Three Graces (16 page)

Driving across the moors and crossing back into Cuthland, Carys thought back to that moment - that precise moment - when Richard had interrupted her in the Montella Room. The smell of roses had been quite overpowering and she’d known it wasn’t any aftershave of Richard’s.

The imagination was a powerful thing, she told herself, but could it really conjure up such scents and sensations?

As she reached the driveway of Amberley Court, she knew what she had to do. She had to go back to the Montella Room - as soon as it was closed for the day - and find out the truth. And she mustn’t let anything stop her this time.

Carys tried to pass the hours away in her office but her mind wasn’t really on paperwork. The little clock above the fireplace seemed to have sticky hands for it wasn’t moving quickly enough.

‘Concentrate,’ she said, picking up a lilac coloured envelope and opening it. It contained a single sheet of paper neatly folded around a cheque for two hundred pounds.
Cheque enclosed
, it said, the writing in blue ink in a scrawling hand.
Make sure you cash this one. Aunt Vi
. Who was Aunt Vi? She laid the cheque and note to one side and decided to ask Richard later on.

Ten to five, the little clock told her. The house closed at half-past five. Last admission was at five o’clock and meant that tourists should be out of the Montella Room by twenty past five at the very latest. That was still half an hour away.

Carys absent-mindedly opened a desk drawer hoping she’d find something to tidy and thus take her mind off the time. As she did so, she realised that she hadn’t really been in possession of the desk long enough for it to get into a mess in the first place but she opened the top drawer on the left-hand side anyway. And that’s when she found it.

Frowning, she took out what appeared to be a large notebook. That, she thought, certainly hadn’t been in there before. She had, very carefully, gone through the desk and was quite sure she would have noticed it. Perhaps Mrs Travis had placed it there thinking it might be of use to her.

Carys ran a hand over the bright chestnut cover. It was certainly a lovely item. She opened it to discover creamy-white pages with feint lines but, what was even more of a surprise was that it had been written in.

She flicked through the notebook. Every single page had been written in and there were dates too. It was a diary. She’d found a diary in her desk.

Turning back to the first page, she read.

July 5th 1970

Will I ever be able to think of Amberley as my home? It seems far too big and cold and I can’t ever imagine being cosy here
.

Carys bit her lip. The words echoed her own initial thoughts on moving into Amberley. She read on.

H doesn’t seem to understand. Keeps telling me that I can leave if I want but he’s staying here. Not much of a compromise, is it? And there doesn’t seem to be anyone I can talk to who’d understand. Feel like I’m going out of my mind
.

My goodness, Carys thought. There was only one person who could have written this: Francesca. And ‘H’ must surely be Henry, her late father-in-law.

Carys closed the book. She felt as if she was trespassing and, as much as she wanted to, didn’t think she had a right to read on. She’d have to return it. She’d have to go back to Cuthland House.

The clock struck a quarter past five. Carys placed the diary back in the drawer and got up to leave her office. It would take her a good five minutes to walk to the Montella Room and she couldn’t wait any more.

Her heart was racing as she walked through the house but she tried to calm herself. She was sure to see and hear nothing if she worked herself into a state. Breathe.
Breeeeeaaathe
. But her heart was still racing as she entered the Montella Room.

‘Oh, Mrs Percival.’

‘Your grace.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ Carys said, surprised to find the room steward still present.

‘Not at all, your grace,’ she smiled. ‘I was just getting my things together.’

‘Has it been a very busy day?’

Mrs Percival looked pensive for a moment which meant she was trying to think of a tactful way of telling her that only a dozen people had passed through Amberley’s rooms.

‘Average for the time of year, I’d say,’ she said, taking her glasses off and folding them into a conker-coloured case.

Bless her, Carys thought, watching as she left. And then she had the room to herself. She closed the door Mrs Percival had left by and then crossed the room to close the other one and, almost immediately, silence floated through her. That was one of the things about living at Amberley - you could guarantee silence. Not like her little house in Carminster which had wafer-thin walls through which you could hear your neighbours sneeze - and worse. No, Amberley was a haven of quietness and, standing there in the Montella Room, the only sound Carys could hear was the delicate ticking of an old clock and her own breathing.

She looked around the room, taking in the long scarlet and gold drapes which fell in beautiful pools on the floor, the golden chandelier hanging from the ornate plastered ceiling, and the long dining table which sparkled with fine crystal and silver cutlery. Only then did she look at the portraits. The faces were starting to become familiar to her now. She was even beginning to recognise features that were still discernible in the Brettons today. Large dark eyes. Thick dark hair. Alabaster skin. She wondered if her own pale genes would be able to compete. Pale was recessive, wasn’t it? So her blonde hair and blue eyes wouldn’t disrupt the Bretton lineage. Georgiana had been fair-haired and that hadn’t been passed down through the centuries, had it?

She studied the beautiful face in the painting once again, and waited, as if she expected it to slowly come to life and speak to her.

‘What am I waiting for?’ she whispered to herself, looking around the room as the low tick of the clock reminded her of the passing of time. Would she hear the voice again? Or would she actually see something this time?

She walked across to the window and looked out across the expanse of garden towards the lake which was a brilliant silver in the early evening light. She closed her eyes and tried to relax but nothing seemed to be happening.

No, she thought. Nothing was going to happen, was it? It was just as she’d thought: the voices had been a figment of her imagination and Lara Claridge had cashed in on that.

Yet, as she left the room to return to her office, she couldn’t stop the disappointment from coursing through her. She hadn’t realised how much anticipation she’d been storing up but now she realised it was all a big bogus and that she’d been stupid to believe in it. It was just a good job Richard hadn’t found out about any of it.

It was curiously quiet when she returned to her office. Not that it was ever anything but quiet in there but it felt strange - different - as if there was a texture you could almost reach out and touch.

Carys shook her head, determining to bring a small CD player into the room so that she could banish any unwanted silences, or introduce a computer so that she’d be greeted by its comforting hum every time she came in.

She sat back down at her desk and wondered if she should plug in the old-fashioned electronic typewriter sleeping on the floor behind her and make a start on the letters that were waiting but she didn’t feel like working. She felt strangely mellow as if she could fall asleep at any moment, and yet her mind felt incredibly alert. She probably needed to get outside and stride out across the estate with the dogs. She’d just type one letter-

‘I’m not always in the Montella Room, you know.’

Carys span around in her chair, her heart immediately kicked into overdrive. ‘Who said that?’

There was a light laughter that reminded Carys of warm sunshine and bright summer leaves.

‘Who do you
think
said that?’ the voice asked in obvious amusement and Carys saw the strangest thing for there, right in the middle of the room, was something that looked like a bright blue mist. Carys looked in utter bewilderment as it descended slowly and gracefully - in the shape of a woman.

‘Aren’t you going to welcome me?’ the woman said, her face and her figure becoming fully visible as the blue mist cleared. ‘I think I’m all here now, aren’t I?’ she asked, her long pale fingers smoothing down the folds of her silvery blue dress. ‘Oh, yes. That’s better. I feel quite complete now and not a single side-effect. Such a relief. You don’t know what it’s like sometimes. It can be quite quite horrid. Sometimes, only my head will appear or sometimes the head will remain behind and I am just a body. Most disconcerting and not just for me, as you can imagine.’

Carys stared, her mouth wide and gaping.

‘You do look a picture. You know who I am, don’t you?’ the woman said. ‘I’m Georgiana - from the painting you’ve been admiring.’ She smiled encouragingly, seemingly waiting for Carys to say something. ‘Wife of the fifth Duke of Cuthland?’ she added. ‘Sometimes known as
The Blue Lady
?’

‘Yes,’ Carys said. It was all she could manage.

‘Good. And you’re Carys, wife of the twelfth duke, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have a feeling we’re going to be great friends. Got lots and lots in common, you and I. I’ve been watching you, you know.’

‘You have?’

‘Of course. Not much else to do round here, is there? Thought I would come and make you welcome. Amberley can be rather daunting, do you not agree?’

Carys nodded.

‘Look,’ Georgiana said, ‘if you’re just going to stare, would you mind if I sat down?’

‘Of course not,’ Carys said, clearing her throat which suddenly seemed very dry.

‘Thank you. Oh, what a lovely chair. I do like these big comfortable armchairs. We never had anything like these. Upholstery wasn’t the norm. You know,’ she said, looking round the room, ‘this was once my sitting room.’

‘Really?’ Carys said. ‘I’ve been told it was a sitting room but nobody was able to tell me whose it was or when.’

‘Well, now you know.’ Georgiana smiled again and her whole face lit up the room. She really was exceptionally beautiful.

There was a moment’s silence when the two of them just stared at each other.

‘You look as if you want to ask me some questions,’ Georgiana said in a quiet voice.

Carys nodded. ‘I - I can’t quite take all this in. You’re really a ghost?’

Georgiana nodded. ‘I really am.’

‘And it was you I heard - in the meeting that day? And that night in the storm?’

‘It was. I hope you didn’t mind me not putting in an appearance, though. The storm would have made it difficult. I think you would refer to it as a technical hitch. And the meeting - well - I never could stand meetings.’

‘Georgiana.’

‘That’s me.’

‘Why have you come back?’ Carys dared to ask. ‘Lara Claridge said-’

‘Oh, she is such an awful busybody. I wouldn’t listen to her. One of life’s great meddlers.’

‘But she said you’d have something to tell me.’

Georgiana’s eyes widened and Carys saw that they were the colour of new beech leaves and yet they’d looked so dark in the painting - sparkling with mischief.

‘I have a lot of things to tell you.’

‘Like what?’

‘Patience,’ Georgiana told her. ‘All in good time. Now,’ she said, ‘tell me how you are settling in.’

And Carys did. She told Georgiana how strange it had been to move from her tiny town house into the sprawling acres of Amberley Court. She confessed how isolated she felt sometimes and how Richard’s parents had never really shown any interest in her. She admitted, for the first time, how much she resented the time Richard spent away from her and how nobody had ever sat down and explained what her role was.

Carys felt incredibly relaxed when she came to the end of what had turned out to be a rather long tirade. And Georgiana had proved the most excellent of listeners. Not once had she interrupted and, what was most refreshing, she didn’t come out with banal and predictable comments like,
well, what did you expect?

‘But you love it, do you not?’ Georgiana asked once she was quite sure Carys had finished.

‘Amberley?’ Carys said with a smile. ‘Oh, yes. I love it. I love it like I’ve loved no other place. People warned me about it but I didn’t really believe them, but it gets a hold of you, it really does, and I can’t imagine life anywhere else now.’

Georgiana nodded, recognising the sentiment. ‘Ah! How many times have I heard that?’

‘Does it look any different to you?’ Carys asked.

Georgiana looked around. ‘I have been here longer than you think. You know, keeping an eye on the place. I have never really left. But, I don’t suppose it has really changed that much.’

‘I don’t think the Brettons like change, do they?’ Carys said. ‘I once complained to Richard about the appalling draft under our bedroom door and he told me that the wind had been howling under there for three hundred years and we couldn’t stop it now.’

‘How very Bretton,’ Georgiana said, making Carys laugh. ‘The Brettons are a unique family,’

‘I’ve never met one like them,’ Carys agreed. ‘I mean, there’s Phoebe - Richard’s sister - she’s so warm, so lovely - would do anything for you but then there’s Francesca, Richard’s mother, whom I can’t make out at all. It’s as if I’ve done her some great wrong in a previous life, only I can’t work out how to make amends.’

‘I noticed you have been having problems with her,’ Georgiana said.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve any suggestions,’ Carys asked hopefully, wondering if Georgiana’s purpose was as advisor.

‘I think she still misses Amanda,’ Georgiana said. ‘They got on famously and I think she still cannot believe things didn’t work out.’

‘Great,’ Carys nodded as if she’d expected as much. ‘Then there’s nothing I can do?’

‘Allow time to weave its magic.’

Carys sighed. ‘Always time. Seems to be the answer to everything.’ It was then that Carys noticed something. ‘You’re wearing that dress from the portrait.’