Chapter 6 A Grand Entrance
A Grand Entrance
The stranger’s brusqueness had at least dispelled any lingering feeling of shock, although the realization of the cause of my near accident had already started to do that before he arrived; it wasn’t the first time I’d been spooked by a low-flying barn owl at night in a country lane.
As I set off slowly and carefully down the hill, I thought wryly that I was now probably more ruffled than the poor bird after it almost collided with my windscreen.
Once I’d rounded the bend I passed a straggle of cottages that began to cluster more and more closely together, until I arrived at what must be the centre of the village, a huddle of buildings around a small green, with the glimmer of a large decorated fir tree in the middle.
There were a couple of lit shop windows too, which surprised me, because I knew it to be a very small place.
Maybe I really should have taken the time to check out the website for Triskelion and the general area.
But things had just been so frantic that I had done nothing but pack and fall into bed exhausted for days!
The road branched beyond the green, one way heading down the valley, but dead ahead of me was the bridge that led, through open iron gates on the other side, to the haven of Triskelion.
Since I had so much been dreading having to meet and live with a houseful of strangers, it was odd that it should suddenly feel, in some strange way, that I had come home.
I parked at the end of a small row of cars on the gravel sweep, next to Evie’s distinctive red Volvo hybrid, and switched off the engine, sitting motionless for a few minutes, gathering myself together, before getting out and hauling my suitcase and holdall from the tightly packed interior and heading for the huge studded wooden door under an open, lamplit porch.
I barely had time to reach out for the heavy cast-iron knocker – in the shape of the Green Man, foliage sprouting from his mouth and forming a leafy beard, and nestled quite appropriately in the middle of a huge Christmas wreath – before the door was flung open, releasing a flood of bright light, warmth and the distant high yapping of a dog.
‘There you are,’ said a warm contralto voice with the lilt of a Welsh accent. ‘Come in out of the cold.’
She seized my holdall and I followed her into a very large hall – bigger than the ground floor of my cottage, I was sure – closing the door behind me.
*
It was a cavernous space, big enough to have a fireplace of its own, with a couple of comfortable, shabby old armchairs drawn up to it. A huge Christmas tree stood next to a broad flight of stairs that vanished up around a bend.
Swags of greenery hung everywhere which, together with the tree, probably accounted for the scent of pine that mingled with other, familiar seasonal aromas, like spices and baking … and something indefinable that reminded me suddenly and sharply of home.
The woman turned and smiled at me.
‘You must be Ginny! I’m Nerys Matthews, but just call me Nerys. We’re all on first-name terms here.’
I don’t know what I’d expected Nerys Matthews to be like, but it certainly wasn’t this.
She was perhaps in her mid-sixties, not much taller than me, but slim as a wand, with very long black hair, heavily streaked with silver, like a badger, or perhaps a benign Cruella de Vil, for her dark blue eyes were kind and her ruby-red lips curved in a warm smile.
She was wearing a long black knitted tunic over leggings, and a pair of enviable black Doc Marten boots that had been custom painted in a swirling, brightly coloured marbled pattern.
I immediately felt shabby, and also a trifle grubby, after my long day.
I was gazing, in a mesmerized way, at the huge, clear, rock-crystal pendant that hung on a heavy silver chain around her neck, when I suddenly realized she was still speaking to me and I hadn’t taken in a word.
‘I’m sorry – what did you say?’ I apologized. ‘I’m so tired I’m not hanging together very well at the moment. I madly chose to drive across country and it took so much longer than I expected.’
‘These little roads always do take twice as long as you expect,’ Nerys said sympathetically, ‘especially when you are unfamiliar with them. You must be quite exhausted. Never mind, you’ve lots of time to settle in and relax before dinner, which will be at seven.
Come down to the sitting room at about twenty past six – it’s the last door on the right at the back of the hall – where we are all gathering for a drink and to introduce ourselves. ’
That sounded like my idea of hell, but I thought I might feel braver once I’d had time to unwind on my own for a bit.
‘Come on, I’ll take you up,’ she said, picking my holdall up again. ‘Is this all your luggage, or is there more?’
‘I’m afraid there is quite a bit more,’ I confessed. ‘Several boxes and my easel and stuff. But I can bring those in tomorrow.’
‘Oh, no need – give me your keys and Tudor will fetch the rest of it and bring it up to your room. There is a small lift at the back of the hall, so it’s no problem.’
‘That’s great, thank you. And my car is the little Fiat at the front. I hope it was OK to leave it there?’
‘Fine, although he could move it into the courtyard, which is more sheltered. There’s ice and possibly snow forecast.’
‘I’m glad that didn’t start before I got here or I’d probably never have made it,’ I said, and she laughed and led the way upstairs. At the top was a large, book-lined landing with a row of long, curtained windows at the back.
‘Architecturally, the house is a total and confusing hotchpotch,’ she said, turning down a corridor to the right.
‘The central part is very old, but the two main wings, a large studio and a room at the back they grandly called a ballroom, were built on in the mid-Victorian era by one of my ancestors, who must have had more money than good taste, then re-modelled in the nineteen thirties. But don’t worry, you will get the guided tour tomorrow. ’
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ I said, although I was now so spaced out with tiredness that the floor was undulating up and down.
We turned a corner and Nerys opened a door.
‘Here we are. You’re in the Chagall room – they’re all named after artists – and yours looks out over the back garden towards the sea.
We don’t quite run to en-suite bathrooms, but there is one directly opposite your room on the other side of the corridor. ’
I love the paintings of Marc Chagall, so I took that as a good omen. The room itself was much bigger than I had expected, the walls a Wedgwood blue and the cornices and ceiling white.
Nerys put down my bag. ‘If you give me your keys, Tudor will be up with your other stuff in a few minutes, so I’ll leave you to it. I’m sure you’re longing to be left to yourself for a bit – I would be!’
She gave me her warm smile again when I thanked her, then said she would see me in a little while and left. I put down my case and looked around the room that was to be mine for the next couple of weeks.
The furnishings were an odd mix of the antique and modern. The headboard of the bed, two wardrobes, a dressing table and a tall chest of drawers were of some light-coloured wood, with intricate marquetry inlays in a vaguely oriental style, and were obviously old and, probably, valuable.
The desk in the window embrasure, however, was large and functionally modern, and so was the table bearing tea- and coffee-making equipment.
Other than this, there were two small, shabby and comfortable-looking armchairs on either side of a round brass tray on knobbly black tripod legs, which clearly did service as a coffee table.
You can tell how big the room was because all this still left acres of blue carpet. But it was warm and, despite the size, somehow cosy.
I caught sight of myself in the long wall mirror and thought how out of place I looked – a pale young woman with dark shadowed eyes, medium height but looking chunky in an old and well-worn padded jacket that had seen better days, most of them over ten years ago when I’d bought it.
I have an old-fashioned hourglass figure, totally unlike Evie’s tall, spare one, which I expect I inherited from my father’s side of the family, along with my weird caramel-coloured hair. Any garment that didn’t pull in at the waist made me look globular.
I shrugged the jacket off – the old rainbow-striped jumper and jeans I was wearing underneath weren’t a huge improvement – and took off my boots. They were Doc Marten’s, like my hostess’s, but since I’d hand painted them myself, the flowery design was half worn away and indistinct.
*
I’d just made myself a coffee and discovered the biscuit barrel next to the kettle was filled with buttery shortbread fingers, when there was a knock at the door and there, when I opened it, stood a stocky, squarely built, cheerful-looking middle-aged man, next to a little wheeled trolley holding all my various boxes, bags and bundles.
He was wearing a navy fisherman’s jumper and, in fact, with his weather-beaten face, grey hair and bushy beard, looked exactly like the stereotyped fishing-boat captain from every TV advert I’d ever seen.
‘Hi, I’m Tudor,’ he said, and I had to fight down the urge to reply: ‘And I’m Plantagenet – pleased to meet you!’
I expect he’d heard it before.
‘That little car of yours is like a Tardis. I couldn’t believe it held so much,’ he said, handing me my car keys, before stacking all my belongings in a heap in the middle of the carpet, where it looked like some disreputable flotsam that had washed in on a high tide.
‘Thank you, it was kind of you to bring it all up for me.’
‘No problem. I used the lift.’
A very large cake tin was right on top of the stack of boxes and I picked it up and handed it to him.