Page 31 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
We set off again and passed through a pair of open wrought-iron gates. In fact, they didn’t look as if they were capable of closing, for weeds grew up around them and one was leaning at a distinct angle.
‘Does the Lodge belong to you, as well? It looks quite big, as they go.’
‘It is part of the estate and it’s surprisingly large. Apparently Ralph Revell had it built for his friend, the architect of Mossby, Rosslyn Browne. It was completed before the house itself.’
‘You know a lot about the place already,’ I said as he stopped so Icould get a good look at it. It was a sort of no-frills mini-Mossby, the two small bay windows linked by a porch rather than a veranda.
‘That’s because the solicitor, Mr Wilmslow, started to drip-feed me the family history the moment I stepped through the door last Thursday. Wilmslow & Parbold have been the Revells’ solicitors for generations, so I expect he knows all our secrets. Ella and Clem Parry live in the Lodge,’ he added. ‘She’s my uncle’s stepdaughter by his second marriage. He employed her as housekeeper and Clem as gardener and let them live there rent free.’
‘What are they like?’
‘He’s very pleasant and an excellent gardener, but she’s a bit grim and unwelcoming. Mr Wilmslow said she persuaded my uncle into making a will last year, assuming she’d inherit Mossby, so when I came out of the woodwork it must have been a nasty surprise.’
‘Didn’t your uncle leave heranything?’
‘No, apparently he’d never liked Ella and felt he’d been more than generous in offering the Parrys employment and a roof over their heads. Clem lost his previous job due to an alcohol problem about fifteen years ago but he hasn’t fallen off the wagon since. And my uncle needed someone to run the house, because his health was deteriorating even then. He must have been a creaking gate, though, because he was ninety-one when he died.’
‘She being his stepdaughter, I can see why Ella would be upset that he hadn’t acknowledged that in his will,’ I suggested.
‘That’s just what I thought at first, but it’s not quite so cut and dried: he’d never adopted Ella and she was seven when her mother died and she was sent to live with an aunt. He continued to support her financially through school and college, too, so Mr Wilmslow said she didn’t have any grounds to claim against the estate.’
‘Julian’s solicitor saidImight have a claim on his estate as a dependant, but I wasn’t one; I’ve always earned my salary,’ I said. ‘Are the Parrys going to stay on?’
‘I don’t know – I’ll need to have a discussion with them about that when I’ve found my feet. Clem’s more than worth his generous salary as a gardener, but I don’t need a housekeeper and she doesn’t seem to domuch. She does act as tour guide on the rare occasions when the Elizabethan wing is opened up for a coach party.’
That rang a bell. ‘Oh, I’m sure she was the one who showed us round when I came on that WI trip! Tall, dark hair and eyes, long beaky nose – reminded me of Mrs Danvers, the evil housekeeper inRebecca!’
‘Yes, that sounds like her – she made me think of Mrs Danvers, too.’
I looked at him curiously. ‘I thought you only read non-fiction and Terry Pratchett?’
‘I ran out of anything to read in the hospital and it was that or a lot of ditsy novels about cupcakes and fairy-wing repair shops by the beach.’
‘I don’t think I’ve come across the fairy-wing repair shop one,’ I mused.
‘Probably not: I made it up.’
‘Maybe you should write it?’ I suggested, then reverted back to the subject in hand. ‘So, you have a gardener and a housekeeper. How about a butler and two footmen?’
‘Ho, ho,’ he said.
A movement caught the corner of my eye. ‘The curtain in one of the front rooms just twitched. I think someone’s watching us,’ I said uneasily. ‘I suppose it is rather nosy of us to park opposite the Lodge and stare.’
‘I can park anywhere I like on my own estate,’ Carey declared grandly, but started the car again and drove up the hill, between banks of overgrown rhododendrons. Paths seemed to dive off down small dark tunnels of undergrowth towards the lake on the left, but we carried on until the drive started to level out a bit.
‘Here’s the stained-glass workshop coming up on the right,’ he announced, slowing. ‘I’ve got the keys with me, because when I found out about the Jessie Kaye connection I thought you wouldn’t be able to resist coming back with me for a quick look. Do you want to see it now?’
‘Of course I do!’ I said. ‘I can’t wait!’
The day was drawing in as we passed through a pair of wonderfully ornate and gilded wrought-iron gates, guarded by a substantial lodge.
The drive curved uphill and passed some outbuildings, including what looked incongruously like a small mill, or something of that kind. Father told me the present Mr Revell’s father had built it in order to employ some of the local people in the making of hosiery, or some such thing, though it was not now in use.
‘Except as a workshop by those employed in building and furnishing Mossby. But now all is nearly completed, I believe Mr Revell intends to demolish it. The stables and a walled garden lie behind.’
Little did I know then that it would one day become my place of refuge and solace, or I might have paid more attention to it. But we had passed on towards the house and I felt an eager sense of anticipation.
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