Chapter 14
Fourteen
At eight thirty on Monday morning, Christina drove her daughter back to school, wishing it wouldn’t be an entire week before she collected her.
‘We’ll see you at the school play on Thursday evening,’ she said, kissing her daughter goodbye.
She spun the car round; Thursday would be an opportunity to speak to the drama teacher about Elspeth’s report.
She told herself she wasn’t avoiding the issue, although a little voice in her head muttered it would be better to make an appointment with the headteacher.
Was she sidestepping the problem, or solving it in a way that would create the least trouble for Elspeth? She couldn’t be sure.
Last night she should have had the courage to confront Ernest; demand he tell her everything he knew.
After all, what if he didn’t know anything except the fact she used to shorten her name to ‘Tina’?
But deep down, she knew she wouldn’t confront him.
She’d just keep working for him until he told her not to, all the while drifting further away from Hamish.
She barely saw her husband these days – he was gone before she woke, and when he returned – always late – his mind was still elsewhere.
They passed like strangers, brushing against each other in silence.
It used to be so different. Just two years ago, a few nights before their ghastly row, she had stood at the kitchen sink, laughing so hard, she thought her sides would burst.
Christina’s sleeves had been rolled up, her arms elbow-deep in bubbles, her nostrils filled with the scent of homemade bread cooking in the Aga.
While she’d been baking, someone had transformed the cottage into a Tudor court, pushing the furniture aside, building a dais from a pile of rugs and positioning two straight-backed chairs on it as makeshift thrones.
A colander sat rakishly on Hamish’s head as a crown, its holes sparkling under the lights like jewels.
Elspeth – his willing conspirator – wore Christina’s silk scarf as a French hood, while another tablecloth – with ingenious tucking and safety pins – was her court gown.
She carried a rolling pin as a ceremonial staff, her nine-year-old face grave with the importance of her role as Lady of the Presence Chamber.
‘Hear ye, hear ye!’ Hamish boomed, sweeping his improvised cloak with a theatrical flourish. ‘Let it be known throughout our realm that King Henry, eighth of that name, doth command the most gracious entertainment!’
Elspeth stepped forward with perfect courtly composure, dropping into a deep curtsy. ‘Your Majesty honours us with his presence. Shall we have the masquers perform?’
‘Indeed, fair lady! But first . . .’ Hamish produced a wooden mixing spoon from somewhere in his costume, brandishing it like a royal sceptre, ‘we must have music! The lute!’
He hummed a melody Christina vaguely recognized as ‘Greensleeves’, though Hamish’s version wandered into unusual harmonic territories. Elspeth giggled but gamely joined in, their voices weaving together as they began an impromptu pavane around the kitchen.
‘Now, the masquers!’ Hamish declared, and suddenly he was narrating an entire courtly entertainment, complete with invisible players. ‘See how they approach, garbed in cloth of gold! Mark how the torchbearers illuminate their passage!’
Elspeth threw herself into the performance, gasping in wonder at each imaginary marvel her father described, until Hamish attempted an elaborate genuflection that made his colander crown slip over his face and gave Elspeth a giggling attack.
Christina stood there, scouring pad forgotten in her soapy hands, watching this man she’d married – this brilliant, ridiculous, wonderful man – give their daughter not just entertainment but magic.
History wasn’t something remote and fusty to them; it was alive, something they could step into and inhabit together. She felt her heart balloon.
‘How did we get so lucky?’ she asked, not realizing she’d spoken aloud.
Hamish looked up from adjusting his crown and grinned, his eyes bright with the same wonder that made him a gifted historian and a wonderful father. ‘We are lucky.’
He crossed the kitchen, still trailing his tablecloth cloak, warm hands covering her wet soapy ones, and kissed her on the lips. Behind him, Elspeth continued the masque on her own, curtsying to invisible courtiers and humming the made-up Tudor melody.
That had been their life then: impromptu theatre, shared imagination, the three of them creating magic from kitchen implements and afternoon light.
Now, Christina was mostly alone. With Elspeth at school and Hamish at work, her companions were the drip of the tap and the clock on the wall above the Aga.
It ticked unevenly, the second hand faltering every few beats before lunging forward as if making up for lost time.
Just like her, she thought – hesitating, stalling, then rushing ahead in bursts of activity that achieved nothing.
The problems she avoided didn’t disappear during those frozen moments; they just accumulated, waiting for her inevitable lurch back into motion.
She pulled her notebook towards her and made a list.
– Contact Penelope and arrange site visit to Chase Lodge.
– Get idea of costs / build spreadsheet, call Rupert for financial advice.
– Talk to Hamish about Chase Lodge, and Elspeth. Cook nice meal first?
– Email Mrs. Henderson - arrange to speak about Elspeth’s report after the play.
– Find out what Ernest knows. Maybe nothing?? Be firmer with him.
She looked at the list, underlined the word “firmer” four times, then she turned back to the soup tureen. She’d never finish working on all the items for the auction on time if she didn’t get a move on.
Inside the Lodge, where Tudor beams sagged like tired shoulders, Christina stamped her feet to keep warm.
Despite Christina’s suggestion of bringing along a builder, Penelope had arrived – alone – thirty minutes late, with armfuls of silk swatches, rolls of opulent wallpaper, and velvets so rich they looked absurd against the exposed laths and dangling wires.
‘Isn’t it thrilling?’ Penelope exclaimed, already unrolling a bolt of deep forest-green damask over an abandoned tea chest, sending dust skittering. ‘In a dark house you need dramatic colours. This will simply sing once the walls are up!’
Christina managed a smile, but her thoughts were elsewhere: not on colour palettes, but on budgets, timelines, and who on earth would quote for all of this.
The house was a shell, the emptiness reminding her just how much there was to do.
She wasn’t resisting the project anymore – no, now she knew Hamish wanted it, she was keen to get cracking – but she needed numbers, plans, something solid beneath all this silk.
Especially with her planned dinner tonight; the two of them finally sitting down to talk about Chase Lodge.
A project they could share, something to pull them into the same future again – if only she could pin down what it would all cost.
Penelope picked up the green fabric and glided ahead, unfazed by the debris underfoot, through spaces that were rooms only in theory, ceilings open to the rafters, unfurling fabric samples as if they were banners of victory.
‘Imagine this in the morning room!’ Penelope cried, pressing a square of saffron silk against a patch of crumbling plaster.
‘It will absolutely glow once the light is restored.’
Christina nodded, mentally slotting “rewiring” and “plastering” into a growing, expensive list. She cleared her throat. ‘Do you have a rough idea what rewiring a whole place like this might cost?’ she asked lightly. ‘Or even . . . ballpark figures for the structural work?’
Penelope waved a graceful hand. ‘Darling, interiors are what give a house its soul. One must have a vision.’ She flipped open a velvet book with a practised snap.
Still, the doubt itched. ‘Do you think,’ Christina began gently, ‘we should perhaps . . . speak with a firm of builders or an architect first?’
‘Humphrey’s your man. We’ve worked together countless times. Marvellous chap. I’ll introduce you when he’s home. He’ll sort all the dreary bits for you.’
They walked on into what might someday be the library, Christina stepping around piles of rubble while Penelope held up a roll of wallpaper – pink foxgloves on a midnight background – against a peeling wall.
‘This will be sensational,’ Penelope declared.
Christina swallowed, calculating again. Labour, materials, joinery, glazing – every corner shouted cost.
She’s an interior designer, Christina reminded herself. She knows what she’s doing. Maybe you really do start choosing wallpapers before the builders have agreed where the walls will go?
‘Do you know what Humphrey usually charges for something this size?’ she asked. ‘Just so I can start planning properly.’
‘We’ll go through it all,’ Penelope said breezily. ‘You’ll see; it will all come together beautifully.’
‘Yes,’ she said, firmer this time. ‘As long as we get the figures sorted.’
A question had been building in her mind all morning. Maybe if she could just get Hamish away from his Tudor musings and his mother’s influence, they could reconnect. Maybe she didn’t need this vast project to restore their marriage.
‘Penelope,’ she whispered as they paused in yet another gloomy room, ‘don’t you think this is all much too big for us? Elspeth is at school all week, and Hamish and I would never see each other in this place!’