Drawing the Line (16 page)

Largely because he closed the doors before I could get out and pulled away, I agreed. But I didn’t want a sandwich or drink. I was sure I’d seen those gates before. Sure.

I’d seen thousands of gates before. Well, hundreds. In those books Griff liked me to study. One pair must look very like another.

OK, then. Bossingham itself and the Hop Pocket. The village was dead ordinary, or at least this part – mostly bungalows, though with a cluster of older houses where the road took a sharp bend. A sign said there was a twelfth-century church a mile away. I needed food more than exercise. The Hop Pocket was little more than a double-fronted cottage, with a porch tacked on in front. Inside it was the sort of pub you dream about, not smart at all, wooden floors there because they’ve been there for ages, not self-consciously twee because they make a cool ambience. OK, there were a few hops scattered about, and a hop shovel, but no one had run riot with a mishmash of old artefacts simply because a designer who wouldn’t know his arse from an ear of corn had told him to. I found a corner table and a local newspaper and checked the blackboard menu. I read, you might say, from right to left, going for price, not what Griff would call gastronomic appeal. All the same, the sandwich I bought was full to overflowing, and after buying my first drink I took courage and asked for a glass of tap water. The lad behind the bar was only my age, and, finger to lips, handed one over.

‘D’you know anything about Bossingham Hall?’ I asked, toasting him silently.

He pulled a face. ‘His Lordship – that’s Lord Elham, though of course Elham village is a few miles away – he doesn’t come in here. Everyone else in the village does; not him.’

I gestured: was he snooty?

The barman shook his head. ‘By all accounts he’s just weird. Even the people working at the Hall say that. You know, the volunteer guides and so on.’

‘Weird in what way?’

But at this point a party of walkers stomped in, reorganising tables and shouting contradictory orders. Weird? Well, I’d have to find out for myself.

Through those gates, then. Into an avenue of chestnut trees and oaks, on to a road rough with potholes. Where the trees might have met, on the horizon, was Bossingham Hall. Imagine making the journey in a luxurious coach, to be greeted by a candlelit house. You’d already be planning which clothes your servant would lay out, which jewels she’d clasp round your neck and wrists.

No upholstered chaise for me. No, nor posh car. In fact motorists were sent on a diversion, so at least as a pedestrian I had a journey more in keeping with history. The house dominated the long walk. And it was long – a mile or more, I’d say.
If
this were the house,
if
my mother had brought me here, had she made me walk? Had she had the luxury of a buggy? Or had the poor woman been forced to carry me? A toddler can weigh heavy. Had I been quiet, or struggled, like Victoria, the child in the shop? Had I had a terrible tantrum, the sort to make her curl with embarrassment or simply bend and slap me, as I’d come to slap myself?

As I got closer I could see that the hall was a typical Palladian mansion, on a fairly large scale. It might even have had a facelift to transform it from an ordinary old house into something the neighbours would talk about. And they would have talked about it. It had a lovely symmetrical frontage, with a central portico like a Greek temple, four columns topped by a pediment. They might have said that the new wings were a bit on the large side. Should I have thought so? If only Griff had been with me to guide my eye.

He’d have been incensed that present-day visitors weren’t admitted via the great front door, reached by a wide and impressive flight of steps. We were sent to the side, where a couple of blue-rinsed ladies intercepted us. I paid my money and took up what felt more like an order than a kind invitation to leave my heavy bags with them. Flexing numbed fingers, I cast financial sense to the winds and bought the glossy guidebook too. I could call it research. Then I followed the signs, which took me via a corridor full of Lely look-alike ladies, all long noses and pursed mouths a-simper, to the entrance hall, which didn’t look at all impressive. Why not? I walked to the front doors and turned back to face it, as if I’d been a visitor arriving properly, not just a customer. It was only then that I got the full impact of the symmetrical stairs, starting either side of the hall and meeting in the middle as they rose. If only I’d known all the proper terms. But I didn’t, and I had to be content with a long and uneducated gawp. Mustn’t it have been wonderful to live in a place like this in its heyday? Probably, though, I’d have been no more than a tweeny, and would have spent more time dusting the statues and banister rails than admiring them. The son of the house would probably have got me pregnant, and I’d have been turned off without a shilling or a reference.

Was that what had happened to my mother? Had she been a servant here?

I bit my lip, and took a deep breath. I was moving too fast. Sure this place felt familiar, but I might simply have seen others like it in Griff’s books – no architect worth his salt wouldn’t have wanted to put similar staircases in similar halls, once he’d got all the head-scratching out of
the way and knew how to make cantilevers work. There! A word had come back. Was that an omen?

I worked my way though the house, loving the proportions of each room, even if I felt some of the later Victorian colour schemes really vulgar, not to mention the fact that they clashed with the fireplaces. No, not a greyish white one in sight. Their marble was more yellowish than the one in my memory. One in the morning room was rust-coloured, and whoever had chosen crimson wallpaper should have been ashamed, especially when it was supposed to be an informal room. The library was my favourite room, not just full of books, as you’d expect, but with two very nice cabinets full of china to die for – Meissen, Sevres, Derby. The dining room was a bit of a let-down. The furniture wasn’t much better than Ralph Harper’s stuff, out of proportion and full of mismatched veneers. There was part of a Worcester dinner service on the table, and what looked like Stourbridge glass, but I wouldn’t have thought any of it top of the range. The drawing room must have been very pretty in its heyday, with a yellow satin wall-covering and chairs with toning upholstery. It was a pity someone hadn’t taken a needle to it years ago: now it would need a full restoration. Visitors were allowed to see only two bedrooms. They both had hidden doors: I’d have given my teeth to nip over the elegant cord keeping us at bay and sneak a look at what lay behind. Ever since Griff showed me my first stately house, that’s what I’d wanted to do. Forget the public rooms – up to a point at least – and show me where real life was lived, the servants’ rooms and their bedrooms. We were allowed a peep into a bathroom, presumably once a
dressing room, with a two-seater loo and more mirrors than I’d have thought Victorian ladies would have considered decent. Perhaps they still had hipbaths in their rooms, and left this sort of thing to peacocking gentlemen. And that was it. I’d seen no more than about a tenth of the house, but my tour was over and I was being courteously directed to the gift shop and tearoom, which was situated in the original kitchen.

Forget the gifts. But a Coke wouldn’t come amiss, and I had a plan. I could read the guidebook while I drank it and maybe talk my way in for another poke round.

For
maybe
read
definitely
. The guidebook was a mine of information about the owners, the Duke of Elham, which they kindly told us was pronounced Ealham, even giving a family tree on the back cover. They traced their ancestry back to the Conquest, would you believe? Yes, the original castle was built with the hush money William the Bastard doled out to his cronies, even if the book didn’t put it quite that way. Anyway, once the family had got a toehold in the country, they’d spread all over it, like a patchy rash. They had estates here, there and everywhere at one point, though some had been sacrificed to pay debts – they must have been a spendthrift lot. Then they came into money in the eighteenth century, though trade, the book said, and decided to go to town on Bossingham Hall, which was nice and convenient for London, where they spent most of their time. There were some lovely portraits from this period, including a spectacular Reynolds of the then Lady Elham, and a Gainsborough of her sister-in-law. Clearly whatever the trade had been it was what Griff called
lucrative: I realised with a shudder that at that period it might well have involved human cargo. Yes, I’d been at one school long enough to go on a trip to the maritime museum in Liverpool, with its slavery exhibition. There were even worse things to be than skivvies at a great house, or homeless antique dealers.

The Victorian period had seen the family solemnly respectable, encouraging Nonconformism in the area. But one of their sons had been a mate of Edward, Prince of Wales, Victoria’s eldest son. He’d got involved, the book said coyly, in some of the prince’s sexual peccadilloes. I’d never seen the word before but I had a shrewd idea what it meant. The family fortunes rose during the first world war, dipped in the thirties, and never really picked up again. Perhaps that was when they flogged the decent dining furniture, popping in cheap replacements.

This was the only major estate still in the hands of the family, who now held it in trust. The present Lord Elham, who did not enjoy good health, lived very privately. There was no mention of where he lived, of course. But my divvy’s instinct told me I’d find someone interesting on the far side of some of the green baize doors I’d seen, marked, in large letters, PRIVATE. So I’d have to get through them, one way or another, wouldn’t I?

‘There’s so much I never registered,’ I told Blue Rinse One, whose face this time had no welcome in it. ‘There are hardly any other people around now, so I could get a proper look at the Bow figures in the blue corridor, instead of a baby in a rucksack and a Japanese girl with a camcorder.’

‘Video? That’s highly irregular!’

‘Especially close to such valuable stuff,’ I agreed, shaking my head at the wickedness of people ignoring all the NO PHOTOGRAPHY signs. ‘She moved on to another cabinet – can’t remember what the room was called, though. Sorry.’

‘Can you show me where she was?’

‘Of course.’ Right. I was in. OK, it was a ploy, but I’d have challenged even Griff to object to it. It was worrying, of course, that she should be so easily taken in: maybe I’d point this out when I’d finished. Anyone could have invented the same story, leaving security very weak at the front entrance.

She set off briskly, leaving Blue Rinse Two to guard the fort. I bobbed along behind her, feeling like a little tug in the wake of a liner.

‘Just where was this room?’

In my imagination, of course. ‘At the far end of one of the corridors upstairs.’ It was true that there were cabinets there, with a mixed bag of items, some of which should have been given more public airings. ‘Along here, I think.’

‘There’s no sign of her now.’

Nor had there ever been. ‘I’m sorry. But maybe one of the room guides stopped her?’

She nodded, but clearly wasn’t happy about leaving me for my second bite of the cherry. However, I avoided her eye, peering hard at the display. Rockingham; Minton; Chelsea – if only I could have reached them out and handled them. Even when she’d gone, I lingered. However, what I was supposed to be doing was something else I wasn’t supposed to be doing at all –
searching for and opening one of those “Private” doors.

Whatever I did, I mustn’t arouse anyone else’s suspicions. Blue Rinse had a shrewd idea I’d conned her. She might even warn the room guides – or guards – as she returned to base. So I set off again at what I hoped was a typical tourist pace, dawdling here and there, but always making my way purposefully to one of my goals.

Only to find the unmistakable signs of an alarm system. It didn’t look as sophisticated as ours, but I’d bet Griff’s treasured figurine to a Ty Beanie that it’d make more noise than I’d like. The other one was protected too. And I’d bet that there was no chance of nipping through one of those hidden bedroom doors – they’d be bolted the far side.

I was just about to droop with despair when I found that if I ignored a one-way sign I could get back to the library. The china in there would have been worth a visit in itself. So I stood and stared, once again itching to hold some of it in my hands.

‘You seem very keen?’

I jumped. A lady, elderly but definitely not blue rinse, had materialised.

‘I just love the stuff,’ I said simply. ‘That Meissen group. Look at the delicacy of the modelling. And the colours are –’ I searched for a Griff-ish word ‘– simply exquisite.’

‘You’re an expert?’ It didn’t sound like an accusation.

‘Not yet. But I’m studying hard.’ Half of my brain was inventing a CV that would pass muster; the other simply wanted to respond to her smile. ‘Are you part of the family?’ Jesus, was I after a grandmother now, as well as a father?

‘Just a volunteer. If I didn’t come here as a guide, I might even come as a visitor, I love the china so much. What’s your interest?’

‘Restoration.’ The truth just popped out. Part of it. ‘Still learning.’

‘I’m afraid some of this could do with your attentions. Look at that poor sweetmeat dish. You wouldn’t mend a crack like that, would you?’

I gave her a two-minute rundown on how it should be rescued.

‘And how much would it cost?’

I thought of a figure and doubled it. Then I was more honest. ‘And I really couldn’t do it for less. When I’m fully qualified, I’d have to charge what I said first.’

‘I doubt if the trustees would pay even the more modest sum.’

‘But it’d be worth it!’

‘You and I both know that. But there’s been some sort of dispute, and economy is the order of the day.’

‘A family row! In a place this size! Why don’t they just go to opposite end of the house and cool off?’

‘If only they could. One wing’s closed up altogether. It’s used to store items awaiting the ministrations of someone like you, or items marked for sale when the market picks up.’

‘What about the other?’

‘Oh, that’s as good as closed up. Lord Elham lives there. And though it was he who organised the trust, he’s not speaking to any of the trustees.’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘Because left to himself he’d have sold the whole house, contents and all.’

I gasped.

‘Quite. So when they threatened legal action, his heirs, that is, all distant cousins, he made a pre-emptive strike, and said he’d spare them death duties provided he was allowed to live on rent-free. He owns nothing now. But they don’t own anything either, not as individuals. And if they start bickering, it goes to the National Trust instead.’

‘Canny old bugger!’ Whoops. Old ladies didn’t like swearing.

She didn’t so much as blink. ‘Canny bugger indeed. But not so old.’

My heart sank. I needed old. Mature, at least.

‘About fifty, I suppose. Sixty at most.’

That’d do.

‘He’s a complete eccentric, and –’ Her pager beeped. ‘Ah! That’s my signal to tell you that the house is closing and that you should make your way to the exit, where the shop and tea-rooms will be open for a further hour.’ She smiled. ‘But I have to check each room on my patch as I go, so if you want to come with me and have one last look you’d be very welcome.’

In the end she introduced herself as Mrs Walker and, while I collected my bags from Blue Rinse Two, bought me a cup of tea and a slice of cake, chattering away about her life and how she came to work at the Hall. It seemed she’d spent her life as a history teacher, retiring to the village with her husband, who’d contracted some rare cancer years after working in the petro-chemical industry and died within six weeks of its being diagnosed.

‘So why didn’t you go back home,’ I asked, aghast,
‘now you’re on your own?’

‘Do you know Streatham? Then you’ll know it’s not the prettiest or cleanest of places…’

More of her life. More and more. Well, teachers spend their lives talking, so I suppose they miss it when they give up. I can’t say I was excited, but she’d bought me a huge slice of gateau and given me a bit of information I could go on, so I tried not to fidget or yawn, even if I was concentrating more on how to get back to Bredeham than on what she was saying. But she’d mentioned Lord Elham again.