A House to Mend a Broken Heart

by Sherlock, Alison

  ‘What do you mean?’ replied Annie, staring around as if the ramshackle state of the place was nothing new.

  He shook his head, trying to free his mind of so many memories. Playing snooker with his Dad. Hide and seek with Will amongst all the furniture. His grandmother fixing another vase of roses fresh from the garden on the small table in the entrance hall. The many drinks parties Rose had hosted. These were all memories that he had cherished, warm and loving thoughts to cling onto. Before his parents’ accident had changed everything, of course.

  He felt an overwhelming sense of sadness at the huge changes that had taken place. That things could never be as they had been in the past.

  Something else was bugging him too. There were quite a few gaps on the walls, bright squares of wallpaper amongst the fading remainder, where some kind of art had obviously been hung for many years but was now missing.

  ‘What’s happened to the paintings?’ he asked, turning to look at Annie. He wondered whether it was possible that she had been stealing. Was that why she was hanging around the place? Why else would a young woman like her choose to be stuck in a house like this?

  She sighed. ‘I think they’ve been sold.’

  ‘Why?’

  She laughed but it was without humour. ‘Why do you think?’

  Was it possible that his grandfather had money problems? Come to think of it, how much money did a vast house like Willow Tree Hall need to run? He had never even stopped to consider the subject before that moment.

  His mind was racing with endless answers and none of them were positive. He made a mental reminder to call his brother. Surely Will had seen how bad things had become? But he knew that offloading the guilt onto his younger brother wasn’t an option either. Some of the blame had to lay with himself.

  Back in the entrance hall, Sam followed Annie towards the grand staircase. Presumably she was being paid a wage despite the cash-flow problems. He wondered whether she was actually being vastly overpaid for very little work. Was that why she stayed on? Was his grandfather an easy touch for money? This seemed quite obvious given that the house was in such disrepair, something it had never been when Mrs Briggs had been the housekeeper.

  He found himself wondering about her past.

  ‘Where did you train to be a housekeeper?’ he asked.

  But instead of answering, she lost her footing on the wooden floor and staggered towards him. For a brief moment, he held her against him and then straightened them both up. Her face was now so near to his that he could see the deep emerald of her green eyes, framed by thick dark lashes.

  Feeling unexpectedly unnerved by holding her so close, he quickly let go of her.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, realising she looked upset as she stared down to the floor. He followed her gaze and saw a small puddle of water that had gathered at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘It happens every time it rains,’ she said, in a hushed tone. ‘That’s how your grandfather slipped over this morning.’

  Sam automatically lifted his head up to the ceiling, high above the double-height stairwell to the eaves of the roof. He could actually see the darkening sky peeping through a couple of gaps in the ceiling. Was the house actually coming apart at the seams?

  ‘I’ll get it fixed,’ he found himself saying.

  Of course, he had no intention of taking over the running of Willow Tree Hall but he couldn’t leave the place like this. It was unsafe and not fit for habitation especially for his frail grandfather and aunt. He had a care of duty to them all despite their differences.

  Sidestepping the puddle, they made their way upstairs now, the magnificent oak banister wobbling as soon as he touched it. If he and Will had tried to ride down it now, as they had done so many years ago as children, the whole thing would collapse under their weight.

  In the upper east wing, two of the five bedrooms were just as dusty and worn as the downstairs rooms, largely from lack of use. The bathrooms weren’t much better. He didn’t think anyone had used them for years.

  At the end of the corridor, they arrived at the master bedroom which Arthur still used. It was a large room with dual aspect. It was also the only bedroom in the wing that appeared relatively clean, albeit still shabby and faded. A huge, heavy-looking four-poster bed stood in the middle, overpowering everything else. It had been in there ever since he could remember.

  Something touched deep inside his heart as he saw the photo of his grandmother on the small table next to the bed. What would she have made of the deterioration of her beloved home? She had adored Willow Tree Hall and it had always felt cosy and warm when she had been alive. There was nothing cosy or warm about the place now though.

  The bedroom next door belonged to Rose and it also had signs that it was lived in, piled high with magazines, hats and brightly coloured scarves. Not that she was wearing anything like her normal fashion that day.

  Across in the upper west wing, were more bleak bedrooms and even grimmer bathrooms. Had he really slept in rooms like this in his childhood years? He couldn’t remember it being this bad way back then. He hadn’t stayed over last Christmas, thanks to his hectic schedule. He had argued with his grandfather and had walked out anyway. Had he even gone upstairs? He couldn’t remember.

  On the landing, he glanced over at the small stairwell tucked away in the back of the house that led up to the modest staff quarters upstairs. He had never been up those stairs. Whilst Mrs Briggs had lived there, it had been an unspoken rule to protect her privacy. He glanced at Annie who was still stiff and unresponsive to him.

  He was just wondering whether he was actually brave enough to investigate the state of the staff quarters further when he saw lights appearing down the driveway.

  ‘That’ll be the man to fix my car,’ he said, relieved to be able to rush downstairs and away from the disheartening state of the inside of the house. It was breaking his heart to see it in such a state.

  But the mechanic took one look at the broken suspension and wheel hanging off before shaking his head. ‘There’s nothing I can do with this,’ he told Sam. ‘It needs at least a week in a proper garage to get that fixed. Mind you, I nearly lost the suspension on my own van coming down that driveway. Wish you could have warned me about the state of it.’

  Sam watched the man leave soon afterwards before making up his mind. He would just go inside, have a quick cup of tea with his aunt and then order a taxi. It didn’t matter that London was fifty miles away. He could more than afford the fare. The car could be towed away at a later stage and that would be the end of it.

  He felt an almost desperate need to rush away from the house and yet he was so mixed up. He had braced himself for the place to be as stuck in the past as his grandfather was and yet it was all so strange because he barely recognised the place. Time had moved on. Maybe he could persuade his family to do the same. After all, there was nothing to keep them here now, was there?

  Chapter 5

  Annie carried two cups of tea across the middle of the kitchen to the large pine table.

  Rose looked up from the rickety wooden chair that she normally favoured as it was next to the Aga and therefore the most warm. Her normally cheery face was pale and drawn. For once, she looked every one of her seventy years. ‘Poor Arthur,’ she said. The tears in her eyes threatened to spill down her cheeks.

  Annie reached out to squeeze Rose’s hand as she sat down next to her. ‘He’ll be OK,’ she said, trying to reassure them both.

  Her phone was staying worryingly quiet. She was desperate to hear any kind of news from the hospital as to how his operation had gone.

  ‘Of course he will,’ said Rose, clasping Annie’s hand with hers. ‘My brother is made of tough stuff.’

  The large ornate rings on her fingers glittered under the overhead light as she took a sip of tea. Normally Rose favoured strings of pearls or elaborate ropes of gold and silver, but not that day. Apparently, she had barely bothered to get dressed after they had left in the ambulance.<
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  ‘I remember one evening he cracked a rib jumping off one of the shelves in the library,’ said Rose, smiling in memory. ‘He’d had far too many whiskies. He never was a big drinker, of course. He was still able to get up the following day and score the winning runs for the local cricket match.’

  Annie thought that if anyone tried to climb up the bookshelves in the library these days, the whole wall would collapse on them.

  ‘You should have seen the parties back then,’ carried on Rose, her eyes misty. ‘The ballroom was full of attractive men. They looked so smart in their dinner jackets. And as for in here! Well, this whole kitchen was packed with staff. I can see it as clear as if it were only yesterday. The steam rising from the pots cooking on the range. The clatter of plates as the food was prepared. The chatter amongst all the staff coming and going.’

  The kitchen was certainly no longer the beating heart of the house that it sounded like it had been. Nowadays it was so quiet; Annie could hear the Aga in front of them wheezing as it tried to keep any kind of temperature.

  ‘Upstairs was always kept serene and calm,’ said Rose. ‘Butlers whispered. Maids crept in and out to light the fires. Everyone was rarely seen and most definitely never heard.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘I always preferred it down here, to be honest. Got in trouble so many times when I was young, sneaking down to flirt with the footmen.’

  Annie smiled. From what she had been told, Rose had always enjoyed the attention of the opposite sex, which had led to four marriages and a dazzling collection of jewellery from the many lovers that she had met, as she had travelled around the globe with her high-flying career in fashion. From Paris to Milan and then New York, she had led a rich and colourful life. But since Annie had known her, Rose had been relatively quiet. Only the odd glimmer of humour brought her to life.

  ‘Mind you,’ carried on Rose. ‘The boys were often down here as well, sneaking extra pieces of cake and biscuits from the cook.’

  ‘I’m not sure you can call them boys when they’re, what, early thirties now?’ said Annie.

  Rose smiled. ‘They’ll always be boys to me, Samuel and William. Oh, I can see them now, racing around the place when they were young. So much laughter. So much noise and life. Mind, you, they were still the same even when they were older and brought all their friends home from school during the holidays. Noisy football matches out on the lawn. The kitchen rammed full with young men drinking Coca-Cola and eating pizza. But that was before that wretched drink-driver changed everything.’ Rose’s voice trailed off as she fiddled with her rings, deep in thought.

  Annie had understood that Arthur’s son Edward and his wife Isabel had been killed in a car accident but she had never liked to ask under what circumstances for fear of upsetting anyone. It was utterly heartbreaking for the whole family. The boys had suddenly lost their parents. Arthur and Beatrice had lost their son and daughter-in-law.

  ‘Beatrice never recovered from losing her only child,’ said Rose, still thinking of the past. ‘I think that’s why the wretched disease took hold so quickly.’

  Annie knew that it had taken the loss of her sister-in-law from cancer to bring Rose back home from her travels to the peace and quiet of Willow Tree Hall. As the younger sister, she would never inherit the estate from Arthur. That always went to the first-born son of the next generation. However, she had been company for her brother for the past few years and helped him in his grief, even though they sometimes drove each other mad with their opposite views on life.

  ‘Arthur never made plans to hire any more staff?’ asked Annie, gently trying to move Rose on from her gloom.

  Rose looked around the empty kitchen before shaking her head. ‘What was the point? There were no parties anymore to cater for and there was only the two of us and after all money doesn’t grow on trees. Once Mr Jefferies the butler retired, we just had Beryl and Mrs Briggs for company.’

  Beryl the cook had recently retired as her arthritis had worsened and the last housekeeper had emigrated to Spain to live with her daughter.

  Rose gave Annie a smile. ‘Besides, we have you, which is far more important.’ She leant forward and squeezed Annie’s hand once more.

  And that was the most unexpected thing that Annie had discovered. She hadn’t expected to be needed when she took the job. After all, it was only supposed to be a temporary position. A stopgap before moving on.

  She hadn’t expected to be wanted. Nobody had wanted her around for such a long time. Except Megan and Eleanor, her oldest friends from school. But even Eleanor had moved on to pursue her career in London, leaving only Megan behind in the village.

  But Arthur and Rose wanted her. Needed her. Had asked her to stay.

  And so for the first time in a very long time, she belonged somewhere.

  *

  Standing in the doorway, Sam watched Annie with a sigh. Who was this mystery woman that had become so entrenched in his family’s lives? And if she was a proper housekeeper, why was the place in such a mess?

  His mind was racing as he tried to think back. Had the house always been this old-fashioned? Yes. Had it been in such a bad condition? Probably, he had to admit. Although not in the complete state of disrepair that it now appeared to be. Perhaps he had chosen to ignore it; like the rest of his family, he was beginning to realise.

  He glanced around the large kitchen which was also in desperate need of modernisation. The stove was ancient, the cupboards looked ready to collapse onto the floor at any time and the sink had huge cracks in it. The tiles on the floors were damaged and there were gaping holes everywhere. It was yet another cold and draughty room, so it was no surprise that his aunt and Annie were huddled in front of the Aga despite it being September. How cold would the place become in the middle of winter?

  With a deep breath, he wandered over to where they sat.

  Rose looked up at him, about to speak, when instead, she frowned at his pained expression. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Is it Arthur?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Still no news. But I really can’t believe the state of the place,’ he told her. ‘Did we go bankrupt and nobody told me?’

  Rose shrugged her shoulders as if it didn’t matter. ‘It’s all right,’ she replied. ‘We’re just broke, dear, not broken.’

  Sam fought to retain his temper. ‘Why on earth didn’t anyone phone me? Or Will? Because I bet he doesn’t realise it’s this bad either.’

  ‘We manage just fine, and you boys need to live your own lives.’ Rose’s tone was defensive. ‘We didn’t want to worry you.’

  ‘We could have helped before it got this bad!’ he said, his voice rising in frustration. ‘Before Grandad ended up in hospital!’

  His temper evaporated as Rose’s bottom lip quivered and tears formed in her eyes.

  He felt Annie turn her head to glare at him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, crouching down next to his aunt’s chair and drawing her into a warm hug. ‘I shouldn’t be upsetting you even further. I’m just frustrated at how bad things have got around here.’

  She gave him a teary smile. ‘You don’t get to my age without learning a thing or two. And I know that money doesn’t matter.’

  ‘That’s fine when you’re not living in a house that’s disintegrating around your ears,’ he told her, trying to keep his tone gentle.

  Rose sighed and stood up. ‘I think I need a sherry,’ she announced.

  ‘Do you feel all right?’ asked Annie, also standing up.

  ‘I’m just wrung out, love.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ said Sam, squeezing her arm and feeling guilty at his earlier harsh tone.

  His aunt shook her head. ‘It’s not that. It’s been a long day and I need to know Arthur’s OK. I’ll be in the Drawing Room in front of the fire if you hear anything,’ said Rose, before walking slowly out of the room.

  Annie walked over to the sink and began to wash up the teacups. He could feel her silent disapproval of him and it hit a nerve.
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  Finally, now that Rose had left them, he felt able to voice the anger he had been bottling up. ‘Why the hell has the whole place been allowed to get in this state?’ he found himself blurting out.

  Annie spun around, flinging the dishcloth she had been holding onto the side. ‘What do you suggest?’ she snapped. ‘Your elderly grandfather going around with some heavy power tools and doing some DIY? Maybe he could have climbed up onto the roof to repair it himself’

  Her sarcasm irritated him. ‘There must have been someone else who could help out around here?’ he said, glaring at her.

  ‘You mean apart from members of his own family?’ she replied, in a mocking tone.

  The jibe hit home and he was ready to reply when she beat him to it.

  ‘Well, let me see,’ said Annie. ‘Apart from your aunt, there was Beryl, the cook. She’s quite spritely for a sixty-five-year-old but retired now, of course, though perhaps she could do a bit of plastering in her spare time.’

  ‘Look,’ he began but she cut him off once more.

  ‘Then there’s the gardener. Bert’s only in his early seventies yet he’s still tending the vegetable patch. But perhaps he should really have pulled his weight a bit more, despite his recent heart scare and bad back.’

  ‘What about a butler?’ said Sam, finally managing to interrupt her. ‘An estate manager?’

  She sighed loudly and shook her head. ‘I think most people expect to receive wages if they’re to be employed.’

  So there really wasn’t any money, he realised. Which made it even more suggestive as to why she stayed on.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked, moving across the kitchen towards her. ‘What about your wages?’

  ‘I’m not most people,’ she said, her eyes narrowing at him. ‘And it gives me a roof over my head.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s all it is?’

  She looked confused. ‘What are you talking about?’