by RV Raman
‘I tried, Uncle. But he…’ Her words petered out, and she shook her head mutely.
‘Is he okay, Michelle?’ Dora asked suddenly. ‘Not affected by the landslide, I hope?’
Michelle threw her cousin a grateful glance and smile.
‘He’s okay, Dora. Thanks.’
In a flash, Athreya understood why Michelle had rushed to the French windows as soon as she had heard about the landslide. She had immediately begun texting. She must have been trying to reach her husband to check if he was safe.
The conversation was abruptly broken by Richie sauntering in, looking a little dishevelled. From the droplets of dew on his jacket, and from his sodden shoes, Athreya guessed that he had been walking in the open. Without a word, Richie went to the buffet and began loading a plate with food. Silence fell.
He then went to the far end of the dining table, opposite Bhaskar, and sat down to eat, keeping his gaze down. He didn’t even look at his sister to see how her hand was faring. Nor did he bother to exchange pleasantries with their guest.
After a few long moments of embarrassed silence during which Dora bit her lip and turned away from the table, forced talk began. Dora’s eyes were swimming with tears. A strange expression suffused Bhaskar’s face, one that was a mixture of sadness and outrage. For a brief moment, disgust flickered across Michelle’s face.
Clearly, the family knew something Athreya didn’t. Glancing at Varadan, Athreya saw that the lawyer was studiously focussing his entire attention on his dinner.
Chapter 5
It took Athreya a couple of seconds to remember where he was when he awoke the next morning in a large, square room about ten yards across. A five-seater sofa set, two upholstered chairs, a gleaming writing table and three low tables dotted the room, around the huge four-poster bed he was lying on. The only time he recalled waking up in bigger rooms was when he had visited some of the palaces in Rajasthan.
Diffused light filtered in through the barred windows he had left open overnight. Outside, a thick blanket of fog shrouded the lawns and the garden. Sunlight was struggling to infiltrate the murkiness, giving the vista a pearly quality.
Athreya rose and walked to the window, where he deeply inhaled the crisp mountain air. At once, he felt invigorated, as a pleasant tingling spread across his body and the lingering lethargy from a restful slumber fell away. The eucalyptus-scented air felt moist and fresh. He decided to take a walk outside.
Ten minutes later, he stepped out of the front door, which he had found unlocked. Before him was dense fog, through which he could barely make out the tree-lined driveway by which he had arrived yesterday. The fog reminded him of the comparison many an English writer has used—a thick pea soup. There was no sound to be heard, not even that of the breeze or the brook.
He went down the broad steps on to the paved walkway, patterned with interlocking blocks of three colours. But now, he could only see them as three shades of grey. The aspect that struck him was that the hazy world around him was almost entirely devoid of colour. The fog was so thick that he would not have detected a man ten yards away, and, even at a shorter distance, he wouldn’t have recognized anyone unless he knew the person well.
He walked a few paces and turned left along the walkway, treading along in a leisurely manner. At a junction where the walkway met another walkway at a right angle, he stopped and turned to look at the rectangular mansion.
The ivy-covered shorter side of the rectangle, along which he had come, looked black. The openings in the ivy that marked the doors and windows looked a shade darker. The longer side of the rectangle, along which he now wanted to walk, looked grey, as it blended into the fog at a distance. The mansion stood silent and still. A slight shiver ran down his spine as his imagination seemed to perceive something baleful and ominous in the scene.
Shrugging it off with a hiss of irritation, Athreya began walking down the pathway that ran parallel to the longer side of the mansion. The first room to his left was the large drawing room where he had spent several hours yesterday. One of the two pairs of French windows, he knew, must open on to the track he was on. Sure enough, he came upon a set of steps that led down to a path that met the walkway.
The room next to the drawing room also had a pair of French windows. From these too, a set of steps led down to a path, which then met the walkway. At the top of the steps, framed against a soft glow from the room, was an indistinct shape. Man or woman, he could not tell, but it seemed to be peering out at him.
Abruptly, the figure ran down the steps and hastened towards him. Athreya could make out the contours of a hand, which was a clutching heavy stick or cane of some sort. When it was a couple of yards away, he recognized who it was, just as the person too seemed to identify him.
‘Mr. Athreya,’ Manu called in surprise. ‘Good morning! You are up early.’
‘Morning, Manu,’ Athreya acknowledged. ‘Force of habit, I suppose. I’m usually an early riser. It’s a wonderful morning. Even if I can’t see beyond my nose.’
‘That’s the valley for you. Fog can get really thick here. But it should lift within an hour. Not every day is like this, you know. Sometimes, it is bright and sunny.’
‘Oh, I’m not complaining, Manu. I am quite enjoying this. A novelty for a city dweller.’
‘It is, indeed.’ Manu paused for moment and looked around as if seeking something. ‘Say, were you walking along here ten to fifteen minutes ago?’ he asked.
‘No. I just came out of the front door.’
‘Did you see or hear anyone when you stepped out?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I saw someone on this walkway. I saw him from my window.’ He jerked his thumb at the windows through which he had come. ‘That’s my room. He seemed to be prowling around.’
‘Prowling?’
‘That’s the impression I got. There seemed to be something stealthy about the way he was moving. But that could be due to the fog as well. You, too, were walking slowly. But, come to think of it, he was shorter than you, smaller built. He was walking faster.’
‘I wanted to see the garden and the grounds. But not knowing my way around, I thought it best that I go about cautiously.’
‘Of course. Say, why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea? In fifteen minutes, the fog will thin out sufficiently for you to see the estate. I’ll take you on a short tour.’
‘Sure.’
Half an hour later, they were back on the walkway. The world was much clearer now, although wispy mist still hugged the dew-drenched ground and lingered among the trees. The mansion was more visible, with its stone walls, severe and grey, stretching for fifty yards along the longer side.
A third set of French windows led from a room at the farthest end of the mansion. A part of the steps had been converted into a ramp. This, Athreya guessed, must be Bhaskar’s room. The ramp must have been added to facilitate the passage of the latest owner’s wheelchair.
The upper floor of the mansion was punctuated by six large windows, all barred. All of them were dark. Three of these rooms were occupied by Dora, Richie and Michelle. The other side of the upper floor also had six rooms, Manu said. But they were currently not in a state to be occupied, as the plumbing and electrical wiring were awaiting repairs.
On their right was the rose garden with an impressive array of bushes sporting roses of different hues, from white to dark red. Beyond that was a low single-storeyed building, which Manu said was the annex. It comprised six guest rooms, only one of which was now lit. It was occupied by Varadan. Some of the neighbours who were to arrive later in the day would be housed there. Bhaskar had invited four neighbours to the party.
They went down the walkway, past the mansion, on to a stretch that had a grove of tall trees to the left and the manicured inner lawn to the right. At the end of the walkway stood a building with a steepled roof covered with grey shingles. Like the front of the mansion, this building too sported ivy. But the cr
eepers had not crept up the walls completely, as they had the mansion’s facade.
Questing fingers of dark green had reached halfway up most walls, and had closed over the structure’s entire height here and there.
This was the chapel. Manu pushed the door, which swung open with a creak of protest. It turned out to be a long room with an altar on a dais at the far end. The gilded altar looked new and heavy, and was made of a combination of wood, metal and stone. Its top comprised a long stone slab, with its middle section supported by five metal pillars and both ends supported by wooden cabinets.
An aisle ran down the middle of the room, from the door to the altar, with pews on either side. Between the front row of pews and the dais on which the altar stood was an open space, about five yards in length, that was covered with a number of rectangular mats. At either end of the open space, to the right and the left extremes, were two doors, which were shut and bolted.
The far wall behind the altar bore a cross and a mural depicting Jesus. On the dais, between the altar and the mural was enough space for three or four people to stand or sit. Two long wooden benches ran along the wall on either side of the mural. Five tall candlesticks, finely engraved and polished, stood on the altar. All the windows on the side walls of the chapel were closed and latched.
‘Do you have a priest here?’ Athreya asked.
‘No,’ Manu replied. ‘But we have Father Tobias up near the main road from which we turned into the valley yesterday. He runs a small church not far from where the landslide took place.’
‘I remember Dora pointing out a church just before we turned into the mud road that took us to the hilltop.’
‘That’s the one. We send word to Father Tobias if we need him at the chapel, and he willingly obliges.’
They left the chapel and went behind it to the Grey Brook. Crystal-clear water gurgled as it flowed over rocks and stones worn smooth over time. The brook was a good fifteen feet below them, where dark rock dropped sheer to meet it. The blackish colour of the rock bed and the pebbles made the brook look grey–hence the name ‘Grey Brook’, Athreya surmised.
Along the brook was another pathway that went upstream and around the inner lawn, which they took. A little distance up the path, at the very bank of the brook, was a raised structure with no walls, but with a shingled roof. Sunset Deck, Manu called it. From there, the pathway curved and went back towards the rose garden and the annex.
‘Farther upstream, another walkway leads to the rock garden and the family cemetery,’ Manu said as they reached the annex and turned right to head back towards the mansion. ‘You can probably take a stroll that way after breakfast. Past the cemetery is the open vale. Ten to fifteen minutes away is the Misty Valley Resort and a couple of dwellings.’
‘These walkways have been laid out very well,’ Athreya said appreciatively. ‘Most places where I have seen such interlocking blocks have a few ups and downs, and you can sometimes stub your toes on them.’
‘Yes. The people who built them took special effort to ensure that the blocks were laid evenly, without edges or bumps. The idea is to afford smooth passage to Dad’s wheelchair. The wheelchair needs an even surface, especially at the speed Dad drives it.’
They had reached the mansion, and were about to enter Manu’s room through the French windows when a raised voice came from their right.
‘I will not let you spoil the family name!’ Bhaskar thundered, anger crackling in his voice.
* * *
‘Manu has briefed you on the matters relating to the inheritance of the estate,’ Bhaskar began as Athreya and Varadan sat in his study after breakfast. ‘To put that into perspective, it would be useful for you, Mr. Athreya, to understand a bit of history.
‘My father, Thomas Fernandez, was a wealthy man by most standards. By all accounts, he ran a tight business, but he was also a fair-minded man. He is said to have helped freedom fighters and anti-British rebels extensively before Independence. But in those days, anyone who wanted to succeed had no option but to do business with the British, and that’s how he learnt about the Greybrooke estate and eventually ended up buying it.
‘My parents had three children. I am the eldest, followed by my brother, Mathew, who was two years younger. My sister, Sarah, followed Mathew into this world a year-and-a-half later. There is this peculiar thing about the Fernandez clan…all the Fernandez boys have little respect for convention and are often overly venturesome. They are often given to eccentricity, and do crazy things. I myself am no exception. Thankfully, Manu seems to have broken the mould.
‘But let me start with Sarah, my sister. As luck would have it, she married a leech named Gonzalves. That is what set off a chain of events that continue to this day. When my mother—a divine soul by the name of Anjali—died, my father decided to begin transferring his wealth to his children. Mind you, the Greybrooke estate, which he bought dirt cheap, was only a part of his assets. He had more in the form of investments, property and his business.
‘The first thing he did when he began planning his bequests was to take care of his daughter. He settled a minor fortune on Sarah, and gave her a large property in Madras, now Chennai. Together, the money and the property accounted for roughly a third of his wealth. That, he said until his dying day, was the biggest mistake of his life. That’s because Gonzalves, Sarah’s rascal of a husband, liquidated the inheritance and ran through it in a few years.
‘As if that were not enough, Gonzalves then made Sarah pester Dad for more money. He even resorted to emotional blackmail, but Dad didn’t budge. Sarah used to come here to Greybrooke and spend long periods of time with Dad.
Partly to get away from her badgering husband, partly in the hope of getting some money. She succeeded to some extent, but Dad would never give her large sums.
‘He made sure, however, that the needs of Sarah’s daughter, Michelle, were fully met. He directly funded her education and sent her money every month for her expenses.
‘Coming to my brother, Mathew, it was a different story. Mathew was an inveterate rebel, who liked to wear his defiance on his sleeve. His pet target was Dad. He and Dad were perpetually at war with each other. On anything and everything, from the smallest thing to the biggest, they would clash. Eventually, there came a time when Dad thought it best that they didn’t live under the same roof.
‘Unlike me, Mathew had always shown interest in Dad’s business, which was doing very well. By this time, Dad was getting old, and was finding it difficult to run the business. Besides, my mother’s health was failing, and he wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.
‘It was therefore a very agreeable solution to all parties concerned when Dad gave his business to Mathew, who gladly accepted it and moved away. The unequivocal understanding was that Mathew would not get a significant share of Dad’s remaining wealth, which would largely come to me. Mathew had, for all practical purposes, been settled.
‘But, by the time Dad died, things had changed. Mathew had been reckless and had run the business into the ground. Dad had finalized his will in which the Greybrooke estate—now of substantial value—would come to me. I also inherited a chunk of his financial investments, while Sarah and Mathew got smaller portions.
‘Dad had been clear in his mind that he had divided his assets into three roughly equal parts, which he had given to his three children. Two of these three, he had largely given away before he wrote the will. This distribution he documented meticulously, lest his will be contested by people who did not know the history of the family.
‘But when Dad died and the will was about to take effect, Mathew disputed it in court. Abetted by Gonzalves, who was still hoping to gain from Dad’s death, Sarah joined Mathew in the challenge. In their plea, they made no mention of the inheritance they had already received—and squandered—from Dad. Given the clear documentation Dad had attached to the will as his reasoning, there was little merit to the challenge.
‘But our c
ourts are what they are. The challenge dragged on, stoking bitterness and resentment along the way. By the time it came to a proper hearing, both Sarah and Mathew were gone. Sarah had been diagnosed with cancer, and the last two years were painful for the family. I did what I could financially, but there was no changing the inevitable.
‘Mathew always had a weak heart. Unable to handle the stress of running a failing business and unable to stomach the bitterness arising from his imagined grievances against Dad, he too succumbed.
‘At the final hearing, it turned out to be a no-contest case. Within minutes, the court struck down Mathew’s challenge. But it had cost us years, and had engendered needless acrimony in the family. At the end of it, Michelle, Richie and Dora had been left penniless.
‘That’s when I did something I hope I will not regret. After the court had passed the order, I publicly pledged that I would provide for my nephew and nieces. I vowed to give them pieces of what I had inherited from my father. Manu would get the lion’s share as was rightfully due to him, but his cousins too would get something.
‘I wrote a will bequeathing parts of the Greybrooke estate to Michelle and Richie, and a Bangalore property to Dora. Some other locals here also received smaller bequests. I left my paintings collection to Phillip, whom you will meet shortly. He is an artist I’ve known for seven years, and he happens to be a major contributor to my collection. You will see a number of his paintings in the gallery. My antiques, of course, go to Manu. Similarly, I left some money and a small piece of land to a local church run by Father Tobias. A Coonoor hospital gets some money, and a number of charities receive grants.
