Greyfriars House

by Emma Fraser

  To begin with, I’d intended to go to Greyfriars for a couple of nights; fulfil my promise to Mum, find out what the aunts wanted, agree what was to be done with both houses and return to London where I’d pick up my old life. But Giles had found out about my phonecall to Sophie and that had put paid to any thoughts of returning to work in the immediate future. According to Giles, I wasn’t myself. If I hadn’t recently lost my mother he would have taken steps to have me removed from Lambert and Lambert and, if the Law Society found out what I’d done, he’d have no choice. In the meantime, I was to take time off, keep my head down and avoid the press. More importantly I was to have nothing further to do with Lucy Corrigle or anyone else involved in her case.

  The boatman was waiting for me exactly where and when I was told he would be; at eleven o’clock at the end of the dirt road, leading off from the main road that ran through Balcreen. The sun was nowhere to seen, the rain falling in a fine but unremitting drizzle, making everything appear grey and colourless. Or perhaps it was a reflection of my state of mind?

  Somewhere around fifty, the boatman had an interestingly craggy face, and was wearing a thick jumper with a hole on one elbow and a peaked cap.

  ‘Miss Friel?’ he said as I got out of my car. He studied me, making no attempt to hide his curiosity.

  ‘Yes. I hope you haven’t been waiting long?’

  ‘Not long at all. There’s never any rush around here as you’ll find. I’m Ian.’ He bent and rubbed Tiger behind her ears. ‘And who is this?’

  ‘Tiger. I don’t think she’s been on a boat before.’

  ‘She’ll be fine. Keep her on your lap if you’re worried. Now then, how long will you be staying? I’m only asking so I can make arrangements to come and fetch you.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t quite decided.’

  He took my bag and led the way to the end of the pier where a small boat was waiting.

  ‘And what brings you to Greyfriars?’

  ‘I’m visiting my great-aunts.’

  ‘Now then, that explains it.’ He placed my bag in the boat. ‘We didn’t know they had relatives still alive. We did wonder. You see they’ve not had any visitors for such a long time. Not since my father took a young lass over in nineteen-fifty, or was it fifty-one?’

  ‘But that must have been my mother!’

  ‘Well now. Imagine that! She hasn’t come with you, then?’

  My chest tightened as the familiar ache took hold.

  ‘She died.’

  ‘I am very sorry to hear that.’ He pushed his cap back on his forehead. ‘Then you must be Harriet’s granddaughter. Seeing as the Misses Guthrie never married.’

  ‘You knew my grandmother?’

  To my disappointment, he shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid not. But my great-uncle often spoke of the family. They were well known in these parts. The sisters were supposed to be great beauties in their day. Would you like me to lift your wee dog on board?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’ll keep a hold of her. She can be a little nervous with strangers. I’ve never met a dog less like her name.’ I lifted Tiger and tucked her under my arm.

  Ian reached out a hand and took my elbow. Although I could have easily stepped on board without his help, I let him. I found his gentle courtesy quite charming after the pushing and shoving that went on in London.

  ‘Is there any way I can cross over without calling on you?’ I asked, as he pointed the boat towards Kerista Island. ‘If I wanted to go into Oban or come to the village to do some shopping?’ Tiger wriggled out of my arms and stood on the seat right at the front, lifting her nose to sniff the wind. It appeared being on the boat didn’t frighten her at all.

  ‘I come over with the groceries once a week – we have the store in Balcreen – I’m due to make a delivery the day after tomorrow so if you need anything just let me know.’

  ‘Then you do know my aunts.’

  He lifted a shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t say I know them, exactly. To be honest, I can’t say I’ve spoken to them more than once or twice. I leave the groceries on the pier. I’d be quite happy to bring them up to the front door,’ he gave a small shake of his head, ‘but they prefer me just to leave them so they can fetch them later. The only way I knew I was to take you across was because they left me a note along with their list.’

  How very odd. There were people who liked their privacy and there were recluses. It appeared my great-aunts fell in to the latter category. Clearly nothing much had changed since Mum had last been here.

  ‘As I said, if there is anything you want from the shop you can add it to the Misses Guthrie’s list,’ Ian continued, as he pushed the boat away from the pier and picked up the oars. ‘They leave it for me in a jar. Keeps it dry.’

  ‘I gathered they aren’t on the phone.’

  ‘There’s the kiosk in the village, if you need one. It’s usually in working order. If you want me to come fetch you, raise the flag and I’ll be over eventually. If that’s too much trouble, there’s a small boat just like this one on the other side, in the boathouse by the pier. The Misses Guthrie never use it but I keep it in good repair just in case. You could row yourself across. Mind you, I wouldn’t advise it in stormy water or when it’s dark. You could get blown off course and end up on the rocks.’

  ‘I think I can manage a bit of a swell,’ I protested.

  He shot me a look of alarm. ‘No, indeed, you mustn’t. The sea is calm now, but it can get blustery and the tide has quite a pull on this narrow bit between the island and the mainland. You wouldn’t want to find yourself in the open sea now, would you? Then we’d have to get the coastguard out looking for you. They wouldn’t be best pleased.’ He grinned. ‘Particularly seeing as one of them is me.’

  ‘I promise I’ll be careful,’ I replied, with an answering smile. ‘It’s not far at all, is it?’

  We were almost across already.

  ‘You’ll be fine, I’m sure. As long as you remember what I said – stick to good days, decent weather and daylight.’

  We had spent long enough discussing the subject. I refused to be dependent on notes and the availability of Ian, no matter how pleasant he was, to get on and off Kerista. If I needed to use the phone in the village I could easily manage ten to fifteen minutes of rowing.

  He drew up alongside a rickety pier that looked far more dangerous than any short sea crossing, and jumped out. He helped me off the boat with the same old-fashioned courtesy he’d helped me in. I half-expected him to tip his hat when I paid him.

  ‘That’s the path to Greyfriars,’ he said, pointing to a wall of overgrown rhododendrons. No wonder I hadn’t been able to see the house from the other side. Covered in a thick mass of leaves, with their branches curled in on each other, they created a natural wall between the pier and the house, blocking the house from view. A well-worn track led up to the tiniest gap through them which had to be the path he meant.

  The dismay on my face must have been evident.

  ‘One day that house will be swallowed up by those bushes, mark my words. They need taking out or at least cutting back. I’ve offered to do it but,’ he shrugged, ‘the Misses Guthrie would rather leave it. Now would you like me to carry your bag up to the house for you?’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll manage. ‘

  He seemed disappointed, but with a last cheerful wave, he stepped back onto the boat, pushed it away from the pier and set off back to the other side.

  As I tentatively pushed my way through the narrow path between the rhododendrons, the branches of the bushes snagged my clothes. Something rustled in their depths and I started, but it was only a bird whose nest I’d disturbed. Apart from the chirping of the small bird as it flew away and the discordant kraw kraw of a crow, it was spookily quiet.

  Emerging from the bushes, I placed my bag on the ground to take in my first proper sight of Greyfriars – the house where I’d been born and that had once meant so much to Mum.

  It was nothing like I’d expected and alm
ost impossible to conjure it up the way it had been in 1939. Greyfriars House had undoubtedly been grand in its day, but any evidence of that had long gone. Although I knew that the house had changed in the years between the war and Mum’s arrival in 1950, I was unprepared and dismayed for how much more it had deteriorated. I realised that when I’d visualised Greyfriars it had been lit up, filled with Bright Young Things, people, life. It had been that impression that had stayed with me. Now, in the lowering light of a rain-filled sky, all I could feel was a sense of menace. Far easier to see it how Mum must have when she’d arrived cold, miserable and desperate all those years ago.

  The ground in front of me, where they’d had picnics and played croquet had once been lawn, but now the grass was almost waist high, flattened in lines where my great aunts must still walk. The house itself was almost taken over by ivy, which clambered up the walls, almost obscuring the windows on the first two floors, the rose bushes climbing up the front wall, running wild.

  Shutters hung off windows, flapping disconsolately in the wind, the paint on the windows and front door peeling. The sandstone had cracked and this morning’s heavy rain trickled from gutters that badly needed repairing. The window-panes were grimy, the curtains closed or half-closed.

  On the right as I stood facing Greyfriars was the crenelated tower in which Mum had slept as a child, clearly a different period to the rest of the house but blending in well enough. A little below and running the length of the main house was a row of small dormer windows. That had to be the floor where the servants would have once slept. On the first floor, there were two bay windows on either side of the house with six large sash windows in between them. The ground floor was similar to the one above, but with the run of sash windows replaced by more bay windows.

  I couldn’t shake the impression that the house looked as if it were a living, breathing entity and not an inanimate object made of bricks and mortar. Squatting amongst the high grass, the house gave off an atmosphere of decay, ruin, hard times, even despair. It wasn’t like me to be fanciful – I hadn’t inherited the slightest morsel of my mother’s imagination – but there was something about the landscape, the eerie half-light, the sensation that the rest of the world had disappeared like some sort of Brigadoon, that creeped me out. Even Tiger seemed affected. She huddled close to me and through the material of my jeans I could feel her body trembling. I picked her up and held her close. A frisson ran through me. I was sure I was being watched.

  I looked up, scanned the front of the house and from the turret window I thought I saw a face peering down at me. Before I could be sure, the person, if indeed it had been someone, had disappeared. Thinking of my mother had no doubt conjured up that particular vision. I gave myself a mental shake. Why shouldn’t there be someone watching out for me? I was an expected visitor after all. I turned my attention back to the house.

  Despite the air of decay, the leaking gutters, broken shutters, damaged chimney pots, in which I was certain from the noise coming from the roof rooks were nesting, the house was still magnificent. It needed a team of gardeners and another team of workmen along with a great deal of money to restore it to what once would have been its former glory, but there was no doubt it could be done. Left any longer, though, and I suspected it would be beyond salvation.

  Was this why the aunts had invited Mum to visit? Not because of any belated attempt to get to know their only niece, but rather to persuade her to sell the house in Edinburgh and use the funds to repair Greyfriars? I thought about Mum and how she must have felt arriving here, pregnant and alone, hoping for a comfort she hadn’t received. I felt a fresh pulse of anger towards the two occupants.

  I placed Tiger back on the ground, lifted my suitcase and strode towards the front door. I would find out what the aunts wanted, sort out the matter of the houses and get back to my life.

  As I raised my hand to knock, the door was opened by a slim woman, taller than me by a couple of inches. Her grey hair was gathered in a knot on top of her head and held in place with a pencil, stray wisps falling around her face. Intense, intelligent, lively blue eyes were framed with still dark lashes. Her pale face was lined, but it wasn’t difficult to see that once she had been beautiful. The phrase ‘ageless beauty’ leapt to mind. She was wearing a summer dress that came to just below her knees and which reminded me of those worn by heroines in movies set in the forties, and over it a thick cardigan that looked hand-knitted and a string of pearls around her neck. Her lips were outlined in perfectly applied bright red lipstick, but bizarrely she was also wearing wellingtons – as if she were about to go and work in a field. Yet somehow she carried off the look with aplomb.

  ‘You must be Charlotte,’ she said, flashing a disarmingly charming smile, and immediately I saw a glimpse of the young Georgina my mother had described so vividly. Yet despite the smile I thought I saw a flicker of anxiety in the depths of her eyes. She held out her hand. ‘I’m your great-aunt Georgina.’ Her voice was exactly like a BBC newscaster, low pitched and perfectly modulated. She looked down at Tiger who was at my feet.

  ‘You brought a dog? We didn’t think… Oh, dear…’ Her forehead furrowed.

  Tiger looked up at Georgina with soulful eyes and gave an ingratiating wag of her tail.

  ‘Tiger was Mum’s dog. I had to bring her. There was no one else to look after her. But she’s no trouble – she’s very well behaved, I promise.’

  ‘No… I’m afraid… A dog! Edith doesn’t like dogs. She’s a little frightened of them.’ She looked over my shoulder as if searching for someone to take Tiger away.

  ‘I’ll keep her with me at all times. She can sleep in my room, or the kitchen if you prefer. On the floor, of course. I brought her blanket as well as her water and food bowls.’

  Georgina still looked uncertain. ‘As long as you don’t let her run about the house,’ she conceded eventually, ‘it should be all right. Please, do come in.’

  She stood back and I stepped into the hall, blinking in the sudden darkness. Lit by a single pendant light it was gloomy even compared to the dull day outside and was large enough that a good proportion of my flat in Bloomsbury would have fitted into it. It was dominated by a wide, mahogany turned staircase. Facing the stair and taking up a large part of the wall was the original fireplace, the stone above it soot-stained, the grate empty apart from the charred remains of a fire. It could have done with being lit. Not just to add some cheer but because it was bone-chillingly cold. The temperature had to be several degrees below that outside. I suppressed a shiver.

  ‘I do love big rooms, don’t you? But they can be impossible to heat. I do envy those people who have central heating, although I gather it is terribly expensive. On the other hand, one doesn’t really miss what one never had.’ Georgina spoke with a determined cheerfulness that didn’t quite ring true.

  ‘Edith will be along in a moment,’ she continued. ‘Shall we go into the library? It gets the best of the sun. What little we get.’ She waved her hand in the direction of the staircase. ‘Leave your bag here for the time being. I’ll show you to your room once we have tea.’

  Without waiting for a reply, she turned, leaving me to follow her into a room to the immediate right of the front door. Thankfully it was a good deal warmer than the hall, although not a whole lot brighter. If a fire hadn’t been burning in the grate, the room would have been almost as dark as the hall. I decided if I ever got the opportunity I would personally rip the ivy from the windows.

  ‘This is the library – was once the library I should say – we use it as our drawing room now.’

  The room had to have been beautiful once and, apart from its frayed, dusty look, still was. It was furnished with a sofa, several chairs, a dainty sideboard and a piano. The blue wallpaper was silk and although damp patches bloomed in places, it was easy to imagine how lovely it had once been. The ceiling was high with elegant cornicing and an intricate ceiling rose. Most striking were the floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves that lined two out of
the four walls, containing what had to be hundreds of leather-bound books and I itched to run my fingers along their spines.

  A silver tray, complete with a silver tea set and china cups and saucers, was already laid out on a small side table. Also on the tray was a small plate of biscuits. Wagon Wheels.

  Georgina caught my look. ‘They’re Edith’s favourite. Just as well, as the store doesn’t offer too many alternatives. Speaking of whom, where has Edith got to?’

  Georgina folded her hands and glanced around the room. I was just about to tell her I’d thought I’d seen her looking out from the turret window when a voice came from the doorway.

  ‘I’m right here. When you told me Charlotte had arrived I thought I should make the tea. You know how far away the kitchen is.’