Chapter 30
Thirty
At first glance, the home Ernest had chosen for his wife looked elegant and fitted its name: Wisteria Lodge. But inside, it smelled of disinfectant, stewed vegetables and over-brewed tea.
When Christina noted the date in the visitors’ book, she remembered there were just four days until the auction. Four days until Ernest’s intricate performance unfolded. Did she have time to stop it?
A young nurse appeared beside her. She had kind eyes and slumped shoulders.
‘Mrs Pemberton? I’m Sarah, Lady Flora’s key worker.’
Her voice had that soft-but-firm assurance Christina recognised from people who had long since learned how to soothe both the dying and those left trying to navigate around them.
‘She’s in the conservatory having morning tea.’
Christina fell into step beside Sarah as they moved through a corridor painted a tasteful, if bland, shade which reminded her of clotted cream.
She passed open doorways where residents dozed in recliners or blinked blankly at daytime television.
Family members spoke in low voices, offering biscuits or weather updates as though they might tether their loved ones to the here and now.
Christina sighed. This antiseptic cocoon conveniently hid Flora, preventing her from objecting to events at the Manor, even if the matriarch understood what was happening.
‘How is she settling in?’ Christina asked, though she already sensed the answer.
‘It’s . . . an adjustment,’ Sarah said diplomatically.
‘She’s still a bit disoriented. The amitriptyline helps with her sciatica, but it’s not without side effects.
She suffers from confusion and a dry mouth.
Sometimes blurred vision or memory fog. In someone with existing cognitive decline, which her husband warned us about when he arranged her stay, those effects can be more pronounced. We’re monitoring things closely.’
The conservatory came into view: bright with filtered sunlight, plants in orderly terracotta pots, and a handful of residents settled in armchairs, tea trays trembling on their knees.
Christina spotted the back of Flora’s head – hair pinned neatly, her posture upright, as if determined to keep control over that small dignity.
Christina hesitated in the doorway. What exactly was she going to say? If Flora was lucid enough to understand her, then this wouldn’t be just about the cup anymore. It would be about betrayal. And Christina would be the one to tell Lady Flora she was married to a crook.
She took a breath then made her way over to her mother-in-law, sat at a small table by a bay window.
‘Christina,’ said Lady Flora, her voice still as cool and sharp as cut glass. Her pale blue eyes narrowed slightly. ‘How unexpected.’
The tone, familiarly dismissive, made Christina’s heart lift. The barb sounded right. Not just remembered, but curated for the moment.
‘I thought you might enjoy a visit, while Hamish is away.’ Christina replied, taking the seat across from Flora. She didn’t smile, but she didn’t recoil, either. ‘He’s sorry he can’t be here but sends his love.’
‘Too considerate, that one. Always was.’ Flora sniffed. ‘Marrying someone from a different world . . . it leaves a man prone to apologizing for everything, doesn’t it?’
There it was. Another jab. Cleanly delivered.
And yet . . . it slid off Christina’s skin like rain on glass.
She didn’t feel the usual shame coiling inside her.
Not even a sting. Just a dry, almost amused detachment.
Was she . . . getting used to it? Or maybe Christina was finally not letting this woman define who she was and expecting her to apologize for it.
‘Maybe he just loves us both,’ she said mildly.
Flora didn’t respond. She was staring out of the window now, her teacup raised but forgotten. Her fingers shook slightly as she set it back down.
Christina leaned closer. ‘Flora . . . I need your help. There’s a document – a trust variation deed. It says you authorised removing one of the protected assets. A silver piece.’
Flora’s gaze slid back towards her, confused for a second, then shrewd. ‘Are you sure it was me? You know, Ernest has always had a fondness for silver. And secrets.’
Christina’s heart soared. ‘So, you didn’t sign the deed of variation for the loving cup?’
Flora frowned, her eyes losing their edge.
‘What cup? I need to send something to . . . to Lady Wallace,’ she said, fumbling vaguely with her teacup. ‘She’s expecting the correspondence about the . . . sugar tongs. They can’t be left in Rome. Nothing to do with a cup.’
Christina got up, took a step and then knelt at Flora’s feet as she took the other woman’s hands in hers.
‘Flora. Look at me. Did you sign anything? Recently?’
For a brief moment, something wavered in Flora’s gaze – alertness, recognition. Christina held her breath.
But then Flora’s expression turned vaguely scandalised. ‘I wouldn’t sign for a parcel without gloves,’ she said imperiously. ‘You don’t know where the postman might have been.’
Hope drained from Christina like air from a balloon, leaving frustration in its place – sharp, childish, and utterly useless. Dementia had moved faster than Christina.
She pressed Flora’s hand gently, then rose, the weight of disappointment folding neatly into the shape of resolve. She told herself not to be disheartened.
Flora’s goodbye was perfunctory, her attention already drifting toward the garden.
Walking back through the institutional corridors, Christina breathed shallowly through her mouth, trying to avoid the concentrated scent of managed decline. Nurse Sarah accompanied her to the entrance, professional concern written across her features.
‘It’s hard,’ Sarah said. ‘Seeing them like this. But she’s safe here, and comfortable. She likes looking at the spring flowers. Sometimes that’s the best we can hope for.’
‘She seemed clearer for a moment,’ said Christina.
‘Sometimes it comes in flashes. Sometimes not at all,’ the nurse offered kindly.
Christina pushed through the double doors into the bright morning air which hit her like a wave – sunlight, the sound of a lawnmower, the smell of cut grass. Four days until the sale. It wouldn’t be long before Ernest demanded she return the cup.
No help was coming.
She would have to stop Ernest alone. And strangely, she wasn’t afraid of that anymore.
Ahead of Christina, Chase Lodge rose out of the valley like a brooding thought she’d tried and failed to banish.
Half-hidden beneath a drift of early-spring cloud, the old Tudor gables hunched against the woods, and the blank windows stared down at her without welcome.
She could still taste salt on the wind – faint and ghostlike – blown inland from the unseen Devon coast beyond the ridge.
She stepped out of the car, gravel shifting under her trainers, and asked herself what she was doing here.
She had realised on that day in Penelope’s drawing room that this project wouldn’t save her marriage.
Yet the idea of moving house persisted, reshaped – not as a solution, exactly, but as something she could do.
They couldn’t go on living in her mother-in-law’s grace-and-favour cottage. Space might help, distance perhaps. Or at least it would look like progress.
When Penelope had summoned her by WhatsApp –
Humphrey’s got some wonderful ideas darling. You must come at once – Christina had stared at the message for far too long, unable to muster the energy for a plausible excuse. In the end, she’d agreed to meet; after all, Hamish had liked the house.
Her friend and the architect stood together on the path, their shared enthusiasm radiating like burnished silver.
Humphrey’s tall frame was wrapped in that elegant-but-frayed suit, hair windswept, sturdy boots on his feet.
Penelope, by contrast, looked as if someone had pressed pause on a country house photo shoot: butter-soft gloves, silk blouse, a gold bee brooch perched at her shoulder as though ready to take flight.
Even her low-heeled shoes gleamed. Not a single item of her ensemble suggested rural Devon or rickety staircases.
‘Christina!’ Penelope cried, as though greeting a guest arriving for dinner rather than a tour of a derelict Tudor shell. ‘Perfect timing. Humphrey was just saying the brick nogging might be salvageable after all.’
Humphrey nodded gravely. ‘If the tie beams haven’t shifted.’ He patted a pocket – the unmistakable outline of the key bulging faintly beneath the fabric. ‘Still, nothing we can’t stabilise with the right team.’
Penelope turned to Christina with a bright, coaxing smile. ‘See? One must never be intimidated by age. These houses want to be lived in. They respond to the right hands.’
Christina glanced down at her jeans and trainers.
Next to Penelope’s curated gleam, she felt like a dog-eared paperback in a library of tooled leather volumes – out of place, yes, but no longer apologetic for it.
Once, she would’ve shrunk from the contrast. Today, she simply felt .
. . tired. Tired of roles. Tired of performances.
Humphrey launched into a gentle ramble as they approached the door. ‘Load-bearing oak is surprisingly forgiving when it’s been aired properly. And if we can reinstate the original fireplace, you could have a remarkable entrance hall.’
Penelope clasped her hands. ‘Imagine it at Christmas, Christina. Hamish pouring wine beneath the old beams, guests arriving through the porch – oh, it would be divine. And Humphrey thinks he can create ten en-suite bedrooms. Perfect for entertaining.’
Christina didn’t reply. Why would she want ten bedrooms?
That’s the number the Manor had, and she had once got in terrible trouble with Flora for saying it was the perfect number to set up a high-end bed and breakfast. Of course, Lady Flora wouldn’t dream of making money that way.
Humphrey fitted the key into the swollen lock, turning it with a soft, satisfying clunk.
They stepped inside.
Cold enveloped them at once. The air smelled of wet timber and abandonment. Christina touched a cracked plaster panel – cold, gritty, unyielding; would this really be Hamish’s choice?
Meanwhile Penelope swept on ahead, arms outstretched like a hostess. ‘Imagine Hamish in here! Surrounded by dusty manuscripts and period nonsense.’ She laughed airily, as if Tudor history were a quaint hobby, like crocheting or fencing.
Christina didn’t laugh. Hamish was returning from his off-site this morning, and the couple had arranged to meet at the Manor. He wanted to discuss the Tudor miniature portraits with Tim Hartwell, the picture expert.
Humphrey led the women through the house.
They passed from the hall into the great chamber, the timber frame stretching overhead like the ribcage of something long dead but refusing to fall.
Humphrey’s voice echoed gently as he assessed the condition of mullions, joints, braces.
Penelope interjected with ideas for drapes and wallpaper and enlarging spaces for entertaining.
Christina barely heard either of them.
She stood in the centre of the room, arms wrapped round herself, hugging her jumper close and tried to imagine Elspeth running through the hall, or Hamish reading by the fire; the shape of their life settling into these ancient rooms.
But nothing came. It felt hollow. Not blank – a blank could be filled.
Just wrong. Her instinct was to imagine how the house might work for everyone else – especially Hamish.
Then she realised what she was doing. Marriage meant compromise, not submission.
This wasn’t a place where she wanted to be, and that mattered now.
‘This isn’t what I want,’ she whispered.
Penelope tilted her head. Her expression tightened for a fraction of a second before she smoothed it over with a polished smile. ‘Oh, Christina. Don’t say that, just because it feels overwhelming. Big houses are just lots of small decisions.’
‘No. No, it’s not that.’
Christina stepped back, her trainers squeaking faintly against the floorboards.
‘It’s just . . . this. The whole lot.’ She paused, wanting to express herself; it came to her in a flash, and she spoke with a faint Glasgow twang, ‘It’s no’ mine.’
Penelope recoiled as if Christina had just spat at her. Her face hardened, just slightly, behind the glossy charm before she caught herself, and her mouth curled into the smallest, sweetest condescending smile. ‘Darling don’t be dramatic. You just need vision. Chase Lodge is for you.’
‘No. This is the wrong house.’ Christina let that sit for a few moments before adding, ‘And I don’t need to keep pretending that your advice isn’t always just . . . nudging me toward your own life.’
Penelope’s smile thinned.
‘That’s quite unkind.’
‘Is it?’ Christina countered. ‘Or is it just accurate?’
Penelope didn’t reply. Humphrey had wandered on ahead, chatting breezily about planning permissions and listed buildings’ consent. A thump echoed through the corridor – a door somewhere slamming in the wind.
Penelope drew herself up, nostrils flaring just slightly. ‘Well, forgive me for encouraging you to want more from life. It’s not a crime to have standards.’
‘No,’ said Christina. ‘But it is a problem if those standards aren’t mine.’
She turned, walking away. Her oversized shoulder bag thumped heavily against her hip with each step, the weight of the thermos inside making it swing wide. Her footsteps echoed across the wooden floor.
Outside, the sun was bright, shimmering through the clouds as if cheering Christina on. The sea breeze had picked up. She sucked in the fresh, salty air.
She wouldn’t be moving to Chase Lodge. She saw now that it had never really been about the house at all.
Because the problem wasn’t where she lived – it was who she had been trying to be.
She’d spent so long attempting to become worthy of the Pemberton name, she’d forgotten that Hamish had chosen her before she started trying.
She knew she had to tell him the truth about everything.
The forgeries, the reason she was so withdrawn, what her father did all those years ago.
And she would. She just had to rescue the cup from Ernest’s greedy paws first.