a look again, one that told me that Mrs Tanner knew some of the family secrets that Tom had shared with me. Maybe that was why the housekeeper always appeared on edge around him: it was guilt. She probably knew that she should have helped protect him from the knowledge of his mother’s affairs.
We agreed that she would end her employment the following weekend, after I’d completed everything under her supervision.
‘I don’t understand why she’s so desperate to get away,’ Tom said. ‘Her sister calls her a lot. She’s going to live with her for the time being. I suspect the sister is in poor health, but don’t like to ask.’
‘You’re probably right.’
Tom took my hand then. He hadn’t been very affectionate since he returned from London, and I skipped around him like a nervous cat that had gone partially feral.
‘I’ve hired a decorator,’ he told me. ‘He’ll be here Monday to start the renovations on Mother’s … the master bedroom. I want to make it ours before we move in permanently.’
‘Darling, I’m happy in your old room.’
‘I started seeing someone. A therapist.’
‘That’s great news!’
‘She said I need to exorcise my demons. So please indulge me, Char.’
‘Okay. Whatever you think best. I want you to get better.’
; ‘I’m not sick!’
‘Of course you aren’t.’
‘It’s learning to put some things behind me … that’s all.’
I didn’t ask Tom about his therapy. I guessed he would be going over my infidelity and experiencing moments of resurfacing anger. Opening up those old wounds would hurt, I knew that, and so I resolved to let him have his way and try and keep our home life calm for the moment.
Any sign of Isadora was systematically removed from the Manor’s master bedroom in preparation for the redecoration, but when I suggested that we pull down the painting at the top of the stairs, Tom declined.
‘It would look odd,’ he said, ‘to the remaining staff.’
‘I need to come to the flat to pack up more of our personal things,’ I said. ‘I’d prefer to do that before Mrs Tanner leaves.’
‘How about you come back after she’s left? We’ll have the decorators in by then and one of the housemaids can be here. There’ll be upheaval and it won’t be much fun for you during that time anyway.’
‘But it’s only the master bedroom?’ I said.
‘No. I’m thinking we need to do more than that. This is our home now and we need to put our stamp on it. You can look at colour schemes this week, then we’ll go back to the flat and sort things out properly.’
‘Oh. I didn’t expect that,’ I said.
‘You didn’t tell me, is Tina happy to make the permanent move?’
‘Yes. But she needs a week to sort out her own flat. Her roommate has found someone to take over her side of the tenancy, so at least she won’t have to give a long notice.’
We settled down in the house for the weekend and walked around discussing what needed to change and what Tom was happy to leave. By the time we returned to London it was decided that the lounge, nursery, nanny’s suite of rooms and the master were priorities. Anything else could be done once we were in permanently.
‘I’ll switch priority from the master to the nursery and Tina’s rooms,’ Tom said then he went off to discuss with Tina how she’d like her suite decorating.
I looked around the living room, and thought about all the changes we had discussed. Yes, the Manor would feel more like ours afterwards, and we would have gone a long way to exorcizing the ghost of Isadora. I told myself it would all work out and I was quite excited about the changes and managing the decorating. It was a big project and Tom was happy for me to make most of the decisions. It would be fun to do as well as being a challenge that would take my mind off things.
The Stranger in Our Bed: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller that will keep you hooked Page 15
