Chapter Seven
I went to see Elsa yesterday and spent a lovely evening with her.
She shares a house with three other girls - they all have a floor each, but tend to meet on the first floor in Elsa’s sitting room that looks over the park and the back of Great Pulteney Street.
It felt very special discussing everything from guys to politics over a few cocktails.
One of the girls had received a shaker and a set of paper umbrellas for her birthday, and another had “borrowed” a bottle of tequila and the leftovers from a bottle of grenadine from her parents’ house.
A Tequila Sunrise, mixed with lots of fresh orange juice was like drinking sunshine in a long glass, and I tried a delicious olive or two, which I’d never been brave enough to do before.
Elsa had a new fondue set, and it was a lot of fun dipping chunks of bread on long forks into the melted cheese, and playing forfeits if anyone dropped theirs.
She’s so lovely, and I think we’ll always be friends whatever happens with Harry, which brings me on to the most exciting entry yet.
I saw him last night. I’ll start at the very beginning so I can savour every last detail and thought - and then read it through so I can re-live it all over again.
I wore a black velvet dress with a high collar, suitably gothic for a horror film though my very ordinary coat spoiled the effect I was trying to achieve, as a sort of cross between a romantic heroine and a sultry vamp - though, to be perfectly honest I’m not sure I could have pulled either off, even if I’d had a floor-length velvet cape.
Anyway, we’d arranged to meet outside the cinema, and for once, I wasn’t three hours too early.
I was so caught up in the sense of occasion that I will admit to feeling happiness of a “quiet, deep, heart-swelling sort”, as Jane Austen might say, on seeing Harry.
He was standing in the freezing cold, little puffs of his warm breath like mist on the air, with the collar turned up on that wonderful swash-buckling coat, and looking every inch like a romantic hero …
or villain. I couldn’t quite decide which, because there was more than an echo of a highwayman in the way his coat fell almost to the floor.
For a moment I longed for him to sweep me up into his arms and carry me off somewhere to ravish me, but fortunately he just smiled and put his hands in his pockets.
The cinema was almost full when we took our seats, and while I’d suspected he probably wouldn’t want to sit on the back row, nuzzle my ear or try to kiss me, I wasn’t quite prepared for sitting on the front row and suffering the inevitable crick in the neck as a result.
The film was pretty dreadful - an old black and white version with a Dracula man-bat biting girls’ necks before suffering a stake through the heart.
We suppressed our laughter as much as we could, and when it was all over, Harry suggested we go and find somewhere for a coffee.
We found a café down one of Bath’s tiny cobbled back streets, looking as if it had been forgotten from the last decade with grimy Formica tops, but with a reassuring smell of ground coffee and the hiss of steaming urns.
We were the only people in there, which should have told us something, but I sat down while Harry ordered our coffee at the counter.
The coffee was delicious, though the Nice biscuits, presented on a chipped eau de nil saucer, were a bit grey looking and soft.
‘I’m sorry the film wasn’t very good,’ Harry began, but then we both started laughing.
‘It was spectacularly bad,’ I agreed, ‘especially when Dracula turned into a bat and you could see the string being jerked as it flew out of the window. I suppose we must be thankful for small mercies … at least it wasn’t in colour.’
‘Yes, I’m not sure the cardboard castle walls would have stood up to Technicolor scrutiny.’
‘At one point when Dracula rushed from the room, I swear the stone walls shook.’
Harry laughed. ‘I think they must have spent all their money on the location shots … the ones of those amazing Transylvanian castles which bore no resemblance to the interiors.’
‘Wonderfully gothic, but I can’t imagine living in a place like that … it would be very draughty, I think. I’m not sure I’d be able to roam the corridors in gauzy nighties like the vampiresses in the film.’
‘I have an uncle who lives in a castle on a cliff top by the sea, and you’re right, the wind whistles down the corridors like a banshee shrieking from hell itself.’
‘How romantic … I love castles, but I’ve never visited one where someone was actually living in it. They’ve always been ruins, usually of some long-gone English King in the Welsh Marches. What’s it like, apart from the draughts?’
‘It’s very comfortable, and not a bit how you’d imagine … though it’s a long time since I visited.’
Harry looked down into his cup, and his lips pressed together in a firm line, giving me the impression that although he’d started it, this bit of the conversation was over. There was a slightly awkward silence, before he spoke again.
‘I’m descended from a long line of poor relations, second and third sons of second and third sons, all of them clergymen.
The rich half of the family … the uncle I was just telling you about, doesn’t have much to do with us any more.
My aunt passed away many years ago and his one and only son drank himself into an early grave. ’
‘Oh, how sad.’
‘Yes, he’s cut himself off from the world. Geraint Tate is a sad and bitter person, a shell of the man I remember. I only wish he’d let us be a part of his life.’
‘I should imagine he’s lonely too.’
‘My mother and I tried to visit him when his son died, but he refused to see us. I know my mum writes regularly, but she never has an answer. He’s quite old now so I don’t suppose I’ll ever see him again.
Mum wrings her hands and says I should inherit the castle, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he leaves everything to the dogs’ home.
I don’t want it anyway … it must guzzle money, and I’ve no desire to live in a mausoleum. ’
‘Though it does sound wildly mysterious and exotic being by the sea … though possibly remote and dangerous. Does your uncle keep young maidens locked in their rooms?’
‘Possibly … he always did have an eye for the ladies.’
I looked at Harry’s face with its serious expression. ‘You are joking,’ I added with a nervous laugh.
He met my eyes over his coffee cup, but there wasn’t a hint of laughter in them. Harry looked so stern for a moment, but then his lips curved, and a smile softened his expression.
‘Tell me about your family,’ he said. ‘Should I be aware of any brothers likely to bash me over the head, anxious to protect their little sister.’
‘No, there’s only me.’
Suddenly, I wished I had a large family …
I’d always wanted one, and been envious of friends who were close to their brothers and sisters.
I felt quite alone in the world, like a gothic heroine from a novel, and the thought struck me that I didn’t know anything about Harry really, and here I was alone with him, and no one knowing where I was or what I was doing.
That was for about two seconds until my senses returned, and he ordered us another coffee.
‘Whereabouts is the castle?’ I asked and took a sip of the creamy drink, which I knew was making a moustache of foam on my upper lip.
‘It’s in Pembrokeshire, between Manorbier and Tenby.’
‘I have a memory of going to Tenby once or twice with my parents when I was a little girl and staying in a hotel where Beatrix Potter did some of her paintings, but that’s all I remember.’
‘It’s a beautiful part of the world. I wonder if we could have been there at the same time … when I was little we used to visit every year in the summer holidays. Sometimes we stayed with Uncle Geraint, but occasionally we rented a house at Tenby overlooking the sea.’
‘Just imagine, we could have been playing side by side on the beach, unaware that all these years later we would meet.’
‘Or walked past one another on the street. Have you always lived in London?’
‘No, I’m only there in term time. My mother lived in London for a few years but now lives in Chawton.’
‘In Hampshire … where Jane Austen lived?’
‘Yes, just round the corner … I live with my mother in the holidays, of course. My father died last year, and Mum doesn’t want to leave the house where they made their last home together.’
‘I’m so sorry; I know what that’s like too. I was just a boy when my father died - it’s tough however old you are.’
‘Yes, I didn’t really know what had hit me at first; I still can’t believe he’s gone, that I’m never going to hear his voice again.’
‘It helps to talk, I find. Tell me about him, and how your parents met.’
‘Oh, where do I start? He was wonderful … a very kind and gentle man. My dad was never happier than when he was worrying about or looking after people. He came from a clergy family, following in his father’s footsteps, but my mother’s family were a bit grander.
They met at a ball my mother’s family held one Christmas and they fell instantly in love, despite the initial disapproval. ’
‘What happened?’
My mother’s family thought she should be aiming higher, marrying into the aristocracy in an attempt to claw back what they’d lost. Charlcombe Hall passed out of the family in my grandmother’s generation, and they felt it very keenly.
I’ve never even seen it, apart from in photos, though I know it’s been turned into flats now.
I’d love to walk round the places my mother talked about, especially the garden which always seems to form the most powerful of her memories. ’
‘I love gardens too - I always feel much more alive when I’m outdoors and can always think better after a lungful of fresh air.’
‘So, will you settle down in the countryside when you’ve finished your degree?’
‘I doubt it. While the idea is very appealing, I wonder if it might be too quiet - I’m so used to living in a town, though Bath can hardly be compared to London.’
‘You’d miss the bright lights.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘What about your family? Have you any other brothers and sisters?’
‘No, there’s just Mum back in Cheltenham, Elsa and me.
My father was also in the church and spent his working life trying to help other people, though I was only just getting to know him when he died.
My cousin Hugh was the nearest I ever got to having a brother.
We had some amazing times together when we were young. ’
‘Is that your cousin who lived in the castle?’ I said being careful to avoid mentioning his death.
Harry nodded, but I could see he didn’t want to talk about him any longer. He looked at his watch. ‘Come on, it’s getting late. We’d better be getting you back home before Mrs Appleby sends out a search party.’
We were only fifteen minutes away from home and the conversation seemed to dry up, though it was as if that didn’t really matter.
Harry was deep in thought, and I felt very conscious of him walking by my side, though he didn’t take my hand or anything like that.
When we stopped outside the door he was very close to me, and when he bowed his head I couldn’t decide if he was going to whisper in my ear or if he was going to kiss me.
But then the front door opened before he had a chance to do anything, and Roger was there to say goodnight to Harry and thank him for bringing me home.
He walked off into the night with a wave of his hand, and I watched him swaggering down Pulteney Street, the flaps of his coat billowing out behind him like the sails of a pirate ship.
***
It was only later when I went to bed that I realised Harry hadn’t said anything about meeting up again, but I decided he knew where I lived, and the conversation between him and Roger had been friendly enough so I didn’t need to worry that he’d been made to feel unwelcome.
I hoped he’d call soon to make arrangements to see me.
I’d really enjoyed the evening, and he was such an easy person to be with.
I was longing to ask him more about his mysterious uncle and the castle - it all seemed very strange that his uncle would cut himself off from his family like that, though I knew well enough that grief makes people behave in ways they wouldn’t do ordinarily.
I found it very hard when my father died, and spent long periods still talking to him as if he were still there.
It comforted me to do that, and though he never answered back with a sign or anything like that, I often felt convinced of his presence, catching the occasional waft of his favourite cologne, even if my rational head told me it was probably a trick of my mind brought on by my overt longing to see him.
Harry’s uncle had lost the two most important people in his life, and perhaps his nephew reminded him too much of former days and memories that were too difficult to acknowledge.
After such an exciting evening I’m finding it difficult to settle down and go to sleep.
I’ve read four more chapters of Northanger, but my thoughts and my eyes keep straying to my writing box, and I know when I’ve finished writing this entry I shall fetch out the journal.
I am curious to know about the arrival of Jenny’s cousins, to learn if they lived up to expectation and discover just what happened next.