Chapter Thirteen
THIRTEEN
WELL, HERE I am, mistress of Harfold Manor.
On paper, at least. Arabella tells me she’s sent off all the documentation now, and we’ll soon hear back about this loan.
Then I can just imagine it: Harfold returned to its past glory.
Made better than before, even! Brought kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.
A roof that doesn’t leak into the bedrooms. Piped water.
A central heating system. Perhaps – dare I think it? – electrics.
At the start of March, my twenty-sixth birthday sneaks up on me. I haven’t said a jot about it to anyone at Harfold, but I was hoping I might get post from Mam or Dad. No such luck. They’ll write one day, when they’re ready. I have to believe that.
I do get a note from Lou and Gladys, though.
It sounds like they’re doing well. Happy.
Gladys has a new job as a shop girl, which is just perfect for her; her favourite part of the Land Army was always the standing around and chatting, not the muddy work in between.
She describes the uniform in detail – sophisticated black silk, a white lace trim – although she isn’t allowed to wear it outside the premises.
For her part, Lou has purchased a bicycle with a little bonus she got at Christmas, and has spent the past months zipping round the streets of Cardiff in cycling shorts and a turban, terrifying anyone unlucky enough to cross into her path.
They both write that they miss me, but I can read between the lines to know that life is easier with me out of the way.
I expect the neighbours have finally stopped leaving poisoned rats on their front step, for one.
Arabella finds me in the hall, where I’ve paused to read this letter. ‘What’s the occasion?’ she asks, meaning that I never receive post normally – not something I realized she’s noticed.
‘Oh, nothing,’ I say, hiding it quickly behind my back.
She raises one curved eyebrow at me, mischief glittering in her smile. ‘Well, now I am even more intrigued.’ Takes a step closer. ‘Go on: tell me.’
‘Did you never hear about curiosity and the cat?’
Arabella is right up square to me now. ‘Ah, then what luck that I am no feline.’ She darts her face close to mine, then, while I’m distracted, makes a snatch behind my back.
Laughing, I manage to pull the letter away from her in time. ‘All right,’ I say, ‘if you really have to know: it’s my birthday today.’
‘Your birthday! But I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It’s not important.’
‘Of course it is. You will have to have the day off.’
‘I need to do the watering, Arabella!’ It’s been an exceedingly dry week or so, and my spring plants are all gasping from it.
‘Well, after that, then,’ she says, pouting. ‘As your mistress, I order a day of leisure.’
I give her a prod in the side. ‘Aren’t I the mistress of Harfold now?’
‘Then all the more reason to take a break! I shall think of a delightful activity for us to do.’
So, once I’ve finished saving the garden from shrivelling up, I down tools and return to the main house, where I find Arabella waiting for me on the doorstep.
She’s changed into a deep blue cardigan with a white trim, paired with a white neckerchief to create an outfit reminiscent of American sailor uniforms. On her head, she wears a straw cloche hat that would be better suited to summer weather.
The thinking behind this ensemble soon becomes clear when, taking my hand, she pulls me through the statue garden and up the steps to the west lawn.
‘I thought we could go boating,’ she says.
‘On the lake?’
‘Why not? The sun is out, it’s warm enough.’ She leads me over the grass with a girlish skip in her step. ‘Have you ever been in the boathouse?’
I haven’t; I wasn’t even aware it was still in use.
The wooden hut straddles the lake at its southernmost point, next to a short, unstable-looking jetty.
My guess is that it was a Victorian whim, intentionally quaint with its decorative turret and open balcony on the upper storey.
The outer walls have a grubby, half-rotten appearance, and lichen clings green to the more sheltered surfaces.
‘Come upstairs first,’ says Arabella, running up the steps to the balcony.
It’s good to see her out of the house, cheeks flushed and merry in the sun.
The optimism of the new year has stayed with her; if anything, it’s even more noticeable now than it was in January.
This is helped in part – at least, in my opinion – by the fact that Reacher has been away this past week, having taken off in a foul mood after I signed the deed.
Arabella wanted to be the one to break the news to him, but that didn’t stop me from listening in at the door.
After all, I’ve earned the right to gloat.
It would’ve been hard to miss the moment he found out anyway: he hooted like a distressed owl, before launching into a powerful rant, loud enough for me to hear as clearly as if I’d been in the room myself.
‘I swear, Bellsy, I am done with you! I know you think this is going to save us, but I am telling you now that you couldn’t be more wrong.
When you realize that, you had better not come crying to me. I wash my hands!’
I’m not sure when he’ll be back, but Arabella and I have been enjoying the time to ourselves meanwhile.
Following her into the top room of the boathouse, I’m made even more certain that it hasn’t been in use for some time. There’s a strong smell of damp, the various seat cushions chill to the touch. My fingertips come away with a khaki dusting of mould.
Arabella rummages around in a wicker chest, pulling out various items at random: a tin cup, a moth-eaten shawl, a lone sandal.
‘We used to go out on the lake every summer,’ she tells me.
‘You should have seen Morry – he was such a coward about it. All you had to do was rock the boat the tiniest bit and he would go green as a cucumber.’ Her tone is light-hearted, but the words make me remember what Reacher told me the other day, about how cruel she was to him as a child.
Is there a vindictive air in the way she chuckles at it now?
‘Then he’d complain that his arms hurt and he couldn’t possibly row, so you would have to do all the hard work if you had the misfortune of being paired up with him.
Still, it was all great fun.’ She pulls out a man’s straw boater.
‘This was Charlie’s, I think. He used to be in the rowing club at Oxford … Here, you should put it on!’
I try to wave her away, but Arabella’s too insistent, and the hat eventually makes its way on to my head.
‘Very fetching,’ she laughs, cupping my chin and standing on tiptoe to kiss me.
Nudges one knee between my legs, but when I bring my hand up to the top button of her cardigan, she slaps me away.
‘Naughty. Not before we take the boat out.’
I’m not sure where this sudden obsession has come from, but Arabella is clearly hell-bent on the idea, so I follow her down the ladder to the storage room.
In here, three wooden scudders are lined up in a row, dusty tarpaulins draped over them.
We free the nearest one, which requires chasing away a fat wolf spider first of all. I snatch off swathes of cobwebs.
‘When did you last use these?’ I ask.
Arabella is quiet for a few seconds – long enough to make me glance up at her, see the twist in her mouth. ‘Not since …’
Her parents. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Arabella. I should’ve thought.’
She shakes her head. ‘No need to apologize. I’m the one who suggested it. It is high time I stop being afraid.’
Once the boat’s clear, I drag it to the water’s edge. It looks old and tired, but I can’t see any obvious damage, so with luck it will still be able to float. ‘Here goes,’ I say, kicking it in.
We both watch intently, then laugh at each other’s seriousness: it’s bobbing along just fine.
‘Do you think it will hold us?’ I ask.
‘Of course,’ says Arabella. ‘You can get in first, though. Seeing as it is your birthday.’
‘Charming!’ I step in. A moment of panic as it shifts under my weight, but then I’m in the seat and still dry as ever.
Arabella passes the two oars over to me, then takes my hand to climb in herself, moving with far more grace than I’d managed.
Once she’s all settled, I untie the rope and we push off.
I’ve never rowed before in my life, and Arabella’s obviously out of practice, so for a while we flounder around in circles, colliding with the jetty and not making it much further than a few feet away from the shore.
An alarmed duck beats its wings in our direction, quacking in protest. But at last, we’re able to pick up a rhythm and set off, hugging the side of the lake at first, passing along the west lawn, the ice house, the orchard wall with its treetops peeking over.
‘Let’s go to the middle,’ Arabella says after a while, and we splash about until we’ve changed direction for the centre.
The water here is dark and unfathomable.
It’s nearing midday by now, and the sun is warm overhead, bouncing back off the surface so that I’m part dazzled.
I’m reminded of summer days on Penarth beach: Mam and Dad taking me as a girl so I could learn to swim, cup of tea on the pier after.
Then, later, returning when we worked for the Reeses.
I’d sometimes take a sunset stroll on the promenade, or just a pause to watch the waves from their garden – you could see right down to the sand from one end of it.
Little Kenneth used to collect seashells, I remember in a flash.
Kept them lined up on his bedroom windowsill, sorted by colour. I’d forgotten about that.