Nicholas came to collect Caitlyn for their trip to the country, arriving just after she returned from dropping Max at school.
‘I don’t keep classic university hours any more,’ he said as she made him coffee. ‘I’ve got that middle-aged sense of time running short, so I get up early. Eat healthily. Go to the gym. Got to make the most of it.’
‘Ouch, middle-aged,’ she said. ‘Surely not.’
‘When you spend most of your time teaching students, you don’t just feel middle-aged at forty. You feel bloody ancient!’
The sun was out, clouds scudding over the sky in little battalions, the treetops waving in the breeze. Nicholas had an open-topped MG sports car in bright green – ‘All right,’ she said with a smile, ‘you win. You are middle-aged’ – and they roared through Oxford, the wind whipping up her hair until she managed to tie it back with an elastic band she found in her bag. The city was not yet clogged with traffic and they were soon westbound on the A34, speeding along in the sunshine. Talking wasn’t possible with the roof down, and she lost herself in the enjoyment of the ride, the wind battering the top of her head, the sun bright on her dark glasses. She didn’t feel nervous as she had with Sara, despite the speed. In fact, sitting here with Nicholas, even though she’d not seen him in twenty years, felt absurdly comfortable and natural.
They followed the road westwards towards Wiltshire for half an hour, passing Spring Hall on their way.
‘Nearly there,’ Nicholas said as they drove into a market town, around its tortuous one-way system and out the other side, flying along country lanes. Suddenly they were in a pretty village of grey-stone houses and imposing gateways that obviously led to large mansions. A bright and lively looking pub flashed past, and then they were out the other side and turning up a long narrow lane. They went about half a mile along the lane until suddenly, almost magically, a beautiful house appeared, a seventeenth-century Jacobean manor house in mellow golden stone, with deep-set mullioned windows and a studded oak front door.
‘Here we are.’ Nicholas slowed down as they pulled up in the lane opposite it. The house, magnificent but not lonely in its isolation, overlooked a wonderful view of forests and fields, with the roofs of the village and spire of the church visible over the distant hedges.
‘Your great-aunt lives here?’ Caitlyn said, surprised. The house was enormous; she’d imagined they were going to a largish but sensible house, perhaps even a sprawling bungalow. A great-aunt had to be fairly old, after all, when Nicholas was nearly forty. Not a place like this.
‘She does. Come on, let’s get out and see how the old bird is doing.’
They left the MG as it was – ‘It doesn’t look like rain,’ Nicholas said, squinting up at the sky, ‘I think she’ll be all right’ – and crossed the lane to the house. Instead of going to the large front door in the central part of the house, Nicholas skirted down the side and knocked on a door at the back, in the west wing of the house. A flurry of barks greeted them and the sound of racing paws and panting excitement.
‘Down, girls, down!’ said a loud voice and the door opened to reveal three excited terriers and a stout red-faced woman with steel-grey curls wearing a large striped apron over her sensible skirt and jumper. She smiled. ‘Well, hello, how nice to see you.’
‘You did know I was coming, didn’t you?’ Nicholas said, going up the step and kissing one cherry-red cheek. ‘I left a message on the answering machine.’
‘Oh yes. Of course you did.’ The woman’s gaze turned to Caitlyn.
‘This is my friend, Mrs Balfour,’ Nicholas said.
‘Caitlyn, please,’ she said quickly.
‘This is Renee,’ Nicholas said. ‘She helps my aunt in the house.’
Renee nodded, smiling. ‘A little more than help, but yes. Glad to meet you.’
So this isn’t his great-aunt at all, thought Caitlyn.
‘Is she in the sitting room?’ Nicholas asked.
‘That’s right, you go through. I’ll make some tea.’ She called to the dogs, ‘Come on, girls, excitement’s over. Back in your beds.’
Nicholas led her through a kitchen warmed by an old iron range in the chimney breast and full of the comforting smell of a stew cooking. It was much smaller than Caitlyn had expected, what with the size of the house. It wasn’t much larger than her kitchen in Oxford. The kitchen led straight into a sitting room, with low dark beams and a vast fireplace where a stove burned brightly, warming the room to a solid stuffiness. The wood-panelled walls were covered in paintings and prints, and the furniture was worn but comfortable-looking. There was, Caitlyn realised, nothing new in the room at all, including the piles of ancient magazines, and its occupant looked equally elderly; she sat dozing on the sofa, a book sliding off the rug that covered her knees, her white head nodding and her breathing heavy.
‘Aunt Geraldine!’ called out Nicholas, and the old lady jerked awake, blinking hard and looking about to find the source of the disturbance.
‘What? Oh! Nicholas, it’s you.’ She blinked harder and then smiled to see her nephew.
‘How are you?’ boomed Nicholas as he bent to kiss her powdery cheek.
‘No need to shout, dear, I’m not deaf,’ she said, accepting the kiss.
‘You are a bit deaf,’ Nicholas said loudly.
‘Well, a little, I suppose. Still, no need to yell at the top of your voice.’ She readjusted the blanket on her knees. ‘I’m fine, thank you, and very glad to see you as it means Renee will now be forced to minister to my needs and bring me a cup of tea.’ Her bright eyes turned to Caitlyn. ‘And who is this?’
‘This is my friend, Caitlyn Balfour. I want to show her the house.’
‘Well, I always do like to meet new people. It can get a little dull here, you know. How do you do, Caitlyn Balfour.’
‘Very well thank you,’ Caitlyn said politely, realising that she didn’t know Great-Aunt Geraldine’s surname, and so had no idea what to call her. Great-Aunt didn’t seem entirely right, and Geraldine a bit too familiar.
‘Please, sit down, both of you.’ Aunt Geraldine frowned. ‘Now, are you cold? Shall we stoke up the fire? It’s been rather chilly lately.’
Nicholas said, ‘Oh no, we’re not cold. Quite the opposite. It’s like an oven in here.’
‘Is it?’ Geraldine shivered. ‘I don’t quite feel it any more. This house was always so icy cold, I never seem to warm up. We’re spoiled now – you should have been here when the winters were frightful. You wouldn’t have believed it, the way we got snowed in. And when the rain came, well, this place was an island, cut off from everywhere by water right across the fields.’
Caitlyn sat down, thinking that being stranded in this cosy place seemed rather appealing. Nicholas sat next to his aunt and she asked him about Oxford life. A few minutes later, Renee came in with the tea and they were occupied pouring it out and handing it round. With focus off her, Caitlyn was able to look around, taking in the shabby but pleasing nature of the room. Still, it seemed far too small for the size of the house they had seen from the lane.
‘So,’ Aunt Geraldine said, after they’d drunk their tea. ‘Caitlyn – that’s a pretty name – do you live in this country?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Good. Nicholas’s last lady friend lives in America. I’m glad that you don’t.’
Caitlyn felt her cheeks burst with colour. ‘Well—’
‘Caitlyn’s a lady and a friend – but not a lady friend in the way you mean,’ Nicholas said with a laugh. ‘She’s married for all you know, anyway!’
Aunt Geraldine looked at her. ‘Are you married, dear?’
‘I . . . no. Not any more.’
‘There you are – she’s not married. So one can always hope.’ Aunt Geraldine smiled at Caitlyn. ‘I don’t like to see him alone, and he’s going to need someone to help him take this place on. It’ll be his in a year or two.’
Nicholas said, ‘Oh, I hope not, Aunt Geraldine. You’ve got some years ahead of you yet.’
‘I’m eighty-five, and let’s not pretend that’s young. Someone called me late-middle-aged the other day. Can you believe it?’ She pealed with laughter. ‘I’m old, and that’s a fact. And we might as well prepare ourselves for the inevitable.’
‘Don’t get morbid on me, now. I’m easily depressed.’ Nicholas stood up. ‘I’m going to give Caitlyn the tour. She’s looking for somewhere to live and I thought this might be the place.’
Geraldine looked interested. ‘A new tenant? That’s a nice idea. This house always thrives on young blood.’
‘Like a vampire,’ Nicholas murmured with a sideways look at Caitlyn. ‘Bleeds you just as dry financially too.’
‘What did you say, dear boy?’
‘Nothing, Aunt. We’ll come in and say goodbye before we go.’
‘Do. Enjoy your look around.’ Geraldine waved them off.
Nicholas went over to a door near the fireplace and opened it, turning to Caitlyn. ‘Excuse my aunt, she’s not very subtle in her old age. This way.’
She followed him into a large long hall with a flagstone floor and a staircase to an upper landing. Now she could see the front door and realised that they’d passed from the west wing into the central hall of the house. It felt quite different: the cosiness and warmth was gone. Now it felt cold and uninhabited, despite the furniture.
‘Oh, I see how it fits together.’ Caitlyn gestured to the door they had just come through. ‘So your aunt lives in that wing?’
‘Yes – the smaller part, designed as a complete house when this one was built, but for the younger branch of the family. This bit is empty now. No one here.’
‘And you’re really going to inherit it?’
‘That’s what Aunt has threatened.’ Nicholas looked around. ‘She’s about to sign it over to me in the hope that she’ll stay alive long enough to avoid the inheritance tax. I’d have to sell it then, no question. But’ – he shrugged – ‘the chances are it’ll have to be sold anyway.’
‘Really? But it’s so beautiful!’ Caitlyn looked around, wondering what it must be like to live here.
‘It costs a bomb to run a place like this. There’s no family money, there never was all that much. The estate relied on farming and tenancies, and the land all got sold over the years. So it’ll have to be bought by someone very rich as their country retreat, or turned into a hotel or something.’
Caitlyn looked about. The hall was not so large as to be imposing but full of grace and the grandeur of age. ‘It seems a shame. It feels like it should have a family in it.’
‘There’d only be me – and maybe Coco in the holidays. It needs more than I can give it.’
‘I see that. I do.’ Caitlyn’s attention was grabbed by a large painting hanging in the shadows on the back wall of the hall. ‘Goodness, look at that.’ She walked towards it, staring. ‘That must be the painting you told me about.’
‘According to family lore, it’s by Gainsborough himself.’
Caitlyn stood in front of the painting, enraptured despite the gloom in the hall. ‘It’s beautiful. She’s so sad. A real Gainsborough?’
‘Apparently.’
Caitlyn laughed. ‘I can’t believe it’s hanging here in this deserted room. I hope you’ve got a good alarm system!’
‘It’s pretty secure here. The doors are thick, the windows are leaded, so very hard to break. And Renee sets the alarm every night. But you’re right, it’s a bit ridiculous to have it here.’
‘Why don’t you sell it? It would be worth millions. You’d be able to secure this place.’
Nicholas nodded. ‘True. But I’m keeping it as a bargaining chip just in case I get hit with the death taxes. The revenue might accept it in lieu.’
‘Oh yes. I see. Not a bad plan.’ She looked over at Nicholas. ‘Are you fond of this house?’
‘I love it. My mother loved it too, though she said it could be deathly cold, and they all suffered freezing hands and feet all winter long. She ended up living in Cyprus where it was always warm – I’m sure it was because of this place – but she came back often. She couldn’t stay away for long. She died a few years back. My uncle Harry was in line to inherit it but he died quite young, with no family of his own. Geraldine has been here forever. She taught French at Spring Hall for years and then became headmistress of a local girls’ school. Somehow she kept this place going. And then she told me that I was the one who’d have to take the house on after she died. I know she wants me to keep it in the family – but I don’t want to saddle Coco with it. The chances are that it’ll be sold to a developer or something, and the money will get divided up between all the cousins that are left.’ Nicholas shrugged. ‘Sometimes things come to an end. I think maybe my family’s time here is up, after six hundred or so years.’
‘It seems sad somehow.’
‘Do you want to see the rest?’
‘Yes please.’
They spent an hour wandering around the rooms, most emptied of everything but their basic furniture. Nicholas told her that there were boxes and boxes of things in the attics. On one of the landings, Caitlyn stopped, her attention caught by some unusual plasterwork. Going up to examine it, she saw that it was a pattern of circus figures and dancers among swirls and dashes of decorative work. From a distance it appeared almost Jacobean but close up it was clearly more modern.
‘Look at this, it’s fabulous!’
‘Oh yes. The result of boredom, I think. Apparently there’d been a fire and the old plaster was destroyed. This was done for fun during a very long and dull winter. It wouldn’t be allowed now – just dolloping what you fancy on a wall. The conservation people would be right after you.’
‘It’s lovely. Very Bloomsbury.’ Caitlyn examined the intricate figures, entranced by the details and the energy in them. There was a ringmaster, and a strongman holding his weight, and an acrobat on a wire. A seal balanced a ball on his nose and a lion sat on a little dais. Ballerinas spun and jumped. ‘This is quite a treasure.’
‘Do you think so?’ Nicholas was surprised. ‘I don’t suppose it’s by anyone famous.’
‘I’m interested.’ She took out her phone and snapped a couple of pictures of it. ‘Do you know who did it?’
‘No. But Geraldine might.’
Nicholas showed her the bathrooms and kitchen, apologising for their old-fashioned appearance. ‘They haven’t been done up for years. They function – they just don’t look very smart.’
‘They look amazing,’ Caitlyn said, entranced by the huge old baths with their copper taps, the high-cisterned lavatories, and the old range in the kitchen, next to a newer electric stove. ‘I really love it. I mean, it’s huge and impractical but . . .’ She looked at him with excitement. ‘Would it really be possible to live here – even if just for a while?’
‘Oh yes, I’m sure it would. But take your time. Don’t rush into anything. Think it over first. You’d be out here on your own, you know, with only a nonagenarian for company – don’t believe Aunt’s nonsense about being only eighty-five!’
When they went back to the old lady’s sitting room to say goodbye, she was sound asleep so there was no asking her about the frescos. Renee showed them out, promising to give her their farewells.
‘I don’t know about you but I’m starving,’ said Nicholas as they stepped out into the open air. When she heartily agreed, he said, ‘Good. Let’s go to the pub in the village.’
They were finishing up their lunch when Nicholas said, ‘You haven’t really told me yet why you came to Oxford. Is it because you and Max’s dad split up?’
Caitlyn had been enjoying the tales of Nicholas’s life at the college, and was taken by surprise. ‘No, not exactly. I should have said before . . . my husband died.’ She smiled at him, to balance the look of concern that immediately crossed his face. ‘I didn’t mean to say it quite like that, but that’s how it is. He was killed suddenly in a car accident. Max was already at Spring Hall, and I didn’t want to move him. So I moved me instead. And it was a good thing to do. I had had enough of London. We needed a change.’
‘I’m so sorry, Caitlyn,’ Nicholas said in a low voice. He put down his fork, as though eating was now in bad taste. ‘What an awful thing to happen. When was this?’
‘Just over six months ago.’
He looked bewildered. ‘So soon . . . ? You moved here in that time?’
She laughed lightly and said, ‘London houses sell quickly.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I mean . . . I don’t know. You changed your life so fast.’
‘It had been changed for me. Nothing could be more elemental than losing Patrick. Moving house was child’s play after that.’
‘Of course.’ Nicholas shifted a little awkwardly and bit his lip. ‘Well. I’m very sorry to hear that.’
‘Thank you.’
She could tell that he was uncomfortable now. She wasn’t a divorcee on the lookout for another relationship – if that’s what he’s been thinking – but a widow reeling from her recent bereavement. It put a different complexion on things, she guessed. She wished she could have kept it secret, she’d been enjoying the light-hearted chat that Nicholas now probably thought was inappropriate.
Despite her efforts, they couldn’t get back the easy companionability of before. They paid the bill, going halves, and went back to the car. Once they were on their way back to Oxford, the engine was again too loud for conversation, and she was grateful for it.
‘Thank you for today,’ she said as they pulled up outside her house. ‘I enjoyed it a lot.’
‘Me too.’ Nicholas smiled at her, his brown eyes warm. He seemed to be over the awkwardness of lunchtime.
‘I’m sorry that things got a little gloomy.’
‘Don’t be. And it’s hardly your fault.’
‘I know but . . .’ She sighed.
‘What is it?’ he asked softly.
‘I wanted this to be . . . well, not overshadowed by what’s happened. I carry it round with me all the time. And sometimes it feels good to put it to one side, just for a while.’
‘I understand.’ He smiled at her again. ‘I want you to know that it would be great to see you again – as friends. We were friends once, weren’t we, in the third year . . . remember?’
The words triggered something and a rush of memories descended on her, fluttering images that she’d thought were gone forever.
How could I have forgotten?
For the first two years of their time in Oxford, their paths had hardly crossed. They weren’t tutorial partners; they didn’t go to the same parties or do the same activities. Nicholas rowed for the college and that kept him busy on a different schedule to hers. She remembered going up to the college boat house to watch the races, sipping on Pimms and seeing him go past, his face a picture of intense concentration as he pulled on the oars in perfect time with his crew, their muscles hard and rippling. It had been the first time she’d thought how attractive he was.
‘God, dishy rowers,’ Sara had said. ‘I’m on the pull later, definitely.’
Of course. Sara was there too.
Then, in their third year, living back in college, Nicholas had given up rowing to concentrate on his finals. They’d started to see each other in the library, sometimes sit together at lunch or dinner. Nicholas began coming round to her room after dinner, and she’d make coffee or open a bottle of wine and they’d talk for ages, and she’d feel herself sparkling under his attention. She would wonder if he was going to make a move on her, but nothing ever happened. After a while, he’d gather up his gown and say, ‘Back to the grindstone!’ and head off to his rooms. And she’d think, Oh, he doesn’t really like me. Not like that.
But each time he came back to her room, she’d feel that hum of possibility, the sparking attraction between them.
Where was Sara? Why wasn’t I with her in the evenings then? We were usually together. The thought floated through her mind, distracting her for a moment. Of course. Sara wasn’t there because she didn’t do her finals. She didn’t finish. She dropped out.
‘Caitlyn?’ he asked, prodding her out of her reverie. ‘We were friends, weren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘of course we were.’
‘Good.’ He paused as though on the brink of saying something else, but changed his mind and said briskly, ‘I’ll drop you a line. And let me know what you want to do about the house when you’ve had the chance to think it over. I’ll speak to Aunt Geraldine.’
‘Okay.’ She hardly saw him as she climbed out of the car, her mind was flooded by the rush of images. The memory she had suppressed was suddenly loud and clear in her imagination. ‘I’ll wait to hear. Goodbye, Nicholas.’
‘Goodbye.’
As he drove away, she waved after him, only now able to remember why they had lost touch all those years ago.