‘Nonsense. You’ll only end up checking your work emails and worrying about the gas bill. A change is as good as a rest, so you’ll have to come up to Yorkshire to spend the season with Douglas and me. There’s heaps of room – it’s a manor house, you know – and it’s only his son and grandson otherwise. I insist.’
Surprise at my mother’s unexpected desire to spend any time at all with me, let alone an extended period of several weeks, led me to agree. It was only later, mulling it over with Sam and a bottle of wine, that I suspected she was probably just throwing herself into the new role she hoped for as lady of the manor (despite the fact that Douglas spent most of the year in his Kensington home) and a simply marvellous relationship with her only daughter fitted the picture better than the strained, twice-a-year lunch style relationship we had in reality. By then it was too late to change my mind, and anyway, the thoughts of getting away from London and maybe even healing the fractured relationship with my mother were appealing.
A sharp rapping broke into my thoughts, and my eyes, which had started to droop shut, sprang open; it was Mum, tapping her long nail on the glass barrier between us and the driver. I saw him touch a button and it slid smoothly to one side.
‘Madam?’
‘How much longer?’
‘Only another minute or two now, madam.’
‘Thank you.’
The glass slid shut again and I smiled tentatively, a little flock of butterflies taking a stroll around my stomach.
‘Why are you looking so tragic?’ said my mother, taking out a small compact mirror and starting to dab at her already-immaculate face and hair. ‘It’s going to be a good Christmas. I’m the one who should be worrying, I have to pass muster with his bloody son and God knows how many more family members.’
As she took out a golden tube of lipstick, I saw her hand trembling; for the first time in a long time Jacqueline Honeywood was nervous, and I reached out to squeeze her knee. Our eyes met with a flicker of unprecedented mutual understanding, and I would have spoken had the car tyres not crunched to a gravelly stop and the sepulchral tones of the driver come through the speaker:
‘We have arrived.’
THREE
We stepped out of the car and, as the driver removed our luggage and my mother walked up to the front door, I took Runcible into the slightly overgrown grass to the side of the driveway. This gave me a good opportunity to look at the house in which I would be living for the next few weeks. Now, I’m a typical Londoner, used to displaying a certain calculated disinterest when presented with anything impressive, from a soufflé to a film star, but even I stood open-mouthed at the building that rose up before me. It was perfectly symmetrical, with two rows of five huge windows across its grey stone frontage. The middle double window was above the imposing wooden front door, and above it were two smaller, arched windows. These were side by side and set into a triangle, the point of which rose high up into the leaden afternoon sky and was flanked by four gigantic, hexagonal chimneys, two on each side. Smoke puffed cheerily out of two of them, and I hoped that meant that the house would be warm, which it didn’t appear to be from outside. It was all a bit tooWuthering Heightsfor me, with the wind slipping its icy fingers up my sleeves and down my neck and the uncompromising landscape stretching out beyond. It certainly didn’t scream Christmas cheer. Once again, the image of mycosy, if messy, place in London flashed into my mind and I felt resentment spike in my heart. Or maybe it was nerves. But here I was, so I had better get on with it. Looking down, I saw that poor little Runcible had finished her wee and was shivering violently. I scooped her up and tucked her inside my coat, as the front door opened. I had half expected a uniformed butler to appear, complete with silver salver, but it was Douglas who emerged. A tall man with thick greying hair and kind blue eyes, he gathered my mother into a warm hug, and they kissed before he waved at me.
‘Fallon, welcome! Come on in, quickly, before we all freeze!’
I scuttled over gladly, and he hugged me as well, provoking a small squeak from Runcible.
‘Is this your little dog?’ He tugged gently at the collar of my coat to see her better, then recoiled slightly, a reaction I’m used to. ‘Oh! She’s very, er, small. She must be cold too. Come on, we’ve got a fire going in the Hall, and it must be about time for tea.’
I followed him in, thinking that the hallway was an odd place to sit and have tea; indeed, I could see no fire there, although it was twice the size of my living room at home and had a magnificent, sweeping oak staircase which rose up to a galleried landing. There were also several of what I assumed were Bond-related items on display that I didn’t manage more than a glance at: a briefcase with a strip of coins protruding from the side, a golden gun in a case with a single gold bullet and some vintage-looking posters. It was only when Douglas led us through a door to the left of the staircase (past a suit of armour, of course) that I realised by ‘hall’ he meant Great Hall. We were standing in an enormous room with a stone floor covered in faded rugs. The timber vaulted ceiling soared above us, and a welcoming fire was indeed blazing in the cavernous stone fireplace.
‘Ah, Alexander, there you are. And Annabel. This is Jacqueline and her daughter, Fallon. Are you joining us for tea?’
It was only when Douglas spoke that I noticed there were two people already in the room: a dark-haired man with blue eyes and a tight-lipped expression, undoubtedly Douglas’s son, and a reed-slim blonde woman dressed in a high-necked, ditsy print floral dress and a chunky beige cardigan, clutching a lidded orange cooking pot. She issued us all with a gracious smile and opened her mouth to speak when Alexander barked:
‘No! That is, I’m going to go and find Theo, and Annabel is heading home.’
It seemed that Annabel did not agree. She perched on the arm of a sofa, and I thought she was more daring than her flowery appearance suggested; not only was she clearly being shown the door, but the sofa also looked about a hundred years old and in a slightly shaky state of repair. I wouldn’t have putmybodyweight on the arm, but then mine was probably twice hers.
‘I’m sure Theo will love this casserole, Alex darling, so why don’t I just wait until you fetch him, and I can show him?’
Alexander, now glowering, started towards the door.
‘Thank you all the same, Annabel, but we can’t accept it. Theo is experimenting with vegetarianism anyway, and we wouldn’t want it to go to waste. I must go and find him and welcome our guests.’
The uncharitable thought crossed my mind that what I could really do with was being given a peaceful bedroom and left alone, rather than welcomed by anyone, especially this haughty man, but I stood patiently, hoping things would move on quickly.
Luckily for me, even the tenacious Annabel couldn’t ignore the door being held open for her and, simpering at us, left with a dignity I’m not sure I could have mustered in the circumstances, wafting by in a cloud of lily of the valley.
‘Maybe I’ll make a lovely bean dish next time!’ I could hear her trilling, but she received no reply other than the front door being closed firmly behind her. Alexander came back into the room, his face saturnine and his blue eyes shadowed.
‘Right, not much of a welcome. Hello, Jacqueline, it’s lovely to meet you. And welcome to Blakeney Hall. Hello, Fallon.’ We all shook hands and murmured greetings in return as he continued, clearly still irritated by his unwanted guest. ‘Annabel can be somewhat…adhesive, and if it’s not her, then I’m infested with her clones, all seeming to think that just because a man and his son live alone, we somehow need looking after. We’re perfectly fine, and now she’s taken up yet another half an hour I can sorely spare. I’m going to go and find Theo.’
He stamped across the room – his father patting him warmly on the shoulder as he passed – and left by another door on the far side. I rather hoped he might get lost in the bowels of the vast house and not reappear; I already had my mother to contend with, the last thing I needed was to have to be polite to Douglas’s ill-tempered son. Given how rude he had just been to the woman who had brought him a casserole, I didn’t think I would fare much better when all I had to offer was my little dog and my current exhausted state.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Douglas, waving us to sit down on the enormous sofas that flanked a table which looked like a slab of tree trunk on legs and were angled perfectly to catch the warmth of the fire. ‘Since his own accident and then what happened to Holly, he’s been determined to prove that he can have a career and bring up Theo, but I’m not sure who he’s trying to prove it to. I know he’s more than capable, and there isn’t anyone else who matters.’
