The Peacock Summer

by Hannah Richell

  ‘Good morning,’ she says, covering her surprise and addressing him from the open doorway. ‘I hope you slept well?’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Oberon,’ he says, a slight emphasis on her title as he folds the newspaper and stands to greet her, that smile spreading across his face. ‘Thank you, I did.’ He indicates the chair opposite him. ‘Will you join me?’

  She doesn’t move. ‘I do hope Monty isn’t making a nuisance of himself.’

  ‘Not at all. He’s the perfect companion.’

  The dog, as if sensing he is the subject of their conversation, lifts his head off the parquet floor and eyes them both, then sinks back down again with a loud sigh.

  Jack smiles. ‘I’ve been admiring the view. I couldn’t take it in last night but the aspect here is truly lovely.’

  She nods, but she doesn’t want to get drawn into pleasantries about the estate. She’d rather get on with the awkward task ahead. ‘Charles asked me to show you the room,’ she says, adjusting the silk scarf at her neck, raising her chin slightly. ‘Would now suit?’

  ‘Please,’ says Jack, ‘lead the way.’

  They are a procession of three: Lillian in front, Jack in pursuit, and Monty loping at the rear. Lillian walks fast, her heels clicking down the corridors until they reach an arched doorway off the main entrance hall. ‘We’re passing into the west wing now,’ says Lillian over her shoulder. ‘It was a later addition to the original sixteenth-century house. All the rooms on this side look out over the arboretum.’

  ‘We’re heading to the nursery?’

  ‘Yes.’ She hesitates. ‘Albie insists he’s too old for such things now. He’s away at school during the week. He’s probably right.’

  ‘Albie is your step-son?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence falls between them, only the sound of their footsteps accompanying them as they progress down the panelled corridor.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry about last night,’ Jack says finally. ‘I had no idea that you were . . . well, who you are.’

  ‘Please don’t mention it.’ She is glad she has her back to him.

  ‘I could have kicked myself. Now that I’ve met you, I don’t find you to be at all timid or . . .’

  ‘Sickly?’

  He groans. ‘Not sickly. Not in the slightest. I sense a great . . . a great inner strength in you.’

  Lillian nods but she doesn’t turn around. She certainly doesn’t want him to see the colour rising in her cheeks.

  ‘Here we are,’ she says, coming at last to a halt outside a heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor. She squints down at the ring of keys in her hand, trying first one, then another, her fingers fumbling at the lock.

  ‘Third time lucky?’ he suggests, and they both seem relieved when the key turns with a click.

  Lillian steps back. ‘After you, Mr Fincher.’ She still can’t quite meet his eye, but waits with her gaze slightly averted. His fingers hover momentarily over the intricately engraved doorknob before he twists it open and steps into the room.

  For a moment he is lost inside the space. Lillian waits, listening to his footsteps echoing across the floor. She hears the squeak of a catch being lifted on a pair of heavy shutters then sees a large arc of sunshine appear as he pushes them back. Jack moves to open a second set of shutters then draws a pair of heavy velvet drapes hanging upon the furthest wall, revealing the third long sash window with a velvet-covered window seat built into its bay. With the light now streaming into the room, Jack turns back to regard the space.

  Little has changed since Lillian last visited this room and she feels the ache of nostalgia rising up as she surveys the creamy butter-coloured walls and the high ceiling with its ornate circular glass dome at its centre. Along the wall nearest the door is a wide, stone fireplace, empty and soot-stained, while nearby are stacked several tables and chairs, as well as a bookcase holding a small collection of books. In the centre of the room is a large wooden desk. A family of jointed teddy bears, several small tin cars and soldiers as well as a faded rocking horse stand bathed in sunshine near the window seat. The most unusual feature, however, is the large curved wall that bows out into the arboretum, making the room almost feel circular in shape. She watches the artist moving about the room, the dust motes disturbed by his arrival spinning in the air. She has no idea what he is thinking.

  ‘It’s a lovely room,’ he says at last, turning back to Lillian.

  ‘It was used as a school room during the war,’ she says. ‘For the evacuees. I was one of them,’ she adds.

  ‘You were?’

  She nods, leaning against the doorframe, watching him and awaiting his verdict. Monty, sniffing the air, leaves her side and pads across to Jack. Traitor, she thinks. ‘The room was designed to look like a castle turret from the outside. The architect liked the idea of a curved nursery . . . fewer corners to be sent to, if you were naughty.’

  Jack smiles. ‘There’s something rather poignant about it though, don’t you think? These toys and books lying here unused.’

  Lillian’s gaze follows his to the abandoned teddy bears. ‘There are so many rooms in this house. We can’t possibly use them all,’ she says, the words sounding a little sharper than she’d intended.

  ‘How extraordinary,’ he murmurs, ‘to live in a house so large you can just lock up rooms and forget all about them.’

  Lillian watches him move across to the desk, his fingers trailing across its surface, leaving tracks in the dust. She supposes he is right, though in this house, she has grown accustomed to the closed doors and private spaces; Charles’s own bedroom, a private domain she only ever enters on invitation . . . his study a space that he alone occupies . . . and of course the late Mrs Oberon’s rooms, closed and shuttered. Only once, in a moment of curiosity, had she dared to enter, slipping quietly behind the solid oak door, gazing around at the set of hairbrushes lying abandoned on the dressing table, the dresses hanging unworn in the wardrobe, the collection of coloured glass bottles gathering dust on a windowsill. The room had felt steeped in the deep silence of absence and she had closed the door quietly behind her with a feeling of such profound sadness that she had never entered it again. In a house like this – for a family like this – perhaps it wasn’t so very strange to have ghost-rooms no one ever entered.

  ‘Have you seen enough?’ she asks, taking a tentative step towards the door; but Jack Fincher doesn’t seem ready to leave.

  ‘I’ve never worked on such a large scale before,’ he says. ‘I’ve painted a single mural but this would be quite different; a painting to walk inside of.’

  ‘Charles is used to getting his way. He’ll be disappointed, but I can break it to him gently.’

  The keys jangle in her hand – the sound of impatience – but Jack stands in the centre of the room and closes his eyes. ‘No,’ he says eventually. ‘You can tell your husband I’ll do it. Tell Charles that I’ll paint his room.’

  Lillian isn’t sure she’s heard him correctly. She studies him, waiting for a smile that doesn’t come. ‘You will?’

  He nods, his eyes tracking to hers. ‘Yes.’

  Lillian swallows and looks away. ‘I see.’

  Jack tilts his head. ‘You don’t think I should do it?’

  There is a strange fluttering in her belly she doesn’t quite understand. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’

  He looks as if he will say something, then seems to change his mind. His hand moves to Monty’s head where he combs the dog’s scruffy brow and scratches gently behind his ears. ‘It may take me a little while to clear my diary, but you can tell your husband to expect me by the end of the month.’

  It’s not the artist’s fault, she tells herself. She mustn’t blame him for Charles’s plan, but she can’t seem to quell the unease rising in the pit of her stomach.

  Jack takes a step towards the door then hesitates, as if reluctant to leave. ‘I can do something good in here,’ he says quietly, before turning and moving past her, heading back i
nto the corridor, the huge wolfhound trotting at his heels.

  Lillian locks the door behind them, and then, in a fit of defeat, detaches the key from the ring and holds it out to him on the flat of her palm. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘I suppose this is yours now.’

  They stand close, the dark wood-panelled walls closing in around them, casting a strange and intimate air, his eyes fixed on hers. She shifts, uncomfortable under such close scrutiny, but somehow unable to look away and when he does eventually take the key from her hand, his fingers brush her palm, like a feather moving over her skin. The sensation startles her out of her stillness. She spins on her heel and walks away down the corridor towards the main house, leaving Jack and the dog trailing in her wake.

  ‘Mrs Oberon,’ he calls after her. ‘Wait! Mrs Oberon.’

  She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t want him to see the tears welling in her eyes; and she doesn’t understand why it should be tears that threaten to spill when what she really feels is anger; anger to have been once more so outmanoeuvred by Charles; anger to be feeling punished for something she knows is not her fault.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Mrs Oberon!’ The man’s voice is calling her from down a long, dark corridor. Lillian screws her eyes shut and tries to ignore him.

  ‘Mrs Oberon. Can you hear me? Will you open your eyes for me?’ The voice is insistent.

  It takes a huge effort to prise open her eyes, and when she does, she is momentarily blinded by white strip-lights overhead. Blinking to focus, she finds herself lying in the white hospital room with the beeping machines and the curtain drawn round her bed. A tube is taped to the back of her hand, through which clear liquid snakes from a plastic lung hanging on a nearby stand.

  A man is leaning over her. ‘Mrs Oberon, I’m Doctor Ahmed. I’ve come to check on you. How are you feeling today?’

  He has a nice face, young and handsome with dark brown eyes.

  The doctor moves to the end of the bed and consults the charts on a clipboard. ‘It’s good news, Mrs Oberon. Your fever has come down. Carry on like this and we could be looking at discharging you in a couple more days.’

  ‘I have to go home,’ she says, her voice a dry rasp. ‘I have to go back to Cloudesley.’ Beside the bed, she notices a vase of drooping red tulips; petals, curled and browning, are scattered across the table top. How long has she been here? Time has lost its form.

  Home. She closes her eyes and thinks of a swaying meadow, dappled sunlight falling through green branches, walking among tall, leafy trees. She thinks of long, tapered feathers with eyes the colour of emeralds and sapphires. ‘I need to go back.’

  ‘Well, you just keep doing what you’re doing,’ says the doctor, scribbling onto the clipboard, ‘and we’ll have you out of here in no time.’

  Chapter 5

  ‘We’re in a world of trouble, Harry. I don’t know what to do.’

  Maggie has called Harry Granger from the phone in Charles’s study, hoping that her grandparents’ lawyer might have some inside knowledge to impart. ‘The house is in a terrible state – barely fit for habitation – and there are bills coming out of our ears,’ she tells him. ‘I found a huge stack of them on Lillian’s desk. None of them have been paid.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ says Harry.

  ‘We’ve got leaks all over the place. Last night’s rain turned the house into Niagara Falls. I can’t empty the buckets fast enough. I have no idea how I’m going to pay what is owed to Jane, let alone keep the electricity and gas running. I really need to access Lillian’s bank accounts if I’m to pay them all off, and get the house fixed up to even the most basic standards, for her return.’ Maggie can hear the hysterical note in her voice. She stops and takes a deep breath. ‘Sorry, Harry. I’m stressing out. I want to help Lillian. I want to bring her home. But I’m going to need some money.’

  ‘I take it the galleries aren’t knocking down your door just yet?’

  Maggie sighs. She thinks of all her paints and brushes and the blank canvases she left behind last year. What does she have to show for her time since she graduated art college, other than some mediocre barista skills and a talent for taking food orders and not dropping plates on customers? Not even her time abroad has helped her press the ‘reset’ button. How to tell Harry that the glittering career that had seemed so promising just a couple of years ago has stalled spectacularly, along with the rest of her life? ‘I’ve . . . er . . . hit a bit of a creative block.’

  ‘Well, I’m still the proud owner of the Maggie Oberon original I bought for a song at your graduation show. I’m convinced it will be worth a small fortune, one day.’

  Maggie can’t help her dry laugh. ‘While we’re all waiting for that day to arrive, perhaps you know of a way I can access some of Lillian’s money, to help make this place more comfortable for her?’

  Harry lets out a pained sigh. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Maggie. I’m afraid Lillian’s investments are almost gone.’

  ‘What?’ Maggie takes a moment to let Harry’s words sink in. ‘But how? Where has all the money gone? Lillian must have received a significant pay-out when the business was sold.’

  ‘I don’t know about significant. Oberon & Son was in pretty bad shape at the time of the take-over. She’s had to sell it off piecemeal over the years to cover various expenses. But yes, she did receive a sum.’

  ‘So where is it?’

  ‘Maggie, you and I both know that these old houses can become terrible financial drains if they’re not managed properly. There have been expensive medical bills over the years – first your late great aunt Helena . . . then Charles, after his stroke.’ Harry Granger hesitates. ‘And of course your father has needed significant . . .’ he hesitates again, ‘help. Debts and so on. Lillian has been very generous.’

  ‘I see.’ Maggie chews on a fingernail. She thinks of Lillian’s generosity last year when Maggie herself was at her lowest ebb and feels a flash of guilt.

  ‘I did try to warn her. I couldn’t see how Lillian would be able to see out another year at Cloudesley unless something significant changed; but she didn’t seem to want to accept that she might not be able to stay on in the house. She seems very . . .’ he pauses, as if seeking the right words, ‘. . . emotionally connected to the old place. Fervently so.’

  ‘Yes,’ murmurs Maggie, remembering her grandmother’s fierce insistence that she return home. ‘She is.’ Maggie sighs. ‘I had no idea things were this bad. She never mentioned any of this. In the letters we exchanged she implied that all was well.’

  Harry maintains a tactful silence for a moment before asking, ‘May I speak candidly?’

  ‘Of course.’ Maggie gazes unseeing out of the wisteria-clad window.

  ‘You know how long I’ve worked for your grandparents. I’ve grown very fond of Lillian. But I’m afraid, Maggie, that I saw this day coming. I warned your grandmother about this very scenario a while ago and I’ll tell you exactly what I told her then. You will either need to find a way to maintain the house and generate an income large enough to cover its upkeep, or I’m afraid you will have to sell Cloudesley.’

  ‘Sell it?’

  ‘Yes.’ The lawyer’s voice softens. ‘There is an interested party. It might be something to consider, if an alternative solution can’t be found. Lillian was adamant she wouldn’t leave the house when I first raised it with her, but unless the situation changes – and changes fast – I can’t see that she will have any other option.’

  Through the thick tendrils of wisteria, Maggie notices a coil of smoke rising up over the trees in the arboretum. Sell Cloudesley. The thought is shocking to her. She came back to help Lillian recuperate – to bring her home – not to sell the house out from under her. ‘I can’t. I can’t do that to her. This is her home. It’s where she wants to be.’

  ‘I don’t know if you remember, Maggie,’ continues Harry more gently, ‘but Lillian gave you her Power of Attorney.’

  Maggie has a vague me
mory of signing papers in Harry’s office, though she hadn’t paid much attention at the time; she hadn’t liked to think of the day Lillian might require someone to act on her behalf.

  ‘I don’t know if we’re quite at the point where we should activate it, but if it comes to it, we can certainly make the necessary arrangements.’

  ‘I see.’ Maggie feels a fresh wave of anxiety that Lillian should have trusted her with this responsibility; that it should be Maggie who is now expected to know what is in both her grandmother’s and Cloudesley’s best interests.

  But Maggie doesn’t know. And if she had to hazard a guess, surely it would be to keep the family home secure, so that Lillian might return to the place she has lived for over sixty years.

  More than a little depressed at the outcome of their conversation, she ends the call and sits in a daze watching the smoke billowing in the distance. It takes her a while to register what it signifies, and to remember who will be stoking the flames. She sighs. She supposes she can’t skulk around the house avoiding him forever.

  She lets herself out of the French doors, taking the stone steps down to the lawn, heading past the forlorn-looking oriental fountain – moss-covered and empty bar a thin layer of green sludge and leaves – before wandering through the arched entrance into the arboretum.

  When Jane had alluded to the new groundsman her grandmother had hired, the very last person she’d imagined it could be was Will Mortimer. Yet sure enough, there he had been the next day, loping across the drive with a coiled hosepipe slung over his shoulder as she’d returned from a second hospital visit to Lillian. As she’d pulled up outside the house, he’d turned and stared, his expression utterly unreadable through the windscreen. She’d wanted to smile, should have at least waved, but the burning shame that had welled up had paralysed her and instead she’d just sat there, staring back at him, until he’d turned and disappeared round the side of the house.