The Vintage Girl (14 page)

I woke before my alarm in the morning, aware that there was something odd about the bedroom. Well, odder than a stuffed Labrador.

I pushed the bed hanging aside with a sleepy hand, and my eyes adjusted to the layers of darkness beyond my cocoon. A sliver of silver light was cutting into the room. It was making Lord Bertold’s glass eyes sparkle in a demonic fashion and giving everything else an unearthly glow.

I hauled myself out of bed and went over to the window, pulling the curtain right back.

The view was so magical I forgot to breathe. A gleaming blanket of snow had fallen across the gardens like a fat layer of royal icing on a Christmas cake. It rolled out over the stone edges of the terrace, topping each peak with a white hat of frost, and went on as far as the eye could see, untouched and pristine and dazzling.

I’d never seen anything so glorious in my life. A bird had hopped along the windowsill, leaving crisp star-shaped prints behind. It
never
snowed in London like this—even a heavy snow was grimy and pigeon-pocked before I ever got my boots on.

I dressed quickly now that I was awake, and was downstairs in the kitchen before I even noticed it was just gone seven o’clock.

I wasn’t expecting to find anyone, but Mhairi was already there, stirring a pan of porridge and boiling a kettle on the Aga while the local radio station babbled in the background. Roads were closed, schools were closed, rescue teams were being scrambled, but she carried on stirring impassively. I had no idea how she’d got there. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she slept in a cupboard.

“Morning, Mhairi!” I said cheerily. “Isn’t it
gorgeous
?”

The kitchen was cozy and smelled of toast and the linen drying on an ancient rack suspended above the Aga. Messy and friendly, like a kitchen should be. How had I thought it was chilly on my first night? Maybe I’d acclimatized.

“Aye, snow,” she replied, without taking her eyes off the pan. “Not good if you’re driving. The roads’ll be shut round Rennick. Will you have tea?”

“Um, yes,” I said. I hadn’t thought about the roads. Would it be gone in time for the ball? “Thank you.”

“It’s in the pot.” She nodded at the huge brown pot on the table.

I poured myself a cup and looked round at the dark wood dresser running nearly the length of one wall, filled with blue everyday china. I loved the rows of spoon-dimpled brass pans hanging from the rafters, the hooks for hams and herbs. It was a proper old kitchen, down to the stone flags worn from generations of cooks’ feet. It made me almost panicky to imagine Catriona ripping it out and replacing everything with marble work surfaces shipped in from Wandsworth.

I stared at Mhairi’s impassive but not unfriendly back, and wondered if she was on the list of fittings to be removed. Even on our short acquaintance, I reckoned she’d be harder for Catriona’s men to chuck out than the ancient old range, and twice as disastrous a loss. The last real remaining connection to Violet’s once-bustling staff of fifty.

Time to get down to the lodge with my secret weapons of mass conservation, I thought. There was no time to lose.

*

Robert looked the type to be at his desk before most people were awake, I thought as I strode through the unbroken snow on the drive in a pair of Ingrid’s spare wellies. I could see him running before work. Or swimming—he had the single-minded look of a morning swimmer—long arms, muscled shoulders, solitary lengths down a deserted pool—

Whoa.

I checked myself. This was turning into a crush, and I didn’t want that. I was prone to instant crushes—actors, films, Art Deco powder compacts—and developing one on Robert was a
terrible
idea.

My crush on Fraser was bad enough, but there was something about Robert that wasn’t quite so … comfortable. He was impossible to pop into my ready-made fantasy sequences—too spiky and unreadable. And he had a girlfriend, and responsibilities, and not one single framed family photograph in his sitting room or interesting curio in his loo.

Apart from that old telephone like yours.

Apart from the old telephone, I conceded. But that was probably only there until he got a new one.

That wasn’t Robert, that was the house.
It’s the
house
you have a crush on,
I reminded myself. But what was the harm in that, just for a day or two more? I’d be back in the wrong end of the King’s Road with Max’s leather jacket for company soon enough.

I turned my attention instead to the snow crunching beneath my boots as I reached the little gate that led down through the woods toward the lodge. It was quite hard to see where the track went, the snow was so thick. Someone had already been out, walking a dog—a dog that had been having a right old time of it, by the scampering tracks it had left up and down the bank. Rabbits? Or foxes? Or badgers?

I made a note to check out the stuffed-animal section up at the big house for clues.

Just as the cold began to seep through my two pairs of socks, I saw Robert’s house ahead of me, ridiculously picturesque beneath a shawl of snow. It was a shame that smoke wasn’t trickling out of that chimney pot, but other than that, it couldn’t have looked more fairy-tale if it had been made out of gingerbread.

Actually, now I was here, smoke would have been good. It would have showed he was up.

I shifted my laptop bag onto my other shoulder. A little voice in my head started nagging that I should have phoned ahead first, to check if it was convenient. What if Catriona was here?

I stopped at the gate and looked down. My footprints were leading up the path—if I turned round and went back now, he’d get a hell of a shock when he opened his front door and wondered what had visited him in the night.

Something from the past. Someone coming home …

Stop being so ridiculous,
I told myself, and knocked.

And waited.

Ugh.
I blanched as a vision of Catriona opening the door in a towel struck me. What if I was interrupting something?

I struggled with some butterflies, then fixed a smile on my face as the lock clicked on the other side.

“Sorry, is this a bad time?” I blurted out while the door was still being opened.

“It depends what you’re here for.” Robert ruffled his damp hair. He was wearing a couple of long-sleeved T-shirts, one over the other, and an old pair of battered jeans. His feet were in thick walking socks, and a recently showered smell hung around him. I hadn’t realized Robert wore contact lenses, but he was sporting a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like a rather hot young professor. “Reeling practice? Tax return?”

“E-mail. I know it’s early but I’m waiting for my boss to get back to me. And I want to show you something.” I paused. I couldn’t hear Catriona, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there; I didn’t want a repeat of yesterday. My conversation bank was down to “the weather” and “Catriona.” “I could come back later—”

“Don’t be daft, I’ve been up for ages.” He opened the door farther to let me in and I pulled off my snowy boots. “Have you had any breakfast?”

“Yes, the full Scottish. Apart from the haggis. And the black pudding.”

I followed him through to the kitchen, where a laptop sat on the kitchen table, surrounded by piles of paper.

“Oh, and the kippers,” I added, taking in the half-drunk mug of black coffee, the rack of toast, and the neatly scraped butter next to it.

“So just porridge, then?” said Robert.

“Yup. Could do with some toast, to be honest.”

He shoved some papers out of the way so I could put my bag down, and lifted the cafetière to pour me some coffee. “Coffee okay? You’re not one of these decaf wheatgrass girls?”

“Does it look like it?”

He paused, scrutinizing me. “I don’t know. Does it?”

“My normal breakfast is two double espressos,” I said. “I’ve got a set of really gorgeous vintage coffee cups from the George V hotel in Paris. For five minutes, I’m Coco Chanel. And then it all goes downhill, but you know, for five minutes …”

“Which came first?” he asked, and put the mug down in front of me. “The coffee for breakfast? Or the cups?” He paused. “Or the wanting to be Coco Chanel?”

I opened my mouth to say the coffee, then realized that until I’d bought the coffee cups at auction, I’d had tea, like Max. “Coco Chanel,” I confessed. “But the caffeine helps me deal with my boss. His natural state is artificially stimulated. I keep suggesting a detox, but I’m scared he’d just collapse in a pile of dust.”

“I’m just the same,” he said, refilling his own mug. “Catriona keeps leaving green tea here for me, says caffeine isn’t good for either of us.”

I got an abrupt, unwelcome flashback to her baby plans. I wondered if he knew.

“But I don’t have time for any other vices,” he added with a conspiratorial wink. “So the coffee stays.”

“Good,” I said. “Make a stand for caffeination.”

We looked at each other for a moment, and I felt that unsettling familiarity again. It was freaky. I’d barely met him, yet I felt like we’d known each other before. Maybe it was something to do with me looking like Alice, I thought, fiddling with my mug.

“How did you get on with that notebook?” he asked. “Was it helpful?”

“Oh, er, yes. Really interesting. But look what I found in that box I took away.” I reached into my laptop bag and brought out a daybook from 1923.

My plan was to start with the super-practical factual side of Kettlesheer life and then, once he was softened up, to hit him with the poetry of Ranald’s love notes.

“It’s a daybook,” I explained, pushing the leatherbound diary across the pine table. “It was Violet’s—look, it’s got all her notes to give to the housekeeper about flowers and linen, and menus, and details of house parties and which bedrooms to use for which guests.” I watched anxiously as Robert took it and began leafing through. “Doesn’t it make the house come alive when you see what used to go on in those rooms?”

“Did you know you’re sleeping in Ranald’s bedroom?” he asked.

“What?” I felt my heart bang in my chest. “Really? Why didn’t someone tell me?”

He looked up, his eyes amused. “Maybe they didn’t know. I didn’t, I just noticed in here. That adjoining bathroom, you’ve probably seen it has two doors? One each side. The other would go through to Violet’s suite.”

“Oh, wow,” I breathed, suddenly seeing my room in a whole new light. No wonder I felt a presence in there—Ranald and Violet must be watching me unpack their story, reading their notes, in his bed, of all places …

I felt myself blush. They didn’t seem the separate-bedroom type to me. Even if it was the convention.

“Don’t go all misty-eyed on me,” said Robert sternly. “He didn’t die in there or anything. And it’s been a guest bedroom for years. Plenty of time for the atmosphere to wear off.”

I blinked and tried to look businesslike. “I thought maybe if you decided to open the house to the public, you could use this sort of thing as the basis for an exhibition of country-house life. Violet has
beautiful
handwriting.”

“And a naughty sense of humor. Did you see what she had to say about the Lord Lieutenant and his lady wife?” Robert passed me the book with an outraged expression.

Lord Lieut (snorer)
Lady Lieut (not safe after sherry)
Mick McLennan (park near Lady L)

“Good Lord!” he added. “Who knew you were on the money with your secret-panel tapping? There must be hidden tunnels from bedroom to bedroom all over the house!”

“I’ll ignore that,” I said, then couldn’t resist looking up to see if he might actually be serious.

“I’m joking,” he said, deadpan.

But he’d slowed down his flicking to take in each page properly, so I pressed on. “Have you seen how she has all her children’s birthdays marked? With each one’s favorite meal—blancmanges, and shepherd’s pie … And her wedding anniversary, and the dates they went to stay with friends for balls in London and shooting in the Highlands …” I leaned forward to show him, and our foreheads almost touched over the table.

Robert must have noticed, but he didn’t move away. “She had a fair bit to do, I’ll give her that,” he said. “Have you seen how much coal she had to order for all the rooms? No wonder they had some fireplaces blocked up.”

I could feel his breath on my face as he whistled in awe.
Now is the time,
said a voice in my head.
Show him the postcards.

But I couldn’t move away.

Oi! Now,
insisted the voice, and reluctantly I leaned back to reach in my bag again.

“And I found these,” I said, putting the postcards next to the daybook. Robert was still reading. “Look!” I insisted. “This is more romantic.”

“I’m adding up how many grouse they shot,” he murmured; finally, when I waved the postcards under his nose, he looked up.

“Did anyone tell you the story of how they met?” I asked.

“
Yes.
In London. During her … season?”

“And?”

“There’s more?”

I told him as he undid the ribbon and began to read the backs of the cards. I watched him, hawklike, for signs of tears along his long lashes; but, disappointingly, he was made of sterner stuff than me. Just as he was turning over the fourth postcard, my phone started to ring.

I wanted to ignore it, but as soon as it went to voice mail, it rang again.

Better answer; it could be Max about the table, I thought.

It was Alice. “Hi, Evie, how are you?” she asked. “How are you getting on?”

Alice never usually bothered to start off a conversation that way. “I’m fine,” I said, then added, “Alice,” for Robert’s benefit.

He raised his eyebrows above the tortoiseshell rims of his glasses. Geeky but sexy. I looked away quickly.

“Evie, are you on your own?” Alice went on. “I need to talk to you about something rather delicate.”

“I’m at Robert’s,” I said. “But I don’t have to repeat everything you say. I can do yes-and-no answers.”

“Tell Alice I’m not listening in,” said Robert. “And tell her I hope she’s done what I told her and been to see that dancing teacher. I don’t want her letting my mate down on the dance floor.”