‘Not since yesterday, darling,’ said Lady Flora, smiling broadly for the first time since Christina had arrived. ‘Cup of tea? Christina was just leaving.’
‘That would have been heaven,’ said Amy, lightly, ‘but we’re off to Plymouth. Meeting chums for dinner then the opera and we’re terribly late. Oh, Christina––’ she looked at her like she was her PA ‘Ernest was looking for you and says could you pop in and see him when you get a sec.’
Then she kissed Flora on the cheek and bustled out, nearly bumping into Ernest entering, bearing a silver tray with a small bottle of tablets. ‘You’re getting a bit forgetful, darling,’ he said, setting the tray beside Flora’s chair. ‘You haven’t taken your sciatica tablets.’
‘A minor lapse,’ Flora said, but her voice had lost its sharp edge.
While Flora was washing down her pills with Earl Grey, he switched his attention to Christina, put a hand in his pocket and removed a key. It was the largest key Christina had ever seen, longer than her hand, black, and made of cast iron.
‘This, my little darling, is the key to your dreams.’ He loweredhis voice so Flora couldn’t hear. ‘And to show my appreciation of your upcoming Paul Storrs.’
‘Chase Lodge.’ She murmured the words like a prayer.
‘The very same,’ he said, passing over the key with that indulgent smile that reminded her why she’d always preferred him to his wife. Ernest had never looked at her like she was an unfortunate mistake that politeness demanded he endure.
Her fingers trembled as they closed around the metal. It was warm from Ernest’s palm, solid in a way that her hopes had never been and felt heavy, weighted with possibility. She could already picture herself there – serving tea from proper china, entertaining in rooms that oozed heritage. No more apologetic explanations about not having the space to entertain.
She would call Penelope, arrange to meet her there this afternoon. Force down her true desire for a house on a hill with sea views, surrounded by gorgeous gardens, and embrace dark chilly halls with room to entertain. After all, she could still enjoy her flower gardening, just here at the Manor instead of around her own home. She smiled, imagining the feeling of claiming her place at last in the world she’d married into but never quite entered. Chase Lodge would be her saviour, proof that she could be the woman the Pembertons needed her to be.
The key pressed into her palm like a promise. Finally, finally, she would have a home worthy of the Pemberton name – and they would accept her.
Ten
At the turn-off for Chase Lodge Christina stopped the car. Sitting with the gentle hum of the engine ticking over, she drank in the view stretched out before her like a watercolour painting left in the rain, its edges soft and bleeding into one another. The village of Brambleton nestled on the coast, its thatched roofs and stone chimneys creating a patchwork of textures that seemed to shift and dance in the afternoon light. Either side of the village, the Devon coastline curved away, ribbons of golden sand where the waves rolled in with hypnotic regularity. If only Chase Lodge had been built up here with that marvellous view.
Sighing, she turned down the rutted lane. The glorious view disappeared behind her, replaced by stark woods, leafless and silent in the February chill, their empty branches forming a lattice overhead which, come spring, would block out the light entirely. The car lurched over frozen potholes. The steep hill swallowed her descent, the house waiting somewhere at the bottom strategically positioned away from the coast, tucked into the landscape for safety.
Deep in the valley, Chase Lodge squatted in a blanket of overhanging trees which cast the house in shadow. Its stone walls, pitted by centuries of weather, stretched upwards three storeys, with mullioned windows. The eastern wall was tangled with ragged ivy, remnants of months of winter storms. On both sides, the outline of vanished wings was visible; subtlescarring in the stone where two once-grand extensions had been demolished, their absence leaving the Lodge slightly lopsided, as if it had lost weight too quickly.
The slate roof sagged in places, a few tiles missing like gap teeth in an old man’s smile, but the bones of the structure, solid Tudor timbers and dressed stone corners, stood proud and enduring. Christina tried to see the beauty in it – imagining grand chimney pieces and oak-beamed halls – telling herself to ignore the surrounding woods, the shaded ground where flowers would never grow, and the immense, exhausting work it would take to make the house habitable.
‘It’ll be perfect for Hamish,’ she murmured, a small, forced smile lifting her lips. ‘A real Tudor retreat.’ She tried to convince herself it wasn’t too large, telling herself it was just four times the size of the cottage. Four times the work, yes, but also four times the potential.
She parked next to Penelope’s Range Rover, trying to picture herself here in the gloom, restoring silver; then when that picture failed to materialize, she got out of the car telling herself this was a golden opportunity; a proper Pemberton house – it could be a happy home, and it would rejuvenate her marriage.
‘Darling, what a magnificent project, I can see exactly what’s captured your fancy,’ Penelope purred, one polished fingernail adjusting her Hermès scarf. ‘It’s terribly ... exciting, isn’t it? Rather like something one might find in a National Trust calendar.’
Buoyed by her friend’s enthusiasm, Christina inserted the key.
A small fizz of excitement rose in her chest, fragile as silver filigree, as though she were unwrapping a gift she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted. The lock grudgingly turned; the door creaked open on a long, defeated sigh. Pale light seeped through the warped lattice windows. Shadows clung to the walls like lichen on old stone.
Christina paused on the threshold and drew in a breath. The air was musty and damp, with an undercurrent of wood smoke – as if the house was trying to remember a time when fires had warmed its rooms rather than merely haunted them. She clung to that faint scent, willing it to outweigh the mould.
Christina stepped into what had once been a reception hall. Her imagination scrambled to keep pace – Hamish, Elspeth, a roaring fire – but the reality was sagging beams, peeling plaster, and a flagstone floor furred with dust.
Behind her, Penelope inhaled theatrically, as though savouring a tragic opera.
‘Neglect,’ she announced, ‘but the bones, darling. The bones.’
Christina tried again.Be positive. She closed her eyes, tipping her face toward the soot-blackened hearth. ‘Can you smell that, Penelope? It smells like ... like stories. Like the people who were happy here.’
Penelope’s laugh rang out, bright and dismissive. ‘Oh, Christina, you are amusing.’
She felt the breath on her shoulder as her friend leaned in. ‘This is precisely the sort of house dear Hamish’s family will adore. Character.’
Christina smiled tightly at the ruin around her, doing her best to seecharacterrather thancollapse.This could work. It had to work. If she could transform this place, make it beautiful once more, show them she understood the value of history and tradition. ‘But it will cost a fortune to renovate’ Christina said, her fingers tracing the weathered wood of a buckling window frame.
‘Charming proportions,’ Penelope said, sweeping a gloved hand around the dim chamber. The Tudor windows were mere slits in the thick walls, grudging the grey February light. Christina could see her own breath. She sighed. She was trying – truly trying – to see what Penelope saw. ‘It’s bigger than Iexpected.’
