Chapter 5
CERENSTHORPE ABBEY, HAMPSHIRE – PRESENT DAY
‘There you are!’ Edith exclaimed as Tabitha entered her office the following morning. ‘How are you, my dear? Have you recovered from the shock of finding Gulliver covered in blood?’
‘Good morning,’ said Tabitha, placing her handbag on her chair. ‘I’m fine, relieved to be able to help.’
‘Stress always gives Gulliver terrible nosebleeds,’ Edith said, her tone full of concern. ‘It’s been the case since he was a child.’
‘Is he asleep?’ asked Tabitha.
‘No, he disappeared to the stables at dawn to go riding. I suspect the poor boy barely slept.’
Tabitha slipped off her jacket, uncomfortable at discussing Gulliver as though he were a recalcitrant child.
‘He has a great deal on his mind,’ she replied.
Even after six months, Tabitha continued to have occasions where she struggled to negotiate the varying relationships between the inhabitants of Cerensthorpe Abbey.
From the moment of her arrival, Edith had treated her as friend, confidante and honorary granddaughter, rarely as an employee.
Molly Swanne, Gulliver’s mother, had followed Edith’s lead, welcoming Tabitha into the family with whole-hearted warmth.
Tabitha had been grateful for their kindness, even if on occasions, she felt overpowered by their enthusiasm.
During her first week, when Edith had insisted on inviting her to family dinners and discussing the minutiae of life at Cerensthorpe Abbey as though she were a relative, she had asked Gulliver where the boundaries of her role as employee reached.
‘Auntie Edith doesn’t do “boundaries”,’ he had replied.
‘As far as she is concerned, everyone is equal. We’re all members of the family – some by blood, the rest by serendipity.
She believes Cerensthorpe Abbey calls home the people who are meant to live here and it’s her duty to make them feel welcome. ’
‘And what do you think?’
He had gazed at her through his dark lashes, his hazel eyes warm, considering her with interest. ‘I think she’s right,’ he had replied. ‘You’re here for a reason and we have a duty to ensure you’re safe.’
The conversation had stayed with her and from then on she had viewed not only the inhabitants but the house in a different light.
It was fanciful, she knew, but the thought of being drawn to Cerensthorpe Abbey by mystical means intrigued her.
This feeling was enhanced by the unexpected way she had discovered the advertisement for her life-changing job.
Six months earlier, at the lowest ebb of her life, Tabitha had visited the upstairs café at the Ten-to-Midnight Bookshop on Milford Haven Marina.
After ordering a coffee, she had sat staring out across the vast estuary, searching for a way to rebuild her life.
On the table beside her lay a battered copy of Ether Heracles and The Race of Jupiter by Dexter Blake, borrowed from one of the many shelves plastered with signs inviting customers to read freely.
The series was one of her favourites, but even the adventures of Ether and his rebel gang could not hold her attention.
She had abandoned the book on the table, overwhelmed by the dull, bleak numbness that filled every waking moment.
Her youngest sister, Eve, with her husband, Robbie, ran a bistro, Morforwyn, a few doors down, but Tabitha had wanted space away from her caring but often overwhelming family.
Eve would have insisted on joining her and what Tabitha needed was a place to think, to allow the world to continue around her while she rediscovered her place within it.
She had been watching one of the huge tankers make its stately way through the water, accompanied by a tug to guide it into dock, when one of the waiting staff had interrupted her.
‘You dropped this,’ the cheerful girl had said and placed the magazine beside Tabitha’s cup.
‘No, it’s not mine…’ she had begun, but the girl had moved away, her attention claimed by another customer.
The magazine was an old-fashioned women’s title and was opened to the Staff Required section.
Tabitha’s eyes had scanned it with the vaguest of interest. She had studied history at university and found the modern-day requests for companions, housekeepers, butlers and nannies intriguing.
It felt strange to think such roles continued to exist, then the words Head Curator and Archivist Required had caught her attention.
It looked out of place among the other requests, but as she had read the advertisement offering a good salary, a wealth of positive working conditions, including a cottage to live in, a certainty that this was the next step in her life had overcome Tabitha.
She had stuffed the magazine into her handbag, hurried out of the shop and driven back to her parents’ hotel where she was staying, desperate to apply for the position.
An hour later, she had fired off her application, her heart pounding in anticipation.
After her husband Blake Evans’s unexpected death, Tabitha had no longer been able to afford the rent on their riverside Southwark apartment and, having been offered a sabbatical from the London-based PR company where she worked, she had fled to her parents and their hotel, The Orwell, in the wilds of Pembrokeshire.
It was her father, Roland Mundy, known to all as Roly, who was the dreamer, and it was his love affair with architecture that had changed the course of their family life.
Many years earlier, when he, his wife, Madelaine, and their baby daughter, Suzannah, had been on holiday in Pembrokeshire, he had seen the abandoned Georgian former vicarage and fallen in love.
After years in the property industry, he was ready for a new challenge and saw the building’s potential as a family-run hotel.
Always financially astute, over the years he had created a small property portfolio of his own, which if realised would give him ample funds to buy and renovate the property, leaving an emergency fund to cover their costs and living expenses while they built the business.
The rest of the holiday was spent in imagining their new future, with Maddy as eager as Roly to embark on this new adventure.
Both free spirits who laughed and loved easily and with passion, they knew that whatever happened, as long as they had each other and their growing family, all would be well.
When the contract was signed and the property became theirs, Maddy was pregnant with Tamar.
Bathsheba followed, eighteen months later, then Tabitha after another two years and finally Eve, not quite two years after her.
After that, Maddy suggested one of them should have some sort of preventative operation.
Roly named the new venture The Orwell Hotel, after his favourite author, Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell.
‘It gives us a spooky edge,’ he had said to Maddy. ‘We both love a good conspiracy theory – maybe the name will attract like-minded customers.’
‘Or people will assume it’s our family name,’ Maddy had suggested and they had laughed – a response to most things in their marriage.
Tabitha’s childhood had been a mix of, when necessary, helping out at the hotel, combined with carefree days in the countryside and on the nearby beaches, usually as part of a huge crowd of friends.
As the years passed, the hotel’s popularity enabled the family to extend the original building.
The Orwell soon boasted twenty-four rooms in the house, with another six in a modern extension.
The outhouses had been turned into a series of very pretty staff bedrooms and accommodation.
Most staff were local, but some were seasonal and it was one of the reasons why working at The Orwell was considered a prime hotel job – staff were treated the same as family.
As the five sisters grew up, Roly and Maddy decided they needed a space for themselves, so a large barn conversion and extension created the girls’ house, which they called, The Escape Rooms – long before it was ever considered a way to spend a torturous few hours.
These consisted of five large en suite bedrooms, a kitchen, living room and extra reception room.
It was connected to the hotel via a corridor which the girls could lock from their side and led through to their parents’ private suite.
It was a happy, carefree childhood and all the sisters continued to return to The Orwell and the vicinity whenever possible.
For Tabitha, it had been the obvious place to take refuge when she needed to make sense of Blake’s death.
By the time she saw the advertisement, though, she was ready to move on and at least try to build a new life.
With the few savings she and Blake had accrued and a few thousand from Blake’s will, she had enough money to give her a year to decide on her next chapter.
Ever since she had finished her history degree, Tabitha had worked in PR.
She had been offered an internship while at university and had taken it, enjoying the fast-paced glamorous life.
She had met Blake at a party thrown by one of their clients, a large London recruitment company, and despite him being twelve years her senior, their attraction had been immediate.
Now, she wanted a complete change and her love of history was driving her forward.
She knew she was probably not qualified for the head curator and archivist job, but even having the energy and drive to apply had felt like a positive first step.
When Edith had contacted her the following day and invited Tabitha for an interview, she felt the stars had aligned and this was the universe presenting her with the new beginning she craved.
A month later, much to the concern of her family, she had moved into Tadpole Cottage and begun her new job, never regretting it for a moment.
Now, Tabitha watched as Edith paced the room, distress in her every movement.
‘His mood scares me,’ Edith admitted. ‘Lucia has always wanted him to give up Cerensthorpe Abbey. She feels no love for it and sees it as an impediment to her plans. He’s angry now but, if when he calms down, Gulliver decides to try to win her back, he may choose to sell the house.’
‘Cerensthorpe Abbey belongs to you,’ said Tabitha.
‘I know, but one day it will be his and I’d be so sad to lose it before we found the Chaucer.
You and Gulliver don’t believe me, but Papa told me all the dark family secrets were in his father’s journal, including the whereabouts of our original copy of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Family legend states, the book was bequeathed by Geoffrey Chaucer himself after the nuns cured his wife, Lady Philippa, after she suffered an ague.
There were only a few canonesses remaining as the majority had been killed by the Black Death.
They illuminated the manuscript, and it was the fine detail of their work which helped to save the abbey.
Unfortunately, sixty years later, after the Wars of the Roses, finances had faded again and the last abbess, Margery de Cerensthorpe, a distant Howard cousin, negotiated with Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, to have the estate transferred to the Howard dowry trusts in exchange for pensions.
In 1498, it was granted to Elizabeth Howard upon her marriage to Thomas Boleyn. ’
Tabitha listened, by now, she was used to Edith unexpectedly reciting a piece of family history and she found the tales fascinating, even if she wondered at their veracity. The older woman rummaged in her bag and pulled out a padded envelope.
‘This is my grandfather Wilbur Swanne’s diary,’ she said, pushing it at Tabitha.
‘Despite Papa’s claims, it’s never been transcribed.
I know this isn’t one of your tasks, but would you please consider looking through it and assessing whether you would be able to make a readable copy, as a special favour to me?
My eyes are not what they were and the writing is small and cramped, which makes it impossible for me to read.
I wish I’d read it when I was younger, but it felt like an intrusion on Grandpapa’s privacy.
Now I’m older, I realise his intentions in leaving the diary to Papa were for it to be read, but I didn’t understand.
If nothing else, it would be wonderful to experience his words.
This would be like hearing his voice and, if what he and Papa said was true, the diary might offer clues to the location of the missing book. ’
Tabitha looked into Edith’s hopeful face and could not refuse the heartfelt request.
‘Let me fetch cotton gloves,’ she said, reaching over to her desk drawer and pulling on a pair.
Tabitha was unsure what might be inside the envelope and thought the gloves would offer protection to both the book if it was delicate and her fingers if the diary was in bad condition.
With great care, she pulled out the leather-bound book and examined it in detail.
It was navy blue, with gold trimmed pages and was in surprisingly good condition.
Wilbur Swanne had died in 1914 during one of the first battles of World War One in the French village of Soupir and this diary had been preserved ever since.
Opening the pages with care, Tabitha examined the writing.
Edith’s had been an optimistic description of the almost illegible script within.
There was an expression of desperate hope on Edith’s face and, despite logic telling her this would be a thankless task, Tabitha smiled and said, ‘I could try, Edith. Would you like me to do this before I continue with cataloguing the small library?’
‘Would you mind?’ asked Edith, delight in her eyes.
‘Of course not, I’ll start on it this morning,’ said Tabitha.
‘Thank you so much, my dear,’ she said. ‘It’s very important to me to discover whether Papa did find the book or whether it’s a family myth.’
She hugged Tabitha with surprising strength and hurried away, wiping her eyes on a lace handkerchief.
As Tabitha hung up her jacket on the old-fashioned coat stand in the corner of the room and unpacked the things she would need for the day ahead, she began running through ways of enlarging and enhancing the words in the journal.
Opening her computer, she emailed a friend who might be able to help and, as she did, she heard a magpie squawk.
Looking up, she saw two birds on the windowsill outside, their eyes bright, their feathers a shimmering miracle of beauty.
The three stared at each other, human to bird, bird to human, then, with a raucous caw, the two birds flew away.