Chapter Five
After she came out of the lawyers’ rooms, Miranda got into her car but didn’t start it straight away. She sat with her hands on the steering wheel, staring blindly into the distance along the street while she attempted to get her thoughts in order.
What a surprise all this was! No, make that huge surprise. Leaving everything to her was the last thing she’d ever have expected her grumpy old recluse of a great-aunt to do. Not just grumpy but nasty and manipulative, as Miranda had found out in several painful ways over the years. Phyllis had always seemed to hate her great-niece, though what the reason for that was had been a mystery.
She started to relax a little. Unlike her great-aunt, she’d want to have the place protected by a good electronic security system, so she’d need to get one installed as soon as possible if she was to feel safe living there.
Actually, she couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be the sole occupant of a large house, because her life had been spent mainly in small flats. She couldn’t bear to think that an intruder might have broken in and damaged or stolen things, hated even more the thought that someone might break in and attack her after she took up residence unless she made some changes.
Someone had once tried to mug her on a quiet street that was usually safe and it still upset her sometimes to remember how she’d felt as she struggled to fight him off in the darkness and yelled for help. She was worrying about being raped when a passer-by heard her yells for help and came to her aid.
‘Note to self,’ she muttered, ‘fit a bolt to the inside of the bedroom door straight away if possible.’ She’d stop and buy one on the way there and take her household tools with her, minimal as they were. She would probably be able to fit it herself, even if it wasn’t a neat job. She had a screwdriver and a small gadget for drilling holes, because she hadn’t wanted to pay the high prices tradies could charge for doing even a small job.
Naturally, she didn’t go back to work after that shock news. She drove home and chose a time to phone the office when she was fairly certain that her new team leader would be at one of those regular meetings he seemed to love so much. She left a vague message about having to go out of town to deal with a family bereavement and added that she wouldn’t be able to come in tomorrow or the next day either.
‘Lucky you. You’ll be off on your holiday after that,’ the young guy who’d answered her call commented enviously.
No, she wouldn’t, she thought sadly as she ended the call. Only in the sense of not working for that employer would she be having any sort of holiday for quite a while now. In fact, she’d probably be even busier than usual sorting out her unexpected inheritance. The bequest sounded complicated, what with a rental cottage in the grounds whose tenant, Mitchell something or other, was apparently a distant relative and wouldn’t be paying her any money for a good many years yet. There was another cottage whose tenant was called Ryan and would be paying rent. In other words, there would be all sorts of details to organise. There were also stocks, shares and bank deposits to check from Phyllis’s personal estate.
Sighing, she left Libby a voice message, because her friend worked part-time in a job where she couldn’t be spoken to on the phone during the day. Libby probably wouldn’t be able to pick this message up until she took her lunch break.
Miranda left a brief message explaining what had happened with the answering service and said she’d appreciate it if Libby could cancel her holiday booking straight away. She’d have done it herself but her friend was the one who had made the arrangements for it with someone she knew.
The double inheritances had surprised her and she didn’t feel ready to talk about this inheritance to anyone else yet, except for Libby. She’d be telling her friend the details later. Actually, she was still coming to terms with the idea of having to move to the country and change her life so completely. It’d be worth it, surely, but it’d be hard to do in some ways.
She wouldn’t miss living in a small flat, nor would she be unhappy to leave her job, but she would miss having Libby living in the same block of flats, miss her greatly after the move.
Her neighbour had quickly become her closest friend, possibly the closest friend she’d ever made. Surely they’d find a way to stay in touch and make occasional visits, even if they could only interact online most of the time?
Since she was determined to do everything sensibly, Miranda had a quick snack after she got home and jotted down what to do and in what order as she sipped a mug of drinking chocolate. It would be wise to go prepared to stay overnight at the Wiltshire house, no doubt about that.
Her one and only suitcase was lying open in the second bedroom, already containing some items she’d have needed when holidaying in a warm country, such as her swimming costume. She pulled everything she’d dumped into it out again, then simplified the toiletries first, sighing regretfully as she put away the sun block lotion.
The small pile of items that was left looked forlorn in the bottom of the large suitcase. She put a nightie back with them, smiling as she did so. Most women seemed to wear pyjamas these days, but she infinitely preferred nighties, and if that made her old-fashioned, too bad. She added a couple of changes of underwear and after a few moments’ thought, a more formal outfit as well. She might need to look reasonably smart to deal with the local council. Who knew? She’d never owned a big property before, only struggled her way financially into taking out a mortgage on her small flat.
Then she stared at the suitcase again. Hmm. What if it took longer than a day or two to sort out taking over ownership of the house and moving in? Better safe than sorry. She put in a few more items of clothing and her smartest business clothes. It never hurt to be well-dressed in formal work situations and this might be similar. Who knew?
She smiled, suddenly remembering a landlady who had always talked about ‘business typhoons’. Was this inheritance going to turn her into one of those?
This was going to be new territory for her in several ways. Well, life sometimes took you by the throat and gave you a good shaking up, didn’t it? This was probably going to be the biggest set of changes she’d ever had to face and cope with since her mother died when she was a teenager and she’d been left alone in the world emotionally.
She’d coped with that and she’d cope with this more easily, she was sure.
Given the strangeness of her great-aunt keeping all the financial details at this family house, she needed to be prepared for anything – well, as much as you ever could be when dealing with matters set in place by someone not famed for being kind to anyone except herself. She’d heard that Phyllis had got very fat in her old age, thanks to a passion for eating sweets and chocolate more often than real food.
Miranda would, of course, take along her laptop and some letter-writing materials as well, in case she had to send hard copy responses to anyone, because not everyone liked using emails or other digital communication systems. Though stationery ought to be available in Fairfield House, she had never been able to be sure of anything with her great-aunt.
After more consideration, she sorted out the fresh food that wouldn’t freeze well but would go off even in the fridge if she had to stay away for a few days. She didn’t like wasting anything, never ever, not anything. She’d had to be too careful with money all her adult life. She’d give this lot to Libby.
Then someone rang her doorbell and she hurried across the living area of the flat to check the spy hole. When she saw who it was, she flung the door wide open.
‘Libby! Did you get my message?’
‘Yes. I’ve cancelled your holiday. I’m afraid you get only a fifty per cent refund with it being so close to the departure date and the whole fare already paid, and you wouldn’t have got that if Pam hadn’t been an old friend of mine. I came to see if there was anything I could do to help you.’
‘You could come in and have a glass of wine with me.’
‘Excellent idea.’
They sat down and toasted lost holidays, then Libby asked gently, ‘Was the person who died someone you cared about? You rarely mention your family, except for saying you haven’t got any close relatives left.’
‘I definitely didn’t care about this woman! On the contrary. It was the old great-aunt, the one who was my guardian for several years after my mother died.’
‘The one who never wanted to see you in person? You mentioned her vaguely but never gave me any details about her.’
‘I didn’t see the point. I never knew much about her as a person anyway and I thought my dealings with her were long over and done with.’
‘That was a cruel way to treat a grieving girl.’
‘Yes. She wasn’t a nice person.’
‘Is that why you don’t talk about your family?’
She could only shrug. ‘I don’t have any family left to talk about now, except for a distant cousin, and I’ve never met him, only know about him from the family records. But I make up for that by having some very good friends, especially you, Libby.’
She gave Miranda a quick hug. ‘Thank you for that delightful compliment. I feel the same way about you.’ She looked round at the signs of packing. ‘Are you going down to Wiltshire tomorrow?’
‘Yes. I’ll have to. I’m the sole heir to two legacies, it turns out, one in the form of a family trust, the other personal from the old aunt. How weird is that? I wouldn’t have expected her to leave me anything voluntarily.’
Libby listened to the account of the bequests and said only, ‘Bizarre. But I hope you can use the proceeds of the trust to make a more pleasant life for yourself eventually.’
‘I’ll suspend judgement on that because heaven knows what I’ll find there. I’ve never been further inside the big house than the entrance hall and the room off it, and that was as a small child. I’m not at all looking forward to going inside what I remember as a big house on my own.’
They had poured a glass of white wine each but when Miranda hardly touched hers, and kept losing track of what she was saying, Libby smiled, leant forward to pat her hand and then stood up. ‘I can see that you’re a bit on edge, so I’ll leave you to it. I’ll drink the rest of my wine at home because it’s too nice to waste and I’ll bring the glass back another time.’
‘All right. Enjoy! And don’t forget that bag of food.’
Libby pretended to tug a forelock in humble gratitude and they both chuckled.
As she stood in the open doorway, Libby said, ‘It’s very useful living on the ground floor here. I’ll come out and wave goodbye to you tomorrow and if you think of anything you want me to take care of here while you’re away, you’ve only to ask. What’s the point of having each other’s keys if we don’t use them in helpful ways?’
‘You could collect my post, if you don’t mind. Those letter boxes in the entrance hall are far too small and any bigger envelopes stick out. Talk about skimping on details when they built this place!’
‘Collecting the post is easy to do. Are you sure that’s all you need doing?’
‘Fairly certain. I can tell you tomorrow if I think of anything else.’
When Libby had gone, Miranda finished her packing, then tried to watch one of her favourite programmes on TV. But she couldn’t settle even to that so poured her remaining wine down the sink, washed up the final few pieces of crockery, then went to read in bed.
That didn’t help much, either. Even though she’d been looking forward to this new story, which was the latest book in a gripping series by her favourite author, she couldn’t relax into it as she usually did.
She closed the book and put it down next to the bed, lying there staring into space till sleep overtook her. She was sure there would be unpleasant surprises waiting for her at the old family home. Phyllis would never have lost an opportunity to hurt her.