29
The Birthday Party
SATURDAY 5TH DECEMBER 2009
“You are cinematic gold, Ma’am,” Damian Derbish told Clarissa as she finished her last piece to camera.
“Derbish, how many times do I have to tell you that the Queen is ‘Ma’am’; I am ‘Your Ladyship’?”
The documentary producer hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. He had come to the castle on a whim in July after the local paper had singled out Trelawney’s opening as the event of the week and the Dowager Countess as a national treasure. He made a small filler for the regional news which, thanks to Clarissa’s performance, had been picked up by the BBC’s News at Six. For Damian, who had spent his entire career bumping along in local television, this was a game-changing moment; he envisaged a prime-time international series, The Trelawneys, with spin-offs including a feature film (he had already mentally cast Meryl Streep as Clarissa). He had also designed his own range of merchandise: the Trelawney Teaset and the Trelawney Twinset. This eccentric aristocratic woman would lift him out of his small flat in downtown Plymouth to a detached house on the edge of Dartmoor. The family would upgrade their car from a Skoda to a 2004 series X5 BMW.
Clarissa loved the camera, loved that hundreds more people had come to Trelawney since her debut on BBC One South West. She liked walking up Launceston High Street and once again being recognised for who she was. One lad asked for her autograph. She declined, of course. At least someone in the family was trying to keep the roof on. Since her TV appearances, the weekend visitor numbers had risen from a few score to several hundred. The magic break-even point—the amount of footfall the house needed to meet the oil bills and start a minor repair programme—was a thousand paying adults a day, three days a week for six months a year. Blaze was still meeting the shortfall but, although her investments had recovered, she’d made it clear that this arrangement was not indefinite.
I will not let Trelawney go down, Clarissa thought, even if it means looking faintly ridiculous in old ball dresses and exaggerating my pronouncements. Damian was a perfect foil who, in normal circumstances, she would not have given one iota of attention to, but he’d do for now. When I have my own television show, she pondered, I will demand a better kind of producer. If only her old friends William Holden and James Stewart were still alive. Jimmy had said she’d make a great star. “Aren’t I one already?” she’d asked him coquettishly. He’d kissed her hand. “The rest of the world deserves to see you in close-up,” he’d replied. Oh, those had been the days, the good old days.
“Where is my stole?” Clarissa asked.
“Ginny, Ginny, quick—get Her Ladyship’s fur,” Damian told his assistant who was also the cameraman, the sound operator, the driver, the tea-maker and the editor. Ginny Barloe, aged thirty-two, had her own (largely unprintable) thoughts about Clarissa Trelawney and her airs and graces. She had voted for the local Communist Party in 1997, and again in 2005, with the sole aim of getting rid of people like the Dowager Countess, who thought they were different, a cut above, merely because some ancient ancestor had managed to buy a title. She agreed to go in search of the mangy white fur if only to escape her boss’s sycophancy. Leaving the Great Hall, she heard Damian start up again.
“My Lady, I have shown the rushes to the Head of News South West and he agrees that we could edit your pieces together and put out a whole half-hour feature.”
“A half hour?” Clarissa said coldly.
Damian wiped the sweat off his brow. “Maybe we could make a fifty-minute programme?”
Clarissa turned away to hide a look of delight and stared out of the window. Behind her she could hear Damian’s heavy breathing; he wanted the limelight as much as she did. She counted to ten, partly to let him suffer, partly to ensure that her voice didn’t betray even a smidgeon of enthusiasm.
“One has a lot to say.”
Damian could hardly contain his excitement. “Of course, it would mean having access to a few family events, behind-the-scenes kind of things.”
“There are no ‘behind the scenes.’ This is my life.”
“We would need to add a bit more texture, a bit more layering.”
“I thought this was about me?” Clarissa wheeled round to face him; two red spots had appeared on her papery cheeks.
“We need to see you in context. The great matriarch. The keeper of the flame and, if you don’t mind me saying so, society’s ethereal beauty.”
Clarissa nodded graciously. Damian was desperate for her to agree. Without the other members of the family on board, he’d never get a longer commission. The old lady on her own could sustain a twenty-minute film, but fifty was a stretch too far. His hope was that, once the cameras were rolling, the cracks in the family’s guard would slip and reveal their dysfunctional behaviour. Even though the film crew had spent less than three days in the castle, he had picked up many tantalising snippets of information. The sudden appearance of an unknown granddaughter. The cook’s grandson, a boy made good, who was part of the largest tech company in south-west England. The elder grandson and heir, soon to turn eighteen, who never came home. The heartbroken younger grandson, who hardly left his room all summer. The granddaughter whose spare time was spent catching fleas with a mad old aunt. Then there was Blaze, who dressed only in black and white silk and smoked thin cigarettes with gold tips. The recent return to the marital bedroom of Kitto, which seemed directly linked to his wife’s growing irritation with everything and everyone. “You couldn’t make it up,” Damian had told his senior producer. “You couldn’t, and you don’t have to.”
“Your daughter and daughter-in-law have been quite reticent about appearing before the camera,” he said now, thinking of how Blaze left the room when he entered and refused to answer any direct questions. Jane simply went bright red and clammed up. Kitto wafted around the place wearing a beatific smile.
Ginny came back carrying a slightly bedraggled white fur wrap.
Clarissa inclined her head and turned so that Ginny could place the ermine around her narrow shoulders. Against her family’s advice, she had worn her white tulle and taffeta coming-out dress this morning. Damian, she noticed, had shivered with excitement when she made her entrance.
“It’s Ambrose’s eighteenth tonight,” Clarissa said. “Maybe you could film guests arriving. Everyone will be coming.”
“Thousands?” Damian asked.
Clarissa looked at him in surprise. “Everyone who is anyone: about sixty people.”
Ginny snorted loudly. Clarissa glanced in her direction.
“Hay fever,” Damian explained quickly to the Dowager Countess and, turning to Ginny, gestured crossly towards the door.
“She can’t help it; she was badly bred.” One of the great advantages of old age, Clarissa knew, was no longer bothering what anyone thought of her. In her twenties she’d cared deeply; in her forties she had given up minding; in her sixties she realised that people were so self-absorbed they never gave a damn; and now, in her eighties, she saw that shock tactics were the only certain means of gaining attention.
“Filming the birthday party might be amusing. Tonight Ambrose officially takes the reins,” she said.
“Are you expecting any dramas?”
“Don’t be so silly. Things will continue in the Trelawney way.”
Clarissa imagined her grandson’s grateful homily to his beloved grandmother, his determination to go out into the world and restore the family fortunes, while Damian fantasised about drunken aristocrats and outlandish antics. Ginny hoped she could get home in time to watch Match of the Day with her girlfriend.
“Should I talk to the Earl and Countess?” Damian asked, trying to sound unconcerned.
Clarissa hesitated. “Come to my apartment at seven. We can go together. And for goodness’ sake tell your assistant to wear something appropriate.” Without saying goodbye (goodbyes were frightfully common), she walked out of the hall, down the passage and towards the Mistresses’ Wing. Looking up at the heavy blanket of cloud, she decided it was too cold to snow. She put on the fur boots and thick coat that Blaze had bought her but hurried towards her apartment nonetheless; it was almost impossible to defrost the old bones. As she crossed the courtyard, a small shiny-headed man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase hailed her.
“Are you a mugger?” Clarissa asked forthrightly.
The man was clearly freezing cold and had been standing there for some time. “I’m trying to find Lady Louisa Scott,” he said.
“Why do you want her?” Clarissa enquired.
“She’s won the Caldicot Prize for Biology for work on the connection between disease and warm weather. The Academy are desperately trying to locate her.”
“Does it come with money?” Clarissa had never heard of the award.
“About £250,000.”
Clarissa looked astonished “All that from catching insects?”
The man looked appalled. “She’s one of our most eminent scientists.”
“She’s a flea-trapper.”
“Could you tell me where to find her?” The man had had enough of this arrogant old woman.
“Tuffy lives down there. Turn right by the bins and it’s the first door on the left.”
“Thank you.”
“And if you do find her, remind her there’s a party tonight and she’s expected.”
Kitto had moved back into the castle in September. Jane was unsure whether she wanted to stay married, particularly as the man who had returned to the house was noticeably different; the new Kitto lacked confidence and sought constant reassurance. Jane didn’t have the time or patience to indulge his neediness.
She spent the morning cleaning the dining room, unused since Acre and Cuthbert’s visit in May. More ivy had forced its way through panes of glass, shattering the fragile barrier between out and indoors; the floor was covered with bird droppings and something had eaten a large hole in the corner of the old Turkish carpet. Kitto sat in the corner, reading a book of poetry.
“How long would it take for nature to claim back her land?” Jane said, as she pulled the strong suckers and long fronds of ivy away from the walls.
“She’s winning already,” Kitto replied. Tearing out and setting fire to a page of his book, he held it in the chimney breast and, as he feared, the flame didn’t draw properly. “I think birds have nested in the flue. Shall we risk a fire?”
“It’s a choice between death by asphyxiation or hypothermia.”
“Everyone should keep their coats on.”
“Poor Ambrose—we want to try and put on a good show, don’t we? His birthday must be memorable.” Jane missed her son, who had not been home since last Christmas.
Taking his wife in his arms, Kitto kissed her forehead.
“Did I tell you how proud and grateful I am? You did what I never could and put the heart and soul back into this place.”
Jane smiled up into her husband’s battered face. Since his breakdown, Kitto looked both older and younger; there were deep lines scored around his eyes and mouth and yet his expression, once wry and knowing, had been replaced by an aura of innocence. In the past, he had roamed from room to room, thought to thought, aloof and aloft, hardly seeming to take anything or anyone in. He’d spent his hours outside with his gun or scribbling poetry into a red exercise book. On the odd occasions that friends visited or they opened a decent bottle, he became loud and animated but these events had become increasingly rare. Now Jane woke up every morning to find him staring at her in gentle wonder. He followed her around like a disconsolate dog and, at dinner or walking in the garden, he held his wife’s hand gently, as if it were a small wounded bird.
“It’s been a group effort,” she said, trying to wriggle out of his embrace; she didn’t have time for smooching. “I could never have done it without Blaze or your mother.”
Kitto stroked the back of her head. “The old place has a real chance of washing its face.”
“We’ll have to sell an awful lot more scones to make that happen,” Jane replied sadly. Although the takings from entrance fees and the sale of food had risen to nearly £500 a week, that was far short of the £1,000 needed to keep the place fully functioning. With winter approaching and Trelawney closed to the public until spring, she was already worrying about refilling the oil tank. At least Ambrose had left school and there were no more fees. His A-level results had been so disappointing that university was unlikely. It was a relief that Thomlinson Sleet had given him a job.
“Shall we dance?” Kitto asked. “It’s been so long.”
Jane looked up and stroked his face. “We have an awful lot to do, darling. Shall we dance later, after dinner and speeches?” She stepped away from him.
“Let’s seize the moment!” Kitto leaned forward, took Jane by the waist and gyrated his hips against hers. “I’m hearing the Rolling Stones’s ‘Wild Horses.’ ”
“I’m seeing sixty for dinner, beds to make, pies to be cooked and tables to be laid.”
“All work and no play makes Jane and Kitto a dull girl and boy.” Kitto held his wife more tightly. Jane pushed him away firmly. For years she’d dreamed of such entreaties; now they were beginning to grate. Once, she had seen his lack of affection as a failing on her own part. If she’d been prettier or more sophisticated, or if she’d been Anastasia…His indifference stung, but this new neediness was cloying, like a cheap, all-pervasive perfume. It followed her like a reproach from room to room. Was this how she’d made him feel for the last twenty years of their marriage? Had he too shrunk from her baleful expressions and reproachful stares? As she predicted, Kitto stood there with his arms limp and tears threatening to fall.
“You don’t love me any more,” he said.
Here we go again, Jane thought to herself.
“Don’t be silly. I love you madly but it’s our son’s eighteenth birthday and I need you to help me get ready.”
Kitto nodded.
Jane handed him a broom. “Start from that end and work your way down to the door. Small strokes, so as not to send the dust flying everywhere.”
“Where are you going?” Kitto asked.
“Nowhere. While you do that I’ll be right here polishing the table.” She held up a duster and a tin of wax.
The door pushed open and Tony walked into the room. He was wearing a lilac linen suit and white shoes and carried a small leather suitcase.
“We weren’t expecting you until later,” Jane said, going forward to kiss him.
“My favourite uncle,” Kitto chipped in.
“You only have one,” Tony pointed out, laughing at the old joke. “Now, who wants a snifter?” Opening his case, he produced a bottle of sherry and put it on the table. Kitto hollered in delight.
“We have so much to do.” Jane failed to hide her irritation.
“We used to have people to ‘do.’ ”
Jane flushed. “If you’re looking for that kind of weekend, might I suggest the local pub?”
Tony saw that he’d overstepped the mark. “It was a joke in poor taste.”
“It was unkind.”
“That too. I am sorry, Jane.”
Jane scooped some beeswax onto the table and began to polish. Tears of frustration fizzed behind her eyes: the whole lot of them, she thought, were hopeless. One wanted to drink, the other to dance, her mother-in-law was constantly searching for her close-up, and her eldest son had texted to say he was arriving at 6 p.m. with a girl and an announcement and to get out the champagne. Thank goodness for Blaze and the other children. At least there were some sensible people in the house.
“Kitto, old boy, get some glasses please,” Tony asked.
“Why don’t the two of you go to the kitchen and I’ll be along when I’m done.” Jane rubbed strenuously with both hands.
“Because I’ve something to tell you both. It’s important.”
Cancer, Jane thought, that’s all we need, more bloody drama. She kept on polishing. Hopefully he only has days to live and won’t take too much nursing. Where the hell am I going to put him? And how will we keep him warm enough? Will the NHS send out carers or will I have to do that too? She could feel anger building up like waves gathering strength on a shoreline. Damn this bloody family; why do they always assume I’ll do their bidding on their timetable?
Kitto returned with glasses. Tony unscrewed the top of the sherry bottle and carefully poured three shots. Jane noticed that his hand shook—definitely cancer, she thought, or dementia: that would be worse; a slower death. She imagined nappies and social services, saw herself retrieving a lost Tony from ditches or schoolyards. With any luck he was about to ask them to sign papers for Dignity or Digitas or whatever that place was called in Switzerland where they euthanised people.
“Jane, dear, you’ve been polishing the same two inches for the last ten minutes,” Tony said. “Why don’t you put down the cloth and sit for a moment?” Looking at the table, Jane saw that there was only one tiny area which shone and gleamed.
“Have a drink, darling, you deserve it,” Kitto said.
Yes, I bloody well do, thought Jane and, picking up a glass, drank the sherry in one long gulp. Tony and Kitto exchanged glances.
Tony pulled out two chairs: one for Jane, the other for himself. Noticing that they were covered in dust and mouse droppings, he took a silk handkerchief from his top pocket and flicked it over the leather seats. Then he topped up Jane’s glass and sat down slowly. Once Jane and Kitto were also sitting, he cleared his throat.
“I’m here to talk about inheritance.”
Jane and Kitto looked at each other wearily. Tony rarely lost an opportunity to tell others how shabbily he’d been treated.
“It was just the way things were done,” Kitto said.
Tony held up his hand to silence his nephew. “As you might remember, the only thing I inherited from my father was a book.”
Here we go again, thought Jane. How many times have I heard this tale of woe? Clarissa had become so tired of the lament that she’d stopped inviting Tony to any family occasions. The first time he’d come back in twenty years was for his own brother’s funeral.
“The thing is that it wasn’t any old book. It was the Landino Dante,” he said with a great flourish.
Jane and Kitto were none the wiser.
“I take it from your expressions that you don’t know what the Landino Dante is?”
They shook their heads.
“Have you ever heard of Cristoforo Landino?” Tony sighed; how could people survive such ignorance? Where was the joy in a life of philistinism? “He was one of the greatest humanist scholars. He lived and worked in Florence for Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici and taught the young Lorenzo. He wrote philosophical dialogues and poems under the pseudonym of ‘Xandra,’ but it is his commentaries on the Aeneid and The Divine Comedy for which he is famous.”
Jane wished that Tony would hurry up. But Tony wasn’t in a rush; he’d spent the last decade wondering what to do with his most precious possession.
“The so-called Landino Dante was printed in Florence in 1480—it is excruciatingly rare. Possibly the rarest and most sought-after book in the Western world.”
Jane glanced surreptitiously at her watch and ran through her mental checklist. Pick Arabella up from piano practice; Ambrose and girlfriend arrive on 6 p.m. train; pies into oven; ice cake; put kegs of beer into Great Hall; wash hair. Thank goodness she’d remembered to buy some sparkling wine from the cash and carry.
“Have you heard anything I’ve said?” Tony asked.
Jane pulled herself together. “You were telling us about the book.”
Tony proceeded slowly, as if he were talking to two children. “The designs are close to Botticelli: the execution was by Baccio Baldini.”
Jane looked longingly towards the door.
“The only known copies of the book contain only two engravings. This one has twenty-four.”
“That’s fascinating,” Jane said, trying not to sound too bored.
Tony couldn’t believe that the two of them were so uninterested. He’d hoped to delay the moment of vulgar revelation, but could see there was no alternative.
“Several years ago, one dislocated page from a later edition made £75,000 at auction. This version could be worth millions.”
Kitto let out a low whistle. “So why haven’t you sold it?” He knew Tony was impoverished.
“I was saving it for the proverbial rainy day.”
“Good for you, darling Uncle,” Kitto said with enthusiasm. “Maybe you can upgrade your bedsit? Buy somewhere decent to live?”
“It’s a studio flat,” Tony replied huffily.
Jane walked to the door. She was pleased for Tony; at least someone had got something useful from the house.
“My intention is to give it to Ambrose as a birthday present, with certain conditions of course. I’d like him to mend the roof of the Great Hall and restore the Grinling Gibbons woodwork, my favourite thing in the whole of Trelawney.”
Jane, suddenly all ears, came back to the table and sat down. “Oh, Tony, that is exceptionally generous.”
Kitto went over to his uncle and threw his arms around the older man’s shoulders. “It’s the most marvellous thing I’ve ever heard. Let’s crack on with that bottle of sherry.”
Blaze was packing her suitcase; Ambrose’s eighteenth, his accession to the ownership of Trelawney, seemed like an appropriate time to go back to London and pick up the pieces of her life. She didn’t know her nephew but knew enough to guess (correctly) that they would not get on. She needed to get away from the house and begin again with no traces of the past, no reminders of Wolfe. Since leaving his farm that day, she had entered into a state of emotional numbness. She moved through her own life like a spectator, standing aloof from events and feelings. The second any memory threatened to return, she displaced it with some new activity.
She was proud to have been part of the operation to resuscitate the house. Visitor entrance fees and cream teas would never bring in significant revenue, but she had drawn up a business plan for the next thirty years which, with careful management, would cover the overheads and leave enough for a modest programme of repairs. Under her scheme, the house would be publicly accessible, three wings would become desirable residences on long, full repairing leases, and the eighteenth-century stable block would be turned into commercial units and let to local businesses. Meanwhile, the park would be put to work as a venue for rock concerts, horse trials and county fairs. Once they raised enough money, the Edwardian wing would be restored and turned into a residential centre for cooking, yoga and self-improvement courses. Built by her ancestors to entertain the few, Trelawney would become a place to delight the many; henceforward, the so-called elite would be at the service of what her mother liked to call the masses. Blaze was not a believer in Schadenfreude, but it occurred to her that her family were now at the mercy of the descendants of those whose hard labour had created their success. To keep a roof over their heads, Kitto and his children had to ingratiate and cajole. Once upon a time the family had seen it as their right to order and punish; now their only hope was to serve and delight.
Over the last nine months her investments had recovered: the Barclays shares had trebled; Microsoft, Apple and the price of oil were all rising. Although Indian telecoms were still in a state of flux, one of the women whose micro-businesses she had financed had turned out to be an extraordinary force in the newly emerging world of social media. This had inspired Blaze to set up a not-for-profit company which made small loans to help individuals start or grow a business. Grants started at £25 and increased to many thousands. The criterion for lending was based on the ethical standards of the start-ups. In only a few months she had funded a clean-water company in an African village and financed enough solar panels to bring light to a school in India. Part of her motivation was to use her skills for the greater benefit of humankind, but she was also keen to work in any area which never brought her into contact with Joshua Wolfe.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, Blaze listened to the familiar noises—the groaning of the pipes and the creaking of the boards—and, over the top of the base notes, Jane shouting at Arabella to do something and Kitto singing a refrain from Don Giovanni. She thought ahead to the sounds of her London life: a single key turning in the lock; one pair of footsteps on the stairs; Radio 4 on a Saturday morning; the long, silent nights. She imagined looking around her apartment: a single cup on the draining board; the imprint of a solitary body on the left-hand side of the bed; one pair of knickers hanging up to dry; a quarter of a pint of milk in the fridge; one umbrella in the hall; one set of keys on the side table; one apple, one banana and one pear in the fruit bowl. If she got cancer—when she got cancer—who would collect her ashes?
There was a sharp knock on the door. Blaze flipped the lid of her suitcase closed.
“Come in.”
Jane opened the door and crossed the room in three great bounds. “You’re not going to believe what’s happened. It’s a bloody miracle,” she said, jumping from foot to foot. Catching sight of Blaze’s suitcase, she stopped.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Oh, Blaze, has something happened?”
“Now Ambrose is coming of age and the place is getting back on its feet, it’s time for me to go. I can’t squat forever like a cuckoo in your nest.”
Jane seemed suddenly to deflate. Her shoulders dropped and her head sagged. “Please don’t go. Please. I need you.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve got Kitto back and all your children. And Trelawney.”
“Haven’t you enjoyed being here?”
“Yes, I have.” Blaze surprised herself by the vehemence of her answer.
“Then stay. I can’t do this alone.”
“You can. You know you can. Over the last six months you have become a powerhouse. There’s nothing you can’t do. You’ll be running a major company soon.”
“Don’t go,” Jane pleaded.
For a minute Blaze didn’t reply; she was touched by her sister-in-law’s entreaty. “Much as I would love to, Jane, I can’t fold my life into yours or put the clock back to my younger days. I won’t be far away, I’ll visit often.”
Jane came and sat down next to her on the bed and put her arms around Blaze’s waist. The two women held each other close.
“What were you about to tell me?” Blaze asked.
“Uncle Tony has a book. Not just any old book. He wants to give it to Ambrose as a birthday present in the hope that he’ll set up a foundation with the proceeds. It’ll be a kind of endowment and the income will go towards Trelawney.”
A few months earlier Blaze would have found Jane and her uncle’s naivety maddening. How could a book make a dent in the overheads? She smiled at their unworldliness. “Where did this book come from?”
“It’s the one his father gave him the day he was asked to leave Trelawney and make his way in the world.”
Like others, Blaze had heard the story hundreds of times.
“No one ever thought to ask what the book was,” Jane continued. “Even Tony didn’t bother to look at it. It stayed in brown greaseproof paper at the bottom of his cupboard for over thirty years. One day, on an impulse, he unwrapped it.”
“Don’t tell me—it was studded with precious stones and inlaid with gold?” Blaze said sarcastically.
“It’s more valuable than that. Tony thinks it might fetch a few million at auction.”
Blaze laughed out loud. “Oh, come off it. Tony lives like a pauper. If he had anything valuable, he’d have sold it.”
“That’s what I thought.” Jane produced two clippings and handed them over. Blaze turned towards the window to get a better light. Entitled “The World’s Greatest Missing Treasures,” the first article was from The Times, 27th February 2007, and listed priceless objects or artefacts that many longed to find. At the top was the Amber Room, made by the baroque sculptors Schlüter and Wolfram in the early eighteenth century for the Prussian King Frederick William; when the Russian Emperor Peter the Great had admired it, Frederick gave it to him as a gift. Blaze read on quickly, taking in missing masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, crown jewels, Fabergé eggs, a menorah from the Second Temple and, at number 28, the Landino Dante. The second article had the headline: HAS THE WORLD’S RAREST BOOK FINALLY APPEARED? Speed-reading, she saw that the Landino Dante was “thought to have been discovered in an Irish nunnery, but scientific tests proved it was only a copy. Even so, this rare facsimile fetched £750,000 at auction, bought by the Gates Foundation and put online for all to admire.”
She put the articles down. “It doesn’t prove anything.”
Jane leaned over and pointed to the penultimate paragraph of The Times article. “You remember the standards—one from Bosworth and the other from Naseby? If you read the diary of the 17th Earl, he says that he came home with two things: the bloodied standard and a ‘charming tome.’ ”
“I am not convinced.”
Jane looked hurt. “Talk to Tony yourself. He says it’s been independently valued by two major auction houses and the world’s leading expert on manuscripts.”
“I wouldn’t spend the money yet.” Blaze got off the bed and went over to the window. It was nearly six o’clock and completely dark outside. The beams of two torches made a zigzag pattern across the park and she knew it was Arabella and Tuffy returning from an insect-hunting trip.
“Do you want a hand getting dinner together?” She changed the subject.
“It’s pretty much done. The guests will be arriving soon.” Jane ran her fingers through her straggly hair, wondering if there was time to wash it. “The best thing about the last few months has been rekindling our friendship. I don’t think I can bear to lose it again. I don’t care if Tony’s book is a fake, or if it’s only worth 20p; I want you to stay with us.”
“I have to build my own life and I like seeing Ayesha.”
“Is she going to university?” At the thought of Ayesha, a knot of jealousy tightened in Jane’s stomach. She had yet to reconcile herself to her husband’s illegitimate daughter.
“She’s behaving mysteriously. Said something about reading History of Art at Cambridge.”
“Like mother, like daughter. Anastasia never showed her cards either.”
“Isn’t she coming tonight?”
“Apparently not.” On an impulse, Jane took her sister-in-law’s hand. “Thank you, Blaze. For rescuing me. Not for the first time.” Silently they both thought back to their childhood when plain Jane Browne had been befriended by the most popular girl in school.
After Jane had left, Blaze went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and get ready for dinner. She looked back at herself in the mirror. These months in the country suited her. Her cheeks were tanned, her hair softer and the scar on her face seemed less livid, or maybe she was finally getting used to it. She pulled the skin tighter around her jawline and let it go—at least that part of her body was taut and defined. To her surprise, the inexorable onset of ageing didn’t depress her; indeed her spirits felt remarkably, almost confusingly, light. She brushed her hair and put on a thin coat of pale pink lipstick. Coming back to Trelawney had helped her finally to leave.
Waiting until Damian and his assistant were stationed at the bottom of the stairs with their camera turning over, Clarissa made as grand an entrance as she could manage. Wearing a couture ball gown of pink shot silk designed for her in 1956 by Dior, she slowly inched her way down the centre of the Great Staircase. Arabella had offered to hold her arm, but Clarissa preferred to risk injury than share the limelight, particularly as her granddaughter, dressed in a short skirt and heavy boots, was not suitably attired. The assembled guests watched, transfixed, as the Dowager Countess of Trelawney creakily walked downstairs, keeping her gaze fixed on an unknown point in the middle distance, her mouth frozen in a beatific smile. It was her gloved hands, flapping awkwardly from side to side in an attempt to maintain balance, that most remembered. They were the prelude to the inevitable tumble that most foresaw and a few prayed for. Clarissa reached the bottom without mishap and, waving regally to her guests, paused dramatically in front of Damian’s camera.
“You look splendid tonight, my Lady,” the producer said.
Clarissa agreed wholeheartedly.
“Tell us, in your own words, about the guests?”
“Just a few neighbours.”
“From the village?”
“Don’t be silly!” Clarissa let out a little laugh. “We don’t ask hoi polloi.”
“Hoi polloi?”
“Commoners.”
Damian couldn’t believe she was saying this on film. He’d get that BMW now.
Behind him, Ginny snorted. He made frantic hand signals to quiet her.
“Our nearest neighbours are the Castelrocks from St. Rush. You’ll see Cleo over there.” She pointed to an elderly woman wearing a tiara, a tired dress and a pair of gumboots on her feet.
“Get the shots,” Damian hissed at Ginny. The camera panned away from Clarissa towards the guests.
“I notice a clergyman is present.”
“That’s the Bishop of Truro. Only Jane Austen invited vicars to her parties.”
“There seem to be a lot of dogs,” Damian remarked, looking at ten or so animals, of different sizes and breeds, running around between the guests.
“Most of my friends prefer four-legged to two-legged beasts, so it seemed churlish not to ask them.”
“Who else is here?”
Clarissa pointed to two old ladies sitting side by side on a bench, both with pudding-bowl haircuts and wearing identical dark green corduroy suits. “That’s Lady June Marchmont and her companion Alice. As you can tell, June’s not the marrying kind; nor, one assumes, is Alice. About six of the dogs belong to them. I drew the line at their bringing their horse. The man over there in the lilac linen suit is my brother-in-law, Anthony Scott.”
“Is he the marrying kind?” Damian couldn’t resist asking.
Clarissa ignored the remark. “The slender young woman over there with the tiny husband is a second cousin once removed. The man with a face as red as a tomato is another relation, Windy Swindon. The ludicrously dressed so-called huntsman is a decorator called Barty St. George: he’s a party fixture; people are said to adore him. Over there is Tuffy, who you must have read about; it turns out she is quite the thing in the biographical world.”
“The biological world—yes I did read about her.” Damian hesitated. “You must be proud of your family, seeing them here after so many centuries?”
“One is proud of winning a flower show or the Cheltenham Gold Cup; family is a thing you have to put up with. You hope to respect them, even like them, but it’s better not to set the bar too high.”
“We finally agree on something,” Ginny said, poking her head out from behind the camera. “My lot are shits until they want money.”
“Tell me about Ambrose,” Damian said. The camera swung round to pick out a young man with one arm around a pretty girl’s waist while the other held a bottle of champagne from which he swigged. Ambrose was wearing jeans, an open-neck shirt and a velvet jacket. He shared all his father’s features—the auburn hair, hazel eyes and pale skin—but, while the effect on his father and aunt was striking, it didn’t work on Ambrose’s face. His mouth was slightly too thin and set in a permanent sneer, his eyes too close together and his hair too thick. He had neither his brother Toby’s gentleness nor Arabella’s enthusiasm, and he had also inherited Jane’s father’s stout figure. None of this troubled the firstborn since he knew, with a deep-seated certainty, that he was better than most.
“It’s a pity for him, and for the family, that he wasn’t born in the late eighteenth century. I worry whether the boy has the skills needed to navigate his inheritance.”
“Or lack of?” Damian suggested.
“Quite.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a loud banging. Kitto had taken off his shoe and was thumping it against a wooden chest. Once he had their attention he climbed the stairs to a half-landing and addressed his guests.
“Thank you all for coming to celebrate this wonderfully auspicious occasion, Ambrose’s coming of age. As most of you know, I can take little credit. Jane is the one who deserves the praise. She bore three wonderful children, she brought them up and, most surprisingly of all, she put up with me and with my family.” Kitto paused, his voice breaking slightly. “I would like you all to raise your glasses to Jane: my wife, my friend and saviour.”
“I thought tonight was about me!” Ambrose shouted. He was already drunk. There was a smattering of nervous laughter at his intervention. Kitto raised his glass and ran down the stairs to Jane, took her hand and kissed it. Everyone clapped. Jane looked at the floor. Clarissa, who disapproved strongly of public displays of affection, tutted. Kitto turned around and ran back up.
“As most of you know, it’s a huge challenge trying to maintain large houses. My parents were the last generation to have the money to live like Trelawneys. Some of you remember the lavish house-parties, shooting and hunting weekends, the balls and other festivities. Without a huge fortune, that kind of life was unrealistic and, some might say, anachronistic. When Trelawney was at the centre of a large mining or agricultural empire, it was more sustainable, but its use as a sybarites’ den seems hardly palatable. What were my family thinking? Living like kings and queens while England burned?”
“I think you should stop filming now,” Clarissa said to Damian. Neither the producer nor Ginny had any intention of switching the camera off. The evening was turning out even better than they had dreamed. Damian pondered suitable titles for his new series: The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy? Or maybe The Last Gasp?
Seeing that the red light was blinking, Clarissa spoke a little louder. “You will not use any material without my permission.” Damian smiled, hoping that the microphone was picking up her angry words.
“I am hardly innocent,” Kitto continued. “I bought into the rules and way of life. In the name of history or standards—or was it self-interest?—I repeated not only a great mistake, but a cruel and foolish custom. When Jane and I took over the house, I asked my sister Blaze to leave. My parents had done the same to my Uncle Tony. My grandfather and his father followed the tradition too, but that doesn’t justify any of our actions. Simply repeating customs and adopting past traditions are the preserves of the lazy and the unimaginative.” Kitto didn’t look at his mother, but most of the audience did. Clarissa pitied her son. He had learned nothing.
“The great irony is that the two most wronged people in this room have put these injustices behind them and have returned to save the family’s reputation and the roof,” Kitto resumed. “Blaze is using her business acumen to restore dignity and purpose to Trelawney, while Tony is about to make an extraordinary announcement.” Smiling at his uncle, Kitto beckoned for him to come up onto the landing.
“Hang on, hang on.” Ambrose pushed Tony out of the way and walked up the stairs. When he was level with his father, he turned to face the guests. “Thanks, Dad, for the speech. Very touching. Thanks, Mum—you put me off mince for life.” He burped slightly and ran his hand over his mouth. “So, as you know, today I’m eighteen. Wahey for me.” He started to clap and looked expectantly at the assembled crowd. Damian panned the camera around and caught people applauding in a desultory fashion.
Ambrose took a swig from the bottle of champagne and continued.
“I witnessed first-hand the misery of living here. Of being cold all winter, of the boiler running out, of my mum in tears of exhaustion, of Dad disappearing off to London on a Monday morning. It was fun living in a house where no one cared if you broke anything, until there was nothing left to break. Then I saw this place for what it is: just the dregs of a former life.”
The guests looked at each other nervously, wondering if it was some kind of joke.
“Let me say this in plain English. I don’t want some money-gobbling-shithole-bollocks of bricks. I loathe this house. I detest my family. I’m out.”
There was an audible intake of breath followed by a muttering. Clarissa sat down heavily on the only available chair. Jane and Kitto reached for each other’s hands. “No!” They stared at the floor, aghast. Tony’s legs wobbled and he leaned against Blaze for support.
“Jolly nice of Aunt Blaze and Great-Uncle Tony to offer to help. But it’s not necessary. I’ve sorted the whole thing.” Ambrose drained the bottle. “I’ve done what should have been done years ago. I’ve sold the place. Lock, stock and smoking barrel. Signed the deal today.” There was a stunned silence. Kitto stared at his son and then at his wife. Damian whipped the camera round in time to see Clarissa tumble to the floor in a deep faint. Toby pushed past the guests to tend to his grandmother. Ambrose shrugged.
“I know it’s a bit shocking. We’ve had eight hundred years to get used to being here, but I want to live. Let me repeat that. I want to live. Look at my parents—Dad’s gone a bit loopy and Mum’s totally tonto. It’s not a great advert, is it?”
“You have no right to pronounce on my life,” Jane said, making her way to the foot of the stairs.
“You tell him,” Windy Swindon bellowed. “Stinking little toad letting the side down.”
“Like anyone gives a flying fuck what you think,” Ambrose shouted back. “You overblown, overfed child molester.”
“I’m going to shoot you!” Swindon strode towards the young man but fell over one of the dogs and ended up on his knees.
Damian inadvertently squealed with joy.
“You’re done for!” Swindon hauled himself to his feet.
Ambrose held his hands up. “Oh, shut up, you old bore!”
Swindon, unused to being spoken to in that manner, hesitated.
Ambrose stamped his foot to get everyone’s attention. “I want to introduce you to Trelawney’s new owner. He’s been waiting patiently in the wings for the last hour.”
He ran up a few stairs to the library door and, opening it, said, “Come on out.”
Ambrose stood back and the unmistakable figure of Thomlinson Sleet stepped out on to the staircase. Blaze’s hand flew to her mouth. This had to be an elaborate joke. Kitto turned to his sister. “Did you know?” Blaze shook her head.
Sleet walked nonchalantly down the stairs, waving one hand. Dressed in a large navy-blue cashmere coat with two scarves wrapped around his neck, he looked like a man who had lost his way from Bond Street.
“Welcome to my house!” he said cheerfully. “Never thought an upstart like me would get the keys to the castle. For those who don’t know about my past, I was one of those abandoned babies. Found in a phone box in Delaware, parcelled out around foster parents, but eventually adopted by a nice old childless Catholic professor and his wife. I met the Scott family at Oxford and to me they seemed like glamour incarnated. I wanted what Kitto had—” he paused “—and now it looks like I’ve got it.” He spoke with gusto and certainty, but his voice cracked and he had to clear his throat. “Some things took longer to win than others. For those of you who are worried about Trelawney’s future, don’t be. I’m rich. Ask Blaze—she helped me. I’ve got enough money to gold plate the fucking roof. And I probably will.”
“Who is this frightful man?” Lady Marchmont asked Alice.
“It must be a party trick. They’ll have strippers later.” Her companion pursed her lips into a thin, disapproving line.
“Disgusting,” Lady Marchmont said.
Sleet stopped and dropped his voice. “I didn’t buy this place as a status symbol. I bought it as a wedding present for the love of my life. It’s what she wanted most in the world and it was my duty to give it to her.”
Blaze swallowed, trying to remember the woman’s name. Trish? Jackie? She thought they’d separated, but apparently not. Sleet looked back up the staircase and called, “Come out, my darling.”
Damian’s camera and sixty pairs of eyes swivelled to follow his gaze. A few moments later, a sylph-like figure appeared, wearing a simple red slip, her auburn hair shining in the candlelight, her legs bare, her feet in delicate gold sandals.
“My lords, ladies and gentlemen, may I present Ayesha, Lady Sleet.”
Blaze felt her heart lurch. Jane’s mouth slackened. Kitto froze. Clarissa, now back on her feet, leaned heavily against Toby. Uncle Tony tucked the Landino volume into his satchel, out of sight. Windy Swindon let out a long, low, appreciative whistle. Damian mentally accepted the BAFTA for best documentary feature.
Mark Sparrow shoved forward through the crowd and ran up the stairs. Reaching Ayesha, he stared up at her, his despair palpable.
Ayesha gazed back down at him, but her expression remained blank.
“Who is that?” Sleet asked his bride. She didn’t answer. Mark stood rooted to the spot until Glenda Sparrow appeared from a side door and, hurrying through the guests and up the staircase, took her grandson firmly by the arm and pulled him away.
Then Blaze ran up the stairs and stabbed her finger in the younger woman’s face. “What on earth are you doing?” she asked.
“Fulfilling a promise to my dying mother,” Ayesha replied in a low voice.
“What promise?”
Ayesha didn’t answer.
Putting his arm protectively around his wife, Sleet steered her down the stairs and across the room.
Seeing Ambrose, he reached forward and gave him a clap on the back. “Clear your desk first thing on Monday. I want you out.”
Ambrose looked at him in amazement. “You said we were partners.”
Sleet laughed. “Who’d trust someone who fucks his own family over?”
Turning to the guests, he said, “We’re off to South America to continue our honeymoon. The builders move in shortly, so enjoy the place till then.”
He led his new wife to the front door. Ayesha kept her eyes on the floor, her gaze soft. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
Outside, the guests could see a gleaming car and a chauffeur holding open the door. Ayesha slipped into the back seat and pulled a rug over her knees. Sleet went round to the other side and got in next to her. Moments later the car growled into life and everyone watched the tail lights disappear up the driveway.