House of Memories (20 page)

“They know nothing about all this,” he told her.

“What!” she demanded.

“It’s going to be a surprise,” he announced.

“They’ll die of shock,” she declared.

“Well, Mary might have an inkling that something is going on, because she wanted to come down before they went to see my mother’s sister in London. I put her off and she was a bit suspicious, but my aunt had sent them the tickets and put pressure on them to move once Kitty had her exam done and Mary had her school holidays. She had not seen Mom for years, and they were all so excited about it, that it kind of distracted them.”

“So will we move on the furniture?” Kate wanted to know.

“But where will we get it?” Danny asked nervously, “and would it cost a fortune?”

“Not at all,” she assured him. “You can be very lucky at auctions, and we’ll watch out for a parish priest’s auction because they always have quality stuff. Old furniture rooms are great too, and you can get fine pieces there. People are throwing out good stuff, and it’s going much cheaper than the new ply and dye.”

“But how come?” he asked in amazement.

“New money, new women, new taste,” she announced.

“Furniture good enough for this house?” he queried.

“You’d better believe it,” she told him, delighted at the prospect of old musty furniture rooms and auctions.

Kate enjoyed introducing Danny to a whole new world, and they spent enjoyable days at auctions where she watched him learn the procedure and develop an eye for a fine item. Soon he
was no longer deceived by dust and grease. They got a splendid oak bed for his mother’s room and two brass ones for the girls. Bill came on board if they brought home any piece that was damaged or ruined by paint or poor restoration. He polished the two brass bedheads until they shone, and the transformation that Bill could bring about was a constant source of wonder to Danny, but Kate assured him, “If you get the real thing, you can’t go wrong.”

Then one day the much-awaited parish priest’s auction arrived when the PP of Ross died. She knew the house because she had visited it years ago with Nellie, to whom he was related. He had been a collector of pictures and nice furniture, and she knew that he would not have sold a thing over the years. She could picture the wonderful oak sideboard that would be perfect with the long table in the dining room of Furze Hill. The morning of the auction her mind was full of excited anticipation.

From across the breakfast table, David viewed her with amusement.

“Kate, you look as if you are going on a treasure hunt.”

“Feels like it,” she assured him blithely, and later as she left the house he called after her, “Have a good day, as Rodney Jackson is for ever wishing me.”

“You can bet on it,” she assured him.

“We could be lucky here,” she told Danny as they went into the impressive parochial house. “If the damn dealers are not here we’re flying.” Amazingly they were not. How had this one escaped them? They usually came like wasps around a jam pot to priests’ auctions. She could not believe her luck when the huge sideboard, which came up early, did not go as high as she had expected, and she almost lost her composure when a
row of dining room chairs were knocked down to her at a good price. The chairs matched perfectly the dining room table in Furze Hill.

While she was inspecting an enormous oak bookcase, she saw Danny searching around for something. This was unusual. Finally he seemed to find it, a heavy gilt-framed picture stacked up with a row of other pictures. She saw him take a note of the number. It was a spectacular frame, but she wondered about the austere bishop behind the glass. Normally she did the bidding, but when the picture came up she told Danny to bid. He had to go a bit more than he had anticipated, and when he hesitated she egged him on, as she knew that the thin woman from Ross who was bidding against him would not keep going. Mrs Hobbs was a seasoned performer and never lost her head. Kate knew from experience that men were more likely to go stubborn at auctions and refuse to be outbid. Sure enough, Mrs Hobbs bowed out and Danny got his picture. It was his first independent purchase.

“Where are you going to put My Lord Bishop?” she asked.

“He’s surplus to my requirements,” he told her.

The bookcase that she had judged ideal for the drawing room was next up. She had seen a well-heeled, middle-aged couple examining it earlier, and sure enough when other bidders dropped out they stuck with her. She had to go more than she had planned to get it.

“That’s the way it is at auctions,” she told Danny afterwards, “and the secret is not to lose your nerve or your head.”

When others left they stayed on late at the auction because she had decided that when the parish priest’s bed and bedroom furniture came up she would go for it. It was a wonderful oak
bed with two matching wardrobes and a dressing table that she knew in a few years time would be a collector’s item. She was hoping that it might be too big for the houses of most people present, because on the instructions of the deceased it was going as one lot. Wise man, Fr Kennedy, she thought. He wanted his wonderful pieces to stay together and go to a good home, not be split up and scattered around the country. A collector to the end! Because she thought that Danny might put her off, she sent him out to the car for the flask and sandwiches just as the bidding began, and when he came back the bedroom set was his for a fraction of what it was worth. But she felt sure that Fr Kennedy would have been delighted that she had got it.

She looked forward to the arrival of the parish priest’s furniture to Furze Hill with rising excitement, and the day it came Bill was in his element. As the delivery men unloaded, Kate directed them to the correct locations. She put Danny’s picture under the stairs, and she was glad that he was out the fields as she led the men up to the front right-hand bedroom. The entire bedroom set looked magnificent, and Kate knew that she had struck oil. When she told Bill the price, he whistled in appreciation. Then they walked around the house admiring all the pieces, and she was thrilled at how they complimented the place.

“No touching up needed with these,” Bill said with relish. “All in mint condition.”

“Priests’ furniture is always in great nick,” she smiled.

“You’re getting this place spot on,” Bill told her appreciatively as they stood in the hallway with the doors open into the different rooms. “What’s the secret of being able to get it so right?”

“Anticipationary visualisation,” she informed him loftily, and laughed heartily when he told her dismissively, “My mother put that outside the door once and it melted in the frost.”

He had a wicked sense of humour, and working with him over the last few weeks had been such a pleasure. The better she got to know him, the more convinced she became that he was the ideal person to live in Jack’s cottage. He was turning it back into a welcoming place. It was what Jack would have wanted.

“Do you think, Bill,” she asked him now, “that Jack would have approved of how I am doing things here?”

“Without a shadow of a doubt,” he assured her. “There was a touch of class about Jack, and he would only have settled for the best.”

“Sometimes, you know,” she worried, “I get the feeling that Danny thinks that I’m a bit of a big spender. But he has the money, so why can’t he let it go?”

“You know, Kate, spending money is a new experience for our Danny,” Bill said sympathetically. “You never knew what it was to be hungry, but I think that he got a flavour of it over the years.”

“Is that it?” she wondered.

“I could be wrong,” Bill said thoughtfully.

“Well, anyway,” she said, brightening up, “let’s have tea in Ellen’s immaculate kitchen.”

“We’d better not dirty it,” Bill laughed as they walked back the corridor. “You know, I suggested putting in a big comfortable chair in the corner where you could read a book. She nearly had a fit, telling me that a kitchen was not for lounging around in but for cooking.”

“Oh, I got that lecture too,” Kate told him, “but we might slip it in later. Anyway, there is what used to be the morning room straight across from here. I think that will really be the living room, so I furnished that with mostly comfort in mind.”

“Weren’t they smart long go with their morning room for the breakfast and always facing east to catch the morning sun,” Bill said, laying cups on the kitchen table.

“Easy for them,” she declared, spooning tea into the big ware teapot, as Bill liked his tea strong. “They probably had retinues of servants to drag things back and forth.”

“But ’twas good thinking all the same,” Bill declared.

“Jack thought like that,” Kate said thoughtfully.

“Still feeling the loss?” Bill said kindly.

“Yeah, but I think that he sent me a bit of a healer with the project of this house,” she said quietly. “Bill, do you believe in the power of the dead?”

He watched her pour out the tea and waited for her to come back and sit at the table before answering.

“There was a time when I would have told you no,” he told her slowly, “but over the years I know that Lucy helped me in many ways. When she was with us, she was the one who kept the show on the road. Calm and easygoing, she loved books and music and always had time to sit down and discuss everything. She was great with the lads, and when she died they were all fairly young and I was left high and dry. But I sensed over the years that at certain times she was around.”

“I think that Jack is not far away either,” she said quietly.

“Kate, you asking me to live in Jack’s house was one of the nicest things that has happened to me since she died.”

“You’re making his not being there easier,” she told him.

“He has lovely bits and pieces in that little cottage,” he said.

“He taught me to appreciate so many things,” she said, looking around the kitchen, “He would have loved this place.”

“You are really enjoying the restoration here?” Bill asked.

“Loving it,” she declared. “When I go into an auction or into an antique shop, I can feel my adrenalin rising.”

“You’d love the antique business,” Bill declared.

“Love it,” she told him; “I have always been fascinated by old things.”

“Maybe one day the two of us might open an antique shop,” Bill said slowly. “You could do the buying, and I’d do the touching up and repairing.”

“You mean it, Bill?” she asked in amazement.

“Well, we could think about it anyway,” he told her.

Later, when Danny came in, they walked around the house. She could feel his mounting appreciation of how all the pieces fitted in so well. As they went up the stairs, she wondered how he would react to the appearance of his own room. When she opened the door, he gasped in amazement.

“My God, where did these come from? They’re magnificent.”

“Remember going out for the flask and sandwiches?” she asked mischievously. “Well, that’s when I did it.” She added hurriedly, “But they did not cost a fortune, you know.”

Danny walked around the room, almost in awe of what he was seeing, and then went over to the window and stood silently looking out over the garden. Kate sat on the side of the bed and waited. She had known since she had told Danny about Jack’s money that he had been wrestling with some dilemma but had not filled her in. She had wondered if she would ever be told. Now he turned around from the window and came across the
room and sat beside her on the bed. To her surprise there were tears in his eyes.

“Kate,” he began hesitantly, “I think that I owe you an explanation.”

“An explanation about what?” she asked.

“About the fact that over the last few weeks I was so careful about the spending of the money.”

“Well, I did think you were a trifle thrifty,” she admitted wryly.

“I had a reason,” he began. “I was not going to tell this to anybody outside the family, but you have been so brilliant to me that I owe you this. When first you told me about Jack’s money, I was, as you know, dumbfounded. But the more I thought of it, the more certain I became that Jack was giving me more than money. He was giving me a chance to redeem myself and the family pride. Because of that, I have decided to give Mary and Kitty and the two in America the same as I gave Rory. It does not seem fair that he would get money for being greedy and that they would get nothing for being honourable. I don’t want anyone to be wronged.”

“But that will leave you with nothing,” she protested.

“Six months ago I had nothing, and now I could be greedy. I own all this,” he said with outstretched hand, “and I can work hard and reclaim the farm. I will enjoy the challenge. We were reared with no sense of self-respect because my father and grandfather stole it from us. Now I want to bring it back, and the starting point must be with the Barry sense of values. I think that Jack would have wanted it this way. He was an honourable man, and his was honourable money. I don’t want to taint it with greed.”

As he spoke Kate felt a lump in her throat, and she wrapped her arms around him.

“Danny, that is such a noble thing to do,” she said tremulously. “Jack always said that you never knew anybody until you had money dealings with them. He would have been so proud of you.”

“I hope so,” he said. “He gave us the money, and it is up to me to give us the sense of honour.”

“That’s a strange twist of fate,” she told him.

“How?”

“Well, my grandfather always felt guilty about being the cause of bringing the Conway name to this house, and now his money will buy it out.”

“Old Mr Hobbs said something along those lines,” Danny remembered, “about the mills of God.”

“Do you know something, Danny,” she smiled, “I’m glad that we got the house back to the way it should be before you decided to go all noble on me. If I had known, it might have cramped my style.”

“Doubt it,” he smiled.

“When are all these beneficiaries coming home?” she asked.

“As soon as they come back from visiting my aunt,” he told her, “and the morning after they come home I am planning to have the stations here for the first time in decades. It will be a surprise welcome home for my mother.”