‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you.’ Rona lowered her voice slightly as Louise moved nearer. ‘Could you come round for a few minutes?’
‘Well, I . . .’ Louise looked about her, as though seeking an excuse.
‘For a glass of wine, perhaps?’
‘I don’t really—’
Inspiration suddenly came. ‘I’ve something to tell you.’
Louise looked up at her for a long minute, before nodding and going into the house.
Rona ran downstairs, and had the front door open by the time she turned in the gateway. She still had an oddly detached air about her, but her skin was faintly sun-burned, contrasting with the whiteness of their first meeting. She dropped the cigarette she was holding on to the path, and ground it out before coming into the house.
‘How are things?’ Rona asked her, gesturing her towards the sitting room.
‘Much as before.’ Louise paused on the threshold. ‘What a lovely room! I can’t believe this house is the same as ours!’
‘We knocked down dividing walls,’ Rona said. ‘On three floors, actually. Now, sit down and I’ll get the wine.’
When she returned with a chilled bottle and two glasses, Louise was studying the paintings on the wall.
‘Are these your husband’s?’ she asked. ‘He’s an artist, isn’t he?’
‘He’s an artist, and they’re his paintings in that he chose them, but he didn’t paint them. He doesn’t like displaying his own work, and most of it is commissioned anyway, or else sells pretty quickly. We have one in our bedroom, but that’s all.’
‘It must be wonderful to have a gift like that.’
She sat down and took the glass Rona offered her. ‘Is he home? I wouldn’t want to intrude.’
‘No, he won’t be back tonight.’
‘He’s away?’ Louise seemed surprised. ‘I thought I saw him in town at lunchtime.’
Rona sighed; yet again an explanation was called for. ‘He’s not away, but he has a studio nearby, and when he has evening classes, he sleeps over. It’s easier that way.’
Louise didn’t look convinced, and Rona expanded her explanation. ‘When we both worked from home, it was like Jack Spratt and his wife. Max likes to listen to music at full volume while he paints; I need complete quiet when I write. Then there were students and sitters always coming round, and as the studio’s on the top floor, I was the one who had to keep breaking off what I was doing to let them in.’
She raised her shoulders in a shrug of resignation. ‘So, in the interests of preserving our marriage, we bought the cottage, where he can make as much noise as he likes. And, as I said, on the evenings he teaches – three times a week – he stays over there.’
Louise offered no comment. Instead, abandoning the subject, she said, ‘You have something to tell me?’
‘Yes, but first, I was wondering if you’d been able to find out anything about your earlier life?’
The other woman’s fingers tightened on the glass. ‘I said too much the other day; please forget it.’
Rona ignored that. ‘You were going to try the Internet?’
‘I didn’t have any luck,’ Louise said briefly.
‘The records weren’t there? I thought—’
‘Oh, I found the right website. I’d asked my parents – casually, of course – the date of our wedding, and presumed it would have taken place where we’d lived, but I drew a complete blank. So then I tried dates before and after, but still with no luck. There was absolutely no record of either Louise Franks or Kevin Stacey, under either marriage or divorce.’
Rona sipped her wine, her mind racing. ‘What about your birth certificate?’
Louise shook her head, not meeting her eyes.
‘A blank there, too?’
‘I didn’t look,’ Louise said in a low voice.
‘But why not? If you could—’
Louise flung her head back, making Rona jump. ‘Don’t you see, Rona? I’m frightened to look for it! If there’s no record of that either, it might mean—’
‘Mean what?’ Rona prompted, when she didn’t go on.
‘That I don’t exist,’ Louise said in a whisper.
Rona leant forward quickly and put a hand on hers. ‘That’s nonsense, and you know it.’ She paused. ‘Haven’t your parents got a copy?’
‘It was conveniently lost in the fire, along with everything else. So – what did you want to tell me?’
Rona reflected a moment. Did she really want to become further embroiled in this? Her momentary inspiration of a few minutes ago now seemed the height of foolishness.
‘Well?’ Louise demanded impatiently.
Rona took the plunge. ‘I’m going up to Harrogate on Thursday.’
Louise stared at her speechlessly.
‘It’s to do with the research I’m working on, but I wondered if, while I’m there, you’d like me to have a look round, see if I can find out anything?’
A smile flooded Louise’s face, totally altering her appearance. ‘Oh, Rona, would you? That would be wonderful.’
‘I can look in the electoral registers – I did that for one of my other projects – but I’d need to know the road you lived in. The records are arranged by districts, not by names.’
She looked at Louise expectantly, but her momentary joy had faded, to be replaced by doubt. ‘I’d have to ask them, and give some sort of reason for doing so.’
‘Surely you can think of something; say you’re trying to exercise your memory.’
They were interrupted by the phone ringing in the hall, and immediately Louise stood up, setting her half-empty glass on the coffee table.
‘I won’t keep you,’ she said quickly. ‘Obviously, I’d be very grateful for anything you can find out in Harrogate. Thursday, you said? I’ll do my best to get the address before you go.’
And before Rona had time to do more than nod, Louise had preceded her into the hall, and disappeared out of the front door. An abrupt end to the conversation, Rona reflected as she picked up the phone, but at least she’d made the offer. And really, if Louise chose to ignore it, so much the better.
‘Hi there, honey-bun.’ It was her father.
‘Hello, Pops.’ Rona struggled to detach her thoughts from Louise. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine, but it seems a while since we touched base. Not since your birthday, in fact.’
‘Oh, Pops, I’m sorry. Time seems to rush past. You’ll be pleased to hear I’ve started work again.’
‘That’s splendid. Who have you got under the knife this time?’
She laughed protestingly. ‘I’m not that bad! Actually, it’s the Willow family.’
‘Ah! The descendants of the barrow-boy!’ It was a well-known Marsborough legend.
‘Not to mention the landed gentry.’
‘Oh, yes; there’s a title there somewhere, isn’t there?’
‘Indeed there is, and to make sure it’s not overlooked, I have to go up to Harrogate on Thursday, to interview them.’
‘Really? I’d have thought any family links would be lost in the sands of time.’
‘They are, to everyone except Julian Willow, who’s clinging to them by his fingernails.’
‘You’ll be back by the weekend, though? Catherine and I were hoping you, Max and Lindsey could join us for Sunday lunch.’
‘I can’t speak for Linz, but as far as I know, Max and I are free, and we’d love to come.’
‘Catherine’s inviting her family, too, so it will be quite a gathering.’
The baby-worship session Lindsey was dreading.
‘That’ll be good; I look forward to seeing Daniel and Jenny again. And little Alice, of course.’
‘Twelve thirty at Catherine’s, then, unless I hear from you. We can catch up then.’
He rang off, and Rona, her intentions of note-making going by the board, went back into the sitting room, where her eyes instantly fell on Louise’s half-full glass. She stood looking at it for a moment, th
en, with a sigh, poured more wine into her own, and turned on the television.
Eight
Julian had made the appointment for her, and although the Roxfords wouldn’t be free to see her till four, Rona decided to make an early start, to give herself a chance to look round before meeting the family. She’d learned that the house was open to the public, which seemed an ideal way of gleaning some background information.
It was a humid, hazy day, with no direct sunshine to make driving difficult. The traffic was fairly light, and she made good time. She stopped somewhere on the Yorkshire borders for a sandwich, and reached the village of Ottersby at one thirty. By her reckoning, it was roughly ten miles north of Harrogate, and some two miles from Roxford Hall.
Having registered at the Roxford Arms and been shown to her room, she changed from her casual travelling clothes into a dress she felt more suitable for interviewing a lord and lady, and, on returning downstairs, asked the friendly landlady for directions to the Hall.
‘You can’t miss it, love,’ she was told, in a comfortable Yorkshire accent. ‘Straight up the road out of the village, and after a mile you’ll see the walls of the estate. The gates are a mile or two further on.’
She looked at the clock above the bar. ‘They don’t open till two, but it’ll be after that by the time you get there.’
Rona, who’d no intention of admitting she’d be interviewing the owners, thanked her and went back to the car. This was a lovely spot, she thought, looking about her, and Max would have had difficulty choosing which aspect to paint, had he been able to accompany her. Rolling moorland stretched away on either side, and the baaing of sheep reached her on the still air. Momentarily, she wished Gus was here, and they could have set off together to explore this new terrain. Another time, perhaps, but this trip was strictly business, and she had work to do.
With a sigh, she got back in the car and set off up the road towards the Hall. As she’d been told, high grey stone walls soon appeared on her left, running alongside the road for a couple of miles before they were broken by a pair of wrought-iron gates which, to her relief, stood open.
Rona turned into them and followed a winding drive between copper beech trees until the house came into view, a large, rambling stone building with an impressive tower at one end. A signpost directed her to the right, in the direction of the car park, where a kiosk guarded its entrance.
‘House and gardens, or gardens only?’ she was asked.
‘Both, please.’ She handed over her money, was given a ticket and a plan of the gardens in exchange, and directed to a place in the car park, which was already filling up. As she got out, she realized to her annoyance that since she wouldn’t be returning to the car till after the interview, she’d have to take her briefcase with her.
Feeling slightly overdressed in this rural setting, Rona set off along the gravel path, following the groups of twos and threes who were heading in the same direction. As they approached the house, they were being shepherded together by an efficient-looking woman with a clipboard.
‘I’d like to tell you a few facts about the house before you go in,’ she was saying, as Rona joined the fringes of the group. ‘It was built in 1560 by Sir Jasper Harris for the first Lord Roxford, and the same family have lived here ever since. It’s still a family home, and the private apartments are in the east wing.’
She moved on to architectural details of the exterior, including the tower, the windows, and the motto carved over the main door, and the small group obediently looked upwards, to the right or to the left, attempting to follow the various points described.
‘The Great Hall might look familiar,’ the guide continued, ‘as it’s been used as the background to several recent films and television adaptations. A notable feature of the house is the superb wood carving throughout, particularly on the front of the minstrel gallery, the door lintels and fireplace surrounds, some of which is attributed to Grinling Gibbons.’
The woman smiled as she looked round the group. ‘You won’t be surprised to hear Queen Elizabeth the First visited Roxford on several occasions, and the room still known as the Queen’s Bedchamber contains the four-poster in which she slept.
‘There are fine collections of porcelain, furniture and portraits, to which succeeding generations have contributed, and the wedding dress of Lady Georgina Roxford, wife of the fourth Earl, is on display in one of the bedrooms. So, ladies and gentlemen, you are now free to take your time going through the house. There are attendants in every room, and they’ll be happy to answer any queries you might have. It only remains for me to say that snacks and afternoon teas are served in the old tithe barn, which you’ll find signposted when you leave the house.’
She nodded at them in benign dismissal. ‘Enjoy your visit.’
Rona followed the slow-moving group up the steps and into a marble-floored lobby, where they were required to show their admission tickets. A smiling attendant held out her hand for Rona’s briefcase.
‘We ask visitors to leave umbrellas and larger items in our lobby room,’ she explained, and Rona was relieved rather than otherwise not to have to carry it around with her.
The first room they came to was the Great Hall, which was approached under an ornate marble archway, guarded on the right by the statue of a young girl leading a goose. The large space was taken up by grouped furniture, several sets of brocaded sofas and chairs, with notices requesting that no one sit on them. There were occasional tables bearing ornaments and bric-a-brac, a magnificent inlaid bureau about six feet high, and a pair of cabinets displaying collections of what Rona guessed to be Meissen china. A minstrels’ gallery ran along one end, and a huge marble fireplace had pride of place on the opposite wall.
To her surprise, no areas were roped off, and visitors were free to walk round at their own pace, to look at whatever interested them. She moved through another archway to find herself in the library, whose walls were completely covered by bookcases packed with books that, by their shabby condition, looked to be well-read. She glanced at some of the titles and found a widely varying taste, from Tolstoy, Pushkin and the complete works of Shakespeare, to journals on agriculture, science and religion. A large desk stood under the window, bearing a silver inkwell and leather blotter and pen-holder.
The dining room, a superbly panelled room displaying the carving they’d been told to look out for, contained a long table fully laid for a banquet, with exquisite glass and silver. By contrast, the walls of the drawing room were hung with several large portraits, presumably of ancestors and, from their modes of dress, from different periods of the family’s history. Many of the men were in uniform, and Rona guessed it had been a family tradition to serve in the armed forces.
A lady in one of the portraits looked familiar, and she stopped to look more closely, just as a woman behind her asked the room attendant who the sitter was.
‘Oh, that’s Lady Araminta,’ she was informed. ‘You might say she’s the black sheep of the family. She ran away to marry a carpenter.’
‘What happened to her?’ the visitor asked curiously.
‘Fortunately, it turned out to be a happy marriage, and though there’s no record of it, we believe she and the family were eventually reconciled, because she was left a small legacy in her father’s will.’
That was news to Rona, and she stored it gratefully away. She continued her walk round the room, finding that the old portraits on the walls were counterbalanced by photographs of the present family, on the piano and on side tables dotted about the room. She examined them with interest. There were several of the younger generation, mostly taken outdoors, including one of the daughter – presumably Miranda – on horseback, a copper-haired girl laughing at the camera. Studying it, Rona fancied she could see a resemblance to her Titian-haired ancestress. In another picture, Miranda was standing between her two brothers, one seeming older and one younger than herself, cheerfully grinning young men in open-necked sports shirts.
A more form
al photograph was of Lord and Lady Roxford, presumably commemorating some event, since Roxford was in his robes, and his wife in evening dress, complete with elbow-length gloves and, Rona was delighted to note, a diamond tiara.
She followed the now steady stream of visitors up a magnificent staircase and through the various bedrooms, including the one with the wedding dress on display, and that in which Queen Elizabeth I had reputedly slept. And in glass cabinets along the corridors were displayed collections of porcelain of varying manufacture, of snuff boxes, of miniatures, even of shells.
And as she walked, steeped in family history going back over 400 years, Rona couldn’t help wondering what the present Roxfords had made of their only daughter’s association with Dominic Frayne. Though unlikely to have taken such drastic action as their forebears, it was doubtful they would have welcomed the alliance.
After descending to the basement and wandering through the maze of kitchens, still-rooms and dairies, Rona collected her briefcase from the foyer and emerged in need of a supplement to her meagre lunch. She made her way to the tithe barn, where she was able to enjoy a pot of tea and two warm scones topped with strawberry jam and clotted cream.
It was now after three thirty, and she took the opportunity of a last glance at the notes she’d made ready for the now imminent interview. And she wondered, with a touch of apprehension, whether the Roxfords, with their illustrious past, would be happy to feature in the annals of the Willow family history.
She had been told to make her way to a private entrance in the east wing, and this she now did, pressing the bell and hearing it clang portentously inside. The door was opened by a young woman in tailored blouse and skirt.
‘Good afternoon. I’m Rona Parish, and I have an—’
‘Please come in, Miss Parish. Lady Roxford is expecting you.’
The hall, like the lobby in the main house, was chequered in white and honey-coloured marble. Though on a smaller scale, it was beautifully proportioned, and a graceful staircase led up to a gallery that circled the hall and off which the bedrooms presumably led.
Next Door to Murder Page 11
