The Dream House (53 page)

‘Cosy in here,’ said Dan, coming in and closing the door. He peeled off his coat and dropped it onto the chaise longue before coming over and sitting on the sofa in front of the fire in the already darkening room. He sat in complete stillness for a moment, his forearms resting on his knees, fingers entwined.

‘Where did you go? I wasn’t sure whether to wait.’ Kate knew she sounded grumpy but she didn’t care.

‘Sorry. Everything just seemed too big to deal with. I walked round the village a bit then went up to the church. Visited Agnes’s grave, in fact. Was it you who left the chrysanthemums?’

‘No. Maybe it was Marie, or Max. I don’t know.’

‘Oh. Well, if you don’t think I’m crazy, I talked to Agnes. Cleared my head.’

‘I won’t tell anyone you’re a fruitcake. What did you say to her?’

‘Just that I was . . . fond of her, and that wherever she was, she must know the truth now and I hoped she was glad it was me. And I wanted to reassure her that her daughter probably had a good life, that she was loved.’

‘You know,’ Kate broke in. ‘I’ve just remembered. In one of the diaries, Agnes talks about meeting Ethel during the war. It was something about asking if her daughter wanted a job in this house and Ethel turning her down. How weird.’ Kate got up. ‘I’ll go and find . . .’

Dan pulled at her sleeve. ‘No, wait,’ he said. ‘It’ll keep.’ She sank back into the chair. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘So have I,’ she rushed in. ‘I realize now, you’re absolutely right.’

‘About what?’ he said, puzzled.

‘What you said earlier. About what Agnes would have wanted. I’ve made a decision, Dan.’ She took a deep breath, felt a dizziness in her head. ‘If Agnes
ha
d
known you were her great-grandson she would definitely have left you the house.
Definitely
. So it’s right that you should have it. You must have it.’

‘But . . .’

‘So it’s yours. I don’t need it, not really. We can find somewhere else nice to live. I will need some money, though, a bit from selling some of the stuff in this place – but perhaps we can talk about that. Then the children and I will get ourselves somewhere locally and I’ll find a job. But we’ll be OK. Oh, and maybe Max can have his money, too.’

‘Kate. Kate, listen!’ Dan’s expression was soft. ‘Do you mean that? Do you really mean that?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do. I wouldn’t feel happy here, knowing it should be yours, do you see? I’d feel like an imposter. It wouldn’t feel like home.’

He shook his head in amazement, then reached out a hand and squeezed hers. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘You’re incredible. You really are.’ He released her and stared in concentration at the carpet.

‘But you see, when I was talking to Agnes and thinking about things, I reached absolutely the opposite conclusion.’ He seemed agitated now, and got up and started to wander round the room. He picked up a porcelain bird from the mantelpiece, rubbed some dust off it and carefully set it down again. He turned towards Kate.

‘This discovery hasn’t fundamentally changed me, who I am. It’s like looking at myself with a new filter, in a sharper focus, that’s all. But I’m still the same old Dan with the same moodiness and the same ambitions. I’ve made mistakes in my life, I’ll probably make more. But I’ll get some things right and good things will happen. And I’m not unhappy really. I’ve got a home of my own. Yes, it’s small, but I love it and I can work there. I’ve got a business that’s going well. And someone’s interested in buying my paintings – and painting is what I really want to do.

‘Seddington House is lovely and it’s the family home, but I don’t need it. Do you see? It’s important to me because Agnes loved it and she wanted it to go to a Melton. But I really, genuinely think, that she would be happy for you to have it still. And so you must have it, Kate. It’s yours.’

Kate laughed, a little bark of a laugh. ‘Now who’s being incredible, Dan? You’re extraordinary.’

Feeling suddenly overwhelmed, she too got up and went over to the French windows. Outside, the garden was drab, sodden. Moss grew over the flagstones of the terrace. But soon the weather would be warmer. Little green shoots would appear, pushing their way up through the earth’s shroud, and before you knew it, the garden would be dotted with snowdrops, then early daffodils and crocuses. The spring air would throb with birdsong.

She faced Dan once more. ‘Is that truly what you want?’

Dan didn’t look at her. He was tracing the lines of an exquisite Chinese vase with his finger, from the lip down into the waist and round the voluptuous billowing curve of its base. Then he took a small step towards her, followed by another. Finally he stood before her at the window, straight and sure.

‘What I really really really
r
eall
y
want, Kate, darling Kate,’ he said, lifting his hand and tracing the line of her cheek with his forefinger as he had caressed the vase, ‘is you.’

‘Oh Dan,’ she said. And, ‘Oh
Dan
. . .’

And this time, when she moved into the circle of his arms and their mouths and bodies entwined, there was nothing to hold her back.

Kate never did make it to the nativity play rehearsal, but they managed without her. Instead, Dan led her up to the top of the house, to the attic where the sun streamed in and where, long ago, little Agnes had watched and waited and dreamed, and there they lay together on the old sofa and loved each other and talked about everything under the sun.

And Kate knew for certain that after a long journey through a howling wilderness, she had finally come home.

Six months later

‘Half an hour to go. How are you feeling? Nervous?’ said the usher, a cheeky young man in a dark suit. They were standing near the door of the marquee, during a short lull in the rush of visitors.

‘Terrified,’ said Kate, cool in a pale green shift dress and jacket, and fingering Agnes’s pearls. ‘I never thought it would be so exciting.’

‘It’s a big day,’ he said gravely then he called out, ‘This way if you would, ladies and gentleman,’ to a party of three ambling in a vague fashion up the matted path towards them. ‘Lovely weather, isn’t it? Yes, two catalogues admit the three of you. That’s right, madam, over there to register.’

The first day of the people’s auction had finally arrived, a beautiful morning in late June. It had taken six months of hard work, precision planning and carefully laid publicity, but now everything was in place and the bidding for a substantial part of the contents of Seddington House would start at 10 a.m. sharp.

‘Darling, hello! We’ve been looking for you simply everywhere.’ Liz emerged from the crowd inside, with Laurence, clutching their catalogue, close behind, and kissed her.

‘We’re determined to buy something witty – maybe the doggy fire irons,’ she said, ‘though it’s fun just to be here, soaking up the atmosphere.’

‘It’s lovely to see you. I hope the children weren’t too angry about being left behind in London? Though if they’re with Leo, I’m sure they’ll be fine.’

‘Oh, they’re having an even more exciting time than we are,’ Liz said. ‘A male au pair. It’s the answer to every freelance woman’s dream.’ Kate smiled as Laurence rolled his eyes. ‘Anyway, it’s ages since we had a few days off by ourselves, isn’t it, Laurence? It’s one of the great things about me not having to be in the office all the time now.’

‘She’d never allow me any holiday when I reported to her,’ said Laurence, a twinkle in his eye. ‘Now, if you’ll forgive me, I just want to have another quick look at those prints of Blythborough. Oh fantastic – look, it’s Claire. And Alex and Mina!’

Kate spun round to see them enter the tent. Claire came first, petite in a long skirt and loose blouse, both of course black, and lugging a huge pink bag with teddies all over it.

‘It’s amazing that you’ve come. Thank you!’ Kate hugged her before greeting Alex. A dark, heavy-set man, Alex wore a baby sling over his chest and, inside, the tiny shape of sleeping Mina pressed against her daddy’s heart. Kate reached out and stroked her silky head with her fingertips, but she didn’t stir.

‘Claire’s just fed and changed her, so with any luck we’ll get some peace and quiet for a bit,’ Alex grumbled, one large hand gently rubbing the baby’s back through the sling.

‘She’s just started on the mashed banana and baby rice,’ said Claire proudly. ‘And it certainly makes her sleep well.’

Kate studied what she could see of Mina’s little face in wonder. It seemed only a short few months ago that she had first seen her in an incubator, a fragile little doll with tubes strapped to every visible part of her. In January, Claire’s blood pressure had shot right up and she was taken into hospital for an emergency Caesarian. When Mina was delivered she weighed only 4 pounds and her first month in the world was touch and go.

Just as moving for Kate as seeing the tiny baby struggling to thrive, was meeting Alex for the first time. When she arrived in the baby unit, Claire was out taking a shower, but there was a man sitting by one of the incubators whom Kate recognized instantly from the opera programme Claire had shown her on Walberswick beach. His clothes were crumpled and he looked drawn from lack of sleep, but his eyes were full of joy and tenderness as he gently stroked his daughter’s chest with two fingers through a hole in the glass. When he became aware of the visitor he looked up.

‘Hello,’ he said, offering her his other hand. ‘You must be Kate. Come and meet Mina.’ Just then, the baby opened her eyes. Her navy-blue gaze was unfocused, but Alex slowly rose and moved into her area of vision, and it seemed as though she looked right back at him.

Later, Kate went down to the café with Claire. ‘It’s incredible,’ Claire said. Despite her obvious tiredness, she seemed elated. ‘He’s been completely different since the birth. He was with me in the end, came in the ambulance and held my hand during the operation. He was brilliant. And the thing is, once he realized I was all right, he has hardly been able to take his eyes off Mina. Babies must be born with a dose of magic, you know.’

‘Some secret potion that makes people fall in love, you mean. It should be patented.’

‘He’s asked me to marry him!’ Claire whispered, her eyes sparkling.

‘I’m so pleased,’ Kate said, squeezing her arm.

‘I told him I’d think about it,’ Claire said with mock hauteur.

‘You didn’t!’

‘OK, I didn’t. I said yes, please.’

Kate watched Claire and Alex go inside the marquee now, hand-in-hand.

‘And they lived happily ever after,’ said Laurence wickedly as he started to follow them in.

‘Course they will,’ said Liz, swatting at him. ‘They deserve to, don’t they? Catch up with you later, Kate.’

And here’s my happy ever after, thought Kate, watching Dan come up the path in the sunshine, one hand in Daisy’s. She waved and hurried out to meet them.

‘Hi,’ she said, kissing each of them in turn. ‘Is Sam all right?’

‘He was painting,’ said Daisy, who wore a superior air, being allowed to miss school to attend this grown-up event for which Sam was Too Young. ‘Making an awful mess.’ Sam had got his own back by being sick the night before and Joyce had offered to look after him. It was fun to go to Granny’s. The rented modern bungalow Kate had moved them into just after Christmas was nice because it was so close to Debbie and Jonny’s family, but the garden was a small square of weed-infested grass and there was no Bobby.

‘The next Jackson Pollock,’ said Dan, smiling. ‘Joyce was spreading newspaper all over the floor when we left.’

Paradise Cottage had not quite returned to its pristine prechild state because the children were round there so often, but Joyce didn’t complain. It was clear to both parties, without anyone saying so, that their relationship was all the better for them being queens of separate castles, and Joyce’s great fear, that she would see too little of the children, had been quickly laid to rest. Paradise Cottage was the children’s third home – after Simon and Meredith’s London flat, of course – followed closely by 2, The Row, Dan’s home, where they often visited and occasionally met Shelley. They took all this extended family in their stride.

‘Come on, Daisy.’ Dan ruffled her hair. ‘Let’s leave Mummy to say hello to people and go in and find our seats.’

‘They’re near the front, Dan. You’ll see the cards. Mum and Dad are in there somewhere, so are Debbie and Jonny. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

When they had gone, Kate went and picked up a spare catalogue from the table where two women from Farrell’s were busy registering the financial details of would-be buyers and supplying them with numbered paddles with which to make bids during the auction.

She flipped to the timetable. At ten o’clock was the picture sale, to be followed by books. During the afternoon, furniture and antiquities would go under the hammer.

Tomorrow it would be the turn of the silver, the ceramics and the textiles.

She flicked through the catalogue thoughtfully. It had been a difficult job deciding what to sell and what to hold on to. In the end, her rule of thumb had been to keep what she really liked and anything she knew would have been of particular sentimental value to Agnes. So, for instance, the lovely painting of Dunwich remained in the hall, some of the more useful and attractive items of furniture, the grand piano and the faded suite, the miniature that had been the start of Agnes’s collection, the big dining table and chairs. But the catalogue, with its meticulous listing of each object for sale, accompanied by photographs, still ran to two hundred pages. Today was Monday, and during the Thursday and Friday of the preceding week, hordes of visitors had swarmed into the grounds to view the contents of the auction, some of it displayed downstairs in the house, much of it in two great marquees that Farrell’s had erected in the grounds. It had been a huge operation, effortlessly masterminded by Ursula and her team.

Ursula herself approached Kate now. ‘Have you seen the local paper yet?’ she asked, passing her a copy. Kate unfolded it and stared in amazement at the front page.
T
r
easu
r
e to be Auctioned Today
the headline blared under a colour photograph of Seddington House. On pages two and three was an article with pictures of some of the artefacts, together with a short interview that Kate had given the journalist last week.