House of Trelawney

by Hannah Rothschild

  Ginny came back carrying a slightly bedraggled white fur wrap.

  Clarissa inclined her head and turned so that Ginny could place the ermine around her narrow shoulders. Against her family’s advice, she had worn her white tulle and taffeta coming-out dress this morning. Damian, she noticed, had shivered with excitement when she made her entrance.

  “It’s Ambrose’s eighteenth tonight,” Clarissa said. “Maybe you could film guests arriving. Everyone will be coming.”

  “Thousands?” Damian asked.

  Clarissa looked at him in surprise. “Everyone who is anyone: about sixty people.”

  Ginny snorted loudly. Clarissa glanced in her direction.

  “Hay fever,” Damian explained quickly to the Dowager Countess and, turning to Ginny, gestured crossly towards the door.

  “She can’t help it; she was badly bred.” One of the great advantages of old age, Clarissa knew, was no longer bothering what anyone thought of her. In her twenties she’d cared deeply; in her forties she had given up minding; in her sixties she realised that people were so self-absorbed they never gave a damn; and now, in her eighties, she saw that shock tactics were the only certain means of gaining attention.

  “Filming the birthday party might be amusing. Tonight Ambrose officially takes the reins,” she said.

  “Are you expecting any dramas?”

  “Don’t be so silly. Things will continue in the Trelawney way.”

  Clarissa imagined her grandson’s grateful homily to his beloved grandmother, his determination to go out into the world and restore the family fortunes, while Damian fantasised about drunken aristocrats and outlandish antics. Ginny hoped she could get home in time to watch Match of the Day with her girlfriend.

  “Should I talk to the Earl and Countess?” Damian asked, trying to sound unconcerned.

  Clarissa hesitated. “Come to my apartment at seven. We can go together. And for goodness’ sake tell your assistant to wear something appropriate.” Without saying goodbye (goodbyes were frightfully common), she walked out of the hall, down the passage and towards the Mistresses’ Wing. Looking up at the heavy blanket of cloud, she decided it was too cold to snow. She put on the fur boots and thick coat that Blaze had bought her but hurried towards her apartment nonetheless; it was almost impossible to defrost the old bones. As she crossed the courtyard, a small shiny-headed man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase hailed her.

  “Are you a mugger?” Clarissa asked forthrightly.

  The man was clearly freezing cold and had been standing there for some time. “I’m trying to find Lady Louisa Scott,” he said.

  “Why do you want her?” Clarissa enquired.

  “She’s won the Caldicot Prize for Biology for work on the connection between disease and warm weather. The Academy are desperately trying to locate her.”

  “Does it come with money?” Clarissa had never heard of the award.

  “About £250,000.”

  Clarissa looked astonished “All that from catching insects?”

  The man looked appalled. “She’s one of our most eminent scientists.”

  “She’s a flea-trapper.”

  “Could you tell me where to find her?” The man had had enough of this arrogant old woman.

  “Tuffy lives down there. Turn right by the bins and it’s the first door on the left.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And if you do find her, remind her there’s a party tonight and she’s expected.”

  * * *

  Kitto had moved back into the castle in September. Jane was unsure whether she wanted to stay married, particularly as the man who had returned to the house was noticeably different; the new Kitto lacked confidence and sought constant reassurance. Jane didn’t have the time or patience to indulge his neediness.

  She spent the morning cleaning the dining room, unused since Acre and Cuthbert’s visit in May. More ivy had forced its way through panes of glass, shattering the fragile barrier between out and indoors; the floor was covered with bird droppings and something had eaten a large hole in the corner of the old Turkish carpet. Kitto sat in the corner, reading a book of poetry.

  “How long would it take for nature to claim back her land?” Jane said, as she pulled the strong suckers and long fronds of ivy away from the walls.

  “She’s winning already,” Kitto replied. Tearing out and setting fire to a page of his book, he held it in the chimney breast and, as he feared, the flame didn’t draw properly. “I think birds have nested in the flue. Shall we risk a fire?”

  “It’s a choice between death by asphyxiation or hypothermia.”

  “Everyone should keep their coats on.”

  “Poor Ambrose—we want to try and put on a good show, don’t we? His birthday must be memorable.” Jane missed her son, who had not been home since last Christmas.

  Taking his wife in his arms, Kitto kissed her forehead.

  “Did I tell you how proud and grateful I am? You did what I never could and put the heart and soul back into this place.”

  Jane smiled up into her husband’s battered face. Since his breakdown, Kitto looked both older and younger; there were deep lines scored around his eyes and mouth and yet his expression, once wry and knowing, had been replaced by an aura of innocence. In the past, he had roamed from room to room, thought to thought, aloof and aloft, hardly seeming to take anything or anyone in. He’d spent his hours outside with his gun or scribbling poetry into a red exercise book. On the odd occasions that friends visited or they opened a decent bottle, he became loud and animated but these events had become increasingly rare. Now Jane woke up every morning to find him staring at her in gentle wonder. He followed her around like a disconsolate dog and, at dinner or walking in the garden, he held his wife’s hand gently, as if it were a small wounded bird.

  “It’s been a group effort,” she said, trying to wriggle out of his embrace; she didn’t have time for smooching. “I could never have done it without Blaze or your mother.”

  Kitto stroked the back of her head. “The old place has a real chance of washing its face.”

  “We’ll have to sell an awful lot more scones to make that happen,” Jane replied sadly. Although the takings from entrance fees and the sale of food had risen to nearly £500 a week, that was far short of the £1,000 needed to keep the place fully functioning. With winter approaching and Trelawney closed to the public until spring, she was already worrying about refilling the oil tank. At least Ambrose had left school and there were no more fees. His A-level results had been so disappointing that university was unlikely. It was a relief that Thomlinson Sleet had given him a job.

  “Shall we dance?” Kitto asked. “It’s been so long.”

  Jane looked up and stroked his face. “We have an awful lot to do, darling. Shall we dance later, after dinner and speeches?” She stepped away from him.

  “Let’s seize the moment!” Kitto leaned forward, took Jane by the waist and gyrated his hips against hers. “I’m hearing the Rolling Stones’s ‘Wild Horses.’ ”

  “I’m seeing sixty for dinner, beds to make, pies to be cooked and tables to be laid.”

  “All work and no play makes Jane and Kitto a dull girl and boy.” Kitto held his wife more tightly. Jane pushed him away firmly. For years she’d dreamed of such entreaties; now they were beginning to grate. Once, she had seen his lack of affection as a failing on her own part. If she’d been prettier or more sophisticated, or if she’d been Anastasia…His indifference stung, but this new neediness was cloying, like a cheap, all-pervasive perfume. It followed her like a reproach from room to room. Was this how she’d made him feel for the last twenty years of their marriage? Had he too shrunk from her baleful expressions and reproachful stares? As she predicted, Kitto stood there with his arms limp and tears threatening to fall.

  “You don’t love me any more
,” he said.

  Here we go again, Jane thought to herself.

  “Don’t be silly. I love you madly but it’s our son’s eighteenth birthday and I need you to help me get ready.”

  Kitto nodded.

  Jane handed him a broom. “Start from that end and work your way down to the door. Small strokes, so as not to send the dust flying everywhere.”

  “Where are you going?” Kitto asked.

  “Nowhere. While you do that I’ll be right here polishing the table.” She held up a duster and a tin of wax.

  The door pushed open and Tony walked into the room. He was wearing a lilac linen suit and white shoes and carried a small leather suitcase.

  “We weren’t expecting you until later,” Jane said, going forward to kiss him.

  “My favourite uncle,” Kitto chipped in.

  “You only have one,” Tony pointed out, laughing at the old joke. “Now, who wants a snifter?” Opening his case, he produced a bottle of sherry and put it on the table. Kitto hollered in delight.

  “We have so much to do.” Jane failed to hide her irritation.

  “We used to have people to ‘do.’ ”

  Jane flushed. “If you’re looking for that kind of weekend, might I suggest the local pub?”

  Tony saw that he’d overstepped the mark. “It was a joke in poor taste.”

  “It was unkind.”

  “That too. I am sorry, Jane.”

  Jane scooped some beeswax onto the table and began to polish. Tears of frustration fizzed behind her eyes: the whole lot of them, she thought, were hopeless. One wanted to drink, the other to dance, her mother-in-law was constantly searching for her close-up, and her eldest son had texted to say he was arriving at 6 p.m. with a girl and an announcement and to get out the champagne. Thank goodness for Blaze and the other children. At least there were some sensible people in the house.

  “Kitto, old boy, get some glasses please,” Tony asked.

  “Why don’t the two of you go to the kitchen and I’ll be along when I’m done.” Jane rubbed strenuously with both hands.

  “Because I’ve something to tell you both. It’s important.”

  Cancer, Jane thought, that’s all we need, more bloody drama. She kept on polishing. Hopefully he only has days to live and won’t take too much nursing. Where the hell am I going to put him? And how will we keep him warm enough? Will the NHS send out carers or will I have to do that too? She could feel anger building up like waves gathering strength on a shoreline. Damn this bloody family; why do they always assume I’ll do their bidding on their timetable?

  Kitto returned with glasses. Tony unscrewed the top of the sherry bottle and carefully poured three shots. Jane noticed that his hand shook—definitely cancer, she thought, or dementia: that would be worse; a slower death. She imagined nappies and social services, saw herself retrieving a lost Tony from ditches or schoolyards. With any luck he was about to ask them to sign papers for Dignity or Digitas or whatever that place was called in Switzerland where they euthanised people.

  “Jane, dear, you’ve been polishing the same two inches for the last ten minutes,” Tony said. “Why don’t you put down the cloth and sit for a moment?” Looking at the table, Jane saw that there was only one tiny area which shone and gleamed.

  “Have a drink, darling, you deserve it,” Kitto said.

  Yes, I bloody well do, thought Jane and, picking up a glass, drank the sherry in one long gulp. Tony and Kitto exchanged glances.

  Tony pulled out two chairs: one for Jane, the other for himself. Noticing that they were covered in dust and mouse droppings, he took a silk handkerchief from his top pocket and flicked it over the leather seats. Then he topped up Jane’s glass and sat down slowly. Once Jane and Kitto were also sitting, he cleared his throat.

  “I’m here to talk about inheritance.”

  Jane and Kitto looked at each other wearily. Tony rarely lost an opportunity to tell others how shabbily he’d been treated.

  “It was just the way things were done,” Kitto said.

  Tony held up his hand to silence his nephew. “As you might remember, the only thing I inherited from my father was a book.”

  Here we go again, thought Jane. How many times have I heard this tale of woe? Clarissa had become so tired of the lament that she’d stopped inviting Tony to any family occasions. The first time he’d come back in twenty years was for his own brother’s funeral.

  “The thing is that it wasn’t any old book. It was the Landino Dante,” he said with a great flourish.

  Jane and Kitto were none the wiser.

  “I take it from your expressions that you don’t know what the Landino Dante is?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Have you ever heard of Cristoforo Landino?” Tony sighed; how could people survive such ignorance? Where was the joy in a life of philistinism? “He was one of the greatest humanist scholars. He lived and worked in Florence for Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici and taught the young Lorenzo. He wrote philosophical dialogues and poems under the pseudonym of ‘Xandra,’ but it is his commentaries on the Aeneid and The Divine Comedy for which he is famous.”

  Jane wished that Tony would hurry up. But Tony wasn’t in a rush; he’d spent the last decade wondering what to do with his most precious possession.

  “The so-called Landino Dante was printed in Florence in 1480—it is excruciatingly rare. Possibly the rarest and most sought-after book in the Western world.”

  Jane glanced surreptitiously at her watch and ran through her mental checklist. Pick Arabella up from piano practice; Ambrose and girlfriend arrive on 6 p.m. train; pies into oven; ice cake; put kegs of beer into Great Hall; wash hair. Thank goodness she’d remembered to buy some sparkling wine from the cash and carry.

  “Have you heard anything I’ve said?” Tony asked.

  Jane pulled herself together. “You were telling us about the book.”

  Tony proceeded slowly, as if he were talking to two children. “The designs are close to Botticelli: the execution was by Baccio Baldini.”

  Jane looked longingly towards the door.

  “The only known copies of the book contain only two engravings. This one has twenty-four.”

  “That’s fascinating,” Jane said, trying not to sound too bored.

  Tony couldn’t believe that the two of them were so uninterested. He’d hoped to delay the moment of vulgar revelation, but could see there was no alternative.

  “Several years ago, one dislocated page from a later edition made £75,000 at auction. This version could be worth millions.”

  Kitto let out a low whistle. “So why haven’t you sold it?” He knew Tony was impoverished.

  “I was saving it for the proverbial rainy day.”

  “Good for you, darling Uncle,” Kitto said with enthusiasm. “Maybe you can upgrade your bedsit? Buy somewhere decent to live?”

  “It’s a studio flat,” Tony replied huffily.

  Jane walked to the door. She was pleased for Tony; at least someone had got something useful from the house.

  “My intention is to give it to Ambrose as a birthday present, with certain conditions of course. I’d like him to mend the roof of the Great Hall and restore the Grinling Gibbons woodwork, my favourite thing in the whole of Trelawney.”

  Jane, suddenly all ears, came back to the table and sat down. “Oh, Tony, that is exceptionally generous.”

  Kitto went over to his uncle and threw his arms around the older man’s shoulders. “It’s the most marvellous thing I’ve ever heard. Let’s crack on with that bottle of sherry.”

  * * *

  Blaze was packing her suitcase; Ambrose’s eighteenth, his accession to the ownership of Trelawney, seemed like an appropriate time to go back to London and pick up the pieces of her life. She didn’t know her nephew but knew enough to guess
(correctly) that they would not get on. She needed to get away from the house and begin again with no traces of the past, no reminders of Wolfe. Since leaving his farm that day, she had entered into a state of emotional numbness. She moved through her own life like a spectator, standing aloof from events and feelings. The second any memory threatened to return, she displaced it with some new activity.

  She was proud to have been part of the operation to resuscitate the house. Visitor entrance fees and cream teas would never bring in significant revenue, but she had drawn up a business plan for the next thirty years which, with careful management, would cover the overheads and leave enough for a modest programme of repairs. Under her scheme, the house would be publicly accessible, three wings would become desirable residences on long, full repairing leases, and the eighteenth-century stable block would be turned into commercial units and let to local businesses. Meanwhile, the park would be put to work as a venue for rock concerts, horse trials and county fairs. Once they raised enough money, the Edwardian wing would be restored and turned into a residential centre for cooking, yoga and self-improvement courses. Built by her ancestors to entertain the few, Trelawney would become a place to delight the many; henceforward, the so-called elite would be at the service of what her mother liked to call the masses. Blaze was not a believer in Schadenfreude, but it occurred to her that her family were now at the mercy of the descendants of those whose hard labour had created their success. To keep a roof over their heads, Kitto and his children had to ingratiate and cajole. Once upon a time the family had seen it as their right to order and punish; now their only hope was to serve and delight.

  Over the last nine months her investments had recovered: the Barclays shares had trebled; Microsoft, Apple and the price of oil were all rising. Although Indian telecoms were still in a state of flux, one of the women whose micro-businesses she had financed had turned out to be an extraordinary force in the newly emerging world of social media. This had inspired Blaze to set up a not-for-profit company which made small loans to help individuals start or grow a business. Grants started at £25 and increased to many thousands. The criterion for lending was based on the ethical standards of the start-ups. In only a few months she had funded a clean-water company in an African village and financed enough solar panels to bring light to a school in India. Part of her motivation was to use her skills for the greater benefit of humankind, but she was also keen to work in any area which never brought her into contact with Joshua Wolfe.