A Winter’s Tale (5 page)

I felt responsibility settle round my shoulders like a lead cape. ‘But I know nothing about managing an estate! How could I possibly take it on?’

‘But you
do
have relevant experience in looking after old properties, Ms Winter. Sir William thought you were just what Winter’s End needed.’

‘He did? But I’ve no experience of running one, only doing the donkey work and passing on orders to the other staff. And do call me Sophy—I have a feeling we are likely to see a lot of each other.’

His face broke into a smile like a rather jolly tortoise. ‘Or one of my sons—I am semi-retired, you know, though I like to keep my brain active by retaining one or two clients. But to get back to business, Sophy, Winter’s End is not a large house, although the gardens are extensive and take quite some keeping up, especially the yew maze and all the box hedges and topiary. Do you remember the spiral maze?’

I nodded. ‘At the front of the house.’ I felt a sudden pang for the small, mischievous Sophy who used to run through it with Grandfather’s pack of miniature spaniels chasing after her, yapping madly—and who would then usually have to go back and rescue one or two of them who had got lost among the labyrinthine turns. ‘It was quite low, wasn’t it? Most tall adults would be able to see over the top of the hedges.’

‘That’s right, and all those curves and rounded edges take a good deal of clipping. Then there is a considerable area of woodland on the opposite side of the valley to the house and one tenanted farm. Are you interested in gardening at all?’

‘I had enough of mulching and digging in all weathers when I lived in the Scottish commune to cure me of wanting to be a hands-on gardener, but I do love the frivolity of gardens made just to
look
at.’

‘Quite,’ he said. ‘And Sir William told me that you have considerable expertise in caring for old houses and their contents from your previous employment, do you not?’

‘Oh, yes, I left school at sixteen and my first job was in a Scottish castle. The Mistress saw to it that I learned the correct way to clean it and all the valuable things it contained.’

‘The
Mistress
?’

‘That’s how she liked to be addressed by her staff,’ I explained, ‘which I was, until I ran off and married her cousin Rory. Then after I had Lucy I got the job here at Blackwalls with Lady Betty, keeping everything clean and in good repair, passing on her orders to the other staff, taking guided tours around the house on open days, being her PA…you name it, I did it. Lady Betty didn’t pay me a lot, but she was very kind to me and Lucy, and I was fond of her.’

I touched the little gold, enamel and crystal bee brooch I wore. ‘She gave me this as a keepsake when I visited her in the hospital, because she said she had a premonition she wasn’t going to see Blackwalls again. And she was quite right, because once she signed the power of attorney, her nephew had her moved to an upmarket old people’s home and she just lost the will to live. The last time I visited her she didn’t really recognise me.’

I fished a tissue out of the box and blew my nose, while Mr Hobbs looked away tactfully.

‘After he had been up here to see you, your grandfather said, and I quote his very words, “It seems to me the women of the family have always run things behind the scenes here at Winter’s End, so one might as well take over as head of the family and have done with it.” He thought you would make a better job of it than Jack ever would, especially with Lucy to help you. Yes…’ he added thoughtfully, ‘he was particularly taken with your daughter.’

‘He
was
? But they quarrelled the whole time he was here!’

‘He said she had the typical Winter temperament, allied with an almost masculine sense of business.’

‘Well, I suppose he meant that as a compliment,’ I conceded. ‘She
is
very bossy and argumentative, though it’s called assertiveness these days, and she did business studies and English at university.’

‘Those would be considerable assets in running the estate. Sir William also said that, although so unlike your mother in character, in appearance Lucy reminded him very much of how Susan had been at the same age.’

‘Yes, she’s tall, slender and has that lovely red-gold hair—nothing like me. I don’t look like a Winter at all. Even Jack, who is only a cousin several times removed, looks more like a Winter than I do!’

‘Oh, there are the occasional darker Winters,’ he assured me. ‘Sir William told me that he was deeply sorry that he had not seen you grow up, but I believe he
would
have discovered your whereabouts much earlier had your mother not changed her name to all intents and purposes, to—’ he looked down at his papers—‘Sukie Starchild.’

‘I know. Dreadful, isn’t it? She wanted to call me Skye, but I stuck to Sophy. I did have to use the surname Starchild on the few occasions when we stayed somewhere long
enough for me to go to school, though, so Grandfather couldn’t find us. She
said
she was afraid I would be taken away from her, but I often wondered if there was something else making her so paranoid about it.’

‘There was,’ Mr Hobbs said. ‘Sir William did tell Susan that he would cut off her allowance and have her declared an unfit mother if she didn’t change her ways, but those were merely empty threats that he had no intention of carrying out, for he often said things in temper that he afterwards regretted.’

‘But my mother obviously believed he meant them that time?’

‘That is so, but when she left she also took with her a diamond necklace that was not actually hers to dispose of—a family heirloom, in fact. He circulated its description, so he would have been notified if it came up for sale, but when it didn’t he assumed it had been broken up and the stones recut.’

‘I
wondered
how she bought the van in the first place!’ I exclaimed. ‘And she did have some very dodgy friends when I was very small and we were living in squats in London.’

‘Sir William assumed she would return when the money ran out, so by the time he realised she wasn’t going to, and began to try to trace you both, you had vanished.’

‘She was terrified of him finding her, and I suppose that explains why—but she never could stand anger and loud voices; she was such a gentle person.’

‘He never quite gave up hope that you would both be found, Sophy—and then, of course, he discovered that your mother had died in an accident. You know that her body was repatriated, and is buried in the family plot in the Sticklepond graveyard?’

I nodded. ‘Though I didn’t find out until much later what had happened.’

‘Your grandfather assumed you had been in America with her, so that is where he searched again for you, without result.’

‘No, I was fourteen by then, and I’d had enough of travelling. I didn’t like my mother’s new boyfriend much, either, so I didn’t want to go to California with them. We’d been living in a commune in Scotland and my best friend’s mother offered to look after me if I stayed, so I did until I got a live-in job at the castle, when I was sixteen.’

‘And stayed lost until someone pointed out the unusual name “Sophy Winter” in a magazine advert,’ Mr Hobbs said, ‘when, on making enquiries, Sir William discovered that you were indeed his granddaughter.’

‘Yes, I reverted to my real name after my mother died. I always felt ridiculous as a Starchild—
so
old hippie. And I didn’t change my name when I married Lucy’s father, I just stayed a Winter. I was only married for five minutes anyway.’

Actually, that was a slight exaggeration: it was five weeks, just long enough for me to fall pregnant and for commitment-phobe Rory to get such cold feet that he went away to find himself. So far as I know, he’s still looking.

‘Yes, that did worry your grandfather a little—but at least you
had
got married.’

‘Unlike my mother?’

He ignored that, smoothing out the papers in front of him with a dry, wrinkled finger. ‘You have no contact with your former husband?’

‘No, none. He was a cousin of the owner of the castle I was working in, a diver working on the oilrigs—you know, six weeks on, six off. He was ten years older than me, but we fell in love and married in Gretna Green—very romantic—and then settled down in a rented cottage. Then he supposedly went off back to work and instead vanished.’

I had waited and waited for him, sure he would come
back, until I finally realised that he’d taken everything he valued with him and never meant to return at all. With hindsight I could see that I had been the one in love with the idea of marriage and domesticity, the family I yearned for, and he had simply gone along with it in a moment of madness, or frustrated lust, or…something.

‘And that is the last you saw of him?’ Mr Hobbs prompted gently. ‘He never contacted you again?’

‘No, though I’m sure his family knew where he was. But they wouldn’t have anything to do with me, of course, because they were horrified when he married the help. I’ve heard that he has been working abroad ever since, and I divorced him eventually. There hasn’t been anyone serious in my life since then. I don’t need anyone really; I’ve usually got a dog.’

‘Quite,’ he said, though looking slightly perplexed. ‘That does, however, simplify matters. I would most earnestly advise you
not
to consider selling the property at this juncture, and certainly not without visiting it first. Indeed, they are all expecting you to take over the reins as soon as possible.’

‘
All?
’ I said, startled. ‘How many people are we actually talking about here?’

‘Well, your twin great-aunts—though of course they were provided for under the terms of your great-grandfather’s will. Ottilie leases the coach house, which she converted into a studio with living accommodation soon after your mother left. You
do
remember her?’

‘Yes, though I saw much less of her than Aunt Hebe. She didn’t come to Winter’s End much when I lived there—isn’t she a sculptor?’

‘Indeed, a very well-known one. She made something of a misalliance in her brother’s eyes when she was in her forties by marrying his last head gardener, though I believe
Sir William was more grieved at the thought of losing his right-hand man than at the marriage itself. But as it transpired he did not, since Rufus Greenwood was as passionate about restoring the Winter’s End gardens as he was himself. He stayed on and Ottilie had the old coach house converted so she could divide her time between her husband at Winter’s End and her studio in Cornwall. Still does, though she is now widowed.’

‘So, who else is there? I remember a cook-housekeeper…’

‘Yes, Mrs Lark and her husband, Jonah, are the only live-in staff now. There are three gardeners—four, if you include the head gardener…’ He ruffled the papers a little, seemed about to say something, and then thought better of it. ‘Ye-es. There is a daily cleaner…and Mr Yatton, the estate manager, who like myself is semi-retired, but he comes in most mornings to the office in the solar tower.’

‘Four gardeners and only one cleaner? For a place that size?’ I exclaimed, amazed, because if there is one thing I do know about, it is the upkeep of old houses.

‘At first a cleaning firm was brought in occasionally, but I don’t think that has happened for three or four years now.’

‘A specialist firm? One used to dealing with the contents of historic buildings?’ I asked hopefully.

‘No, a local agency called Dolly Mops. They are very thorough—my wife uses them.’

I winced, thinking of all the damage a well-meaning but untrained cleaner might have inflicted on the fabric and contents of Winter’s End.

‘Then, of course, there are the Friends,’ Mr Hobbs added.

‘The…friends?’

‘The Friends of Winter’s End, a local group of history enthusiasts, who volunteer to come in on the summer opening days to sell tickets, and look after those rooms open to the public—the Great Hall and gallery. The house
and gardens are open two afternoons a week, from May to the end of August.’

‘I understand from Jack that the house is in very poor condition and there isn’t enough money to restore it. Is that so?’

‘While it is true that your grandfather diverted most of his income into renovating the gardens, he did not touch the capital, which is securely invested—though of course, no investments bring the returns they used to, and an old house like Winter’s End needs a considerable amount of keeping up. And unfortunately, he took out a bank loan when he started to restore the maze and the terraces, secured against the property, which is a drain on the estate.’

‘Jack mentioned that. How big a bank loan?’ I asked hesitantly. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.

‘I believe there is still twenty thousand pounds outstanding.’

‘Good heavens!’

‘Yes, indeed—it is all
quite
a responsibility.’

The ‘r’ word again—and although I had pretty well run Blackwalls for Lady Betty, having the ultimate responsibility for my own stately pile was still a scary prospect. On the other hand, the thought of having a whole neglected house to put right sort of appealed…OK, I admit it, it drew me like a magnet, especially if this time the house I would be working in would actually be
mine
!