The Dream House

by Rachel Hore

  The white-washed scullery was much as it must have been when it was newly built. There were two huge stone sinks on one side, with a wooden draining board that looked as though it had been scrubbed down by generations of skivvies. As a concession to the times, a washing machine and a chest freezer were both plugged into the single old socket.

  The kitchen was a hotchpotch of elderly wooden cabinets and more recent Formica-ed surfaces. There was a stainless-steel sink under the windows where Kate had climbed in that first time, a bright new fridge-freezer and a modern Rayburn in the original fireplace. The vinyl floor and the surfaces were clean, but anyone coming into this house would want to throw most of it out and install something state-of-the-art. There was a particular Smallbone farmhouse-style kitchen Kate had been looking at in a magazine last week . . . No, she told herself, don’t even think about it. This house was beyond their means. Not with, what – eight bedrooms? she reckoned. And two acres of land? And all the fittings required to bring it up to the standard of a comfortable family home.

  She hurried along a little corridor, past the closed door of the dining room and into the hall. There she stood looking round, remembering that perfect spring evening three months ago, when she’d found Agnes at the bottom of the staircase. The hall didn’t get the sun till later. She stared around in the half-gloom, noticing all the things she’d failed to see then – the carved oak hallstand, adorned with a jumble of ancient hats, coats and umbrellas, the clutter of ornaments on a matching chest, blue and white china in a mahogany display cabinet, a Romanesque bust wearing a feathered cavalier’s hat on a pedestal, Turkish rugs . . . The panelling was festooned with English eighteenth-century landscape paintings and a large still-life of some long-dead squire’s bloody trophies of a day in the field.

  A door at the back of the hall clicked open loudly in the draught, making Kate jump. She moved towards the room and, struck by a sudden whiff of beeswax, was propelled back into her dream. Here must be the drawing room. She pushed open the door and peered round. Yes. The faded blue chairs, now threadbare, the chaise longue, the huge carved mantel, she recognized. But the room was crowded with furniture she hadn’t seen before; the grand piano of her dream had been pushed into the far corner and was joined by a harpsichord and a spinet. A gilt console table bore a huge Gothic-arched church tabernacle, guarded by little statues of saints. Along the right-hand wall were ranged several museum cases with felt covers. Feeling she was trespassing now, Kate tiptoed over and lifted the felt. Underneath was Agnes’s collection of miniatures – vivid personalities as bright as when they were painted, glowing at her across the centuries. She thought she identified the damaged picture of the lady in the blue dress that had inspired Agnes’s passion for them.

  Hearing Shelley’s cooing voice in the hall, Kate dropped the felt and hurried out, pulling the door shut behind her. Again, she remembered the dream, where she’d followed the maid. The maid! Her mother had commented on there being a maid, even after the war. How strange to be standing here, where her mother had stood so many years before!

  In the library, she found Dan at the window stirring the contents of a paint pot. Shelley was deep in some private game, rolling from side to side on a little sofa.

  ‘I’ll just get the papers then I’ll be off,’ Kate said. She piled the Domesday volumes on the floor, and it was the work of a moment to retrieve the diaries and the brown envelope from the safe.

  ‘Are you going up to see Agnes again soon?’ Dan asked, looking up from his painting.

  ‘Maybe later in the week,’ said Kate. ‘I don’t know when I’ll see you.’ She was still feeling prickly about the girlfriend. ‘But I’ll let you know about these . . .’ She waved the packages. ‘Bye, Shelley.’ The child looked up from her rolling and smiled.

  I must just walk away now, Kate told herself as she left by the back door. Even though I may never see this place again. And she stashed her papers in the boot, got into the car and drove down through the gates without another look.

  When she got home, Joyce hadn’t returned, but the answer-phone light was flashing. There were two messages, one from a mail-order firm telling Joyce some plants she’d ordered were now in stock. The other was from her father.

  Hrrrmm. Kate. Dad here. Just to say we’re fine. Er. You won’t find us in today, of course. We’re off to Sevenoaks, as usual. Meeting your aunt Maggie for tea at some National Trust place, and back this evening. Our love to everybody. Bye.

  Sevenoaks! She’d forgotten the date for the first time ever! It was the anniversary of Nicola’s death. Her parents always went to put flowers on the grave. And Kate hadn’t thought what the date was for days, what with everything else that was going on. They would think she didn’t care. She sat down on the stairs, her face in her hands. It was nineteen years ago today. She hadn’t gone to the grave herself very often over those years. It was partly because she hated going with her parents – couldn’t stand the grim atmosphere, the fact that they couldn’t speak their grief. But she’d always phoned them first thing on some pretext or other. And today, she’d forgotten.

  She leaned her head against the newel post and let her mind slip back to nineteen years ago. But instead of imagining, as she usually did, the horror of the crash itself, she was given a gift – a vision of Nicola at a party, the night before she died, in her dress of midnight blue that sparkled with sequins at the hem and the neck, her dark curls gathered in a topknot. Laughing as she danced or chattered, a centre of attention wherever she went in their schoolfriend’s lovely manor house deep in the Surrey woods. And Kate felt a rush of longing, of loss.

  She had always remembered that party as one of those nightmares of teenage misery, and not just because of the tragedy that followed. A boy called Pete, the glamorous wild boy of Nicola’s year, was there. Kate had fancied him like mad for ages, but had lived in terror of anyone knowing – until Nicola had wormed it out of her. But it was Nicola whom Pete had chatted up that evening, getting her drinks, asking her to dance. Kate, awkward in a dress she had really grown out of, had trailed about feeling miserable. At the same time, she was painfully aware that Nicky was trying to help; her sister kept calling Kate over to speak to Pete, said that she herself was tired, so would he dance with Kate instead? Kate, her sister’s very glowing presence rendering her dowdy and tongue-tied, could have died with embarrassment.

  Now, finally, Kate was able to view that evening through new eyes. Her sister had merely been trying to be kind. And even Kate’s memories of Pete had now been placed in perspective. Her friend Sarah had bumped into Pete recently and told Kate he had had a troubled life so far – drug dependence, drifting from job to job and relationship to relationship. It was probably a good thing Kate and he had never got together, two fragile souls, and she now felt pity for him rather than resentment.

  Your place is with the living. Where had that phrase come from, drifting into her head? She just had to get on with the here and now.

  Feeling stronger, she got up and went to make herself some tea. Then she spent a frustrating hour looking up hotels on the Internet. The Hoste Arms in Burnham Market was full, as were the next three or four hotels she tried. Finally she found Chapelfield Hall, which wasn’t near the coast, but which attracted her because of its swimming pool, and was relieved to find when she rang that they had a double room for Saturday. She switched off the computer and walked back towards the kitchen, deciding to ring Liz for a natter.

  ‘She’s up with the CEO, Kate,’ Liz’s friendly assistant Rosie told her. ‘I’ll tell her you called.’

  As Kate put down the phone, her eye fell on the little pile of Agnes’s books she had stashed under the console table when she had come in. That’s what she’d do next.

  To my son from his mother, Agnes Lavender Melton. Kate, curled up on her bed, turned the envelope over and over. It was sealed with sticky tape. Had Agnes intended her to open it and read it? Surely not. Perhaps she should have left it in the safe.

  She
dropped the envelope on the quilt and reached for the diaries. The two grey exercise books were dog-eared with yellowing pages. One had Agnes Lavender Melton inked on the cover, with a squirly signature device like Elizabeth I’s snaking down. Inside, the girl had made a title page with a skull and crossbones centrepiece: Private, Keep out was coiled around it. The wording read: Secret Diary. Agnes Lavender Melton, aged ten years, six months and three days. Seddington House, Seddington, Suffolk, England, The Wide World, The Universe.

  She flicked through the pages. The entries were short.

  Tuesday, 24 May 1921

  Ethel called me at seven o’clock. I had porridge for breakfast and did my lessons. Diane is taken sick, her mother fears it is the inflooenser she is so hot but Miss Selcott says it is a chill from not wearing enough undergarments and playing on damp grass. If she dies I will ask to read at her funeral because we found such a beautiful poem about a bird dying that everybody would be comforted.

  Thursday, 26 May 1921

  Diane better today but her mother sent word to Miss Selcott saying she must be excused lessons. Miss Selcott let me read Ivanhoe all morning because she had such a headache. Father telephoned to us on the new telephone that Mrs Duncan is too frightened to use to say he will be home tomorrow for lunch. No boiled fish then, I told her. Hooray.

  Friday, 27 May 1921

  Father is home!!! He has brought us a gramaphone. It is mahoganny and we played Grieg’s ‘Butterfly’ and songs by Caruso. Tomorrow Aunt Florence and our cousins are coming. Mrs Duncan says Alf has found some of the strawberries are ripe so we can have strawberries and cream and Dundee cake for tea!

  Sunday, 29 May 1921

  Yesterday was lovely. Christopher, Philip and Lucy are such sweet children. I was allowed to hold Lucy on my knee and read to her. Aunt Florence is so pretty but Miss Selcott says her hat was unsuitable and that she is too interested in her appearance. Ethel came over all giggly when Miss Selcott told her she would pour the tea, but Aunt Florence said she would. Then Aunt Florence got all sniffly because of Mamma being dead and not pouring the tea. And that made Philip cry, too. So Father took him outside to see if there were frogs in the pond and there were. I wish our cousins could come more often but they spend a lot of time up in London, Father says, where Uncle Percy works for the goverment.

  Saturday, 6 August

  Raven has come home for the holidays and Miss Selcott has gone to stay with her mother for a month. Mrs Duncan said good riddance but then she saw I was listening and slapped her hand on her mouth. So we are free! Raven says he hates school. The food is awful and he loathes rugby. Otherwise he says it is OK and some of the chaps are good sorts. His voice is all funny. Sometimes it’s deep and then it goes all squeaky, but he pinches me when I laugh so I have to remember not to. He has already annoyed Father with a frightful report. Father said Mamma would be ashamed of her son’s behaviour but he won’t tell me what Raven’s done. And Raven went upstairs and wouldn’t let me in his room. I still think Raven is lucky. He can remember Mamma properly. I wish I could. I try to imagine being a baby again and see if I can see her face, but I can’t, I just can’t. Mrs Duncan said Mamma wore lily of the valley as her scent. Sometimes I go into Mamma’s dressing room and sniff her old clothes and it does makes me feel close to her. I think I can remember the smell from long ago. I have found an old photograph in one of the attics with Mamma, Father, Raven and myself all in a room with vases of flowers. She looks so jolly and I look so happy sitting on her knee. I keep it in my den now upstairs.

  Sunday, 7 August 1921

  There was a huge thunderstorm last night and Raven came in. He gets frightened by thunder. He came into my bed all shaky and I cuddled him and told him everything was all right. He smelled lovely, of soap, and his skin tasted salty when I licked his arm. We went to church and Diana’s father made us pray for the Unemployed. Father says a lot of families in Suffolk are suffering because the farmers can’t get enough money for the crops. Raven said they should eat the crops then but Father said it wasn’t as simple as that and some people in England are angry because they fought in the war and now they don’t have jobs.

  The next entry wasn’t until three and a half years later.

  Saturday, 3 January 1925

  I have decided to keep a diary again this year, then at least I can write down my reading. I have spent this Christmas holidays devouring the novels of Thomas Hardy. I didn’t like Jude the Obscure because of the children hanging themselves. This has given me bad dreams. But I did like Tess of the D’Urbervilles though Alec D’Urberville must be one of the worst villains. I can’t imagine letting any man do that to me when we weren’t married and I just cried and cried when Tess died at the end. It’s as if Alec killed her but nobody blames him. Next I shall try The Return of the Native though Father says I will find it bleak. When I have finished all of the Hardys in the library I shall start on George Eliot. I don’t know what we should do about poor Raven now Father has gone back to London. Mrs Duncan says she can’t tell him anything, he won’t listen to her. He has been riding to hounds several times with our neighbours at Fortescue Hall, but he told me he and his friend Paul often lose the others on purpose and spend the time in hostelries. He does smell all beery when he returns. He has made a crystal set using the bedframe as an aerial. Sometimes I go into his room at night and we cuddle up in the bed and take turns with the earphones and can hear the servants talking in the kitchen. We heard Mrs Duncan say Mr Silfield the organist has run off with the schoolmaster’s wife and it’s a terrible scandal. I wonder where they have run to? Mr Silfield is quite portly so I can’t imagine him running very far. Raven says if we lived in a city we would be able to hear orchestras and see plays in the theatre but here in the country we’re stuck listening to Mrs Duncan gossiping and Lister complaining about his back. Miss Selcott’s mother is ill so Miss Selcott isn’t coming back until next week.

  Monday, 5 January 1925

  Miss Selcott has telegraphed to say that her mother has died and that she won’t be returning until Saturday. Father says Raven and I must write to her to express our condolences. Poor Miss Selcott. Father says it is very hard when your parents die whatever age you are and now Miss Selcott will be all alone in the world except for one old aunt and we must be kind to her. He was eighteen when his mother was carried away by the typhoid and Grandfather died the year that Raven was born. I have tried to make myself cry for Miss Selcott but I think her mother was very old and very ill so perhaps it is after all a blessing. I have finished all the Hardy novels we have now. My favourite was The Mayor of Casterbridge. I am halfway through Adam Bede. It is terrible that poor Hetty let her baby die. I would want to die too if something like that happened to me. It seems so unfair that the women have the babies and then their lives are ruined and the innocent babies suffer so much misery or die. I wonder if Mamma knew she was dying and cried about leaving us? Was she able to say goodbye? I can’t ask Father because it will make him upset and Raven won’t talk about it. I don’t think Lister will know that sort of thing and Mrs Duncan has only been cook since Mr Duncan passed away on the Hindenburg Line.

  Saturday, 10 January 1925

  Raven went back to school on the train two days ago. He looked so miserable. I went to his room the night before and I lay next to him on the bed and we talked and talked about what he would do. Father wants him to go to Cambridge when he finishes at Bellingham’s next year and is going to engage a tutor for him in the vacations to help him catch up with the work. He doesn’t want to go or to read law but he hasn’t got anything else he wants to do either except to write books and Father says that is not a proper job. I told him maybe it is a good idea not to drink but to study hard, be a success and then he can do what he likes but he got sulky and said I was too young to understand. Diana has come every morning this week. We have sat in the attic and read the poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson to each other. It gives me divine shivers down my spine to read Oh rare pale Margaret and Mystery of
mysteries/Faintly smiling Adeline and of Serene imperial Eleanore. I wish someone would write a poem like that about me but Agnes just isn’t a romantic name. Unless you say it the French way – ‘An-yes’ – but Raven has spoiled that, too. He says it sounds like ‘onions’. Diana and I wish we knew men like Lancelot though Diana’s mother has told her it is better to marry a plain-looking man then you know where you are with him. It is cold and foggy and we’ve had the lights on all day it’s so dark. My head hurts from the gas and from too much reading in bad light.

  Friday, 16 January 1925

  Miss Selcott has been back for a week in a black crêpe dress that makes her look like a miserable crow. She is very pale and sniffs and can’t concentrate on our lessons but snaps at us if she spots us making any mistakes. Diana has overheard her mother telling her father that Miss Selcott’s mother left no money, only debts, so she will always have to work and have nowhere of her own to live unless some man takes pity on her and marries her. That wouldn’t be nice, being married to someone who pities you. I will never marry unless the man worships me passionately and I love him almost but not quite as much. I went to visit Mamma’s grave yesterday. The snowdrops Father planted are just beginning to show green otherwise the graveyard looks very wintery and grim and I feel sad to think of Mamma lying there under the earth.

  Saturday, 17 January 1925

  Father returned from London just before luncheon. He has brought a friend, Mr Armstrong, with him to discuss business. Mr Armstrong has no children and his wife is an invalid in a sanatorium. He buys and sells all sorts of exotic things and he talked at luncheon about the ships coming up the Thames with their cargoes of spices and tea and beautiful cloths. He has promised one day to take me round the docks and the warehouses and to visit the markets at Billingsgate and Smithfield. Father asked me to show them my collections, so we spent an interesting hour talking about my coins and miniatures – I have five miniatures, now that Father gave me the portrait of the girl with the doll for Christmas. Mr Armstrong knows all about art and says I am unusually well-informed for a young girl. He looks forward to entertaining us in London when I go for the Season. Father did not look pleased at that. I think he would like to keep me here always because of not having darling Mamma. I have only been to London three times. Aunt Florence likes to fetch me and Raven out to tea at Brown’s Hotel and go shopping in Oxford Street where we can see all the new buildings going up. Once we drove past Buckingham Palace but the King was not at home because there was no flag, Aunt said. I have finished Silas Marner and have begun Middlemarch. I do not know why Dorothea is so fond of Mr Casaubon, he is so old and dry. I must have a love-match like Father and Mamma even though their love was so deep that he is lost without her and can never marry again.