The Art of Inheriting Secrets(46)

“Still in process, but I have no doubt the sum will be plenty to get us started.”

“Good. You should have funds from the estate as well, so I’m confident in our ability to get it all moving. The plan is to air an episode every eight weeks as long as we have good material. We’ll start with our first walk-through two weeks ago and add whatever we get from today, which will air in April. Is that all right?”

I blinked. I’d imagined filming for ages, then finally, somewhere down the line, a season focused on Rosemere. “That’s fast,” I said.

“It is,” Jocasta said.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” I said with a shrug.

“That’s the spirit! We’ll film some sort of canned bits today for the credits—all about the house and that—and then one day next week, I’ll bring the hair and makeup team out, and we’ll film the intro with the two of us that will frame the story. Sound good?”

“Sure.”

It was a daunting afternoon, in the end. The historian cited so many facts that my head was spinning, and I resolved to get my notes in order when I got back to the hotel. My head was stuffed with generations of history. Centuries of it.

Dizzying.

The minute the group drove away, I texted Samir. Jocasta says the project is a go!

That’s AMAZING. Where are you now?

Still at Rosemere. She just left.

I’ve just driven back from TK. Still in work clothes, but will come there. 10 min.

Find me by conservatory.

A bank of clouds hung in the distance as I walked back down the hill to the wrecked conservatory. More rain later, but this was April in England. What else should a person expect? On one of the hills, a scattering of white balls littered the velvety green grass, a flock of sheep, and the fields that had been empty upon my arrival now clearly showed a glaze of green. Rapeseed, for canola oil. Rebecca had told me that the fields were beautiful when it bloomed.

I didn’t yet feel a sense of ownership as I headed down the hill, but something in my heart ached to preserve the land as it was, maybe save the house for generations to come. For my sake? My mother’s? I didn’t know.

The longer light of late afternoon angled through the broken panes of glass in the conservatory, giving sharp shadows and edgings of gold to the blue glass. The iron framework had oxidized unevenly, coloring the scrollwork and curlicues of the roof with uneven splashes of orange. Somewhere in the distance, a bird cried loudly, a call I thought I should recognize but couldn’t quite pull in—loud and screechy. A little creepy, honestly, as I poked my head into the door of the conservatory.

I caught my breath, drawn forward by wonder into the ruined landscape of a plant extravaganza. Vines and shrubs grew wild, and some of them were covered with flowers I didn’t recognize. Within, it was warmer than outside, and a breeze whistled through a giant gap near the roof. My footsteps alerted a pair of pigeons, who flew out of their hidden nest to pump with muscular wings toward that giant hole, cooing in protest.

I took out my phone and started shooting photos of the panes of glass and the oxidized iron and the crazy growth of plants. Some of the trunks of the vines were as thick as my arm. I recognized bright-magenta geraniums in one corner and a spill of white petunias.

Everywhere I’d been feeling my mother at Rosemere, but here I felt my grandmother. And as if to conjure her fully, a peacock suddenly trotted into the space from nowhere, as if he were a ghost. His bright black eyes fastened on me with curiosity and no fear, and I remembered that they were bold creatures, sometimes aggressive. This one seemed only curious as he strode toward me, blue head and neck shimmering in the strange watery light, his jeweled tail feathers swishing behind him like the train of a gown. “Hello, bird,” I said.

He walked a wide half circle around me, made a low gargling noise, then disappeared through an opening beneath a long table. I laughed. Of course that had been the bird call I hadn’t quite recognized—the call of a peacock.

Such Indian birds. Had my grandmother brought them home with her? And what else was in her untouched bedroom? Journals, letters, accounts?

Add it to the list, I told myself.

“Hello?” Samir’s voice came through the door. “Olivia, are you there?”

“In the conservatory,” I said. “I’m coming out.”

He waited at the end of the walk and pointed as I emerged. “Did you see the peacock?”

“He was just inside, like he owned the joint.”

“He probably does. I’ve heard there is a flock of them in the woods, but I’ve never seen one. Seems very auspicious, doesn’t it?”

I smiled. “A party of peacocks.”

“Is that the name for a group of them?” He looked down at me, and the heavy black curls fell forward. As ever, he flung them back with one hand, impatiently. I wondered why he didn’t cut it all off if it so bothered him, but I hoped he never would.

“Yes.”

“One of my favorites is a congregation of alligators.”

“A murder of crows,” I said.

“Too easy. Everyone knows that one.”

“Oh, well, I see, sir. Surprise me, then.”

He narrowed his eyes in thought. “A parliament of owls.” In his accent, it sounded noble and elegant, the soft swallowed r, lingering l.