***
The next day, the plasterer came and plastered the wall. A few days later, once it had dried, a decorator came and refreshed my kitchen with a layer of magnolia paint. The day after that, a new cooker and sink arrived, with an electrician and a plumber to connect them up, and the old one was carted away. All paid for.
For the first time since my mum passed, I enjoyed being in the house. I felt accepted, I felt safe. I felt hope.
James and I began to meet whenever we could. We took walks through the countryside, we went for long lunches in neighboring villages—not Great Beadington—we took selfies at Stonehenge, we downed shots in the King’s Head.
There was an incident with my car, and it ended up in a ditch. Ihad no insurance because I hadn’t taken it for its mandatory annual roadworthiness check—double saving. Plus, I already had nine points on my license, the speedometer tended to stick, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain it all to the authorities. I thought it was the end of driving for me, but when I told James he just laughed. He had my car taken away, and a few days later he was helping me choose a new one.
He told me I was worth the money, he told me I was priceless. He told me I was all he thought about all day. It had been a long time since anyone other than my mum thought about me at all.
One day, we were sitting on a bench beneath a tree when James suddenly “Eek!”-ed and leaped to his feet.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, racing to help.
“It’s a… It’s a… It’s a…” He held out his hand to show me a tiny money spider running across it. “I don’t like spiders,” he gibbered. “Can you get it off me?” And that was the moment I fell in love. At least I thought I did.
Chapter Twenty
Twenty years later, I knew all James and I really had was a shared mania for founding a family line. How long it had taken me to work that out, I couldn’t really say, but if I was being honest with myself, it hadn’t taken twenty years. One year? Or two? Sooner than that? Maybe the moment he showed me his insane family tree. But I told myself that was what I’d wanted, so why was I complaining?
Regardless, eventually it dawned on me that, when James met me all those years ago, he didn’t see someone he wanted to share his life with; he saw someone who was naive, isolated, and struggling. He saw someone he could control.
And he did: He took my money when he invested the funds from my house, then he took me to Langley Hall, away from the village, out of sight and out of mind. All I had left was Mrs. Billings, and I kept the worst of it from her.
Meanwhile, James constantly dangled the carrot of children andhow much better life would be when I’d fulfilled my side of the bargain. And I waited for them to come.
Over the years, I became inured to the slights and the daily disappointments. I made myself believe that sewing and whodunits were all I needed, along with Langley Hall, my ancestral home. And I waited. Whenever I thought about making a change, I remembered the poverty I’d been living in when I met him, the misery of choosing between the utilities and food, and the constant fear of a new bill I couldn’t pay. At least then I’d had a roof over my head; if I left now, I’d have nothing. I forgot that I’d ever had a choice, as I waited for something to change.
And when nothing changed, James took away everything else. He halved my allowance, he canceled my streaming subscriptions, he moved into his own bedroom. Finally, I understood that waiting would bring nothing but more waiting, until I realized I was waiting for the end of the Ponzi scheme.
Now something was going to change because James was trying to set me up for an accident that was his fault as much as—no,more than—mine, and a murder that was entirely down to him.
After all, if we’d done it my way, dialed 999 and shown remorse, maybe Lennie could have been saved and I could have a suspended sentence. If that. This could have been little more than a bad year. Lennie could be out of hospital, he could’ve put in a good word for me, and maybe I could have had even less than a suspended sentence.
Then, we would never have been by the river for James to attack Mr. Newman. Mr. N would still hate us and want to stop us selling the farm for warehouses, but he would be alive and well and we could fight that fight through nonviolent means. And with any luck, lose.
With thoughts of Lennie and Mr. Newman, I returned to the forum. Against my better judgment, I clicked into it.
All the usual suspects were there: most of the village, plus AllEars, still digging for gossip, and NoseyParker. James, as BigDreams, was doing his worst.
People think they know Daisy because she’s lived in the village all her life, he wrote.But she’s been shut away in Langley Hall for a long time, does anyone really know her? What does she do all day?
Isn’t there a lot of work in running a big house like that?Mrs. Faulkner asked.
Yes and no, Mrs. Billings said.There would be, but she doesn’t really do it. They live in a few rooms on the first and second floors. I look after all that area for them. The rest has gone to rack and ruin.
There was a pause. I had thought it was an open secret that Langley Hall wasn’t what it once was, but it seemed to be news to some people.
They should be strung up!a pseudonym said.Beautiful house like that left to rot.
I fought the urge to explain that that was James more than it was me.
We should start a fund, Mrs. Chambers said.
We haven’t finished collecting to replace the bell yet, Betty, the vicar said.
This seems more urgent, Mrs. Chambers said.We’ve been managing without the bell for seven hundred years.
