Page 29 of Coming Home to Roseford Villas
Rory, fearing for Leo’s back in the chalet’s bed, had insisted that he return to Roseford Villas before he fell asleep and regretted it. The bed, while comfy for one, wasn’t really a great solution if you had any kind of injury, so, it was with a pang of regret she saw him back to the main house. She’d dropped off for a few hours, but then woken while it was still dark, mulling over what he’d told her. There was no doubt that his life was tangled. She’d expected some complications, butnearlydivorced wasn’t the same as actually divorced, whatever the extenuating circumstances. Did she really want to get involved with someone who was starting something new, in a totally new place, and who carried so much baggage with him? Did she have the emotional capacity for that?
She cursed herself for overthinking it. If she’d learned one thing during this endeavour of hers to write her novel, it was that the course of true love didn’t so much never run smooth as become a raging, uncontrollable torrent on occasion. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying to navigate. The trouble was, she’d never been one for holiday romances. All of her previous relationships had been long term, and whilst she’d never foundThe Oneto settle down with, she was optimistic that one day it would happen. Much as her heart was starting to tell her otherwise, in practical terms, she couldn’t see that Leo was going to be The One. She was hard-wired for commitment, and holiday flings just weren’t part of her emotional vocabulary.
In frustration, she rolled over in bed. She knew she wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight. It was 4a.m. and she’d been lying awake since at least two. Hoping a cuppa and a read might settle her back down, she went to put the kettle on.
As she did so, she checked her phone, and was surprised to see she’d received an email from the trust that ran her school in York. As she read it, she nearly dropped the phone. Suddenly, the decision to blow the money she’d been saving on this indulgent few weeks in the West Country was coming back to bite her right on the arse. The trust, much to its regret, was giving her notice that after October half-term, she would be ceasing her employment with them. It was through no fault of her own, merely that the person she’d been covering had expressed their intention to return from their maternity leave somewhat earlier than expected. The Trust would like to express its thanks for all of her work over the past seven months and wished her well in her future endeavours.
Well, shit.Rory took an unguarded sip of her tea, forgetting how hot it still was. As it burned the roof of her mouth, tears stung her eyes and she dived for the cold tap. Gulping back several mouthfuls of cold water, she then slumped down on the bench seat. That was that, then. She might as well tell Alex that she’d be moving out a little earlier than she’d thought. At least Alex would have a new housemate in no time, since Luca was going to move in soon, anyway.
The email had pulled the rug out from under her feet. Without a steady income, and somewhere to live, she was going to be scuppered. While she knew that Alex wouldn’t chuck herout on the street, the thought of sharing the flat with a loved-up couple, and being unemployed, was about as far from ideal as it could get. She knew she’d be able to pick up supply teaching work, but the thought of that filled her with dread, since she’d probably end up going to different schools every day if she was unlucky.
At least, she thought, she had the money she’d saved from her change of accommodation this summer. That ought to tide her over for a month or so and would certainly help to pay her last couple of months’ share of the rent. Rory wasn’t a great believer in fate and the universe, but as she sipped her tea and the sky started to lighten towards another day, she couldn’t help wondering if someone up there was having a laugh at her expense. Not only was she in a quandary about Leo, but being served notice on her job, and with her flat share in the balance, she wondered what the next bomb was going to be that went off in her life. Sighing, she finished her tea and, feeling exhausted again, sloped back to bed for a couple of hours.
It was after eleven o’clock before she woke up again, and, groggy from the depth of her sleep, it took her a minute to get her bearings. Then, slowly, it all came back to her. She couldn’t help groaning aloud. But there was little time for introspection: she was due to meet Stella at twelve o’clock to spend some more time on what was now their joint research project into the relationships that linked the past residents of Roseford Hall and Halstead House. Shaking off her tiredness as best she could, she made a coffee, chucked herself under a shower, dressed and then hurried out.
Stella greeted her at the door of the Victorian mansion with a smile and an air of excitement, which turned rapidly to concern when she saw the expression on Rory’s face.
‘What’s wrong, hon?’ she asked as Rory crossed the threshold. ‘The last time I saw you, you were floating on a cloud of literary enthusiasm and lust!’
Rory allowed herself a quick smile at her friend’s turn of phrase. ‘That was then,’ she said, ‘and this, I’m afraid, is now.’
As they settled down with a mug of coffee and several substantial box files, Rory recounted all the layers of mess that had occurred since she’d seen her friend a couple of days ago.
‘So not only are Leo’s circumstances rather more complex than I could have guessed, but I’m going to be out of a job come the end of October, and without a steady income I can’t pay my half of the rent, which in itself won’t be a problem for Alex, but is a huge problem for me, unless I take the supply teaching route.’
‘You can’t be doing that,’ Stella replied, sipping her coffee. ‘I mean, it’s not a guaranteed income for one thing, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to rock up at a different school every day.’
‘It might not come to that,’ Rory conceded. ‘My current school will probably put me on the books, but that could just be a day or two a week, and nowhere near enough for me to live on.’ She dropped her gaze to the tabletop. ‘I just don’t know what I’m going to do, Stella.’ Rory had always been afraid of financial insecurity, ever since her dad had walked out on her mum and they’d struggled, when interest rates were high, to put food on the table. That had happened shortly after Leo had left for Australia, and had driven Rory to change her last name to ‘Dean’, her mother’s maiden name, later in life. She was terrified of being in a similarly financially unstable situation again as an adult. Her mother, who had remarried and now lived in a small village in the Cotswolds with her husband, couldn’t offer her a place to live as the cottage was so small, and the cost of living was even more prohibitive in that area than in York. Rory knewshe’d have to try to sort this out herself, but she didn’t have the first clue how she was going to even start.
During their conversation, Rory had been mindlessly leafing through the sheaf of papers from the box Stella had handed her. In an attempt to take her mind off her current predicament, she tried to lose herself in the events of the past, if just for a little while. As she carefully read through the letters, she noticed a strange little symbol in the corner of a couple of them.
‘Are these Edmund’s letters to Francesca?’ Rory asked. ‘Only I’ve seen this odd little squiggle before in the margins of the ones that were returned to the Treloar family after his death.’ Idly, delicately, she traced her index finger over the small, repeated doodle. It was so simple that, had she not seen it before on a couple of the other letters, she might not have noticed it, but it was starting to ring a distant bell in her mind.
Stella reached over and checked the index number on the archive box. ‘I thought they were,’ she said, brow wrinkling in confusion. ‘Hang on, let me check my spreadsheet. I’ve been trying to get the papers into some kind of order, mainly because Simon and the British Heritage Fund were keen to tease out the links between Halstead and Roseford Hall, but it’s very much a work in progress.’
Stella flashed up her laptop and within moments she’d located her spreadsheet. ‘Bear with me,’ she murmured as she did a search for the number on the box file.
Rory waited. As she did, she saw Stella’s expression change from one of curiosity to confusion, and then all-out surprise.
‘Rory,’ she said softly, ‘can I just take a look at the letter?’
‘Sure.’ Rory handed over the letter, and started to look at the next one from the box. ‘What is it you’ve found?’
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ Stella said slowly, ‘but I think you might have unearthed the real reason why Edmund’s letters remained with the Treloar family and were not sent onto Francesca Middleton after he died. I mean, why wouldn’t the family have wanted her to have them, if they’d been intended for her?’
‘Maybe they just wanted to keep them as last mementoes of their lost son,’ Rory volunteered. ‘After all, they were written only days before he died.’
‘But we already know he wrote to his mother and father at the same time,’ Stella said. She shook her head. ‘I think there’s more to it than that.’
‘How so?’
Stella raised her eyes triumphantly. ‘What if I told you that the letter you’re holding was never intended for Francesca Middleton at all?’
‘But how could that be?’ Rory asked. ‘I mean, it’s written to “F”. Who else could it be?’
‘Take a look at this.’ Stella rummaged in one of the boxes she’d pulled out. She pointed to the bottom corner of the letter. ‘See that?’
Rory’s eyes widened. ‘That’s the same little squiggle.’ She looked more closely at the letter. ‘But this isn’t Francesca’s handwriting. It’s totally different to the script on the diaries in the other box.’
