Chapter 4
KIDLINGTON HOUSE SAT AT THE END OF A WINDING GRAVEL DRIVE, a shabby Georgian beauty and the stuff of Annabel’s dreams. She’d expected Aunt Bunty at the station, but an old shiny black cab pulled up instead; the driver seemed to know who she was.
He had bulldog jowls and a sweet, pushed-in face, a tie knotted at the neck of his short-sleeve collared shirt.
Annabel took it all in, the green rolling hills bathed in honeyed afternoon light, hedged roads, rustic stone walls, cows dotting the scenery like props.
She opened the window to feel the fresh country air that whipped wisps of hair against her face.
It was as good as pinching herself to make sure it was true: two whole weeks of writerly bliss in the English countryside, a house full of Hepplewhites, and a world to which she’d always known she belonged.
Stella got her holiday in the Hamptons, and Annabel got this.
After the driver unloaded her bag, doffed his cap, and wished her a good stay, Annabel stood gazing at the house, enchanted.
Maybe up close, it was true, one could see the rain-stained stucco coming off in rough patches and the woody wisteria with its lackluster blooms overtaking the front portico, its columns leaning decidedly to the left.
Paint peeled off the white-sashed windows, potholes and weeds overtook the gravel drive, but it didn’t take much squinting for Annabel to see the Regency gem it once was.
An old Morris Minor spit gravel up the drive and crunched to a stop.
Annabel turned to see an older woman spring out of the tiny car with a squeak of its door, white hair in a loose topknot, ruddy cheeks, wearing mud-crusted wellies and a scuffed Barbour coat, with a fresh garden bouquet in hand. She was Stella’s opposite in every way.
“You must be Annabel,” she said, pumping her hand enthusiastically.
“And you’re Aunt Bunty. Even better than I imagined.”
“Not to worry, I clean up nicely,” Bunty said with a laugh like a bell. “So sorry I couldn’t pick you up myself. Lost track of the time. But Gerald got you here in one piece, I see.”
“Thank you for sending him.”
Bunty thrust the bouquet into Annabel’s hand. “In any case, fresh flowers, that’s what I said to myself. That’ll be a nice pick-me-up after a long trip. Hope you rested up on the plane. You’ve got quite a task ahead of you, sorting this place out.”
“Oh, I’m ready,” said Annabel. “And couldn’t sleep a wink. All the anticipation, you know?” She stuck her nose into the bouquet, breathing it in. “So many favorites. Spring jonquil, columbine, bellflower, rose. How lovely.”
“You forgot the forget-me-nots!” said Bunty with an approving smile. “Aren’t you every bit as lovely as Stella said you’d be!”
“Stella said that about me?”
“In her way. You know Stella.”
Annabel smiled, an instant affection.
Bunty leaned into the car and grabbed a beat-up tote from the passenger seat.
“A few provisions to tide you over. A little light something for tonight if you’re hungry, scones and jam for brekkie. But shops in town are open, except Sundays, for whatever else you need.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No need!” Bunty slung the tote over her shoulder and pointed to the hillside in the distance. “Town’s that way. But faster to take the path outside the gate at the back of the garden. That is, if you can find it.”
Bunty jangled a chaotic key ring out of her pocket and maneuvered the biggest key off. She stepped to the front door, batting the droopy wisteria out of her way, and turned the key, but the door wouldn’t budge. “Right. Door sticks sometimes.”
“How great is that?” said Annabel, flowers in one hand, suitcase in the other.
“Just needs a bit of an old-fashioned push.” Bunty put her hip all the way into it and chirped when the door opened wide. She stepped aside and extended an arm. “I give you Kidlington House.”
Annabel stepped over the threshold into the foyer, eyes like full moons.
Yes, the inside had the same sweet tumbledown quality as the outside—a water stain here, a crack there, walls in need of fresh paint, flagstones (a few that wobbled) with dips and shiny places where two centuries of feet had walked, a mahogany staircase (dulled over time except where hands had touched it most), and small gaps in the ceiling’s moldings—but its graceful charm shone through.
Bunty closed the door and pointed to an old toggle to its right. “Requires a bit of a hunt to find the light switches. Retrofitting an old place like this is a nightmare. She flicked the switch up and down. “Tad temperamental, but a little jiggle usually does the trick!”
Above them, a giltwood six-arm chandelier buzzed to life, three of its six dusty bulbs aglow.
“Also electrified somewhere along the way but said to be original to the house.” Bunty crossed her arms. “I should think it ought to stay. I’ll rustle up a few more bulbs for you.”
But Annabel hardly heard a word Bunty said. She’d set down her suitcase, taking it all in with a slow circle turn. “I can’t believe it. Kidlington House.”
“Such as it is,” said Bunty, looking around at it like the home had seen its best days and might benefit from being put out of its misery. She took the flowers back from Annabel.
“I’ll just put these in water for you. Got to be a vase of some sort around somewhere.”
Bunty strode off in the direction of what Annabel presumed was the kitchen, her voice raised a register.
“Personally, I’ve always had a terrible soft spot for Kidlington . . .”
A few steps past the stairway, Annabel came face-to-face with a deeply patinaed longcase clock, a good deal taller than she was. Its brass hands were frozen in place, face dulled with dust, but it stood proudly, watching over the house.
She heard water running, and Bunty talking over it.
“Original to the family, the house, generations upon generations, but of course Stella can’t wait to be rid of it, and I don’t suppose we can blame her. An old pile like this falls apart in dribbles and bits!”
“I couldn’t imagine it any better,” said Annabel, as Bunty reappeared to find her staring up at the clock’s painted full-moon face in the break arch at the top, against a background of indigo night and gold stars.
“Ah, the old clock. Shame it doesn’t work anymore. Not since our one clock man passed, last of a long line. It had the dearest most unmistakable eight-bell chime at the quarter hour, rang all through the house. But of course, time isn’t the same anymore, is it?”
Annabel looked at Bunty, holding a glass pitcher spilling over with the garden bouquet.
“What do you mean?” Annabel said.
“I don’t know what I mean, exactly.” Bunty set the pitcher on the period console table next to an old black rotary phone. “But maybe while you’re here, you’ll see.”
Bunty pointed to the telephone. “I’m afraid this is your link to the outside world.”
“I haven’t seen one of those in forever.”
“Thank god it still works.”
Annabel picked up the earpiece, delighted to hear an actual dial tone. “It does work!”
“There’s no mobile service to speak of. Maybe up in the attic, third floor, far corner, if you can get around the collectibles, then stand just so.”
Annabel laughed when Bunty contorted into a birdlike pose.
“And no internet at all. Have to come to town for that.”
“No wonder Stella hates it.”
“Drove her batty last time. She’s got no patience for any of it.”
Annabel looked down at the console table. “Hepplewhite?” she asked.
“Hm. Not sure about this piece.” Bunty pointed to an open doorway. “Best ones are just in there.”
Annabel stepped to the entrance of the large drawing room.
Its small imperfections, the chaotic jumble of old and new, didn’t spoil its faded elegance.
The marble mantel was chipped, Persian rug faded; there were sun-bleached patches on the walls where paintings no longer hung.
Kashmiri shawls draped over the sagging bits of two shabby-chic sofas opposite a whitewashed country-French armoire; sundry side tables sported mismatched lamps and a clutter of trinkets and treasures: shells, inlaid boxes, a collection of frogs—ceramic, carved wood, jade, glass—all with a thin layer of dust. But the room’s proportions were perfect and its tall, sashed windows the just-right backdrop for the jewel of the room, a Hepplewhite suite: round rosewood table, two shield-back armchairs in pink damask, and a curved-back settee with carved mahogany trim ending in rosettes at the arms and proceeding to splayed feet.
The wood could use refinishing, the threadbare upholstery a redo, but Annabel didn’t care.
She walked to the settee, gently resting a hand on its back, gazing at the other members of its party like lost family.
“Oh my,” she said. “Real Hepplewhites.”
Bunty stepped beside her. “Mm. If there was a better period in English design, I for one do not know it.”
Annabel nodded, in awe. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen any, you know, in their natural habitat.”
“Not the most comfortable, but certainly the most beautiful.” Bunty patted the back of the settee. “Come to think of it, this one had a sister once. Not sure where she got off to.”
“I can relate,” Annabel said with a smile.
Bunty picked up a jade frog from the round table and blew off its dust. “My sister was a bit of a collector,” she said. “As you’ll soon discover. Afraid you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“I don’t mind,” said Annabel. “I’m so happy to be here.”
Bunty crossed her arms with a sigh and looked around the room as if seeing mostly the chore ahead. “Sorry to say a Mr. Patterson from Sotheby’s will be ’round Saturday morning to start collecting the larger pieces.”
“Stella said.” Annabel looked around too. “But don’t worry, I’ll find something of sentimental value.”
“Oh, Stella doesn’t value sentiment.”
“But I do.”
Bunty reached out a hand. “But this isn’t the best room, not in my opinion. Come have a look-see.”
Bunty led her past the dining room, kitchen, and a ribbon of small rooms, pointing and naming them as she went: pantry, mudroom, laundry, closet, gardening whatnot, whatever that is, when she stopped at a thin double door near the back of the house and turned to Annabel with a conspiratorial wink.
“This was always my favorite.”
Bunty opened the doors onto a library, warm and welcoming, with an old comfy couch and two armchairs on a Persian rug across from a dark oak-manteled fireplace.
There were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on one wall, stuffed every which way with all manner of books, old and new.
The room smelled of leather and wood smoke.
Wan light poured through a pair of French doors and one tall window clouded with dirt and age.
Under it sat a petite satinwood writing desk with a single drawer and thin tapered legs, a matching chair. It gave off its own ambient light.
Annabel walked to it, ran her hand across its softly glowing patina.
“This desk . . .” She looked back at Bunty. “It reminds me of that watercolor of Jane Austen, the one her sister painted. You know, where she’s sitting with a pen in her hand, wearing the topaz cross her brother gave her?”
“Oh, I adore that painting: Jane, in the pink of health and the peak of her powers.”
Annabel marveled at her. “I sort of can’t believe you’re related to Stella.”
“I sort of can’t either. Sometimes.”
“I mean, she hates Jane Austen.”
“Hates Jane Austen!” Bunty belly laughed. “Oh, if you’d known her as a teenage girl. You couldn’t drag her away from the novels, in rotation.”
Annabel brightened, in some way relieved to know it.
“It’s my favorite piece in the house, this desk,” said Bunty. “No idea where it came from, but also been in the family forever. Don’t know why I should find it so awfully dear. Isn’t a Hepplewhite, as far as I can tell.”
“But it is so lovely.”
“I’d be awfully sad if it went away.”
“Count on me,” said Annabel.
“I’ve left you a few bits and bobs in the drawer—paper, pens, that sort of thing.” She winked. “For the ‘writing’ part of your holiday.”
“Thank you,” said Annabel. “I’m going to try, anyway. Even it feels more aspirational just now, than actual.”
“Who knows? Maybe the desk’ll be just the inspiration you’ve come for.”
“Maybe it will,” said Annabel, touching the top of it for luck.
Bunty looked out the dirty window at the wildly overgrown garden. “Oh dear. The boxwood’s gone mad. I’ll call the gardener right away. Who’s also been in the family since time immemorial and can’t be bothered much anymore. But I’ll try.”
After a few more instructions about the quirks of the house, an introduction to the upstairs bedrooms, each named for its color—Pea Green, Peach Blossom, Celestial Blue—and the exquisite tricks of the upstairs plumbing, Annabel walked Bunty to her car.
Bunty bent down and plucked a couple of weeds from the gravel, tossed them aside. “No need to lock up, not around here. And don’t forget, door needs a bit of a push.” She handed Annabel the key. “But then, don’t we all?”
Annabel was overcome with gratitude. “I’ll take the best care of Kidlington, I promise.”
“Honestly, Kidlington’s stood the test of time. I’m more worried about it testing you!”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Well, if you need anything, pop around the shop. I’m there most days. But remember, there’s nothing off-limits. Just help yourself all around.” Bunty looked up at the house one last time. “I do hope you won’t feel alone pottering around this old place.”
“Oh, I never feel alone when I’m writing.”
“That’s the spirit!” Bunty said, eyes twinkling with an idea.
“But if you do get bored, we’ve a wonderful Regency Society locally.
In fact, ours is believed the oldest in all England.
Might be right up your street, come to think of it.
Various balls and such, all very authentic. I’m in charge of the flowers.”
“I’m sure they’re magnificent.”
“Anyway, ’tis the season, you know, just getting started.
Something every week, sometimes twice. Hard to keep up.
” Bunty opened her car door with its rusty squawk.
“They are quite strict about the rules, but I feel sure they’d approve of you.
And we are always on the lookout for new blood.
I could check the schedule.” She squinched up her nose.
“We’ve a few very good-looking bachelors. ”
“Oh, I’m here such a short time,” said Annabel.
“Well,” said Bunty, with a gleam in her eye, “as we all know from our dear Jane, a great deal can happen in a very short time in an English country house.”