Chapter 8 #2
‘Presumably she already knows you have a book habit,’ Jenna said.
‘We both do,’ Owen admitted.
‘There are a lot of worse obsessions to have.’
Jenna totted them all up through the till – the book on Bob Dylan, a financial memoir, a political thriller, some poetry, a nature writing memoir and a history of the Vikings, to add to the book about tractors he had got for his nephew.
‘You have eclectic tastes,’ she observed, then wished she hadn’t made such a personal comment. But Owen only smiled as he got out his phone to pay.
‘Rachel was right,’ he said. ‘This is a fabulous shop. I’m glad you’re going to be my local bookseller.’
‘Thank you,’ Jenna said. She itched to ask him about his new house but didn’t want to appear nosy.
It was none of her business and she had already told herself she was going to keep her distance from Owen because of the Winterhill complications.
She put his receipt in the bag and handed it over to him, to see that he was looking at her thoughtfully.
‘You thought that Rachel and I were a couple, didn’t you?’ he asked.
‘It didn’t even occur to me,’ Jenna said, avoiding his gaze, then wished she hadn’t denied it so hastily. There was an amusement in his eyes that called her out on the lie and made her feel quite hot at the same time.
‘It’s lucky Rach didn’t spot your resemblance to Marris North’s portrait,’ he said softly. ‘She would probably have told you that I’ve been a little bit in love with Marris from the moment I saw it.’ He raised a hand in farewell, turned and went out, leaving her speechless.
* * *
It was a busy week. Jenna had a couple of meetings with publishers to discuss stocking the special indie bookshop editions they were planning for the summer.
She ran a talk and book signing event, featuring a celebrity author who had written a book about Alfred the Great, Wantage’s local hero.
The celebrity was mobbed and she sold dozens of books.
She sent out the shop’s weekly newsletter and made some plans for World Book Night.
It gave her a buzz that reminded her of why she’d chosen bookselling in the first place, when she’d been fresh out of college and determined to open her own shop.
She’d been so na?ve then, she thought, that it was a wonder she and the business had survived.
Now she was just starting to think about expanding; new premises, perhaps, or a second shop…
She wasn’t sure what came next but she felt the need for a challenge.
On the Friday, she was driving back from a Booksellers Association event in Bristol when she passed a sign to Winterhill and on an impulse, she turned off at the motorway at the junction before her usual one, driving along the route of the Ridgeway on country roads towards the village.
She knew she was going because her curiosity about Molly’s bracelet was nagging at her.
It had been on her mind even though she had tried to persuade herself to let it go.
She realised that she wanted to be reassured.
She wanted to find out that she had made a mistake and her sister really had bought it in a souk in Dubai.
It was early afternoon and the sun was shining with the particularly bright sparkle of a winter day.
The bare hedgerows were gilded bronze and gold and everything looked fresh and new.
Lazy curls of woodsmoke rose into the air and as she came into Winterhill village, the grey tower of the church shone in the light.
The ticket Jenna had got two weeks before lasted for the whole season, so this time she parked in the car park by Winterhill Hall and made her way across the gravel sweep to the entrance.
A board outside the main door stated that this was the head office of the Swan Power Foundation but that under charity rules, parts of the house were open to visitors.
Jenna paused for a moment in front of the arched porch, assessing how she was feeling.
She had expected the same onslaught of memories that had hit her when she had gone to the priory, but found that she felt quite different.
Yes, there were echoes of the past, memories stirring, a welter of emotions.
But here at Winterhill Hall, Marris had been happy.
It had not been like the priory, where turmoil and destruction had inevitably left its mark on her soul.
Jenna found that she was smiling a little as she stood back to admire the house.
William Sharington had been so proud of it and she understood why.
Surprisingly, given his love of display, it was not a grandiose brick Tudor palace, but a far more modest manor built of rendered sarsen and limestone.
There were no turrets or castellations here, no black and white half-timbering, just a little gem of a house with its central hall and two wings around a cobbled courtyard.
The mullioned windows twinkled back at her in the sunshine.
Giving a little sigh, she pushed open the oak door.
The receptionist behind the Swan Power desk checked her ticket and explained that because the building was used for offices, not all of the rooms were open to the public.
There was a self-guided tour following the arrows and the itinerary in the guidebook.
The phone rang, interrupting her, so Jenna gave her a little wave of thanks and set off to follow the first arrow into the Great Hall.
It was the perfect venue for corporate events, she thought, with high, arched windows and a minstrel’s gallery.
A grandfather clock ticked out a sonorous beat in the silence and various slightly rusty suits of armour were dotted about; an interpretation board stated that they had been borrowed from a local museum.
Jenna smiled. For the first time it occurred to her that presumably Owen’s grandparents hadn’t had any spare Tudor armour or weaponry knocking around to leave to the Foundation.
It must have been a challenge to furnish Winterhill Hall as an authentic Tudor tourist attraction.
There was a panelled passageway at the end leading into the south wing.
Jenna followed the route slowly. The parlour had the same gorgeous plaster ceiling that she remembered with the Tudor roses entwined with ivy leaves for love and fidelity.
The sunlight dappled the floor. It had always been a warm room with a happy atmosphere.
A sign screaming ‘Haunted Room!’ led further down the stone-flagged passageway towards what had been the kitchen and buttery.
Jenna didn’t bother with that. She was getting increasingly impatient to find the display of Tudor jewellery, which was supposed to be in the long gallery above.
She took the servants’ staircase rather than returning to the main hallway and found herself on the second floor, which looked completely different from in Marris’s time; the bedrooms had been divided into office and meeting space, and she could hear voices behind the closed doors.
However, as soon as she stepped into the gallery, which ran the length of the south wing, she felt a wave of longing and nostalgia.
For a moment it was as though she had travelled back to Tudor times; it was here that Marris had played with the children, running from end to end of the room as they shrieked with laughter.
Even then the floorboards had been creaky and uneven.
William had grumbled about the poor workmanship.
Jenna walked across to one of the windows.
The view was the same, looking down on the knot garden, except that now the yew and box had been replaced with topiary bushes.
A long display case filled the centre of the gallery.
It contained a motley collection of items that had apparently been found locally, all of which had some vague Tudor connection.
One was a battered silver coin with Henry VIII’s face on it.
Jenna was surprised into a laugh at how unflattering the image was.
There was a piece of embroidered altar cloth from St Mary’s Church that had been dated to the Elizabethan era, some pottery, a leather shoe, and a rather beautiful illuminated Bible.
On a black velvet cushion in the centre of the cabinet was the jewellery Jenna had been looking for – a child’s baptismal ring, a gold and enamel pendant with the star cross of Cleves, and an armlet with the two intertwined swans.
The pearl necklace was nowhere to be seen.
Jenna scoured the case but nothing was on show.
The card giving details of the jewellery and naming Colonel and Mrs James Swan as donors had had a piece of sticky tape put over the bottom where Jenna suspected there had been a reference to the necklace.
Next to it was a typed note reading: ‘Some items from the display are currently undergoing conservation.’ Jenna felt a mixture of relief and suspicion.
That might explain why the necklace wasn’t there, but it did not settle her doubts about Molly’s bracelet.
She bit her lip in indecision. If she wanted to know the truth, she would have to ask Molly herself.
But not until after she had taken back Queen Anna’s box.
There was only so much past history she could deal with at once.
Jenna walked down the gallery and rested a hand against a wooden pillar in the bay at the western end.
There had been a window seat here where Marris had loved to sit reading.
Jenna closed her eyes and summoned up the memory of that time, of the voices of the children below as they played in the gardens with their nurse, of the scent of dust and wax and crushed herbs from the matting, of Will’s voice and his footsteps approaching… She smiled.
‘Jenna?’