I lost myself in shopping instead, willing myself toignore what I’d seen. I walked briskly until I came across a shopping mall and bought myself pieces I’d seen on the young girls walking in the park. I bought dark jeans and casual shirts and boho dresses, and hair grips to go with them in flower and butterfly designs, and sneakers and sandals and a pair of stilettos that I’d never be able to walk in. My pulse was racing at the choices now available to me; rails upon rails of things I had never been able to buy before in the Dales, when I was cooped up with my mother.
I browsed a more formal section and found cocktail dresses, simple and elegant. I chose a white dress to match my hair, with one bare shoulder cut at an angle. It was a dress I’d only ever seen on women in adverts, never in person – and it was something I had only ever dreamed of wearing before now.
My recent past was trying to catch up with me, to follow me to London and make me know I couldn’t escape it so easily. But it wasn’t going to win.
I would throw my old clothes into the fire at Crowthorne House and pray that my past disintegrated with them.
By the time I arrived back at the house, I felt I had transformed.
Laden with bags of my new clothes and shoes, I looked about me for a way to get in. I’d been so comfortable remaining inside the house that it had slipped my mind to even ask Nick for a key.
The house looked so grand and foreboding in the pale light of day. It stood three storeys above ground, and one more beneath. It was Victorian and stately and, in parts, more ivy than brick. Nick’s attic room with the balconydrew my eyes towards it. I wondered if he was in there right now, pacing, looking down at me from the window.
There was a thick rope hanging from a bell above my head. I hadn’t noticed it on the night I arrived, because it had been far too dark to see it. I pulled it now, letting it ring out. A man appeared from beside the house, wearing thick gardening gloves and holding a large pair of shears.
He smiled when he saw me, as if he knew me, although I didn’t recognise him.
“Not to worry, Ms Lockett – I’ve got the gate for you,” he said, quickening his pace to meet me. He propped the shears up against the right-hand gate and unlocked the left-hand one, stepping aside to let me through. “Do you need help with your bags?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said, wondering how he knew my name.
He was a fairly short man, middle-aged, with closely clipped hair and a flat-cap. His eyes were grey and twinkly, and he seemed harmless. He wore overalls and working boots.
“I do the yard-work around here, and I look after the horses. Have you seen them yet?”
I recalled my view from the balcony yesterday morning.
“I saw you guiding one of them along, yes,” I said, remembering the sleek, gleaming black coat of the horse and its delicate step.
He smiled. “My names’s Marcus. I’ve worked for the Crowthornes for thirty-eight years. Nick told me all about you. Says you’re to train as a funeral director?”
“That’s right,” I said, trying to hide my thrill atlearning that Nick had spoken about me. Between Marcus and Maggie, it appeared Nick was good at choosing long-term staff. I hoped this would be the beginning of a long and fruitful career for me, too.
We walked together towards the grand entrance beneath the ornate gabled porch, the lantern flicking on even though it was still light outside.
“It was nice to meet you, Marcus,” I said, as he unlocked the front door for me.
“And you too, Ms Lockett.”
I didn’t correct him to call me Grace, which I knew put me a little above my station...but it felt so good to be respected. To be treated like a lady in this grand Victorian funeral home.
The hall was silent but for the ticking of the grandfather clock as I stepped in.
I made my way up to my room to try on my clothes, and to get a look at my new hair. I’d stumbled upon a hairdressing shop who had time for a trim. The hairdresser had remarked on the icy tone of my blonde hair, as many often did, and layered it up to give it more dimension. She even added a few wisps around my face, and a lazy fringe that feminised my sharp nose and jutting cheekbones. Before leaving, she’d given it a curl with a hot iron, so that it bounced around my shoulders when I moved.
Desire throbbed in my chest at the thought of Nick seeing me now. I threw the bags down on the bed and dressed immediately in a long, flowing white bohemian dress, decorated with embroidered flowers and long off-the-shoulder sleeves that ballooned out at the forearms and came in again at the cuffs.
I looked at myself in the mirror and was astonished at the ethereal woman I saw looking back at me; her pale face now blushing, with a healthy new bounce to her white locks of hair. The dress hugged my slight bosom, which was slowly becoming more ample with my new diet, and dare I say it...I enjoyed what I saw.
I heard a faint clattering. The sound of someone entering the hallway. I drew in a deep breath and hurried to the stairway, running my hand along the bannister as I made my way down the stairs.
Nick was home. I watched him drop his keys into a dish on the console table, talking away into his earpiece – something about beams and rafters, and pointing, and replacing rotten wood. I knew he had to be talking about Heather House. He glanced up and saw me, pausing, before he muttered something softly and ended the call.
“Grace,” he said, pausing as if I’d taken his breath away.
I felt as if I was glowing.
Nick ran a hand through his tangle of dark hair. He seemed choked up about something, his dark eyes following the line of my body.
