Mr Wilmslow nodded. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but you may find Mossby just the place to convalesce, while deciding what to do next,’ he suggested, snapping the lock of the briefcase closed with some finality. ‘In the meantime, you have my card, so do contact me if anything occurs to you that you’d like to ask.’
Carey said uneasily, ‘This stepdaughter he – my uncle – mentions …’
‘Ella Parry. Her husband, Clem, is an excellent gardener. Your uncle always thought it worth putting up with Ella Parry’s cross-grained ways because he kept up the grounds almost single-handedly. She was the residuary legatee, by the way. Had you been killed in that accident just before your uncle’s death, she would have inherited all.’
‘Right,’ Carey said, thinking Ella Parry didn’t sound the most delightful person to have around the house, especially if she was bearing a grudge. But then, as his uncle’s stepdaughter, it did seem a little harsh that she had been left with nothing.
When he said so, Mr Wilmslow reassured him.
‘Your uncle was more than generous to them in his lifetime, but the situation will become clearer to you when you have taken up your residence at Mossby. It’s in the Parrys’ own interests to make themselves pleasant to you if they wish to continue their employment.’ Then he added, after a moment, ‘By the way, have you made a will of your own?’
‘Oddly enough, yes, because after the accident I lost my feeling of invincibility,’ Carey said with a wry smile. ‘I sent a friend out for one of those will forms and a couple of nurses witnessed it.’
Mr Wilmslow winced: standard template will forms such as were available at newsagents were obviously beyond the pale. ‘Well, those forms are perfectly legal, of course, but you may wish me to draw up a new one in the light of your inheritance.’
‘Yes, and in the meantime, I suppose I could add a thingummy, making Ella Parry the residuary legatee to the house, like my uncle did?’
‘A codicil? You could do so, of course, though given that Ella is now about sixty and you a young man in your thirties, we would hope you would survive her.’
‘You never know what fate has in store for you,’ Carey said darkly, then ran a distracted hand through already dishevelled thick, red-gold hair. ‘It’s all a bit sudden, to be honest. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up.’
‘I’m sorry it took me so long to track you down. It was unfortunate that you weren’t in a position to answer any of my communications once I’d found your address.’
‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ Carey said drily.
‘And my attempts to contact you via your TV series also failed. I expect it was lost among the fan mail.’
‘They’ve also managed to lose the fan mail itself, now they’ve replaced me,’ Carey said. ‘No direct contact at all since telling me they weren’t offering me a contract for a new series.’
‘Dear me, the world of TV seems remarkably ruthless.’ The solicitor’s brown eyes showed mild surprise. ‘Still, once I’d travelled down and talked to the delightful elderly lady in the flat below yours, all became clear. I hear the driver who knocked you off your bicycle didn’t stop and they haven’t found him or her?’
‘No, and just my luck it was the one square inch of Dulwich Village without any CCTV surveillance! I’d had a minor run-in with another car only a few days before and meant to get one of those helmet cameras, but hadn’t got round to it.’
Mr Wilmslow shook his head and made a sympathetic tutting noise. ‘I hope you’ll make a full recovery.’
‘My left leg is never going to look quite the same again, but it was touch and go whether they’d have to amputate it at first, so I’m lucky it’s still there. Or what’s left of it, because I lost a few chunks here and there and they had to do grafts.’
Mr Wilmslow got up to go. ‘I had better get off to catch my train, unless you have any further questions?’
‘Not at the moment, though I’m sure I will, once it’s all sunk in. If the Parrys could continue to keep an eye on the place, then I should be fit to travel up there soon after Christmas.’
‘I’ll keep in touch,’ promised Mr Wilmslow, shrugging his slight frame into an ancient Burberry and winding a dark, wine-coloured woollen scarf around his neck.
As he left, he nimbly skipped aside to avoid being bowled over in the doorway by the tempestuous entrance of Carey’s friend, Nick Crane.
‘Who was that?’ Nick demanded as Mr Wilmslow disappeared, carelessly tossing an armful of mail on to the bed, narrowly missing Carey’s damaged leg. ‘Finally remembered to bring all your letters. Sorry,’ he added, as Carey winced. ‘Leg hurting?’
‘Of course it’s bloody hurting! It hasn’t stopped hurting since some nameless bastard decided to swipe me off my bike – and the physiotherapist is a sadist.’
‘She’s a very attractive sadist,’ Nick said, with a grin. ‘She can torture me any time she likes, you ungrateful sod! But I’m sure they’re sick of the sight of you now and need to get rid of you so someone else can have your bed.’
‘And I want to get out of here too, God knows.’
The fact that he would be leaving on his own two feet was, he acknowledged, largely due to the fact that his actress mother had flown back from America immediately the news of the accident had reached her and set about charming and bullying the surgeons into renewed attempts to save the mangled and broken thing that was his left leg.
As if he’d read Carey’s mind, Nick said, ‘Daisy should have had the same trust in the surgeons that your mother had, not dropped you like a hot potato the moment she got the news.’
‘She did go to all the trouble of writing to explain she had a phobia of hospitals and illness … and how she’d been meaning to tell me she was moving out of the flat anyway, because she felt our relationship just wasn’t working,’ Carey said, though at the time his girlfriend’s abrupt severance of their relationship had hurt him deeply.
‘Lying cow! And I told you she’s already shacked up with your replacement on the series, didn’t I?’
Carey shrugged. ‘Director’s assistant perks? And everyone’s told me, though I can’t say I care any more. How did you get on at the flat?’
Nick had been organizing the packing and storage of Carey’s belongings before the sale of the flat was finalized, and Daisy had arranged to meet him there that day to collect a few things she’d left behind and hand over her set of keys.
Nick, who had flung his lanky frame into the armchair, his Converse-shod feet dangling over the arm, suddenly sat upright. ‘There was something I meant to tell you the minute I got here and I completely forgot!’ he exclaimed. ‘Daisy’d already been to the flat and she’d left you this note.’
He pulled a crumpled bit of paper out of his pocket and handed it over.
There was no greeting, or polite wishes for his continued recovery, it simply read:
I can’t cope with Tiny any more. Circumstances have changed and anyway, he’s become quite impossible. You bought him, so it’s up to you to decide what to do with him.
It wasn’t signed.
‘Terse – and what does Daisy think I can do with a dog till I get out of here?’ commented Carey, looking up with a frown. Daisy had coaxed him into buying the tiny Chihuahua puppy from a friend of hers, though his novelty had worn off even before he’d begun to show his true nature: no male legs were safe from those needle-sharp teeth. He’d also quickly outgrown the designer dog-carrier she’d bought for him, so it looked increasingly likely that his father hadn’t been a Chihuahua at all …
They’d been sold a pup.
‘She’s too self-absorbed to even think of that one,’ Nick said, then rolled up his jeans to exhibit a fresh set of pinpoint marks. ‘Tiny was shut in the kitchen and when I opened the door, the little bastard got me again.’
Carey stared at him. ‘You mean … she’s dumped him there and gone?’
‘Yep. And since I couldn’t leave him there on his own and there was a plastic pet crate in th
e hall, I shoved him in that and he’s in the car now. I’ve left the windows down a bit, so he should be OK till I get back. What do you want me to do with him?’
‘I suppose I’ll have to find him a good home. You couldn’t keep him till I get out of here, I suppose, Nick?’ Carey added hopefully.
‘Apart from not wanting my legs to look like I stick pins in them for fun, I’m out all the time, so it wouldn’t be fair.’
‘True,’ conceded Carey. ‘Look, if I give you the address of the kennels we used when we went on holiday, could you take him there? It won’t be strange to him and I’ll work something permanent out as soon as I can.’
‘Yeah, good idea,’ agreed Nick, looking relieved. ‘They’re letting you out of here soon anyway, so we’ll think of something while you’re staying at mine over Christmas.’
It was lucky Nick had a ground-floor flat. Carey still didn’t know if he’d ever be able to walk without limping, but he was determined he was leaving the hospital without crutches and would dispose of even a walking stick as soon as he could.
‘Thanks, Nick. And I’ll be staying with you only till just after Christmas. Then I’m off up to Lancashire. That visitor you so nearly knocked flat when you arrived was the bearer of some surprising news.’
‘Did he want you to makeover a cottage for him?’ Nick asked hopefully. ‘As long as you delegate all the physical stuff to other people, you could take commissions to renovate cottages again, couldn’t you?’
‘No, it was nothing like that. He was a solicitor and he’d been trying to track me down for ages. In fact, a couple of those letters you’ve brought me are probably from him. He came down himself in the end and one of the neighbours told him what had happened and where I was.’
‘Not an ambulance chaser, is he? They can’t sue anyone if they don’t know who the hit-and-run driver was, surely? Unless you’ve remembered any more details about the car that hit you.’
Carey frowned. ‘Sometimes I get a sort of flash and think I can see a big silver four-by-four … but that might be totally unrelated to the accident. Concussion can have weird side effects.’
‘So, not an ambulance chaser?’
‘No, he’s a family solicitor – in fact, I suppose he’s my family solicitor now. It appears that my father had an older brother and now he’s died and left me everything, because I’m the last of the Revells … or the last of that branch of them in Lancashire, anyway.’
‘You’re an heir!’ exclaimed Nick, his deep-set black eyes suddenly burning like coals with excitement. ‘You’re rich beyond your wildest dreams and can invest lots of lovely lolly in Raising Crane Productions! We’ll make a TV documentary series that will blast The Complete Country Cottage right out of the water!’
Nick’s small production company, in which Carey had an investment, was doing well, but still looking for that big, elusive hit.
‘Don’t get too excited, we’re not talking millions here,’ said Carey, damping down his enthusiasm. ‘There’s a run-down house and not much money. Plus, there’s a resentful stepdaughter and her husband living in the Lodge, who expected to scoop the lot.’
‘Well, tough,’ said Nick unsympathetically. ‘How come you didn’t know you had an uncle?’
‘There was a big family falling-out and Dad ran off to be on the stage when he was still in his teens and never went back.’
The rest was history: Harry Revell, progressing via ENSA on to the post-war stage, had become one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of his generation. He’d married very late and died when Carey was eight.
‘Dad never told me anything about his family and if Mum knew, she didn’t mention it. I’ll have to ask her.’
His mother had been a young aspiring actress when she’d married Harry, and she’d returned to the stage after he died. Eventually she’d gone to America and made her name in the hit series The Little Crimes of Lisa Strange. She played a terribly English spinster who travelled round the country solving mysteries, assisted by her sarky female black American driver. It had been going for years and showed no signs of ever stopping.
Carey looked Mossby up on his smartphone, though there were few pictures and little information. It was a white stucco Arts and Crafts house, linked by an old square tower to part of the original Elizabethan building at the back. It was situated on a sort of bluff with terraces leading down to a lake and woodland.
‘It’s a stately home, all right!’ said Nick.
‘It’s not huge, but it’s a little bigger than I thought it would be. The Arts and Crafts houses were mostly built by the wealthy middle classes, and were more like overgrown cottages than anything.’
‘Well, it should be right up your street, anyway. And did you say it needed renovating?’
‘It sounds as if it’s been neglected lately,’ agreed Carey, and they looked at each other in sudden mutual understanding.
‘This could be just the fresh start you need – and a major opportunity for both of us,’ enthused Nick. ‘Carey Revell’s Mansion Makeover – a Raising Crane Production!’
‘It’s not a mansion,’ Carey objected, but his friend had the bit between his teeth now.
‘I can make a pilot – see who’s interested in a series – and I think there’ll be a lot of interest, because there’s the dual angle of you recovering from a serious accident and the whole unexpected inheritance thing … and then all the usual ups and downs of restoration, only on a huge scale.’ His dark eyes glowed again. ‘It could run to more than one series and it’ll give us both the break we need!’
‘I haven’t even seen the place yet,’ Carey cautioned him. ‘Hold on a bit!’
‘Doesn’t Angelique live somewhere quite near to this Mossby place?’ Nick continued, carried away on a tide of optimism. ‘If there are any windows to be repaired or replaced, that’ll be really handy!’
‘Yeah, I expect she’ll think just the same way you do,’ Carey said sarcastically. Angel – or Angelique, to give her her full and slightly ridiculous name – was his oldest friend. As students he, Nick, Angel and a couple of others had shared a house together.
‘My old gran used to say that as one door closed, another opened,’ Nick said, getting up. ‘She was right.’
Then he went off to deliver Tiny to Pooches Paradise, after Carey had rung and pleaded with them to house the dog, because last time Tiny had made himself unpopular by biting a staff member. They were going to charge double, and triple over the actual Christmas period.
He couldn’t tell them how long they’d have to have him after that. He assumed Daisy had already offered Tiny to all her friends and acquaintances before she’d dumped him, and he didn’t rate Tiny’s chances of being rehomed if he went to a dog rescue centre.
Carey decided to worry about that later. He got the photos of Mossby up on his phone again and an innate feeling that this was his place – somewhere he truly belonged to – tugged at his heart, taking him totally by surprise.
It was ridiculous to feel that way, seeing as he’d never even heard of Mossby till that morning!
Or had he? Now he came to think of it, the name did stir up some very distant recollection …
His eye fell on the heap of mail Nick had dumped on the bed and he spotted a letter addressed in Angelique’s familiar scrawl and sent via his friend’s address, as all her letters had been since the accident. At least Nick had always remembered to bring those.
He ripped it open, skimming the enquiries after his rehab progress and smiling at the small caricatures she’d drawn in the margins: himself wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy and one of old Ivan, who worked in Julian Seddon’s stained-glass studio, hobbling about with a slopping mug of tea in each hand.
She wrote that she was off to Antigua in a few days to stay with her mother and stepfather, who kept a superyacht in Falmouth Harbour, as well as having a nearby villa. Angel had always spent two weeks with them just before Christmas – he’d gone with her himself a couple of times, when they wer
e students – but last year she hadn’t, because her partner, Julian, had been recovering from a stroke.
Carey thought Julian must be making a good recovery if Angel was leaving him to his own devices. Or maybe he had insisted, realizing she needed the break? When she’d been to see him in hospital last time she’d been in London on business, he’d been troubled by how worried and strained she’d seemed.
His conscience suddenly twinged: maybe he should have visited them when Julian first had the stroke, or even rung her more often since? But then, everything had been wiped from his mind by the accident, except recovering and getting out of hospital as soon as he could, preferably on two feet.
He smiled, wryly. Angel always joked that he only remembered her existence when he wanted her to work for free, making or repairing stained glass for one of the cottages featured on his programmes, but that was far from the truth.
Since she fell in love with Julian Seddon the summer after she graduated and moved to Lancashire to live and work with him, she might have left the centre stage of his life, but Carey was always conscious of her there in the wings. And he was quite certain she felt the same way about him.
Perhaps I should explain the events that led up to my first, unlikely meeting with Ralph Revell, which took place in my father’s glass manufactory in London, in early 1894 …
My mother had died early and though my aunt Barbara, who came to take charge of the household, did her utmost to turn me into a young lady, not even her best endeavours could keep me away from the workshop or stop my fascination with the whole art and craft of stained-glass window making.
My father was an intelligent man with a great interest in the arts and well acquainted with William Morris and his circle. Under their influence he had turned away from the modern trend of merely painting pictures on to ever larger pieces of glass, giving a dull, flat effect, and instead enthusiastically embraced the return to the purer artistry of earlier times. Smaller pieces of glass, made in the Antique way, uneven in thickness and containing irregularities, gave life, sparkle and depth to a window. The dark lines of the leading formed part of the design and there was need for only minimal overpainting.
Written From the Heart Page 21
