Spider Light(27)
The only thing that had really been different at that stage of the holiday, had been Maria’s project about historic landmarks, and a sudden out-of-the-blue question from her as to whether it might be possible to buy Quire House. It was a bit dilapidated, but it would scrub up very nicely and it would be splendid for summer entertaining and weekend parties, what did anyone think?
What Donna thought–what she later said to Don–was that their mother had spotted a new toy, and was visualizing herself playing lady of the manor. Donna did not much like Quire House which seemed to her a rather sad place, and which Don, who was going through a slightly effete stage, said was an ugly specimen of an ugly architectural period. But they walked dutifully round the house one afternoon, peering in through windows and disturbing jackdaws’ nests. Their father was forced into agreeing to try to track down the owner, although the owner would probably be some inaccessible property company and there would be preservation orders and listed-building prohibitions on every square inch of brick so you could not even change a light bulb without permission. That being so, he said, Maria was not to build up any hopes.
Maria Robards promised not to do so, and switched temporarily back to her scavenging expeditions for historic buildings. She went off most afternoons armed with camera and loose-leaved notebook, dressed in co-ordinating trousers and tweed jackets because she refused to be seen in public, or even in private, wearing denim (shudder) or trainers (God forbid).
These well-dressed expeditions, inevitably, took her to Twygrist.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Twygrist. Even years afterwards, the name conjured up a smothering darkness for Donna.
Twygrist was the old watermill just outside Amberwood’s little market town. It was no longer working, but it was a bit of a landmark; local people said, ‘Turn left just past Twygrist,’ or, ‘He lives about a mile along from Twygrist.’
Twygrist might have been any age at all, but it had an air of extreme antiquity as if it had crouched there malevolently all through the Dark Ages. Even the clock set into one wall in memory of somebody or other, looked a bit like a face, so that from some angles you could imagine it was watching you as you went along the road.
Donna’s mother was fascinated by Twygrist. She scoured the local library and the offices of the local newspaper to find out about its history, which she related to her family. (‘Ad nauseam,’ said Don, who thought watermills nearly as gross as spending summer holidays with parents.)
Twygrist, said Maria undaunted by Don, had once stood on the edge of a vast estate owned by the local baronial lords, but a fire had destroyed almost the entire estate in the middle 1800s. After this, somewhere around 1860, the mill had been bought and put into working order by a certain Josiah Forrester, who had clearly been one of those canny Victorian gentlemen with an eye to a profit. ‘Your father would have had a lot in common with him, dears.’
Maria was trying to find a photograph of Josiah, although that was proving difficult, with photography having been in its infancy at the time. Still, there might be a painting somewhere–one of those municipal portraits in a library or something. Dundreary whiskers and a large stomach, like Edward VII, most likely.
She was also on the track of a man called George Lincoln, whom Josiah had employed as his miller towards the end of the nineteenth century. George, it seemed, had been a man of some substance. One had not known that millers were so highly regarded, but there were records of him having owned quite a big house with servants, so there you were, you could never tell who might be prosperous from one century to the next. She was going to spend the day at the nearby archive office, to see what she could find out about George and his family.
‘Your father’s going to drive me straight there after breakfast, aren’t you, Jim? It’ll be quite a long day, so we’ll have lunch out somewhere and get home around mid-afternoon. Are you two sure you won’t come with us?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Don, who had bought several new CDs in Chester the previous day, and was planning to lie on his bed and listen to them.
Maria thought this very antisocial of him, and would have started an argument, but their father interrupted, saying, ‘Oh leave the boy alone, my dear, he’s probably got girl problems, I know I had them at his age.’ Maria retorted that she did not see how having girl problems gave Don an excuse for sulks and moods. This, as Donna could have told them, had the effect of sending Don flouncing from the breakfast table, stumping crossly up the stairs to his bedroom and slamming the door so hard that the crockery on the dresser jiggled.
‘Typical teenager,’ said Donna’s father resignedly, and her mother suggested they leave Don to his romantic sulks, and that Donna came with them.
But Donna did not feel like chasing millers across half of Cheshire, and her mother would expect her to act as assistant and make masses of tedious notes. So she said she would stay at the cottage, and perhaps walk down to Amberwood later. She could look round the little art gallery–they’d some quite good jewellery last summer. She was into chunky modern jewellery at the moment, said Donna. Don might come with her if he could be torn away from his CDs, but she did not care if he did not. Whatever they did they would be perfectly all right. Yes, they would prepare a meal for tonight.
After her parents left, Donna wandered around the cottage, trying to summon up the energy to walk down to Amberwood. Girl problems, their father had said. Girl problems…Donna had not known about any girl in Don’s life. Who was she, this unknown girl, who might be the cause of his flouncing tantrums? Probably she did not exist. But if she did, how old was she? Don’s age? Younger–fourteen or so? That was not too young for sexual adventures these days–Donna knew that perfectly well. Had Don been to bed with this girl?