The Summer of Secrets

by Tilly Tennant

  ‘And he doesn’t?’

  ‘He’s certainly not interested in the area he lives in, as far as I can tell. If he could have Jurassic Park-style electronic fencing to keep out the hordes I think he would.’

  ‘Not what you’d call a party animal then?’

  ‘Unless your idea of a party animal is Howard Hughes, no.’

  Duncan put his work to one side and snapped off the latex gloves he was wearing. ‘I’m going to make a coffee – want one?’

  ‘I’d kiss you for one.’

  He laughed. ‘I might hold you to that.’

  As he left the room, Cesca hunted through the mess on her desk for the scrap of paper bearing William Frampton’s phone number and then dialled it. She tapped her finger on the desk as she waited for him to pick up. The phone rang out – no answering service.

  ‘Bloody typical,’ she muttered. ‘Bloody toffs, can’t even be bothered to answer their phones. I suppose his butler was missing.’

  Raking her teeth over her bottom lip thoughtfully, she stared out of the window. Lord William Horatio Henry Frampton, sixteenth Earl of Cerne Hay was an arrogant, ungrateful, meddling, right royal pain in the arse. So why couldn’t she stop thinking about him and his bloody house?

  * * *

  Pip yanked on the handbrake. From the passenger seat, Harper looked up at the gates of scrolled ironwork towering above the car, a crude chain keeping them shut from the outside world. Beyond they could see the unkempt grounds of Silver Hill House, weeds and shrubbery so high they almost obscured the windows of the entire ground floor.

  ‘It’s a nuisance we couldn’t phone ahead in the end,’ Harper said.

  ‘Not exactly the warmest welcome, is it?’ Pip agreed. ‘But if this is the kind of message he’s sending out to the community around his home, then I don’t think he would have agreed to see us anyway.’

  ‘He came to the tearoom.’

  ‘And then Shay pissed him off. If I were him, I wouldn’t have agreed to see us in case we were back for round two.’

  ‘Well we don’t have a lot of choice now – we’ll have to ask Francesca again for his phone number and call.’

  ‘She wasn’t happy to give his number out when we asked her before – what makes you think she’ll change her mind if we ask again?’

  ‘I understand she might be reluctant because it’s not up to her to give just anyone’s details out but I don’t know what else to try.’

  Pip was thoughtful for a moment as she stared at the gates. ‘Maybe there’s a way to get access round the back. After all, he must get mail and stuff and the postman must get in somehow.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it can hurt to have a look. As long as he doesn’t have a machine-gun turret and searchlights around there, that is.’

  ‘If it comes to running for our lives, it’s every man for himself.’ Pip grinned as she unclipped her seatbelt and climbed from the car.

  ‘Every woman,’ Harper said.

  ‘Yeah, them too.’

  As Pip locked the car, Harper stood, her eyes shielded from the glare of the low evening sun, looking along the weathered brick boundary of the house. A track followed it – what had perhaps once been a road for local tradesmen to get supplies into the house without using the grand entrance – but it was narrow and shaded almost from view by overhanging trees and shrubs allowed to grow wild over the years. Harper knew that Frampton lived there alone, but he must have needed to get people in from time to time, though she couldn’t see how. The wall was mostly screened off by the trees, but it seemed to stretch for miles, and when Pip had suggested trying round the back, Harper realised that round the back might actually be in a different county.

  ‘We’d better get walking,’ Pip said. ‘God knows where this track leads but there’s no way the car is getting up there.’

  ‘I hope you’ve got your machete and mosquito spray, because it looks like something from Apocalypse Now in there.’

  Pip gave Harper a quick grin. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’

  ‘I left it in the car.’

  ‘Come on,’ Pip replied, her grin spreading. ‘There has to be a gate or entrance somewhere.’

  She began to walk, and Harper followed her into the cool green shade of the lane, wondering whether her eagerness to make peace with Lord Frampton was something she’d come to regret.

  Their find was becoming old news already and there had been a sharp drop-off in the number of curious tourists and news-hungry reporters stopping by. It had meant they could close the tearoom bang on time and make their way to Silver Hill House before it started to go dark.

  Even though the lane looked gloomy and dank, as the trees and shrubs thinned out intermittently the path turned out to be in pleasant dappled shade, quiet and cool and a welcome relief from the daggers of sunlight skimming the roads on their drive over.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if ideas we have in the pub are ones we ought to write off the next day,’ Harper said into the verdant silence. ‘I’m sure alcohol and moments of genius weren’t ever meant to mix.’

  ‘Newton was drunk when he discovered gravity.’

  Harper turned sharply to Pip. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘No, you muppet!’ Pip laughed. ‘God, you’ll believe anything!’

  ‘That’s what worries me,’ Harper said darkly.

  ‘Your trusting nature is one of your sweetest traits. It may be a big bad world out there, but if you lose that, the world will be a little sadder for it. I know you think it gets you into trouble, but your ability to see the good in people can be a blessing too.’

  ‘I don’t know how you work that out, but if you say so.’

  ‘I do. I’m the cynical one and I make the sacrifice so you don’t have to.’

  ‘So you’ll be able to smell the bull if Frampton is feeding us any? I’m relying on you.’

  ‘Probably not. But at least we’ll both have clear consciences, even if we don’t have a box of Tudor gold.’

  ‘That’ll be a great comfort when I’m going without heating to feed the goat.’

  ‘We’re not that badly off!’ Pip said with a grin.

  ‘No…’ Harper’s frown eased into a smile of her own. ‘I suppose we’re not. It’s just, even though I do feel the gold rightfully belongs to Frampton’s family, I hate the thought of being duped – you know?’

  ‘Would you feel better being blissfully unaware of any duping?’ Pip asked.

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Probably. But we’re making this decision together so at least we can take solace in that – we’ll be duped together.’

  ‘At least he’d be able to spend some money on the house,’ Harper said, glancing up as a gap in the foliage revealed the Georgian chimney stacks standing proud of the walls they followed. ‘I don’t know much about history, but even I can see that this place has never had a proper overhaul. Francesca said a Frampton has lived here since the mid 1400s but the original house has been added to and bastardised since then – a bit of an extension from the Tudors, a bit of heating in the Georgian period, new windows from the Victorians…’

  ‘As long as his kettle is from the twenty-first century and he puts it on for us, his house can be from the twilight zone for all I care,’ Pip said.

  ‘We’re assuming he’s actually in. I suppose he could be out.’

  ‘If he’s out then I’m all for having a nosey around if you are. We can see for ourselves then what we think of his situation. The house looks a bit grotty from what we’ve seen but it’s still bloody massive and he must have money enough to keep it.’

  ‘We don’t know he’s got all that much money. I don’t think all these titled families are as rich as we like to think.’

  ‘I expect he’s still got more than me,’ Pip said, shoving her hand in her pocket and pulling out a pack of chewing gum. ‘Want a piece?’ she asked, offering it to Harper, who shook her head.

  ‘The thing is,’ Harper continued as Pip folded a stick of gum into her
own mouth and began to chew contentedly, ‘if he gets the house looking something like decent and he opens it up to the public, it would definitely help our trade.’

  ‘I suppose it might,’ Pip agreed.

  ‘I mean, look at places like Chatsworth and Longleat. There are practically whole local economies being fed by their visitors.’

  ‘The trouble is, I get the impression that our bonny Lord Frampton isn’t very keen on people. So I don’t see how he’s going to be happy with hundreds of them tramping through his living room on a daily basis, even if the house was restored to its former glory, and even if it did make him and the area a ton of money.’

  ‘That’s where we’ll have to use our charm and bargaining skills,’ Harper said brightly.

  ‘Well, now’s your chance,’ Pip said, angling her head as they halted at a break in the wall, a smaller version of the wrought-iron gates of the entrance straddling the gap, revealing Frampton himself across the vast scrub of the gardens, craning to look up at the side of the house.

  ‘Would it be rude to whistle and shout, Oi, Frampton!’ Pip whispered.

  Harper giggled. ‘We could try it. But perhaps it might be frowned on in polite circles, even if it’s OK in most of Weymouth’s bars.’ She pushed her face to the gap in the gate and called through it. ‘Excuse me! Lord Frampton… it’s Harper Woods… from Silver Hill Farm… Could we have a word?’

  He spun round, looking puzzled for a brief moment until his gaze settled on the gates. Harper moved away as he strode towards them.

  ‘It’s funny,’ he said as he approached, ‘I didn’t have any visitors in my diary for today.’

  ‘I know it’s a bit irregular,’ Harper said apologetically, biting back a more sarcastic retort that wouldn’t help to make them friends. It was strange, but as she looked at him standing before her, dark and proud and fiercely handsome, she realised that beneath that hard exterior, there was a man who looked as though he desperately needed friends. ‘We didn’t have a phone number to call ahead and… well… we wanted to talk to you. About the find. We wondered if you could help us understand a little more about where it came from and your family’s connection to it.’

  ‘Francesca Logan at the museum is investigating that and I understand you have been in close contact with her. You’d be better placed talking to her about it. If anything, her account will be more accurate than mine – after all, she has the doctorate and I have only generations of hearsay.’

  ‘So you don’t actually know if the find belongs to your family for sure?’ Pip cut in from behind Harper.

  ‘I didn’t say that. I said that as far as an accurate history goes, mine may be patchy compared to the history expert.’

  ‘But you must have documents?’ Harper pressed. ‘Things that have been passed down through the generations? I mean, you’ve always lived here – the Framptons, that is?’

  ‘Yes, we have. But this is a big house with many secret nooks and crannies even I don’t know about.’

  ‘Could we talk anyway?’ Harper asked. ‘We’ve come all this way to see you.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘All the way from Silver Hill Farm? It must have been akin to returning the ring to Mordor.’

  Harper frowned. But then it turned into a small smile; the lord of the manor had a sense of humour after all.

  ‘I hope that doesn’t make me the fat hobbit,’ Pip said, folding her arms.

  Now it was Frampton’s turn to break into a smile, but it quickly faded. ‘May I enquire if your gentleman friend is with you?’

  Harper looked confused for a moment. ‘You mean Shay?’ she asked.

  ‘The same. He and I… well, you saw for yourself.’

  ‘He’s not here. And he doesn’t know we’re here either. I’m sorry about his behaviour – he can get a bit hot-headed. But I just wanted a chance to finish the conversation we’d been having before we were interrupted.’

  Frampton paused, but then nodded shortly. ‘Please wait. I’ll have to go to the house for some keys to open the gate.’

  ‘And you really want to give him all that money?’ Pip said in a low voice as he walked away.

  ‘He doesn’t seem that bad,’ Harper said. ‘I think he’s had a strange and sheltered upbringing; something very different from what people like us experience – it’s bound to manifest itself in a maladjusted personality.’

  ‘So you think he’s a weirdo too?’

  ‘No,’ Harper laughed. ‘I think he’s socially awkward and not used to dealing with ordinary folks.’

  ‘His Eton education served him well then.’

  ‘Shh!’ Harper let out a giggle. ‘He’ll be back in a minute!’

  ‘He’s probably gone to get the hounds.’

  ‘You’re evil!’

  ‘I’m not the one fetching hounds!’

  ‘I didn’t see any human skulls on sticks as we walked up here, so I think we’ll be OK.’

  ‘I saw a shrunken head and a keep-out sign written in blood out on the road. I did think it was a bit odd at the time.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Harper giggled. ‘We’re supposed to be making friends.’

  ‘I hope he’s not planning to have us stay for dinner because I’m sure I will taste just awful with garlic mayonnaise…’

  ‘Apple sauce goes with pork and apparently that’s what we’d taste like.’

  ‘How do you know that? Now I’m more scared of you than I am of Lord Lecter.’

  At the sound of heavy keys, Harper smoothed her expression into something suitably sensible, while Pip shot her a covert look and made a subtle slurping noise that almost started Harper’s laughter again. Frampton’s face appeared at the gate as he unlocked it.

  ‘Please…’ he said, gesturing for them to enter. They stepped into the garden, and against the common sense that the warm summer evening should have brought with it, Harper couldn’t help a vague shudder of misgiving as Frampton locked the gate again and pocketed the keys. Even if his intention wasn’t to cook them up with beans, it looked as if they were stuck now.

  ‘The grounds are huge,’ Pip said awkwardly, more for something to say, it seemed, than out of genuine interest.

  ‘This is just the gardens,’ Frampton said. ‘The grounds extend out 1500 acres.’

  Pip let out a low whistle as they began to follow him to the door at the side of the house.

  ‘It’s rather small, really,’ he added. ‘Successive generations of my forbears sold bits here and there.’ He gave a small smile. ‘We’ve never been what you’d call fiscally enlightened.’

  ‘Crap with money?’ Pip said.

  ‘Precisely,’ he said.

  ‘Do you live here alone, Lord Frampton?’ Harper asked.

  He wafted his hand vaguely. ‘Please, it’s Will. Lord Frampton sounds rather archaic these days. But in answer to your question, yes. More or less.’

  ‘What’s the less bit?’ Pip asked.

  ‘I have a cleaner when I can afford her and a gardener twice a year to stop the weeds taking over. I’d do it all myself but it’s simply too big.’

  ‘What about the rest of the land?’

  ‘Much of it’s woodland so it rather takes care of itself and what needs help the Woodland Trust take on. The grassland I let for cattle grazing and the income helps to keep the roof from caving in.’

  ‘Don’t you ever think it would be easier to sell everything?’ Harper asked. ‘After all, I’m sure the sale of this land and house would get you a lovely little place… maybe London or somewhere?’

  ‘And see Silver Hill turned into some ghastly theme park or something?’

  ‘It just seems like a very solitary existence here, and you’re not exactly an old man. I suppose you’ve got a ton of friends living in cities up and down the country…’

  Will didn’t reply. Instead, he opened the door and stood back to allow Harper and Pip entry.

  The first thing Harper noticed was the smell of damp. If it was like this now, she dreaded to think h
ow strong it would be in the winter.

  ‘It’s not all as bad as this looks,’ Will said, seeming to read the dismay on Harper’s face, which must have been quite comprehensive because she thought she’d been hiding it well. ‘We could have walked round to the front doors but this way in is quicker. After a while you learn to ignore the dilapidation.’

  He led them through a whitewashed outhouse filled with garden tools and sporting goods; four pairs of dusty Hunter wellies on a stand beneath a coat rack from which four wax jackets also hung. The sight was oddly haunting, almost as if time had stood still, or the people who’d left these ephemera of everyday life behind had suddenly and inexplicably vanished. Then he took them into a cavernous but apparently disused kitchen, fitted out with a stone sink with rusting taps, clothes racks suspended from the ceiling and the sort of pre-war eggshell-painted cupboards Harper recalled seeing in her great-grandmother’s house as a girl – though these ones were faded and worn and looked as though the burden of a single cup would collapse them.

  They continued up a cramped, winding staircase and through a door to emerge into a hallway that immediately felt warmer and less abandoned, papered in a faded design that once would have been a sumptuous claret, but was now more of a dirty pink, and a glass chandelier gathering dust above their heads. The way Silver Hill House looked right now, Harper thought, Will could open it up to the public, market it as a macabre, ghostly exhibition and probably make more money than if he got the builders in and turned it into a bona fide stately home.

  ‘I’d be lost all the time if I lived here.’ Pip’s whispered comment to Harper echoed from the high ceilings and became far louder than she had intended.

  ‘It’s incredible how quickly you get used to it,’ Will said, facing forward, his long stride unfaltering. ‘We’ll use the south-facing reception,’ he added, opening another door to admit them to a room that was flooded with glorious evening light as the sun clung to the distant hilltops.

  Despite the faded grandeur of this room, the aspect and view through the windows meant it was still magnificent, and Harper felt her breath catch as she gazed around. It was enormous, with an elaborate stone fireplace big enough for her, and possibly Pip, to camp out in. A gilt mirror took up half the wall above it, and various ancient portraits filled the other walls. A huge couch dominated the space in front of the fire, a threadbare but clearly expensive Persian rug in front of it, oversized vases sitting on oversized tables and cabinets along the walls. Against one wall rested the only concession to modernity: a sixty-inch flatscreen TV and DVD player along with a bookshelf that was now filled with DVDs.