A Place of Secrets (4 page)

“Perhaps she understood that you were frightened,” Jude said, wondering where this rambling story was going. She was a little dismayed by how much this episode from long ago seemed to be bothering Gran.

“I hope so,” Gran said. “At least I never joined in when they got at her in playtime. Some more tea, dear?”

“Thank you. What happened to Tamsin?” Jude asked her.

But Gran pressed her lips together.
Finally, she shook her head sadly and said, “We … her family moved away. I never saw her again. I always felt badly, mind. I didn’t help her when she needed it, I couldn’t help … And I took something from her, you see.”

“What?” but it was as though Jessie hadn’t heard her. Jude was shocked by her grandmother’s look of anguish.

“It’s awful never to forgive or be forgiven,” the old lady said.
“It’s always there—buried, yes, but you know it’s there.”

* * *

Sleep didn’t come. She lay puzzling for a while over the story Gran had told her, about the gypsy girl in the forest at Starbrough. There was a folly. They’d played near the folly, she’d said. She’d have to look for that tomorrow.

She recalled what Gran had intimated about Mark. That she had to let him go. It wasn’t as easy
as that. She was trying to with Caspar, trying desperately hard, hoping, by going through the motions of a steady relationship, that the dark, stagnant pool in her mind would unblock and drain away, that love would flow again. Perhaps Caspar was wrong for her. Or perhaps it was her fault and she wasn’t letting him love her. He was the first man she’d been out with properly since Mark and she worried
that she’d forgotten how to do it.

When the travel alarm woke her the next morning the house was still quiet. She washed and dressed herself in yesterday’s suit with a fresh cami top. Down in the kitchen she scavenged for some Corn Flakes, then, as there was no movement upstairs, wrote a thank-you note, propped it up against the toaster and let herself out.

Upstairs, Jessie stirred briefly then
settled back into her dream. In it she was searching for something, something she urgently needed to find.

Jude nearly missed the sign that said “Starbrough Hall only. Private.” She followed the long, rutted drive across rough grassland, then past a lawn with a stone fountain to the sand-colored Palladian house she recognized from the book in her office. She parked her shiny blue hatchback on the gravel forecourt next to a battered estate car. When she got out, a couple of large setter dogs
in the other vehicle began to bark and jump about frantically. She ignored them, more interested in the house, which though still graceful was shabby, she thought. Some of the window frames appeared rotten and slabs of plaster were missing from the walls.

The BlackBerry in her pocket began to trill. Suri, she read on the screen as she pressed answer. It was nine o’clock. She couldn’t escape the
office for a moment.

“Suri, hi,” she said. “You’re early. I’d better not speak long. I’ve just arrived at the house. How are you?”

“Fine, thanks. I’m sorry to bother you now, Jude. I got in five minutes ago to find Klaus storming about—don’t worry, I’m in the storeroom so he can’t hear me. Finance brought down this month’s figures and he’s deeply not happy. There’s a boardroom meeting you’ve
got to go to at nine o’clock on Monday. He wants you in at half-eight.”

“Oh, marvelous. He’s probably so antsy because the Americans are over. Tell him not to worry, I’ll be there.”

“He wants you—you’re going to hate me—to e-mail him your projections for the next sale. And there’s other stuff,” she ended vaguely. “Inigo might ring.”

“I won’t be able to do anything until this evening. Can’t
someone look up my projections? They’re in the folder marked ‘September Auction.’ I can’t remember the file name, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll have a go.”

“Great, thanks. This place is an amazing pile. You should see it—like something out of
Pride and Prejudice
, but a bit more moth-eaten.”

“Don’t think of me stuck here all day.” Suri sighed enviously before ringing off.

Jude stuffed the phone in her
handbag and, taking her briefcase out of the trunk, walked quickly past the barking hounds. A flight of crumbly, shallow stone steps rose to the huge double-front door, but, to the right, an arched gateway led, she presumed, around to the back of the house. She walked up the front steps and pressed the bell. After a minute or two, she heard footsteps and the door juddered open.

A fleshy man in
his early forties, wearing knee-length shorts and an old rugby shirt, said, “Ms. Gower? Robert Wickham. Do come in.”

“It’s Jude, short for Judith,” she said, shaking hands.

When he shut the door behind them the tiny lobby was plunged into gloom. “I should have told you to come around the back,” said Mr. Wickham, frowning. “Under the arch, turn left. We don’t often use this door.”

“You wanted
me to come in through the tradesman’s entrance?” she joked, as she followed him up a flight of marble steps.

“No, goodness, no, I don’t mean to imply that you’re a tradesman at all,” he blustered. “It’s merely that everybody finds all these steps a damned nuisance, especially with the children’s whatnots.”

“Yes, of course,” Jude said, thinking him nice but a bit humorless. “I see what you mean.”

They had reached a circular, marbled atrium, where half a dozen classical stone busts frowned down from niches around the walls. An overflowing coat stand sheltered a collection of small, brightly colored Wellingtons and toy umbrellas. A box of plastic cars, robots and dolls with grinning faces lay directly in the sight line of a long-dead Caesar. The bust’s outraged glare made her want to laugh
again, but her host might be offended.

“May I take your jacket?” he asked.

“I’ll hang on to it.” It was quite chilly. Must be all the marble, she thought. “How many children do you have?”

“Three-year-old twins,” he replied, as if he didn’t quite believe it. “A boy and a girl. My wife’s taken them to her parents in Yorkshire. It’s been marvelously quiet here, I can tell you.” This time she saw
with relief a twinkle in his eye. “Though I do miss them. Come straight down.” He led the way down a long corridor to their left and opened a door to a room at the front of the house.

“Oh, how wonderful!” Jude exclaimed, as she walked into one of the most unexpected and loveliest libraries she’d ever seen. It was nearly oval, the white-painted bookcases and cupboards filling the walls had been
built in two sweeping curves, from door to window. Below the tall Georgian sash rested a huge old globe, slightly tilted, in a way that suggested it was about to rise into orbit. Nearby was the orrery Robert Wickham had mentioned on the phone, a spherical structure made up of interlocked wooden hoops to represent the different paths of the planets in the solar system. She moved closer to study it.

“Splendid, isn’t it?” said Robert, stroking the outermost hoop. “I was always fascinated by this as a child, not least because it didn’t have all the planets we know now. When did they find Uranus, for instance?”

“William Herschel spotted it in the early seventeen-eighties, I think,” Jude said. She counted the planets. There were only six including Earth. He was right. No Uranus.

“I’ve no memory
for dates.” Robert chuckled. “Alexia is always complaining. Make yourself at home, Jude. I’ll let my mother know you’re here. You’d like some coffee, I daresay?”

“Coffee would be lovely,” she said. He left, closing the door behind him. She didn’t mind him; he seemed pleasant enough, a country squire type, a bit nervy, but she’d had to deal with worse. She forgot about him, instead enjoying the
peaceful gloom of the room, the comforting scents of wood and leather and old books, liking the sensitive visage of the young man in eighteenth-century dress in the portrait over the fireplace. The shape of the library gave her an odd sensation. It was like being cradled in a large egg, she decided, or maybe the belly of an old ship. There were a couple of sturdy leather armchairs and a sofa set
around the marble fireplace that contributed to the air of masculine comfort. She leaned against one of the chairs and stared up at the painted ceiling. It represented an astrological chart of the night sky, the firmament colored a midnight blue with images of the different star signs—the Water Carrier, the Twins, the Crab and the rest—painted in gold and carmine, silver and white. It was breathtakingly
beautiful.

She left her briefcase by a big desk near the window and glanced out across the gravel forecourt to a lawn. Beyond this, spread an expanse of scrubby, rough-cut grass then trees and a low flint wall that bordered the road. In the distance, hedges and fields rolled out to the horizon. She wondered where the gamekeeper’s cottage might be, where her grandmother had lived, and the woodland
folly she’d mentioned. To the right of the park a thick pelt of trees blanketed a low hill. The folly might be up there somewhere, she supposed, though she couldn’t see any buildings.

She turned back to the room and began to wander around, idling over the bookshelves. Mostly there were works from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fiction, out-of-date reference books, works of history
and travel. Though evidence of a well-fed mind, none of these looked valuable. It was when she moved to the back of the room near the door that she found the books she’d come to see, behind locked glass doors. The key lay on a shelf nearby, but despite Robert Wickham’s invitation to “make herself at home” she felt it proper to wait for his return before investigating further. Through the glass
she could make out some of the titles stamped in gold leaf on the leather bindings.
Compleat System of Opticks
by Robert Smith—if that was a first edition, she guessed someone might pay a couple of thousand for that alone. James Ferguson’s
Astronomy Explained
was also possibly valuable, as was what looked like Flamsteed’s famous
Atlas Coelestis
—translated literally as “Atlas of the Heavens.” Further
up the bookcase she could glimpse volumes of what might be an early edition of Newton’s
Principia
and felt a little rush of adrenaline. That would be incredibly rare. Suddenly she was glad she’d come.

She turned as the door opened and an elegantly dressed woman entered, followed by Robert with the coffee. “Ms. Gower—Jude,” he said, laying the tray on a table near the fireplace, “this is my mother,
Chantal Wickham.”

Mrs. Wickham came to meet her, a graceful hand outstretched. “Jude, if I may call you that, how lovely to meet you.” As they touched and their eyes met it was as though a current of calm, warm strength passed from the older lady through the younger, and Jude almost gasped.

Chantal Wickham had been beautiful—was still beautiful, Jude corrected herself. It was difficult to tell
whether she was fifty-five or seventy. Almost as tall as Jude, straight-backed, with thick, dark shoulder-length hair frosted with silver, and high cheekbones in a wide, intelligent, olive-skinned face, she possessed the kind of natural grace that a wardrobe-load of expensive designer clothes could never buy. Yet, though concealer did its best to disguise them, it was impossible to miss the great
hollows beneath her chestnut-brown eyes. Here was a woman, like herself, who knew what it was to toss and turn at night, unvisited by sleep.

“You’ve come to inspect our treasures.” Even her voice was beautiful, husky, her diction formal and with a slight foreign lilt. “I expect Robert will have explained how desperately sad we are to have to sell them. But apparently the house will fall down
about our ears if we don’t.” The distress behind her words was unmistakable.

“Mother, we mustn’t start this all over again,” Robert said, looking up from pouring coffee.

Jude glanced uncertainly from mother to son with a sinking feeling. It was awkward when one of the parties didn’t want to sell; it made her feel like a money-grabber, an asset-stripper, and, worse, if the squabble continued,
it could mean she was wasting her time coming at all. Seeing her expression, Chantal Wickham immediately made amends. “It’s not your fault, of course, Jude. I’m sure that you will appreciate our collection. It must be wonderful, the job you do, handling these marvelous things.”

“I do love my work, yes,” said Jude, feeling she was walking a tightrope. “Thank you.” She took the cup that Robert
passed her.

“Jude,” Robert said, his eyes flicking to the wide world beyond the window, “would it be all right if I left you with my mother this morning? She knows more about the collection than I do, and something urgent has cropped up. Mother, George Fenton phoned a moment ago. It seems the pheasant coops have been broken into during the night.”

Jude said, “Of course you must go. I’m sure
Mrs. Wickham and I will get on fine by ourselves.”

Mrs. Wickham gave her a complicit smile. “Please call me Chantal,” she murmured, then told her son, “I hope you find it’s foxes, Rob. I don’t like the idea of human thieves. George gets such bees buzzing in his bonnet about people and it leads to bad feeling locally.”

Robert nodded as he gulped down his coffee. Then with a “See you both for
lunch,” he hurried out of the room. A moment or two later the women watched the estate car lurch off down the drive, the dogs bounding about in the back.

“Dear Robert, he always has to be rushing about,” said Chantal. “Come and sit down for a moment, Jude.” She patted the space on the sofa beside her. “You must be tired after driving all this way.”

“Oh, I stayed in Blakeney with my gran last
night.”

“So you know our part of the world, then?”

“Sort of. I lived in Norwich in my teens,” Jude explained. “And some of my family are still here. Mum has a house outside Sheringham, but she’s selling up and moving to Spain with my stepfather. My sister lives very close by—in Felbarton. Do you know a shop in Holt called the Star Bureau? She owns it with a friend.”

“Oh, the gift shop in the
arcade? Such a pretty window display. All those starry lights and mobiles. I’ve always meant to go inside. I’ll make sure I do now.”