Unusually, she had arrived on a Thursday. ‘It doesn’t matter to him what days you do,’ Drew had said. ‘And that means you can settle in and get started before I come over for the weekend. If I do,’ he added, holding up crossed fingers, ‘it’ll be down to Pandora.’
The name always made Thea smile. It belonged to a temporary assistant who was standing in for Maggs Cooper, because Maggs had recently produced a baby daughter. Pandora was fifty-three and immensely efficient. She had no difficulty with dead bodies, coffins, grieving families or unreasonable requests regarding the positioning of a grave. She was equally good with Drew’s children, and was infinitely available thanks to a recent divorce and her own two sons having left home. She had always lived in Dorset, the move to neighbouring Somerset a major midlife adventure.
The probability of having Drew to join her on the Saturday, albeit with his children, was a strong motivation for Thea to devote the whole of Friday to the house. She would not pause, she promised herself. Chedworth would go unexplored and Hepzibah unwalked. The dog could potter around the good-sized back garden and be thankful. Even with Drew, Stephanie and Timmy there, the work would have to continue, although they had agreed there must be a visit to Drew’s property in Broad Campden at some point.
During the magical summer interlude at Farmington a great many elements had fallen into place. Dilemmas and complications had resolved themselves almost effortlessly. ‘We’ll live in the Cotswolds,’ Thea had said. ‘I’ll sell my Witney house, and you can put Maggs in charge of Peaceful Repose. I’ll work for you full time and we’ll do good business.’
‘But Maggs is having a baby,’ he’d demurred.
‘So we wait until she’s ready to work again. It’ll take a year or so, anyway, to get everything organised.’
Since then, some of the earlier difficulties had re-emerged; not least the appalled reaction from Maggs herself. Pregnancy had done nothing for her temper, which had always been short. Her association with Drew went back to a time just after Stephanie was born and the natural burial ground established. He freely acknowledged that he could not have done it without her. He owed her an impossible debt of gratitude for the support she had given him on every level, and she was not afraid to remind him of it regularly. Thea had stepped into the middle of a relationship that sometimes seemed more intimate than a marriage.
Maggs’s reaction to Thea was itself an ongoing rollercoaster. At first ferociously protective, Maggs then opted to accept that Drew was at no risk after all. But she had come to see some of Thea’s shortcomings in recent months, with the reappearance of earlier misgivings. ‘You have to be gentle with him,’ she said at one point, with a worried look. ‘And instead you just expect him to be gentle with you.’
‘Can’t we be gentle with each other?’
‘I don’t know. Can you?’
Thea had gone away with a churning sensation in her stomach. When had she ever been gentle? she asked herself. She was so often impatient, intrusive, rude, reckless. Did she have to change her entire nature in order to be worthy of Drew Slocombe?
Drew himself didn’t appear to think so, which was obviously the main thing. He showed every sign of finding her funny, independent, capable and trustworthy. It was all in the eye of the beholder, anyway, she assured herself. The Drew that Maggs knew and loved was a subtly different person from the one Thea was intending to marry. He knew what he was doing, she supposed. Everything would be fine.
As had become her habit, she phoned him at eight-thirty, after the children were in bed. She shared her observations of Richard Wilshire, the house and the shadowy glimpses she’d so far managed of Chedworth. ‘First impressions?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. There’s something elusive about it. I know I’ve said the same about other places, but this one really does have some strange levels. I mean – there are no levels. Everything pitches at an angle. And there are two Chedworths, which doesn’t help. It took ages to find the house.’
‘Which one’s got the Roman villa?’
‘Neither. That’s off to the north, the other side of some woods.’
‘I make that three, then,’ he laughed.
‘So it is. I have a feeling there’s loads of good history attached to the place, but I won’t have time to look any of it up. Tomorrow’s going to be full on, sorting all the stuff that’s here. I can’t decide whether to start at the top and work down, or the other way round. Basically, I just have to open it all up and list what’s here. But that’ll mean moving lots of boxes and making heaps everywhere. Then I’ll have to pack it all up again, with descriptions of the contents on the top of each box or whatever.’ As she spoke, she felt a glow of anticipation at a task that would be full of interest. Who knew what she might find?
‘I think you’ll have to start in the attic, won’t you? I can’t see it working otherwise.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, if you have to put similar things together, you’ll need to bring stuff down. Or have I got that wrong?’
‘I wasn’t planning to rearrange it. Just open everything up and see what’s what. What’s in the attic can stay in the attic. I was thinking I’d leave that for when you’re here to help.’
‘But all the most interesting stuff is likely to be up there.’
‘I know. But there are spiders in the attic as well. I thought if I made a commotion downstairs, and Hepzie rampaged a bit, they might all decide to move out, before I have to face them.’
‘I see. We should probably have thought of that sooner. A spider phobia rather disqualifies you for the job in hand, don’t you think?’
‘Certainly not. I’ll just go carefully, and shake everything before I start. I can cope as long as they’re not on me. It’ll be fun, I’m sure, once I get started. I never dreamt of turning it down just for that. I need the money.’
‘Yeah.’ He sighed. ‘We’ll have to talk about money at the weekend, if we get the chance.’
‘So you can come?’
‘As far as I know, yes. Pandora’s a treasure, you know. She even offered to come here and look after the kids all weekend, so I can come to you.’
Thea’s heart jumped. ‘Wow! And what did you say?’
‘I was so surprised, I didn’t say anything definite. In a way, it would be sensible. There’s a lot of overdue paperwork in the office that she could get on with at the same time. And if there’s a removal, she could easily get Den to help with that. She can call Harriet to babysit.’
‘Harriet’s the girl down the lane, right?’
‘Right. But the trouble is, I’d have to pay Pandora properly for such a commitment. And Den’s not keen on doing removals at the moment, with the baby so new. We’re on a tightrope, in more ways than one.’
‘When were you not? It’s been the same since I’ve known you.’
‘I know. But I really think I ought to bring the kids with me and keep Pandora on standby. I don’t have to pay her at all then, unless she gets called out.’
They chatted for a few more minutes, until Drew instructed her to have an early night and face her fears with fortitude the next morning. Before obeying, she did a circuit of the house – all but the attic – trying to formulate a plan of operation. There were three bedrooms on the first floor, as well as a bathroom and a small area that might once have been called a ‘dressing room’. It was piled high with cardboard boxes. When she peeped inside one, it seemed to be full of clothes.
Downstairs there was a large front living room, and two more rooms at the back. The kitchen ran along one side of the house, light and spacious, with a high ceiling and numerous built-in cupboards of a style long ago past. A back door led out to the garden, through a sort of porch. Another door led into an outside lavatory, which showed little sign of having been updated since the 1940s.
Involuntarily, she was acquiring a picture of the old lady who had spent such a large portion of her life in this house. The picture was coloured by personal experience, namely that her own widowed mother, in her seventies, was still occupying the family home. There had been six of them in it for a long time, but it was smaller than this handsome Cotswold property. The Wilshires had apparently only managed a single child, and he had duly grown up and left at a respectable age – probably not much later than twenty or thereabouts. There had been no reference to a Mr Wilshire Senior, and scarcely any evidence of him discovered so far. All of which led to a conclusion that the woman had remained here on her own as a widow for a considerable time, free to add clutter, pursue hobbies, with never any need to throw things away. It was in no way unusual. The land was full of similar scenarios. This was not the first instance that Thea had encountered, albeit with variations on the same theme.
This woman had a variety of interests, which were already apparent from the stacks of old magazines that toppled precariously in all the downstairs rooms. Historic houses and country living were not especially surprising. But pottery and medieval French history were more unexpected. There was also a small kiln at one end of the kitchen, with two shelves of dusty equipment close by: a cutting wire with wooden handles, a collection of spatulas and some plastic bottles containing coloured slip that proved to have dried up. No clay was to be seen, and no finished products, which made Thea think it had all been abandoned a long time ago.
Soon after ten, she took Hepzie outside for her routine toileting and then led the way upstairs. The bedroom was large and handsomely furnished with mahogany wardrobe, chest of drawers and dressing table. There was an oak chest, and the headboard on the big, high bed was a semicircle of painted wood that was like nothing she had seen before. However Richard had managed to turn the mattress without assistance, she did not know.
Hepzie jumped cheerfully up, despite the height, and Thea followed a few minutes later. She felt hesitant and oddly guilty. This was another woman’s private room, the bed her own personal space for countless years. She, Thea, was a usurper, with no real right to be there. Mrs Wilshire wasn’t dead. Instead she was in a kind of limbo, the twilight of her days, no longer the same autonomous person she had been, as she waited for the end. How would that feel, Thea wondered. Surely there must be resentment, sadness, resistance, and a craving for all the familiar things that this house contained. Could anyone truly possess the maturity to go willingly into that last phase, full of clean surfaces and excessively cheerful carers? If you still had your wits about you, didn’t that make it worse? Would you have to pretend that it was all all right?
It was a very comfortable bed. Soft and deep, it offered a haven from the world. A person might live in such a bed, strewing books and biscuits across its considerable expanse. In the past, people had ‘taken to their beds’ and never got out again. It would have to be a bed such as this, to make any sense. There was something deliciously Victorian about it, and Thea felt she ought to wear a long cotton nightdress with tucks and ruches, and a flannel nightcap.
People really should be allowed to take their own mattress into the residential home, she thought. It was such a central factor in one’s life. She remembered her father’s affection for the big marital bed he and her mother had bought when they were first married. Maureen Johnstone regularly told the story of how carefully her new husband had selected the mattress and how important it had always been to him. Mrs Wilshire might well have felt the same. Perhaps her Richard had been born in this bed – almost certainly he’d been conceived in it.
She and Drew, she decided, would buy themselves a top-quality new bed, as soon as they finally came to live together.
Friday morning was there in a flash, after a fabulously good sleep. The spaniel hadn’t moved a muscle all night, the sheets and blankets had moulded themselves to Thea’s body perfectly, and her dreams had been full of contentment.
There were significant differences to this commission from the usual. Primarily, there were no animals to care for. No delicate elderly dogs or stand-offish cats. No lonely donkey or disconcerting parrot. Nothing downstairs needing food, exercise or love. Another difference was that the actual owner of the house would not be returning to assess her performance. Richard Wilshire might qualify as a replacement, but he would not have the emotional connection that his mother would. What was more, when he came back, everything would have changed. His reaction was uncertain, but Thea was determined to do a good job and earn the fee she’d been promised.
‘To work!’ she announced aloud, sliding regretfully out of the hospitable bed. Its height meant that she almost had to jump off the side, being a short person. It was a moment of nostalgia, taking her back to childhood days when she had barely managed to climb on and off her parents’ handsome bed. She was liking it here, she realised. It was bringing philosophical thoughts that while not quite joyful, certainly weren’t unduly melancholy or worrying. Mrs Wilshire had gone willingly, after all, if her son could be believed.
It was eight o’clock, and she allowed herself and the dog half an hour before the sorting began. ‘Time for a little walk,’ she said.
The house stood on a paved road, which only went a little way before morphing into a footpath – no less than the renowned Macmillan Way. The path crossed a large open field and then disappeared into a stretch of woodland. Thea let the dog run loose in the field, which undulated dramatically, showing evidence of ancient agriculture. There were no sheep or other dogs, and Hepzie ranged contentedly, nose to the ground. ‘No time to explore the woods,’ said Thea. ‘That can wait for another day.’
As they turned back, she could see part of the village, with grey roofs and stone walls that were a weathered hue of a dark beige that was one of a wide spectrum of Cotswolds colours. In some villages they were much closer to yellow than they were here. Not only did age dictate the shade, but different quarries produced stone of different shades.
Chedworth was essentially an inward-looking place, she concluded. It was not on the way to anywhere, with no large roads within earshot. The A429 was a mile or so distant from the upper end of this long-drawn-out village. There was no enticement for tourists to come here either, with the Roman villa on a quite different road. Its railway had disappeared long ago, and the little River Churn was too small to attract any river-based activities. It offered nothing for visitors, other than a farm shop and the villa. The latter made no discernible impact on the village itself, as far as Thea could tell, although she did spot a faded iron sign at knee level, suggesting that by following the Macmillan footpath, it could readily be reached. She must not fail to go for a look at some point.
But work called, and she hustled the spaniel back and closed the front door behind them. Drew had assumed that the only rational way to proceed was to start with the attic and work downwards. Certainly, the attic contained the most mysterious items, not seen for ages. But they were also liable to be dirty, dusty, broken and spider-ridden. And wouldn’t it make sense to clear some space downstairs first, before bringing stuff down to create more clutter? Richard had asked her to remove any objects that were unarguably rubbish, giving little clue as to the quantity there might be. Even as he’d been speaking, she had resolved to err on the side of caution, consigning as little as possible to the ‘to be thrown away’ pile.
She had not anticipated the emotional consequences of the job, although the previous evening she had glimpsed something of the risk. The old lady’s life was disintegrating before her eyes, as its component parts were sorted, boxed, and then stored for an indefinite time. None of them would ever be used or enjoyed by their owner again. There was a violence to it, a premature tidying away of a woman who still lived. No wonder her son felt guilty. Thea herself was aware of similar stirrings.
But she was being paid to do it, and if she gave it up, then someone else would be brought in. It would be no more ethical or sensitive to leave the house to moths and damp and rats. Now the owner was gone, the things were so much flotsam.
She went into the smaller of the two rooms at the back of the house, which had perhaps once been a sort of study or music room. It contained a substantial old bureau with a glass-fronted bookcase above it. There was also an upright piano against one wall, and two indistinct oil paintings hanging either side of it. She must get going on the first list, making an inventory of each room as she tackled it. The piano, for a start, was easy to log. She found a notepad left by Richard, and wrote ‘Broadwood piano, mahogany. Fair condition.’ Then she opened the flap of the bureau, feeling a great reluctance to examine the contents. There had been moments, during other house-sits, where she had done a spot of unauthorised snooping – opening drawers and lifting lids. But now, when it was expected of her, there was a foolish resistance.
There was nothing unduly personal to be seen. The cubbyholes were all full and in good order. A lot of chequebooks with just the stubs remaining; expired savings books and three old passports; bank statements and insurance policies. The sort of things that Mrs Wilshire’s son or solicitor would perhaps need to sift through – and really not within Thea’s remit at all. She closed it again, and turned to an inspection of the contents of the bookcase. There were two rows of hardbacks with their dust jackets still intact. They all had The Book Club printed at the base of their spines, and were novels by people such as Frank Yerby and Nevil Shute. She pulled a few out, for no good reason. Thanks to the glass doors, they were free of dust and perfectly dry.
‘This isn’t what you should be doing,’ she muttered to herself. She wasn’t being useful, inspecting items that were already in plain sight and of no great interest or value. She should be in the attic, or one of the smaller bedrooms. She should be upending boxes and emptying the wardrobes. The day would pass with nothing achieved, at this rate.
So she went upstairs and entered the second largest bedroom. Here was a big ottoman with a hinged lid, full of carefully folded cotton sheets with lavender bags tucked into the folds. Pillowcases edged with lace. Embroidered tablecloths. A silk counterpane. Lovely things that would never be used by the Wilshires again, but which might find homes if sold by specialists to those who collected such items. The ottoman itself was impressive, upholstered in red velvet and lined with satin inside. Forgetting her instructions for a while, she simply indulged in the luxury of fingering the beautiful fabrics and imagining they were hers. They conjured a special kind of affluence, where quality was taken for granted, and no self-respecting lady would wear anything other than silk next to her skin. A time quite vanished now, of course. Personal items would be made of ivory and silver, largely handmade. Furnishings would be embroidered by wives and daughters with long evenings at their disposal. These days, if you were rich, you paid other people to make, choose and install all your possessions. You lived in vast empty monochrome rooms and thought only about how to accumulate more wealth.
With a sigh, she took up her notepad again and started a new page. The ottoman should be listed as a piece of furniture with a value, and then its contents carefully described. It took her over an hour. When done, she finally felt she had made some progress, moving to a wardrobe with a new sense of purpose.
Here were two fur coats, several outmoded suits and dresses, and a box holding a stiff canvas hat decorated with felt flowers. Again, it was safe to assume that Mrs Wilshire would not be wanting any of these garments again.
A yap from Hepzie, waiting on the landing outside the room, drew her attention. Next came a knock on the front door, which made Thea wonder if it was a repeat of a summons she had failed to hear the first time. There was a firmness to it that suggested impatience. She went down and pulled open the door.
Two people stood there, shoulder to shoulder, one of them disconcertingly recognisable.