Page 34 of Happily Ever After
‘It’s… something like that.’ I hid my face in my wine glass now.
‘Thought so. Sometimes she has a bit of a go about you but I always leap to your defence, Andi. I know how much you need to stay.’ A pause. ‘Are yousureyou won’t just marry me? It would solve such a lot of problems for both of us.’
I raised my head and looked properly at him. Bony, hairy legs, visible from the knee down under the layers of skirt and ending in a slightly-too-small pair of Dior narrow-toed pumps. His top half wore a bodice covered by a silver jacket, with a padded bra. (‘Just to give the dress shape, I’m not into women’s underwear.’) His wig had moved slightly, due to alcohol. He looked like a debauched society beauty who just hadn’t taken much care of her personal grooming lately.
And I knew, once again, that I couldn’t marry him. Poor, desolate Hugo, heir to an estate that he didn’t want, and a future he was going to hate.
‘Sorry, Hugo.’ I put my now-empty glass down. ‘It wouldn’t work. And even if weweremarried, you still couldn’t dress up when your mother was about.’
‘Suppose not.’ He hiccupped. ‘I’ll just have to wait for Mother to drop off her perch, take over Templewood, get it in a fit state to sell and then’ – he made a wild hand movement that nearly spilled his wine – ‘head for the hills. Find myself an assistant to steer me through. Maybe I could learn to make friends. An all-boys boarding school wasn’t my best preparation for life, but at least I’d have money behind me from the sale of the estate.’
‘You can’tbuyfriends, Hugo,’ I said sternly.
‘No.’ His momentary animation was gone. ‘I know that. If it was simple, like being rich got you companionship, then I’d be fine. I just don’t have the right personality to be a playboy, do I?’
I shook my head. Then a thought struck me. ‘Whowouldinherit, though? If Jasper doesn’t want Templewood, and your mother disinherited you, who would she leave it to?’
‘I don’t bloody know.’ Hugo poured himself more wine. ‘Probably leave it to the gardener or something, knowing Mother. Or Mrs Compton. Someone who would “properly take care of the place”.’ He mimicked Lady Tanith’s Dreadfully Upper Class accent.
Oh no, don’t give me that thought.I excused myself and headed off to bed, weaving my way down the landing and past the hanging balcony to my room.Don’t start another story, where Jay will inherit if I can persuade Hugo to tell his mother about the frock-wearing. Jay and I…I stopped, flopping down onto my mattress.Jay already only thinks that I talked to him because I thought there was something in it for me. When actually… actually I rather like him anyway. Even if– my eyes began to close –his clothing choices are nowherenearas lovely as Hugo’s.
Thankfully, I had set an alarm, because I would have slept through Lady Tanith’s treasured twenty-first of the month breakfast otherwise. Although that might have been rather better, because I felt decidedly fragile when I tiptoed my way down the stairs to the Breakfast Room and was confronted by the smell of kippers and kidneys, Mrs Compton having taken a leaf out of thePride and Prejudicecookbook this morning.
‘Good morning, Andi.’ Hugo looked like I felt and we exchanged a glance of regret over the toast and kedgeree.
‘Church at eleven thirty sharp, both of you.’ Lady Tanith sipped a delicate cup of tea and nibbled a small piece of roll. ‘And, after that, a chat in the library, Andromeda, if you would, please.’
My stomach jumped. ‘Can we not have the chat in the library before church?’ I asked, sticking firmly to only a cup of coffee, despite the goodies on display.
‘No. I have work to do. After church.’ She got to her feet. ‘And appropriately dressed, please. Both of you.’
As she closed the door, Hugo gave me a wide-eyed stare of panic. ‘Oh God. You don’t think she knows, do you?’
‘I think it’s more of a dig at us both for wearing jeans on the morning of an Oswald Day. To be honest, I think she’d probably prefer you in a ball gown. Honouring his memory and all that.’
‘Don’t even joke about it.’ Hugo subsided. ‘Honestly, I never used to worry about… about Mother finding out. Nowyouknow, I’m in a state of perpetual agony.’
‘Sotell her.’
He dropped his gaze. ‘You know I can’t. For her, for me, for the estate. It’s all right, Andi, I’ve kept this up for the last twenty years, I can keep it up for a bit longer.’
Not for the century or so that your mother is going to live on, I thought, leaving the room to head upstairs. I needed a wash and to wake up properly before I lurched to the library for a morning’s dedicated slumping and headache-losing before church. Lady Tanith was so nearly a vampire that it had crossed my mind, when I was still thinking that Marie was real and that I had psychic powers, that this might turn out to be some kind of paranormal horror story. I’d be drained of my blood and life force, to give new energy to Lady Tanith, and I’d continue searching through the library for eternity. Especially given all the mysterious thumpings and footsteps that went on around this place, and the fact that it was so large it could have housed an entire pack of Igors, plus laboratories.
But it wasn’t. It was just life, ‘boredom and shit’, as Jay had described it.
I felt a bit of a pang when I remembered him and his accusations. He’d jumped to unfair conclusions about me, and that made him a judgemental idiot. Which was a shame, when I thought about how nice he’d been that night of the storm, then in the morning, giving me coffee and talking to me about my generally thwarted great expectations, and the tour of the gardens when he’d been wonderfully practical. Jay was genuinely straightforward and straightforwardness and practicality seemed to be in very short supply around the rest of Templewood.
Oh well. Onwards and… onwards. I went to my room to splash my face with cold water before I started in the library, to try to make myself feel awake and able to cope with a day of dusty tomes, a church service, and Lady Tanith. As I climbed the stairs, I wondered how my parents were doing out in Canada. Film crews, travelling and the general bustle of making a TV series didn’t leave them much time for postcards and they would probably have phoned Jude with updates. I hadn’t even given them the number for Templewood, although I had sent Jude an email to tell her where I was and what I was doing.
Somehow, life here seemed to exist in a bubble. Contact from my family would have been strange, like a message from another planet. They’d be busy, and they knew I could get in touch in an emergency. Jude was probably waiting for me to message and say I was at Truro railway station, could she come and pick me up and was it all right if I stayed in her annexe? Even though this whole venture had been her idea, I’d been able to tell at the time that she gave it about a week before I came running back, unable to cope with real life.
Ha! I sluiced my face. I was showing her! Then I remembered how I’d felt last night and my wondering whether Jude had had to adopt a personality to get away from our upbringing. Perhapsshewas showingme. Being yourself wasn’t enough, sometimes you had to find your inner dragon to get through life.
I wondered if Hugo had an inner dragon and if he did, how I could tempt it out so he could have a life.
From overhead, in the attic, came the creaking again. I’d learned to ignore the strange noises that the house made, wind whistling through gaps in the woodwork, rattles and bangs and drips, but I had never got used to the footsteps. If that was what they were. I was still clinging on to the hope that mice or squirrels in the attic could account for the regular, board-to-board groan, as though the woodwork was being subjected to pressure.
I raised my head. It could be rats? But only if they were extremely large – which I didn’t want to think about. Birds? I knew they scuffled in and out somewhere above my window, I’d seen their shapes as newly fledged youngsters dropped into the air and launched out across the acres. Swifts had built nests like small, upturned pots under the guttering and frequently lined up along fences or overhead wires to prepare for leaving. Maybe they were responsible for the noises in the attic?
