Country Plot (7 page)

‘No, it was quite easy, except for missing the turning in the village.'

Kitty put a hand to her face. ‘You know, I don't know why I told you to come in that way. I suppose because that's the way I always come in. You'd have found the front entrance much more easily. Never mind, you're here now. Let's grab your bags and take them in and dump them in the hall, and have a drink before anything else. I expect you're gasping for a gin and tonic.'

‘I've been thinking about it ever since I left the motorway,' Jenna said.

Kitty grinned. ‘I can see you're a girl after my own heart! I can't
tell
you how pleased I am you're here. I know we're going to get along famously.'

‘I think so too,' Jenna said, and meant it. Anyone whose first thought for an arriving traveller was to get a gin and tonic down them was all right with her.

They went through the gate in the wall and emerged on to a stone-flagged path that ran along the back of the house. Green spaces of lawn stretched away to a hedge and a distant vista of low, blue hills. On the left the lawn was bounded by a fringe of woodland and on the right by a stone wall, above which peeped the roofs of greenhouses. Of the house itself Jenna only gained a brief impression in that first moment: that it was oblong, built of pale grey stone, and had many windows – the tall rectangular sort, divided into small square panes, that said Georgian.

Kitty, toting two of Jenna's bags as if they weighed nothing, led the way through a door into a small stone-floored lobby, then turned right into a passage which led parallel to the back of the house and into what was obviously the entrance hall. There were black and white marble tiles on the floor and a graceful staircase of beautiful simplicity. Kitty put down the bags, beamed at Jenna and said, ‘Just dump everything here, and let's have a drink before I show you your room.'

‘Great idea,' Jenna said.

Kitty led the way through a sitting room, crowded with furniture, paintings, ceramics, silver, clocks, and a number of eclectic items Jenna would have liked to stop and examine – like a painted ostrich egg in a glass case and a stuffed owl on a bracket halfway up the wall. They passed it all, however, and emerged into a large conservatory built on to the back of the house. It could not have been more of a contrast – lofty, light, airy and spacious, with Italian tiles on the floor, a few pieces of comfortable modern furniture in bamboo and Sanderson print, and a couple of gigantic parlour-palms in glazed pots. Beyond, the green lawns spread to the distant hills, and the late sunlight slanted in at the door.

‘Just the place for a sundowner,' Jenna said.

‘Just what I always think,' Kitty agreed, seeming pleased. ‘Now, you sit down. No, take that chair, it's more comfortable. Gin and tonic all right?'

‘Perfect,' Jenna said, sinking down and stretching out. ‘This is heaven.'

‘Attagirl!' There was a glass-topped table furnished with decanters, glasses and ice bucket, and soon Kitty was making all the right clinking noises as she mixed G and Ts practically large enough to wash in.

In from the garden wandered two black dogs, tails wagging ingratiatingly, heads low and friendly. Both were mongrels, one mostly Labrador and the other something like Rottweiler crossed with Alsatian, to judge from its bushy tail. ‘Ah, here are my boys. Are you all right with dogs? This is Watch, and that one's Barney.'

The dogs and the drink arrived at about the same time, and Jenna patted the former and then raised the latter in Kitty's direction. ‘Well, cheers. It's nice to be here.'

‘Down the hatch,' Kitty said. ‘I'm thrilled to have you. It'll be so nice to have someone intelligent to talk to.'

‘How do you know I'm intelligent?'

‘Oh my dear, you can tell from the first glance at a person's face. So many people one meets nowadays are such cows.'

‘Cows?' It seemed surprisingly condemnatory.

‘Awfully nice, but not much going on upstairs,' Kitty elucidated.

Jenna got it. ‘Well, I know what you mean. But aren't there lots of nice people in Holtby?'

‘Nearly everyone's nice, and quite a few aren't cows. There are some ex-Londoners, moved down here in the migration of the nineties, a few commuter families, and quite a bit of county. One or two holiday homes, but we're lucky to have a lot of local people still living here, which is the heart of a village.'

‘Have you lived here long?'

‘Me personally? About thirty years now – how time flies! – but my husband's family has owned this house for a hundred and fifty years.'

‘It's Georgian, isn't it?'

‘Well spotted. About 1790, we think. The best period – not so austere as earlier Georgian, but still with the perfect proportions. By the time you get into Regency they can be somewhat blurred. I absolutely adore it,' she said with what sounded like a sad sigh. ‘I still sometimes wake up and can't believe I'm living here. I grew up in an ordinary, respectable Edwardian house in an ordinary respectable Edwardian suburb. My parents used to take me to look at National Trust houses on Bank Holidays, and I used to think it would be the pinnacle of posh to live in a place with a two-line address – you know, like Holtby House, Holtby.'

Jenna said, ‘I know exactly what you mean.'

‘I'm sometimes afraid that was the real reason I married my poor Peter – the hope of living in this house one day. Of course, we had to wait until his father died. That's the gruesome part of family inheritance. And we had his mother living with us for ten years after that – but she was no trouble really, in a house this size. She had her own suite on the top floor.'

‘How big is it?' Jenna asked.

‘Three floors, nine bedrooms – four on the first floor and five on the second. It used to be eleven bedrooms, but Peter's father put in a guest bathroom on the top floor, and then after Agnes – Peter's mother – died, we sacrificed another on the first floor for two extra bathrooms. We did quite a lot of work then, including putting on this conservatory, which has been a godsend. Peter took a bit of persuading that it wouldn't spoil the look of the house, but once we had it he used it more than any other room. He loved the heat and lots of light. I think it reminded him of our years abroad – Africa and India mostly.'

The mention of India made Jenna think of something she had been wanting to know. ‘I have to ask – I hope you don't mind – is your name anything to do with the mountain?'

‘I don't mind – everyone asks that. Yes, it's the same family. Sir George Everest was Peter's great-great – I don't remember how many greats – grand-uncle. He was fiercely proud of the old man. Do you know about him?'

‘No, nothing at all, I'm afraid.'

‘He was a surveyor, and spent twenty-five years surveying the arc of the meridian that runs through Nepal. Tremendous work. He was knighted for it, and then the year before he died they named Peak XV, as it was known up till then, in his honour. It started out as Mont Eve-rist. How it got from that to Mount Ever-rest I've no idea.'

‘It's a shame. I like the other better.'

‘So do I. More elegant. Never mind. Now when people see my name written down they think I'm from the double-glazing company. And so the world turns! I'll show you Sir George's portrait tomorrow. And the rest of the house, of course. But for now, it's to be an evening of relaxation. Have you finished your drink? Would you like to see your room? Perhaps you'd like a bath before dinner?'

‘I hope you haven't gone to a lot of trouble making dinner for me,' Jenna said, heaving herself out of the downy embrace of the chair.

Kitty laughed. ‘Bless you, I don't cook! Never have been able to. I could burn water. I have a wonderful help called Mrs Phillips who comes in by day and cooks for me, and also puts my washing in the washing machine and takes my ironing away. She's left everything ready for us.' She stood too. ‘It's a funny thing that although she's worked for me for longer than I can remember, I can't call her anything but Mrs Phillips. I think she'd die of shock if I called her Brenda. And she calls me Mrs Everest – or, if I'm particularly in favour, “Mrs Everest, dear”. That's another reason you have to call me Kitty. She'd get quite the wrong idea otherwise.'

She led the way upstairs, turned left at the first floor and opened the second door on the right. It was a beautiful room, large and lofty, with two tall windows to the front of the house, furnished with shining mahogany furniture and a washed-Chinese carpet on the polished boards of the floor. There were pale green curtains and counterpane, and a green vase full of white flowers on the dressing table. The windows were open a little and the most wonderful scent was drifting in. The front of the house, Jenna could see from where she stood, was covered with wisteria, and the trembling pale-purple blooms dripped heavenly perfume.

‘It's lovely,' Jenna said appreciatively. ‘Really lovely!'

‘I'm glad you like it,' said Kitty. She opened a door in the right-hand wall. ‘This is your bathroom.' It was grand: more mahogany, with white porcelain and brass fittings. There was a shower cabinet as well as a bath, and a luxurious number of blue and white towels.

‘This is wonderful,' Jenna said.

‘Well, Peter and I both felt very strongly about bathrooms. He wasn't at all country-gentry in that respect,' she added with a laugh. ‘
Real
county families, the top people, have dreadful chilly, draughty bathrooms with taps that drip, rust marks on the bath and never enough hot water. It's a badge of honour not to complain about it. They think there's something not quite
right
about comfort. They'd think this was awfully
nouveau riche
. I'm going to leave you now, my dear. Come downstairs whenever you're ready. Dinner can be at any time so there's no need for you to hurry.'

She went away, leaving Jenna to examine her new kingdom.

And what a kingdom! Everything had been thought of for her comfort – the flowers, plenty of hangers in the wardrobe, a box of tissues by the bed, hand cream on the dressing table. There was even a tin of biscuits on the mantelpiece among the china figurines, and a small pile of books left ready for bedtime reading
: Stalky & Co
,
Pride and Prejudice
,
The Nine Tailors
,
Brideshead Revisited
and
Carry On Jeeves
. Jenna smiled as she read the titles. Somehow she had no doubt that Kitty had chosen them herself.

She went to the window and pushed it up to lean out and drink in the perfumed air.
You've fallen on your feet here, girl
, she thought.

Jenna didn't think she had ever had such a good night's sleep. Waking from it was like swimming up from an immense depth of warm, dark water that had cradled her in unutterable comfort. She didn't even remember dreaming, and woke feeling luxuriously content.

She lay for a moment remembering the previous evening. The dinner of chicken casseroled with olives in a rich tomato sauce, followed by rhubarb pie, was delicious, and was accompanied by a glorious red burgundy and followed by coffee (Mrs Phillips left the coffee machine all ready to be switched on – ‘Even I can do that,' Kitty said) and cognac. And they had talked and talked – she marvelled at what good company Kitty was, and how well they had got on together, considering the difference in their ages. But there was nothing old about Kitty, except the length of her memory and the richness of her vocabulary. Jenna had naturally asked her a lot of things about her past life (Peter had been a geographer and surveyor like his hero ancestor, and they had spent the early part of their married life mostly abroad), but they had also chatted about music, wine, current events, animals, holidays and other such neutral topics.

And when they were settled with their cognacs, Kitty had asked her in the most natural way what had brought her here, and Jenna had found herself telling about Lousy Monday quite freely, almost as she would have told it to Izzy. Kitty's sympathy was so natural and comforting that she went off to bed (early – ‘This country air really knocks me out!') feeling as though a thorn had been drawn, and fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

Sunshine was trying to get in through the green curtains, so Jenna jumped up and went to open them. Below, the gravelled drive ran from the turnaround in front of the house down to the left and out of sight to the main gate. In the middle of the front lawn before her was a magnificent cedar tree, spreading its noble black platforms to the sun like something in a Merchant Ivory film. Birds were chirping and trilling madly from every direction, and suddenly Jenna felt she had to be out. Kitty had told her to sleep in and said they would breakfast at about nine, but she was wide awake now, though it was only seven, so she thought she'd go for a walk and explore the grounds a bit before she had her shower. She pulled on jeans and a loose-fitting sweatshirt, dragged a brush through her red-gold mane, and went downstairs.

The black-and-white hall was full of sunshine. The front door stood open – there was a small vestibule and half-glass doors between it and the hall – and she could see the two dogs lying down on the warm gravel outside. She stepped out into the birdsong-filled morning, and they jumped up and came to greet her, grinning and wagging their tails and even frisking a little, suggesting it might be nice to go off somewhere.

‘My thought exactly, boys,' she said, and set off across the dewy grass with them romping about her foolishly. Barney raced ahead to the cedar tree and came back with a stick which he dropped at her feet beguilingly. She threw it for him. Watch made a token run, but stopped after a few lolloping steps to come back to her. He was an older dog than Barney, greying round the muzzle, and obviously thought stick-chasing was for the young and foolish. They proceeded in this way down to the belt of trees, which she discovered had been planted up as a very pretty woodland walk. She ambled happily through this, noting there were bluebells just coming into flower, but started to feel a bit chilly and thought it was a waste of the sunshine, so she took a side path out before the end, and crossed the lawn to the boundary hedge down at the far end of the grounds, where there was the view to the distant hills.