The Art of Inheriting Secrets(9)

Our approach this time was from the rear. The house appeared as we turned the corner. Under the low clouds, it shone bright gold and looked considerably less tattered than it had yesterday from the taxi. I recognized the roofline, the trees marching away from the rise, from my mother’s paintings. I thought of her, all these years, painting the place she’d left long ago, and it made me ache a little.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Rebecca said. “It gives me a thrill every time.”

I nodded.

“On the left are what remain of the gardens.” She pointed at a series of walls and terraces, tumbling down the hill. “They were created in the eighteenth century and were really quite famous. The old countess—I supposed that’s your grandmother—brought them back to life, but you see what time does.”

I nodded. Everything was overgrown, the bare lines visible here and there.

“On the right are the farms, which as you see are fully functional. The family never participated in the enclosures, so some of the tenants’ families have been here since the estate was created.”

The fields were winter empty, but they rolled out in tidy rows, broken here and there with cottages and hedgerows. “How many people are farming here?”

Rebecca frowned. “I don’t actually know. That would be a question for Jonathan. Enough to at least keep the taxes paid on the place.”

“What do they grow?”

“Rape, mostly, some barley. Obviously sheep.” She gestured toward a field of white bodies grazing in the distance. “A few other things, but the canola oil is the main thing.” She braked and let me look out across the fields for a minute. “It’s beautiful when it’s in bloom—bright-yellow flowers across the whole countryside.”

At the top of the hill, she parked, and we climbed out, waiting for Tony and Samir to pull in beside us. I took the chance to turn in a slow circle, trying to take it in—the farms and cottages, as quaint as a calendar picture. The ruined garden tumbled down the hill like an exhausted courtesan, and nearby crouched a wreck of a conservatory, glowing greenish blue in the cool light. I knew I would have to explore inside. Impulsively, I took my phone out and shot a series of photos. My fingers itched to sketch it all, but I’d left my sketchbook in the hotel room.

When I’d looked at the estate from the front the first day, the whole estate had appeared deserted. From this side, there were plenty of signs of life. A dormant garden waited for spring at the foot of what I assumed were the kitchen steps. “Who lives here?” I asked.

Rebecca answered, “The caretakers. There’s been someone here since your mother and her brother disappeared—forty years? Fifty?—although I believe they’re on holiday at the moment.”

Again, the brother. I needed to find out more about him. Why was I inheriting, when surely the brother or his heirs would have claim? “Not very much caretaking. Why didn’t they keep the house up?”

Samir stood beside me. “They’ve done what they could. It was already falling apart before everyone left. Your grandmother hated it and wanted it to fall down.”

“Why?”

He glanced down at me, and I realized that he really was quite tall. “That’s a long story. Come; let’s go inside.”

“Don’t you need a key?”

“No. Lock’s broken.”

“I’ve been living down the hill for years and never knew I could get inside!” Rebecca made a soft noise of excitement. “Are you coming, Tony?”

He lit a cigarette and shook his head. “I’ll wait.”

She hesitated, glancing first at the house, looming over us, and back to him. “I’m just dying to see it.”

A nod. He exhaled a cloud of blue smoke.

We three headed for the back door.

As Samir opened the door and stepped in, I found my heart pounding at what we might find. He turned, holding out a hand. “Countess,” he said, ever-so-faintly ironic.

Twisting my lips at the title, I took his hand, navigated the battered steps, and found myself in a big plain room, clean enough. Shelves and cupboards lined the entire space, mostly empty.

“This must be part of the pantry,” Rebecca said.

It was very cold inside, though without the bite we’d felt exiting the car, and utterly still. I followed Samir into the next room, which turned out to be a big kitchen, circa 1960. Yellowed sheet linoleum covered the floor, and stacks of boxes were piled on the counters, willy-nilly, as if the room had become a dumping ground.

But the windows were enormous, letting in great swaths of light even through the decades of dirt that had collected. A monstrous turquoise stove crouched beneath a hood. “An AGA!” Rebecca exclaimed, running fingers through the dust. “This was very top of the line at the time. I wonder if it still works?”

I’d done a feature on the British stoves. “Not sure they ever really die, do they?”

“We used to sneak in here and play when I was a child,” Samir said. “Dare each other to see who could go the farthest alone.”

“It’s really not that terrible,” I said. “I imagined much worse.”

“Just wait.” He waved a hand for us to follow. We picked our way through the maze of boxes, exiting through a more formal pantry, lined with shelves and cupboards. I wanted to peek inside and see if any dishes were left, dishes my mother might have eaten on as a child, maybe, or just something beautiful and old. I resisted the exploration and trailed Samir into another room.