Rumours (44 page)

‘Cheers!' said Stella again. She might look ropey but inside she was aglow.

‘Xander left these – the idiot.' They were his car keys. ‘I don't even know why he brought them – you walked, didn't you? Hand in hand, head in the clouds, feet not touching the floor – that kind of walking?' Stella laughed and nodded. ‘That's why his head's not screwed on at the mo'.'

‘He's in the shower. Do you want to wait?'

‘No, you're all right. I'll go. I'll call you – did my number come up on your phone?'

‘It did – I've added you to contacts already.'

‘Excellent. Oh, what an idiot. No taste. Whatso-bloody-ever.'

Stella was somewhat startled. ‘Sorry?'

‘Not you, pet,
him
.' Caroline was glowering around the room. ‘If he knows I'm coming, he hides it.'

‘Hides what?'

‘That hideous bloody pouffe.'

At first, Stella thought Caroline was directing another insult at Xander. Then her gaze followed Caroline's and alighted on the pouffe. It was multicoloured patches of sagging leather. And pretty monstrous.

‘I told him – I said to him,
if I'm redesigning your living space, you have to kowtow to one or two absolute rules
. One of which is – the pouffe goes.'

‘Hang on – you designed it? Here?'

‘In a former life, I was a designer – sets, actually, but interiors too.' She paused and looked at Stella, continued in a quieter voice, lest Xander should hear. ‘When he split up with Laura, this place needed, I don't know,
restoring
. It was tasteful but it was very Laura. Xander needed to reclaim the space – if that doesn't sound too new-agey. She had a particular style, did Laura and, as was her wont, her taste dominated – though she was kinder than me, she let him have his pouffe. But that was about it. So it took a while – first for him to say yes, then for him to approve what I wanted to do in here, finally for him to actually give me the go-ahead to start.'

Stella looked around her. ‘Well – I love it.'

‘It's pretty good,' said Caroline, then she gave the pouffe a hearty kick.

But something wasn't quite right. Then Stella knew what. ‘But Caroline – why did you do
that
to his bedroom?' Caroline frowned. ‘Forgive me for saying this,' Stella continued, ‘but couldn't you have carried on the downstairs theme upstairs too? It's so – cold. And bleak. And unwelcoming. Am I missing something?'

Caroline laughed and looked puzzled and laughed some more. ‘Did he not tell you? That I did the downstairs?' Stella shook her head. ‘So he won't have told you that he didn't let me do anything upstairs?' From the look on Stella's face, the answer was obvious. ‘He forbade it!' Caroline proclaimed darkly, but with a sparkle. ‘I was hard at work down here – with my quality tins of limewash and Pavilion Gray and Skimming Stone. Meanwhile, upstairs, he blanked out all vestiges of Laura with the world's cheapest, harshest, completely unbrilliant white.'

‘Why did he do that?'

Caroline did some split-second assessing of the situation. She really liked Stella – and she could see how much Xander meant to her, how much she meant to him. If this girl deserved one thing, it was honesty – and it would be the key ingredient to her relationship with Xander strengthening and her friendship with Caroline developing. Caroline thought if she could assist, then it was her duty to both of them to do so.

‘Because, monkey, he said to me that he wasn't going to fall in love ever again. That his bedroom was neutral ground in which no feelings would take root. It was, he said, a place to keep clothes, to sleep and to have a quick shag every now and then with someone who meant nothing.'

Stella thought about that. She thought how there came a point in a relationship where details of past history should no longer be dragged up and picked over and that she and Xander had now gone past that. They'd talked honestly and at length; their previous lives and significant others had been discussed in detail – and should now be left. But still, she had to admit, she was a girl and, naturally, she was curious. She looked at Caroline and she thought, that's where her girlfriends were allies. ‘Were there many of those?' she asked. ‘Post Laura, pre me?'

Caroline felt she could answer directly. ‘No, pet, I don't think there were. Not many. Certainly not recently. It's not very Xander – casual ding-dongs – however much he might have thought it could have been.' Then she kicked the pouffe again and started laughing. ‘You never know, next time he entices you to his boudoir, you might find it all the colours of the rainbow.'

Late July and school was out for the summer and the peal of children's laughter rang out with the skylarks. Stella turned juggling work and motherhood from a headache into a fine art. She planned Will's weeks meticulously, well in advance, so he knew what he was doing, where he'd be and what time she'd be collecting him, thus he never felt fobbed off. He'd ask her each morning where she'd be, what she'd be doing and she quickly learned not to mention if she was going to Longbridge – because Will had taken ownership of Lydia and felt that if his mum was going there, he really ought to accompany her, now that he was the Lady's right-hand lad and all.

She was summoned to Longbridge on the day Will was taking a dinosaur pottery course at Courtyard Arts, not too far from the office. The consortium's surveyor needed access to various buildings and Lydia was not going to be there. Dear Barnaby's time had come and Lydia was taking him to the vets.

‘Everything's unlocked,' Lydia told her, ‘but I'll leave keys with Lord Freddie as well.'

‘I'm so sorry, Lydia – for Barnaby.' Stella paused. ‘For you.'

‘He's a dog,' Lydia started brusquely. ‘Thank you.' She softened. ‘Dear old thing he is.'

‘He'd be lost without Longbridge,' Stella said.

‘You're right,' said Lydia. ‘And he'll stay at Longbridge. I'll bring him home. He'll be with all the others – in the garden.'

Stella arrived well before the surveyors and Mr Murdley. She loved having Longbridge to herself and took her sandwiches to the pond, searching in vain for Mr Frog. How she hoped the consortium would somehow insist to whomever they sold this particular lot to, that the gardens had to be maintained just as they were – scraggly in areas, faded and formal in places, lush everywhere. The scent of rose and honeysuckle, the orchard branches laden, the lawn coiffured to perfection by Art. Perhaps Art would be kept on. Surely he was an asset to the place. She'd tried to ask him what his plans were, unobtrusively, but he just looked at the sky as if wanting the breeze to tell him which way he'd blow. It was the same with Xander. He was resolutely refusing even to think about it, let alone talk about it until, he said, contracts had been exchanged. Well, that appeared to be only a month off, if all progressed smoothly. Which would leave Longbridge folk only the autumn to find new homes by Christmas. Lydia still would not talk to Stella about her plans and would not entertain any suggestions of properties on the market nearby – not on paper, and certainly not to view.

Plop.

Just a fish.

She left her patch and walked up to Lord Frederick.

‘You must be hot in all that,' she said, looking at his bronze knickerbockers and fancy tights, waistcoat, frock jacket and flouncy cravat.

‘One is trained to deport oneself correctly at all times, whatever the weather and the attire,' he said. ‘It's called breeding.'

‘Well, I've come to collect the keys,' said Stella, searching around the base of the statue, under stones, without luck. ‘Where's she put them?'

‘Where do you think!'

Stella looked at him and burst out laughing. The keys – a whole jangle of them – were threaded onto a large ring which was looped over Lord Freddie's outstretched hand. She thought of Rodin's
Burghers of Calais
, but then she thought Lord Freddie looked more like a pantomime gaoler.

‘Thank you,' she said, reaching up to take them. And she thought how Lydia most probably had a relationship with this statue much like hers. Had she chatted to him when she placed the keys there that morning? Had Lord Freddie been an ally to her throughout her life at Longbridge? Was she really going to leave him here, not take him with her?

‘Did she tie ribbons about you when she was a girl?' Stella wondered. ‘Did she put a scarf around you in winter? A pair of spectacles, perhaps? A cummerbund? A straw boater?'

‘I humoured her,' he appeared to answer. ‘She's kin.'

‘Thanks for the keys,' said Stella.

‘Come back in November – I'll be holding a brace of pheasants, no doubt.'

She sincerely hoped he would be doing precisely that, for many Novembers yet to come. The crunch of fat tyres on shingle caused her to hastily take her leave of Lord Freddie and make her way to the car park where Mr Murdley and a beanpole-tall surveyor were waiting for her. They wanted to see the stable wing – Art and Mr Tringle's apartments. And Xander's childhood home above the coach bays. She heard them muttering something about holiday lets and at that point, she decided that, for her sanity, it was best not to eavesdrop. Art and Mr Tringle were in and Stella waited outside with each of them while Murdley and Beanpole nosed around their homes. It was a little like watching cack-handed comedy surgeons delving into someone's guts. Both times, they came out swiping their hands over their jackets, as if the interiors had in some way displeased them.

‘This way, please,' she said, taking them up the worn stone steps to Xander's old front door. She went ahead of them and, as soon as she entered, she became at once blissfully unaware of their presence as she relived that Saturday morning when she'd squeezed past Xander, so close as to feel the heat of him, to see his neck, to glance up and find his eyes momentarily locked onto hers. She was going to tell the men about the partitions, refer to the space as a moveable feast. She was going to say, through there is the clock tower section. Where Xander played with Verity. Where Verity –

No.

There were secrets to Longbridge that would stay that way.

‘We would like to see the workshops next.'

‘Haven't you already seen them?'

Mr Murdley regarded her as if she was the most impudent thing he'd come across. ‘The workshops – Miss Hutton?'

‘Of course.'

‘Mr Richards is a cabinetmaker,' Stella said, before knocking. ‘I'm so sorry,' she said to him, ‘would you mind very much if these people just had a quick look in?' Resignedly, Mr Richards stepped outside and disappeared off to a favoured tree stump where he had one of his two daily cigarettes. The tree surgeon was out, but he'd told Stella where to find the key so she creaked open his barn and the sunlight streamed in, making all the logs look as though they were of gold. The last space was occupied by the pair of nerdy computer geeks, who sat with their backs to the glorious view and the beautiful day. They too felt compelled to leave while Murdley and Beanpole went in, and Stella found herself feeling quite tense, as if witnessing some kind of unlawful raid. She shrugged at the tenants and they nodded back at her.

‘Thank you,' said the surveyor. ‘And now – finally – this byre place.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Where Mr Clarence lives?'

Oh. Clarence. Yes, well, you can bloody well call him Mr Clarence.

‘He may not be in,' Stella said.

‘But Lady Lydia assured us she'd given you keys.'

Stella led the way, through the grounds of the house, over two paddocks and along a cornfield to where, nestled harmlessly and quietly, the old stone building stood.

‘Did you know his father was a dustman – from the East End? And became a cattle specialist – though he'd never seen a cow before coming here, during the War?'

But they took little notice of Stella. They were too preoccupied negotiating the rutted ground underfoot. Stella knocked gently on the door, gave a dignified wait before knocking again. She was sifting through the various keys, all unnamed, for one which looked most likely to fit the large old-fashioned lock, when the door opened.

‘Hullo, Miss Stella,' said Clarence.

‘Hullo.' Stella felt wretched. He looked so tired and old but today he was dressed so smartly. He must be sweltering. ‘Did Lady Lydia—?'

‘Yes,' he said. He peered over Stella's head to the be-suited men beyond. ‘Please,' he said, ‘won't you come in?'

Dear Clarence – wouldn't you feel more comfortable if you were to come out while they're in there? I'll stand with you. We can look at the landscape while they pick their way over your home.

‘Please,' he said again, ‘I have made a brew.'

Oh, Lydia! Could you not have explained?

Stella went in, followed by the men. Clarence had laid his table with teacups, a teapot stood in a knitted cosy on a trivet. There were fig rolls on a plate.

‘Sit yourselves down,' he said. ‘Please.'

And they all sat down.

He poured tea. He offered sugar lumps in a bowl with tongs shaped like a miniature pair of hands. And insisted everyone took a biscuit.

‘What would you care to see?' he asked the men. ‘What would you like to know?'

And while they explained about measurements and building regs and planning, Stella quietly looked about. From the outside, she'd thought the interior would be gloomy, but it was not so. Though not bright, there was a softness to the light that filtered in, bathing the interior in golden notes and gentle sepia shadows. She noticed the curtains first – Miss Gilbey must have run them up when she made her own from the offcuts of the Fortescues' fabrics. Then she looked at the furniture, much of which were cast-offs from Longbridge. And then she observed the lights, with their shades fringed with glass beads, delicate, feminine, at odds with the building. And then she saw the Rembrandt.