(1990) Sweet Heart (3 page)

Something was missing.

She stared around, noticing something new all the time. A bird bath, a shed, a wheelbarrow, a hen run. Two uprooted oak trees leaned against one another on the front lawn, their branches interlocked like fighting dinosaurs.

The hollow had once been the river valley, she realised, before the river had been dammed to make the lake. Apart from the grass, which looked as if it had been cut, it was wild. There were some rhododendron bushes, a few desultory clusters of wild flowers, a small orchard.

Something was missing.

Her eyes were drawn to a level patch of scrub grass halfway up the bank above the barn, between the mill race and the woods. Her armpits were clammy; she felt dizzy and held on to Tom’s arm.

‘Are you OK?’ he said.

Strands of hair thrashed her cheek. A bird chirruped.

The slapping of the waves on the lake. The tumbling water of the weir. The wind in the trees. The quiet. It was touching something, stirring something, like snatches of an old tune.

‘Charley? Darling?’ He shook her arm. ‘Anyone home?’

‘What?’ She came back to earth with a jolt and felt disoriented for a moment. ‘Sorry, I was just —’ She
smiled. ‘It’s wonderful.’

‘Don’t get your hopes too high. There’s someone else interested, and we might hate the inside.’

‘We won’t!’

Ben tore down the drive and loped across the grassy bank.

‘Ben!’ she shouted.

‘It’s OK, the house is empty.’

‘Why don’t we phone the agent and tell him we’re here now?’

‘Let’s go and have a look first.’

The sluice pond was deep and cold. Slime coated the wall. The thunder of water grew louder as they walked down and she felt a fine spray on her face.

‘We’d be wanting to pee all the time,’ Tom said.

Further on clear water flowed under the ornamental bridge and Charley thought how on warm summer evenings they could have supper, the two of them, by the stream. Bring her mother down on fine days. Convert the barn and maybe Tom’s father could live there. If Tom and his father could stop hating each other.

The house seemed larger as they neared it, partly because it sat up above them. The front was the pretty view in the particulars. Elizabethan, one end slanted and the other square. The plaster of the upper floor was crumbling, the wooden beams were rotten and the brickwork of the ground floor was uneven. The windows were small and differing sizes.

They heard a car door. Ben ran back up the drive, barking. A man hurried in through the gates, short and purposeful, a blue folder tucked under his arm, hands and feet pointing outwards like a penguin. He paused to pat Ben, and was rewarded with muddy pawprints on his trousers. He hove to in front of them, puffing, a plump, dapper man in polished black loafers with shiny
pens in his breast pocket and alabaster skin.

‘Mr and Mrs Witney? I’m sorry, so sorry to have kept you.’ He leaned slightly backwards. Wind lifted the hair off his bald pate.

‘We were a bit late ourselves,’ Tom said.

‘Ah yes, tricky to find the first time.’ A Rotarian badge glinted smugly in the lapel of his grey suit. ‘Budley, from Jonathan Rolls.’ His fleshy fingers gave Charley’s hand a sharp downward tug, as if it were a bell-pull. ‘Moving out of London?’

‘Yes.’

‘Something like this comes on the market once in a decade.’

‘Windows look bad,’ Tom said.

‘Reflected in the price. So little’s been done for years.’ He gave his signet ring a twist. ‘Dates a long way back — to the Domesday Book. Been added to since, naturally.’

Charley stared up the mossy bank at the level patch of scrub, at the woods, at Ben playing happily, then at Tom, trying to read his face, but it was blank, giving nothing away.

‘Wonderful place for children,’ Mr Budley added.

Charley caught Tom’s eye.

Tom tied Ben to the boot scraper at the bottom of the steps and they followed Mr Budley. The front door was oak with a tarnished lion’s head knocker. The wind billowed Charley’s jacket.

‘How long has the house been empty?’ Charley asked.

‘Only about nine months. Miss Delvine passed away at the end of last summer,’ Mr Budley said.

‘Here?’ said Charley. ‘In the house?’

‘Oh no, I don’t believe so.’

‘I always think it’s a bit creepy when someone’s actually died in a house,’ Charley said.

‘You know who she was, of course?’

‘No.’

‘Nancy Delvine.’ He said the name in a reverential hush.

Charley repeated it blankly and glanced at Tom. He shrugged.

‘The couturier,’ Mr Budley said, making them feel for a moment they’d let him down. ‘She was very famous in the forties.’ He leaned towards them and lowered his voice. ‘She made for royalty.’ He allowed them time for this to sink in before pointing to a brass plaque above the door with a crude etching of a sun. ‘The original fire insurance plaque from 1711. Steeped in history, this house.’ He placed the key in the lock and turned it as if he were opening a pearl oyster.

The tiny entrance hall was strangely silent and smelled like a church. There were closed doors with iron latches to their right and left, a narrow staircase ahead, a dark passageway to the right of it. A winged bust stood on the hall table under a pockmarked mirror.

Mr Budley pressed a light switch. There was a sharp metallic click. Nothing happened. The grimy lampshade was fixed to the low-beamed ceiling above Charley’s head. She could have changed the bulb without standing on tiptoe.

‘The mains power,’ Mr Budley said. ‘It keeps tripping. The box is in the cellar. We might as well start there.’

They walked along the passageway, Tom’s metal-capped shoes echoing on the bare boards. The walls, panelled in oak, were badly in need of a polish and seemed to press in on them. Dozens of picture hooks and nails stuck out of the panelling. Mr Budley stopped beside a door and noticed Charley’s expression.

‘Valuable paintings. Couldn’t be left in an empty
house — the insurance.’ He opened the door. Thick pipes ran above it. ‘It’s steep,’ he warned, switching on a tiny torch.

Charley felt a draught that smelled of coal and damp as she followed him down the wooden staircase into pitch darkness. He shone the beam of his torch on a dusty electricity meter, then on a metal box with a large handle and a row of ancient ceramic fuses. There was a crackle and a flash of sparks, then a weak light filled the room.

Charley shrieked and clutched Tom. A group of bald, naked shop window mannequins on pedestals stared at them.

‘Miss Delvine did some of her work here in the house.’

‘God, they gave me a fright!’ Charley looked warily around the rest of the cellar. The floor was brick, and uneven. There was a wine rack, a wooden wheelchair and a cast-iron safe. Beyond an opening in the far wall was pitch darkness.

Tom turned to the mannequins. ‘All right class, sit down.’

Charley giggled uneasily. The mannequins gazed stonily.

‘This lever—’ Mr Budley pointed. ‘There’s a built-in voltage trip. For some reason the circuit keeps overloading.’

‘Seems pretty primitive,’ Tom said.

‘Needs rewiring.’

The first floor landing was lit by two candle bulbs in a gilded sconce on the wall. A pot stand with a dead plant sat in a narrow recess. The floor was on a slant, as was a window with tatty chintz curtains overlooking the rear garden. With the timber beams and low ceiling it felt like being on an old ship.

‘Has anyone done a survey?’ Tom asked.

‘No. Not yet,’ said Mr Budley, ‘but there’s no problem. Houses like this might tilt a bit but they’re solid as rocks. I’d rather be in a house like this when the bomb drops than in any of the modern ones on our books.’

The master bedroom reminded Charley of a country house hotel they had once stayed in. It had beamed plaster walls and a huge carved oak bed with a grimy counterpane the colour of parchment. There was a maple wardrobe, a matching dressing table with a silver hairbrush and a comb and crystal bottles caked in dust. The room smelled strongly of rotting fabric and more faintly of musky perfume.

‘East,’ Mr Budley said. ‘This room gets the morning sun.’

‘Good size,’ Charley said. ‘Plenty of space to build in some fitted cupboards. It’s got a nice feel to it, this room.’ She stared out of the leaded-light window. The view across the lake was stunning.

‘Is the furniture going?’ Tom said.

Mr Budley nodded. ‘If there’s anything you are interested in I’m sure a price could be discussed.’

Behind them was a tiny door through which even Mr Budley had to duck. ‘The ensuite bathroom is one of the features of the house,’ he said. ‘Wonderful taste, quite what you’d expect of a woman like Nancy Delvine.’

It was in hideous bright pink with gold-plated taps. There was an unpleasant carbolic stench, and mildew on the carpet.

‘Here we have the airing cupboard and the upstairs lavatory. And this is the smallest spare room, ideal for a young child.’ Mr Budley walked on ahead. ‘This one is a much better size,’ he said as he went into a room at the end of the landing. ‘Miss Delvine’s workroom,’ He announced. ‘To think she made garments for royalty actually here in this —’

His voice stopped suddenly. His eyes darted round at the treadle sewing machine, at the work surface under the window covered in cuttings of fabrics, bits of chalk and a pattern weighted down by large scissors, at the desk with a sketchpad and a vase full of crayons. There were two tailor’s dummies, one bare with ‘Stockman 12’ stencilled on its midriff, the other partly covered in tattered black taffeta. Sketches were pinned haphazardly around the walls. A showcard of a model in a boa-trimmed hat, white gloves and an elegant dress had a large printed caption at the top: ‘CHOSEN BY VOGUE’.

The room felt cold, icily cold. Charley pulled her jacket around her. A bunch of brown paper pattern cards swung gently on a butcher’s hook hanging from the picture rail.

‘This would make a good study, Tom,’ she said. She went to the window. Her eye was drawn to the patch of scrub grass on the bank behind the barn. ‘Were there stables here, Mr Budley?’

‘Stables?’ Mr Budley said. ‘No, I — I don’t believe so. You could build some, of course.’ Hurriedly he ushered them out.

The kitchen was in custard yellow, the ceiling stained uneven ochre with nicotine and the light shade was full of dead flies. There was an Aga. Blackened and ancient in an ugly tiled recess, but an Aga.

‘Nice to have breakfast in here,’ Mr Budley said.

There was a deep enamel sink, a wooden draining board and dreary fitted cupboards. The floor was brick, which Charley liked. A slatted clothes rack was suspended from the ceiling on a pulley and cord system, a ragged tea towel draped over it. She pulled the cord. There was a creak and the rack wobbled precariously.

‘Saves you hanging the laundry out on a wet day,’ said Mr Budley.

‘It might be nice to keep some of these old things, mightn’t it, Tom? Make a feature out of them.’

‘Keep the whole house as it is and save a fortune.’ Tom winked at Mr Budley, and blew his nose.

‘You could,’ Mr Budley agreed. ‘You could indeed.’ He threw open the dining room door with a weary flourish. ‘The mill owner was an important man in the community. This is reflected in the size of the reception room.’

It was larger than she expected, with a refectory table that had ten chairs and could have seated more. The beamed walls were wattle and daub, they were informed. There was a recess by the fireplace with a kneehole writing desk and chair. It would be good to have friends for dinner in this room. She pictured them around the table, the fire roaring.

They crossed the hallway. ‘The drawing room,’ Mr Budley said. His ebullience seemed to have left him.

The room must have been a fine one once and was dominated by the huge inglenook. The curtains across the French windows at the far end diffused the sunlight, and the rich warm glow masked much of the grime and faded colour. There was a peach-coloured sofa with shell-shaped cushions and several matching chairs, a cocktail cabinet that could have come from a state room of an ocean liner and an elegant chromium magazine rack.

It felt strange walking across the floor. Very strange. She had a curious sense of familiarity, and as she opened the curtains of the French windows she felt she had seen the same view before. The bank rose up to the right, the grass rippling in the wind. A chestnut horse was grazing in the paddock beyond the wooden fence. The feeling faded and left her wondering where it reminded her of.

Mr Budley was studying his watch, ‘I — ah — have
clients waiting at another property. Would you think me terribly rude it I left you to see the grounds on your own? Or do you wish to go around the house again?’

Tom looked at Charley, then turned back to the estate agent. ‘How much interest have you had? You mentioned someone might be offering this week, didn’t you?’

Mr Budley glanced over his shoulder as if worried he was being spied on. ‘Confidentially, I think an offer of two hundred and thirty would secure this.’

‘It needs everything doing,’ Tom said.

‘Oh yes. No denying.’ Mr Budley raised his hands. ‘But with everything done it would be worth four to five hundred thousand, at least, with development potential — so much potential. Where can you find a property like this, so close to London yet so quiet? It’s really very underpriced. If my wife and I were younger we’d buy this, no hesitation. How often can you buy beauty?’ His eyes darted nervously again.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Tom said.

‘You’ll make the right decision. I can tell you are people who make right decisions.’

They followed the agent down the steps and Charley held on to Ben as he hurried off up the drive.

Tom puffed out his stomach and covered his mouth with his hand. ‘Nancy Delvine lived here!’ he said, mimicking Mr Budley.

‘Gosh? Really?’ she mimicked back.

‘Have you ever heard of her?’

‘No.’

Charley let Ben go. He bounded towards the stream. A crow swooped down low over him.

‘But you used to be in the rag trade.’

‘So I don’t think she can have been very famous.’