The kitchen was the warmest room in the house, but even here, Nancy’s skin tingled as goosebumps rushed up her arms. It was an illusion due to the egg-yolk-yellow walls that sat behind the wooden cabinetry. The only room in the house that sat at odds with the rest of the place, though she couldn’t say why. It was part of the original kitchens with a great open fireplace, working spit, and hanging rack that lay unused now, neglected like so many other corners of the Priory.
Lizzie hovered at the deep sink at the far end of the room. Vaguely aware when she’d entered, Nancy now felt her, the peculiar way the whole place charged with her presence. Her long skirts swished the old floor tiles as she instinctively headed to the stove to make tea. Nancy carefully walked to the table, keen not to disturb the air, and sat opposite Estelle.
‘Tea, my lady?’ Lizzie asked softly.
The earthenware teapot came to rest on the table atop its cork mat.
‘Thank you, Lizzie,’ Estelle answered. ‘I’ll pour. You go finish what you were doing.’ There was a fondness in her tone that would have touched Nancy if she’d been in her usual temperament, whatever that was.
‘Thank you, my lady,’ Lizzie said. ‘I never seem to finish that…’ She wandered off along with her words, lost on the cold air that hung low over the table.
Estelle lifted the pot and held the lid as she poured. Nancy watched, tracing the long hairline crack from the chipped spout.
‘Why on earth don’t you buy a new teapot? This one looks like it’s about to crumble with the next cuppa.’
‘What? No, don’t be silly. Our Brown Betty has been with me since…’ Her eyes fell on the crack as she placed the teapot back down. ‘This was a wedding gift. It belongs to the Priory as much as I and Lizzie.’ There was a hint of a smile; even Nancy felt the warmth of those sentimental memories.
Nancy perched on her chair. ‘I’ve put Oliver back to bed for a while. Hopefully, he’ll sleep a bit. It was a long night. As long as Elliot doesn’t keep pestering him to get up…’
‘Try not to worry. It is a new place for them. They will both settle; it may just take a little while.’ Estelle reached out her hand and passed Nancy the sugar bowl.
‘There will need to be rules.’ Nancy twisted her hair over her shoulder and stretched her neck, releasing the tautness settling in her shoulders.
‘They are just boys,’ Estelle said.
‘You know full well what I mean. Rules for their sake, not yours or this place.’
‘I am fully aware of your meaning.’
‘I won’t get into it, Estelle. Not this morning, for God’s sake, I’m far too tired already.’ Nancy closed her eyes, wishing she could sleep for a week. Grief was an exhausting state to hold for so long.
‘It is not grief but anger that keeps you awake, my dear.’
Nancy glowered. With all the energy, she held back the anger. Then, with a deep breath that ended up as a defeated sigh, she wilted back onto the chair. How did Estelle know what she was thinking? Her thoughts were never her own.
‘I spoke to the village school last week while I was making plans. They start in two days.’ Nancy spoke more to the window than she did to Estelle.
‘The school?’
‘Yes, after all the crap. After all the upheaval and grief they’ve had to deal with, they need some normality back. Hell, I need some normalcy in my life. You know damned well I didn’t want to bring them here, so if school is the only slice of a normal life they can have, then...’
‘May I ask you something?’
Estelle never asked permission to say anything. Something about being Lady Hardacre or a Hardacre at all gave her the God-given right to say whatever she pleased. Nancy closed her eyes and corrected herself; there was nothing God-given about this forsaken place.
‘Go on,’ Nancy uttered through a clenched jaw.
‘Do you think that will be good for them? I know you mean the best for them—goodness knows I know how that feels—but they are here now. This is where they belong.’
‘They are seven going on eight. Of course, it’s best. How else are they going to learn? I’m sure as hell not able to home-school in any way. Or do you mean a tutor? I can’t afford that.’ Nancy’s jaw fused, and her teeth ground in her ears.
‘Just think about it. That is all I am saying.’ Estelle’s hand rose between them. ‘I just want to help.’
‘Do you? Is that all you are saying? Or are you telling me how it will be from now on?’ Nancy blurted, her heart rapid and her cheeks flushed.
‘Things will change now. The Priory… Things work differently here.’
‘Well, the boys aren’t your responsibility; they are mine. I have a meeting with their new teacher this afternoon. She said she’d drop by after school—before teatime, I imagine. Mrs Scarfe.’
‘Gloria?’ Estelle asked with a lighter tone that sung slightly.
‘Yes… I think so.’
‘Ah, I see. Well, that will be all right.’ Estelle eased back in her chair, lifting her cup to her mouth. ‘It will allow her.’
Nancy watched Estelle’s face as she nodded to the window. Estelle had swiped a thick line beneath her words, ending the conversation.
Nancy spooned the sugar. Estelle was trying, but too much pain lingered on her skin. Like old sunburn, it still flayed if rubbed too hard. This whole place—the lands, the estate—was chafing at her nerves. Maybe she should forgive her. If it soothed a modicum of agony and fear, then perhaps it would be one less pain to haunt her.
They sat at the scrubbed pine table nestled beneath a tall stone window for the next half an hour. The light was intense, but it wasn’t enough to warm. Winter lived here, and it had long settled into the cracks.
‘I saw him.’ Bloody hell, why had she said that? Her mind had wandered and found Andrew. ‘Last night.’ Her head fell into her hands; tears stung the back of her eyelids. To let them fall now would undo all the hard work of the past few weeks.
‘I know. You are not invincible, you know. It is not a weakness to mourn. The lord is witness to the many times I have lamented. What is done is buried. What is here remains.’
‘Please don’t talk to me about grieving. I’ve had to do this on my own, Estelle. Not one word from you. Not one. And you don’t believe that any more than I do. I know how this works.’
Her anger bubbled and roared as she continually stoked the fires beneath it, but the morning’s warm yellow disguise leached under her skin and weakened her resolve. Anger—the only emotion that surged through her veins—was swallowing her whole.
‘I’m trying my hardest,’ Nancy said. ‘He gave me no choice but to make these impossible decisions. I have nothing, Estelle. He left me alone with the boys, with bad memories and no future. I’m trying my hardest to forgive him for that.’
‘That is not true. You have Hardacre. The boys are the last. This is their home, and in turn, it is yours. It always has been.’
‘This God-forsaken place that breeds only pain? I don’t want it. I hate it, and it hates me.’
‘When I was young…’ Estelle hugged her cold teacup, her long fingers winding through the china handle.
Nancy stared, her back rigid as indignation set her firm against the spindles of the kitchen chair.
‘I was young once. Would you believe it to look at me now?’
Estelle pressed her palm to her cheek where her delicate tissue paper skin puckered with the tragedy of her past, a play that had left its leading lady with a continuous curtain call. Her eyes cast down to her hands as she put the cup onto the old pine. It ringed the surface, littered with the stains of mugs and teacups. Evidence of visitors? No, there never were any. No one came and left. Only those who belonged stayed to drink at this table. Only those the house allowed in… or wouldn’t allow out.
‘I never wanted to come here either,’ Estelle declared. ‘It was the worst summer of my young life, the upheaval, pain, and sorrow of what I left behind. I was just a child; I had no choice. Neither did my father, in all honesty, just like those boys of yours. The decision was made for us.’
‘I didn’t want to bring them here.’
‘Oh, my dear. I did not refer to my parents choosing for me, just like the situation you find yourself in. It is never a choice we make, you know. It is in our blood. A Hardacre will always come here in the end. You cannot fight it. Even if you travelled to the other side of the world, buried yourself in the deepest, most remote place, the Priory would still find you.’
Nancy didn’t reply, nor could she take her eyes from Estelle’s face. There was something in this morning light that stripped away the years like layers of filthy cobwebs to reveal the rawness of Estelle’s scars.
‘However, after the initial turmoil of those first few weeks, there is no denying that part of me relished the adventure. The boys will feel it too. It will help to dampen the turbulence in their bellies.’
The moment was fleeting, yet with blinding clarity that felt fit to stop her heart, Nancy saw Estelle as she had been—young, beautiful, and vibrant. With eyes that sparkled like sapphires and a smile so serene that peace itself sat there. Then, with swift dusty wings, the frantic thrashing of moths swiped that tranquillity away, their filthy wings beating against Estelle’s porcelain skin and obscuring her beauty. The impatient flutters finally drifted off into some shadowy corner of the room. They left nothing but grief—the scars of sadness. Loss and sorrow laid bare and wrinkled on Lady Hardacre’s face.
Estelle smoothed her cheek with her palm and let it come to rest at her neck, where she lay her hand over her pearls. ‘There was a time when we lived here in peace. It was not always so grave and desperate. It took another horror to bring our Hardacre destiny crashing down around us.’
Nancy nodded as much to herself as to Estelle as she allowed the morning sun to touch her eyelids. There was no warmth, but at least it wasn’t darkness filling her mind today.
‘The war,’ Nancy uttered.
‘I still feel the irony that it was not the Priory but the transgressions of humanity that took my happiness.’ Estelle laughed to herself. ‘You can blame the Priory for your pain. We all have at some time or another. Do not mistake the sins of man for the power that lies here.’
Nancy did blame man—that was the problem. She blamed Andrew for all of it.
The night had taken whatever energy she’d had left. She didn’t dare think about it too much. To recollect the night’s events would only have allowed the Priory’s clutch to tighten further. It heard her thoughts—that was how it fed. If she were too careless, she would fall into a deprived slumber.
Nancy jumped at the touch of a clammy hand on her shoulder. Elliot had always had an absurd knack for creeping around without her knowing, whereas she sensed Oliver’s movements, heartbeats from another room. Elliot stood behind her as if he had floated in with the dust.
‘Mum?’
‘What is it? You haven’t been bothering your brother, have you?’
His huff ruffled the top of her head. ‘No. Oli’s asleep. I don’t think I could wake him even if I wanted to, and I don’t.’
‘What have you been doing?’
Elliot stepped back a pace, bashing his grandmother’s knee. Nancy spun around in her chair.
‘Nothing.’ His eyes shot to his hands. His fingers gripped the worn edges of his comic book. ‘I was reading, but I’m so bored.’
Estelle placed her arm around his narrow shoulders and tapped her fingers on his arm. Elliot’s fierce veneer melted away as he relaxed into her hold.
‘It will do me good to have young ones around this place.’ She squeezed him. ‘There is far too much old age here.’
Stifling the urge to glare daggers at them, Nancy closed her eyes to eradicate the image of Andrew and his mother the day they’d left. The day Nancy had taken him away from his legacy. That was how his mother had deemed it—Nancy had stolen him. Now here was Elliot, quite at ease in Estelle’s comforts. Hadn’t Nancy known it would be like this? Elliot was every bit a Hardacre.
Estelle eyed him carefully, keeping a hint of softness at the corner of her mouth. ‘Listen, if you are good and well behaved, why don’t you go and have a wander around the grounds and gardens? The sun is out; it’s a good day for a ramble.’
‘What’s a ramble?’ Elliot asked. ‘Is that like a rabbit or a hedgehog?’
‘No, bless you. It means a roam or a stroll. There is plenty to see—the Priory sits in over nineteen acres. But you must be careful—no going beyond our boundary. No going past the oak into the village or anywhere near the road. You must stay within the Priory and where it can see you.’
Elliot nodded cautiously.
‘Most importantly, you must be careful around the Priory ruins.’
‘What are they?’ he asked, his young brows knitted.
‘This…’ Estelle swept her hand through the air and came to rest on the window’s cold stone. ‘This is just the part we live in. The part that once was the gatehouse—an awfully long time ago before it belonged to the Hardacre family—was the entrance to the Priory. It was large and impressive back then.’
‘What happened to it? Is it like the abbey ruins in town?’
‘Yes, exactly like that. The main Priory was demolished, and the stone was used to build some of the village walls and buildings. So there is not much left, just ruins like the abbey in Bury St Edmunds. But—and this is especially important, so you must listen carefully’—Elliot leant in closer, wide-eyed with eagerness so tangible it almost made the room hum— ‘You must never walk there. Never. With no exception must you or your brother walk beneath the arches of those ruins.’ Elliot started to open his mouth. ‘No exception, do you hear me?’
‘Promise?’ Nancy added.
Elliot nodded fiercely. His face spoke of adventures that carved themselves between his furrowed brows. A new light shined from inside him. Nancy watched as his face lit up, and when she glanced to Estelle, she saw it there too.
She had lost.