by Julia London
She had let it go, but not because he asked. Because she honestly didn’t know how to proceed with him. Was she supposed to be the patient wife and wait it out? Was she supposed to prod him along? And really, how long was she supposed to wait for her husband to come back to her?
These were the questions swirling about her head when his mother’s estate had been probated and the mysterious house in England had been discovered.
Hillary hadn’t paid much attention to all of the chatter between the siblings about the England house. She had enough on her plate trying to be a top-producing realtor, a mom, and wife to a man who was clearly mired in a major depression. She was too busy cooking dinner after working all day, then picking up the house after a day of Matthew. She remembered looking at him as he’d talked about that damn house, wondering if they were ever going to make love again, or if she was going to be stuck in one of those loveless, sexless marriages. She missed Matthew. She missed the guy she’d met twelve years ago who’d made her laugh and sent her roses for no reason. The guy who never started a day without a smile, who could not keep his hands from her.
And then he’d announce they were going to England, and he’d already arranged it, and they had a huge argument in which they’d both hurled words that were probably better left unsaid. At the end of it, Hillary had pleaded with him. “I can’t go on like this,” she’d said. “Our marriage is falling apart.”
“Just do this one thing for me, Hillary,” he’d said. “Just this. Please.”
Hillary had caved. And now, here she was in England, gazing up at the house that was so important to Matthew. It was bigger than most of the houses they’d passed on the way up from London, but it looked old and dilapidated. Matthew had told her it was manor house—it looked more to Hillary like an overgrown cottage. Even with her professional realtor’s eye, she couldn’t see much potential.
The west end of the house was covered with thick, leafy green ivy, but where stone was exposed, it looked dirty and crumbling. It was a two-story structure, with two rows of eight windows across the top and bottom, several of them broken. There were four chimneys, a weathered double door and small round stoop.
“Wow,” Matthew said. He was grinning. “This is great.”
“It looks kind of run down to me,” Hillary said skeptically.
“Are you kidding? It will look like a palace once we get it cleaned up.”
For this house to in any way resemble a palace would take much longer than the two weeks they planned to be in England, which she wanted to point out to Matthew, but he was already on the stoop, trying to fit the key into the door.
Hillary followed him inside.
“This is spectacular,” Matthew said.
To Hillary, the house did not improve on the inside. There were no furnishings save a table in the foyer and a single chair beside it. On the table was a cardboard box full of candles, which Hillary did not see as a fortuitous sign. She understood that the house had been without an inhabitant for several years and had been looked after by an occasional caretaker, but the dirt and grime and general ramshackle was overwhelming.
“Look at this wood work,” Matthew was saying, his fingers running along the molding around the doorframe. “And these windows. Do you know how much windows like this cost these days?”
“No clue,” Hillary said, looking up. There was a lighting fixture hanging from the ceiling, in the center of a papier-mâché medallion. The walls were covered in dark wallpaper, the floors a dull, pitted wood.
“Come on,” Matthew said, and disappeared into a dark corridor.
They walked through the ground floor. There was a large room with an enormous fireplace, which Matthew said was likely the drawing room. Next to it, a dining room, which he guessed from the wainscoting. Hillary had no idea when he’d become an expert on old English manor houses, but he seemed to know a lot about them.
There was another room with a smaller, stone fireplace that he guessed would have served as a sitting room. “Where the ladies practiced their piano and needlework.”
“Who are you?” Hillary asked, and Matthew laughed. He looked happier than she’d seen him in some time.
The kitchen looked positively medieval, with a wooden table in the middle of a stone floor, an old industrial sink, and a gas stove that she doubted would actually fire. There was also an old-fashioned icebox, complete with an ancient refrigeration unit on top. “Oh my God,” Hillary groaned.
“Hey, if it works, who cares what it looks like?” Matthew asked. “Hillary, please try and enjoy this. We’re in England, stomping around an old house. Can you try? It’s important to me.”
“Why?” Hillary asked. “Why is this so important?”
He pushed his fingers through his dark hair. “I don’t know. It just is. I’ve felt drawn to this house since I saw the words printed on the probate papers.” He didn’t say more than that, but turned his back on her, as was his practice these days, and walked down the corridor ahead of her, his shoes clapping loudly on the wood floors and kicking up dust that made her sneeze.
“Look at this staircase,” he said, pausing at the bottom. It curved up to the landing. The steps were covered in what Hillary guessed was red carpet underneath all the grime.
The upstairs was a series of bedrooms, two smaller rooms that had been turned into baths, and a large family area. There was something about the emptiness of the house, of the dusty drapes and floors, that felt strange to Hillary. Something just not quite right, although Hillary had no clue what. She wandered over to look out the window. The grounds were, predictably, overgrown. There was a faded barn and a clothesline that stretched across the garden. She could see a small pile of trash, as if someone had quickly picked up the grounds before they’d arrived.
There it was, that feeling again, a sense that the energy in this house was a little off.
After an hour of looking around, Hillary was tired and hungry and was still suffering from jet lag. “Shouldn’t we go find a hotel?” she asked, checking her watch. “I am dying for a hot bath, and I really need to make a few calls.”
“A hotel?” Matthew said. “We’re staying here.”
Hillary looked up. She looked around the empty landing. “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“Here?” she cried. “There is no here! This house has been closed up for years—we can’t stay here, Matthew. That’s insane.”
“We’ll open some windows and air it out,” he said quickly. “We’ve got time to clean a room tonight.”
“And what, sleep on the floor?” she exclaimed. Not only was he suggesting they stay there, he wanted her to clean? “Not to mention there is no food or cleaning supplies.”
“All easily resolved,” he said. “We’ll go into the village to the pub and have dinner, stop in at the market and stock up for a couple of days. We can get some bedding and some sleeping bags and camp out.”
“Be reasonable,” Hillary pleaded. “We can come back first thing in the morning—we don’t even know if there is water or electricity.”
“There is water,” he said. “I checked. And the toilets work,” he added quickly before she could mention it. And there should be electricity. I spoke to the estate agent about it last week.”
She groaned. “And if there is no electricity?”
“Then there is a basket of candles in the front hall.”
“Oh Jesus.”
“Hillary.” He tried to smile. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“This isn’t adventure—this is you trying to make me miserable.”
Matthew sighed. He shrugged. “I really don’t have to try this hard, do I? I mean, you’re miserable all the time.”
“What do you expect?” Hillary demanded. “You don’t consult me about anything, you just announce.” God, she did not want to do this now. She just wanted to take a hot bath. She just wanted things to go back to the way they’d been before Matthew was laid off. Back when they’d loved each
other’s company, when he didn’t cling to some rustic, rundown old English house like it was his lifeline. But he had seemed so excited, and she hadn’t seen him excited in a long time, and really, where was her sense of adventure? “Matthew, I—”
“Look, I am staying here,” he said curtly. “You can get a hotel if you want.”
Just like that, he pushed her into a corner again. “Fine,” she said irritably. “Far be it from me to interfere with whatever this is,” she said, gesturing to him and the empty space around him.
He looked annoyed. “I’m going to get the luggage.”
Hillary watched him troop down the stairs. When she heard him go out, she looked around the landing once more. Why did she feel so uneasy? As if she were invading someone’s space. She didn’t like the feeling at all, and hurried downstairs to help after Matthew.
They made a trip into the village of Tadcaster, picked up some supplies, a few groceries that they could stuff into two coolers, and some sleeping bags until they could arrange for a bed.
It was early evening when they arrived back at Whitstone House. As they pulled into the drive, Hillary squinted at the door. “Did you leave it open?” she asked Matthew.
He looked, too. “I didn’t think I did. The latch is probably rusty,” he said. “I’ll have a look.”
They hauled in their purchases, and dragged the coolers into the kitchen area. Hillary dumped ice on top of them while Matthew checked the door. He came back to the kitchen and told her nothing was wrong with the latch. “It’s fine. I guess I left it open.”
“What about electricity?”
“Got a little problem there,” he said apologetically. “I can’t find the breaker box. I’ll have to call the caretaker tomorrow.”
“Great,” she said.
“I’m going to go sweep out a room for us,” he said, and left her to finish up in the kitchen. When Hillary finished, she went upstairs to help. They went around opening windows, airing out the house, trying to get rid of the musty smell.
When dusk fell, Hillary opened a bottle of wine while Matthew lit candles. He showed Hillary an old concave mirror on the wall in the main drawing room. He explained how those mirrors were intended to reflect light to provide more of it.
“Seriously, how do you know these things, like the history of light?” Hillary asked curiously.
Matthew grinned. “I’ve been reading up,” he said. In the candlelight, she noticed that he looked boyishly handsome, like the guy she’d fallen in love with twelve years ago. They’d met at an engagement party for one of Hillary’s co-workers. Hillary had just sold her first house, and Matthew had brokered the mortgage. He’d said hello at the party, asked if she had any other sales. Hillary remembered that great smile, the shining blue eyes under a mop of dark hair. He used to tell people he couldn’t look away from her brown eyes, that they reminded him of pools of honey.
Whatever had clicked between them that night, Matthew had left with her number, and over the several weeks that followed, they fell in love.
God, how hard they fell! They loved the same movies, the same sports, the same books. Their lovemaking had been out of this world. Hillary still got a tiny little shiver just thinking about those days. She’d had a little loft apartment above a coffee shop, and on weekends, they’d lie in her bed all day, making love, taking little breaks to run downstairs for coffee and pastries. It had been a perfect existence, a perfect love.
After a couple of years of dating, they’d married, and the twins had come along eighteen months after that. They’d been delighted with their babies, and so much in love, and Hillary had believed, truly believed, that it would always be like that. And it was. For years. Until Matthew lost his job.
“I am going to build a small fire where we have the sleeping bags and see if this main chimney is working,” Matthew announced, drawing Hillary back to the present. “I saw some wood down by the shed. I’ll be back in a few.”
Hillary decided it was getting a little chilly, and took a candle upstairs to close some of the windows. They had chosen the room at the end of the upstairs hall to use as a bedroom. It had windows on two walls and a fireplace with a carved stone mantle, which, Hillary had grudgingly admitted, was pretty cool.
As she moved down the hallway, a cold draft caught her flame and extinguished it. “Damn,” she muttered. There was still enough twilight filtering in that she could make her way. The light in the room at the end of the hall was better, and Hillary relit her candle before putting it aside. She closed the windows on the east side, then those on the west side. When she turned back to the room, something caught her eye, and Hillary’s heart plummeted to her toes with fright. Someone, a woman, a face, was staring at her through the window. Her hair was wet and hung well past her shoulders.
Hillary’s heart was beating wildly; she whirled around, thinking it was a reflection, that there was a woman standing behind her, not at the window, but there was no one there. And when she jerked around again to the window, the woman, the face, was gone. Hillary rushed to the window and opened it, leaning onto the sill to look out. There was nothing there. There couldn’t possibly be anything or anyone there, for it was straight drop to the ground, and there was nothing on which the woman could have been standing.
Impossible! She slammed the window shut and fell back from it. She tried to make sense of it—it had to have been a shadow, some trick of light. Yet she had seen a face as clearly as if the woman had walked up to her and shook her hand.
“Hillary?”
The sound of Matthew’s voice below was a welcome relief. “Up here!” she shouted, and hugged herself tightly, trying to rid herself of that awful strange feeling.
“Why are you in the dark?” Matthew asked a few moments later as he walked into the room with an armful of wood.
She hadn’t even noticed the candle had gone out again. “A draft, I guess.” She was shaking, she realized.
Matthew noticed it, too. “Cold? Well, I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said. “The heat is on, which means…hot water.”
“Great,” she said, and risked another look at the window. Nothing. Her imagination, that was the culprit.
As for the bath, it took some doing, with the pipes groaning and shuddering, but after a couple of blasts of junk, hot water flowed out of the pipes and into an ancient claw-footed tub.
Matthew lit the bathroom with a dozen candles.
“This is great!” Hillary exclaimed, truly delighted. She looked at her husband and felt a sudden rush of longing. “The tub looks big enough for two…want to join me?”
“Ah…you go ahead. I need to make sure we’re locked up.” He smiled a little absently and went out. Deflated, Hillary undressed and sank into the warmth of the bath. In fact, she didn’t come out until Matthew assured her he’d made a suitable pallet on which they could sleep.
The jet lag had caught up to both of them. Hillary found the bag surprisingly bearable, and as she drifted into welcome sleep, she thought she heard the faint sound of a woman crying. But the need for sleep was too great and pushed her under before she could think much more about it.
***
Hillary awoke from a dreamless, deep sleep the next morning to find Matthew’s bag empty. She sat up and looked around. Bright sunlight was streaming into the room, and in the morning light, the house looked entirely different. Warm. Almost inviting. She did not feel that weird, unsettled feeling she’d felt all day yesterday. She wandered downstairs and found Matthew sitting on the back steps, eating cold cereal.
“What time is it?” she asked sleepily.
“Ten,” Matthew said, and smiled up at her. “You were really sawing the Z’s, so I didn’t wake you. Cereal?”
“Please,” she said, and sat next to him. “This could be gorgeous,” she said, looking out at the vista before them. The grounds swept down to a narrow river. Mature trees rose up on either side of the grounds, enclosing the property.
“There’s an orchard of some so
rt down that road,” Matthew said, pointing to a two-track road that ran along the river. “I went for a run this morning and found it. I think they are apple trees.”
“How quaint,” Hillary said. “And really lovely, in an agrarian way.” She laughed.
“I saw a guy at the far end of the orchard,” Matthew said. “I thought he must be the orchard keeper or whatever you call it, so I detoured into the orchard to ask him about it. But he disappeared over a hill. I guess that means there are more houses on the other side of the orchard. I’m really not sure how big this property is.”
“Want me to look when I go to the village to do something about beds?” Hillary asked.
“What, you don’t like roughing it?” Matthew asked, nudging her with his shoulder.
She laughed. “Have you met me?”
He looked at her, his blue eyes shining with amusement. “Fortunately for me…yes,” he said, and kissed her. It was more than he’d done in weeks. In fact, Hillary thought as he went to get milk for her, that she couldn’t remember the last time they’d really kissed.
They puttered around after breakfast, making a list of things she needed to get. As she picked up the keys to leave, Matthew said, “Thanks, Hill.”
She paused. “For what?”
“For this,” Matthew said, gesturing to the house. “For being a sport. I just want to do some work and get it ready to sell. It gives me…it gives me something useful to do,” he admitted sheepishly.
Hillary smiled and lovingly touched his cheek. “I’ll see you later.”
Matthew turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm. “Be careful. Remember to look right, and that they drive on the wrong side of the road.”
Hillary laughed. She went up on her toes and kissed Matthew’s mouth, lingering there, and feeling, for a moment, like she could wrap herself into him like she used to do.
In the village, Hillary found a little housing goods shop which happened to have a double bed in stock, as well as a couple of used arm chairs. “Can have that delivered today if you’d like,” the man behind the counter said. His nametag read Stan.
