Miranda’s Family

Chapter Thirteen

After a stop for a quick snack, Libby and Miranda set off again, following the continuing instructions cooed at them by the posh female voice of the satnav. They passed an old woman walking slowly and wearily along by the side of the road, carrying a shopping bag and looking tired.

‘When I see someone struggling along like that, I never know whether to stop and try to help them or not,’ Libby said. ‘I’m probably rich compared to her.’

Miranda had turned to watch her but then shrugged. ‘Sadly, you can’t help everyone. And we’d better not keep stopping. We need to carry on and catch all the daylight we can to explore the house I’ve inherited.’

They forgot about the old woman as they followed instructions, turning off the road and entering what they had thought was the beginning of another of those narrow lanes bordered by patches of wildflowers that they’d met before. However, they had to stop abruptly a short distance along it because where it started to curve quite sharply to the right, a pair of tall wrought-iron gates closed off what seemed to be the grounds of a house.

‘This isn’t a public road at all; it’s the end of someone’s drive,’ Miranda said in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard.

At that moment, the satnav voice spoke again: ‘You have reached your destination.’

They both stared at the gates in surprise, then Miranda turned to her friend. ‘It said “your destination”. Can this really be the entrance to Fairfield House?’

‘Must be. I don’t think a satnav program will have made that serious an error, do you? It seems to have stopped guiding us at the gate, not at a house, so perhaps the land we can see is the grounds of a house.’

‘It’d have to be a big house.’

‘Yes. And these are rather elegant gates, too.’

Miranda shot her a worried glance. ‘What if this isn’t my great-aunt’s house?’

‘Then whoever it does belong to will no doubt tell us to leave and we’ll have to ask better directions at that shop we just passed. Now, stop worrying. No one’s going to shoot us if we’ve made a mistake.’

‘I’ll get out and open the gates for you to drive through, shall I – unless they’re locked, of course?’

But they weren’t locked and to her relief they swung back easily after she’d unlatched them. She paused for a minute to stare down at some marks on the soft earth that had been made quite recently, she’d guess. She wondered how recently. Those were undoubtedly footprints to one side as well, so someone had definitely got out of their vehicle to open the gates. There were no tyre marks from other vehicles, however. Strange.

She waited for Libby to drive through, so she could close them again.

‘We might as well leave them open!’ Libby called out through the open driver’s window as she drove the car slowly up the shallow slope and through the entrance. ‘We’ll need to come back this way, after all, to buy some food in the village.’

Miranda got into the car again, still feeling worried. ‘This definitely looks like a piece of private land, though.’

‘It does, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be nice if it all belonged to you?’

She rolled her eyes at the mere idea. ‘I doubt that would be possible, even in my wildest dreams. My family isn’t rich that I know of. My mother and I always had trouble making ends meet.’

‘What about the old aunt? She must have been comfortable enough financially if she could send you to a private boarding school.’

‘I think the family trust paid for those, though Phyllis certainly seemed to have more money than we did. I doubt she was comfortable enough to have left me a big fortune and a country estate. This is more likely to be a modern gated housing development and if the house I’ve inherited really is here, it’ll be just one of several. They sometimes build groups of better-class homes in places like this for security reasons.’

‘It’s a good idea these days, especially out in the country, and you’ll probably get to know your neighbours quite easily if you live in a place like that.’

‘You always seem to find something positive to say about every situation, my dearest Auntie Libby. I wish I were more like you. I can’t help worrying about things I have to deal with, especially at the moment, when there are so many uncertainties about what exactly I’m facing.’

‘I think you’ve had a sadder and far more difficult life than I have, and that’s left you expecting things to go wrong. But you’ve still got plenty of time for the world to brighten up for you and things to start going right, especially now you’re more in charge of your own life and will have a comfortable amount of money behind you.’

Miranda’s tone was wistful. ‘Yes, that will be a big improvement. Mum used to worry about that old aunt and what she would do next, and I was the same after Mum died, feeling vaguely threatened all the time after great-aunt Phyllis took control of my life. She was the most cunning person I’ve ever met, or even heard of, which is why I can’t help worrying even now about what nasty surprises she might have left for me. But I don’t worry nearly as much as I did when she was alive, I promise you.’

‘I’ll be very careful but she couldn’t have known you’d bring someone here with you, so I don’t think I’m in any great danger.’

‘No, of course not. I’m being foolish, but believe me it’s based on experience, not imagination.’

‘Well, I’ll do my best to make sure some good things happen to you from now on and we’ll do our best to wipe out some of your worries. But in the meantime we’d better get back in the car and move on. Because of the way the drive curves round and the trees at this end of it, we can’t see most of the plot of land from here, so who knows what we’ll find? Something exciting, I hope. A big house, perhaps.’

Miranda suddenly reached out and gave her a hug. ‘You make me feel better just by being with me. You’re worth a whole street of big houses.’

Her friend and new auntie went a bit pink. ‘I’m glad you feel that. Now, let’s get going. There could be a big house standing on its own or a group of houses ahead of us, or everything could have been knocked down and flattened ready for building on, for all we know. Onwards and upwards, whatever it is.’

‘Wait!’ Libby was still standing looking down at the ground their vehicle was standing on. ‘Look at that! This track is only bare earth, but it’s rock hard. Wouldn’t they have put down a tarmac surface if it was the new entrance to a modern housing development? And if the drive had only just been made, it wouldn’t have had time to become so compressed.’

Miranda opened her door and studied the ground next to the car at her side. ‘Yes, I think you’re right. This drive looks old to me, as if so many wheels have run over the ground that they’ve made it into a permanent roadway. There are no weeds growing in it along this edge, either, not till further away. Are there any close by on your side?’

‘No, none.’

Libby made no attempt to move the car along and thought aloud. ‘If it were a gated development, it could have been built on the site of a former big house, I suppose. That’d account for the firmness of the drive. But I still think they’d have resurfaced this.’

‘Hmm. Well, we’ll see. I know you like working things out, but I’m dying to see for myself what’s inside this fenced area, not just make guesses.’

‘Oops! Sorry.’

‘Could you drive quite slowly from now on, please? These are such beautiful old trees that it’s a pleasure to drive through the patterns of light and shade. It feels to me as if this grove is standing sentinel at the entrance to the property.’ Miranda hesitated, then shook her head slightly.

‘You looked as if you were about to say something else. Go on.’

‘It’ll sound stupid.’

‘So? Who cares? Say it anyway. You may as well tell me the rest now that you’ve caught my attention.’

‘All right, then. I feel as if – well, as if the place is welcoming me.’

She saw Libby give her a surprised look but that was truly how it felt and Miranda wasn’t going to take back what she’d said and replace it with something more negative in tone. She really did feel positive about this place.

The drive curled gently round to the right, the ground further back from it at both sides of it covered by a variety of weeds and grassy plants, one taller patch rippling in the sunlight as a light breeze stirred it.

‘The grass can’t have been mowed for a while to have grown so tall,’ Libby murmured. ‘Oh! Good heavens!’

Libby braked instinctively as they got further round the bend and a large house came into sight about a hundred yards ahead of them.

They exchanged surprised glances. There were no other houses to be seen, only this one. It wasn’t anything like the size of a stately home but it was larger than most of today’s so-called luxury detached residences nonetheless. They could just see part of an outbuilding at the rear of it and there were a couple of smaller, freestanding sheds further back still, the most distant one close to the side fence.

‘Let’s edge forward a little then stop for a few moments and take a good look at it because we ought to be able to see the whole of it quite clearly once we get past this big tree,’ Miranda suggested.

Libby nodded and edged forward a little then switched off the engine, wriggling her shoulders to ease the stiffness with a satisfied murmur.

Both women got out of the vehicle again, not saying anything but standing where they were, one on either side of it, each with the hand closest to it resting lightly on the car roof as they studied the large building, now clearly visible.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Miranda murmured after a while. ‘Old-fashioned and utterly charming. But a house like that can’t be mine, surely?’

‘Why not? Wouldn’t you want it if it were?’

‘Of course I would! Who wouldn’t? But how could my horrible old great-aunt have left such a gorgeous house to me?’ She frowned. ‘There’s a saying: “I fear the Greeks, even when bearing gifts.” It certainly fits this situation. Now, where does that quote come from?’

‘I’m not sure but it could be one of Virgil’s pieces of distilled wisdom, perhaps? And if so, from the Aeneid , probably. His quotes often do come from it. But that’s not important at the moment. We’re a pair of idiots even to stop to consider a quote. Let’s get back to considering your great-aunt’s legacy.’

‘Well, this house would certainly make a wonderful gift. And yet, to echo the quotation, I do fear what she was plotting by leaving it to me. So that quote fits this situation very well and is worth bearing in mind. She hated me. I could feel it and was quite certain of that even as a small child. Later on it even showed in the messages she sent to me. And I never knew why.’ She shrugged, then her expression softened as she continued to stare at the house. ‘Isn’t it an elegant building?’

‘Beautiful. So balanced in design, everything fitting well together rather than one part of the house dominating another.’

It was built of creamy golden stone, big oblong chunks of it, each about as wide as two outstretched hands and one hand deep from top to bottom. The stones were slightly worn and marked by age and weathering but somehow they suited the house like that, helped give it some gravitas.

It definitely seemed like a home, though, not a show-off mansion, and Miranda felt as if it was not only welcoming these two visitors but inviting them to go inside. ‘I don’t think the modern homes erected by builders to tempt the more affluent customers usually hold a candle to this one,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t wait to see the interior.’

The lawyer had told her that the house was old and it was clear from the styles of architecture that the main part must have been built nearly a couple of centuries ago, with some small additional rooms and various decorative changes made later at the rear of one end in a similar style, giving it an L shape, but still not upsetting its balanced appearance.

After studying it for a few more moments, Miranda said quietly, ‘The additions are similar in style both physically and artistically, don’t you think? I bet they were to add some more modern amenities.’

‘Whatever they’re for, I agree. It’s been very nicely done,’ Libby said. ‘In fact, I think this house has been built with a lot of love, if that doesn’t sound too fanciful. It’s the sort of house you could very easily love.’

‘Only the recent owner doesn’t seem to have loved it or even kept it in good repair. There are a couple of tiles missing from the roof over there and the paintwork is peeling in some parts.’ She pointed, then shook her head sadly. ‘I wonder what the inside will be like. Not good, I’d guess. I doubt my aunt ever truly loved anyone or anything.’

‘Except herself and money. Maybe she kept the inside nice for her own pleasure and comfort.’

‘Well, from what I’ve heard, what she really loved was making money. Perhaps she saved all her affection for doing that.’

They didn’t hurry to start moving again, simply continued to take in the details of the building, occasionally murmuring a comment or pointing out some detail.

‘It can’t have been heritage listed,’ Libby said slowly. ‘I’m sure the lawyer would have told you if it had. I wonder why not? It’s beautiful enough, surely? Or it could be.’

‘I was just wondering about that too. Houses like this one should be preserved for future generations of the nation, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, I do. It’s the prettiest house I’ve ever seen. But it’s survived, even without that formal labelling and heritage protection, hasn’t it? And presumably you’ll be able to do what’s needed to bring everything up to scratch again, after which you can enjoy taking care of it properly.’

‘If it really is mine.’

‘Of course it is.’

There was silence for a few moments then Miranda said, ‘Well, if it is mine, I’m glad the old witch has left it to me but another reason is more important to me than its monetary value. It makes me feel that I’m a genuine part of the Westerby family.’

Libby gave her a quick sideways glance, knowing how unhappy her friend felt, much as she tried to hide it, at that lack of belonging to a family since her mother’s death. ‘It doesn’t change your great-aunt’s nastiness towards you, or the fact that you’ll still need to stay on your guard against hidden traps,’ she warned quietly.

‘I know and I won’t forget that.’ Miranda tried to smile but couldn’t because emotion was welling up inside her in great waves. Nothing had prepared her for falling in love with her new home on sight and she felt like weeping for joy to think that she’d inherited this, could stay here for the rest of her life. Surely it wouldn’t be too much to ask that she could meet a nice guy one day and create a new branch of the Westerby family?

Strangely, she didn’t need a lawyer to confirm that this house was indeed hers because the longer she stood here, the more certain she felt of that.

The silence went on for a while but Libby didn’t break it, only stood quietly to one side of her companion, giving her time to look her fill.

‘It’s utterly beautiful,’ Miranda said at last. ‘Why don’t I remember anything about it? I did come here once, after all.’

‘Because you were far too young. The exterior is very shabby at present when you study it in detail, isn’t it? It looks pretty at a distance but from close by you can see that some parts are looking distinctly run-down. Why didn’t she take better care of it?’

‘I didn’t notice the wear and tear at first but yes, I’m starting to see how much needs doing. Why did she let it deteriorate so much? The lawyer said there was probably a decent amount of money savings included in the legacy. Some things are easy to fix, like those broken tiles at that right-hand end. And I bet that stain on the house wall below them comes from the gutters leaking whenever it rains. Another easy thing to fix.’

She turned slowly round on the spot, looking at the gardens now. ‘If those straggling hedges mark the boundaries, there’s more land comes with it than I’d expected.’

‘A couple of acres, perhaps a bit less, at a guess.’

‘I’ll have to take your word for how much. I’m not very good at judging that because I grew up in towns and was locked away in boarding school for most of the time after my mother died until I went to university. I concentrated more on passing exams and saving money than physical activities and sports. I used to enjoy going on the supervised walks with school groups at weekends, though, and I regretted having to go back into the building after all the fresh air and sunshine.’

‘I love going for long walks.’

‘We’ll do some together once we’ve settled in, then. Ooh, look!’ Miranda pointed to one side. ‘That bigger shed, the one furthest away from the house, is just next to a side entrance and there’s a definite track leading from it down the side to the road. Could that be a back entrance to the grounds, do you think?’

‘Could be. A gardener’s entrance, maybe. You couldn’t manage to care for a piece of land this big on your own.’

‘I suppose so. It’s wonderful that there are so many huge old trees dotted around the grounds, isn’t it? They look gorgeous.’

‘Larch trees outside the gates and horse chestnuts further in. We had one of those in our street when I was finishing primary school. The boys used their nuts to play conkers with.’

Miranda smiled across the car roof at her friend. ‘You could fit half a dozen flats like ours into a house that size, couldn’t you?’

‘Yes. We won’t have any trouble finding bedrooms for ourselves, will we?’

‘No trouble at all.’ She still didn’t move. Everything was quiet except for a few faint and intermittent natural sounds: birds, insects and the gentle soughing of tree branches as the light breeze made them swish to and fro. There wasn’t even a distant hum of traffic to be heard from here.

And yet … she frowned and stared sharply round. At first sight she’d seen only the beauty of the house, and that was still there, of course. But now she’d also sensed that even though she’d felt happy to be here, the house didn’t look happy because its upkeep had been neglected in a lot of small ways. What was the problem?

This was her mother’s side of the family coming out in another way. She’d tried very hard to train herself to suppress premonitions about the future but they still sometimes came to her. Her mother had said that in every generation one or two members of the Westerby family seemed to have psychic gifts and had told Miranda that when she reached puberty she would be one of them and not to let Phyllis know about that. She’d get used to sometimes sensing future events or problems as she grew older, but it was usually better not to tell people about that.

She hadn’t even talked about these premonitions to Libby and had tried to tell herself that she didn’t believe in all that woo-woo stuff, only she hadn’t been able to persuade herself that they were merely flights of her imagination. Well, how could she when they came true, if not always in the way she’d expected?

This side of her stayed quiet most of the time, but it wouldn’t always behave. And right now it had come surging up with a strength that she couldn’t deny. Even though the house felt to have welcomed her, at the same time it was as if something unpleasant had touched the place and was still lingering and threatening her, as if she needed to take care.

Could that feeling have been caused by her nasty old great-aunt living there? Only if so, why was it lingering now that the old woman was dead? And why did she feel as if it was still guarding itself against someone of ill intent?

As the new owner, she intended to care for it again, had fallen in love with it on sight. She got angry at herself now because she’d get nothing done by standing here giving in to her tendency to daydream. That’s all it was, daydreaming, merely speculating a little about the future.

She straightened up abruptly. ‘Shall we move on now, Libby?’

‘I was waiting for you. You’ve been standing here staring at the house for several minutes, not seeming to be aware of anything or anyone else.’

‘That long? Oh. I’m sorry. It’s not every day you inherit a big old house, though, is it? I’m ready to carry on exploring now. I’m dying to go inside my future home.’

They got back into the car and set off again, bumping slowly along the rest of the drive towards the front door and parking a few yards to one side of it.

‘I’m stopping here because I don’t want to spoil our view of the entrance,’ Libby explained. ‘The way those double doors are set back under the porch is very attractive, don’t you think? And surely those are stained-glass windows at either side of them? I bet panels like that light up the hall beautifully when the sun shines on them.’

‘Oh, yes. One of the few things I remember about my childhood visit is walking through different colours slanting across the hall. I wanted to stay there and play in them, but Mum pulled me along. Anyway, come on!’ She got out of the car and waited for her friend to join her. ‘Isn’t this exciting?’