Tumbledown Manor

by Helen Brown

  She recognised the shabby brick house in the photo. It was Trumperton Manor. Printed above it in large bold type were the words ‘FOR SALE’.

  If anyone understood how it felt to be torn between worlds it was Emily Brontë. In Wuthering Heights she’d penned one of the most powerfully frustrating love stories ever written. Unable to choose between respectable Edgar Linton and her wild soulmate, Heathcliff, Emily’s heroine was destined to make a mess of things. Now, with pen poised over the land agent’s offer, Lisa was about to opt for an Edgar Linton life. Growing old in the comfort of Camberwell, she’d join a garden society and torment her unmathematical brain with the rigours of bridge. Then, after a decade or two, she and Maxine would be wheeled off in matching coffins to Spring-vale cemetery. No doubt Maxine would order their plots in advance, quietly earmarking the sunnier one for herself.

  But the moment Lisa saw the advertisement for Trumperton Manor, she was inflamed with longing for something more dangerous. Trumperton was the architectural equivalent of life with Heathcliff. She wasn’t that old, anyway. With any luck she’d have at least two decades before she needed a walking stick. After a lifetime of enabling others, surely she’d earned the right to make her own choices, no matter how outlandish?

  Maxine, the agent, Ted and his flatmate focused expectantly on the pen in her hand, but it refused to lower itself to the dotted line.

  Lisa could feel her face turn hot-flush red. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I need to think.’

  Maxine looked mortified.

  ‘If that’s how you feel,’ the agent said coldly. ‘Don’t forget the Johnsons will be placing their offer this afternoon and they’re cash buyers.’

  Lisa waited for a jolt of competitiveness to stir the pen into action.

  ‘Don’t do something you’ll regret later,’ Maxine warned.

  ‘It’s a big decision,’ Ted said, trying to smooth things over.

  Flustered, Maxine offered white chocolate muffins all round. The agent slammed her briefcase. She had another open home to go to. Flashing a hostile grin at Lisa, she stood up and left.

  Lisa apologised and hurried down the hall to shut herself in with the sea captain. The computer screen offered a welcoming glow. Her hands trembling, she drew up the captain’s chair and took three deep breaths.

  Thank God for the Brontë sisters. Lisa was developing maternal concern for the most highly strung sister, in particular. The middle child invariably finds a way to stand out, and Emily had made a point of it. Determinedly anti-social, she’d spent hours wandering the moors. Emily had quit her first teaching job, reputedly telling her students she preferred the school dog to any of them. A visitor to the parsonage, Ellen Nussey observed that Emily had a ‘lithesome, graceful figure . . . her hair, which was naturally as beautiful as Charlotte’s, was in the same unbecoming tight curl and frizz . . . She had very beautiful eyes—kind, kindling, liquid eyes; but she did not often look at you . . . dark grey, at other times dark blue, they varied so.’ Every time Lisa tried to picture Emily, she saw Portia’s face.

  The bedroom door creaked open.

  ‘You okay?’ Ted asked.

  She adjusted her pashmina.

  ‘You did the right thing,’ he said. ‘That townhouse wasn’t you. I’m sorry if it looked like I was pushing you into it.’

  ‘You weren’t.’

  Ted pulled the newspaper from his back pocket and unfurled the advertisement for Trumperton Manor. ‘Maybe you need a drive in the country,’ he said.

  Chapter 8

  Lisa was hoping to sneak back to Castlemaine with just the boys, but Maxine had a sixth sense whenever people tried to arrange things behind her back. She insisted they wouldn’t want to be going out there in that old Kombi van. So early next morning, the boys—Ted’s flatmate was such a regular feature Lisa was starting to think of them that way—squeezed into the Golf’s back seat.

  Winter had dusted the landscape with frost. Trees stood bare, their branches spreading latticework patterns against a defiant blue sky. Livestock were scattered sparsely over the land.

  ‘Does it ever rain out here?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘Not enough,’ Maxine sighed.

  Lisa warned the boys the house was a dump. Nevertheless, her heart pulsed in her ears as they pulled up outside the gates.

  A ‘For Sale’ sign had been hammered to the post that still had its sphere. ‘Renovate or Detonate!’ it read. ‘Tired old lady on 5 acres. Five bedrooms plus stables. Call Beverley Green at Hogan & Hogan.’

  ‘Whoever wrote that flunked Marketing 101,’ the Kiwi flatmate mumbled.

  Lisa was beginning to like him. ‘What is his name again?’ Lisa whispered, drawing Ted aside.

  ‘M-um!’ Ted groaned, rolling his eyes. ‘It’s James.’

  Lisa scanned the area for the cockatoo, hoping he was still alive. The boys were already halfway down the driveway. She grabbed her handbag and followed.

  ‘We should call the agent first!’ Maxine barked after them.

  Lisa caught up with the boys, panting, as they plunged into the shadows of the pines and rounded the bend.

  ‘I’m not going down there until we have permission!’ Maxine’s voice echoed off the tree trunks.

  Whoever had designed the manor had arranged it to be seen from this spot just past the curve in the driveway. At a slight angle, it was more welcoming than imposing. The portico reached over the entrance, offering shelter to visiting carriages. Engraved on a central panel above the front door was ‘Trumperton Manor 1860’.

  No effort had gone into dollying up the house for sale. In fact, it seemed to have deteriorated since the last time Lisa saw it. Dust caked the windows. Cobwebs shimmered in the eaves. An old gas lamp lay in a clump of grass like a fallen soldier.

  ‘My god!’ whispered Ted.

  ‘You’re right,’ Lisa said. ‘It’s a disaster.’

  ‘It’s fantastic!’

  She felt a rush of delight. Ted had enough Trumperton blood in his veins to connect with the place. She snapped a photo with her phone and sent it to Portia with the message ‘Yr g/gfather’s house. Like 2 spend Xmas here?’ She was joking, . . . sort of.

  ‘Defs!!!’ Portia replied immediately.

  ‘Do you think anyone’s home?’ Ted asked.

  They scanned windows that were blank as the eyes of the dead. The stables were silent. There was no sign of life in the garden, either. They crept through patches of wild grass and up the front steps. Lisa hesitated at the front door. They were being cheeky. Maybe Maxine was right and they should call the agent.

  She turned and gasped at the view from the veranda. Eucalyptus trees rustled on either side of the front paddock, silvery threads of vapour rose from the creek as it snaked across the valley, and folds of golden grass rolled towards blue hills in the distance. ‘Imagine waking up to that every morning!’ she sighed.

  ‘The soil’s not bad, either,’ James said. ‘Volcanic, by the look of it. Good enough for an organic vegetable garden. Looks like there’s an orchard out the back. With this amount of land, you could grow enough to sell at market.’

  ‘I thought you’d gone off farming?’ Lisa teased.

  James blushed. ‘Just sheep shit I’ve had a gutful of,’ he muttered.

  ‘I reckon you could get irrigation from that creek,’ Ted added.

  ‘The house needs a lot of work,’ Lisa said, glancing up at the sagging roof.

  ‘It’s doable,’ Ted said.

  Doable was one of Ted’s architect words. It sounded so capable.

  ‘You wouldn’t have to do it all at once,’ James chimed in.

  ‘It could happen in stages,’ Ted added.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be expensive to heat?’ Lisa asked, trying to sound practical.

  ‘Dunno,’ Ted said. ‘With insulation and a few discreet solar panels about the place it could end up contributing energy to the grid. You could reach the point of getting money from the power company instead of the other way around.’


  So Ted could imagine her living here, too.

  Lisa glanced up at the front door. Two panels of stained glass refused to offer a glimpse of what lay behind. Bubbles of grey paint revealed handsome old-fashioned wood underneath—oak, mahogany or some other timber sent from the old country by sailing ship. A large circular doorknocker, rusted with age, dared them to reach up and touch it.

  ‘C’mon, you townies,’ James said, stretching a freckled hand over Lisa’s head and seizing the hoop. ‘They’re not going to bite our heads off.’

  To everyone’s horror, the metal ring dislodged from the door and came off in the young man’s hand.

  ‘Crikey!’

  James tried to shove it back in position, but the metal pins were exhausted with age. He laid the doorknocker reverently beside the front step.

  Lisa wanted to flee, but Ted was emboldened by the mini disaster. He strode across the veranda to a nearby window. Shading his eyes, he peered through the murk and beckoned her over.

  Though much of the room was concealed in shadow it appeared quite spacious. Apart from a lavishly tiled fireplace, it was boarding-house plain, with tired beige walls and bare floorboards. The room was empty except for a single piece of furniture—a decrepit sofa.

  Lisa thrilled at the thought of Alexander, dressed in evening attire, strolling across that floor before pausing to warm his hands at a crackling fire. Who knows? Perhaps he even sat on that sofa? She could almost see him raising a crystal glass to his lips and looking at her with those sad, pale eyes, confusion flickering across his face as if he’d seen a ghost from the future gazing through the window at him. She smiled. Perhaps the real Alexander had experienced an eerie moment countless years ago. Or was it him doing the haunting? She raised her hand and the vision evaporated.

  ‘There’s something I’d like to show you,’ James said, jolting her into the present.

  She followed him around the side of the house to the orchard. Rows of fruit trees radiated from an old apple tree in the centre, like the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

  ‘Must be a hundred years old,’ James said, patting the old tree’s twisted trunk. ‘It’ll produce great apples. You know, the old-fashioned sort that’s bittersweet.’

  It was good of him to drag her out but it was just a tree. She turned to go back to the house.

  ‘Hang on!’ he called. James wedged his boot in a cleft between the trunk and a lower branch and, with the ease of a jungle primate, swung himself upwards. She averted her gaze from the flash of underpants only just covering his buttocks.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, pointing out a shape in the silvery bark.

  Someone had carved a heart in the trunk a long time ago. A couple had stood under these branches and been very much in love. Though the air was cold, a wave of warmth washed through her.

  Chapter 9

  ‘You’re nuts,’ Maxine said.

  Hogan & Hogan’s window was a patchwork of yellowing photos. Most of the properties seemed to have been on the market since the year David Bowie discovered hair gel. Trumperton Manor was at the centre of the bottom row with ‘NEW!’ scrawled in bright-red letters across one corner. Underneath, a large fly lay on its back on the window ledge. It wriggled its legs as if receiving intermittent electrical shocks. A small white dog, its feathery tail tied up in a red ribbon, placed its front paws on the ledge. The dog put its head to one side, rolled out its tongue and with a flash of its diamante collar devoured the fly.

  ‘That place was built for an army of servants,’ Maxine added. ‘You need a low-maintenance property, especially after your health scare.’

  That was a low blow. ‘You mean I should buy a hospital?’

  Ted and James excused themselves to explore Castlemaine’s café scene.

  ‘You don’t want this old dump,’ Maxine grumbled. There’s nothing wrong with that townhouse. Remember Lucy Jordan?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know. The Marianne Faithfull song. She reaches thirty-seven and realises she’ll never ride through Paris in a sports car?’

  ‘Castlemaine’s hardly Paris.’

  ‘All I’m saying is, every woman gets to a point where she’s done everything she’s going to do. You can’t take risks anymore.’

  ‘Didn’t she commit suicide?’

  ‘Who, Marianne Faithfull?’

  ‘No, Lucy Jordan. Doesn’t she throw herself off a building at the end of the song?’

  ‘God, I don’t know! My point is . . . ’

  ‘My point is, I don’t have the luxury of not taking risks,’ Lisa shot back. ‘My kids took off to different corners of the world and my husband walked out on me.’

  A vision of pink and rhinestone appeared in the property agent’s doorway. ‘Can I help you two ladies?’

  The agent—if that was what she was—wore a Barbie-pink jacket squeezed over a sequined top. It was difficult to tell if the strip of fabric over her thighs was a skirt or a belt. Her cleavage was deep enough to be seen from Google Earth. The heels of her matching pink boots were so high she was practically standing on tiptoe.

  The sisters regained composure.

  ‘We’re just wondering about this property,’ Lisa said.

  ‘Trumpington Manor?’

  ‘Trumperton,’ Lisa corrected.

  The agent sighed, running a hand through her mane of blonde hair extensions. ‘Yes, well, it’s as pooped as my uncle’s prostate. The owners have already accepted an offer from a developer. He’s going to knock it down and put in a subdivision of new houses.’

  Lisa flushed with rage. How could anyone get away with such vandalism?

  ‘But the contract’s not signed yet,’ the agent said, clearly tuning into Lisa’s reaction. ‘You could always put in a better offer.’

  Offering a hand of glittering rings and beaming from under a canopy of false eyelashes, the agent introduced herself as Beverley Hogan. ‘Want to take a look, anyway?’ she asked. ‘It’s nothing a demolition ball won’t cure. You could put in one of those lovely kit homes.’

  ‘I’d never knock it down,’ Lisa replied. ‘It’s a magnificent building.’

  ‘Oh, you could fix the outside up all right,’ Beverly said, changing course. ‘My ex could help with that. But, really, the place is a knock-down.’

  ‘So you set up this business with your second husband?’ Maxine asked.

  ‘Hell no! I married Bob, the younger Hogan, a couple of months ago.’

  The sisters offered restrained congratulations.

  ‘Anyway, Scottie could fix the outside in a lizard’s blink,’ Beverley said, fumbling in a tiny silver shoulder bag before pressing a card into Lisa’s hand. ‘I’ll get the keys and meet you there.’

  Lisa glanced at the card in her hand. ‘Scott Green Landscaping, Project Management and Garden Maintenance—Special Rates for Pensioners!’ it read.

  When they pulled up outside the manor’s front gates, Maxine consented to venture onto the property—providing everyone understood she was driven by curiosity, not approval.

  Beverley cursed when she saw the doorknocker lying on the step. ‘Hooligans,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll send Bob to Bunnings to get a new one.’

  Ted grimaced at the prospect of exchanging a historical relic for a cheap imitation.

  Beverley produced an ancient metal rod almost as long as her hand. ‘Guess they never lost their keys in those days,’ she said, rattling it in the reluctant lock.

  Lisa held her breath as the door creaked open on a large entrance hall. Though panelled in dark wood, the space was bathed in shafts of colour. She glanced up to see the source of the light—a huge leadlight window above a central stairway glowing with images of roses gleaming against writhing green foliage.

  The hallway might’ve been welcoming once, but now the air smelt mouldy and it was festooned with spiderwebs. Though Australia’s arachnids had a fearsome reputation, they barely registered with Lisa. Anything that could be sucked up by a vacuum cleaner didn’t warrant attention, as far
as she was concerned. And anyway, she figured people weren’t entitled to more than one phobia each, and her personal nemesis was snakes.

  ‘How come it’s on the market?’ she asked.

  ‘The current owners lived here since Moses was in nappies.’ Beverley’s voice bounced off walls fissured with age. ‘The old woman inherited the old dump from her mum. The maintenance got too much for them. They moved to the cottage across the road.’

  Lisa hadn’t noticed any other houses in the neighbourhood.

  She turned left into a room that overlooked the driveway. There, the floor was a patchwork of shabby linoleum, and a sheet of stained plywood covered what was probably a fireplace. Curtains hung like dishcloths, and the walls were cracked and painted snot-green.

  ‘The old couple were sleeping in here,’ Beverley explained. ‘It used to be the library.’ She led them back to the hallway and into the room with the sofa. The settee was an old rollback, and resembled an abandoned animal with its seat sagging to the floor and stuffing vomiting out of its arms.

  ‘Bet they had a few booze-ups in here,’ Beverley winked.

  Ted crouched beside the fireplace and rubbed his hands in front of an imaginary blaze. For a moment, Lisa saw Alexander again.

  Beverley escorted them past the stairs to a large kitchen at the back of the house. ‘Reckon they had to squeeze a few servants in here,’ Beverley said.

  Taps leaned at drunken angles, and the walk-in pantry smelt of vinegar and damp.

  An ancient wood-burning stove sulked in an alcove. ‘We used to have one of these on the farm,’ James said, smiling. He bent to turn the handle of the heavy metal door. An avalanche of black grit spilled onto the floor. ‘Looks like there’s been a cremation. I reckon I could get it going.’

  Lisa rattled the lock of a back door that must have opened onto the yard between the kitchen and stables, but Beverley said the key was back at the office.

  A narrow passageway led from the kitchen to a set of small rooms, including a utilitarian lavatory with a wooden seat and chain flush. ‘Scullery and servants’ quarters,’ Beverley said.