Twenty-Eight

On Friday morning, Anna drove down to the Manor.

It was eleven o’clock, and visitors were already in the house and grounds. She parked in the public area and walked through the visitors’ gate to the house. As she stepped in through the front door, one of the stewards caught her arm.

‘Anna—what are you doing here?’

Anna smiled at her, bemused. ‘I want to speak to Matthew,’ she said. ‘Do you know where he is?’

The woman, whom Anna only knew as a nodding acquaintance, lowered her voice and pulled Anna to one side. ‘Don’t go in,’ she said.

‘But why ever not?’

‘Mrs Aubrete is in there, in the gallery.’

Anna raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m not going in the gallery.’

‘There’s been all hell to pay this morning,’ the woman said. ‘Screaming and shouting all over the house. They’ve been ringing you. It was the first thing I was asked as I walked in this morning, if I had seen you.’

‘I’m not answering my phone,’ Anna said. ‘What is it all about?’

‘Too late,’ the woman said. Her eyes strayed to the hall behind them.

Anna turned to see Laura Aubrete bearing down on her. She had only a moment to register Laura’s altered appearance: her air of practised smoothness had vanished. Her expression was incensed, out of control. She looked torn up by her own outrage.

‘You bloody jumped-up bitch,’ Laura said, stopping within an inch of Anna.

Instinctively, Anna stepped back. ‘What?’

‘You heard me. You bloody jumped-up scheming bitch.’

Two visitors, who had just come in through the door, their entrance tickets and house guides in their hands, stopped dead.

Anna looked at the steward for help, for explanation. And, at the moment she turned her head, Laura Aubrete hit her, hard, in the face. Anna staggered backwards, against the heavy mahogany door to the drawing room.

‘How dare you show your fucking face,’ Laura said. ‘How dare you come in here!’

Anna put her hand to her mouth.

Laura lifted her other hand. In it were the house keys, a large ring of clattering metal. ‘You see these?’ she demanded. ‘Well, take a good look at them!’ she said. ‘This is as near as you’re going to get to them. Do you hear me? As near as you’ll ever bloody well get!’

Anna had backed further, into the drawing room. She tripped on the edge of the thick carpet, and put a hand out to catch the red rope barrier.

‘How long have you been here?’ Laura continued. ‘Not a year. I’ve worked for eight in this place. I’ve brought it up, I’ve made it solvent, it’s mine.’ She thumped a fist against her own chest. ‘I did it. I created it,’ she cried. ‘It’s not yours. I’ll burn it to the ground before you set foot in it, do you understand? You fucking grasping …’

Anna finally came to a halt.

‘Laura!’ Matthew called, from the doorway.

Laura turned. ‘Don’t come in here defending her,’ she shouted.

Matthew closed the door to the hall. ‘I’ll do what I like in my own house,’ he said.

Laura gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Your own house?’ she demanded. ‘Oh, hardly, I think. Don’t you? Hardly that any more.’

Matthew put his hand out to Anna. ‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.

Laura threw down the keys on the table. She leaned on it, breathing heavily. ‘How you’ve got the audacity to come here,’ she muttered. ‘And how you can stand there, Matthew, and show any concern for her.’ She gestured wildly in Anna’s direction. ‘Don’t you see what she’s done? Even you didn’t see this, did you? She’s planned this all along,’ she said. ‘Can’t you see it? Can’t you see what’s happened? She turns up here and you let her crawl in here and get around your father …’

‘I did no such thing,’ Anna protested.

‘And you’re such a spineless idiot, you can’t see what she’s doing, you’ve never seen the purpose. I warned you, and now it’s happened.’

‘Sit down,’ Matthew said, to Anna. He lifted a chair from behind the barrier.

‘You can’t see it now,’ Laura said. ‘Even now your plan’s backfired.’

‘What plan?’ Anna said. She had take a tissue from her pocket and was wiping her mouth. It felt raw. ‘Oh Jesus,’ she murmured.

‘Your lip is cut,’ Matthew said. He looked back to Laura. ‘Is this going to help anything?’ he asked. ‘For Christ’s sake have a bit of dignity. Making a fool of yourself all morning—causing a scene in front of visitors …’

‘I’ll do what I like,’ Laura retorted. ‘Dignity! Christ!’

‘I don’t understand,’ Anna said.

‘The innocent,’ Laura snapped.

‘You’re totally out of control,’ Matthew told her.

Laura began pacing the room. As she walked up and down by the windows, she was on the boards and not the carpet. Her footsteps echoed around the panelled walls. ‘All this time, I thought you were plotting with her,’ she said. ‘Even I didn’t think she would by-pass you. Get past you to get to Dominic. A sick man … my God, it’s obscene.’ She stopped, and stared at Anna venomously. ‘What did you do to him?’ she said. ‘Something especially degrading? Some filthy little trick or other? What did he want? What did he ask for?’

‘Laura,’ Matthew said.

‘Tell me,’ Laura said. ‘I know a few turns myself. But I must have missed out on your particular talent. What did he like?’

‘Laura,’ Matthew said. ‘Shut up.’

‘Some perversion of your own?’ Laura demanded. Anna stood up. ‘OK, so what are you going to do?’ Laura said. ‘Throw us out now? Or later? Are you going to let us take our clothes with us?’

‘That’s enough,’ Matthew said.

‘Why are you defending her?’ Laura screamed. ‘She’s taken your whole life away from you! My whole life!’

‘What?’ Anna said. ‘What do you mean? I’ve done nothing.’

Laura hardly registered her voice. She was still staring at Matthew, her face suffused with a violent red, her hands clenched, her body bent over at the waist. She was possessed by her own fury.

‘I will not talk to you in this state,’ Matthew said. ‘Three hours of screaming like the devil is more than enough.’

Laura froze. ‘You witless sod,’ she breathed. ‘You and your bloody empty superiority. You imbecile. She’s led you by your dick. She’s taken you for everything you’ve got, and all you can say is that I mustn’t raise my bloody voice about it!’ She turned away, with one hand to her head as if she was really about to pull her hair out. She leaned on the window, gazing out through the glass. ‘She won’t succeed,’ she said. ‘That’s why we’ve got trustees. He can’t bring her in over me, and I’m fucked to hell if I’m moving out.’

Anna stared at her.

She turned and put her hand on Matthew’s arm.

‘What is it? What is it?’ she whispered.

He put a finger to his mouth, and nodded towards the door.

He took her upstairs, to his own study.

She sat down opposite him, in front of the desk that had so fascinated her the first time that he had shown it to her. ‘This is my life,’ he had said.

She had been flattered then. No one, the stewards told her, had ever been allowed in the study. It was a room that Matthew Aubrete kept locked, and he carried the key around with him wherever he went. Laura Aubrete often made a joke of it to the staff, but in such a way that still revealed her exclusion, and her sensibility to it.

It had been autumn. Outside, the frost had been thick on the ground. She had been at Aubrete for four months. They had been lovers since September, since the leaves on the chestnut trees down the drive had shown their first faint tinges of yellow. Now, their half-clothed outlines were ranked against the skyline, a long grey hill.

Had she been in love with him?

Hard to say. She was secure. She had needed him so much.

Yet he loved her.

‘This is what Aubrete is all about,’ he had said. ‘This is what made it.’

He stood now by the large table, his hand resting on the maps. There were over thirty of them. Tithe maps, parish maps. Maps of Poor Heart Hill. Section maps of the tunnels and shafts of the mine that they called The 1800.

He had his back to the light now. She slumped down on the nearest chair.

‘My father died yesterday,’ he said.

She tried to make out his expression. ‘Oh, Matthew. I’m so sorry.’

‘Are you?’ he said. ‘I’m not.’

Anna kept silent.

‘I’ve been waiting for this for years,’ he said quietly. Then, he smiled. ‘And it’s all rather a joke, as it turns out, isn’t it?’ he asked her. Mildly. Conversationally. ‘I’ve waited all these years to be free of him, and to have some authority on the estate, some real … some final … authority …’ His voice trailed away. His index finger traced the line of the marcasite seam. In gothic script against the line of the tunnel was written, Peacock Vein. He stared at it for some time, then raised his head.

‘Well, what are you planning to do?’ he asked. ‘I’m afraid that Laura, as you can see, will take this to court.’

‘Take what to court?’ Anna asked.

He came around the side of the table. ‘Please Anna, not with me,’ he said. ‘With Laura perhaps, with others. But not with me.’

She looked hard at him, then back at the maps. Her fingers traced the swelling at the side of her mouth. ‘Dominic has left me the estate,’ she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. She said the words hesitantly, with wonder. She looked back at him. ‘Matthew, I didn’t know,’ she said.

He did a little mime of an English gentleman, straightening the sleeves of his jacket, pulling at his cuffs. ‘Come now,’ he said.

‘Matthew, I really did not know.’

‘I’ve seen the will,’ he said.

She spread her hands. ‘Well, I haven’t.’

‘The land and house are in trust, of course. You can’t sell it. But at least you may move in. You may take the income, alter the estate as you wish with the trustees’ consent. You might want to turn it into a theme park. A caravan site.’

‘Matthew, please.’

She had never actually seen him angry. It was a curious sight—a mood much deeper than Laura’s. It was like looking into the still eye at the heart of a storm, and the sensation truly frightened her.

‘You may wish us to move out, of course,’ he said.

‘Matthew …’

‘A golf club. Golf clubs are very lucrative. A health farm, similarly.’

‘I don’t want to see Aubrete changed at all. You know that.’

‘Ah … small mercies indeed,’ he said bitterly.

She stood up. ‘Matthew, I’m so sorry about your father,’ she said. ‘But I never had any kind of influence over him, and whatever Laura believes, or would have you believe, I’ve never had a physical relationship with him. For heaven’s sake … you know that!’ She tried to gauge his reaction. He had half turned away from her. On the wall was a large watercolour of the estate in 1810, the year that the house was built. It stood in the centre of bare parkland, looking outrageously new and ugly, unsoftened by time. There were no trees on the long slope to the top road. The hillside was still scarred.

‘Matthew,’ she prompted. ‘Please say something.’

His hand tapped his hip, his pocket, as if searching for something. ‘My father …’ he began.

‘Please …’

‘My father called you his dearest friend,’ he said. ‘In his will. Rather a long document, in fact. Detailing his admiration for you, the beds you shared, the disaffection for his family, his son, his daughter-in-law … he lists, at some length, my failings …’

‘Oh God,’ she murmured. ‘It’s a lie.’

‘He has left you his flat in London, to which, of course, he has absolute claim as the freeholder, and … the flat in Pollensa …’

‘I don’t want them,’ she said.

‘His personal effects …’

She strode up to him pulled on his elbow to turn him towards her. ‘Can’t you see what he’s done?’ she asked. ‘With his last breath? It’s a lie. I don’t want the house, I don’t want anything,’ she insisted. ‘It’s yours. I never slept with him. You know that. In your heart, Matthew! You know what he was like. It’s a sick joke, Matthew. The last in the line of his sick and terrible jokes. To cause suffering when he was dead, it’s his style … I’m sorry,’ she added hastily, ‘to say that. But it’s true. Look at how it’s hurting you.’

He wouldn’t look at her. She put her hand to his face, turned it.

‘I came here today to say that I was leaving the cottage,’ she said. ‘And it certainly wasn’t so that I could move in here.’

‘Leave?’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘Not because of you,’ she said. ‘And certainly not because of this. He never breathed a word to me. How could he? I’ve never seen him in private. Only with you.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh God,’ she muttered. ‘This is insane. My whole life is bloody insane.’

‘It’s not what he says,’ Matthew told her. ‘Not what father says in the will.’ His smile was frozen, a rictus bearing only the faintest parallel to humour. ‘It’s quite a story. A romance. Very touching. I’m surprised the old man had it in him.’

‘He didn’t! I didn’t. For God’s sake!’

‘I must be the fool he claims that I am,’ he said. He flinched at his own remark. ‘He is right. And perhaps the old stories are true. Perhaps every owner of this place is cursed.’

‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘You’re not a fool. You’re not cursed. You’re the kindest man in the world.’

‘Am I?’ he asked softly. ‘Wouldn’t that make me an ideal husband?’

‘Look …’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ he said. ‘Apparently not husband material at all.’

‘I don’t want the house,’ she repeated. ‘I’ll prove it to you. Give me something to sign. I’ll sign something this morning. Now. A piece of paper. Laura can witness it. I’ll give it back to you. And the flats. And all his things. What would I want with them?’

He looked at her. She saw the distrust still there, the deadly seed that Dominic had planted. ‘I’ll take any test,’ she said. ‘Go downstairs. Ring your solicitor. The trustees. Ring them up, bring them here. I’ll sign it back to you.’

He took her hand gently away from him, disengaged her touch. Walked away, to the window. ‘He’s left you over three million pounds in assets,’ he said. ‘Perhaps more, who knows? You can’t sign that away.’

‘It isn’t mine to keep,’ she said.

His gaze never left the sea, the hazy blue line of the horizon.

‘Matthew,’ she said.

‘The irony is,’ he whispered, ‘is that I wish you joy of it … I wish you joy.’