Chapter 11
Eleven
The late afternoon light slanted weak and grey through the shed’s north-facing windows, too pale to work by.
Sitting at her workbench, Christina wore a head lamp.
As she bent over, the metallic tang of silver polish and the sharper bite of chemical compounds filled her nose – sulphur solutions that could age a piece by decades in minutes, if you knew what you were doing.
And Christina knew exactly what she was doing.
She vowed to herself that in her new home, she would revert to making jewellery – truthful, meticulous, hers.
She turned off her head lamp and her eyes drifted to the corner cupboard she rarely opened.
Inside, her old jewellery tools lay in their velvet-lined case.
Beneath them, a leather portfolio of sketches – intricate, elegant designs for rings, brooches, lockets.
Pieces she’d once made that had won praise from tutors and been on display in a London gallery window.
She hadn’t touched her jewellery tools in years – not since that weekend shortly after Hamish proposed, when Christina spotted Lady Flora pursing her lips and muttering to Hamish, ‘I do hope she doesn’t plan to be trade. It simply won’t do for a daughter-in-law.’
Hamish gave a soft snort. ‘Christina’s got talents you wouldn’t understand, Ma. Besides, she doesn’t need to prove herself that way.’
To Christina, it sounded like dismissal wrapped in praise, as though her craft were a childish pastime he indulged, rather than something worth defending.
She caught her reflection in the darkening window – her carefully chosen blouse, her sensible skirt, her hair styled in the understated tidy way she’d copied from a Country Life picture of a young woman posing on the sweeping steps of a country house as grand as Brambleton Manor.
Nothing like the girl who’d first walked into that house twelve years ago.
And in that instant, something about her reflection pulled her abruptly back into the past.
The first weekend she met his family still made her cringe.
At the time, the young couple were living in a rented flat in South London – where Hamish was neck-deep in an obscure PhD on Tudor court masques, and she was working as a trainee silversmith.
As they eased out of the city’s sprawl, he narrated the journey like a royal progress, quoting Tudor history with theatrical flair: ‘Here we pass through Greenwich, seat of Henry VIII’s sumptuous palace – imagine the pageantry!
’ She smiled, indulging him, though she’d heard variations of the same speech before.
He gestured grandly out of the windscreen as if King Henry himself were watching from a royal carriage.
She wore her favourite vintage dress: a bright turquoise number splashed with bold flowers – the kind that used to make Hamish’s eyes light up, back when they were unmarried and everything between them felt easy.
Her own handmade silver pieces adorned her neck and wrists, subtle but striking twists of metal shaped like flowers.
After four hours of Tudor history, Hamish finally pulled the car into the sweeping gravel drive. ‘What a belter of a hoose!’ she had squealed at him.
All around her, the gardens unfolded in a riot of late-summer colour; deep herbaceous borders spilling with foxgloves and delphiniums, roses climbing in fragrant tangles, and clipped yews casting orderly shadows across the neatly mown lawns.
Beyond, an orchard dipped towards the valley, apple trees heavy with fruit, while terraces of lavender and thyme released their scent with every stir of the breeze.
She fell in love instantly, the house itself almost forgotten in the glow of those gardens.
Spotting what she took for a welcoming committee, she skipped across the turning circle, hand outstretched, grinning.
The woman wore a lilac linen shift dress, low-heeled shoes, and a thick rope of pearls.
Her hair was immaculate, her makeup flawless.
Standing beside her, was a well-groomed man in a spotless cream linen suit.
‘Hi! You must be Hamish’s mum and dad.’
‘I am Lady Flora,’ the woman replied, her vowels clipped, and voice steely. ‘And this is my husband, Ernest. He is not Hamish’s father.’ There was a barely audible huff, then she added, ‘I gather from Hamish your name is,’ she paused then added with emphasis, ‘Christina?’
Tina smoothed her hands down her dress, heat rising to her cheeks. In less than a minute, she’d been rechristened and quietly dismissed – not good enough, it seemed, to use her hostess’s Christian name, and her own deemed inappropriate.
Ernest took Lady Flora’s elbow. ‘Shall we go in, darling? Snifter time I think,’ he murmured, before turning back to Tina with a wink. ‘Been looking forward to meeting you, Christina. Can’t beat a wee bit of silver, eh?’
She had never been more grateful to hear a fellow Glaswegian.
That, and a few pre-dinner glasses of bubbly, gave her the courage to push through.
She complimented Lady Flora on the “pure dead brilliant wallpaper” in the drawing room – only to be corrected that it was hand-painted Chinese silk, circa 1890.
Later, admiring the dining room, she remarked she’d never seen napkins that needed ironing before.
The silence that followed could have chilled champagne.
She caught Lady Flora’s glance across the table – sharp, unreadable – and saw Hamish’s face flush.
Initially she thought his mother’s coldness embarrassed him, but later, she realized his embarrassment was because of her.
Now, Christina moved through grand spaces differently.
She knew how to lower her voice, how to modulate her vowels.
“Hoose” had vanished from her vocabulary, along with “dead brilliant”.
Gardens and galleries replaced guitars and Glasgow in her conversation.
She knew which fork to use, even when the ranks of cutlery spread out wide like silver soldiers stretched shoulder to shoulder across a parade ground; how to dress for country weekends and formal dinners. How to fit in, not stand out.
She had become, she thought, a woman who belonged in Hamish’s world.
Even if Lady Flora still looked at her the way she always had – like an antique with a crack too deep to restore.
So why had Hamish grown so distant? Why did he barely look up from his books anymore, mumble responses to her carefully cultivated conversation about his research? Would living somewhere like Chase Lodge really be enough to bring him back to her?
The workshop door burst open, and Christina looked up, startled, to see Elspeth standing in the doorway – windblown, cheeks pink, all gangly eleven year-old limbs; her eyes looked worried. Christina clutched at the edge of her workbench.
‘Mum?’
The hesitant tone made Christina’s heart clench. Elspeth only used that voice when she was building up to something difficult.
‘Dad says supper’s ready. He’s . . . he’s actually cooked something.’
Christina blinked. ‘He’s cooked? Dad has cooked?’
The incredulity in her voice surprised even her.
Not that Hamish was lazy. He wasn’t. When it came to hanging laundry, or hunting for the recycling bags, he was always willing.
But his dotty professor brain had a habit of drifting mid-task – one minute peeling carrots, the next musing about monastic wine production, and suddenly there’d be smoke pouring from the oven, or water cascading over the sink.
‘That’s . . . nice of him.’ She glanced at Elspeth. ‘Remember the eggy bread?’
Elspeth’s face lit up. ‘When he used white wine instead of milk?’
‘And then said it was a “rustic French twist”?’
‘And served it with chutney. Chutney, Mum.’
Elspeth giggled, then paused at the door. ‘Mum?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Can I ask you something?’
The careful neutrality in her daughter’s voice set off every alarm bell. On maternal watch, Christina turned, giving Elspeth her full attention.
‘Of course, love. What is it?’
Elspeth’s gaze dropped to the floor, and she spoke in a small voice. ‘Do you and Dad still love each other?’
For a moment, Christina couldn’t breathe. The air in the room thickened with polish and sulphur and she tasted something bitter and metallic on her tongue – fear, maybe, or shame.
‘Sweetheart, why would you ask that?’
Elspeth’s voice was even quieter now. ‘Sophie’s parents got divorced last year, and before it happened, she started spending more nights boarding, and whenever she went home, one of her parents was always out.
’ She hesitated, eyes shining. ‘And I’m spending more nights boarding and you went out last time I was home.
And Dad looks sad. And you do too, when you think I’m not watching. ’
Christina’s heart cracked wide open. She reached out and pulled Elspeth into her arms, holding her close, breathing in the scent of apple shampoo and innocence. This couldn’t be what was behind that bad school report could it?
‘Oh, my darling girl,’ she muttered into Elspeth’s hair. ‘Your father and I . . . we’re going through a bit of a rough patch. But we both love you more than anything in the world.’
Elspeth pulled back slightly. ‘But do you still love each other?’
Christina paused. She wasn’t sure how much truth an eleven year old should receive – or whether keeping it from her would help.
She looked at Elspeth’s face – so open, so serious – and felt the familiar ache behind her ribs.
She still loved Hamish. That hadn’t changed.
Sometimes she wished it had. It would have made things simpler.
She wasn’t sure why he’d grown distant – whether something had shifted in him after that row, or if, without meaning to, since then she’d given him reasons to pull away.
And she was trying – trying to fix what had frayed.