Chapter Twenty-Eight
Moving Day
Seven twenty-six in the morning and they stumbled out of the stacks in the Borrow-A-Bookshop, hair tousled, lips bee stung, eyes sleepy, and both smiling dopily having kissed the whole night away.
While the movie credits rolled, they’d sneaked away from the gardens, beating the crowds and the gossips, running laughing and stumbling all the way down the dark slope, stopping under the Victorian lamps and kissing hard, drinking straight from the Champagne bottle, then slipping and sliding further Down-along, pulling one another into doorways and turnings to kiss some more until they arrived back at the door of the bookshop where they couldn’t pull themselves apart to retrieve the keycard from Annie’s bag, only stopping when they were both shivering with cold and excitement, when they’d at last fallen in through the door.
Annie had lured a helpless Harri with a crooked finger into the stacks where they’d stayed all night, hands roving over clothes, outer layers dropped to the floor, breathing raggedly, kissing for hours.
The winter dawn’s light bled into the shop now.
They stood side by side in the middle of the bookshop, looking around them.
‘Did it always look like this?’ Annie said. ‘Everything seems different.’
‘It’s like I have new eyes,’ Harri said. He laughed and shook his head at how silly it sounded, but everything was new this morning. ‘I know what we need,’ he said.
‘Coffee,’ Annie said, ‘and hangover buns.’
‘Coming right up.’ He walked away, only dropping her hand when their arms were fully extended.
Annie stayed where she was. Her eyes fell over their suitcases and bags, which they’d left by the shop counter yesterday before setting off for the movie. She shook her head at the thought of how she’d felt then, bent out of shape and regretful.
Now here she was at dawn with Harri ready to fly all the way to Texas so he could see more of her. Everything had worked out in ways she couldn’t have imagined. Her eyes fell on the last box from the castle. It was already opened but only half unpacked. Almost everything had worked out. She’d made lots of new friends in Clove Lore, and all of them were happy, except one.
‘We should finish that box, before we get our cab to the airport,’ she said, just as Harri reappeared with the mugs on a tray and with a glass of water for the red rose that had laid on the counter all night.
He glanced at the shop clock. ‘We have time.’
Together they sat on the floor, nothing hurried, everything calm. They tasted their coffees, cortados to wake them up. Annie told him this was her favourite so far and delighted, he’d noted that down in his app.
They lifted books and papers from the box and spread them on the floor. There were some old architectural sketches in faded ink, an engraved stamp which, on closer inspection, they found bore the Courtenay coat of arms, mirror-reversed for sealing letters in wax. There were some receipts for books, yellowed and useless, an expired TV licence, a Yellow Pages dated 1983, its dog-eared pages stuffed with pencilled quotes for restoration works on the stable block, which presumably never happened. Harri handed Annie the book that had languished at the bottom of the box.
‘ In Memoriam ,’ she read from the inside leaf. ‘Published in eighteen-fifty.’
‘Looks important,’ said Harri.
Annie turned the pages and just inside was a handwritten pencilled note in a lovely sloping script which read, ‘First edition Tennyson. His poetry grieving the loss of his beloved friend, A. H. Hallam’.
‘One of Sir Nicholas’s treasures?’ said Harri. ‘Slipped through the auctioneer’s net, this one. We studied Tennyson in first year, remember?’
Annie held the book all the more carefully. ‘I bet this is worth something. We’d better make sure William gets it before he goes.’
The mention of their friend brought some quiet pondering. Annie opened the book again, finding a random page, and read.
‘ I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all. ’
She looked to Harri. ‘We definitely need to get this to William. This is a book about grieving your best friend. It might bring him some comfort when he’s living who knows where.’
‘And we need to get his address so we can keep in touch,’ said Harri, standing now. ‘I’ll ring down to the Siren, make sure he doesn’t leave before we see him.’
‘I’ll grab a shower and get dressed.’
As Annie stood, the leaves of the book opened and from them fell a folded piece of paper. She stooped to lift it. ‘More receipts,’ she guessed. This paper felt different than the others in the box, thicker, and it was folded in such a curious way, like a flat knot, that it took her a moment to open it out. What she read inside made her throw a hand to her mouth, and before she’d got to the end, tears were stinging her eyes.
‘Harri! Look!’
He read the paper in her hands.
‘I, Sir Nicholas Courtenay of Clove Lore Castle, appoint as the Executor and Trustee and soul Benefactor of this my last will and testament, Mr William Sabine, my friend these fifty years.’
He stopped, aghast. ‘No! I thought he died intestate!’
‘Everyone thought so,’ Annie said.
Harri read on in snatches. ‘Being of sound mind… leaving all that I own to Mr William Sabine… no living relatives… contents to be auctioned off insofar as they cover estate debts and funerary costs… the entirety of Clove Lore Castle and estate grounds to be transferred in right and deed to Mr William Sabine for him to do with as he pleases.’
‘It’s signed as well, look. And there’s the Courtenay crest stamped on it!’ Annie pointed to the scratchy signature of Sir Nicholas. ‘And it was witnessed.’
Harri peered at the name. ‘Dr Mateeva, General Practitioner! That wasn’t the doctor who called here, was it? What’s the date on this?’
Annie pointed at the page, and Harri stifled what threatened to be a great big sob. ‘Last Valentine’s Day.’
‘The doctor must remember witnessing this?’ said Annie, her brain racing ahead.
‘But that doctor had no idea who William was when they called here last week to examine him,’ said Harri, wiping his eyes, piecing it all together. ‘William said they took Nicholas to the hospital to die, and he was already unconscious by then. Doctor Mateeva probably didn’t even hear about Sir Nicholas’s death, or didn’t think to put two and two together when examining William?’
‘That makes me think Sir Nicholas did this in secret, without William ever knowing?’ said Annie. ‘William did tell us his old friend had many doctors call on him at the castle when he was ill.’
Harri let that sink in. ‘I bet you’re right.’
‘Does this mean William owns the castle? Is this even legal?’ Annie was growing frantic.
‘I’ve no idea.’ Harri was searching the floor for where he’d cast off his coat last night. ‘But we need to get this to William before they come for him this morning.’