She should have wanted to murder him, but because she was honest enough to desire only to see the truth about herself, Hope knew that what she wanted was to kill not Alexander but herself; and such was her renewed despair, she well might have done so, had Letty not been there, and had she not known how much the other three still needed her.
In the succeeding days, when she was on her own, she found herself wringing her hands in an anguish of worry, or leaning back against a wall somewhere in the house or garden while Letty was resting, her arm flung back against her head as if warding off a blow, as if she was being attacked by someone or something. These were long, hard, cold, comfortless days, days made longer and harder by Alexander’s returning to London, leaving herself and Letty quite alone in the great echoing house.
Now just going outside in the early dark of winter took all Hope’s courage, and she found herself switching off the news on her radio, afraid that every reported murder would start to seem like something that might be about to happen to herself and Letty. She could not ask Mrs Shepherd who lived near to stay the night with her for Mrs Shepherd had her own family, and with Jack on tour there was nothing to relieve these dreary lonely days, the highlights of which were visiting Aunt Rosabel in hospital, or trying to contact Alexander in London, waiting all the time for some plan to suggest itself, some idea to come to her that would prove to be a solution to her difficulties.
It was in this frame of mind that, one bleak, dark night as Hatcombe’s rooms and corridors echoed to the sound of doors and windows creaking and mice in what sounded like leaden boots scrambled through the attics and between the floorboards, Hope found herself peering at two men standing outside Hatcombe’s unlocked double doors. Both were tall, brown-hatted and clothed in pale raincoats, and she knew at once just from the way they were dressed that they were total strangers to her, and so, cursing the fact that because she had been bathing Letty she had somehow forgotten to relock the doors after Mrs Shepherd had left them, Hope quickly crept off down the corridor in the opposite direction.
They, on the other hand, not receiving any answer to the old-fashioned bell that still rang somewhere in the cellar, started to rap repeatedly and, it seemed to Hope, a great deal too hard on the window glass of the upper doors. As the sound increased, Hope found herself trembling.
It was past seven o’clock, and dark, Letty was fast asleep after supper and a bath, Hatcombe was up a long drive, and she was all alone except for an old walking stick that had once belonged to Uncle Harold. As the men continued to rap, harder and harder, and her own heart seemed to be beating harder and faster in tune with the sound they were making, Hope picked up the stick from beside the downstairs cloakroom door and started to pray.
Chapter Ten
Jack must have had a premonition, or so it seemed to him afterwards, because, although he felt wiped out with fatigue, instead of driving back to the Mill House after a long hard tour of one-night stands – gigs in small market towns and large suburban areas with conference centres and small intimate theatres with audiences to match – he found himself turning his car towards Hatcombe, and Hope.
Of course the knowledge that she was alone with Letty, that the wretched Alexander was in London – and the fact that he had sensed a sort of despairing courage beneath the over-cheerful conversations that he and Hope had managed to snatch on the telephone – made his sudden change of mind seem logical, both at the time, and afterwards.
When he saw the car his heart sank. He knew just from its ordinariness, white and Japanese, that it could not belong to Alexander, the eternal car snob, and from its price range – well over fifteen grand – that it could not belong to a health visitor or a nanny, and so the thought came to him, and it burnt him up in a way that he would not have thought possible, that Hope was being unfaithful, not only to her husband, but to her lover too.
He would have liked to have jumped out of his own car and run towards Hatcombe, such was the irrational and furious jealousy that started to burn in him just at the sight of the car, but the wind and the rain had become so strong that he was forced to walk from his car in an unusually slow manner. His head bent, he did not run but struggled towards Hatcombe’s graceful old double doors with their glassed uppers and lower parts carved of a wood that would have come from trees that were already two hundred years old when they were cut.
The doors were both wide open, and there were chairs piled each upon the other in the hall as furniture is when people are moving and it is due at any minute to be removed, and when he walked through the doors he could hear Hope’s voice raised against a man’s. He slammed the doors shut loudly before running up the wide staircase to the upper room from where it seemed the voices had drifted down into the hall.
Hope turned as he came in and Jack was shocked to see that her face was paler than he had ever seen it before. Her eyes were two large dark circles in what looked like a tiny heart shape, and it seemed that she had lost pounds in weight while he had been away. The moment she saw him, her face started to colour and the dull look in her eyes was replaced by one of relieved disbelief, and she flung herself towards him.
‘Oh, Jack, these men, they’ve come to take everything, even Letty’s bed. They say even that must go, and we must find somewhere else at once!’
Jack turned as a great bruiser of a man accompanied by another smaller type passed down the corridor outside carrying pictures and other items under their arms.
‘They have a removal van coming to pack away all our stuff, everything, and they say they are from—’
‘We don’t say we are, miss – madam, we are from Elliots, Debt Recovery a speciality.’
Jack went straight to Hope and put his arms round her, and then turning to the now seemingly apologetic bruiser in the white raincoat he said in a deliberately tired but authoritative voice, as if he was well used to dealing with men like him, ‘Why don’t you get out? Really. Why don’t you just go now and we’ll sort it all out in the morning. Act like gentlemen, and let Mrs Merriott and her poor child alone, OK?’
‘Can’t, I’m afraid, sir. Nothing to be done. You see, sir, Mr Merriott—’ He saw at once from Jack’s reaction that he was no more Mr Merriott than he was himself, and so continued, ‘Well, the fact is that we have written to Mr Merriott many, many times, warning him, and his lawyers, you see, sir, and the truth is our clients have been more than patient. I mean they have, legally, owned this place now for some time. They have every right to have the stuff removed. And Mrs Merriott with it. Every right, I’m afraid, sir.’
Jack looked down at Hope and knew at once why she had been sounding so brave and so resolutely cheerful every time he had telephoned on tour. It was because she had, somehow – he would discover how later – in fact, lost everything.
And the terrible irony was that because of Hope, Jack, having long ago lost just his nerve when Dave had left him, had himself regained enough confidence to go on tour in the first place, a tour which had taken him away from Hope when she must have needed him most.
You should have told me, his eyes told her.
Never. This is my marriage, not yours, her eyes replied.
‘This does not look good for you, Mr Elliot, or whoever you are. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the legalities, this makes you look callous and brutal. You know that, don’t you? I mean to begin with you are trespassing—’
‘No such thing in English law, sir. And besides, this property has been bought by my clients, all legal and above board, and—’
‘Yeah, well, be that as it may. The fact is I have a great many friends in the press, and, while I perfectly understand that there is the law and there is the – er – law, breaking into people’s houses and molesting defenceless women on their own – not to mention trying to turn their children out of their beds – don’t look good. Possession may be ninety per cent of the law, but I’ll tell you what – the other one hundred and ten is the press.’
There was a small pause as Jack sta
red across at the bailiff, or whatever he was, or was not.
‘You remember all the headlines that have ruined people and businesses overnight? Hallo?’
As he was busy talking Jack had been equally busy keying his mobile phone, happily aware that his oldest journalist friend, an old school chum with jazz-loving tendencies, was still employed on Britain’s bestselling tabloid – much to his and everyone else’s surprise since, after twenty years attached to a bottle of Scotch, he could hardly spell sun, or moon, and all too often saw stars.
‘This is blackmail.’
‘I know, old love,’ Jack agreed, suddenly all affability. ‘And of course what you’re doing— Dee Dee – hallo. I say, is the boss with you? Oh, good.’
‘All right. We’ll go, but we’ll be back.’ The man turned and looked at Hope. ‘It’s only a matter of time, you know that, don’t you? The house does not belong to your husband’s family any more. And I happen to know that the old lady has agreed to go into a home. It’s all above board – you know that, I know that. It’s just a matter of time, Mrs Merriott, and you’d do best to make your plans immediately, for your own sake and that of your children. Really you would.’
To the sound of Jack’s long, and falsely flirtatious, conversation with Dee Dee, whoever she might be, the men went, and quite quickly.
Leaning over the banisters Hope could see that they had carefully and tidily left such furniture and pictures as they had been about to remove in the hall, and from an upstairs window she saw a removal van arriving and, after some consultation, departing. But even as she felt relief flooding her, and found herself running into Jack’s open arms, she knew that the burly man in the white raincoat had been right. It was only a matter of time before they would be back, and she had to make plans to leave Hatcombe, not soon, but tomorrow.
As it transpired Jack not only saved Hope from the bailiffs, but he saved Christmas. Had it not been for Jack the Merriotts would have had no Christmas at all. Jack was Santa Claus. Very different from Alexander who, when he arrived from London feigning ignorance of their situation, made his unhappiness perfectly clear to everyone, including the girls. And much as they fussed over him in an effort to cheer him, even his daughters realized that, perhaps because of his long absences from Hatcombe, Alexander was becoming increasingly distant.
His silence was a blessing to a Hope torn between Letty and the still hospitalized Aunt Rosabel, not to mention Jack and their future. She too was more silent than usual, not just because she was worried and frightened for them, but also because when she witnessed Alexander’s newly taciturn demeanour she could feel only relief. They had no time to come to an agreement about how to act, but she could see that even Alexander was aware that telling their daughters about the sale of Hatcombe would be anything but easy, and that he too must have come to the same conclusion as herself, namely that it would be much better to wait until after Christmas to break the news to them.
But the Merriott daughters were more perspicacious than their parents perhaps gave them credit for, and long before the great family day was upon them, or they had learned of the perilous nature of their mutual future, or indeed that they would not in all probability be returning to their school, their studies and their friends, they were voicing their worries to each other.
‘You don’t think Dads is ill, do you?’ Melinda asked Claire, as from their cosy eyrie in the barn they watched their father prowling around the grounds secretly smoking a cigarette before getting into his car and disappearing to some Wiltshire pub or restaurant.
‘No.’ Claire shook her head, while still watching the lights of the car disappearing down the drive. ‘I think he’s gone a bit mad. The worry of the builders all this time, and money, all that stuff. He’s probably having what Aunt Rosabel calls a nervous-breakdown-thing.’
‘You mean he’s losing it! Oh, God, not someone else!’ Rose threw herself dramatically backwards onto one of the old beds that were still in the barn and which now doubled as sofas. ‘Oh, God, all the adults are losing it!’
‘No, I don’t think he’s lost it.’ Melinda looked down at her tall, dark sister lying chewing the end of her hair on her bed. ‘No. I think he’s lost everything. All his money. Everything. That’s what I think.’
‘Dad’s always losing his money. He’ll get some more, really he will, Mellie. He always does. He’ll get some off Aunt Rosabel, just for starters.’
But Melinda looked so doubtful, and so worried, that Rose clambered off her bed and stared at her.
‘Come on, Mellie. Spill it. Are we broke again? We can’t be broke again?’
‘I heard Mums talking the other night, and – well, it didn’t sound good.’
‘I hope we aren’t broke,’ Rose said, pulling her heavy cardigan around her shoulders. ‘I’m quite enjoying school for once, and a change will not be as good as a rest. Not only that, but I’m not sure about going out to work plucking turkeys or something. Oh, Mellie, I don’t really want to be poor. Not really poor!’
‘I heard Mums say something about people coming in to take all the furniture and being sent off again. Bailiffs or something.’
‘But that doesn’t mean we’re broke. Goodness. That means – like once at West Dean Avenue when Dad forgot to pay some bill, it just means they come for their money and as long as you pay them it’s all right.’
Claire butted in, ‘Oh, we know all about that. I remember Mums telling me about that. It sounded quite funny – but Mellie says this was much worse! You said, didn’t you, Mellie, you said it was like Mums was suddenly losing the plot! All about Aunt Rosabel and the house, and stuff. Like she was going over the edge, you know, with the worry of it.’
Claire took off her glasses and whirled them in the air to take her mind off what she suspected, which was quite a lot, actually.
‘Get out.’ Rose’s face reflected her disbelief, as she stared from one sister to the other. ‘Mums and Aunt Rosabel get on like anything now, really they do, Mellie. Mums goes practically every day to see her. They’re fine, really. And I mean Mums doesn’t lose it. It’s like when they keep saying one of those lumps of rock from space is going to collide with us – Mums would be the only person who wouldn’t panic.’
‘She’d be too busy making sure we’d flossed our teeth!’
Claire, who had been pretending to read, now put her book down again and stared at the other two.
‘Seriously, you guys, we have to talk about this,’ Melinda said. ‘She was very tense, and I mean very very. And you know how it is, you can always tell with her, because her voice always goes all dead calm and flat.’
‘Yes, but now the builders are finished, surely there’s not much more to worry about?’
‘That was the point, apparently. From what I heard Dads paid the builders and Aunt Rosabel was meant to pay him, but she hasn’t – I couldn’t quite hear the rest, and Dads kept saying, you know the way he does, We’ve been over all this, Hope, what’s the point? We’ve been over all this before!’
‘Yes, but Mellie—’ Claire seized Melinda’s hand in an effort to get her sole attention. ‘What’s all this stuff about the house?’
‘As I said, it’s to do with Aunt Rosabel and, you know, who she’s left it to, and all that stuff. I don’t really understand these things.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t, Dobbin, not unless it’s got an open ditch in front of it.’
‘How can Aunt Rosabel change her mind? She worships Dads and loves Mums.’ Claire stared ahead of her, frowning, but Rose suddenly saw the point.
‘OK, but what would happen to us, I mean if she turns against us or whatever? We’d have nowhere to live, and if Dads paid the builders, after all they’ve done to the house—’
‘I expect she’d just pay them back, and we’d just have to buy another house, that’s all. Perhaps go back to West Dean.’
‘Yes, please!’
Rose turned and laughed with relief at Claire’s reaction. It was a private joke between them.
She knew that Claire had loved their old life as much as she had, and sometimes, in the summer, to tease Mellie, she and Claire would stand sniffing the air saying, ‘Oh good, I think I can just smell that gorgeous London smoke and grime from here. If the wind’s in the right direction and the London train’s going through – I think I just can.’
‘Actually, as a matter of fact sometimes I wish we had stayed in London. Life seems to have become awfully messed up down here, as if no-one really knows anything about anything, nor what they all really want to do. And we never see Dads.’
‘I suppose it would have been different if one of us had been a boy.’ Melinda looked rueful and sighed.
‘Why?’
‘Why? Because I heard Dads saying as much – to Mums. He said it not once but two or three times. He kept saying, If only we’d had a son, none of this would have happened!’
‘No-one listens to me! I seem to have spent my whole life offering to go for a sex change,’ Claire grumbled, but she smiled. ‘I mean. Since obviously I was meant to be a boy, of all of you I was the biggest let-down, wouldn’t you say? I mean of all of us I should be the one to go for a sex change, shouldn’t I? I saw it marked in the baby names book, I was meant to be called James. I know I was. Besides, you can get it done on the National Health, a girl at school told me, you know. You can, for free. I could be the first sex change to inherit, and then I could give it all back to you all, and Mums. And Dads, of course.’
Rose had not stopped watching Melinda and noting her restlessness as Claire rambled on, so now she said, suddenly serious, ‘Things are really going pear-shaped, aren’t they, Mellie? I mean really, really pear-shaped. We should never have moved, should we?’
‘Too late for that, Rose. We have moved and we’re here, and now we just have to make something happen that will help us all. We have to kick on.’
Rose looked at Claire and raised her eyes to heaven and gave a small whinny before saying, ‘OK, Dobbin!’
Love Song Page 20
