Solsbury Hill A Novel (4 page)

S
he only took her eyes off the view outside her window to take the blanket and a pillow, then a glass of wine and lunch. Eleanor watched day turn to night in a few short hours. The full moon rising in the sky. The coast of England visible. And when the plane arrived at Heathrow, the landing was easy and smooth, and when there was no one to meet her as she exited through Customs, no one with a sign, no one with a smile of recognition, she pulled the bag behind her, found her way to the London Underground, then through King’s Cross Station, and boarded a train for Yorkshire. All in a long day.

“There she is,” the cabdriver said and pointed to an enormous stone house on the crest of a steep green slope. “That’s her, Trent Hall.”

Eleanor got a glimpse of lights before the building disappeared behind some trees and a wall of stones chiseled to fit one against the other and hold without mortar. It was midnight when they passed through a break in the wall and climbed the mile-long driveway to the flat top of a hill, where the house stood wrapped inside another wall, this one covered with red-leafed ivy. Through the wall, under a thick stone archway, they drove into a large courtyard flagged with pavers and grass. There was an evocative crunch of gravel as the car slowed to a stop and the driver jumped out. The building, in the shape of an L around the yard, looked like a church with two towers and mullioned windows. Eleanor stepped out of the cab and stared around to take it in: a three-storied entrance in a wall of light gray stone extended to the right and to the left with stables and a carriage house behind her.

“My God, look at this place.”

The hinges on the trunk of the car creaked for oil and the driver shrugged a cute apology before he pulled out her bags. When she tipped him, he gave half of it back. “That’s too much, lass,” he said. He doffed his hat and wished her a good evening.

She watched as his hand rose out the window to wave good-bye. As he drove away she imagined he’d be on his way to a warm house for a good night of sleep. Her red leather bag sat on the damp gravel, her satchel hung from her shoulder, and the wind was so strong she had to take a stand against it.

Alone in the courtyard she was seized by fear: a choked feeling in her throat and a chill, as if she’d been brushed up against. One hand squeezed the soft leather of her suitcase handle and the other hand held tight to the strap over her shoulder, as if these would anchor her, so she startled when she heard a crunch behind her and turned to see a man.

“I’m Granley,” he said and reached to take the burden of her suitcase. “Don’t be concerned, you’re in the right place. You’re Alice’s niece, Miss Eleanor Sutton, eh?”

“I am. I’m Eleanor Abbott. Eleanor Sutton Abbott.” She smiled. She rarely used her full name. Reluctantly, she let go of the suitcase, then shifted her bag and reached to shake his hand, but he didn’t take it.

“You were worried,” he said.

She wrapped a strand of hair behind her ear. “I was a bit.” He picked up her suitcase and reached for her satchel. She followed him. “Is it always this windy?”

“’Tis more or less this way always. ’Tis wutherin’ weather.” There were leaves hanging in midair. “The dull roarin’ sound of the wind, that’s it.” He threw his head in the direction of the moor where the land rolled away from the house.

An echoed crunch of gravel as they walked across the drive, Granley led her inside the shadow of an arch into a well-lit entrance hall whose walls were paneled in aged dark wood. With the bags set down, he reached to take her coat. Again, she startled.

“Steady,” he said. She felt his gaze unwavering on her face. “Are ye timid?”

A girl in lace leggings and a short skirt. “I’m not. I’m really not.” She laughed at herself. Took a deep breath to calm down. Tucked her hair behind her ear again.

“I help Alice with most everything needs doing ’round here. Well, not everything . . .” He cocked his head for her to follow and led her into the kitchen. She smelled fresh-baked bread. “The women take care of some things,” he said. He stooped as he stepped through the doorway because he was too tall for the passage. Inside the spacious kitchen, with well-worn yellow-stone floors and ancient fixtures, were two women busy as if it were the middle of the day.

The older of the two, handsome and somehow elegant despite the white apron tied around her middle, turned and gasped, “Eleanor, you’re here!” She wiped her hands and took off her apron, then opened her arms and gave Eleanor a warm hug.

“I’m sorry it’s so late.”

“No, we were expecting you.”

The kind stranger stepped back and looked into Eleanor’s face. “You’re much like your mother, do you know that? Alice is going to be so pleased.” She held Eleanor’s face in her hands and saw her confusion. “I’m Gwen Angle, dear. We spoke on the telephone.”

Eleanor nodded and smiled. She noticed that under the apron was a well-cut wool dress. Ms. Angle’s face was long,
lean, with a broad jaw and high cheekbones. Her eyes were intelligent and deep blue. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the oven.

“This is Tilda,” she said briskly, introducing the woman who’d just pulled fresh loaves from the wood-burning stove. Tilda nodded her head with a confident smile.

“Will you sit down and have a bite? There’s dinner warm in the stove and it’s good.”

“It smells incredible, but I’m not at all hungry right now. Later maybe?”

While Ms. Angle kicked off her slippers and stepped into a pair of heels, Eleanor had a chance to take in the room, pristine and intact from another century: the refectory table and a mismatched collection of tatty Windsor chairs, dishes draining on a rack, stone walls, and a brick fireplace deep and almost tall enough to stand inside.

“The kitchen could use an update,” Ms. Angle said as she led Eleanor out, under the front stairs, into a large sitting room with high, coffered ceilings. It was gracious, with deep upholstered furniture and a lush Oriental rug that was pretty, feminine, with an abstract design in ivory, pale apricot, and celadon.

“Alice is sleeping, of course,” she said. “I’m sure you’re eager to see her. You must be exhausted. Will you have a glass of sherry?”

Granley interrupted, “Ms. Angle, she’s all set. In the best room.”

“Thank you, Granley, good night.” Ms. Angle rolled her eyes. “Alice’s idea of the best room is an odd, small room at the corner of the house with a lovely view. If it’s not all right . . .”

“She’ll like it,” Granley broke in abruptly and left the room.

“I’m sure I will,” said Eleanor.

“There’s another one across the hall from it, if you don’t. Sit down, darling,” Ms. Angle said.

There was a log fire blazing in the fireplace and Eleanor picked a large chair close to the warmth of it. She was out of sorts, felt a buzz at the edge of her skin, was confused by the stately home and by Ms. Angle’s warm and familiar welcome at such a late hour.

“It’s such a pleasure to
see
you,” Ms. Angle said. She seemed in good spirits.

“It’s good to meet you, too.”

“I hope you don’t mind not seeing Alice tonight, but I’m worried she won’t sleep again if we wake her now. Do you mind terribly? Waiting till the morning?”

“Not at all, it’s fine. Of course. Is she any better?”

“She will be when she sees you, dear. It means the world to her, your coming. Since she fell ill, it’s been a steep slope down, and she’s been working so hard since then. It seems like her soul is urgently taking care of things, packing for a very long journey, you’d think.” She poured dark sherry into a small, tulip-shaped crystal glass and handed it to Eleanor.

“How long has she been ill?”

“Not very long.” Ms. Angle was firmly cheerful. She stood and walked to the window to close a gap in the drapes. Then she took the poker and stirred the fire, careful not to tumble a log. She turned back to Eleanor. “I sometimes wonder if she’d have felt it at all had no one told her, had the doctors not given it one of their names.”

Ms. Angle adjusted some long-stemmed cut flowers in a vase, getting them to stand against each other in a different way, and Eleanor said, “This is an unbelievable place.”

The furniture was pulled close to the fire, the windows were draped in rose velvet against woodwork painted a pale olive green. The design was spare and lived-in, but everything was large and very old: gilt-framed oil paintings, Chinese porcelain, piles of books, and antiques from many centuries. The stone walls, the massive Oriental rug that warmed the floor, there was nothing fussy about it, but it was grand.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. These thick stone walls . . .”

Ms. Angle joined her. “It’s a good old house,” she said. “But it’s a bear to keep warm.” She smiled. “It’s been in your family forever, you know.”

“My family.” Eleanor shook her head. She made herself more comfortable in the low upholstered chair. “It’s not at all what I expected.”

Ms. Angle sipped. “What did you expect?”

“I wouldn’t even know how to say—just less.” She laughed
an embarrassed small laugh that barely left her chest and throat. “You said I’m much like my mother. No one’s ever said that to me before, you must have known her . . .”

With a warm smile, she leaned forward. “I knew your mother since the day she was born. I was Alice’s friend way back then. We were girls, still, and excited about a baby coming.” Ms. Angle offered Eleanor some spiced nuts in a bowl and she took a handful.

“Did you grow up here?” Eleanor’s eyes were on the furniture and the high ceilings and the cold stone walls.

“Not I, no. My family lived nearby, but Alice did, of course, and your mum until she left. They left here when she was just a girl, and she wasn’t at all happy about it, but that’s how it was.” Ms. Angle changed the subject, gestured to the room itself. “Alice has put a lot into the place over the years, though there’s still a lot to be done. It was a tatty place when we were girls racing about and tracking mud, breaking windows, the house itself ripping at the seams. And that yard out there full of chickens and even goats at one time. Quite a bit ‘less,’ as you said, than it is now.”

Eleanor laughed with Ms. Angle. They laughed easily together. “Yes, that’s much more what Mom described.” The fire crackled and the logs shifted in the fireplace. “Really, she never said a thing about a house like this.”

“Alice loves this place.” She seemed to see the bewilderment Eleanor was feeling and took her hand in hers. She shook it gently with encouragement. “It will come to seem
smaller, in time.” Her voice was more intimate. “It’s not as big as it looks.”

They sat for a quiet moment. Eleanor was taking in the tired majesty of the place: the faded but still lush velvet drapes, the deep seat in the bay window, the thick stone walls.

Ms. Angle lifted her glass. “Finish up your sherry,” she said in a kind tone, then drank hers down in a swallow. “You must be hungry.”

“I’m bleary with exhaustion.”

“Of course you are.” She stood. “Let’s go up.”

“Thank you for staying up so late to wait for me.”

Eleanor was reluctant to leave the room with the warm light from the blazing fire casting its glow and so much still unknown. She stood and looked around. “All this will still be here in the morning?”

Ms. Angle smiled. “The fire will have died by then.” She took Eleanor’s hand to lead her into the hall and up the front stairs. “But the sun might be out, if we pray hard enough.”