The Art of Inheriting Secrets(3)
Taking a breath to keep my voice calm, I said, “I see. When do you think you’ll be back?”
“I’m afraid it could be a couple of days. The roads are flooded from all the rain. I’m dreadfully sorry.”
I looked out the window to the gray morning. “Things happen. I did have the driver take me out to the house yesterday when I arrived, just to get a feeling for what’s going on.”
“I see. I assumed you’d be fatigued after such a long trip.”
“Yes, well, I’m very anxious to get things going, Mr. Haver. I’m in the middle of selling my mother’s house in California, and I’ve been away from my job for much too long. I really need to get back. What can we do to settle this?”
“Well,” he said cautiously, “you’ve seen the state of the house.”
“Where I come from, no one cares about the building on a piece of land.”
“Oh, my dear. I’m afraid Rosemere Priory is a Grade I–listed building, which means that not only can it not be torn down, but it can’t even be upgraded without approval from the listing committee.”
“It didn’t look as if it could be repaired.”
“I suppose anything is repairable with enough time and money.”
“But you don’t think it’s worth it.”
“Frankly, no. It has been neglected for forty years, and even if it could be shored up, these houses are dreadfully difficult to keep. There are more than thirty-five rooms—thirty-seven, to be exact. Imagine heating all of that. The roof alone will devour pounds like tea cakes. Then there’s trying to stave off damp and rot and—”
“So what can be done?”
“Sooner or later, I expect it will simply fall down.”
A visual of those golden walls tumbling into ruin gave me a sharp, unexpected pang. “How long did my mother’s family live there?”
“Three or four hundred years, I expect.”
Centuries. The shimmer of time prickled the edges of my skull, but before I could come up with anything to say, a murmuring in the background came through, and he said, “Look, I’ll give you all the details when we meet. In the meantime, I’m going to send a friend of mine over. Rebecca Poole and her husband own the acreage bordering Rosemere. She’ll be able to answer some of your questions.”
I’d had my breakfast—eggs and beans and tomatoes—before taking the call from Mr. Haver. The skies outside threatened rain, but I needed to walk a little to shake the tightness from my leg.
A younger woman watched the pub and front desk this morning, a pretty girl with bright-blue eyes in a Snow White face. She smiled as I approached the desk. “Good morning, Lady Shaw,” she said. “I’m Sarah. Did you have a good sleep?”
I waved my hand, wincing in embarrassment. “Oh, please don’t call me that. Just Olivia is fine.”
Her smile was crooked. “How about Ms. Shaw?”
“That’s fine.”
“What else may I help you with?”
“I’m going to take a walk, but the solicitor is sending someone over to speak with me. If anyone comes, will you ask them to wait? I won’t be long.”
“Of course. Take your time.” She glanced over her shoulder through a mullioned window. “The rain might chase you back. Do you have a brolly?”
I lifted the long, sturdy umbrella I’d brought with me. One thing England and San Francisco shared was a tendency toward rain. “Covered.”
Out on the sidewalk, I was one of only a handful of humans. A man in a fishing cap and a sweater vest walked a little dog who wore a knitted coat, the dog’s short legs flying. A pair of middle-aged women in raincoats hurried between shops.
The fresh air eased my mood, as always. I’d been a walker all my life, trained at my mother’s side from the time I was a small child. She had walked miles every day, and before I injured my leg, so had I. A scent of water and fertile earth filled the air. In the near distance, picturesque hills undulated behind Elizabethan buildings, looking as if they might fall over under their thatch roofs. The actual thatch surprised me, as I’d read an article on the expense and trouble of the material, and it looked surprisingly heavy.
The short, narrow lane opened to the square, a wide-open parkway with the butter cross in the middle. The narrow streets on all four sides were cobblestone, worn to slippery pale gray, and there was a fair amount of car traffic moving through, particularly on one side. Shops lined the street level—a handful of restaurants, a chemist, a sewing shop with a dusty-looking machine in the window. A bookshop stood at one corner, its mullioned window stacked with multicolored volumes, luring me closer. It wasn’t open yet, but I promised myself I could come back later and browse. My spirits lifted.
A medieval church stood on a rise at the opposite end of the square, and I aimed for it, peering in the rest of the windows I passed: the ubiquitous wool shop that looked as if it had been established in the thirties, a kitchen shop with bright-turquoise bowls and small appliances on display, a bakery that let the smell of coffee into the air, and a currently closed Indian restaurant with white-covered tables that made me suddenly homesick for my San Francisco neighborhood.
At the church, I paused to admire blackened headstones, unable to read more than a couple, then rounded the corner and walked up a slight rise to see beyond.