A Place of Secrets

by Rachel Hore

  She followed her grandmother into the kitchen, dismayed to see how bent over she was getting. Jessie was eighty-five now—indeed the last time Jude had seen her was on her birthday in May, when the four generations of women—Gran, her mother, Valerie, Jude, Claire and little Summer—had all crowded into the living room for sandwiches and a lopsided birthday cake that Summer had helped bake and decorated herself. Later, Jessie had managed to hobble along the harbor on Jude’s arm. Now, seeing her grandmother lean against the work surface for support as she fumbled with a battered tea caddy, she wondered for how much longer Gran would be able to leave her house unaided.

  “Do let me help, Gran.”

  Under Jessie’s instructions she poured boiling water into the familiar metal teapot, laid out Great-Granny’s porcelain teacups and carried the tray through to the living room.

  Jessie lowered herself into her easy chair with a little gasp. “I can’t get my breath sometimes,” she explained, seeing the concern in Jude’s face. “At least I’m not so dizzy today.”

  “Dizzy? That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Dr. Gable says it’s one of these viruses. Pass me that cushion, will you? He gave me some pills but I won’t take them.”

  “Oh, Gran,” Jude chided as she helped her grandmother get comfortable.

  “They make me feel all peculiar. Raw egg with a bit of brandy in it—now that’s a good pick-me-up. Don’t worry, Jude, I’m just old bones, and there’s nothing can cure that. Now tell me all about yourself, dear. Much more interesting. Help yourself to a fondant fancy, won’t you? I know they’re your favorites.”

  “Thank you,” Jude said, anxiously watching Gran wield the teapot. She sipped her tea and dutifully peeled the paper off one of the gaudy cupcakes she’d loved when younger, but which as an adult she found sickly sweet. “I’m sorry I don’t get down here much. I’m crazily busy at work and then, well, the weekends fill themselves up. Seeing friends and so on,” she ended, feeling guilty.

  “Anybody special?” Jessie looked shrewdly at her over the top of her teacup.

  Jude hesitated, then smiled. “There is a man on the scene, if that’s what you’re asking, Gran. It’s not serious, so don’t start hoping. I know what you and Mum are like.”

  “Oh never mind us. Does he makes you happy, love?”

  “I enjoy his company.”

  “That’s not the same thing at all,” she said severely. “I worry about you, Jude.”

  “I know you do, Gran. But you shouldn’t. I’m over the worst now.”

  Gran contemplated her thoughtfully then said, “These things aren’t easy to forget. Yet we must put them behind us and make the best of life. That’s something I’ve learned the hard way.”

  Her grandmother had a faraway look in her eyes, as though distracted by something beyond the confines of the room.

  “Gran?”

  “Sorry, love. I was thinking of something.”

  “From the past?”

  “Yes. From long, long ago when I was little. I suppose, looking at your old gran, you can’t believe she was little once, hey?”

  Jude, seeing her grandmother’s wrinkled features transformed by a mischievous smile, said with spirit, “I certainly can.”

  Gran looked delighted.

  “Was it something sad or happy you were thinking about?” Jude pursued.

  “It was both. Well, since you ask, I was remembering someone I used to know. You wouldn’t know her, Jude. It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  “It would, you know. Was this while you were living at Starbrough?”

  “It was, yes. Once, when I was seven or eight, I met a girl in the forest near where I lived and we became friends.”

  “Do tell me,” begged Jude.

  “If you’ll have another of those cakes,” her grandmother said, and Jude meekly took one and bit into it.

  “I didn’t know it then, but this girl was one of those traveling folk, a proper Romany gypsy, so that’s why I’d see her for a few weeks or months and then not for a long while, a year maybe. Her name was Tamsin.”

  She paused for breath and Jude said between mouthfuls, “What happened to her?”

  “I was coming to that. One day when I was nine or ten she turned up at school. I went to school in Starbrough village, you know. We were all sitting there doing our sums or whatever, and you could have blew me down when the door opened and the headmaster brought her in. Said she was a new pupil and, well, this was a red rag to a bull, he said she was a gypsy and we were to be kind to her.”

  “Presumably you weren’t.” Jude noticed Gran’s country accent grew broader when she talked about the past.

  “Some of them boys were the worst. It’s no surprise she wasn’t very happy at school. Some of the other children thought her a fool. Called her names—said gypsies were thieves and the like. Got it from their parents probably, though I never heard that sort of nonsense at home. He had a word or two to say about poachers, my da, but he never blamed the gypsies more than any other. Anyway, I’m ashamed to say I was too frightened to be her friend at school. I thought I’d get picked on too, you know how children can be. But sometimes in the holidays if your great-uncle Charlie and great-aunt Sarah and me went up to the folly I might see her and we often played together, happy as sandboys we’d be. It was like we had another sister. It didn’t seem to matter to her that we ignored her at school. I’ve often thought how unhappy we must have made her.”

  “Perhaps she understood that you were frightened,” Jude said, wondering where this rambling story was going. She was a little dismayed by how much this episode from long ago seemed to be bothering Gran.

  “I hope so,” Gran said. “At least I never joined in when they got at her in playtime. Some more tea, dear?”

  “Thank you. What happened to Tamsin?” Jude asked her.

  But Gran pressed her lips together. Finally, she shook her head sadly and said, “We … her family moved away. I never saw her again. I always felt badly, mind. I didn’t help her when she needed it, I couldn’t help … And I took something from her, you see.”

  “What?” but it was as though Jessie hadn’t heard her. Jude was shocked by her grandmother’s look of anguish.

  “It’s awful never to forgive or be forgiven,” the old lady said. “It’s always there—buried, yes, but you know it’s there.”

  * * *

  Sleep didn’t come. She lay puzzling for a while over the story Gran had told her, about the gypsy girl in the forest at Starbrough. There was a folly. They’d played near the folly, she’d said. She’d have to look for that tomorrow.

  She recalled what Gran had intimated about Mark. That she had to let him go. It wasn’t as easy as that. She was trying to with Caspar, trying desperately hard, hoping, by going through the motions of a steady relationship, that the dark, stagnant pool in her mind would unblock and drain away, that love would flow again. Perhaps Caspar was wrong for her. Or perhaps it was her fault and she wasn’t letting him love her. He was the first man she’d been out with properly since Mark and she worried that she’d forgotten how to do it.

  When the travel alarm woke her the next morning the house was still quiet. She washed and dressed herself in yesterday’s suit with a fresh cami top. Down in the kitchen she scavenged for some Corn Flakes, then, as there was no movement upstairs, wrote a thank-you note, propped it up against the toaster and let herself out.

  Upstairs, Jessie stirred briefly then settled back into her dream. In it she was searching for something, something she urgently needed to find.

  CHAPTER 4

  Jude nearly missed the sign that said “Starbrough Hall only. Private.” She followed the long, rutted drive across rough grassland, then past a lawn with a stone fountain to the sand-colored Palladian house she recognized from the book in her office. She parked her shiny blue hatchback on the gravel forecourt next to a battered estate car. When she got out, a couple of large setter dogs in the other vehicle began to bark and jump
about frantically. She ignored them, more interested in the house, which though still graceful was shabby, she thought. Some of the window frames appeared rotten and slabs of plaster were missing from the walls.

  The BlackBerry in her pocket began to trill. Suri, she read on the screen as she pressed answer. It was nine o’clock. She couldn’t escape the office for a moment.

  “Suri, hi,” she said. “You’re early. I’d better not speak long. I’ve just arrived at the house. How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks. I’m sorry to bother you now, Jude. I got in five minutes ago to find Klaus storming about—don’t worry, I’m in the storeroom so he can’t hear me. Finance brought down this month’s figures and he’s deeply not happy. There’s a boardroom meeting you’ve got to go to at nine o’clock on Monday. He wants you in at half-eight.”

  “Oh, marvelous. He’s probably so antsy because the Americans are over. Tell him not to worry, I’ll be there.”

  “He wants you—you’re going to hate me—to e-mail him your projections for the next sale. And there’s other stuff,” she ended vaguely. “Inigo might ring.”

  “I won’t be able to do anything until this evening. Can’t someone look up my projections? They’re in the folder marked ‘September Auction.’ I can’t remember the file name, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll have a go.”

  “Great, thanks. This place is an amazing pile. You should see it—like something out of Pride and Prejudice, but a bit more moth-eaten.”

  “Don’t think of me stuck here all day.” Suri sighed enviously before ringing off.

  Jude stuffed the phone in her handbag and, taking her briefcase out of the trunk, walked quickly past the barking hounds. A flight of crumbly, shallow stone steps rose to the huge double-front door, but, to the right, an arched gateway led, she presumed, around to the back of the house. She walked up the front steps and pressed the bell. After a minute or two, she heard footsteps and the door juddered open.

  A fleshy man in his early forties, wearing knee-length shorts and an old rugby shirt, said, “Ms. Gower? Robert Wickham. Do come in.”

  “It’s Jude, short for Judith,” she said, shaking hands.

  When he shut the door behind them the tiny lobby was plunged into gloom. “I should have told you to come around the back,” said Mr. Wickham, frowning. “Under the arch, turn left. We don’t often use this door.”

  “You wanted me to come in through the tradesman’s entrance?” she joked, as she followed him up a flight of marble steps.

  “No, goodness, no, I don’t mean to imply that you’re a tradesman at all,” he blustered. “It’s merely that everybody finds all these steps a damned nuisance, especially with the children’s whatnots.”

  “Yes, of course,” Jude said, thinking him nice but a bit humorless. “I see what you mean.”

  They had reached a circular, marbled atrium, where half a dozen classical stone busts frowned down from niches around the walls. An overflowing coat stand sheltered a collection of small, brightly colored Wellingtons and toy umbrellas. A box of plastic cars, robots and dolls with grinning faces lay directly in the sight line of a long-dead Caesar. The bust’s outraged glare made her want to laugh again, but her host might be offended.

  “May I take your jacket?” he asked.

  “I’ll hang on to it.” It was quite chilly. Must be all the marble, she thought. “How many children do you have?”

  “Three-year-old twins,” he replied, as if he didn’t quite believe it. “A boy and a girl. My wife’s taken them to her parents in Yorkshire. It’s been marvelously quiet here, I can tell you.” This time she saw with relief a twinkle in his eye. “Though I do miss them. Come straight down.” He led the way down a long corridor to their left and opened a door to a room at the front of the house.

  “Oh, how wonderful!” Jude exclaimed, as she walked into one of the most unexpected and loveliest libraries she’d ever seen. It was nearly oval, the white-painted bookcases and cupboards filling the walls had been built in two sweeping curves, from door to window. Below the tall Georgian sash rested a huge old globe, slightly tilted, in a way that suggested it was about to rise into orbit. Nearby was the orrery Robert Wickham had mentioned on the phone, a spherical structure made up of interlocked wooden hoops to represent the different paths of the planets in the solar system. She moved closer to study it.

  “Splendid, isn’t it?” said Robert, stroking the outermost hoop. “I was always fascinated by this as a child, not least because it didn’t have all the planets we know now. When did they find Uranus, for instance?”

  “William Herschel spotted it in the early seventeen-eighties, I think,” Jude said. She counted the planets. There were only six including Earth. He was right. No Uranus.

  “I’ve no memory for dates.” Robert chuckled. “Alexia is always complaining. Make yourself at home, Jude. I’ll let my mother know you’re here. You’d like some coffee, I daresay?”

  “Coffee would be lovely,” she said. He left, closing the door behind him. She didn’t mind him; he seemed pleasant enough, a country squire type, a bit nervy, but she’d had to deal with worse. She forgot about him, instead enjoying the peaceful gloom of the room, the comforting scents of wood and leather and old books, liking the sensitive visage of the young man in eighteenth-century dress in the portrait over the fireplace. The shape of the library gave her an odd sensation. It was like being cradled in a large egg, she decided, or maybe the belly of an old ship. There were a couple of sturdy leather armchairs and a sofa set around the marble fireplace that contributed to the air of masculine comfort. She leaned against one of the chairs and stared up at the painted ceiling. It represented an astrological chart of the night sky, the firmament colored a midnight blue with images of the different star signs—the Water Carrier, the Twins, the Crab and the rest—painted in gold and carmine, silver and white. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

  She left her briefcase by a big desk near the window and glanced out across the gravel forecourt to a lawn. Beyond this, spread an expanse of scrubby, rough-cut grass then trees and a low flint wall that bordered the road. In the distance, hedges and fields rolled out to the horizon. She wondered where the gamekeeper’s cottage might be, where her grandmother had lived, and the woodland folly she’d mentioned. To the right of the park a thick pelt of trees blanketed a low hill. The folly might be up there somewhere, she supposed, though she couldn’t see any buildings.

  She turned back to the room and began to wander around, idling over the bookshelves. Mostly there were works from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fiction, out-of-date reference books, works of history and travel. Though evidence of a well-fed mind, none of these looked valuable. It was when she moved to the back of the room near the door that she found the books she’d come to see, behind locked glass doors. The key lay on a shelf nearby, but despite Robert Wickham’s invitation to “make herself at home” she felt it proper to wait for his return before investigating further. Through the glass she could make out some of the titles stamped in gold leaf on the leather bindings. Compleat System of Opticks by Robert Smith—if that was a first edition, she guessed someone might pay a couple of thousand for that alone. James Ferguson’s Astronomy Explained was also possibly valuable, as was what looked like Flamsteed’s famous Atlas Coelestis—translated literally as “Atlas of the Heavens.” Further up the bookcase she could glimpse volumes of what might be an early edition of Newton’s Principia and felt a little rush of adrenaline. That would be incredibly rare. Suddenly she was glad she’d come.

  She turned as the door opened and an elegantly dressed woman entered, followed by Robert with the coffee. “Ms. Gower—Jude,” he said, laying the tray on a table near the fireplace, “this is my mother, Chantal Wickham.”

  Mrs. Wickham came to meet her, a graceful hand outstretched. “Jude, if I may call you that, how lovely to meet you.” As they touched and their eyes met it was as though a current of calm, warm strength passed from the older lady t
hrough the younger, and Jude almost gasped.

  Chantal Wickham had been beautiful—was still beautiful, Jude corrected herself. It was difficult to tell whether she was fifty-five or seventy. Almost as tall as Jude, straight-backed, with thick, dark shoulder-length hair frosted with silver, and high cheekbones in a wide, intelligent, olive-skinned face, she possessed the kind of natural grace that a wardrobe-load of expensive designer clothes could never buy. Yet, though concealer did its best to disguise them, it was impossible to miss the great hollows beneath her chestnut-brown eyes. Here was a woman, like herself, who knew what it was to toss and turn at night, unvisited by sleep.

  “You’ve come to inspect our treasures.” Even her voice was beautiful, husky, her diction formal and with a slight foreign lilt. “I expect Robert will have explained how desperately sad we are to have to sell them. But apparently the house will fall down about our ears if we don’t.” The distress behind her words was unmistakable.

  “Mother, we mustn’t start this all over again,” Robert said, looking up from pouring coffee.

  Jude glanced uncertainly from mother to son with a sinking feeling. It was awkward when one of the parties didn’t want to sell; it made her feel like a money-grabber, an asset-stripper, and, worse, if the squabble continued, it could mean she was wasting her time coming at all. Seeing her expression, Chantal Wickham immediately made amends. “It’s not your fault, of course, Jude. I’m sure that you will appreciate our collection. It must be wonderful, the job you do, handling these marvelous things.”

  “I do love my work, yes,” said Jude, feeling she was walking a tightrope. “Thank you.” She took the cup that Robert passed her.

  “Jude,” Robert said, his eyes flicking to the wide world beyond the window, “would it be all right if I left you with my mother this morning? She knows more about the collection than I do, and something urgent has cropped up. Mother, George Fenton phoned a moment ago. It seems the pheasant coops have been broken into during the night.”