10

I slept badly, that first night at Barnsley. It felt like years since I’d slept well. Ever since the arrival of Sophia’s letter I had struggled to fall asleep, and when I did, I was plagued by constant fragmented dreams. Most mornings I woke before dawn, and that first morning in Barnsley was the same. My head was buzzing. I wanted to know why Sophia had written the letter. I wanted to know why Agatha was in a wheelchair. I wanted to know where Daphne was. I wanted to know what it all had to do with my mother. I wanted to know what it had to do with me.

The combination of jet lag and so many questions going around in my head made getting back to sleep futile. Instead of trying to fight the insomnia, I decided to explore the grounds and get my bearings.

Late the night before, after we all ate, Mrs. Mins had taken me along a narrow corridor in the west wing of the house. Similar to a covered cloister, it was lined along one side with coat hooks and low lockers, and on the other looked out over what seemed to be a small rose garden. At the end of the corridor, a heavy door concealed another small foyer, with a meager utilitarian stairwell rising to the bedrooms above.

My room, a small but cozy lodging with a compact bathroom, was alongside the children’s and the master bedroom. It was decorated in what I believed to be an early 1990s style, a Laura Ashley vibe that resulted in all flat surfaces being covered in matching flounces of fabric. The repeating pattern and the size of the room created a slightly claustrophobic effect, and I wondered if this was deliberate. Someone had put my bag down, and I rushed to check it as soon as Mrs. Mins had shut the door. The locks were intact.

My anxiety was still evident on my face the next morning as I checked out the bathroom. The jet lag had caught up with me the night before, and I hadn’t even brushed my teeth before crashing into the small bed. A bath, too short to lie down in, and a small wall basin were crammed in beside a toilet. I checked behind the door in futile search of a shower, but there was none. My hair, in the tiny bathroom mirror, was in dire straits already; I wondered how it would look after being washed in a bath. My skin looked wan, as if it had already acclimatized to the pale European light, translucent enough to reveal the blue-black of sleeplessness under my eyes. I brushed my teeth quickly and tried to avoid the reflection.

Mauve light filtered through the galleried windows in the silent corridor. It sounded like the children were still sleeping. Max and Daphne seemed to have no qualms about placing someone they had barely met in such close proximity to their sleeping children, but now as I walked along the corridor, I saw that Thomas was nestled in his bed outside their bedrooms. He lifted his head as I passed and decided I was of no immediate threat.

Robbie was sprawled out facedown across his double bed, his covers thrown off, snoring softly. I took the chance to examine his room, in which every surface was covered with fastidiously labeled containers and boxes. The walls were plastered with posters of racehorses passing the post at the finish line, the type owners of racehorses might buy. I hadn’t seen any stables as we came in, but I felt like there was plenty I had missed in the dark.

Sophia’s room was next. It was a complete tip. Despite the piles of clothes heaped on her bedcovers, I could see immediately that her bed was empty. I found her in the next room, curled up tightly around her little sister. From the night before, I had observed that Sophia was fiercely protective of Agatha. She would be watching me closely around her little sister. I wondered if they slept together every night, or if it was just due to the arrival of a stranger in the house. It might mean it would be difficult to catch Sophia on her own. I would need to talk to her about the letter at some point.

Was that why no one had told me about Agatha? Protectiveness could be one excuse. As Mrs. Mins rolled Agatha into the kitchen, she had not taken her eyes off me for a second, and I in turn had not drawn mine from Agatha’s face. If she thought something like a child in a wheelchair would rattle me, then she had underestimated me; what truly unnerved me was that Max had not told me. There had to be some reason.

Even more disconcerting was the absence of Daphne. It made sense she wasn’t there for my unannounced arrival, but I would have expected her to appear for dinner.

The cold was a shock after the warmth of the kitchen. Zipping up my jacket and pulling the sleeves of my jumper over my hands, I headed around the edge of the house and found myself on a vast open expanse of lawn running down to the sea. From this angle, Barnsley House was truly spectacular.

My hand went to my pocket for my phone, reflexively. I was framing the shot, adjusting the filter, thinking how good it would look on my grid, already considering the caption, before I remembered.

Even if there was phone coverage, there was no point. No one cared.

My most popular post ever had been on the day I launched my app. I had thousands of likes. Other influencers reposted my photo. Direct messages flooded my in-box. It felt amazing. My picture of Barnsley, all sandstone and morning light, would disappear into a vacuum. The only person who would care would be Dad, and for all the wrong reasons. I put my phone away.

There were still no signs of any guests, and it seemed quiet, too quiet. Even at this hour of the morning there was usually activity at a hotel. Normally the gardeners would be out, and the housekeeping staff would be loading up their trolleys for the morning’s work. Here, there was nothing. The place was deserted, silent apart from the ever-constant sound of the waves crashing on the stone wall behind me.

All the curtains were drawn in the upstairs windows facing towards me, and I wondered if they were the guest rooms. I pressed my face up against the glass of the bay window. It was some sort of sitting room, decorated in a simple, tasteful way, a modern take on country house style. A large fireplace dominated the other end of the room, its grate empty. Either there hadn’t been a fire in it for some time or someone had recently cleaned it out meticulously. There were magazines set out in formation on a central table but I couldn’t see clearly enough to read the dates.

Hoping to find some signs of life somewhere, I stepped back, planning to look in another window. All the curtains were drawn, but one swayed ever so slightly with recent motion. I was sure they had been open only moments before. Hallucination? Imagination? Sleepless night?

I shook myself off. Told myself it was only an illusion or a draught. Or Daphne, finally. Or that there were guests, after all. Maybe someone had arrived late the night before, begging for a bed. It made sense, guests in a hotel. More sense than anything else my brain was imagining that morning.

There was plenty to see as I looked around the grounds, but I was more consumed in thought about the people at Barnsley House than the place itself. The gardens were in no way accessible for someone in a wheelchair; I wondered how Agatha managed. The paths were constantly interrupted by series of steps, and the lawns stretched away into the distance in steep declines. There was no fencing, nor any ramps.

Even the part of the house she lived in was cramped, the narrow corridors almost impassable. Max had carried her to bed last night, but he couldn’t be around all the time. It seemed like everyone, including Barnsley House itself, was in denial about Agatha’s immobility.

I wanted to know why Agatha was in a wheelchair and how long it had been that way, but I didn’t know who to ask. Max was out of the question, and it seemed inappropriate to grill the children on such matters. More than anything, I wanted to know where Daphne was.

Mrs. Mins seemed the obvious person to ask, but she terrified me. At dinner, the night before, she had largely ignored me, only every now and then asking me searching questions that seemed designed to highlight my thinly concealed shortcomings.

Even then, I knew that to expose myself further to her would be foolish, and possibly even dangerous. Sophia hadn’t mentioned her specifically in her letter, but I had no idea of how close she was to the family, and I intended to find out. Until then, I would keep her at a distance.

Unfortunately, in the way of that house, I kept being thrust back into her path. And that morning was to be no different. As I came around the westerly end of the lawn and into the kitchen garden, she was there, tending a patch that seemed, even to me, a nongardener, completely dormant. I wondered if she had been watching me, for there was no other reason for her to be out there in the cold, fully dressed and made up, at that hour of the morning, turning over the barren soil.